The Truth About You, Me and Us

by Kate Field

  ‘Don’t expect me to dress up!’ was Malcolm’s final verdict.

  Saskia was enthusiastic about the plan, but it was tempered with a sulky air that it had been Helen who first mentioned the market.

  ‘When did you hear about it?’ she asked, as Helen handed out a pile of flyers for each shop, and for each table in the café.

  ‘On Monday. I saw a poster at Church Farm.’

  ‘What were you doing at Church Farm?’

  ‘I needed to deliver some of my work for the window display.’

  ‘And you saw Joel?’ The piercing look in Saskia’s eyes was at odds with her attempt to sound casual.

  ‘Yes, I ran into him.’

  Saskia tossed her hair and snatched the leaflets from Helen.

  ‘Strange he didn’t mention the market when I was there on Sunday,’ she said. ‘But I suppose we had more to talk about than business.’

  With a satisfied smile, Saskia marched back to her jewellery shop. A few moments later she was sellotaping leaflets to the glass door panels. Helen exchanged a smile with Fiona, and returned to Crazy Little Things, where she busied herself with rearranging displays that didn’t need arranging, and with not thinking about what Joel and Saskia had been up to on Sunday, and whether Saskia was incredible too.

  Although Helen remained convinced that joining the Christmas market was a good idea, it was an extra layer of stress that she could happily have managed without. With the pressure of making more gift-sized items, as well as working on the Broadholme mural, several smaller commissions and Megan’s flower-girl dress, she was barely averaging four hours’ sleep each night. The inevitable happened. Helen fell asleep at the kitchen table one evening while Daniel played with Megan in the living room.

  Megan laughed and shook her awake, but her neck had stiffened up. It was a familiar problem, from the hours she spent bending over her sewing, and Daniel knew it. He knew what to do about it too. After the briefest hesitation, he walked round the table to stand behind her.

  ‘You need a massage.’

  ‘No!’ That was absolutely the last thing in the world she needed from him. How could he even offer? Did he not remember where his massages had inevitably led? She could feel his frown boring into her back.

  ‘Come on, Nell, you know it helps.’

  But she stood up, moved away, and wouldn’t let him. It might help her neck, but feeling his hands on her, giving her the tender massage as he had so often and so well in the past, certainly wouldn’t help any other part of her.

  One night, when Helen was reading Megan a bedtime story and wondering which one of them would fall asleep first, the doorbell rang. Helen ran downstairs, assuming it could only be Daniel, though it was late for him to call, but the man on the doorstep was a stranger – although, when he stepped into the light shining from the door, there was a vague familiarity about his face.

  ‘Helen Walters?’

  She nodded, clutching the door tightly and ready to throw herself at him if he tried to get past her and anywhere near Megan. But he made no move to come in, and merely waved an envelope at her. She looked down at it, puzzled.

  ‘Sorry, you don’t remember me, do you?’ The man smiled, a nervous smile. ‘John Arkwright. I’m your landlord. This is my house.’

  Helen felt the creep of foreboding across her skin. Her landlord, making an unexpected visit, with an envelope for her: was she being paranoid to think this could only end badly?

  ‘I’m sorry to call so late, but I wanted to give you this as soon as possible.’ He thrust the envelope at her hand so she had no choice but to take it. ‘My contract in Canada has been terminated, so we’re moving back here. We need the house. I have to give you two months’ notice, so you’re okay to stay for Christmas.’

  With these words of purported comfort he smiled, not so nervously now, and was gone. Helen closed the door and opened the envelope. The paper inside confirmed what she had been told: she had two more months before she had to leave the house she’d rented for the last four years – the only home Megan had ever known. The last stone in the protective wall she had built round them had been kicked away.

  She stared at the paper in her hand for a long while, and then sank to the floor, feeling the tide of emotion swirl over her head, pushing her down. It was simply too much to bear, on top of everything else. She had never loved the house, but it had been theirs: the place she had spent the first night on her own with Megan, wide awake with helpless terror over how she could do this by herself; and the place where she had finally found the strength and determination to start her business and have responsibilities. She had grown up in this house as much as Megan.

