Friends and Secrets

by Grace Thompson

  The autumn evening was humid and, ignoring Joanne’s instruction, they trooped out into the dying light. Calling for Joanne’s poodle, Fifi, which they didn’t like to admit knowing and whom they called Stupid, they set off down the garden and on to the cliffs.

  The night was calm, the air heavy making them feel sticky and uncomfortable. The leaves on the trees were still. The only sound was the distant shushing of the sea. The moon was full and already high in the sky, yet looking so close they could imagine being able to touch it.

  ‘Let’s go and look at the sea,’ Rupert said, holding his arms out in the hope of a cooling breeze. ‘It’ll be colder there.’

  ‘I don’t think we should,’ Jeremy said. ‘We promised Mum and…’

  ‘You come out when she’s here, so what’s the difference?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s creepy somehow, walking away and leaving the house empty at night.’

  ‘Don’t be a wimp!’ said Marcus, brave in the company of his brothers. Pulling the door closed, he walked towards the cliff path and the others followed, the twins laughing affectionately at their young brother’s bossiness.

  The tide was hardly moving, slipping quietly in with hardly a sound, no frilly white underskirt to reveal the extent of its journeyings. The sky was pink and yellow and orange, with fingers of dark clouds signalling the day’s ending.

  It was no one’s suggestion, nothing was said as, in unison, they stripped off their trousers and tops and clambered down the sloping rocks, ran across the strip of wet sand and plunged headlong, with shrieks of genuine shock, into the sea.

  Rupert and Oliver, Cynthia’s twins, left Jeremy and Justin to get on with enjoying their unexpected and strictly forbidden freedom, and concentrated on Marcus’s swimming lessons before leaving him kicking about near the edge and going for a swim themselves.

  When they eventually looked up, they realized that the night had fallen and the tide was approaching the rocks.

  Above them, ghostly white in the failing light, was Fifi alias Stupid, barking and growling, playing with something they couldn’t see.

  ‘Come on,’ Oliver shouted. ‘Time to go.’

  Shivering now they were out in the night air, they clambered back up and began arguing about whose trousers belonged to whom, laughing like conspirators. Joanne’s boys were almost delirious with delight at their adventure. Until Justin failed to find his shirt and socks.

  Laughter ceased and they all began to search for the missing clothing. The shirt wasn’t found and only one sock was discovered before they admitted defeat and walked back to the house. The one sock they had found was full of holes.

  ‘So that was what Stupid was playing with,’ groaned Justin. ‘What shall I do?’

  ‘Throw it in the bin and swear you know nothing,’ Marcus advised. The laughter that followed eased Justin’s anxiety and they made some hot chocolate and ate the biscuits Joanne had left for them. Then they used a loaf of bread making toast and drank more hot chocolate before declaring themselves thoroughly warmed.

  When Joanne came rushing in at eleven thirty, anxious to reassure herself that everything was all right, she found the five boys, dressed in pyjamas and dressing gowns, feigning sleep, sprawled across the chairs and sofa and the floor. Coming in behind her with much sentimental ‘aw’ing’, Helen and Reggie helped her get the boys to their allotted beds. When she was alone, Joanne plumped cushions and straightened the furniture minutely to get it correctly aligned and looked around in satisfaction. They must have behaved remarkably well.

  The books Cynthia’s boys had brought were neatly stacked and the kitchen had been left without a trace of their having eaten supper. Perhaps she might do this again? If only money wasn’t so short, she sighed.

  The next morning after breakfast, all five boys diligently helped her to search for the missing shirt and socks and declared themselves utterly puzzled by their disappearance.

  Five

  Ken Morris called into an empty house and collected his mail. He put the assorted envelopes down on the passenger seat of his van and drove to a lay-by to examine them. One with an American stamp he opened first. His daughters both lived there and he was smiling with anticipation as he broke the seal. As well as the hastily scrawled note, typical of Sue, there were photographs of her family. A husband he had yet to meet and two grandsons he knew only from the regular supply of snaps. He looked at them several times, read the note twice and put them down. The letter from his Turf Accountant was next. He smiled as he opened that one too, expecting the amount he owed to have fallen. But it had increased.

