I wound down the window in the car to buy me time. Roger pushed his way through the gap between our seats and clambered onto my knees (me wincing at the thought of those filthy paws) and stuck his head out.

"Why do they do that?" I asked. More time buying. Tom didn't answer.

I took a deep breath. "My father toyed with the stock market. And he was a client of Simon's company at one point. But I'm not. I don't move in those circles."

What had Tom called it—the sin of omission? Yes, I wasn't a client of Carter, Lynch and Co, the company Simon worked for. Morgan Stanley Wealth Management handled my portfolio instead. Sent regular statements where figures swam in front of me. Excess noughts this side of the decimal point.

Tom shot me a look in the front mirror—eyes that weighed up whether to push the question further and decided against it. "Tell me about it in your own time," he murmured, returning his concentration to the road ahead when an ambulance came out of nowhere, hurtling past us, the sirens blazing.

"Shit," I said, turning to watch the vehicle turn off towards the road for the huge Queen Elizabeth Hospital. "You can't help wondering if the hospitals are filling up already, can you?"

And we dropped the subject of the extent of my wealth.

But It would lurk in the background. The 'explanation' only let me off the hook for a while.

Friday, 3 April, 2020

When I woke on Friday morning, I reached for my phone. At the start of lockdown, I'd read the news first things to check cases/deaths in the UK. By now, I'd given up the numbers too terrifying first thing in the morning.

Tom promised me his union had insisted on strict social distancing in the sorting office and nowadays, no-one needed to sign for deliveries. If a package or parcel did not fit through a letter box, you knocked, put the package on the doorstep and walked away.

Most people were at home, anyway.

Today's messages included one from Josie.

"I'd like to meet him. Standing at the end of your garden obviously."

Oh God.

Darla had sent me three of the same too. "Aunt Sophs! The mothership is driving me insane! I'm bored to death. Please let us come to your house and stare at your new boyf. XXXXX 😊 😊 😊

This wasn't the first time Josie had suggested meeting Tom. So far, I'd resisted, terrified she'd drop incriminating information into the conversation. Or come out with something a Victorian patriarch might say. "Young man! Are your intentions towards my sister honourable?"

The irony. Yes, his were—but her sister's intentions towards the young man were enough to turn the air blue.

Out of pity for Darla, I said I would think about it, and fired off a quick message to Tom.

"My sister and niece would like to meet you. Is that okay?"

He'd made no move to introduce me to his mother via Skype or Zoom—the saintly Irishwoman who frowned at sons living with their girlfriends before both wore rings on their fingers. I held my breath.

Too soon?

"Love to."

Fabulous! And ARRRRGGHHHHH at the same time. But the Tom charm factor was a magical thing. Look at the way he had Mrs Whittaker eating out of the palm of his (socially distanced) hand. As long as I steered the conversation away from certain areas, everything would be fine.

Wouldn't it?

*****

"Josie, when you talk to Tom you won't mention anything about my grandfather, will you?" Panic-stricken, Iphoned Josie at lunchtime, regretting the stupid impulse that had agreed to her and Darla coming over to meet Tom.

"Oh, for goodness' sake—you haven't told him?"

Music started up in the background—a heavy bass line booming out of the house's state-of-the art surround sound audio system, Josie pausing to yell, 'Turn that off, Darla! You're meant to be studying! And I've got a conference call with clients in five minutes.

"Sorry about that. Home working is a pain. So, you've not explained the circumstances around the inheritance? I take it he doesn't know about the sperm donor."

Josie never referred to our father as our father. Sperm donor was one of her milder names for him.

"N-no. I will. In my own good time."

She sighed. "Perhaps you ought to do it sooner rather than later. Much as I can't claim expertise in relationships, something that big shouldn't be kept a secret."

I studied the window. Noted the smears on the inside that I would clean the minute this conversation ended.

"Yes, you're right."

