The First Time I Saw Your Face

by Hazel Osmond

  O’Dowd was laughing. ‘You’re right there. Sold yourself a bit short, my son, but don’t worry, you’re made for life. The job offers will be pouring in.’

  ‘I don’t want my name on this.’

  ‘You’re joking.’

  ‘You can put your name on it in return for a promise that Jennifer Roseby doesn’t get mentioned.’

  ‘Her? She’s out of the loop, a sprat to catch a mackerel.’

  It was all Mack could do not to hurl the phone at the wall. In the end he just chucked it in the bin, then he used his own to ring for a taxi.

  At Tess’s house, he didn’t even make it over the threshold before he was in tears again, clutching Gabi and Fran, fending off Joe’s questions and Tess’s concern about who he’d been fighting with. He wouldn’t tell them anything until the girls were settled upstairs with a DVD.

  As he explained about Phyllida and Sir Teddy, he saw the way their faces mirrored his own when he’d heard the news from O’Dowd – all those subtle changes to and fro between disbelief and fear. The momentary satisfaction that they understood what it meant for the family if Phyllida’s past had been revealed was whisked away by the knowledge that he now had to tell them what he’d done. He talked on, and Tess’s face looked more and more waxy. When he reached the part where he’d fallen for Jen and she’d fallen for him, Tess lowered her chin, and the movement reminded him of Jen so much he had to halt for a while.

  Mack knew that if Tess got up and walked out of the room he was finished. Losing Tess, losing Jen, what was the point of anything then?

  Joe was looking at his wife.

  ‘I knew he was up to something,’ he said, ‘he’s always been a shifty sod.’ He turned on Mack. ‘Ever thought you should have treated us all like grown-ups and told us everything from the start? Four heads are better than one, even when you count Phyllida. We could have come up with something better than the mess you’ve got yourself into now, the damage you’ve done to that poor girl.’ Joe gave Mack a particularly penetrating stare. ‘Mind you, what you’re telling us now could be a pack of lies too.’

  ‘I wish it was, but it’s not, Joe … and whatever you think you could have done, let me tell you it wouldn’t have worked. O’Dowd wanted that story; he would never have let go.’

  Please say something, Tess.

  There was a noise outside the door before it opened and Phyllida walked in. She had filled out a little and was smartly dressed, with a string of pearls at her neck, but she was limping badly and leaning heavily on a grey, metal crutch.

  ‘The girls woke me up,’ she said sulkily, ‘some cartoon they’re watching in your bedroom. Why couldn’t they watch it down here?’ She did an almost comical double take when she saw Mack.

  ‘Fighting at your age?’ She nodded at his face and tutted, before laboriously lowering herself on to a chair.

  Tess still had her chin down.

  ‘Great, Phyllida, hello to you too,’ he said, getting up. ‘Thank God it wasn’t just you I was trying to protect, or I’d feel a fool on top of everything else.’

  Phyllida looked from Joe to Tess as if she could pick up a clue to what Mack might be talking about.

  It was then Tess started to speak.

  ‘Mack’s just been telling us what he was really doing in Northumberland,’ she said. ‘He wasn’t writing a walking book, he was getting friendly with a cousin of Cressida Chartwell’s so he could get the inside story on her love life for O’Dowd. He managed to do it, and it’ll be in the paper tomorrow, but he fell in love with the cousin, Jennifer, her name is, and she fell for him and they had sex and now he’s probably broken her heart.’

  The whole speech had been delivered in a monotone and not once had Tess looked at him. He wanted to shrivel up and die, hearing it all from her lips.

  Phyllida looked aghast. ‘You’ve done what? What? You disgusting, filthy wretch. How could you? I am deeply, deeply ashamed of you.’

  ‘Stop it. Don’t you dare talk to him like that!’ Tess suddenly shouted.

  Joe looked at her uneasily. ‘Love – take it easy.’

  ‘No, I won’t.’ Tess’s face was screwed up and hardly recognisable. She was on her feet, standing over Phyllida. ‘Go on, Mum, ask him why he did it.’

  ‘Money, I would think,’ Phyllida said, drawing back from her daughter.

