The House of Secrets

by Sophie Draper

  Duncan crumpled the empty lager can in his fist. He stared at the sharp angles and the lustre of its surfaces, the warped lines of its new shape. The metal was so thin, so fragile, so easy to crush, one last drop of liquid spilling out onto his hand.

  He’d known that Claire knew about his affairs. For some time. But it got worse after Christmas. He wasn’t sure why. Those last few weeks had been fraught with tension in the house, the two of them manoeuvring along the corridors and up and down the stairs only when the other was somewhere else. Joe had kept to his room, appearing downstairs only to get food from the kitchen. He had the look of someone walking through a minefield, as if one word, one step in the wrong direction would trigger an explosion. Even their dog, Arthur, had mooched about with his tail between his legs, fully aware that the humans in the house were all upset.

  When it came, when it happened, Duncan had never expected it. That Claire would leave him that way. He should have been relieved. She’d made it easy for him, hadn’t she? That was one way of looking at it.

  He sank back into his chair, reaching for the phone tucked into his pocket. He pressed the screen to bring it back to life and scanned his messages. There was nothing. His mouth set into a straight line and he tapped out a message.

  Are you there? he wrote.

  He waited. No reply.

  Come on now, this is getting stupid.

  He waited again. Still no reply. He stared at the screen, willing for her to respond. Then gave a snort of disgust. He pushed the phone back into his pocket and pressed the button on the remote. The noise from the TV grew louder.

  CHAPTER 41

  CLAIRE – BEFORE

  It’s D-day. Fuck Duncan day. I wake with a nervous energy that has me wriggling down into the warmth of my bed and an actual smile on my face. Not that it stays there for very long, but I feel the excitement quivering in my bones and an urgent need to get up and throw everything in the car and just go.

  But of course, there’s a lot to be done before I can do that. Joe is still asleep, Duncan’s already at work. I grab a quick coffee then drive into Belston to get the key. I drive at speed but slow down as the road approaches the reservoir. It’s so cold, the road glitters with ice, and the water is glacial and unmoving.

  Something catches my eye – a metal object poking from the water. It’s pitched awkwardly to one side, draped in strands of frosted green. It’s a strangely shrouded thing of beauty and I don’t like it. It makes me think of broken glass from a mirror, or clocks that strike thirteen, or three knocks heard at your door at midnight – bad luck waiting on your doorstep. I speed up again.

  The woman behind the desk at the estate agents is smooth and efficient. It only takes a few minutes.

  ‘Good luck!’ she says, her words spoken with kindness.

  She knows. Maybe she’s been there, done it herself.

  They say more than a third of marriages end in divorce. I’m not the only one to have gone through this. Buck up, Claire. It’s a new dawn …

  I drive home with my heart all a flutter. It reminds me of a conversation I once had with Joe. I’d tried to ask him once, how it felt, when he had a high.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I said, standing next to him in the kitchen. ‘Explain it to me.’

  He was almost sixteen at the time, his jaw squaring up, his neck filling out, his voice deeper than I’d expected. It was one of those rare moments he was willing to articulate, which probably had to do with the state that he was in. Hyper – not with drugs, but with energy and emotion.

  ‘I … I don’t know. It’s like a buzzing in my head, my brain too busy to stand still.’

  His hands were moving up and down as if he were doing semaphore.

  ‘I have to do something. I have to feel something. I have all this energy with nowhere to go.’

  Now he was bouncing from foot to foot.

  ‘I feel like Superman! Like I can do anything! Don’t you ever feel like that?’

  He looked at me, almost pleading me to understand.

  I shook my head. No, I thought, except that wasn’t entirely true. When I was younger, hadn’t I felt the same way? At Christmas when I was a kid, or when I’d heard I’d won my place at uni. Or when I discovered I was pregnant.

  I haven’t felt like that since, not in a long time.

  It scared me, watching him doing this bizarre little dance. Then his arms spread wide and he reached for a bottle of lemonade on the worktop.

