Want to Know a Secret?

by Sue Moorcroft

  The sofa was constructed like three reclining chairs stuck together. Ivan and Megan liked gimmicky stuff and the room was overdone with elaborate curtains and nets and lampshades like crystal cakes.

  Stella, Megan’s sister, emerged from the kitchen with steaming mugs for Ivan and Melvyn. ‘How’s Gareth, Diane? Sounds like he had a close call.’ Shadows beneath her eyes spoilt her usual prettiness.

  ‘He’s too cussed to die. Are you OK, Stella? You’re very pale.’

  ‘I’m fine!’ Stella summoned a wide but not quite convincing smile. A small, brisk, blonde cutie, reminding Diane of a beaming cherub, Stella was often around for Jenner gatherings, adding a welcome flavour of rebellion with her declared views that marriage was a prison designed to prevent women from achieving their desires. In contrast, Megan, and Hilly, Melvyn’s docile spouse, were co-operative with their menfolk in a way that brought the word ‘doormat’ to Diane’s mind and Stella’s lips.

  Stella had left her own husband during an affair with an improbably young teacher. Diane liked Stella and had been sorry the young teacher hadn’t stuck around. Gareth, however, had been sanctimonious. Stella had got what she deserved, he declared, reaped what she’d sewn, eaten just desserts on the bed she’d made and must now lie upon.

  Stella, presumably aware of his self-righteous condemnation, had been quiet in his presence.

  And now, as Stella and Megan melted back into the kitchen, Diane nursed her steaming mug, waiting stoically as Ivan and Melvyn lit cigarettes and updated themselves on the European football results via Sky Sports. Rude of them, having invited her to the house.

  Meanwhile, George, Ivan’s eldest, clopped down the open-tread stairs into the sitting room.

  Immediately, Diane forgot her brothers-in-law. ‘George! How have you been?’

  ‘Hey, Diane. Yeah. OK.’ George grinned. So impossibly beautiful with bisque skin and gold-brown eyes to set off his tawny hair, so funny, bright and kind, Diane wondered how he could be Ivan’s son. Or, for that matter, Megan’s. George had been lucky with both looks and charisma.

  No wonder Bryony called him Gorgeous George.

  Diane suddenly missed Bryony with a physical pain behind her breastbone and a boiling in her eyes. ‘How are things?’

  He rolled his eyes. ‘Uni’s better than school. But reading and revising! Waaaaaay too much.’

  ‘Stop fannying about and get a job, then,’ Ivan demanded, without taking his eyes from the oversized TV screen.

  Whether or not George went to university had been last year’s family row. George had, with difficulty and because he was eligible for the full loan, won. Ivan didn’t understand university and, as with most things he didn’t understand, rubbished it.

  Diane ignored him. ‘Everyone hates revision, it’s in the rules. How’s the band?’

  George flopped into the sofa and performed a yogic looking stretch to make his section recline. ‘Amazin’. Been working on some new stuff, Marty wrote some wicked riffs. Got a gig Saturday – with the new drummer, Rob.’ He’d hated having to replace Bryony and her pearl-white drum-kit. Bryony had told Diane that George sometimes sent her flyers announcing that Jenneration was to appear on Friday at The Bantam or Saturday at Dhobi Joe’s. No letter, just the flyers, a silent but eloquent message that things at home were moving on without her.

  ‘Hope it goes well.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. Anyway. Revision. Nice to see ya.’ With a heart-stopping smile he loped from the room, chequered boxer shorts showing above the waistband of his jeans. If something that hung around his buttocks could be called a waistband.

  ‘’Bye,’ responded Diane, sorry he wasn’t staying longer.

  She knew that George missed Bryony. When Bryony had lived at home he’d been huge in her life, so often a weekend guest that he was almost as familiar with Purtenon St. Paul as Bryony herself.

  Diane thought of them making popcorn in her kitchen, a stereo playing Razorlight or The Arctic Monkeys; writing songs, arguing whether Bryony’s new boots made her look like an American high-school kid. George was a happy, larky, lippy but likeable lad who’d filled that clichéd spot in Diane’s heart of ‘the son she’d never had’.

