Never Tell. Claire Seeber

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СКАЧАТЬ poured boiling water all over my hand as James appeared noiselessly behind me.

      ‘Ouch!’ I yanked my hand back quickly. Quickly, but too late.

      ‘Careful,’ James yawned, stretching, displaying a hairy stomach above stripy pyjama-bottoms. I ran my hand under the cold tap, the freezing water a new kind of pain on my scalded skin.

      ‘Any coffee going?’ J scratched his belly. ‘Have you seen my phone?’

      He rooted through the piles of paperwork I’d stacked neatly last night, through the old newspapers full of articles I kept meaning to read and never got round to, forms for Alicia’s school trips and Effie and Fred’s dinner money, bank statements that needed to go to the accountants, my notebook full of scribblings for ideas that I needed to write up properly. Scribblings that were decreasing in number.

      ‘I need to call Liam. I’ve had a fucking blinding idea for Revolver. We’ve got to go all out on the VIP room. Marble, gold, the works. Seventies kitsch.’

      I watched one pile slide dangerously to the right and bit my tongue.

      ‘Where the hell’s my phone? Did you move it again? I do keep saying just leave it.’

      ‘Oh, J, don’t mess it all up again,’ I muttered, but my beautiful symmetry was already descending towards the floor.

      ‘Don’t fuss, Rose.’ He found the phone in the pocket of his fleece. ‘McCready can tidy it. She loves it.’

      Ruined.

      ‘Who’s she?’ Mrs McCready stomped back into the room, a beaming Fred beneath her arm like a small parcel. ‘The cat’s mother?’

      ‘Oh, McCready, you angel.’ James kissed her resoundingly on one thread-veined cheek. ‘You’re here to save us all, aren’t you, petal?’

      I couldn’t help smiling. ‘I thought I was your petal?’

      ‘That’s right, Rosie Lee,’ my husband winked at me, ‘you are. My one and only petal. Bring the coffee to the studio, would you? I’ve got to get on.’

      I caught McCready’s eye over his dark head. Obviously it was a good day.

      ‘Liam, that you? All right, sir?’ J winked at me again. ‘Listen, my head’s buzzing. I’ve had a fucking blinder of a plan. Think Joan Collins on a swing in The Stud, and forget all your troubles.’

      McCready pursed colourless lips and released Fred from her grasp.

      ‘So, sir, get your arse …’ With a flurry of paper falling to the floor and a door slamming in his wake, J was gone. Troubles, I thought. The first I’d heard.

      ‘I’ll fetch him his coffee,’ McCready said, as I’d known she would. For all her disapproval, she adored James. As she left the room, Fred in her wake, the phone started to ring.

      ‘Thank you,’ I called after her, adding milk to my tea and looking for the handset. Before I found it, the answer-phone kicked in.

      ‘Pick up, Rosie, darling.’ My heart jolted at the familiar drawl. ‘We both know you’re there.’

      I finally spotted the receiver, tangled in a pair of small carrot-stained dungarees in the washing basket.

      A deep sigh into the machine. ‘There’s only so long you can avoid me. I need you. And,’ the voice dropped into a caress, ‘you know you need me, darling.’

      My hand hovered indecisively above the phone as I watched an image on the small TV in the corner – an image that I couldn’t quite compute. The breakfast news: a man I hadn’t seen for years, since university. He stepped down from a private jet, smiling for the cameras. Those pale glacial eyes. Escorted to Number 10, shaking hands with the Prime Minister. Easy to see he’d once been the most powerful man in Britain.

      I forgot all about the phone and turned up the volume quickly, but it was too late to catch the full story.

      A man I’d hoped desperately I’d never see again. Dalziel’s father.

      I dropped Alicia at school, Effie and Fred at nursery and then wandered absently round the supermarket. Amidst jars of apple purée and mountains of bright and shiny baby stuff, my mobile rang for the third time. Finally, I relented.

      ‘What?’ I muttered.

      ‘Charming.’

      ‘I’m really very busy, you know.’

      ‘Very busy doing what? Comparing nappy brands?’

      I looked at a stack of shiny green Pampers.

      ‘No.’ I turned my back on the nappies. ‘I’m just going into a very important meeting, actually.’

      Joyfully the Tannoy announced a large spillage in Aisle 4.

      ‘Really?’ Xavier sniggered. ‘About what? Which tea-shop to hold the local mothers’ meeting in?’

      I smiled despite myself.

      ‘No, Xavier. About …’ I caught sight of Helen Kelsey studying nail polish in the beauty section. She really did look like a fox. Sleek, but a fox none the less. ‘About – about the local fox hunt.’ I slunk back round the corner of the Pampers before she spotted me.

      ‘I thought chasing foxes had been banned?’ Xavier drawled. ‘Don’t tell me you’re riding with those hounds.’

      ‘It’s still a point of serious debate in the countryside, actually.’ I tried to sound convinced. ‘There’s a lot of tension still between hunt and saboteurs.’

      Xavier yawned loudly. ‘Oh, don’t be so dreary, dearie. Come back to me. You’re the best newshound I know,’ he persisted. ‘It’s such a waste.’

      ‘Flattery will get you everywhere,’ I sighed. ‘But I can’t. The children, Xav. I’m not doing that whole nanny thing. And the team really need me here. I can’t just up and—’

      ‘Oh, please,’ Xavier yawned again. ‘It’s hardly the Wall Street bloody Journal.’

      ‘Stop yawning.’ I chucked some baby-wipes in the trolley. ‘It’s so rude. The Burford Chronicle is a quality paper, I’ll have you know.’

      There was a long pause. We both dissolved into giggles.

      ‘You silly cow,’ he said fondly. ‘Stop popping babies out and writing about giant marrows—’

      ‘Er, I’m not sure I like that analogy, thanks, Xav.’

      ‘- and cover this al-Qaeda story for me.’

      I stopped laughing.

      ‘What story?’

      ‘New neighbour of yours.’

      ‘Really? Who?’

      ‘Hadi Kattan.’

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