The House of Secrets

by Sophie Draper

  Joe’s always been different, solitary, intense – even slightly paranoid. I’ve had my suspicions. ADHD, autistic, Asperger’s? Somewhere on a sliding scale. Every child is different. We never got a diagnosis. Perhaps because he wasn’t quite far enough on the professionals’ charts. Or perhaps a diagnosis would have meant staffing, funding, and neither the school nor the council wanted that. Too many pressures already competing for too few resources. Borderline, they said. Or maybe something else, medical, even a birth defect.

  ‘Is there a family history of genetic abnormality, Mrs Henderson?’ the headteacher once said.

  I could have punched her.

  Perhaps I didn’t push hard enough because I was afraid of what the consequences of a diagnosis might be. Who’s going to give an autistic boy a job? What girl is even going to look at him if he has a label like that?

  They all saw Joe as a problem, but not one they were prepared to solve. I saw Joe as my son. Special. Talented in his own way. I would never have changed a thing about him. When he was sixteen and first in love, he would drench himself in body spray after a shower so that the whole house stank of Black Temptation. When he was twelve and breaking out in spots, I felt the same distress that he’d felt each morning when a new batch of pimples had spread across his forehead. When he was eight, I would sit on the floor and help him, the two of us a mean Lego machine, building endless futuristic moon bases that sprouted up across the carpet like lily pads on a garden pond. When he was four and still a baby, the two of us would snuggle up in bed with a picture book, and he’d beg for the same story again and again until I could recite every word of it off by heart.

  I see me in Joe. Not Duncan. I refuse to see anything of Duncan. My boy is now a young man, with my eyes and my hair and my strength and determination. Isn’t that what life is about? Giving birth to the next generation? The selfish gene – such an ugly phrase, but apt. Otherwise, sooner or later everything would come to a stop. I chose to be a mother. I know it’s not the trendy thing, not these days, the feminist, independent, self-reliant thing, but for me, with my child, it was the right thing to do.

  If I could change the past, I wouldn’t hesitate – things would be different for sure. But not Joe, never Joe. To say that I wouldn’t have married my husband, that I would never have had my son? No, I couldn’t say that. Never to have known Joe is unthinkable.

  Joe has made me promise not to tell anyone about the puppetrider. Least of all Duncan.

  ‘You don’t understand, Mum. If anyone in the group finds out,’ he says, ‘they’ll be all over our land.’

  His metal detector friends, that’s what he means. It seems they aren’t really his friends, after all.

  ‘Promise me, Mum!’

  For once I’m happy to agree. I have my own reasons for that. I bite my top lip.

  ‘Don’t you want to share your discovery?’ I ask. And then, just to be sure, ‘And aren’t there rules about treasure finds? You said there were.’

  Joe goes suspiciously quiet.

  ‘Joe? I can look it up myself if you don’t tell me.’

  Somehow, I don’t think he has any intention of contacting the authorities.

  ‘There are rules,’ he says. ‘Depending on the number of coins and metal content. But I’ve only found one coin so far. We have to be really careful the night hawkers don’t find out.’

  ‘Night hawkers? What’s that?’ I almost laugh.

  ‘You need to take it seriously, Mum – they’re metal detectors who illegally search on land for which they don’t have permission. Or raid legitimate archaeological sites. I found this on our land. We need to keep it quiet, till I’ve had time to search further. If anyone gets wind of this, our fields will get targeted.’

  ‘You’re kidding me, Joe!’

  ‘Please, Mum, I’ve been working for this for so long – you won’t tell Dad, will you? He won’t understand. He …’

  Joe lowers his head and his voice tails off. My heart goes out to him – Duncan really doesn’t understand. He still clings to the idea that Joe should be into football or rugby, something more like sport – the sort of thing Duncan enjoys, not Joe. It’s always been a frustration between them that Joe and Duncan never connected with something they both liked, as father and son. It’s been Joe’s dream, this whole hoard thing, and now he’s actually found something …

  But that? I have to handle this carefully.

