The Secrets Women Keep

by Fanny Blake

  She could have heard his gasp from three blocks away. ‘For heaven’s sake, Eve. We’re meant to be economising.’

  ‘No, darling. You’re meant to be economising. I’m still earning.’

  That was a low blow that stemmed from the smidgeon of guilt he’d provoked. Catching the haunted expression in his eyes, she immediately wished she could take it back. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.’

  ‘No, you shouldn’t. Today’s hard enough without us falling out over something as trivial as a pair of shoes.’ He started off, walking so fast she had to run to keep up.

  ‘Then let’s not,’ she appealed, grabbing hold of his sleeve. ‘Please.’ He was right. The memorial had been their final goodbye to Dan. All those memories that brought him alive again for a few minutes, then the bleak reminders that they would never see him again. Even if her grief had made her lash out, she should remember that she wasn’t the only one feeling bereft.

  He slowed down, letting her slip her arm through his. ‘Agreed,’ he said. ‘Let’s do what we can to support Rose, poor thing. Today’s about her, not us.’

  They walked the rest of the short way in silence, turning into the familiar Victorian cul-de-sac. At the end stood the Canonford: three London terraced town houses that had been reconfigured into one oasis of luxury. This had been the most ambitious of Daniel’s hotel makeovers; the flagship of his business. He had taken ideas that had worked at Trevarrick, transposing those he could to the town-house hotel, then adding to and adapting them. To begin with, the family had worried that the project was going to be nothing but a money pit. But with hard work bordering on obsession, Daniel had proved them wrong. The hotel was fifteen years old now, and had achieved the reputation for excellence that he’d hoped for.

  Eve leaned against one of the pillars at the bottom of the steps to exchange her shoes while Terry sprinted up between the two bay trees clipped like lollipops, their pots chained to the railings, then waited with exaggerated patience by the open door.

  ‘Nice shoes,’ he muttered as they entered the reception area together.

  ‘Thanks,’ she whispered as he pecked her on the cheek. Turning on her expensive heel, she crossed to the concierge’s desk. The young concierge could have passed for an Armani model, with his regular features, bee-stung lips and fine bone structure. Daniel had always believed in the importance of creating good first impressions. Choosing someone like this as the face of the operation was all part of that.

  ‘Do you know where I can find Rose, John?’ She adjusted her necklace.

  ‘Last seen in the lounge.’ That even-toothed smile was enough to make any woman go weak at the knees.

  Eve allowed herself a smile back. To her left was the lounge, its rich green walls complemented by the yellows, reds and turquoises in the furnishings. The room was now crowded with guests. She nodded at Terry and they entered together, arm in arm.

  Rose felt too hot in her suit, but couldn’t take off the jacket because Dylan had smeared jam across the shoulder of her pale blue blouse just as she was about to leave for the church. A business associate of Dan’s had cornered her to offer his sympathies. Behind him she could see Anna and Terry, standing by the bay window, talking earnestly. They made an odd couple: Terry in a dark lounge suit, serious, nodding in response to whatever Anna was saying. Her bangles slid up and down her arms as she gesticulated to make a point, in her hand an unlit cigarette. When Terry finally spoke, Anna concentrated on what he was saying, intently chewing the side of a nail as she listened. Then they both laughed, their heads leaning together as though they were sharing something intimate.

  She felt a tug at her skirt and looked down. Dylan, chocolate biscuit in hand! Adam was right behind him, looking uncomfortable in a suit, protecting his son as he toddled through a forest of legs.

  ‘Excuse me.’ She interrupted her companion to pick up her grandson. With a final word, the man tactfully withdrew.

  ‘Ganna. Mwah.’ A chocolatey kiss on Rose’s cheek, then two small chocolatey hands on either side of her mouth that pursed her lips together.

  She laughed, took one of them and began to suck it clean. ‘What have you been doing?’

  Adam put his arm around Rose and for a second she leaned into his reassuring warmth. ‘You looked as if you needed rescuing.’ His face was just close enough for her to feel the faint tickle of his beard. His wrists, scattered with reddy-gold hairs, spread into large workmanlike hands, patterned with thin scars. There was toothpaste on his breath.

