One Small Act of Kindness

by Lucy Dillon

  She glared at Margaret. ‘I’m sorry Donald’s not here: I miss him, and I am sorry for your grief. But right now, I don’t think it’s me Donald would be horrified with, do you?’

  And she turned on her heel and marched out, so Margaret wouldn’t see her tears of frustration and disappointment – and shame.

  Luke was waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs.

  ‘Just don’t.’ She raised her hands before he could speak. ‘I’ve said some mean things, but they needed saying. We can’t go on with—’

  She didn’t finish because Luke was propelling her into the office. He steered her towards the comfortable armchair, pushed her into it, pulled a hankie from his back pocket, then went back to the door and closed it.

  ‘There’s something you need to understand about Mum,’ he said.

  Libby wiped under her eyes where her mascara had smudged. Her heart was still racing painfully, as if she’d just done a spin class. ‘I know what you’re going to say – she’s still grieving. I’m not a monster. But it’s like she’s decided this isn’t going to work! She wants us to fit into her version of reality, in which she and Jason are perfect, and you and I are selfish egomaniacs. I don’t understand her obsession with the hotel being a family business when she only seems to like half of her family! Seriously, how do you cope?’

  Luke pinched the bridge of his long nose, as if he was struggling with something inside. ‘It’s not that. There’s something you need to know about Mum that I would never tell you in a million years if I didn’t think there was more than just the hotel at stake here. I don’t want you to leave. Mum doesn’t want you to leave, not really. Jason definitely won’t. I’d bet everything I’ve got that he’s desperate for you to be here when he finally hauls his sorry arse back home.’

  ‘If he does.’

  ‘He will. He’s his father’s son.’

  ‘Yeah, but so are you, Luke. In fact, the way you’ve helped me, I’d say you’re more like Donald.’

  A shadow passed across Luke’s face. ‘That’s the whole point, though. I’m not. I wish I was, but . . . I’m not my father’s son.’

  ‘What?’

  He came to sit down on the chair nearest to hers. ‘The reason Mum is so uptight about this hotel, and about Dad, and what matters in the town is . . . Donald wasn’t my dad.’

  Libby stared at him. ‘I don’t understand.’ She’d been braced for some revelation about Margaret losing money on the horses, or maybe having a secret sherry problem, but not this.

  ‘He’s Jason’s dad, but not mine. Mum was pregnant when she and Dad got married, and one of the reasons they moved here and took over the hotel was to give themselves a fresh start where no one would know.’

  ‘You’re kidding.’

  Luke shook his head. ‘Nope. It was a shock to me, I can tell you. But it suddenly made a lot of things make sense.’

  ‘So who is your dad? And who told you?’

  ‘Dad told me. Donald, I mean. The funny thing was, it wasn’t in anger. He didn’t throw it at me. He told me because he wanted me to understand why Mum . . . was as she was.’ Luke stared at the floor, then frowned. ‘I was naughty when I was little. Like lots of little boys are naughty. But Mum was always so down on me that it turned into something else. I couldn’t do anything right, so I stopped trying. Course, now they’d say it was a case of any attention being better than none, but I was just an angry little boy, and it didn’t help that Jason literally could do no wrong. I got up to all sorts I shouldn’t have at school because I knew someone would have to come and get me, and I got an afternoon at home. And of course that escalated as I got old enough to get into proper trouble. Mum used to go absolutely spare – how could I be so selfish? Didn’t I care about Dad’s reputation? – but Dad never reacted. He just picked me up, said nothing, but I knew I’d let him down and that was worse than Mum kicking off.’

  ‘So when did he tell you?’ Libby was struggling to imagine tweed-jacket-and-cords Donald even initiating such a Jeremy Kyle conversation, let alone how it might have gone.

  ‘I’d been dragged down to the station by a copper who thought I could give them a name for some burglaries.’ Luke picked up a pen from the desk and started rolling it between his fingers. ‘I didn’t know anything about any burglaries, but it was definitely my last warning. Dad got a tip-off from one of his mates in the Force and came and got me, but Mum had said one more incident with the police and I was out. It was upsetting Jason’s A-level revision, apparently. I thought we were going home for a bollocking, but Dad drove me to the big supermarket – it was deserted, like in a film – and said we needed to have a chat. Proper man-to-man chat.’

