by Rebecca Reid
She prised the back off the frame, turning the little fobs which held it on, and then pulling at the strut which supported it. It was surprisingly difficult. Putting her hand flat on the frame and yanking at the back, it finally came loose. And with it, came a photo. Not the picture of her and Drew, laughing outside the town hall in a shower of white rose petals. Another photo, hidden between their wedding and the back of the frame.
It was an image of two little boys. One of whom looked unmistakeably like Drew. Curly dark hair, worried eyes, he couldn’t have been more than four or five. And they were standing in front of the house. This house. Thursday House. His skinny little legs in navy-blue shorts, and the other boy, three or four inches taller, standing next to him. Was it Drew as a child? Or could it be something else? She tried to dismiss the thought. There was no way. He couldn’t have a child. He would have mentioned it. He would have told her.
Would he? the nasty voice in the back of her head piped up. He was the one who didn’t want to talk about the past. There would have been someone before you. Multiple someones. Perhaps a whole little family.
She tried to block the voice out, clamping her hands over her ears as if it was playing outside her mind rather than inside it. Shut up shut up shut up, she repeated over and over again.
She blinked hard, as if she was trying to reset the image, as if by closing her eyes tight enough she’d be able to see something else, something which wiped the picture away. But no matter how tightly she squeezed her lids shut, the image didn’t change. It looked so, so much like Drew. And they were unquestionably standing outside Thursday House, on the steps that led up to the front door. She ran her eyes over the boy’s clothes, trying to work out when they belonged. Shorts, a T-shirt, sandals. It could have been taken a few years ago or a few decades ago.
It must mean something to him, otherwise he wouldn’t have it. Why would he have a photo of himself here? But if it was his child, or some relative, why hide it? Maybe it could be a nephew or a cousin or something? But even as she told herself the comforting lie she knew it wasn’t true. If it were that innocent he could have put it up on the wall. Poppy had assumed that there were hardly any photos of Drew or his family because of the accident, because seeing images of his parents and his brother must be too painful for him. The horrible little voice was louder now. Why wouldn’t he want to talk about the past? He suggested it for the same reason you agreed to it. He’s got something to hide. This time the voice didn’t sound like her mother, it sounded like Gina.
She peeled the wedding photo off the glass and placed the photo of the little boys back into the frame, securing the back and putting it exactly where Drew had had it. Then she took the wedding photo and the shiny new frame to the drawing room.
‘Hey, it’s me,’ Poppy said into the phone. Her voice was low, even though there was no one at home, no one for almost a square mile around her. ‘Are you coming back today?’
‘Poppy? Jesus, what time is it?’
She looked at the display on the oven. ‘Nearly twelve.’
Gina groaned. ‘Yeah, yeah, I’m coming back. I’ll get moving. Just need to work out where I am.’ She laughed, but Poppy couldn’t summon the energy to join in.
‘Are you OK, babe?’ Gina sounded more sober.
‘I think so.’
‘What’s going on?’
‘It’s nothing, it’s just …’ She paused. The instinct which had warned her not to complain about Gina to Drew was telling her the same thing in reverse. What would she really gain by telling Gina any of this, before she’d given Drew a chance to explain? ‘It’s fine. I’ll see you tonight? Let me know if you need me to get you a taxi from the station. Don’t drive the car if you’re over the limit, OK? The roads round here are mental.’
‘Yes, Mum,’ said Gina. She heard a man’s voice in the background and the little giggle Gina did when she liked a boy. The line went dead. Poppy looked at the blank screen of the phone and sighed, trying to slow her heartbeat, trying to convince herself that there was probably a rational explanation, that it was going to be all right. Poppy was an expert in shoving feelings down, in sending panic to the back of her mind and carrying on regardless. But however hard she tried, it just didn’t seem to work. Every instinct she had was screaming inside her head. Something wasn’t right.
CHAPTER 27
Hours later, the light in the study was blue and the book Poppy had been trying to read lay abandoned at her feet. She had sat, motionless, waiting for Drew to get home for what must have been hours.
‘Darling?’ a voice called from somewhere in the house. Drew’s voice.
‘I’m in the study,’ she called back. Her voice sounded weird; even she could hear that.
She heard Drew’s feet, light on the hall floor, three quick taps up the steps from the hall and there he was, smiling in the doorway. ‘Hello, darling. What are you doing in here?’
‘Hi,’ she tried again, but her voice sounded just as odd as ever.
Drew’s face fell. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing,’ she said, unsure why she was lying. What would be so wrong with asking about the photo? What could possibly happen?
‘You look utterly miserable,’ he said. ‘You’re not dressed?’
Poppy looked down at her clothes; she had no idea she hadn’t got dressed. The pyjama shorts. The T-shirt. ‘I’m not feeling great,’ she said. Which was true. Acid was burning the back of her throat.
‘Oh darling. Do you think it’s something you ate?’ he asked. He sat down next to her, leaning forward to push a strand of hair out of her face. ‘Or could it be …’ He trailed off, leaving her in no doubt about his meaning.
‘No, no. I think it’s just a bug.’
