Someone Like You (69 page)

‘No.’ He shrugged. ‘I thought it was a good idea at the time because I’m so blond. You know, the blond Spaniard, I thought I’d get remembered for it - and I have been. But that’s the official line, right? My real name,’ he said in a whisper, ‘is Loon, not Andretti.’

Hannah gaped at him. After going out for months, after getting married, she was only now learning about the real Felix. If he was Felix. She quailed at the thought that he wasn’t called Felix either. ‘What’s your first name?’ she asked hesitantly.

‘Phil.’

‘Phil Loon,’ she said slowly. ‘I think I prefer Felix, certainly.

I can’t imagine calling you anything else.’

‘Look, my name is Felix Andretti, full stop,’ he said firmly. ‘I’m just telling you my old name because you’re going to meet my family. My mother’s never forgiven me for changing it, but you could hardly be an international star of stage and screen and be called Loon. Imagine the fun the critics would have with that: Loon-ey tunes every time I was in something. No, siree.’

‘So I’m Mrs Loon,’ Hannah said reflectively. She giggled at the improbability of it all.

‘I’ve changed it by deed poll now, so it’s official,’ Felix snapped. ‘Stop making a laugh of it, right?’

‘But your accent,’ Hannah continued, ‘you don’t sound totally English. You have a hint of something else …’ She paused. Felix did sound faintly exotic, as if he’d learned English at public school but had spent his youth in some far-off land.

‘Elocution lessons,’ he said tightly. ‘And I never said I was personally Spanish, just that my family originally came from there. It wasn’t a lie, really. I can always say people took me up wrong if it gets out.’

Felix’s mother lived in a small semi-detached house in a modern housing estate outside Birmingham. Women with pushchairs clutching children by the hand congregated around the small primary school at the end of the road when the taxi drove up. Opposite the house was a green area with a children’s playground and plenty of lush shrubbery.

‘It’s pretty,’ said Hannah, admiring the newish houses with their fashionable picture windows, pointy-roofed porches and decorative brickwork.

‘I didn’t grow up here, obviously,’ Felix said, paying the driver. ‘She moved here after we all left home.’

‘What about your dad?’

‘He’s dead.’

‘Oh.’ Hannah dragged out her small case and realized she’d learned more about her fiance and his family in the past hour than she had in their entire time together.

Felix rang the bell and the door was opened by a tall blonde woman who filled the doorway with her bulk. In a navy silky tracksuit, she had to weigh all of twenty stone.

Her face was hard, a fact emphasized by the platinum colour of her hair. This woman could not be Felix’s mum.

‘Hiya, Ma,’ said Felix, his vowel sounds curiously flattening out. ‘This is Hannah, we’ve just got married and you’re going to be a granny again soon.’

‘You better come in then,’ said Vera Loon. ‘June,’ she yelled, nearly deafening Hannah, ‘put the kettle on.’

June turned out to be Felix’s sister, a dark version of her gorgeous brother. Slim and with the same beautifully chiselled features, she could have modelled in any glossy magazine. But it was obvious that all her time was spent looking after the three boisterous boys who were running riot in their granny’s kitchen.

‘Congratulations,’ June said in a friendly way when she heard the news. ‘He’s a quiet one, our Phil. Never tells anyone anything.’

He never told me he was called Phil, Hannah wanted to say but didn’t.

‘Come here, boys,’ Vera said. ‘Meet your new auntie.

You’re very brown, love. Been away?’

The three boys were introduced, tea and cake was produced, and everyone sat down at the kitchen table.

Vera was less daunting when she was sitting down and wasn’t eyeing you up and down like an airport scanner, Hannah decided.

‘I don’t know why he couldn’t have brought you home before now,’ Vera sighed. ‘Just like his father, secretive.’

‘I was working,’ Felix said sulkily.

He looked out of place here, Hannah thought. He wasn’t the sort of man you could imagine in a three-bedroomed semi with an ordinary kitchen and a couple of holy pictures on the walls. Felix did look exotic, different. Yet he wasn’t,

was he? He was an ordinary man with an ordinary family.

She wondered briefly what else he’d concealed from her and the rest of the world. Was there more to Felix Andretti than met the eye - or less?

She drank her tea and admired the boys while Felix prowled restlessly around the room, apparently bored. He didn’t join in the stilted conversation and made no attempt to rough-house with his nephews, Hannah noticed.

