Sowing Secrets (12 page)

Being a Saturday night, the Druid’s Rest could only give us a table at six, when they started serving, on the strict understanding we would have eaten and gone by the time the next customers arrived—but when there is only one local restaurant you can’t argue about it.

The big glass dining room with its divisions of rampant silk tropical plants was almost empty at that time. Mrs Forrester came out in person to smarm all over Mal—but then he did look rather delectable after his day’s sailing, all rosy cheeks and sparkling dark eyes and in a much better temper.

‘We don’t often see you in the restaurant,’ she said rather pointedly to me.

‘No, I know my place is below the salt in the back parlour,’ I said cheerily. ‘But my lord and master is kindly treating me tonight.’

Mal gave me a repressive look. ‘I’ll have the Welsh lamb,’ he decided, which was no surprise: he always does.

I dithered, and then went for grilled trout and a salad, which I thought might be good for me
and
slimming, and she slapped the menus together and bustled off.

In the interests of marital
entente
I encouraged Mal to describe his day’s exciting sailing on
Cayman Blue
, and some stamp he’d bid for on the Internet, and how clever he’d been down in Swindon; then he asked me how Rosie was getting on, which just goes to show that he hadn’t heard a word I said when he got home.

‘She’s fine. She’s got a new boyfriend called Colum.’

‘Colum? What kind of a name is that?’

‘I think it’s rather nice,’ I said mildly. ‘I expect he’d think your name was pretty weird.’

‘Maldwyn’s a perfectly good old Welsh name,’ he said slightly stiffly, but he was soon mellowing over a bottle of wine that cost about as much as I spend on petrol in a month.

It was all going swimmingly (apart from Mrs Forrester briefly appearing to harry us into finishing our main course quickly), when something made me look up.

There in the doorway to the lounge stood Tom Collinge, Bigblondsurfdude personified: the ceiling lights bounced off his shock of sun-streaked golden hair, his eyes were more azure than a summer sky and his skin tanned right down inside the open V of his fleecy blue sweatshirt. He gave you the feeling that if the lights were off he’d glow in the dark.

It was like a vision—but one I didn’t want. I hunched down in my seat, hoping he wouldn’t spot me. Our corner
was
quite dark, and there were all those plants too …

‘You’re humming,’ Mal said critically. ‘The Mamas and the Papas, “California Dreamin’”, if my memory serves me right.’

‘Sorry,’ I apologised, leaning towards him so that his body partially screened me from the door. ‘I was just thinking how nice it is when we are alone together like this and—’

‘Fran!’ Tom’s voice said, practically in my ear, and I jerked upright, spilling the last of my wine down my one decent dress.

‘It
is
you—I can’t believe it! What a stroke of luck—I only came in here to see if anyone knew where you lived.’ He swooped down, grinning, and kissed me on the cheek. ‘And just as pretty as ever!’

‘Oh, you—you startled me!’ I exclaimed, dabbing distractedly at my dress with the napkin, which was the totally useless non-absorbent linen kind.

‘And this must be your husband,’ he said, turning to Mal in a friendly fashion, which was certainly not the way Mal was looking at him.

‘Yes, Mal Morgan,’ I said hastily. ‘And Mal, this is … is … ’ But the words stuck in my throat, as well they might under the circumstances.

Tom said helpfully, ‘Fran’s probably told you about me: I’m her old flame, Tom Collinge—like the drink, but with a g. Silly, I know, but it’s my real name, and at least I wasn’t christened Gimlet or Long Slow Scre—’

At this point Mal rose suddenly to his feet and socked him one on the jaw.

Surprised? I thought I’d never be able to shut my mouth again—and it wasn’t just that ancient joke about the drink. But if the blow was a shock to me, who’d never seen Mal do anything quite so rugged, it was even more of a shock to poor old Tom. He reeled away, stunned more by surprise than anything, I think, and, almost falling over a chair, hung on to the back and stared incredulously at Mal.

‘What the hell was
that
for?’ he demanded aggrievedly. ‘Are you so jealous you can’t even shake hands with your wife’s ex-boyfriend?’

It was fortunate that Mrs Forrester had by now succeeded in chivvying everyone else out of the room, except one old couple who were watching us with glazed surprise.

