Friends and Secrets

by Grace Thompson

  Friends and Secrets

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Copyright

  Friends and Secrets

  Grace Thompson

  One

  ‘Mum, can we have a mobile?’ Oliver and Rupert pleaded in unison.

  Cynthia smiled at her twin sons and teasingly enquired whether they wanted toy ducks on it or model cars.

  ’Mum! You know what we mean,’ Oliver protested, trying not to smile. ‘All the boys in school have mobile phones, so why can’t we?’

  ‘It could be helpful if we were lost or something,’ added Cynthia’s youngest, Marcus, who was ten, five years younger than the twins. An unplanned bonus.

  ‘Don’t tell me you want one as well!’

  ‘It would be great, no one in my class has one,’ the solemn Marcus replied.

  ‘Sorry, but you all have phone cards so you can get in touch with someone if necessary and they will have to do.’ Cynthia turned and smiled at her husband. Christian was sitting listening to the exchange with amusement. How different their sons’ lives were from his childhood, when a slice of bread dripping with treacle was considered a luxury — usually because of his father’s win on the horses.

  It was a warm, sweet-scented May evening and they were eating in the garden, from a well-used barbecue organized by Christian. The boys’ friends, Jeremy and Justin, who were fourteen and thirteen, had joined them with their mother Joanne Morgan. Joanne’s husband was not there. He was often away from home, as was Christian, which was partly why Cynthia and Joanne had become friends, finding solace in each other’s occasional ‘grass widowhood’.

  Cynthia and Christian’s lovely home commanded the best position on cliffs overlooking the sea not far from Abertrochi. They enjoyed fresh sea-breezes in a garden protected by a spindleberry hedge. They now saw another friend walking along the cliff path with her two dogs and they waved. The smiles left their faces as Meriel disappeared.

  ‘Poor Meriel,’ Joanne said in her rather childlike voice. ‘So sad, walking the dogs and probably dreading bumping into her ex with his new woman.’

  ‘D’you think Evan’s happy with that Sophie Hopkins?’ Cynthia frowned. ‘They seem an unlikely couple to me.’

  ‘She’s certainly different from Meriel, she’s much more social. She’s always dressed up and ready for fun, while poor Meriel seems to want nothing more than the beach and the company of her dogs,’ Joanne said, her voice bearing a strong hint of disapproval. ‘My John would soon grow tired of that.’

  Later, when their guests had gone and their sons were in bed, Cynthia brought up the subject of the mobile phones.

  ‘Do you think they need them?’ she asked, and Christian shook his head. ‘We agree that they don’t get everything they ask for, even though we can afford to indulge them and this is one instance when we have to refuse. They have phone cards, that’s enough surely?’

  ‘I think I’ll ask Millie to sew a small pocket inside their blazers and leave a few coins in it as an extra precaution,’ Cynthia said. ‘I’d hate them to be stuck somewhere with no means of getting in touch.’

  They went up the wide, curving staircase, arm in arm, affection and love wrapping them in warmth and contentment. They had been together since they were fourteen. Even when Christian went away to buy land or deal with the progress of various building sites, they spoke on the telephone constantly. There was never a time when one didn’t know the whereabouts of the other.

  The boys each had their own room, filled with the paraphernalia of their many hobbies and interests. Football and motor-racing posters, pop groups and Star Wars memorabilia, filled the rooms belonging to the twins, but in Marcus’s room there were more serious displays. Photographs of animals and foreign countries, warnings about the dangers of global warming and endangered species were the ten year old’s apparent interests, although he really needed simply to be different from his older brothers, to display a character of his own.

  As soon as the lights were out and the house became quiet, Rupert and Oliver tapped on Marcus’s door. Already fully dressed in outdoor clothes and anorak, bathers on under his clothes, he tiptoed along the passage and followed them silently down the stairs and through the dark kitchen. His heart was racing, the night hours always unnerved him, but he was determined to do whatever his brothers were planning. This time it was a midnight picnic on the rocks above the sea.

