The Dangers of Family Secrets: From the bestselling author of The Ex-Wife’s Survival Guide

by Debby Holt

‘What did you say?’ Anna asked. ‘What did you do?’

  ‘We carried on eating our cereal,’ William said. ‘They started rolling about on the floor trying to hit each other and so I threw a jug of water over them.’

  Anna was fascinated by these stories. In her own family, she and Tess had always been encouraged to ‘respect’ the opinions of others, which as far as she could see meant accepting them without complaint. She told an incredulous William that she had never heard her parents raise their voices at each other.

  After medical school, Anna had gone on to Bangor and Bristol and now London whereas William had trained at Durham and Sheffield. His stint in Durham overlapped briefly with Tess’s time at Durham University and Anna had put them in contact with each other. They’d only seen each other a couple of times but Tess had reported back her approval.

  And then William arrived at St Peter’s. His parents had divorced three years ago which, he told Anna, had been a source of great relief to their children. Their mother had married a UKIP activist and lived in Margate, while his father remained in the family home in Reigate where he lived in exhausted contentment with a mild-mannered librarian.

  For Anna, the return of her old friend was particularly welcome. Any time Miss Diamond was horrendous, she would seek out William and he would be ready with a cinematic comparison. One day, Miss Diamond was like Bette Davis in All About Eve, desperately insecure about a stunning young doctor with the look of Jean Seberg. ‘I doubt if Miss Diamond’s ever heard of Jean Seberg,’ Anna said. Another time, William would compare the consultant to Julia Roberts in August: Osage County, unable to keep the malice from spilling out because that was the way her mother talked. Whenever Anna discussed her nemesis with William, he had the great gift of reducing her power to that of a sadly disturbed woman whose dislike of Anna was completely bound up with her own malfunction. Presumably, the years he’d spent listening to his parents’ quarrels had immunised him against the sulphurous behaviour of others.

  Tonight, they were back eating pizza, discussing their latest cinematic outing, Edge of Tomorrow, a film that William dismissed as a Groundhog Day remake without the laughs or the brilliance of Bill Murray.

  ‘I know you’re right,’ Anna said, ‘but I still liked it. I like the idea that you can keep going back to refine and improve your life until you get it right.’ She took a bite of her pizza and chewed thoughtfully. ‘I’m going to have supper with Patrick and Fizz on Friday.’

  William blinked. ‘I’m sorry? Is that piece of information connected to the film? Do you hope to refine and improve your relationship with Patrick?’

  ‘I just thought you’d be interested.’

  ‘Two weeks ago you had lunch with them and now you’re going over to dinner. Patrick must be keen. Perhaps Fizz is too.’

  ‘Sometimes, William, you just have to accept there aren’t always hidden motives.’

  ‘Do you still find Patrick outstandingly desirable?’

  ‘Well, I suppose…’

  ‘I rest my case. Let’s not talk about it now, it’s too depressing…Are you going to eat that crust?’

  ‘You know I don’t like the outside bits.’

  William whipped the offending piece from her plate. ‘My brother rang me last night. He’s got engaged to his girlfriend.’

  ‘Do you like her?’

  ‘She’s beautiful and brilliant and she adores Trevor.’

  ‘Lucky Trevor.’

  ‘He knows he is. He’s very smug. He’s having a small party for her next month. Will you come with me?’

  ‘Do I have to pretend to be your girlfriend?’

  ‘Certainly not. Just look at me occasionally as if

  you’d like to be. There’ll be food. And champagne.’

  ‘All right. I’ll come.’

  ‘That’s very generous of you,’ William said. ‘It can be our farewell date together.’

  She wished William hadn’t brought that up. He was moving on to Reading at the beginning of August, a prospect she found depressing.

  ‘Reading’s hardly the Outer Hebrides,’ she said. Her phone bleeped and she picked it up. ‘It’s Tess. We’re going down for Dad’s birthday on Saturday. I don’t know why she thinks I’d forget.’

  ‘How is Tess?’

  ‘I don’t know. I think she’s all right.’

  ‘Next time you talk to her, tell her Marnie says hello and thank you.’

  ‘Who’s Marnie?’

