The Darkest Secret

by Alex Marwood

  ‘I suppose it’s two o’clock,’ says Maria. ‘We should probably turn in anyway.’

  ‘I just…’ mumbles Charlie. ‘Oi!’

  He looks up at Linda, wobbles on his chair when he sees her breasts swaying in the night-time breeze.

  ‘What?’ She twirls, puts her hands above her head like a ballerina, kicks one hip out to the side.

  ‘How come your lot haven’t been down?’

  ‘Zopiclone,’ she says.

  ‘Zopiclone?’

  ‘Zopiclone.’

  ‘Marvellous stuff,’ croaks Jimmy, from the carpet. ‘I love being a doctor.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  I wake with a start in the dark. Someone is creeping along the corridor outside my room. I hear a door open, a voice whisper, a reply, and a dim light goes on. Burglars, I think. I’ve got burglars. And then I remember where I am and realise that it’s Claire and Ruby, getting up before daybreak like some crazy cultists. I grope for my phone on the tea chest and see that it’s seven-thirty. Living the boho life in the big city, you forget that day starts late, in the winter, as well as ending early.

  I lie in the dark and listen to them move about, hear water run in the bathroom, their feet tread off towards the stairs. A couple of minutes later I hear the front door close. They must have gone out to do the chores. I hope so. They can’t have gone off and left me, can they? I creep up the bed, taking the duvet with me, and peep out through the curtains. The window is covered with condensation, but through a small patch I wipe with my hand I see them trudging by torchlight across the yard towards the feed shed in their wellingtons, coat hoods up against the bitter air. I don’t understand the country. I can’t imagine why animals need feeding in the dark. Would they thrive less if they waited a bit? Does the food lose its goodness? I crawl back down the bed. It’s already cold to the touch where the duvet has come with me. I go back to sleep.

  When I wake again it’s daylight and the phone tells me it’s nine o’clock. I bound from bed and hurry into clothes, strip off my bedclothes and, after thinking about it a bit, leave them folded on top of the bed. I never know whether people would prefer your dirty laundry cluttering up their living space. It seems so ostentatious to take them down, as though you’re expecting congratulations for a quite basic bit of manners. I don’t bother to brush my teeth. It took hours for the tap to run warm last night and I suspect I’m late already.

  They’re at their places at the kitchen table eating toast and honey. Claire jumps up when I come in, puts the kettle on the Aga. ‘I didn’t know whether to wake you,’ she says, ‘but I thought best not. I know you city people like to sleep late.’

  Late? Jesus. This is practically bedtime where I come from. ‘Sorry,’ I say. Late people always have to apologise to early people: it’s the rules.

  ‘Mint tea?’

  I consider asking if she has coffee, but I already know the answer. ‘No, thanks. A glass of water would be great.’

  She shrugs, takes the kettle off again and fills me a glass. I sit down. There’s one of those see-through cereal boxes filled with something that mostly consists of oats, and a jug of milk. I’m light-headed from sleeplessness, and starving hungry as I always am after a bout of insomnia. I reach for it.

  ‘Home-made muesli,’ says Claire approvingly, ‘and goat’s milk, fresh this morning. There’s apple juice in the fridge if you want to sweeten it.’

  It’s too late now. I can’t put it back down without being rude. I pour a dessertspoonful into a bowl and slosh strong-smelling white stuff on to it. It’s still warm. And not because it’s cooling down after being pasteurised, I’ll warrant. ‘You must need more than that!’ she says. ‘You’ve got a long journey ahead of you!’

  Funny how people who live on sawdust always want to fill you up. My stomach growls for a bacon sandwich. Blossom probably didn’t go for bacon. There’s salt in bacon. ‘I’m saving room for some of that lovely toast,’ I say. ‘Is it your own honey?’

  ‘No. Sort of. There’s a beekeeper who puts his hives in the wildflower meadow for a month in the spring. He pays us with product. And of course, they do a lovely job of pollinating the vegetables.’

  ‘Of course,’ I say. ‘How clever.’

