The Secrets Women Keep

by Fanny Blake

  ‘Isn’t this meant to be lucky or something?’ he asked, to the renewed sniggers of his audience.

  ‘I hope so, for your sake.’ Rose exchanged kisses with him. ‘Give it to me. We can put it in the hotel laundry. Don’t worry.’

  ‘I don’t want to be a pest.’ Reaching the car, he folded himself into the passenger seat. ‘Jess must have enough on her plate with the party and everything.’

  ‘So much that a bit of bird shit isn’t going to make the slightest bit of difference. Wait till you see the old place. Everything’s just as Daniel planned it last year, and the place is crawling with Eve and Terry’s friends. I haven’t a clue who anyone is, so it’s good you could come.’ She reversed the car out and turned up the hill towards the road out of town.

  ‘I feel a bit of an intruder, but I want to be here on Monday anyway to meet the contractor. We’re already behind schedule. I’ll have to crack the whip if we’re to get the dining extension and the deck done before the school holidays. They’ll start the pool and the snug in late September as we agreed.’

  ‘Honestly, one more person won’t make a difference. We know how much you love the place, and it’s a glorious time of year. It’ll be fun. Anna’s already been swimming.’ She circled the roundabout above Asda, then put her foot down as they hit the dual carriageway. After a few minutes she said, ‘I thought we might try to escape to St Ives tomorrow. It’s one of my favourite places. I want to take you to the Tate and Barbara Hepworth’s house.’

  As she turned the car into the winding road that took them to Trevarrick, he turned from the window towards her. ‘I’d like that.’

  Back at the hotel, she showed Simon to his room and left him to unpack. The first person she bumped into as she went back downstairs was Terry.

  ‘Sis, I need to talk to you urgently.’ He grabbed her arm and pulled her through the French windows and across the terrace to an isolated table that was sheltered by the corner of the building. Out at sea, a couple of tankers moved slowly against the horizon, while closer to home several sailing boats skimmed the wrinkled sea.

  Rose had been looking forward to this weekend for ages. The occasions when the family got together were few, and this year, for the first time, they had decided not to go to Italy. None of them could face it so soon after Dan’s death. Instead, Casa Rosa was let for the summer. So this weekend was to be cherished. However, she had a nasty feeling that Terry was about to spoil the enjoyment. She fished her sunglasses out of her bag, stretched her legs out in front of her, feeling the sun on her skin, and waited.

  ‘This isn’t easy.’ He shifted in his seat, screwing his eyes up against the sun.

  She didn’t imagine it was. The last time they’d spoken, he’d promised to find the nearest branch of Gamblers Anonymous and attend a meeting – for her sake, if no one else’s. Of course, he’d made out the whole situation was under control. She’d trusted him then, but now she wondered whether he had kept his word.

  ‘I . . . er . . . I need just a little bit more money. Just a little.’ He stared out to sea.

  ‘Why?’ She was at her most chilly, regretting that she’d given in to Anna’s impressive powers of persuasion and sold the Canonford before Terry had kept his side of the bargain. ‘The sale gave you more than enough to straighten yourself out. What’s happened?’

  ‘I’ve been a complete idiot. I told Eve I’d put the money in a holding account for the children until we decide what to do with it. And I have,’ he added hastily in response to his sister’s glare. ‘She’s been so wrapped up in work that she didn’t ask for details. But she will. At the time she was just glad to hear there’d be something for them. I’d kept two hundred K back and was about to square things when I was given a couple of tips . . .’

  Rose stiffened.

  ‘. . . but they didn’t come home.’ He waved his hand in the air as if that was the least of his worries. ‘So I’ve had to default on another mortgage repayment, and the bank are on my tail. Rose, you’ve got to help me. You’re the only person I can ask.’

  A little of Rose had gone on hoping that Terry’s insistence that he could easily quit was justified and that he would get himself out of financial disaster. She didn’t want to admit the truth to herself. But she had been wrong. Her brother really was a gambler. An addict. He needed serious help. Not hers. She knew what they said about addicts. Leave them to reach rock bottom, wherever that was, and even then they must want to help themselves. However much she might want to believe in him, Terry still hadn’t reached that point. All she could do was reinstate the conditions she had originally set, not even considering how to find more money for him until he at least kept his word and sought professional guidance.