  ‘It’s like this!’ he said.

  He swept the bottle into both hands and shook it.

  ‘No, Joe, don’t!’ I cried.

  I tried to snatch it back, but he swung himself out of reach and kept on shaking. I could hear the bubbles fizz, then it exploded all across the kitchen. We both ducked. Liquid surrounded us everywhere, swimming around our feet and running down the cupboard doors. It was all over our clothes, pooling on the kitchen island, bubbling up like acid. The bottle lay spinning on the floor and more liquid dripped from between his fingers. He was actually smiling, laughing. I was so angry – all that pointless mess!

  Then I started to laugh too.

  He had managed to get the message across. In a strangely visceral, memorable kind of way. We stood there, both of us dripping wet and laughing. I knew exactly what he meant after that. And all I could think of was how very much I loved him. Whatever he did.

  It’s still only mid-morning when I get back. I’m in the bedroom, packing the rest of my things, working myself up to waking Joe and having that conversation. We need to start on his stuff now. The mobile rings.

  ‘Hi, Claire.’

  It’s Duncan. His voice is businesslike and assertive.

  ‘Hi,’ I say.

  Fuck you, I think. It’s going to be my favourite phrase of the day.

  ‘I take it Joe’s still at home?’

  ‘Yes.’

  There’s a pause. I don’t feel like encouraging this conversation.

  ‘Good. I won’t be back for tea. Martin and I are going for a drink and maybe a curry afterwards. Thought we’d go to that new place near the station in Derby. They’ve got an offer on at the moment.’

  Really? I think, my mouth twisting into a sneer. The more elaborate his story, the more I don’t believe it. What does he take me for? I’m surprised he’s even bothering to ring me; I know what he’s about to say.

  ‘So, I’ll be out late. Don’t wait up for me.’

  I tuck the phone under my chin and smooth the jumper that lies folded on my bed, then lift it into the suitcase that yawns wide open on the duvet.

  ‘Sure,’ I say.

  Whatever.

  He hangs up. Good, I think. That gives me more time, the rest of the day and the evening.

  I’ve made soup for lunch. Parsnip and sweet potato soup. I take some up to Joe. He’s finally up and bent over his laptop doing God knows what. I catch sight of something on his screen that looks a bit like building schematics, or maybe it’s one of those computer games where the players have to hunt the enemy through an underground labyrinth. I put the soup on the desk beside him and sit on his bed.

  I contemplate his back. I’ve been avoiding this all morning. Now the moment has come, I’m lost for words. How do I even start this conversation?

  ‘Joe …’

  At least he seems okay today, more himself. I thought perhaps he might still be freaked out by whatever upset him about that man. Ray Turner.

  ‘Joe, I …’

  He turns round, eyes bright and sparkly.

  ‘Mum, can you go, please, I’m right in the middle of talking to someone.’

  Talking to someone? He means online, I realise. He’s jumping between screens, multitasking. I bite my lip.

  ‘Okay, Joe, but I want to talk to you as soon as you’re done. I’ll have my lunch but can you come down when you’re finished. We need to sit down together, hmm?’

  ‘Sure,’ he murmurs, but he’s already turned away from me back to his screen.

&
nbsp; I get up and leave, frustration eating into my fragile confidence.

  The soup has that woody, spicy smell that fills the kitchen with memories of fireworks and blankets on the patio. I perch on a stool at the worktop in the kitchen with a steaming hot bowl. I’ve kicked off my slippers and my bare toes are curled against the metal supports of the stool. I butter a slice of bread and dunk it in the soup. The corner disintegrates in my mouth and warm liquid trails a slow heat into my stomach.

  There’s a pile of washing-up in the sink – I’m leaving it for Duncan. It’s a small thing, but satisfying.

  I think of that phone call with him. I know he’s lying. But do I want to find out more? Today?

  It taunts me, the thought that he’s seeing her again, this evening. I’m sure of it, his voice had that crisp distance he puts on when he’s lying. The story dressed up with cool professionalism. Duncan the vet, Duncan the superhero, Duncan the bloody cheat.

