A Hidden Life

by Adele Geras

  ‘Lou … Lou, are you listening to me? You look as if you’re miles away.’

  ‘No, I’m listening, Harry. What’s wrong? You seem …’

  He took hold of one of her hands and held it between both of his.

  ‘I’ve behaved very badly, Lou. I’m so sorry.’

  Badly? How had he behaved badly? ‘I don’t think you have,’ she said finally. What could she tell him that didn’t sound ridiculous? Why was he making her go through this? He must have known that she’d loved the kissing. Didn’t he realize that she’d already rehearsed what they would be doing soon? Very soon. This was like some kind of Alice in Wonderland thing – nothing was what it seemed to be. She said, ‘You haven’t behaved badly at all, Harry. I’ve had a lovely, lovely time.’

  Doh! What a lame way of putting it! Why were they in a public place, separated by a chilly marble table-top? Why couldn’t she just get up and go over to him and hug him? Kiss him again. If only she could kiss him again, everything would be okay and back to normal and they could get up and pay the bill and go back to the hotel. She said, ‘Why don’t we go back to the hotel?’

  ‘In a sec. I have to tell you something first.’

  Lou felt cold dread take hold of her. She thought: It’s like being on some hideous roller coaster. She was plunging into black depths, leaving her stomach behind, wanting to faint, wanting it to stop, wanting to go back to normal and not being able to. She swallowed. Her mouth tasted of the garlicky sausages they’d just eaten and she thought she might easily vomit.

  ‘Okay,’ was what she managed to whisper in reply. If I speak any louder, if I open my mouth any wider, I’ll definitely puke.

  ‘We shouldn’t – I mean, I shouldn’t – well, I got carried away, that’s all. I like you so much, Lou, and you’re so pretty and you were all fired up by your visit to Mme Franchard and everything. Plus there was the river. It’s easy to lose your head, right? I lost my head. Please say you forgive me.’

  What to say? ‘There’s nothing to forgive,’ she muttered at last. What the hell, nothing to lose. She lifted her head and spoke with more confidence, starting to allow a little anger at Harry to creep up on her, making her feel less like crying and more like hitting him over the head with one of the thick white china cups. ‘I liked it. I liked it a lot. You have no idea how important it was to me.’

  ‘I know. I felt …’

  ‘You do not know!’ Lou realized that she was almost shouting and looked around, embarrassed. No one was taking any notice. ‘I felt, for the first time since I left Poppy’s father, that kissing someone, wanting someone, not being scared shitless of what would happen if I allowed myself to enjoy being kissed by a man – oh, fuck it, what does it matter. You’ve obviously changed your mind between the choucroute and the coffee. Never mind. I’m off.’

  She got to her feet and Harry caught her by the hand. ‘Please don’t go, Lou. Please sit down. I want to explain.’

  She sank back on to the chair. ‘Go on then. I’m listening.’

  ‘I met someone in America.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A woman. I met her the first day I was in Hollywood. I – we – well, I’m in love with her.’ He leaned forward and tightened his grip on her hand. ‘You can’t help it, Lou, falling in love. It just happens sometimes. Like that. Out of the blue.’

  ‘She’s Meg Ryan and you’re Tom Hanks. I get it, Harry. Okay? You don’t have to explain any further. I totally, totally get it.’

  ‘I should have told you before I got on the train this morning.’

  ‘Why didn’t you?’

  ‘I wanted to come to Paris. I wanted to come to Paris with you.’

  ‘Why on earth did you?’

  Harry looked down at the table and blushed. ‘I like you. I also fancy you like mad. You must have known that.’

  ‘No. No, I didn’t. Not till today, not really. I mean, I knew you liked me. Or I thought I did.’ Lou sat up straight and pulled her hand out of Harry’s grasp. ‘Okay, let me get this completely straight: you like me, you fancy me, you thought a trip to Paris would be a blast, but on the other hand you are madly in love with some starlet in Hollywood and so you shouldn’t have come. You should have stayed home, after confessing your deep love for the starlet to me the minute you got back. Is that about it?’

  ‘Well, sort of. She’s not a starlet. She’s a lawyer.’