  Gathering thick coats and towels, they silently left the house. Slipping through the garden like shadows, they were joined at the spindleberry hedge by Joanne’s boys, Jeremy and Justin. They made their way down the path to where jutting rocks gave them a view in both directions of the wide sweep of the tranquil bay, dark now but with a few small lights from boats visible. As they watched, their eyes became accustomed to the poor light and they could make out the lighthouse on its promontory; four blinks, count six, four blinks, count six. The large bulk of a tanker far out became visible as they watched, waiting for the tide to allow it to dock.

  As they shared out the food they had brought and munched contentedly, Christian crept through the garden following in their wake. He watched for a while, smiling at the innocent fun of the secret feast before creeping back to the house, certain he hadn’t been seen. He and Cynthia would lie awake, listening, until the boys returned an hour later.

  ‘Has he gone?’ Rupert asked nonchalantly.

  ‘He’s gone,’ Oliver replied. ‘Who’s for a swim?’

  ‘I think it’s too cold,’ Marcus said at once.

  Small for his age and inclined to be nervous, he was aware that his brothers were trying to help him become less afraid, but sometimes it was difficult not to run away from the things they suggested. He was usually persuaded though, on the promise that as soon as he could safely reach the pedals and see through the windscreen, they would teach him to drive their mother’s car, something the twins were both able to do, and a skill about which their parents knew nothing.

  Marcus didn’t like the dark water far below them, with the strip of sand separating it from the foot of the rocks.

  ‘Don’t worry, Marcus, we won’t swim, we’ll stay with you.’ Rupert whispered. Marcus still hesitated, envious of the others confidently stripping off their clothes.

  ‘Come on, Marc,’ Oliver coaxed. ‘You’re almost swimming, just a little more practice is all you need. Think of the surprise when you tell Mum and Dad, eh?’

  Stripping to his bathers but keeping his anorak wrapped around him to protect him from the cold night air, Marcus followed his brothers down the rocky path to the beach. Each taking a hand, they ran with him down the wet sand until they reached the sea then they all three fell laughing into the foam.

  It was freezing. They all felt that sudden loss of breath but none would admit to it. They jumped about in the white surf, gradually accepting the painful temperature until warmed in the turbulence, then, no more than knee-deep, Oliver and Rupert helped the small, thin boy to float then pull himself along in a sort of frantic doggy paddle, praising him for his success at moving through the water. Jeremy and Justin swam out fast and circled back to the bay, calling to persuade the twins to join them.

  Seeing that Marcus was beginning to shiver, Oliver and Rupert then left him to climb back up to the top and dress himself while they swam strongly with Joanne’s boys, circling, racing, diving and swimming underwater, fooling about before running back up the sand and cli
mbing up to join him.

  They dressed with a speed encouraged by the cold night air and departed in different directions for home and a warm bed. ‘Bathing costumes in the airing room remember,’ Oliver hissed, as they opened the back door and crept back to their rooms.

  Between the kitchen and the double garage was a small room filled with slatted shelves and clothes-lines and warmed by a heater, where their housekeeper Millie aired the washing. They carelessly threw bathers and towels over the lines and hurried up to bed.

  Hearing the doors open and close, content that the boys were home and happily unaware of their swim, Cynthia and Christian cuddled up to each other and slept contentedly.

  * * *

  A few days later, Cynthia went shopping in Swansea. Christian and his partner Ken Morris, had set out for a town near Brecon, where they hoped to buy a piece of land on which to build a row of town houses. She was looking for a dress to wear at a charity luncheon, at which she was the speaker. She and Christian did all they could to help children’s charities. In no hurry, she trawled the shops, not knowing quite what she was looking for, but attracted that day by the peacock green/blue that suited her so well.

