The Darkest Secret

by Alex Marwood

  The two men take a handle each and start to lower the bag over the edge. Charlie groans with the effort, and Sean just has time to feel a tweak of contempt before he takes its full weight with stretched arms and finds himself staggering backwards. His feet go out from under him and he splashes backwards into the water, the bag on top of him, weighing him down.

  Coco’s hand slips out of the open mouth of the bag and slaps on to the surface of the water. He stares at it, breathless. She’s wearing her bracelet. The sight of that, and the smallness of the fingers, the pale palm turned up towards the azure sky, makes tears fill his throat and hurt his eyes.

  ‘Are you okay?’ asks Robert.

  It’s a struggle to speak. Oh, my darling. My little darling. Best of all my children, I’m so sorry. ‘Yes,’ he replies. ‘Go and get some spades, and a couple of those slabs. I’ll be fine.’

  He sits and looks at the hand while he’s alone. Sean has never seen a dead body unprepared before today. He missed the deaths of both his parents – his father because it was a sudden, tidy heart attack, when he was up in Sheffield at university, his mother because he left the trip to Devon too late, just stayed those extra couple of hours to sign off on a deal to convert some warehouses in Shoreditch, and by the time he reached the hospital she was already laid out, clean and nice and peaceful on the side-ward bed, awaiting the grieving relatives. There’s dirt under her fingernails. How did that get there? he wonders, one of those stupid thoughts that wander through your mind when things are too much to bear. Did we not bath them last night?

  The bracelet looks horribly out of place down here in the gloom: too bright, too clean. He recalls putting it on her, the day they christened the twins at the smart church on Ludgate Hill, some favour Robert managed to pull in via a colleague in one of the Temples. He takes the little hand in his own and holds it. It’s cold, unresponsive; still floppy because the air is warm and rigor has yet to set in. He strokes the palm with a thumb; traces the lifeline. It doesn’t look particularly short. It runs all the way across to the outer pad. Suddenly there are tears pouring down his face. ‘Oh, Coco,’ he murmurs. ‘Oh, my Coco.’

  I can’t bear it, he thinks. Nothing of her, no place to visit, no object to love. He touches the bracelet, lets it slide up the wrist. It’s loose, and there’s still give in the sliding catch. Can I take it? He thinks. It’s something of her. If I keep it near me I can look, from time to time, remind myself that she was here, once.

  It’s a stupid thing to do, he knows it is. But Sean is overtaken by an unaccustomed flood of sentiment and the bracelet, at least in this moment, feels horribly important, as though it contains a part of his daughter’s soul. He glances up at the sky above his head. If they look over the edge now, he thinks, I won’t do it. But he can hear them some distance away, the rasp of stone on stone, and he carries on. Pulls the clasp to its full extent and slides the bracelet over the hand. It’s small and surprisingly heavy in his own. Pure gold, he thinks. Nothing but the best from the Gavilas. He slips it into the breast pocket of his polo shirt and does up the button.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  I can’t. I just can’t.

  I know nothing about my father. Even the things I did think I knew, I know no longer. And on Monday I have to stand up in front of a churchful of people and give an account of his life. I know what’s expected of me. I’ve been to funerals where the dead person was far younger, far less high-achieving, than Sean – people who had done nothing at all with their life other than empty themselves out with drugs and drink till there was nothing left to sustain their bodies – but still the speaker made their life seem rich, their character full and lovable, the people left behind bereft yet glad that once they were there.

  And all I have is a blank sheet of paper. Well, blank apart from the words ‘Dad Eulogy’ written at the top and the collection of spiky doodles that are all I have produced in two hours. Downstairs, the house is quiet, footsteps occasionally passing along corridors but otherwise nothing. There will be no dinner tonight. Joe’s leaving the fish pie for people to help themselves and everyone has retired to separate rooms as though the thought of any more communal time is frightening.

  What do I say? Robert’s talking about the achievements: the houses built, the money made, the public face. I have to do the daughter. The happy family memories, the anecdotes that will make them laugh and cry. And my mind is blank. All I can think is this: what was that bracelet doing there? What was it doing there?

