Something Secret

by Gwyneth Rees

  I pulled back the lock.

  We stood staring at each other. I don’t know what my face looked like but it couldn’t have been any worse than hers. Her eyes were red and puffy with black circles underneath and her skin was all blotchy.

  ‘You shouldn’t listen behind doors, Laura, especially not after you’ve just left a room. If you keep doing it you’re going to have a very unpleasant life.’

  ‘Well, people shouldn’t say horrid things about other people behind their backs!’ I replied angrily.

  She grabbed hold of my arm. ‘Laura, what you heard Marla say about your father just now, you’ve got to remember that she only sees things from my side, because she’s my friend. She said those things to try and make me feel better. Sometimes people say things to try and make other people feel better that aren’t exactly true.’ She frowned. ‘It’s true Daddy forgot your birthday, but I’m sure he’d have remembered himself and sent you a belated present if I hadn’t got angry and gone out and bought you a present from him myself. I was probably wrong to do that. I expect you’d have preferred a belated present that was really from him, wouldn’t you?’

  I wanted to answer but I couldn’t. I was starting to cry again.

  Mum flung her arms round me. She held me really tightly. A few minutes ago, when I’d been crying on my own in the bathroom, I’d been too scared to cry this hard.

  She kissed the top of my head. ‘Daddy loves you very much and so do I,’ she said firmly.

  ‘I don’t want to go and live with Dad,’ I craned my neck to look up at her. ‘I won’t ever have to, will I?’

  She looked fierce. ‘Of course not!’

  On our way back downstairs she stopped suddenly and grabbed my hand. ‘Laura, what did you mean just now –’ she cleared her throat – ‘about Kathleen?’

  I froze. This was it. At long last, here was my chance to find out what had happened. ‘I know there was an accident,’ I murmured shakily. ‘And I know that’s why you won’t let me go to Guides. And I found that photo of you and Kathleen in your Guide uniforms, the one that was torn up. What happened, Mum? How did Kathleen die?’

  ‘You found that photograph?’ She swallowed. She looked very pale. ‘Your father didn’t tell you anything?’

  I shook my head, waiting.

  She was staring straight ahead, gazing at nothing. ‘Kathleen died while we were at Guides. It was an accident. That’s all there is to tell.’

  ‘What sort of accident?’

  ‘Laura, I’m not going to give you all the gory details because it’s too painful. If you can’t understand that—’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I gasped. I felt bad. I almost started crying all over again.

  Mum looked like she felt like crying too.

  We both just stood there.

  I desperately wanted to ask her something else, but I was scared she’d be angry with me again. Very, very nervously, I whispered, ‘Mum, what was Kathleen like?’

  At first I thought she wasn’t going to answer. Then she gave a funny little half-smile. ‘She was very pretty and very confident and everybody liked her much better than they liked me.’ She laughed shortly. ‘I was so jealous I used to pick fights with her all the time.’

  ‘You looked like you’d just had a fight in that photograph.’

  She didn’t say anything.

  ‘Who tore it up? I think it was you, but Janice thinks it might’ve been Kathleen.’

  Her grip on my hand tightened. ‘You showed the photograph to Janice?’

  ‘Mum, you’re hurting.’ I pulled my hand away sharply. What was wrong with her?

  ‘Laura, look, I’m sorry’ She had gone even paler. ‘I just don’t want the whole street knowing our business, OK?’

  Janice isn’t the whole street,’ I protested sulkily. ‘Anyway, the other day you said they could gossip all they liked.’

  About Hamish. Not about this.’

  ‘But who did tear up the photo?’ I persisted stubbornly.

  From the look in her eyes I was pretty sure she was remembering either tearing it up herself or standing watching someone else tear it up in front of her. ‘I really can’t remember,’ she answered without looking at me.

  I didn’t believe her.

  Chapter Ten

  When Marla finally gave up trying to make friends with me and left, Mum noticed the time and panicked. ‘Hamish will be here in half an hour. Have you got anything to wear that doesn’t need ironing?’