  ‘Oh, pardon me! Ally McBeal, then. Calista Flockwhatsit and not Meg Ryan. Apologies, really.’

  ‘No, I – I’m the one who should apologize.’

  ‘That’s right, you bloody should. But it’s a bit late now, right? Still,’ said Lou, overcome by a kind of recklessness, ‘better late than never, that’s what you reckon, isn’t it? Having succumbed, having kissed me and enjoyed it and just as you’re teetering on the verge of taking me back to our hotel and spending the night with me in a storm of violent passion, you get a conscience and decide that no, that wouldn’t be a very nice thing to do: to make love to someone and then tell them you’re in love with someone else afterwards. You’re quite right. Much better to say something before all that happens. I would agree, only I’ve …’

  The recklessness had gone. The tears were creeping down her cheeks now and she felt hideous: miserable, disappointed, pissed, too full of food … she wanted to lie down and hide under a blanket and never come out.

  ‘You’ve what, Lou? Don’t cry. Please don’t cry. Let’s try and …’

  ‘Don’t say it, Harry. Don’t say let’s go back to how we were before today.’

  ‘Why not? We were okay, weren’t we?’ He frowned suddenly. ‘You’re not going to leave Cinnamon Hill? I need you. I value your judgement, truly. Please don’t go.’

  ‘D’you really think I’m going to let you screw up my job as well? Forget it! I’m not leaving. I like my job. I like reading screenplays.’ She shivered. The idea of having to find work all over again especially after what had just happened was too horrible to think of.

  ‘It won’t be awkward between us, will it?’

  Lou glared at him. ‘I don’t care if it is awkward for you, if you want to know. I don’t care. I’m going to try and forget that today ever happened. I’m going back to the hotel and you can wait ten minutes before you leave here. I want to walk on my own.’

  The bill. Lou realized as she pushed her way between the tables and out into the night that she hadn’t even offered to pay for her bit of the meal. Fuck it, she thought, let him pay. It’s the least he can do. He’s hurt me. He thought he was being kind and he wasn’t. She walked along the pavement and saw nothing: not the streetlights nor the people nor the trees in full leaf. She almost ran to the hotel and up to her room. The old-fashioned key stuck a little in the lock and Lou burst into tears. It was too much, the last straw. In the end, she managed to wrench the door open and almost fell into the room. She slammed the door behind her and locked it. I don’t care if I can’t get it opened again. Fuck Harry Lang! What a bloody nerve! Coming to Paris under false pretences. Men were – she had no words for what men were. He’d actually almost gone to bed with her; what did that say for his love for this American person? This skinny, well-dressed lawyer woman. If he’d been a different sort of man, he’d have gone ahead with it, and they’d be together right this minute.

  Lou sat on the edge of the bed and flopped back on to the counterpane, staring up at the ceiling. The tears were now flowing down the sides of her face and into her hair. There was a part of her that wished Harry was a two-timing bastard. What did she care if he cheated on his Jennifer Aniston lookalike? She wanted him to make love to her. It was the first time she’d wanted anyone to touch her for months and months and she’d worked herself up into longing for it so much that when the chance vanished, she couldn’t take it. Was that what was going on here? Her anger and tears, her misery: was that simply because she was being denied a treat of some kind? No, it wasn’t. She really liked Harry. She admired him, agreed with him about movies – she ha
dn’t thought about the future but there had been the odd moment, looking at Poppy, for instance, when she’d seen the three of them together: a family.

  Lou sat up abruptly and went to the sink. She ran a basin of cold water and plunged her head into it. She groped for a towel – too thin – and began to rub at her hair, her eyes, her face. Then she went to sit on the chair by the window. That’s Paris, she thought. City of a million romantic clichés glittering away in the velvety night. Paris isn’t helping. I’d rather be in my grotty little flat, with my baby. Poppy. This morning – only this morning yet weeks seemed to have gone by today – she’d been only too happy to escape from having to look after her, but now she missed her. It would have been a comfort to hold her little body close and kiss her chubby cheeks. She took her mobile out of her handbag and wondered whether it was too late to text her mother. No, it was only ten o’clock in the UK. The message read, Phone when you find this. Late as you like. If not, will see you 2morrow.