  ‘It’s okay, Joe. I won’t tell anyone. But I don’t like the sound of this. If that coin is so significant, perhaps it would be better if you let me look after it for you, whilst we figure out what’s the right thing to do. How to deal with it.’

  I hesitate to use the word properly. That would be an insult to Joe. My hand hovers anxiously over the coin. He snatches it away, folding it between the sheets of tissue paper.

  ‘Do you want them digging on our land?’ he says.

  ‘Well, I …’

  It had never occurred to me that Joe’s metal detecting could result in this. He thinks he’s found something of real archaeological significance.

  I feel a wave of emotion sweep over me. Nausea and shame. Fear. I push it back. My mouth gives a bitter twist. Perhaps I should tell him that I’ve heard tales of landowners and property developers being bogged down in archaeological digs for years, unable to build on or sell their property. That if Duncan and I are parting ways, I need for the Barn to sell quickly and easily when the time comes. Except Joe doesn’t know about all that yet.

  I can’t tell him the truth.

  Gently – I need to deal with this gently, or I will push Joe the other way.

  ‘Okay, Joe. I’ll leave it for now. But you’ve got to promise me not to get into any trouble over this. Maybe stop the digging for a bit, hmm? So people don’t realise what you’re doing, eh? And no telling anyone on the internet.’

  Now I’m telling him to keep quiet.

  He nods.

  ‘Promise?’ I say.

  He nods again and I heave a temporary sigh of relief.

  It’s only later, when I’m chewing it over, worrying about what he’s found, that I realise his nod was in response to my second request. That the likelihood of Joe not digging anymore, just when he’s found something of interest, is about as likely as our dog, Arthur, landing on the moon.

  CHAPTER 18

  CLAIRE – BEFORE

  Duncan hasn’t come back. After the argument with Joe, and Duncan walking out last night, I didn’t expect him to. He could have bunked down at the surgery, on the sofa in the waiting room – that’s what he’s told me before. Too tired to come home after a late-night emergency. Yeah, right, Duncan. He could have found himself a hotel, too pissed off with Joe or me to come home. Maybe. But I know it’s most likely he was sleeping in that other woman’s bed.

  Surely, he’ll come home after work today. If only to get a change of clothes. Joe’s still in his room, glued to his PC, and I settle to cooking in the kitchen.

  Food, to me, is my one comfort, the act of preparing a dish, the unity of a shared meal. Maybe it’s a peace offering, an attempt to reach out. To Duncan, to Joe, for Becky and her son, anyone who deigns to keep me company.

  My grandmother loved her food. In a very real way. She’d lived through the Second World War and knew what it was like to struggle for sustenance on a day-to-day basis. I remember visiting her as a child. Her old fridge rumbled like a car revving outside the front door and if you looked carefully, you could see it move, edging slowly out of position as the day wore on. My big brother, Ian, and I laughed about it when we got home, as if it were a living thing trying to escape her kitchen.

  Granny kept it cram-packed with food. Cheeses that were over three months old, milk that had gone sour, bacon that had gone grey, let alone the permanent presence of an open tin of Bentos steak and kidney pie. She was obsessed with Bentos steak and kidney pie. There was always a cut half of a raw onion sitting on the bottom shelf, usually white with mould – it tainted everything
else. She wouldn’t throw anything away unless it was actually growing real live fur. Mum said it was because food was so hard to come by after the war. It was a national pastime, collecting and hoarding food. Or cultivating the neighbours because they grew vegetables in their back garden. Or trading a kiss with the village butcher in lieu of ration coupons. It should make me smile, the thought of Granny sneaking off for a side of beef. So to speak. Except it doesn’t.

  Once, when I was little, Ian told me that after Grandpa died, Granny kept it quiet for weeks, just so she could use up the last of his coupons. It haunted me, that image of Grandpa’s body decaying in an armchair whilst my grandmother baked cakes in the kitchen. It didn’t occur to me that Ian was pulling my leg. That groaning fridge made me absolutely believe him.

  Ian lives in Australia now, with his wife, Moira, and the kids, where the food is exotic and abundant, and the kids burn it all off with endless rounds of cricket and rounders on the beach. They moved a few years ago. Duncan approved. He said it was a good thing for Ian and Moira to start a new life the other side of the planet, to make their own mark on the world. I think he likes the fact that they’re too far away to observe or interfere in our relationship.

