The hidden truth, p.1
The Hidden Truth, page 1
Hilary Boyd
* * *
THE HIDDEN TRUTH
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Hilary Boyd was a nurse, marriage counsellor and ran a small cancer charity before becoming an author. She has written ten books, including Thursdays in the Park, her debut novel, which sold over half a million copies and was an international bestseller.
Remembering Jack, my father, with love.
He wasn’t around for most of my life, but that wasn’t his fault.
‘Nobody’s perfect’
Spoken by Osgood Fielding III, in Some Like It Hot (directed by Billy Wilder, 1959)
1
Sara sat on the bed, slowly pressing out a message on her phone, then deleting it, trying again: Sorry, won’t be able to make it tonight. Had a problem last minute. Finally, she decided the text would do, but had no idea how best to sign off. Not a kiss, certainly. Not love. ‘Best wishes’? ‘Best’? She didn’t want to upset him, but she didn’t owe him anything, either. Just as she made the decision to leave nothing except her name, her mobile sprang to life.
She jumped and took a deep breath as she clicked on the call, heard Peggy, her younger daughter, say, ‘Hi, Mum. You busy?’
‘Umm, sort of. I was supposed to be going out in five minutes … on this bloody date.’ She gave theatrical emphasis to the last word, and heard a sharp intake of breath.
‘Wow! Is this the radiologist guy? Oh, my God, Mum, that’s so exciting.’ Then there was a pause. ‘Wait, what do you mean was? He hasn’t dumped out, has he?’
‘No. But I was about to.’ Sara heard Peggy give a small sigh and became immediately defensive. ‘I’m just not sure I can face some random man across the table when he’s no doubt expecting me to flirt. Not sure I know how to any more.’ Which was the understatement of the decade. She not only didn’t know how to flirt, the whole idea of kissing some strange male mouth filled her with horror. She had needed this shove from her two daughters to get this far.
That it would soon be six years since Pete died seemed impossible. The first two had been a fog of numbness, overlaid by the supreme effort just to survive day to day. During the next four she had felt a gradually increasing acceptance and, along with the mist of sadness that never seemed quite to disperse, the burgeoning reality that there were still pleasures to be had out in the world. But romance was in a different category: an entirely alien concept.
Her eye caught the photograph on the chest of drawers: Pete, larger than life, blond, laughing and handsome in a T-shirt and shorts, his arms around Joni and Peggy – then about fourteen and eleven respectively – squinting in the sunshine at the top of a hiking trail in the Alps. Her husband’s smile did not appear reproachful. Far from it. ‘Why not, Sara?’ he seemed to be asking.
‘Why not?’ was his favourite question whenever Sara expressed doubt about a situation. He’d held all the confidence for them both.
‘It’s just a drink, Mum,’ Peggy was urging gently. ‘How bad can it be? If he’s gross, do a runner. At your age you can be honest, can’t you?’
Sara winced at the use of her most hated phrase, ‘at your age’ – she didn’t consider herself old, yet, at fifty-eight – but held her peace. ‘Perhaps not too honest.’ She wavered. Maybe she should go.
‘What’s his name?’ her daughter was asking.
‘Colin.’
‘Seriously? Colin?’
‘What’s wrong with that?’
Peggy began to giggle. ‘Nothing, Mum, sorry. It’s just Lizzie at school had a gerbil called Colin.’
‘Look, do you want me to go on this date or not?’ she said briskly, but was unable to stem her own laughter. She felt a little mad right now.
‘I do! I do!’ Peggy insisted, clearly trying to bring herself under control. ‘So, what are you wearing?’
‘The blue dress with the white piping. The one I wore for Granny’s birthday … Do you think it’s too smart?’ Sara’s wardrobe was not extensive. She had work clothes and a few summer dresses, the rest mostly jeans. She thought jeans might look as if she didn’t care … which she didn’t, really, but still.
‘No, it’s perfect. You look gorgeous in it. Knock ’em dead, Mum!’
Encouraged by her daughter’s enthusiasm, Sara straightened her shoulders. ‘Don’t say that, I just might,’ she joked. ‘He’s admitting to sixty-three, so he’s probably ninety with a gammy leg and no teeth.’ She heard a snort of laughter from her daughter. ‘The photo’s probably of his grandson! I’ll blame you, obviously, if the whole thing’s a disaster.’
Peggy had been the driving force in getting her mum onto an online dating site, backed up by Joni – who was a safe three thousand miles away in California and out of range of their mother’s stubborn resistance. In recent years Sara had shut down her daughters’ conversation about finding another partner more than once. But she knew, as she approached her sixties, that she would be cutting off her nose to spite her face if she continued hiding behind widowhood indefinitely, thereby narrowing her chances of having a companion in old age. Although she consistently failed to summon the image of sitting across the breakfast table from a man who wasn’t Pete.
Her daughter’s voice was suddenly serious. ‘Don’t go if you aren’t comfortable, Mum. Me and Joni only suggested the whole thing because we were worried you might be lonely.’
