The Truth Hurts Read online

  The teenagers next to her roared with laughter. She looked over at them, crammed around the table, sitting on each other’s laps, talking so fast she couldn’t pick out a single word and all interrupting each other, clinking beer bottles and gesticulating wildly. How long had it been since she had sat in a group of friends and laughed? She couldn’t remember.

  This wasn’t the time to get introspective. She pulled out her phone and snapped a picture of herself, her head parallel to the Pepito’s sign, pulling an exaggerated sad face.

  Got fired. Sitting in a bar, working out my next move. Back in England asap. Can I crash on your sofa? she wrote, and pressed send.

  Gina wouldn’t be awake, but she would see it in the morning. Gina had a sweet deal, a “nanny flat” in the basement of the house her bosses lived in. Was there any chance she could ask Gina to lend her a couple of hundred quid to get her home too? Probably not. Gina was just as broke as she was. Poppy ran her finger down the list of contacts in her phone, scanning for someone who would lend her money. There was no one. Her eyes settled briefly on Mum and she dismissed the idea immediately. Even if her mum had the cash, there was no way she’d hand it over. Poppy didn’t have a number for her father.

  Next, she typed out a message to Damson, who had been given the most recent iPhone for her eighth birthday. Would she see it before her mother intervened? It was worth a try.

  Darling Dam, I’m sorry that I didn’t say goodbye. I’ll miss you lots and lots. Give Lola a big squeeze from me and tell Rafe that I’ll miss him too. PS. Don’t worry about the argument earlier. Everything is OK. All my love, Poppy.

  Writing the penultimate line was almost impossible. She had to force her fingers to press the buttons. But it mattered. Damson needed to think that her mother was on her side. She was going to end up fucked up enough as it was. Poppy couldn’t bear to make it worse. Poppy had been with the Hendersons since Damson was two, and she’d always assumed that she’d stick around until Lola was packed off to boarding school in ten years’ time. She’d thought that she’d be there to guide Damson through spots and periods and boyfriends. Now someone else would get to do that, and Poppy would have to hope against hope that she’d find another Mrs. Henderson, someone who would hire her without asking too many questions.

  What next? Grimly, like looking down at a cut, knowing that once you saw the blood it would start hurting, she searched for flights on her phone. Ibiza to London in the middle of summer with twenty-four hours’ notice was, unsurprisingly, ruinous. The cheapest one, with two stops and a final destination in Manchester—two hundred miles from home—was three hundred quid. She slumped forward, letting her forehead touch the cool table. She’d have to sleep in the Range Rover on the side of the road, and then beg her final salary and the money the Hendersons owed her when she dropped it back tomorrow. Oh God, she’d have to go back in Mrs. Henderson’s shoes. Despair swelling up in her chest, she scanned the restaurant for a waiter. The money situation was bad enough as it was. Another four euros for a second beer couldn’t make much of a difference at this point.

  “Uno más, por favor,” she said to a passing waiter, gesturing to her empty beer bottle. He ignored her. She looked down at her sundress. Did she look that rough? The thought that finding someone here to go home with would be a lot less unpleasant than sleeping in the car had already crossed her mind.

  She got up, squeezing through the drunken crowds, and ordered her drink at the bar. Stepping back onto the terrace minutes later with a cold bottle in her hand, she saw that her table had been taken by a man in a blue linen shirt, sitting with his back to her.

  “Lo siento,” she said, realizing that she was rapidly running out of words in Spanish, “es mi—” She gestured to the chair where she had been sitting.

  The man turned to look at Poppy. He was about forty, but the expensive kind of forty that came with good clothes and a comfortable life. He had green eyes, curly dark hair and a self-satisfied sort of smile.

  “You got up,” he said. His accent was cut-glass English. Poppy rolled her eyes. The last thing she wanted this evening was to get into another argument with a Henderson-type.

  “Never mind,” she said, reaching over to grab her bag. As she leaned over she caught the smell of him: the scented ironing water some maid must have used on his shirt. The expensive aftershave. It smelled good.