  Worse, the account was closed until he paid the whole amount off. As he had been told, they didn’t like him using their money to try and recoup his losses. The figure owed was frightening, and the tone of the men, when they had met him coming from the cinema with Christian’s three boys, had been clear: pay up or be used as a warning to others. He had paid something off his account after the three men had warned him, by borrowing more from moneylenders and now his debts were escalating alarmingly. He had a nasty letter from the moneylenders too.

  He looked again at the snaps of Sue and her family. When would he ever be able to go out there and meet them all? With both daughters married and settled permanently in the States he had to find the money to visit them. He couldn’t stop gambling. How else was he going to find the money to pay off his ever mounting debts and arrange to visit them? As he drove home, he changed direction a few times. Perhaps he was becoming paranoid, but if someone followed him and learned that he was living with his elderly mother — the thought was too terrifying to hold on to. He had to do something, but what? To begin with, he would ask one of the labourers to go in and place a bet for him, borrowing money from the petty cash. He could put that back at the end of the month. He had to win some time.

  * * *

  The night of their escape, as Jeremy and Justin called it, was the first of many that month. Being reassured by the orderly state of the house and the apparent good behaviour of the five boys, Joanne began to accept more invitations, explaining to John that, as long as the boys were properly looked after, she felt confident to leave them for a few hours. John was surprised but pleased.

  ‘Just tell me where you’ll be, so I can get in touch with you if necessary,’ he said.

  ‘Really John, we ought to have mobiles so we can keep in touch more easily. It’s ridiculous, everyone else has one these days. Everyone but me.’

  ‘There’s no need to add to our outgoings. You have a phone in the house, that’s enough.’ He had a mobile, but dealt with the account via his office. He didn’t want Joanne to know about it. She fussed so much she would be bothering him too frequently during his working day, and at most inconvenient times.

  Travelling a lot, dealing with his widespread cafes and houses, he needed to be free of her while he was involved with work, as he explained to Cynthia’s husband, Christian, one day when they met at one of his lorry parks about fifteen miles from Abertrochi.

  ‘I talk to Cynthia a lot during the day,’ Christian said. ‘She always knows where I am and what time I’ll get home. We both have such busy lives we need to be in constant touch or we’d lose our way as a couple.’

  ‘Lucky you,’ John said. ‘I hate to admit it, but Joanne irritates something terrible.’

  ‘I am lucky,’ Christian said. ‘Cynthia keeps the home going so smoothly I never have to worry about a thing, and the boys have always been happy and easily managed. She touches everything so lightly it seems effortless. And, d’you know, John, I don’t remember ever having a cross word.’

  When they parted, Christian to return to the camper van where he and Ken were about to travel north, and John to return to Abertrochi, John went to a phone box and told Joanne that he’d been held up and wouldn’t be home that evening as promised. He drove away from the lorry park with a lighter heart.

  * * *

  Cynthia’s boys became regular visitors to Joanne’s house, plea
ding with Cynthia and explaining that Jeremy and Justin had so little fun that they welcomed them going over with video games and tapes they rarely saw. Apart from these ‘official’ times, they were often there without her knowing. They would arrive at the gate and whistle for Jeremy and Justin to join them on the cliff path, after the boys — and sometimes Joanne too — had gone to bed.

  With the dark autumn evenings, she was pleased when they went to bed early and settled down, convinced that it was her firmness and management that had made them so amenable. She frequently boasted of their good behaviour to Cynthia and Meriel, explaining that it was the result of her strict regime. Cynthia didn’t disabuse her of her theory. She only glanced at Meriel when Joanne went on, ‘Children need firmness, a framework from which they can find themselves.’

  ‘If my guesses are correct,’ Cynthia whispered to Meriel with a chuckle, ‘They find themselves by running along the cliff path and into my airing room for midnight feasts and freedom!’

