‘OK,’ she said, ‘I suppose I better get some practice in.’
‘Finn,’ Tessa called out through the door to the hall. ‘Can you come in here a minute? Auntie Tashie wants to tell you something.’
‘Sure,’ said Finn, loping into the room, holding an enormous sandwich.
He came over to the bed, and Rachel handed him the iPad, which he took with the hand that wasn’t holding the cheese-crammed doorstop.
‘Hey, cool auntie,’ said Finn, taking a bite of his snack. ‘What gives?’
‘I’m a lesbian,’ said Natasha.
‘Cool,’ said Finn, still chewing. ‘I’ll introduce you to my friend Zoe, she’s gay.’
He took another bite.
‘That would be great,’ said Natasha, ‘but you better warn her, I’ve already got a girlfriend … or at least I hope I have …’
Rachel turned to Tessa and then Joy with wide eyes and an ‘ooh!’ face and did a happy arm dance.
‘Coolio. Zoe’s got a girlfriend too, you guys can hang out. See you later.’
Then, after handing the iPad back to his mum and cramming the last of the sandwich into his mouth, he headed out of the room again.
‘Well, he didn’t seem too bothered,’ said Natasha, laughing, colour back in her cheeks. ‘It’d be nice to think it would be that easy with everybody, but … anyway, thanks, you three. It’s weird and I’m quite freaked out, but I do feel much better for talking to you all. Thank you.’
Rachel, Tessa and Joy blew kisses at the screen.
‘I’ll let you know when my flight’s due to get in,’ said Natasha and, still waving at them, she clicked the call off.
Natasha closed her laptop and sat staring into space. Had she really just done that? Had she really just come out to her family? After all those years of keeping the truth locked inside, it had all happened so quickly, she’d made up her mind in an instant – but then neat vodka on an empty stomach could do that to you.
She almost felt like calling them straight back to check she had actually done it, but she didn’t have to. Seconds later a text came through from Rachel.
‘Hey, k.d.,’ it said, ‘great you are coming over. If you’re going to spend some time in London while you’re here, please please stay with me and the girls, we’d all love it xxx PS Can you get me Ellen DeGeneres’s autograph?’
Typical Rachel. Straight in with the wisecracks, but there was her confirmation that, yes, she had just come out to her family. Blimey. She looked down at the text again and could see that as well as the silly tease, it was full of love and forgiveness. The invitation to stay was Rachel’s way of confirming that. It meant a lot.
So she’d told her family – now who to tell next? Her agent? Her lawyer? Ava …? Well, there wasn’t a lot to tell her. She already knew Natasha was gay, she’d made that blatantly clear. What she was looking for was Natasha’s public commitment to it, so she’d have to ring her up and say something along the lines of ‘Mattie and I just love your idea of putting pictures of us in Vogue, snogging over my lipsticks …’
She rolled the idea around in her head and tried to understand why she still didn’t feel quite comfortable with it. She was out now, she’d made that decision – and she was about to call Mattie to tell her – but she still wanted to make the transition on her terms. There was something about the way Ava had handled that meeting which still felt a little like bullying.
Natasha stood up from the table and immediately had to steady herself. What had possessed her to drink neat vodka like that? Complete desolation and terror mostly, at the prospect of losing her brand and the woman she loved, unless she went public about her sexuality.
Looking down at the floor she saw that all the vodka had run out of the bottle and soaked into the rug. Bending carefully to avoid another dizzy spell, she picked up the bottle and took it out to the kitchen. On the way she caught sight of herself in a mirror in the hallway and nearly jumped with fright. She looked terrible. No wonder her family had freaked out when they saw her.
Grabbing a herbal energy drink out of the fridge, she glugged half of it down on the way to the bathroom, then continued to swig mouthfuls as she stripped off her clothes and stuffed them into the laundry basket. She needed to start afresh, everything clean and new.
