Secret Smile (10 page)

I stood for a moment on the threshold of
the room and looked at them all. Brendan was grinding coffee beans and Kerry
was making toast and jam for everyone, and a comforting burnt smell filled the
air. Mum was dressed more casually than I was used to, in an old pair of
corduroys and a plaid shirt. Her hair was loose and brushed behind her ears,
and for a moment I was taken aback at how carefree she looked. She was carrying
a bright bunch of dahlias. Brendan came up to her and put his arm round her and
she laughed and leaned against him and held the flowers under his nose. I
looked at my father, but he didn't seem to mind in the slightest. He was
beaming at the room. He was unshaven and there were circles of sweat under his
armpits, jam on his chin.

Troy was sitting on the floor on a
folded-up duvet, with his back against the sofa. He was fiddling with a puzzle I'd
given him last Thursday, a set of polystyrene shapes which — so it said on the box
— fitted together into a cube. I looked at his face as he concentrated. He
looked thin and pale and tired. There were bruises under his eyes, as if he'd
been crying. But he seemed peaceful as well. Troy is the only person that I
know who can be happy and sad at the same time, carrying two kinds of weather
round inside him. He slotted in the final shape — yes, it really did make a
cube — and gave a smile of satisfaction before taking it apart again.
Tenderness rose in my throat and I suddenly wanted to burst into tears.

'Hello, everyone,' I said. I kissed my
parents on the cheek and ruffled Troy's hair.

'Coffee's up,' said Brendan cheerily.
'Afraid I've finished the beans, though.'

'Where do you want to put everything?' I
asked Kerry. 'There's nowhere really to hang your clothes.'

'Dad's giving us one of those rails,' she
said. 'Just for the smarter stuff and my work clothes. We can stand it behind
the sofa. The rest we can just keep in the bags.'

I couldn't manage anything more than a
weak, acquiescent shrug. I watched Mum stuffing the dahlias into a tumbler and
tried to swallow back a spasm of self-pity. She hadn't given me flowers when
she last came round.

'Here we are,' said Brendan. 'Milk, no
sugar, right?' He gave a sort of wink, as if he had answered a quiz question
correctly.

I sat down next to Troy and watched Kerry
put cereal boxes into cupboards. Brendan lifted a heap of books off a wide
shelf and inserted the tiny television. 'We can watch it in bed,' he said. 'Is
your sofa bed comfy, Mirrie? I've never slept in it.'

'How are you?' I asked Troy. I could see
how he was: subdued, all the energy gone, so his face looked blanched and his
body limp.

A burst of music filled the room.

'Mozart,' said Brendan, stepping back from
the CD player. 'We love Mozart, don't we, Kerry?'

'All right,' Troy said. 'Fine.' He picked
up the polystyrene pieces again and started fiddling.

'Here we are, mate.' Brendan squatted down
beside him. 'You need blood sugar.' He put his hand under Troy's chin and
lifted up his face. 'You're tired, aren't you. Couldn't sleep?'

'Not much,' said Troy.

'That's no good. Have some toast and jam.
Later we can all go for a brisk walk. That'll help with insomnia. Mmm?'

'I don't know,' said Troy. He looked away
from Brendan and bit into the toast. 'I don't know if I feel like a walk.'

'I ought to warn you,' I said. 'I've got
to go out quite soon. Sorry. It was an arrangement I made before I knew when
you were coming.'

'What a pity,' my mother said. 'You can't
cancel?'

'Who are you meeting?' asked Brendan.

'No one you know.'

'Miranda,' said my mother. 'I know you
don't mean to, but that sounded a bit rude.'

It took an effort not to say something
back to my mother that really was rude.

'He's called Nick,' I said.

'Nick?' Brendan raised his eyebrows.

'Yes.'

