The Fantastic Book of Everybody's Secrets Read online

  ‘Well, no. I mean, I’m sure…’ Tom began to mumble.

  ‘Maybe we should all introduce ourselves formally,’ Petra suggested. ‘I mean, so far all we’ve done is chat. Maybe we should explain why we’re all here, why we don’t see our own families. Would that help, Tom?’

  ‘Erm, well, I’m fine, really, but, I mean…’

  He couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t finish a sentence. In the background, softly, Audrey was whispering to Lucy, ‘Rub-a-dub-a-giggle, rub-a-dub-a-laugh, let’s tell Mum about our big, red bath.’

  ‘I see my family,’ said Clive. He turned to Selena. ‘We don’t have to have ditched them, do we?’

  Selena assured him, to Tom’s relief, that the comprehensive shunning of one’s original set of relatives was not a requirement.

  Petra looked a bit upset, but said nothing.

  ‘If we start to talk about the various family problems we have, we might get dragged down into a bitchy, negative vibe,’ said Audrey.

  ‘Good point,’ said Clive. ‘I don’t really want to bad-mouth anybody.’

  ‘You don’t?’ Selena grinned. ‘I want to badmouth almost everybody.’ Audrey, Clive and Petra all laughed. ‘And you should hear Tom when he gets going. Who was it at work that you said deserved to have her brain diced and sold as dogfood?’ There was more appreciative laughter.

  Tom’s eyeballs prickled. He felt dizzy, unsteady on his feet. Gillian Bate, and it was fishfood, not dogfood. ‘I… could you all excuse me a moment?’ he said. He climbed the stairs to the top floor and lay down on the double bed in the master bedroom. When Selena appeared in the doorway, he groaned and rolled himself up in the yellow duvet. ‘See what a great dynamic there is between us?’ she whispered energetically. ‘Do you see how they all totally accept me for what I am?’

  ‘Well, I’m not sure I do,’ said Tom through the quilt. ‘I can’t stand this. Get rid of them.’

  There was no response. When Tom finally peeked out from under his shield of bedding, Selena was smiling bravely. ‘Look, I know this is weird, but can’t you give it a chance?’

  ‘No! Has it occurred to you that you could lose your job? What if Brian Ford drives past and sees you using the show home to host your freakish cheese and wine party?’

  ‘If that happened, I’d just explain.’

  ‘And he’d listen and then he’d sack you!’

  ‘No, he wouldn’t. Noone else could sell these houses as quickly as I can, and he knows it.’

  ‘You’re deluded, if that’s what you think.’

  ‘For God’s sake! If I get sacked, I’ll find another job. I’ll pick up litter at the station with one of those long metal sticks with pincers on the end. I’ll become a life coach. I’ll start my own telephone sex business, telling lonely men what underwear I’ve got on. I’m a very resourceful person. We’re not going to starve. Is that really what you’re worried about? I’ll have to get a new job anyway, once I’ve sold all the houses.’

  ‘You’ll need a reference.’

  ‘What, for phone sex?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’

  ‘I’m not. You should applaud me for having ideas noone else would have, not condemn me.’

  ‘You’re not being fair. You’d never let me take a mad risk with my job.’ Tom shivered, wondering if he had already done so. Johnny Eyebrows. It would be almost impossible to explain with a straight face, he saw that now. What had he been thinking of?

  Selena’s eyes widened. She stared at Tom as if he were crazy. ‘Of course I would, in a good cause. You hate your job. I’ve always thought you should take more risks.’

  Tom sat up. ‘You have?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, as if it should have been obvious. ‘Now, stop being so unsociable and come and join in.’ She swung out of the room.

  Tom listened for her footsteps on the stairs. He heard nothing. The house was a new-build; Selena had told him it didn’t even have floorboards. It had something more modern than floorboards under its carpets; Tom couldn’t remember what, precisely. In his own house, he could always work out where Selena, Joe and Lucy were from the creaks and groans and echoes. Things were changing at a pace that was a little too fast for him. Since when, he wanted to know, had Selena viewed the risking of their respective livelihoods as such a lark, to be dismissed so lightly?

