by Susan Lewis
‘I don’t know how you put up with him,’ Stacy muttered, as Lainey unhooked her keys from the board next to the back door.
‘Nor do I,’ Lainey responded, ‘but, to be honest, I’ve got other things to worry about right now, like my darling daughter and what sort of mood she’s going to be in when I get her. Make yourself at home, or take another look at the villa. You’ll find the link somewhere in my inbox. It’s so gorgeous. We’re going to love it there.’
‘We?’
‘You’re coming too, I hope.’
Visibly brightening, Stacy said, ‘Count me in, provided it’s all right with Tom, of course.’
‘He won’t mind. Anyway, knowing him he’ll write the whole time we’re there, which is the reason I’ve gone for somewhere with a separate apartment that he can have all to himself. Besides, it’s my treat. I’ve been saving up for this so I can spoil you all rotten while I go in search of who I might have been if my mother had stayed in Italy.’
Stacy cocked an eyebrow. ‘So I take it you’ve gone for the villa in . . . what’s the name of the place again?’
‘Tuoro. Actually, it’s just outside the village, up on a hill. Take a look. It’s stunning. Bye Dad, won’t be long. Try to behave while I’m gone.’
Smiling at Peter’s peacefully sleeping face, Stacy wandered over to the computer as Lainey ran out to the car. A few moments later she was clicking through to the villa that overlooked Lake Trasimeno and the village where Lainey’s mother had apparently grown up. Perhaps her real father, too. Members of her family might even still live there. Clearly that was what Lainey was hoping to find out, and Stacy was happy to help, even though, in Stacy’s humble opinion, to go looking for people who’d never expressed a desire to be found might not be a brilliant idea.
However, Tom might disagree with her on that, and she could only presume he did or he surely wouldn’t be supporting the plan.
Chapter Two
LAINEY WAS SITTING in the car at the school gates, getting on with her emails while waiting for Tierney to come surging out with the crowds. Zav had just rung to remind her his football training had been swapped from tomorrow to today, so his friend Alfie’s mother would be bringing him home. Great, this would give her some extra time to pop into the supermarket on the way back, and to pick up the dry cleaning that had been ready for at least a fortnight by now. Remembering she still had to call the caterer with numbers for Saturday night’s dinner, she quickly dialled Tom’s mobile to find out if he’d invited anyone else since they’d last spoken.
‘Hi darling, hope the shoot’s going well,’ she said into his voicemail. ‘Call me back when you can. I need to talk about Saturday.’
Not long after she clicked off, he rang. ‘Hey, it’s me,’ he said, sounding tired and slightly scratchy. ‘Are you OK?’
‘I’m fine, but I don’t think you are. Problems your end?’
‘A few. Where are you?’
‘Waiting for Tierney. I had a long chat with Hugo earlier; we can discuss it when you’re back. Did you get my message?’
‘About Saturday? Yes, and apparently Guy can’t make it. He’s stuck in New York until early next week.’
‘But Nadia’s still coming?’ Lainey was fond of Tom’s agent, Nadia Roundtree, and would be sorry if she couldn’t make it just because her husband wasn’t around.
‘She is,’ he confirmed. ‘I said it’d be fine for her to stay the night. Do we have room?’
‘We’d have plenty if Max would find himself a job and move into a place of his own,’ she couldn’t help saying, ‘but I can’t see that happening any time soon.’
Sounding tired again, he said, ‘Definitely not before Saturday, but I’ll talk to him again. Please tell me he hasn’t been giving you a hard time.’
‘On and off, but nothing I can’t cope with. Zav wants to know if you’ll be back in time to watch him play football on Saturday.’
‘Yeah, he texted and I should be.’
‘Are you sure you’re all right? You sound pretty fed up.’
He sighed wearily. ‘I guess I am. It hasn’t been an easy week so far, and there isn’t much sign of it improving.’
‘Are you on the set now?’
‘No, but I ought to get back there. I’ll call again later.’
