Love Is a Secret (40 page)

3

KAREN

Three pregnant goldfish?
Had she heard the caller correctly, wondered Karen, readjusting her headphones which were rubbing against her new dangly earrings, which she’d bought herself as a treat from the market last Saturday. How did you know when a goldfish was pregnant anyway?

Maybe this was another wind-up. It wouldn’t be the first. There had been the giggling schoolgirls the other month who had rung up on the last day of term, trying to put their teacher in the
Dogs for Sale
column. And the aggrieved husband who had sold his wife’s entire designer wardrobe under the £1 a lot section. That one had been picked up by
The Sun
as part of a feature on revenge.

They still giggled – partly with horror and partly with admiration – at that one, in the office. As Karen told anyone new coming in, there was nothing like the world of Classified Ads in any local paper – including this one – to open your eyes. Brownie outfits (three this week), breast pumps (used) and ‘good as new’ bikes which turned out to have only one wheel. You got everything here. But pregnant goldfish? That was a new one.

‘Mind if I ask but can you tell me how you know your fish is expecting?’ she said politely. Sandra, who worked alongside her and hadn’t even been born when Karen had got married, spluttered into muffled laughter.

‘I see,’ Karen continued smoothly. ‘She’s getting fat and she – sorry, Goldie – is eating more than normal. And you’re certain it’s a ‘she’? No, it’s not that I don’t believe you, madam. It’s just that if we describe your goldfish as ‘pregnant’ and they’re not, there might be trouble under the Trades Description Act.’

‘Sorted?’ enquired Sandra, unwrapping her mid-day Kit Kat to have with her  coffee.

Karen nodded, typing the final details on the screen in front of her. ‘Think so. She agreed on the compromise in the end.’

‘You get all types don’t you?’ Sandra bit into the bar, making Karen feel quite hungry. She’d been trying to give up chocolate but . . . what the heck! So what if she was putting on a little bit more around her waist? It wasn’t as though she had anyone to worry about. That was the beauty of being alone. Only herself to please. Besides, if you looked in the right mirror, you only saw yourself from the waist up. That way, as one admirer had told her a couple of years ago, she looked like ‘a voluptuous Twiggy  with a few more laughter lines’. A backhanded compliment? Perhaps. Anyway, the admirer hadn’t lasted long. She made sure none of them did. It wouldn’t be right.

‘Have you always been good at this sort of thing?’ Sandra had polished off both sticks now and was leaning back in the chair for a quick break before the phone started ringing again. As the supervisor, Karen allowed the girls to have quick chats provided it wasn’t busy. They needed them. Life could get very intense in here with its rows of computer screens (a lot of people emailed their ads in) and constantly ringing phones (others preferred speaking) plus the sea of voices from the reporters who shared the other half of the open plan office. It was a wonder any of them could hear themselves think.

‘Good at what?’

‘Sorting people out. Suggesting compromises. Like ‘might be expecting’.’

Karen briefly thought back to those three wonderful years at East Anglia in the seventies when she’d been able to submerge herself in English Lit before the real world set in. ‘I try. Makes life easier really. Especially at my stage of life.’

Sandra was on her second Kit Kat now. ‘You don’t look your age, you know.’

No point trying to hide anything in this place! When she’d let slip it was her birthday a few months ago, they’d all insisted on taking her out for a few drinks after work. And when they found out it was her fifty-fifth (!), they’d wanted to treat her to dinner until she’d explained that it really was very kind of them but that she’d already agreed to see her son.

‘And you really are good at listening,’ continued Sandra. ‘Yes, you are. I’ve heard you.’

Karen was beginning to feel embarrassed now. It was true that some people needed to talk. Flogging stuff seemed to do that to them. Like the elderly gentleman the other day who rang to sell his dead wife’s china collection. She’d suggested he gave the proceeds to the local hospice and that seemed to make him feel better.

‘My neighbour’s always expecting me to listen but it’s hard work.’

