My Husband's Lies Read online

  His father cleans his glasses with his napkin and joins in the guesswork. The tension in Nick’s shoulders starts to ease. Which dramas has the actor been in? Harry asks. Just television or films too? Tall or short? Which age group? Fat or thin?

  Wearing oven gloves, his mum brings in the main course. ‘Harry, pass me another table mat. Hurry up. It’s very hot. I don’t want the heat getting through to the wood.’

  Nick turns to Lisa, tops up her wine and raises his eyebrows. It isn’t lamb, but a casserole of ham-wrapped chicken breasts in a creamy sauce.

  ‘Wow, thank you, this looks lovely,’ Lisa says.

  His dad clears his throat. ‘I take it we’ll be having cold lamb tomorrow and the rest of the week,’ he says, glaring at his mum. Through the glasses, his pale eyes look huge. ‘And the roast potatoes and parsnips. I don’t suppose they’ll keep, though.’

  ‘Sorry, Mum,’ Nick says. ‘I didn’t think.’

  ‘No you didn’t,’ his father fires back. ‘Cooking takes time and preparation. I believe you and your brother think it’s magically produced by your mother from thin air.’

  His mum leans over and squeezes his wrist. ‘It doesn’t matter, love. Cold lamb can be quite nice with pickle and this is a recipe I was going to try in the week. I had the new potatoes in anyway, though they’re not strictly new as we know it, they’ll be from abroad at this time of the year. Help yourselves to the veg.’

  They eat for several moments in silence. ‘We met some nice people,’ Nick eventually says. ‘We got friendly with three other honeymoon couples, which was fun in the evenings.’

  ‘The hotel had a babysitting service, so that was good,’ Lisa adds.

  His father rallies with a loud snort. ‘It was a honeymoon, wasn’t it? That’s for newly-weds. Why would anyone need a babysitter?’

  ‘Josh and Shelina had a two-month-old baby,’ Lisa replies evenly.

  ‘Surely not?’ his mum says. ‘I know young people do things the wrong way round these days, but taking a tiny baby with them in that heat? Now that is ridiculous.’

  Nick feels Lisa’s belligerence coming, but doesn’t know how to stop it. ‘One of the honeymoon couples we got friendly with were two women,’ she says clearly. ‘No baby as yet though, so that was fine.’

  His father’s response is immediate and loud. ‘Lesbians? On their honeymoon?’ Looking incredulous, he puts down his fork and takes off his glasses. ‘I find the idea of two women claiming they are in a relationship repugnant anyway, but the church allowing them to marry … I find it quite disgusting.’

  Lisa’s face colours, but she keeps her voice flat. ‘No it’s not. They are just human beings in love. Like you and Dora were once, Harry. Calling them repugnant and disgusting is a terrible thing to say. And they have the same right as you and I to get married. In fact I admire them for standing up and—’

  Nothing wrong with Dad’s hip today, Nick thinks wryly as his father abruptly stands.

  Again, he knows it’s coming, but there’s nothing he can do, there never has been when his father’s rage is ballooning.

  ‘Get out of my house!’ His face a livid red, he points his knife at Lisa. ‘Don’t think you can tell me what’s right and what’s wrong in my house. Go on, get out.’

  Nick puts his hand on Lisa’s knee at the traffic lights. Her body is still trembling.

  ‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘That was awful for you.’

  She doesn’t say anything for a moment, then turns her head, her eyes fiery.

  ‘OK, you held my hand as we left. But I note you didn’t have the courage of your convictions, Nick. Barbara and Carrie are our new friends, we promised to keep in touch. On holiday you were right on, down with the lesbians, but when it comes to standing up to your bloody parents, especially your dad, you just let it ride, like the bloody big baby you are.’

  ‘Well, perhaps if you didn’t polish off the whole wine bottle, you wouldn’t take so much offence yourself. Your dad isn’t exactly politically correct with his “I don’t approve of the Socialist Republican movement, but then I don’t disapprove either”. What does that mean, anyway? Let’s burn down a few English people’s holiday homes because we resent them? Very tolerant, I’m sure.’