  With Joanne blissfully unaware, Jeremy and Justin would creep down and through the door within moments of her light being extinguished, having been fully dressed and waiting for the signal. Their outings were fewer now the weather was colder. But it was with the same excitement that they always ran down the drive and on to the cliff path. Sometimes they would let themselves into the warmth of the airing room with its clean smell of wood and soap, where they just sat and talked, the Sewell three making the Morgan two envious, with their tales of their easy-going mother and the easily outwitted and kindly housekeeper, Millie.

  After a week of violent storms which dislodged a large section of the cliffs making it too dangerous and unpleasant for them to venture near, Rupert who, although identical in age to Oliver, was self-appointed leader, announced that, with the sea and midnight picnics no longer an attraction, he would teach them all to drive.

  Joanne continued to enjoy her free evenings. Money was still a serious problem but many of the ‘evenings out’ entailed nothing more than a visit to friends for a drink and a chat. She often called on Meriel and sat with a glass of wine until the ten o’clock news began before walking home, confident that the five boys were still at their homework as they had been when she had left them. She rarely took the car, it hardly seemed worth it for a ten minute walk, and Meriel always drove her home if it was raining, or cold, or when they had sat talking too late.

  Cynthia called one evening when she and Meriel were watching a television programme and managed to persuade them both to buy a ticket for a wine-tasting evening in aid of one of her fund-raising schemes. She at once forestalled Joanne’s protests by saying, ‘Oliver and Rupert will stay with Jeremy and Justin. They all have homework and settle down to it so well together there’s no reason for you to say no, dear.’

  Joanne began to panic when she got home. The tickets were expensive. And there was always a raffle. How was she going to find the money? She had something to wear, but the cost of the ticket was impossible. Taking some of the items given for charity was risky, the person who gave them might mention them and ask how much they raised. But, desperate to avoid the others knowing of her poor circumstances, she took a vase of her own which she had never liked, plus a small brooch, wondering if she could sell them for enough to pay for the ticket. Then, when she was doing her shift in the charity shop, someone brought in a beautiful set of silver backed brushes and hand mirror. She took them all to a shop in town and received the cost of the ticket with some to spare. Generously — and to soothe her troubled conscience, she gave the remainder of the money to Cynthia’s fund and glowed in her praise.

  It was when Joanne was at Cynthia’s wine-tasting event that Rupert made his announcement, that tonight was the time to begin driving. The night was dark enough, and the parents would be out until quite late. Eleven o’clock at least. It was the work of a moment to reach up to the hook where Joanne kept her car keys.

  Keeping to the quiet roads of the housing estate, Oliver drove carefully around, explaining his moves to Jeremy. By the time they returned the car to its place, Jeremy had driven around several times, reversed into a parking place, managed a three point, or rather a nine point, turn and felt able to drive across the world.

  Justin and Marcus, who were too small to be competent, were promised that they too would be able to control a car, long before their seventeenth birthday, when their fathers might be expected to pay for lessons.

  ‘I’ll never be tall enough,’ Marcus moaned. ‘I’ll be this height until I die!’

  ‘Look at your trousers,’ Oliver said. ‘They’re showing too much sock. Of course you’ve grown.’

  Delighted, Marcus informed his mother that he’d outgrown his trousers and needed new ones if he wasn’t to look a fool in front of his friends!

  * * *

  For Meriel and Cath, the autumn was one of a gradually developing friendship. Their mutual interest in antiques began it, but they soon felt able to talk about almost everything with ease, knowing they would be understood, even when their opinions differed, although Meriel still avoided the subject of children.

  They continued to attend antique fairs, car boot sales and table top sales whenever they saw one advertised, although they had yet to rent a table themselves and try out their skills at selling. Their knowledge of prices was slowly improving, and they bought and sold a variety of objects, sometimes losing a little and sometimes gaining.

  Meriel refused to bring out her ’fifties memorabilia though. In fact she was adding to it as she and Cath searched for choice items amid the dross.

