Secrets We Keep

by Faith Hogan

  ‘Who was it from Archie, can you remember?’ Her voice was soft, but she had to be careful these days; sometimes, when she spoke like this it made him cross.

  ‘I am not a fool, you know, never have been. No need to speak to me as though I’m stupid.’ He topped his boiled egg and set about buttering his toast as though nothing had happened.

  Iris watched him. She hated seeing him like this. She remembered old Mr Hartley; he went downhill very quickly in the end. Iris dreaded it could be the same for Archie. They said with his father that it was the shock of Robert dying so suddenly, so tragically. It started with Archie almost a year ago. She could remember it quite clearly. He was searching for a letter, and then it was a note. At first, it was from Robert and then someone he called Mary Ann, then he did not want the others to see it. She wondered sometimes if the sender changed. He told her on several occasions, he was certain she was meant to have it. A couple of months ago, he disappeared for several hours. He told her he had been in the bathhouse. It was good that Kate took the place over. Iris couldn’t keep him safe when he was there. She worried that he would hit off down there some night when the sky was pitch and that would be the finish of him. She could not have borne that, just couldn’t have endured it. Now, with Kate there, she could sleep easier at night. Surely, he would remember that Robert was not there, if he was constantly reminded that someone else was.

  ‘I think it tells the truth, the truth of what went on.’ Archie whispered conspiratorially across the table at her. ‘Father said he would settle things, we shall have to wait until he comes back.’ He was nodding agreeably and she wondered if he knew she was his wife, or if he even saw her there sometimes.

  ‘Oh Archie.’ She reached across and wiped the butter from his chin.

  ‘Don’t worry, Mama, I hid the letter.’ He looked a little anxiously at her, shaking his head sadly, ‘If only I could remember where I left it.’

  *

  Robert, 1957

  He had done the right thing, Robert was quite sure of that. Quite sure. Yes, he was in love with Iris, but it would pass. After all, what was she at the end of the day? She wanted nothing more really than all the others. She wanted to tie him down and Robert wasn’t sure he’d ever be ready for marriage. All the same, he had to admit, she did something to him.

  He stood watching her make her way back to the hotel. Winning her had not been easy, but it had not been as difficult as he had expected. The prize was won now though, so what was he to do? Marry her? Did she really expect him to do that? In the beginning he really believed he was in love with her. It turned out she was like everything else in his life. Once he held her in his arms he began to want something else. Not yet, but he could feel that familiar twist inside him, like a bauble, she was gradually losing her sparkle for him. She was engaged to Archie. At the end of the day, he had to think of the bathhouse. The scandal would kill his parents, not to mention what it would do to the fine trade he was building up. No, he was not going to marry Iris. He was not going to marry Gemma either. He would bring her along to the dance the following evening, play the devoted consort. They could donate to that snotty child and be done with it. Either way, the whole thing was a great success. There was a throng of eager do-gooders just dying to organize the festival next year, so it was all good for Ballytokeep and all good for the bathhouse.

  A loud banging sound on the door below shook him from his thoughts. He checked his watch, half past two in the morning, there must be something very wrong. Robert’s first thought was an accident on the water, perhaps one of the fishing boats or kids playing about with little care to their own safety.

  ‘Hang on, for goodness’ sake.’ He grabbed his smoking jacket from the side of the bed and flung it about his shoulders. ‘Stop the racket, for the love of St Martha, you’ll break the door down,’ he shouted as he took the stairs two at a time. Robert pulled the door back as quickly as he could. In the instant that it swung towards him, he knew there had been no tragedy at sea.

  28

  Todd

  He set off early. He would not walk the beach now. He avoided the bathhouse and he did not want to run into Kate. In the beginning, when Claudia told him, he didn’t believe her. How naïve; of course Kate had talked to the papers. There was no one else, apart from the blonde, and Todd knew she’d have contacted him first. She’d have tried to milk as much out of him and Claudia and then, inevitably, she’d have blabbed to the press. Todd wasn’t sure how he felt about it all. Stunned was probably the best way to describe it. For the first few days, he’d been fuming. Angry with himself for being so stupid, irritated with the whole set-up and mostly annoyed that at the end of it all he had no right to be angry. So, each day he walked until he was tired, filling his head with melodies and words for songs that were taking shape in the early hours so when he fell into bed all he was fit for was sleep.