  He’d taken Bryony’s decision to work abroad personally, as if she was doing it to get away from him. Had tried frantically to talk her out of it.

  Diane suspected that he felt more for Bryony than mere cousinly affection but Bryony pooh-poohed the notion, eyes big and curls bouncing. ‘What are you on, Mum? George is my bezzy, not my boyfriend.’

  ‘I know what he is. It’s what he wants to be – that’s the question.’

  Interrupting these thoughts, Ivan pointed the remote at the flat-panel, large-screen TV and put an end to Sky Sports. Evidently, the conference was now in session.

  Diane jumped in hard to put them off balance. ‘So how long have you known about Gareth finding his father and sister?’

  Ivan, having opened his mouth to speak, closed it, and glanced at Melvyn. Diane recognised the look of the Jenner boys getting their stories straight.

  But Melvyn wasn’t so easily steered off topic. ‘Gareth’s worried about you, Diane. Driving all that way every day.’

  Diane began a snort of derision but, at the same time, she pushed back her hair and caught the unmistakable scent of sex on her hands and the snort emerged as more of an aghast sniff. After several horrified beats, she managed a squeaky, ‘Why?’

  Melvyn waved an airy hand. ‘It’s a long way.’

  ‘There’s petrol,’ added Ivan.

  ‘And the mileage clocking up. And wear and tear on all your vehicle consumables.’

  Diane shifted her mug to a raffia coaster on the coffee table. It was difficult to concentrate on deciphering the subtext of this interview when her heart had just performed a gallop and buck like a naughty pony. The enormity of what she’d done tonight socked her in the head.

  After 25 years of – admittedly hillocky – marriage to Gareth, she’d been unfaithful.

  And here she was sitting with his brothers ... A cold nausea rolled over her like flu.

  She stared at Ivan and Melvyn, who were staring back at her. Discovery seemed imminent, inevitable. Panic grabbed her heart in both hands and tried to stuff it up her throat.

  She’d just had sex in the back seat of a car in a public place.

  What if she’d been seen? What if someone told Gareth? Or Ivan? Or Melvyn? She’d be –!

  She’d be –?

  Bearing in mind everything she’d recently discovered, what was the worst that could happen?

  She swallowed. If you were discovered? If he divorced you? How would your life be worse? He can hardly prevent you having contact with Bryony – she’s not a child.

  She picked up her mug to give her hands something to do. Separation and divorce.

  Living without Gareth.

  Being alone ... For an instant she knew a feeling of liberation so intense that it made her feel drunk.

  In actual fact, discovery didn’t seem too awful a prospect.

  For her.

  Shit. She put her mug down again before she dropped it.

  Two had tangoed. Gareth would be so furious he’d run to Valerie with his tales – OK, not literally, in view of his broken ribs, pelvis, tibia, fibular, etc, but figuratively. And James hadn’t shown any desire to be divorced. There were significant issues with Tamzin’s physical, mental and emotional health and Tamzin freaked out at the merest suggestion of acrimony between her parents. There might be money issues, too, for all she knew. Divorces tended to be expensive for those with money to lose.

  He was probably standing under his shower at home right now, washing away the same secretions that she felt bathed in, thinking how much he enjoyed an occasional one-night stand. She doubted very much that he predicted major changes to his marital status.

  She swallowed and tried to get a grip on the conversation. ‘What are consumables?’

  Melvyn assumed the role of patient adviser
. ‘Your tyres and brake pads, your exhaust, everything that wears out and needs replacing. The more miles you do, the sooner you have to replace them.’

  ‘And that’s what Gareth’s worried about? Me wearing the car out and spending lots of money on petrol? The same car he drove on an almost identical journey every working day?’

  ‘He’s worried about you wearing yourself out, too,’ Ivan added generously. ‘That’s why he suggested it.’

  ‘Suggested what?’

  Ivan gave her a puzzled frown. Maybe he’d explained all this once while she’d been suffering cold sweats about illicit sex. ‘What?’ she repeated.

  ‘That you come and stop here. You’ll be much closer to the hospital.’

  ‘Hardly,’ she disagreed, sharply. ‘The Ackerman’s the other side of Peterborough from this house. If you factor in extra traffic the petrol consumption’s probably the same.’