  And the thought of having to look for somewhere else at this time of year, and to deal with moving house as well as moving business premises… Helen wasn’t sure she could summon the energy, physically or emotionally. Two months would vanish, especially with Christmas in the middle. Was it even legal to give her so little notice, after four years of being the perfect tenant, looking after the house as if it were her own, and always paying the rent on time whatever sacrifices it had cost?

  There was one person who would surely know the answer, she realised, with a revival of spirits. Craig was a solicitor: he should be able to tell her whether she could argue against this notice or not. She dialled his number, wondering as she did why she hadn’t seen Sally and Craig for so long. Invitations to Sunday lunch had dried up, and she hadn’t spoken to Sally or Anita for weeks.

  Sally answered the call at the point where Helen had resigned herself to hearing the answering machine.

  ‘Hi Sally, how are you?’ There was no audible response, only an uncomfortable silence which floated down the phone and lapped over the edges. ‘Is Craig at home? I’ve had a visit from my landlord and wondered if I could ask his advice on my tenancy.’

  ‘You have a bloody nerve.’

  Helen couldn’t have been more surprised if the phone had grown teeth and bitten her.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ she said, wondering if she could have imagined the venom in Sally’s voice.

  ‘You’re not, though, are you? Not from what I’ve heard. You keep trying to justify what you’ve done. But there can’t be any justification for it, not for how you treated Daniel. How could you not tell him about Megan? What did he ever do to you except adore you, and look after you so you never had to lift a finger yourself? And you thank him by stealing his daughter…’

  ‘Sally…’ Helen tried to interrupt, but it was no good. Sally had clearly become a fully paid up member of the Hate Helen club and was determined to give her maiden speech.

  ‘And as if that weren’t bad enough, you made us complicit in your grubby secret. You lied to us. You said that Megan had nothing to do with Daniel, and we believed you, despite the evidence of our eyes. We felt sorry for you, losing Daniel and then getting into trouble with someone else on the rebound. How do you think it makes us feel, knowing that if we hadn’t trusted you, we could have told him about Megan? We ignored our suspicions, because we would never have thought someone could be so evil.’

  Sally took a deep breath. Helen thought about hanging up, but she couldn’t move the phone away from her ear. Hearing herself abused, when deep down she felt she deserved it, was curiously addictive.

  ‘You fooled us all, reinventing yourself as the perfect mother, when all the time you’ve been the same lazy, selfish bitch you always were. God, you must have laughed at the way we all ran around trying to help you. And you’re still expecting us to do it! Well we won’t, and that goes for Anita and Dave too.’

  ‘It wasn’t…’ But Helen was wasting her breath even trying to start an explanation. Sally wasn’t done yet.

  ‘And don’t think for a second that you’re going to get back with Daniel, not if we can do anything to prevent it. We never told you, because we wanted to spare your feelings, but he had the time of his life over the last few years without you. He’d never sounded so happy. There’s no way we’re
going to let you drag him back down.’

  CHAPTER 18

  Helen looked at her watch again, but it still told her the same thing. Daniel was late, even later than he’d been when she’d looked at it one minute ago, two minutes ago, three minutes ago… She couldn’t stop. Checking her watch had become a nervous tic.

  Megan was sitting on the sofa, dressed in her best Cinderella outfit, watching cartoons with no idea that the lovely afternoon she’d been losing sleep over for days – ever since Daniel had told her about the tickets to see Disney Princesses on Ice – was about to turn into a disaster. Unless he arrived in the next few minutes, they were never going to make it to Manchester on time. Where the hell was he?

  Helen’s phone rang as she was asking herself that question for what seemed the hundredth time. Seeing Daniel’s name flash up, she turned up the volume on the television, went into the kitchen and closed the door. She was anticipating a conversation it would be better for Megan not to hear.

  ‘Nell, I’m sorry, I’m not going to make it back.’ He sounded rough, his voice dry and gravelly as if he’d had too much to drink. It didn’t engender Helen’s sympathy.