  ‘You were the one topping up my bloody wine glass and this isn’t about my dad. Don’t shift the responsibility from your own father’s actions. He just threw his new and only daughter-in-law out of his home. We’ve been married five weeks. Five bloody weeks! That isn’t normal behaviour, Nick. They are meant to be my family, my new parents, the people I go to if I have a baby, if I ever need help. I don’t have a mother; my dad and my flipping hopeless brothers live three hours away. Remember?’

  ‘Sorry,’ Nick says again, moving the car into gear. ‘I’ll have a word with them both.’

  But his mind has already drifted to Susan. Jen is usually right about most things, he’s thinking. He’ll talk to Patrick. He’ll think of a plan, a way for them to chat, just the two of them.

  Lisa sighs and turns to the passenger window. ‘You haven’t listened to a bloody word I’ve said,’ she mutters to her reflection.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Dan

  The first person in the office on Monday morning as usual, but today Dan is glad of the space and the silence. He hasn’t had time to think all weekend. Not that he wants to think, really. Thinking about it scares him; thinking makes it real. Thinking about it causes his belly to flip and his groin to stir. He isn’t sure if it’s pleasurable or sickening.

  ‘No baby yet?’ Maya asks when she arrives. There’s a light splatter of snow on her padded coat. He didn’t realise it was snowing again. Snowing when it should be early spring; the world gone mad, life upside down. He glances at the corner window, but the slatted blind is closed, hiding the rusty fire escape and overflowing refuse bins from the view of his clients.

  ‘No, so close and yet so far, as Geri says. She’s eight and a half months, so the baby could arrive today or in another four weeks. They don’t induce mums until they’re two weeks over, whatever that means.’

  ‘Inserting chemicals up your hooter to bring on labour—’

  ‘Stop, Maya! I’ve been to the NCT classes. I know vaguely. I don’t need the graphics.’

  Maya cocks her head on one side. ‘You’re really spooked about the birth, aren’t you?’

  He puts his hand on a pile of work files. ‘More spooked about not getting my head down and working.’ Then he relents with a grin. ‘I like your hair, by the way. Coffee please. And a slice of toast, if we have any bread that isn’t mouldy. Just butter. And how come you know so much about it?’ he calls as she leaves the room. ‘You’re only bloody sixteen.’

  ‘Twenty-three,’ she calls back. ‘Twenty-four in four and a half weeks and you’d better not forget an expensive present for the best secretary in the world.’

  Dan works through his files steadily, glancing from time to time at his mobile on the desk. The phone feels like a lifeline; it feels like a grenade. He left Geri sleeping this morning, but last night he told her to call him for the slightest concern, even for a chat. Then there was the text from Seb at midnight which contained a single X. He deleted it instantly and didn’t reply.

  Halfway through a lease, Dan’s concentration is interrupted by a familiar nasal intonation through the open door. He looks at his watch. Eleven o’clock; not bad for Salim. He eventually appears in the back office with the usual white wolfish grin, perches on the desk and tells Dan about his long weekend away. He’s still wearing his camel-coloured overcoat and Dan wonders if that’s because he isn’t staying in the office long enough to take it off. Dan’s mind drifts from Geri to Seb and from Seb to the work pile, and by the time the tale ends, he’s unsure if he’s heard properly. Going away with one woman on a Thursday and coming back with another on a Sunday seems pretty unlikely, even for Salim. But then again, normal, down-to-earth and completely heterosexual Dan Maloney was given an exquisite blow job by another m
an late on Saturday night. The thought is incredible, as though it happened to someone else.

  He stares at the documents covering every inch of his desk. ‘Piece of piss’ domestic conveyancing it might be in some respects, but Dan feels like a hamster on a wheel; the demands never stop: searches, small queries and paperwork, letters, constant telephone calls and people. Give him companies and corporations over human beings as clients any day.

  Salim stands, taking a sheaf of papers in his wake, and makes for the door. ‘By the way, I made a new useful contact who’ll put us on his conveyancing panel if we talk sweetly—’

  ‘Great, Salim. That is great.’ Dan loosens his tie to release the surge of heat. ‘But I can’t manage it all myself. If it happens, we’ll need an assistant. I’m swamped as it is.’

