Secret Keeping for Beginners

by Maggie Alderson

  ‘That’s very thoughtful of you, darling,’ said Joy, her eyes open again. ‘But that’s terrible about the nanny leaving you in the lurch like that. What have you done about the girls today?’

  Her mother was looking at her rather intently. She certainly wasn’t going to tell them that Simon was the new Mary Poppins, it was just too weird. She still couldn’t quite believe it herself.

  ‘Oh, I was able to get someone to have them for a few hours … it’ll be fine, but I have to get back reasonably early. I’ve got an important meeting tomorrow morning.’

  Joy was still looking a bit beady-eyed, so Rachel was relieved when Natasha and Mattie came into the kitchen, their arms round each other, looking very happy and a bit shy.

  ‘You all met Mattie at the shoot, back in May,’ said Natasha, ‘but now I can introduce her to you properly as my … well, my partner, I guess.’

  ‘Hi, Mattie, Tashie’s partner,’ said Rachel, grinning and waving at her.

  ‘Welcome back, Mattie,’ said Tessa.

  ‘Welcome to our family,’ said Joy, standing up and walking over to them, putting an arm around each one and pulling them close to her. She kissed each of them tenderly on the top of their heads.

  ‘Love and light,’ she said.

  Rachel nearly got the giggles. Joy carried on like a new-age pope sometimes, but it was all so well meant she didn’t think Mattie would be too put off. In fact, she looked as though she liked it. That was good. She’d have to get used to all kinds of carry-on like that, if she was going to be hanging around with their tribe.

  Over lunch, Natasha explained the legal details of her situation; how OM had a clause in the contract that meant they could cancel the deal at any time up to six months prior to the launch, with no redress, compensation or explanation.

  Her lawyer had questioned it, but they’d refused to budge, and Natasha had decided to accept it, because it was that or no deal – and she’d been so certain they would never use it.

  ‘That’s probably the thing that’s killing me the most now,’ she said, holding Mattie’s hand on her lap. ‘If I’d been honest with my lawyer and my agent about all this from the outset they could have protected me better, but I thought I could just carry on living behind my lie as I have all these years …’

  ‘You don’t think you could make yourself some kind of new test case for gay rights?’ asked Rachel. ‘A more subtle form of discrimination? Forcing you to exploit your sexuality against your wishes.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Natasha. ‘It’s difficult because none of it was ever discussed in clear language. It’s all in this weird double talk.’

  She screwed up her face into a fake smile.

  ‘“Well, if you don’t feel you can give the brand identity your full support by doing the kind of personal publicity we feel is required in the current market, we aren’t certain how we can take it forward with you.”

  ‘They never actually came out and said: you’re a big dyke and we want to sell your range with you as a lezzer poster girl, because it’s a new angle and it will make us look modern and cool. Or: we’ve got to be clear from the start that you’re a deviant, or there will be a revolt if you get outed after the launch. They just talked all this bullshit and in the end I lost it and it was actually me who said, all right if you won’t let me do it as I want to, cancel the contract then – and they did.’

  Everyone tutted and exclaimed how outrageous it was, but after that had all died down Rachel spoke.

  ‘Were you calling their bluff?’ she asked.

  Natasha looked back at her steadily. Rachel always got to the heart of it. ‘Yes,’ she said, sadly. ‘I really didn’t think they’d cancel, not after we’d got so far along with development and they’d announced it to the press and everything, but they did.’

  ‘Do you regret it?’ said Rachel.

  Natasha turned and looked at Mattie and then back at Rachel. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t. They were bullies. Well, one of them was. It was really just one of them and I realise now, I don’t want to work with her. If I’m going to do a range – and I am still going to do one – it has to be on my terms.’

  They all clapped and cheered and congratulated her on her positive attitude and then, after it had died down, it was Natasha who spoke again.