‘It’s a pity you didn’t want us at the wedding,’ Vera added sorrowfully. ‘I love a nice day out. Tell us when the baby’s due, love?’

Hannah’s heart leapt for this woman who clearly knew her glamorous son was ashamed of his roots. She patted Vera’s hand kindly. ‘December,’ she said with a smile. ‘Of course we’d have wanted you at the wedding,’ she said, forgetting that she hadn’t been keen on the idea of a big family wedding either. ‘It all happened so quickly, what with the baby and everything, we didn’t have time to ask you. Felix would have loved it if you’d been there.’

Felix kicked her under the table.

‘We got married abroad,’ he said quickly. ‘You know, to avoid the papers following us. We flew back from St Lucia this morning, actually.’

‘We’d love to go abroad,’ June said, holding her youngest, three-year-old Tony, squirming on her lap as he gobbled up chocolate biscuits. ‘Tony Senior and I haven’t been abroad since our honeymoon. Portugal,’ she added to Hannah. ‘I love Portugal, but with three kids and me not working any more, it’s hard to afford foreign holidays. We had Clark the year after we were married, then Adam eighteen months later, and then Tony.’

‘What did you work at?’ Hannah asked.

‘A hairdresser.’

‘With your looks, you could be a model,’ Hannah pointed out. ‘You’re beautiful.’

June shuddered. ‘Having all those people looking at me, telling me I’m too fat or too old - no way. Phil loves it, but I wouldn’t.’

Chalk and cheese, Hannah thought with a little smile.

Felix would kill to have everyone looking at him, while his sister was horrified at the notion. Families were strange.

United by blood but so utterly different.

‘Why’d you go on telling them they’d have to visit us when we get settled?’ Felix snapped a few hours later when they were in yet another taxi going to a local hotel.

‘They’re your family,’ she protested. ‘You can’t forget about them.’

‘You’ve conveniently forgotten yours,’ he snarled.

‘That’s a lie!’ Hannah said hotly. ‘You’ll meet my mother soon and as for my father, as I’ve told you, he’s an alcoholic. Believe me, you wouldn’t want him at any function where there was free drink.’

‘So it’s all right to leave your father out of the fun, but not to leave my family out, is that it?’ he said.

They argued all the way to the hotel, Hannah bitterly pointing out that he’d even managed to insult his mother by refusing to spend the night at her home.

‘She’s got a spare bedroom,’ Hannah said. ‘She was dying to have us stay, specially since you haven’t been home in ages.’

‘I didn’t want to sleep there when I could be in a nice four-star hotel,’ Felix retorted.

‘Far from bloody four-star hotels you were reared!’ she shouted at him.

‘Not any more, sweetie pie,’ he hissed. ‘Now I’m a fucking star and I’ve got to behave like a star.’

‘Yeah? Well, I can promise you one thing,’ Hannah hissed back at him. ‘If that’s the way you behave as a fucking star, there won’t be any fucking at all, got it?’

Hostilities were suspended the next day when they visited Vera’s again for lunch before heading to the airport.

Hannah was gratified to see that Felix was behaving a bit better to his poor mother, even going so far as to invite her to Dublin for a weekend ‘sometime …’

‘We’d love to have you and June and the kids to stay,’

Hannah said earnestly as they left. ‘I mean that. Our place is a bit small right now, but we’ll be moving somewhere bigger and we’d really love to see you then.’

‘I can see you mean it, Hannah love,’ Vera smiled. ‘Look after that son of mine, will you? I’m happy that he’s got himself a decent woman at last. And take care of yourself, love, won’t you. He’s a handful, our Phil, always was.’

‘Your mum’s lovely,’ Hannah said on the way to the airport.

‘Yeah, well, you try living with her,’ Felix remarked, staring moodily out the window.

Hannah gave up and left him to his sulks. His humour didn’t improve until they were in the air when the stewardess smiled and asked him for his autograph ‘… for my sister.’

For you, you mean, Hannah thought grimly as Felix gave the stewardess his most dazzling smile.

Back in Dublin, Felix was his old self, charming, affectionate and funny. ‘I’m a bit tense when I go home,’ he admitted, holding Hannah’s left hand as they drove to her flat. ‘I didn’t mean to take it out on you, it’s just … you know, family history. You think I’m being a bastard, but you just don’t understand what’s happened.’

‘How can I know if you won’t tell me?’ Hannah protested.

‘Don’t keep secrets from me, Felix.’

