Secrets We Keep

by Faith Hogan

  Paris.

  July 1957,

  Ma chérie, Iris.

  I count you my dearest friend still and that is why I write to you tonight. In so doing, I am putting my work with Sir Clive at risk, but I feel that my friendship to you requires one final act of loyalty. Perhaps I am creating trouble for you, I do not mind it so much for myself, but I could not live with myself unless I told you the truth of things here.

  The child we buried was not Mark. The child we buried in a small wooden coffin was the child that Pamela gave birth to. Crispin was a feeble child from the start, an unhappy and unsettled child. I had my fears for him from the day he came into the apartment. His colour was unnaturally white and he cried more than he slept or ate or smiled. In the end, he died in the middle of some kind of fit.

  I do not know what they told you around the circumstances of his death, but I know that when I visited the grave today and saw Mark’s name on the cross above the child, I had to tell you the truth. Your child is still alive and I am taking care of him for you. Perhaps it is easier, to think that he has left this world and maybe it was Sir Clive’s intention to give you a happy release, but Iris, I know how much you love the child and so this gift is yours. He will grow into a strong and handsome man and I will watch over him while you cannot.

  Mon amie, I fear your sadness more than my upsetting you with this news. I am here to tell you all you ever wish to know about your son, you need only ask, but I understand it may all be too painful. Lady Pamela tells me your life is moving on, so I will not write again, unless it is your wish.

  My love always and best wishes in your happy future in Ballytokeep,

  Marianne, xx’

  Kate’s voice began to wobble, she looked down at Iris, knew already from the way her body trembled beside her that grief or shock had overtaken her. Iris would have found it hard to identify which emotion was running over her, but tears streamed from her and they were tears of joy.

  Kate sighed, a deep and understanding well of oxygen. Kate shook her head. Of course Iris never saw the letter, so Marianne had no way of knowing that she very much wanted to hear all about Mark.

  ‘Oh, Kate.’ It took Iris a long time to regain her composure while she pieced together her and Archie’s lives and what this letter meant to both of them.

  ‘Have you thought what this means now, Iris?’ Kate asked her when her tears had subsided just a little. ‘Have you realized what it means for us?’

  ‘It means you are my granddaughter?’ Iris began to cry again. She had missed out on a lifetime with her son. The son she thought had died sixty years ago had lived until his mid-thirties. He had a child. ‘It means you are my granddaughter and I have probably been more loved in my life than even I realized.’ Iris knew that Archie loved her, but if she had found this letter decades ago, she wasn’t sure she’d would be so forgiving. It was funny how a lifetime of love and almost losing Archie put everything into an altered perspective. He had loved her, in spite of what he knew of herself and Robert, in spite of the fact that she had been as they called it back then a ‘fallen woman’. He had loved her so much, he hid the truth from everyone in case he might lose her or she might be hurt even more. In the end, she had told him the truth, she had married the right man all those years ago.

  *

  Iris, 1957

  Iris packed her bags. Her ring, shining and safe, sat in its box on the bedside table. It was simple. She would walk out of the hotel, walk to Riley’s corner, take the first bus back to Dublin and forget about this place. She would settle into the guesthouse again with her mother and make the best of life as she could. Perhaps, in time, she would find some peace of mind. She placed her jacket across her shoulders, smoothed down her hair before she took those stairs for the final time.

  It was just after eight o’clock. Archie had not even called her this morning, perhaps he knew already. She would take the pain out of it for him; she would just go. There had been no official announcement, if she left now they were just losing a cook. There was no scandal or shame in losing a cook. A fiancé was quite a different thing.

  ‘Where are you off to at this hour of the morning, Missy Iris?’ Ernest Hartley startled her. Honestly, she was never sure where he would spring from next or which direction he was headed.

  ‘I’m leaving, Mr Hartley.’ Iris said the words simply. She was not sure he’d ever liked her that much anyway, not like Mrs Hartley, not like Archie.

  ‘Well, it’s a fine day you’ve picked to leave us. Have you not heard our awful news?’

