The Truth About You

by Susan Lewis

  Looking up as the familiar warble of Skype broke into the room, a shudder of nerves coasted so rapidly through her that it made her feel slightly sick. He’d said he’d call at five, and here he was. He’d also told her how he wanted her to be dressed when she connected. It was feeling totally wicked and weird and she really wasn’t sure she wanted to answer.

  As the ringing stopped she started to panic. He was going to think she wasn’t interested now, and she was.

  To her relief he called again.

  ‘Well, well,’ he murmured as soon as her image got through to his screen, ‘look at my guilty pleasure tonight.’

  Dizzied by her own daring, sitting there with no top on, she said, ‘Hi, how are you?’

  ‘How about totally hot for you?’

  Kind of liking the answer, she stole a glance from under her lashes. He was so amazingly to die for that she couldn’t understand why he made her nervous.

  ‘When am I going to see you again?’ he asked. ‘I think it’ll have to be soon, don’t you?’

  Not sure what to say to that, she only shrugged and wondered when would be the best time to tell him she was going to Italy. Before she could make a decision her mother’s voice cut across everything.

  ‘Tierney?’ she called, knocking on the door.

  ‘Oh my God!’ Tierney gulped, and rapidly disconnecting she grabbed her T-shirt and tugged it over her head. ‘Yeah, what do you want?’ she shouted, shaking so badly she could hardly get her arms in the sleeves.

  ‘I was hoping we could have a chat,’ Lainey answered.

  ‘What about?’ she asked, kicking her bra under the bed.

  ‘Well, going to Italy for one. I wondered if you’d decided who you’d like to take.’

  ‘Oh, Skye’s coming,’ she answered, going to open the door. Seeing Lainey’s face, her eyes widened with alarm. ‘Have you been crying?’ she demanded accusingly.

  Lainey smiled. ‘Of course not, I just got something in my eye.’

  ‘Where’s Dad?’

  Lainey took a breath. ‘He’s . . . He had a call . . .’

  Tierney’s face paled. ‘He’s gone away again, hasn’t he? When’s he coming back? I thought we were going out tonight . . .’

  ‘We are, but he won’t be able to join us.’

  ‘Why not? Where’s he gone? What’s so important that he has to go now?’

  Putting an arm around her, Lainey said, ‘I want you to come downstairs. Zav’s there and we need to have a little chat.’

  ‘Oh my God, Mum, Dad’s not leaving us, is he? Please say he’s not . . .’ Her voice shook with panic.

  ‘Sssh,’ Lainey soothed.

  ‘He can’t, I won’t let him.’

  Lainey smiled past the lump in her throat.

  ‘Why didn’t he come and see me before he left?’ Tierney demanded, as they started down the stairs.

  ‘He wanted to,’ Lainey assured her, ‘but there was a bit of an emergency with someone he knows . . .’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘That’s what I’m about to tell you. Now, please try to calm down, for your own sake as well as Zav’s.’

  As they walked into the kitchen Lainey’s heart contracted to find Max at the table with Zav. His eyes came to hers and she could see straight away how angry he was with his father.

  ‘Are you OK?’ the two boys asked, almost in unison.

  Lainey smiled. ‘I’m fine,’ she assured them, even though she wasn’t. Thank goodness none of them had been around when Tom had got the call telling him Kirsten had been rushed to hospital: she wouldn’t have wanted them to hear what she’d said. She didn’t even want to remember it, while fearing Tom would probably never forget it.

  ‘With any luck she might die,’ she’d blurted.

  His shock had been no greater than her own. ‘You don’t mean that,’ he’d said darkly.

  ‘No, of course not,’ she’d cried, burying her face in her hands. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me. I understand that she needs you now, that Julia does too, but we’re supposed to be taking Tierney out this evening. What are you going to tell her?’

  ‘The truth,’ he’d replied. ‘Why on earth would I tell her anything else?’

  ‘But you can’t just come out with it and then rush off as though it’s no big deal. She’s going to be traumatised by this . . .’

  ‘Don’t you think I realise that? But what do you want me to do? I can’t pretend I didn’t receive the call . . .’

  ‘Go!’ she’d cut in sharply. ‘Just go and leave the children to me. I’ll tell them myself . . .’