  I’ll get up as soon as it’s light, Lou thought. I’ll go to Gare du Nord and take the first Eurostar I can. She went to lie down on the bed again, though she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep much. She smiled ruefully. The scene with Harry had pushed Mme Franchard quite out of her thoughts. She sighed and turned her mind to Blind Moon. How could she ever find out if it was true? And did it matter to anyone other than Dad? Everyone else who might have been affected was dead. If those things really happened, then it explained Grandad’s reluctance to talk about his childhood. Also, she could see from the photograph that she looked very like the other Louise. Part of Grandad’s devotion to her must have been because of that resemblance. Her head was swimming with tiredness, anger, frustration and curiosity, and she closed her eyes. An image of Harry seemed to be imprinted on her brain. Oh, God. Even a few minutes’ sleep would be bliss.

  *

  No one ever mentioned this aspect of looking after a small child: you were not allowed to go to pieces while you were in charge of one and the result of this was, whatever happened, however terrible things were, you held it all together till some other time when you could collapse and weep and fall apart at your leisure.

  ‘There you go, precious,’ Phyl said, dimly aware that a few hours before, her phone had done its pinging and she’d deliberately left the message unread because she couldn’t think of anyone who’d be texting her except Matt and she certainly didn’t want to think about him now.

  ‘He’s with her,’ she whispered to Poppy, sticking down the adhesive flaps of the new nappy, buttoning the baby-gro and covering the baby up again with her fluffy white blanket. She moved a couple of the cuddly toys nearer, so that they stood within reach of Poppy’s hand if she needed them in the night, but her eyes were closing already. Phyl left the room quietly, carrying the nappy sack, which smelled faintly of violets (why did the manufacturers think they needed to perfume rubbish bags, anyway?) and there was the noise from her phone again. She didn’t know exactly what she felt. What did she know for a fact? Only that Matt wasn’t at home. He said he was at Paul’s after a drunken bridge game which sounded … She wasn’t quite sure why she disbelieved it, but she did. Paul and Matt were not the sort of men to forget about drinking too much. Matt was the embodiment of obedience to the law. He never drank when he had to drive. That meant he’d decided before the alleged bridge game that he was going to stay the night with Paul. Again, most unlikely. So where was he?

  Phyl sat down and covered her eyes with her hands. He was at Ellie’s. She was willing to bet money that he’d fixed up to go there, knowing he’d be alone tonight, knowing she was far away in London and preoccupied with Poppy. Ellie … ever since Constance’s funeral, Phyl had been wary of her. This wasn’t, she thought, simply a hangover from the way she used to feel about Ellie when she was married to Matt. She might easily have appeared at the funeral and then disappeared, but she didn’t. She’d moved into a flat far too close to Haywards Heath, and from the beginning there was something predatory about the way she’d made a point of cultivating Matt. When she appeared at Phyl’s house, dressed in clothes that would have been more suited to a cocktail party, on that trumped-up excuse, Phyl had been quite certain that she intended to make some kind of trouble. The only question in her mind at the time was what, exactly.

  Now she had a good idea, but she had to make sure. If it turned out that Matt had spent the night with his first wife, Phyl needed to decide what she was going to do about it. But not yet. I don’t have to do it until I’m quite ready, she thought. I can leave it for now, till I’m sure. I can do whatever I like. For a few minutes she ran through a scenario that had her walking out. Leaving him. Setting up in a flat in London with Poppy and Lou – that wouldn’t be too bad, would it? The moment this image entered her head, she started to cry. Oh, no, she told herself. No crying, whatever happens. Phyl scrabbled around in her handbag and found a tissue. She blew her nose and shook her head and told herself not to be so spineless. But imagining a future without Matt was unthinkable. I won’t let it happen, she told herself, before realizing that there was little she could do about it if he’d suddenly taken it into his head to dump her. But he won’t do that, she thought. He’d worry, wouldn’t he, about how Lou would feel. He’d know she’d be on my side – the worries chased themselves round and round in her brain till she felt as though her head was about to split open. She put her hands to her temples and shut her eyes and squeezed hard. Stop it, she chided herself. You’re tired and hysterical and you can’t decide anything yet. Wait and see what happens tomorrow.

