by Sophie King
Love is a Secret
(Previously published as Mums@Home)
Sophie King
Copyright © Sophie King 2013
This edition first published 2013 by Corazon Books
Wyndham Media Ltd
27 Old Gloucester Street, London, WC1 3AX
www.greatstorieswithheart.com
First published in Great Britain in 2006 as Mums@Home by Hodder and Stoughton
Sophie King has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organisations and events are a product of the author's imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, organisations and events is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. This ebook is licensed for the enjoyment of the purchaser only. To share this ebook you must purchase an additional copy per recipient. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
Sophie King (also writing as Janey Fraser) is a journalist and novelist. In 2005, she won the Elizabeth Goudge Short Story Trophy and was a runner up in the Harry Bowling Prize. Her first novel, The School Run, was a bestseller when first published in 2005, and it was a bestseller for the second time when republished by Corazon Books in 2012. Love is a Secret (previously published as Mums@Home) is the second novel in The Sophie King Collection
www.sophieking.info
Other titles by Sophie King available from Corazon Books:
The School Run
Falling in Love Again (previously published as Divorce for Beginners)
Tales from the Heart (short story collection)
Contents
AUGUST
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
SEPTEMBER
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
OCTOBER
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
NOVEMBER
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
DECEMBER
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
Falling in Love Again bonus chapters
Who's Who in Falling in Love Again
The ‘How To Survive Divorce’ Club (Open To Anyone Who Is Single)
1
2
3
4
Session One: Getting To Know You
5
6
7
8
9
Session Two: Moving On
10
AUGUST
1
CAROLINE
00.15
This little bear can make your dreams come true by Christmas! Just send him to six friends and then make a wish. You’ll also be automatically entered in a draw for a free trip to Paris. Do not delete this email or your wish won’t come true!
This has been brought to you by www.whatmumsknow.co.uk, a new website for mums everywhere. Check us out for news, views and tips.
‘Georgiewhatareyoudoingonthecomputeratthistimeofnight.It’smidnightforGod’ssakeandyou’vegottogetupearlytomorrow.You’remeanttohavebeenasleephoursago.Backtobednow.Andifyoudothisagainyou’rebannedfromthecomputerforaweek.’
Honestly, that child’s addicted, thought Caroline despairingly. She had escorted her daughter back to bed, and returned to the screen. She couldn’t be the only parent driven to distraction by her computer-mad kids, but what could you do? Change the password again? Last time she’d done that, she’d forgotten the new one, and had to wait hours for the helpline. Under the desk Caroline snuggled her feet into her slippers. The trouble was that they all needed the internet: Georgie for homework, and herself for work, which was why she was sitting there now when everyone else (including Georgie, finally) was asleep. If she was quick, she could wrap up the feature she should have finished at work today and go through her inbox.
This little bear can make your dreams come true by Christmas . . .
If only! This sort of stuff should have been filtered out into the spam folder. To make it worse, her head was beginning to throb. Caroline delved into the deep pockets of her blue silk dressing-gown for the packet of paracetamol she always kept there, then knocked back a couple of tablets with a mug of tea-gone-cold.
Do not delete this email or your wish won’t come true!
This was almost blackmail! Who were these What Mums Know, and how had they got hold of her email address? She scanned the text. That explained it. It had come from Great Publicity, a service she often used as a journalist. It was quite useful, actually. If you needed case histories, you outlined the kind of person you needed to interview and why, then emailed it to Great Publicity, which sent it on to its client base of public-relations consultants seeking publicity for their clients. In return, they emailed journalists about new products and websites. Like this one.
Delete or save?
She watched her finger hovering as though it didn’t belong to her. What Mums Know might be useful for her page. The sample tips, particularly the one about getting your children to bed, sounded quite good although the wish bit – accompanied by a spattering of hearts – suggested that the site, like so many, was run by an amateur.
An amateur who still believed in love. Caroline sighed wistfully, automatically twisting her thin gold wedding ring up to the knuckle and down again. Bears, hearts and wishes belonged to the kind of birthday cards she could no longer bring herself to buy for Roger.
Make a wish . . . At this time of night, when she couldn’t think clearly, she was almost tempted. The bear’s eyes looked as though they really understood, rather like the white teddy she and Roger had given Annabel in the days when everything had seemed so simple. When she had been able to sleep at night instead of waking at three and thrashing around until daybreak. When she hadn’t felt the compulsion to stay up late and check Roger’s emails on the pretext of working. This time, there’d been nothing in his inbox that seemed remotely suspicious. But, then, he wouldn’t be so indiscreet. He never had been. It was she who had been stupidly naïve, unable to see the tell-tale signs.
