Hide And Seek
Amy Bird
My husband has a secret. He just doesn’t know it yet. It’s a secret that some would try to hide from him – and, until now, they’ve succeeded. But I know Will. I know he would want to discover the truth. Fortunately, I’m here to discover it for him.Soon there’ll be no more hiding. There’ll be no more lies. And there will be a new start…for us all.The compelling first part of Hide and Seek by Amy Bird: a new novel, perfect for fans of Gillian Flynn, SJ Watson and Liane Moriarty. Is finding the truth worth losing everything?Praise for Amy Bird'Ms. Bird is most certainly a force to be reckoned with and an author who has crossed the threshold of notoriety… An exciting story with real tension and suspense.' - Gordon Reiselt'Hide and Seek is everything I wanted Gone Girl to be, and more… The pacing was spot on, and the setup is absolutely beautiful; engaging characters, liberally sprinkled intrigue, and an exploration of the origins of our identity that will have your mind working overtime.' - Zoe Markham, Markham Reviews'Amy Bird is so good at writing dialogue you just can’t help chuckling. Add to this the fact that her writing style is such that I feel she is talking directly to me and I am absolutely hooked.' - Lucy Literati, A Modern Mum's Musings'A slow and creepy build-up to an exciting crescendo.' - Rosemary Smith, Cayocosta72 Book Reviews'Enjoyable and intriguing.' - Christine Marson, Northern Crime'Lives up to the thrilling aspect of the genre and also manages to have an original feel.' - Cleo Bannister, Cleopatra Loves Books'The tension builts to a crescendo and the author pulls the reader along, speeding up like a train with no need to slow on approach to its destination. A great read from an author I had yet to encounter. I will definitely read more of her work after enjoying this thrilling three-part thriller. Having the book in three parts is also a great idea, as each part is perfect for reading in one sitting!' - Margaret Madden, Bleach House Library
My husband has a secret. He just doesn’t know it yet. It’s a secret that some would try to hide from him – and, until now, they’ve succeeded.
But I know Will. I know he would want to discover the truth. Fortunately, I’m here to discover it for him.
Soon there’ll be no more hiding. There’ll be no more lies. And there will be new start…for us all.
The compelling first part of Hide and Seek by Amy Bird: a new novel, perfect for fans of Gillian Flynn, SJ Watson and Liane Moriarty. Is finding the truth worth losing everything?
Also by Amy Bird (#ue8e33043-1ddb-5061-9e07-50dfd88d119a)
Yours is Mine
Three Steps Behind You
Praise for Amy Bird (#ue8e33043-1ddb-5061-9e07-50dfd88d119a)
‘This novel contains many shocks and turns, it’s filled with emotion and makes for an addicting and fast read’ –Uncorked Thoughts on Yours is Mine
‘There were moments that goosebumps spread across my arms…the last chapter left me a little breathless.’ – Katlyn Duncan, author of The Life After Trilogy on Yours is Mine
‘… there are twists and turns in here that you will never see coming.’ – Emma Kerry, Emma Kerry’s Notebook on Yours is Mine
‘I honestly cannot recommend this book enough! It is fast paced and thrilling, and will have you gripped from beginning to end.’ – Amy Nightingale, Compelling Reads on Three Steps Behind You
‘As a psychological thriller this works extremely well…it is perfectly paced with some real heartstopping moments and a terrific exciting finale. I enjoyed it very much, it appealed to my darker nature and I will definitely be looking out for more from this author.’ –Liz Loves Books on Three Steps Behind You
‘For those of us who love a dark read, this is just perfect.’ – Christine Marson, Northerncrime on Three Steps Behind You
‘I couldn't put this book down.’ – Kelly White, Waterstones bookseller on Three Steps Behind You
‘A novel full of twists and turns. Readers will be surprised who they end up cheering on. Highly recommended.’ – Rosemary Smith,Cayocosta72 Book Reviews on Three Steps Behind You
Hide and Seek Part One
Amy Bird
Copyright (#ue8e33043-1ddb-5061-9e07-50dfd88d119a)
HQ
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2014
Copyright © Amy Bird 2014
Amy Bird asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
E-book Edition © June 2014 ISBN: 9781474007597
Version date: 2018-09-20
AMY BIRD
Amy Bird lives in London, where she divides her time between writing and working as a solicitor. Hide and Seek is her third psychological thriller for HQ Digital. She has an MA in Creative Writing from Birkbeck, University of London, and is also an alumna of the Faber Academy ‘Writing a Novel’ course, which she studied under Richard Skinner. As well as novels, Amy has written a number of plays, including The Jobseeker which was runner-up in the Shaw Society’s 2013 T.F. Evans Award. She is a member of the Crime Writers’Association. Her husband, Michael, writes too and one of their favourite pastimes is to ‘fantasy cast’ films of their novels while cooking up new concoctions in the kitchen. For updates on her writing follow her on Twitter, @London_Writer (http://www.twitter.com/London_Writer).