  He moved like a zombie, not thinking, just empty emotions whirling about inside him. He’d fucked up. All his life, he’d been handed all of these opportunities and he’d gambled with them, as though they were worth nothing. Claudia, the band, the success, his family, even Kate. And it was Kate, at the final turn, who’d brought it home to him, how much he’d squandered. They could have been friends. He had believed that between them something was growing, something deeper than they’d ever had before. If there was a frisson of electricity between them, he had ignored it. He thought he was treating her with respect, hah – and she was playing him all along. As usual, Denny was right. His mother would have tutted, there really is no fool like an old fool.

  *

  He was wakening earlier here than he’d done, probably since he was back in Belfast. His internal alarm clock set to rise with the sun, fall with the darkening sky. The castle had become his sanctuary. He tried not to look towards the bathhouse, and still he couldn’t leave the place. Somehow, Ballytokeep had taken a hold of him and, for now at least, it was not letting go.

  The year was trading towards the back end of summer, quickly trotting along towards short cold days, long windy nights. Todd was making the most of his time, hitting out into the sunshine before Kate had even pulled back her shutters. He made sandwiches, basic but sustaining, took a bottle of Coke from the cooler, and headed off towards Sleive Carr. The forecast promised a hot day.

  It was a two-mile trek across bog before he got to the base of the mountain. It was hardly even a mountain, he decided when he was quarter way up. The view from up here was silencing. Everything about the place made him aware of his own insignificance; it was vast, empty and isolated. In the distance, running up the side of a hill opposite, Todd could see an old graveyard. He wondered if it was still in use. There were worse places to be buried. It was remote, but not nearly as lonesome as the characterless graveyards of cities where graves haggled for space and there was little more than a grey slab to mark your time. Up ahead, a thick rhododendron forest fanned out across the mountain. It seemed to Todd that someone had stretched a florid cloth across acres on end. He probably should walk around it, but he figured that could take hours, when it was, to his eyes at least, a clear run through the thick vegetation. On a hot summer’s day, he reasoned, what could be more pleasant than the aromatic shade of a forest of flowers. He set into it with vigour and, for a while, thoughts of Denny, London and the band slipped away from him. Maybe, he even managed to make peace with his feelings for Kate, for a while. It almost felt as though he was deep in the vegetation, but that was silly, he told himself. After all, if he turned back now, he’d be in daylight in a few short minutes. It was a little disappointing, he decided, that instead of the lovely fresh bouquet, beneath the heavy flowers, the air smelled of damp soil. It was a musty, chesty smell that made him feel like he might be sick. He checked his phone for time, there was no signal, but who’d be looking for him anyway? He figured it would take at least three quarters of an hour to get to the far side of the forest.

  Two hours later, he was still under the heavy rhododendron
cover. His legs, tired now, at least snatched his focus occasionally from the rising panic within him that he might never get out of the dense vegetation. He stumbled over a long knotted root and took it as a hint that perhaps he should sit for a while. Inside his bag, the sandwiches had grown soft and warm against the heat of his back. He opened them and ate, hungrily, if not enthusiastically. The sun was at full blast above his head. It was hard to imagine light of any strength drying through the damp of vegetation. He lay back on the root. Just for a moment, let his mind wander. It would calm him as much as anything and he thought of Kate.

