This Secret We're Keeping

by Rebecca Done

  She looked beautiful tonight, Jess thought, with her kinks of dark hair tumbling softly down in tendrils, skin slightly flushed from the power walk and possibly the prospect of alcohol. Anna had been trying for the past year to conceive, so she wasn’t really supposed to be drinking, but she generally made exceptions for significant occasions, such as weddings, birthdays and unforeseen road-traffic accidents.

  ‘So, your hit-and-run …’ Anna began, and then waited, presumably for Jess to explain how she was not half in plaster and getting her oxygen from a pump.

  So far, Anna only knew what Jess had told her over the phone, which was that a car had driven into her leg but no real harm had been done. She had stopped well short of revealing the driver’s identity. That sort of news could only be delivered face-to-face.

  ‘It wasn’t exactly a hit-and-run,’ Jess said carefully. ‘As in … he hit, but he didn’t run.’

  ‘Probably because you were wedged underneath his front bumper at the time,’ Anna suggested, before softening slightly and taking Jess’s hand. ‘Jesus, Jess. Are you sure you’re okay?’

  In the hours since the accident and arriving at Carafe, Jess’s leg had turned a surprisingly violent shade of purple and had started to gently pulsate like something slowly dying – but she’d been moderately reassured by her clear results from X-ray and the remarkable indifference of the consultant, who had popped his head round the curtain to diagnose soft-tissue bruising before promptly disappearing again. The extent of his advice had been to go home and self-medicate – by which he’d obviously meant it was nothing a fistful of painkillers and a glass or two of wine couldn’t fix.

  ‘I think so,’ she said, nodding slowly. ‘I mean, it’s sore, but it could have been a lot worse.’

  ‘Well, he must have been speeding,’ Anna decided, her face so furrowed up with concern that Jess wanted to reach over and smooth it all out for her.

  Jess shook her head, thinking it might be wise to start by pleading mitigating circumstances on the driver’s behalf. ‘No, it was completely my fault. I ran out in front of the car.’

  ‘Really? Why?’ Anna looked sceptical – which was reasonable enough, given that Jess, like most people, was normally sufficiently level-headed not to jump voluntarily in front of moving traffic.

  As Jess fumbled for the right way to break the news, Anna’s predisposition towards logical analysis began to system-overload with a flurry of diagnostic questions.

  ‘What sort of car was he driving?’

  ‘An expensive one.’

  ‘Was he old? Like, too old to be driving?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Too young?’

  ‘No, no.’ She thought about it. ‘Middling.’

  ‘Any passengers?’

  Jess nodded. ‘Two.’

  ‘What about his registration?’

  ‘The stewards got it.’

  ‘Are you going to press charges?’

  ‘No,’ Jess said quickly, frowning. ‘It’s just bruising.’

  But the two of them had been friends for so long now that they both knew this agitated probing to barely be necessary. All Anna really needed to do was lean back in her chair and look Jess in the eye – so she did. ‘Okay. Why do I get the feeling there’s something you’re not telling me, Jess?’

  Jess swilled the Merlot gently around the bottom of her glass, admiring its viscosity, watching the wine legs appear. For so many years she had thought that ‘wine legs’ was just another term for pissed (it was Philippe who had eventually, discreetly, put her straight – possibly to prevent Jess from further embarrassment at his distinctly well-to-do wine-tasting evenings).

  Jess exhaled sharply and met Anna’s eye. ‘This has to stay between you and me.’

  Fortunately, Carafe wasn’t the sort of place where people paid too much attention to neighbouring tables – but Jess leaned in anyway, letting her blonde hair create a little screen over one side of her face, as if it would somehow help her to get the words out.

  ‘It was Matthew. Matthew Landley was driving the car.’

  ‘Oh my God.’ Anna put a hand across her mouth and they sat in silence for a moment, the sounds of the bar washing over them like water over someone drowning.

  After a couple of seconds, Anna seemed to remember how to breathe, though she was still gripping the edge of the table with one hand like she was afraid it might be about to take off. ‘But it was … it was an accident?’

  ‘Yes … sort of. I mean, it was my fault. I ran out … I was trying to stop him.’

  Anna stared at her. ‘What?’

  ‘I panicked.’

  Anna failed to blink. ‘About what?’

