Just a Family Affair (15 page)

‘Am I that hideous to look at?’ Mickey joked. ‘I haven’t aged that much, surely?’

She took her hands away from her face. ‘Hi,’ she said. ‘Sorry. It’s just . . . strange seeing you after all this time. Come on in.’

And she stepped aside to let him past.

 

Mickey hadn’t been sure what to expect when he saw Kay. He might have had an affair with her for . . . how long? A year? Eighteen months? In all that time he hadn’t kidded himself that he cared about her, or she him. They’d been in it for the frisson that only clandestine sex can give you.

So he was surprised, when he saw her, to feel shock. She looked tiny, vulnerable, her green eyes huge in her face. Kay had always seemed so tough. She was usually done up to the nines, chic and perfectly made-up. Today she had on jeans, loafers and a white shirt; none of her trademark gold jewellery, only a trace of mascara. Her blond hair was loosely pinned up in a slide, dark roots evident.

He followed her into the room. She smiled at him rather wanly.

‘I’m not sure how to tell you this. It’s probably going to come as a shock.’

Oh no, thought Mickey. AIDS. That was why she was so thin. And he definitely hadn’t ever used a condom with her. He knew that, because he’d never used a condom in his life. He thought quickly. If she’d infected him, surely he’d be ill by now?

‘Don’t worry,’ she was saying softly. ‘It’s actually quite a nice surprise. At least, I think so.’

She beckoned him over to the window. Outside, Suzanna’s daughter Poppy was playing on the pub climbing frame with another little girl.

‘That’s Flora,’ said Kay simply. ‘The one in the denim dress.’

‘Yours?’ asked Mickey.

‘And yours.’

There was a stunned silence. Then Mickey began to laugh. ‘Don’t wind me up.’

The expression on Kay’s face stopped him in his tracks. She wasn’t joking.

‘Do the maths, Mickey. We were never very careful, were we? I thought I couldn’t have children, remember? So I told you not to worry.’

Mickey nodded. Even he, with his tendency to be swept away by the occasion, had queried the wisdom of unprotected sex, but Kay had assured him, with rather a wry smile, that there was no chance she could get pregnant. He’d believed her. Why wouldn’t he?

‘It turned out not to be me who was infertile,’ she informed him. ‘It was Lawrence all along.’

Mickey swallowed, thinking of all the times he had ravished her with gay abandon. Talk about Russian bloody roulette.

‘I found out soon enough, when I told him I was pregnant. He showed me the piece of paper from the consultant that told him he would never father a child in a million years.’ A trace of bitterness crept into her voice. ‘Something he omitted to tell me during our marriage. It seemed he was happy to let me take the blame for the fact we couldn’t have children.’

Mickey was struggling to take it all in. Even now, he remembered Lawrence, drunk at the Liddiard dinner table that Christmas, crowing that his wife was having an abortion. Mickey had never forgotten the shocked expression on Lucy’s face, and his own sneaking suspicion that the child might be his. But Lawrence had been adamant that Kay had got rid of it, so he’d thought he’d got away with it. And if he’d heard a rumour that Kay had gone on to have a baby, he’d pushed the thought to the back of his mind.

‘So it was obvious that the baby wasn’t his. He kicked me out on the spot. I was going to get rid of it.’ Kay looked defiant for a moment. ‘But I couldn’t. It was too late. By the time I got to a doctor, I was twenty-four weeks gone. Thank God . . .’

She looked out of the window at Flora, her defiance subsiding.

‘So what did you do?’ Mickey asked softly. He felt sick. Sick that he hadn’t tried to contact her at the time. Sick that all he had felt was relief that she had allegedly dealt with the inconvenience. He was a selfish bastard, he told himself.

‘I went to my parents in Slough. Bless them. I couldn’t tell them all the sordid details. They just looked after me, unconditionally. Like parents are supposed to.’ Her smile was bleak. ‘Mum came with me to the hospital while I had Flora. Then they helped me buy a little house, made sure we had everything we needed . . .’

‘Kay. I had no idea.’

She looked at him evenly and he squirmed. Had he suspected, he wondered now? He couldn’t be sure. It had been all too easy to put Kay to the back of his mind, with everything else that had happened.