  “You could join me. If that’s the extent of your Spanish I can’t imagine you’re going to be making conversation with anyone else in this place.”

  “Seeing as it’s my table,” said Poppy, pulling out a metal chair, “you’ll be joining me. Not the other way around.”

  He smiled. “A shame. If you were joining me then I would have insisted on paying.”

  Poppy felt her lips curling into a smile. “In which case, perhaps I was mistaken.”

  He let out a low laugh. “I’m Drew.”

  “Poppy.”

  “Poppy,” he repeated, smiling at her. “Is there any chance that you’re hungry?”

  She’d been too angry and worried earlier that evening to eat, and thinking about it, it had been hours since she’d had anything. She nodded. “Starving.”

  “What do you want to eat?” he asked.

  “Everything,” she replied, swigging from her beer.

  Drew gestured for the waiter and, though Poppy wouldn’t have admitted it for all the money on Ibiza, she was a little impressed by how fluent his Spanish was.

  “What did you order?” she asked as the waiter walked away.

  He smiled. “Everything.”

  “Everything” had turned out to be two bowls full of crisps, a surprisingly decent salad and a plate of cold meat. Poppy had wrapped crisps in Parma ham and shoved them gratefully into her mouth. Drew seemed to find this amusing, but resisted her persuasion to try it. Once the plates were empty, Poppy leaned back in her chair, rolling her fourth bottle of beer between her hands. Drew pulled a packet of cigarettes from his pocket. “Do you mind?” he asked. Poppy pulled one out of the packet and stuck it between her lips.

  “Light?” he asked.

  She smirked. “They’re so little use without one.”

  Drew took one out of the packet for himself and then clicked his lighter. “I didn’t think people your age smoked. Aren’t you all incredibly clean living?”

  “My age?” She raised her eyebrows. “I’m twenty-eight. And it’s been a rough night.”

  “We have that in common,” Drew said.

  “You’re twenty-eight too?”

  Drew gave her a sarcastic half laugh. “No.”

  “How old are you?”

  “How old do you think?”

  Poppy considered him, the expensive watch, the discreet logo on his shirt. “Forty-two,” she decided. Drew looked wounded.

  “Forty-three, but you could have done my vanity a favor and knocked a few years off your guess.”

  “Who says I didn’t?”

  “Poppy, I know we just met but I’m afraid I’m going to have to tell you, you’re making my bad night even worse.”

  “Why was yours so shit?” asked Poppy, dragging her fingertip through a drop of condensation on the tabletop.

  “A litany of reasons.”

  “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.”

  Drew put down his beer. “I was at a party up in the hills, and I looked out at the people and realized that I couldn’t stand anyone there, and so I decided to leave.”

  “Turned your back on that life forever?”

  Drew laughed. “Of course not. But it was nice to pretend I had that kind of integrity, even if it was just for tonight.”

  She smiled. “Well, you get points for honesty.”

  “How about you?” he asked.

  “I got fired.”

  “Fired? From where?”

  “My job.”

  “That’s generally what fired means.”

  Poppy put her beer down. “Do you want to hear the story or not?”

&n
bsp; He gestured for her to continue.

  “For someone who talks like the queen you’ve got some serious blind spots in your etiquette.”

  “What were you doing for work?” he asked, ignoring her previous comment.

  “Nannying,” she said. She watched Drew’s mouth open and close, smiling, clearly holding back a comment.

  “What?” she asked, trying not to smile back.

  “Nothing,” he said.

  “Go on.”

  “I was only going to say that it makes a lot of sense.”

  Poppy raised one eyebrow. “And why’s that?”

  “I can imagine you’d be very good at that. That’s all.”

  Poppy tried to frown, but his grin was infectious. He was implying that she was bossy, but for some reason it didn’t bother her.

  “I was,” she replied, copying his cut-glass accent. “More than adequate.”

  “And you liked it?”

