Page 107 of The Way We Are Now

‘She’s young,’ I venture.

‘How old were you and I when we met?’ Theo asks gently.

‘Point taken,’ I say. ‘Poor, poor Immi.’

‘And then,’ Theo continues, ‘I rang Miles and asked him to come round. Angus, luckily, is here with us at the moment. He’s got a three-day course in London – Diagnostic Imaging and Training on Advanced Abdominal Ultrasound, or some such thing – and leaves for London tomorrow before heading back to Edinburgh. He’s not spending Christmas with us.’

‘And how did they take it? The boys, I mean?’ I ask, while Noah is now at my side, listening to every word.

‘They’re grown men, Anna, not boys. Miles, true to form, seemed to think it was all one big joke. Good job, he says, he brought the matter up over dinner the other night. Or who knows what might have happened? Already happened, one can only assume. Now, that’s something the papers would have a field day with, he keeps saying. He’s right, Anna, we need to keep this to ourselves as much as possible.’

I nod, and Noah snorts in my ear in disgust.

‘Maybe I shouldn’t have told the boys.’ Theo now sighs down the phone. ‘But I’ve Immi sobbing in her room, saying she’s not going back to Oxford.’

‘Oh, no, she must,’ I plead.

‘Well, I’m not going back,’ Noah yells so that Theo, two hundred and fifty miles up the motorway, can hear, before slamming out of the room once more.

It may be ten days before Christmas, but my new position in government means I’m up early and out of the house by 7 a.m. I leave Mum in the care of both Noah and Helga, my lovely cleaning lady, as well as David and Christopher who have promised to take her out for lunch. The invitation has been extended to Noah, but I’m not convinced he’ll go. He prefers the company of Maisie and Lucinda at the moment, not wanting to be with the adults who in his eyes have all been in on the subterfuge to keep the truth surrounding his birth from him.

Can’t say I blame him really.

It’s 7 p.m. before I feel I can leave my office. Being Secretary of State for Justice – an office given to me by the PM without my ever being called to the bar – I constantly feel I have to prove my worth. My very existence, if truth be told, when there’s always someone from both sides of the house snapping at my heels. If it gets out that my son, who the political world has always believed to be the son of Michael Wrathmell MP, is actually Sir Theodore Mandeville’s biological child and, even worse, the girl he’s now in a relationship with up at Oxford turns out to be his own half-sister, I reckon I’m in big trouble. Sleaze was meant to have been left firmly at the door of the last government.

I’m pondering all this, feeling sick to the very core, as I begin to realise the potential fall-out on my political career and my party if my relationship with Theo gets out. Wishing, not for the first time, that Gemma was still my PA, but knowing full well she’s happily ensconced in Hull with Callum and her two kids, I consider throwing myself on the sword of the PM himself.

I gather my briefcase and am saying goodnight to security and heading for the New Palace Yard underground car park when my phone rings. I groan, then realise it’s my private rather than my ministerial number and stop to take it.

‘Anna Piasecki?’

‘It is.’

‘Ms Piasecki, this is Angus Mandeville. I’m in London at the Holland Park house. Can we talk?’

I take the route through Belgravia and onto the Cromwell Road, then drive towards Kensington and into Holland Park, the urge to speed tempered by the knowledge that I’m in charge of the country’s driving laws, for heaven’s sake.

Angus is tall and fair with the soft brown eyes of all the Mandevilles and, as he ushers me into the sitting room, I’m beginning to wonder if this isn’t all some sort of dystopian dream I’ve found myself in.

He offers tea, coffee, wine, but I decline, not convinced this is a social call. Rather, I think, some sort of telling off? An opportunity for recrimination?

‘Angus, it’s lovely to meet you and I wish we were meeting under different circumstances, but how can I help? My mother and my son are at home and…’

‘Look.’ Angus appears nervous and he reaches for his glass of wine. ‘Are you certain you won’t have one?’ He makes sure, I notice, that his left ear is always to me and I spot the hearing aid nestled behind it.

‘I’m driving.’ I remain standing, waiting.

‘Of course.’ So Angus launches. ‘I’m sure, Ms Piasecki, Dad told you I was very ill with meningitis when I was sixteen.’

‘Please call me Anna. He did, yes. He was extremely worried about you.’

‘He was. Anna, he’s been the perfect father to me. To all of us.’

I brace myself, waiting. Is this where the telling off is about to start? What a brilliant father Theo is, and I’ve messed it all up by sleeping with him and having his child, upsetting the natural order of the stately apple cart? Bloody typical of his lot! Well, it takes two to tango, I think, determinedly holding Angus’s eye.

‘When I was finally allowed to leave hospital, I didn’t go back to school that term. I convalesced at home. Had to repeat the year after that, or I wouldn’t have got the A levels I needed to be a vet.’

‘Right?’ I glance at the clock on the wall, desperate to get home to Noah.