A Place of Secrets

by Rachel Hore

  “We’re going to dinner with some friends of Caspar’s tonight,” she told Suri, as they returned to the main office. “Did I tell you, we’re all going on holiday to France in a couple of weeks? I’ve only met them twice. Mad, aren’t I?”

  “It’s brave, if you don’t know them,” said Suri, looking unsure whether she was expected to agree. “What happens if you don’t get on?”

  “I expect we will,” Jude said, trying to sound positive. “They seem good fun. Anyway, lots of vino always oils the wheels.”

  After Suri had left, Jude tidied her desk, returning books to shelves in swift, deft movements and straightening the piles of paper. She wasn’t sure she liked what she had seen in Suri’s gaze—a kind of pity. At twenty-six and newly engaged to a boy she’d met at uni, Suri still saw life with a fresh innocence. Her world was wonderful, full of color and hope and happiness, and Jude loved her for it. Even Inigo’s patronizing comments rarely managed to cloud Suri’s lovely, glowing aura. I was like that once, she realized, with a little stab of self-pity.

  Half-past six found her pushing her way through the aimless summer crowds choking the alley that ran alongside Charing Cross railway station down to Embankment tube.

  Even if she hadn’t known him, her eye would have been drawn to the figure leaning against a pillar, tapping something into his BlackBerry. Caspar was a powerfully built man in a navy designer suit and starched white shirt. Five years older than Jude’s thirty-four, he was handsome and lively, with dark, curly hair combed back into submission with the merest slick of gel. She’d met him a few months ago at a friend’s drinks party. She, touching five feet ten, and voluptuous, was a good physical match for him. He was drawn by her soft, dark eyes and the cloud of wavy strawberry-blonde hair, which she wore clasped at the nape of her neck. “Quite a Madonna, you are. You looked sad, but then you smiled,” he said, when she once asked him teasingly why he’d been drawn to her that evening. “So many people only smile with their mouths, but you smiled with your eyes like you cared. I liked that.”

  She in turn had liked the way he moved fluidly among this sophisticated group of city dwellers, so obviously enjoying himself, belonging. He’d never married, nor indeed had many of his large network of friends truly settled down. They were too busy working hard at careers they loved—Caspar and his friend Jack ran the New Media advertising consultancy—and playing hard, too. Even his married friends, on the whole, didn’t have children. This was another thing that drew her to him, she knew, this living for the moment. They never talked about the future, but then the present was still all she could manage. When he asked her to come on holiday with some of his friends she hesitated, then thought, why not? “It’ll be a laugh,” he said. “We’ll have a great time.” She had every reason to believe him, but a worm of worry still wriggled inside her.

  All her own friends, it seemed—the ones who witnessed her marriage to Mark six years before—were sending invitations to their own weddings, or announcements of the births of their children. She already had another godchild and was about to attend the christening of a third, as well as a niece, six-year-old Summer.

  “Hi. Sorry I’m late,” she said, her hand briefly resting on Caspar’s tailored sleeve.

  “You’re not,” Caspar replied, pulling her to him for one of his quick but expert kisses. His dark eyes gleaming, his gaze flicked over her appreciatively, and she was glad she’d bought the trouser suit—and skipped lunch to fit it. “Pretty earrings,” he commented, recognizing them, and she touched one of the elegant silver cube studs he’d given her for her birthday at Easter, soon after they’d first met.

  “Luke and Marney want us at eight,” he said. “Let’s go get a drink.” They found a wine bar nearby where Caspar magically secured the last table. After the first few mouthfuls of syrupy Burgundy on her empty stomach, Jude felt light-headed.

  “How did your presentation go?” she asked him. He and Jack were pitching for a teenage sports-fashion account.

  “Good,” he replied. He’d drained his glass already and was pouring his next. “They went crazy for the movie-clip idea. If we find the right kids for the shoot, it could be amazing. Jack’s started going through the agencies. How’s the dusty world of dead-tree technology?” He was always teasing her that her job involved handling old books when the future of modern media was online. The prices they sold at impressed him, though.

