The Secrets Women Keep

by Fanny Blake

  His eyes half opened and he lifted his head, then dropped it back on to the pillow. ‘What’re you doing?’ His voice was muzzy with sleep.

  ‘Going to the house to make some coffee. Want one?’ The moment, such as it was, had definitely passed.

  ‘Nah,’ he muttered, rolling back on to his side with a contented groan. ‘I’ll be up in a minute.’

  For minute, read hour, she thought as she went to the bathroom to get dressed. But what matter? Switching on the light, she caught sight of herself in the mirror. Trim in the swimsuit, true, but just below her right shoulder blade was a blazing brace of mosquito bites. Immediately she spotted them, they began to itch. Cursing herself for not having unknotted the mosquito net over the bed the previous night, she wrapped her left arm round her body in a vain attempt to scratch them. Bending her right arm up her back didn’t reach either, so she resorted to using her hairbrush. As a result, the bites itched until she was frantic. She hid the resulting welts under a loose patterned cotton kameez and pulled on the linen trousers with an elasticated waistband (a design detail that she’d once sworn she’d never wear but that now she wouldn’t be without).

  When she put her head around the kitchen door, the house was quiet. But the coffee pot when she reached for it was hot. So someone else was up. Then she remembered the raised voices she’d heard last night, the bangs as if someone was hitting something. Daniel and Rose. In however many years she’d known them, she’d never seen them argue. And this had sounded like a ding-dong of an argument from what she’d been able to make out.

  To her slight chagrin, she recalled how, when she’d heard voices, she had put her head out of the study door, then stood at the bottom of the stairs to find out what was wrong. She justified her behaviour as born from concern not curiosity. The sound of their bedroom door opening had sent her scurrying back to the study without having made out a word. Had she heard two doors shut after that? The idea of her dearest friends rowing, spending the night apart, made her profoundly uneasy. But her first instincts had been right. Something was very wrong indeed.

  Just then Rose appeared. Her face was drawn, her eyes puffy. ‘Morning.’ She didn’t wait for a reply. ‘Weather’s rotten, but the forecast says it’ll clear by mid morning. Orange juice?’ She took several oranges from the hanging mesh baskets in the corner of the room, laid them on the counter and pulled the juicer out from the back.

  ‘Bad night?’ Eve asked tentatively.

  ‘No more than usual.’ Rose was clipped, uncommunicative.

  ‘Daniel up?’ She tried again.

  ‘Think so. He’s probably working.’

  Right on cue, Daniel appeared at the door to the garden. ‘Just been out seeing what damage the storm’s done. Doesn’t look too bad. Few branches and a couple of tiles off the garage roof.’

  His last words were drowned out by the sudden noise of the juicer.

  He sounded as if it was just another day, but he looked as if he was suffering from as sleepless a night as Rose. He was unshaven, with purple smudges of shadow under his eyes, shoulders tense as if they were carrying the cares of the world. ‘Can I help?’ he offered.

  Rose ignored him and carried on with what she was doing. Daniel made a face at Eve and shrugged his shoulders. ‘Coffee?’ he asked, and took over the corner of the kitchen where he could make a fresh pot. Rose’s displeasure at his interference was unspoken but clear from the slight shake of her head and the brief irritated sigh.

  It was too chilly to eat outside, so she was laying breakfast at the table at the end of the room. Not that the atmosphere indoors was much warmer. Cutlery and plates were being clattered and banged into place. A cereal packet went flying, sending cornflakes crackling on to the floor. Eve dived behind the curtain dividing the utility room from the kitchen and emerged with a dustpan and brush. As she knelt to her task, she wondered whether she should retire until hostilities were dropped.

  ‘I think I’ll take some coffee to Terry,’ she said, making her excuses.

  Rose said nothing.

  Dan shook his head. ‘No need. I‘ve just seen him. He’ll be here in a minute.’

  ‘Who will be?’ Anna appeared in jeans, her T-shirt covered by a cardigan. She had pinned up her hair with a couple of chopsticks that stuck out at angles. In her hand was a bag containing two loaves of fresh bread. She dropped the car keys on the table.