  ‘And although we got a bit mixed up about it all for a moment back there, the person who’s helped me understand all that is sitting right here. Thank you, Mattie …’

  She leaned forward and kissed her on the lips

  A few hours later, Rachel was back on the train, smiling at the memory of Mattie and Natasha’s reunion. She rang her house to check in with Simon and the girls, but there was no reply. At 6.30 p.m.? She rang Simon’s mobile.

  ‘Hi,’ she said. ‘Is that Mrs Doubtfire?’

  ‘Hello, Rachel,’ said Simon.

  She could hear a lot of noise in the background.

  ‘It’s your mum, girls,’ he said, ‘do you want to speak to her?’

  ‘No,’ Rachel heard Daisy saying, ‘tell her hi, we’ll see her later.’

  ‘Well, that’s nice,’ said Rachel, ‘I’m away for one afternoon and they’ve already forgotten me.’

  ‘They have rather large ice creams in front of them,’ said Simon, ‘demanding their full attention.’

  ‘Where are you?’ she asked him.

  ‘Fortnum’s.’

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Well, I had to eat something as well.’

  ‘They’ll never be the same again, but thank you so much. I should be back by eight, latest. I’ll see you then.’

  Rachel hung up, smiling to herself at the thought of her two darlings in their summer school dresses, sitting opposite Simon in his beautiful suit in the Fortnum’s Fountain restaurant. She hoped they were behaving, but he hadn’t sounded stressed, so perhaps they were. Blimey.

  It was a lovely image, but it made her feel unsettled. She didn’t know where to file it in her head, so she got the Passementerie de Paris contract out of her bag and ran through it again.

  She’d been immersed in that for a while when she realised the train had come to a standstill, with no station in sight. Then the driver’s voice came over the loudspeaker announcing there was a signal failure between Tonbridge and Sevenoaks and the service would be delayed for ‘an indeterminate period’.

  Rachel texted Simon and wondered who it was, exactly, Joy prayed to when she needed help.

  Queen’s Park

  It was after nine by the time Rachel got home. Simon’s car was parked outside, so she knew they were there, but he wasn’t in the kitchen. Then she heard the sound of the TV from the sitting room and found him, jacket and shoes off, stretched out on the sofa fast asleep. Looking down at his relaxed face, all the usual tension gone, Rachel felt she was seeing him for the first time. He really was a good-looking man.

  Not wanting to disturb him – or have him wake up to find her staring at him like a weirdo – she went quietly upstairs. The girls’ bedroom was empty, but peeping around the door into her own room she found them both in her bed, clutching teddies, looking angelic. There was a pile of sugar sachets emblazoned with the Fortnum & Mason logo sitting on the bedside table – either a present for her, or supplies for a midnight feast.

  Rachel pulled the duvet up over them, ran her hand over each of their dear heads and headed downstairs again, wondering how to wake Simon up. That was an interesting etiquette teaser. How do you wake your boss when he’s conked out on your sofa?

  So she was greatly relieved to find him now sitting up, blinking. His hair was all messy and she had to stop herself smoothing it down, as she’d just done with her daughters.

  ‘Ah, Rachel,’ he said, ‘you’re back. Sorry, nodded off on your sofa there for a moment.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ she said, ‘I’m so sorry I’m late, the bloody train got delayed, we were just sitting there for over an hour.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. I got your text
.’

  ‘Were the girls OK?’

  ‘They were good fun,’ said Simon.

  ‘They went to bed all right?’

  ‘Not bad. I had to push them rather on the teeth-cleaning front and I was forced to read several tedious stories about a mouse who likes ballet dancing, but it was fine.’

  ‘I don’t know how I can ever thank you,’ said Rachel.

  I could think of quite a few ways, thought Simon. Several of them not for discussion in polite society.

  ‘How’s Natasha?’ he asked.

  ‘She’s OK,’ said Rachel. ‘Not bad considering. Very bruised and battered by the experience, but I think she’ll be much happier in the long run, than she was before.’

  ‘That sounds good,’ he said, pushing on his shoes and then standing up, looking around for his jacket.