I’m not lonely, Sara wanted to insist. She knew, though, that wasn’t really the truth. Her own mother, Gail – a single parent after her father had left when Sara was barely two – had been dead for over twenty years now, and she had no siblings. She worked hard, she had her daughters and some good friends, as well as Pete’s mum, Margaret, whom she saw most weekends. There was, though, a barely acknowledged emptiness in her life, she was well aware.
‘I’m being a wimp,’ she said, making the decision. ‘As you say, it’s just a drink.’
‘Where are you meeting?’
‘Pelham Arms. His choice. I hope he got there early and nabbed a table in the courtyard. It’s been roasting here today.’
Sara said goodbye to her daughter and gave herself a final check in the long mirror on the cupboard door. Her light brown hair, thick and layered to just below her ears, was freshly washed. She’d also put on a smidgen of makeup: a bit of gold-brown eyeshadow Joni had given her for Christmas a few years ago – seldom used – and a lick of mascara. She’d been told her large, wide-set hazel eyes, along with her soft smile, were her best features. Pete had always called her ‘beautiful’, but she knew she wasn’t. At a push she might agree to ‘nice-looking’.
Now she settled her delicate gold chain necklace with the patterned disc – her initials SRT, for Sara Ruby Tempest, engraved on the back, a gift from Pete for her fortieth – and pulled the brush one last time through her already tidy hair. ‘Onwards,’ she muttered to herself, as she grabbed her bag from the hall table and stepped out of the terrace house directly onto the pavement.
It was still warm and very muggy, although it was nearly seven on the June evening – the sort of weather that makes your skin feel sticky, even fresh from the shower. Sara took the short walk slowly up Lewes high street, not just because of the heat: she was aware that she was literally dragging her heels. Pathologically unable to be late for anything, she still did not want to be the first to arrive.
As she walked, she heard the beep-beep of an incoming text. He’s cancelling, she thought, her heart lifting.
In the garden, Colin it said.
She smiled. Good start.
The evening light was buttery and soft, the sun still a couple of hours from setting, but the tea-lights had already been lit on the outside tables packed onto the deck, creating what might have been deemed a romantic atmosphere. Sara looked around for a single man. There was only one, the other tables full of chattering couples and groups. Grey head bent to his phone, Colin-the-radiologist sat by the wicker fence, facing her as she stepped out of the open pub door. She studied him for a moment. He was exactly as his photo suggested: slim, metal-rimmed glasses perched on a neat nose, hair trimmed short. He looked up and saw her, smiled uncertainly. All his teeth, she muttered silently, smiling back.
As Sara sat nursing the glass of white wine Colin had ordered for her and felt the familiar shyness she always experienced with men she didn’t know, she reminded herself how used she was to meeting people – albeit mostly women – and setting them at their ease in her work as a nutritionist. Clients came through her door nervous and in need of help, and her first task was to make them feel at home. This was different, obviously, but didn’t the same techniques apply? She could see Colin was anxious, his pale eyes blinking behind his glasses as he asked her a few stilted – no doubt rehearsed – conversation openers. For a while they groaned about the heat and the parking in Lewes – which was impossible and always roused strong feelings.
‘You said you live in Brighton?’ Sara asked, after a while and a good many topics that had died a death for want of a robust response. Like pulling teeth, she thought tiredly. There was a strangled quality to Colin’s speech, as if he wanted to talk but the words were bunched in his throat.
‘I’ve got a flat in Preston Park.’
‘That’s a great area,’ she said, although she barely knew it.
He nodded, twisting his mouth as if agreeing with her pained him. He seemed to be struggling with something dark that was at odds with his mild exterior.
‘Have you been dating long?’ he asked into the silence.
She smiled and shook her head. ‘First time. I nearly cancelled.’
To her relief, Colin’s face cleared and he laughed. ‘So glad you didn’t. I’ve been at it for a couple of months now and it’s really depressing when someone doesn’t show up.’
The silence that followed was more relaxed, at least.
She began again. ‘So, you’re a radiologist. That must be interesting work.’ In her head she heard Peggy giggle at her awkward efforts and had to suppress a smile. ‘Just talk about them, Mum,’ had been her exhortation.
Colin was nodding. ‘It’s been a good career. Stressful at times but, yes, I love it.’ He stopped abruptly. Sara waited for him to go on, but when he did, his tone had changed. ‘I really thought I had life sorted, Sara. A beautiful family, two wonderful kids …’ She saw him swallowing hard, thought he might be about to cry, and held her breath. ‘Then last year, Lyddie, my wife of thirty years, just upped and left me.’
Sara looked suitably horrified, although Colin wasn’t looking at her, just staring fixedly into the depths of his Pinot.
‘Ran off with our neighbour, Barry. The barbecue king. Every summer Saturday he worked his magic with those burgers. Seven years he was at it with my wife.’
Although she winced at his obvious hurt, she couldn’t help feeling a strong desire to laugh at the image Colin conjured up. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she managed, straight-faced.