  She was walking through the shopping centre when she heard a laugh that chilled her with agonizing memories. Startled and filled with a primeval desire to run, the sound took her back through the years and she was a child again. She heard her father’s laughter as she cried when told she couldn’t go on holiday with the rest of her class, and as he drowned her kitten, and when he had found her secret diary and read it aloud to his friends. Such a cruel sound, no trace of kindness, only malicious amusement at her suffering. Her mother had always joined in with her father’s mirth, her almost toothless mouth wide, her head thrown back, afraid, no doubt, of annoying him with her disapproval.

  With her mind bludgeoned by shock, her legs continued to move of their own volition; tip tap tip tap, past clothes shops she couldn’t see, past Debenhams, Early Learning, more clothes, heading for the bus station. Her destination was forgotten. She was engulfed in fear of what she would see if she dared to turn around. Those voices, those hated voices and the laughter, following her, taunting her, warning her that she couldn’t escape her past, that one day they would find her again and today might be the one.

  Retrieving some control, she turned into Thorntons and pretended to look at the chocolates on display. Then, as the voices drew closer, she dared to glance up. She saw her mother and father, with a young man she barely recognized as her younger brother Kevin.

  Shaking, she stood near the counter and tried to follow their progress. It wasn’t hard, they were always very noisy and the years hadn’t changed that. If she could see what bus service they used, she would know if they were still living in Cardiff. Surely they hadn’t moved closer, where the possibility of meeting them would fill her days with misery and her nights with terror?

  Stayng well back, thankful of the crowds, she saw to her relief that they had stopped to wait at the coach station for the Cardiff bus. They must have been visiting for the day. ‘Please let this be a once—only visit,’ she pleaded with she knew not who. She watched until the coach left. Then, almost crying with relief, she stood in a corner and phoned Christian.

  Fortunately Christian had not gone far, and arrived quite soon. They found a corner seat in a quiet cafe and he held her hands and allowed her to talk.

  ‘I felt as though I’d been stripped of my fashionable hairstyle and make-up, and my quality clothes and was standing in front of everyone in ragged hand-me-downs, waiting for the beatings to start.’ She ignored the tears that fell and Christian wiped them away. ‘I visualized myself and my sisters hiding under the stinking bed, listening to my parents in one of their drunken rages, and pleading with an uncaring God to rescue me.’

  She fell silent and Christian added, ‘While across the road, I was suffering a similar situation. But we did get away, love. We fought our way out of that squalor, didn’t we? You and me, together.’

  ‘Yes, darling, we did. And our three boys have never heard our voices raised in anger, or felt the shock and pain and humiliation of a beating.’

  ‘Remember how Ken’s mother bathed our wounds and soothed our tears, and eventually helped us to get away?’ Christian said softly.

  ‘Where is Ken?’ she asked.

  ‘Waiting in the car. I told him what you’d seen.’

  ‘We’re lucky we have Ken who knows the truth about our sordid beginnings. No need to prattle on to him about my wonderful but imaginary “Aunt Marigold”, who brought me up when my loving parents died in a car crash.’ She managed a smile and encouraging her, Christian said. ‘Or my darling imaginary Gran, who lived in a beautiful house and adored me!’

  ‘Dear Aunt Marigold!’ Cynthia giggled.

  ‘Darling Grandmamma!’ Christian laughed.

  ‘Were we wrong to deny our background and invent a happier one?’

  ‘No. We’ll never forget it, but why inflict it on Oliver, Rupert and young Marcus? There was nothing there they’d benefit from knowing.’

  ‘We’ve been very lucky, darling,’ she whispered.

  ‘I love you, Mrs Sewell.’ he whispered back.

  Ignoring the glances of others, they kissed.

  * * *

  Ken Morris was sitting in the camper van that he and Christian used when they had to go out of town for a few days. Neither liked hotels and the camper van was comfortable for a few nights. He was reading the racing page of a newspaper. They had been on their way to examine a possible building plot when Cynthia had phoned. Also on their itinerary that day was an inspection of a barn, offered for conversion into a private home, but when Cynthia had phoned in distress, Ken, who had been driving, didn’t wait to be told but had turned the van around and headed back to Swansea. Where Christian was concerned, Cynthia and his three sons always came first. While Christian hurried to Cynthia, Ken had phoned their appointments to apologize and rearrange.