  ‘I don’t want you to do that.’

  ‘It’s not about what you want. It’s about what they need, and frankly if I’m going to be the only parent they have around for the foreseeable future perhaps I am the one who should be dealing with this.’

  He hadn’t argued any further; he hadn’t even attempted to embrace her before leaving. He’d simply said, ‘I’ll call you later,’ and then he was gone.

  Now, she was asking herself if she should do this while Max was there. Asking him to leave was only going to make him feel even more shut out than he probably already did, and she didn’t want to do that to him. And what about her father, sitting there in his chair smiling absently out of the window? Should she break the news in front of him? He almost certainly wouldn’t register what was being said, unless Tierney started shouting, of course, which was highly possible.

  Deciding it was probably a good idea for Max to stay, since he might be of some help with Tierney, should it be needed, she sat down at the table with Tierney, feeling Zav’s eyes watching her curiously.

  Apparently sensing what was about to happen, Max said, ‘Would you rather I left? I mean . . .’

  ‘No, no, you’re a part of this family,’ Lainey reminded him, adding, ‘whether you like it or not.’ She was the only one who smiled at her attempt at humour.

  She looked at Zav, who was still seeming more baffled than anxious, though he clearly sensed something was up. ‘OK,’ she said, finding herself taking heart from Max’s presence, even though she still didn’t know the details of what had transpired between him and Tom. ‘I’d hoped Dad would be the one to tell you this,’ she began, ‘but he’s not here, and so . . .’

  ‘Oh my God, you really are splitting up,’ Tierney panicked.

  ‘Just listen, T,’ Max said gruffly.

  Tierney shot him a look. ‘You know what this is about?’ she challenged.

  He nodded. ‘Dad told me this morning.’

  She turned back to her mother. ‘Is Dad ill?’ she cried. ‘Is that why he keeps going away, because he has to get treatment?’

  ‘No, he isn’t ill,’ Lainey answered. ‘Now please stop trying to second-guess what I’m about to tell you and let me get on with it.’

  Perching on the edge of her seat, Tierney clasped her hands tightly together and waited.

  ‘It seems,’ Lainey said, realising she had no idea how any of this was going to come out, ‘that Dad has another . . .’ She’d been about to say family, but couldn’t bring herself to, not yet. ‘Well, he has a daughter who I didn’t know anything about until the beginning of last week.’

  Tierney’s jaw dropped as her face turned white. ‘You’re kidding,’ she murmured.

  Lainey was looking at Zav, wanting to be sure he’d understood so far.

  ‘How old is she?’ Tierney asked.

  Max gave a snort of contempt. ‘You’re going to love this,’ he told her.

  Regretting he was there now, Lainey said, ‘She’s sixteen, apparently, and her name’s Julia.’

  Stunned, Tierney looked from her to Max and back again. ‘Like the same age as me?’ she said, as though needing to be sure she’d heard right.

  Lainey nodded.

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ Tierney declared. ‘I mean, how can he have a daughter the same age as me?’

  ‘He can’t,’ Zav told her knowledgeably.

  Not sure h
ow Zav had deduced that, Lainey said, ‘That’s where he’s had to go today, to be with Julia and her . . . and her mother.’

  Tierney’s shock was hard to watch. ‘You mean . . . Oh my God, Mum, are you saying that he’s gone to live with them?’

  Lainey glanced at Max. ‘To be honest, I’m not sure what he’s doing,’ she replied. ‘I don’t know what he said to you, Max . . .’

  Max only shrugged. ‘I didn’t give him a chance to say much,’ he confessed. ‘I was just like, no way do I want to hear about how he cheated on my mother twice. Sorry,’ he muttered to Lainey, ‘but you know what I mean.’

  Of course she did, and she felt ashamed that it had taken her so long to realise how Max would see this. To him it must seem like he and his mother had hardly mattered at all back then, and for all Lainey knew he was right.

  ‘So he was cheating on you and Emma?’ Tierney’s statement was also a question.

  Glancing uneasily at Max, Lainey said, ‘I think it would be more accurate to put it Max’s way and say that he was doubly cheating on Emma.’

  ‘So what happened when Julia was born?’ Tierney cried angrily. ‘Is she older or younger than me?’