  It was after Ian moved away that I really started to put on weight. My fault entirely. But then, look at Joe – he can eat anything he likes and he still burns it off. Too scrawny, a weakling, Duncan used to say, when Joe was younger, on the days when he was too frustrated with Joe’s behaviour even to consider the impact of those comments on his son. I could have kicked him.

  It’s little wonder Joe chooses to escape the house the moment Duncan gets back. And only stays with me when Duncan is away.

  When Duncan’s father died, Duncan took it very badly. He’d always looked up to his dad, even though his father never seemed to notice. His father had died of cancer and, suddenly, Duncan became very food aware. He started to fret about approaching middle age, that the same would happen to him; not that he ever voiced the words, but I knew that that was on his mind. He had a renewed interest in sport, bought trainers and smart clothes. He even joined a gym, somewhere in Derby. None of this surprised me, he’d always loved his sport. But now he was rigid about his routine, disappearing for hours every evening, only to come home flushed from exercise and sweet-smelling after a shower.

  I hated this new regime. Duncan had also begun eating his main meal in the middle of the day, which meant he ate at work. I’d treasured our evening meals. It was a time to unwind, for us to catch up and talk. Now, it was a rare event. Joe and me on our own, struggling to find something to talk about other than metal detecting.

  Food, to me, is one of life’s pleasures, for so many reasons. When I was pregnant, I could eat what I liked. When Joe was little and I was still feeding him myself, it was the same. Even after Joe was weaned and later when he started school, I ate well. Comfort eating, I guess. This whole thing started long before Duncan’s new gym routine. The weight crept on. An inch around the waist, cheeks fuller than before, breasts that filled my clothes in a way that pleased me – and Duncan. Or so I believed. I never really thought much about it. I knew I should be doing the same, upping my fitness levels, but I was tired, always tired, and Duncan didn’t really want the company. Not my company.

  Those stints at the gym were his time away from things, from me, I got that. What with sport and the Barn project taking up all his spare time, I didn’t have a chance. But I’ve known, I think I’ve always known. Derby is an implausibly long way to travel for a gym, a strange choice for someone who works in Belston.

  I just didn’t want to face up to it.

  It was a few days before Christmas when I found out. Happy Christmas, Claire. I was at the supermarket in Belston, queuing for a turkey. I was recognised by a couple of women in the queue behind me – two of the other mothers from those days at the school gate.

  ‘Hello, Claire,’ said Alicia.

  She was dressed in an impractical white tightly waisted trench coat.

  ‘Planning a family roast? We’re having a whole salmon this year – so much healthier, don’t you think?’ Mandy added.

  Her skinny jeans and high-heeled boots gave me all the more reason to dislike her.

  ‘And how’s Duncan, Claire?’ Alicia said. ‘I hear he’s so clever and he works so hard.’

  This, followed by a light, girlish giggle.

  ‘We saw him only last night, grabbing a quick drink with one of the girls from the practice. I’m sure I recognised her from when I took my dog in. Must have been the office Christmas do. Nice place, Moretti’s – if only my husband’s works do was somewhere so posh.’

  Moretti’s was a restaurant, not a bar, and he’d told me that the night before he’d gone to the gym. I felt a blush of humiliation and anger sweeping up my neck.

  I’d been living in a bubble of my own making, which Mandy and Alicia had cheerfully burst. It had taken me too long to acknowledge what I’d long suspected. I tried to push it from my mind; I didn’t want to assume the worst. But this time it wasn’t some faceless woman in Derby, a one-night stand or a drunken aberration, however I tried to justify it in my mind. No, this time it was someone from his work. One of the girls from the surgery.