  I stir the cereal around and take a little on the end of my spoon. It doesn’t seem to have soaked the milk up at all. I put it into my mouth and close my lips over it. God damn, I need to go to the dentist. Longevity shot up worldwide when they invented white bread; people got to keep their teeth. The milk tastes a bit funky, but it’s not as bad as people say. The cereal, though. It coats the roof of my mouth, scrapes between my tongue and gums, doesn’t seem to give under my molars at all. I catch Ruby looking at me. There’s a twinkle of amusement in her eye. I gulp it down. ‘Lovely,’ I say, meeting her eye and not looking away. ‘I bet it’s really healthy.’

  ‘Fantastic for the heart,’ says Claire. ‘The commercial stuff is loaded with sugar.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ I reply. Take another teaspoonful and gnaw. In the modern world, ‘home-made’ means ‘nobody would buy it twice’.

  The toast is much better. The bread is firm and nutty and full of seeds and the honey is… well, honey. It still feels weird, though, eating breakfast without caffeine. It gives one a glimpse of what the dawn must have been like in the Middle Ages, and not in a good way.

  ‘What time do you think you ought to be off?’ asks Claire.

  ‘Tennish? It’s quite a drive.’

  ‘Sure.’ She turns to Ruby. ‘Have you packed?’

  ‘Pretty much.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Mostly,’ says Ruby. ‘It means mostly.’

  Claire sighs the sigh of parents of teens the world over. ‘Well, you’d better go and finish, then. And get out of those old jeans. I’m not having people think I don’t look after you.’

  Ruby’s head wobbles, and she licks honey off her fingers, one by one. ‘What should I pack for the funeral?’

  ‘Something black,’ I say. Sean would want all the bells and whistles, I know that.

  ‘And some tights without any holes in them,’ says Claire, ‘and some shoes that don’t make you look like Bela Lugosi.’

  She turns to me as Ruby lollops away. ‘You will look after her, won’t you?’

  ‘I’ll do my best, Claire.’ How can I promise? People make promises so lightly. I don’t want to be one of those people who make promises and break them.

  ‘Because she looks all right, I know, but she’s really not. She’s pulled herself together because you’re here, but I doubt she’ll be able to keep it up. She’s only fifteen. And those people…’

  The sentence drifts away to nothing. I think back to Dad’s friends: bluff, boastful, snobbish Charlie Clutterbuck; that sharp-faced Imogen, who never gave you a moment’s attention if she didn’t think you were useful, or if her husband was ignoring you. All those glad-handers and hangers-on, and the men who laugh too loudly in restaurants, the women whose faces can no longer move, odd weirdos like Jimmy Orizio leering blearily down your top from the sidelines; Simone…

  ‘Robert and Maria will be there,’ I remind her.

  Claire wrinkles her nose as if she’s smelled ammonia. ‘Oh, God, those two.’

  ‘I thought they’d stayed in touch?’

  ‘Well, what was I meant to do? They were the only godparents who showed the remotest interest. All the others, all those people’ – the words come from her mouth as though she’s spitting them – ‘couldn’t have got themselves further away. Once I’d cut myself loose. But there wasn’t a single person from then still in our lives. Not a single grown-up she’d known since she was little. She’d lost everything. What was I meant to do? Leave her with one single present under the tree at Christmas?’

  ‘They always seemed okay to me.’

  ‘Relatively,’ she says. ‘Relatively.’

  ‘Yeah, maybe,’ I say. ‘At least they’re not psychopaths.’

  ‘I gu
ess. Small mercies.’

  I think about it. ‘Claire,’ I ask, ‘what happened to your friends from before?’

  You know, it’s only just occurred to me. I know nothing about Claire from before she met my father. Their house was always full, they were always on their way out to dinner or drinks or some reception thing, but it was always his friends. All those people who didn’t bother to keep up with my mum, who just carried on as normal as though the wives were just a bit of background scenery, providers of food and clean bed linen like an elevated housekeeper. They were all there, all the time, and with Linda too. It’s as though marriage to my father came with a no-baggage clause.

  Claire sighs again. ‘You know what? I’ve asked myself that over and over again. I mean it, it’s not like I didn’t have any. I don’t really know what happened. But your father was so – full on, you know? He filled up every little corner and somehow there was never the time for my friends, or they wouldn’t fit with the people he wanted to see, or he would turn up at the last minute with a helicopter and a booking at the Paris Ritz, and reminding him that we’d got something set up already would upset him so much, like I didn’t love him enough.’