  ‘Have you done what you promised me you’d do?’ She hated how schoolmistressy she sounded, but what else could she be?

  ‘Not yet.’ His knee jigged up and down so fast, she put out a hand to still it. He stared at her hand on his leg. ‘I meant to, but I’ve had so much on my plate.’

  ‘Really?’ She removed her hand. ‘Enough time to gamble, but not enough to try to quit or talk to Eve?’

  ‘I think she may already have guessed. I left my Visa statements on the kitchen table and she must have seen them.’

  ‘What did she say?’ Rose couldn’t imagine Eve keeping quiet about something like this.

  ‘Nothing, yet.’ He waved away an approaching waiter. ‘But you don’t understand.’

  ‘I understand completely. Although I wish I didn’t.’ Rose got to her feet, impatient. ‘I really believed you when we last talked about this. More fool me. So let me spell it out to you for the final time. I’m not going to release any more money, whether by selling the Arthur or making you a loan, until you tell Eve everything, and take some steps towards a cure. End of.’

  He laughed, but it was the sound of a trapped animal. ‘Cure! What are you talking about? This isn’t an illness.’

  ‘That’s exactly what it is, Terry.’ Rose was beside herself with rage and frustration. ‘And until you stop thinking like that, you aren’t going to get over it. Please tell Eve. Please.’ Once Eve knew, they could at least put the mortgage repayments through her without giving Terry direct access to the money. Whatever Eve was planning to do with her life – and perhaps finding out Terry’s secret would colour that – at least she could surely be relied upon to do the right thing until his gambling was under control.

  Rose left her brother there, sitting staring out to sea. Instead she went in to find Simon, to see if he’d like a walk on the cliff path before they might be needed to help with any last-minute panics. What she needed was distraction from her family, and the sea air would clear her head.

  21

  Eve knew she was driving Jess mad by constantly checking that everything was going to plan. But she had to do something with her time while she waited for Rose’s return. She had just left the pink-swagged marquee where Anna was beginning to arrange the armfuls of wild flowers she had picked into delicate centrepieces for each table. Eve’s offer to help was met with a brisk dismissal. This was Anna’s job, and only she could do it properly. The way she took her new career so seriously was a pleasure to see. Eve should be with her guests. But the thought of them, her and Terry’s dear friends who had made time to come down here for the weekend, made her ashamed. Only she and Rose knew that this whole performance was a bloody sham. But the arrangements had been too far advanced for her to call a halt without hurting too many people. Suddenly she wanted the reassurance of her oldest friend.

  ‘Remember me on Friday,’ Will had said, as she had left his apartment earlier that week.

  ‘Why then?’ she queried, still heady from their lovemaking. ‘I think of you all the time.’

  ‘It’s four months to the day since we met.’ He pulled her close, and she felt him hard against her. He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her, his tongue nudging at her lips. Just his touch was enough to make her feel she was twenty again. When she was wi
th him, nothing else mattered. When she wasn’t, she thought about him all the time, wondering where he was, who he was with, what he was doing, when he’d next call. Everything conspired to make her want to stay with him, but however much she wanted to, she couldn’t. She had to leave Terry. But not quite yet.

  He ran his finger down the length of her nose, tapping the bump where she’d walked into a lamppost many moons ago. ‘Don’t go. Not just yet. I can think of plenty of things to amuse us this afternoon.’

  ‘I’m sure you can,’ she laughed, knowing those amusements would take place almost exclusively in the bedroom. ‘I’m so, so tempted, but I’ve got to go home. Terry’s expecting me back and I’ve got some work to do.’

  ‘What? Reading? Can’t it wait?’ He kissed her again, pulling her with him towards the bedroom door. ‘They’re only children’s books. They won’t take you long.’

  Momentarily incensed by this dismissal of her work, she extricated herself. Then she laughed. ‘I’ve been putting them off for too long. You’re a bad man, Will Jessop. A very bad man indeed.’