After he’d rung off Lainey sat watching the girls beginning to trickle, then stream out of the old Victorian schoolhouse, claret-coloured skirts rolled up at their waists as high as they dared, white V-neck shirts popped open at the buttons to reveal lacy bras.
Not quite Essex comes to Gloucestershire, but almost.
Spotting Tierney ambling along with her new best friend, Skye Andrews, all glossy dark hair and electric-blue eyes, Lainey felt her usual pang of concern at how much older than fifteen she looked. True, she was going to be sixteen in a couple of weeks, but her height – she was already as tall as Lainey at five foot eight – her attitude, and the shapeliness of her figure made her seem closer to twenty. Though Lainey felt certain she was still a virgin, she most certainly didn’t look like one, and she didn’t always behave like one either.
There was some small comfort to be taken from the fact that half the girls in year eleven appeared equally sassy, even the weekly boarders, such as Skye, who’d spent a couple of weekends at Bannerleigh Cross over the past month or so. Lainey had to admit she hadn’t particularly enjoyed the experience. Not that Skye was a difficult guest, to the contrary, she was always polite, helped out where she could, and as far as teenage attitude went, if she had one she clearly left it at the door before visiting friends’ homes. It was the way Tierney had showed off in front of her that had grated on Lainey, carrying on as though having a famous dad was a total drag, and that living in a big house was more of an embarrassment than a privilege. Needless to say, she never acted that way around Tom, she wouldn’t dare, and half the time Lainey was convinced she only did it in front of her to try and provoke a reaction. Lainey had learned not to rise to it, especially since discovering that Skye’s family home, in the centre of London, was easily the size of theirs, and was actually only one of several lavish properties her stepfather had dotted around the world.
Watching Tierney and Skye now, taking their time over saying goodbye at the gates, one so exquisitely blonde, the other so stormily dark, Lainey could only feel glad that this was an all-girls’ school. Heaven only knew what kind of havoc they’d wreak on boys of their age – actually any age – were they around them all the time. She couldn’t remember her and Stacy being anywhere near as sophisticated when they were sixteen, but maybe that was because she didn’t want to.
‘Hey, Mum,’ Tierney chirruped as she slipped into the car, her long bare legs seeming to take a while to come in after her. ‘How’s things?’
‘Everything’s fine,’ Lainey told her, giving Skye a wave as she began reversing out of her space. ‘How did the maths exam go today?’
‘Yeah, it was cool,’ Tierney replied, tossing her hair over one shoulder as she studied her mobile. ‘GCSEs are so peak. I don’t know why we’re bothering when everyone knows they’re a waste of time.’
‘Not if you want to go on to do As. So you think you did well?’
Tierney shrugged. ‘I guess so. I answered everything anyway. Oh, by the way, Skye’s invited me to her place the week after exams are over. It’ll be so cool, hanging out in London with her and her friends. They’re completely amazing, and it’s so dead around here.’
‘I think we need to discuss that before you accept,’ Lainey cautioned. ‘We’ve never actually met her family . . .’
‘Oh Mum, lighten up, will you? Her rents are fantastic, just like you and Dad, but a bit stricter, which should make you happy. And there’s no need to have a convo about everything I do. I’m going to be sixteen by then . . .’
‘I’m aware of that and I’d like to know what you want to do for your birthday. Dad’s agreed to a party . . .’
‘Oh God, I so don’t want one. There’s no on
e around here to invite for a start.’
‘Tierney, that’s ridiculous. You’ve got dozens of friends in the area. What about Maudie?’
‘Oh, don’t start going on about her again. I’m still friends with her, all right? I’m just not hanging out with her quite so much. It’s not a problem, it just happens, we move on, OK?’
‘But I think she misses you . . .’
‘Mu-um!’
‘All right, all right. I’m just saying, you have lots of friends around here who you’ve known all your life, and whose sixteenths you’ve been to . . .’
‘Which doesn’t mean I have to have one too. I swear, I really don’t want to spend my birthday with them. They’re all so juvenile, like they really need to get out more, and I know you, you’ll only try to join in with all your mum dancing and it is sooo embarrassing.’