  I nod. Nothing got in the way of Sean Jackson’s whims, not ever. The weekend when Coco disappeared was just one of dozens where he ‘forgot’ about our access visits. We always blamed Claire, of course. Wouldn’t you?

  ‘I was blind, and stupid,’ she says. ‘He said his whole life had started when he met me, and I believed him. He said we should both be as though nothing had come before us, and I thought that sounded like romance, even though somehow he never actually acted on his own words. And you know… most people don’t like it if you turn back up years later being needy when you’ve not had time for their lives in between,’ she continues. ‘They tend to take it badly, especially after… you know… I’d been in the papers so much. But there have been some. People who just came back without my asking. Tiberius. I hadn’t seen him since I was twenty-three and he didn’t seem to care at all. But there aren’t many, no.’

  And you were too scared to make more, I think. I get it. Once you’ve been public property you’re never really sure of other people again. There were a couple of girls in my school year who were suddenly all over me when I went back after that summer holiday and all the rest of them were giving me the cold shoulder. Their gleeful curiosity, their sugary sympathy, was worse than all the awkward silences put together. India and I both failed our exams that year. Indy didn’t go up to university until she was twenty.

  ‘I —’ says Claire, ‘please keep an eye on her, that’s all. People seem to assume that she’s robust because of the way she looks, but she’s vulnerable. She really is.’

  ‘I get it,’ I say.

  ‘Can you – can I give you her medications? I just… You know. Responsible adult and all that?’

  ‘Medications?’

  ‘It’s okay,’ she says. ‘It’s mostly supplements. A multivitamin and fish oil and ginseng and goji berries.’

  I feel my eyebrows start to rise and my eyes begin to roll, and hurriedly suppress it. It’s her thing. It’s how she shows her care. Let her have that. She’s not the monster you knew back then.

  ‘And an antidepressant,’ she says, and blushes scarlet. Shame burns off her from across the table. All that care, all that control, and still my kid’s fucked up. I have failed, and now I have to share it with the kid I fucked up before.

  I keep my voice even, endeavour to hide my surprise. ‘Oh, poor love,’ I say. ‘What’s she taking?’

  ‘Sertraline. It’s a serotonin adjuster. It’s not a cosh. She’s not psychotic or anything. She just has a chemical imbalance.’

  She’s beginning to sound defensive. I throw her a bone. ‘I took that for a while. It’s good stuff.’

  Claire gives me a funny look. Part relief, part – guilt? Really?

  ‘Life is a tough old bugger.’ I’m not there yet with, you know, patting her hand or anything, but a bit of kindness never did any harm. ‘Whatever gets you through.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she says, trying to meet my eye. ‘I guess I must have played a part in that.’

  I brush the remark away. I’m not so evolved that I can go from years of contempt to forgiveness overnight.

  Ruby clomps back down the stairs with a bag on her shoulder. She’s changed into cobweb-patterned tights, one of those tube skirts in a giant houndstooth check and a striped matelot shirt with an off-the-shoulder sloppy joe over the top. It all very eighties. She carries a pair of battered boots with three-inch heels. No fear of being taller than the boys for our Ruby. I kind of admire her for that.

  ‘Right,’ she says.

  ‘Have you got your inhaler?’ asks Claire.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Blue one and brown one?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Rescue Remedy?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Antihistamines?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Eumovate?’

  ‘Yes, Mum,’ she says in that ‘that’s enough’ voice. She must be tired of thinking about her allergies, if that list is anything to go by.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ says Claire. ‘I can’t help worrying.’

  ‘I’ll be fine, Mama,’ she says. ‘I promise.’

  ‘You’ve got your phone and your charger?’

  She has her back turned, and allows herself an eye roll. ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you’ll call me, won’t you? Let me know how you’re getting on? Every day? I’ll come and get you if you need me to, you know that, don’t you?’ Claire’s brow is furrowed with worry. ‘I’m so sorry I can’t come. I wish I could. But I just can’t. You do understand, don’t you, darling?’

