The hidden truth, p.4
The Hidden Truth, page 4
5
‘I liked him,’ Sara told Precious, as they sat across from each other at Sara’s desk, eating lunch. ‘Clearly more than he liked me.’ She had the usual salad, brought from home in a Tupperware box, Precious was munching a tuna-mayonnaise sandwich she’d picked up from the deli next door.
‘Maybe he has someone else up his sleeve,’ Precious suggested, through a mouthful.
‘Maybe. He did get a text at the end of tea, which seemed to distract him.’
‘Hard to tell what someone’s really like after one cuppa, especially with no social context. Have you googled him?’
She had, of course. ‘All I found was his architect’s practice: Lockmore, Fane, that he shares with Joe Fane, his partner and friend. Didn’t find anything else, although I’m not much good at digging.’
‘Familiar name, Fane … Well, if he doesn’t come through, perhaps you can resuscitate the dentist.’
Sara pulled a face.
Precious folded the remains of her sandwich into the greaseproof paper and scrunched it up, reaching for her glass of water. ‘It’s encouraging there are men like Bernard doing online dating, eh?’
‘Not if he doesn’t want to see me again!’
Precious laughed. ‘He stole you off your proper date, for goodness’ sake.’
‘Obviously I didn’t live up to his expectations.’
Her friend got up. ‘Nonsense. You have no idea what’s going on in his life. You should believe in yourself more, Sas. You’re gorgeous.’
She shook her head, brushing aside her friend’s compliment. ‘It’s just disappointing, when you can’t imagine even liking any man romantically again … and then you sort of can … and he isn’t interested.’
‘More fool him,’ Precious commented robustly.
She remembered her mum often exhorting her to ‘believe in yourself’. Which she felt she did in most areas these days, except the crucial one of men. Gail, a hard-working pharmacist employed by the same Woking chemist for the whole of Sara’s childhood, had seemed happy for Sara to be her only focus. She had led a quiet, enclosed, loving childhood, punctuated only by the occasional visits from and to her dear grandparents in Croydon. Frank, her father, was never mentioned. Gail had airbrushed him from her daughter’s life, deflecting any questions with vague, unsatisfactory replies, as if the man wasn’t worth the breath she’d need to expend in the telling.
Pete, bless him, was the one who’d slipped under the wire. She’d always felt at ease with him, right from that first evening on the beach at Turnaware Bar. And unquestioningly loved and respected by him.
I did feel comfortable with Bernard, she thought now, in surprise. Even on such short acquaintance.
During the days that followed, Sara often thought of the man in the tearoom. But their contact had been too brief for her focus to be sustained. Late morning on Saturday, a fortnight later, she was walking home from the supermarket with the weekend groceries. Peggy, on summer break from the South London primary school where she taught, was coming for the night to pick up some camping equipment, en route to Iceland with her friend Natasha. As Sara walked, she was thinking of what they might do this afternoon. It was a beautiful early August day: cool and sunny. Maybe they could go over to Charleston and walk up on the Downs. Although Peggy would have to pack. Just lunch in the garden, she eventually decided.
She shifted her straw shopping basket to the other hand as she approached the house, so she could retrieve her keys from her shoulder bag. A loud bang made her start and look up – only scaffolding coming down across the road. But her eye caught a distinctive figure walking up the hill towards her, on the other side of the narrow high street: Bernard Lockmore. His hands thrust into his jacket pockets, he was gazing straight ahead. Her heart thumped. Shall I say hello? She hesitated: he seemed deep in thought. But as he drew level, his head turned and for a second his eyes seemed to rest on her. She thought she detected a moment of recognition, but he instantly turned back and – was it her imagination? – quickened his pace.
Surprised and unable to suppress an instant pang of humiliation and hurt, Sara bent her head and hurried the remaining yards to her door. Did he recognize me? she wondered, as she dumped the basket on the kitchen worktop. He’d seen her, she was pretty certain. If I had any illusions, that’s really told me, she thought despondently.
