Secret Keeping for Beginners

by Maggie Alderson

  This was terrible. Joy didn’t know what to say.

  ‘Calm down, Rachel,’ was the best she could do. ‘I’m sure Natasha didn’t mean to make things harder for you … she just wanted to help Branko.’

  Rachel turned to look at Joy, painful hot tears springing into her eyes. Was her mother really going to do that thing again? Make Natasha the injured party?

  ‘I’m sorry, Mum,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry that Natasha has chosen the most difficult time to dump this shit on all of us, with your broken hip and everything, but you really cannot expect me to be fine about it.

  ‘For some reason – maybe she’ll get a kickback from the model agent, is that it, Natasha, a bit of extra money? Or maybe a few more free Chanel handbags? Whatever, for some reason of her own, she’s mixed her fingers in my life and fucked it up royally. And my daughters’ lives. They really love Branko and now they’ll have to get used to someone else – if I can even find someone. Do you know how competitive it is in London for good nannies? You know what it’s like being a single mother, Mum, I’d have thought you of all people would have a bit more sympathy for me in this situation.’

  Rather than sitting with your arm around that snivelling overpaid underweight carbo-phobic fashion freak. She heard some more sniffing and looked over to see Tessa was crying as well. That was the last straw.

  ‘Oh, do stop, all of you, please,’ Tessa was saying, ‘I can’t stand it when you get shouty, Rachel.’

  ‘Oh can’t you?’ said Rachel. ‘Well you might get shouty if you had any idea what it’s like trying to raise children on your own. Or even make a living for yourself. Can you remember what it even feels like to work? So you can stop crying. It’s not about you, Tessa.’

  The fact that being harsh to Tessa was like kicking a kitten just made Rachel want to do it more, but she forced herself to keep the rest of what she was thinking – tell it to your TV-star husband, go and paint another rodent on a floorboard – in her head.

  There was the new Hunter Gatherer account to think of, so even apart from family ties, she had to tread a little carefully there. But looking round at their faces, all creased up in variations of hurt and guilt, Rachel’s fury hardened. Felt bad, did they? Good.

  ‘You know what?’ she said. ‘I’ve just about had it with all of you. So why don’t you cosy up on mummy wummy’s ickle wickle bed together and have a lovely time, while I go and find a way to make a bloody living and feed my children. Goodbye.’

  Then she turned on her heel and stalked towards the door.

  Tessa jumped off the bed to follow her, to beg her to stay so they could work it all out and make it better, but Joy called her back.

  ‘Let her go,’ she said. ‘It will only make it worse if you try to talk to her now.’

  ‘But we can’t just let her leave …’ said Tessa, looking over at her mother and then back towards the door, which Rachel had just slammed.

  ‘I think it’s best,’ said Joy, restraining herself from explaining that Rachel was far too much like her father to get over something like this immediately. She’d need a while to sit with it, before she’d be ready to talk to any of them.

  Joy turned to look at Natasha who had said nothing. She had her hands clamped over her face. Joy gently pulled them away to see if she was crying again. She wasn’t, but her cheeks were ashen.

  ‘This is all my fault,’ said Natasha. ‘I’m so so sorry, Mum. You really didn’t need this. Or you, Tessa. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘I think it’s Rachel who needs your apology more than me,’ said Joy, with a very slight, but clearly discernible edge in her voice. ‘I know you didn’t deliberately set out to make things difficult for her, Natasha, but even though your intentions towards Branko were sincere, you did act thoughtlessly.

  ‘The best thing you can do is sit with the knowledge of that, just as Rachel needs to sit with her anger and then when the time is right, you can apologise to her and really mean it, rather than just expecting to put things right immediately with the word sorry. It’s not always enough just to say it, Natasha. It’s not a magic charm.’

  Natasha felt like she’d been slapped. Then she felt angry – she hated being told off like a five-year-old. Was she always going to be the baby in her mother’s eyes? Why should she have to sit there and listen to that? She was a grown woman. A serious businesswoman. She’d apologised. What more did they expect? Rachel’s reaction had been out of proportion. She swung her legs off the bed and stood up.