  He wondered how much he could earn picking up litter at the station. Or perhaps he could be a gamekeeper, or fight forest fires, or work for the Red Cross. He wondered why he had never, until this moment, explored the possibility of leaving Phelps Corcoran Cummings. Was it because the company was so successful? When Tom told people he worked there, they were invariably impressed.

  He heard Selena’s voice in the lounge. ‘He’ll be fine in a minute,’ she said. He groaned. For a few seconds, caught up in his fantasy of freedom, he’d completely forgotten the three inconveniences downstairs. ‘Now, joking and my bitchy streak aside, I think Audrey’s right,’ said Selena. ‘We don’t want to start laying into our blood relatives. They’re irrelevant to this. So why don’t we approach it from a more positive angle, and focus on us, the prospective new family? What are we each hoping to get out of it?’

  Tom, who was hoping for just that – to get out of it, right out, out and away – heard a low, approving rumble from the others. They all liked Selena’s idea. ‘Great,’ she said. ‘That’s a good way to start. We go round, one by one, and we all say what we want.’

  28 June 2005

  Dear Tom

  There is no company rule that says employees may never work from home under any circumstances. I was troubled by the defensive tone of your last memo. I hope you do not feel that I was attacking you. I merely wanted to make the point that it is helpful to me to know where members of staff are at any given time. After consultation with several colleagues, I am concerned that you do not feel fully and happily integrated into the department. If you are at all discontented, please do come and see me and we’ll talk about how we can make things better for you – please don’t suffer in silence! Perhaps I am being overly sensitive, but I have noticed that you tend to rush away at five-thirty every afternoon and miss the more relaxed, sociable atmosphere that thrives between, say, six and eight, when the serious work of the day is winding down and people have a chance to relax and chat. Perhaps if you were to stay later occasionally, you would feel more involved.

  Very best wishes, Nora

  P.S. Gillian tells me that four months ago you borrowed one of the firm’s laptop computers. Could you possibly bring this back asap? Thanks! Idris Sutherland is taking six months’ leave and has asked to have a computer during that time – I said he could have yours, since you can always use your office computer, can’t you?

  (cc: Gillian Bate, Imrana Kabir, Alastair Hardisty)

  29 June 2005

  Dear Nora

  Who is Alastair Hardisty? Is he one of the ‘several colleagues’ you consulted about my possible unhappiness? Unlikely, as I don’t know the man. Is he, then, a street vendor from whom you buy skunkweed? I doubt that too – you strike me as more the gin and tonic type. Therefore I can only conclude that Mr Hardisty is head of Phelps Corcoran Cummings’ throwing-people-out-on-to-the-pavement-with-all-their-possessions-in-a-cardboard-box department. Anyway, to answer your various questions: I leave the office at five-thirty because that is the end of my working day. If you look at my contract, you will see that this is the case. Thank you for your suggestion that staying until eight every night might make me happier. I have mulled it over and decided that, in fact, it would not. Yes, I did borrow one of the company’s laptops four months ago, but, no, I will not return it asap. This is because I sometimes (see the exchange of correspondence that took place between us a fortnight ago) work from home and need the computer in order to do so.

  My understanding is that Idris Sutherland is taking six months’ leave in order to spend time with his son, Oliver. My understanding of the word ‘leave’ is that it means not doing any
work. I can’t immediately see why Idris requires a company computer at home, but if he does, can I suggest that a fraction of the firm’s 1.3-billion-a-year profits be spent on purchasing one for him? I have just had a look on ebay, and there are many excellent models available – some good as new – for less than five hundred pounds. (Careful, though – ebay can become addictive!)

  Finally, I am sorry if you misinterpreted my last letter. Yes, you were being overly sensitive (but what a commendable vice!). I had no intention of being defensive, and I am not at all unhappy. Perhaps, as someone who is relatively new to business (isn’t your background in catering?), you are not familiar with the sort of jokey banter that I and most of my colleagues take for granted.

