Three Secrets

by Clare Boyd

  ‘Nightmare. The whole flat was wiped out by one microwave. The lady who lived there was a nervous wreck. But alive.’

  I wanted to ask more about the poor woman who had lost everything, but I was too worked up to form the relevant questions. John would be arriving any minute now, and I had not yet told Paul he was coming.

  ‘Cup of tea?’

  ‘Yes, please.’ He propped himself up to take the flask of tea, and squinted at me through the sun.

  ‘John’s coming to join us,’ I blurted out.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘He’s picking up his kids anyway, and he asked if he could join us.’

  Paul looked across the green. ‘Cool.’

  At that very moment, John’s polished Porsche pulled up in the car park, and Paul knocked back the last of his tea.

  We both watched, in silence, as John approached.

  To Paul, John must have appeared privileged and rich, with his all-year tan and expensive haircut. His white T-shirt and khaki shorts were a little rumpled, but well-cut, and hung beautifully on his tall frame. I wondered whether Paul could imagine that anything in John’s life was a struggle. But I saw beyond John’s wealth. I noted John’s self-conscious gait; his distinctive, aimless walk; the five times he put his hands in and out of his pockets; the scar on his right knee where he had fallen on rocks as a child. As he got closer, I could see how the patch of hair above his ear went against the grain, like tracks through a wheat field, where he had rubbed his head while he thought.

  Paul and I stood to say hello. Paul and John shook hands, and I kissed John on one cheek.

  ‘How are they doing?’ John nodded over to the tennis courts.

  We could see a line of children dressed in white with a variety of different coloured sunhats on their heads.

  ‘Alice wouldn’t let me watch. We’ve been skulking here.’

  ‘Uh huh,’ John replied.

  ‘Knowing those two, they probably won’t have been playing any tennis at all,’ I continued.

  ‘Why’s that?’ Paul asked earnestly. He had his thick arms crossed high over his chest, which was pushed out a little.

  ‘Bea and Alice are mischief together,’ I explained.

  John nodded.

  Paul looked from my face to John’s, slowly. ‘I see.’

  ‘Let’s go and get them,’ I said, clapping my hands.

  He and John walked together, and were polite to one another. I hoped that Paul would not try to show any affection towards me and I hoped that John was not cross with me about failing to mention Paul.

  Alice came running across the courts towards the three of us, closely followed by Beatrice.

  ‘Was it fun?’ I said, kissing Alice’s head as she nuzzled into me.

  Beatrice flung herself at John, corks and twists of blonde hair bouncing around. ‘Hi, Daddy!’

  ‘Uncle John!’ Alice cried. Letting go of me, she flew at her Uncle John, completely ignoring Paul.

  I wanted to tell Alice to say hello to Paul. But if I had, I would have drawn attention to her omission and embarrassed Paul further.

  The tennis coach interrupted the hugs to pull John aside for a chat. The rest of us returned to the picnic rug, where everyone was introduced to Paul’s children.

  ‘Good session?’ I asked Olivia.

  ‘I won all my games.’

  She would sound precocious and smug to Paul, I imagined. I hoped he wouldn’t judge her. Olivia was her own worst enemy, but she was funny and clever and charming.

  ‘Olive is a little tennis star,’ I explained to Paul. I squeezed Olivia’s hand. She squeezed it back and swished her ponytail.

  ‘Good for you,’ Paul said to her, an eyebrow raised at me.

  ‘How was it for you, Harry? Heading for Wimbledon yet?’ I teased.

  He scuffed his racket on the grass and peered through his hair, smiling. ‘Yeah, that Champion’s Cup is mine.’

  Paul looked surprised. ‘Another tennis star?’

  ‘Something like that.’ I laughed with Harry.

  Olivia took her phone out of her skirt pocket and took a photograph of the view and then turned it on us. ‘Cheese!’

  Paul leant into me, and I forced out a smile.

  When John arrived five minutes later, I spread out the picnic.

  ‘Everything okay?’ I asked him, as I unpacked the French bread and hummus and carrot sticks and juice boxes.

