The House of Secrets

by Sophie Draper

  Unlike Claire. She’d been so immersed in her own feelings, she’d never had time for his. He’d enjoyed punishing Claire for her indifference. Poor Claire, so caught up with her own preoccupations. Until …

  He checked his phone again, the light from the screen spilling onto his hand.

  Hello? he typed. Are you there?

  Another pause, then finally a reply.

  A gif popped up – one middle finger turned backwards, pushed into the air.

  Duncan scowled. She always conceded something in the end. Yeah, fuck you, he thought in silent reply, wistfully, his lips pulling down even further.

  He got back into the car and chucked the phone into the glove compartment. He couldn’t face going into the house. What was the point? The drive would soon fill up with vehicles, invading his home again. Maybe a workout was what he needed, if he could get his limbs to function properly. He could always shower at the gym.

  He looped the car round and back through the trees, fresh twigs and leaves filling the road in front of him. One of the two halves of the gate had swung shut – he hadn’t remembered that – fog drifting through the bars. He had to get out to wedge it open so he could drive past. A gentle rain had started up, dousing his head and coat. He was damp by the time he clambered back in the car.

  As he drove through the gates and pulled smoothly onto the lane, behind him a figure stepped out. Duncan caught sight of it in the rear-view mirror. Or thought he did. A figure wearing earphones and holding what looked like a stick in one hand.

  Duncan squinted, the car already moving round the bend. He could have sworn that was Joe. The height of him, the earphones and metal detector, the oddly bent shape of his youthful posture. Another wave of nausea caught in his throat. As the road straightened, he slowed the car, peering through the trees.

  The figure had never been real. It was just a sapling ash tree, cut down by the wind. He could see it now. The slim trunk had split, bending over so that one skinny limb dragged against the ground. Its few branches were filled with last year’s keys.

  Dry and brittle, they shuddered in the wind.

  CHAPTER 37

  CLAIRE – BEFORE

  I really don’t want to go out. I don’t want to go out tonight and I don’t want to leave Joe, and I certainly don’t want to spend an evening with my lovely husband.

  It’s the launch of a photography exhibition celebrating the county’s industrial history. A collaboration between the Mill Arts Collective on the edge of Belston and Derbyshire’s New Business Network. The idea of being paraded on Duncan’s arm and being polite to the hoi polloi of the county’s business community is enough to make me sick. Let alone tonight, when Joe is clearly upset and I’m on the verge of leaving.

  I’m not sure Duncan’s looking forward to it that much, either. It’s part of an unwritten contract between us – that in public at least we appear to be a functioning husband and wife. He’ll schmoose the financial advisors and local councillors and I’ll stand there trying not to guess which female in the room he likes best.

  ‘Are you ready?’ he’s shouting up from the hall below.

  ‘I’m on my way,’ I call back.

  I shrug into my jacket, smoothing the short folds of it over my dress. I turn half around to check my back. I’ve lost a bit of weight, I think, and I scrub up well when I want to. I pull the neckline up, not that it makes much difference. I grab my heels, holding them in my hands as I head downstairs. The polished wooden treads are lethal in a pair of heels.

  Joe’s in the kitchen, cooking himself filled pasta for tea.

  ‘We won’t be late,’ I say, putting on my shoes.

  He nods, unspeaking. It’s supposed to be him saying he won’t be late, not me.

  Duncan’s sat in the car. He doesn’t even look at me as I climb inside. I glance wistfully back at the house, the light emanating from the kitchen, the shape of Joe moving about the room. At least he’s feeding himself. That has to be a good sign.

  The exhibition is in an old converted mill on the outskirts of Belston. We park and join the guests already gathering at the entrance. The whole place has been recently renovated, painted a trendy blistering white, except where the odd bit of original stonework has been left tastefully bare. There are high ceilings, steel beams and architectural tension wires that span the rooms over our heads like the strings of a kite. There are several floors cut away so that there’s an open area right up to the roof. It’s the sort of thing Duncan loves.

  On the ground floor there’s a shop and a vegan café – very Belston – both already busy with custom. We start there, Duncan carving a path through the crowd towards Tim and a group of medics they both know from the hospital.

  ‘Hi, Tim,’ I say.