  When he woke he knew with certainty that he was lost. He checked his phone, but here there was no signal, no data, no way of contacting help. Not that he was sure he would anyway. After all, the last thing he needed now was for the whole world to know he was a complete dunce. He could see the headlines, ‘Rock Star Lost in Flower Patch.’ Far above him, in the skies overhead, he heard the rumble of a jumbo jet, perhaps heading across the Atlantic. The echoing sound haunted the empty landscape around him. It reminded him that he was solitary here. His life was lived in chosen isolation, the fences about him built from arrogance and self-absorption. He did not see the dip, not until he felt the ground beneath him dissolve. He was in mid-air; a humping bumping caricature, plunging into darkness he never knew existed. He landed with a thud, a bone-cracking sickening bounce that left him breathless. For a long time he lay, contemplating all that was wrong with his life and maybe what he would do to change it, if he had another chance.

  29

  Kate

  Kate watched as Todd set off across the bogs. In some ways, here in this Celtic ghost-filled, magical place, she was as much in awe of him now as she was when they first met. It had been at a charity fundraiser, something organized by the music set. She could hardly remember how she had ended up there. It was the week she won the biggest settlement ever in a British court. The press had labelled her the hottest divorce lawyer in London. There was music and champagne and life seemed to be stretching out before her full of promise and opportunity. When she bumped into Todd, the electricity between them had caught them both by surprise. Even then, Kate was cautious. It took Todd months to woo her, but when he did, it was at once torrid and sublime. Even now, a decade later, she shivered when she remembered the chemistry that sparked between them. Hard to believe it, she thought as she watched him make his way into the giant purple forest that clung to the mountainside in the distance. She set down the brass spyglass, laid it carefully on the desk before her.

  ‘You should get out of here for a few hours,’ Rita said to her. She could feel the nervous energy bounce off Rita today, perhaps she needed the space of being alone to bake and think.

  ‘It’s getting quieter, isn’t it?’ Kate could see it in the till takings.

  ‘Aye, we’ll soon have all the time in the world for walking the beach, me and Barry.’ Rita sighed.

  ‘It’s been a good season, we won’t close up shop completely, you know.’

  ‘You don’t know what January is like here.’ Rita shook her head. ‘Although, maybe you do, sure isn’t that when you came at first?’

  ‘It was, but I’m thinking we’ll run some stuff, open a few days a week and take time to get ourselves ready for next season.’

  ‘That sounds good to me,’ Rita said and she threw a mound of pastry onto the marble slab before her. ‘Off you go now.’

  *

  Kate felt like she was mitching off school as she headed towards the hotel. The afternoon sun was blasting its full heat down on Ballytokeep and the smell of hot tar and fresh salty breakers were a heady combination, bringing waves of nostalgia for the childhood Kate had hoped to give her own children someday.

  ‘There’s nothing nicer than this, is there?’ she said as she sat down at the front of the hotel with Iris. ‘Where’s Archie?’ they had settled in the shade of the veranda that ran for some way along the west-facing side of the hotel.

  ‘Oh, he’s getting ready for Todd. Actually, he’s running really late, they should have started already.’ Iris checked her watch.

  ‘Started what?’

  ‘Todd offered to help with two loose slates at the back of the hotel. I’m grateful really, because you know what Archie is like when he gets something into his head. He could be up there on a ladder before I know it; no point reminding him he’s in his eighties now.’ Iris shook her head good-naturedly.

  ‘Is he back then?’ Kate tried to keep her voice neutral. She hadn’t mentioned that she and Todd hadn’t spoken since the press suggested they were an item. He’d been avoiding her. She wasn’t sure why; after all, she’d never made any suggestion that she wanted anything from him. If there had been any spark between them, she’d been determined that she would not be falling for Todd Riggs again.

  ‘Back, dear?’

  ‘From his walk? He headed off early this morning, last I saw he was going into the rhododendron forest up Slieve Carr.’ She sipped her tea.

  ‘He went this morning?’ Iris looked at her, as though checking that she’d heard right. ‘Into the fairy forest?’

  ‘Well, yes, I saw him from the bathhouse, I’m sure it was him,’ Kate tried not to sound defensive, wasn’t that why people bought field glasses – to enjoy the scenery in the distance. Robert Hartley’s had provided her with endless hours of entertainment watching the sea birds and whales, playing in the bay on balmy summer evenings. ‘I wasn’t spying on him,’ she said, dropping her voice.