  ‘Uh huh,’ he replied, sitting down on the grass rather than on a rug, as though he was an added extra to the party.

  Paul addressed John. ‘I hear Olivia is a bit of a tennis star.’

  ‘Yup.’

  We waited for him to elaborate.

  There was an awkward silence. I watched the children on the other rug eat and chat, and I envied their ease.

  ‘Help yourself to some food, you two.’

  I ate self-consciously, thinking of something to fill the silence.

  ‘What a lovely day. The view is beautiful,’ I said, as I cringed inside.

  Paul said, ‘This is the best view across the Downs to the coast.’

  ‘Didn’t you do some epic bike ride across the Downs once, John?’ I asked. I remembered that Paul had a mountain bike, too.

  ‘To Littlehampton,’ he replied.

  Nothing more. John’s brooding presence seemed to burn into my left side.

  The three of us squinted towards the hazy horizon miles away. I wished I could be there, on the edge of the world, away from this picnic, away from whatever it was that John was harbouring.

  Alice and Beatrice had moved on to their second course. I watched how Alice used a plastic knife to cut tiny wedges of her tart, sharing her doll-size slices with Beatrice, while Beatrice nibbled off the strawberries and licked the cream, leaving a blob on her nose.

  ‘I’ll get the kids the football,’ Paul said, and he jogged to his car.

  John sat up. ‘How long is he staying?’

  ‘And finally he strings a sentence together.’

  ‘I wanted to talk to you.’

  His insistence was alarming. ‘What is it?’

  Paul returned too soon, slugged the ball into the middle of the green and sat down next to us. I stole a glance at John, who was slumped again, elbows on knees, staring into the distance insolently. My mind raced.

  ‘Daddy! Play football with us. Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!’ Beatrice pleaded, running and jumping onto John’s lap. He groaned.

  Then Olivia piped up, ‘Yeah! Daddy! Daddy! Daddy! Come on!’

  Adding to the chants came Georgie’s and Sylvie’s pleas to Paul: ‘Come on, Dad! Yeah! Dad! Dad! Dad! Dad!’

  Alice was gaping at them. There was a strange look in her eyes as she studied their interactions, fathers and daughters. Then she got up and walked over to John and said, ‘Daddy, please will you play with us?’

  I froze with shock. John’s whole being woke up, as though from a sleep. He didn’t miss a beat. He growled, ‘Grrrrrr. How can I ever say no to you two, eh?’

  With one blonde head and one dark head under his arm, John carried the two flailing, giggling four year olds, dumping them on the field, and began knocking the ball about. Paul’s two girls ran after John.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Paul asked.

  My head thumped. ‘Did you hear that?’

  ‘Best to ignore it for now.’

  ‘Pretend it never happened?’

  ‘Talk to her about it later. In a quiet moment.’

  ‘And tell her what? That she won’t ever be able to call anyone Daddy?’

  ‘Georgie calls me Daddy.’

  I swiped away an escaped tear. ‘The others didn’t notice, did they?’

  ‘No.’ Paul began to stroke my back, up and down, making me feel sick. I straightened my back, but he didn’t take the hint.

  ‘Go and play football,’ I said. I began to pack away the half-eaten food, feeling a tear spill.

  ‘I don’t want to leave you like this.’

  ‘I’ll be f
ine. I just need a few minutes.’

  Paul joined the others.

  The scattered children darting about, the beauty of the meadow before me, the purity of the blue sky above me, all of it was meaningless as the resentment swelled inside me. I wanted to caterwaul and scratch and howl at that achingly blue sky, beyond which Robert might be. If there were a heaven, or God, would he admit through his Pearly Gates someone who had squandered his own life to punish me? Robert did not die of cancer, or in a car accident: he had jumped off a bridge, in desperation, I assume, but also in spite. He should have loved us more. Could he not have talked to me first, tried harder to battle through? There had been other ways to stay alive, even if they had been messy and complicated. Anger rushed at me like a red river of blood.

  John jogged over to pick up the football, which had rolled onto the rug.

