‘Darling,’ I said, as she took it, looking bemused. ‘I think there’s someone on the phone for you.’ She pressed the button carefully.
‘Hello?’ she said. Her face lit up. ‘It’s Daddy!’ she shrieked, looking at us all in wonderment. ‘Daddy, where are you
gone
?’
Greg’s Christmas present to me was waiting in the garden. After coffee and chocolates, we trooped out, full of food and wine, to see what it was. It was bitingly cold, and the sky was filled with snow clouds. Charlotte, Rosie and Fiona were all wearing unsuitable footwear. They stepped delicately over my back lawn, which had been dug up for the replacement of the septic tank. The grass that I had tended so carefully had all vanished, every last blade of it. The hillocks of mud had been frozen solid by the morning’s frost.
‘I hope you like them,’ Greg said, as he led us over the strange terrain towards the smallest outbuilding.
‘What are they?’ I was suspicious.
‘You’ll see.’
Charlotte kept looking at me and smiling knowingly. Rosie was holding Greg’s hand. Andy and Fiona walked apart from each other. Greg opened the door, and three red hens ambled happily out of the shed.
‘Chickens!’ I gasped. I watched them grouping together, trying to decide which way to walk. ‘Greg, that is the most brilliant present anyone’s ever given me! Thank you!’ I hugged him and kissed each cheek. Charlotte had given me a winter wetsuit, and now Greg had got me chickens.
The chickens started to explore the garden, pecking at the cold, hard ground. Alice ran after them.
‘Thought you needed them,’ said Greg, a hand on my shoulder. ‘Everyone else has got them. Martine got these ladies for me. Are you going to name them?’
I smiled. ‘You’d better name one, for starters,’ I told him.
‘Lenin,’ he said at once. ‘I was hoping you were going to ask me.’
I laughed. ‘Lenin? Lenin’s a man.’
He shrugged. I saw Rosie looking dewy-eyed at him. I wished I had someone to look at me like that.
‘It’s a good name for a chicken,’ he said. I agreed. I called Alice back and asked her to name another.
‘Emperor Zurg,’ she said instantly. ‘This one here. The purple one.’
One chicken had dark tail feathers. It took an imaginative leap to see her as purple, but I knew what Alice meant.
‘And I’m calling the third one Sarah,’ I said firmly. ‘One of them has to have a normal name. A girl’s name, at least. A slightly bizarre memorial to my mother, but it is one, nonetheless.’
‘Are you sure you’re putting the house on the market?’ Fiona asked, sidling over. She had been quiet during lunch. I led her out of earshot.
‘Of course I am. I’ve got no money and there’s no work round here, is there? Fi, is everything all right? You’re so quiet.’
She sighed, and smiled at me. She looked strained, and even through all her make-up, I could see she was pale.
‘It’s been eventful,’ she said quietly. ‘Not all bad.’ I followed the line of her gaze. She was staring at Alice, who was holding Charlotte’s hand and running at the chickens, trying to jump over them, and sending them running, wings flapping, in a squawking panic. Charlotte’s high pink shoes were being ruined, but she was being extremely game about it.
‘Alice is a pet,’ Fiona said. ‘I’d like to have a little girl just like that.’
‘Do you mean you and Andy are going to try for a baby?’
She giggled. ‘No. I mean the deed is done.’
‘Really?’
‘Really!’
I bit back the first question that sprang to mind. ‘Fi!’ I said, instead. ‘That’s amazing. Congratulations! When’s it due?’
‘June. It’s still quite early days so we’re keeping it quiet.’
‘Of course. Is Andy pleased?’
She grimaced. ‘On days when he believes it’s his, he’s over the moon.’
I shook my head. ‘He’ll come round. How wonderful. A baby.’ A new baby always made the world look better, fresher, full of possibilities.
Alice came bouncing up and took both of us by the hand. ‘Charlotte says I can have some more of my Santa. Auntie Fi, will you help me with my tights so I can do a wee?’
‘Of course I will, darling.’
We walked to the back door. I took Alice’s boots off and helped her into her slippers. ‘You’re honoured,’ I said to Fi. ‘Plus, consider it practice.’
‘Come on then,’ Fiona told Alice. ‘Do you use the potty or the toilet?’
‘Normally the potty. At school we have little loos.’ They disappeared indoors. I could hear Alice talking earnestly about wees. I went in to light the fire.
‘I’ll come in too,’ said Andy, making me jump. He had crept up behind me. ‘I could use a good strong cup of tea.’
