One Secret Too Many

by Vanessa Grant

  She had never gone out with him again.

  She stopped in the light from a streetlamp and pulled a crumpled piece of paper out of her pocket. A hotel room number, a pager telephone number. An angry Sam seemed a doubtful refuge. She felt exposed, remembering how she had lain with him, how she had reached out to touch him, feeling his innermost self responding where she was or what her thoughts were. Eventually, she realised that the night was growing cold, that her jacket to her exploration. How could he have been so close then, yet such a harsh stranger now?

  The end of the road. She had reached the floats where the fishing boats and pleasure craft were moored. The waterfront car park was half-full. She stopped at the pier and leaned against the rail, looking down as a boat went past outside the breakwater logs, roaring in the dark. In its wake, the waves worked their way under the logs and the boats began to move, setting up a strange, disjointed rhythm amid a chorus of metallic clanging and wooden squeaking. She saw no one, not a single soul, although there must be people somewhere down there.

  She went down the ramp, held on to the cold metal rail. There was no one in the world as she made her way along the floats. Why had she come here? She arrived finally at the last finger, at a beautiful house built of cedar, mounted on a new steel barge. She had never been inside it, but it belonged to Maggie and Michael MacAvoy.

  Maggie was the harbour manager. She had lived down here on the docks with her daughter for four or five years, and Mary knew her to talk to. Sometimes, when interesting things happened down here, Maggie would telephone and Mary would have material for her next column. A few years ago Mary had been at home from university for the summer, and she had heard the whispering as her parents had talked about Maggie, the woman who had left her worthless husband, and had struck out alone with her young daughter and no resources, no way to make a living. Maggie had survived that, had found a job and had managed to support herself and her daughter. Then, last year, she had married Michael MacAvoy.

  Mary admired Maggie MacAvoy, but they weren’t intimate friends, surely not close enough for Mary to come knocking on Maggie’s door in the middle of the night when the windows were all dark.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE fire in the MacAvoys’ living room was crackling with warmth, the flames licking softly over the driftwood as it burned. Michael had lit it, then he had kissed his wife, smiled at Mary, and returned to bed.

  Maggie made coffee, delivering it with a grin and a toss of her coppery curls. ‘Don’t worry, it won’t keep you awake. Michael can’t stand decaffeinated, but I drink it in the evening. Here, pull your chair a little closer to the fire.’

  Maggie, sitting quietly, was easy to talk to. It was a side to the wharfinger that Mary had not seen before. Normally she saw Maggie in motion, organising boats, dealing with difficult skippers, working hard. ‘I don’t really know what I’m doing here. I just— Somehow I landed up at your door, knocking. I don’t know why.’

  Anyone else would be asking questions. Maggie didn’t. ‘Have your coffee, and relax. There’s a bed in the spare room if you’re tired. If you want to talk, I’m here; or, if you prefer, you’re welcome to the bed without the talk.’

  Mary pushed back her brown hair, tucking the waving tendrils behind her ear. She said slowly, ‘I met a man.’

  ‘That does complicate life, doesn’t it?’ Maggie was smiling as her eyes went to the stairs leading up to the room she shared with Michael.

  ‘Not like you and Michael,’ Mary said in a rush. ‘Michael loves you. But Sam—I met him last month. I was in Vancouver for two days for...’ She hesitated, then everything came out. The book. The publisher. Sam.The baby. When the words were all said, the room filled with the warm sounds of the fire.

  ‘I liked him,’ said Maggie when the silence had grown comfortable. ‘I was at the clinic earlier this week. I had an appointment with Dr Box, but he was called out and the new doctor took my appointment.’ Amazingly, Maggie blushed. ‘I’m expecting a baby, too. You’re the first to know, except Michael and Dixie, of course. I just learned yesterday. I liked Dr Dempsey very much. You’ve got yourself quite a man.’

  Mary shook her head. ‘I haven’t. We don’t have a relationship. There was just the—the one night. It was never supposed to be more than that, not for either of us. And when he came back and said he would marry me, it was—he talked as if it was a punishment!’ She brushed moisture away from her eyes.

