Cathy Kelly 6-Book Collection: Someone Like You, What She Wants, Just Between Us, Best of Friends, Always and Forever, Past Secrets

‘It was a waste of money asking me to come with you! You could have saved by not bringing me, since you haven’t spent five minutes with me since we got here!’ Hannah screamed, throwing an ashtray at him.

Felix ducked and the ashtray crashed loudly into the wall, leaving a big dent in it.

‘Now look what you’ve done,’ he said in exasperation.

Hannah burst into tears.

‘If you’re going all hormonal on me, I’m leaving,’ he muttered.

She went for a facial in a hotel nearby and then sat and drank an iced tea at the poolside bar before going for a short walk along the beach. It was too hot to stay outside for long, so she bought some magazines, and went back to her room. She’d just lie down on the bed and have a snooze…

Felix woke her up at seven. ‘Come on, darling, let’s have dinner. I’m ravenous.’

Disorientated, Hannah couldn’t remember where she was for a moment. But Felix was here, wasn’t he? His skin glowing with a deep golden tan, his hair bleached white in the sun, he looked better than ever. A white linen shirt and beige linen trousers hung elegantly on his lean frame. His teeth were brilliant white against the dark skin, his mouth a sensuous slash on his face. He leaned forward and kissed her. Hannah could smell the tang of salt water and the unmistakable scent of tanned flesh. Sleepily, she let him undo the buttons of her sundress and cup the newly heavy breasts in his hands. His tongue, hot and slick, moved over her skin, tasting and nibbling, sending her reeling with pleasure.

‘We’ll have dinner later,’ Felix pronounced as he slid the dress off and slipped his hands into her cotton panties.

A woman recognized Felix at Birmingham airport. He and Hannah were waiting for their luggage and talking about whether they’d go for a quick sandwich or not before heading to Felix’s mother’s house. It was a good three-quarters of an hour away by taxi and they were both famished, having not eaten since the meal on the plane from St Lucia. Even for the figure-conscious Felix, a small packet of cheese-flavoured nibbles on their connecting flight from Heathrow didn’t constitute lunch. Then a middle-aged woman in a neat navy blazer and cream skirt came racing up excitedly, pulling a tiny trolley case behind her.

‘You’re the bloke off the telly! Off Bystanders, aren’t you? The carpenter who lives in the flat downstairs to the two girls.’

Felix smiled boyishly at her. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I am.’

The woman blossomed under his smile. She roared to her friend to come over too. Soon, the three of them were talking animatedly, with Felix signing autographs with the easy expertise of someone who’d been doing it for years. He chatted away to the women as if they were all great friends, asking them questions and answering theirs.

Hannah stood to one side and watched in amusement. Felix had such charm, she thought proudly. He had the two fans eating out of his hands.

She kept an eye out for their luggage and listened in on the conversation.

‘Is she your girlfriend?’ asked the first woman, who was now identified as Josephine.

Hannah whipped her head round and grinned.

‘No,’ Felix said, pride in his voice, ‘she’s my wife.’

‘Lovely looking, too,’ said Josephine admiringly.

Hannah felt about six feet tall. She’d done her best to look good, on the grounds that she’d be meeting her beloved’s mother for the first time. She’d worn her rather chic red Jasper Conran dress that used to cling to her svelte curves becomingly, along with long suede boots and a new square gleaming leather handbag that cost four times more than any handbag she’d ever owned. The dress was straining around her belly now, even though it was cut generously, so she’d draped a beautiful black and white shawl she’d bought in St Lucia over one shoulder to take people’s eyes away from her bump.

The effect was elegance personified and Felix adored it. He’d never said that his mother would adore it or her, though. In fact, there hadn’t been many mentions of his mother at all and Hannah was beginning to feel a bit nervous about meeting Mrs Andretti.

‘Must go, Josephine and Lizzie,’ Felix said now to the two fans. ‘I can see our luggage on the conveyor belt.’

With ‘good luck’ ringing in their ears, Hannah and Felix collected their belongings and left the airport. ‘Mum is bound to start cooking when we arrive,’ Felix said, explaining why he’d decided they shouldn’t bother with a sandwich at the airport. ‘Even if you arrive announced, she gets the frying pan out.’

