Truth Hurts

by Rebecca Reid

  Would she ever stop being impressed at the way his body was built? A little glow swelled inside her, thinking how much more attractive Drew was than Mac or Ralph.

  ‘Good, I think. I like Emma a lot. And all of them, really. Though I don’t think Dilly likes me very much.’

  ‘I wouldn’t worry about that.’ Drew had changed into a pair of cotton pyjama bottoms and settled on the bed, the last of his Ibiza tan still clinging to his skin. Something about the fact that Drew told her not to worry, rather than reassuring her that everyone thought she was great, stung.

  ‘But I want your friends to like me.’

  ‘They do like you.’

  ‘Did they say that?’

  ‘I can tell.’

  ‘You think Dilly likes me?’

  Drew put a pillow behind his back, seeming to accept that this was going to be a conversation. ‘Things are complicated with Dilly.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘We were together. Years ago.’

  Poppy dropped the coat hanger she was putting her dress back on to. ‘What?’ she half-laughed. ‘You and Dilly?’

  Drew dropped his gaze to the floor, a bashful smile on his lips. ‘Yes, me and Dilly. Is that so strange?’

  ‘But she’s so …’ Poppy trailed off.

  ‘Conservative?’ he suggested.

  ‘I was going to say cold. Didn’t you get frostbite on your dick?’

  Drew surprised her by snorting out loud, racked with real laughter that came from the stomach. ‘Oh God,’ he said. ‘I can’t wait to tell Ralph that.’

  ‘You can’t!’

  ‘He’ll think it’s hilarious.’

  ‘Don’t tell him I said it.’

  ‘I thought you wanted him to like you?’

  ‘I thought he already did?’

  Drew held his arms out and when she capitulated and crossed the room to him, he pulled her into his chest. ‘Look, you were amazing this evening. I can’t tell you how grateful I am.’

  ‘Grateful?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You’ve put in so much thought, so much effort. I love seeing you with them. They really like you, and honestly I just couldn’t have done this without you. It’s …’ He paused. ‘It’s pretty special to have everyone I care about in one place.’

  He was wrong. Any of the Henriettas he went to school with could have done this. Any of the women that Dilly and Emma probably threw at him whenever he’d come back to England. It wasn’t exactly hard, not with so much money and time and good looks. He could have popped a ring on a much longer, more aristocratic finger than hers and had the exact same thing, only whoever this fantasy woman was wouldn’t make a fuss about it, or burst into tears when she dropped a vase of flowers, or prep supper in her knickers and a T-shirt because she couldn’t be bothered to get dressed.

  ‘I love you,’ she whispered, still feeling the words odd on her lips.

  ‘I love you too. And I’m wiped.’

  ‘Me too. I’m going to take my make-up off and do my teeth and then I’m passing out on you.’

  In the bathroom Poppy tipped her bottle of cleanser upside down. It was empty. Had she finished it earlier? Maybe Gina had used it when she was getting changed. Poppy took her dressing gown off the hook on the back of the bathroom door and padded down the corridor to the guest bathroom. She’d put a new bottle of cleanser there that morning. The door was shut. She reached to twist the handle when she realized that there was a strip of light under the door. Had someone left the light on, or was there a person in there? Terrified she’d open the door to reveal Cordelia, or Emma, with her knickers around her ankles, she pressed her ear to the door. Could she hear voices? Dropping to her knees, entirely aware that her behaviour was bordering on psycho, she looked through the keyhole. It was a huge Georgian door just like the rest of them, with a decent-sized hole punctured halfway up. The locks stuck, so Poppy had taken all the mismatched keys away, temporarily replacing them with bolts, meaning to have them fixed. Through the little wooden frame Poppy saw a long, tanned thigh. At the top of the leg was half a pair of denim shorts. It was Gina. And there was something else. White fabric. It looked like the bottom of a nightdress. It moved. Someone else was in the bathroom with Gina.

  Poppy saw a slender, pale leg. Was it Emma or Cordelia? What the fuck was happening? She got to her feet and stepped, silently, several paces back. Then, walking normally, she approached the door and twisted the handle. It didn’t open.

  ‘One second,’ came Gina’s voice.

  ‘Gee, it’s me,’ she said. ‘I’ve run out of cleanser and I know I put one in here. Can you see it?’