  ‘No, ’cos you can park your car here and come for visiting every night with us. I’ll drive you.’

  Diane laughed. ‘What about our house? What about my work?’

  ‘Well, that’s what Gareth wants,’ said Melvyn, decisively, in a so that’s that tone.

  Diane turned back to Ivan. ‘How long have you known that Gareth had found his father and sister?’

  Although his eyes widened and his lips parted, Ivan didn’t look any more ready with an answer this time than last.

  She turned to Melvyn. ‘How long?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘Since before the crash?’ she guessed.

  ‘It’s not our business, Diane. It’s between you and Gary.’

  ‘Since before the crash.’ She picked up her mug to take to Megan in the kitchen, then changed her mind and put it down. Megan had a nasty habit of throwing her arms around people and hugging them close. Diane felt as if she reeked of sex and Megan would know that Gareth was in no condition to provide it. She wiped a haze of sweat from her top lip.

  ‘But when are you coming?’ Melvyn frowned as Diane retrieved her bag from under the table.

  She straightened. ‘Where?’

  ‘Here, while our Gary’s in –’

  ‘I’m not.’ She fished out her keys.

  Ivan’s brows beetled in exactly the same way as Melvyn’s. ‘But Gary said –’

  ‘I’m not coming.’ Calmly. She raised her voice. ‘Thanks for the tea, Megan!’

  ‘You going, darlin’?’

  Megan scurried out of the kitchen with her embrace ready but Diane was already on her way through the front door.

  She whizzed home, mind racing. Why would Gareth want her to stay at Ivan’s house? Ivan had only three bedrooms, all presently occupied; a guest would be an inconvenience. The petrol/wear-and-tear argument was an insult to her intelligence.

  She pulled up outside the house.

  So it must be ... She frowned out of the window at the dark lane.

  So it must be ... Come on, Diane.

  So it must be ... it must be ...

  The light in her brain came on slowly.

  More stuff he didn’t want her to find out.

  Chapter Nine

  Rich, dawn-pink fabric. Anything too pale would’ve been a mistake with Tamzin’s bloodless complexion. Glass buttons, black embroidery silk, chrome rings in two tiny sizes, thread. The new-fabric smell enveloped her along with the steam as Diane ironed out the folds ready to mark out the garment on the laminate floor. She didn’t have a table. Cutting on the floor saved space and money, both of which were at a premium in this house, although it did also mean fluff bunnies that collected in corners and rolled out to attach themselves to her fabric at the least draught.

  A hard blue cushion was stuck with pins, red tailor’s chalk lay beside the one-metre wooden rule and, pinned to a cork tile on the wall, the measurements that demarcated Tamzin’s waif-like figure were written onto a female outline.

  Diane looked at the materials around her. She felt scratchy eyed and light headed; not remotely like starting on Tamzin’s mammoth order. But the garments wouldn’t make themselves. Tamzin, although Diane hadn’t seen her for over a week, had seemed to be looking forward to the new clothes and it was apparently a miracle for her to look forward to anything. Diane had an itch to help her if she could.

  But she’d lain awake for too many anxious night hours recently asking herself what she’d done and feeling her stomach turning over at the answer. Twenty-five years she’d been faithful to Gareth, through thick and thin (or thin and thinner), good and, latterly, bad. After the row about Diane’s inheritance – or lack of it – sex between them had faded until abstinence was habitual. Until then Gareth had never let anger interfere with his desire for her.

  But there was something of which she was in no doubt: even if he no longer wanted her, he wouldn’t want another man to want her.

  She could just imagine his cold rage if he ever discovered her back-of-the-car sex.

  How sordid it sounded! But it hadn’t seemed it. James, both caring and urgent, had wanted her. And wanted her. She’d run with her instinct and satisfied a craving for human contact of the kind she hadn’t even realised she’d been missing so badly. Waves of desire had washed her onto a dangerous beach.

  But that had been then.

  Before the cold light of several days had illuminated the fact that she knew almost nothing about James and only had his word for it that he and Valerie hadn’t, um, met in the middle for years. And he hadn’t said anything about meeting anybody else’s middle. Casual sex could be his norm. It had seemed to come easily enough, complete with suggestions about hotels. She had come easily enough, too: one cheesy chat-up line and she’d hopped into his backseat like a curious teenager.