  ‘Terry,’ answered Eve, simultaneously making an alternative getaway to the sitting room, taking Terry’s coffee for herself and leaving them to it. She reflected how her own spats with Terry always blew over quickly. They were habit. No one took them seriously, not even them. This was not the same at all. She fingered her ever-present BlackBerry, checking the time. Five past eight. Too early to call Amy. She didn’t function until she got into the office at ten. Perhaps she wouldn’t call her at all. Perhaps best to surprise her by returning without warning. Eve smiled as she pictured Amy walking into the office the following morning. She would be sure to have got in first and would be sitting at her desk, waiting. Surprise. The best form of attack. A fine plan, but she had to phone her . . . had to.

  Making herself comfortable on the sofa, she picked up one of Rose’s art magazines, contenting herself with the pictures in an article about an exhibition devoted to the early works of Caravaggio. Absorbed in the faces of adolescent boys who stared out of the shadows, she only looked up at the sound of footsteps. Rose.

  ‘Breakfast – if you want it.’

  ‘Of course. Thought I’d be better off out of the way. Has something happened?’

  Rose took a step into the room, shutting the door behind her.

  ‘Eve! For God’s sake stop asking me if something’s wrong. If I wanted you to know, I’d tell you.’

  They stared at each other, equally shocked by her outburst.

  ‘Sorry.’ Eve automatically took a sip of the coffee, then spat it back into the cup. ‘No sugar.’

  ‘Oh God, it’s me that should be sorry.’ Rose lifted both hands to her face.

  ‘No, I shouldn’t have said anything.’ Thinking for a moment that Rose was about to cry, Eve wasn’t sure what to say.

  Rose ignored her. When her hands dropped, her face was tight with emotion.

  ‘Daniel’s having an affair.’ The words dropped into the silence between them like pebbles into water, the ripples spreading outwards.

  Eve’s first impulse was to laugh, but then she saw the confusion and perhaps fear in her friend’s eyes. ‘No! Are you sure?’

  ‘As sure as I can be.’ Rose stared at the floor, shaking her head. ‘I wasn’t going to tell you, but . . . I’ve got to talk to someone. I can’t keep it to myself.’ And she began to tell Eve everything that had happened.

  After a night deliberating, Rose had decided not to make things easy for Daniel. She would go along with him – up to a point. If he didn’t want to explain, then she wouldn’t press him, however desperate she was to get to the bottom of things and however frustrated by the presence of the others. She would avoid him when she could and let him sweat, let him wonder what she was thinking, what she might be planning.

  But when she’d arrived in the kitchen, appearing normal had been harder than she had imagined. Everyone must be able to see how awful she looked. Every time she blinked, she felt as if her eyelids were scraping her eyeballs clean. Her nose was sore from where she’d blown it so often. Whenever she thought about what Dan had said, tears immediately came to her eyes. Convinced she could get through by focusing on the daily routine, one thing at a time, she had set about making breakfast.

  Dan’s entrance was torture to her. But however difficult it was being in the same space as him, concentrating on breakfast helped. Had Anna noticed anything wrong? Unlikely, since Anna’s world revolved around the one still centre that was Anna herself.

  She hadn’t meant to say anything. Not to Eve. Not to anyone. But when Eve asked her for the nth time what was wrong, it was as if a cork had been taken out of a bo
ttle. She hadn’t been able to stop herself.

  As she related the previous evening’s row – if that was what it had been – between her and Daniel, Eve was visibly shocked. She shifted along the sofa until she could put her hand on Rose’s knee, saying nothing, letting Rose explain. Even that small gesture was a comfort.

  ‘Mu-um! Are you two coming?’ Anna’s shout broke the spell. ‘We’re all having breakfast.’

  ‘Just coming.’ Rose stood up. ‘You won’t say a word, will you? Not to Terry. No one. I do feel better now I’ve told you, but Daniel and I must sort this out our own way before anyone else knows. Promise?’