6
‘Shit, shit, shit,’ Bernard muttered to himself, as he hurried up the street. ‘That was her.’ He was sure she’d recognized him, but did she realize he’d spotted her, too? He cringed at the thought of snubbing such a decent woman in that way, and for a split second considered running back and apologizing. He resisted, however, until he reached the crown of the hill, when he found himself slowing and looking back. But she’d vanished and he felt a heavy stab of disappointment. She looked so pretty in that green dress.
Banging on Joe Fane’s door, he continued to think of Sara without an h Tempest and couldn’t help but smile. Then his smile fell. His position hadn’t changed.
Joe, a thick-set, dark-haired man of Bernard’s age, with an open, mischievous smile, greeted his friend and almost immediately pressed an opened bottle of cold beer into his hand. They wandered out into the small, untidy garden behind his house, where two rickety striped deckchairs wobbled on the weed-strewn, uneven paving.
‘I’ve just seen the woman I had tea with a couple of weeks ago,’ Bernard said, relaxing back in the sunshine and taking a mouthful of his drink.
‘Oh, yeah. The one you can’t see again because you actually like her?’
Bernard winced. ‘All very well for you to mock. But just say – and obviously it’s not going to happen with this one – but just say I do meet someone in the future I want to be with and who wants to be with me …’ he sighed and looked Joe in the eye ‘… I’d have to be honest, right? I can’t be serious about someone and not tell them the truth. But if I do …’
It was Joe’s turn to sigh. But his was one of frustration. ‘Come on, mate, get a grip. Isn’t it time to move on? You can’t put your life on hold indefinitely, just because you’re worried about how someone will react to your past. You’ve done the penance.’ He nudged Bernard’s shoe with his trainer. ‘Step one: find the right woman.’
Bernard thought again of Sara and quickly dismissed her. He’d blown that already, by not calling, blanking her in the street. ‘Then what?’
‘You pick your moment. You’ll know when it is. And if she’s the right one, she’ll understand, won’t she?’ He shot Bernard an encouraging smile. ‘I would … I do.’
Bernard wanted to believe Joe. But his secret seemed to define him now. Telling someone, however understanding they might be, wouldn’t alter that.
‘Go on, get in touch with this tearoom damsel, for God’s sake, Bernie, and see if you do like her.’
7
Peggy spent most of the afternoon rootling around in the attic, finding all the things she needed for her camping trip. The family had often camped when the girls were younger, and the attic was crammed with moth-eaten sleeping-bags, water bottles, sleeping-mats and backpacks. Without Pete, Sara hadn’t had the energy or the inclination for any such trips.
‘I’m jealous,’ she said lightly, as she watched Peggy – tall, blonde and athletic like her dad – rinsing out a couple of water bottles at the sink. ‘I’d love to get away.’ She hadn’t meant it too seriously, although her life, since she’d had to acknowledge there might be something missing, did seem rather humdrum. Her daughter turned, though, her expression instantly concerned. ‘Aren’t you going to Spain with Precious and Sammi? You always do.’
‘Not this year. They have asked me. It’s just so bloody hot there, now. And although they’re incredibly kind and include me in everything, my Spanish is terrible, and they talk so fast I only catch the odd thing, or they have to stop to translate, which is even worse.’ She laughed. ‘Stop looking so worried, Peggy. I’m fine. I’ve got a few clients during August, anyway. I’ll do something later in the year.’
Peggy stopped packing and they went outside with a cup of tea and cake to sit in the pretty, paved garden at the back: a Japanese acer, a blue French hydrangea and some bamboo lined the bottom wall, large pots containing a variety of plants, herbs and flowers dotted the flagstones, smaller ones sat on shelves built into the right-hand brick wall. A wooden bench and a rectangular oak dining-table that Pete had sanded down and sealed, years ago, stood against the opposite wall – which was west-facing and caught the sun for most of the afternoon. It had the atmosphere of a small, secret haven, away from the rest of the world. Sara loved it.
‘So, Mum, any new Colins on the horizon?’ Peggy gave her a cheeky grin as she munched her brownie. ‘Or shouldn’t I ask?’