Mal sat down again, looking rather pleased with himself. ‘You mean the ex-boyfriend who got Fran pregnant and then vanished off abroad?’ he said, though not without a look round to see if anyone was in earshot.

‘What?’ Tom said blankly.

‘Now, Mal,’ I began nervously. ‘I never said—’

‘Let
me
deal with this, Fran,’ Mal snapped.

Tom turned wide, stunned blue eyes on me: ‘You were
pregnant
? But—’

‘Fran told me how you dumped her when you got an art scholarship abroad. She only discovered she was pregnant after you’d gone.’

Tom paled under his tan. ‘Yes—but I didn’t know! And, Fran, you knew my parents’ address, you could have found me if you’d wanted to.’

‘I didn’t want to,’ I said flatly.

‘
And
I wrote to you after a few months because I missed you, and you never replied!’

‘I know,’ I agreed. ‘So it’s not Tom’s fault, Mal. Let’s just drop it and—’

‘What do you mean, it isn’t his fault?’ Mal snapped. ‘Don’t you think he had a responsibility to you? To make sure you were all right?’

‘You mean I’m a
father
?’ Tom suddenly demanded as illumination finally dawned—but then he never was Mensa material.

‘And do you mean you never even
tried
to get in touch with him, to tell him you were pregnant?’ Mal said incredulously as the penny dropped a second later. He
is
Mensa material but his brains had clearly packed up for the night. ‘You never told him about Rosie?’

Tom turned, wide-eyed: ‘Is that—’

‘My daughter,’ I said.

‘Oh?’ I could have sworn he was starting to look pleased. ‘So, how old is she?’

‘Nearly nineteen,’ I said reluctantly. ‘She’s at university studying to be a vet.’

I could see him doing a bit of painful mental arithmetic, then he turned the chair round and sat in it, one wary eye on Mal. ‘Don’t think I want to butt in at this late date, Fran, but don’t you think you should have told me about her, even if you didn’t want me in your life any more?’

‘No, because it wasn’t anything to do with you.’ I was starting to feel desperately cornered and they were now both looking accusingly at me.

‘What do you mean?’ they said in unison.

‘The baby wasn’t Tom’s—I don’t
think
,’ I said honestly. ‘I’m ninety-nine per cent sure it wasn’t, anyway.’

There was a small, incredulous silence.

‘But
I
was your first serious boyfriend,’ Tom pointed out, as though I might have forgotten. ‘You never went out with anyone else!’

‘Yes, but you finished with me,’ I said tartly.

‘Only in the very last week of term! And you were always Little Miss Prissy, not the kind to jump into bed with the next available man!’

‘Well, I did. I found someone else.’

‘But you’ve let me think it was Tom all these years,’ Mal said, looking at me as though I were a stranger, chance met and slightly unsavoury.

‘No I haven’t, I just didn’t discuss Rosie’s father at all. You drew your own conclusions.’

‘Isn’t that the same thing?’ he said. ‘If it’s true, then you’ve been less than honest with me!’

‘Who?’ demanded Tom abruptly, furrowing his brow. ‘
Who
was the father?’

‘Wouldn’t you like to know!’ I said, glaring at him, and for a minute we were back to our student days, when bicker and make up was the pattern of our life together. ‘But it’s none of your business!’

‘So you say—but I’m not sure I believe you!’

‘And I think it’s certainly
my
business, Fran, don’t you?’ Mal said coldly. ‘I thought we had been frank with each other, and now I find you’ve lied to me about something as important as this!’

‘I haven’t lied—’

‘Look,’ Tom interrupted, hastily rising to his feet, ‘I’ll leave you to it, you don’t want a third party at a time like this. I’m sorry to have stirred everything up, but I had absolutely no idea … and now I don’t know
what
to think!’

Mal got up too. ‘Well, sorry I hit you,’ he said magnanimously, shaking hands with him. ‘Clearly you were as in the dark as I was … and God knows what the truth of the matter is! What puzzles me is how you knew where Fran lived?’

‘Oh, I came across her website and got in touch, thought it might be nice to pop in and catch up with old times—just in a friendly sort of way,’ he added cautiously.

‘Right. And all this was clearly as complete a shock to you as it was to me.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Tom, preparing to make his escape. ‘You’ve said it! Well, great to see you again, Fran, and—er—keep in touch!’ he said, and left, though not without a last doubtful and puzzled glance over his shoulder.