She stepped into the shower and turned it on full, letting the water pour down over her head, washing away the dirty furtiveness of carrying such an immense secret around with her for so many years. Preparing for a fresh new start. With total honesty. The names of the people she had to tell going round and round in her head, as she lathered up the shampoo. Mattie. Agent. Lawyer. Ava …
Mattie was the one she was excited about telling. She was absolutely certain all the hurt and rancour of that last awful day they’d had together would disappear the moment she told her she’d already come out to her family.
Her agent might need to sit with the news for a while, weighing up any negative implications there could be, but as a gay man himself, she couldn’t see it being that much of a problem. And she had a strong suspicion he’d just laugh and say he’d always known.
She didn’t know quite what she would say to her lawyer – probably just tell her what had happened in that last strange meeting with Ava, to put her in the picture and see if she had any comments to make about it.
But every time her thoughts came back to Ava she found herself getting stuck again. What was she going to say to her? Yes, Miss Capel, you were absolutely right, I am gay and I need to start being honest about it … How had she put it? I am ready, finally, to own every part of myself.
That was true, she was, but not because Ava had told her she had to, in case the famous make-up artist’s sexuality was disastrously revealed after the launch, putting the brand and OM’s investment at risk.
She wasn’t doing it for Ava or OM. She was doing it for Mattie. And herself. On her own terms.
Wednesday, 16 July
Sydney Street
Rachel had felt a little shy with Simon since they’d had that rather unexpected conversation in the café. She couldn’t believe she’d opened up to him like that, and that he’d been so caring and thoughtful in response.
Now she needed to go and ask him for a favour and she felt awkward doing it, because he’d already been so kind to her. She didn’t want him to think she was taking advantage. Which was funny, because previously, when she still thought of him as the enemy boss man, she wouldn’t have thought twice about doing that. In fact, it would have amused her. She hadn’t quite worked out their strange new semi-friend status yet, so she’d been slightly avoiding him ever since that day.
She was hanging around on the bottom step of the stairs outside his office wondering what to do – she’d started back up and come down again twice already – when he suddenly came round the corner.
‘Rachel,’ he said, stepping back in surprise. ‘Whatever are you doing there? Are you lurking?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I need to come and talk to you, but I was just working out what to say …’
Simon looked puzzled. He bloody well hoped she wasn’t going to hand in her resignation or something terrible like that.
‘Well, you’d better come into my office then,’ he said, half tempted to suggest they go out to talk about it in that funny old coffee bar, but stopping himself just in time. He was a little concerned he’d gone a bit far that day already. Lending her his jacket had felt dangerously intimate. She’d looked so vulnerable and adorable in it.
Sitting down at his desk now, over a week later, he reminded himself to get back into professional mode. He’d hardly seen her since that strange, otherworldly afternoon and he wondered which of them had been avoiding the other more.
Rachel sat down opposite him and found her eyes immediately drawn to his jacket. It was the same one he’d lent her that day. She wished she could go and take a big sniff of it. She could smell his cologne faintly in the air of his office, but it wasn’t the same as it had been bond
ed into the weave of the fabric by his body warmth. Mixed with his man smell.
She tore her eyes away from the fine navy blue wool and looked at his face. Get it together, girlfriend, she told herself.
‘So, what did you want to talk to me about?’ he said.
‘It’s really boring, Simon,’ she said, ‘it’s a childcare thing and I know how all that irritates you.’
‘Don’t pre-judge,’ he said. ‘Spill.’
‘Well,’ said Rachel, ‘I went down to my sister’s at the weekend …’
‘Yes …’ he asked cautiously, still hoping she wasn’t going to bring up the idea of doing Hunter Gatherer again, but she’d said it was something about childcare, so probably not.
‘Actually,’ said Rachel, unable to keep to the script she’d been rehearsing on the stairs, ‘it’s thanks to you I was down there, Simon. I can’t thank you enough. It was what you said that finally got me to ring my mum and Tessa and then I went down with the girls and we had a wonderful time. And I made up with Natasha as well, so you’re my new Kofi Annan.’
