The Secrets Women Keep

by Fanny Blake

  As Terry and Jess’s attention transferred to something happening behind them, Rose and Eve hugged.

  ‘We’ll talk in the morning. I’m sure . . .’ Eve whispered. But both of them knew that it couldn’t be as straightforward as that.

  The party was well under way. The lobster had arrived in time, and the simple but extravagant meal that began with asparagus and ended with raspberries (carrying the sort of carbon footprint that would outrage Terry, had he but known) was pronounced a huge success. The air was balmy, and any threat of rain had blown over. Fairy lights swung in the trees and tea lights illuminated the path between the hotel and the marquee, where the dancing had started. The cousins, led by Anna and Charlie, had been first on the floor, along with a couple of Eve and Terry’s friends. Jess and Adam had soon joined them. Rose was glad to see the girls’ differences patched up, although for the life of her she couldn’t understand how they’d overcome them so speedily. It was easier not to ask. As the drink went down, inhibitions were cast aside, and the dance floor was now crowded with ‘oldsters’ (as Anna still would have them). Those old favourite songs had couples who clearly only danced once or twice a year still doing the same old moves they’d barely modified since their teens. Knees creaked as the braver among them twisted to a squat, occasionally having to be helped up by their partner. The noise of music and voices emerged from the marquee, growing more raucous by the minute.

  Rose stood under a tree watching. Every conversation she’d had that evening had been a struggle. She could feel the sympathy for her – ‘recently widowed in such tragic circumstances’ – coming off people in waves. Eve and Terry had obviously done a thorough job briefing their friends to spare embarrassment. She did her best, but she felt the impatience of those she talked to, dying to get away to have fun with someone else. It was one of those parties where there was always someone more interesting standing behind her. But despite every effort, she couldn’t be fun tonight. Not even under the influence. Never had she felt less like celebrating.

  Not far from her was a rowdy bunch she didn’t know; obviously good friends come outside for a smoke. They fell about laughing at a joke. The smell of the cigarettes filled the air. She stepped backwards into the shadows as she saw Simon come into the garden. He stopped for a moment by the open flap of the marquee, stretched his arms above his head and looked around him, nodding amiably at the smokers. A man without a care in the world. A man who had become her friend. Rose was suddenly choked with rage. Who the hell did he think he was, worming his way into their family, exploiting their trust at a time when they were so vulnerable? She had believed in him, opened up to him about Daniel, listened to his memories too. But how much had he left unsaid? If only he’d stuck to designing the hotels and stayed out of their lives. That should have been enough for him. What could he have been thinking when he first asked her to the opera? Had it really been the impulsive gesture he claimed? Or was being close to his family his way of staying close to Dan? Daniel – his lover? The thought made her sick to her stomach.

  So far that evening she had managed to avoid Simon altogether by making sure she was always busy talking to someone whenever he came near. But the effort of making conversation was eventually too much for her. One more word about a ‘simply marvellous’ holiday, a teenager on a gap year or another ‘absolutely adorable’ grandchild and she’d scream. She’d had to leave the marquee.

  Simon looked at his watch, brushed something from the thigh of his trousers, then began to walk towards the hotel. He passed close to where Rose was standing. She held her breath, pressing herself into the shadow of the tree. He stopped again, half turning towards the marquee as if hoping to see something, someone – her? She was only a few feet away from him.

  The urge to jump out and physically attack him was almost irresistible. She longed to rip the fine linen shirt from his back, to punch him as hard as she could, hurting him for hurting her so badly. For hurting them. For not only Daniel’s betrayal of her, but for his. Only the knowledge that she’d be ruining Eve and Terry’s party stopped her. Besides, seeing their mother scrapping on the lawn was not the way she wanted the girls to find out. If they needed to find out at all.

  Unable to see her, half hidden by the tree, Simon continued up the path, whistling under his breath. Everything about him was so well put together. She ached to disrupt that relaxed but considered style that she had thought she liked so much. She had liked it. Could she possibly have made a mistake? She simply couldn’t imagine Daniel betraying her like this. But everything pointed that way.