‘No,’ she said with a sigh. ‘Of course you didn’t. Nobody did.’

‘But . . . you and Lawrence? You got back together?’

She nodded. Mickey realized she was struggling to finish her story. Tough, defiant Kay was crumbling in front of him.

‘He felt so guilty. About lying to me all those years. I’d never bothered to go and see a specialist because I’d just assumed . . . and to be honest, back then I wasn’t all that worried. Kids didn’t seem important. I can’t believe I thought it didn’t matter.’

Her gaze wandered outside to Flora for a moment.

‘Anyway, Lawrence tracked me down, eventually. He told me he . . . couldn’t live without me, even though I’d been unfaithful. He fell in love with Flora at first sight. He brought her up as his own.’

Kay found her eyes were filling up with tears. She’d been determined not to cry. This was supposed to be a business meeting, not emotional blackmail. But repeating the story to Mickey made her remember just how special Lawrence had been in the end. She turned away for a moment, blinking hard, until she’d composed herself.

‘So where is he now?’ asked Mickey.

‘He . . . died.’

‘Jesus.’

‘Or, to put it more precisely, he was killed. In a car accident. At least, that’s what it was made to look like.’

Mickey looked at her sharply. Kay shrugged.

‘I can’t prove anything. But it looked rather suspicious to me. He was in with some pretty ruthless people. He didn’t like the way they were doing business. Anyway, whether they actually bumped him off or not, they came out of the whole thing quids-in and I was left without a penny.’

‘Kay . . . this all sounds like madness. Like some crazy film.’

‘Tell me about it. And I’m not holding out for a happy ending. I’m widowed. Penniless. Homeless. With a child to look after. But . . . it’s up to me to do the best I can for me and Flora.’

She met his gaze directly. ‘Which is where you come in.’

‘Ah.’ Mickey suddenly felt foolish. How could he have flattered himself that she might be after his body? ‘You want money.’

She winced. She had come here determined to be businesslike. Yet when Mickey put it so baldly it sounded awful.

‘What I want is a stable, happy life for my little girl. But my hands are tied, Mickey. I don’t know where to begin, what to do, how the hell to get us out of this mess. And I absolutely promise you, if it wasn’t for Flora . . .’

She trailed away, realizing that a tone of desperation had crept into her voice. She hadn’t meant to make this an emotional plea. She’d thought about it long and hard, and decided that tugging on Mickey’s heart strings was a cheap trick. She’d wanted to make this a straightforward transaction. She had to pull herself together. She wouldn’t get through this if she fell victim to self-pity. She hated people who whinged and moaned about their circumstances.

‘I’ve worked it out,’ said Kay, producing a piece of paper. ‘I thought a lump sum would probably be easiest. Then I wouldn’t have to keep bothering you. I haven’t been greedy. I’ve rounded it off to make it easier.’

Mickey looked at the sum, written in black letters. The figures swam in front of his eyes.

‘Half a million quid?’

‘I’m sure if I went through the Child Support Agency, or got a lawyer, they’d ask you for more.’

‘Half a million?’

‘I won’t ask you for anything else. That’s it.’

Mickey raised an eyebrow. It was all he could manage. He was quite literally speechless. Kay couldn’t help smothering a smile. She remembered now that Mickey never was really in touch with the real world.

‘I’ve worked it out on a rough payment of three hundred pounds a week, for eighteen years. Plus quarter of a million for a roof over our heads and school fees.’

‘Kay . . . I just haven’t got this kind of money.’

‘Not cash, no. I can’t imagine you have. But you’ve got plenty of assets.’

Mickey let out a heavy sigh. He knew Kay was no fool. She was a businesswoman. She knew what was what. That he might not have liquid cash, but on paper he was minted.

‘If it was just me I can assure you I wouldn’t humiliate myself like this. But I’ve got to look after Flora’s best interests.’>

She looked Mickey in the eye. ‘All I’ve got is the clothes we are standing up in. And the car my father bought me. That’s it.’>

‘What are you living on?’

‘At the moment? The proceeds from my engagement ring.’

Mickey felt sick. His knee-jerk reaction was that he wanted a drink.

‘Why didn’t you tell me before? I mean, why tell me now? She’s how old? Nearly five?’

