‘They are very nice,’ Nick agrees kindly. ‘And you’re going to look stunning in them.’
The sales assistant hands me a boutiquey-looking paper bag and Nick hands over his credit card. And then we leave the shop, the bag swinging back and forth in my hand. This is who I am now. I am a woman who wears impracticable high heels and who shops in dinky little bespoke stores and goes into town with her husband after work just because she feels like it. I am confident and secure and, for the first time in ages, at peace with who I am. I am a wife, a mother, a teacher and a (secretly) published author of an erotic novel.
Life is sweet.
‘Oh my bloody god!’ Scarlet’s shriek slaps me in the face the second that we walk through the front door. ‘I honestly can’t believe you, Mother!’
It turns out that my sweet life and newfound peace lasted for exactly eighty-three minutes. I don’t know why I’m surprised. I’m lucky I even had that long.
I drop my lovely paper bag and its even lovelier contents on the floor and freeze. This is it. The moment I’ve been waiting for. The charade is up and my identity has been revealed. Life as I know it is over. In some ways it’s a relief – I’ve been living in such fear of being found out in the weeks since More Than Sex was published and at least now, with the cat well and truly out of the bag, I can relax. No more hiding in the shadows. No more denying who I really am. Maybe this will be a good thing?
I am a complete and utter fantasist.
‘You’ve done some whack stuff in the past,’ my daughter yells, her face scrunched up in anger. ‘But this? Congratulations, Mum – you’ve totally outdone yourself this time.’
‘What are you screeching about now?’ asks Dylan, opening the living room door.
‘Yeah,’ joins in Benji, peering under his older brother’s arm. ‘Why are you being so rude to Mum? Again.’
Dogger nudges her way in between his legs and joins in the staring, her big, brown eyes darting between us as she too tries to make sense of this terrible situation.
Nick pushes past me and gives Scarlet a stern look. ‘I don’t know what has upset you but whatever it is, I am not prepared to listen to another word while you’re shouting.’
‘I think she knows.’ I put a slightly shaky hand on his arm. ‘She’s obviously going to be feeling a bit upset, Nick. We’ve always understood that.’
Nick turns to look at me, his face draining of blood.
‘We agreed to keep it a secret, Hannah,’ he mutters. ‘How have they found out?’
‘Not they,’ I hiss back. ‘Scarlet. And I have no idea. But they’re all going to know now, aren’t they?’
I gaze over his shoulder at my children. Scarlet and Dylan are seventeen and eighteen now, almost adults themselves. I have no idea what this discovery is going to do to them at such a crucial and formative stage of life or how I’m ever going to look them in the eye again, now that they know what I’ve been getting up to. Particularly Scarlet. There’s no way that she’s ever going to accept my new career. Not without an almighty teen-fuelled meltdown, anyway. And I can live without that.
And then there’s Benji. My sweet, loving, innocent ten-year-old boy who has no comprehension of a world where a mother’s actions can bring lasting shame and humiliation upon her unwitting offspring. He’ll be shunned from every party and the days of sleepovers and playdates are long gone. I’m pretty sure that none of the other mothers will let the child of an erotic writer associate with their offspring. Nobody is going to care that I only did it because my hours had been cut at work and I needed to find a way to fund the ever-increasing needs of our children. Well, that and to prove that I could be more than just a mum.
This is not a relief. I am not relaxed. I will happily live a farce, a pantomime, a fake life that is a total sham if it means my children, and everyone else on the planet, never find out about what I have done.
What I am doing.
I close my eyes for a second and pull on every last bit of strength that I can find. And then I open them and address my teenage daughter.
‘How did you find out?’ I ask, trying to keep my voice steady. ‘Who else knows?’
Maybe there’s a way of carrying out some degree of damage limitation. The kids discovering the truth is bad enough but what if this information came via school? I won’t be able to walk into work on Monday morning if everyone in the staffroom knows. But perhaps she found out online on some dodgy website.
Maybe there’s still some hope.
‘The whole school is talking about it,’ she snarls at me. ‘I doubt there’s a single person who doesn’t know.’
Oh fucking fuck. This is bad.
‘We can explain,’ starts Nick but Scarlet rounds on him, her cheeks flaming red.
‘This hasn’t got anything to do with you,’ she says. ‘It’s not you who wrote it.’
Nick nods his head. ‘That’s true. But I fully support your mother in everything that she does and this is no exception. In fact…’
He pauses for a second and I see him gulp slightly as he prepares to incriminate himself alongside me. God, I love this man. He won’t let me walk to the gallows on my own.
‘In fact, it was me who encouraged her to send it once it was written. And I stand by that decision.’
Scarlet’s mouth drops open in horror and I step forward to stand beside my husband. We are united in solidarity. If we fall, we fall together.
‘I don’t actually believe this,’ she murmurs. The shock has clearly got to her and I peer closely at her lips, trying to see if they’re turning blue and wondering if I should make her a cup of sweet tea.
‘What has Mum written?’ Dylan leans against the doorframe and looks at us all with interest. ‘What’ve I missed?’
‘It’s important that you understand the context that this was written in,’ I begin. I might as well own the announcement now. ‘First and foremost, what I want you all to remember is that there are many different types of writing and erot—’
‘A detention slip!’ bellows Scarlet, drowning out my words. She’s obviously recovered from the shock, which I am thankful for on a number of levels. ‘For Ashley.’
‘What?’ asks Nick, confusion etched across his face. ‘You’ve written what now, Hannah?’
I start to laugh as I let go of his hand and slump down against the wall, relief making my legs weak.
‘And now you’re going to laugh about it?’ Scarlet’s voice is raised in pitch by several octaves. ‘Well, that’s bloody marvelous, Mother.’
‘I’m not laughing about that,’ I gasp, struggling to take a breath. ‘I’m laughing because, well—’
‘Yes?’ asks Dylan. ‘What’s so funny?’
I look up and see all four members of my family gazing down at me. Benji is smiling encouragingly, as if I’m about to tell them a joke. Dylan has the look on his face that he gets when he suspects that we’re up to something and I know he won’t rest until he finds out what – he’s learnt from the best – Scarlet is glowering with what looks like serious murderous intent while tapping her foot on the ground impatiently, waiting to hear my excuse, and Nick is staring at me with what can only be described as fear, his eyes pleading with me not to cock this up.