  ‘Hung up about family life, I suppose,’ said Maggie. ‘But then, we all are, aren’t we? After my divorce, I thought I’d never get involved again. I almost threw away the best thing that ever happened in my life before Michael got through to me.’ Maggie grinned and said warmly, ‘Do you mind if I call you Alex? I have to admit that I agree with Sam. You’re much more an Alex than a Mary.’

  ‘It’s a dangerous name, though.’ She smiled wryly, her eyes narrowing on the fire. ‘It makes me feel like someone else, reckless. It’s my middle name, after my Aunt Lexie—that’s short for Alexandra.’

  Maggie tossed back curls and stared intently at Mary, as she said slowly, ‘It seems to me that in all of this the real problem is your trying to please other people. Hadn’t you better make your decisions for yourself and the baby, and forget about the rest of them? Take some time alone, decide what you’re going to do, then come out of hiding and ask Sam or your parents for help if you need it.’

  Money, Sam had offered. She walked to the window, staring out. The warm easiness of Maggie’s home was an uncomfortable contrast to what would be waiting for her at home. ‘My mother’s waiting. Sam’s waiting, too. I’m supposed to call him, or go to see him. And I don’t know what to say to either of them. Right now I feel as if they’re all tearing me apart.’

  ‘You’re exhausted. You can’t possibly make any sensible decisions when you’re so tired.’ Maggie stood up.

  ‘I have to—’

  ‘You don’t have to do anything. Not until you’ve had a sleep. There’s a bed right there, through that door. You go in there, and I’ll bring you a nightgown you can use.’ Maggie walked across and opened the bedroom door. ‘It’s my fatherin-Iaw’s room, but he’s away right now. Go to bed and have a good sleep. There’s nothing that can’t be settled easier after you’ve slept.’

  ‘I can’t, Maggie.’ She raked her hands through her hair, and said regretfully, ‘My mother will be frantic, wondering where I am. The longer I am, the worse it will be. And if I try to call, she’ll come here. You don’t know her. She—’

  Maggie shook her head vigorously, her legs moving astride and her hands settling on her slender hips. ‘Bed! Now!’ Her voice was snapping out instructions as if no one could dare argue. ‘You don’t have to face anybody until you’re ready. That room is yours as long as you need it, and I can guarantee you that no one will disturb you there until you’re prepared to be disturbed.’ Mary’s lips parted and Maggie said sharply, .’I’ll call your mother.’

  Maggie MacAvoy was only about five feet four, but Mary had heard tales of her facing down angry men here on the docks, and no one told any stories where Maggie came out the loser. Like everyone else, Mary lost out in the face of Maggie’s charm and determination. She found . herself in old Angus MacAvoy’s empty bedroom, dressed in a filmy green nightgown that probably made Maggie’s green eyes glitter as if she were an enchanting sorceress.

  Somehow, amazingly, she slept almost the instant her head hit the pillow. When she woke, the sun was shining no to her face. She lay quietly, listening to the sounds of this house. Dixie’s high-pitched voice. Michael laughing, Maggie joining him.

  There hadn’t been any answers in her sleep, but she had lost that frantic need to run, to get away from what was happening. It was real, here, and somehow she would find her way.

  It was incredible that Mary Alexandra Houseman, after twenty-five years of living as the model child, the model daughter had managed to get into a situation where she was bound to create nothing but pain and controversy. She w
as a good girl, an obedient girl, a girl who never got into trouble. Not like her younger brother who had gone from drinking to drugs and finally suicide. Not like the Onhousers’ daughter who used to cuddle in the back seats of cars, parking up on Hospital Hill in the camp-ground. She had gone away for a year a! the age of sixteen, returning looking older and sadder. Not like Harriet Westlake who had married Jeremy Columbia and left school to have twins. Last week Harriet had been crying in their living room, because she was twenty-six now and she had five children and a husband who did not love her.

  Mary had stayed out of trouble for a quarter of a century and it had not been hard, not until the night she’d decided to call herself Alex.