  ‘Back?’ she hissed, trying to keep her voice down despite a rampant urge to shout. ‘What do you mean, back? Where are you?’

  ‘York.’ The word slipped out on a sigh.

  ‘York? What are you doing in York?’

  ‘I brought Tasha for a couple of days.’ He didn’t need to say any more. Helen knew exactly what they would have been doing in York, because he had done them with her. He’d taken her to York for a weekend, after they’d moved north, because she had never been, and he had said it was a magical place and shouldn’t be missed. So they had spent two beautiful sunny days walking the city walls, having lunch overlooking the river, taking afternoon tea at Betty’s, and wandering down The Shambles and the cobbled shopping streets in the heart of the city. She still had a bracelet he’d bought her there, stowed safely away at the back of the drawer, where toddler fingers couldn’t reach. Perhaps Tasha had a matching bracelet now.

  ‘And you’re still in York?’ she asked, casting the memory adrift now it had lost all value, and focusing on the reality presented by her watch. ‘Even though we’re supposed to be in Manchester in a little over an hour and you have the tickets?’

  ‘Yes.’ His voice sank, as if he was trying not to be heard. ‘Look, we had a bad night, things got heated, we drank too much, and overslept…’

  ‘Until after lunch? That’s quite some hangover.’

  ‘Tash isn’t feeling great today, so what did you expect me to do, walk out and bloody leave her?’

  ‘Yes!’ If Megan’s happiness was at stake, that was exactly what she expected him to do. ‘Or how about not arranging a couple of days away when you’ve already made plans, and made promises that you can’t now keep?’

  ‘I know it wasn’t perfect timing, but things have been awkward recently and Sally suggested…’

  Helen stopped listening. She didn’t want to hear about whatever problems he was having with Tasha, or how his – formerly their – friends were rallying round trying to shore up the breach. She leant against the French doors, and felt the chill of the glass seep through her cheek and into her bones.

  ‘How is Megan? Is she going to be very upset?’

  ‘What do you think? You saw how excited she was when you told her you’d bought the tickets. She’s been counting down the sleeps since then. She’s been ready in her princess dress since seven this morning. So yes, I imagine she is going to be upset when I tell her we’re not going. How could you do this to her? You can’t forget about her because you’ve had a row with your girlfriend and feel like getting drunk.’

  ‘It wasn’t like…’

  ‘I don’t care,’ she interrupted. She didn’t want to hear any more excuses. She had spent years nurturing the memory of him as the perfect man, and he had just shattered that into smithereens. Where did she go from here? ‘There’s been nothing but stress and aggravation since you came back. We were better off without you.’

  ‘Don’t say that…’

  But she had said it, and she cut the call before she was tempted to say anything more. Life as a single parent had never been easy but the mistakes had been all hers, and she had dealt with the consequences. She wasn’t prepared now for the resentment she felt, the pure anger, that Daniel could do something which would hurt Megan, and that she would have to deal with the consequences of that too. She had always wondered if she had deprived Megan of half the love that she was entitled to. Perhaps she had rather spared her half the pain and disappointment.

  Daniel called round unexpectedly but not unsurprisingly the next morning, carrying an apologetic air and a large Toys R Us bag loaded with princess and Barbie dolls for Megan. Megan was thrilled, and any lingering traces of disappointment over the day before were swiftly swept away with the pile of plastic packaging. It was as if the tears of yesterday had never happened, which was good, of course; but it was galling to see him buy the smile it had taken Helen an afternoon of love to achieve.

  Helen retreated to the kitchen and left them to play. She could have done with using the time to sew, but she needed to prepare the special Sunday lunch she had promised Megan as part of her effort to cheer her up yesterday. The chicken was already roasting, the potatoes and carrots were peeled, and now she had to make jam sponge and custard for dessert.

  ‘Something smells good.’ Helen jumped, and flour bounced from the sieve in her hand and floated back down all over the work surface. Daniel was standing in the kitchen doorway, though she had been so lost in her thoughts that she hadn’t noticed him approach. ‘You don’t always have to hide in the kitchen.’