  “Something quite beguiling has cropped up,” she told him. “It’s the collection of an eighteenth-century astronomer. I’m going up to Norfolk on Friday. It’s funny really, it’s just where Gran was brought up. Caspar, I wondered…” The alcohol gave her courage to ask. “We weren’t doing anything next weekend, were we, you and me? I’m staying with Gran on Thursday night and working on Friday, so I mean Friday and Saturday nights. I’ve got to go to Milo’s christening on Sunday, but that’s doable. You could drive down and meet me in Norfolk on Friday evening. Or earlier, if you like. And come to the christening. I know Shirley and Martin would love to meet you.”

  “Friday’s the fourth, right? I think it’s Tate and Yasmin’s flat-warming—no, that’s the Saturday.” He picked up his BlackBerry and started pressing keys. “Yeah, but we don’t have to do that.”

  “Really? Only we could see my sister, Claire, and her little girl. You haven’t met them, you see, and I thought … Their place is too tiny for both of us, but there’s a bed and breakfast in the village or maybe we could go out to the coast. The countryside’s beautiful; we could go walking…” She stopped, aware that he wasn’t listening.

  Caspar’s eyes narrowed as he stared at his BlackBerry, the blue light from the screen flickering eerily across his face. He seemed tense, worried.

  “Ah,” he said, suddenly cheered by something he’d found. “I’m really sorry, Jude, but I’m due in Paris on the Sunday for a presentation on Monday. Jack and I’ll need Saturday to prepare.”

  “Oh, that’s a shame. You haven’t met my family. I particularly thought you’d like Claire.”

  “She’s … the disabled one?”

  “She has a slight limp, that’s all.” Disabled is not how Jude thought of her sister. Pretty, feisty, outspoken, an astute businesswoman, yes, but never disabled. She’d been born with one leg slightly shorter than the other; something that had meant a childhood punctuated by hospital operations. “Her little girl’s called Summer. I haven’t seen them properly for weeks.”

  “I thought you all met up at the airport last week.” They’d gone to see their mother off to Spain with her new husband, Douglas, who was renovating a villa in the hills behind Malaga.

  “Stansted Airport is hardly a relaxing place for a chat.”

  “Well, I’ll have to meet Claire and Summer—cute name—another time.”

  Now he’d worked his way into the part, he managed to look sincerely sorry, but Jude was disappointed. It wasn’t the first opportunity he’d turned down of meeting her family, and it mattered to her. Come to think of it, she hadn’t met any of his relations either. This hadn’t struck her as odd before, but now it did.

  One of the little earrings was hurting. She put a hand up and loosened it carefully. It came apart. She caught the bits just in time.

  CHAPTER 2

  Coming home to the white terraced house in Greenwich was always a pleasure. She elbowed the door shut and dumped her supermarket bags in the kitchen. She’d stayed at Caspar’s in Islington the previous night, but, although today was Saturday, he had some things to sort out at the office, so she had traveled back into town with him on the tube and they went their separate ways at King’s Cross. They hadn’t spoken much. He’d looked the worse for wear—he’d had far too much to drink the previous night, the dinner party having gone on until the small hours. Jude had enjoyed the evening even less than she’d feared. The six other people there, who encountered individually had seemed friendly and amusing, proved dreary en masse. Last night they talked about restaurants she hadn’t been to, and designer names sh
e didn’t care about, and old university friends she’d never met and she’d quietly picked at her food, feeling excluded and mutinous. The thought of spending a fortnight in their company was frankly depressing. When, at one gap in the conversation, she had asked about sightseeing near Brantôme, their hostess, languid Marney, had wrinkled her nose and said that they usually passed their days by the villa’s pool, only emerging in the evening to find somewhere for dinner. “It’s usually too hot for walking around anyway,” she drawled.

  “And let’s face it,” broke in plump, giggly Paula, “once you’ve seen one chateau you’ve seen the whole bloody lot.” Everybody laughed and Jude forced a polite smile.

  Jude, whose pale English skin turned scarlet in the sun, hated lying around by pools. Her ideal holiday involved exploring tranquil towns and villages, and finding out about their histories, which were often surprisingly colorful and violent. It looked as if she’d be doing it on her own this time.