  ‘No.’ Ernest Hartley looked as though he had just walked out of an electric shock chamber. Who knew what went on in the poor man’s mind. ‘No, Mr Hartley, has something happened.’

  ‘Oh aye. Down at the bathhouse, they’re not rightly sure about what happened, but the finish up is our Robert is dead and that’s all there is about it.’ He had the look of a man emptied of emotion. Iris knew that his grasp on reality was not as strong as it might be.

  ‘Robert? There must be some mistake, he was…’ Words deserted her and she wasn’t sure how long she stood under the watchful gaze of Ernest Hartley. She couldn’t trust her own words not to say too much. It felt as though the blood was travelling fast from her head to her feet and she might fall over. Shock. It was shock, she realized.

  ‘Aye, I know very well exactly what he was and where he was and where you was too, Missy Iris. The fact remains, he’s down there on the Giant’s Plate and we’re only lucky he hasn’t been pulled out in the morning tide.’

  ‘Oh, my god,’ she heard the words skip from her lips, sounds uttered; they meant nothing. She had to gather herself. ‘I’m so sorry, Mr Hartley.’ Iris dropped her bags, rooted to the hallway. She was not sure whether to go back or forwards. She watched, silently, as Mr Hartley picked up her bag and carried it back into her room.

  ‘Aye, I know you’re sorry. But if you truly want to support us now, you’ll stand by my Archie and give him your support, if that’s what he says he wants.’

  ‘I…’ There was so much to say, but Iris wasn’t sure where to start.

  ‘I know you think I’m for the birds, Iris, but let me tell you this, Archie adores you. It may be that it’s misplaced. For my money, he’d be better off with a plain and simple girl from down the village, but it’s you he wants. He will not care that Robert had his fun with you before. He’ll live with all of that, if you will.’

  Ernest turned away from her and began to sing some song he had learned many years before.

  With each step of the stairs, Iris gave up a prayer; her thoughts were a collision of thanks and sorrow, guilt and shame and, of course, hope. Perhaps, she could make up for what she had done. Perhaps it could work out for her and Archie.

  35

  Kate

  Iris and Archie had made up their minds about the hotel, weeks ago apparently, if the paperwork was anything to go by. ‘It’s yours, if you’ll have it,’ Iris said and her eyes danced with anticipation and excitement. ‘It’s time we took it easy.’ She looked devotedly at Archie now. The last few days had only made them stronger.

  ‘We’re going to settle into a couple of the ground floor rooms. If you don’t want the place, it’ll just fall in around us.’ He smiled at her. The doctor said his leg was healing surprisingly well and so far it looked like the change in his medication had halted the progress of his Alzheimer’s. ‘It’s the rest too and knowing that I don’t have to worry so much.’ It was true, handing over that letter seemed to have taken a weight off his shoulders – maybe off Iris’s too. She could talk about Mark now and they could celebrate having a granddaughter.

  ‘Are you sure about this, both of you?’ Kate was flabbergasted, ‘I mean the hotel, it’s been your whole lives…’ She couldn’t believe it. They were handing her their life’s work to do with as she wished. They had already written their wills and she was their only beneficiary. ‘I don’t know what to say, I really don’t.’ It wasn’t about the money – t
his went much deeper than that. This was about belonging, it was about family and it was mostly about coming home. If they knew the truth, she could probably buy a couple of hotels right along the coast.

  ‘We want you to have it. We wanted you to have it before I knew you were Mark’s daughter.’ Iris’s eyes were filled with emotion, but it wasn’t sadness at letting things go, rather it was joy at having someone to share with. ‘And, now, well there’s even more reason to see you there.’ It had taken a few weeks, but finally everything seemed to be slipping into place. They’d talked for hours, all three of them about the lifetimes that had hinged on gossamer threads so fine they’d been obscured before by keeping secrets that should have been told long ago. Somehow it all made sense now. Crispin or rather, Mark, was just like his father. He was like Willie Keynes and perhaps that was why Pamela and Clive had severed their ties. God knows, Willie had already brought enough misery on the Mornington Hunts over the years. It was why they kept their distance from Kate and of course, from Iris. As luck would have it, Kate was nothing like her father and nothing like her grandfather. Kate, it turned out was a Burns, apart from those eyes, really, Iris thought, she should have known when she’d looked into those striking eyes that were handed down directly from Willie Keynes.

