Guilty Secret

by Josie Metcalfe

  And those thoughts included Nick’s company for a fast-food lunch—another birthday tradition that usually ended up as a choice between hamburgers and pizza—and then home again for the promised chocolate cake.

  ‘Frankie, I’ve got a bone to pick with you,’ Vicky announced on Monday morning for all the world to hear. Well, it wasn’t quite all the world, just the half-dozen or so who happened to be within earshot at the time. Still, if the rumour machine was working as well as ever, that meant her words were going to be all round Edenthwaite in about half a nanosecond.

  The morning had started off badly and looked as if it was only going to get worse, Frankie thought with a silent groan as she felt the guilty blush spread up her throat and into her cheeks.

  The girls had been cranky this morning, probably caused by the feeling of let-down at the end of an exciting weekend. Or perhaps they were incubating this same flu bug that she’d been fighting for the last couple of days.

  Now it looked as if Vicky had found out about her liaisons with Nick and was going to confront her with the knowledge.

  ‘A bone?’ she questioned, uncomfortably aware that there was a very un-doctor-like quiver to her voice. She’d never had a confrontation like this with another woman, not even when she’d discovered Martin’s infidelity.

  ‘Yes. Ever since Saturday, Nick’s been raving about that chocolate birthday cake you made, so I think that the very least you can do is let me have a copy of the recipe.’

  Relief lent a sharp edge to Frankie’s laughter.

  ‘No problem,’ she agreed, feeling distinctly lightheaded. ‘That was actually the teetotal version for junior birthdays. There are a couple of adult versions with brandy or cherries soaked in kirsch in them.’

  ‘Don’t tell me any more,’ Vicky begged. ‘I’m a complete chocoholic and they sound so decadent that my mouth’s watering. By the way, Jack and I had fun yesterday teasing him about walking like John Wayne. Apparently it’s been years since he last went riding.’

  With a cheery wave she hurried off in the direction of the lifts, on her way to her domain in the north wing.

  Frankie leant weakly against the nearest wall, feeling rather as if she’d just been on a roller-coaster ride.

  One minute she was expecting to be denounced as a man-eater, the next she was being asked for a favourite recipe, then being thanked for giving everyone a laugh at Nick’s expense.

  There hadn’t been a word about the fact that she’d appropriated a fiancé, or about the fact that Frankie still hadn’t made a decision about Laura’s and Katie’s involvement in the wedding ceremony.

  And her head was spinning again.

  ‘Nick! You tell her it’ll be all right,’ Laura appealed. ‘She won’t listen to me.’

  Frankie managed not to groan aloud but it was a close thing.

  This argument had been raging for several days now, and she’d actually agreed to Katie inviting Nick to join them for supper in the mistaken impression that it would stop Laura raising the topic.

  No such luck.

  Ever since her daughter had heard that the senior school Valentine’s Day disco, postponed by the coach crash, had been rescheduled for this Friday evening, she’d been agitating to be allowed to attend.

  The fact that she wasn’t yet a member of the school wasn’t a bar, as the event had been planned as a local fund-raiser with a minimum age of eleven.

  Frankie was almost certain that her objections had nothing to do with the fact that it would be just one more piece of evidence that her babies were growing up fast.

  Her main objection, and the one that she couldn’t mention to Laura, was that it was due to take place on a weekend she was supposed to spend with her father. She had no idea what Martin’s attitude might be to the idea of his daughter attending such an event and she wasn’t about to stir him up into pursuing his intention of applying for custody if he’d allowed the idea to die.

  She did know that although he’d often changed custody weekends with very little notice, he objected most strongly if she wanted to make any alterations in the schedule.

  That didn’t mean that she would necessarily have given Laura her permission if the event had happened at another time, or that she was willing to allow an eleven-year-old to stay out late, albeit to a well-supervised event. At the moment, she didn’t want to give him any excuse, no matter how trivial, to be able to claim that she wasn’t a fit mother.

  Unfortunately, all Laura could see was that her mother was being an unreasonable killjoy.

