Sweet Temptation Read online

  And now I had to go in there – into her sanctuary, her beloved home – and sift through it, filing everything into Keep, Sell, Bin, Recycle or Charity Shop piles. I felt sick at the prospect of her possessions being broken up in that way, her life dispatched into boxes, her home – our home – emptied and sold to somebody else, to be filled with their voices, their stories.

  Sorry, Mum, I mumbled under my breath as I went up to the front door. I hope you’re not watching this. I feel terrible, but I’ve got to do it. I can’t keep this house as a shrine to you, much as part of me would like to …

  Just as I was putting my key in the lock, I had this extraordinary vision that she was standing right behind the door on the other side, about to pull it open and welcome me in. The skin at the back of my neck tingled as I saw her in my mind’s eye, smiling, arms wide to embrace me, so happy to see me on her doorstep again. I could smell her perfume in the breeze, I could hear her voice: ‘Well, don’t just stand there, my darling, come on in!’

  I shivered. You’re being silly and fanciful. She’s gone. Don’t torture yourself, Maddie.

  Yet that vivid apparition made me feel stupidly better about what I was there to do, as if she’d just given me her blessing that it was okay.

  I turned the key and went in. Goosebumps prickled my arms. It had been a long while since I’d been in here – before Christmas – and for the first time, the house didn’t smell of her any more. I tried not to think of that.

  I began in the kitchen. The fridge and freezer had already been emptied and cleaned out – Nicole had helped me do all the urgent stuff in the days after Mum’s death – but I’d brought a pint of milk with me and went straight for the kettle, wiped the film of dust from its white plastic top, filled it with water and then switched it on to boil. I reached up for a mug and the tea caddy on automatic – how many millions of cups of tea had I made in this very spot over the years? I wondered – and gazed out of the window while the kettle hissed and roared and steamed. The patio was covered with leaves which would need sweeping up, I noted absent-mindedly, and the passion flower had gone rampant with neglect and needed chopping back. Suddenly I felt overcome by all the things that needed doing before the house could go on the market.

  I took a deep breath. One step at a time. There was no rush, after all. I could do every single one of the chores properly, as she would have liked the work to be done, even if it took the rest of the year to finish the task.

  Right. Tea made, time to roll up my sleeves and get on with the show. There was plenty of practical, no-brainer stuff to do in the kitchen: for starters, chucking out all the old tins and packets that lurked at the back of the pantry, some of which had been out of date for years already. Bin, bin, bin. No emotion involved, apart from the occasional fleeting pang as I remembered her fondness for pink wafer biscuits (she could be so kitsch at times) and her love of evaporated milk (four tins of it stashed there – I didn’t even know they still made the stuff). I could handle this job, anyway – I didn’t cry or even sniffle, just sorted methodically until the shelves were empty.

  Next, I went through the kitchen cupboards. I kept some of the crockery for sentimental reasons – like the old Bunnykins bowl I’d eaten my cereal from as a little girl back in the Seventies, and the gorgeous silver-edged Moroccan dishes she’d picked up one holiday, which had been her best set. I was ruthless with the rest, though, refusing to allow any emotional connection to the saucepans, the cutlery, the egg whisks and mixing bowls. It was just stuff at the end of the day, and I had plenty of that cluttering my own home.

  Once the kitchen had been boxed up to my satisfaction, I ventured out into the rest of the house, eyeing the big items of furniture in what I hoped was a detached manner. They were pretty easy to sort too, actually. If I was being realistic, her grand personal taste would clash with our more simple, neutral Next-and-M&S style, and a lot of the pieces wouldn’t even fit through the front door, anyway. So, after a deep sigh at the thought of saying goodbye to old friends, I put pink Post-Its marked ‘Sell’ on the red velvet chaise longue, the piano, the vast mahogany dining table which could seat fourteen people, and its matching chairs. Oh, and those horrible Chinese vases I’d never liked – sell, sell, sell.