  Warmest best wishes, Tom

  (cc: Gillian Bate, Gilbert Sparling, Johnny Eyebrows, Imrana Kabir, Audrey Satterthwaite, Clive Winn, Petra Sargent, Richard Madeley, Judy Finnegan)

  Tom was relieved to be out of the house. The strain of pretending that he was still cross with Selena was exhausting. He drove to the supermarket whistling, smiling to himself, turning up the car stereo’s volume louder and louder, singing along to David Gray’s White Ladder CD. He felt better than he had for a long time. Since Selena’s cheese and wine party for the new family, he had entirely lost control of his own life. Events had leaped out of his grasp and raced away from him, taking their own (or, to be more accurate, Selena’s) course without paying Tom any attention.

  At first he’d been terrified, then irate, and then a strange sort of calm had descended on him. It wasn’t up to him any more. He had tried to resist and nobody had taken any notice. Everyone – Selena, his children, Audrey, Clive and Petra – had told him firmly that he would get used to the new situation and, though he still vigorously denied it every time Selena interrogated him, it seemed they were right.

  Since that night at the show home, the following things had happened: Audrey had persuaded Joseph that chocolate mousse was not the only nice food in the world. In the past two weeks, Joseph had eaten broccoli, spinach, courgettes, fish, porridge, carrots, borlotti beans and raspberries. Petra had potty-trained Lucy, who was now out of nappies apart from at night, and Audrey had taught her how to spell her name, using the magnetic letters on the fridge door. Clive had taught Joseph how to swim, and entertained Tom and Selena with fascinating anecdotes about his work as a forensic pathologist. Audrey, Clive and Petra had undertaken, enthusiastically and without reservations, to look after the children while Tom and Selena went to Venice next May. They would do this not in either of their own houses, nor in the Foyers’ house, but in the Beddford development’s show home, which Selena would take care not to sell until then. Joe and Lucy had grown very attached to the show home in the past two weeks. It was the place where they had fun with their new grandmother, auntie and uncle; they saw it as a giant playroom on three levels. To stay there for three whole nights next May would be the best possible treat.

  Selena had no desire to sell the show home, in any case. Audrey and Petra were both now effectively living in it, a state of affairs that Selena had so far successfully concealed from Andrew Beddington and Brian Ford. Audrey had taken the larger single bedroom with the skylight and the two high, small windows, and Petra’s was the smaller single room with the big window and fitted cupboards. Both had insisted that the master bedroom should be reserved for Selena and Tom, in the event of their ever wishing to use it. By unspoken agreement, Selena was the head of the new family just as she had been – though, again, it had never been explicitly stated – head of the old one, the minimal, unambitious, four-members-only one.

  Tom had, involuntarily, spent almost all his free time with his new relatives, and had finally admitted to himself (though not to Selena) that he liked them all. He did not love them in the way that he loved his parents and brothers, but he certainly found them less irritating and oppressive. Audrey made excellent cakes almost every day. Clive was a fascinating character. It transpired that he had an untroubled and perfectly satisfactory family situation – he, his parents and his sister all got along fine – but when he saw Selena’s advertisement, he’d been unable to resist the temptation to ring up. ‘Why shouldn’t I have two families?’ he said. ‘I thought it’d be fun.’

  Petra was kind and loyal and did thoughtful things. She praised them all, constantly. She took Tom’s car for a service while he was at work one day. ‘Didn’t you hear the noise the fanbelt was making?’ she said. Tom had heard, but hadn’t had time to do anything about it. She also did charcoal sketches of Joe and Lucy, which she framed and gave to Tom and Selena as a present. Regularly, she attempted to persuade Selena that they should all change their surnames to Kilkenny, and even that Tom was beginning to find endearing.

  The new family spent most evenings in the show home, eating and drinking and talking. They talked about things Tom and Selena couldn’t have talked to their real relatives about without risking a row: politics, religion, sex, euthanasia, abortion, capital punishment, the ban on hunting, whether smokers and fat people ought to be treated by the NHS or just left to die slowly by the side of the road. They insulted people they saw on television. They made stupid jokes and giggled. They smoked joints, once the children had gone to bed (‘This is heavenly,’ said Audrey, after her first few puffs of Johnny Eyebrows’ extra-strong skunk), and played phone tricks on unsuspecting strangers whose names they found in the directory. Last Thursday, while Clive’s real sister babysat for Joe and Lucy, they all went to the local pub and took part in its quiz. Their team name was The Do Badlies – Clive had thought of it. They did badly in the quiz, but won the snowball question at the end, which was worth two hundred and fifty pounds. To celebrate, they went out for a curry at midnight.

