PENNY JORDAN - Phantom Marriage

An unexpected Premium Bond win had provided the money for the deposit on the small terraced house she had bought in what had been a very unfashionable part of London, but which was now fast moving up-market as more and more young couples made it their home, and there had been sufficient money left for her to afford the fees at the small private kindergarten the twins were attending. This last expense was a bone of contention between Tara and her mother. Her mother had moved to the same town as Tara’s aunt and uncle after the twins’ birth, complaining bitterly that she could no longer stand the shame of living in the same place that had witnessed her daughter’s disgrace. Tara’s father had been killed in a road accident when Tara herself was five and she could barely remember him, so her mother and her aunt and uncle had been the only family she had known. All three of them now felt uncomfortable with her, she acknowledged, and so her visits to them were infrequent. Her mother considered private education to be morally wrong, but Tara had pointed out to her as gently as she could that she wanted the best for the twins.

When she had first discovered that she was pregnant her mother had wanted her to have her child adopted, but Tara had remained adamant that she wouldn’t. There had been no possibility of marriage to their father, of course. Her eyes darkened, the fingers gripping the steering wheel suddenly white. Oh God, how that still hurt after all these years when surely she ought to have put it long behind her, but James’s total rejection of her still had the power to wound. It wasn’t even as though he had the excuse of being a young innocent as she had been herself. An unwillingness to face up to his responsibilities was something she could have understood and accepted in a boy of eighteen, but in a man of twenty-seven… As always when she thought of James bitterness welled up inside her. The first time they met she hadn’t realised what was to come. He had simply been the father of a younger school friend.

Memories suddenly threatened to come crowding back, and with the skill of long experience, she dammed them up, concentrating on her driving and the evening ahead.

It wasn’t far from the studio to the kindergarten, which was one of the reasons she had chosen it.

To her relief there were still other cars parked outside when she arrived; mothers waiting to collect their offspring, and she smiled in wry amusement, acknowledging the incongruity of her shabby Mini amongst so many luxuriously expensive boxes on wheels.

An elegant blonde woman smiled at her as she eased herself from the Mini. Tara smiled back vaguely, eyes searching the playground for the twins’ familiar dark heads, and a small pent-up sigh escaped the full warmth of her lips when she spotted them playing on the slide.

Outwardly neither twin bore the slightest resemblance to her; both had inherited their father’s darkly attractive looks, softened by baby chubbiness, and an undeniably coquettish femininity in the case of Mandy.

Tara grimaced a little as she thought of her pretty, wilful little daughter. Already the little girl seemed to exhibit a perverse delight in thwarting her mother, and Tara recognised unwillingly in the little girl’s behaviour a need for the firm and loving hand of a father. Mandy was all female and had been from the moment of her birth, just as Simon was a sturdy miniature replica of his father. Like Mandy he too suffered the lack of a father, although in Simon it showed more in the pensive seriousness of his eyes and his tendency to cling a little too much to the protection afforded by Tara.

Simon as always saw her first and came running over to her, flinging his arms round her jean-clad knees, while Mandy followed in his wake, dark curls flying.

‘You’re late,’ Simon accused when she had kissed them both.

Tara sighed. ‘I know, darling.’

‘Is Uncle Chas coming round tonight?’ Mandy demanded. Chas occasionally popped round in the evening to discuss work, and Mandy tended to disapprove of his visits.

As Tara was explaining to them that it was unlikely, the blonde woman who had smiled so tentatively at her before suddenly approached with a toddler, her smile deepening to recognition as she came closer.

‘Tara!’ she exclaimed in pleased accents. ‘I thought it was you.’

She mustn’t have looked at her properly the first time, Tara decided, suddenly feeling ill, otherwise she would have recognised her instantly, despite the sophistication that seven years and the apparent addition of a wealthy husband had given.

‘Susan.’

Did her voice sound as weak as she felt?

‘What a fantastic coincidence,’ the other girl chattered on blithely, obviously unaware that Tara wasn’t sharing her pleasure. ‘It must be at least seven years since I last saw you. You never even told me that you were leaving Hillingdon,’ she added reproachfully. ‘Are these your children?’

‘Yes.’

Tara was desperate to escape, but it was impossible while Susan admired the twins, and picked up her own toddler, who, she informed Tara, was just three and was called Piers.

‘After his grandfather,’ she added, pulling a slight face. ‘Do you know, I just can’t get over meeting you like this. Of course the chauffeur normally collects Piers from school. What are you doing with yourself…’ Her eyes slid to the betrayingly ancient state of Tara’s Mini in comparison to her own elegant BMW. ‘You married, of course… Your husband…’

‘John died before the twins were born,’ Tara lied huskily, bending down to check the fastening on Simon’s shoes, glad of the excuse to hide her expression from the girl who had once been one of her closest friends. Dear God, why did this have to happen? Why did she have to run into Susan of all people like this?

Susan was instantly sympathetic.

‘Oh, you poor thing!’ she exclaimed, glancing significantly at the twins as she added, ‘No problems there, I hope? I can still remember what the lack of a father did to me, although it wasn’t the same thing. Mother divorced my real father when I was four. I don’t suppose I ever mentioned that to you before—I hated people knowing. She’s remarried again, you know,’ she added conversationally, patently unaware of the sudden tensing of Tara’s body. ‘The older she gets the younger her husbands get. She’s living in the States now. I think of all the fathers she provided me with James was my favourite. In the old days I never used to admit he wasn’t my father. He was wonderful fun, do you remember…?’

Did she? Tara forced a smile from a face that felt as though it would crack apart and expose her anguish to the world and managed to croak, ‘Yes…’

‘Look, we must get together,’ Susan announced enthusiastically. ‘We’ve so much to catch up on. We’ve just bought a house in the country—for Piers mainly. At the moment we can only use it at weekends, although his father is hoping to transfer his business down there eventually. We’re going down this weekend, why not come with us? The twins would love it, I’m sure.’

‘I…’

‘Don’t refuse,’ Susan begged. ‘Think about it. Here’s my phone number.’ She scribbled it down on a piece of paper and handed it to Tara. ‘I couldn’t believe it when you left Hillingdon like that, although I suppose at fourteen I was really too young for you to take me into your confidence. But you’d been so marvellous to me at school; like the sister I’d never had. Do you remember? You seemed to know instinctively how I felt about the problems I was having with Mother. I suppose that was something we shared, although for different reasons. Do you, like me, want to give your two all the love and affection we never had?’ She broke off as she realised that her car was blocking an exit, hurrying Piers towards it, calling over her shoulder to Tara, ‘Now don’t forget—you’re spending next weekend with us!’

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