  ‘That’s where you’re so wrong. He did it for you. He’s told us why and I believe him. I know he’s lied to me about everything else: I know that he’s always made up stories and if he could tell a lie for an easy life, he would. But I believe him about this. He lied to protect you and protect us and you’re not even grateful.’ Tess seemed to be towering over Phyllida. ‘But why does that surprise me? You’re never grateful, not even to me. Always at your beck and call, putting the girls and Joe to one side and you’re still drinking on the sly. You did it in hospital, you’re doing it now. Oh, that’s a good face, Mum … is that your surprised one? Little Tess, sunshiny Tess, knowing that?’ She bent down until her face was level with Phyllida’s. ‘If there’s anyone in this room that disgusts me, it’s not him.’

  ‘Tess, love,’ Joe said, standing up.

  ‘What? Go easy on her? Mind what I say? I’m sick of that. So listen to this, Mum, Mack did it because O’Dowd was going to splash all over the papers that you were Sir Teddy Montgomery’s lover.’ Tess had crossed her arms, but was still looking at her mother with fury. ‘Mack’s been a good son to you and look where it’s got him.’

  ‘O’Dowd told you I was Sir Teddy Montgomery’s lover?’ Phyllida said, touching the pearls round her neck.

  Mack nodded. ‘He had diaries, a photograph.’

  ‘You saw them?’

  ‘I didn’t need to; he gave me enough details to know it was you. That wavy scar by your backbone, that noise you make when …’ He looked at Tess and hesitated.

  ‘… When you have sex,’ Tess finished for him.

  Phyllida’s eyebrows shot up.

  ‘Besides, you confirmed it yourself that day on the patio before I headed north. I asked you if you knew anyone called Teddy and you fell apart, said something like “It was madness, a stupid passion.”’

  What had he expected? A big hug? A thank you for all he’d done?

  ‘You stupid bloody imbecile,’ Phyllida shouted.

  CHAPTER 38

  ‘I’m thinking about going back into work today,’ Jennifer said and waited for them to try to stop her. If she could only keep talking, keep the momentum going, she could find her way through this. The thing was to keep her mind occupied, and work was the place for that, not here with everyone back to treating her as if she was an invalid. They couldn’t help themselves – she’d seen Brenda whisk the Courant off the table as she’d walked in.

  How easy would going back to work be, though? She thought about all those times Matt had sat up in the local history section and looked down at her. No not looked, spied. And it wasn’t Matt, it was Mack.

  ‘You’ve had more phone calls,’ her mother said. ‘Lisa, Finlay again, Angus, Lydia, oh, and that drippy Pamela woman. I have to say, she means well, but what a drain she is.’

  Bryony placed a mug of coffee in front of her. ‘Have a drink of this before you go.’

  Yes, she was fine. People would think she was an idiot, but then they were right, she was …

  She noticed the chrysanthemums in the big blue jug.

  ‘These are nice.’

  She saw the look that flitted from Bryony to her mother.

  ‘They’re from Alex, love. Delivered yesterday. Remember?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she said, but did not. Alex with his big white charger. Or Land Rover. It was all the same.

  ‘Cress rang again, of course,’ Bryony said. ‘She couldn’t stay long. Said things were mad, Rory’s walked off the film, no one knows if he’ll be back.’

  Jennifer saw her mother making signals to Bryony to stop talking, and she wished Bryony would. She was giving herself a break from Cr
ess for a while. Too mixed in with Matt.

  Not Matt. Mack.

  She got up and retrieved the newspaper from down the side of the dresser, turning the pages until she saw the photograph that had been taken of the cast. No picture of him, of course, that’s why he’d been late for the dress rehearsal. And only a review of Lisa as Viola, not her. The invisible woman meets the man who never was.

  ‘I’d better be off,’ she said, and there was that little flitting look again.

  ‘What?’ she shouted. ‘Just say it – stop doing those looks!’

  Her mother came over to her softly, as if approaching a nervous cat. ‘Jen, it’s already half past two. Go into work if you want, love, Bryony will drive you. But it’s the afternoon, Jen.’

  She looked at her watch and couldn’t make sense of it.

  ‘Well, I’ll just have a walk round the farm then. Get some fresh air.’

  ‘Let Bryony come with you.’ Her mother was now also employing a nervous-cat-calming voice. ‘Just in case any of those journalists aren’t keeping to the road.’