  Rachel picked it up off the arm of the chair next to her and handed it to him, resisting the temptation to bury her face in it first.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said, shrugging it on and then reaching up to smooth down his hair. ‘Do I look unkempt?’

  Rachel laughed. ‘A little. There’s a mirror in the hall.’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said Simon, standing in front of it and getting a comb out of his pocket. ‘Einstein. You could have told me …’

  ‘I didn’t want to be rude, when you’ve been so kind and helpful. Would you like some coffee, or a drink or something?’ she added, walking through to the kitchen.

  Simon joined her, looking more like his normal self, his hair combed back, his collar sitting perfectly inside his lapels, a glimpse of pristine white cuffs at the end of his jacket sleeves. He glanced at his watch.

  ‘Thanks for the offer, but I’d better go,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you in the morning.’

  ‘OK,’ said Rachel, leading the way out of the kitchen and back down the hall to the front door.

  Simon joined her in the small vestibule by the door as she opened it, standing very close to her. She felt her mouth go a little dry. He was so close she could smell him, behind the cologne, his own unique smell. She looked up at him to find he was gazing down at her. Realising her lips had parted very slightly, she quickly closed them. Was she breathing heavily? She hoped he couldn’t hear.

  She was so close, he would only have to move his head a couple of inches and he could kiss her. Should he do it? She wasn’t moving away.

  ‘Well, I’ll see you tomorrow then,’ said Simon, forcing himself to break the moment.

  ‘Yes,’ said Rachel, very brightly, as though he’d said something very fascinating and important.

  ‘Good luck with that meeting tomorrow …’

  ‘Aha, fingers crossed,’ she said. Jolly fucking hockey sticks.

  ‘I’ll be off then,’ he said, making himself put one foot out of the door.

  ‘Simon,’ said Rachel, suddenly, touching his arm.

  He realised he was staring down at her hand resting on his sleeve. He just so wanted it to stay there.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, ‘for looking after the girls. Thank you so much.’

  ‘It’s nothing,’ he said, ‘really … it was fun …’ and he managed to take a couple more steps away from her. It was like playing Giant’s Footsteps, but in the opposite direction.

  ‘I’ll buy you a coffee to say thank you,’ she said, as he finally made it to the gate.

  He looked back at her and smiled broadly. A coffee. In their café. That would be good.

  After he’d gone, Rachel gave up on trying to fit into her own bed with the two girls already so deeply asleep in it, arms and legs everywhere, and tried to make herself comfortable in Daisy’s, under her map-of-the-world duvet cover.

  She couldn’t sleep. So much was rattling around in her brain from the day. Running into Mattie at the station. The shock of Natasha’s latest news. Seeing the two of them so happy together. Simon volunteering to look after the girls. Simon taking the girls to Fortnum’s. Simon asleep on her sofa. Simon …

  What was going on? Had she lost her mind? He was her boss. And he could be a right bastard when he wanted to be, but when she thought about it – he hadn’t been a bastard to her for quite a while now. Really, he’d been nothing but lovely and caring and nice. An image of his kind smile came into her head and she got that giddy feeling in her stomach again.

  She couldn’t kid herself any more. That moment by the door, she’d really thought he was going to kiss her. And she’d wanted him to. Terribly. She wanted Simon Rathbone to kiss her. She wanted to kiss Simon Rathbone. Rachel lay there letting this new idea circulate around her system. It was going to take some getting used to.

  And there was another thing she couldn’t work out about what had happened just now. She could tell he’d wanted to kiss her, just as much as she’d wanted him to – and she was fairly sure he knew she wanted him to. They weren’t fumbling teenagers, they were grown-ups and you developed an understanding of those moments.

  Of course it was complicated because they worked together and him being the boss and all that, but when urges were that strong, didn’t two single healthy people tend to give in to them and sort it out after?

  So why the hell hadn’t he?

  Friday, 18 July

  Regent’s Park

  Simon was running around Regent’s Park. Not just jogging, like the people he passed, but proper Chariots of Fire stuff. Running to make the blood pump fast through his heart and into his veins, so that a good lot of it would flow into his mixed-up brain and help him to understand what the hell was going on.