  ‘But you like it. Don’t try and tell me you don’t.’ He grinned and put his hand in the pocket of his cream linen jacket to pull out a distinctive blue box. Tiffany’s – she recognised it at once. ‘A little something to mark the best four months of the year so far. Well, that’s my excuse. I was going to give it to you later, but if you insist on going . . .’

  Her heart beating a tattoo, she undid the white satin ribbon and removed the lid, gasping as she saw the contents. Inside was a thin woven silver bangle. ‘But I can’t take this. It’s far too generous.’

  ‘Of course you can,’ he said. ‘Now stay with me.’ He took the bangle and slipped it on to her wrist, where it sat glinting in the light.

  ‘Will, I really can’t. I must get this work done before we go away.’ She noticed his pout at the ‘we’. ‘I’ve an author expecting to hear from me and I can’t let her down. She’s worried the book’s not as good as it should be and I want to put her out of her misery, otherwise she’ll spend the weekend worrying.’

  ‘Bloody agency,’ he muttered. ‘Don’t you want to spend time with me?’

  She experienced that flash of irritation she got whenever he behaved like a spoilt child. ‘Of course I do.’ She sounded more tetchy than she meant to. ‘But with Terry still out of work, I’ve got to do what I can. And I’m doing my best to find a replacement for Rufus.’

  Now, standing in the garden of Trevarrick, Eve twisted the bangle around her wrist, pushing it back under her sleeve, where she kept it hidden. At first she had imagined only wearing it when she was alone with Will. But her caution vanished in the face of Terry’s apparent indifference. As distracted as he was, he wouldn’t notice if she appeared dressed in a silver suit of armour. Nothing she said or did impinged on his gloom. Was it just his lack of work and his consequent lack of a place in the world? Or could he possibly suspect her of having an affair? She had learned a lesson from what had happened between Dan and Rose, and had been so careful not to leave any clues. Nothing Terry had said or done had given her reason to think he knew. But she was aware of reaching a place where she would have to make a decision about her future. She couldn’t continue the deception. Other people managed a double life, but not her. Where they might regard the necessary lying as a game, she couldn’t bear the strain, the constant possibility of being found out. However, the irony of her position hadn’t escaped her. Could she really do to Terry what Will had done to her all those years ago? Was she capable of inflicting so much pain on the dear father of her children, whom she had loved, did still love, but who no longer excited her? Being with Will had brought that last consideration home in no uncertain way.

  As she stared out to the white horses racing across the surface of the sea, she felt an arm around her shoulder. She spun round. Rose.

  ‘Penny for them.’ Rose had a reliable sixth sense for when Eve needed to talk.

  ‘Where have you been? I’ve been looking for you.’

  ‘Showing Simon the sights, such as they are. That awful old sheepdog by the church wouldn’t let us past, so we had to come the long way back.’

  As she laughed, Eve was pleased to hear her sounding so relaxed. ‘I’m glad he could come.’

  ‘Mmm.’ Rose bent to retie the laces of her trainer. ‘It’s so odd. I feel as if I’ve known him for years. I don’t know what it is. He makes me feel anchored again, I suppose. It’s a good feeling. But what did you want to talk about?’

  Eve took a deep breath. She absolutely did want to talk about Rose and Simon. Their apparently platonic relationship intrigued her as much as it pleased her. But at this second, her own problems were pressing in on her. ‘I don’t think I can go through with this evening,’ she confessed. ‘I feel such a hypocrite.’

  ‘Bit late for that now, isn’t it?’ Rose was matter-of-fact. ‘Terry doesn’t know, and as long as you’re carrying on with Will, you should make sure it stays like that. You’ve got to keep up the charade until you decide what you’re going to do. I’d far rather not have found out about Dan.’

  Eve slipped her arm around her friend’s waist. ‘This is difficult for you, I know.’

  They stood for a moment, twined together, then their arms dropped.

  ‘Yes, it is.’ Rose paused, snapping off a head of cow parsley and beginning to tear the flower heads into little pieces. ‘I’m torn between the two of you. Of course I want you to do what makes you happy, but just not at the expense of my brother.’