Sara shook her head. ‘Nope, nothing doing.’ She spoke firmly, closing down the conversation, unwilling to engage about her recent rejection. She suspected her daughter might be outraged at the slight. And the way Bernard had blanked her on the street still rankled somewhat. He could have said a friendly hello without compromising himself, she thought. Or did he worry I’d leap on him and drag him into a relationship against his will – in broad daylight? The notion made her smile to herself, at least.
‘I’ve been thinking about Dad a lot recently,’ Peggy said, after a brief silence.
‘Because I’m …’ Sara didn’t finish. ‘Dating’ seemed such a juvenile, inappropriate word for someone her age.
Her daughter gave her a rueful grin. ‘Now it’s a possibility I suppose I’m finding it hard to imagine you with anyone but him.’
Sara smiled gently. ‘You and me both, sweetheart. No one will ever replace him, you know that.’
Neither spoke for a moment.
‘Don’t get me wrong, Mum. There’s no way I want you to be by yourself for the rest of your life, obviously. I hate the thought that you’re lonely.’ Sara saw the incipient tears, quickly blinked away. ‘There’s still the odd morning I wake up and forget he’s gone, you know, even after all this time … And when I realize, I can’t bear it all over again.’ She rubbed her fingertips under both eyes, sniffed. ‘He was my hero.’
The tears came now, blurring her daughter’s blue eyes without constraint. Sara reached for Peggy’s hand, her heart breaking. She had no real idea what her daughter was feeling, or what it was like to have a father to miss. Her own grief was as familiar to her as her face in the mirror. But Peggy had always – even in the months immediately following Pete’s death – wrapped her sadness in layers of concern for her mum.
‘Oh, Peggs, I’m so sorry.’ Sara rubbed her daughter’s hand. ‘I know what you mean. Those moments are so cruel.’ Waking, sliding her hand across the mattress and finding only cold sheet. That split second of forgetting. She knew it well.
Peggy took a deep breath. ‘Anyway, Mum, let’s not get gloomy. We should be looking forwards, not back.’ She pulled a face. ‘Joni would kill me if she thought I was putting you off finding a lovely man.’
Sara laughed. ‘Oh, no worries on that front, sweetheart. The men are doing a splendid job of that all by themselves.’ Before Peggy could ask any questions, she added quickly, ‘I thought we’d drop in on Granny later, if you’re up for it. I know she’d love to see you before you go.’
Sara got up at four on Sunday morning to drive Peggy and a mountainous, clanking backpack to the airport. Coming back to the empty house – it was still barely eight o’clock – she felt a wave of self-pity. What’s wrong with me these days? Sunday stretched ahead and she thought of all the couples waking to each other, to a day spent lazing around with croissants and coffee, chatting and exchanging views on the papers, maybe meeting friends for lunch. Sara had friends, of course, but she was heartily sick of being the sad single at these gatherings, always having to enter a room alone, often being set up with another sad single – kindly meant, but embarrassing.
The buck always stopped with her. No one else would ring the insurance company to complain about a hike in renewal payments, or the service centre when the washing machine leaked all over the kitchen floor – as it had only the previous week. There was no one at whom to shout her frustration when her laptop crashed, a client played up, or even just relay day-to-day anecdotes to – about an amusing exchange she’d heard in the supermarket queue, for instance, or something she’d read somewhere. She’d just been plodding along in her own private lane since Pete, not really considering her situation that closely. But now this version of the world was beginning to seem less appealing. Fortified by a cup of coffee and some summer berries with yoghurt and local honey, she reached for her phone and opened the dating app.
Monday morning dawned. Sara had spent a long Sunday doing some gardening, trying to concentrate on a novel Joni had said she must read, and chatting aimlessly with Mike-the-market-gardener online – not a good fit, pretty much his only topic of conversation being this year’s tomato crop. Unlocking the main door of her work building – a ten-minute walk downhill from her house, set on the ground floor of a newish brick-and-brown-window-frame behind the District Council office – she bumped into Becky, the podiatrist upstairs, nipping out on a coffee run. Precious wasn’t in on Monday mornings, so the place was empty and silent without her friend’s cheerful presence to fill the space. Julian Cameron was her first appointment: she was hoping her suggestions had made a difference and lessened some of his health anxieties.