‘Can’t you just forget it?’ Roger had said, in the early days when he still allowed her to talk about it.
Make a wish . . . Caroline ran her fingers through her fringe. She could make more than one. She could wish that Annabel would email from Thailand, that Ben would get his A-level grades and start communicating in non-grunt language, that Georgie would listen in class, instead of getting reports that Roger fumed at. And she could wish that they could go back two years. To unmuddied wate
rs. To when Roger hadn’t left a footprint that could never be wiped out.
Go on, murmured the bear. Send me.
Yeah, right, as Georgie would say. Who could she send it to, anyway, without them thinking she was one of those daft people who believed in stuff like this? It would need to be someone understanding, who’d known what she’d gone through.
Her sister Janie in Australia? Annabel, in case she bothered to check her email at an internet café? Her cousin, Linda, perhaps, who had just had a mastectomy? Zelda at work? Maybe Jeff.
Awkwardly, she scrolled down her address book, wishing she was as adept as Georgie, who would have lived online if not for Caroline’s official cut-off time of nine p.m. For that generation, ‘talking’ on Facebook was the equivalent of reading the Famous Five. But at least it wasn’t an open-to-all chatroom. She and Roger had banned those. It was one of the few things they agreed on.
Send.
The computer pinged as it dispatched the arrow into cyberspace, briefly punctuating the silence of a sleeping house. Annabel’s empty lilac-coloured bedroom, which still smelt faintly of her favourite Jean-Paul Gaultier scent – Caroline sometimes sprayed it to make herself feel her daughter was still there. Ben, fast asleep with his head under the pillow, in his room, which stank of sweat, and was crammed with CDs, textbooks and obscene posters on the wall – the kind you had to scrutinise before you realised that, yes, it really was what it looked like. Georgie, at the wrong end of her bed (restless like her mother), surrounded by cricket gear and teenage magazines. And Roger, sleeping the sound sleep of the unjust.
Feeling foolish, she began to whisper her wish, like a quiet chant. It felt soothing, like the prayers of her childhood, but now she really must go to bed or she’d never cope in the morning. Shivering (so much for summer nights), she padded down the corridor and slipped between the crisp lavender-sprayed cotton sheets. Roger reached out for her in the dark, his hand tightening on her waist. Was he imagining, in his sleep, that she was someone else? Uncomfortably, she moved away.
Make your dreams come true!
Crazy! But anything was worth a try.
2
SUSAN
05:28
This little bear can make your dreams come true by Christmas! Just send him to six friends and then make a wish. You’ll also be automatically entered in a draw for a free trip to Paris. Do not delete this email or your wish won’t come true!
This has been brought to you by www.whatmumsknow.co.uk, a new website for mums everywhere. Check us out for news, views and tips.
One of Susan’s treats – as her friend Joy said, they had few enough – was to get up when Tabitha was still asleep and surf the internet. But Susan didn’t see it as surfing; more like dipping her toe into the water of a world where she wasn’t any different from other mothers – at a time when the house was peaceful enough for her to think clearly and simply be herself.
The website, which had been advertised on the centre’s noticeboard, looked intriguing. What Mums Know . . . It had a comforting ring to it, reminiscent of butterfly cakes with squidgy icing, Blue Peter and The Archers, her favourite radio programme.
This little bear can make your dreams come true . . .
One simple wish that would change her life. Wave a magic wand and be in Happy Ever After Land, as shown on her very own screensaver. There it was: the photograph of Tabitha’s christening, which she had copied on to the computer as a self-imposed daily penance: a reminder of what might have been. Herself, slim and smiling in her peacock-blue floaty Monsoon outfit, head nestled against Josh’s broad shoulder. And in her arms, a cream lacy shawl that had belonged to her great-grandmother. Somewhere inside it, Tabitha lay sleeping peacefully. Not knowing any better. Blissfully in the dark, just as her parents had been.
Susan moved the mouse to return to the bear and, as she did so, her arm knocked her thesaurus, so useful for crosswords, on to the floor. There was a little whimper from the room next door and Susan held her breath. Don’t wake up. Not yet. This was the only time she had to herself before a long day of nappies, feeding, mopping up rejected meals from the floor and hauling the wheelchair in and out of the bus.