Didn’t Sandra ever stop prattling?

‘In her sixties she is but she doesn’t behave like it. Now her daughter’s husband’s gone and left her – ran off with her friend. Awful isn’t it? Left her with two kids. Maureen’s really choked. Reckons her daughter is on the edge of a breakdown.’

Karen nodded sympathetically. ‘Poor girl.’

‘I mean how’s she going to meet anyone else?’ Sandra unwrapped a third (!) Kit Kat. ‘That’s what my neighbour keeps saying and she’s right n’ all. Blokes don’t want women with kids. Well, not many.’

‘She won’t be ready to meet anyone else – not yet,’ Karen found herself saying. ‘She’ll be thinking about the kids and not herself.’

Sandra gave her a sharp look. ‘Is that how you felt? Even though
you
left
him
? Paul, wasn’t it?’

Sometimes she wished they hadn’t had those birthday drinks.

‘Leaving someone can be as traumatic as being left. More so, actually, depending on the circumstances, because you blame yourself for breaking up the family.’

‘But you had your reasons, didn’t you?’

Karen nodded. ‘Yes. But I didn’t have anyone to talk to. At least your neighbour is there for her daughter.’

Sandra sniffed. ‘Maureen needs looking after herself, if you ask me. She’s one of these women who’s sixty-odd but pretends to be forty. Leads her husband a right dance, she does.’

‘Has her daughter got a job?’

‘Some kind of journalist apparently.’

‘That’s something. When I was on my own, I hadn’t worked for a bit. Wasn’t qualified for anything, really. Then I was lucky. I saw an ad for this place and they trained me up.’

‘But you’ve got a degree! Couldn’t you have done something better?’

‘Phones!’

They each dived for their headsets. Sandra’s call concerned a giant trampoline (might suit Josh when he was older!) while hers was a washing machine without a door (‘You use it as storage, sir? I see  . . . ’).

But somehow she couldn’t get Sandra’s neighbour’s daughter out of her head. Two children. On her own. It couldn’t be easy. As she knew all too well.

Karen felt disturbed by Sandra’s comments all the way home. They reminded her that yes, she was overqualified for this job although what else could she have done? Like many women of her age, she’d fallen between the era of stay-at-home mothers in the fifties and sixties and today’s world of nurseries and childminders. Which was why she was in the situation she was right now, just about paying her mortgage thanks to a job that she could easily have done without a 2:1.

But she was happy wasn’t she? And besides, she had Adam. The bus arrived promptly tonight – great! – and as she settled down on the long seat at the back, the young girl next to her glanced at the work ID chain hanging round her neck. Whoops! She’d forgotten to take it off again. Karen glanced briefly at her mugshot above the name. What would a stranger see? A mature woman still with her 1970s trademark wavy hair, just below her shoulders. A natural silvery-grey now (the new trend according to the
Express
) and slightly ruffled. The same black eyeliner she’d worn forever but which she liked, because it accentuated her eyes. A bright green coat which contrasted in a fun way with the purple leggings peeping out from under her long red cheesecloth skirt. A certain serenity in her face which came from finally accepting what life had dealt her . . .

The woman next to her had started to read her magazine and, unable to help herself, Karen glanced at the headline.

‘I hate being alone,’ screamed the celebrity headline. ‘There’s no one to talk to.’

Fate! It had to be. A sign that the brainwave she’d had in the office about starting a group, wasn’t to be ignored. Karen nodded silently to herself and delved into her large purple floral bag (a great find at the hospice charity shop) for her book.
How To Be Happy With What Life Dishes Up
hadn’t quite lived up to its title yet. But there was still time. She was only halfway through the self-help book section at the library. Maybe – there’s a thought! – she ought to write one of her own.