  Luke glanced up. His eyes were sad. ‘I’ll never forget how knackered Dad looked. He said, “I’m going to tell you something you need to know about your mother, and I’m trusting you, on your honour, to keep it a secret. And I’ll know if you break your word, and that’ll be the end for you and me.” I said, “Go on,” thinking he was going to say she was bipolar or something, but he said that, well . . . he and Mum met when she was a secretary in the law firm his dad owned in Oxfordshire and he was a junior solicitor. Mum was a real looker in those days, and though she went out with Dad a couple of times, I’d guess she was really looking for someone . . . better.’

  Libby thought of the photographs in Doris’s album: tired, pretty Margaret with her curly dark hair and shoulder pads and nice legs. And Donald next to her, a bit older but handsome in that cricket-whites-centre-parting way.

  ‘Better than your dad?’ she asked. ‘I can’t imagine you could do much better than him. He was a gentleman.’

  ‘Well, exactly. One morning he comes into work, she’s in floods of tears, and when he asks her what the matter is, it comes out that she’s in trouble, as he put it.’ Luke raised an eyebrow. ‘She’d “been seeing” the star player on the local football team. He was only in town on a loan and then conveniently got a transfer to Newcastle and was never seen again. I think she met him in the office. When he was getting some legal advice about a speeding ticket.’ He huffed, amused. ‘Dad gave him the advice. Swapped it for a season ticket.’

  ‘I find that quite . . . hard to picture,’ said Libby slowly. ‘Margaret getting herself into trouble.’

  ‘She wasn’t born into the WI, you know. And it’s not just easy girls who make bad choices about men. Nicer they are, the worse decisions they make.’ He moved swiftly on. Too swiftly, Libby thought. ‘Anyway, Dad proposed. She said yes. And rather than stick around in town and have people put two and two together, he bought a run-down hotel three counties away, and lo and behold less than twelve months after I was born, Jason came along and they’ve got a ready-made happy family.’

  ‘And very happy you were too,’ said Libby. ‘Look, I don’t want to rewrite the past, but your mum and dad adored each other – you could tell. I don’t think he made her do anything she didn’t want to. And he loved you.’

  Luke looked away, then straight back at her. He was handsome, thought Libby. Footballer handsome. ‘I know. That’s one good thing. But Mum was worried about what she might have made Dad take on with me. What unpleasant traits might emerge. Dad reckoned that when she was giving me a hard time, it wasn’t about me, but about her. She wanted to nip any potential love-rat behaviour in the bud.’ He twisted his mouth. ‘Didn’t help that I was a bit of a player when I was a kid. Always had a few girls on the go at the same time – you know what it’s like. But I never got anyone pregnant. I never hurt anyone. But it’s why she’s so worried about Alice now – habit of a lifetime and all that. She’s worried that my inner love rat’s come out and ruined poor Alice.’

  ‘Oh, but that’s ridiculous!’ Libby was outraged. How could Margaret be so . . . medieval? ‘You don’t inherit behaviour. You are who you are.’

  ‘Well . . . are you?’ Luke looked up, his eyes dark and questioning
above his sharp cheekbones. ‘I sometimes wonder. I Googled my real dad once.’ He winced. ‘Three wives, washed up at fifty. Made me feel sick. No,’ he added, before Libby could ask. ‘I never wanted to get in touch. As far as I’m concerned, Dad was my dad, and that’s it.’

  Silence fell between them. Libby had too many questions to know which to ask first. But before she could order her thoughts, Jason was speaking again.

  ‘I know Dad wanted me to understand that Mum did love me, deep down, and I see why he thought it might help me cut her some slack, but it knocked me for six. And it meant Jason would always have something I wouldn’t. I could never be Jason, in their eyes. So I joined the army, where no one knew me. No history. No expectations. Course, it wasn’t enough for Mum, but by then I didn’t care as much. And things have worked out OK.’