  It’s seven o’clock. Time moves on and on so fast and the funeral will be upon me before I’m done if I don’t get it started now. I decide to try a list. India likes lists. She says they’re the basis of all life. She says that no reasonable person can do any complicated task without them. Maybe she’s right. I start. ‘Things I know about my Dad,’ I write, below the headline.

  Five minutes later, the page looks like this:

  He liked good wine.

  He had four wives.

  He moved house every six months.

  He spent at least two weeks in Cap Ferrat every year. Neither my mother nor Claire has ever been to Cap Ferrat again.

  He once met Saddam Hussein. He did not call him indefatigable.

  With the exception of Linda, each of his wives was considerably younger than the wife before had been when he married them.

  He married for the first time at 32, for the second time at 44, for the third time at 52 and for the fourth time at 57.

  His wives, when he married them, were 32, 27, 45 and 22.

  His third wife was there the night his second marriage broke up. His fourth wife found his third wife’s dead body when she came to visit with her parents.

  With the exception of my mother, the Gavilas introduced him to every one of his wives. Claire was a baby PR person, recently promoted from a PA, low down in their team and working her way up, when she met Sean at one of their Christmas parties. Linda was attached to Jimmy Orizio, who was attached to many of their clients. Simone was their daughter. A more suspicious person would think it was deliberate.

  He smoked three fat cigars every day of his adult life.

  None of us ever met our grandparents.

  He voted LibDem, apart from in 1997 when he voted Conservative (Charlie probably doesn’t know this).

  He had five daughters. By the time he died, three were out of touch, one was missing presumed dead and the fifth was too young to have a choice in the matter.

  I have the bracelet from the missing kid.

  Fuck.

  I have to have a change of scene. This is getting me nowhere. These bland surroundings, the could-be-anywhereness. Something new to look at might jog my mind. On the far side of the lawn, down by the swimming pool, I noticed a fussy little Roman temple when I was down with Ruby and Emma this morning, put up by some Devonshire squire who fancied himself a global traveller in the 1800s and barely restored by Sean. It’s all moss and chipped marble; but sheltered from above and deliciously isolated. I won’t be able to hear Charlie booming from there, won’t even really be able to see the house from behind the trees. I grab a blanket and my notebook and go in search of a torch.

  Cold. These near-the-sea places never really get that crisp cold you get further inland. The garden is dank and dripping, and wears that air of winter neglect, everything straggling and waiting for shears and binder twine to bring it back to order. The ground is slippery and the bushes look as though they’re lying in wait, as I catch them with my torch beam. I almost turn back. But back is worse, in its way. It’ll be fine when you’re there, I tell myself. Once you’ve got your back to a pillar and you can see what’s in front of you. Once your eyes have adjusted to the dark.

  I’m so intent on keeping my footing that I don’t notice that the folly isn’t empty until I’m too close to turn back. Jump in shock when I see her at first, then realise who it is.

  She’s lying on a curved bench, wrapped in a blanket. Her hair has come loose, and tumbles in tangles do
wn towards the leaf-strewn floor. She is so still that for a horrible moment I wonder if she’s dead. I consider backing quietly away and fleeing back to the safety of the house. But no. I have to be bigger than all these feelings. I clear my throat and speak.

  ‘Simone?’

  She moves slowly, like an animal emerging from hibernation. Raises her head from the arm that’s been supporting it and turns her face slowly to look at me. She’s crying. A slow, thick wash of tears coats her cheeks, runs in rivulets down the side of her nose. She looks at me blankly, as though she doesn’t know me; she’s dazzled by the torch, of course, but there’s more than that. She’s gone from Echo to Andromache to First Mrs Rochester. I’m not sure if she even really registers that I am there.

  I want to run. I want to run so fast. Go and find someone else to deal with this. Simone is nothing to do with me. She was his choice, his damage. I sit down carefully on the bench, keeping my movements slow as though she were a feral cat I didn’t want to startle. ‘Are you okay?’ I ask. ‘Is there anything I can do for you?’