The following must be thanked for the creation of Hide and Seek: Messrs Alkan, Beethoven, Grieg and Tchaikovsky for the concerti that helped me imagine the music at the heart of this novel; my talented editor Clio Cornish for helping me find that heart’s true beat; the rest of the HQ Digital team for their passion in bringing the book to readers; my fellow HQ Digital authors who have spurred me on, both on-line and in person; my legal colleagues, who have indulged my authorial leanings; the friends, family and enthusiastic readers who championed Three Steps Behind You while I was working on Hide and Seek. And finally, love, gratitude and joy to my husband Michael. You are with me in all creations.
Contents
Cover (#uc8d23fb8-d750-5e23-b4f5-cb1f1d668bc3)
Blurb (#u99159fe4-b1f7-52d5-80a0-b7f666630080)
Book List
Praise for
Title Page (#u06f449ff-b81f-59bb-ae05-19303d586897)
Copyright
Author Bio (#ub203e335-4f78-5fa9-9394-894cd07a5283)
Acknowledgements (#u42d1dd94-74b7-5f81-95bf-c6f4a22c8c42)
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Endpages (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher
Concerto: A composition for a solo instrument or instruments accompanied by an orchestra. Often constructed in three parts: exposition; development; and recapitulation. Sometimes drives people to murder.
EXPOSITION
Chapter One (#ue8e33043-1ddb-5061-9e07-50dfd88d119a)
-Will-
You know those days when everything is so right, so perfect, that you think something must go wrong? That something must smash through your happiness like a hammer, sending it splintering into tiny little pieces that you can never gather together again? Today is one of those days.
Because it’s an archetypal moment, isn’t it, getting the twenty-week scan? You can stop crossing your fingers a little bit as you look at that small creature that you and your wife – or your girlfriend, whatever works for you – have made. You have confirmation that the foetus is healthy, no weird abnormalities. Everything’s on track. Plus you get to find out its gender. And you can share it around, the news of the family line continued, and everyone is so proud and pleased and gives you champagne. If you’re the dad, that is. If you’re the mum you have to make do with apple juice.
And it actually looks like a human being, now, your little creation. Not like at the twelve-week scan, when it was just a shadow creature, inside your wife’s wonderful, magical belly. OK, right, sorry. You expect medical academics to be technical. Inside her perfectly ordinary womb where the foetus will gestate along the lines of the normal processes for homo sapiens. Actually, sod that. As I was saying, in Ellie’s magical belly, it didn’t look like much. But now it does. And doesn’t Ellie know it! At every red traffic light on the drive home from the hospital she is holding the scan image up to my face.
“He totally has your nose,” she shouts over the music we have blaring out of the CD drive. Ellie’s stuck on our latest favourite CD, a rousing piano concerto by some guy called Max Reigate. I guess she hopes that by playing it so loudly the baby will hear and give her a friendly kick, or something.
I twist my head slightly to see the scan photo, eyes off the road for a moment.
“Um, Ellie, I’m not sure that’s a nose.”
“OK, then, he totally has your p—”
“Ellie!” I warn her. “That is so wrong. There are some comparisons you shouldn’t make.”
She shrugs. “OK, fair one. But he looks like you.”
And even though I know she is wrong, and there is no way she can tell yet whether it looks like me, I don’t mind. Because I’m going to be a dad. Finally, after all those months of Ellie dragging me into the bedroom, ovulation stick in hand shouting ‘Now, now, now!’ (a real romantic, Ellie) I’m, touch wood, going to have a son. I would have been happy with a daughter too, of course. But, you know how it is – I’m a boy, I want another boy. Not in that way. In a proud, paternal, ‘this is my share of a football team’-type way.
