It is unbelievable to think that lovely Leigh has done something so wrong. Something illegal, immoral.
Evil.
Because looking at Mark now, splintered with grief and heartache, it is hard to think of Leigh’s actions as anything less than evil.
This evening, Fiona had explained to Oli that Leigh was a bigamist. Seb is too young to understand it all, but Fiona thought it was fair to bring Oli up to speed. He is not a baby and he’d resent it if they treated him like one. Oli said he felt he was Luke Skywalker discovering Darth Vader was his dad. That seemed about right to Fiona. The whole thing was such a colossal shock.
Fiona doesn’t want to judge. Relationships are a morass of dos and don’ts; broken rules and hearts. Her own acidic experiences prove that. How many times had she discovered she was dating a married man, for instance? Not by design. She would meet someone on an app and they always say they are single at first, then when she started to care (always after sex) they would admit to being married. Fiona remembers chatting about this to Leigh.
‘They don’t want to hide it for any length of time. They want you to know, so you understand their level of commitment,’ she’d explained.
‘Or lack of it,’ Leigh had pointed out. Eyes wide.
‘Precisely.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Well, it’s not your fault.’
‘You know what I mean,’ mumbled Leigh.
‘You are so lucky to have Mark. Shall we clone him?’ Fiona had asked with a laugh. She didn’t like to appear mopey.
‘No. Yes. I mean no, we probably shouldn’t try to clone him but yes, I am lucky. I see that. I know that.’ Was Fiona just misremembering things now, filtering? But was Leigh confused, defensive? Fiona recalls her adding, ‘But he came with his drawbacks.’
‘The children?’ Fiona had gasped.
‘No, not the boys. I’d never describe the boys as a drawback. His steadfast insistence that we couldn’t adopt or foster. That was hard.’
‘But you have two anyway,’ Fiona pointed out.
Had Leigh blanched, blinked slowly? Fiona was sure she had. She wasn’t misremembering or rewriting history. ‘Oh yes, two children,’ Leigh had confirmed. Did she momentarily think Fiona knew more than she did?
Leigh has two children, that is two more than Fiona has; she should have counted her blessings. And now it turns out she has two husbands as well. It is unbelievable.
Fiona brings herself back to the here and now. ‘Do you think her parents are to blame?’ she asks Mark.
Mark shakes his head. He admires Fiona’s loyalty but has never been a fan of the therapy woe-is-me culture that allows people to blame mummy and daddy for their own fuckedupness. Fiona clearly sees as much reflected in his face because she tries to explain. ‘I’m just saying, from what she’s told me, her dad was emotionally disinterested – hell, every which way disinterested – and her mum tried too hard to please him. Or to be seen, or something. She was split between their two homes, wasn’t she? After they divorced, she—’
Mark cuts Fiona off impatiently. ‘Look, maybe you’re right. Maybe everything can be explained but nothing can be excused.’ He isn’t ready to unearth any understanding. Mark lets out a deep breath, pulls on a mask that radiates grim determination and taps the keyboard. Fiona abandons the folding of the laundry and plonks herself down on the bench next to him; she is just as curious as to what Mark’s search might throw up. Mark’s fingers quickly fly over the keyboard. Tap, tap, tap. Mark taps in Dan Jansen.
‘He’s a fifty-four-year-old Olympic speed skater?’
‘The police said he was Dutch, that’s unlikely to be how you spell his name,’ Fiona points out.
‘How do you think you spell it?’
‘Dan will be double “a”, maybe. And Jansen could be double “s”. Try that.’
There are a number of Daan Janssens but some are too young, others don’t live in London; it is an unusual enough name to quickly and easily identify the right man.
The real Daan Janssen is just as impressive as an Olympian. Maybe more so. He is CEO in some trading division in the city. Mark clicks through to the company website. His suave, smooth face shines out from the top of the ‘Who We Are’ page and the same image is at the bottom of the mission statement which Fiona and Mark read in full although, having done so, neither of them is really any the wiser about what the company does. Something important, powerful, lucrative. That much is obvious.
Mark cannot take his eyes off the image. The pixels begin to separate, dance in front of him as he stares at the blond, chiselled man with green eyes and an easy, confident smile that seems to say sincere, serious but also entertaining, invigorating. It is just a head-and-shoulders shot but somehow the man’s mass and self-assurance radiate off the screen and punch Mark in the