  ‘A couple of months older, apparently. I don’t know, Dad hasn’t told me the details . . .’

  ‘If he does,’ Max cut in scathingly, ‘he’ll have to own up to lying to us for years, and he definitely won’t want to do that.’

  Lainey put a hand to her head, needing to stop it throbbing.

  ‘Dad doesn’t lie,’ Zav said loyally.

  Lainey’s eyes went tenderly to his. She wouldn’t contradict him, because she had no desire to push his dad off his pedestal. Luckily neither Max nor Tierney seemed inclined to crush him either.

  ‘Have you met this Julia?’ Tierney asked.

  Lainey shook her head. ‘I don’t really know anything about her, apart from her age – and who her mother is.’

  ‘You mean you know her mother?’

  ‘No. She was . . . She presented an arts programme that Dad appeared on. It’ll be how they met, I’m sure.’

  ‘At the same time as he was seeing you,’ Tierney snorted in disgust.

  ‘It must have been before,’ Lainey replied, feeling the betrayal so deeply that she wanted desperately to stop this now and go upstairs to be alone.

  ‘Do they know about us?’ Zav asked.

  ‘Yes, I’m sure they do,’ Lainey told him.

  ‘Do we have to meet them?’ Tierney wanted to know.

  ‘You can count me out if we do,’ Max growled.

  Dragging her eyes from him, Lainey said, ‘None of us has to if we don’t want to.’

  ‘I definitely don’t,’ Tierney declared. ‘Frankly I just want them to fuck off and die.’

  Lainey winced as she said, ‘Actually, Julia’s mother – her name’s Kirsten – has cancer, which is why Dad’s having to spend so much time there.’

  ‘He never told me that,’ Max protested.

  Lainey looked at him, not sure what to say, but she knew what he was thinking, because she found herself thinking it too. What if it wasn’t true? What if it was just an excuse to try and make the break easier?

  Realising that was nonsense, that Tom would surely never tell such a terrible lie, she pushed it out of her mind.

  ‘When’s he coming back?’ Zav asked.

  ‘Who cares?’ Tierney retorted. ‘He’s been cheating on Mum, on all of us, for years, so why would you even want to see him?’

  Zav’s eyes filled with tears as he looked at Lainey.

  Opening her arms for him to come and sit on her lap, she held him tightly and fought down her own emotions.

  ‘He won’t just leave us, will he, Mum?’ Zav begged.

  Wishing there was a way to offer comfort without lying, Lainey said, ‘I’m not really sure.’

  An awful silence fell as the uncertainty of what they were facing seemed to drift around them like ghosts.

  ‘So what happens now?’ Tierney asked in the end.

  Lainey shrugged. She only wished she knew. ‘We go to Italy, as planned,’ she answered, ‘and maybe by the time we come home . . . Well, maybe things will be different with Kirsten, and Dad will have made up his mind what he wants to do.’

  Max said, ‘Why should he get the choice of whether he stays or goes? He’s hardly earned it.’

  Lainey couldn’t argue with that.

  ‘I really hate him for this,’ Tierney seethed. ‘As far as I’m concerned I never want to see him again,’ and leaping up from her chair she ran out of the room.

  Had Zav not burst into tears, Lainey might have gone after her. ‘I don’t want him to leave,’ Zav wailed. ‘I want him to stay here with us. Can’t you make him, Mum? Please.’

  Only wishing she knew how, Lainey said, ‘I’m sure he’ll be back soon, so you can have a chat with him yourself, OK?’

  Zav nodded, but didn’t stop crying. ‘I wish this Julia and her mother didn’t exist,’ he sobbed. ‘Everything was all right until they came along.’

  ‘I know,’ Lainey soothed. She looked at Max, and could see how hard he was struggling too.

  ‘I think what’s really important for you two,’ Lainey said, hugging Zav closer and wishing she could take Max’s hand, ‘Tierney as well,’ she added, ‘is to know that whatever happens with Julia and her mother, it’s never going to change how much Dad loves you.’ She was sure of that, she had to be, or there wouldn’t be any point to anything any more.

  ‘Tierney and Zav maybe,’ Max said gruffly, ‘but definitely not me.’

  ‘That’s not true . . .’