So there’ll be all sorts of celebrations later, when Mum and Dad come round. I texted them from the hospital to say all was well and to tell them it’s a boy. I can’t wait to show them this latest picture. They’ve been on the whole journey with us, my parents. They knew, of course, that we were trying. There’s only so many times you can offer Ellie champagne and shellfish before she cracks and fesses up to the real reason she’s turning them down. Better that than have people think you are dull, in Ellie’s philosophy. Then when we kept cancelling brunches because Ellie wasn’t feeling too well, they twigged. Mum drew me to one side and asked me, point blank, if we were pregnant. I just gave her holding statements initially – it was mine and Ellie’s secret, at first. But then, after the twelve-week scan, I gave her the news. ‘It’s early days, yet,’ I said, ‘but all being well, you’re going to be a grandmother.’ She looked a bit funny at that, kind of a false smile, but I reckon it’s because she still thinks of herself as being about eighteen, and the G-word scared her.
First, though, we’re doing the crib, me and Ellie. We promised ourselves that. Now that we know there are no anomalies, we can actually start building a life for our new little baby. Our new little boy. For when he arrives. So when we get back, we head up to the room that will over the coming months transform from ‘spare’ to nursery. Ellie settles herself down in the nursing chair, and I lay out the instructions on the floor in front of her.
“I think I know what we have to do now,” I tell her. Capable and efficient, that’s the kind of father I’ll be.
“What’s that, darling?” she asks.
I point at the diagrams in the instructions for the crib.
“Look, it’s simple: quick nail here, quick screw there – ”
“Oh darling,” Ellie says, putting a hand over her brow in a mock faint. “All this DIY porn’s enough to make a girl weak at the knees.”
“Behave!” I tell her. But obviously I’m pleased. Because we went through a phase, for a few months, when she just could not do innuendo or sex or anything else apart from curl up on the sofa feeling tired and nauseous. So I give her a little kiss on the belly and continue with the theme.
“Now, I seem to have lost my hammer – will you dig it out for me?” I growl, in what is maybe a porn star accent, if they all come from the Deep South.
“Sure thing, mister,” Ellie trills. She starts to heave herself up from the nursing chair. I think about the toolbox Mum and Dad gave us – the toolbox to end all toolboxes, as they put it. It’s downstairs, heavy, and as yet unexplored. Bit gittish to make my pregnant wife go fetch.
I gesture to Ellie to sit down.
“It’s all right, I’ll get it,” I say. “You stay here and grow our child.” No objection from Ellie. I troop off downstairs and open the hall cupboard. Toolbox. Toolbox. Ah, there we go – the edge of it peeking out from under a stash of Sainsbury’s bags that I keep meaning to organise. I drag it out of the cupboard and open it up. It really is the toolbox to end all toolboxes – two layers, the first one full to the brim with nails and screws and Allen keys and lots of other things that probably have names but damned if I know what they are. No hammer in the top layer though, so I lift the plastic out and look in the bottom section. Screwdrivers, a wrench, a spirit level… But no hammer. Odd. I would have thought that was a pretty basic ingredient. I look at the outside of the box for a contents list. Yes, there we are: easy-grip claw-hammer. Should be here, but it isn’t.
“That’s really weird!” I call to Ellie as I climb the stairs.
“What?” she shouts back.
“No hammer,” I tell her, as I reach the nursery, slightly out of breath.
She sighs. “Do you need me to come and look?” she asks, preparing again to haul herself out of the nursing chair.
I shake my head. “It’s genuinely not there. I’ve emptied everything out. I checked the contents listing on the side of the box, and there’s supposed to be a hammer, but it’s not in there.”
“Perhaps they borrowed it before they gave it to us, and forgot to put it back?” Ellie suggests.
“Maybe.” Bit annoying though. I wanted to build the crib this afternoon. “Bit odd, though, right?”
“Don’t worry, we can ask for it later,” Ellie says. “Can we not work round it for now?”
I think. How to hammer a crib when you haven’t got a hammer?
Aha! Master plan.
I leave the room for a moment and dart next door. Ellie probably thinks my master plan involves giving up. But no! I return to the nursery with one of my most clod-hoppery shoes, hidden behind my back. I bring it out with a flourish. “Let’s give this a whirl,” I say. Because OK, the shoe doesn’t come with a claw or an easy-grip handle. But I bet it can smash its way through anything.