  He stopped flipping the pen. ‘When I’m not here.’

  Libby rolled this new information round in her head, not wanting to say the wrong thing. Luke had been right: it did change everything. Well, it didn’t change anything, but it explained a lot. Jason, the swiftly conceived reward for Donald’s gentlemanly rescue. Luke, the ticking time bomb of irresponsibility. And Margaret, constantly worrying – about Luke’s inheritance, about her own character, maybe even if Donald would one day throw the favour he’d done her in her face.

  ‘And does Margaret know you know? Or Jason?’

  Luke shook his head. ‘Nope. Neither of them. I made a promise to Dad. And I was angry for a while that she’d told this huge lie yet was down on me for stupid teenage things, but as I got older, I realised why Mum was the way she was. All because of one mistake.’

  ‘You’re not a mistake,’ said Libby. ‘You’ve given them both so much to be proud about. If Margaret can’t choose to show it, for whatever reason, then I know Donald was proud of you.’

  Luke shrugged; he wasn’t used to taking compliments, she could tell. ‘I don’t know. But I’m only telling you now for the same reason Dad told me – I don’t want Mum’s hang-ups to drive you away from Jason, and from the hotel. She needs you. We all do. So swear to me this goes no further than this office.’

  ‘Of course, but . . .’ Libby turned her palms up. ‘Is it healthy, sweeping this under the carpet? I understand why Margaret would feel ashamed thirty-odd years ago, but does it matter now? The knock-on effect is much worse. Jason can’t deal with failure, and it’s come from Margaret treating him like some infallible prince. You know it took him three days to tell me he’d been sacked? He left the house in a suit and went to his mate’s rather than tell me. His wife.’

  ‘You’re kidding.’ Luke looked disbelieving.

  ‘I wish I was.’ That had almost hurt more than the bigger betrayals. ‘I don’t even know what he’s doing now. He keeps putting five hundred quid in the account every week. I told him I don’t want the money if he’s trading again. But I reckon he’s been bailing out the hotel for years – I went through the accounts and found loads of mysterious deposits, usually to stop the mortgage defaulting.’

  ‘Well, some of those were mine. Don’t tell Mum – she doesn’t know. I did it for Dad.’

  ‘What? Seriously.’ Libby let out a long breath. ‘You lot really need to start talking to one another.’

  ‘I know. But this has to stay between us, right? I’ve never told a soul. Not even Alice.’ Luke caught himself, but not before his expression had given him away.

  ‘Not even Alice?’

  He seemed to be about to deny it, then shook his head as if it was a relief to let it out. ‘I wanted to, because Alice is the only person who might have understood – she used to talk about wishing she knew whether she took after her mum but there being no one to ask. Whether having to be your own person was a blessing or a burden. I could talk about anything with her. She’s the most extraordinary woman I’ve ever met. We talked about things I didn’t know I felt until she winkled them out of me.’ He shook his head and Libby saw his lips had curved into an unconscious smile. ‘Probably a good job she can’t remember some of the deep and meaningful conversations we had.’

  So had it been a crush? A local holiday romance? Whatever, it must have been hard, Libby thought, seeing Gethin come back, sweeping Alice away. Especially if Luke felt the pressure to be decent, not to live down to his reputation and steal someone’s girlfriend.

  ‘Alice is amazing,’ she said. ‘It sounds like you had a real connection.’ She paused, then said, since they were being honest, ‘Well, it’s obvious you still do. Even if she can’t remember any of those things you told her.’

  ‘You know that feeling that you’ve met someone before? I think it’s more that they’re so similar to you that you feel you already know them. Like looking in a mirror. You’re on the same frequency.’ Luke glanced up. His face was vulnerable and Libby saw a much younger Luke in his eyes. The one who was scared of who he was, what he might become. ‘The baby . . . do you think she’s going to keep it?’

  It was pointless pretending; clearly Alice had told him. ‘I don’t know. She and Gethin might have been planning a family. They’d been together a while. And she says Gethin’s keen to settle down; she’s wearing that ring he gave her . . .’

