This Secret We're Keeping

by Rebecca Done

  He wasn’t angry with her, she realized. He was angry with himself.

  ‘It doesn’t have to be this way,’ she said, her voice soft. ‘Zak’s going back to London tonight. Maybe we can …’

  ‘Don’t, Jess,’ he said, cutting her off sharply. ‘Go back to your lunch. Eat your baguette, talk to your sister, spend time with your boyfriend. That’s what summers are for. You deserve it.’

  Do I? she wondered. Would you still say that if you knew what I’d done?

  But just as that familiar little shiver of sadness and shame began to rise once more inside her chest, Zak wandered through the front door and came to an abrupt halt in front of them both.

  ‘Hello again,’ he said, tilting his head at Will and speaking in the manner of a Crown Court barrister warming up to decimate the witness box. ‘Will Greene, isn’t it?’

  ‘Now heading off, I’m afraid,’ Will muttered, at the same time as Jess grabbed Zak’s elbow to try and steer him back outside.

  ‘Don’t be daft, mate,’ Zak said, shaking Jess off. ‘Come out and join us. No good hiding in here on a nice day like this.’

  Will regarded him steadily. ‘Thanks anyway, but I was just leaving.’

  ‘You know,’ Zak said, taking a step forward, hands in his pockets, oh-so-casual and wearing a self-satisfied little smile, like he knew something they didn’t, ‘I still can’t think where I know you from.’

  Will swallowed. ‘Then you probably don’t. Excuse me.’

  Zak put out a hand. ‘Oh, hold on! Sorry – you look like you can’t wait to get out of here – but I’ve been thinking perhaps you could help me with something.’

  Jess’s heart began to pound. She didn’t dare to imagine what Zak was about to say next.

  ‘Did Jess ever show you that bastard leg injury of hers?’

  ‘Zak,’ Jess said, her voice rigid with fear, ‘shut up. Come on.’

  ‘We really don’t know each other that well,’ Will said. ‘Sorry. I can’t help you.’

  ‘Oh, that’s funny,’ Zak said. ‘Because you two seem to have your heads together every time I see you.’

  There was a dangerous pause.

  Will took a single step towards Zak. ‘Maybe, if you’ve got something to say, you should just come out and say it. I’m here with my family having lunch, so I really don’t have time to piss about.’

  ‘But you have time to chat up my girlfriend?’

  His accusation hung in the air for about five seconds and then, from out of nowhere, Zak followed it up by throwing his fist against Will’s jaw. Jess registered a collective gasp from four generations of the same family frozen in shock just outside the front doorway, no doubt arriving for a nice civilized Sunday lunch without anticipating the forced digestion of actual bodily harm before they’d even seen the menu.

  Will’s reply to Zak’s provocation was swift. Muttering, ‘This won’t take long,’ in the direction of their aghast audience, he delivered a hefty punch to the centre of Zak’s face, the force of which sent Zak staggering backwards through the open doorway on to the gravel drive. As he struggled to regain his balance, Will advanced. Jess tried to grab his arm and pull him away, but he shrugged her off.

  Zak put one hand to his face and raised the other in a quick, reluctant surrender. ‘Fucking hell,’ he spluttered at Will through the torrent of blood streaming from his nose, ‘okay, okay.’

  ‘Okay?’ Will hovered for just a couple of seconds more before turning away and heading wordlessly past Jess, back inside.

  Jess stared at Zak. Blood was dripping through his fingers and landing in fat crimson splats on the gravel. ‘Fucking animal,’ he heaved.

  ‘You started it, mate,’ someone called out. Their little audience had expanded now, and with it came a line of raised smartphones, held steadily up in the air like lighters at a Coldplay concert.

  ‘Yeah, all right,’ Zak spat out in the direction of the voice, still holding his face together with one hand. ‘Thanks for that. Fucking dickhead. Go back to your fucking lunch.’

  Despite her own anger, Jess leaned over him. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Call the police.’

  ‘We can’t,’ she said, beginning to panic that Zak might not be the only one to have had that particular brainwave. ‘You started it. They were all filming you.’