Lainey had to laugh, mainly because she could see Tierney was trying hard not to. ‘Which exams do you have tomorrow?’ she asked.
Tierney was too busy texting to respond. ‘Oh my God, that is so cool!’ she suddenly cried.
Lainey waited for enlightenment, but unsurprisingly none came so she simply carried on driving, heading into town, while going over in her mind what further arrangements she needed to make for Saturday. If Nadia was coming without her husband they were down to eleven, unless she could persuade Stacy to change her mind and bring the new man, but then they’d be thirteen and she wasn’t sure she was comfortable with that.
‘When’s Dad back?’ Tierney asked, as they drove into the supermarket car park.
‘Saturday morning, or Friday evening if he can get away sooner. Why?’
Tierney shrugged. She was texting again. ‘You’re kind of unusual, you two,’ she commented, seeming hardly to connect with her words, ‘you know, still being together when everyone else’s parents are split up.’
‘Not everyone’s,’ Lainey countered.
‘Well, just about. Oh God, it would be a total nightmare if you two broke up. I’d so hate it. I wouldn’t know who to live with, because I love you both, and it would be the same for Zav . . .’
‘Shall we change the subject?’ Lainey cut in, knowing from experience how easily Tierney’s teenage hormones could get her all wound up over nothing.
‘I’m just saying, that’s all. Loads of women have got the hots for Dad, which makes them totally sad, of course, but hey, someone has to be. Did I tell you, Mrs Kellaway, the English teacher, is mega struck on him? She’s always asking about him, which kind of freaks me out. I mean, she’s so old and like weird in the way she gets all steamed up over poems and stuff.’
‘She’s not that old,’ Lainey objected, refraining from pointing out that Pamela Kellaway was probably still in her forties, while Tom was going to be fifty-one at the end of the year.
‘Whatever,’ Tierney murmured, going back to her phone.
‘Are you coming?’ Lainey asked, turning off the engine.
‘No. I’ll wait here and make sure no one offs the car.’
Rolling her eyes, Lainey took herself into the store, checking her own phone on the way and grabbing a hand basket to collect up the few items she needed.
Ten minutes later she was opening the back of the estate to drop in the groceries when she heard Tierney say, ‘Shit, got to go.’
Waiting until she was in the driver’s seat and starting the engine, Lainey said, ‘Who was that?’
Tierney sighed. ‘Do you really need to know?’
Lainey cast her a sideways look and turned in her seat to reverse out of the space.
‘Talking about Dad,’ Tierney drawled, as though the conversation hadn’t been broken, ‘do you reckon he was ever a spy himself? I mean, I know he says Ian Fleming based James Bond on him and all that rubbish – he’s too young for one thing, and definitely not cool enough for another. But everyone says how realistic his books are, and when Mrs Kellaway asked if he ever used to work for MI5 . . . Well, he did once, didn’t he?’
‘You know he did, but it was a long time ago, just after he left uni.’
‘He’s still got loads of contacts though, you know, people he sees clandestinely, or who tip him off about stuff. I wonder if he had a codename when he was active, and if he did, what it was.’
Amused by the intrigue, Lainey said, ‘What’s brought this on? You’ve never seemed particularly interested before.’
‘Nothing,’ Tierney replied airily. ‘I just thought, wouldn’t it be cool if he was still a spy?’
Lainey had to laugh.
Tierney did too, and with a sudden gasp of what sounded like glee she went back to her phone, leaving Lainey to reflect on how following her logic these days was about as easy as deciphering her texts (not that Lainey ever snooped, well, maybe she might steal a glance or two if Tierney wasn’t aware she was looking, much good it ever did her), or listening to her gabbing away to Skye on the phone.
Still, what really mattered, as Tom often reminded her, was that whatever might be going on in Tierney’s overactive brain, she was at home most nights with them, and was apparently doing well at school. As for boys, true she was always talking about them, or drooling over some movie star or boy band, but apart from a couple of dates with her friends’ brothers during the past year, she’d hadn’t yet become involved in what might be termed a more serious relationship. Nor, to Lainey’s relief, had she yet asked to go on the pill, unlike a few of the girls she’d grown up with whose mothers had given in rather than have to deal with the alternative.