  ‘No, dear. It’s not that, you don’t understand, most people when they come here, they don’t realize…’ She pulled herself forward in her seat. ‘The fairy forest, as we call it here, it’s not a safe place to walk. Tourists have gotten lost in there for days on end – and Todd Riggs, well, let’s face it, he’s not exactly an experienced hill walker, is he?’

  ‘No, but…’

  ‘Maybe he came back and there’s nothing to worry about.’ Iris tried to smile, but her eyes gave away her worry.

  ‘And if he is in there? Still?’

  ‘Colin Lyons will know what to do.’ Iris nodded. ‘Colin will know.’ She nodded towards the table where Kate’s phone rested. Kate tried ringing Todd’s mobile first, but it rang out as though he was out of coverage. Then she tried Colin. She managed to get through to him on her second attempt.

  ‘Hi Colin, we’re in a bit of a tizzy about Todd Riggs.’

  ‘Why?’ He always sounded tense these days when she mentioned Todd.

  ‘He hasn’t come back from his walk,’ she said lightly. ‘I saw him head off up Sleive Carr earlier, he went through that big rhododendron forest.’ Kate watched Iris’s expression as she spoke to Colin; there was no mistaking the worry in her eyes. ‘But that was hours ago, he should be back by now.’ Todd told her once he had taken to going for longer and longer walks in London, but this was not London. There was no tube station to shoot into if he got tired halfway up a mountain. And, to begin with, mountains were no place for a man recovering from a heart attack.

  ‘Is he off his head? No one goes into that place. You could be weeks in there before you find your way out.’ Colin blew out a sigh long and hard. ‘We’ll have to make sure he’s not in the castle first, then…’

  ‘What, what then?’ She tried to keep the worry from her voice, couldn’t help but pick up the note of panic in Colin’s words. What if Todd died? Funny how that might not have bothered her so much when he had his heart attack, but somehow things were different now.

  ‘We’ll have to get a search party organized.’ Colin was moving now. She could hear him, banging doors, could imagine him pulling on walking boots. ‘You check the tower, I’ll see if I can’t round up a few of the men locally.’

  ‘I want to help,’ she sounded much stronger than she felt.

  ‘No offence, Kate, but you don’t know the place either; last thing we want is to have two people missing.’

  ‘I’ll stick near you. Please,’ she was pleading, not sure what s
he could actually do, but she knew she didn’t want to stay here and wait helplessly for news – that was never her style.

  *

  There was no sign of Todd around the castle. He had locked up before he left, but still, Kate could almost feel the emptiness of the place. It only added to the nagging worry that was gnawing at her more viciously with every passing minute. Kate grabbed her coat as she rushed back from the tower. The nights were getting chillier and if they had to stay out all night to find him, there was no point getting pneumonia. She met Colin at the shortcut up towards the farm. They ran along the narrow track, Colin helping her to cross into one of his ditches so they could make their way towards his jeep faster. The Defender roared to life and hurtled across the dried out land, knocking bushes and hillocks as they were bumped about inside.

  ‘Ring the Hartleys; tell them if he contacts them, they need to let us know. The search and rescue people don’t like coming out unless they have to.’ Colin shook his head. The chopper was already on a call-out to find a missing fishing boat – tourists,’ Colin said, as though they were an unwanted species. By comparison, to a mission at sea, Todd was taking second place on the priority list. ‘I don’t know; there are bloody signposts all over the place. Last time this happened, it took two days to find the buggers who got lost here. And, then there’s Brogan’s Drop.’

  ‘What’s Brogan’s Drop?’ Kate knew he was not talking to her, just muttering to himself, but it sounded ominous, she needed to know.

  ‘Sorry, Kate. It’s just that vegetation, it’s so wild and thick, about three quarters of the way up, there’s a dip in the hill, only you come on it very suddenly, so it’s almost like a cliff face, it’s not far off twenty foot down.’