  She managed to convince Zak to stay put while she went to fetch Debbie, who thankfully had been oblivious to the whole drama, concentrating instead (her jaw set in disgust) on the sight of a nearby mother who was allowing her children to run laps of the beer garden wearing only their pants.

  By the time Jess had persuaded her sister to part with the remainder of her lunch – though Debbie did insist on necking the last of the wine before they left – there was no sign of Charlotte anywhere, and Will’s car had disappeared. For once, she felt grateful that she’d missed him.

  Zak headed back to London with Debbie just after seven. Jess had spent the rest of the day trying to get her sister to shut up about Zak’s nasal injury, while Zak occupied himself by sulking in front of the mirror, rearranging his hair to divert attention from his bright pink punch mark and pretending he was going to call the police. When that didn’t make him feel any better, he attempted to repair his battered ego by ardently making a play for Jess whenever her sister left the room.

  While Debbie waddled to and from the car with her multiple bags, gabbing on about the estate agent who was coming round on Tuesday to value the cottage, Zak – who though slightly more charming than Debbie was no less exasperating – wrapped his arms round Jess and whispered into her hair, ‘Move to London with me, Jessica. Please. It’ll be perfect, I promise.’

  ‘I need some time to think,’ she replied, pulling back from him, wondering if it was normal to view a fist fight as the prerequisite for a fresh start.

  He looked at her like she’d just turned down the offer of a trolley dash around Louis Vuitton. ‘Cariño,’ he said. ‘Tell me you’re not still pissed off about that dickhead at the pub?’

  She had to admire his attempt to brazen it out, pretending that Will’s right hook to his face had been nothing more than a heated exchange of words over a spilt pint of lager.

  ‘No,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘London … it’s a big decision, Zak. We’ve talked about this. You’d better go.’ She shifted uncomfortably from his grasp, not wanting to get drawn into any more discussion about it.

  ‘All right,’ he said, feigning deference by delivering a chaste kiss to her cheek. ‘But I’m not going to give up, Jess. You do know that, don’t you?’ And though there was a twinkle to his eye, the veneer of a jocular grin on his face, there was something about his expression that was almost daring her to underestimate him.

  It made her strangely nervous.

  He squeezed her hand then, slightly more firmly than he needed to, and headed outside to wait for Debbie.

  Despite the fact that he’d seemed to be hovering pretty close to the truth, Jess was still convinced that no one had actually told Zak about Will mowing her down with his car last month. Self-restraint in the face of damning evidence was simply not Zak’s style – had he known the facts, he’d have speed-dialled the police within minutes, hungry for blood in the manner of Ian last summer when some teenagers tried to ride their bikes near his special edition Mondeo.

  Debbie pulled Jess in for a hug on her way out. Jess noticed she’d combed her hair, changed her smock top and reapplied her Dior Poison for the ride home.

  ‘Listen,’ Jess said as Debbie deposited a couple of half-hearted air kisses somewhere near her face, ‘Zak doesn’t know anything.’

  ‘Hmm?’ Debbie pulled back. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘About the past. Our past. My past. He doesn’t know anything and I’d like to keep it that way.’ She simply couldn’t risk him putting two and two together about Will.

  Debbie pushed a stubborn clump of fringe out of her eyes. ‘Well, I’m not going to be the one to tell him. I find the whole th
ing embarrassing, frankly.’

  Jess swallowed and looked down at Smudge, who was making anxious herding circuits of their legs.

  ‘Come on,’ Debbie said. ‘Tell me now while he’s outside, quickly. Who-the-fuck is Will Greene, and why were they fighting?’

  Clearly Zak – probably for reasons relating to personal pride – had not yet succumbed to Debbie’s repeated requests for information, and Jess wasn’t about to either. ‘He’s no one,’ Jess said. ‘I don’t know. Who knows?’ Her words came out scattered, like she’d plucked them from her mind and thrown them haphazardly into the air.

  Debbie exhaled. ‘Ok-ay!’ she sing-songed, like she was personally of the opinion that Jess was nuts, a view that Jess thought to be slightly ironic. ‘Don’t forget the estate agent on Tuesday. Don’t go out or anything. This is really important.’