Tierney would ask, wouldn’t she, and not just go ahead and get a prescription without her mother knowing? Of course she would; Lainey had always made it perfectly clear that Tierney could come to her with anything, and it wasn’t as if they didn’t have frank conversations about sex, because they often did.
Lainey didn’t even want to contemplate what Tom would say if he thought his precious daughter might be using contraceptives. He wasn’t any too thrilled by the amount of girls Max was bringing back to the annexe either, though mainly because of the example he was setting for his younger sister and brother. Lainey had to leave that to Tom to handle, while she did her best with Tierney. As for Zav, since he was mercifully still too young to have developed an attitude, or spots, or sexually charged hormones, he was an absolute dream to live with when compared to the other two.
‘So, like when you were my age,’ Tierney said, clicking off the phone again, ‘were you already into older men, or was it just when you met Dad?’
Both amused and vaguely curious as to why she was asking, Lainey said, ‘Dad was my first boyfriend, so I didn’t really know the difference.’
‘That is so not true,’ Tierney cried. ‘You were nineteen when you two met, so there had to have been someone before that.’
‘If there was, I can’t remember his name now.’
Tierney scoffed. ‘Yeah, right. Was it like amazing, when you and Dad first met? Did you think . . . I mean, did you know right away that he was the one?’
Remembering just how electrifying the occasion had been (though no way in the world was she going to tell Tierney that her parents had locked themselves in a conference room and gone for it, while the rest of the publishing team were waiting for them to join a meeting on the next floor), Lainey said, ‘I’m not sure I knew he was the right one, exactly, but I definitely fell for him.’
Tierney was looking thoughtful. ‘So do you think he’d have married you if you hadn’t got pregnant?’ she asked bluntly.
Lainey’s heart caught on the words. They hadn’t gone this far into her and Tom’s past before, so there was a chance Tierney didn’t know how sensitive this unexplored area was. ‘I’m not sure,’ she replied truthfully. ‘He says he would have, but it’s all a bit academic now, isn’t it, because he did marry me and now here we are and you really ought to be asking him these questions, not me.’
‘Yeah, and like he’s going to answer them. Anyway, him being older and married and everything didn’t really make a
difference?’
Frowning, Lainey said, ‘I wouldn’t exactly put it like that. Why are you so interested all of a sudden?’
‘No reason. Just making conversation. What were Granny and Grandpa like when you and Dad got together? Did they go ballistic about him being married and you being up the duff?’
Knowing she’d never forget how furious her mother had been, or the names she’d called her, Lainey said, ‘You have to remember Granny was Catholic, so it was all pretty sinful as far as she was concerned. Not that I’m saying it wasn’t wrong, because obviously it was, but it was harder for her to accept than it was for Grandpa.’
Tierney smiled. ‘Grandpa’s such a sweetheart, isn’t he? I bet he was dead good-looking when he was young.’
‘You’ve seen pictures, so you know he was.’
‘How did he and Granny meet?’ She swung round suddenly. ‘Just a minute, she had you before she was married, so it was a bit much giving you a hard time when you did the same thing with me.’
Having thought so herself at the time, Lainey said, ‘For all you know she was married to my real dad.’
Tierney frowned. ‘Was she?’
‘I don’t know. She’d never tell me anything about him.’
‘Did Grandpa know him?’
‘No. He met her here, in England, after she’d left Italy. She was a waitress in a restaurant he used to go to – and kept going to, and kept going to until she agreed to go out with him.’
Tierney smiled. ‘I can imagine him being a romantic, can’t you? Oh my God, is that Max coming towards us in his Fiesta? Yes, it is. Flash him down, Mum, I need to speak to him and he’s not answering his phone.’
Lainey had barely pulled to the side of the road before Tierney had leapt out and run over to an impatient-looking Max, who’d swerved to a halt the other side of the country lane.
Since she couldn’t hear what they were saying, and wasn’t particularly interested either, Lainey quickly checked her emails in case something important had come in.