The Secrets of the Lake

by Liz Trenow

With a thudding heart Bella picks up the phone and dials.

  ‘Ms Browning? Hello there.’

  ‘Bella, please. Thank you for agreeing to speak to me.’

  ‘It’s a pleasure, Bella. Please call me Chris. My uncle is delighted to hear that your mother is alive and well.’

  ‘Very much so,’ Bella says. ‘Did you know that she was rather in love with him, once upon a time? I think he broke her heart.’

  He laughs. ‘He was quite a charmer in his youth, I’m told. I owe him everything, you know. I was named after him, and he was there all through my childhood and mentored me, so I was ready to take on his wine business. These days he lives in a bungalow on the vineyard, and I see him several times a week.’

  The ice is fully broken now and they natter away like old friends, to the point that Bella feels able to risk mentioning the discovery of the bones in the lake, and her mother’s renewed desire to find out what happened to her brother. Chris says he’s got a trip to East Anglia planned for the following month – to visit a fellow wine-maker – and promises to ask Kit whether he feels up to the journey. Perhaps she and Molly could meet them there?

  ‘We’d be thrilled to,’ she says. ‘Just name the day.’

  25

  Molly is all of a flutter. The hairdresser visited the previous day, but she isn’t satisfied.

  ‘My usual girl was on holiday, and this one cut it far too short,’ she complains, yanking at the grey curls as though trying to force them to grow.

  ‘I think it looks rather chic,’ Bella says. ‘Here, let me just brush it back, off your forehead.’

  ‘I don’t need chic, whatever that means, at eighty-four,’ her mother grumbles, but then insists that her daughter retrieves from her dressing-table drawer the ancient lipstick, blusher and powder compact that have lain there, unused, for years.

  ‘Honestly, anyone would think you were getting ready for a first date,’ Bella says.

  Molly frowns disapprovingly, saying nothing. She’s too nervous to enjoy being teased.

  The journey is straightforward. Molly stares out of the window as the landscape broadens and opens up into Cambridgeshire. Further towards the city itself, she recalls, the landscape flattens into fenland, but here in the east of the county are rolling hills and she squints her eyes against the bright sunshine, enjoying the wide vistas, the kind you never really get in Suffolk. A sign to the Gog and Magog Hills reminds her how ancient legends persist; they were twin giants rather than dragons, but the same applies and she is glad for it.

  She has been trying not to think about Kit. Ever since Bella told her she’d made contact, a small tender spot has reopened in her heart. He was her first love, after all, but he never reciprocated romantically – not even with a touch or a glance, not even for an instant. It left her with the sense that she must somehow be unattractive to boys, a belief that it took many years to overcome. If any boys should happen to show an interest, she would shun them, for fear of being rejected. Which was partly why she made such a disastrous choice of husband, Molly reflects now; he was the only one desperate enough to persevere.

  But, of course, that brief union brought a very happy outcome. She glances at Bella. ‘You’re the best thing that ever happened to me, you know.’

  ‘Blimey, Mum, where did that come from?’ Bella smiles back, keeping her eyes on the road.

  ‘I don’t know. I was just thinking about your dad.’

  ‘Odd, since we’re on our way to meet your childhood sweetheart,’ Bella says. ‘Are you excited, Mum?’

  ‘Nervous, more like,’ Molly says.

  ‘Well, not long to wait. We’re nearly there.’

  As they pass a sign for the vineyard her heart seems to flutter in her chest and she hopes it’s not the sign of an impending heart attack. It would be a shame to conk out before they’ve even had a chance to meet, after all these years. At last the car slows and they turn onto a long cement driveway.

  It’s been arranged that they will meet in the cafe that is part of the visitor centre. Whoever thought a vineyard would have such things, Molly wonders? The car park is surprisingly busy, presumably with people taking the Vineyard Tour that is advertised all along the approach. Thank heavens it also has disabled parking, which means she will not have to use the wheelchair to cross a long distance. She refuses to greet her old flame at waist level.