  Mum hates ironing and she generally waits until both our wardrobes are empty before she does any. When Dad was here, he used to iron more of our clothes than she did. Mum and Granny had a huge row about that last time we went up to Scotland. Mum was going on about how women who iron their husband’s shirts are letting down the whole of womankind, and Granny had snorted, ‘Well, dear, perhaps if you’d ironed a few more of Jack’s shirts he might not have rushed off quite so quickly to Australia.’ Granny is pretty good at saying things that make Mum mad, but I’d never seen Mum get quite as mad as she did then.

  ‘The only thing is Granny’s red dress,’ I said, pulling a face. ‘But I can iron something myself.’

  ‘I haven’t got time to show you how to use the iron just now, Laura,’ she answered impatiently.

  ‘You don’t have to. Mrs Bishop already showed me. It’s easy!’

  She didn’t look as pleased as I’d expected. ‘How wonderful of Mrs Bishop,’ she muttered in the sort of voice people use when they’re saying the opposite of what they really mean. ‘Just wear the red dress.’ She banged my door shut.

  I stared after her, flabbergasted. Granny had knitted me the horrible red woollen dress for my last birthday, and so far I’d only ever worn it twice: once so that Mum could take a photo of me in it to send back to Granny and once to cheer Marla up after she split from the only boyfriend she’s had since she got divorced – when she saw me in that dress she immediately stopped crying and started laughing.

  I decided Mum couldn’t be serious. I waited until I heard her go into the bathroom, then I tiptoed downstairs.

  Our ironing board stands permanently in our back room so that Mum can emergency-iron whatever she wants to wear five minutes before she goes out the door. I sifted through the various heaps of clothes on all the chairs – there’s never space to actually sit down in that room – until I found my favourite dress. It’s a greeny-blue one that Mum bought for me in the sales and I love it. I look really grown-up in it, in fact Mum nearly took it back to the shop after I first tried it on because she said I looked too grown-up. If it hadn’t been for Marla laughing at her and saying, ‘Well, she is growing up,’ I’d probably never have got to keep it. Marla’s really good at sticking up for me when Mum gets in one of her flaps. I felt a bit guilty thinking about the horrible glare I’d given Marla as she walked out the door tonight. It was just that how could I be friends with her again after what she’d said about Dad?

  I’d just finished ironing when I heard a knocking on our front door and the flap on the letter box being rattled. Hamish always makes a lot of noise when he arrives at the door, as if he thinks Mum and me are deaf or something. I suppose I can’t really blame him considering how long it always takes for either of us to let him in. Mum’s always upstairs having a last-minute panic about whether she looks fat in whatever it is she’s wearing, and I’m always reluctant to go to the door straight away in case Hamish thinks I’ve decided to like him. I looked at my watch. He was dead on time as usual. That was another reason I couldn’t understand why Mum liked him so much. Normally she gets really irritated by people being too punctual. She says it makes her nervous because she never manages to be on time for anything herself. I let him rattle the letter box for a bit longer while I carefully switched off and unplugged the iron. (Mrs Bishop says it’s dangerous to leave an iron plugged in, even if you’re only going to be away for a minute.)

  He greeted me with a much bigger smile than I’d have greeted anyone who’d kept me standing on the
doorstep for all that time. This street has got to have the twitchiest net curtains in the whole of Birmingham,’ he said, lifting his arm to wave at Mrs Smart, next-door-but-one to Janice, who Mum says is a much better deterrent to burglars than all the Neighbourhood Watch stickers and burglar alarms in our street put together.

  Mortified, I dragged him in off the doorstep by the sleeve of his jacket. I’d thought Mum was bad for embarrassing me in public. I stared at his tie. ‘Can’t you wear a normal tie?’ I demanded huffily, thinking how typical it was of him to have to wear a bright purple bow tie. ‘That looks really silly.’

  ‘I think it looks very distinguished,’ Mum pronounced from the top of the stairs, using that special tone of voice that she only ever uses with Hamish, the one that seems to come right from the back of her throat. She was smiling into his eyes as she came down the stairs, and he was smiling right back at her. I felt really shut out.