  Why did I say that? Libby could have kicked herself. Is it yours? she wanted to ask. Could it be . . . ? But how did she ask that? After what he’d just told her?

  ‘Guess so.’ Luke pressed his lips together. ‘Anyway, none of my business. So! Is there anything else you need help with before I pack my tool case and bid you a fond farewell tomorrow?’

  ‘You’re not going so soon?’

  ‘Job in Surrey all next week. Top secret.’ He tapped his nose and Libby suspected he’d just made it up. She felt she had to play along, though, for the sake of his dignity.

  I’m turning into one of them, she thought. Please, no.

  ‘Sure I can’t persuade you to hang about for dinner?’ she said. ‘A thank-you meal for all you’ve done? I was going to break out the takeaway leaflets the instant Tara’s breakfast plates are washed.’

  He shook his head. ‘I’d better make a move. Anyway, you’re more than capable of running this place single-handed.’

  ‘I don’t know about that.’ Libby was flattered, but she wasn’t kidding herself. ‘I’ve had a lot of help. It’s not something I ever thought I’d end up doing, but . . . it’s surprised me, I suppose.’

  ‘Well, that’s the thing. How do you know what you’re good at till you do it?’ Luke got up, and arched his eyebrow at her. ‘As Dad used to say, hotels are easy. It’s the people in them that are the pains in the arse.’

  Yes, thought Libby, and I’ve just managed to stir up a hornets’ nest with the only person living here permanently.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  When Alice got back to the hotel with Tara, after a walk around Longhampton, during which she’d extolled the virtues of Libby, Jason and the community spirit that had brought the hotel together to the point where it almost sounded as if bluebirds had made the beds and woodland creatures had chipped in to finish the tiling, she was surprised to find Gethin waiting for her outside in his car.

  ‘Come to take you both home!’ he said with a big smile for Fido.

  Tara, who’d started off frosty but had warmed up to chattiness by the second deli, seemed charmed. Gethin introduced himself, asked some sweetly baffled questions about women’s magazines, and then before Alice had really had time to let Libby know she was off, they were on their way home.

  In all the fuss about Tara’s visit, she’d forgotten it was a date night.

  ‘Are we going somewhere special?’ she asked, as they headed out of town towards Stratton.

  ‘Don’t you want to stay in? I’ve barely seen you this week.’

  ‘Sorry, it’s been so busy with—’

  ‘I know.’ Gethin didn’t take his eyes off the road. ‘That’s why I thought
it might be nice to spend time relaxing together.’

  When she didn’t answer, he added, more solicitously, ‘As you seem so tired. After all your hard work. You need to put your feet up.’

  ‘Oh.’ Alice felt guilty. ‘I’m not that tired, if you’d like to go out – it’s nothing a quick coffee wouldn’t fix.’

  ‘We’ve got loads to catch up with on series link. And I can’t think of anything nicer than a whole evening on the sofa with you, a pizza, a bottle or two of cider . . .’

  ‘And Fido,’ said Alice.

  ‘And Fido.’

  Once they were settled onto the squashy sofa with the dog in between them, a pizza in the oven and six episodes of Homeland lined up, Alice made a conscious effort to stop wondering what was going on back at the hotel and to enjoy her evening in. Because it was nice. Settled, and cosy, and quiet.

  Gethin had just started the first episode when the phone rang, and as usual he sprang up to answer it. Alice fed Fido a couple of Pringles, but Gethin was back before she had time to run through her ‘paw’ routine twice.

  ‘Who was that?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, no one.’ Gethin settled himself back on the sofa, slipping his arm round her.

  ‘It must have been someone.’ Alice wasn’t sure who, though. She hadn’t spoken to his workmates since she’d come home. Or, it occurred to her, anyone in Gethin’s family. He said he’d told his mother and sister what had happened – the edited details: he didn’t think they needed to know about the row – but they hadn’t called her or sent ‘get well soon’ cards or anything. It was odd, considering how motherly Margaret had been, but then Gethin didn’t seem to like talking about his family.