The Fantastic Book of Everybody's Secrets (7 page)

It took only seconds for Tom to arrive at the bitter
conclusion
that all his relatives wanted to see him flattened under the wheels of a bus, the same ones Lucy was always singing about, the ones that went round and round all day long. ‘It's too late to be caring towards somebody once they're dying in hospital,' he said glumly. ‘A family shouldn't be like the Samaritans: only there to save you if you're absolutely desperate. They should want you to be happy and…have nice trips to Venice.'

‘Exactly,' said Selena. ‘And it's not nice trips plural,' said Selena. ‘It's one trip to Venice, which I won, fair and square. And they're going to stand by and let us turn it down? Don't any of them care if we both have nervous breakdowns or if our marriage falls apart?'

‘But we're nowhere near nervous breakdowns,' said Tom. ‘The kids are really easy and good…'

‘Not easy and good enough for those lazy shits!'

‘…and they're at nursery all week, anyway, and our marriage is absolutely fine.'

‘Yes! No thanks to them! Anyway…' Selena held up her hands, fingers spread wide in a ‘that's enough' gesture. ‘I mustn't get all agitated again. I've spent most of the morning like this.' She exhaled deeply. ‘Do you want a drink?'

‘No! I want to know how you got round the problem. Tell me we're going to Venice next May.'

‘Oh, we'll be going,' Selena said confidently.

Tom's heart plummeted. He didn't like the sound of that. ‘What do you mean, “we'll be going”?' As if it were not yet fully in the bag. ‘Who'll look after the kids?'

Selena walked over to put the kettle on. When she turned to face Tom again, she had a sly grin on her face. ‘I don't know exactly who, but it'll be somebody from our new family.'

Tom shivered. This sounded like a comment of the sort that might first alert a husband to his wife's rankling insanity. ‘Our new family?' he echoed.

‘Yes. Don't look worried – I haven't gone chicken oriental. I made a simple, practical decision. Nobody should be alone in the world, without a safety net of people to support and look after them in times of need and…offers of free holidays. This morning proved that we haven't got that, and that's not a situation I'm prepared to accept. So I've advertised for new relatives.'

‘
What
?' Tom gasped.

‘And there's no point trying to talk me out of it. The advert's already up on the notice board at Tesco.' Selena laughed. ‘It's brilliant. You wait: once news gets around about what I've done, everyone'll be doing it. Think of all the elderly people who've got noone, or whose kids have cut them off after big feuds. Think of everyone whose loved ones have died, or disowned them because they once got into trouble…'

‘Selena, you can't seriously…'

‘I'm deadly serious. I'll get masses of responses to my advert, you wait and see. I'm going to hand-pick the members of our new family.'

‘What, from the feuders and the abandoned, the disgraced and disowned? These are the people you're going to leave in charge of Joe and Lucy?'

‘Oh, you're such a worrier! Listen, I swear to you, if you're not a hundred per cent happy with our new family, we won't leave the children with them. Okay?'

‘Okay,' said Tom, though he was far from it. Thinking back over the way Selena had constructed her sentence, it seemed to him that she had snuck in the ‘new family' part; there was no suggestion that Tom might be able to veto these solicited relatives, either as individuals or collectively, as a theoretical proposition. He would have a say only in whether or not to leave the children with them. But he knew Selena well and she
was not sneaky. She was straightforward. If she made the new family sound non-negotiable, that was because it was. Selena was drawing this feature of the situation to Tom's attention, not trying to disguise it.

He knew there was no point arguing. New relatives would be sought on his behalf, even as he protested. He prayed that everybody in Tesco this afternoon would be too busy to look at the notice board. First thing tomorrow morning, on his way to work, he would nip in and take the advert down.

‘So, it'll be fine,' Selena concluded. ‘I'm really quite excited about the whole thing. How was your day? Your morning?'

Tom decided not to tell her about Nora Connaughton's memo or his response. It would sound pathetic. Big deal, he'd taken a veiled pop at his boss. Had he really expected Selena to applaud his bravery? She'd spent the morning judging and firing their close relations, and sending out for new ones. She was a woman of action; how could Tom expect her to
appreciate
the subtle nuances of his way of doing things?

As it turned out, he didn't have a chance to answer. The phone in the sales office rang, and Selena picked it up. ‘Beddford Homes, how may I help you?' she recited in a
singsong
voice. Then, sounding interested and genuine all of a sudden, she said, ‘Yes, it is. Oh, you saw my advert? Brilliant! Thanks
so
much for ringing.'

Tom's gut quaked. The first aspiring substitute relative had made contact.

There was an email from Nora waiting for Tom the following day. She made no reference to his enquiry about her health.

Tom resisted the urge to spit at his computer screen. So now she was copying in not only Gillian, but Imrana from Human Resources, the department that dealt with grievances, internal wrangles, hirings and firings. The subliminal message was unequivocal – it was rather like receiving a message from God, cc The Grim Reaper, suggesting that you might want to visit the doctor for a routine check-up. As for the
mock-jovial
line about Burns Gimblett – did Nora think Tom was an idiot? Did she imagine that a dollop of praise at the end cancelled out the needling tone of the rest, the subtle bullying, the warning-masquerading-as-humble-request?