  ‘You don’t come to see me.’

  He didn’t deny it – how could he? – but foolishly Helen felt a pang that he didn’t, that not even the anger of yesterday could wholly prevent. She dampened a piece of kitchen towel and wiped up the flour.

  ‘I’m sure there are games the three of us could play.’

  ‘Happy Families? As I’m sure you’ll be the first to point out, it’s a little too late for that.’

  ‘How many times do I have to say I’m sorry about yesterday? It won’t happen again. Can’t we move on?’

  ‘Yes, because you’re the expert in forgiving and forgetting, aren’t you?’ Helen hurled the kitchen towel into the bin and let the lid bang shut with a satisfying thud.

  ‘I’m trying.’ Daniel looked at Megan. ‘But the more time I spend with her, the more I realise how much time I missed.’ He turned back to Helen. ‘Can we tell her?’

  ‘Not today.’ She was running out of time, she knew, and yet she still hesitated. ‘Not when she will be upset about yesterday.’ It was a convenient excuse, though Daniel nodded and seemed resigned to her answer. Telling Megan, acknowledging Daniel’s identity, was a final step she wasn’t ready to take. It was harder than she’d anticipated to let someone else in, and to learn to share Megan.

  ‘I’ve never seen you cook,’ Daniel said, as Helen mixed the sponge ingredients. ‘Was Waitrose closed?’

  ‘I’ve had to learn.’

  ‘You’ll tell me you do housework next.’

  ‘Sometimes.’ She smiled at him, at the shared old joke about how useless she was at domestic tasks. ‘It turns out that I was lazy, not incompetent.’

  ‘So what are you making?’

  ‘Jam sponge. It’s Megan’s favourite.’

  ‘Is it?’ His smile was delighted. ‘It used to be mine.’

  ‘Hardly surprising, when she is so wholly a mini-you,’ Helen replied, putting the potatoes on to boil. She took the chicken out of the oven: perfect golden skin, and a delicious smell permeating through the house. Daniel was close behind her, peering into the roasting dish.

  ‘She has some of your mannerisms. The way she tilts her head when she’s thinking, and her eyes widen in surprise when she laughs, just like yours do.’

  Helen faced
him. He was only a few inches behind her. She hadn’t noticed any of those things in Megan; she saw only reminders of him. Did Daniel look at Megan and see only reminders of her? And if he did, were they good things that he treasured, or bad ones that he wished he could ignore? She didn’t dare to ask.

  ‘Do you want to stay for lunch?’ It slipped out, quite unplanned.

  ‘Yes.’ He answered without hesitation.

  ‘Won’t Tasha mind?’ Helen backtracked, regretting her impulsive offer.

  ‘She’s gone shopping.’

  ‘Feeling better, then?’

  ‘Yes.’ He opened his mouth as if to carry on, but stopped and went back into the living room to play with Megan. Helen made the lunch, taking special care to make it perfect, and called to Megan to wash her hands when it was almost ready. As Megan made her way upstairs, Daniel returned to the kitchen.

  ‘Shall I set the table?’ Without waiting for a reply, he moved round Helen and opened the cutlery drawer.

  ‘What’s this?’ His tone was sharp. ‘Are you moving? Are you taking Megan away? Is this because of yesterday?’

  He waved a stack of papers at Helen. She knew what they were without needing to look. They were estate agents’ details for potential houses to rent. She’d hidden them in the cutlery drawer, away from Megan’s prying eyes, but not, it seemed, far enough away from her father’s.

  ‘I’ve no choice. My landlord wants the house back. I’m looking for somewhere else in this area.’ Looking, but not finding, so far. She now realised that she had been exceptionally lucky with her current house, and that she had been paying below the market rate for some time. It was proving impossible to find a house for the same rent in what she would consider a good-enough area for Megan, especially if she wanted even a small patch of grass. And that was before she’d worked out how she was ever going to afford a deposit, and Christmas presents, and moving costs, as well as all the expense involved in relocating the business to Church Farm.