Simon chuckled. ‘Well, I’ve been called a lot of things in my time, but it’s very kind of you to give me that much credit. I’m sure I don’t deserve it, but I’m delighted to hear you’ve sorted things out with your family. So what was the childcare thing you mentioned?’
‘Well, when we got back from that lovely weekend away,’ said Rachel, ‘Pilar – remember, the au pair who took over from Branko, the bearded bride?’
Simon nodded. ‘Not an image I would forget easily.’
‘Quite. He looked amazing. Anyway, when we got back Pilar had left a note on the kitchen table to tell me she’s got a gig dancing on a cruise ship and she had to leave immediately. So she’s gone. No warning.’
‘That’s seriously crap,’ said Simon.
‘I know,’ said Rachel, ‘but when you only offer room and board, no wages, with no formal contract, you can’t expect much loyalty. That’s why Branko was such a marvel. He actually liked living with us.’
‘So you’ve got no one to help you with the girls now?’
‘Nope,’ said Rachel, ‘and the thing is, the last two nights I got mothers from school to have them until I got home and that was all cool, but today I don’t have anyone. I’ve asked everyone I can think of and all their kids have archery and tennis and Chinese flute and bollocks like that, so what I need to ask you is – can I leave early?’
‘Of course,’ said Simon, without a moment’s hesitation. ‘What time?’
Rachel rushed to answer, before he could change his mind. She could hear herself gabbling but she didn’t care. She had to nail this down.
‘Well, they can stay on at school for an hour doing a club, so could we say, er, three? Then I would definitely be able to get there by four to collect them without panicking.’
‘Fine,’ said Simon. Just like that.
‘Oh, thank you, Simbo …’
Oops. It had slipped out before she realised, but he didn’t seem to mind. He was smiling at her in that kind way again.
‘I tell you what,’ he continued, ‘until you get a new nanny, you can leave at that time every day. It’s fine with me.’
‘Really?’ she said.
‘Yeah,’ said Simon, ‘you get more done here in a morning than your colleagues do in a week anyway – plus I know you work at home in the evenings as well, don’t you? I’ve been reading your blog.’
Rachel nodded, feeling her cheeks grow a little warm.
‘What do you think?’ she said, knowing it was a needy question, but asking it anyway.
‘I think it’s great and I’d like you to do a house blog for Rathbone & Associates – writing about all the stuff we have going on, in a kind of company voice, if that makes sense, but so it has the personal charm of a blog, not like a corporate website. Does that appeal?’
‘You bet it does,’ said Rachel.
‘Good. So how about we make that the special project you’re working on for me at home – in case any of your co-workers start asking where you are?’
‘Fantastic,’ said Rachel. ‘I’ll start sketching it out tonight. We can do click-through to our clients’ sites, so if they sell anything from a referral off our blog, we get a cut – and we can sell advertising on it as well, if we do it as a hosted WordPress site …’
Simon smiled. There she went. Catching the idea and running with it. She’d already turned it into a revenue stream and she hadn’t left his office yet. Such a dynamo. Like some kind of super-massive galactic entity, a constantly expanding ball of energy. She made him feel excited about his own business again.
Rachel headed out of Simon’s office and he heard her feet running up the stairs at a fast lick. Sometimes he thought the two of them would get more done on their own, without all the hassle of a big staff distracting him from the core business of the company he’d set up on his own in his flat twenty years before. Every extra person he employed just seemed to bring another raft of time-wasting problems with them. And now there was the nightmare of the massive rent rise as well.
Simon turned around in his chair and looked out of his window onto Sydney Street. The day he’d moved into that building he’d felt like he’d finally made it. Achieved what he’d set out to do. He’d certainly proved himself by his own standards – even if it had never been enough for his disappointed father.
But now he was starting to wonder. He turned back again and considered the elegant proportions of the room. It was a very lovely office to have, but was it worth the sleepless nights it was causing him?