  Given that she was neither police officer, security guard nor stuntwoman, Jess could see that flagging down traffic by throwing herself in front of it was always going to be tough to justify. ‘He was driving away,’ she said lamely. ‘I wanted to stop him.’

  ‘Enough to kill yourself?’

  Jess swigged away the reality of the risk she’d taken with some more wine. ‘It wasn’t like that. I didn’t even think it through. There was no time – I just … stepped out.’

  ‘How many people saw?’

  ‘Too many,’ Jess said, feeling a small twist of dread in her stomach. ‘And he was with a woman and a little girl. I mean, his wife. He was with his wife and daughter.’

  ‘Jesus fucking Christ.’

  Ordinarily, a man in his forties being married with a daughter could hardly be described as breaking news. Well, tonight it is, Jess thought darkly, taking another long swig from her glass.

  ‘And he definitely recognized you?’

  Jess tilted her head at Anna like, Come on.

  ‘Sorry,’ Anna said quickly, pausing to remove temptation by sloshing the remainder of the wine from the bottle into Jess’s glass with the sort of vigour that implied she would have quite liked to be necking it herself.

  ‘So what did he say, Jess? When he saw it was you, I mean.’

  ‘Not much. Hardly anything. There were people around … we were both in shock.’ She hesitated. ‘But – his wife kept calling him Will.’

  A flicker of confusion crossed Anna’s face before she caught on. ‘He changed his name,’ she breathed. ‘So that’s how he managed to disappear off the face of the planet.’

  ‘Makes sense,’ Jess mumbled through another mouthful of ripe cheese, deciding to keep to herself for the time being her immense relief on having seen first-hand that Matthew Landley wasn’t dead.

  Anna paused. Her thoughts seemed to be cascading so quickly that Jess wouldn’t have been surprised to see her head begin to vibrate. ‘Maybe it wasn’t an accident.’

  ‘No, it definitely was. I saw the car, and I –’

  Anna shook her head and leaned forward. ‘No, I mean, him being there in the first place. You said yourself you’ve been seeing him everywhere. Maybe you were right. Maybe he’s been following you.’

  Choosing not to challenge Anna over this rather interesting departure from her previous assertions that Jess simply needed to swap alcohol for tap water and insomnia for a good night’s sleep, she just shrugged, all out of ideas. ‘Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t know.’

  Anna frowned. ‘Okay. Okay.’ Unlike Jess, Anna had been an excellent mathematician at school, and she generally dealt with problems by trying to out-logic them. ‘Let’s look at the facts. Even if he has been stalking you, I doubt he’ll carry on now. Not if the police are involved.’

  Jess swallowed. ‘But I need to talk to him, Anna.’

  Anna leaned forward so that Jess couldn’t ignore what she was about to say, her voice gently insistent. ‘There’s nothing either of you need to talk about. Seriously – there’s no words for what went on. It’s best for both of you if you never have contact again.’

  Jess didn’t voice agreement but she didn’t protest either.

  ‘You know I’m right, Jess,’ Anna pressed softly.

  Even as their eyes met, Jess could
n’t respond.

  ‘So what’s his wife like?’ Anna asked, after a brief silence.

  Jess was surprised to find she could recall details she didn’t remember registering at the time, and struggled for a moment to articulate what they all represented in her mind. Silver statement jewellery. Glossy chestnut hair, spirit-level straight, and an excellent fringe. Gym-honed, with enviable muscle tone. The kind of implied authority that commanded careful handling.

  ‘Not his type,’ she informed Anna eventually.

  ‘You don’t know what his type is.’

  ‘I know she’s not it,’ Jess replied, a little too briskly.

  ‘Do you think she realized who you were?’

  Jess shook her head. ‘I don’t see how she could have done. She just stood next to the car bellowing at him. I think she was a bit worried about the paintwork.’

  ‘This is Fucked Up,’ Anna declared, like it needed saying.

  As Anna finished her glass and Jess the rest of the bottle, their conversation eventually moved on to braking distances, the intricacies of Anna’s online ovulation calendar, and the merits – or otherwise – of veganism (polishing off the Camembert, Jess was not altogether surprised to find herself coming down firmly on the side of foodstuffs-deemed-more-likely-to-give-one-a-heart-attack).

