The Other Woman by Jill McGown

it?’’
    He smiled. ‘That’s a habit you get into if you think you’re cleverer than everyone else and you don’t want to admit it in case you get a hostile reaction,’ he said.
    â€˜And were you cleverer than everyone else?’ she asked, her voice gentler than the question, a trick she had perfected over the years.
    He sat back. ‘The blokes I played with,’ he said, his forefinger on his thumb as he began to count them off. ‘One of them’s the manager of a First Division side and has been for the past eight years. One of them’s the managing director of his own sporting goods business. One of them took a pub in the Cotswolds …’ He let his hands drop. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t.’
    Her eyes held his.
    â€˜But you’re clever,’ he added.
    â€˜Am I?’
    â€˜You were a university lecturer, according to the sports desk,’ he said.
    She smiled. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘For about five minutes’
    â€˜Why The Chronicle ?’ he asked. ‘I would have thought that the ladies’ page was slumming for someone like you.’
    â€˜It pays quite well,’ she said. She didn’t argue with his definition of her activities; one reason for the pseudonym was so that her more academic acquaintances didn’t find out what she did for a living. ‘And I enjoy it,’ she said. She had enjoyed it. Until this evening.
    His eyes went from hers to take in the rest of her. ‘You’re not anything like any of the other women I’ve known,’ he said.
    â€˜Oh?’
    â€˜No. They all wore lip-gloss and had their hair dyed.’
    â€˜And because I don’t, you want my advice on what you should do about your son?’ she asked incredulously.
    â€˜I’d like to know what you think,’ he said. ‘That’s all.’
    She considered that. ‘Does he know he has a real father somewhere?’ she asked.
    â€˜Yes. They legally adopted him. I think he assumes he was in an orphanage.’
    â€˜How old is he now?’
    â€˜Fifteen.’
    â€˜Then it has to be between you and him,’ she said. ‘I’d be inclined to think that he has the right to know.’
    â€˜Yes,’ said Mac. ‘But would he want to know?’
    Melissa thought. ‘You could use a third party,’ she said. ‘A solicitor, or someone. He could write to him, letting him know that the possibility exists of meeting his real father. Then it would be up to him.’
    Mac’s brow cleared a little. ‘I said you were clever,’ he said. ‘I never thought of that.’
    â€˜What did you do once you’d decided to walk the straight and narrow?’ Melissa asked, changing the subject quickly before he could get round to asking her if she knew any solicitors.
    â€˜I signed on as unemployed,’ he said. ‘And I did anything they gave me, anything I could find myself. All over the country.’ He smiled. ‘It was a good way to see the place – maybe I should write a book about it’
    â€˜What sort of jobs?’
    â€˜Labouring, gardening, washing windows, cars. I’ve been an ice-cream salesman, a courier – on a pushbike. I still don’t have my licence back.’
    â€˜What brought you here?’
    â€˜You have to be somewhere,’ said Mac. ‘I thought there might be work on the building sites, but there wasn’t. I got a job in a garage – I’m a sort of a salesman.’
    Melissa sighed. Mac’s work record sounded very like a hair shirt to her. ‘ How did the column come about?’ she asked.
    It turned out that the sports editor had taken his car in for its MOT, and had been startled to find an ex-international footballer in the showroom, when he had gone to drool over the new cars. Mac had persuaded him to let him put his name above a column.
    â€˜He was as startled as you to discover