A piercing shriek of laughter from the hall outside snapped his attention back to the present. Putting his head on one side he listened carefully to find out what was making two of his staff so excited.
From what he could gather, they were both chartering yachts in Croatia that summer – and it seemed it might even be from the same charter company. Amazing! He just wished they could be that enthusiastic about what he was paying them to do.
Simon opened his top drawer and pulled out a cigar he’d been saving. It was time for a long walk, a slow smoke and a big think.
Cranbrook
Tessa, Tom and Joy were sitting at the kitchen table lingering after breakfast. Hector cycled to school every day now so, apart from making sure he left on time, the morning rush was a thing of the past. Tessa had missed it keenly at first, she’d felt pointless, but now Tom was back in body and in spirit, she’d learned to appreciate the luxury of a leisurely mid-week morning with him.
Tom and Joy were doing the easy crossword together, which had become their daily ritual. Tom said it helped to keep the brain nimble and Joy was turning out to be surprisingly good at them.
‘Irish lake, five letters …?’ said Tom.
‘Lough,’ said Joy.
‘Isn’t that four letters – L, O, C, H?’ said Tom.
‘That’s the Scottish spelling,’ said Joy. ‘The Irish is L, O, U, G, H.’
‘Really?’ said Tom, reaching for his phone and tapping open the Google app. ‘You’re right. How annoying. OK, clever clogs, try this: Edmund something, seven letters, poet, starts with S …’
‘Spenser,’ said Joy, without hesitation. ‘With a second S …’
Tessa zoned out, as they argued over the spelling and Joy said it was cheating for Tom to keep looking on his phone. Crosswords were not her thing and when she heard the clang of the letterbox closing she went out to the hall to collect the post, happy for the distraction.
Leafing through it on her way back to the kitchen – mostly unsolicited catalogues she would put straight into the recycling – Tessa saw there was another of those letters for her mum’s old lodger, Elsie, with the coincidental Lambton surname.
‘More post for your friend Elsie,’ she said, dropping it onto the table, as she noticed there was a Toast catalogue hidden among the dross. That was worth a look.
Joy’s head snapped up. After all the years of being Joy, it took her by surprise th
at her childhood name still grabbed her attention like that. She hoped Tessa hadn’t noticed her reaction.
‘You made me jump,’ she said, to cover up, reaching out for the unwanted envelope and placing it out of sight on her lap.
Then seeing that Tessa was distracted looking through something that had arrived for her, Joy left the table, headed for the downstairs loo as fast as she could on her sticks, and bolted the door behind her. Something she’d seen on the back of this envelope had alerted her that this was one she needed to look at more closely. In private.
Putting down the lid of the loo, she sat on it, closing her eyes and trying to steady her breathing. Her heart was racing so fast, she felt quite nauseous. She wasn’t wearing any of her crystals and wished she could go and get her rose quartz, but she couldn’t move from where she was.
Opening her eyes again, she turned the envelope over to check the return address on the back and confirmed what she’d thought when she’d first spotted the logo on the front.
This was the letter she had dreaded, but deep down also desperately wanted to receive. It was from an agency that helped adopted children to contact their birth parents. Addressed to her, in the name she’d had when she’d given birth to a son fifty-five years before, when she was just nineteen years old, his birth the reason her parents had cut her off.
She had to acknowledge to herself now, that from the moment she’d seen the first envelope addressed to her old name, a very small voice in the innermost part of herself had been telling her this was what it was about, but she’d refused to listen.
Now there was no escaping it. She recognised the logo on the envelope, because she’d seen it months before, chancing across an article about the agency in a newspaper she’d been leafing through in a café one morning, waiting for a friend to arrive.
For a very brief moment then she’d considered making a note of the agency’s name and looking into it herself, but then her friend had turned up and she’d put it all out of her mind again, although it seemed her subconscious had retained the image of the logo.
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