Authors: Tess Stimson
Harriet put her head down on her desk and sobbed. If only she could remember!
The truth was, there were rather a lot of things from her rackety pre-Oliver days she couldn’t quite remember. It wasn’t that she’d had a
problem
with alcohol,
exactly. She hadn’t got drunk every day, or even every other day. She hadn’t reached for a bottle as soon as she’d got home from work, as so many of her friends did. But at
weekends, or at a party, or a wedding (or, indeed, a funeral), she’d occasionally had more than was good for her.
Sometimes considerably more.
As a child and adolescent, she’d been painfully uncertain. Fearsomely bright, worryingly thin, the ugly duckling in a family of confident, attractive swans, she’d had few friends and
little in the way of a social life. As for boys, by the time she’d left for Oxford, she still hadn’t been kissed.
But she’d known university was a time for reinvention. She’d taken herself in hand with her usual thoroughness, and by the end of that first Michaelmas term, she’d effected an
astonishing transformation. Gone were the pie-crust blouses and sensible knee-length corduroy skirts; the glasses had been traded for contacts, and the long, centre-parted mousey hair for a glossy
chestnut bob. When she’d arrived home for Christmas, her parents hadn’t recognized her.
But what had enabled her to carry it off was the discovery of her personal Philosopher’s Stone, the magic ingredient that turned her from shy wallflower into belle of the ball:
alcohol.
It had astonished her how just a few drinks made her sparkle. Suddenly she was witty and entertaining, confident in her ability to amuse and allure. Belief in yourself, she’d quickly
discovered, was far sexier than a perfect nose or a D-cup chest. A couple of gin and tonics, two or three glasses of wine and she could flirt and dance and tease with the best of them. Within a
week of the start of Hilary term, she’d lost her virginity to a first-year history student at Corpus; by the time Trinity term had ended and she’d gone down for the summer, she and Ben
had been happily going steady.
They’d dated throughout their second and final years. After graduation (both of them obtaining a respectable 2:1), Harriet had joined a PR firm as a junior accounts manager (aka dogsbody),
and Ben had become ‘something in the City’. For the time being, Harriet had commuted to central London from her parents’ home in Kensington while Ben had moved in with his older
brother in Putney, but it had been understood by both that this was just a temporary arrangement. Once they had a bit of money put by (which Ben had been quick to assure her wouldn’t be long,
given the ridiculous amount he was now being paid), they’d find a flat and put things on a ‘more formal footing’, as he quaintly phrased it. Harriet’s mother had already
been to Peter Jones and picked out their wedding china.
But just weeks after starting her new job, she’d met Dylan Poland, an advertising executive ten years her senior, and fallen violently in love. Within days, she’d broken off their
unofficial engagement. Ben had been broken-hearted, and Harriet had been wracked with guilt but too much in love to care.
The affair had lasted three months, at which point Dylan had left her for a twenty-year-old company intern. It had been Harriet’s turn to nurse a broken heart, and it had taken five years
for it to truly mend. But in the meantime she’d had sex. Lots of sex. With lots of men. Quite often, she’d woken up in a strange bed with a man she didn’t recognize, forced to
piece together the events of the night before from the quantity of used condoms on the floor. She hadn’t liked herself very much, but had consoled herself with the thought that at least
she’d always used protection.
And then she’d met Oliver.
She was twenty-six by this time, an associate director for a boutique PR firm who’d headhunted her eighteen months earlier. Her company had been approached by the new young CEO of a new
young sandwich company that had been riding high on the back of the green eco wave and now needed their help to take it to the next level. Harriet had done more than that. As Oliver often joked,
she’d liked the new young CEO so much, she’d married him.
The attraction between them had been immediate and mutual. At the end of their first business meeting, he’d invited her out to dinner. At the end of their first date, she’d invited
him home to bed.
To her surprise, he’d politely but firmly turned her down. ‘I’m holding out for what you’re
not
prepared to give,’ he’d told her.