  At the word ‘journalists’, Jennifer felt everything give that familiar tilt. She sat down and curled her fingers around the seat of the chair, certain that if she didn’t she might pitch forward.

  ‘They’re not here for you, Jen,’ Bryony said quickly, ‘it’s because of Cress and Anna Maria. Remember?’

  Like he’d only been here for Cress and Anna Maria.

  ‘Jen, are you all right?’ her mother asked.

  ‘Of course. I was just trying to think about Bryony protecting me from the journalists and I had a joke in my head, you know, something about that being like shutting a door after a horse has galloped off, but I can’t think how it goes.’

  This time she couldn’t muster the energy to tell them to stop those looks and took herself back up to her bedroom.

  CHAPTER 39

  People streamed past, eyes down, talking on mobiles, some knocking into him and not saying a word. Everything seemed speeded up, for no reason at all, and the different accents coming his way sounded flat. No sharp freshness in the air, either.

  He went in through the revolving door, across the marble floor and was ushered into the lift as if he himself was some kind of celebrity.

  He wasn’t surprised, when the door opened, to see Serena standing there in what she probably hoped was a nonchalant stance. His stock had risen, after all, and suddenly he must look a lot more attractive.

  ‘Don’t even bother,’ he said when she looked as though she was going to speak, but there was no satisfaction in the exchange: tit-for-tat seemed a petty little game when he had something much more important to get through.

  He moved towards O’Dowd’s office and saw how they were all trying to pretend they weren’t looking at him. Once he’d viewed this place with such excitement; where he’d felt part of an inner circle, getting to know what was happening in the world before anyone else.

  It’s just a big open-plan office with a lot of wise-ass cynics hunched over computers.

  ‘Mack,’ O’Dowd said, coming to greet him, and Mack had to force himself to look at him. It stirred up everything black and treacly that lay slicked down on the underside of his own character. He wanted to turn away, there was every possibility he might bottle this.

  ‘Come in, come in,’ O’Dowd said. ‘Here, look at these.’

  On O’Dowd’s desk was a pile of newspapers; titles from the UK, the continent and the US, all with a tearful but brave-looking Cressida on the front. Beside her stood a woman with long dark hair and a mouth that even in black and white you knew was a voluptuous bright red. ‘Out and About’, shouted one headline, ‘The Rose and the Spitfire’, another.

  No such thing as bad publicity. For some.

  ‘The old bastard is very, very happy,’ O’Dowd said. ‘You happy too? Money OK? Good to feel flush? So, what can I do for you? Thought it was tomorrow we were doing the great diary-and-photo shredding, but we can do it now if you like. Only have to call the legal guys to bring the stuff along.’

  ‘No need. Change of plan. I’ve got another scoop.’

  ‘I knew it,’ O’Dowd crowed, ‘it’s in your blood.’

  ‘How true.’

  ‘So come on, sit down. Is it about Cressida again?’

  Mack thought about that big shiny secret he had been given and wrapped it deeper inside himself. The blood was thundering round his body, he could almost hear it pumping and surging and he tried to calm it by thinking of the beach and counting those waves. One. Two. Three.

  ‘No, not about Cressida. It’s about a guy called Gordon O’Dowd. You heard of him?’

  ‘Don’t get your drift, my son.’ O’Dowd’s look was suddenly guarded.

  ‘There were no diaries, were there?’ Mack said, as evenly as he could. ‘No photograph either? In fact, no affair between Phyllida and Sir Teddy Montgomery?’

  O’Dowd looked away, and Mack could tell he was trying not to laugh. He felt nausea scurry up from his stomach and then retreat.

  ‘You worked that out finally then?’ O’Dowd said, looking back at him, and then he did laugh, a short bark of a thing. ‘But don’t blame me, you wanted to believe it of old Phyllida. You were so scared I could smell it.’ He spread his arms wide. ‘Come on, no hard feelings. I did you a favour. Look at the money you’ve made.’

  ‘Oh don’t worry; I’ll never, ever forget what I owe you.’ Mack managed a smile. ‘So, where was I? Oh yeah. You played a blinder, especially with those little personal details about Mum. Reeled me in nicely. ’Course Phyllida didn’t help by going into a tailspin when I asked her about Teddy. It all seemed to be true.’ He shook his head. ‘Stupid Mack didn’t realise there was another Teddy lurking in this story. Remind me again of your full name, will you?’