  Safe back home now, she kicked off her shoes and went to fill the kettle, relaxed in her own company, though, in this pretty house, she never felt entirely alone. It was the home that she and Mark had chosen together when they got engaged, where they’d lived together for the three short years of their marriage, and she still felt a strong sense of him, as though he’d walk back in at any moment. During the last couple of years, various people—her mother, her sister, Mark’s sister, Sophie—had begun to worry about this, suggesting she sell up, implying that it was unhealthy to surround herself with all these memories; but apart from letting them sort out his clothes she did nothing. It reassured her to be among Mark’s things. The white-painted walls of the living room were still hung with the stunning photographs he’d taken—of the Patagonian wilderness, of Kilimanjaro and the Cairngorms—during climbing expeditions in the long holidays he’d enjoyed as a schoolteacher. Some of their modern furniture, like the wrought-iron bedstead and the bright-patterned sofa, they’d picked together, but the Victorian oval mirror and the William de Morgan tiles in the fireplace were Jude’s choice. Mark liked new, Jude liked old. It was a joke between them. Whenever they went anywhere together—back home to Norfolk or for a day trip to the south coast—Jude would say, “I’m just popping in here” and disappear into some mysterious emporium filled with fascinating treasures, leaving Mark to check out modern gizmos in the camping shop or the chandler’s. He’d laughed at some of her curios, particularly the small trio of Indian elephants, whose beady eyes had pleaded with her from a junk-shop window.

  Drinking her coffee, she walked slowly around the living room, stopping to turn the small antique globe on the sideboard and to pick up one of the ebony elephants, loving the warmth of the wood in her hand. “Elephants should always face the door or you’ll get bad luck,” she’d told Mark.

  “Why the door?” he’d drawled, crossing his arms, the signal that he was putting on his skeptical-scientist act. That was another difference between them. She loved old legends and superstitions; he was interested in debunking them. But they both enjoyed a lively discussion.

  “It’s something Dad used to say. Perhaps they need to get out easily if there’s a fire or something.”

  “I’ve never heard such a crazy idea,” Mark teased and they’d laughed.

  They were so different from one another, but they were meant to be together. She’d always felt it. Ever since the first time they met. So why had she been so cheated?

  She dusted the little elephant and returned it carefully to its place.

  The thought that today lay empty before her imparted a marvelous feeling. As she unpacked her shopping she considered what to do with the time. Walk up the hill to study the displays at the Royal Observatory, perhaps, and get herself into the mood for astronomy?

  When she went to stow the milk in the fridge her eye fell on a photograph of her niece, fastened to the door. Summer. The name suited the child’s fine honey-colored hair and blue eyes, her airy-fairy lightness. Extraordinary to think she’d be seven in August. It would be lovely if she could see her next weekend. She reached for the house phone and speed-dialed Claire’s work number.

  “Star Bureau,” came her sister’s brisk voice. Claire ran a small shop with a friend in the Norfolk market town of Holt. It sold gifts connected with stars and astrology. A nice sideline to this was a service enabling people to name a star. For a modest sum, they received a certificate giving the location and official serial number of the star and a framed poem she’d written called “Stardust,” which Jude thought didn’t quite scan in the third line.

  “It’s Jude. Are you madly busy?”

  “Oh, it’s you! Just a moment … Linda, I’ll take this in the office … It’s my sister,” Jude heard her tell her business partner. Then, “I’d better be quick, Jude. The place is full of tourists. Hang on, move, cat.” Jude pictured Claire, small elfin face, whip thin, shooing Pandora, the black-and-white cat that accompanied her to work some days. “I was going to ring you, Jude. Would you like to come and stay sometime? Summer’s been asking.” Summer, not Claire, Jude noted, then dismissed the thought as ungenerous.

  “I was wondering about next weekend, actually. Are you likely to be around?”

  “Now, let’s see. I’m in Dubai on Saturday with Piers and flying on to the Solomon Islands on Sunday with Rupert. Don’t be silly, of course I’m around. When do I ever go anywhere?”

  “Well, could I book myself in for Friday and Saturday nights? I’d have to leave early on Sunday.”

