Page 55 of When We Were Friends
I’m sorry. I don’t mean to sound evasive but it’s a lot to explain in a message. It’s better if we chat face to face.
What’s wrong? Is he… ill?
No. Nothing like that. It’s all okay Olly. Don’t worry. I’ll tell you everything as soon as you’re here. I’m sending a photo of him a few years ago. It was on the wall in the surf shop, in Fréjus. Love you xx
No reply.
That was last Wednesday night. It was now Saturday, Easter weekend. Neither Paige, Emily nor Tiff had contacted her since the four of them had left Newquay that day. She pursed her lips. Good riddance. Olly hadn’t messaged again either. She’d cleaned, batch cooked, done laundry and weeded, but none of those things had helped. It was now late morning and she sat up the kitchen table. Her tea was cold. She’d only eaten half her toast.
Morgan had gone around to her parents yesterday, unable to face telling them about the trip; she simply said she’d taken a few days off work, fancied some time to herself. She stayed for dinner. Whilst Mum washed up and Dad dried, Morgan collapsed on the sofa. Dad came in and sat next to her. She was never too old to lay her head on his shoulder. The three of them sat in front of some game show. Morgan didn’t shout out the answers to the maths problems, her parents exchanging glances. They were off to their caravan today for a week, but before she left, didn’t forget to hand over Easter eggs for her and Olly. Morgan had forgotten to get theirs and burst into tears.
‘That’s it,’ said her dad and led her back into the lounge. ‘What’s going on, lass? This isn’t like you.’
‘Is it Olly?’ asked Mum.
If only they knew. Olly was eighteen and deserved to be told first. She’d caught a bug, that’s all, she told them, but when she kissed her mum and dad goodbye last night, she could tell from their faces they didn’t believe her.
The front door opened. Olly came in, rucksack on his back. He let it slip to the ground. Didn’t give her hug and plonked himself down opposite. Vikram’s dad had given him a lift home from the airport.
‘Did you have a good time, love?’ asked Morgan in as bright a voice as she could muster.
‘Yep. You totally have to visit CERN someday. I’ll tell you about it later.’ He shook his head when she offered to make him a drink. ‘You okay?’ he muttered.
‘I’m fine, love.’
‘Tell me about Hugo, then. Tell me about my dad.’
Where to start. ‘He’s called Felix now. I don’t know why. But… well, he’s married to Paige. She didn’t tell us until the end of the trip.’
Olly sat back in his chair. ‘Fucking hell, that’s messed up…’
How could she tell him off for swearing when she felt the same?
It poured out. How Paige had deceived the other three. How she claimed it wasn’t because she felt threatened by the prospect of Felix having a grown-up son, when she and him may not be able to have children. She’d hinted that she thought Morgan had another reason for the trip, that’s why she kept schtum, to give Morgan time to talk about it, but was her real motive to divert the other three’s efforts? Wasn’t she expecting them to have so much success in tracking down her husband? But then Paige had sent Morgan his number first thing Thursday. Morgan told Olly about how great it had been to feel as if they were putting their friendship back together, as if it were an old scrambled up Rubik’s cube that finally, after much effort, got solved again. But then something unexpected scrambled it once more.
Olly got up and made himself a mug of tea, a fresh one for his mum, too. He sat down again and pulled off his hoodie. ‘Will he want to get to know me, then? It’s not like I’m a little baby he’s going to get to name, and go through all that learning to walk and talk stuff with.’
Morgan wanted to make everything perfect, like she’d so often strived to do in the past; wanted to tell him Felix would love him to bits, that finally he’d have a dad who was there whenever he needed him. She scanned the tired face, the stubble on his chin, the trendy T-shirt he’d bought from Depop.
‘All I can say is that Rob, the owner of that activities centre at Fistral Beach, spoke very highly of him, and said he was a decent man.’
Olly stirred his tea. ‘So you haven’t actually contacted Felix?’
‘Oh, I’ve wanted to and spent a while focusing on the wording. The things I could tell him about my incredible son… but I figuredyou’dwant to do this. I’ll be there by your side, all the way, but he’s your dad, not mine. I’ll message you his number. He’s back from Dubai today.’
Olly went over to Morgan. Crouched down and gave her a big hug.
‘Thanks, Mum,’ he said, in a muffled voice and went back to his chair. ‘Have you told Gramps and Granny?’
‘We could do that together. I’m not sure how they’ll take it. Back in the day, they never liked Hugo – I mean Felix – or his dad. But their opinion doesn’t matter, love. This is about you.’
‘Is there no way you and your friends will make up? Did you tell them the other reason for the trip, then?’
‘No. Everything blew apart before I could.’ She explained about the other secrets – Emily’s mum, Tiff and Jasmine.
‘But you were teenagers back then! When I was sixteen, I hadn’t told some of my best friends that I thought I was gay. Big things, little things, sometimes to cope, we have to hold it in for a while. Keep it private, until we can make sense of it ourselves. Or just to avoid the upset. Being my age can be hard enough. By the sounds of it, Emily and Tiff had their reasons. None of us are perfect.’
As a little boy, Olly would put a hot dog on a plate, give it nacho wings, raisin eyes, spaghetti antennae, and refuse to eat it. He also loved whoopee cushions. Since when had he become so wise? She told him about Prestige Fitness and how Felix helped with his company’s charity projects – and how the surf shop owner in France suspected Felix had been running away from someone.