  ‘She’s my cousin. She met Tess in Durham. She thinks Tess is very wise. Which is more than I can say about Tess’s sister.’

  ‘For God’s sake, William, I’m just going to supper!’

  ‘Right,’ William said. ‘Of course you are.’

  * * *

  There were two other guests besides Anna, a fact she would pass on to William. Cleo was an old actress friend of Patrick and ‘Unlike certain people I could mention,’ Cleo said, jabbing an accusing finger at their host, ‘I have not given up on the dream.’ Cleo was tall and slim with a mane of red hair, a thin pointed nose and a mobile mouth. She had not actually done any acting for fourteen months, she told Anna, and was currently working as a receptionist. She had done three auditions in the last six months and had been recalled four times after the last one. The casting director had virtually promised her the part until a young actress from Hollyoaks had expressed an interest and ‘That was it. I was out. They wanted a name, even if the name had as much talent as a rotten potato. So I went home and cried for an hour or two. Then my flatmate reminded me that Kristin Scott Thomas lost Hugh Grant to Andie MacDowell in Four Weddings and a Funeral and now Kristin’s an international film star and Andie does adverts for hairspray. You have to keep going, don’t you?’

  The other guest was a broad-shouldered man with a slightly pockmarked face and rather cold green eyes. He looked like Richard Burton in Where Eagles Dare. It was easy to imagine him in military uniform barking out orders to his terrified subordinates.

  ‘This is Matthew,’ Fizz said. ‘He’s only here because he’s a partner in my firm and I’m hoping if I’m nice to him, he’ll make me one too.’

  ‘It’s so good to feel needed,’ Matthew murmured. He smiled at Anna and instantly looked a lot less like Richard Burton because his eyes were no longer icy but simply amused.

  Over supper, the abundant white wine, so generously provided by Matthew, produced different reactions. Anna, after a punishing week at St Peter’s, was happy to sit back and observe the verbal fireworks around her. Patrick, perhaps equally tired by the production of the meal, was also content to make only the odd interjection. Cleo charged in with instant opinions which confusingly changed when challenged by an increasingly animated Fizz. Occasionally, Patrick would catch Anna’s eye and smile across at her.

  Matthew, Anna noticed, liked to throw a topic onto the table and then watch while it was grappled with by his companions. Cleo had been telling them all about a photo her ex-boyfriend had sent her in which he lay naked on his bed. Matthew said, ‘Do you remember that poor congressman in the States a year or so ago. He did the same sort of thing’

  ‘Excuse me?’ Cleo asked incredulously. ‘Did you use the word “poor”? Are you saying you feel sorry for him? The man had a stellar career and decided to derail it by sending lewd photos of himself to women he met online. You feel sorry for him?’

  Matthew shrugged. ‘He sent an inappropriate photo to a female follower on Twitter. It’s hardly a hanging offence.’

  ‘It’s why he did it that’s interesting,’ Fizz said. ‘You read about this sort of thing all the time. Why would someone who has a good career and a happy marriage want to risk ruining everything?’

  Matthew shrugged again. ‘Perhaps his marriage wasn’t as happy as he thought.’

  ‘Excuse me?’ Cleo said again. ‘Are we therefore supposed to make excuses for him? He was a successful politician and therefore…’

  ‘Therefore,’ Matthew said, ‘we are all entitled to have a go at him
. We don’t like successful people.’

  Patrick shook his head. ‘It’s not that we don’t like successful people. It’s that we don’t like successful people who abuse their position.’

  ‘Quite right,’ Anna said. ‘My consultant makes my life a misery.’

  ‘That’s different,’ Matthew said. ‘It’s quite healthy to wish disaster on bullies.’ He nodded sagely at Anna. ‘Your consultant will get her comeuppance one day.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ Anna said. ‘Unfortunately, she’s very good at her job.’