'How very strange. I just spoke to him on
the phone. When you were getting dressed. Sorry — I should have said at once.
He rang and I said you'd ring him back — but he didn't seem to know about your
prior arrangement. Mmm? On the spur of the moment, I invited him over to supper
here. With all of us. I knew you wouldn't mind. We thought we could make a
party of it, like a mini house-warming, and Derek and Marcia's kitchen's only
got three walls now, so we can't go there, can we?'

I closed my eyes and then opened them
again. He was still there, smiling at me.

'I can't...' I said. I didn't know what to
say next. I clenched my fists so that my nails dug into my palms.

'He said he'd love to come.'

'We've got to meet him sometime,' said
Mum. She was placing Kerry and Brendan's shoes in pairs against the wall.

'Troy can cook,' said Brendan.

'I don't know if I feel like cooking,' was
Troy's response.

'You seem to have got it all sorted,' I
said.

'You don't need to do a thing,' said
Brendan. 'We're going to spoil you. Our treat, Mirrie.'

CHAPTER 11

I went out anyway. I couldn't stay in the
flat. My flat, though it didn't feel like mine any more, with Brendan's shaving
cream in the bathroom, Kerry's television on my bookshelf, their music playing,
their soya milk in the fridge, their night things slung over the back of the
sofa.

I strode over the Heath, feet scuffling up
leaves, breath curling in the clear air. A beautiful day and I'd met someone I
liked and I should be happy — and all I could feel was this sensation eating
into my stomach lining like acid. I couldn't stop myself thinking of Brendan
sitting on my lavatory, lying in my bath, eating food a few feet away from me,
nuzzling up to Kerry, to my mother ... His hair in my brush, his hand on my
shoulder, his breath on my cheek. I shuddered, and walked even faster, trying
to burn off the anger and disgust.

I must be polite and friendly, for Kerry's
sake, I told myself, kicking a little heap of conkers out of my path and
watching them roll bumpily away from me. Just a few days, a week or two, then
they'd be in their own house, busy decorating it and planning their wedding,
and I'd hardly have to see them. Even as I persuaded myself this was true, I
heard his voice telling me about my beautiful mouth, remembered his damp lips
on my cheek, and felt instantly nauseous.

My mobile rang in my pocket.

'Hello.'

'Miranda, it's me.'

'Nick. I was going to call you.'

'I'm round at Greg's just now. I'm looking
forward to this evening, though it's a bit daunting meeting your whole family
at once. Shall I bring anything?'

'You don't have to come, you know.'

'Don't you want me to?'

'It's not that. It'll just be a bit
oppressive, you know, all the family, and Kerry and Brendan have just moved in
with half of their belongings and it's chaos.'

'Brendan sounded very friendly.'

'Oh, did he?'

'No, really. I think he was making a big
effort with me.'

'It might be better to meet my family
another time . . .'

'What are you so worried about?'

'Nothing.'

'It's Brendan, isn't it? You don't want me
to meet him.'

'I was just thinking about you.'

'I said I'd come and I'm coming.' There
was a pause, and he added stiffly, 'If that's all right with you, that is.'

'Why wouldn't it be?'

'Good. Seven o'clock, then?'

'All right.'

Troy and I went shopping for the supper.
Mum had said she would bring the pudding, so we only needed to buy stuff for
the main course. Troy couldn't make up his mind what to cook, so we drifted up
and down the aisles. He picked up bags of lentils and beans and weird kinds of
exotic rice and stared at them and put them back. His brain seemed flooded by
all the choice, the colours and the bright lights.

'Pasta,' I said. 'Let's cook something
with pasta.'

'Maybe.'

'Or something with rice.'

'Rice?'

'Rice, yes. Good idea?'

'I don't know.'

'Or we could cheat. Let's buy a ready-made
meal and pretend we've cooked it ourselves.'

I randomly picked out a pack of
cod-in-cheese-sauce from the freezer and held it up. 'A couple of these,' I
said. 'We could put them into a bowl and nobody would know. Anyway, who cares
if they do know? It's not a big deal.'

'That looks disgusting.'