  “I like kids.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Less judgmental than adults. More honest.”

  Drew laughed. “And if you were so good, why did they fire you?”

  And so Poppy told him the story. Not just the edited highlights that she would have given Gina, and not just the version of it where she herself had acted perfectly and Mrs. Henderson was a cartoon villain. All of it. The part where she lost her temper, shouting and waking Damson up. Taking the car keys. When she reached the part about the shoes Drew started to laugh again. “Show me,” he said.

  Poppy dropped one high-heeled foot in his lap. The shoes were two sizes too big and probably cost more than Mrs. Henderson paid her in a week. But Drew wasn’t looking at the shoes. He was looking at her legs. Poppy suddenly became self-conscious about the ugly red scar under her left knee where she’d tripped over some of Rafe’s toys and fallen down the stairs, more noticeable against the tan she had picked up playing with the kids on the beach. She also had a feeling that she’d missed a patch when she’d shaved her legs earlier that week, rushing to finish before Lola started crying.

  “You are officially my hero,” said Drew, placing his hand lightly on her ankle. “If I ever decide to give it all up, I want you there with me to steal shoes and cars.”

  Poppy sighed. Telling Drew the story had made it feel like an anecdote, a funny story she could tell once she was settled back at home. Once she was safe. But she wasn’t safe. She was in a bar on the side of a road with an extremely attractive, considerably older man and absolutely no plan. The Europop that had been playing in the background dropped in volume, and a fluorescent strip above the restaurant flooded their table with harsh yellow light. Looking around, Poppy realized that the huge group at the next table had gone and they were the only two people left out here.

  “I think they’re closing,” she said as the shutters came down over the windows.

  “I think you might be right,” said Drew. “So, what next?”

  Poppy sighed deeply. “No idea.”

  “I meant tonight, not in terms of the whole rest of your life.”

  “Still no idea,” she said, realizing that her leg was still tangled in Drew’s lap. She pulled it back, putting her knees to her chest. It was finally starting to get cold. No idea. None at all. Apart from sleeping in a car and then begging her ex-employers for enough money to get back to England. The realization washed over her. One night in a bar flirting with a good-looking guy didn’t change anything. Sitting with Drew had made her bold, as though she was reflecting the light that came off him. But that couldn’t last. She needed to stop drinking so she’d be under the limit to return the Range Rover tomorrow morning.

  “I should probably go,” she said, reaching for her bag. “It was nice to meet you.”

  Drew stood up. “You’re leaving?”

  She nodded. “Yeah. Like you said, I have no plan. I’m going to go sleep in the car and I’ll take it back in the morning.”

  Drew looked upward, putting his hands behind his head. “You’re not great with hints, are you?”

  “What?”

  He sighed. “I was trying to ask if you wanted to come back with me. But I didn’t want to be . . .” He trailed off. “I have a spare room.”

  Poppy drank in the triangle of his body, wide shoulders tapering down to narrow waist. How long had it been? She couldn’t put a number on it, so it must have been a long time. Mrs. Henderson didn’t allow Poppy to have guests, and she had wanted her to babysit most nights. A warm, familiar feeling was stirring in the middle of her body.

  “I’d like that.” She smiled.

  Before

  Caroline Walker had had no intention of hiring Agnes. In fact, by the time the doorbell rang that gray Thursday afternoon, she had already hired someone else. It was the same woman—or rather it might as well have been—that she always hired to take care of the kids for the summer holidays. Well meaning. Kindly. Dressed in black bootleg trousers and a printed blouse for the interview. Someone called Lorraine or Sandra or Sue. Capable, reliable, with thousands of hours of childcare experience. She had told the agency there was no need to send anyone else.