  ‘Yes it is. No, it’s OK, Lainey, I get what you’re trying to do, but you don’t have to. I’m cool with it. I’ve been here before, but you haven’t, so it’s you who matters now, and what he’s doing to you.’

  Feeling her throat tightening at his sensitivity, she told him, ‘I’ll be fine, don’t worry about me.’

  Looking up at her with teary eyes, Zav said, ‘Dad loves you too, doesn’t he?’

  Hugging him to her, Lainey tried to think what to say, but there was nothing that he’d want to hear, so she simply kissed his head and tightened her embrace.

  After a while he asked, ‘Can I ring Dad?’

  ‘Of course. I’m not sure if you’ll get through straight away, but you can always leave him a message,’ and connecting to Tom’s mobile, she handed her own to Zav.

  ‘Dad, it’s me,’ he said shakily into the voicemail, ‘please don’t leave us. We really love you and we want you to stay.’ As he rang off his eyes went to Max, as though, being the eldest and so like their father, he was the next best thing. ‘Will you come and watch me play cricket later?’ he asked.

  ‘Course I will, mate,’ Max responded, ‘be glad to. We can go and have a knock-around now if you like.’

  Sniffing as he straightened himself up, Zav nodded and went into the utility room to get the bats.

  ‘Thanks,’ Lainey said quietly to Max.

  He only shrugged, and following his brother outside he left Lainey preparing herself to go upstairs and deal with Tierney.

  Tierney was lying on her bed, trying not to hear the Skype ringtone that kept burbling out of the computer every couple of minutes. She knew it was him, but she couldn’t speak to him now.

  She didn’t want to speak to anyone, especially not her dad. If he thought she was ever going to have anything to do with Julia and her stupid mother, whatever her name was, he could bloody well think again. So what if she had cancer, it still didn’t change the fact that he’d been cheating on Mum for years, and her mother just didn’t deserve it. God, she hated him. He was such a hypocrite, always going on about morals and standards and stuff, and all the time he was having an affair with someone he’d been seeing since before she was born.

  She couldn’t bear to think how that must be making her mother feel. She didn’t want anyone to hurt her mum, ever, because annoying and random as she could be, she was totally brilliant to
o, and there wasn’t anyone Tierney loved more in the world. She used to love her dad the same, but not any more. No way did she ever want to see him again, even if Zav did. He was history to her now, totally over.

  Feeling another rush of tears welling up, she rolled off the bed and crawled across the room to pick up her phone. It was going off almost as regularly as the computer, telling her she had texts. If there was one from her dad she’d delete it.

  The first was from Skye. Parents flying to Morocco on Friday, so getting train to yours. Sx

  For no reason she could think of, the message made her cry again. Her heart skipped a beat when she saw the next text was from him. Trying to Skype. Where are you? Missing you, my beautiful girl.

  She read it again, and considered sending a reply asking him if they could run away together. Would he want to do that? She’d promise him anything if he did, just to get out of here.

  Feeling all fussed and horrible at the thought of leaving her mother, she quickly scrolled on to her next message. It was from Maudie, saying sorry for the things she’d said earlier.

  Wishing desperately that she’d asked Maudie to come to Italy now, she started to call her, then stopped when she realised she couldn’t speak to anyone yet.

  The last text was from Skye again, giving page numbers she should go straight to in the dreaded book.

  She didn’t want to read any more of it.

  Everything was going wrong.

  Where was her dad? Why hadn’t he sent her a message?

  ‘Tierney, can I come in?’ her mother asked from the other side of the door.

  ‘No!’ Tierney shouted, without really knowing why. ‘Go away.’

  ‘Please let me in.’

  ‘I said go away.’

  ‘We need to talk.’

  ‘You might, I don’t.’

  There were a few moments of quiet before her mother said, ‘Well, if you change your mind . . .’

  ‘I won’t.’ Tears were streaming down her face again. She had no idea why she was being mean to her mother, when really all she wanted was to go out there and try to make her feel better.

  Getting to her feet, she used her fingers to wipe her eyes, and the back of a hand for her nose as she went to turn off the computer. She stood still for a moment, trying to collect herself. ‘All right,’ she said shakily, ‘you can come in now.’