Colin’s eyes – still not focusing on her – seemed to spark up. ‘He had this heavy meat-press thing,’ he said, ‘which made these perfectly round, flat burgers.’ He mimed with his two hands. ‘We’d have a beer as he cooked, gas away while the girls did the salads indoors. It was a great ritual. One I really looked forward to.’ A yearning sigh escaped him.
It was clear Colin was stuck so firmly in his past that even if she had found him attractive – which she certainly did not – there would have been no manoeuvring round Barry and his burger press.
On and on Colin went, detailing every ounce of the hurt he’d endured, a litany of betrayals that was painful to hear. ‘And listen to this …’ he kept repeating, before announcing some other outrage.
For a while longer, Sara did try to listen. But as soon as she saw a gap in the diatribe, she took her chance. ‘Umm, sorry, Colin. I’ve got an early work thing tomorrow,’ she said. ‘I probably should be getting home.’
Startled out of his monologue, he nodded glumly. ‘I’ve done it again, haven’t I? Sorry. Can’t seem to help myself.’
Unable to refute this with any honesty, she said, ‘Maybe it’s too soon for you to be thinking of dating. You still seem very raw about what happened.’
He stared blankly at her for a second. ‘Barry was my friend, you see,’ he said softly. ‘It’s him I miss, as much as Lyddie.’
By the time she closed her front door, turned the double lock and pressed home the bolt, she was depressed and exhausted. Colin’s emails had shown none of this maudlin self-pity. In fact, he’d been quite a good correspondent – intelligent and responsive – which was why she’d agreed to meet up. How the hell am I supposed to avoid more wasted evenings like this one? she wondered, as she trudged dispiritedly up to bed.
‘Morning.’ Precious Adebayo, the acupuncturist who shared treatment rooms with Sara, popped her head round the door early the following morning. She was also Sara’s best friend – they’d met at Surrey University during an integrated medicine course twenty years ago and fallen into step as if they’d known each other all their lives. Precious had been a huge comfort in the weeks and months after Pete died. Now, her face broke into a mischievous grin. ‘Well?’
Sara sighed. ‘I’m now an expert on burger presses and how to bonk your neighbour’s wife.’
Precious sucked air through her teeth. ‘Ouch.’
‘The dastardly Barry is worthy of comic-book status.’
Her friend laughed. She was still in the doorway, already dressed in the white tunic she wore for treatments, her hair smoothed back and glistening in a neat bun. ‘Listen, I’ve got someone in a second. Tell me more at lunch.’
‘Nothing more to tell. Nothing interesting, at least. On to the next.’
But as Sara waited for her eight o’clock, she wondered if she would try again. What are the chances of clicking with someone, like I did with Pete? It just didn’t seem remotely possible – even given Colin was only her first try.
A small involuntary sigh escaped her as she remembered the summer after college when she and her friend Nem had been paddling their kayak down the Fal river in Cornwall. Rounding a bend, they found Pete in the water, hanging on to his two-man canoe convulsed with laughter, his friend Vic wobbling perilously in his wetsuit on the rocky, wooded bank, nursing a bleeding hand. They didn’t need help, but the girls stopped anyway and offered. Sara thought they were a couple of prats, but Vic insisted they meet up downriver at Turnaware Bar where their friends were waiting with copious supplies of Beck’s. Nem declared she had the hots for any man in a wetsuit – so they did. By sundown, Pete had convinced Sara that he wasn’t an idiot, just not yet very accomplished in a boat.
That won’t happen again, she told herself now. We were young, our lives so uncomplicated. Last night had served to remind her that people ‘of her age’ came with a whole heap of baggage. She certainly did. How can I not compare another man with Pete and find him wanting? The thought of kissing Colin was preposterous. And Pete was conveniently lost in the mists of nostalgia now. She’d forgotten his faults, if he ever had any. Plus she would have to deal with all the problems that came with another person’s romantic involvement. It’s probably too much hassle, she thought, as she heard the ping of the bell and rose to greet her client.
When Peggy rang later to find out how the date had gone, Sara could tell that, although her daughter was sympathetic, she was avoiding being too much so, in case it gave Sara the wriggle room to quit.
2
Heather Crocker, tidy in loose tunic and slacks, opened the door to the garden flat in the thirties block where Sara’s mother-in-law lived, just behind the station. As usual, she had a cheerful smile on her round face. Calm and very kind, she’d been Margaret’s live-in housekeeper/carer for more than three years now and was the best thing that had ever happened to Margaret and Sara. Sara gave her a hug.
‘How is she?’
‘Good timing,’ Heather said, ushering Sara inside. ‘She’s just getting bored.’
They laughed. Margaret was a force to be reckoned with. With her tiny frame and pretty, birdlike quality, it seemed as if even a small shove could break her in two. But she was as tough as old boots at ninety-one. If it weren’t for severe, crippling arthritis and a weak heart, she’d still be hurrying up and down the town’s hills, chatting to everyone and taking people to task for dropped litter, unruly dogs or cluttering the narrow pavements with café chairs.