  When I try to put a face on the body, it fills me with rage, the very idea that it’s someone I know, someone from his work. Madelaine, Frances, Sally, Imogen, Paula … each face pops into my head only to be dismissed. I can’t believe it of any of them. Apart from Paula, I’ve known them all for years. Familiar faces as the practice grew, names that popped up at mealtimes, their working lives a part of mine through Duncan. But it’s more than that. I think of the times I’ve visited the surgery and chatted to the girls, laughed with them, sympathised with them, the nights out we’ve had at Christmas or when one of them has had a birthday. They’ve always included me in their celebrations. Oh God, how long has it been going on? Maybe it’s Paula. She’s new, she’s got that glamorous red hair … Did he know her before she joined the practice? Has it always been just one woman, all this time? Which one – which bloody one?

  I can’t let myself think of it. It doesn’t matter who she is. Not really. What would I do with the knowledge, anyway? I can hardly storm round and slap her face, beat her up in some back alley, or secretly pay to have someone kill her. Don’t be stupid, I think. That kind of stuff only happens in the movies. My heart skips a beat and I can’t go there.

  No good will ever come of thinking about it, winding myself up with jealousy, tormenting myself with my own inadequacies by comparison.

  I can’t change him. I can only change me. The time has come. I have a new life waiting for me. But it’s no good, I can’t get it out of my head.

  I twist off my seat and pull out a bottle of wine from the built-in wine rack under the kitchen island – an expensive red that Duncan will notice has gone missing. I fumble with the cork and pour myself a generous glass. I’m not really a drinker but I need it. One more day. I can talk to Joe tomorrow and make the move then. I look around the room, to the hall and the big sitting room beyond. It was meant to be our new start, this Barn. I take a swig of wine.

  I could delay things for just one more day, couldn’t I? To find out.

  What harm could it do?

  CHAPTER 42

  CLAIRE – AFTER

  I turn out of the gate of the old woman’s cottage. Back onto the lane that runs through the village. I’d always thought it was empty, both village and Hall, ever since we first got here. I look at the houses with new eyes now. Maybe this holiday cottage thing is a recent development, but that old woman looks like she’s always been here.

  The story was that the original family who owned the whole village had relocated to London. Sometime in the 1950s. Family finances or post-wartime taxes, or more likely it was the allure of a more glamorous life and paid work in the capital. No one really knew. Only one elderly gentleman had carried on living at the Hall, apparently senile, until the 1990s, when eventually he’d been moved into a care home and died.

  Whilst he was still living in the Hall, however, the estate had been neglected. Until an agent had been employed. This much younger man turned up from London every once in a while, upsetting the tenants. People still remember these things and the stories about the agent were never good – that he’d shouted at everyone and imposed ridiculous rules on the tenants. Acting like he owned the estate not his fragile boss. There was even a rumour that he’d been fiddling the accounts, hiving off a percentage by charging too much rent and taking the funds intended for repairs and maintenance. One by one, people stopped renting the houses, until the village fell empty. The village, it seemed, had never got over it.

  In the old man’s last years at the Hall, he was cared for by a trio of aging servants. They carried on living in the house after he left until they, too, passed away, one by one. Duncan had told me once that the three of them haunted the house, still caring for their long-departed master. Lights were seen at odd hours of the night, flickering past a window. Or maybe that was just another story to encourage people to stay away.

  I wasn’t sure who currently owned the estate, some male descendent of a cousin, or something like that. He’d never visited the house either. When he tried to sell up, all the buildings were in such a poor state of repair, damp and uninhabitable, and he set the prices so high, with restrictions on development, that no one would buy them. So the village and the Hall stayed empty.

  My pace slows. I peer at the houses, hoping I might see Joe moving in one of the rooms. There are no cars again. If anyone is using one of these houses for a holiday, there’s no evidence of it now. And who would want to when you see the condition of them. I’m not sure it can be right about that holiday cottage thing. The man I met hadn’t actually said so. It was just another idea I’d got in my head.