  ‘Thanks. But I shouldn’t have been rude.’ She adjusted Dylan’s position on her hip.

  ‘You weren’t. Don’t worry. He’d had his moment.’ She liked that about Adam. He was always calm, always fair.

  ‘You’re so wise.’ As she kissed her grandson, Dylan blew a loud raspberry against her cheek, making her laugh before Adam disengaged his boy and took him off to find Jess.

  ‘They do look happy.’ Eve had found Rose at last. She had been scanning the crowd for her, wanting to make sure she wasn’t overwhelmed, knowing how being the centre of attention didn’t come easy. She was watching Jess and Adam, whose joint attention was focused on Dylan.

  ‘Don’t they? If only Daniel . . .’ Rose stopped.

  ‘Don’t. Not now, anyway. We’ve got to keep it together. Who else is here?’ Eve adjusted the wrapover front of her dress, which had slipped to expose more cleavage than was strictly suitable for the gathering. Rose didn’t notice.

  ‘So many people I don’t really know who knew Daniel through the business. I’m glad your boys and Millie could make it.’ Rose paused to shake hands and exchange a few words with an elderly couple come to thank her for such a wonderful service. Eve looked about her, taking in everyone there. Old family friends and acquaintances, even a couple of people they’d known from university. She stopped. Double-took. She thought she had spotted everyone she knew in the church, but clearly not. She would have recognised him anywhere, despite the passing years. Rose returned to her side.

  ‘What is it?’ She followed Eve’s gaze.

  ‘You didn’t mention Will was coming.’ There was an infinitesimal shake in her voice.

  Rose clasped her arm. ‘I’m sure I did. He wrote after the memorial announcement was in the paper.’

  A prickling glow was rising from Eve’s chest into her face. ‘You definitely didn’t. I’d have remembered.’ She could feel the sweat beading at her hairline. She took a tissue from her bag and blotted her forehead, but not so hard that she wiped off her make-up. She breathed deeply, willing herself to normal.

  ‘You don’t have to talk to him.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to.’ Her heart was thumping now. Still slowing her breath, she studied her ex-husband. He hadn’t changed so much over the years – apart from the hair. Not only greyer and thinner; it was cut so close to his scalp that from a distance he could be mistaken for bald. He still had that rangy, loose-limbed look that she remembered so well, but on his nose was a pair of rectangular dark-rimmed glasses. Despite the changes wrought by age, he was unmistakably Will.

  As another couple claimed Rose’s attention, Eve looked around for Terry. He was talking to Daniel’s lawyer, an earnest middle-aged man with a firm sense-of-humour bypass whom she had been glad to avoid. Perhaps they should leave now, except she didn’t want to abandon Rose to deal with all this. She was being silly. Years had gone by, and the ground floor of the hotel was quite big enough for both her and Will. She would simply avoid him.

  She made her way across the reception to the bar, helping herself to a couple of roast beef and horseradish canapés en route. Line the stomach – always wise. As she requested a second glass of wine, she felt a hand on her shoulder. She spun round, but her sixth sense told her who to expect.

  ‘Evie. I thought it was you.’ Same voice, same slight Scottish burr. Memories that she had long ago buried knocked at the inside of their coffin.

  ‘Will!’ She heard her voice shoot up at
least two octaves higher than normal and cleared her throat.

  As she said his name, the perfectly rare roast beef and horseradish slipped from the crostini that she had halfway to her mouth. Her other hand rose to catch it, but too late. As she stood nose to nose with her ex-husband for the first time in years, the raw curls of red meat dropped straight down into the depths of her cleavage, one rogue piece draping itself neatly over the front of her bosom, leaving a playful smear of horseradish on the black pattern of her dress.

  ‘Long time,’ he managed, then, clearly trying to compose himself, he took her wine from the barman and asked for one for himself. He stood holding both glasses while she fished out the beef from between her breasts. Boiling under his scrutiny, she returned her catch to the crostini, then took a knife from the table and scraped at the horseradish. The result would have been considerably more successful without the serrated edge. With one stroke she removed some of the sauce, simultaneously hooking out several threads of fabric so that the neck of the dress lifted up as she moved the knife away.