  ‘Are you okay?’ he asked. The children were calling to him to return the ball.

  I glared at his silhouetted form, black against the blue sky. I blamed him for Alice’s blunder.

  ‘What did you want to talk to me about before?’ I snapped.

  There was a pause. ‘Never mind. It’s nothing. Bea was playing up and I wanted some advice.’

  ‘She seems fine now.’

  ‘Yes. Everything’s fine.’

  The rest of the picnic played out as a distant memory. I could not stay in the present, I needed to be home, to be away from everyone.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  John

  John rolled up his trousers and sat on the side of the pool, dangling his legs into the glistening water to cool his feet.

  He looked over at the poolhouse. The blue and white striped awning was cranked over his parents’ sunbeds. A few years ago, his mother had asked the gardener to plant a cherry-blossom tree by the window and entice bougainvillea to grow across the roof. Although it would droop with cheering clusters of lilac pastels in the spring time, to complement the apple-green painted wooden slats, the foliage over the window blocked out the light inside, just as the gardener had warned it would. It was why it was never used any more. Inside, there was a folded ping-pong table and old sun-loungers, damp and musty. He hated that poolhouse. But Robert had hated it even more. As a child, he had always refused to go in there, even for a quick dash to retrieve spare goggles or sun-lounger cushions. He said there were rats. But Robert had not been scared of rats in the barn in the disused paddock, which had been much spookier.

  ‘I’m going in now,’ his mother said, snapping on her bathing cap, but she didn’t move from her spot.

  They watched Patrick charge up and down, knocking out lengths as he did every morning from spring onwards. As soon as the daffodils were out, his father turned the pool heating on and began this same routine until the clocks went forward, when he would turn the heating off.

  John’s trousers were splashed every time his father passed them.

  ‘Are you quite sure you don’t want to borrow a pair of your father’s trunks?’

  He noted how different his mother looked without her crowning bottle-blonde head of hair, and how the sunshine cruelly accentuated the lines that dragged downwards from the corners of her mouth.

  ‘No, thanks. I wanted to run a plan by you.’

  She removed her cap and ruffled her hair. ‘Oh. Yes?’

  His stomach turned over and over. He pushed his calves back and forth: his heels hitting the mosaic tiles, his toes emerging briefly into the cool air.

  ‘I thought it might be fun to take Francesca to tea at Uncle Ralph’s. Show her the house.’

  His mother arched an eyebrow at him, and he wondered if she could read his mind. She changed the subject.

  ‘I hear there was a picnic yesterday—?’

  John sank a hand in the water and splashed his face. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are Francesca and Paul an item?’

  ‘Paul?’ he asked, inanely, stalling for time.

  ‘Yes, the handyman.’ She tugged at the pink rubber of her cap and it snapped back, slapping her thigh.

  ‘He’s a fireman, Mum.’

  ‘As well as a pest control man?’

  ‘Firemen moonlight.’

  ‘Well, either way, Olivia texted me a picture of the picnic and they looked very cosy together.’

  ‘I’m sure it’s not serious,’ John said, willing it to be true.

  ‘None of us are ready for that.’

  John’s chest tightened.

  ‘We can’t stop her.’

  She yanked his chin around to face him – just as she used to do when he was a boy, to wipe off chocolate smears – and inspected his eye socket.

  ‘How is it, darling? Did you go to the opticians?’

  ‘It’s completely fine.’ He pulled his chin out of her grasp.

  ‘You know, Dad was a bit upset when he heard that you were back on the bike. He’d love to go out riding with you.’

  He held in an exasperated groan. ‘We’ve been on two bike rides together in twenty years, Mum.’

  ‘Well,’ his mother said, her voice trembling a little, ‘your father has just turned seventy-one, and there won’t be many years left for you to do that kind of stuff with him, you know.’

  She sniffed dramatically. Only his mother could turn someone else’s injury into her own.

  ‘Mum, about Uncle Ralph.’

  She grabbed the sun lotion from the sun-lounger behind them and began rubbing cream into her face aggressively.

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘Tea? With Francesca?’

