Believing the Lie

“‘Did it’? What kind of term is ‘did it’?”

She cocked her head and sent him a meaningful look. “Freddie…”

“Well, yes. I mean, I explained all that to you: how things are these days. You know. When people go out together. So, well … yes, we did.”

“More than once?” She hated herself for asking, but suddenly she had to know. And the reason she had to know was that in all the years they’d been together — even when they’d been twenty years old and hot for each other during the six months that they had actually been hot for each other — she and Freddie had never locked themselves into a passionate embrace more than once in a twenty-four-hour period.

Freddie’s reaction was a look of gentlemanly shock. He said, “Manette, good Lord. There are some things — ”

“So you did. More than once. More than with Holly? Freddie, are you taking precautions?”

“I think we’ve talked enough about this,” he replied with dignity.

“So what about tonight? Are you seeing someone else tonight? Who is it tonight?”

“Actually, I’m seeing Sarah again.”

Manette crossed one leg over the other. She wished for a cigarette. She’d smoked when she was in her twenties and although she hadn’t thought about cigarettes in years, she suddenly wanted the comfort of doing something with her hands. As it was, she reached for a container of paper clips and played with it. She said, “I’m curious about this. Since you’ve done it already and that’s been got out of the way, what comes next? Family photos? Or do you get on to surnames and communicable diseases?”

He looked at her strangely. Manette reckoned he was evaluating her remark, weighing it and matching its weight to a response that equaled but did not exceed it. Before he could say what she knew he was about to say — “You’re upset about this. Why? We’ve been divorced for ages and we’ve decided on friendship but I never intended to be celibate for the rest of my life” — she went on with, “Well, will you be home tonight at all or should I expect you to be spending it with Sarah again?”

He shrugged, but still his face maintained that expression, which was something stuck between curious and confused. He said, “I don’t know, actually.”

“Of course. How could you? Sorry. Anyway, I hope you bring her home. I’d like to meet her. Just give me fair warning so I don’t show up at the breakfast table without my knickers on.”

“Will do. Of course. I mean, the other night was rather a spontaneous thing. I mean, with Holly. I didn’t quite know then how these things tend to develop. Now that I do… well, of course, there are arrangements, aren’t there? And explanations and whatnot?”

It was Manette’s turn to look curious. It wasn’t like Freddie to stumble round with his words. She said, “What’s going on? God, Freddie, you didn’t run off and do something… something rather mad, did you?” She didn’t know what that madness would have been. But madness of any kind was out of character for Freddie. He was an arrow, straight and true.

He said, “No, no. It’s just that I didn’t tell her about… well, about you.”

“What? You didn’t say you’re divorced?”

“She knows that, of course. But I didn’t tell her that you and I… well, that we live in the same house.”

“Holly knew, though. That didn’t seem to be a problem for her. Lots of blokes have female flatmates and such.”

“Yes, of course. But Sarah… It felt different being with Sarah. It felt like a risk that I didn’t want to take.” He picked up the printouts and he tapped them neatly together on the top of his desk. He said, “I’ve been out of action for ages, Manette, as you well know. I’m going by feel with these women.”

She said tartly, “I’m sure you are.”

She’d actually come to his office to talk to him about Tim and Gracie and about her conversation with her father as well. But now, that conversation didn’t feel right to Manette. And as Freddie himself had just pointed out, in a new situation one was wise to go by feel. She got to her feet.

She said, “I won’t expect to see you, then. Just take care, all right? I wouldn’t like to see you… I don’t know… hurt or anything.” Before he could reply, she got herself out of his office and set off in search of her brother. She told herself that Freddie had his own life and she had hers and it was time she did something about that latter fact, just as Freddie was doing. She didn’t know what that something was going to be, though. She couldn’t imagine launching herself into the unknown world of Internet dating. Into bed with total strangers to see if a proper fit existed? She shuddered. To her that seemed to be a recipe for being cooked in a serial killer’s oven, but perhaps she’d been watching too many detective programmes on the telly over the years.

She found Nicholas in the shipping department, a warehouse that served as a modest step up from where he’d laboured the previous six months. Then he’d been working on the tops of cisterns, the bowls of toilets, and kitchen sinks, seeing to the application of porcelain to the moulded clay and sliding them into the enormous kiln. In that part of the factory, the heat was intolerable and the noise was just as bad, but Nicholas had been successful there. In fact, he’d been successful in every job he’d been placed in during the last two years.

Manette knew he was working his way through all possible jobs in the factory. She’d developed a grudging admiration for this although the why of his doing it gave her a bit of concern. Surely he couldn’t think that a few years of puttering round Fairclough Industries superseded the decades she and Freddie had worked there? Surely he didn’t expect to be named managing director once their father stepped aside? The thought was ludicrous.

Today’s employment for Nicholas involved bathroom basins, Manette saw. At the loading dock, with a clipboard in one hand and a pen in the other, he was comparing sizes and styles on shipping boxes to sizes and styles on an order. The basins had been delivered on a pallet by a forklift. Once Nicholas had checked them off, he would load them into a waiting lorry, the driver of which had reversed it to the shipping gate and was waiting round, smoking and generally being unhelpful.

Because the huge shipping doors were open to the lorry, it was cold in the warehouse. It was noisy as well because there was music blasting from speakers in the building, as if someone’s proclivity for Carlos Santana oldies might raise the ambient temperature a bit.

Manette approached her brother. He looked up and gave her a nod of hello. Above the music, she shouted, asking him if she could have a word. His response of, “It’s not near my break time,” irritated her.

She said, “For God’s sake, Nick. I think you can take five minutes without being sacked.”

“We have a shipment going out. He’s waiting.” By he Nicholas meant the lorry driver, who didn’t look exactly desperate to be on his way. He’d gone to the driver’s side of the lorry and had opened its door, true. But he emerged with a Thermos from which he poured himself something that steamed in the air. He looked happy enough for the break in his routine.

She said, “I need to speak to you. It’s important. Ask permission if you want to. Or shall I do that for you?”

Her brother’s supervisor was approaching anyway. He tilted his hard hat back on his head, greeted her, and called her Mrs. McGhie, which rather stabbed at her heart although it was indeed her legal surname. She said, “C’n I have a word with Nicholas, Mr. Perkins? It’s rather important. A family matter.” She said this last as a way of reminding the man — as if he needed reminding — who Nicholas was.

Mr. Perkins looked towards the lorry and clocked the lounging driver before saying, “Five, Nick,” and moving off.

Manette led the way to a quieter location, which turned out to be round the side of the warehouse. This was the gathering place for smokers, she saw, for although none were present at the moment, the ground was littered with evidence of their presence. She made a mental note to talk to Freddie about this. Then she crossed out the note and made a second one telling herself to handle it on her own.

She said to her brother, “It’s Tim and Gracie,” and she gave him the story with all its ins and outs: Niamh’s intentions, Kaveh’s responsibilities, their father’s position in the matter, Tim’s distress, Gracie’s future needs. She ended with, “We need to do something about all this, Nick. And we need to do it soon. If we wait, there’s no telling what Tim might get up to. He’s that damaged by what’s gone on.”

Her brother removed the gloves he was wearing. From a pocket, he took out a tube of thick lotion. He began to apply this to his hands. She gave idle thought to the reason for this: keeping them soft for Alatea, no doubt. Alatea was a woman for whom a man would want to have soft hands, indeed. Nicholas said, “Isn’t it Niamh’s job to handle how the children are coping and everything else along those lines?”