Every Secret Thing

by Rachel Crowther

  It was the things other people did that had made her unwell; that was something she held onto. People leaving or dying or not coming back when she hoped, hoped that they might. The last time . . . She couldn’t blame him, her son. She’d been foolish, imagining he would come and find her, but somehow she had allowed herself to believe it. She had allowed herself to count down the years and then the months and weeks until he was eighteen, and then the days, weeks, months afterwards, until she hadn’t been able to bear it any longer. But she didn’t blame him. He didn’t know how much she’d missed him. And she’d learned to live without him, after that. She’d done what they told her, tried not to think of him. And she was quite well now. She felt better than she had for a long time, and the headaches had stopped. My spirit hath rejoiced in God my saviour, the choir sang, and she rejoiced with them. With Marmion and Bill and Judith and Stephen and Cressida, her dear friends.

  But a couple of weeks later she felt sick one morning, and again the next, just as she had when she was pregnant. She rang her GP, who sent her back to Dr Oblonski.

  ‘Things will go up and down,’ he said, in the same tone of voice in which he’d said how well she looked, a fortnight before.

  ‘More down than up, I suppose,’ said Fay. It seemed better for her to take the pessimistic line and for him to reassure her.

  ‘In the long term, yes. But there will be ups. And we can do something about the downs.’

  ‘What is the long term?’ Fay asked. ‘How long, I mean?’

  For the first time Dr Oblonski didn’t meet her eyes. ‘It’s hard to say,’ he said. ‘My advice is to concentrate on the ups. You seem to be good at that.’

  That, Fay thought, was the nicest thing any doctor had ever said to her, even if it did skirt away from an answer.

  ‘You live alone?’ Dr Oblonski asked now.

  Fay nodded.

  ‘Do you have . . . friends? People around you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He looked a little troubled, but he didn’t press the point.

  ‘Are the headaches under control?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I will give you something for the nausea. Have you had any drowsiness? Dizziness? Blackouts?’

  Fay shook her head. He looked at her notes for a few moments.

  ‘For the moment I see no reason why you shouldn’t drive,’ he said. ‘But perhaps not long distances, hmm? Don’t push yourself too hard.’

  ‘No,’ said Fay.

  It wasn’t a long distance to High Scarp, she thought.

  September 2015

  Cressida

  They were all torn, Cressida thought, between wanting the lawyer to leave now and wanting him to stay. They needed to talk without the constraint of his presence, but while he sat at the table, papers spread before him, they were each safe with their own emotions.

  Her own abiding feeling was one of relief: relief and gratitude, and a touch of guilt because she had imputed to Fay motives that were less straightforward and less generous-minded than now seemed fair. There was bewilderment too, of course – although certain things made more sense, now, than they had before. She could still remember vividly that last encounter with Fay on her doorstep, when she had presumably had not flu but – whatever had killed her, Cressida thought, with a pang of retrospective distress. And of course Fay hadn’t shunned her out of boredom or disapproval or for any other reason. Fay hadn’t been there the next time she had called because she’d been dead by then.

  ‘I shall leave four copies of the will,’ Giles Unwin said. ‘Please let me know if you have any questions. When we have written confirmation from each of you that you accept the terms of the bequest, we can proceed.’

  ‘What happens if not all of us accept?’ Cressida asked.

  ‘I’m afraid it’s necessary for all four of you to do so,’ said Unwin. ‘Should that not be the case, the entirety of the estate passes to St Anne’s College.’

  ‘What was Fay’s connection to St Anne’s?’ Stephen asked. ‘Do you know?’

  ‘I understand that her cousin was Master of the college at the time of her death,’ said Unwin. ‘I understand that he was her only living relative.’

  ‘The Master?’ Stephen frowned. ‘Hardwick?’

  Unwin flicked through the sheets in his file. ‘Harding,’ he said. ‘Professor Jeremy Harding. Professor Harding died last year, but the bequest is to the college, not to him personally.’

  ‘But he was new that year,’ said Stephen. ‘He arrived at the same time as us, and Fay had been associated with St Anne’s before that.’ He looked out of sorts, Cressida thought. She wondered whether there were legal details that worried him.