  ‘Thanks for reminding me.’

  ‘It’s nothing personal,’ Debbie threw back at her smugly, which Jess concluded was exactly the same sort of bullshit platitude as used by bankers when they were running around firing each other for cocking up the Libor.

  ‘Look, Debbie,’ Jess said then, thinking that she might as well throw her pitiful hand of cards down on the table, ‘I’m not planning on moving in with Zak, okay? So don’t spend the whole journey back to London going on at him about it. Just leave it alone. Things between us are … they’re complicated at the moment.’

  ‘So make them simpler,’ Debbie clipped. ‘Stop trying to do everything from opposite ends of the motorway.’

  As her sister turned to go, Jess picked up a wodge of business cards from the sideboard and handed them to her, desperate to salvage if she could at least one positive thing from the weekend. ‘Look, if you come across anyone who needs catering … I’m willing to travel.’

  Debbie looked doubtful. ‘You know, no offence, but I normally recommend my woman from Chigwell. She’s a bit more of what I’d call a … classic cook.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ Jess mumbled, trying not to feel humiliated. ‘What sort of thing?’

  ‘Well, you know. All the favourites. She does a really great sausage roll.’

  The call came at midnight.

  At first, all she could hear was the gusting sound of a stiff breeze.

  Then came his voice. ‘Jess. Fancy a swim? The water is warm as fuck.’

  She sat up quickly, her heart pounding.

  ‘Night swimming,’ he continued. ‘Reminds me of … what’s that song, again?’

  ‘ “Nightswimming”,’ she supplied weakly.

  ‘Yes! That’s the one. Couldn’t remember what it was called.’ Behind his voice she could just about make out the sound of lapping water. ‘UB40.’

  ‘R.E.M,’ she corrected him softly.

  ‘Yes! R.E.M.’ He paused. ‘What did I say?.’

  ‘Will,’ she whispered, ‘where are you?’

  ‘Well, I started off near you, as it happens. Not there any more though. Bastard longshore drift.’

  ‘I’m coming to get you,’ was all she said, hanging up.

  She took Smudge with her – she had never headed out across the marsh after dark without him. Thankfully, the moon was almost daylight-bright, so there was no need for a torch. She didn’t want to be out there waving one about anyway, inviting some kindly old soul to spot the beam from their conservatory and call the police.

  The tide was on the push, so they didn’t have long. An hour at most, she calculated. And tonight, it would be huge – the whole salt marsh would flood, as well as the creeks.

  As soon as she was far enough away from the little line of houses that backed on to the sea lavender, she began to shout his name, suddenly terrified that he might have come out here to do something stupid. She dialled his mobile, over and over, but each time it just rang out.

  The creeks were already filling up. She used the footbridge to cross the deepest of them, but she had to walk thigh-high through the rest, holding her phone aloft to keep it dry and forcing her mind to reject any memories of the last time she’d waded into a creek to drag someone out of it.

  Despite the warm night air and tranquil sky, the early summer seawater was still the approximate temperature of the plunge pool at Beelings, and she gasped for breath, inhaling the scent of salt and mud as her chest constricted against the cold, her heart pounding with fear and adrenaline. Smudge kept close to her the whole way, delighted to be bounding over familiar territory by moonlight with the opportunity for a quick dip into the bargain.

  To guard against getting stuck Jess tried to move quickly, but her shoes were drenched and heavy now; and though the final remnants of pain from her thigh injury had all but disappeared, the effort of moving forward at even the most slug-like of paces was starting to make her legs ache.

  By the time she heard him shout out her name in reply, she was soaked in saltwater and covered with sticky black creek clay, her wet clothes clinging unforgivingly to every contour of her body. Still, she felt grateful that she’d had the foresight to slip on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, rather than try to wade out here in jeans and a fleece.

  Teeth chattering now, she rehearsed her speech. This is how people die out here, Will. They get stuck in the mud in the bottom of the creeks, and then the tide comes in, and they can’t escape. And then they drown. Especially if they get pissed first.

  For the last few hundred feet she allowed Smudge to lead her to him. She could see his black outline, an eerie silhouette: he’d made it over the dunes and was wading about in the water’s edge, the silver light of the moon glancing sharply off the water as it rippled. The sea where they were was only calf-deep but the tide was rising, and the wind had picked up.