  Matthew settled back in his chair and folded his arms. ‘Let me tell you a story,’ he said. ‘My older sister, Tina, was tormented throughout her schooldays by a girl called Jocasta Kale. Tina grew up to be a dentist and last year she had an emergency patient – one Jocasta Kale. So Jocasta comes in and she doesn’t recognise Tina, and Tina gets her in the chair and starts probing her mouth and making polite conversation. “Did you ever see Marathon Man?” she asks and Jocasta nods because she can’t say anything at the moment. And then Tina says, “I love that bit where Laurence Olivier starts torturing Dustin Hoffman by extracting Hoffman’s teeth.” And she can see Jocasta’s eyes widen a bit and then she says, “It’s so funny to see you after all these years. Do you remember filling my lunch box with used tampons? That was so funny!” And now sweat is pouring down Jocasta’s face and Tina proceeds to do a skilful and gentle job on Jocasta’s teeth and afterwards Jocasta rushes out with a face as pale as milk.’

  There was a short silence while the company digested Matthew’s account. Fizz gave a theatrical shudder. ‘Matthew, that’s a really horrid story, if a strangely satisfying one.’

  Anna left soon after, not because she wasn’t enjoying herself, but because the long day had finally caught up with her. On the bus back home, she remembered Patrick smiling across at her. She caught sight of her reflection in the mirror and discovered she was smiling too.

  Her good mood was enhanced when she found a message on her bed from Olivia. ‘Back tomorrow. Thought you’d like to know I’ve managed to bury the Xander Bullen proposal. We’re doing Battersea Dogs’ Home instead.’

  Anna took out her laptop and googled his name. Under Images of Xander Bullen, there were four photos. In two of them he gazed at the camera, his forehead slightly furrowed, his eyes exuding thoughtful sincerity. In the other two he smiled out at Anna.

  ‘Back to the drawing board, Xander,’ she murmured but even as she said it she knew she was a King Canute trying to hold back the waves. Men such as Xander would always rise effortlessly like scum. He was handsome, he knew how to charm and he was not held back by scruples of any kind.

  CHAPTER NINE

  It was wonderful to have the girls with her. Anna was so positive about her work and Tess was thrilled to be going back to Scotland at the end of her term, particularly since she’d moved with Rachel into a dark little flat on a very noisy road.

  Best of all was the change in Felix. When he came back from the station with them both, his eyes sparkled and Freya dared to hope he’d returned to his old self. Over lunch, he sat at the head of the table, accepting his daughters’ jokes about his age with great good humour, assuring them he’d be leaping around the tennis courts this very afternoon.

  ‘What about you three?’ he asked. He cut a large wedge of Brie and transferred it to his plate. ‘Are you going off to Ivy straight after lunch?’

  ‘We’ll go at half three,’ Freya said. ‘We don’t want to tire her.’ She glanced at her daughters. ‘I do hope Ivy remembers you.’

  ‘Last time,’ Anna said, ‘she thought I was you.’

  ‘It’s the blonde hair,’ Felix said. ‘Last time I saw her, she thought I was the cook.’

  ‘That was because you kept going on about her chocolate bourbons,’ Freya noted. ‘You ended up eating all of them.’

  Tess put an arm round her father’s shoulder. ‘I’m sorry you’re not coming with us.’

  ‘I would,’ Felix said, ‘but unfortunately I have to play tennis.’

  ‘Very unfortunate,’ Anna murmured.

  ‘It is my birthday after all,’ Felix said. ‘But I’m glad you girls are going with your mother. She visits Ivy twice a week and it’s not easy.’

  In fact, Freya felt guilty that she only visited her stepmother twice a week. There wasn’t a mother alive who could be as fiercely loyal and loving as Ivy had proved to be.

  Freya and her father had been on their own for seven years when he married again. Freya was, for nearly a year, the stepdaughter from Hell. At fourteen, she was accustomed to being the centre of her father’s world and had no intention of surrendering her position to an interloper, particularly when that interloper was a mousey young academic whose love for her new husband was as embarrassing as it was irritating. Freya ignored her when her father was around and was devastatingly rude to her when he wasn’t.

  And then one evening, everything changed.

  Ivy and Freya’s father went out to a dinner at which her father was speaking. Freya went to the cinema with a boy she’d been seeing for a couple of months. Afterwards, Russell walked her home and, on the way, he laughed at something she said and she realised for the first time that he had a peculiar laugh. When they got home, she invited him in for coffee and noticed for the first time that his fingernails were unpleasantly long. These revelations forced Freya to tell him she was sorry but she no longer wished to go out with him. Freya had already had similar revelations with her first two boyfriends. Graham had walked out of the house in dignified silence which had been bad enough. Paul had started crying which had been worse. This time was a whole new level of awfulness. Russell sat back in his chair, narrowed his eyes and launched into a lacerating attack on her character. He told her she was conceited and selfish and only ever talked about herself. Reflecting in later years, Freya thought he’d probably been right. He said her looks wouldn’t last and now that he was used to them they no longer interested him. All that remained was her character and her character was actually pretty boring.