  ‘We’re curious, that’s all,’ Bill said. ‘It’s all very curious.’

  ‘Indeed.’ Unwin continued to look through the file, but Cressida had the impression that he was thinking rather than reading. Eventually he looked up, and spoke with what seemed intended to be a note of finality. ‘Miss McArthur had been an undergraduate at St Anne’s for a period of time,’ he said.

  ‘A period of time?’

  ‘Her studies were interrupted, I understand.’ Unwin smiled.

  ‘By what?’ asked Stephen.

  ‘I cannot enlighten you on that point,’ said Unwin. ‘It seems her loyalty to the college was not affected.’

  ‘And you have no idea why the bequest was – what the twenty-year delay was for?’ asked Stephen.

  Unwin met Stephen’s eyes, and held his gaze for a moment. Then he said, ‘I cannot enlighten you on that point either, I fear.’

  ‘And there are no further details in the papers you’re leaving for us?’

  ‘No.’ The lawyer got to his feet now, and the rest of them followed suit. Stephen’s face was moving, as though there were other questions he wanted to ask. What was he getting at? Cressida wondered. Did he know something the rest of them didn’t, or was he just curious? Presumably they would never know any more about Fay now. Presumably she hadn’t wanted them to.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Bill, holding out a hand across the table. ‘It’s clearly been an unusual instruction, this.’

  ‘Very unusual,’ said Unwin. ‘But interesting. More interesting than a run-of-the-mill probate case, as you can no doubt attest, Mr Devenish.’

  *

  Cressida went with Bill to see the lawyer out, and when they came back, Stephen was bending over the turntable that stood on a shelf in the corner. There was a rustle and a series of clicks and cracks, and then an orchestra filled the room, followed by a woman’s voice. ‘O Thou That Tellest Good Tidings to Zion’, thought Cressida: that was appropriate, if a little corny, especially for Stephen.

  ‘Kathleen Ferrier,’ he said, as he straightened up.

  ‘It still works, then,’ said Bill.

  ‘Maintained in the same condition,’ said Judith, with an unattractive edge to her voice. ‘We should have guessed, you know. Nothing new, nothing changed, everything replaced like for like. No wine younger than 1994 in the cellar: why didn’t that strike us, Stephen?’

  ‘We didn’t make an exhaustive survey of the wine stocks,’ said Stephen.

  He was standing by the mantelpiece now, listening to Kathleen Ferrier singing with that wobble that always sounded so heartfelt. Cressida tried to remember whether Fay had played them this record. She felt a quickening of her pulse at the thought that Fay’s will tied them all to each other – tied her to Stephen. A small voice in her head told her that her interest in him was hopeless, that it had always been hopeless, but another voice said never say die, and she couldn’t but admire its spirit. If nothing else, there would be the prospect of seeing him again next year. Assuming they all . . . She glanced at Isabel, who was still sitting where she’d installed herself when Giles Unwin arrived. She had the impression that Isabel liked High Scarp, but she might not like being forced into close association with the rest of them. And Judith was a concern. Stephen, too: he had least need of the bequest
, at least in material terms.

  Cressida felt suddenly despondent. It all seemed less promising than it had at first sight. Outside Dickens novels, wills weren’t supposed to be so convoluted, nor to require so much of the beneficiaries. Clearly Fay had been ill, but wasn’t it the lawyer’s job to make sure the provisions were sensible?

  Bill was leaning over the table, reading the will.

  ‘What do you think, Bill?’ Cressida asked.

  ‘It’s not complicated,’ he said. ‘Very simply written, in fact.’

  ‘I meant more the motivation behind it. The – delay. Why make us wait twenty years?’

  ‘That’s anyone’s guess,’ said Bill. ‘But if she was ill . . .’

  ‘I don’t know if it makes it better to write it off to insanity or to conclude that she wanted to teach us a lesson,’ said Judith, ‘but either way it’s spooky to think that she died with us on her mind.’

  She looked at Bill, and then at Cressida, and Cressida blushed. She died with our behaviour on her mind, Judith seemed to imply – and to remind Cressida that she, too, had been critical of that.