  ‘Claire!’ His eyes are warm and he looks surprised. ‘You look … gorgeous!’

  I nod and smile and murmur a few words, but it’s soon Duncan holding fort.

  ‘Would you like a glass of wine?’ A man offers a tall flute of something sparkling. He’s not a waiter, and he looks vaguely familiar.

  ‘Might as well,’ I say.

  ‘It’s Claire, isn’t it?’

  I throw him a quizzical glance.

  ‘You don’t remember me, do you?’ He looks disappointed but not unkind. ‘We were at uni together. I studied biochemistry and you started dating Duncan before I could get in there first.’

  I stare at him until recognition hits.

  ‘Good grief – is that …?

  ‘Harry, as in Prince,’ he says, laughing. ‘You do remember.’

  He looks pleased.

  There’s no Mountbatten-Windsor red hair. It’s brown with flecks of grey, sitting in soft swathes that sweep back from his head. Duncan gives him a cursory glance – he hated losing his hair in his thirties – then goes back to his conversation. Harry has a smile that’s warm and unthreatening, interested but at a safe distance. I feel a trickle of heat, a brief reminder of how it used to be when I was unattached. Maybe this is how it feels for Duncan.

  ‘How lovely to see you again! I thought you’d gone to London after we graduated.’

  ‘Well, yes, I did – my girlfriend at the time got a job in Southwark. But I’m in Nottingham again now.’

  ‘Oh, and … I’m sorry, I can’t remember her name?’

  ‘Lucy – she and I split up after a couple of years. I married someone else and worked in the US for a while, but I’m single again, as it happens.’

  I’m not sure quite what to say. I’m sorry? That’s sounds like she died. He doesn’t elaborate on whether he’s divorced or separated or … I feel a wariness creep over me. Why should I feel like that – I’m married myself, aren’t I? Not for long.

  ‘Do you have kids?’ I say.

  ‘Two, one of each. Nat’s almost nineteen, and Liam is sixteen next month.’

  ‘I have just the one. Joe. He’s just left school.’

  I realise that I’ve used the word ‘I’, not ‘we’. Practising, I suppose. I sneak a quick peek at his face, hoping he hasn’t noticed the significance of my grammar.

  ‘It’s a difficult time when they leave school, launching themselves into adult life. We had no end of trouble with Nat until she settled down to a course on film and photography. She’s brought me here, as it happens – though I think she’s disappeared upstairs. Looks like your husband is preoccupied too.’

  He glances over to Duncan who has drifted towards the bar. Harry smiles at me, a warm, unthreatening, crinkly kind of smile.

  ‘Shall we take a look at the exhibition? You can tell me what the pair of you have been up to all these years.’

  We fall in together, browsing the ground floor. It gives us a chance to talk about impersonal stuff, rediscovering a common ground. We progress to the first floor, where there’s a display of conventional photography and more experimental mixed media. There are scenes of rural Derbyshire, the moors and hills pitched against satanic mills and chimneys. Someone has printed landscapes and
building silhouettes alternating on giant white sheets. They’ve been deliberately ripped and torn then suspended from the beams above our heads. They float in the draught like the frayed remnants of Buddhist prayer flags on a mountain. It has an oddly soothing effect. Or maybe it’s the prosecco I’ve been drinking and the mellow conversation, neutralising my ragged mood.

  Eventually, we head up to another floor. I’m actually enjoying myself now and I think, why should I have to go back to Duncan? Harry is full of hapless stories from his travels and uni and Duncan is still engrossed in conversation below. I wave to him, more to impress on Harry that all is well between us. Duncan frowns and turns away. I feel oddly hurt. I thought I’d got over all that now.

  When I return my attention to Harry, he’s scanning my face keenly. I hold his eyes. Again, practising? I drop my eyes and scoop up the last drop of wine at the bottom of my glass.

  ‘Would you like another one?’ he says.

  ‘Maybe later,’ I reply.

  I’m unsure if I trust myself to drink any more. And I’m not sure I trust myself not to talk to Duncan later, to say something I might regret, let alone if I keep drinking. He won’t be pleased that I wandered off, yet he’s completely ignored me in favour of his friends. But then what did I expect?