Silence. But there had been a noise. Perhaps she ought to check Tabitha. But that might really wake her up. Besides, it was so reassuring sitting here, checking out different sites, glancing at the news headlines and Googling whatever took her fancy – like holidays she couldn’t possibly afford. In the old days, before Tabitha, she’d read proper books. Always had her nose in one, her dad used to say. But now there wasn’t time so instead she surfed or read her inbox. Of course, you got some weirdos, like strangers trying to sell her Viagra or cosmetic surgery, or someone informing her she’d won a million quid in some dubious-sounding lottery. But it was exciting. Like opening a surprise parcel every day. Take this sample tip from What Mums Know: You know the mesh bag that comes with Persil tablets? Keep it to store pound coins in.
The computer had been a gift from her father. ‘It’s not new. Someone was selling it at work,’ he’d said brightly, when he arrived unexpectedly one weekend. ‘But it’ll do the job. We can email each other and it will give you something to do.’
What he’d meant was that it would give her something normal to do, and he had been right. She avoided the links to the numerous self-help groups for special-needs kids because that wasn’t what she wanted. But the news items got her brain cells working again – as did the online crosswords. On good days, even Tabitha could type at the keyboard in her own one-fingered way.
Briefly, she skimmed the homepage again.
What Mums Know is a new website for mums everywhere! Some of us work and some of us are full-time mums. We want to share chat, tips and experiences. If you’d like to join us, please register below.
An ordinary website for ordinary mums with ordinary kids! A website where she could ‘talk’ to people without seeing automatic pity in their eyes as they glanced down at Tabitha in her wheelchair. Susan got so fed up with talking to other ‘disabled mums’ at the centre. All they did was discuss their problems. There was a preschool nursery for ‘normal’ kids there too – next to their bit – and she often envied the parents with young children who could already talk and walk better than Tabitha and her friends.
Maybe she would sign up for What Mums Know. Susan allowed the cursor to hover over the space for a username. But no. She was far too boring. Susan was the kind of woman who always replaced the loo roll before the last square ran out, who returned her library books on time, who never had anything interesting to talk about any more. That was what Josh had said before he left. And more.
She looked out of the window at the early-morning mist nudging the top of the rape fields, and breathed in their inimitable sweet smell. Pale colours were breaking out through the haze in an arc. A rainbow! Susan felt a prickle of childish excitement. That was it! ‘Rainbow’ suggested someone who was always smiling, never complaining. The kind of person she used to be and whom she wanted to be again – a woman who sprayed Nina Ricci into the dimples at the back of her knees, who never went out without her makeup and fitted effortlessly into a size ten. A girl, for that was what she felt like inside, despite everything, whose striking auburn hair was cut in a soft bob every five weeks instead of tied back with a scrunchie because she had neither time nor money for regular cuts.
That was definitely a whimper from next door. Hurry. Susan’s fingers flew over the rest of the form. Details of children – names and ages. Hobbies. Send.
‘Mummummum.’
‘Coming, Tabs.’ Susan jumped up, wincing as she knocked into the chair behind her, bruising her shin.
‘Mummummummum . . .’
If she didn’t hurry, the bed would be even wetter.
‘Mummum.’
One wish. Susan closed her eyes tightly, as she had in childhood to pray. A teddy wish. A prayer. A scream. A shout. What was the difference? Paris . . . She’d always wanted to go to Paris. Josh – such a dre
amer – had promised to take her one day.
‘The Eiffel Tower,’ he had crooned, in a lumpy bed during their honeymoon in wet Weston-super-Mare. ‘That’s where we’ll go when we have the money.’
She’d believed him.
‘Mum!’
‘I’m here, Tabitha. I’m here.’
She could smell her daughter from the doorway. ‘It’s all right, love. It’s all right.’ Holding her breath, she reached for the thick kitchen roll she kept in her room for this purpose. Where was the disinfectant? There. Almost empty.
‘Don’t worry, love. We’ll have you clean and dry in no time.’ Puffing with the strain, Susan supported her daughter as they waddled together to the bathroom. A stand-up job in the bath except Tabitha didn’t do stand-up very easily. Warm flannel over private parts that any other twelve-year-old would never have let her mother see. Over the last few months, she’d seen the shame in Tabitha’s eyes when this happened. Her daughter was no fool: she knew all too well that she was different from others. Susan patted the last bits dry. ‘See? All nice and clean again.’
‘Smell, smell.’ Tabitha was urgently pointing to the bathroom shelf.
‘What do you want, love?’
‘Smell, smell.’ Tabitha’s eyes were feverishly insistent.
‘But you don’t smell any more, love . . . Oh, I see.’
She wanted the cheap talcum powder that sat on the shelf along with other necessities, like incontinence pads. Powder that Josh had sent two Christmases ago, and Tabitha treated as reverently as if it were frankincense or myrrh.
‘Just a bit, then.’
Susan shook some over her daughter and rubbed it in. Tabitha smiled toothily.