‘She’s all right, Dad,’ Rupert mumbled.
‘More than all right, she’s a looker, even though she’s still at school. Just don’t get carried away, that’s all I’m saying.’ Christian went downstairs feeling uneasy. Talking about sex and its fascination was not something that came easily to him.
‘I hope I said enough,’ he muttered to Cynthia.
‘I’m sure you have, darling. Too much advice, whatever the subject, and you make them rebel.’
* * *
When Sophie and Evan left Joanne’s luncheon party, Sophie was unusually quiet. Putting it down to the wine she had consumed, Evan said nothing. Back at the small semi, not far from the large property of Cynthia and Christian, he started preparing coffee. Sipping it, still looking subdued, Sophie said, ‘Evan, I want us to get married.’ Startled but trying to hide the fact, Evan said simply, ‘Why?’
‘It’s time you made a commitment. I hate living with you and everyone knowing you don’t love me enough to marry me.’
‘That’s nonsense, Sophie. What more commitment can I have shown? I left my wife, and bought this house with you. I divorced Meriel. You and I share everything. We don’t need a ceremony to prove to everyone that I love you.’
‘Even Carl Davies married that poor little girl when he got her pregnant. She doesn’t fit into his world at all, and never will, but he married her.’
‘Is that what this is about? Dolly expecting a child? You know how I feel about us having children. We don’t need another person. Our relationship is perfect as it is. You wouldn’t like having to stay in night after night, and look after a baby for twenty-four hours day after day. Dealing with the messy side of child-rearing. Admit it, you don’t really want that any more than I do.’
‘I think you do want children. But you don’t want them with me.’
‘Sophie, you’re drunk!’ He kissed her and tried to coax her out of her mood with laughter. ‘Good lunch, eh? And you, my darling, were the star.’
‘You can’t let her go, can you?’
‘What nonsense is this? You can’t mean Meriel? I divorced her for God’s sake! Would I have done that if I’d had any doubts?’
‘You still can’t let her go. How many times have you been over there this week? Twice? Three times?’
‘I cut the lawn. That’s all. When she eventually decides to sell the house, I want it looking its best.’
‘You’re working harder than you need, just to make sure she doesn’t go without. It cuts you up to see her working on someone’s garden. You watch her, afraid that she will find someone to love. Why else did you buy us a house so close to her?’
‘You’re jealous,’ he teased, ‘And I am flattered. Come on, you need a lie down.’ He kissed her gently, ‘In fact, we both do.’
When Evan went to shower ready to go out to a night club later that evening, Sophie dialled Meriel’s number. ‘Let him go, you jealous bitch,’ she spat into the phone. ‘He doesn’t want you any more. It’s me he loves, so get dignified. Stop hanging on to him. Give him some peace.’
‘The cracks beginning to show?’ Meriel said softly, before gently replacing the receiver.
Meriel couldn’t decide how she felt about Sophie’s anxiety. An unkind part of her wished them to fall apart. The pain of being told Evan was in love with someone else, then the devastating moment when he walked out of her house, was something that still brought her to the verge of tears. Hearing from others about how happy they were, and about the house they had bought close to the boundary of Cynthia’s garden, was still too fresh for her to be kind enough to wish their happiness to continue.
A part of her wanted Evan back, but in calm moments she wondered whether she actually would take him if she had the choice. Would she ever rebuild the confidence to believe they were together for ever? Or would there always be doubt, if he was late, or when she couldn’t reach him on the phone?
She was walking the dogs the following Sunday morning and saw Ken, Christian’s friend and partner, standing looking at something on the ground. Curious, she walked over, wading through the tall grasses, intending to cross the field and continue her walk down the lane. He saw her and walked towards her heading her off.
‘I thought I’d found an unusual bird’s egg,’ he laughed. ‘Then I realized it was a partly covered golf ball!’ He walked with her a little way, asking about her gardening job, and talking to her about Rupert and Oliver and Marcus, whom he loved as though they were his own, he told her proudly. But Meriel sensed that he wanted to avoid the area he had been studying with such interest.