  ‘We haven’t done the top floor yet,’ I say, smiling brightly.

  I like the black-and-white prints up there the best. There are shots taken at odd angles, trees sloping downwards from the top left-hand corner and the view of a farmyard taken from between a sheep’s feet. I laugh at that one.

  ‘The photographer must have got down and dirty for that one!’

  I regret the words as soon as they’re spoken. Harry laughs with me and my embarrassment is instantly gone.

  ‘Fancy a cup of coffee?’ he asks. ‘I think I can see Nat down there – I’m sure she’d love to meet you.’

  He leans over the gallery landing and gives her a wave. She waves back energetically, an exuberant young woman with her hair braided into rainbow dreadlocks.

  ‘Sure,’ I say.

  We turn back to the stairs.

  ‘Thanks for the company,’ I say. ‘I wasn’t sure if I’d like this or not, but you’ve made it so interesting and it’s been lovely to catch up.’

  The café smells vibrant with coffee and cinnamon. There’s no sign of Duncan. Harry’s daughter is sat at a table leafing through a copy of the exhibition catalogue. Harry goes off to join the queue and I sit with Nat. I like her; she’s got a bit of spark about her. She’s into spoken word poetry as well as film-making and she tells me about the recent publication of her first collection. She’s obviously thrilled to bits. I congratulate her and then she points to one of the pages of the catalogue.

  ‘Have you seen this?’

  It’s a double spread of old-fashioned black-and-white photographs.

  ‘I think we missed that display.’ I squint at the pictures. ‘It says it’s on the top floor.’

  She bends the pages of the brochure back, flattening it against the table. She points again.

  ‘I’ve had this idea for a short film about the early history of Belston Reservoir. There’s a photograph here from the end of the First World War.’

  She pushes the catalogue towards me so that we can both see.

  ‘There was a church flooded in the making of the reservoir,’ she says. ‘It was dedicated to St Bertram.’

  ‘Who’s St Bertram?’ I ask, feeding her enthusiasm; I’m used to that.

  ‘He was the King of Mercia, around the time of the eighth century. He thought he had a calling for the Church and travelled to Ireland, but instead he fell in love with an Irish princess and brought her back to England.’

  One of her braids falls over her shoulder and her hand smooths the page again with its photographs. She taps on one of them. It shows what appears to be an island in the middle of the water, a church marooned in the centre, as if it had been built that way.

  ‘That’s the church. This is from when it reappeared above the water in 1918. It was a particularly dry summer that year and the reservoir level receded dramatically.’

  I look with her. There’s the familiar loop of shoreline, the shape of the hills against the sky exactly as they are now, and a group of onlookers standing on a spit of dry land facing towards the church.

  ‘Looks like it drew a crowd.’

  ‘Oh, it did. Must have been a curiosity seeing the church rise above the water like that.’ She returns to her story. ‘Bertram married his princess but rejected his life of royal luxury. They took to a hovel in the forest and had a baby, a little boy. Then when Bertram went hunting one day, he came back to find his wife and newborn child had been killed by wolves.’

  ‘Oh no,’ I say, ‘that’s awful!’

  ‘I know. He did the whole Christian hermit thing after that, dedicating his life to the poor in the forest, converting pagans into Christians, etcetera. You can find his grave at the church in Ilam, not far from here. But it’s this church that interests me. I love the whole idea that it reappears in dry weather. Or did do.’

  ‘Did?’

  ‘It got demolished shortly afterwards. In the summer of 1918. When it reappeared like that, it drew such a crowd the authorities were worried for their safety. So they had the whole building and its steeple dismantled stone by stone whilst it could still be accessed. The stones were reused in the buildings around the area and I believe the old bell was rehung in the church of St Agatha’s in Derby.’

  ‘You know a lot about it.’ I smile, still looking at the picture.

  The arms of the people are pointing to the island, grey waters choppy about its shore. I don’t tell her that I live nearby. It occurs to me that we should have brought Joe with us – he would have enjoyed meeting Nat. Though he’d probably have said no.

  ‘The film is for my degree; it’ll be narrated by poetry—’

  ‘Is Nat boring you with her stories about churches?’