  Maggie was right. She could not deal with this pregnancy the same way she had dealt with all the other problems in her life. Trying to avoid making waves, to maintain everyone’s good opinion of her. What would Maggie do in a situation like this? Maggie had had the courage to walk away from a hopeless marriage, to look after herself and her child alone. Did Alex have the courage to do that? Did she want to? Alex, she thought with an odd sense of amusement, I’m thinking of myself as Alex. She made a mental decision to adopt the name, and the personality that went with it. It seemed appropriate.

  In a terrible sense, she was now free to choose her own path. She had already hurt her parents. Now that she had told them she was pregnant, there was no solution to her pregnancy that they could accept without problems. As for Sam, she suspected that the answers to Sam’s reactions lay in his own past, and she doubted if he would ever share that with her.

  She heard someone taking a shower. Maggie’s voice, then Dixie’s, higher pitched, and Michael’s laughter again. Love flowed everywhere in this home. A door slammed, then opened again immediately and Maggie called out, ‘Dixie! Come back! You forgot your lunch!’ A telephone rang, twice. Alex tensed, heard Maggie’s voice, low and determined, but could not make out the words. She expected someone to call her to the telephone, but moments passed and there was nothing but the sound of the watertap again, then low conversation between Maggie and her husband.

  There were things she had to do. She wondered idly where the MacAvoys got their water with their house out here on the wharves. She closed her eyes and, somehow, drifted back into a state of half-wakefulness. She jerked awake when the door opened.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Maggie, slipping into the room with a steaming mug in her hand. She was wearing blue jeans, a denim jacket and sturdy running shoes. ‘Did I frighten you? I didn’t want to knock and wake you up if you were sleeping. I brought you coffee, with caffeine this time! I’m just heading off to check the boats. I’ll be back in a couple of hours. Meanwhile, make yourself at home. I unplugged the telephone, so no one will bother you.’

  Alex shifted herself up against the pillows. ‘I should get up.’

  ‘No need. Relax and enjoy being alone. It seems to me you’re hardly ever alone, always having people chasing after you for one thing or another.’

  It had always been that way. Her only private life had been in her room, in her fantasies. And once, in Vancouver.

  ‘My mother will call.’ It was almost nine o’clock and Alex was amazed that her mother had not yet managed to invade this home. ‘She’ll wonder, if there’s no answer.’ It was fine to lie here alone and speculate on a life of her own, but facing the reality of her mother was another thing. ‘I’m frightened of her,’ Alex said on a note of discovery. ‘I’ve always been terrified of her. I think Dad’s terrified of her, too.’

  Maggie grinned, her green eyes laughing. ‘I’m not. I told her you were sleeping, getting a much-needed rest, and that you would be staying with us for a few days. I told her not to call and not to come; that you needed some time alone and would get in touch when you were ready.’

  Alex choked on the coffee. ‘I should keep you around, just to deal with my mother.’

  ‘I’ve been fighting off an overbearing father all my life. I’ve had practice. Michael keeps me in practice, too. If I t’nod watch him, he takes over. Do you want me to call Sam?’

  Soon she would have to talk to Sam. Tonight, she decided, and Maggie went off to make a call to Sam’s office.

  It was a strange day for Alex. She spent most of it on the floats, and, although she intended to spend her time thinking, working out her future, most of the time her mind seemed blank. She had lunch alone with Maggie in the beautiful house on the barge. Michael, it seemed, was busy at the site for his new building. He had managed to acquire one of the few waterfront leases and was tearing down the old condemned buildings.

  ‘What’s he going to build there?’ asked Alex.

  ‘Everything!’ Maggie spread her hands. ‘It’s going to be sort of a drive-in electronics and marine shop for boats.’

  ‘He has an electronics company down south, doesn’t he?’

  Alex was surprised when Maggie burst out laughing. ‘Oh, yes, his corporate empire is down there. Some day I’ll tell you about Mickey and me. It was fireworks, from the day Dixie pushed his niece into the ocean until the night of the tsunami warning.’ Maggie was grinning, remembering. ‘Oh, and by the way, Sam said he would come over this evening. About seven.’

  Sitting in Maggie’s home, it didn’t seem quite so shocking that she might have a baby, without running away from Prince Rupert, without getting married. It was the idea of doing it in her parents’ home that was impossible. What she needed was her own place. She probably had enough money in her savings account to support herself in a no-frills style for a few months. With that, and the advance that was coming on her book, she might scrape through until the baby came.