  ‘I’m wearing this, OK?’ I thrust the green dress in front of Mum’s face defiantly.

  ‘That’s lovely, darling.’ She pushed it out of her way so that her view of Hamish and his horrible bow tie remained unobstructed.

  ‘I ironed it myself,’ I added loudly. ‘I didn’t want to wear the red one.’

  Before Mum could answer, Hamish reached out and gently laid his hand on top of my head. ‘Honey, how about getting changed? Otherwise we’re going to be late and they won’t let us into the concert.’

  I stared at him. The way he’d said ‘Honey’ gave me a shivery sort of feeling inside. Dad used to call me ‘Sweetheart’ in just that same tone of voice, as if I really mattered to him. I went upstairs feeling confused. Why couldn’t everything just be straightforward like it was when I was little? I never had to worry then about whether people meant what they said or not, and I’d never have dreamt in a million years that my dad could change his mind about being my dad and zoom off to be somebody else’s in Australia.

  I was really glad to be wearing my green dress and not my red one as I sat between Mum and Hamish in the Birmingham Symphony Hall that night waiting for the conductor (who I’d never heard of but Mum said is a really well-known man) to join the orchestra on the stage. I’d never been in the Symphony Hall before and unless you live in Birmingham, with a mother who thinks exposure to classical music is essential to your development and who threatens never to let you listen to any pop music again unless you go with her, you probably haven’t either. I don’t really know how to describe it except that it’s really huge, with rows and rows of red seats on four different levels. We were sitting at the highest level at the front, which meant we were much nearer to the ceiling than we were to the stage. The ceiling was made up of lots of impressive-looking speakers and things which Hamish tried to tell me were all connected up to an alarm system which went off if anyone in the orchestra played a wrong note. ‘It’s called Quality Control,’ he grinned, which made Mum start laughing.

  ‘There isn’t anybody else my age here at all,’ I hissed angrily at my mother. It always annoys me when Mum and Hamish start laughing at a joke I don’t think is all that funny, especially when I’m not feeling the least bit like laughing myself.

  ‘Not all children are as lucky as you, Laura.’

  I scowled, sliding down in my seat and placing my feet on the back of the seat in front. Mum rolled up her programme and whacked me across the ankles with it. I dropped my feet to the floor, glaring at her.

  ‘Have you ever been to a classical concert before?’ Hamish asked me.

  I shook my head sulkily.

  ‘Ah well, the trick, you see, is to clear your throat in all the right places. Isn’t that right, Sylvie?’

  Mum laughed again, which really irritated me.

  The audience started clapping as the conductor walked on stage and bowed, and however hard I tried not to, I couldn’t help liking him immediately. His hair was even messier than mine.

  ‘They’re starting with Pachelbel’s Canon,’ Mum whispered excitedly. ‘I love this piece.’

  I sighed loudly. ‘Have you brought any sweets?’

  ‘Shush!’

  The main part of the concert was something I vaguely recognized the beginning of, which probably meant Mum had the CD at home. I usually recognize the first thirty seconds of all Mum’s classical music because that’s how long it takes me to escape from the room whenever she puts some on.

  Unfortunately, there was no escaping the room tonight. The music seemed to go on for ever and I started to think that maybe it really was possible to die of boredom.

  ‘Remember I want to be cremated, not buried,’ I hissed at Mum.

  She ignored me.

  I decided I had to take action. I started by counting all the people in the orchestra, followed by all the people in the first row of the audience, then the second row, then the third. I scanned the whole of the stalls looking for other children and couldn’t spot any at all. No wonder. They were probably all at home watching TV with their babysitters. I thought longingly of Cheryl and decided I was never going to be horrible to her ever again, not even when she nagged at me to go to bed on time. I started to fidget. I couldn’t see how anyone could manage to sit still in here for more than five minutes, even with their mother giving them the sort of I’m-warning-you look Mum was giving me right then. I peered at my watch. I started to want to die of boredom. At least that way I wouldn’t have to sit through the rest of the concert.