  I dismissed it from my thoughts. He wouldn’t be so foolish; you couldn’t keep a thing like that a secret for long. But who? I couldn’t keep the question from nagging at my mind. Who was it? One of the veterinary nurses or care assistants on the ward? Frances, Madelaine or Imogen? Or was it Paula, the new junior vet? Or Sally, the receptionist? A picture of each of the women he worked with passed through my head: their hair, their faces, the size of their bust or waist. Which one would he be most likely to go for? But I couldn’t imagine it – Imogen’s married, Frances is too old, Sally too young, Madelaine … could it be Madelaine? Oh God … it probably didn’t matter if one of them was married or had a boyfriend. After all, it didn’t matter to Duncan.

  I think back to the years gone by, how Duncan has grown more and more distant. Staying out late, or not coming home at all. The lies. How many lies? We don’t even sleep together anymore – separate rooms on either side of the upstairs gallery. We told Joe that it was because Duncan has to get up early for work, to do the morning round on the wards before the first client appointment. It was partially true, wasn’t it? That’s the way to lie, bury it in a half-truth that you can then persuade yourself to believe.

  Duncan stopped caring a long time ago, long before I began to suspect he was sleeping around. Maybe I hate that even more than the fact of the affairs. The total lack of concern for my feelings and the way it shames me, not him. A man gets a slap on the back for sowing his seeds, but a woman is shamed for not holding on to her man. Even now in this day and age.

  Duncan does care about his reputation, though, his professional reputation. An affair at work is way too close to home. No, he wouldn’t be that stupid, surely.

  I guess for a long time, I was simply in denial.

  After Evangeline, I was always in denial.

  CHAPTER 19

  CLAIRE – AFTER

  I’ve worked myself up into such a state that my heart races with each new sound, straining to hear outside. It’s as if I’m looking down from above, in one of those out-of-body experiences, watching myself pacing the room, stopping to search from one window and then the next, pacing again, getting more and more agitated.

  It’s been too long. Joe’s never been gone for more than those two weeks last summer. Okay, he’s over eighteen and left school, but that doesn’t make me feel any better.

  I call him on his mobile, as I have done every day since I got here. It rings out. I can almost imagine it, playing some heavy metal riff from a song by the band Rammstein, until my call kicks over to his answer machine.

  ‘Hi, I’m Joe. If you can be bothered, leave me a message, and if I can be bothered, I might call you back.’

  Very funny, Joe. Not. I chew my finger. What next?

  I ring Callum.
Again. I’ve tried a few times. I don’t like him. He and Joe were friends at primary school, but not as Joe grew older. Then suddenly, this last year, Callum was on the scene again. It was like Joe wanted to be ‘grown-up’, that Callum was his way into adult life. Callum’s already got his own tiny flat on the east side of Derby. I went there last summer, when I was looking for Joe. I was that desperate. It stank of weed and stale alcohol. I thought, this isn’t Joe’s scene, is it? This kind of guy? The tone rings and the call still goes unanswered.

  I hesitate, then with a burst of determination, on the off-chance, I ring the number again. This time, to my surprise, Callum actually picks up.

  ‘Hello?’ he says.

  His voice is deep and alarmingly masculine. I remember him as a high-pitched, whiny twelve-year-old. I school my voice to keep it steady, but it comes out a rushed, husky whisper.

  ‘Hello, Callum – I’m looking for Joe.’

  I hear Callum sigh. Oh God, he’s thinking, not Joe’s mother again. My voice strengthens, gathering in a rush.

  ‘He hasn’t come home for …’ Six weeks and how many days? I hate this, it’s shameful admitting I’ve lost my son. ‘I wouldn’t ring except he’s got a dentist appointment.’ There’s no appointment, but it’s plausible enough. ‘I wondered if he’s bunked down with you and just forgot?’

  ‘Hello?’ Callum’s voice sounds confused and sleepy.

  I wait and he speaks again.

  ‘Hello?’

  The phone clicks – there’s static on the line, nothing new about that, not up here, especially when it’s windy. He can’t hear me. Or maybe he’s pretending, that wouldn’t be a first. I feel myself tense.

  ‘Callum! It’s Joe’s mum. Callum, can you hear me?’

  Another pause. The crackling worsens.

  ‘Fuck off!’ comes the reply.

  I hold the phone from my ear. How dare he! The phone line’s dead. I feel tears pricking at the back of my eyes. Bloody teenagers.