  ‘I really am so…’ Kate threw her arms around Archie’s neck, she was just glad he was getting better; anything more was a bonus.

  ‘Oh, Kate, you’ve done a wonderful job on the bathhouse, the hotel is going to be a piece of cake for you and I know you’ll enjoy pulling it all together and running it properly,’ Iris said. Kate knew that seeing the place fade with the passing years had saddened Iris, maybe she’d be doing them a bigger favour than any of them realized by getting stuck in there.

  ‘Just say thank you and let that be that,’ Archie said and he smiled at Iris, he didn’t want her thanks, he just wanted everyone to be happy.

  *

  Kate determined that she would keep the bathhouse open until the end of September. Although tourists were rare, it gave her a chance to cater to the locals. On her last day, she held a coffee morning for the local dog pound. She hoped Todd would show up and the disappointment when he didn’t surprised her a lot more than she expected.

  ‘Ah, well, it looks like you might have to walk up there yourself,’ Rita said as they tidied up after everyone had left. ‘You’ve never actually called to see the place, have you?’ That was true.

  ‘No, but…’

  ‘Let there be no buts about it. He’s going to be heading off on that world tour one of these days and then you’ll have all the time in the world to be minding your pride. You can’t expect him to do all the running; after all, he spent the whole summer hanging around your front door just to walk the beach with you.’

  ‘You’re bloody impossible, Rita Delaney, do you know that?’

  ‘Not for much longer, I’m not.’

  ‘Oh, excuse me, Rita soon to be ex-Delaney and now Kenny!’ They both laughed at this. ‘So, what are you going to call yourself when the suppliers are looking for payment? Or when the good food guides are putting up the plaques outside?’

  ‘How do you mean?’ Rita looked up from the table she was clearing.

  ‘Well, when you take over this place next summer?’

  ‘You mean I can run this place?’ Rita’s smile beamed broader than Kate had ever seen it before. She had told her about the hotel and her plans to revamp the place for next year’s trade. She was going to put Hartley’s back on the map. Make it into the most beautiful boutique hotel in the country.

  ‘Well, who else is going to do it?’ Kate laughed. It was the right decision. Rita needed something of her own, something more than just Barry to dote on, and she’d make a great job of keeping the bathhouse on the straight and narrow. ‘Actually, Oisín Armstrong said he’d help out, bringing up the seaweed for the baths or doing any of the little jobs you need to do that are…’

  ‘Stop it, Kate.’ Rita blushed. She did that every time Oisín Armstrong’s name was mentioned these days. Well, she was a free agent and so was he – widowed for almost a decade, he’d make a lovely partner and he had a soft spot for Rita. ‘Anyway, I’m too old for all that malarkey.’

  ‘Oh, Rita, we both know you’re never too old for love.’ Kate looked up towards Rock Castle, these last few weeks, not seeing Todd around; it seemed to her that it had become sterner in its domination of the skyline. She sighed. ‘Everyone deserves a second chance, don’t they?

  *

  As soon as the day was behind her, she grabbed the package that she’d carefully wrapped weeks before. It wasn’t much, it wasn’t big, but it meant something to her and she hoped it would mean as much to Todd.

  She walked slowly towards the tower, her steps as intrepid as her mood. She knocked loudly on the heavy door, wondered if he would hear her high up in the spirals above. Then she felt, more than heard, his paces jogging down the stone steps, taking them two at a time. He opened the door with the curiosity of one who does not often have visitors.

  ‘Oh,’ he said by way of welcome. He looked well, relaxed. She’d read in the papers that the band were going to finish the tour. Of course, Rita could tell her that the doctor had given him the thumbs up – but that was the blessing of living in Ballytokeep. It was hard to keep secrets in a small town.