  The Merlot was gone by the time Philippe arrived at her shoulder a short while later, bearing two toasting flutes and a bottle of Laurent-Perrier champagne in a bucket. ‘From the gentleman near the bar,’ he declared with a soft smile, raising an eyebrow. He unfolded a stand from beneath his arm and set the bucket in it.

  Jess whipped round and straight away through the crowd locked eyes with Dr Zak Foster. She’d had no idea he was even in Norfolk.

  He simply looked back at her, motionless, waiting.

  Tonight was the one-year anniversary of their first meeting beneath the portico of the temple in Holkham park woods, where they’d been strangers at the wedding of a mutual friend. Zak had been enthralling a small audience with a medical story when she’d first encountered him, but of course it was the sort of anecdote she couldn’t hope to start following halfway through after two glasses of wine. So instead of guffawing along with the others Jess found herself scuffing around behind a pillar like some sort of tragic walk-on part in an outdoor production of Othello, listening to him talk and wondering if he was perhaps famous, or at least related to someone who was. He had that air about him, somehow – or maybe it was just because he was devastatingly handsome and by far the most captivating of all the guests in attendance. She didn’t normally go for men who attracted attention in that way, and for this reason alone, she knew he had the potential to be definitively Not Suitable. But by then, of course, he’d spotted her drunkenly gazing at him and – understandably perhaps – interpreted it as a massive come-on.

  They’d ended up kissing on the temple steps at midnight, fireworks exploding in the background, and Jess remembered smiling inside at the time and thinking, This is pretty perfect. She still bore the scar from the burn she had acquired in the small of her back just a couple of hours later from a particularly rough patch of oak bark.

  After that they’d spent a heady and intoxicating forty-eight hours together, though Jess had been disappointed to discover that Zak was in fact only an occasional visitor to Norfolk. His parents had recently moved to Dersingham but he himself was resident in Belsize Park in London, working as an A & E consultant. His erratic shift pattern and frequent hours on call combined with Jess’s catering commitments should have equated to a relationship that was finished before it had even begun – not to mention Zak’s highly acrimonious divorce that had only just arrived at its bitter conclusion after months of protracted wrangling over an assortment of financial assets.

  But as it turned out, they were both committed to making it work. Jess would visit Zak in London on her days off, with Zak travelling back to Norfolk on his. She’d met his parents. He’d shaken her sister’s hand at a christening. Things had progressed more healthily than she’d ever expected at the outset.

  To date, Jess had only seen pictures of his ex-wife hidden away in various albums on his Facebook page – tall and blonde, with an aristocratic chin and a pout that only dermal fillers could achieve. As far as Jess could tell, Octavia was a part-time everything – jewellery designer, society magazine columnist, raving lunatic. The sort of woman who wore shorts with wellingtons and liked to shoot ducks at the weekend.

  In most of the ways that mattered, Jess was Octavia’s complete opposite, which she knew was part of the reason Zak had liked her in the first place. He had admitted as much – to being charmed by the novelty of her – but as time passed it worried her more, because novelty value had a conversely predictable habit of wearing off.

  Of course, he had his faults – he was hot-headed and had a foul temper; he could be controlling and more than a little patronizing. Jess had always quietly wondered what role these qualities had eventually played in his divorce, mostly because Zak liked to sidestep the topic of why he and Octavia had split up and, if pushed, would only repeat the phrase ‘irreconcilable differences’ without ever remaining calm enough to elaborate.

  But Jess had recently discovered that Zak’s definition of irreconcilable differences varied slightly from hers, in that his seemed to encompass rampant infidelity – something she in fact considered significant enough to warrant its own category of marital breakdown, since it was hardly the same as bickering over household chores or not getting on with the in-laws.

  Anna had already started busily decanting the Laurent-Perrier into the champagne flutes. ‘Just a taste won’t hurt,’ she murmured, almost under her breath, making Jess feel slightly guilty because Anna was usually such a paragon of self-control.

  Averting her eyes temporarily from Zak, stalling while she sought reassurance, Jess leaned in towards Anna. ‘I found out the real reason that Octavia and Zak divorced, as opposed to the Zak Foster edited highlights.’