  ‘I know.’ Eve looked back out to sea, flattening her skirt against the wind with her spare hand. ‘I don’t want to hurt him either. I do love him. I do. But these last weeks with Will . . . well, they’ve made me feel young again. I’d never have thought . . .’ She saw Rose wince. ‘I’m sorry, but it’s true.’

  That last conversation with Daniel in his study, when she’d tried to convince him to talk to Rose. Had he been feeling the same confusion of lust and regret that she had felt every day since going to Will’s flat for the first time? Beside her, Rose stood with her arms crossed over her chest. How sad she looked, and how alone.

  ‘But you know that’s not real, don’t you?’ Rose shook her head. ‘Perhaps you should take some time out. Leaving him because of a fling that makes you feel good about yourself – is that really what you want? And for Will?’ Rose’s voice was full of dislike. ‘After what he did to you.’

  Eve took Rose’s arm, despite feeling her friend’s resistance. ‘I shouldn’t have told you. I’m sorry. But if I didn’t have you to talk to . . .’ She left the sentence unfinished. ‘Besides, sleeping with your first husband isn’t really the same as having an affair, is it?’

  ‘Ex,’ Rose pointed out firmly. ‘What’s the difference? Of course it’s the same thing. Look, I don’t want you to break up your family when I know this is a phase Terry’s going through and he’ll be back to normal before we know where we are. He will. And then you’ll regret all this.’

  Rose sounded so certain that Eve felt bound to believe her. She had recognised the risks she was running when she agreed to meet Will for their first lunch after so long, but their affair had gathered a momentum that she had been powerless to stop. She hadn’t planned to lose control of her emotions, but things had happened so fast that she hadn’t realised how far she was falling. She couldn’t turn the clock back now, whatever she or Rose wanted. She sighed. ‘Perhaps you’re right. I’m being selfish and I’m going to have to sort this out my own way, without hurting Terry or the kids. That’s the last thing I want to do. Let’s not talk about it again. It’s too hard. We should get ready.’

  ‘So you’re not calling a halt to the proceedings, then?’

  ‘No. This is Terry’s night too. I’m going to forget about Will and have a good time. Tomorrow I’ll begin to put things right.’

  ‘I hope so.’ But Rose didn’t sound entirely convinced as they began the walk up the path towards the hotel. From the tennis cour
ts came the pock, pock of a match in progress, occasionally accompanied by a yell of frustration or triumph. If she was honest, Eve wasn’t entirely convinced either.

  Eve was in the shower when Terry came up to their room. Wrapping herself in one of the hotel’s fluffy white dressing gowns, she emerged pink and scented. At least she’d succeeded in scrubbing off the streaks of fake tan applied too hastily the previous day. She found her husband lying on the bed. His sturdy walking shoes were higgledy-piggledy on the sandy carpet.

  ‘Good walk?’ She picked up the shoes and lined them up in the wardrobe.

  He opened his eyes, and gazed at her, propping himself on one elbow. ‘Beautiful. You should have come. I took Sam and Minty with Pete and what’s-her-name on the valley walk. They were bowled over – wild flowers everywhere, and skylarks over the field by the cliff path. Rose and Simon were sitting on the old bench up there – it was great to see her laughing again. He’s good for her. We didn’t stop because I was worried about the time. Pete had a bit of trouble climbing the road up from the Mill at the end, but we made it.’ For the first time in ages, he sounded enthusiastic. Serious all of a sudden, he sat up and wiggled himself backwards until he was leaning against the mound of pillows and cushions, then patted the spot beside him. ‘We need to talk.’

  Immediately, she felt apprehensive. ‘Can’t it wait till after the party? We should be getting ready.’ She tugged the towelling turban from her hair and rummaged in her case for her hairdryer. ‘We mustn’t be late. Rose and Jess will kill us.’

  ‘No, it can’t. Anyway, we’ve got a couple of hours.’ He patted the bed a second time.

  She had rarely heard him sound so decisive. And certainly not recently. But he sounded nervous too. Her guilt made her more sympathetic towards him than usual, so she sat down, lifting her legs and tucking her feet under the tan-and-chocolate-striped bed runner.