  ‘I’m already eleven and lots of my friends will be going,’ Laura was saying, rehashing the arguments that Frankie had grown heartily sick of over the last few days. ‘Will you have a word with her, Nick, and persuade her to let me go?’

  ‘Uh-uh!’ Nick shook his head and raised both hands defensively. ‘I’m not getting in the middle of a private war. This is strictly between you and your mother.’

  ‘But, Nick! She’d listen if you talked to her,’ Laura pleaded. ‘You think I’m old enough to go, don’t you? And there’ll be plenty of parents supervising as well as all the teachers. Please!’

  ‘I’m sorry, Laura, but it’s not right,’ he said gently. ‘I’m your friend and your mother’s friend and it wouldn’t be fair for me to side with either of you.’

  ‘That means you’re siding with her.’ She pouted, her face set in an uncharacteristically mulish expression. ‘When I was talking to you before, you said I had to make my own choices so that they’d be right for me. Where’s the point if I’m not allowed to do what I’ve decided? It’s my first grown-up disco and she won’t let me go and it’s not fair!’

  She whirled round and flounced out of the room, her progress marked by heavy feet storming up the stairs and the slam of her bedroom door.

  Frankie sighed. ‘I’m sorry about that. I honestly thought she’d put a lid on it if you were here but it just seems to have made it worse.’

  ‘She thinks it’s the grown-ups ganging up against her?’ he suggested. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve complicated things. Would you rather I left?’

  ‘Certainly not!’ Frankie said hastily, not wanting to give up the chance of spending time with him even if it was completely chaperoned by two eagle-eyed daughters—especially if it was chaperoned by those eagle-eyed daughters.

  That way lay safety. There was no chance of anything getting out of hand.

  Anyway, she wanted a chance to ask him about that ‘making choices’ comment Laura had made, and she couldn’t do that with Katie’s ears wagging.

  ‘You were invited to share a meal with us, Nick. Do you want to help Katie set the table?’

  Laura was a very sulky presence at the table in spite of Nick’s best efforts and Frankie was afraid he was going to want to leave as soon as the meal was over, leaving her no time for a quiet word.

  She hadn’t realised that he was second on call that night until his phone rang just as he was helping the girls to clear the table at the end of the first course.

  ‘I’m sorry, Frankie,’ he said as he switched off the mobile. ‘This is going to seem like a clever ploy so that I can eat and run, but I’m going to have to go.’

  ‘But you haven’t had pudding yet,’ Katie pointed out, clearly aghast at the prospect.

  ‘If I finish my call soon enough, I could come back for it later, if your mother doesn’t mind,’ he suggested. ‘Do you know what it is?’ he added in a stage whisper. ‘Is it worth my while, coming back?’

  ‘Apple crumble and custard,’ Katie whispered back behind her hand.

  ‘Definitely worth, coming back for,’ he agreed. ‘I can’t remember when I last had apple crumble. Probably when I was at school.’

  ‘But that’s years and years!’ she exclaimed, totally forgetting to whisper in her horror. ‘You’ve probably forgotten what it tastes like.’

  The wry expression on his face made Frankie chuckle. She could have told him that her daughter believed that anyone beyond their teenag
e years was already heading for senile dementia at a rapid rate.

  The fact that Nick might be returning at any minute somehow made Laura’s surly mood more bearable.

  Clearly her daughter was intelligent enough to realise that as plan A—verbal persuasion—and plan B—enlisting outside help, had both failed, it was time to try plan C—sulking.

  She wasn’t to know that it didn’t matter how many letters of the alphabet she tried, the answer was always going to be the same. Frankie didn’t dare to upset Martin for fear that he would carry through his intention of applying for custody.

  Once the girls went up to have their baths and get ready for bed she had a few moments to herself. With a sigh of relief she sat down with a cup of tea and put her feet up. Unfortunately, that didn’t mean that she could switch her mind off, and the only way to stop herself listening for the sound of Nick’s return like a star-struck schoolgirl was to replay some of the problems she’d encountered during the day.