  But that was no way to bring a child into the world, not knowing where the next dollar was coming from. It would be better if she could find a part-time job that would leave her enough time to get the second book well on its way. But who would want to hire a pregnant woman with a university degree and no experience?

  After supper that night, she sat out on the balcony on the second story, and played three games of draughts with Dixie. ‘That’s it! I quit,’ Alex finally declared. Dixie was grinning, pleased with her victory. Alex said with a laugh, ‘You’re a menace!’

  ‘It’s just that I have a lot of practice,’ said the girl with a grin. ‘I play with my grandpa all the time. He lives with us, you know, in the room you’re using.’

  Alex nodded. ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘Visiting my aunt.’ Dixie was frowning and Alex suspected that the aunt was not a favourite with the girl.

  ‘Dixie! Time to do your homework!’ Michael’s voice came clearly from below. Dixie grimaced and started putting the draughts away. ‘English,’ she muttered. ‘I’ve got to do a short story, and I hate writing stories.’ The girl ran off, the draughts board under her arm, and Alex watched her going until her eyes were fixed on the man who came through the doorway, stepping aside to let Dixie past. Sam.

  She remembered the first time she had seen him. He had seemed dangerous, yet he had drawn her like a magnet. Something in him seemed to touch her where no one else ever had. She knew that she could very easily love this man. She also knew that she must not, because he did not want love. He stood still, his eyes serious and faintly worried, watching her. Then he walked slowly towards her. For a moment she thought he would touch her, but he moved to the rail of the balcony and sat on it with one hip, his leg swinging slightly.

  ‘You look like Sam again.’ He was dressed in the familiar jeans, with a casual shirt unbuttoned at the neck.

  ‘I’d dress like this for work,’ he said, smiling faintly while his brown eyes remained serious. ‘But I guess somewhere inside I’d have trouble convincing myself that I was the doctor and not still a delinquent kid running the streets.’ His smile faded and he said, ‘You’re looking better today, Alex.’

  She looked away, trying not to see the caring in his eyes that was somehow mixed with reserve and something else she could not identify. ‘I had a good sleep.’ Her fingers played
with the skirt of the outfit that Maggie had loaned her to wear. The skirt was bright and pretty; matching the embroidered cotton blouse. Alex felt conspicuous in it. ‘I’ve spent most of the day thinking.’

  He slipped off the balcony rail and her heart stopped. His hand reached out, the callused warmth touching her cheek, brushing down to touch her lips fleetingly.

  ‘Alex, I—I’m sorry.’

  She licked her lips nervously, hoping he could not see what she was feeling. Some perverse part of her wanted to move close, to see if his arms would go around her, if he would touch her and kiss her. . . and need her the way he had the night he became her first lover. Her only lover.

  ‘I got you into this.’ He seemed to be having trouble with his breathing. She could see his chest moving, a faint flush on his face. ‘This is my fault, my responsibility. I think—the sooner we get married the better it will be. I can see—what with your parents, and the church, and the rest of it—well, it’s an impossible situation for you. I can see that. I—I’ll look after you, Alex, and the baby.’

  Her mouth was dry, her lips seemed to be cracking. She licked them again, unable to look away from him, her heart thundering as an ominous pressure seemed to descend on her.

  ‘I’ve been looking at houses,’ he said, pushing his hands into his pockets, his voice becoming almost toneless. ‘I’ll buy a house, and we should be able to get married next week. I’ll go down and apply for the licence tomorrow. I—’

  ‘Sam!’ Her voice echoed sharply. She could see the wharves extending down below the balcony. Below her, a man walking along the float had heard her voice and was looking around in confusion, unable to discern where the sound had come from.

  Alex lowered her voice. ‘Sam, you weren’t the only one responsible for this. You took precautions. And I—I wanted to make love with you.’ Love. The word settled over them. She whispered, ‘I don’t regret it...even now. But—if I weren’t pregnant, would you be asking me to marry you?’ She knew that he could not lie to her. He shook his head silently and she managed to say steadily, ‘Then we can’t possibly get married.’