  Getting out of the van and locking it, Ken went to find a betting shop and wrote out a bet for an accumulator on four horses. He hadn’t had a very good month and he hoped that being bold might improve his luck and pay off his debt to the bookmaker. As another display of confidence, he paid the tax in advance, so if he did win, he wouldn’t pay out on his winnings.

  Going back to the van, Ken turned on the radio. He was used to being alone, but sometimes, like today when Christian hurried back to comfort his wife, he felt the emptiness of his life like a pain. He gambled only to fill the hours with artificial excitement, to give some punctuation to the empty days, not because he couldn’t live without the highs that only a good win could give him. He told himself that several times each day, until he nearly believed it.

  * * *

  Cynthia and Christian walked back to a car park from where Christian would phone Ken to pick him up.

  ‘I still feel guilty about not visiting Ken’s mother,’ Cynthia said as they waited. ‘We owe her so much.’

  ‘Ken is adamant that she won’t see us. Her mind was turned when she became ill and she seems to think we are the enemy. I don’t understand it, but we have to do as Ken advises and stay away.’

  ‘I wish he’d at least tell us which nursing home she’s in. We can’t even send a gift, or phone to enquire. It’s very odd that she went so completely against us after the way she cared for us when we were young.’

  ‘Ken’s a private person. He doesn’t ever invite me to the room he rents. I plead, I tease, but he won’t shift. He says he’s saving to build a house but he never takes up the offer of a site on which to build it. Every time we have a planning session to discuss the schedule for the next few months, I offer to fit the house into the plans, even make it a priority — he’s a partner in the firm after all — but he always says he isn’t ready.’

  ‘As you say, darling, Ken Morris is a very private person. But he must be loaded. I can’t imagine why he doesn’t get himself a comfortable home, can you?’ />
  * * *

  Forgetting the dress she planned to buy, Cynthia went back to Abertrochi but didn’t go back to the house. She went instead to Churchill’s Garden, the cafe in the small shopping precinct of the same name, where she frequently met her friends. She walked in, still trembling a little, trying to shake off the shock of seeing her parents and finding them little changed from when she had run away from home with Christian. Joanne Morgan was sitting at their usual table sipping coffee and Cynthia wondered grimly how the snobbish Joanne would react if she knew the truth about Cynthia’s background.

  ‘Christian has gone to look at a barn conversion and a few sites, so I’m bereft,’ she said, putting her handbag on the chair beside Joanne. ‘Join me for lunch? My treat? I need comforting.’

  ‘Love to,’ Joanne breathed in her childlike voice. ‘John is away all the week, some cafe he is setting up near Newport. Such a bore having a husband who’s always away, isn’t it?‘

  ‘Not so bad now the boys are growing up though?’

  ‘Jeremy and Justin are getting worse. They don’t do a thing to help me. Ask them to wash a dish or help in the garden and, well, you’d think I’d asked them to fly to the moon. Some mornings they can barely stay awake to eat their breakfast. I sometimes wonder if they are ill,’ Joanne complained.

  Remembering the occasional midnight picnics enjoyed by the five boys, Cynthia smiled but said nothing. Boys needed to be daring, and sitting on the cliff path eating food was a safe way of rebelling against Joanne’s rather strict rules. If Joanne knew she would almost certainly spoil their fun.

  They went to The Fisherman’s Basket for lunch, and Cynthia found it difficult to concentrate on what was being said. She was still distressed at how close she had come to being confronted by her family with the danger that they might destroy the life she and Christian had built.

  Joanne went on moaning about her boys. ‘When I was their age Mummy insisted on my never sitting with nothing to do,’ she said.