When she hung up a few minutes later, I fetched the microfibre cloth and spray I used for windows. Rubbing at the smears, the words, something that big shouldn't be kept a secret ringing in my ears.

The inheritance was small fry compared to the-the terrible thing...

When and how, the inner voice demanded, are you going to tell him about that?

******

The afternoon's work for the university involved a fractious email exchange with a professor protesting about what he was expected to deliver to students online. Almost enough of a distraction to stop me worrying about the Tom/Josie meeting. Dismiss Josie's advice I tell Tom everything—though she didn't know what everything was.

Tom returned at 2pm and whisked me into a huge hug. "Any tips, then? For what I say to your sister? I don't want her thinkin' I'm a stupid mick."

The studied casualness didn't fool me. Tom was as nervous as I was. Fingers crossed Josie left her work persona at home. Years ago, I'd seen her in action in a court—the terror of any opposing lawyer.

"Be yourself," I said, "and you'll wow her."

Later, I dug out my best bottle of Medoc and two glasses. The meeting wasn't strictly legit, but if a woman and her daughter happened to pause by a house one evening during their daily allowed hour of exercise, then what was the harm?

"Josie's met none of my boyfriends," I told Tom, who was putting the finishing touches to yet another elaborate meal so he could bung it in the oven before we ventured outside.

Pastry brush in hand, he looked up. "Boyfriends? How many of them have there been? Hundreds?"

A joke, I hoped—a man feigning old-fashioned disapproval of a woman's past.

"Thousands! You're far too young to remember it," I plastered on a bright smile, "but there was a song from the 1980s called It's Raining Men. That was my life."

Always hide the truth in plain sight.

He returned his attention to the egg wash he was topping the pie with, fingers shaking. God, he really was nervous.

"Be yourself," I repeated. "Honestly, do that and any woman, straight or gay, will fall under your spell."

He shook his head at that, but I could tell the compliment cheered him. Medoc opened, I poured two glasses, and we drank them a little too fast. My instructions to Josie had included bringing her own booze. A way to pretend life was normal—your average 'introduction of a new boyfriend to the family' Friday night.

I resisted the urge to take a comb to Tom's hair—messy and in need of a trim. He had a never-ending supply of slogan T-shirts. This one read, Error 404. Democracy not found. Insert a new prime minister and try again. Josie didn't share her political affiliations with me, but I suspected she'd helped put the Conservatives in power in Westminster during the last general election. Oh well.

When my phone buzzed and the words, "We're here" appeared on screen, I took a deep breath. "Let's do this. Pour the wine to the top, will you?"

He obliged. Glasses sloshing and hands joined, we ventured out. It was a glorious evening—the sun low in the skies lent them a pinky-orange glow. The daffodils along my border were only just starting to droop, and the grass that Tom had cut earlier for me turned the air summer-scented.

Darla waved furiously. Bless. She'd dug out a sparkly, too short dress and plastered herself in make-up in honour of the occasion. Arms folded, her mother stood beside her.

Josie was one of those people who didn't suit non-work clothing. Her jeans had a crease down the front where they'd been ironed and she wore a sweater over a shirt, collar sticking up. "Go on," I muttered under my breath. "Smile. It won't kill you."

She must have lipread the words. Other people might mistake it for a grimace, but something resembling the expression normal people wore when greeting others appeared. We stopped short of the two metres. Josie said hello and crouched down, rolling a bottle across the driveway towards me.

"Doesn't feel right turning up at someone's house for a social event and not bringing a bottle," she explained as she stood up. I'd put out two chairs at the bottom of the drive, along with a bottle of hand sanitiser and tissues.

Champagne again, too. "Thank you. Josie, Darla—this is Tom. Take a seat."

Along with a bottle of hand sanitiser and tissues, I'd put out two chairs at the bottom of the drive.

Tom nodded an 'hello', asking them both how they were coping with lockdown. Darla stared at him, switching her gaze to me when Josie began questioning Tom about how the postal service was managing.