  ‘You’ve my word.’ Eve pressed two fingers against her shut lips before following her out. ‘This is between you and me.’

  10

  Apart from Terry, who, like Anna, seemed not to notice any tension in the air, everyone spent the morning avoiding one another. Eve took herself into the study, where she could use the landline to call Amy. She didn’t want to leave Rose, but business was business. What Rose had told her had stunned her. The idea of Dan having an affair contradicted everything she knew about him. She wanted to find out more from Rose, but first she had to silence the rumour put about by Amy. She left Rose going to pick flowers for Jess’s room.

  After several rings, all Eve heard was her own voice parroting the answerphone message. ‘One of us will get back to you as soon as possible.’ Huh.

  She looked at her watch. Where was the bloody woman? At the very least she should be in the office, manning the phones, keeping the business going. Despite Rose’s pleas for Eve to stay on after all, the right decision had to be to go home, however difficult it was to leave Rose and Daniel like this. She punched the number into the phone again. Just as she was about to hang up, Amy answered.

  ‘Hello. Rutherford and Fraser Literary Agents.’

  A sliver of steel penetrated Eve’s soul. Her co-agent sounded out of breath, as if she’d just run up the stairs from the estate agent’s on the ground floor.

  Eve imagined Amy dropping her bag on her chair, putting down her Starbucks and then sitting on the edge of the desk, one leg straight, one bent, studying the nails on her free hand. She must have adopted the pose from those TV shows about which she was so knowledgeable. Her hair would be in place, her palest pink nail varnish freshly applied, her make-up immaculate: the picture of self-confidence and efficiency. And now Eve was going to puncture all that.

  ‘Amy?’

  She heard a tiny surprised gasp. ‘Eve?’

  ‘The last time I looked at the agency name, there was no Fraser in it. As far as I can remember.’ Her voice was at its most chilly.

  ‘No.’ Amy sounded almost calm again as she staged a speedy recovery. ‘But I thought if they believed you’d made me a partner the clients would have more confidence in me while you were away.’

  The girl had balls. No question. However. ‘I think the clients know me well enough to know that there’s no reason for them to doubt the agency. Unless of course they were led to believe I was ill or might be retiring . . .’

  ‘Ah.’ Shaken again. But only for a moment. ‘I can explain that.’

  So it was true. ‘Please do. I was hoping you would.’

  ‘When I last saw Mary Mackenzie, she was complaining about the agency. She said that you hadn’t got her the deal she wanted last time round and was interested to hear if I had any new ideas.’

  Eve tapped her pencil on the desk. She had done everything she could for Mary, an author who couldn’t accept her flagging popularity. In Eve’s view, she would never find new success as a children’s novelist without a large injection of imagination. ‘Yes?’ she snapped. ‘And?’

  ‘I thought when she threatened to find another agency that if I told her you were retiring soon, she might stay on.’ She paused. ‘And she does seem happier with me looking after her.’

  The doodles of stars and diamonds with which Eve was covering the sheet of paper in front of her had become boxes inside boxes, the lines getting thicker, darker with the increased pressure.

  ‘We agreed, if you remember, that all decisions about our . . .’ the word stuck in her throat, ‘authors and illustrators would be taken together.’

  ‘But you weren’t—’

  Eve spoke over her protest, slowly, calmly. ‘So perhaps you could contact her, explain that you’ve made a mistake and that I have no intention of retiring. If she still decides she wants to leave, then we’ll decide what to do – together. If we’re going to work as a team, then we need to be open with each other. At all times.’ She put down her pencil and smoothed the legs of her linen trousers.

  The brief silence between them contained something momentous, something that Eve couldn’t quite identify. Then Amy spoke, quietly conveying exactly how much she disliked being told what to do. ‘All right. Is that all?’

  ‘Not quite.’ Eve was going to have the last word. ‘I’d be grateful if you would go through the emails I’ve sent you and reply to each of them, this morning if possible.’

  ‘Everything’s under control, if that’s what you’re worried about.’

  ‘Amy, all I’m asking is for you to let me know where we are on a couple of things. Do you think you can do that? If you’re unhappy about the way things are run, we can have a chat about that when I’m back.’