‘Yes. So obviously I need to get things sorted as quickly as I can. Work out where we are going to live, so I can get her into a good school.’

Mickey’s heart sank. He knew Kay’s idea of a good school wouldn’t be the local primary.

‘I really need to think things over. This has come as a huge shock.’

Kay managed a rather mirthless smile. ‘Don’t worry - I wasn’t expecting you to hand over a cheque straight away . . .’

Their eyes met.

‘And I’ll be very discreet. I know you wouldn’t want Lucy to know any of this.’

Mickey narrowed his eyes. That sounded like an ill-disguised threat.

‘I hope you’re not going to use that as a bargaining tool.’

‘I don’t need to bargain, Mickey. I know my rights. And I know that deep down you’re an honourable person. You wouldn’t see your own flesh and blood go without.’

Here it comes, thought Mickey. The tight, agonizing steel band round his skull that materialised whenever he was stressed. The one that stopped him being able to think, talk, drive. He groped for the back of a chair and sat down heavily.

‘Mickey?’

Kay was surprised to see him quite so affected. He had gone deathly pale. She prayed he wasn’t going to keel over completely. That was the last thing she needed - another corpse on her hands. She rushed to fetch him a glass of water.

‘Sorry,’ she gasped, flustered. ‘There wasn’t really any way of breaking it to you gently. I mean, you can’t half tell someone they’ve fathered your child.’

Mickey gulped at the water greedily.

Shit, he thought. Another set of school fees. He’d only been ribbing his own brother about school fees earlier. And clothes - he was certain Kay wasn’t the type to rush to Peacocks or Primark. Though hang on . . . he was pretty certain Lucy had kept most of Sophie and Georgina’s stuff. He remembered her packing it up during her recent clear out—

What was he thinking? He could hardly go home and ask his wife to look out some old clothes for the illegitimate daughter she didn’t know he had. Mickey put down the glass of water with a trembling hand.

‘How long are you here?’ he asked.

Kay shrugged. ‘I can’t afford to stay much longer,’ she replied.

‘Don’t worry about the bill,’ he told her. ‘I’ll settle that with Barney. Stay as long as you like.’

He shouldn’t be saying that. He should be trying to get rid of her as quickly as he could. But Mickey was surprised, very surprised, to find that his overriding emotion was a desire to protect the two of them. His former mistress and his fourth - fourth! - child.

His eyes were drawn to the window, where the light was fading fast. The two little girls had disappeared.

‘Suzanna’s giving them tea together. Poppy was thrilled to have someone to play with.’

Mickey looked searchingly at Kay. She seemed an entirely different person from the woman he remembered. Less brittle. Softer. Almost . . . fragile. But then, she was a mother now. And a widow. And the way she had spoken about Lawrence, it seemed they had found true love together in the end. All of which combined to give her another dimension, which was rather intriguing.

For a moment he felt the urge to take her in his arms, and tell her it was going to be all right. But he warned himself to keep her at a distance. She’d just asked him for half a million quid, after all, so there must be plenty of the old resilient Kay in there. He mustn’t get swept away on a tide of emotion, seduced by the romance of the situation. He must let his head make the decisions, not his heart. Which meant suppressing the overwhelming desire he had to meet Flora. Once he did that, then he knew all reason would go out of the window. He was pretty sure Kay wasn’t lying, or acting, or exaggerating any of the facts she had presented him with. But she knew damn well she had the ultimate weapon.

He forced a businesslike briskness into his tone that he wasn’t feeling, fighting all his instincts, because his duty was to protect his wife, his family and his business, not his former lover and their illegitimate daughter. Who might, after all, not be his.

W
hen Mickey got home that evening, he really had meant to tell Lucy everything.

Five years ago, when his affair with Kay had come out, he’d had a major wake-up call about the way he was leading his life. He’d realized that he was a lucky bastard who didn’t deserve his family or his legacy, and had resolved to be a dutiful father and husband from there on in. And he’d done pretty well, considering. Gone was the dissolute philandering booze hound. Now he worked hard, was thoroughly attentive to and grateful for Lucy, and had cut back hugely on his drinking, so it was merely social rather than something on which he depended to get him through the day. He’d learnt to open bills when they arrived, and even pay them. And he had to admit, life was easier for it, if a little predictable.