She sat down at her desk and opened her website to check for appointment requests. Some people still used the landline to leave messages, some used the online form, but increasingly she was employing her work mobile to send and receive booking texts. There was nothing online this morning, so she moved on to the landline where there was one cancellation for later in the week, and another message she was about to listen to when her mobile beeped with a WhatsApp from Peggy, attaching a photo of an amazing Icelandic sunrise. Typing a response, she had no time to listen to the landline message before she heard the ping of the practice bell.
‘So, how’s it been going, Julian?’ she asked, although she could tell from his demeanour that it wouldn’t be good news. He seemed extremely tense from the outset, barely looking her in the eye as he perched on the edge of the chair, his thin, long-fingered hands twisting in his lap.
‘Not well, is the answer,’ he said, his voice pinched. ‘In fact, nothing’s really changed since I last saw you, Sara.’
She frowned. ‘I’m sorry to hear that. Did you manage any of the adjustments we discussed?’
‘Not really.’ Julian gave a small sigh. ‘If I’m being honest, I don’t see the point in improving my diet when I’m being forced to eat gluten. No wonder I’m not feeling well.’
‘You’re not being “forced”, Julian. It’s only that if you want a gluten intolerance test you have to eat a certain amount.’
He frowned at her. ‘Which I do, so I am, wouldn’t you say?’
Sara was taken aback by the scorn in his tone and inhaled slowly. ‘Tell me what you’ve been eating.’
Julian shrugged. ‘I tried to cut down on coffee, as you suggested, but it just made me even more tired. And I take the probiotics, when I remember.’ He sighed. ‘Otherwise, it’s the same as before. And bread, of course.’ He pulled a face as if even the thought disgusted him.
Sara smiled encouragingly, glancing down to check his notes. ‘Well, you can be tested now. Maybe you’ll feel more confident to move forward when you have the results.’
Julian suddenly got to his feet, although he’d been there barely five minutes. ‘You make the assumption it’ll be negative, of course.’ His tone was rude, although that was not what she had said. ‘I’m wasting my time … and my money. You’re just not listening.’
Sara rose too. ‘I can understand you’re anxious, Julian. But the changes to your diet I’ve outlined could really help. Will you at least give it a go?’ She gave him her most winning smile. ‘You have nothing to lose while you wait.’
The smile, though, fell on stony ground. Not answering her question, Julian shook his head impatiently, his expression closed.
‘Please,’ she said gently. ‘Sit down. Let’s talk this through.’
But her client swung angrily towards the door, as if he hadn’t heard her, leaving the room without even saying goodbye.
Precious popped her head round the door just as Sara was finishing her lunchtime soup. Sara told her about Julian. ‘I’ve never had a client walk out on me before.’
‘So rude,’ Precious commented.
Sara shook her head. ‘He was upset with me. But he had no reason to be. I’d agreed to the gluten test, even though I don’t think he needs it, and we could have run other sensitivity tests, if he hadn’t legged it. He just wants me to agree he is coeliac, and I’m pretty sure he isn’t.’
‘So what are you going to do?’
‘Oh, I’ll call him in a couple of days when he’s had time to cool off, wrangle him back onboard.’ She grinned. ‘I’m determined to help him, whether he likes it or not.’
Precious laughed. ‘My crusading friend. You know you can’t save everyone, Sas.’ She came into the room and sat down on Sara’s client chair. ‘So what else? Did you have a good time with Peggy? Is the dear girl safely off on her travels?’
They chatted for a few minutes before Precious went next door to prepare for her afternoon sessions. It was only when Sara lifted her landline receiver to make a quick call to a client for an appointment change that she noticed the other voicemail still flashing on the machine. In a hurry, because her two o’clock was just about to arrive, she pressed the button. Silence. She was reaching to delete it, when a long intake of breath stayed her hand.
‘Hello, this is Bernard calling to speak to Sara Tempest,’ said the polite male voice. ‘I don’t know if you remember … coffee cake at the tearoom?’ There was a pause. ‘I’d love to chat … if you fancy it. Here’s my number.’ She listened as he enunciated the eleven digits twice, said goodbye, then clicked off. Oh, she thought, taken aback. She wanted to play it again, but the double ting of the bell prevented her.