"He's, like, sooooooo hot," she mouthed, and I rolled my eyes. "How's school?" I asked, and she rolled her own back. "The pater insists he can teach me modern studies. 'Cept he's decided that means learning all about civil litigation. Yawnsville. I'm gonna fail."

I murmured condolences. Managed not to imply she was right, and that I thought her father someone of limited intelligence, despite that fancy public school/Cambridge education and high-paying job in a bank.

Tom and Josie's conversation had moved on—him asking her what area of law she specialised in. I held my breath. Tax law wasn't an area Tom would approve of, seeing as most people able to afford tax lawyers were doing their best to pay a lot less of it.

He let her answer go without comment. I squeezed his hand. They started talking about Netflix recommendations, the subject choice astonishing me as Josie picked Tom's brains for what to watch. Darla leapt in.

"OMG! Schitt's Creek is the best, isn't it? And Friends makes me laugh all the time. I'm Team Joey all the way and Ross and Rachel should get back together, right?"

(Unlike Josie and I, neither of them remembered Friends from the first-time round.)

Half an hour later and both Tom and I were tiddly. Too much Medoc on empty stomachs. His gestures had become expansive, arms thrown out to make points. Josie had drunk nothing, claiming that she wanted to get up early the next day and go for a run when the streets were at their quietest.

"Do you know, I visited County Wicklow for a wedding years ago," she said, naming the area Tom came from. "Absolutely beautiful. I think we might have driven past your village. There was an old garage there, I remember. One where they still filled your tank for you."

"That's amazing," Tom burst out. "It's a small world, right enough. That garage used to belong to me family—Docherty's. But it's not there anymore. A lot of the wee garages went out of business in the late 90s."

Josie nodded. Something—I don't know what—passed across her face.

"Good evening."

Mrs Whittaker returning from having taken Roger out for a ten-minute walk as she did every evening to supplement the longer expedition her dog took with Tom. She nodded at Josie and Darla. My neighbour's cardigan and shirt combo almost matched Josie. Maybe I'd point it that out to my sister later—Jos, your sartorial style is the same as a woman approaching her 80th birthday?

"Would you like a drink, Mrs Whittaker? I'm just introducing Tom to my sister and niece," I called out. Against the rules, but the wine made me careless. And I was enjoying myself. We seemed to have bypassed conversation minefields, and the novelty of the situation made it appealing in a world starved of stimulus.

She shook her head. "No thank you. Wine does not agree with me."

She peered beyond me to Tom, face lighting up when he waved at her. "Tom, will you be able to pick me up some more shopping tomorrow? I've run out of a few things."

He nodded. "Sure. I'll take Roger out at the same time."

Mrs Whittaker turned to Josie. "I've already told your sister that Tom is a splendid young man. One worth hanging onto, I would say."

And with that ringing in our ears, she left us to it, Tom murmuring that he'd obviously paid her far too much money in bribes.

Josie picked up her bag. "Well, we'd better go. Darla?"

Darla pulled a face. "Yeah, right. Because back at the house, it's party central. Non-stop excitement."

Her mother tapped her watch. "The guidelines say we're not meant to be out longer than an hour." She nodded to Tom. "Lovely to have finally met you."

The emphasis on 'finally' she aimed at me.

"Likewise."

As I watched them go, Darla moaning that they could have stayed for at least another half hour, who would know, I realised what had passed across Josie's face when Tom told her about his family garage.

A 'gotcha' moment.

Part wild coincidence, part skill—she'd made him tell her a key bit of info.

Darla's warning: "The mother ship has connections in the police, y'know. She's done it before—checked someone out to see if they have a criminal record. You didn't tell her Tom's second name, did you?"

Oh-oh.

AUTHOR'S NOTES - in case you haven't guessed, like most writers on Wattpad, I really appreciate the reads, votes and comments... they always cheer me up and encourage me to keep going on what is often a lonely career path to take, the one where you're stuck in your own head so much of the time...