Chapter Two (#ue8e33043-1ddb-5061-9e07-50dfd88d119a)
-Ellie-
Thank God for the man-brogues. Because I cannot be doing with another Gillian-ism interfering in our plans. Or Will suggesting that we go over to his parents’ house to get the hammer now. We are seeing them enough as it is. I don’t just mean this afternoon. I mean all the time. Will’s mum is like this totally omnipresent – totes omnip, is that a thing? – invasion into our lives. So just one bit of this one afternoon without her… Well, Will’s flash of initiative is a blessing.
That’s what the deposit for this house was all about. Oh, don’t get me wrong – I’m super grateful. I mean, who wouldn’t be for a two-bed house walking distance from central Kingston, when most people in their early thirties are still living back with their parents, or in the boot of a car somewhere? But the house is, what? A five-minute drive away from Will’s parents? A fifteen-minute walk. And they even came house-hunting with us. Imagine that. Your mother-in-law telling you how to decorate your downstairs loo in the most modern ‘relaxing’ trends. Approving your master bedroom, but suggesting replacing the dimmer switch with some brighter lighting. Yeah. Exactly. Freaky. Maybe that’s why she made us get a two-bedroomed place. So we could have separate beds. Unlikely, Mrs S. But you see the point – totes omnip. Wants her son near her at all times. Even if that means randomly stealing hammers so he will go over to their house to find them. Like an Easter egg hunt but far less rewarding.
So now that we have the saving shoe, we can start to assemble our little life. I even get myself out of the nursing chair. A bit of a struggle, it’s quite deep, but it’s perfect in other ways. The chair belonged to my parents. They get to be part of the nursery, that way, even though they’ll never be able to visit it. While I hold the pieces of the crib in place, Will begins to tap the nail gently with his shoe. I’m about to tell him to put some welly into it, when he gets a drifty look on his face, and stops with his non-hammering.
“How about Leo?” he asks.
Ah yes, baby names. For when this creature in my belly emerges, demanding its own identity (and probably my identity too, at least for a couple of years, if all the doom and gloom mummy mags are to be believed).
“Leo Spears… Hmm, certain ring to it,” I say. “Assuming, of course, that you think a boy can’t be called Britney? Or there’s always Asparagus. Ass for short?”
Will rolls his eyes comically. “Enough with the ‘Spears’ jokes! Anyone would think you didn’t want to take my name!”
I put up my hands in a peace gesture. The crib falls to the floor in pieces. Neither my holding nor Will’s shoe-hammering skills are enough to keep it secure. “Peace. Leo is certainly a contender. Now come on, put some muscle into that shoe-hammering, and let’s try to make Leo his new sleep home. Assuming he will actually sleep, at some point.”
So Will raises his shoe again, and I bend down a bit so I am holding the struts of the cot in place.
Will raises the shoe and – Christ – he brings it down hard. It’s like he’s auditioning for the film gong-man, or hitting that bell thing they used to have at the Hoppings Fair, to test your strength, that Dad used to take me to, when I was a kid, up in Geordieland. Except now it’s with a shoe.
“Careful!” I say, because if I’m to be a mother, I need to exercise control when people get a bit carried away. Even though Will does look kind of hot, all biceps and sweat. Perhaps we could just abandon the crib-building and have chair-sex in the nursing chair. The baby websites say that’s an excellent position. Or maybe it’s a bit wrong to have sex in a chair from your dead parents’ home, in which you intend to breast-feed your first-born. I don’t know. I’m still finding the balance.
But Will doesn’t seem to notice either my reprimand or my lascivious looks, because he does it again. Even harder. The sound ricochets round the room. Thwack. Now I am actually worried about the crib.
“Will, gently! You’ll break the casing!”
He brings the shoe down hard again. That’s it. Enough. I’m not letting Mr Alpha Male Dad split this crib. It’s nice. John Lewis nice. And the shoe isn’t bad either – not yet ready for re-soling.
I seize his hand as he is on the upward swing of the shoe, ready for another shot.
“Stop it!” I shout.
He turns to look at me. And, do you know, his face is not as sexy as his biceps right now. Kind of red and sweaty and frowning.
“It’s fine,” he says, shrugging off my hand. And he takes another swing.