  She clicked the lid of the cream closed. ‘I’ll take her.’

  ‘I’d like to come, too.’

  Her head turned very slowly towards him, eyes squinting, skin greased with lotion. Her lips almost disappeared into her mouth as she drew them into a tight line. ‘Would you?’

  Beads of sweat prickled across his forehead.

  ‘I haven’t seen him for ages,’ he said, trying to sound casual.

  ‘We’ll go another time,’ she said. ‘With Dilys perhaps.’

  Before he could protest – knowing Dilys would refuse to visit Uncle Ralph ever again – his mother’s body slid from the side and into the water. She barely made a splash. The black shape of her remained under the surface. Her pink cap sat crumpled on the slabs of stone next to him. In all the years he had seen her swimming, he had never once seen her get her hair wet.

  Holding his breath, just as she would be, he waited nervously for her to emerge.

  When she came to the surface, she was at the other end of the pool, clinging to the side, spluttering and coughing. Her legs kicked into his father’s oncoming stroke. Patrick stopped, and tended to her.

  As he stared at them, transfixed by his mother’s self-imposed distress, and unsettled by its implication, he became harassed by the repetitive noise of the pool water gulping in the filter. He wanted to block it out; his memory was rewinding.

  Unaware of her two young sons’ silent presence, his mother reached out into the dark, patting the floor outside the poolhouse door, searching for something. John watched Robert there, so close to her, as still as a statue, his toes inches from her fingertips.

  The smell of chlorine stung John’s sleepy eyes as he strained to see through the dark; his dew-damp pyjama trousers sent goosebumps up his legs.

  ‘Where did you put it?’ she cackled. At first, John thought she was talking to Robert, that it was some kind of game of theirs that John was now part of. There was a moment of relief. But then he heard the rumble of a male voice.

  A wine bottle clanked onto its side on the paving. It rolled back and forth. His mother giggled some more. As she grabbed the bottle, she spotted Robert.

  John shivered, breaking his trance. His father began swimming towards him, snapping him into the present.

  Before his father reached him, John scrambled up and jogged away, leaving his father’s voice echoing in the background.

  Reaching his car, out of breath, John got in, heedless of his
bare feet. As he drove past the peeling trunks of silver birch, past the silvery ghost of Robert racing him on his bike, he dialled Francesca on his car phone.

  It rang and rang. He tried again.

  And again.

  And again.

  The third time he tried, it went straight to voicemail.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  10 years ago

  ‘John’s coming round, remember?’ Francesca said.

  ‘Yup.’

  Robert’s hang-dog expression was becoming an irritant to Francesca. His slow blink and constant face-rubbing and excessive sleeping was driving her round the bend. He was either snappy and unpleasant, or vacant, as he chewed on endless rounds of toast and Marmite, standing by the toaster, staring into space.

  Francesca wanted to fly to Alaska to retrieve Robert’s personality. He had left it there somewhere.

  ‘I’ve booked tickets for Waltz With Bashir—?’

  ‘Great.’

  ‘Maybe you should stop eating toast, if we’re eating out. I’ve booked a table at Odette’s.’

  He carried on chewing.

  When John arrived, Robert was in bed.

  John went in to see him. Francesca could hear them through the door.

  ‘Come on, mate, get dressed.’

  ‘I’m too tired.’

  ‘They serve a mean steak at Odette’s.’

  ‘I’m not in the mood.’

  The duvet rustled. Francesca missed a few lines of their exchange.

  Then John said, loudly, ‘I think you should go to the doctor.’

  ‘I’m not ill.’

  ‘You are ill. You’re depressed.’

  John had finally addressed the issue head on. The euphemism ‘low’ to describe Robert’s constant despondency was not appropriate any longer.

  ‘Okay, John. I’ll call the doctor if it will get you and Fran off my back.’

  ‘Good. Great.’

  ‘Can you leave me alone now?’

  ‘We’re going out. Come on. Up you get.’

  ‘Fuck off, John.’

  John had emerged from the bedroom.

  ‘Let’s go,’ John said angrily.

  ‘Without him?’