  Carefully, she checked that her lengthways fold ran accurately along the warp of the fabric, then pinned and pressed it, a bad hang to a garment grating on her like a screeched note would on a musician.

  She sat back on her heels and surveyed her sketch and the pattern she’d cut for a double-breasted shirt with collar and slightly gathered sleeves. Tamzin needed to avoid anything too fitted until she regained some weight. Either side of the centre panel Diane would embroider whorls of tiny stem stitch and French knots, working in and around the little chrome rings as she went. Subtle and unusual, Diane’s offbeat ornamentation would suit Tamzin better than ribbon or ruffles.

  She examined the cutting edge of her scissors. They’d soon need sharpening, and Gareth normally did them.

  Downstairs, the phone rang.

  Motionless, she listened. If she got to it before it stopped ringing, it wouldn’t be James. He hadn’t phoned on Tuesday. Or Wednesday or Thursday. The man didn’t phone a woman after a one-night stand, she’d come to realise. That’s what made it a one-night stand. Dur! So what did he do? Probably, he smiled with vague friendliness when he next happened to encounter her and maybe asked how she was. If he didn’t mention the sex unless the woman was misguided enough to oblige him to, then it had been nothing special. He whistled in the shower as he swilled away Scent of A One Night Stand Woman and he forgot the whole thing.

  The man certainly didn’t swear and panic and attempt a belated douche job as an optimistic form of contraception, trying grimly to calculate when his period was due before hurrying off to Dr Cooke for advice.

  The phone continued to ring.

  Diane lunged inelegantly to her feet, a leg buckling because she spent too much time on her knees on that hard floor. She raced for the stairs, wishing she had telephone handsets all over the house so that she didn’t have to drop what she was doing and fly to where the phone was fixed to the wall.

  She jumped into the narrow hall. The phone still rang. She snatched up the receiver with a breathless, ‘Hello?’

  ‘Can we swap hospital visiting slots with you, today?’ It was Ivan, blunt to the point of rudeness, typical of him that he didn’t even bother with ‘Hi, how are you?’ Of course it wasn’t James.

  ‘OK.’ She matched his economy with her ow
n.

  ‘You can go in the evening.’

  ‘I can, can’t I?’

  ‘Only we want to go to the footie tonight and we’ve got half a day off.’ Ivan and Melvyn worked at the same mammoth packaging plant.

  ‘Have fun.’

  ‘And you can stay over at ours.’

  ‘I’ll be fine.’

  ‘But our Gary wants –’

  ‘It’s very thoughtful of you all to worry but I’ll drive home.’

  ‘It’ll be dark.’

  ‘I’ll put the headlights on.’

  Staring through the kitchen window after ending the call, she didn’t immediately return to Tamzin’s shirt. Clumsy and incompetent, Ivan was attempting to manipulate her. She would discover why – she’d had years of practice. It was just a question of being methodical. It would give her something to think about other than James.

  OK, first – kitchen drawers.

  No.

  Sideboard. No. Gareth’s wardrobe. Nothing remarkable in, on, underneath nor behind. Under one of the mattresses? No. Chest of drawers, bedside locker, behind the bath panel, under the bed, no, no, no, no. Every other nook and cranny, no. Purposefully, she clattered the stepladder up the stairs, heaved her way through the overhead hatch and into the loft.

  Three hours later she was in the shower ridding herself of the dust from rifling every box and suitcase and cobwebby pocket of roofing felt that looked as if it might be a hiding place.

  But, no.

  Thoughtfully, she returned to the shirt, wielding the shears carefully along the pattern pieces, pinning the darts, tacking for the gathers at either end of the sleeves. She switched on the sewing machine and threaded it to wind the bobbin.

  A car stopped outside in the lane.

  She paused. Then stretched up like a meerkat to peep over the sill. A little white hatchback had pulled up and a young man stepped out and made for one of the neighbouring houses. She turned back to her work, wanting to spit like a camel. What had she imagined would be out there? A black Mercedes?