  ‘Ooh,’ said Anna, like they were discussing a local celebrity and not Jess’s actual boyfriend. ‘Go on – surprise me. Secret fetishist? Gambling addict? Reptile fanatic?’

  Jess wasn’t sure if Anna was referring to Octavia or Zak, though she couldn’t resist a smile at her friend’s proclivity for turning everything into a Friday night in with reality television. She shook her head. ‘None of the above. Zak caught Octavia in the toilets at the theatre. She was shagging his brother.’

  ‘Jesus fucking Christ,’ intoned Anna, digesting the news with the aid of a lengthy swig of Laurent-Perrier.

  ‘Yep,’ Jess said with a nod. This particular development in the Zak Foster divorce court saga she had not yet had the opportunity to discuss with the man himself, having only discovered it last night. It had been a throwaway comment made as part of a group conversation, with Jess forced to virtually interrogate her unwitting informant afterwards in order to get the full picture.

  ‘His brother? At the theatre?’ Anna said, like she was trying to decide which was worse – keeping it in the family, or the crime against performing arts.

  Jess shook her head. ‘I know.’

  Apparently Zak had turned up late to a weeknight performance of La Bohème, by which time Octavia and the brother had got sozzled in the bar and assumed he wasn’t coming at all. The ensuing showdown in the toilets was, according to reports, nothing short of an operatic spectacle in itself. Six weeks later, Zak had filed for divorce, the brother having already fled to San Francisco to make it big in the world of online gaming.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Anna breathed. ‘Poor Zak.’

  Anna was a big fan of Zak’s, stemming mainly from the fact that he represented a change from Jess’s previous boyfriend, who although very sweet had a creative interpretation of full-time employment involving round-the-clock Xbox, Domino’s pizza and Jess’s credit card. In Anna’s eyes, the fact that Zak had not only an actual paying job, but the staying power to have completed a medical degree before climbing the
ranks to become a consultant was more than enough to override his various faults (although she was no doubt also slightly dazzled by his brooding charm, shiny white teeth and the fact that he was half Andalucían on his mother’s side, which had genetically predisposed him to Hispanic good looks more befitting a film star than a doctor).

  ‘Why would he keep something like that from me?’ Jess said now. ‘She cheated on him, and he never told me.’

  Anna looked uncertain. ‘Male pride?’ She frowned. ‘How reliable’s your source?’

  ‘Solid. His brother’s best friend.’

  ‘Fuck.’

  ‘I don’t know – maybe it doesn’t matter,’ Jess murmured, half to herself, repeating what had been whirring around her head since discovering Zak’s lack of honesty the previous night. ‘I mean, it was before we’d even met. He’s definitely going to say it’s completely irrelevant.’

  ‘Yes,’ Anna cut in, slicing her index finger through the air in the manner of a Westminster spin doctor knee-deep in damage limitation. ‘Exactly. Irrelevant.’

  Jess took a contemplative swig from the glass Anna had passed her, but she couldn’t shake the thought of such a gaping omission in Zak’s account of his marriage. ‘I just … I really think he should have told me.’

  Anna opened her mouth to reply, then appeared to change her mind in favour of clearing her throat and nodding subtly in Zak’s direction. ‘Just to clarify, I take it you don’t want to discuss Mr Landley and his bad driving within earshot of Zak?’

  ‘Actually,’ Jess mumbled, ‘Mr Landley does do a very good emergency stop.’

  ‘Well, Zak’s coming over,’ Anna said, switching on a sparkling smile and talking through her teeth, ‘so you need to tell me fast.’

  ‘Not here,’ Jess said urgently, her bad leg performing a reflexive little throb against the thought of Zak finding out and losing his rag about it all in the middle of a busy bar.

  A couple of moments later, she felt a palm against her back.

  ‘I was going to send over wine, but champagne suits you so much better.’ Zak’s voice was creamy smooth, a cool announcement of himself like they’d been waiting all night for him to come over. He smelt vaguely of something lovely in musk by Calvin Klein, and his eyes twinkled darkly, as if in anticipation of an effusive reception – though until he’d explained himself about Octavia, Jess was reluctant to oblige. She shot a look in Anna’s direction designed to elicit solidarity, which promptly went ignored as Anna twittered something small-talky about his journey up from London and thanked him for the Laurent-Perrier.