  “Sure, it would be lovely to see you, if you don’t mind going in with Summer.”

  “I love sleeping in Summer’s room. She doesn’t snore like you. How is my darling niece, by the way?”

  “She’s all right.” Jude heard a slight catch in her sister’s voice. “She won a magic star for her reading last week.”

  “A magic star?”

  “It’s when you get twenty-five ordinary stars.”

  “Good old Summer.”

  “Otherwise, oh, I don’t know, I’m a bit worried about her.”

  “Oh no, why?”

  “She’s not sleeping well. Keeps having bad dreams. I’m not sure you’ll want to sleep in with her, come to think of it.”

  “What are the dreams about?”

  “I’m not sure. All she tells me is, ‘I couldn’t see you, Mummy.’”

  A flash of childhood memory. Where are you, Maman? I can’t see you. Waking in a small London bedroom, streetlight shining through pale curtains and an insect buzzing away at the inside of the window.

  She wrenched her attention back to what Claire was saying. “… the doctor couldn’t tell me. So I don’t know what to do now.”

  “Sorry, what did the doctor say?”

  “Nothing,” said Claire irritably. “He said there was nothing wrong that he could see.”

  “You are worried, aren’t you?”

  “Wouldn’t you be?”

  “Well, yes, of course I would.” She was used to Claire’s sharpness. There was no point taking offense. Claire was bringing up Summer on her own and sometimes the strain showed.

  “Is she otherwise herself? She’s not ill or pining or anything?”

  “Not that I’ve noticed. She seems quite happy, in fact.”

  “Perhaps it’s the stress of school, then,” said Jude doubtfully, not really knowing about these things, but Claire seemed satisfied with this idea.

  “Maybe you’re right,” she agreed. “There’s an awful lot of tests and homework. And she’s the youngest in her year.”

  “There’s so much pressure on them,” Jude added. “I was reading about the Swedish system where they don’t even start school until they’re—”

  “Jude, have you heard from Mum?”

  “Not since she called last week to say they’d arrived in Malaga safely. You?”

  “No,” said Claire bitterly, “but she wouldn’t ring me. I always have to ring her.”

  “Don’t be daft,” Jude said wearily. Reassuring Claire t
hat she was loved was one of her roles in the family—it always had been.

  “Well it’s true. Look, I’d better go, there’s a queue at the till.”

  “Listen, quickly, how do you think Gran is? I’m going to stay with her on Thursday night.”

  “Oh she’ll love that.” Claire’s voice softened. “She’s all right, Jude, a bit frail. Summer and I took her to buy shoes in Sheringham on Saturday. It was a bit of an ordeal. What are you doing down here in the middle of the week, then?”

  “I know it’s a great coincidence, but I’m visiting Starbrough Hall to value some stuff.”

  “Starbrough Hall? Really? Well Gran will fill you in about that. Look, I’ve got to go.”

  Jude put down the phone with the deep unsettling sense that there was something off-kilter.

  And there was Summer to worry about. She couldn’t quite believe it yet, but she suspected her niece of having the same horrible dream that she had had as a child.

  CHAPTER 3

  “Gran! Gran!” Someone was knocking. Jessie opened her eyes, for a moment confused. There was a face at the window. Not the wild girl. Little Judith. Jude, her granddaughter. She hadn’t been expecting her. “Yes, you had, Jessie, you silly old fool,” she muttered as she pushed herself up out of her chair. Jude had telephoned, said she was coming to stay on Thursday. Today was Thursday and Mr. Lewis had brought her a nice bit of fish.

  “Hello, I’m sorry to have woken you,” Jude said, when her grandmother opened the door. Peering through the window of the pretty flint cottage, she had worried for a moment seeing Gran slumped in a chair like that, mouth gaping in her wrinkled face, her thin hair coming down on all sides.

  Inside, she put down her bags and kissed her grandmother’s paper-dry cheek. Jessie stood at a loss for a moment, looking her granddaughter up and down with an expression of delighted wonder.

  “Oh you do look lovely, dear. Very elegant.”

  “Thank you,” said Jude, who was still in the smart linen skirt and jacket she’d worn for a business lunch.