  Ruby turns round and flings her arms around her mother, envelops her small body in the bounty of her bosom. ‘It’s all right, Mummy,’ she says. ‘It’s okay. I’ll be fine. Really. Please don’t worry.’

  After a few seconds I realise that Claire is crying. Ruby holds her, strokes her hair, soothes her like an infant. ‘It’ll be okay. You will be okay. Don’t be scared. You’ll be fine. You’ll be okay. I’ll be home soon. Don’t be scared.’

  We load the car up and set off not long behind schedule. Ruby winds the window down and waves a hand until we round the corner. I watch Claire in the rear-view, standing in the yard, her cardi wrapped tight around her. She cuts a solitary figure, frail and lonely. After all these years of hating her, now I feel sorry for her.

  Ruby gets out to open the gate, latches it behind her, settles back in her seat and plugs in her seatbelt.

  ‘I’ll need to stop for petrol soon,’ I warn her.

  ‘And coffee, I should think,’ she replies.

  I smile. ‘How did you guess?’

  ‘Not rocket science,’ says Ruby. ‘If we can hold on till we get past Arundel there’s one that has a Macky D’s, as well.’

  Aha.

  ‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Well, it’ll be time for elevenses by then, I should think.’

  ‘And in the meantime’ – she turns and leans her back against the door and stares at the side of my face – ‘you can tell me what really happened to my sister.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  2004 | Friday | Sean

  The builders start up. His head is wrapped in a pillow to keep out the horror of the daylight, but it can’t prevent the sound of a pneumatic drill from penetrating the barrier. Claire groans beside him, curls into herself like a foetus. ‘For God’s sake,’ she mumbles. ‘What the hell time is it?’

  He rolls over and finds his watch. ‘Jesus wept,’ he says, ‘it’s six-thirty!’

  He sits up and swings his legs over the side of the bed. His brain has come loose inside his skull. It sloshes forward and back a couple of times before it settles. I’m still drunk, he thinks. How much did I drink last night? Jesus.

  ‘Tell them to fuck off,’ says Claire.

  ‘I’m going,’ he mutters. ‘Keep your hair on.’

 
; He’s in his boxers and the shirt he was wearing last night. He has some faint memory of hopping around the bedroom pulling his jeans off, laughing like a hyena while she glared at him from the bed. Is it all women, he wonders, or is it just my luck, that every time I marry one she turns from party girl to prude in under two years? She used to love to party with me. Stayed up all night and laughed at all my jokes, and she was always up for a fuck. If there’s one thing I remember about last night, it’s the sight of her face all puckered up like a cat’s arse every time I opened another bottle. It’s my birthday weekend, for God’s sake. Don’t I deserve to have some fun on my birthday weekend?

  Over in the corner, on their inflatable mattress, the twins start to stir and Ruby starts up a grizzle. Oh, God, that’s the last thing I need, he thinks. If they start crying the whole day will start and she’ll be whining because I’m not helping her get their breakfast. For God’s sake, it was her who wanted them in the first place.

  He stands up. Wobbles. Looks for a clean shirt.

  On the living-room floor, Jimmy has wrapped himself in the sheepskin and lies there snoring open-mouthed, a thread of drool attaching his face to the scatter cushion someone has slipped under his head. Sean makes a mental note: get him up before the children appear. And damn. That was an opportunity to sneak off for a bit of Linda-time, right there, though I suppose with all these kids around any opportunities will be short-lived things. I might see if I can request she stay down with me for a couple of nights to supervise the final touches, make sure the house is ready for sale. I know for sure Claire won’t want to stay one minute longer than she has to, and we can put the drunk on a train.

  Another beautiful morning. High blue sky, golden sunshine, clouds of dust and the roar of machinery across the garden fence. I’ll have to get the contract cleaners in again before we go on the market, he thinks as he slips on his deck shoes and steps out on to the patio. Oh, well. Probably needed to get them in anyway. Jimmy and Charlie are both constitutionally incapable of sitting anywhere for more than five minutes without leaving some evidence of their presence behind. And the kids. There are jammy handprints all the way along the kitchen wall, three feet up. Might even need the painters back.