Then it happens, like I said it would. The casing for the nail breaks. The heel of Will’s shoe comes ricocheting off. He’s overdone the machismo. We should just have had sex.
Will drops the shoe.
“Damnit!” he says, leaning over to examine the hole in the casing. I lean in too. It’s all split and cracked. Like I will be after… Jesus, I must stop reading those magazines. Focus on the crib. There’s no way that’s going to hold a nail, now.
“Four hundred quid down the drain, then,” I say.
Will looks despondent.
“Or we just hold it together with gaffa tape,” I add, to cheer him up. Classy mummy, I’m going to be. What would Mum have said, if she knew I was already letting my mothering standards slip? Probably nothing. She probably would have kissed me on the head, told me to run along, then it would all magically have been fixed when I came back. SuperMum. All she needed was a cape.
“I can’t believe I just broke Leo’s crib,” Will says. It seems Leo is now definitely Leo. Which is fine. But he’s not here yet.
“It’s only because you’re so big and strong,” I say, a hand on his bicep. OK, it’s not actually as bulging as I imagined, but it’ll do. “How about we try and break our bed as well, hey, before your parents get here?”
Will looks at me. Surprised, maybe. Or not – I mean, with this bump, how difficult would it really be to break the bed? Me on top, like some kind of ex-show pony, its belly too big to compete, but still gamely trying to straddle fences. Huh. Maybe I don’t really want sex. Not the pregnant reality of it.
But no, it’s initiated now. And Will, because he’s great really, isn’t he, despite destroying his child’s new home, he’s slowly kissing me from my neck to my belly. Yes, maybe my bump is glorious. Maybe it’s sexy. It’s of sex, anyway. And it seems Will doesn’t want to break the bed, but would rather break the chair instead. So he sits back and invites me onto him and I straddle him in the very chair in which I used to see my mother sit. Maybe it’s part of the mourning process. Or maybe it’s just a very nice way to spend an afternoon. Either way, the baby sites were right. It’s a very good position. The baby doesn’t get in the way at all – it is just me and Will, for a little while longer. And I perform to standards of which any woman would be proud.
Chapter Three (#ulink_b605e459-8e26-5c9e-bf81-d62bbd6aceb9)
-Will-
“I still can’t believe I broke my son’s bed,” I say to Ellie, as she peels herself off me. I take a covert look at her bump. It really is becoming impressive now. She’s a mother way before I’m a father.
“What, you broke me?” Ellie asks in mock consternation, looking down at herself.
I laugh, but I’m serious. It’s not a great portent of my ability as a father, is it, getting so carried away in a show of my shoe prowess that I damage his new bed? If I do that to furniture, how am I possibly meant to help keep the child alive, in those precious two weeks of paternity leave?
Ellie sits on my lap, side-on, and wraps her arms round my neck for support.
“We’ll get it fixed. Reclaim our hammer from your parents. Stick some superglue in the cracks, then give it a really good precision blow.”
A precision blow sounds good. I consider saying this to Ellie, but she might take it wrong, like I didn’t just enjoy the sex. I did. Obviously (and I’m hoping the chair has survived unscathed). But she keeps saying that if I find the bump too big or unattractive, we can be intimate in other ways. So she might think the request for a precision blow (job) is a pointed one. That sex is no longer fun.
So instead, I just nuzzle her neck and tell her she is wonderful.
“We’ll be good parents, won’t we?” I ask her.
She nods her head. “We’ll still be you and me. So we’ll be the best.”
“You already are the best,” I tell her. “But I really do need to do some work on my lecture before my parents come over.”
Ellie looks at me. “Really? Post-coital work? That’s a first.”
“It needs to be done,” I say. “Just like you did.” I kiss her and gently nudge her from my lap. I ease past her out of the room. “I’ll take the bedroom, if that’s OK?”
“Such bad sleep hygiene,” she says. I can hear the roll of eyes in her voice.
“So are babies,” I retort.
“Touché,” says Ellie, with what must be a smile.
Good. Banter situation normal. No blame for my crib-breaking (which is good of Ellie because, really, spending £400 on a crib only to break it is not ideal).