  ‘I’m keeping it all, until I know exactly what I’ve got and what it’s worth,’ she told Cath, who quite understood.

  It was December when they finally tried out a sale of their own. They rented a table at a small venue in a church hall intending to display a variety of less valuable china. Cath brought some cushion covers she had made and small items like appliqué pictures depicting Christmas scenes, and calendars with pictures of the four seasons. When the sale ended at midday, they were both satisfied with the response.

  The following week in Churchill’s Garden, Cath joined them and as it was Helen’s day off, all six of them plus Toby sat down to coffee. Vivienne was talking happily about a man she had met who loved Toby. Helen spoke of her dismay that her three wouldn’t be spending Christmas with her and Reggie.

  ‘I’m going to make sure the New Year is a good one,’ she said. ‘Henri is fifteen now and she’ll soon want to spend these occasions with her friends. I have to do what I can for as long as I can.’

  Cynthia jokingly told her, ‘My Rupert is quite smitten with your Henrietta, whose name he refuses to shorten.’

  Cynthia told them of the guests she expected. People living alone and without family. ‘Are you having any visitors?’ she asked Joanne. ‘You have a sister, haven’t you?’

  ‘Only my sister Samantha, and we have lost touch.’ Quickly she added, ‘My John will be away right up to Christmas Eve, and he always takes the dog for a long walk on Christmas morning while I prepare lunch.’

  ‘Dinner,’ Cath whispered. ‘We always called it dinner.’

  Meriel watched Cath anxiously as the talk of families continued but she seemed calm and unaffected.

  Then Helen surprised them by saying, ‘Joanne, what was your son doing driving your car the other night?’

  ‘My Jeremy? Surely you were mistaken, Helen,’ she said with a laugh. ‘It must have been me. I’m not very tall and with my hair back in a chignon, well, that must be the explanation, there isn’t another. Jeremy can’t drive and at fourteen, he’s hardly likely to be learning, is he? No, I’m the only one to drive my darling little Fiat.’

  But privately, although she didn’t think it possible, she was always prepared to believe the worst of her sons, even without any reason to do so. So for the next few days she checked the mileage on her car. Once there was a discrepancy of ten miles; she convinced herself she had misread the dial. John’s car was beside her ow
n and for no reason apart from looking to see whether the two numbers were easy to confuse, she looked at his mileage too.

  That evening, when the boys were finishing their homework, Joanne cleared up after the evening meal, she repaired her make-up and changed into a long evening gown that John had bought her years before. The whisky bottle and a glass were set out on a tray beside John’s chair so he could help himself to the one drink he allowed himself when he was home for the evening.

  She arranged the lighting just as he liked it and settled down to a pleasant evening, during which she intended to bring up the subject of extra money for Christmas.

  ‘Darling,’ she began, when the boys had gone to their rooms. ‘Christmas is nearly here. We have to decide what we’re going to buy for the boys, and I need to know what entertaining we can do. Shopping is becoming an urgent priority.’

  Within ten minutes of her broaching the subject of finance, John stood up and said he was going to the pub.

  ‘Shall I come with you?’ she asked. ‘Cynthia’s boys would agree to come for an hour or two. They never seem to mind, and the five of them get on so well. Oliver and Rupert, the twins, are very sensible, and young Marcus is a darling child.’

  ‘I’d love you to, but it’s a boring meeting to discuss some repairs needed on one of the houses. Why don’t we arrange something for later in the week instead? Invite Cynthia and Christian and go out for a meal?’

  ‘Are you sure we can afford it?’ she asked.

  ‘Not really,’ he grinned, giving her a hug. ‘But let’s do it anyway. It isn’t often we give ourselves a treat.’

  It was past eleven before he returned. He explained that he ‘got chatting’ and forgot the time.

  ‘You didn’t drink too much, did you?’

  ‘I stuck to low alcohol beer, you know I don’t take chances. Joanne,’ he said irritably. ‘My business depends on my being able to drive, doesn’t it?’