  ‘Course,’ came Gina’s reply.

  A moment later Gina’s face appeared between the wall and the door. ‘Here you go,’ she said, passing it out.

  ‘Is everything OK?’ Poppy asked. Should she just push the door open? Should she ask if anyone was in there?

  ‘Yeah,’ said Gina, closing the door. ‘Totally fine. See you in the morning.’

  CHAPTER 31

  There were few things Poppy hated more than oversleeping. It was her least favourite feeling: waking, grabbing for her phone to check the time, praying that her instincts were wrong and then discovering that they weren’t, that the time she had needed was gone for ever. Which was exactly what had happened that morning. She’d woken to see Drew, showered and dressed, standing by the window looking out to the garden. Poppy had noticed the time and ripped herself from the warm comfort of bed. ‘Why didn’t you wake me?’ she had demanded, grabbing a bathrobe and heading for the shower.

  Drew had turned, seemingly distracted. ‘Wake you?’

  ‘Yes, wake me. We’ve got guests. I’ve got to do breakfast, remember?’

  ‘You looked so happy sleeping.’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘What are you looking at?’ She followed his eyeline to the table and chairs on the lawn. Outside, Gina was clearing the ashtrays.

  ‘The lawn needs mowing,’ he said, moving away from the window. ‘Mind if I go down?’

  ‘To breakfast?’

  ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘Can’t you wait for me?’

  Drew’s eyes went to his wrist but he seemed to think better of checking the actual time. ‘It’s fine,’ she said. ‘I’ll have a lightning-fast shower. Just make some coffee and if everyone is starving then get Gina to start making food. There’s bacon in the fridge, sausages in there too. I bought nice bread, that’s in the bread bin, and proper butter, that’s in the fridge too—’

  ‘Go and have a shower.’ Drew laughed. ‘We’ll work breakfast out. You’re not running a hotel.’

  He was right. She wasn’t running anything. Dilly was.

  Poppy arrived downstairs half an hour later, her hair towel-dried and clothes sticking to her damp skin, to find Dilly standing at the Aga in pale pink jeans and a white linen blouse.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Dilly was saying to Emma, ‘give Drew that bit. You know he likes his bacon cremated.’

  Drew picked the bit of bacon up between his fingers and popped the almost black meat between his neat white teeth.

  ‘You know burned bacon gives you cancer, right?’ Emma poked Drew in the ribs. ‘As does smoking.’

  Drew wrapped his arms around her. ‘You are such a sodding killjoy.’

  ‘Poppy!’ said Dilly. ‘How did you sleep?’ It was an expression of greeting that anyone normal, anyone like Drew or Mac or maybe even Emma would think of as a pleasantry. But Poppy wasn’t stupid. She’d worked for women like Dilly for years. ‘How did you sleep?’ didn’t mean good morning, or any genuine interest in how she slept. It meant ‘You’re late for breakfast. I’ve had to help myself to your kitchen, because your guests were hungry.’

  ‘Shall I take over?’ she said to Dilly in a tone that stripped the question from the question.

  ‘Oh, it’s all right, I’m almost finished now.’

  ‘Really, I’d like to.’

  ‘You deserve to relax! Besides, cooking Drew b
reakfast brings back such happy memories.’

  ‘Oh God, not that!’ shouted Ralph from the other end of the kitchen. ‘Please don’t remind us!’

  ‘Remind you of what?’ asked Gina, coming in with a heaving tray of glasses. She put the tray down on the counter.

  ‘Oh, Gina,’ said Dilly, pointing with her spatula, ‘put those in the butler’s pantry, so they’re out of the way.’

  ‘The what?’ asked Gina, who was still wearing her sunglasses.

  ‘She means the utility room,’ said Mac.

  ‘Right,’ Gina said.

  Poppy tried to catch Drew’s eye, as if he’d be able to telepathically send her a message about how to handle this situation, about how to tell Dilly to back the hell off and stop treating Gina like staff without being rude. But Drew was picking up a copy of the paper and a mug of tea and heading over to the kitchen table.

  ‘Remind you of what?’ Poppy asked Ralph, trying to sound as if she didn’t care.