  She doesn’t answer. Sits up on the bench and pulls her heels into her buttocks, wraps her arms round her shins and stares and stares.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she asks, eventually, in her little-girl voice.

  ‘I – I’m trying to write the eulogy and I thought… I’m having trouble. I thought maybe if I came away from the house…’

  ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘What a sensible plan.’

  Oh, lord.

  ‘It’s a beautiful house,’ I say, experimentally.

  ‘It was,’ she says. ‘It will be again. Once we get it back to ourselves, Emma and me. Once you’ve all finished and gone.’

  I jolt. She’s not balanced, Camilla. Don’t take it personally. She doesn’t know what she’s saying. I had no idea my father could have produced such grief, but she’s fairly much out of her mind.

  ‘I can’t be in there right now,’ says Simone. ‘It’s like having my whole life sucked away.’

  ‘Oh, love,’ I say. ‘I think I understand.’

  ‘No, you don’t.’ Her voice hardens. ‘If you understood, you wouldn’t be here.’

  ‘Wow,’ I say. I can’t stop myself: it’s out of my mouth before I know it’s there. But God, Simone, you’re not the only person. ‘He was my father,’ I say.

  Her tears have dried up. She wipes her puffy eyes with a corner of her blanket and looks at me the way a duchess looks at a salesman. ‘Oh, come on,’ she says. ‘You didn’t love him. None of you loved him. I was the only one who loved him properly. And he loved me.’

  Another wow bubbles up, but I clamp my jaw over it. And all the other things I want to say. Like: didn’t you notice the way he died, Simone? Does that look much like love?

  ‘He was the best, best man,’ she continues. ‘And none of you could see that. I remember the way you used to talk to him, Camilla, don’t think I don’t. He was strong and brave and generous, and he did everything for you all, but all you could manage was sneering.’

  Must not. I must not. ‘I’m sorry you feel that way, Simone,’ I say. ‘I think it was a bit more complicated than that.’

  ‘Not really,’ she says. ‘Poor Sean. I’m only glad he got to be loved the way he deserved, eventually.’

  ‘So am I,’ I say, because yes, obsessive possessiveness, and ignoring every inconvenient truth, might well have been exactly the sort of love that Sean deserved, in the end. It was the sort of love he specialised in giving, after all.

  ‘It’s freezing cold out here,’ I venture. ‘Do you think we should go in?’

  ‘No,’ she says. Then she ploughs on. ‘He was the only person who ever loved me,’ she says. ‘He said he wished he’d waited all those years, you know. He said he felt like his whole life started when he met me.’

  I’m sure I’ve heard this phrase before. Where? Claire? Yes, maybe Claire.

  ‘You lot know nothing about love,’ she says. ‘Even Daddy and Maria don’t really understand how big it was, that thing between us. And they’d do anything for me, just the way I would have done for him. Anything. And I did. I did everything for Sean. Everything. Nothing before me matters. Do you understand?’

  And how’s this going to help me get my eulogy done? Maybe you want to do it yourself? I’m sure everyone will want to hear about your great romance. ‘Oh, Simone,’ I say. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Oh, whatever,’ she says. ‘Anyway. We’ll all just go through the motions, eh? You can pretend you cared and I can pretend I think you did, and once the funeral’s done and dusted you can all go back to your little lives and leave me and Emma alone. We don’t want you here, you know. We were happy when it was just the three of us, and Emma and I will be happy when you’re gone.’

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  2004 | Sunday | Ruby

  ‘Where’s Coco?’

  Godmother Maria jumps in the air at the sound of her voice. ‘Oh, hello, darling!’ she says, her hand on her chest. ‘You’re awake, then?’

  ‘I was sick,’ says Ruby, proudly.

  ‘Again?’

  ‘No. When everyone was asleep. Mummy came and put me in the shower.’