  She sank into a squat as the energy drained from her legs. Perhaps she should follow Simon to have it out now while everyone else was otherwise occupied. She had to know. The slightest uncertainty was torture. Twisting her wedding ring round her finger, she looked towards the marquee. Just inside, she glimpsed Jess and Adam dancing, their arms around each other, oblivious to the others around them. Jess’s face was tipped up to his, saying something; Adam, with his head slightly on one side, was looking down at her, his customary thoughtful expression transformed with a smile, his hands resting comfortably on the curve of her spine. Eve came into view, laughing as Terry spun her under his arm in an improvised jive. They seemed to be getting along fine again. Perhaps Eve had seen sense. Perhaps Terry had confessed and they’d cleared the air. Let at least one of those be the case.

  Around them, the other couples came together and separated, happy, laughing, touching, shouting and whispering. Couples. Something Rose wouldn’t be part of again. She didn’t want anyone else but the Daniel she had known. To think she had even slightly flirted with the idea of Simon. There were Anna and Charlie, jumping as if they were on the pogo sticks they had loved as children. Behind them, Millie, Tom, Luke and his new girlfriend. Again she longed to wind the clock back. But now everything was different. Ruined. She wasn’t half of a well-loved couple, not one of the crowd, any more.

  She straightened up. The night was getting chilly. She stepped out on to the illuminated path. Someone waved at her from the marquee. Terry. He shouted something, but his words were lost in Sister Sledge’s ‘We Are Family’. She waved back and started towards the hotel.

  Maybe everyone else had known. Maybe they’d been laughing about her blind stupidity for years. How could she not have known? All those times Daniel was away on business, the times she had stayed at home while he met up with a friend or a business associate for drinks. What had he really been doing? He must have left clues, if only she had been alert to them. And then he came home to her, to their bed, as if nothing was wrong. But nothing had been wrong. Their sex life was as fulfilling as she had needed it to be. It had satisfied them both. So it had slowed up a bit in recent years, but wasn’t that what happened to most married couples? Why should she have suspected anything? If only she’d never picked up his bloody phone by mistake, if she hadn’t seen that text, then she wouldn’t be going through this. But now she could imagine Simon sending his message on the spur of the moment, relaying his feelings as they occurred to him. That was how it would have been. How much easier it would be not to know. But now she had to.

  There was only one person who could tell her the truth. She had trusted Simon with her most private feelings about Daniel’s death. She had even confided in him how much she missed their Saturday-afternoon siestas, spent in bed with champagne and an old film. Her head throbbed with rage as she thought of everything she had told him. The least he could do was tell her all she wanted to know. As she neared the main building, she saw him through the window, sitting alone at the bar, nursing a glass of whisky.

  She quickened her pace.

  24

  Eve was enjoying herself. The music was loud, the drink was flowing, people were having a good time. She hadn’t wanted a staid standing-around drinks party, but something where her friends would feel able to let go. And that was what was happening. The tables, decorated with Anna’s wild-flower posies, were littered with bottles, glasses and coffee
cups. The meal had been extravagant and delicious but simple. As the evening progressed, the noise level had risen and she sensed things were going well.

  She had deliberately kept a check on how much she drank so she could make sure everyone had a good time. As importantly, she didn’t want to make a fool of herself in front of her few precious clients that they had invited. Not that she needed to worry. Laurie Murray, one of her longest-standing teen-lit authors, was sailing at least five sheets to the wind and coming into harbour beside her right then.

  ‘Great party, Eve.’ Laurie’s eyelids were at half-mast, revealing the streaks of eye make-up congealed along the hollows. Similarly, her lipstick had bled into the tiny wrinkles around her mouth. For a wildly inappropriate moment, Eve was reminded of a cat’s arse. She banished the thought, putting out a hand in support as Laurie lurched sideways.

  ‘Glad you’re having a good time.’ Laurie had collapsed so that she was half sitting on one of the chairs. Eve sat beside her, amused to imagine what Laurie’s adoring tribe of under-fifteen readers would think if they could see her now.