  Actually, there was only one patient who really stuck in her mind, a sixteen-year-old pupil at the school where the disco was due to be held.

  For just a moment, Frankie wondered if her adamant refusal to allow Laura to attend the event had anything to do with Ann Timothy’s situation, and couldn’t be absolutely sure.

  Her first visit to the practice had been a month or so ago, brought by her mother for some help with a persistent sore throat.

  When a course of antibiotics hadn’t helped, Frankie had swabbed her throat and sent the sample off to be cultured for identification.

  Today, the pretty youngster had attended on her own, obviously expecting to be handed a prescription for a more specific antibiotic to solve her problem.

  Frankie could still see the youngster’s pretty face in her mind’s eye when she’d sat down in the chair beside her to break the news.

  ‘Ann, the results are back from the lab,’ she began gently, ‘and I’m afraid they show that you’ve got a sexually transmitted disease.’

  ‘W-what? B-but that’s impossible,’ she stammered, her face going white with shock then red with embarrassment.

  ‘I’m afraid it’s true,’ Frankie insisted. ‘You’ve been diagnosed with gonorrhoea.’

  ‘But I haven’t…We didn’t…I’m still a virgin,’ she finished, clearly mortified to be speaking about this with an adult.

  ‘But you have had oral sex, haven’t you?’

  ‘Only once,’ she admitted with a grimace. ‘It was gross, but I didn’t want to risk getting pregnant so…Oh, God, you mean I’ve got gonorrhoea in my throat!’

  ‘You’ll need to inform your boyfriend so he can be tested and treated, and both of you will have to tell any other partners so they can be tested, too.’

  ‘Oh…my…God,’ she breathed, her pale blue eyes widening with every word. ‘Everyone will know.’

  ‘Not if you do it discreetly on a one-to-one basis. And you can’t duck out of it,’ Frankie reminded her sternly, hating to have to appear so severe when the girl was still clearly shocked. ‘I’m afraid it’s one of the tougher parts of being an adult—facing up to your responsibilities. I can give you an injection now that should solve the problem, but in future it would be a good idea if you started practising safe sex.’

  ‘I thought we were,’ her patient muttered glumly as she prepared for the injection of ceftriaxone, apparently becoming resigned to the situation.

  ‘There’s also a chance that you might have been infected with Chlamydia, which is more difficult to diagnose than gonorrhoea, so I want you to take a week’s course of doxycycline to be certain.’

  She went to the computer to print off a prescription while Ann straightened her clothes, then turned to face her to deliver her final warning.

  ‘Listen, Ann. I know this has all come as a shock and it’s all going to be a bit embarrassing over the next few weeks but it really is important for you to take this seriously. Not only will you make certain that your friends aren’t at risk of passing this around, but you’re also safeguarding everybody’s future.’

  ‘Our futures? How?’

  Frankie was glad to see that she’d caught the youngster’s attention.

  ‘Well, everybody’s heard about Aids and VD and have a pretty good idea of what they involve, but very few know that if a girl contracts a Chlamydia infection it can make her sterile.’

  ‘Sterile!’ That almost seemed to have shocked her more than the news that she’d caught gonorrhoea.

  ‘So,’ Frankie continued, ‘you can see how important it is that anyone who might have been in contact should get themselves checked out, or you could end up with a whole class full of female friends who can never have any children.’

  ‘It’s enough to put you off sex for life,’ Ann muttered. ‘Is it really worth all the hassle?’

  ‘It is if you find the right partner,’ Frankie reassured her. ‘How about waiting a bit longer before you start getting serious?’

  ‘You mean, use my mouth for talking instead?’ she challenged with a glint in her eyes that told Frankie that this was probably one young woman who was going to be able to use this setback to make her stronger.

  ‘A good plan,’ Frankie agreed with a grin. ‘You’ll probably find that the…ah…sexual equipment of the men worth knowing isn’t nearly as sexy as their minds.’

  The girls were ready for bed by the time she recognised the sound of Nick’s four-by-four reversing into the drive.

  ‘Mu-u-m!’ called a voice from the top of the stairs. ‘Can Nick come up to say goodnight?’