  So it was a surprise when the doorbell rang, and standing on the doorstep wearing a red flowery dress and a denim jacket was Agnes. “I’m so, so sorry that I’m late,” she rushed out as soon as the door opened. “My train got stuck in a tunnel for, like, an hour, and then I got lost.” She held out a tube map. There was a faint trace of an accent in her voice, something Caroline couldn’t place, and the hint of a track of mascara on her left cheek, as though she had been crying. Her face was so open and hopeful Caroline couldn’t bring herself to say that it was a mistake, that the agency should have canceled the interview. That she had already hired someone else who wasn’t so close in age to her eldest son, hadn’t arrived an hour late to the interview and who knew how to get around London. So she’d invited her in.

  “I love your kitchen,” Agnes said as she trailed behind Caroline into the long, sunny room.

  “Really?” replied Caroline, confused at the compliment. There was still cereal tracked over the counter and the cat was sitting unhygienically on the side, licking its paws. “It’s a mess.”

  “It’s great,” Agnes said. Her enthusiasm sounded genuine.

  Caroline half-heartedly ran Agnes through all of the basics of the house—taking the kids out for at least a couple of hours a day so her husband, who usually worked from home, could concentrate. Making sure that they didn’t disturb him when he was working, though she was never quite sure how much of the day that actually was. Bedtime, bathtime, as little TV as possible—while making Agnes a cup of tea (Earl Grey with two sugars, requested with a faint blush); it wasn’t as if she really needed to know much. This was a courtesy. She would ring the agency after she had gone and say that she’d been lovely, very sweet, but that they shouldn’t have sent anyone, given that she had already hired the last woman they sent, and hope that they might give her a discount on their fee for the inconvenience.

  “Can I meet the children?” Agnes asked. “Jack’s fourteen, Ella’s eight and Grace is four, right?”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “You work as a lawyer, and Mr. Walker is an architect. You do all your own childcare in term time, and you just need someone to fill in during the school holidays. Which is perfect for me, because I’m going back to uni in October.” Her face changed as she finished the sentence, as if she had realized what she was saying was a little presumptuous. She was so sweetly keen, Caroline couldn’t help liking her.

  “What are you reading at Durham?” she asked, wanting to reassure the girl that it was all right.

  “History.” She smiled. “I’ve only got one more year left. I can’t believe how fast it’s going.”

  “I remember that feeling,” Caroline admitted. “Blink and you’ll be living in the suburbs with kids and a husband.” She gestured around her. Even as she said the words she wondered why she was saying them. An awkward pause filled the air
between them.

  “And you’ve got a dog, right? The advert said he’d need walking once a day.”

  Caroline pointed out to the garden where their lazy black Labrador was sunbathing. “You like dogs?” she asked Agnes. “That’s Boo.” Most of the previous nannies had regarded Boo as an inconvenience.

  “I wasn’t allowed to play with them when I was a kid,” she said shyly. “My mum thought they were dirty. But I love them.”

  Even though it wasn’t a real interview, she’d left Agnes upstairs to play with the kids. Cheeky, she knew that, but Jim had been away on his “boys’ trip”—a stupid expression for a holiday filled with men in their late forties—for almost a week and she was exhausted. The chance for a couple of minutes of quiet was too much to resist. She’d shut herself in her little study, a blissful storage room that the children knew they were only allowed to enter if someone was bleeding or unconscious. She lost herself in her papers and, looking up, realized that she had left Agnes alone with the children for over an hour.

  It hardly seemed fair to make her work like that when she wasn’t going to get the job.

  As she reached the hallway, she heard all four of them, laughing hysterically. Even Jack, who considered himself far too old to have to play with his little sisters. The noise was so pure, so joyful that she couldn’t help joining in.

  Later that evening, Ella, who was eight going on eighteen, crawled onto the sofa and rested her head on her mother’s chest.

  “We have to have Agnes, Mummy,” she said.

  Caroline sighed. “You think so?”

  She nodded solemnly. “Jack and Grace say so too.”

  “You really liked her?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “More than Sue?”

  Ella fixed her with a look that said, “Are you fucking joking?”

  “OK,” said Caroline, unable to resist making her daughter’s day. “We’ll have Agnes.”