For the first time, she’d looked at him properly. Like all the men who’d spun through the revolving door of her bedroom over the past five years, Oliver Lockwood had been charming
and good-looking, albeit in a crumpled, rugby-prop-forward kind of way. But unlike all the other men, he had a calm certainty about him, as if he knew exactly who he was and what he was about, and
therefore had nothing to prove – in the bedroom or out of it. Intrigued, she’d accepted his offer of a second date. Which had ended exactly the same way. As did a third, and then a
fourth.
‘Is it me?’ she’d asked finally. ‘Don’t you
want
to go to bed with me?’
‘More than you can imagine,’ Oliver said feelingly. ‘But I don’t want to be another notch on your bedpost. I’m in this for the long haul.’
So, it turned out, was Harriet. Love crept up on her unawares, quietly stealing into her heart and putting down roots while she was looking the other way. What she felt for Oliver was nothing
like the incendiary passion she’d had for Dylan Poland, nor the security blanket of her cosy relationship with Ben. This was
love,
the kind of love Shakespeare had written about, the
ever-fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken. And when they had finally slept together, two months after they’d met, she’d understood at last why Oliver had waited.
He’d proposed the next morning, and she’d accepted without hesitation.
When I saw you I fell in love, and you smiled because you knew.
The week before their wedding, she’d been shopping for a going-away outfit in South Molton Street when she’d unexpectedly run into Ben. Over the past few years they’d become
friends, meeting up a couple of times a year for a drink; although, if she was honest, guilt was always a lingering factor in their friendship.
‘I gather congratulations are in order,’ Ben had said, kissing her on the cheek.
She’d glanced awkwardly at the small princess-cut diamond on her left hand. ‘Oh. Yes. You remember Oliver, don’t you?’
‘He’s a lucky guy,’ Ben said. ‘You know I’m getting married myself in a few months?’
‘Oh, Ben, that’s wonderful,’ Harriet said warmly. ‘I’m so pleased for you. Katy, isn’t it?’
He’d laughed. ‘Actually, no. That ended a while back. Her name’s Julia, and we only met a couple of months ago. It’s a long story.’ He’d hesitated.
‘Look, I don’t suppose you want to go for a quick drink? I know a great little wine bar just round the corner. If you’ve got time, it would be great to catch up
properly.’
It had seemed churlish to say no. One quick drink had turned into two; two drinks had turned into two bottles. She’d forgotten what good company Ben could be. They’d been together
for three years, after all – they shared a lot of history. And Ben was part of the life she was about to leave behind for ever; it had seemed fitting to close out the chapter with him.
When they’d finally stumbled outside several hours later, she’d been surprised to find it was already dark.
‘Hey!’ Ben had exclaimed, catching her arm as she’d lurched sideways. ‘We’d better get some coffee into you. You can’t go home like this.’
She’d been in no position to argue. Still struggling to stand upright, she’d let Ben hail a taxi and help her into it. Resting her head against his shoulder, she’d closed her
eyes as the world spun. She hadn’t been this drunk for ages. She couldn’t let Oliver see her like this.
When the taxi had dropped them off, she’d realized she was outside Ben’s flat.
‘Ben, are you sure this is a good idea?’ she’d said doubtfully. ‘Won’t Julia mind?’
‘She’s at her parents’ this weekend. Come on. A cup of strong coffee, and we’ll pour you into a cab home.’
His apartment had hardly changed. Still the same sofa they’d once made out on, though it now sported scatter cushions – his fiancée’s influence, she supposed – and
the same vintage movie posters on the walls. She’d picked up a photo of a pretty dark-haired girl in a silver frame.
This must be Julia.
It had been a little disconcerting to realize
how much like Harriet she looked.
‘Kettle’s on,’ Ben had said, coming out of the kitchen. ‘But there’s something I want you to try first.’
He’d handed her a glass full of amber liquid, and she’d laughed. ‘Ben, I can’t. I’m going to have a monster hangover tomorrow as it is.’
‘Forty-year-old single malt. You’ll regret it for ever if you don’t.’
Except it hadn’t been the whisky she’d ended up regretting, of course. Waking up naked in Ben’s bed the next morning, Harriet had never been more ashamed in her life. No matter
that she hadn’t been able to remember anything after her second glass of Glenmorangie (which had gone down like velvet – she did remember
that);
she’d cheated on Oliver,
and they weren’t even married yet.