  ‘Oh, shit!’ A drop of sweat ran down the side of her face.

  Freeing the threads, she straightened the irretrievably frayed neckline. Then, with the little dignity she had left, she put the knife down and took her glass. As she raised it to her lips, she caught the twinkle in his eye and couldn’t help herself. Instead of all the things that she’d thought she might say if she ever saw him again, that she had rehearsed so tirelessly in those first months after he’d left, she started to laugh.

  ‘What’s Eve doing? Who’s that?’

  Rose turned from Anna to see Eve delving into her dress, then throwing her head back and laughing.

  ‘That’s Will, her first husband.’ She was so sure she’d warned Eve he was coming, but perhaps she hadn’t in the flurry of organisation. In any event, this was the last reaction she would have expected. Fireworks, perhaps. Greeting, chilly. Conciliation, unlikely.

  ‘You’re joking. He looks pretty OK for his age. Does Terry know?’ Anna glanced over at her uncle.

  ‘Anna, honestly! Looks aren’t everything. I don’t think Terry’s ever met him.’ Rose was experiencing a profound sense of unease as she watched the exchange. She looked over at Terry, whose attention, despite being mid conversation, was also firmly fixed on what was happening on the other side of the room. She didn’t think of him as a jealous man, but perhaps he had never had reason. But none of them missed the loud laughter and the way in which Eve and Will moved away from the bar together, his hand possessive at the small of her back, his other arm extended to guide the way.

  14

  Eve and Will had not seen each other from the day she’d found him driving out of her life for good. Any communication they’d had since was via angry phone calls or solicitors. Eve had never had the chance to tell him how much he’d hurt her. Her desire for payback had diminished over time, until she rarely thought of him. Yet to her secret shame, her subconscious had refused to let him go completely.

  At night, he still very occasionally came to her in dreams. There, they made rough, passionate love: the sort of lovemaking that she and Terry had long forgotten. She had read numerous articles about how couples should be honest with each other about what gave them greatest satisfaction, but the years had made them either too inhibited or too indifferent to bother. Perhaps neither of them even knew any more. But in her dreams, she and Will had romped in silk-sheeted circular beds, on shag-pile carpets, in moss-floored beech woods or on white-sanded beaches. In the morning, she would wake, confused, riddled with guilt about something over which she had no control, wondering what it all meant.

  And now here he was. Anything she had once meant to say was driven from her mind. Time had dropped away to bypass their last encounter and take her right back to their first year at Edinburgh, when they had met in the canteen. Back then, Will was a showman (some might, indeed some did, call him an attention-seeking idiot) wearing a kilt, a cape, his long glossy hair in a ponytail. She was immediately attracted to his eccentricities and his principles. He didn’t give a damn about what anyone thought. He wore, he said, and he did what he wanted. Authority was there to be flouted, rules to be broken.

  ‘Coming?’ he’d said, offering her his hand. It wasn’t his smile that persuaded her but his eyes, intense and inviting.

  Her friends had stared at him, then at her, wondering how she would react. She’d looked at him again, then, driven by a sudden unexpected urge to shock, she had taken his hand and left with him. That night they’d climbed Arthur’s Seat.

  His voice broke into her thoughts as he suggested they go through to the buffet. Just as she had all those years ago, intrigued but aware of the danger . . . she followed him.

  As they crossed reception, Eve heard Anna’s voice: ‘For Christ’s sake, Jess! This is completely unnecessary.’

  ‘You did it on purpose. That’s so typical.’ Jess was squaring up to her sister by one of the mahogany console tables. Adam was making a timely exit, Dylan on his hip, changing bag over his shoulder.

  ‘Look, I know you feel bad about not being there when Dad died and you want to do your best by him now, but messing up your lines isn’t important.’ Anna flicked her hair back over her shoulder. There might be some truth in what she was saying, but this was not the moment to say it. Jess looked stricken. Eve wished she could help her. They all knew how much she regretted her last words with Daniel, and the fact that she would never be able to make up with him.

  ‘I didn’t mess up anything.’ Jess’s voice rose in fury. ‘You went right on and said what we agreed I’d say. The story about him using icing sugar in the gravy was mine to tell.’