I shower, get dressed, then prop myself up on the bed, surrounded by my papers…and nothing really happens. I’m still annoyed with myself about the crib. It’s silly, really. Such a small thing. And it can’t have been a very good crib if me hitting it with a shoe damages it. Really I was just health and safety testing it. Imagine if little Leo, banging it with a plastic beaker (because that’s what they do, isn’t it, babies, bang things?), had been able to break the nail-housing, and the nail had sprung out and blinded him. Or the side of the crib had given way, letting him roll out, then roll down the stairs – unthinkable. The ultimate parental nightmare. So really I should be pleased with myself. And just buy another crib. Or take it back. Say it was defective.
But before that, I really must try to work on my lecture. I’ll kick myself if I’m up on the podium, staring out at the audience, and just thinking back to the afternoon when I couldn’t be bothered to work. I have some of the bullet points already. I just need to flesh them out, then add the extra research my student is doing.
‘Intro – Natasha Richardson’ the first bullet says.
Fine, I can deal with that. I speak softly to myself, practising.
“The world was shocked when actress Natasha Richardson – wife of Hollywood legend Liam Neeson – seemed perfectly fine after a skiing fall, carried on acting normally and then, hours later, died. That phenomenon, which we are studying today, is known colloquially as ‘talk and die’, medically as epidural haematoma, and is my area of specialism. It occurs when a head trauma leads to blood building up between the skull and the dura mater, causing pressure on the brain and, if unrelieved, that pressure can be fatal. In Natasha Richardson’s case, it was. She was unusual, though, because hers was caused by a skiing accident. The vast majority of cases in reality are caused by a violent act – so your classic baseball bat or hammer-blow to the head.”
Or a hit with a shoe, I could add. But it’s not a comedy. And I can’t dumb the thing down any more. It’s already pretty simplistic – film star’s wife, skiing… Maybe I should just invite them to eat popcorn. But the faculty head said I had to make it accessible. Start with a human interest story, reel them in. Which is what I’m doing. And I chose skiing specially – one of the jollier examples. Well, not jolly exactly – I still can’t watch films with Liam Neeson in without feeling sorry for him. But a skiing accident is in a sense jollier than the usual causes of our friend epidural haematoma – the domestic row between husband and wife escalates to a saucepan on the bonce, or the burglar gets carried away with his baseball bat. At least with skiing, no one is inflicting the pain. I chose well. So why the self-doubt? Have I been working too hard? I suddenly feel tired. Exhausted actually. Overwork and tiredness, that’ll undermine anyone’s self-confidence. I have had pretty disrupted sleep, I guess, over the last few months, what with Ellie getting up in the night, then all the tossing and turning as she tries to find a position comfortable for sleep. And sex, you know, is tiring – I read that men are hormonally conditioned to be sleepy after sex. Plus maybe I tired myself out from that other hammering too, with the shoe. I don’t know where that came from – all that energy, all that force. Maybe sexual tension. Maybe Ellie knew I needed some kind of release. Wherever it came from, it’s not there now.
So I put my papers to one side, and curl up in foetal position on the bed. Max Reigate’s music floats back to me from the car journey, and all those other times we have listened to it. That moment, after the climax, the great build-up, where everything is calm again. The chords are in harmony, surrounded by happy little triplets of notes lilting about, rather than the aggressive earlier accents. And all is resolved. That’s what I need. To absorb that calm, from the CD. But then Ellie will know I’m not working. So I’ll just have to curl up here and secretly let the imaginary music calm me. Even though the refrain in my head will be hard to drown out. The refrain that says: ‘You don’t know how to be a father. You don’t know how to deliver a public lecture. You’re not equal to what lies ahead.’
Chapter Four (#ulink_d898f855-bd4f-51f6-b2ab-76594f1a3b7d)
-Will-
I’m woken by Ellie shaking me.
“Come on, lazy bones,” she says, flooding the room with light. “They’ll be here in a minute.”
REM is still with me. “There was a piano,” I say. “And some hands, and I don’t know, maybe some water and…”
“You probably just needed to go to the loo,” Ellie says. “I always dream about water when I need to go. Always wakes me up, thank goodness – nobody wants the Yellow Sea in their bed.”
She kisses me, then leaves the room. I try to recapture the dream, but it’s too far away from me. So I come back into the now. I stretch out and look at my watch. 4pm! I’ve been asleep for two hours and my parents are indeed due. I feel a bit groggy, in need of some sugar, before we entertain. But no – there’s the doorbell. I pull myself off the bed, rake a hand through my hair in a bid to make it look a bit less like I’ve been in bed all afternoon – whether through sex or slumber – and canter downstairs.