  ‘Oh, so that’s what happened to that sheet.’ She glances at the washing machine, going through the drying cycle quietly beneath the sink. ‘Poor old you.’

  ‘Where’s Coco?’

  ‘She went to the beach with Simone and Mrs Buttercup and Ms Innes and the other children. Joaquin’s in the garden, though.’

  ‘Oh,’ says Ruby. She likes the beach and she doesn’t much like Joaquin. He’s too big and noisy.

  ‘We didn’t want to wake you up,’ says Maria. ‘You were sleeping so tight after your nasty night.’

  ‘Oh,’ says Ruby again, ‘but I’m better now.’

  Godmother Maria comes and squats in front of her, strokes her hair off her forehead with a finger. Grown-ups are always stroking her head, or patting it as if she’s a dog. Ruby finds it annoying. She can’t wait until she’s big enough to do it to them.

  ‘Do you know the funny thing?’ she asks. ‘I could have sworn she was you.’

  Ruby giggles. The fact that people can’t tell them apart has become a favourite game with her sister. Several times they have swapped their clothes and swapped their bracelets over and pretended to be each other, to see if anyone can tell. Mummy always can, even when they insist that they have the other’s name, but they fool Daddy often. When they do it he calls them his Little Criminal Masterminds. She likes that. She doesn’t know what it means, but it sounds better than Tiny Drunks, which is his other name for them. And far better than Go Away Daddy’s Busy.

  ‘She’s playing the game,’ she says proudly. ‘Fooled you!’

  Godmother Maria straightens up, her eyes all wide. ‘Why, you clever little sausages! How long have you been doing that for?’

  ‘Ages!’

  ‘Goodness, aren’t you naughty? But she had her bracelet on this hand’ – she holds Ruby’s right arm in the air to show her – ‘and Godfather Robert and I got them for you specially so we could tell you apart.’

  Ruby giggles, and shows her that she can slide the bracelet over the joint of her thumb.

  ‘Well, I never!’ cries Maria, impressed. ‘You can still get them off! I thought you were much too much of a big girl now to do that!’

  ‘No, we’re still little,’ Ruby tells her. ‘We’re the littlest ones of all.’

  ‘Well, not quite the littlest. Inigo is littler than you, I think.’

  ‘Yes,’ says Ruby impatiently. ‘We’re bigger than some children, but we’re the littlest Jacksons. My big sisters are grown-ups.’

  ‘Almost grown-ups,’ says Maria, with her lovely warm smile. ‘Tell you what, shall we play the game too? It would be a shame if only Coco was playing it.’

  ‘Daddy will be able to tell,’ she says staunchly, though she knows it probably isn’t true.

  Maria slides the bracelet off her wrist and pops it o
n to the left one. ‘Well, why don’t we see?’

  ‘Okay,’ says Ruby, and laughs with delight. She’s not had a grown-up join in the game before. Well, apart from Mummy, but she sometimes thinks Mummy’s only doing it to annoy Daddy. She always goes ‘You see?’ in That Voice when he realises he’s been fooled.

  Godmother Maria gets her comb from her bag and combs the parting across so it’s on the other side. Squats back to look at her handiwork and smiles.

  ‘Coco!’ she cries. ‘There you are! I thought you’d gone to the beach!’

  Ruby giggles with delight.

  Joaquin comes in in swimming trunks while she’s drinking her juice. His hair is wet and he carries the stick that seems to go with him everywhere, so he can hit things with it.

  ‘Oh, God, Joaquin,’ says Godmother Maria, ‘you haven’t been in the pool? Tell me you haven’t been in the pool.’

  ‘It’s hot,’ he protests.

  ‘Oh, God, why can’t you listen to anything anyone says? You know it’s not safe to go in the pool by yourself. I couldn’t bear it if we had —’

  She breaks off mid-sentence and looks a bit green all of a sudden.

  ‘Chill, Grandma,’ says Joaquin, ‘I’m a big boy now. And besides, Uncle Jimmy’s out there on a sun-lounger.’