  ‘Hi.’ She wasn’t sure what else to say. She thought of that night, when he’d been battered and bruised by his fall in the rhododendron forest and she’d thrown her arms around him. The image brought with it a flood of emotion and not just embarrassment. Since then, she had thought about how it felt to be in his arms and she knew that what she felt was more than just relief that he was safe. That connection was still there between them, and it set off her nerve endings every bit as much as it had done all those years ago.

  ‘Well, you’d better come in, I suppose.’ He led her up towards the next floor. The stairs were scrubbed flagstones, the walls clean stone, naked except in places where he had retained a handrail or ship’s lanterns cast ambient light upon his many gold and platinum discs. He spotted her looking at them, ‘I can thank Meg for them, she kept them all and got them hung as soon as my back was turned.’ He couldn’t be angry with Meg for interfering with his interior décor, he was far too fond of her.

  ‘I just thought…’ but so many thoughts had swirled around her mind these last few weeks, she stopped there. ‘I like what you’ve done with the place,’ she smiled. It was where he lived, she realized; this room was where he spent all his time.

  He showed her into his kitchen. Against one curved wall a giant fridge stood robust and glossy red. His kitchen stretched in a free-standing semicircle taking up half the floor space, it was huge – four times bigger than her commercial kitchen, although she knew it got a very small portion of the use. Red gloss cabinets, metro tiles at the rear and pristine white marble so any speck or crumb could be brushed away instantly completed a retro rock star look. A captain’s table ran halfway across the room, and Kate wondered if Todd would ever have the required eighteen guests to fill each seat. An acoustic guitar leant lazily against one of the chairs, before it a scatter of pages, pencils and a neglected cup of tea. It looked like he was writing songs here and perhaps that explained why she hadn’t seen him walking the beach recently. Against the other wall was a day bed and music system. It played a low jamming base guitar that seemed to hum in resonance with the heavy wood and unnerved Kate as it made her heart crash harder in her chest to its endless thrumming. Dominating the room, a long narrow window looked down upon the bathhouse.

  ‘Yeah, I know, it’s pretty… obvious?’ he said and smiled. ‘But its home.’

  ‘Even now?’ When he arrived she’d have wagered he’d be in Monte Carlo or Ibiza by September – maybe leopards can change their spots

  ‘Most especially, now.’ He moved closer to her, held his hand out for her jacket. ‘I’m glad you’ve come,’ he said, making a bit of a deal of taking her coat and ha
nging it across the back of a heavy carver. When he turned to her, he held her gaze for what seemed like an eternity but was probably seconds. ‘I don’t blame you for the photographs.’ His words were soft and some part of Kate felt herself react to them.

  ‘I didn’t… that wasn’t me.’ She blushed, but she knew she was the most obvious person to suspect. For all he knew, she might have been just waiting to take her revenge upon him, and had it been a couple of years ago, well, he might be right.

  ‘Sure now?’ His voice was playful. He did not mind even if she had. Perhaps life had brought them to the same place in terms of more than just Ballytokeep.

  ‘I’m sure. I know who did, but I only found out a week ago. I’m sorry, if they caused you any upset, they weren’t about you.’ She tried to find the right words. ‘Well, maybe they were, but they were about me too.’ She knew she was not making any sense. She had spent time thinking about things. Maybe someday Colin could be her friend again and he did not need people to know what she knew. ‘Anyway,’ she said, handing Todd the gift she brought him, ‘this is for moving in, if you’re staying that is. I never actually gave you a moving-in present, so…’

  She waited for him to open the wrapping paper, watched his face as his eyes crinkled up in surprise. She chose it specially, the frame that held Robert Hartley’s image for so long, but it was time to let him go. Instead, she replaced it with a picture of the tower, with the bathhouse obscured in the foreground, knew that it was the right thing to do now. She had seen him, most nights, sitting there, looking down at the bathhouse, watching over her.

  ‘I have so much I want to say,’ he said and he moved closer to her, but this time, it felt good.

  ‘“Thanks” will do just fine.’