  ‘Dilly and Drew used to be a thing, about a hundred years ago,’ said Emma. ‘The worst couple of all time.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Poppy, raising her eyebrows. ‘He mentioned it.’ There was no point in seeming rattled. ‘Though he was rather evasive. How bad were you?’

  ‘Oh, we weren’t so bad.’ Dilly laughed. ‘Though even I couldn’t cope with how tidy he kept the flat.’

  ‘You lived together?’ Poppy asked before she could stop herself.

  ‘Didn’t Drew tell you?’

  Drew smiled. ‘No. I didn’t think she needed to hear a blow-by-blow of our six-month domestic car crash.’

  ‘You’re far too dramatic.’ Dilly took plates from the Aga. She’d remembered to put them in before everyone ate, so they were warm. Just the sort of thing Drew would do. Just the sort of thing Poppy always forgot to do.

  ‘We would have been fine if you hadn’t insisted on moving across the Pond,’ said Dilly.

  Poppy cocked her head to one side, wearing a smile. ‘Should I be worried?’

  Everyone laughed, loud enough that Dilly didn’t get a chance to answer. She was still smirking though, and standing by the Aga, looking like it was her kitchen. Her house. Poppy wanted to snatch the spatula out of her hand, to slam her perfect manicure in the hot heavy lids of the Aga. She took a little breath, and then crossed the kitchen to where Drew was sitting. She perched neatly on his lap, wrapping one arm around his broad shoulders. ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘You’re friendly this morning.’

  Mac snorted. ‘Get a room, you two.’

  Ralph put his newspaper up like a screen in front of Emma’s eyes. ‘I’m saving you, darling.’

  ‘Dilly?’ Poppy called from the kitchen table. ‘Seeing as you’re doing breakfast, is there any chance you’d do Gina and me some bacon too?’ She turned to the rest of the table. ‘It’s just such a treat to be cooked for,’ she said.

  Drew pinched her side gently and murmured in her ear, ‘Look who’s boss.’

  ‘You guys go and relax; Gina and I will wash up,’ said Poppy, who had eaten an entire bacon sandwich while sitting on Drew’s lap. She had a cramp in the leg she was using to take most of her weight, in case Drew found her too heavy, but it had been worth it. It was exactly what she’d never had the balls to do as a teenager.

  She’d spent years at school, standing nearish the popular girls, not exactly being bullied, not on the outside, but on the fringes. Invited if someone else dropped out. Asked to be a partner on a trip as a second option. Not lonely, not left out. Just never at the centre of things. She had realized, watching mothers in the playground, that people never grew out of it. There was always a queen bee, always a social hierarchy. And the people who claimed they were too mature for all that might have missed out on the drama, but they missed out on everything else, too. Poppy was done with missing out. She liked Emma, and Ralph. She even liked Mac. Dilly wasn’t going to be allowed to cut her out in her own home, to make her look stupid in front of Drew.

  Drew and the boys peeled off to go and set up croquet on the lawn. Emma said she was going to put a jumper on and Dilly either couldn’t find an excuse to resist Poppy’s dismissal or didn’t want to stay in the kitchen alone with them.

  ‘Fucking hell, Poppy,’ said Gina as the kitchen door closed behind Dilly. ‘Good work.’

  ‘Was it obvious?’

  Gina nodded heavily. ‘Like a period in white jeans. But she got the message, and that’s what matters.’

  Poppy stacked the plates in the dishwasher and ran the hot tap. It took for ever to get hot water here. ‘By the way, who were you in the bathroom with last night?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Last night. When I came to get cleanser. Who were you in the bathroom with?’

  Gina scraped the dish of dried-up bacon into the bin. ‘You need to get a dog. It’s a waste throwing these bits away. Bathroom?’

  ‘Yeah, I thought you were in there with someone?’

  Gina shook her head. ‘Just me.’

  ‘Are you sure? I was certain there was someone else.’

  She laughed. ‘You think I’d slipped one of those two some Viagra?’

  ‘No! I thought it was Emma. Or Dilly.’

  Gina put the dish in the hot soapy water. ‘Why would I have been in a bathroom with one of them?’

  ‘Well, that was why I was confused.’

  ‘Nope, just me.’