  ‘We are.’ Laurie waved a hand in the vague direction of her husband, who, wine glass in hand, looked faintly alarmed at his wife’s progress. ‘But Eve,’ she said, leaning forward, looking intent, waving a finger under Eve’s nose, ‘there’s something I’ve been meaning to say to you.’

  ‘Really?’ Eve tried to sound her most interested.

  Laurie straightened herself on the chair. ‘Now what have I done with my bag?’ She grasped a fabric tie that led under her vast corseted behind to a bag of infinitesimal proportions, from where she retrieved a lipstick and small mirror. Eve waited nervously while her prized client attempted to cover up the wine stains on her lips. After she’d wiped a dab of red from one of her front teeth, Laurie started again. ‘Now. Yes. I just want you to know how glad we are, and I know I speak for more than one of your authors, that you’re coming through that bad patch. I, for one, have no intention of leaving the sinking ship. And I want you to know that.’

  Eve couldn’t help laughing as she grasped the other woman’s hand. ‘Thank you, Laurie. Though I’m not sure that I want to be thought of as a sinking ship.’

  A look of embarrassment crossed Laurie’s generous features as she realised what she’d said. She opened her mouth, but Eve stopped her.

  ‘I’m as afloat as I ever was. All we need is one or two new crew members and we’ll weather the storm.’ This extended sailing metaphor finally defeated her.

  Laurie lurched forward to give her a kiss on the cheek. ‘Darling, you’re quite wonderful. And that dress looks wonderful too. You’ll have to tell me your secret. You must have lost pounds.’

  ‘Well, there’s something to be said for anxiety.’ Eve extricated herself from her client’s slightly sweaty embrace. ‘We’ll talk about it another time.’

  But Laurie was there to stay. She leaned forward again, about to speak. Eve made an effort to look engaged, although her foot was tapping to the Beach Boys’ ‘California Dreaming’.

  ‘Mum! At the risk of embarrassing us both, d’you fancy a dance?’ Luke had come up behind them and was standing with his hand held out for her. He’d got rid of his jacket and tie and was looking, if she thought so herself, extremely fit. His hair was tied back high on his head in the topknot that she’d quite come round to. The scar remaining from his cleft palate operation was barely noticeable thanks to his carefully trimmed designer stubble. And six feet one, too.

  ‘We’re talking, darling,’ she pointed out as if he was six, while wanting desperately to take up his offer of rescue. If she knew Laurie, this conversation was likely to go round and around in circles.

  ‘No, you go,’ protested Laurie, standing uncertainly. ‘I’ll find Teddy.’ With that, she set off across the floor, swerving past the dancers, to rejoin her other half.

  Luke was already swaying to the Beach Boys, waiting for Eve to join in. ‘What dinosaur put this playlist together? You must have been dancing to all this stuff when you were at uni.’

  ‘We did,’ Eve admitted, as, out of practice, she tried to get in some sort of groove, following Luke’s example but not quite keeping up. Another drink would help. But no. ‘And the playlist was down to Millie and Dad. It’s meant to appeal to everyone, and look . . .’ she cast around at the gyrating middle-aged couples and the few cooler members of the younger generation, ‘it does the job.’ Although, seeing her friends through his eyes, they all looked slightly tragic. But who cared? They were having a fun, and that was what mattered.

  Luke raised his perfectly shaped eyebrows and gave the smile that she knew would break many a girl’s heart before he’d done. They abandoned themselves to the dance. Five minutes later, her shoes had been thrown to the side and she was dancing in a circle with all four of her children as the music segued from one golden oldie to another. Everyone was on their feet. Whatever Luke said, Terry and Millie had done an excellent job. For as long as she was dancing, Eve didn’t care what she looked like. Being on the dance floor with the others like this was fun. She stepped back and bumped into her bookkeeper, who was dancing on his own, eyes closed, while his wife was shaking it out with their foreign rights agent. Yes, you didn’t have to be rip-roaring drunk to have a good time, Eve conceded, surprised at herself.