  ‘Will!’

  He turned to face her as she waded out towards him, Smudge cantering ahead of her and kicking up inordinate amounts of spray, like a horse on a wind-whipped Irish beach.

  She was so relieved to finally reach him that she forgot her anger and extended her hand, willing him to grab it and follow her back to dry land. ‘Will, the tide’s coming in. The creeks are already full. Come on, we have to go.’

  He didn’t move, and for a few moments they just stood there in the water, staring at one another. Smudge had come to a patient halt between them, as if his being chest-high in the sea at one a.m. was perfectly normal. He was even trying to wag his tail but the water was weighing it down.

  ‘Not quite as warm as I thought it would be,’ Will said eventually, his voice jerking slightly with the cold as he spoke. Jess noticed that a deep purple bruise the colour and size of a small aubergine had spread across the left side of his face from where Zak’s fist had met his jaw.

  ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ she whispered.

  He appeared to think about this for a moment. ‘Does wanting to feel alive rather than dead-behind-the-eyes make any sense to you?’

  It did, but she wasn’t about to indulge him now. ‘Well, if that’s what you’re looking for then you should sign up for a bungee jump, or rob a bank, or mow down some more people in your car or something, not come all the way out here on a high tide.’

  He smiled, fished in the back pocket of his jeans and extracted a hip flask, holding it out to her. ‘Jess. You look like you could use some spiced rum.’

  The wind was arriving now in punchy, biting gusts, like it had blown straight in from Scandinavia and wasn’t about to give either of them a break. Shivering, she ignored the flask. ‘Will, it’s dangerous out here. The tide’s massive tonight. Please come back with me.’ She held out her hand again.

  ‘I thought you and I could have a bit of a flirt with danger,’ he said, like he hadn’t even heard her, flipping the top from the flask and taking a slug. ‘You know – how we used to in the old days.’

  ‘If we get caught out here together,’ she said, ‘Natalie will find out, Will. Is that what you want?’ The water was now at her knees. Somewhere over to their right, Smudge had wisely retreated back towards the sand dunes.

  A coupl
e of moments passed, during which he regarded her with scepticism, like he was really pissed on a night out and she was trying to talk him down from solo karaoke.

  ‘I’m not sure it’s going to end well between me and your boyfriend, by the way,’ he said then. ‘In terms of me not having to punch him in the face again, I mean.’

  If there was one thing Jess was certain of, it was that Zak no longer felt very much like her boyfriend.

  ‘Where is he now?’ Will asked her.

  ‘He’s gone home.’

  ‘Home where?’

  ‘Belsize Park.’

  Will gave this some thought. ‘Well, that’s close enough to Chiswick to really piss me off,’ he concluded eventually.

  ‘You’ve got several boroughs of London between you. I doubt you’ll run into one another.’

  ‘Lucky for him,’ he muttered darkly.

  ‘Is your face okay?’

  ‘My what?’

  She motioned to her chin. ‘Your face. Where he hit you.’

  ‘Oh.’ He waggled his jaw a couple of times. ‘Well, that’s the thing about spiced rum, Jess – it tends to knock out most of your vital pain receptors. If you drink enough of it.’

  ‘What did Natalie say?’

  ‘Oh, I told her I collided with a hanging basket. You know, one of those wrought-iron ones that don’t really yield when you walk into them with your face.’ He shook his head.

  ‘Did she believe you?’

  ‘Well, yeah, but it backfired. Had to smuggle her out past the bins before she slapped the barman with a lawsuit.’ He grimaced and took another swig from the hip flask. ‘Can I tell you a secret?’

  ‘That depends. Can you tell me while we’re walking?’

  He paused for a moment. ‘Yeah, okay.’

  They began to wade back towards the sand dunes, Jess’s legs now numb from the cold, though she could still feel the drag of the tide, pushing, pushing against her calves. She kept one eye fixed on the twinkling cottage lights peppering the horizon and the other on the white flash of Smudge’s tail as he bounded along ahead of them, guiding them home.