  As I pass through the village, each building shelters behind hanging wooden shutters, gates and pathways obscured by nettles and overgrown shrubs. It’s a place cast under a spell, frozen in time, the empty cottages like the leftover scraps of broken chains and cracked beads in a once well-loved jewellery box. Joe had loved it. More than once, when he was younger, we found him down here. For a while, it was his playground, his secret hideout, like a favourite shed or a treehouse at the bottom of the garden. Only bigger.

  I can’t see him. There’s no sign he might have been here. No open doors. Climbers drape like lace across the walls: ivy and Virginia creeper, clematis and hydrangea, suckers reaching for the roofs, strangling the cast-iron guttering. The leaves glitter with the rain that came earlier, fluttering in gentle waves, and the net curtains, shredded with age, float at blank and lifeless windows.

  It crushes me, all this neglect, despite the beauty. The silence reaches between the houses like a snake sliding into water.

  No, I don’t think Joe’s here. There’s not a single sign of life. And besides, as he grew older, it was the Hall that drew him, not the cottages. I’m not sure why. It’s always creeped me out, but maybe that was exactly the appeal.

  I pass a track that leads to my right, then stop outside the entrance to the Hall. Here, the neglected topiaries pose like overgrown poodles and long-forgotten rhododendrons ripen with slow-growing buds. The two halves of the tall gate hang absurdly from their bolts and the drive is pitted with potholes brimming with rainwater. Not a ripple stirs their surface, sky and branches reflected from above.

  I lift my head and look each way. There’s nothing, no one to challenge me as I step through the rusting gates. The drive swings to the left. There’s a hint of dark solidity through the trees, the Hall shrouded in green shadows that fill the gaps between tall pillars of chestnut, pine and ash. In front of me, a squirrel leaps across the drive. There are loads of them around here, feral creatures that scatter like sycamore seeds across the road. This one prods at the dead leaves and stops to stare at me, tweaking its tail in disapproval. I walk on undeterred. It gives another shake of its tail and springs into the nearest tree, spiralling up the trunk with the quick, lithe movements of a circus acrobat. Pausing at the top, it watches me again, body poised, tail quivering at the tip.

  Now I see the Hall. It’s a V-shaped building enclosing a weed-infested forecourt. The brick walls are the same colour as the cottages in the vi
llage and in the centre a wide semicircle of stone steps leads to a set of double doors. One of them is ajar. It’s as if the owner can’t even be bothered to secure the place, but then there are so many other ways to get in.

  Here and there, the roof has fallen down, and on either side, the great wings of the building flutter with multiple stone mullioned windows so that the whole thing towers over its lawns and terraces like a bare-headed vulture poised upon its nest.

  The gravel crunches loud beneath my feet. My eyes jump from ground to walls in spite of myself, searching the openings with an uneasy sense of guilt. I look for a face behind a window, a hand upon the glass, the brief movement of drapes falling back, even though I know there will be none. Unless it’s Joe. In my head, at any moment, someone might leap from the front door and chase me indignantly from their sight.

  But no, the windows are motionless. There’s no obvious sign of Joe. Not yet. The old woman from the cottage said it would be okay if I did this now. But I begin to question what I might find if I came back later.

  I climb the steps and give the open door a push.

  CHAPTER 43

  CLAIRE – BEFORE

  I kill a bit of time with more packing and an online food shop. The weather is getting worse and if I’m going to delay things a day, I might as well get a food order to come tomorrow so I have some fresh basics to take with us. I’m wondering what excuse I can find to ring Martin. I turn my wrist to look at my watch. Theoretically, the two of them will be in the pub by now. Except I am damn sure that Duncan was lying.

  I play out a scenario in my head. I could try telling Martin about the man in our field.

  There was this strange guy in our field today – wanted to use a metal detector. Joe’s really worried about him. I said I’d get you to ask around.