  He knew he was in love with Rachel now. It had gone way beyond the lust he’d felt from the first time he’d laid eyes on her perfect waist/hip ratio. That was all still a marvellous part of the package, but now he was in love with the total woman.

  The funny, energetic, bright personality; someone who made him laugh and thought exactly as he did about business, that it was a tremendous game, a puzzle to work out and to win, with money the prize, but not in a ghastly greedy way. The chase as important as the winning, probably more so.

  All of that seemed so clear and simple, but then he kept coming up against a brick wall. He wanted to take Rachel in his arms, to kiss her and tell her how he felt – he even liked her children, that’s how far in he was – but there were so many complications.

  Right up front, there was his bizarre history with her sister. What was the etiquette for that scenario? Then there was the heavy baggage of his own family, but perhaps she was the person he could tell about all that? After all these years of holding it in, stuffing it down inside until sometimes he felt like it was suffocating him, he was feeling more and more like she was.

  And then there was the other big issue, probably the biggest one: that he also wanted to work with her. To the point where he was considering offering her a partnership, where they would ditch the company in its current old-fashioned, over-leveraged, overstaffed format and start again as Rathbone & Lambton.

  No account managers on staff. They could keep some members of his current team on retainers, bringing them in as freelancers when they had big projects on, which most of them would probably prefer. They could take Wimbledon week off without asking. So just him and Rachel and his PA. Certainly not a big expensive building in Sydney Street, just a small sleek space, probably in Soho. Possibly even Shoreditch.

  His stomach turned over with excitement at the idea of sitting across from Rachel in an office all day. Work would be so much fun with her to throw ideas around with. Then he couldn’t stop himself picturing the two of them sneaking out for a romantic working lunch, which might develop into … Aaaargh. There he went again, starting out with his work head on, only to be taken over by another part of his anatomy rather lower down.

  And he was beginning to think perhaps now it wasn’t all one-sided. Nearly twelve hours later, the memory of that moment by her front door was still vivid. He’d been so close to kissing her, he didn’t quite know how he’d been able to stop himself.

 
Ever since that afternoon in the little Italian café, he’d been wondering if her feelings for him were changing and when he was standing close to her now he could feel it. He knew when a woman wanted him to kiss her.

  So which was it to be: the business brain – or the trouser brain? He had to decide and he didn’t have forever to make up his mind; there was an official deadline, because he wasn’t going to renew the lease on Sydney Street and it would be up in three months. That decision he had made. Rathbone & Associates as it was now, was going to change, it was just a matter of into what? And with whom?

  He came to a halt by the park gate nearest his flat and walked up and down, cooling off, getting his breath back and stretching his muscles. Crouching down to ease his knees he felt the grass was dry beneath his fingertips and lay down on his back, pulling his legs up to his chest and swinging them from side to side to loosen his hips.

  Then he just lay there for a while, staring up at the London summer sky, bright blue earlier, clouds now beginning to build up. As they slowly passed across his gaze, the answer to all the competing questions came to him: he would ring Joy and ask for her advice.

  Back in his flat, showered and shaved, Simon sat at his glass desk wearing just a pair of loose cotton track pants. The sky was fully grey now and it was very muggy. After checking there was nothing crucial in the diary, he’d emailed his PA to postpone all his appointments to the following week and decided to work at home for the day. He could think more clearly how to restructure the business when he wasn’t constantly being reminded of all the people he was possibly about to make redundant.

  And that wasn’t the only reason. He didn’t want to see Rachel yet. He didn’t trust himself. Not until his head was clearer.

  Catching sight of his reflection in the nearby window, Simon sat up straight, pulling back his arms and flexing his shoulders, so his pectorals pushed out. You look like a man, Rathbone, he told himself. So bloody well start acting like one. He tapped contacts on his phone and scrolled down to find Tessa’s number, crossing the fingers on his left hand, hoping she wouldn’t answer.