She felt hustled. Hurried away from the place where she had intended to walk. Was he making sure she didn’t see whatever he had found? A golf ball was hardly something to protect. So what could it have been?
She allowed herself to return to the cliff path and excused herself by telling him she intended to walk along the beach a little way before going back.
‘The dogs love a run on the sand,’ she explained as she began to scramble down the precarious earthen path to the rocky shore.
‘You be careful, the soil there is far from solid.’ He watched her for a while as though making sure she was safe, then waved a hand and disappeared.
An hour later, Meriel climbed back up and headed for the place where she had seen him standing. She was still a long way off when she saw that two men now stood there. Calling the dogs to her and snapping on their leads she watched and slowly recognized the men as Ken and Christian. More curious than ever, she waited until they had gone before walking across to see what had held their interest.
The bowl-like indentation in the ground looked freshly done. It was as though something circular far below the surface had collapsed, and she frowned. There were dips and bumps all over the area close to the cliffs, so what was so secretive about this one?
She called to see Cynthia a day or so later and when Christian walked in to collect some post, she asked,
‘Christian, what is that fresh indentation out there near the cliff path? Are there mine shafts around here? There used to be iron ore workings, didn’t there?’
‘Years ago that was. No, it’s probably our kids. Sometimes I despair of them ever growing up. Playing hide and seek they were last week. Ask Joanne, she came to collect them and they were all out of sight, hiding like ten year olds.’
‘This looks like a fresh fall,’ she said.
‘They used to build dens over there when they were younger. They’d dig deep holes, then cover them with old corrugated iron or wood or something, and put the turf on top. Plenty of evidence left of the childhood of Rupert and Oliver.’ He laughed. ‘Imagine the fun some archaeologist will have at some future date trying to understand the mysterious earth-works, eh?’
Cynthia saw some uneasiness in her husband’s expression and she added to his story, making a joke of it all. ‘Christian’s right. I remember how frightened I was once, when I knew nothing of these dens. I went out to call them in and there was no sign of them. Then up from the ground came three mud-stained boys. Funny afterwards, but at the time I thought of some invasion of aliens from a flying saucer.’
Meriel didn’t believe them. They were covering up. ‘Surely Rupert and Oliver don’t play in dens now? They’re almost sixteen,’ she said doubtfully.
‘Of course not, but the damage is still there. The rain shifts a bit more soil from time to time, that’s all. And besides,’ Christian leaned forward confidentially, ‘When I found Rupert, he and Henrietta were making more adult use of the hiding place.’ He glanced at Cynthia encouraging her to share his amusement.
When Meriel left to walk home, Christian offered her and the dogs a lift.
‘Thanks,’ she said, ‘But the reason for bringing them was to give them a walk. They’d feel cheated if I accepted a lift.’
One evening a few days later, while walking the dogs she saw black rain clouds moving towards her with remarkable speed, driven by the warm air from the land moving towards t
he cooler sea. Visibility was reduced as the rain began to fall and the houses on the Sewells’ estate were lost from sight.
She was walking along the path, head down, wishing she had turned back earlier, or had had the foresight to wear a heavier mac and wellingtons. She knew that no one living in the houses would see her and as she was so wet that a few more minutes outside would hardly make any difference, she left the path. She walked to the soil disturbance that had caused such concern to Christian Sewell. The place had been filled, dug over and the place no longer showed a clear depression, just an area of disturbed soil and dead foliage.
* * *
Unaware that her car was being used occasionally by Rupert and Oliver and her sons, and also ignorant of the fact that her son, Justin, at thirteen, could now drive as well as her older son, Jeremy, Joanne no longer checked the mileage. She did notice how tired they still were, and that she had to chase them out of bed some mornings. But the doctor still claimed they were healthy.