  ‘I think I’ll go for a walk in the garden,’ she said. ‘Need to clear my head after that.’

  Still rankled, but not wanting to add to the upset, she squeezed her mother’s arm gently, before heading off towards the French windows and out into the garden.

  Joy closed her eyes and took some deep breaths. Had she spoiled Natasha hopelessly? Was this all her fault? She opened her eyes again suddenly – where was Tessa? Joy turned to see she was still standing in the middle of the room, frozen with indecision.

  ‘Sweetheart,’ said Joy. ‘Let them both go. This is their fight. Natasha created this, she’ll have to put it right and Rachel will have to find the compassion to forgive her. All we can do is love them both until they sort it out.’

  ‘But shouldn’t I go to Rachel, Mum?’ said Tessa, looking so distressed, Joy cursed the knackered hip which stopped her rushing straight over to hug her. She reached out her hand instead. Tessa glanced back towards the door, then came over and took it in hers.

  ‘Go to her, my beautiful gentle girl,’ said Joy, ‘I know you have to, but don’t expect her to get over it any time soon. Drive her to the station, tell her how much we love her, that’s all you can do now. It will pass, but it will take time.’

  Tessa listened, biting her lip, then nodded and reached down to kiss Joy on the cheek. Joy patted her back and then both their heads turned quickly towards the door as they heard the loud thump of a heavy bag being thrown down the stairs.

  Rachel was clearly ready to leave.

  She rang Branko from the train. Unlike her pathetic, self-serving younger sister, she was a grown-up and knew it was better to get difficult conversations over with as soon as possible. He sounded relieved to hear from her.

  ‘Natasha tell you then,’ he said, when Rachel had congratulated him on his new career.

  Yes, thought Rachel, but only after she’d got darling Mumsie on side first.

  ‘I feel very bad, I want to tell you, but Natasha say I should wait and see if it would be real, rather than worry you and then nothing … waste of worry.’

  I bet she did.

  ‘I’m thrilled for you,’ said Rachel, almost even meaning it. No, she decided, she really did mean it. She was genuinely happy Branko was going to make some money and have a fun, glamorous time. He was a lovely man and he deserved the best. It was just the duplicitous, high-handed way her sister had made it happen that upset her.

  ‘I can’t wait to see your picture on the Vogue site,’ she added, ‘in fact, you’ll probably be front-page news.’

  ‘I tell my mother already in case,’ said Branko. ‘Better she know son wearing dress before seeing pictures.’

  ‘Did she mind?’ asked Rachel.

  Branko laughed. ‘No. She say I always like that …’

  Half an hour later, when Rachel was gazing out of the train window at the Kent countryside in all its midsummer splendour and wishing it could make her feel better, Branko texted her. He’d made some phone calls and found a friend who was interested in taking over his babysitting gig on the same terms. She was very nice, he said. Spanish. Called Pilar.

  Rachel replied with a text of hearts, roses, champagne glasses, high heels and smiley emoticons and then rang the number he’d texted her. The young woman who answered seemed very pleasant and agreed to come round that evening for an interview. At least that was one bit of good news. Daisy could start learning Spanish.

  Rachel’s phone beeped and she looked down to see there’d been a call from Nata
sha’s number while she’d been talking to Pilar, with a voice message. She pressed delete without listening to it. Right after she put the phone back in her bag, it pinged to announce a text. Also from Natasha. She trashed it without reading a word, turned off her phone and closed her eyes.

  The beauty of the landscape was making the trials of her life almost harder to bear. The way she was feeling, a post-industrial wasteland would have been more appropriate, but she wasn’t going to let all the crap take her down. No way.

  Joy had always told her how like her father she was and you didn’t get to be a minister in Harold Wilson’s cabinet without being strong. Tough even.

  Leaning her head back against the seat, Rachel pictured his face in the black-and-white newspaper pictures which had become stronger images of him for her than the few family photos she had, and felt a painful flare of sadness that he wasn’t still around to help her through this.