‘You mean you haven’t told her we’re coming?’ Hannah asked in surprise as she settled herself in the back of the taxi. She was sure when Felix declared he was bringing her to meet his mother that he’d actually told the poor woman he’d just got married and was planning to turn up with a wife in tow.

‘No,’ he said cagily. ‘We’re not that sort of family, not into big get-togethers.’

Felix rarely mentioned his family – second-generation Spanish parents, from what Hannah could gather. In fact, she’d learned that from his TV Times biography when Bystanders began its six-week run. He’d never discuss them with her, merely saying they weren’t close. ‘They’re my past, you’re my future,’ he’d say mysteriously.

She’d assumed that they were traditionally Spanish, valuing the family and keen on marvellous family feasts where all generations got together. Felix’s problem had obviously been that nobody in the family felt acting was a proper job. They couldn’t think that now, Hannah decided. Felix’s career was on the up. She thought of telling his mother about how successful he was, and the notion of bringing this estranged family back together gave her a warm glow. She’d even secretly studied a Spanish-English phrase book, trying to pick up the odd word so his family wouldn’t think she was rude by not knowing any of their language.

‘What will I call your mum?’ she asked, deciding to keep quiet about Felix’s having neglected to tell his family they were coming.

‘Vera,’ he said.

‘That’s not very Spanish,’ Hannah joked.

‘Hannah, love, before we get there, I’ve got to explain something. Actors take stage names, you know that. Cary Grant was Archibald something or other and John Wayne’s real first name was Marion. I changed my name, right?’

‘You mean you’re not partly Spanish?’ she asked. ‘It was in the TV Times.’

‘No.’ He shrugged. ‘I thought it was a good idea at the time because I’m so blond. You know, the blond Spaniard, I thought I’d get remembered for it – and I have been. But that’s the official line, right? My real name,’ he said in a whisper, ‘is Loon, not Andretti.’

Hannah gaped at him. After going out for months, after getting married, she was only now learning about the real Felix. If he was Felix. She quailed at the thought that he wasn’t called Felix either. ‘What’s your first name?’ she asked hesitantly.

‘Phil.’

‘Phil Loon,’ she said slowly. ‘I think I prefer Felix, certainly. I can’t imagine calling you anything else.’

‘Look, my name is Felix Andretti, full stop,’ he said firmly. ‘I’m just telling you my old name because you’re going to meet my family. My mother’s never forgiven me for changing it, but you could hardly be an international star of stage and screen and be called Loon. Imagine the fun the critics would have with that: Loon-ey tunes every time I was in something. No, siree.’

‘So I’m Mrs Loon,’ Hannah said reflectively. She giggled at the improbability of it all.

‘I’ve changed it by deed poll now, so it’s official,’ Felix snapped. ‘Stop making a laugh of it, right?’

‘But your accent,’ Hannah continued, ‘you don’t sound totally English. You have a hint of something else…’ She paused. Felix did sound faintly exotic, as if he’d learned English at public school but had spent his youth in some far-off land.

‘Elocution lessons,’ he said tightly. ‘And I never said I was personally Spanish, just that my family originally came from there. It wasn’t a lie, really. I can always say people took me up wrong if it gets out.’

Felix’s mother lived in a small semi-detached house in a modern housing estate outside Birmingham. Women with pushchairs clutching children by the hand congregated around the small primary school at the end of the road when the taxi drove up. Opposite the house was a green area with a children’s playground and plenty of lush shrubbery.

‘It’s pretty,’ said Hannah, admiring the newish houses with their fashionable picture windows, pointy-roofed porches and decorative brickwork.

‘I didn’t grow up here, obviously,’ Felix said, paying the driver. ‘She moved here after we all left home.’

‘What about your dad?’

‘He’s dead.’

‘Oh.’ Hannah dragged out her small case and realized she’d learned more about her fiancé and his family in the past hour than she had in their entire time together.

Felix rang the bell and the door was opened by a tall blonde woman who filled the doorway with her bulk. In a navy silky tracksuit, she had to weigh all of twenty stone. Her face was hard, a fact emphasized by the platinum colour of her hair. This woman could not be Felix’s mum.

‘Hiya, Ma,’ said Felix, his vowel sounds curiously flattening out. ‘This is Hannah, we’ve just got married and you’re going to be a granny again soon.’

‘You better come in then,’ said Vera Loon. ‘June,’ she yelled, nearly deafening Hannah, ‘put the kettle on.’