John told her to stop fussing. He was still very irritable with her sometimes and once, when she had used his car when it had blocked hers in the drive, he was unreasonably angry. She was gradually less tolerant of his short—tempered reaction, and, when he came home one evening, very tired and went to bed before she had collected the boys from the cinema, she found her car blocked in again, and didn’t hesitate to use his.
The alternative was to wake him and she decided that using his car, even though for some reason he didn’t like her doing so, was the most sensible of the two alternatives. Driving off she didn’t see the bedroom curtains move but when she returned, chatting to the boys and hearing about the film they had seen, she was startled to see him standing by the open door, waiting for them.
There was something about his stance that made her feel nervous and she spoke to Jeremy and Justin as though they were babies. ‘Run in, Jeremy and Justin, get yourselves washed, teeth cleaned, undressed and ready for bed,’ she chanted the repetitious instructions without thinking about them.
‘Mum!’ Jeremy protested. He and Justin were outraged at the affront to their maturity. But their mother was unaware.
Anxiously wondering whether John would be angry, or would accept her explanation, she fumbled to reach her handbag and found instead a mobile telephone, still in its box, half hidden by magazines, between the seats.
Surely John hadn’t bought one without telling her? How many times had she begged him to get one so she could reach him if there was an emergency? She looked at the number determined to memorize it.
‘John?’ she called, waving the phone in a questioning manner. With a bit of luck she could show anger over this and make his remarks about her borrowing his car appear trivial.
‘Put it back, it isn’t mine,’ he said. ‘Someone I gave a lift to forgot it.’
‘Are you sure it isn’t yours?’ she accused, chanting the number in her head as she walked towards him carrying the phone aloft.
‘Do any bills come to the house?’ he said sarcastically. ‘You don’t get one for nothing you know. Put it back, it isn’t mine.’
She did so, looking at the number displayed on the box again and again, as she committed it to memory. Going inside, pushing past John, she ran up the stairs talking to Jeremy and Justin, but heading towards her bathroom where she wrote the number down in her diary. She didn’t stop to wonder why she no longer trusted him, she only knew that she didn’t.
* * *
Meriel had arranged to help in Joanne’s charity shop one afternoon, when a volunteer was unable to do her shift, and to her surprise, Evan came to see her there.
‘How did you know I was here?’ she demanded. ‘Don’t tell me someone told you, because Joanne only asked me this morning when a last minute appointment came up and she couldn’t get here to do her hours!’
‘Steady on with your suspicions,’ Evan laughed holding up a hand in mock protection. ‘I was walking past and saw you, nothing mysterious, love.’
‘I still feel you’re watching me and checking on what I do,’ she said only slightly less suspicious. He hadn’t looked in, but had walked up the street and straight into the shop. She had watched him from the window where she was displaying a summer suit.
When she went home she looked around for a sign that Evan had been there. But nothing had been touched. Her diary—cum-calendar beside the phone had all her appointments noted, clearly seen. She put it in a drawer, then, realizing she was becoming paranoid, she took it out again and replaced it next to the phone. Perhaps it was time to sell up and move on, away from Evan, where he wouldn’t find it so easy to watch her.
* * *
On her way to Churchill’s Garden the morning following her discovery of the mobile phone, Joanne dialled the number from a phone box, putting 141 before the number so the number from which she was calling would not be available to whoever answered. The phone was picked up by John.
She was thoughtful as she walked in to greet her friends. Perhaps John had spoken the truth, and the phone did belong to someone else and was simply still in his possession? She decided to try it again from somewhere she did not usually go, and this time not use the 141 code, so he would not be suspicious.
‘Is something troubling you?’ Cynthia said as she approached the table in the garden, where Meriel and Vivienne were waiting.