  O’Dowd didn’t answer.

  ‘OK, I’ll remind you. Gordon Edward O’Dowd. I knew that, of course; knew you didn’t like the “Edward” as it was too posh. Just didn’t twig that some people, select people, get to call you “Teddy”.’ He folded his hands in his lap. ‘You were Mum’s lover, not old Montgomery. That’s how you knew those details about her.’

  ‘Well done, my son.’ There was not a trace of remorse on O’Dowd’s face.

  ‘Crafty old Phyllida … she was seeing you and Dad at the same time. You were her nasty little secret, “madness, a stupid passion” as she so rightly said—’

  ‘He was a tosser, your dad,’ O’Dowd stated, as if it was a fact, and Mack thought of all the things that ‘Tosser’ had done for him.

  ‘Tosser or not,’ Mack said, ‘Phyllida chose him in the end. Must have hurt, top-flight woman like Phyllida picking you up and then dropping you. Niggled at you all these years, hasn’t it? Then, stroke of luck, I turn up all bright-eyed and eager to work for you.’ He laughed. ‘God, you were poisonous to me. Never understood why. And then you saw your chance with Sir Teddy. Phyllida was so befuddled and I was so down on my luck and desperate to protect her and the family, you could have made me do just about anything.’

  O’Dowd looked about as bothered as if someone had been reading him the shipping forecast.

  Mack took the brown A4 envelope from his pocket, unfolded it and placed it on O’Dowd’s knees. Then he studied that face, looking at the angle of the nose, the brow line, fitting it all together. That nausea was back.

  O’Dowd pretended more disinterest, but was soon tearing the envelope open with his stubby thumbnail. He pulled out a piece of paper.

  ‘Your birth certificate,’ he said warily.

  ‘Well done. Mother: Phyllida Grayfield, Father: Graham Stone. Nice and neat.’ On purpose, Mack leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. ‘Pile of lies, like most of your paper. The name under Father should be Gordon Edward O’Dowd.’

  He was never going to get used to saying that – it felt dirty in his mouth, like an obscenity.

  ‘Yeah, right,’ O’Dowd said, but his eyes were shifting around, as if trying to l
atch on to some certainty. ‘I was always careful.’

  ‘Sure? Phyllida told me to remind you about a party in Clapham. You were drunk and wouldn’t listen to “No”. Gave her a black eye. You being violent wasn’t unusual, evidently, being too drunk to put a condom on was.’

  O’Dowd’s face clouded. ‘I never doled out anything to your mother she didn’t ask for.’ Mack took his hands from behind his head and sat on them. This man opposite him was his father, and that was a monstrous fact to carry round in his brain. Far worse, though, was the suspicion that he might be taking after him. Like father, like son. What he’d done to Jen; what O’Dowd had done to Phyllida – was it that different?

  ‘Besides,’ O’Dowd said, all defiance again, ‘how come you’re suddenly mine when she was sleeping with Saint Graham too?’

  ‘Because Graham wasn’t a saint. Returned from one of his trips with a nasty dose of “not being particularly choosy about who you have intercourse with”. Treatable, but sex wasn’t on the menu for a few months. Guess when that was?’

  O’Dowd looked as though he was trying to laugh that information off, but his mouth was not set in quite the right shape.

  That thundering was back in Mack’s ears. ‘Funny, isn’t it? You calling me “my son” all the time? Turns out I am.’ He grabbed one of the newspapers, rolling it up and shoving it microphone-like under O’Dowd’s chin. ‘How do you feel, Mr O’Dowd? Could you cry a bit for us?’

  The paper was slapped away. ‘What are you after?’

  ‘Nothing. I’m pretty disgusted by the things you’ve already given me. I like to think that all the bad things in my character are down to you and all the good things are down to Graham. Knew I wasn’t his and still did his best. More than his best, I suspect … he was that kind of guy. Whereas you, Daddy dearest, got your own son to betray a wonderful, brave, beautiful woman who was probably the love of his life.’

  ‘Yeah, well.’ O’Dowd’s gaze strayed to his watch.