  Everything that had happened to Tom in the past fortnight was the sort of thing that couldn’t, wouldn’t and, some might say – Tom himself regularly did – shouldn’t happen. And it couldn’t last; things were bound to start to go wrong soon. At some point Andrew Beddington or Brian Ford would turn up at the show home when Selena wasn’t there to ward them off, or the Beddford Homes office would receive a worryingly high electricity or gas bill. And there were two real families who could only be kept at bay for so long. Very shortly Tom’s mother would demand to know why he had stopped bringing the children to see her, and he would have to tell her that he now had new relatives who took up all his spare time, all Joseph and Lucy’s spare time. What would happen then? Would the Foyerses and the Henshaws insist that Tom and Selena make a complete break from the impostor relatives, to prove their loyalty?

  On all these points, Tom was clueless, but since nobody in their wildest dreams even entertained the idea that he might be in charge of dealing with any of it, he felt fairly relaxed. It was as if reality had been put on hold and he was living in a fear-free, consequence-free bubble in which anything was possible. Had this not been the case, he would never have dared to send his most recent memo to Nora. It was, he knew, his most extreme communication yet, but he had his defence prepared, should he need it, and he was in no doubt that he would. He would simply say that he had not sent the letter – some practical joker within the company must have taken the original, inoffensive version out of the internal mail tray, substituted this hateful parody and forged Tom’s signature. What could Nora or Gillian say? They would not be able to prove that he was lying.

  Last night in bed, Tom had nudged Selena and said, ‘Why do you think I’ve stayed at Phelps Corcoran Cummings so long?’

  ‘Because you have a very weak will-to-power,’ she’d mumbled sleepily. ‘You’re a force divided against itself.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ Tom was glad to have a firm answer, glad someone was keeping track of things.

  ‘Look at the way you park the car. Miles away from where you want to go, in the nearest big official car park, just because you know there’ll definitely be a space and you won’t get into any trouble. Whereas I drive to right outside the door of where I want to go and, if necessary, park on a d
ouble yellow line. And I don’t care about getting the odd fine. It’s worth it, for the convenience. I’ve got a strong will-to-power.’

  ‘You have no respect for the law.’

  ‘Of course I don’t. Did anyone consult me about it? I don’t see why I should obey a rule I didn’t help to make.’

  Now, in the supermarket’s large car park, Tom remembered Selena’s words and drove right up to the shop’s automatic double doors. He parked in a disabled space immediately in front of the entrance. If anyone queried his right to be there, he would simply explain that he had a very weak will-to-power. In Selena’s opinion, this was a crippling disability, or so she had made it sound last night.

  Tom grabbed a trolley and went inside. It took him only half an hour to do the shopping for his new family. In the old days, when there had been just himself, Selena and the children to consider, he’d spent an hour or more, fretting, staring at lists until he was boss-eyed, unable to choose between regular Nescafé and Nescafé Gold Blend, Weetabix and Shredded Wheat. Now he raced up and down the aisles, throwing whatever he fancied into his trolley: Belgian chocolates, Tia Maria, whole dressed crabs, ready-to-roast pheasants. As a result of his new, liberated approach, Tom paid a lot more. This he could scarcely afford to do, not when he risked his job daily with increasingly sarcastic letters to Nora, and not when he and Selena were alarmingly overdrawn.

  For the new family had its drawbacks. Neither Audrey nor Petra had an income, and both had lots of irresistible ideas about nice things the Kilkennys ought to do, all of which came at a price. Audrey wanted to make cakes using the best ingredients. Petra insisted that Tom’s car had to be serviced at the dealership, because Tom was ‘worth it’. Next weekend they were going to Alton Towers and the weekend after to Chester Zoo. Which would mean meals in restaurants, cups of tea in tearooms, souvenirs, train fares. All the days out and treats had to be paid for, and, even though Clive chipped in as much as he could, Selena and Tom still bore the brunt of the expense.