  It turns out that they are the first to arrive. Chris and Kit are held up in traffic – so Bella informs her, after a series of pings on her mobile phone – and Molly and Bella are well into their second round of coffees and buttered teacakes when, through the glass window, Molly spies a tall, handsome man helping an older man, his back bent but still walking well, out of the car and into the building. And then there they are, approaching the table with beaming smiles.

  For a moment she is struck speechless: even after nearly seventy years she’d have recognised him anywhere. His almost-white hair is still thick and the blue eyes astonishingly bright. Bella and Chris – his dark hair and high cheekbones remind her so much of the young Kit – are shaking hands and greeting each other. For a long second Molly and Kit say nothing, just staring silently into each other’s faces.

  ‘Hello, Molly. We must stop meeting like this,’ he says at last. The voice is so familiar, still strong and unwavering, and as he smiles, his teeth are still straight and white.

  ‘Is it really you? I can hardly believe it.’ She hears an unfamiliar giggle and realises that it’s hers. Everyone is sitting down now and getting through the tiresome business of ordering. But Molly cannot take her eyes off Kit. All she wants to do is reach across the table and take his hand. ‘I never thought I’d see you again,’ she says.

  ‘I remember you as clear as though it was yesterday. You’re still a beautiful woman, Molly Goddard.’

  She feels herself blushing beneath the blusher. ‘And you always were a charmer, Kit Waddington.’

  ‘All these years,’ he says with a small sigh. ‘Getting to know you that summer was one of the best things that had ever happened to me – such a golden time, in my memory. Well, up until that terrible business when Jimmy disappeared. And your father, poor man. Did he ever recover?’

  ‘He came back home after a couple of months, but he was never really the same,’ Molly says. ‘None of us were.’

  ‘It must have been horrendous for you, losing Jimmy like that. Such a lovely little boy. I suppose they never found him?’

  Molly shakes her head. ‘They stopped searching after a while. Closed the case.’

  ‘Dreadful, dreadful,’ Kit says. ‘You know they actually held me as a suspect?’

  ‘What? You? They held you?’ Molly is astonished. ‘Whatever for?’

  ‘Someone told them they’d seen Jimmy alone in the boat with me.’

  ‘So what? You taught him how to row. No crime in that, surely? You were just being kind.’

  ‘That same someone also helpfully told the police that I was gay. It was illegal back then, of course. And being seen with what they called a “vulnerable young boy”’ – Kit makes speech marks with his fingers – ‘raised suspicions, apparently. The police put two and two together and came up with five.’

  Something clicks in Molly’s head. ‘Hold on a minute. You were . . . you are . . .?’ She cannot quite bring herself to say the word.

  ‘Gay? Yes, that’s me,’ Kit says cheerfully.

  ‘Wait. You’ll have to explain. When did you find out?’

  ‘Oh, I’ve known forever. I meant to tell you, that day when I said I had to go away, remember? But I chickened out. Thought you’d never understand.’

  ‘How could I forget?’ she murmurs. ‘They were sending you to a crammer.’

  ‘That, too. But the main reason was that I’d been expelled by my school after being found in bed with a boy. My parents hit the roof, of course. Thought there was something wrong with me – something a doctor could cure. They packed me off to see a psychiatrist in London, who said it was probabl
y a passing phase and I’d grow out of it. What a joke!’

  As their food arrives, the conversation pauses, allowing Molly a moment to process this information. If Kit was gay – always gay, even then – no wonder he seemed so reluctant to kiss her. He preferred boys. The revelation is so astonishing that she finds herself chuckling.

  ‘Mum?’ Bella nudges her.

  ‘What?’

  ‘What’re you laughing at?’

  ‘At my girlish self,’ she says. ‘For wasting all that time longing for Kit to fall in love with me. Little did I suspect that I was onto a loser from the very start.’

  Everyone laughs then, along with her.

  ‘But I was in love with you,’ Kit protests. ‘Just not in a romantic way. I thought you were the most exciting girl I’d ever met. Your energy, your appreciation of nature, the way you cared for your brother, your passion for getting justice for Eli. You were wonderful.’

  ‘Well, thank you. But poor Eli. We failed him, didn’t we?’ she says, suddenly saddened.