  Judith had been moving around the room in a fidgety manner, picking things up and putting them down again – ornaments, books, the candlesticks on top of the piano. She stopped now, and lifted a glass vase off the mantelpiece. It was heavy, with a wide belly and a thick lip, slightly stained with age. ‘I’d like this to be the first thing to go,’ she said, ‘if we’re spared a Miss Havisham clause.’

  Bill looked up from the papers on the table. ‘I think we are,’ he said.

  ‘Good.’

  ‘But only if we all sign on the dotted line.’

  Judith brandished the vase in the air. ‘Anyone object?’

  There was another silence then, in which Cressida had no idea what anyone else was thinking; no idea at all what Judith was going to do next. She looked for a moment bizarrely like the Statue of Liberty, standing in the middle of the room with the vase held aloft in a gesture of defiance or affirmation, or perhaps of ridicule. Bill stared at her, then shook his head. Stephen frowned, murmuring something that Cressida couldn’t hear.

  ‘All right,’ said Judith. She strode over to the open window and hurled the vase out onto the terrace. There was silence again inside the room as the sound of glass shattering, scattering, skittering on stone echoed back through the window.

  ‘Mazel tov,’ said Stephen, with a snorting laugh that seemed to encompass both admiration and reproof.

  Turning back towards them, Judith smiled, and in that moment Cressida could see the old Judith, the hopeful, confident, resourceful, daring Judith, in her face. Stephen was smiling too, and as she caught his eye she felt hope flare inside her.

  ‘Good,’ she said. ‘That’s settled, then.’

  They should open a bottle of champagne now, she thought, or perhaps sing again, or . . . But even as the moment of familiarity and togetherness blazed, she could feel it ebbing away. Like a match struck in an airless room, she thought. None of them knew what this was going to mean: sharing High Scarp, staying in touch. It didn’t come with any guarantees.

  ‘Would anyone like a cup of tea?’ she asked.

  But they were all shaking their heads.

  ‘Later, perhaps,’ Stephen said. ‘I really need to get to my email.’ His smile made the statement less convincing.

  ‘I’m going down to the shop,’ Judith announced. ‘I feel an overwhelming need for a cigarette.’

  For a moment Cressida thought Bill might make an excuse to follow, but instead he nodded towards the table where the lawyer’s documents were lying. ‘I might have a proper look at the will,’ he said. ‘No time like the present.’

  But Isabel smiled at Cressida. ‘I’ll have some tea,’ she said. ‘We could take it outside.’

  *

  The terrace was very damp, but Isabel brought out two cushions to put on the ancient wooden chairs. Cressida set the tea tray down on the table. She wasn’t sure whether this was a gesture of kindness on Isabel’s part, or a request for kindness from her. Or perhaps for information. As she poured the tea, she looked at Isabel out of the corner of her eye, detecting a watchful, focused look that belied her casual manner.

  ‘Have you ever been married?’ Isabel asked.

  ‘No.’ A roundabout route, Cressida thought. A few home truths; an explanation of her position.

  ‘Never too late, I suppose, if you . . .’

  Cressida didn’t reply. The tea steamed, fragrant, in her hand. She’d never really liked lapsang, but the smell was powerfully evocative.

  ‘It’s odd, being the outsider among you,’ Isabel said now. ‘I’m not sure how much –’

  Cressida put her cup down. ‘Isabel,’ she said, ‘if you’re wanting to –’

  ‘My intuition isn’t always right,’ Isabel said, in a sudden rush, ‘but you’ve been very kind to me, this weekend, and I’d like to . . .’ She paused. Cressida watched her, puzzled. Was this about the bequest, then? she wondered. About how the house would be managed?

  ‘Bill said something about you and Stephen,’ Isabel went on. ‘About you liking Stephen. And I thought – as a friend, I thought I ought to tell you that I’m almost certain, I’m afraid, that he’s gay.’

  Cressida stared at her. How dare you, she wanted to say. He can’t possibly be. What the hell do you know? But she felt too numb to speak. Too angry.

  ‘I see,’ she managed eventually.