  Okay. I was doing well. Bolstered by my progress so far, I decided to tackle some of her more personal belongings. I wasn’t ready to go through her clothes or jewellery yet – that felt like a hard step to take, and one that I’d need to brace myself for – but I knew she had hoarded all kinds of stuff in the spare room she used as an office. With a fresh bin bag in hand, I began with her desk.

  It was in complete contrast to the old-fashioned French-style white kidney desk-cum-dressing table she had in her bedroom, which was all curves and shapely fluted legs. This was more of a functional beast, a vast Victorian hunk of walnut with a black leather top and four golden-handled drawers on each side, the sort of thing you’d expect to see a pin-striped bank manager or a CEO sitting behind.

  Mum being Mum, of course, the contents of the drawers were completely haphazard, with piles of bank statements and other financial documents mixed together with years’ worth of correspondence, diaries and theatre review cuttings. I tipped them all out onto the floor, then stared at them, literally not knowing where to start.

  The diaries – well, I’d keep those, of course. And the financial stuff I should probably hang on to, to sort through at another date. The reviews – absolutely. I’d file them all in a scrapbook so that the children could marvel over and feel inspired by their famous grandmother. And …

  My eye was suddenly caught by an envelope with my name on it. I picked it up, curious. It had been posted here to Mum’s house, and the postmark was Edinburgh, 1982. It had never been opened.

  My heart bumped uncomfortably inside me. Strange. Why hadn’t Mum given me the letter when it had arrived? Why had she stuffed it into her desk, unread?

  I ripped open the envelope and pulled out the letter – two pieces of handwritten A4, with an Edinburgh address at the top right-hand side of the first page. Dear Maddie, it began. I caught my breath.

  Hello, sweetheart. Hope all’s well. How’s school? I still miss you and think about you all the time, and hope you’re happy. I would love to receive a letter back from you one of these days, but I can understand if you still feel angry with me …

  I stopped reading, shock waves pulsing through me. Oh my God. Surely this wasn’t a letter from …

  I flipped over the pages, my fingers skidding on the paper in my haste, eyes seeking out the end of the writing, the sign-off.

  Take care, darling, remember that I love you lots and am so proud of you, and always will be.

  Love Dad

  I sat back on my heels, feeling giddy. A letter from my dad that he’d sent over fifteen years ago … and Mum had never given it to me? What was that all about?

  ‘He doesn’t care about us, now he’s off with his new fancy woman,’ she’d hissed all those times after he’d left, her eyes flinty. ‘Well, we don’t need him, do we? We’re better off without him!’

  I’d believed her, of course. You would, wouldn’t you? He wasn’t there to defend himself, and it seemed the obvious thing to side with her, to take her version of events as the truth.

  But now it seemed that actually he had cared. He’d cared enough to write to me at least, called me sweetheart and darling, told me he loved me and was proud of me …

  A pain spread through my chest and I found myself giving a cry of sadness and disbelief. Why hadn’t she told me? Why hadn’t she passed on the letter? Why had she let me believe I was unloved, abandoned, forgotten by him?

  I was nine years old when he left. He and Mum had been at each other’s throats for a while – months, it seemed – and there had been many times when I’d gone to sleep with my hands pressed over my ears to block out the sounds of their arguing. Even so, I still hadn’t seen the big split coming. Still hadn’t expected the marriage to break down quite so
viciously.

  Divorce was a dirty word back then, not something that respectable people did. All my friends were from safe nuclear families with wholesome, smiling parents – Dad working, Mum at home or maybe taking on a little part-time job that fitted in with school hours. I was already different from them – my family life stuck out like a sore thumb, what with Mum actually having a career and being the main breadwinner, not to mention her rocking up to the school in full stage make-up, or sometimes sending a ‘car’ to pick me up at 3.30. I didn’t dare tell my nice little friends with their neatly plaited hair and perfectly ironed school uniform that there was trouble at home as well.