  Which will be sooner than you think!

  They exchanged goodbyes and Eve hung up, exhilarated by the way she’d handled things. Whatever tricks Amy had up her sleeve, she was equipped to deal with them. Sitting at Dan’s desk, she leaned back in the chair and swivelled it idly from side to side, planning her return to the office. Stilling herself, she smacked both hands on the arms, pleased with her decision, imagining the look of surprise on Amy’s face. Now she could get back to Rose.

  Leaning forward as she got up, she glanced at the paperwork Dan had left on his desk. Perhaps a clue to the identity of this mystery woman might be hidden somewhere? Turning to check the door was closed, she started leafing through, careful to make sure she left things looking undisturbed. Everything appeared to relate to the hotels. Three piles of business dealings, each one associated with the different boutique hotels in the family business: Trevarrick in Cornwall, the Arthur in Edinburgh and the Canonford in London. The spreadsheets meant little to her. She always left her own for Terry to deal with, although she was intelligent enough to know when the figures were good or bad, and these were definitely good. She moved the heavy Murano glass paperweight, hefting it in her hand, feeling its weight.

  A click of the door. She spun round. Daniel.

  ‘Beautiful, isn’t it? I just wanted to make sure you had everything you need.’

  Having been so nearly caught snooping, her heart was racing. However, she held her nerve. ‘Yes, everything thanks. In fact I’m done now.’

  ‘Just one of my collection.’ He indicated a glass-topped table by the window. Inside were about thirty millefiori paperweights of different sizes and shapes and a riot of colours: baby blues and pinks, rich yellows, greens and maroons, deep blues and whites.

  ‘They’re gorgeous.’

  ‘Aren’t they?’ He reached out for the one she held. ‘I found this one in Cortona.’

  Their hands touched as he took it. Eve’s breath caught at what felt like an infinitesimal sexual tug between them. She’d felt the same when, on their arrival, he put his arm round her. Had he felt anything? He’d never given her the remotest reason to think so. For her, those rare, brief moments of contact were enough to remind her how different her life might have been. Her fate had been settled that night on Arthur’s Seat, when Will and she had taken a drunken student bet that they wouldn’t be able to get to the top and back before dawn. Despite his being a friend of Daniel’s, she hadn’t known him well. By the time the dare was over, she knew him much, much better. After that, they were rarely out of each other’s company and Daniel, a highly satisfactory fling while it lasted, had been unceremoniously discarded. Only w
hen art student Rose had come on the scene had they mended the fences, frequently becoming a foursome. That was when her friendship with Rose had been forged.

  He seemed to have aged in the two days since they’d been there. Lines she’d never noticed framed his mouth and eyes. He straightened a pile of papers then returned the paperweight to its correct place.

  ‘I’m sorry you’re leaving,’ he said. ‘We really can’t persuade you?’ He paused. ‘I know Rose would love you to stay. We both would.’

  ‘She’s told me, Dan.’ Outside the window, the sky was clearing. It was going to be a glorious last day after all. She’d promised Rose not to say anything to him, but perhaps she could help.

  ‘Of course. I thought she must have.’ He took the worn leather armchair in the corner of the room, moving one of Rose’s tapestry cushions to one side so he could lean back. He looked more beaten than Eve had ever seen in the long years she’d known him. He hadn’t looked as bad as this even when he and Rose were beside themselves with worry over Anna’s eating disorder and self-harming.

  ‘You’ve got to explain, Dan. That’s the very least you can do. She’s going mad with not knowing.’

  ‘It’s difficult. I . . .’ He covered his mouth with his hand, rubbing his upper lip.

  ‘I don’t care how difficult it is,’ she insisted. ‘And I don’t want to hear any self-justification. Tell it to the person you should be talking to – Rose. This is something between the two of you.’

  ‘You’re right. I know.’ His face was strained as he pulled the cushion from behind his left elbow and held it on his lap, one finger tracing the richly coloured flowers in the design over which Rose had taken such care.