While he made the tea, Andy spoke, without looking at me. His words rushed out, one on top of another. ‘Emma,’ he said, ‘I know you knew all along about Fiona’s thing. I know that everyone knows. It was back in August when Alice told me about Auntie Fi’s dirty weekend with the gardener. You explained it away and I believed you. I wish you’d told me the truth.’
I looked over my shoulder. The fire was refusing to get going. ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘It’s over now, isn’t it? And congratulations about the baby.’
He shrugged. ‘Is it over? You tell me. Is it my baby? She says so, but she would, wouldn’t she? I don’t like being taken for a mug. And watching my wife giving birth to the gardener’s kiddy spells M-U-G to me.’
I added another log and stood back to see if it caught. ‘What are you saying? You’re not leaving her?’ I could see why Andy felt humiliated. Everybody knew about Fiona and Didier. In the market the previous Saturday, a woman I had never met before had planted herself in front of me and had demanded to know, in an extremely hostile manner, whether I was the English lady who was messing around with Valerie’s husband. I had denied it hotly. I had accidentally defended myself by saying, ‘
C’est l’autre Anglaise.
’
The woman had nodded and her face had softened. ‘So,’ she said, ‘it’s you who are all alone. With the little girl. Your husband had another wife and another daughter.’
‘A son,’ I told her, with a nod. She smiled and stroked my arm.
‘These things are hard,’ she said, with what had sounded like the voice of experience.
‘No,’ Andy said now. ‘I’m sticking with her for the moment. But I feel like the last to bloody know. I trusted her, Emma. Everyone’s laughing at me.’
‘I am sorry,’ I told him. ‘That was the weekend that Matt vanished. I didn’t really care about anything. And anyway, it’s hard to know what to do. If I’d told you, Fi would have been mad at me. We couldn’t have been friends any more. And for all I knew, you might not have wanted to know. It’s hard to know how other people’s relationships work. Fi said you had, well, done similar things yourself.’
He laughed quietly. ‘I’m sure she did. She’s thrown that back at me often enough. Yes, I have had affairs. Twice. So yes, I know this doesn’t put me in a good position. I’m a hypocrite. Acknowledged. Still, if I’d had an inkling what Matt was up to, I’d like to think I’d have tipped you off.’
‘The scale of that was a bit different. As he pointed out to me, he was having an affair, and it was with me. I had no idea I was the other woman. He told me I was. He said, you’ve always been the other.’ I shuddered as, once again, I heard him saying those awful words.
Andy handed me a cup of tea. ‘Anyways, no hard feelings. She should never have dragged you into it. Fuck knows, you’re going through worse than me. No arguments there.’
‘Andy?’ called Rosie, from the doorway. ‘Could you say that last bit again but without saying fuck? It’s so much better when we don’t have to beep it.’
He raised his voice. ‘Rosie! This is a fucking private conversation! Fuck off!’
Rosie looked at me, eyebrows raised.
‘You said you weren’t filming,’ I reminded her. I was annoyed. ‘I didn’t even know you had your camera. Please don’t use that footage.’
She slumped down in an armchair. ‘Sorry. Sorry, both of you.’ Rosie looked exhausted. ‘Habit. And, well, if I’m behind a camera it means I don’t have to participate. I’m trying to take my mind off things.’
I left the kitchen and joined Rosie. ‘What things?’ I asked. Rosie seemed efficiency incarnate. She and Greg appeared to be in the idyllic first stages of what could be a lasting relationship. She was devoted to her work, she looked good, and everyone liked her. ‘What on earth are you taking your mind off?’
Andy appeared with amber liquid in three glasses. ‘Here we are. Everyone needs it.’
We clinked glasses.
‘Oh, just some stuff that I need to sort out,’ Rosie said airily.
The beach was bleak and almost empty. I struggled, freezing, into my brand-new wetsuit, and my boots, gloves, hood and something called a rash vest, all of which had come from Bella. Greg had told my sisters exactly what to buy me. He changed next to me, quickly and efficiently. He had shaved off his beard since he had been with Rosie.
We ran down to the water and straight in, before my courage failed me. I paddled out as quickly as I could. I was not good, but I was getting better, and I was intent on becoming a real surfer.
Suddenly, after twenty minutes, I caught my biggest ever wave. As I paddled for it, I realised how huge it actually was. My legs almost gave way under me. I forced myself to my feet, and I surfed it. I was shaking with excitement when I fell off, and when I popped up I was unable to stop grinning. I splashed to the shore.