  ‘You did everything you possibly could,’ he says.

  Bella chimes in. ‘Did you say the police suspected you because you were gay, Kit?’ she asks.

  ‘They must have thought I was some kind of child abuser.’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ Molly says. ‘I’ve never heard of anything so ridiculous. You were just about the only other person in the village who was nice to my brother. You and Eli. If they’d only asked me, I’d have told them.’

  ‘But that was after your father threatened to jump off the church tower, remember? And got carried away in a straitjacket? The search for your brother carried on, but I suppose they didn’t want to bother you too much after that. You must have been in pieces.’

  ‘It’s hard to remember now. Mrs Diamond moved in, and she probably tried to keep everyone away. But I’m so sorry about you coming under suspicion, Kit. Was it horrible?’

  ‘Horrible enough,’ he says. ‘I never really believed they could pin anything on me, but it wasn’t nice being interrogated. They held me in a cell, overnight.’

  ‘You’d only just turned seventeen.’

  ‘A very immature, troubled seventeen at that. The worst thing was they wouldn’t reveal who’d told them about seeing me with Jimmy.’

  ‘Did you ever discover?’

  He shakes his head. ‘I always assumed it was Blackman. He was always sneaking around Eli’s hut, and would have been able to see the lake from there. He could easily have seen me rowing Robin with Jimmy, that day we played pirates.’

  ‘And I was back on shore, waiting to come and find you.’ Molly remembers so well; it is etched into her mind. It was only the day before they discovered the hut deserted and the horrible, official notice. The day Eli disappeared. She shivers, recalling her growing understanding that it was Blackman behind so many of the terrible things happening in the village.

  Kit sighs again. ‘Oh, Molly. I was such an idiot. My head was in a complete mess, I didn’t know which way was up and which was down. I had no idea how Blackman could have known why I’d been expelled, but then my mother admitted that she’d confided in Melissa. They were best buddies, remember?’

  ‘And it was the Blackmans who told the police you were gay?’

  ‘We never found out for certain. It doesn’t matter now.’

  ‘It’s all so long in the past,’ Molly agrees. ‘None of it really matters any more. But what happened to you after that?’

  ‘I got sent off to a crammer in London, but it didn’t work. When I failed all my exams, my father sent me out to Australia to turn me into a “real man”.’ Kit scoffs. ‘Would you credit it? He actually used those words. Mum had a cattle-farming cousin out there, and they reckoned I couldn’t get into any more trouble in the middle of the outback. How wrong they were. The place was full of gorgeous men.’ His eyes twinkle and both of them chuckle. It feels almost like old times. ‘Anyway, that’s where I learned about the wine trade and got the crazy idea that it might work in the UK.’

  ‘Bella told me about your vineyard. You look as though you’ve prospered.’

  ‘It’s been a good life. And I had this wonderful nephew, Christopher. What about you?’

  ‘I’ve had a good life, too. My husband was hopeless and disappeared early on, but I have a lovely daughter and grandson.’

  ‘Chris says you’re a famous writer.’

  ‘Only children’s books,’ Molly says, blushing.

  ‘Best-selling, award-winning children’s books,’ Bella adds. ‘You’re too modest, Mum.’

  ‘You told me you were going to be a writer, that day on The Retreat. I was impressed that you were so clear about what you wanted to do, even at that young age, Molly.’

  ‘It’s been a way of keeping Jimmy alive in my mind, imagining him as my reader.’

  The smile fades from Kit’s face. ‘I’ve just remembered. Those bones in the lake. Were they his?’

  ‘No, they weren’t. We’re still none the wiser, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Did they never tell you what I told them about Jimmy’s plan?’

  ‘No,’ Molly says, more cautiously. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Do you remember how we talked about occupying Eli’s hut to save it from demolition?’

  ‘Like the suffragettes occupying buildings and chaining themselves to railings?’

  ‘Just that. Jimmy must have overheard us, because he told me he was going to save the hut. He made me promise not to tell you, cos you’d stop him . . .’

  No. No, no, no, her head screams.