Ellie hasn’t let them in. Apparently that’s my job. I take the chain off the door, open it up, and we’re both immediately engulfed in celebration.
“Congratulations darlings!” Mum says as she launches into the house. She gives me a hug and a kiss, waves at Ellie’s belly, then does a kind of air-hug at Ellie herself. “Don’t want to squash the son and heir!” she says. Her beaming face suggests she is over any angst about being a grandmother. She’s even wearing the dark-green linen ‘occasion jacket’ (I used to call it the ‘snazz jacket’) that she always wore for important client meetings.
Dad follows, less loudly, but with a firm handshake and a slap on the back. “Well done, Ellie. Well done, Will,” he says.
Mum leads the way through to the dining room. From her bag she produces twenty-week scan cupcakes and Appletiser (apparently that’s the done thing in Surrey these days). And she is beaming at us.
“Such happy news! Do let me see the scan.”
Ellie of course obliges, and we get into the family resemblance discussion again.
“Doesn’t he look like Will, though?” she asks, rhetorically.
And they agree, my parents, because they have to. If Ellie’s parents were here too, then maybe there’d be more debate. But of course, they’re not.
Then Ellie makes me hold the scan photo and stand next to Dad, so that the three of us Spears family males are in a line. She puts her head to one side.
“Hmm, don’t see it you know. Will and baby maybe, but not getting the cross-generational resemblance thing,” says Ellie.
Dad peers at the photo. “Ah, you know what it is? The baby already has more hair than me.” He rubs his balding head ruefully.
And then Ellie does her party trick. I should have seen this coming, really, she’s been going on about it so much.
“But I tell you who I do see a resemblance with,” she says. She goes over to the CD tower and pulls out the familiar red box, that she retrieved from the car earlier.
“Ellie,” I say, half-chiding her, but she is glowing and wonderful, so I can’t really reprimand her.
“No, no, it’s so funny, I have to show them. Drum roll please – we’ve found Will’s doppelganger. He is the spitting image of: Max Reigate, concert pianist.” And she flourishes the CD box proudly, holding it next to me and the baby photo for comparison.
I turn to Mum and Dad with a mock eye-roll, my half-apologetic smile already prepared.
But the smile dies. Because Mum and Dad are staring at the CD box without any hint of a smile on their faces. In fact, the old cliché that they look like they’ve seen a ghost could not be more true. Mum has turned pale. Dad is shooting anxious glances at Mum. I look at Ellie. She is still holding the box and grinning, but the grin has a fixed quality now. None of us speak. Then Ellie does her usual humour escape route thing.
“No, you don’t see the resemblance? OK, no offence taken. Specsavers have some great deals on right now, though.”
Mum seems to recover herself. “Don’t be daft, Ellie. Will’s just got one of those faces – resembles everyone. Or at least we both think so because we love him, hey?” She gives Ellie a ‘women-together’ sort of nudge. Ellie moves away.
“Yeah, I know they say love is blind but I have actually retained my 20-20 vision, Mrs S.” Oh dear. She’s using her haughty voice. A definite warning sign. Time to move things on.
“It’s true, I’m a mongrel,” I say. “I look like all sorts of people. Brad Pitt, David Beckham, Max Reigate… It’s a real curse.”
Ellie rolls her eyes at me. “They say new dads feel extra-confident, but Brad Pitt? Really? You’re not even blond!”
“But you look like every bit the Angelina, my darling,” I tell her, giving her a kiss.
But maybe Mum feels a bit nauseated by all the smooching, because she’s back on Max Reigate.
“Where did you get that CD, anyway?” Mum asks.
I look at Ellie. I don’t know where we got it. Ellie just produced it one day. “Look what I found,” she said. “Spooky, right – look at the nose, the eyes, the hair. It could be you. Or, like, your long-lost brother!” And we’d listened to the CD, which actually turned out to be pretty amazing, this romantic piano concerto full of clashing chords and little haunting riffs of melody. It starts off being all orchestral, and you’re just waiting in suspense for the piano to take over in its solo brilliance, because you know it will. Then once it does, you know nothing will be same again. It just haunts you, by its presence and its lack.
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