Ben had found her huddled in the bathroom crying her eyes out.
‘Harry, darling, please stop,’ he’d said, crouching on the floor beside her. ‘There’s no need to cry. Nothing happened, I promise.’
‘But I’m
naked
!’ Harriet had sobbed, pulling the bathroom towel tighter around her chest.
He’d looked abashed. ‘Well. You, um, you were a bit sick. Quite a lot, actually. All over your clothes. And the sofa—’
‘You undressed me?’
‘I had to,’ he’d protested. ‘You’d kind of passed out at that point. I put everything in the machine, I hope that’s OK. It’s just drying now.’
She’d closed her eyes and moaned.
‘Look, it’s nothing I haven’t seen before,’ he’d said awkwardly. ‘Honestly, Harry. You don’t have to worry. No one’s ever going to
know.’
The problem, Harriet thought despairingly now, sixteen years later, raising her head from her desk and blowing her nose, was that even
she
didn’t know what had really happened.
Maybe Ben had just been trying to be kind and spare her feelings. Or perhaps he’d regretted it as much as she had. After all, he’d had just as much to lose. The last thing he’d
needed was the complication of an ex-girlfriend on the scene.
She paced towards the window. Charlie and George were building a huge snowman in the back garden, while Sam directed proceedings from his position on the lowest branch of a maple tree. There was
no sign of Florence, naturally. She’d be holed up in her room until May, plugged into her iPad.
Florence. Their honeymoon baby, named after the city in Italy where they’d stayed. Born exactly eight months and three weeks after the wedding.
Nine months after that night with Ben.
Harriet pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. If Oliver wasn’t Florence’s father, it could only be Ben.
Oh God,
what the hell was she going to do?
Harriet was puritanically truthful. She told salesgirls if they gave her too much change, and pointed out mistakes in her favour on restaurant receipts. Once, when she’d discovered that a
‘fake’ Tiffany lamp she’d picked up at a car boot sale was in fact genuine, she’d spent days tracking down its former owner so that she could pay a fair price. On her
wedding day, she’d made a promise to herself that what happened that night with Ben would be the only lie between them, that she would never lie to Oliver again, either by word or omission,
and it was one she’d kept.
But how could she tell him about this? He’d be devastated. And Florence, too, if she ever found out. Yet how could she
not
tell him? Keeping it secret would destroy the essence of
their marriage – turn it into an empty sham, a lie.
The screensaver on her laptop changed to a photograph of Oliver and Florence in the garden, arms round each other, laughing. They were so alike in every way, far more so than she and Florence.
How could it be that she wasn’t his?
How?
Suddenly she made up her mind. She wasn’t going to make a decision that would change their entire lives without being
absolutely sure
of her facts.
Running upstairs, she collected Florence’s toothbrush from her bathroom, and then her own and Oliver’s from their ensuite down the hall. DNA testing was the only way to be certain.
Once she
knew,
she could decide what to do.
She wasn’t a religious woman, but for the first time in years she found herself praying.
Oliver had had to cancel several important meetings to be home in time to take Florence to her Spring Prom, but there was no way in hell he was going to miss it. He wanted to
vet what she was wearing, for a start. She might think she was all grown up, but at fifteen was still a child as far as he was concerned.
He needn’t have worried. As he stood in the hall, stamping snow from his boots and unwinding his scarf, his daughter floated down the stairs in a cloud of delicate grey chiffon and beaded
velvet. Oliver froze for a moment, his breath catching in his throat. Her long blonde hair was parted simply to one side, and she was wearing a plain silver cross at her neck and the pretty pearl
studs Harriet’s mother had given her for Christmas in her ears. He could see she had make-up on – a little silvery eye-shadow and a light sheen of lip gloss – but it was subtle
enough that he didn’t mind. She looked exactly as a fifteen-year-old girl
should
look – beautiful and fresh and innocent.
She did a little twirl, and the sequined handkerchief points of her skirt whispered around her legs. ‘What d’you think?’
‘You look beautiful,’ he said softly. He caught her hands in his and held them wide. ‘The belle of the ball.’
‘My dress is all right?’ Florence asked anxiously. ‘You don’t think it’s a bit babyish?’