  ‘What would you do, Dad?’ she asked him in her head.

  She felt the tightness in the back of her throat which came before tears, but forced herself to sit up straight and set her shoulders. That’s what her dad would have done. The one thing she could not surrender to right now was self-pity. The only way out of all her crappy situations was through action.

  She thought for a moment and then tapped on her iPad to open a word processing document. One thing she could get onto right away was preparing a strategy plan for the Hunter Gatherer PR campaign, which she would present to Simon on Monday – along with a very calm and rational explanation of why it wouldn’t be appropriate for her to manage the account.

  She rehearsed in her head how she would explain it to him – casually, smilingly. ‘It just doesn’t feel entirely ethical, with the family connection …’

  By the time the train was pulling into Sevenoaks, she was chuckling to herself.

  Tuesday, 24 June

  Sydney Street

  Simon sat in his office looking at his phone and feeling slightly sick. He felt like his teenage self trying to work up the courage to ring up some pretty girl he’d met. Except this was much worse.

  He genuinely had to ring Tessa about the PR campaign, but he was terrified she might think he was ringing for the other reason. What if she had really meant it, when she’d asked him to call her in that mad moment outside the restaurant? What if it hadn’t been an accident of champagne-fuelled folly?

  She really didn’t seem the type, but perhaps she was a player, like some of the married women he knew. How was he supposed to know? He could hardly ask Rachel, ‘Is your sister a ho?’ And even if it had been an aberration on her part, which seemed more likely, it was still ghastly because she would probably think that’s why he was ringing – because in that momentary embrace, he’d said he would.

  What a twerp he felt, but he had no choice, because the day before Rachel had presented him with a brilliant plan for the Hunter Gatherer campaign and then gone on to say that while she was happy to consult on it, she didn’t feel comfortable to run the account herself, because of the family connection.

  Simon had immediately protested, but her arguments were very persuasive and, while the thought of running that account himself filled him with dread, he had to admit she was right.

  There was always a point in the PR process when the client started to question what they were paying for and it could get quite testy, until a really good bit of editorial came out. Even then, a lot of clients would think it was no less than they deserved and would have no idea how hard his company had worked to place it for them.

  Simon could understand that Rachel would find that side of the job difficult to handle with her own sister and brother-in-law. And that meant he now had to ring Tessa. Aaaargggh.

  He wished he could just ditch the whole thing, but he simply couldn’t turn down any possible source of additional revenue and, maddeningly, he couldn’t get any of his other staff to take on the account at this crucial first stage, because none of them had the basic understanding of who the client was and what they did, and he didn’t have time to waste getting someone up to speed. Especially as the very specific nature of Hunter Gatherer would require much more finesse than a handmade rug company, bespoke kitchen installer or organic paint range.

  He fully intended to pass the account on to one of the team as soon as possible, but for now the point of contact would have to be him. Fuck it.

  He slapped his cheeks a few times to try and knock some sense into himself and then forced his forefinger to punch in Tessa’s home number. She answered immediately and Simon nearly dropped the phone with surprise, because Rachel had told him that she often just let it ring. He had rather hoped to leave a very business-like message.

  ‘Oh, Tessa!’ he blurted out. Super twerp.

  ‘Hello?’ she replied, clearly not recognising his voice.

  ‘It’s, er, Simon. Simon Rathbone …’ he said, forcing a professional tone into his voice. He sounded like an easy-listening radio station DJ. This is Simon Tosspot easing you towards midnight with some smooth tunes and lurve dedications.

  ‘Oh,’ said Tessa, taken completely off guard. She’d assumed it would be Rachel who would ring to talk about the plans for promoting Hunter Gatherer and had been looking forward to it as an opportunity to talk to her after that awful scene. But instead it was him. Him.

  Then a terrible thought struck her. In that moment of madness outside the restaurant she’d asked Simon to call her and now he was. Perhaps that’s why he’d rung, nothing to do with the business, but because she’d said ‘call me’ like a tragic old slut, that day after the lunch. She shuddered at the memory.