  She went and lay down on the bed in Lou’s room and stared at the ceiling. It was getting later and later and she was wide awake. I’ve got to think what to do, she reflected, but what if I’m wrong? What if he’s not with Ellie? What if the bridge story is true? The least she could do was find out exactly what had happened to him: where he was and what he’d been doing. Was still doing, for all she knew. Also, she had to try and sleep, she knew that, or she’d be half dead tomorrow. With Poppy, you never knew when the morning would come. It might turn out to be an extremely short night.

  Just as she was about to get into bed, her mobile trilled again. It hadn’t stopped making its silly little noises on and off for the last couple of hours, calling attention to itself, saying, ‘I’m not going to stop irritating you till you read your message, you know.’ Phyl sighed and flipped the lid open. It would be Matt – perhaps she ought to see what he wanted. She stared at the message: it was from Lou, and Phyl’s heart turned over in her chest and she was all at once icy-cold and terrified. Why was Lou texting her? Something must have happened. Visions of theft, injury, illness … every imaginable scenario flashed through her mind as she punched in her daughter’s number.

  ‘Mum? Is that you? Oh, God, I’m so glad you’ve rung!’

  She was alive. Phyl said, ‘Lou, are you okay? What’s happened? What’s the matter?’

  Instead of an answer, she got a torrent of wailing. She said, ‘Lou, stop crying, my darling. I can’t talk to you if you’re crying. Go and sit down. Are you sitting down?’

  ‘Yes. I’m okay. I’m better now.’

  ‘Tell me what happened.’

  ‘Harry’s met someone. In America. He says he’s in love with her. I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘Oh.’ There had to be something more intelligent she could say, but the relief was enormous. Not injured, not ill, not robbed, not damaged in any way, but terribly, terribly hurt. Poor Lou. Phyl said, ‘You thought it would be – you reckoned he liked you, and you … I know you liked him a lot.’

  ‘God, Mum, don’t be so – so bloody blandí It’s not liking. That isn’t remotely what it is! I really, really wanted it to become something. I wanted to go to bed with him and we nearly, so nearly … He kissed me, Mum, as though he really meant it, you know? Properly. For ages. And then he backed off. That’s it – he just – he told me about his American person and said he didn’t want to be unfaithful to her and it was wrong of him
to kiss me and everything and I don’t know what to do …’

  ‘Lou. Listen to me, Lou. It’s no good thinking about anything now. It’s late. Very late and you must be tired. Go to bed. Try and sleep. In the morning, come back here. I’ll stay a few days with you. I don’t mind sleeping on the sofa.’

  ‘What about Dad? Won’t he want you back home?’

  ‘Probably. I’ll speak to him. He won’t object, I don’t think. He’ll be glad of the peace and quiet, I should think.’

  ‘Okay. That’s kind of you, Mum.’

  ‘It’s a pleasure, sweetheart. Now, are you going to sleep?’

  ‘I suppose so. I’ll try …’

  ‘And Lou?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It must have been awful for you. I can see that, but you should try and be a little optimistic about it, too. You’re obviously ready to start another relationship, aren’t you? Remember when you thought you’d never want to?’

  Lou’s laughter came down the phone sounding tinny and slightly hysterical. ‘Can’t get it right, can I? No sooner does my sex drive return than the only nice man I’ve met for ages takes it into his head to fall in love with someone else. Good timing, right?’

  ‘You’re very young, Lou. There’ll be lots and lots of other men.’

  ‘Don’t bet on it, Mum. I’m not going to. Night night.’

  *

  ‘Are you seriously saying,’ Nessa frowned at Gareth, who was sitting on the very edge of his chair, as though he was getting ready to get up and flee, ‘that you’re going to believe Tamsin’s version of events?’

  ‘I don’t know. She seemed very sure of what she’d seen …’

  Keep cool, Nessa told herself. Don’t let him see you’re rattled. How was she going to get out of this one? She had worried that Tamsin might have caught sight of her kissing Mickey goodbye rather too enthusiastically the other day, but figured that a) it wouldn’t mean much to a child and b) she wouldn’t immediately go and tell her father. They didn’t see all that much of one another. She said, ‘Haven’t you two got better things to talk about when you’re together than what I’m getting up to?’