‘Don’t you think you’ve got enough on your own plate?’ asked Adam when she told him about her idea over dinner that night. Hayley was working late again which made it easier both to talk and to squeeze round the tiny pine table in her kitchen. It was like the old days when there were just the two of them after Paul had gone. Karen sometimes wondered if she was too close to her grown-up son – they spoke on the phone at least once a day – but that’s what being alone together had done for them. Just a scared single mother and a confused gawky fourteen-year-old against the world. Except that now he was ‘married’ so she’d had to learn to stand back.

‘Maybe you’re right.’ Karen reached down to check the baby alarm was working. The other night, she’d left it off by mistake and poor little Josh had been sitting up in bed in her spare room screaming without anyone hearing. She still felt awful about that. ‘But I want to help. I know what it was like.’

Adam tucked hungrily into his pork. Hayley’s idea of cooking was to head for the ready-made frozen meal section which was why she liked to cook a roast when he came round.

‘But there are groups for people like that.’

‘Not really.’ She sat forward, excitedly. ‘Sure there are singles groups. Dating groups. But I haven’t heard of anywhere that helps people to cope with the practicalities like applying for single occupancy council tax or the emotional stuff such as what to do when you’re sitting on the sofa at night and there’s nothing on television.’

She could really feel the buzz now. ‘I thought I could start a local group. Keep it small. I could tell them how I got through it and it might help.’

‘You couldn’t have them over here. It’s too small and you wouldn’t be covered for insurance.’

‘I don’t intend to have a group of strangers in my home, darling. We’ll hire the local Memorial Hall. The one off the high street. It’s not much – I’ve found out already. If I charge them something – £5, do you think? – it will cover it.’

‘You might as well start it as a profitable concern if you’re going to.’

A born accountant. That’s what he was. Sometimes she was proud of it and sometimes worried. Adam was too like his father in some ways. Always thinking about money. And yet, that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

 ‘I don’t want to start a business. I just want . . .’

‘To help others.’ Adam patted her on the hand. ‘I know. You’re great, Mum. Know that? That chop was great, by the way. Any chance of another one?’

If it hadn’t been September 26th, she might have just left it at that. Told herself it was a good idea that she might do, ‘one day’. But the date, together with that magazine article on the bus and Sandra’s neighbour’s daughter – Lizzie, wasn’t it? – was just too much of a coincidence to ignore.

Today was ten years to the day since she’d walked out on Paul! Ten years since she’d taken Adam by the hand and explained that they weren’t going to live with Dad any more but that he’d see him every Sunday. Ten years since she’d sat on her bed night after night, unable to sleep and wondering what the hell she had done. Ten years since she’d left behind the safety of the family linen cupboard and shrunk the family into two instead of three.

How had she got through it? Moving to a new town away from the old had helped to create a fresh start. But it had been scary renting somewhere new while the house was being sold. And even then, there’d only been enough money to buy a small two-bedroom flat.

‘You could have stayed in the house,’ her solicitor had said disapprovingly. But she hadn’t wanted to. She’d needed to get out. Run away from the memories of a house where she’d done something that continued to shame her even now.

If Adam hadn’t been there, she’d have gone to pieces. But when you had a child, you had to pretend everything was all right. Get him to school on time. Earn a living.

‘Do you have family to help look after your son during the holidays?’ she’d been asked at one interview and she’d had to say that no, actually, both her parents were dead but that she’d sort out child care if she got the job. But she didn’t get it. Or the next one. Or the next eight (when she’d purposefully omitted to tell them about her degree) until finally, she was taken on by the head of the Classified Ads department of the local paper who had been a single mother herself.

And it had worked! Karen had found, rather to her surprise, that she had a knack for dealing with people. The ones who rang her by mistake when they really wanted ‘Obits’ and needed to discuss their husband of fifty three years who had just ‘passed away’. The woman who was selling her entire house contents because she was emigrating but getting cold feet. It was amazing how selling a few inches of space to a complete stranger could be so intimate and gratifying! So surely she could help others to mend their hearts just as she’d learned to mend her own?