‘It’s not a secret, it’s just boring family stuff. Forget about it.’

And with that she had to be content.

Hugh threw the holiday brochures down on to the coffee table.

‘Well, at least look at them, Leonie,’ he said angrily.

She glared up at him from her position in the armchair, Harris, the Jack Russell, curled up in her arms.

‘I’ve told you, Hugh,’ she said, trying to be patient, ‘I can’t arrange a holiday right now. The girls are due back and they’ll need me.’

‘They’ve been gone for two and a half bloody months, they can cope without you for a week at least. Your mother can look after them,’ Hugh said dismissively.

Harris wriggled his silky little head and Leonie stroked his velvety ears. He looked like a little bat lying upside down, belly exposed, head lolling back and the bat ears hanging down. He had the most mischievous eyes, little pools of naughtiness.

‘They’re not kids, they can look after themselves, you know,’ Hugh continued.

She could feel the first stirrings of temper deep inside her.

‘I haven’t been away for a year and neither have you,’

Hugh went on. ‘Just a week in Italy later this month; maybe two weeks. It’ll be black with tourists in August but we’ll have a great time.’

‘I know it sounds lovely,’ Leonie began. It was hard when everyone and their granny were talking about summer holidays and you had nothing planned. But she hadn’t felt like taking a break with the twins away and Hugh’s idea that they should go away together had come at a bad time. The girls were due home next week and she ached to see them. Every day that passed was a day nearer to her hugging them and telling them she loved them so much. ‘I can’t leave the girls on their own now,’ she pointed out.

‘They’re happy enough away from you to last for a couple of months without you. They were only supposed to go for six weeks,’ Hugh said sharply.

That hurt. The fact that Mel and Abby had wanted to be away from her for nearly three whole months pained Leonie more than she dared tell anyone.

‘They may as well stay with us when we go to Charlie’s ranch in Texas this summer,’ Ray had said on the phone in early July when the girls’ six weeks was up. ‘They could learn how to ride and have fun. It’s only a few more weeks.

Abby is blossoming. She’s doing so well, why not let them stay, Leonie?’

Mel and Abby had begged to be allowed to stay. ‘Please, please, Mom,’ they’d pleaded.

She had given in and then cried for two days afterwards, feeling betrayed by her darling daughters who wanted to spend time away from her. It was different with Danny.

He was older and more independent. He’d announced that he was spending a month with pals backpacking around Europe and Leonie hadn’t minded. She’d worried and fretted, naturally, afraid he’d come to harm, or be mugged, or get mixed up with drugs or something. But he was twenty since May and it wasn’t her job to rein him in any more.

Without him and the girls, the cottage was like a morgue.

Penny was depressed and even Herman the hamster had gone into a decline, not playing on his wheel or anything.

Even the lure of Portofino in the sweltering heat couldn’t drag Leonie away from home once her beloved twins returned.

‘I can’t go now,’ she said reluctantly. ‘If only you’d thought of it earlier, we could have gone and come back by now.’

‘I’m down on the roster for holidays at the end of this month,’ snapped Hugh. ‘Anyway, that’s not the issue. It’s Melanie and Abigail. They’re not babies any more. You’ve got to let them go.’

‘That’s a bit rich coming from you,’ Leonie retorted.

‘What do you mean by that?’ he demanded.

‘Oh, come on, you don’t need me to spell it out, do you?’

she said, angry now. ‘You’ve got a twenty-two-year-old daughter and you wouldn’t let her make her damned bed if you could possibly do it for her! Jane is totally ruined, spoilt. You give her money all the time, even though she has a perfectly good job, and you run to help her at the drop of a hat. Look at that time she got a flat tyre going to a party and you left me sitting like a fool in the restaurant to rush off and change it for her! That’s not normal! My girls are still teenagers, they’re not even sixteen yet. You ‘re the one treating a grownup woman like a little girl.’

Hugh was staring at her furiously. ‘I love Jane-‘ he began.

‘Tell me something I don’t know!’ shrieked Leonie. ‘It’s obsessive, it’s not normal. And then you accuse me of not being able to let my kids go. The words pot, kettle and black come to mind.’

‘You have no right to talk to me like that.’ Hugh’s face was choleric.

‘Why not? You think you’ve the right to say anything to me about my kids, but nobody is allowed to breathe a word about yours. No, not both of them, actually,’ Leonie said suddenly, ‘only Jane. Poor Stephen never gets a look in.’