Did he look disappointed? ‘You’re home early,’ she said.
‘I finished everything I needed to do; Andrea is running things amazingly so I didn’t need to be there. I thought I’d come home and surprise you, maybe take you out. But if you’re not feeling well you might just want to go back to bed?’
Poppy opened her mouth to say yes, to say that she wanted some sleep. Her sickness would buy her at least twenty-four hours to think about it, to construct a plan. But the thought didn’t feel right. It sat uneasy inside her – an odd, awkward sensation. She didn’t want to plot and plan. She didn’t want to wait until Gina got back and then have a whispered conversation about strategy in her bedroom. She wanted to talk to her husband.
‘I found a photo,’ she said, hoping that Drew would finish the conversation for her.
‘A photo? What photo?’
She got to her feet. Words were too slippery, too hard to twist into the right order. She walked across the room, picked up the frame and held it out to him.
‘That photo.’
Drew’s eyebrows drew closer together and he put his hands to his head. ‘I see.’
The carriage clock on the desk ticked. The click, click, click of the second hand seemed to fill the room, a noise that would usually be so easy to ignore drowning Poppy’s ears.
‘Sit down,’ said Drew.
‘I don’t want to sit down.’
‘Please,’ he said. ‘Please sit down.’
Poppy sat on the arm of the leather sofa, both feet on the floor. A compromise. Drew sat at the other end, his back against the corner. ‘What would you like to know?’ he asked.
‘The truth,’ said Poppy. ‘About what the hell is going on?’
He was going to tell her that he had a child. She knew it. And a wife, probably. Would they even be separated? Was this just some bizarre affair – had he brought her back here to play lady of the manor in some strange game? She could feel it all falling away, the house and the cars and the security. But more than that. Him. The warmth of his body on hers when they got into bed at night, his voice in the morning offering her coffee. His calm, sweet, reassuring presence which had made her feel safe for the first time in her life, his solid, reassuring love which had said, without saying it
out loud, that she could finally stop running.
‘Who is it?’ she asked eventually, needing to hear something other than the clock. Please, she thought, tell me something good. Tell me something which makes all of this go away, something which means I can stay here and keep loving you.
‘It’s me,’ he said quietly.
This wasn’t how Poppy expected it to work. She was supposed to ask him and he was supposed to offer a lengthy explanation. His silence, his enduring commitment to telling her absolutely nothing: that wasn’t what was supposed to happen. There were too many questions. Poppy couldn’t decide which one to ask first.
Drew pinched the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes. He looked as if he was in pain. ‘I thought we weren’t going to do this.’
For the first time since she saw the photo, frustration and anger overtook Poppy’s confusion. ‘You can’t expect me to just ignore this.’
Drew remained silent.
‘Anyway, if you didn’t want to “do this” then why do you have a secret photo hidden in your study? It was only a matter of time until I found it.’
‘It’s not a secret photo.’
‘It’s hidden behind another photo in a frame. That sounds pretty fucking secret to me.’
Drew blinked. It was the first time Poppy had ever sworn at him.
‘Just tell me the truth.’
‘It’s a picture of me,’ he said after a little while.
‘Go on?’
‘It’s me as a child.’
‘So why would you hide it?’
‘I thought you might find it strange,’ he said quietly.
‘Find what strange?’
‘Moving here.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it was my house.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘This place. When I was a child. It’s where we lived before the accident.’
‘We?’
‘My family.’
‘You lived at Thursday House?’
‘Yes. Though it wasn’t called that then. It didn’t have a name when we lived here, just a number. I changed it when I bought it for us.’
‘Until the accident?’
He nodded. ‘Then it was sold to give me a lump sum, for school and university—’ He stopped. ‘Please don’t think I’m being indulgent, but I didn’t get a chance to come back, after the accident. When we got back from Ibiza that was the first time that I had been back in thirty-five years.’
Drew’s face was serious, pale underneath its olive tone. Poppy’s stomach was twisting; she wanted to put her arms around him, to expunge the guilt he was so clearly racked with.
‘I know I did a terrible thing, lying to you. But I had always promised myself I’d come back here eventually, and I so badly wanted to do it with you. I thought you might find it strange, or might not want to live here because of the history. I was worried you’d never feel like it was your home. I should have told you. I’m sorry, Poppy. I—’
She couldn’t believe the relief that came with hearing his explanation. This was it. This was why she had felt something was off, why she’d worried and wondered and not been able to relax into living here.
Poppy covered his mouth with hers, kneeling on the worn brown leather of the sofa. She straddled his body, grabbing at his arms, his chest, running her hands over his head and down his back. It was just like the first time they had sex, rushed and desperate and almost angry. She understood now. All the little niggles, the heavy feeling at the back of her head that told her something was up. This was it. His secret. She felt light. Giddy even. She could handle this.
Drew pulled away from her, his hands either side of her body, literally pushing her away. ‘What are you doing?’
‘It’s OK,’ she said as she undid his belt. ‘I get it.’
‘You understand?’
‘I understand why you did it.’