  But then came the biggest argument of all. However hard I tried to hide my head under the pillow, I couldn’t block out Mum’s aggrieved shrieks and yells, and insult after insult came flying up through the floorboards, assaulting my ears as I lay there trembling under my Snoopy duvet.

  I never should have married you – I never should have trusted you!

  You spineless coward! You cheating bastard!

  What are we going to tell Maddie – have you thought about that? You’re going to ruin her life as well as mine, you know!

  And finally, bizarrely, What are the neighbours going to think? followed by a torrent of weeping.

  Unable to bear it any more, I’d tiptoed downstairs in my pyjamas, clutching my favourite Cabbage Patch Kids doll for comfort, twining my fingers through her woolly brown bunches so that I wouldn’t be tempted to suck my thumb like a baby. I edged into the living room just in time to see Mum hurl a vase at my dad’s head, and him duck and shout at her to stop. ‘Anna! For God’s sake, calm down! You’ve woken Maddie now, look!’

  I remember him making a move towards me and her flying at him in rage. ‘Don’t you dare!’ she screamed. ‘You’ve no right to call her your daughter now, not when you’re bailing out on us! Go on – get out, then. Run off to Scotland with … with this tart. We don’t need you!’

  The words pierced me now as I remembered them. We don’t need you, she’d told him – and I’d let her speak for me, as if I didn’t have a say in the matter. Yeah, we don’t need him, I’d remind myself toughly whenever I missed him, thought about him, wondered what he was doing.

  But the truth, of course, had been different. I had needed him, I’d wished desperately that he’d come back, get in touch with me. And it turned out he had. This letter. Why hadn’t Mum shown it to me? Why hadn’t she let him remain a part of my life? That was so unfair – on Dad and on me. I wouldn’t dream of cutting Paul out of the picture if things ever got nasty between us. He was still an important part of Emma and Ben’s lives, just as my father had been to me.

  My fingers curled into fists. She’d had no right to keep the letter from me. But the fact that she’d held on to it rather than simply destroy it … What did that mean? Had she planned to give it me one day? It didn’t add up. I didn’t understand. The only thing I did understand was that I was angry with her. Really angry.

  I put the letter carefully to one side and began searching the mass of papers in case there were more. Ah, there was one, dated 1985. And there was another, 1983. My hands worked feverishly through the pile, my heart beating faster every time I found another envelope with his handwriting. There were at least twenty, and that was just after a brief look. Rage drummed through me – rage that she had kept them all from me, had kept him from me. How could she have done that? How could she have possibly thought that was the right thing to do?

  All these years I’d written him off, had tried to forget him, my dad, the lovely laughing man who’d bounced me on his knee as a toddler, who’d danced around the living room to Boney M with me, who’d treated me to knickerbocker glories in the cafe at Lewis’s in town … all that time and it turned out that he’d been trying to hang on to contact with me. Twenty letters – more than twenty letters he’d written, and he’d never received a reply. He must have thought I hated him. He must have thought I didn’t care.

  I noticed the clock on the wall suddenly – ten to three – and scrambled to my feet. It was almost time to pick Ben up from school; I’d completely lost track of time. I gathered all the unopened letters from Dad and stuffed them into my handbag. I’d take them home and read them later, I vowed, rushing downstairs. Then I’d have to decide what I was going to do.

  Paul was out again that night – he was being very mysterious about where he kept disappearing to these days – so once the kids were in bed, I poured myself a large glass of wine (stuff the diet, this was too important), curled up in our biggest, comfiest armchair, took the phone off the hook and arranged the pile of letters in my lap. I sorted them into date order then began reading.

  I was crying before I’d even got halfway down the opening page of the first letter.

  You’re the last person in the world I would ever want to upset, my love, and I’m truly sorry that things ended so badly between your mum and me. I wish you hadn’t had to see and hear us arguing like that. We were angry with each other, but not with you. You know that, don’t you? We still both love you, and I’ll always be your daddy.