  If he wanted to hurt her – which obviously he did – he was brilliantly successful. Freya knew she was pretty and if he’d tried to convince her otherwise, would have known he was lying. When he told her she was boring, she burst into tears.

  And then Ivy appeared in the doorway in her red quilted dressing gown and a nose the same colour. A bad cold and blocked sinuses had precipitated her early return. She stepped into the kitchen and told Russell she had heard all he’d said and felt forced to intervene. She knew he was hurt but she couldn’t allow him to voice such wicked untruths. He should accept that part of being a teenager was learning how to reject and how to be rejected. It wasn’t Freya’s fault that she no longer wished to go out with him. These things happened. If he really thought Freya was boring, he wouldn’t be upset at the prospect of losing her and he quite clearly was upset. And finally, she said, drawing herself up to her full five feet and two inches, she couldn’t allow him to talk to her stepdaughter like that and she would like him to leave.

  Russell opened his mouth to speak, thought better of it and left without another word. Freya burst into tears again, flung herself at Ivy, cried, ‘Oh, Ivy, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!’ and had loved her ever since.

  So naturally, she visited her twice a week and even more naturally she felt guilty she didn’t visit her every day. But Felix was right: it wasn’t easy. Ivy’s mind had started showing signs of wear and tear two years ago. When Freya’s father died, Ivy didn’t cry once, even though everyone knew she’d adored him. She neglected the home she’d always kept so neat and so trim and, more dangerously, she neglected her diet and her appearance. Within a few weeks, she was talking obsessively about her friend, Marilyn. It was as if she had bounced herself out of her real life and into another one of her own making. When it became apparent that she was incapable of living on her own, Freya moved her into a nursing home a few miles away. It was a converted manor house, clean and comfortable
and set in delightful gardens, but Freya continued to feel she had let Ivy down by putting her there.

  Today was one of her good days. She was delighted to see Anna and Tess and received their embraces with enthusiasm. The girls took chairs on either side of her and she beamed at them both and said, ‘You two have such hair! You have such beautiful hair!’

  ‘You’re looking well, Gran,’ Tess said. ‘I haven’t seen you in that dress before.’

  Ivy’s voice sank to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘Marilyn gave it to me. She keeps on at me to visit her in Hollywood. I tell her, Marilyn, I can’t, I’m needed here. She’s such a sweet girl but has no luck with men.’ She gripped Tess’s hand. ‘Do you have a young man?’

  Tess shook her head. ‘No, Gran, I don’t.’

  ‘I think that’s sensible,’ Ivy said. ‘You never know what will happen.’

  On the opposite side of the room, a frail old lady, with skin like parchment, sat gently weeping. Anna went over to see if she could help and returned a minute or so later. ‘The poor woman’s wet herself,’ she murmured. ‘She reeks of urine. I’ll go and find someone.’

  Anna, action woman incarnate in her blue jeans and black leather jacket, marched out of the sitting room. Freya turned back to Ivy and said brightly, ‘Tess is studying very hard these days. She’s quite in love with Sir Walter Scott.’

  Ivy nodded politely. ‘I didn’t know she had a young man.’

  ‘Walter Scott was a writer,’ Freya said. ‘He’s dead now.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean anything,’ Ivy said. Which, actually, Freya thought, in relation to Tess, was probably true.

  ‘He wrote some famous novels,’ Tess explained. ‘He wrote Ivanhoe.’

  ‘I saw Ivanhoe,’ Ivy said. ‘I saw him on television.’

  ‘She did!’ Freya cried. She felt absurdly pleased that her stepmother had at last said something that was sane and true. ‘It used to be on television every week. The man who played Ivanhoe was an assistant to the very first Doctor Who.’

  ‘Who, dear?’ Ivy asked, and smiled when Freya laughed.