  ‘How come you were in that bathroom in the first place?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The guest bathroom on the second floor. You’ve got your own bathroom, upstairs.’

  ‘So I’m not allowed to leave the servants’ quarters now?’

  Poppy shook her head, trying to take back what her words had implied, how she had sounded. ‘No, no, it’s not that at all. I just wondered if there was something wrong with that bathroom. You can pee wherever you like. Come pee in our bathroom if you prefer. I’m not trying to be—’

  ‘It’s fine,’ Gina interrupted. ‘I just wanted some make-up remover, so I went down there.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Poppy, plunging her hands into the scalding water. ‘I didn’t mean to be a bitch, I was just – I thought maybe she was telling you something.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ said Gina. ‘Really. No big deal.’

  ‘Sorry,’ repeated Poppy.

  ‘Anyway, what would she have been telling me? Who’s the best yoga instructor in Chelsea? The best place to buy a diamond pony?’

  Poppy laughed. Maybe she had been wrong about last night, about what Dilly or Emma could have been talking about in the bathroom, what home truths they might be spilling. But Poppy had been at least five glasses of wine down, and tired. Could she have imagined the second pair of legs in that bathroom? Could it have been a trick of the light? Maybe. She shuttered off the thought into a little corner of her brain.

  BEFORE

  It was a classic case of right place, right time. Or rather, exactly the wrong place at the wrong time.

  Grace hadn’t woken up from her nap by three o’clock, which was unlike her. Usually she started chattering away two hours after she went down.

  Grace had always been a perfect sleeper, nodding off as soon as she was placed in her cot – a source of resentment at mother and baby group. ‘She has help,’ Caroline had heard one of the others say, once. She had wanted to pull her back by the hood of her yummy mummy parka and tell her that she only had help during the school holidays and that otherwise she and Jim managed entirely on their own. But she hadn’t. Alienating yourself from the mothers who lived near you – no matter how irritating they might be – was never a smart idea.

  At home Caroline used Grace’s nap time to try and plug all the holes in her life, paperwork, housework, even an attempt at going to the gym. But on holiday it was her time, sacrosanct and reserved for lying by the pool, reading her book or enjoying the indulgent bliss of doing nothing. She had sat up, just after 3 p.m., and looked around, realizing that neither Jack nor Poppy were doing their usual a
fternoon sunbathing. Something like intuition pricked at Caroline.

  ‘Where’s Alex?’ she asked Ella, who was sitting in the shallow end wearing her water wings and playing with a Barbie.

  ‘Don’t know,’ she said. ‘Maybe with Daddy? Or Poppy?’

  Caroline got up. ‘Let’s go and wake Grace up.’

  She climbed the twisting staircase up to the first floor with Ella’s hand in hers. She turned the corner and sitting on the bottom step of the staircase up to the children’s rooms was Poppy. She had tears streaming down her face.

  ‘Poppy? What’s wrong?’

  To her horror, Poppy sprang to her feet and rushed past her, stammering something that Caroline couldn’t catch. She watched as Poppy disappeared down the stairs.

  ‘Ella,’ Caroline said firmly. ‘Go downstairs and get your iPad from my bag.’

  Delighted with the surprise screen time, Ella skipped down the stairs.

  Caroline pushed the door open to Grace’s room, and found Jim bending over the crib, talking to Grace. Surprise and confusion replaced her sense of fear.

  ‘Who’s my little Gracie?’ he asked into the cot. ‘Who’s my little Gracie-cat?’

  ‘What’s going on?’ Her voice was concrete to his candy floss. Jim stood up, apparently surprised.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I just saw Poppy.’

  His eyebrows rose in a way that said, ‘And?’

  ‘She was crying.’

  Jim picked Grace up and jiggled her a little. She laughed, a string of spit dangling from her lip. ‘Crying? Why?’

  Caroline’s conviction was beginning to evaporate. ‘You tell me.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He crossed the room, heading for the door. ‘Didn’t you ask if she was OK?’

  ‘Jim, stop it.’

  ‘Stop what?’

  ‘You must know what happened – you must know why she was crying, she was just outside this room.’

  Jim started down the stairs. ‘Caro, I don’t want to get heavy-handed about this, but are you …’ He paused. ‘… accusing me of something?’

  Was she? Her scalp felt tight.