  It’s Harry. Back with a tray of coffee and flapjacks.

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘Hello!’

  Duncan has appeared behind me. He places a hand on my shoulder – I itch to push it away, especially here in front of Harry. I can’t remember when Duncan last touched me like that, let alone in public. Duncan holds out his other hand to Harry.

  ‘Harry? We’ve not seen you in years!’

  Duncan’s hand squeezes my shoulder. A warning. He presses too hard and even after his hand has gone, I can feel the pressure points of each finger. I wish now that I’d kept drinking. He’s angry.

  ‘Lovely to see you again,’ continues Duncan. ‘But if you don’t mind, I’m going to whisk my wife away. Darling, there’s someone I’d like you to meet.’

  Eek, Darling. Who are you kidding, Duncan? Yet, before I know it, I’ve stood up and Duncan’s holding my arm firmly as if to lead me away. He doesn’t say anything but his grip is like fire. I want to shake my arm free but Harry is watching us. I feel my cheeks burn, like I’m the errant partner here – not him. He took his time. I grit my teeth and lift my chin.

  ‘Goodbye, Harry,’ I say, smiling. ‘So lovely to see you again. Keep in touch, hmm?’

  What possible right has Duncan to be angry? As we move away, he drops his hand. Now I feel worse. He’s reining it in, of course he is. We’re in public.

  He’ll be saving it for later.

  CHAPTER 38

  CLAIRE – BEFORE

  The drive home is quiet. I replay the evening at the exhibition, meeting Harry, his daughter, that story about the church and whatever I can think of to distract me from the man who is my husband sitting next to me behind the wheel.

  The country lanes are dowsed in silver shadows and the car slides to a halt outside the Barn with a deceptive calm. It’s gone ten o’clock and Duncan doesn’t say a word as he unlocks the door to let us in. He strides off towards the kitchen. I see him scoop up a pack of beers from the pantry and stalk down the long corridor to his bel
oved media room.

  I shrug out of my jacket and shoes, placing my heels on the bottom tread of the stairs to take up later. I eye Duncan’s disappearing figure warily. Finally, I can rub my arm. I see that Arthur is asleep on his bed in the kitchen, one ear cocked to acknowledge our return home. I look up the stairs. Joe is either catching up on his sleep, or preoccupied with his laptop and that coin. Either way, there’s not much chance of him coming down to keep me company. The house feels like a mausoleum.

  I’m grateful, though. Whatever is going through Duncan’s mind, I’ve been spared another argument. For now. His face was cold and hard as we drove home. I recognise that face. He’s gone to brood, to work himself up to it, to watch another of his horror movies, suppressing his anger as he drinks and ogles another poor woman running for her life as some slasher monster slices and dices his victims. I hate that kind of horror movie with a passion.

  My head is bursting with too many thoughts. It feels like someone is trying to bury a screwdriver in my skull. I retreat to my usual spot on the sofa at the far end of the kitchen, curling up against the cushions with a rug. It’s too early to go to bed. I pick up a book and lie on my side, but I can’t decide which way to face. I turn over onto my back, then roll over onto my other side, tossing and turning, battling with both blanket and book, unable to get comfortable. I don’t want to be comfortable.

  Tonight, the moon is bright. My eyes are drawn to the trees clustered down by the water. I think of them all related one to another, spawned of the same seed. Beneath the ground their roots reach out, communicating unseen with their neighbours. I think about how long they’ve been growing there, decades, a century, or far, far longer, watching us humans, judging us humans and all the damage that we do. All of them constantly whispering about us, the living and the dead.

  I sit up and reach for the TV remote. The all-night news is on, filled with scenes of an apocalyptic landslide in India. Crowds of men and women have gathered at the site, calling and wailing until they organise themselves into a human chain, their hands outstretched to help those who can still be reached. The camera pans across from above, showing a river of languid, swirling mud. The remnants of buildings float, splintered like matchsticks. It’s as near a scene of hell as I can picture, the hands, the screams, the sickly movement of the mud, slow and thick and relentless. Not hell, I think, but purgatory – the victims who are not quite dead trying to swim, arms floundering, legs sinking, mouths opening and closing only to gag on the clagging brown sludge. I can’t watch.