Mal sat back and levelled an accusing stare at me, arms crossed. ‘I’m not sure I’ve got to the bottom of this affair yet,’ he had begun ominously, when fortunately Mrs Forrester marched in and informed us we would have to have our dessert and coffee, if we wanted them, in the bar.

‘No, that’s fine, thanks—we’ll have the bill and go home,’ Mal said, summoning up a social smile.

He didn’t say a word all the way there and then went straight in and picked up the big photo of Rosie I keep on the mantelpiece and studied it as if he had never seen her before.

Presumably he was trying to trace some resemblance to Tom in her features and failing—I’ve done it myself.

‘Rosie’s blonde,’ he remarked, as though I might not have noticed. ‘But
much
darker.’

‘
I’m
blonde, Ma was blonde … even Dad was fair-haired,’ I said snappily. ‘Look, Mal, after Tom dumped me I went to an end-of-term party, got drunk, met another man and ended up pregnant with Rosie. I was quite sure she wasn’t Tom’s, that’s why I didn’t tell him.’

‘You didn’t tell me either.’

‘You didn’t ask, and it was so long before I met you it didn’t seem important. After all, you didn’t give me a list of all the women you ever slept with, did you? You just told me about Alison, and I told you about Tom.’

‘So who
are
you saying is Rosie’s father?’

‘I’m not,’ I said firmly. ‘It was a one-night stand and I only ever knew his first name—and, before you ask, it wasn’t something I made a habit of! It was only the once, which hardly qualifies me for Super Slut status. I’ve already told Rosie all about it.’

He was still looking at me as if I was a stranger, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘I really don’t know you at all, do I? And I don’t know if you are telling the truth now, or whether you made the story up because you didn’t want to let Tom know he had a daughter … or maybe because the real father was someone else entirely. Someone you want to
protect
.’

And then I saw he was looking at the photo on the other side of the mantelpiece, of me and Rhodri and Nia aged about fourteen with our arms round each other, laughing into the sun.

‘You surely can’t think I had a thing going with Rhodri!’

‘I don’t know what I think any more. I’m going to bed!’ he snapped, and slammed out of the room.

Clearly his illusions are now shattered, though it is not like I have confessed to multiple bigamy or an affair since we’ve been married—or really anything at all that is his business.

When I went upstairs he had his back firmly turned towards me and disgust oozing from every pore.

Sunday morning I seemed to have been sent to Coventry, so I went up to the studio simply to get out of the atmosphere and sat there reading
Restoration Gardener
, feeling prickly and defensive.

I found a whole section on roses.

Historic rose gardens can be easily recreated or restocked, since many of the ancient varieties of rose are still obtainable, although the topsoil must first be dug out and replaced with fresh earth to prevent rose sickness. Roses can also be used to infill the intricate convolutions of the knot garden with its low, clipped box hedges; utilised to soften later anachronistic garden features, grown over arbours and up pergolas … in fact, the uses of the rose are as infinite as the number of varieties!

I bet he’d like to see my Omar Khayyam.

I went back to the house to cook our big Sunday lunch as usual, since I thought it might soften Mal up a bit, but we ate it in silence so I wished I hadn’t bothered. After that I was in two minds whether to iron the shirts he would need to pack for tomorrow, but in the end I slammed the iron over them a few times, producing creases in strange places, then hung them up in the wardrobe.

Mal was holed up in his study with his stamps by the time I’d finished, so I went back to the studio and drew an Alphawoman comic strip with a blacker than usual storyline, because I had long stopped feeling upset and apologetic and started feeling angry.

Then he took the wind right out of my sails by coming up to the studio, which he practically
never
does, and saying he’d been thinking it all over and he could see that he was partly to blame for the situation because he had never asked me who Rosie’s father was!

‘Were you telling the truth about it being a total stranger?’

‘Yes, of course,’ I said firmly (which was true … sort of). ‘Mal … do you still love me?’ That just sort of slipped out—I hadn’t meant to sound needy.

‘I suppose so, but it’s all been a shock,’ he said, looking handsome, noble and tragic (but sounding like Eeyore), and I noticed that he didn’t ask me whether
I
still loved
him
.

He’d forgive me, I knew he would, he just needed a little time.

But will
I
forgive him for
needing
him to forgive me, that’s the question?