  ‘Sure, we’ll see. Who knows? No point getting stressed until it happens.’ It’s what Salim always says. He turns at the door. ‘Assistants cost money, Dan. Maybe we could train up one of the lads.’ That’s what Salim always says too.

  A rap at the door chimes with Dan’s rumbling stomach. Thank God for Maya, he’s starving and parched. He looks up, expecting to see a colourful hijab, but it’s Seb, his hair gelled in a side parting, wearing a black leather jacket he’s never seen before.

  ‘Seb,’ he says, his heart lurching. ‘What are you doing here? You can’t just—’

  ‘Paying my rent, remember? Besides, I’m a friend. I’ve been here before. Don’t look so anxious, Dan. It’s fine.’

  ‘Someone might come in. Maya might—’

  Seb beams.‘I passed her as she was leaving the office. She asked about my bassett hound and said something about resisting tomato ketchup on my chips. Eating on the sofa? I think she was joking. She’s nice; she told me to come through.’ He reclines against the door and holds out his hand. ‘Come here if you’re worried.’

  Dan stays sitting and stares at Seb’s face, smiling and sculpted, his handsome eager face.

  What the fuck, what the fuck, beats in time with his heart.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about you constantly,’ Seb says, still grinning. ‘Feeling unbelievably horny. It was great, wasn’t it?’

  Dan feels his body stirring. He continues to stare, saying nothing.

  What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck am I doing?

  Seb straightens up. ‘Was it great, Dan?’ The smile is falling from his face; it feels almost unbearable.

  Dan stands from the desk and steps towards him. ‘Yes, it was. It was great, fucking mind-blowing, in fact. It’s just—’

  ‘I thought some lunch or a pint. Just to chat.’

  Dan turns to his desk, sees the buff-coloured folders, wills his erection to subside.

  ‘I’m going away for a few days,’ Seb says, dropping his gaze to the floor. ‘On a shoot. Not sure how long.’

  Dan nods, decision made. He scoops up his mobile, collects his overcoat from the stand, slipping it on without looking at his lover. He takes a breath and exhales. It’s lunch, only lunch, it’s perfectly normal.

  Striding ahead, he passes the lads at their desks in the shopfront. Aware of their curious gazes, he tries for a casual tone. ‘We’re off for a pint. See you in half an hour.’

  ‘Bloody hell, that’s a first,’ he hears as they hit the cold air.

  He puts his hands in his overcoat pockets and strolls shoulder to shoulder with Seb. Through the pedestrianised shopping area, past Boots and Waterstones, Smith’s and Superdrug, the shops he passes each morning without noticing. As they head towards Water Lane, littered with glassy restaurants and wine bars, he wonders how the two of them look to the outside world. Business colleagues or friends? Solicitor and his client? Like a gay couple? Or like two straight men who’ve become temporarily deranged. That’s how he feels. Excited and nervous and sick.

  ‘This place looks good,’ Seb says, diverting to a small dingy pub, surprisingly still thriving between two new handsome buildings. He heads for the back room and orders two beers. Dan follows and sits.

  ‘Cheers,’ Dan says, briefly lifting his gaze from the copper dents in the tabletop and accepting the bottle. Then he turns to the room, taking in the stench of ancient tobacco smoke, the discoloured wallpaper, the soft wooden floor, the limp mustard furnishings. Trying to focus on anything other than the pressure of Seb’s knees and his feet beneath the small table. ‘The photo shoot,’ he asks, finally looking at Seb. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘London.’

  ‘When?’

  Seb lifts his jacket cuff to look at his watch. ‘About an hour. Catching the train from Wilmslow station.’

  Picturing Seb’s bare feet in the yellow night light at Oak House, Dan turns the chilled bottle. ‘Could you catch the next one?’

  Seb smiles his rare grin. ‘For you I could.’

  ‘Bloody hell, Dan. Look at the time! We’ll be calling you Salim next,’ one of the lads says when he returns to the office.

  Shaking her head, Maya stands from her desk, her lips squashed in a line. She follows him into the back office and holds out a bundle of messages. ‘Six calls in the last half-hour,’ she says. ‘Ten if you count the five calls from Mrs Kemp. I wouldn’t mind, but you really need to tell me if you’ll be out for more than ten minutes.’ She cocks her head, frowning as she stares. ‘You weren’t answering your mobile either. It could’ve been the baby, Dan. I just need to know.’