  ‘Oh, rubbish! We were both there when it happened. That story belongs to both of us. OK, I know we agreed you’d tell it, but you blanked, so I just carried on. I thought I was doing the right thing.’

  Jess was holding on to the marble-topped table as if it was the only thing keeping her upright. A tissue poked out of one hand. ‘Well you weren’t. You completely threw me. So you said nearly everything. And I said nothing.’

  ‘Oh, grow up.’ Anna was dismissive. ‘Nobody noticed. And even if they did, it doesn’t matter. It’s not a competition to prove who loved him the most.’

  The guests standing nearby were beginning to stare, quietly identifying the girls to each other. As word went round that they were Daniel’s two daughters, the attention on them grew. Both of them were so engrossed in their argument that neither of them noticed.

  ‘Girls, girls!’ Eve detached herself from Will, leaving him looking amused on the sidelines. ‘What are you doing?’ She gripped them both hard by the arm.

  Jess looked embarrassed and mumbled something about it not mattering, shaking her arm free.

  ‘Well you thought it did a minute ago,’ accused Anna, spitting the words out. ‘When you were blaming me for ruining Dad’s memorial.’

  ‘Anna, that’s enough!’ Eve interrupted, tightening her hold on her arm, feeling the bone. ‘Stop this immediately. Both of you. Today’s about Daniel and Rose, not about you. Your job’s to support your mother, not spoil things by fighting like children.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Anna and Jess spoke at once. Jess couldn’t look at Eve, clearly ashamed of the scene they’d been making. Anna held her head high, a defiant glint in her eye.

  ‘Until now, we’ve all been admiring how well you both did. Don’t spoil it. It must have been difficult to speak about him in front of so many people, but you gave a wonderful warm and funny tribute. And it really doesn’t matter which of you said what. Dan would have been touched.’

  Anna grunted as if to say I told you so. Jess blew her nose, hard.

  But Eve hadn’t finished. ‘You said it together and that’s all that mattered.’

  ‘You’re right, of course. I’m truly am sorry. I’m just upset.’ Jess put the tissue away, blinking quickly.

  ‘We all are. And grief can make you behave out of character sometimes.’ In
fact, nothing seemed to be much out of character here, but calming the storm before Rose got wind of it was what was important.

  The level of surrounding interest in the conversation had waned and the chatter had resumed. Only one or two people still bothered to sneak the odd look.

  ‘What’s up, Mum? A’right?’ Charlie, Eve’s eldest son, came up behind her. Curly-haired, attractive in his rarely seen suit, he looked as if he couldn’t get out of the hotel soon enough. The red trainers sticking out from under his sober black trousers gave away his rebellious streak.

  ‘We’re fine.’ Eve dismissed the incident airily, although Anna and Jess’s pinched expressions said different. ‘Where are the others?’

  ‘In there somewhere, I think.’ He gestured at the dining room. ‘Coming for a snout, Anna?’ He pulled a packet of cigarettes from his jacket pocket. If he noticed the frosty atmosphere, he ignored it.

  Eve refrained from comment but she wanted to snatch the pack from him, delivering the usual lecture in a few sharp words: filthy habit, filthy smell and it kills you.

  ‘Dying for one.’ Anna reached into her bag for her tobacco pouch and, without saying any more, followed Charlie outside.

  ‘Dan would have hated this,’ Rose whispered to Terry. The guests had moved from the lounge into the dining room, where the splendid and generous buffet organised by Jess was laid out on a long table, decorated with flowers from Anna. Proof of a rare moment when the sisters had worked in harmony. ‘Buffets belong in his Room 101. We always disagreed, but if I had the choice, I’d get rid of those awful drawn-out meals where you’re stuck beside someone you barely know and don’t want to know better. That’s my idea of hell.’

  ‘Well, you should be thinking of yourself as well as of him.’ Terry worried at a pattern on the carpet with the toe of his shoe.

  ‘Better to be able to move around and talk to everyone who’s come. They’ve all got something to say about him.’ She was feeling much better now the service was over and so many people had shared their memories of Dan and what he meant to them. She felt an unexpected wave of affection for her brother.