  Your mum is cross with me for hurting her, but I hope and pray that in the months to come, she’ll let me visit you and I can take you out for some treats. Let me guess … a banana split at Lewis’s?! Or maybe a new Sindy doll from the toy shop – whatever you want, Maddie …

  Oh God. The writing blurred as tears filled my eyes. I’d have given anything for another banana split with him, a new Sindy to dote on. Mum had never let me go without, of course, had showered me with love and all the sweets and toys I could wish for, but …

  Well. It was too late now. Too late for treats from Daddy. Lewis’s had closed down and they didn’t make Sindys any more, besides which I was at least twenty-five years late in taking him up on the offer.

  I read on, eager to find out his story, to piece together what had happened to him over the years. I’d only ever thought about him resentfully since he’d left, telling myself I didn’t care. Now I was intrigued.

  Later letters became more newsy. He was settled in Edinburgh with Isabel, and they were planning to marry. He still missed me and thought about me every day and hoped we’d be able to meet soon. Did I have any pictures I could send him? He still kept the photo of me in my junior school uniform in his wallet, but he guessed I must look really different by now. How was I finding secondary school? Had I made some nice friends? What were the teachers like?

  He wished I would write back. He was still so sorry about what had happened, but in all honesty, my mother had not been the easiest person to be married to. He had felt worthless next to her, always in her shadow. He felt much happier now he was with Isabel, and he’d love to introduce me to her one day, he had told her all about me …

  I sipped my wine. What a waste. What a complete and utter waste. I wished I’d thought to make up my own mind about him all those years ago, sought him out and let him explain, rebuilt the bridges between us and forged our own relationship. But I’d been blinded by Mum’s hatred of him. I’d assumed he’d left me as well as her, just as she’d intimated.

  The last letter was written just after I turned eighteen.

  You’re a woman now, with the rest of your life ahead of you. I wonder if you’ll be heading off to university, or maybe following in your mum’s footsteps and thinking of a career on the stage? Whatever you’re doing, I wish you every success and happiness and hope all your dreams come true.

  If you could find it in your heart to forgive me and get in touch, as one adult to another, I’d love to hear from you.

  All my love

  Dad x

  I read it over and over again, not wanting the correspondence to end. His address was the same on all the letters – Lennox Street, Edinburgh, and there was a phone number underneath. Impulsively I snatched up the phone, my heart thumping. Should I do this? Was it too little, too late? He might well have moved on from there, he might even have died by now.


  Blow it. There was only one way to find out. I dialled his number before I could change my mind, and waited for someone to pick up.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Just Desserts

  Jess

  ‘So, what do you think?’ Shelley asked, elbowing me impatiently.

  I stared around the room, trying to see it through a professional businesswoman’s eyes, critically and pragmatically, scanning for signs of damp, dry rot or any other crucial things. It was almost impossible to keep up any kind of façade, though, when my gut instinct was joyfully roaring ‘Yes! Yes! ’ and my heart was absolutely cartwheeling with excitement.

  Shelley and I were standing in the empty flat above Tess’s Tresses, the hairdresser on the High Street, and from the very first moment we’d stepped through the door, I’d had a good feeling about this space. A really good feeling. Dust motes danced in the light streaming in through the large windows, the ceilings were wonderfully high, and the floorboards, although tatty, were still the original Victorian ones. Sure, the walls could do with a lick of paint, the cobwebs needed feather-dustering off the cornicing, and the floorboards would benefit from a coat of varnish, but otherwise …

  ‘I was thinking this could be your main treatment room – it’s big enough for a massage table and sink, and you could probably squeeze a shower into that corner,’ Shelley was saying. ‘Plus you’ve got the floor space for a cupboard to keep all your equipment in. Then there’s a smaller room which could be a waiting area or a second treatment space, as well as a loo, and a tiny kitchen where … Jess? Jess, are you listening to me?’

  I beamed. ‘I’ll take it,’ I said, the words coming out before I knew what I was saying.

  She gawped at me. ‘Well … Don’t you want to see the rest of the property first?’

  I laughed, half shocked, half delighted at my impulsive response to the place.