  ‘So,’ said Simon. ‘I, er, well, the thing is, we need to talk about the branding, so here I am.’

  ‘Branding?’ said Tessa, even more nonplussed. Something about branding cattle? They didn’t have any cattle.

  ‘Yes,’ said Simon, feeling on slightly more familiar ground, ‘to discuss plans for increasing Hunter Gatherer’s profile.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Tessa, relieved it was about the PR thing, that kind of brand, but still horrified she was talking to the man who stirred up such confusing feelings in her. ‘Yes. Right.’

  She really wasn’t making this any easier, thought Simon, although in some ways she was, because he was starting to feel a little irritated by her monosyllabic answers and irritation was much more helpful than befuddled lust. Irritation was a more familiar state, something he could work with.

  So,’ he said, in as brisk a tone as he could muster, ‘Tom has asked me to get the campaign going so we’ve got something solid to show him when he comes back from the States in – when is that … a couple of weeks?’

  Tessa picked up on the change of tone and was quite surprised by it, but it did seem to snap her brain into gear at last.

  ‘Four weeks, actually,’ she said. ‘He’s going to be away for four weeks.’

  Even as she said it, she couldn’t believe her husband was swanning off for that long and to Los Angeles of all places. At first it was going to be two weeks, then it had become four. A month. He’d made the smallest of suggestions that she might like to come out for a ‘set visit’ – how she hated those stupid TV phrases he bandied around now – but he’d immediately qualified it, saying what a shame it would be so difficult for her to leave Joy and with the school holidays fast approaching …

  To be fair to him, he had then offered to pay for home care for Joy, someone who could also look after the boys, but Tessa had known he was only doing the right thing, going through the motions. He didn’t really want her around while he was making the new American version of Tim Chiminey, and he knew she didn’t want to be there either.

  She was actually really glad Joy was going to be at the house to keep her company while he was away … which gave her an idea. She stood up straight and took a deep breath.

  ‘Perhaps you need to come down to the yard and go round it with me and the manager, Jack, so we can come up with a plan together,’ she said, su
rprised at her own forthrightness. She felt like Rachel.

  ‘That’s a great idea,’ said Simon, ready to throw an air punch for the lifeline she’d thrown him – a necessary business meeting, which also factored in the chance to talk to her about the inappropriate stuff, as he knew they needed to do, with someone else nearby to stop anything disastrous developing. ‘I’ll have my PA email you and we’ll set up a …’

  He just stopped himself saying ‘date’. It was still a minefield, but if he could just get through this call without any more stupidity, he could begin to feel optimistic that this ridiculous situation might soon be behind them.

  ‘… convenient time.’

  Phew, made it.

  ‘Great,’ said Tessa. ‘I’ll talk to Jack right away, get him going on some ideas and we’ll see you soon. Bye.’

  She hung up the phone and stood for a moment, with her hand still on the receiver, quite amazed how she’d handled it in the end. She was particularly proud of the way she’d worked the word ‘we’ in, with regard to her and Jack. She didn’t really know the yard manager all that well, she just let him get on with it while Tom was away, but with him and Joy around, it made her feel as though she would have a team on her side, to protect her against the bewildering effect Simon had on her.

  Simon placed his phone back in its cradle and let out a deep sigh of relief. Mission accomplished without anything catastrophically embarrassing happening. He picked up a pen and crossed out the words ‘Call Tessa’ at the top of the to-do list he wrote by hand every morning to set up his priorities for the day. He always put the hardest thing first.

  Then he pressed the intercom through to his PA and asked her to tell Rachel he would like to see her at her earliest convenience. Now he was feeling more confident he could handle the weird situation with her sister, it was time to put Rachel out of her misery.

  He was going to tell her the trial period was over – a month before the official six months was up. He would confirm she had a permanent job at Rathbone & Associates and at a slightly higher rate of pay than he had originally discussed with her. He was going to make her a Senior Account Manager. She’d more than proved her worth and his genuine admiration for her great ideas and bankable contributions to the business made Simon certain he would be able to control his less professional feelings towards her.