Tom gave it some thought and decided that of course she didn't. She knew what game they were playing, and she knew he knew. The email's upbeat last line was not intended to make Tom feel better; rather, it was a shield for Nora, who was evidently too gutless to say what she meant and take the consequences. Part of her wanted Tom to like her, even as she plotted to bring him down. This, he realised, gave him a certain amount of power.

He decided to reply by letter, to make it clear that there was nothing casual about his response. ‘
Dear Nora
', he typed, despising her. Of course, he too was averse to saying what he meant, but for that reason he had always taken pains to ensure that he never became the boss of anybody, never put himself in a position where he had a team of staff to manage. Nora was evidently deluded about her own capabilities. For
her to have applied for the job of division manager was as absurd as if Miffy Bunny were to make a bid to replace Orla Guerin as the BBC's Middle East correspondent.

Tom typed.

Tom chuckled. Johnny was a drug dealer who hung around the precinct centre in town. Tom bought a bag of grass from him every now and again. He re-read what he'd written and frowned. Nora would, of course, know that he was taking the piss, but would she do anything about it? Would Gillian, or Imrana, have the guts to demand to know who Johnny Eyebrows was?

Tom decided that one of the three women was bound to, though he wasn't sure which. But questions would be asked, once it was noted that there was no Phelps Corcoran Cummings employee by the name of John Eyebrows. Tom fantasised about how he might reply. ‘Oh, yes, didn't I mention it? Johnny's a friend of mine, an artist. He's doing a big installation at the moment on the theme of the language of business, and he's asked me to get him copies of some
non-confidential
correspondence…' Tom's blood fizzed with glee. He could do it; he could pull it off. All he had to do was say it solemnly, and nobody would be able to prove that his
intentions
were mocking, anarchic and disrespectful. The worst they could do was ask him, crossly, not to pass on any more Phelps Corcoran Cummings memos to Johnny. In which case he could offer the honest mistake line of defence and promise never to do it again.

Tom sent the letter to Nora, Gillian and Imrana. He did not bother to print out a copy for Johnny Eyebrows, for he was as certain as he could be that Johnny would not
appreciate
the brilliance of the whole scheme. It didn't matter; Tom appreciated it enough for both of them. His whole body pinged with adrenaline. He spent most of the day humming while he worked and, at five thirty, found that he was less keen than usual to leave the building. The offices of Phelps Corcoran Cummings were no longer merely the site of his suffering; they were the glistening white arena in which he showed a few people a thing or two, people who might say, ‘I never thought that mousy Tom Foyers had it in him.'

There was another reason why he wasn't keen to leave work, a reason unconnected to his job. At seven o'clock he was due to drink wine and eat cheese with three strangers who had, on the telephone yesterday and this morning, professed to want to form a family with him and his wife. Tom sighed and pulled Selena's advertisement out of his jacket pocket. He'd removed it from Tesco at five past eight, on his way
in, but he'd been too late. At least three people had already seen it, the three who would be joining Tom and Selena at the Beddford development's show home this evening.

Selena had suggested congregating there rather than at home, just in case any of the three applicants for feigned kinship turned out to be mentally unstable. ‘We don't want them to know where we live if they're nutters, do we?' she'd said to Tom over breakfast. Briefly, Tom had suspected her of taking this sensible precaution and talking about nutters as a cunning way of presenting herself – by contrast, and falsely – as sane. But then he remembered that Selena did not have hidden agendas. So maybe she was sane; he'd always thought so.

Tom had said nothing. Every molecule of his brain, every atom of his heart was opposed to Selena's plan, but he found it impossible to protest, and this wasn't only because of his usual reluctance to speak his mind. What stumped him was that Selena argued her case so well; logically, he couldn't fault her. His objection stemmed from a combination of two fears: of the unknown (the new relatives) and of the unconventional (the plan to acquire new relatives).

Thinking about it, Tom decided that the latter was the more serious problem for him. ‘Nobody does this!' he'd wanted to scream at Selena. ‘Not a single person in the entire world has ever done this! I don't want to be a freak!' He could imagine what she'd say: ‘Imagine if Noah had been a chicken like you – there'd have been no ark. Imagine if Martin Luther King had said that to himself. Or Emmeline Pankhurst. I'm ahead of my time, that's all. One day everyone'll do it. Real, blood families will be as passé as natural childbirth and
breastfeeding
– two other bloody stupid ideas!'

He looked again at Selena's notice and shook his head. At the top, in capital letters, she had written, ‘DO YOU DESERVE A BETTER FAMILY THAN THE ONE YOU'VE GOT?' Underneath, she'd elaborated. ‘Do your relatives continually let you down? Do they fail to meet your needs
and support you in the way you'd like them to? Do you feel alone in the world? Or perhaps you really are alone, with no living parents, children or siblings, or at least not ones you're in contact with. If so, then you're in the same position as us. We are Tom and Selena Foyers, a married couple with two children. We have a large extended family but they fall way short of the satisfaction mark, and so we're recruiting for replacements. Reciprocal support guaranteed. If you're
interested
, ring Selena on 01238554899.'