Drew put his hands into her hair and pulled her lips to his, tender where she had been aggressive. ‘You’re sure?’ he murmured.
‘Sure,’ she said.
‘I know what we agreed, but if you want to know anything, if there’s anything you need to ask me—’
‘I don’t,’ she said, her lips on his neck. She unzipped his jeans. He sprang free of the fabric. He hissed as she felt for him, and grabbed her hips, pulling her down on to him. He gave a low groan as she straddled him. He was usually so patient when they had sex, so led by what she wanted, but now it seemed as if what she wanted didn’t matter. Despite the fact she was on top, he was moving her, manipulating her body, setting the rhythm of her movement. He reached between her legs and placed his knuckles against her clitoris. As she moved back and forward she pressed against his hand, each movement bringing her pleasure and then taking it away. ‘Stop it,’ she whispered, ‘that’s mean.’
In response, he ground his hand against her harder, bringing her to an almost painful climax while he gave a long, low groan into her ear.
‘I love you,’ she said, scraping the hair away from her face where it had matted with sweat.
‘I love you too,’ he replied. ‘That was something of a surprise.’
She got to her feet, odd but familiar wetness seeping into the gusset of her knickers. ‘I don’t mind,’ she said. ‘All the stuff, about the house. I wanted you to get that I don’t mind.’ Something about his lie had eased her guilt. The pendulum inside her, nagging at her, making her feel guilty, was a little lighter.
Drew pulled her back towards him, lying back on the leather sofa. His heart was thudding through his damp shirt, from the sex or from the truth – she wasn’t sure which.
Poppy was chopping tomatoes for a salad when Gina came home that evening, pottering around the warm kitchen humming to herself and wondering whether they should have steak or salmon. She loved this kitchen. Everything about it, the smooth granite worktops, the neat stack of chopping boards. It was perfect. One of the few rooms which really felt like hers. She spent most of her time in here. She’d asked Drew the other day if he thought it was odd to have so many rooms and use so few of them. ‘It’ll come alive when we have people to stay,’ he had told her. ‘Houses like this were meant for parties.’
It wasn’t clear whether they were going to be open now, whether the fact that Drew had grown up at the house would be a part of their lives or whether it was going to be a quiet secret between them. Poppy guiltily hoped for the latter. It didn’t bother her. Not really. She understood more than anyone – more than Drew could possibly realize – what it was like to want to go back and rewrite the story, to have another chance at the past. But she didn’t want to tell Gina. She couldn’t face the rise in her left, perfectly angled eyebrow, the tilt of her head, the ‘And you’re OK with that?’ which would inevitably come.
Gina crashed through the front door, dropped her handbag – a huge leather thing covered in chains – on the kitchen table and pulled her plimsolls off. ‘I am sweating like a priest in a brothel,’ she said, pulling a glass from the shelf and filling it with water from the tap. It was as if she had been gone for a couple of hours, not the whole weekend. ‘What’s up with you?’
‘Drew’s outside,’ she said, hoping Gina would catch the hint and not bellow ‘So what were you so upset about earlier?’
Beads of water ran down Gina’s chin as she gulped the entire tumbler down. ‘He’s home already?’
‘He came home at lunchtime. To surprise me.’
‘Nice,’ Gina said, picking her bag back up. ‘I’m going up to my room. I’ve got, like, an entire weekend of sleep to catch up on. What were you calling about earlier?’
‘Oh.’ Poppy scraped the fat red tomatoes off the board into a bowl. ‘It was a misunderstanding.’
Gina took a slice of tomato out of the bowl. ‘About what?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Didn’t sound like nothing.’
Poppy pulled the purple skin from an onion. Then she sliced the top and the end off, cutting through the lilac f
lesh and dicing it deftly. The knives were new and gloriously sharp, slipping effortlessly through anything Poppy used them on. She sprinkled the onion over the tomatoes. Where was the rock salt? She had had it the other day.
‘Poppy?’
‘Oh, it was stupid,’ she replied, still looking for the salt. ‘It makes me sound like such a dick. Basically I found this photo of Drew …’ She paused. There it was. She put her hand into the white box and pulled out a fat pinch of rock salt, sprinkling the flakes over the bowl. It was so pretty, with the green basil, red tomatoes and purple onion. She’d never dreamed when she was a kid, washing dried-out turkey dinosaurs down with weak squash, that food could be exciting or beautiful. It wasn’t until she had started working for the Walkers that she’d even realized food was supposed to be enjoyed.
‘Was it with another girl?’
‘What?’
‘Jesus, you’re out of it this evening. Was the photo of Drew with another girl?’
Poppy wasn’t sure what she had been intending to tell Gina, but she wouldn’t have to decide now. A photo of Drew with another girl. That was easier. Neater. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘I lost it over nothing.’
‘Was it an old picture?’
She nodded. ‘I feel like a complete dick.’
‘Was he OK about it?’
‘Drew?’
‘Yeah. He wasn’t angry or anything?’ Gina looked worried. ‘He didn’t …’ Was she being paranoid or was Gina looking her up and down for signs of a fight?