  Dan looks at his desk and sits down. The tuna and mayonnaise on granary stares at him accusingly. He hasn’t eaten since the toast; he should feel hungry but he isn’t. His stomach is still churning with excuses, with reasons why he might be seen travelling in a taxi on a Monday lunchtime with Seb Taylor, hurtling towards Oak House with an unbelievable hard-on, desperate to release it. Yet when they arrived in Seb’s apartment, more than anything, he wanted to satisfy him, to watch his face as he came.

  Just boys’ stuff, he’d convinced himself yesterday. Things he’d been told by two of his uni mates who’d gone to a same-sex boarding school. Wanking each other off in the showers for a laugh, even sucking. Anything to jerk off. But today it felt different; today he wanted to please, rather than be pleased. He didn’t want to leave Seb’s warm bed; he had to drag himself away. And Maya is right; it could’ve been the baby; oh God, the baby. He covers his face and sighs deeply. What’s happening? What the hell is wrong with him?

  His mobile vibrates, moments before a beep alerts him to a text.

  ‘On the train, feeling good. See you in a few days,’ it says.

  His finger hovers over the icon, but he finds he can’t delete it. He lowers his head to his arms.

  ‘What the fuck am I doing?’ he whispers.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Jen

  Bulimia, Jen thinks. That’s what they’ll say. I should have noticed, I should have seen. God, what a crap mother.

  The small boy next to her speaks. She’s sitting with him in the reading corner, helping him to sound his words phonetically. The teaching-to-read rules have recently changed, but not, in her view, for the better. It isn’t that one way of learning is particularly superior to another but that governments don’t give long enough for one idea to work before pronouncing it a failure and moving on to the next.

  ‘Like sponges’, people say about kids and this boy is no exception. He arrived at her reading table with no English at all, so his progress usually delights her, but today she’s distracted, her mind stumbling from one thought to another, but landing at Holly. It’s her appointment after school.

  ‘Is it an emergency?’ the doctor’s receptionist had asked. Of course she wanted to say yes, that Holly’s school had told her to make it, that she was a bad parent and needed absolution as soon as humanly possible. But she and Ian had agreed the best approach was to keep it low-key, there was no point freaking Holly out, making a fuss over something that was probably nothing. There was the Munchausen Mother problem too. Jen didn’t want to charge into the surgery suggesting ridiculous diagnos
es when her child might just be thin. Not that she hadn’t agonised over the list of potential ailments a hundred times in her head.

  She’s been watching Holly’s food intake over the last week, trying hard not to show it, but inspecting every mouthful. Checking the toilet too, sniffing out any traces of vomit. Her fear is the doctor will say Holly has an eating disorder, and they always start with parents, mothers in particular, don’t they? She understands that isn’t strictly true, but still feels responsible. She should have noticed, bloody noticed!

  Checking the time again, she sighs. She knows she isn’t a perfect mum, that sometimes she shouts too loudly and for too long. But it isn’t all the time and she never breaks her rule of not being critical of her daughters’ appearances, not overtly, at least. Her mum wasn’t particularly reproving of her as a girl, but she can still recall the few occasions Nola fought back against her wilful belligerence, mostly because her mum cared ferociously about keeping up standards and what other people might think, especially the neighbours, who’re still her neighbours to this day.

  ‘Your top is dirty, Jennifer. You can’t go out in that. And I can see your bra straps.’

  ‘Well I’m wearing it, Mum, so that’s that. Don’t interfere.’

  ‘A slut! That’s what the neighbours will think!’

  She returns to the boy. He’s looking back with a beam on his face, so she ruffles his hair and turns the page, wondering about his mum, who seems to snap angrily when she collects him from school. But who knows what ‘goes on behind closed doors’, as Nola would say. Like Penny’s mum.

  ‘Kids struggle with high-achieving parents. More often than not, the pressure comes from themselves,’ Ian commented when she briefly filled him in about the reasons for Penny’s episode. She didn’t tell him when and how Will had told her. Nor about his plans for a baby. She’s trying very hard not to think about that.