  Kit is still talking, ‘. . . or something like that. I just wondered . . .’

  Molly finishes his sentence. ‘And then he couldn’t get out?’ She gasps as she pictures the scene: Jimmy letting himself into the hut with the key he knew was always kept under the wheel arch. She drops her head into her hands, overcome with the sudden, terrifying memory. That day Eli showed them how to set the fire, how to use the matches – Jimmy loved that. Had he tried to keep himself warm, brew tea? Perhaps gone to lie down on the bed and then somehow the fire caught and he couldn’t get out. And no one ever knew.

  ‘I did tell the police about that,’ Kit was saying. ‘But who knows whether they took any notice of me. After Eli killed himself, I think they became convinced that Jimmy’s disappearance was all to do with him. It was a lazy conclusion, an easy way out.’

  Molly’s head is full of flames and her ears ring with the screams of a terrified little boy. She is too horrified to weep.

  ‘Did anyone find out who torched the hut?’ Bella asks.

  ‘Most people thought it was lightning,’ Kit says. ‘Or Eli himself.’

  Although she hasn’t the heart, or the voice, to say so right now, Molly has never believed the lightning theory; and Eli would never have burned his beloved hut. She’d always believed it was Blackman. But now she is beginning to think it might just have been a tragic accident.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she hears Kit saying. ‘I thought you already knew.’

  Bella says, ‘Seems not, Kit. But we’ll definitely follow that up with the police, won’t we, Mum?’

  ‘I didn’t mean to upset your mother.’

  Although her head is spinning with this new information, Molly takes a deep breath and looks up, summoning a smile. ‘I’m fine, really.’

  Chris and Bella begin to chat and, as the conversation buzzes around them, Kit gives a wicked grin and pushes his hand forward. It is veined and wrinkly much like her own, and covered in liver spots, but the fingers are still long and elegant. Molly takes it in hers, feeling its warmth, and they both give a gentle squeeze. She looks up into eyes that speak of their sympathy and their sorrow, and her heart is warmed by his humanity. How she has missed him, all these years. There is no one else left in the world who knows what she went through, that summer. And here they are together again, in their own little bubble, trying to shield out the rest of the world for a few precious seconds.

  ‘We must sta
y in touch,’ she hears him whispering. ‘I can’t let you go, now that I’ve found you again.’

  She’s wants the moment to go on forever; never to relinquish the warmth of his hands. But all too soon they are saying their goodbyes and wrapping each other in fond, regretful embraces, and promising to meet again before they both get too much older.

  All the way home Molly has been hugging herself, as though to hold the memory of Kit tightly against her.

  ‘That was a bit of a shock, wasn’t it?’ Bella says, once they are back in the bungalow. ‘Do you really think Jimmy could have done such a thing? Locked himself inside the hut to stop it being demolished?’

  Molly shakes her head. ‘I’m not sure he’d have known how to, to be honest. But the stove was by the door, so if it caught fire, it would have blocked the exit. And he had such a dodgy heart, the doctors always warned us that he might go at any time. Perhaps that is what happened?’ But he was only ten. And disabled. And stubborn, fearless and loyal.

  Her brother’s face appears before her, as clearly as though Jimmy were really here. He is smiling, of course – that cheeky smile. He always seemed so innocent, so guileless, she thinks, but because his speech was so limited you couldn’t ever be certain what was going on behind the smile. She recalls Mrs D saying, ‘That boy understands more than he ever lets on.’ And she was right, of course, as she was in so many things.

  Jimmy had considered Eli a true friend, his only friend. He loved that hut, instinctively understanding that it was a safe place, and he returned again and again. He must have felt desperate to help, and hearing her and Kit talking about how they could save the hut could have inspired him to do the same. Did he really have the courage to go into the woods in that storm?

  But he was a very strong-minded boy. He’d spent his life battling his disabilities and, once he’d decided on something, very little could be done to dissuade him. She can imagine Jimmy fighting his way through the wind and the rain, his eyes fixed, his jaw set, doggedly determined to help his friend, and her heart overflows with pride. He was a remarkable individual – something she’d completely failed to appreciate when he was alive.