  ‘I know it’s none of my business,’ Isabel said. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have said anything, but I thought –’

  She broke off, looking anguished. Not anguished enough, Cressida thought, but the rising tide of fury in her chest wasn’t directed just at Isabel. Isabel was right. Of course she was bloody right. Right that Stephen would never have her, anyway, whatever the reason. And what the fuck did it matter, in that case?

  ‘I’m not sure if the others realise, even,’ said Isabel. ‘He’s –’

  At that moment Bill appeared at the back door, and Cressida sprang to her feet. She wasn’t sure how much he’d heard, but the idea of Bill and Isabel discussing this, turning over her private hopes, was more than she could bear. They might have their difficulties, but they were a pair, and that set them apart from her. Pairs reminded her of what she had never had; what she had lost, what she might never have now. Michael, who had been a fantasy, an illusion, for so many years. Heming, who had written her a letter of flawless Scandinavian courtesy from Trondheim, but had been a fantasy of a different kind and was best left as such. And Stephen: another illusion. She was such a fool. She’d put too much trust in poetry, all these years.

  ‘I might . . .’ she began. ‘I rather feel like a walk, while the rain holds off.’

  June 1995

  Fay

  Something was up, Fay thought at breakfast. This was their last day at High Scarp, and she badly wanted everything to be well, to end well, but a shadow of doubt and secrecy hung in the air this morning. Looking round at the five of them, she wondered whether there had been a row – and then, with a plunge of dismay, whether they had guessed that she was ill. She’d done her best to conceal the headaches, the dizziness, the blank moments, but if they’d been observant . . .

  She knew she ought to tell them the truth, but there was nothing they could do, nothing anyone could do, and she so much preferred their blithe ignorance to their sympathy. All she wanted was the last measure of enjoyment from this trip. It had been an effort, a real effort at times, but it had been exactly what she’d hoped, every detail as she’d imagined it: the singing, the walks, the meals on the terrace, the games by the fire – as if it were part of a long tradition that would carry on unchanged in the years ahead. She liked that idea. She had a notion, half formed, that gave her fierce consolation when she lay awake in the middle of the night. But just now, sitting around the breakfast table, thinking about the future, the years in store for the five of them, was horribly painful. Thinking about al
l the things she wouldn’t do again.

  Stephen started gathering up the plates, and the clatter of crockery caused a jab of pain in Fay’s head. This was new, this sensitivity to noise. A distressing new symptom: even some of the music, these last few days, had caused her pain. She had a suspicion that things were moving faster than she’d expected inside her head. Perhaps she wouldn’t come back to High Scarp again. She should have come more often, after her parents died. She felt another wash of sorrow, not just for the future but for the past: for the losses unaccounted for and the possibilities unexplored.

  In the three months since her diagnosis she had never cried, but she could feel a pricking heat in her eyes now that filled her with alarm. She’d never been a crier. Perhaps that hadn’t been good for her, but she was damned if she was going to succumb now. She turned her gaze deliberately towards the window. It was a beautiful morning, the sky streaked with lambswool clouds and the tops sharp and vivid. She could see St Sunday, Fairfield, Hartsop Dodd, Nag’s Pike: she’d climbed each of them, once upon a time. Forced up them, the first time, by her father, but she’d tackled most of them again later under her own steam. Nag’s Pike only once, though: she remembered that walk, the storm that had brewed up, the perilous descent. That had been living. Not that she’d thought so at the time.

  ‘What time are we leaving?’ Cressida asked.

  Feeling another pulse of pain, Fay turned to look at her.

  ‘Leaving?’ she asked.

  ‘For Cambridge.’

  Fay pushed back her chair and stood up. She must get some painkillers, she thought. But then an idea slid into her head: a way to defy her illness as well as to extend their stay in the dale for another few hours. A mad, marvellous idea.

  ‘I thought we’d climb Nag’s Pike this morning,’ she said.

  ‘Nag’s Pike?’ Cressida looked horrified. ‘This morning? I thought we were going back to Cambridge.’

  ‘There’s no point spending the whole day in the car,’ Fay said. She put a hand to her forehead to steady her skull. ‘We always climb Nag’s Pike with new visitors. It’s a wonderful walk.’