  As the final chords of ‘I will Survive’ faded, Eve took herself to the side of the floor, leaving her children to do whatever choreographed group dance they had down for the next track. She found her shoes and tried to slip them on, but the straps cut into her puffy feet. Abandoning the struggle, she carried them over to the bar, joining a band of friends who had gathered there. Standing there, ignoring the nagging ache in her right knee, enjoying the congratulations and good will, she felt completely at home, surrounded by the people who were the warp and weft of her life. From university, to the school gate, to her and Terry’s workplaces, there wasn’t one person in the marquee who hadn’t been involved in some part of their lives together.

  The only person missing was Daniel. Dear Daniel. How he would have enjoyed all this. The whole thing had been his idea after all. Perhaps this was the sort of bash he would have preferred to the modest long winter weekend in Casa Rosa that he and Rose had hosted for the family when they’d hit their own silver anniversary. The celebratory family meal at Giovanni’s had been delicious, but modest. She glanced around the marquee for Rose, suddenly aware that she hadn’t been keeping an eye on her. Jess and Anna were on opposite sides of the dance floor. But there was no sign of their mother.

  Whatever her friend was going through right now, Eve wanted to support her however she could. Rose must have left the steamy atmosphere of the marquee for some fresh air. Eve imagined her returning to her room, like an injured animal licking her wounds alone. What she must be feeling was unimaginable. To discover your husband was having an affair was one thing, but a homosexual affair . . . All those feelings of anger and betrayal must be compounded by self-doubt and inadequacy. Poor Rose.

  ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’ Excusing herself, Eve negotiated her way outside through the tables and disordered chairs. The air felt pleasantly cool on her shoulders, the grass already damp underfoot as she walked back to the hotel. The lights beamed out of the lower rooms, while upstairs, curtains were tightly drawn. She couldn’t see anyone in the bar or the dining room. Instead she ran upstairs and along the corridor to Rose’s room. She put her ear to the door. Ridiculous. What did she expect to hear? She knocked gently.

  ‘Rose?’ she said as loudly as she dared. ‘Rose? It’s me, Eve. Are you all right?’

  Nothing.

  She tapped again. ‘Rose?’

  Still silence. Rose must be in bed. She couldn’t blame her. She’d have offered her a Diazepam if only she’d thought. Eve headed back to the party. At the top of the stairs, by the large oil painting of St Ives harbour, she hesitated. Everyone had admired her sandals. Those who hadn’t weren’t going to now. Why not change into somethin
g more comfortable for dancing? She backtracked past Rose’s room, stopping for a second outside it again, then hurried on to her own and Terry’s.

  Opening the door, she chucked her sandals on the bed. She resisted the temptation to throw herself alongside them, and bent to pull out her oldest pair that she’d brought along just in case. The glitter had all but faded from them (a bit like their owner, she reflected), but she had restuck a couple of sequins that had been hanging on by their last threads and . . . they would do. As she slipped them on, her feet giving up thanks as she did, she heard her BlackBerry. The phone lay where she’d left it with her make-up in the bathroom. Who would be calling her this late? Everyone knew it was the day of their party. She checked the caller ID and almost dropped the phone – Will. Suppose Terry had picked it up. She thought she had covered every base, making sure Will understood that he wasn’t ever to call her on this number except in a real emergency. But she shouldn’t have given it to him at all. Was the fact that she had significant, a sign that her subconscious was working overtime? Deep down did she want Terry to find out? If he did, everything would be in the open and . . . then what? She couldn’t bear to think about the turmoil and hurt the discovery would cause. But Terry wasn’t here. He was downstairs enjoying himself.

  ‘Hello.’ She whispered the word as if there was a danger of being overheard.

  ‘How’s it going, babe?’

  How she hated Will calling her that, as if she was a woman half her age. He meant to flatter her, but in fact the word made her feel like Grandma Moses and him sound like a superannuated Lothario.

  ‘I had a feeling you’d be there.’ His voice was full of longing.

  ‘What are you doing calling me now? It’s complete chance that I was up here. You know the party’s tonight.’ Then, worried that she’d sounded too sharp, she added, ‘We said we’d talk tomorrow, that I’d call you when I could get away.’