  She should have known that Katie’s sharp ears would pick his arrival up, too. It still went against the grain to hear her daughters call the man by his first name, but that was a fight she’d lost right at the beginning when Nick had insisted that he preferred it to being called ‘Uncle’ as a courtesy title.

  She opened the back door before he could knock and was greeted with a smile that warmed her right through.

  ‘I take it the offer of apple crumble is still open?’ he asked as he stepped into the warmth of the kitchen, bringing with him the sharp scent of the chilly night.

  ‘I’ll serve some out if you’ll stick your head round Katie’s door to say goodnight,’ she bargained. ‘Would you like tea or coffee to go with it?’

  ‘Coffee, please,’ he said with a grimace. ‘I’m going to need it if I’m going to have to stay awake tonight.’

  Frankie kept one ear on the soft sound of voices upstairs while she retrieved from the fridge the man-sized portion of crumble she’d saved for him. It wouldn’t take a moment to nuke it in the microwave and if she whisked a little single cream into the custard and heated that through, they would still be better than anything shop-bought.

  Finally the small cafetière was ready, too, and still Nick hadn’t returned.

  Knowing how likely it was that Katie would be trying to talk him into telling her yet more of his ‘politically correct’ fairy stories, she set off with a smile to rescue him.

  To her surprise, Katie’s light was off and there wasn’t a sound coming from her room. It was Laura’s light that was on.

  The voices were too soft for her to be able to pick out the words, so at least her daughter wasn’t shouting at him.

  Tentatively, Frankie tapped on the door with her fingertips and pushed it open a little further.

  ‘Is everything all right?’ she asked when she saw the serious expressions on both their faces.

  Laura was sitting up in bed with her chin propped on her knees with her bedclothes draped over the top like a bulky tent. Nick had turned the plain wooden chair round from the desk where she sometimes worked on her homework projects, and was sitting astride it with his arms folded on the back rail.

  ‘Everything’s fine,’ Nick assured her with a quick smile.

  ‘I apologised for being rude,’ Laura announced, rather more belligerently. ‘It’s not his fault that you don’t want me to grow up.’

  ‘Laura!’ Frankie e
xclaimed, hurt by her attitude but still unwilling to explain the reasons for her decision.

  Her daughter was only eleven and the last thing she wanted to do was put her in the middle of a tug of war between her parents. That would probably cause far more psychological damage than missing one school disco.

  ‘Laura,’ Nick said, the word sounding almost like a warning, and to Frankie’s surprise, Laura subsided almost instantly.

  ‘Sorry,’ she muttered with a sideways glance, and slid down the bed to lie with the covers pulled right up to her nose. ‘I need to go to sleep now,’ she added, and turned her back on both of them.

  Defeated, Frankie whispered goodnight and led the way out of the room. Tears were threatening so she left Nick to turn out the light, using the time spent going back to the kitchen to get herself under control.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want me to go away?’ he offered as soon as he joined her.

  ‘No. Please,’ she said hastily, gesturing towards the place she’d set for him. She’d almost resigned herself to the fact that he’d only suggested breaking his engagement when he’d been worried that she might be pregnant. He certainly hadn’t mentioned it again.

  ‘It would be nice to have a few moments of adult conversation while you finish that. The last couple of days it’s been a bit like living in the middle of a battlefield. I’ve hardly dared open my mouth without having the conversation turned into yet another reason why she should be allowed to go to this wretched disco and why I’m such an awful mother for refusing permission.’

  ‘And the real reason?’ he prompted before he put the first spoonful of dessert in his mouth.

  ‘Martin,’ she said distractedly, then forced herself to tear her eyes away from his mouth as it closed over the cutlery. She wasn’t surprised that he realised there would be a good reason for her decision, but she was pleased that he knew her well enough to predict it.

  ‘Mmm. Fantastic!’ he groaned through the mouthful as his eyes drifted closed with every appearance of ecstasy.

  Frankie was stunned by the bolt of desire that hit her. He’d looked just like that when they’d…