  It was Hamish who came to my rescue next time there was a pause. (A pause is what you call it when the orchestra finishes playing and everyone starts clearing their throats and coughing and you think it’s the interval and you’re just deciding what sort of ice cream you want when they start up again.) Hamish made such an exaggerated, funny noise clearing his throat that I started to giggle. It was really hard to stop after the music started again, because Hamish kept pulling faces at me when Mum wasn’t looking that made me want to giggle all the more. I could tell Mum was getting more and more cross, so I did try to stop, but I’ve got to admit that having Hamish as my partner in crime made me feel too safe to bother trying very hard.

  Hamish was still pulling faces at me in the driving mirror in the car on the way home. I thought Mum might be in a bad mood with me, but she didn’t seem to be. She sat very quietly with her hand resting on Hamish’s shoulder as he drove.

  ‘I think I’m going to be a conductor when I grow up,’ I announced, launching into an energetic impersonation in time to the classical music on the car radio.

  ‘Who’s going to cut my hair for me then?’ Hamish demanded. ‘I was counting on getting a special discount.’

  I was taken aback. I hadn’t expected him to remember about me wanting to be a hairdresser. Every time I spoke to Dad on the phone he asked me if I still wanted to be a detective even though I’d told him at least three times that I’d given up that idea now. I stared at the back of Hamish’s head, feeling kind of strange.

  The strange feeling was still with me after we got home and I was standing at the bathroom sink, brushing my teeth.

  ‘I think I quite like Hamish,’ I said, splattering toothpaste all over the bathroom mirror.

  ‘Good.’ Mum moved from the doorway to stand behind me, grabbing hold of my wrist. She’s always fussy about the way I brush my teeth. ‘How many times do I have to tell you, don’t scrub so hard or you’ll take off the enamel.’ But she didn’t sound cross. She sounded pleased.

  ‘Mum . . .’ Suddenly I really wanted to talk to her about how I felt about Dad and Hamish and everything.

  ‘I’d better go back downstairs,’ she sighed. ‘I promised Hamish I’d make him some coffee.’

  The warm feeling inside me vanished. ‘Why can’t he make his own coffee?’ I snapped. It just popped out. I couldn’t help it. I jerked my arm away from her.

  ‘Laura . . .’ She sounded exasperated.

  I turned the cold tap on full blast, running my toothbrush under it. Water splashed everywhere. I felt furious and I didn’t
even know why. I mean, I liked Hamish now, didn’t I?

  She followed behind me as I stomped through to my bedroom. ‘I thought you just said you liked—’

  ‘So?’ I jumped into bed and pulled the covers up over my head.

  She waited for a few moments and I vowed that when she came over and sat on my bed and asked me what was wrong, I wasn’t going to tell her. I didn’t care if I hurt her feelings or not. She didn’t care about my feelings so why should I care about hers?

  She didn’t come and sit on my bed. She gave the sort of sigh people give when they don’t know what to do and are too tired to bother thinking about it any more. ‘I’ll see you in the morning, Laura.’

  The minute she’d gone I jerked upright, grabbed my pillow and hurled it as hard as I could at the door. She was a rotten traitor and I hated her. I wished I didn’t have to see her in the morning. I wished I didn’t have to see her ever again.

  I glowered at my pillow lying humped over at the bottom of the door. The thought of having to get out of bed to pick it up made me madder still. ‘I hate you!’ I yelled as loudly as I could. Yelling it made me feel a bit better, but not much.

  Chapter Eleven

  I leaned deep into the freezer in Sainsbury’s and lifted out the biggest packet of sausages I could find. The sausage sizzle was only four weeks away now. Janice was getting very jumpy because I hadn’t even visited Guides with her yet. The other day she’d said she was getting to really like Helen. Last week Janice had been round to Helen’s house for tea and this week Helen was coming back to Janice’s. Mrs Bishop said she thought it was good for Janice and me to mix with other people and not just each other.

  I’d told Janice that Mum was on the verge of changing her mind and letting me go to Guides. That wasn’t exactly true – Mum was refusing even to discuss it – but I still hadn’t given up hope completely.