‘Troubling me? Good heavens Cynthia, that sounds serious. Of course nothing’s troubling me, apart from my usual lack of money,’ she joked, taking out a fan of ten pound notes and putting them more tidily into her wallet-cum-purse. She had regretted her confession that John did not give her enough money and whenever she had the chance, she showed a full wallet. That the money was to pay a bill for one of John’s business purchases, and not hers at all, she didn’t bother to explain.
Cynthia smiled understandingly, then said to Meriel, ‘Remember the hole that the boys had dug? Christian got one of the labourers to fill it in. He was afraid someone would fall into it, you see. I don’t think they really want to play such childish games any more, do you?’
‘Why do you think I look troubled?’ Joanne wanted to know. Cynthia looked down with deep concentration at the cake she was eating.
‘No reason, Joanne. You looked a bit serious, that’s all.‘ But Joanne noticed that she didn’t look at her when she spoke. Did she know about the vases she had taken from the charity shop for two pounds and sold in one of the antique shops in Cardiff?
‘John gave me some extra so I can buy a few extra clothes for the boys,’ she explained quickly. ‘If you were serious about us borrowing your chalet. Cynthia, we’d like to go next weekend as part of summer half term?’
Arrangements were made and instructions on how to get there written on a page of Joanne’s diary, while Meriel mused over the unlikely interest in the hollow on the cliff.
A few days later, while Joanne was in Tenby with her sons, Cynthia announced that she and Christian were considering selling their home.
‘But why? You love it there and so do the boys,’ Vivienne gasped. ‘I thought you planned to live there for ever, start a dynasty, leave it to your sons and their sons and for always?’
‘Christian has a chance of a large building project and we need to put everything into it that we can,’ Cynthia explained sadly. ‘I don’t want to move, and I hated telling the boys, but if Christian is to build three large, top quality houses in an expensive area, he can’t cut corners. They’ll be wonderful properties. My Christian really is an exceptionally good builder you know and the architect he works with is at the top of his profession. They both have a good reputation. There’ll be huge conservatories or Winter Palaces as the designer prefers to call them, and indoor swimming pools, and patios with canopied areas, lights and outdoor heating. Everything has to be of the very best, and of course, that costs. So, we’ll probably be living in a small rented house for a couple of years, and then we’ll be able to buy something like we have at present. Perhaps even better.’
They each described their dream home, Joanne loud in her description of the most modern designs. Vivienne admitted that she didn’t want the work and organization involved in owning a grand house. ‘I like to be free to go out and enjoy myself,’ she said cheerfully. ‘So a little cottage is all I aspire to.’
Helen admitted to wanting a larger place, ‘So I can give Henrietta a room of her own when she comes with her brothers. My boys don’t mind roughing it in sleeping-bags on the floor, but I do wish there was a room for Henri,’ she sighed. ‘She’s fifteen now, and she needs a bit of privacy.’
Meriel said very little. She was thinking about the concave depression in the ground between Cynthia’s house and the cliff path, and the stream that had widened, and the soil falling on to the beach, and wondering whether the possibility of subsidence, so close to the properties, was Cynthia and Christian’s real reason for selling.
But thoughts of the hole that had been so quickly filled were forgotten when she walked into her house and became immediately aware that someone had been in her kitchen.
A drawer was hanging open, its contents disturbed, a cupboard door wasn’t quite fastened and swung in the draught from the open window. Her hair stood up on the back of her neck. She must have a burglar! What should she do? Phone the police? Run out and get help? Thoughts raced around in her mind and she stood listening for a sound to confirm her fears.
Later she was unable to say how long she stood there but it could hardly have been more than half a minute before she moved forward and picked up a knife, then, shuddering at the ugly thought of using it, dropped it quietly back into its slot. She then lifted a steak tenderizer which looked like a hammer but would do very little harm and, holding it aloft, walked slowly through the hall and glanced into the lounge through the crack of the door.
Evan was asleep on the couch, a newspaper draped across his knees as though it had fallen from his hands as he slept.
Friends and Secrets Page 16