‘Did you get it?’ I asked. Rosie nodded. ‘Promise you’ll put that on telly?’ I badgered.
‘You bet.’
I was desperate for Matt to see me surf. I wanted him to regret the day he scoffed at my surfing ambitions, and I wanted him to respect me for doing it.
When I had money, I was going to buy myself a board. It was depressing to realise how many things, these days, came under the heading of ‘when I’ve got money’. I was a single mother, and the handsome profit I had made on the house in Brighton had evaporated. I was glad that the builders were taking so long to finish the house. The longer I could put off their final bill, the better. The longer I could delay putting my beautiful, troublesome house on the market, the better.
After our surf, when we were dressed again, Greg suddenly turned to me.
‘Emma,’ he said. ‘Can we maybe go and get a coffee? I need to talk to you.’
‘Course.’
I noticed Greg and Rosie exchanging glances.
‘I’m going to make some calls,’ Rosie said, getting into the front seat of her car and taking out her mobile phone. ‘I’ll see you when you’re done.’
‘This is intriguing,’ I told Greg, as we took a seat in a beachfront café that should not have been open. We were the only customers. The plate-glass windows opened out onto a panoramic view of the bleak beach. A man walked past with a dog, a scarf pulled up over his face to keep the cold wind at bay.
‘There’s something I need to talk to you about,’ Greg said, pulling off his knitted hat.
‘Is it to do with Rosie?’
He laughed briefly and shook his head. ‘No. Rosie’s fine. It’s to do with you.’
‘I’m listening.’
‘Um,’ said Greg, then started to speak quickly, as if he needed the momentum. ‘It’s about your father. I know he’s a mystery, you don’t know who he is, and you think my mum knows. Well, she does. I do, too. I have done for a few years. He got drunk at New Year a while back and told me. He said he’d promised my mum he’d never tell you but he wants to. He said I can now.’
The waiter came. I ordered my coffee without taking my eyes off Greg.
‘Who?’ I demanded, as soon as the waiter had gone.
Greg swallowed. ‘Who? My dad, of course. Your dad. Our dad. Apparently Sarah and him had a thing once. He was married to my mum at the time, obviously, and Charlotte was just born. I didn’t really want to hear it, I can tell you. It’s not the kind of confession you want to hear from your own father. But once he started he couldn’t stop talking. Sarah was very happy, very keen and excited about everything at the time and she kind of seduced him and he was caught up in the moment and went along with it and afterwards he felt terrible.’ Greg looked at me and looked away again. ‘I mean, of course he did – what kind of man sleeps with his wife’s little sister? Particularly when she has mental health issues. A right bastard. So, Sarah got pregnant. She told Mum who the father was, Mum went mad, as you can imagine, and it was all hushed up. Dad gave Sarah money for you. So.’ He put his hands, palms up, on the table. ‘There you go. I really am your brother. And now I’ve told you.’
I tried to think of something to say. ‘OK,’ I said in the end. The coffee arrived. It was so strong it took the inside off my mouth. I was grateful. I tried out the concept in my head. I was not an orphan. I had a parent. Geoff was my dad. ‘Bloody hell,’ I said suddenly. ‘Christa must hate me.’
Greg leaned back. ‘I think you’d know if Christa hated you.’
‘But she must. Her husband shagged her sister. I’m the evidence. And she brought me up. The woman is a saint.’ I thought about it. ‘She must hate me as much as I hate Jo. I bet she can’t even bear to look at me.’
‘It’s not like you and Jo. It’s like you and Oliver. You don’t hate him, do you?’
I considered this. ‘Of course I don’t.’
‘How do you feel about him?’
‘Sorry for him.’
‘Because?’
‘Because his life’s been fucked around by adults and he’s so innocent that it’s heartbreaking. Like Alice.’
‘And there you have it. And if by some weird quirk of fate you were ever called upon to take him in and bring him up, you wouldn’t hold anything against him, would you?’
I tried to imagine it. ‘I suppose not. Have you spoken to Christa about any of this, or just Geoff? Why didn’t he tell me himself?’ Questions were falling over each other as they occurred to me. ‘Do Bella and Charlotte know?’
Greg sipped his drink. ‘No, I’ve never spoken to Mum, though she knows I know. Just Geoff. He said he nearly told you in September at Biarritz, but he was worried that you were so fragile, he thought it might do more harm than good. He asked me on the phone yesterday if I’d tell you before I left. He’s going to be hanging by the phone now waiting for a reaction.’