Want to Know a Secret?

by Sue Moorcroft

  A metal contraption skewered Valerie’s right hip and one leg was in traction. The tide of bruising that rose from beneath the strapping on her ribs to her shoulder was streaking jammy red. The crescents beneath her eyes were purple and her poor broken nose looked as if it been put in the oven and risen unevenly.

  Her expression was baleful when she answered his greeting but then, in hospital, there were no bottles of red wine to ignite her flashing smile.

  The room, however well-equipped and pretty, smelled stale. He opened a small window.

  Valerie already had a visitor. Diane was perched on a royal blue chair studying Valerie, a tiny frown curling her brow, hair a pale stream down her back. One elbow rested on her knee and he spent several seconds appreciating the way that her square neckline framed what lay beneath. Resolutely, he averted his eyes, determined not to be caught looking – again – like a teenager. But it was lucky that there were no Thought Police around.

  He fixed his gaze on Diane’s face so that he was smiling at the correct part of her when she turned to look at him. After a grave moment, as if perfectly able to read his thoughts, she let the corners of her lips curl up.

  Valerie ran her fingers through her hair so that it stood up in crests. ‘You already know Gareth’s wife, I understand.’

  James shucked off his jacket. ‘How are you, Diane? Tamzin turned up for her fitting, I hear?’

  ‘Why wouldn’t she?’ Valerie interrupted.

  ‘Because she regularly fails to carry out planned activities?’ suggested James.

  Valerie made a face. ‘You blow normal teenage behaviour out of all proportion. She’s just a girl.’

  James considered letting it go. But, on the other hand, the reluctance of both his wife and his daughter to face up to the realities of the condition of the other was constant grit in his eye. ‘It’s not teenage behaviour in Tamzin. She’s clinically depressed.’ He resisted the pleasurable pedantry of pointing out that Tamzin was twenty and not, therefore, a teenager.

  Valerie dismissed him by turning to Diane. ‘So Gareth is improving?’

  Diane nodded. ‘Still a mess, but less of a mess.’

  ‘They won’t let me see him.’ Valerie plucked at the sheet.

  James felt his eyebrows lift. ‘Seems logistically difficult.’

  ‘We can always rely on you to state the obvious, darling!’

  Diane rose. ‘I’ll tell Gareth that you’ve been showing sisterly concern, shall I? He’s been asking after you, too.’

  Valerie blew out her breath in a frustrated sigh. Then she grinned and for a moment James caught a glimpse of the sexy, pretty woman he’d married, when every glimpse of her happy face had been a pleasure. ‘You’re nice. It was good of you to come and introduce yourself. I’ve often wondered about the mysterious sister-in-law. You’re not at all as I imagined.’

  Diane moved towards the door, her long black skirt flipping around her calves in a series of handkerchiefs. ‘Well, as you see – quite ordinary.’ With a last smile she melted from the room.

  James didn’t realise he was going to follow her until he found himself outside the door. ‘Can we talk?’ he suggested. ‘How about a drink – in an hour, say?’

  She considered him, blue eyes curious. ‘OK. I can hang around.’

  Back inside the room he found Valerie had laid down her prickles, now that he was the only company left to her. ‘My dear brother is playing silly buggers, James, isn’t he? That woman’s as normal as any of us.’

  After a dutiful forty minutes with his wife, James found Diane waiting on a bench in the gardens, watching the dancing shadow of a rose bush, hair flipping in the breeze. Overblown roses had exploded in a lemon-and-pink confetti of petals around her feet, landing on the thin straps around her arching insteps. At least this time when she looked up, he was only staring at her feet. ‘You’re early.’

  ‘Valerie’s tired. I missed lunch and I’m starving. I hope you want to eat or don’t mind watching me. I’ve had no time for anything since breakfast. Work was a nightmare of end-to-end meetings.’

  ‘I could eat.’

  He drove them to a large pub, one that was part of a national chain. He flipped off his seat belt in the car park but she remained motionless, her eyes running over the stitched leather car interior. ‘This is a nice car.’

  He patted the steering wheel. ‘I love it. Expensive, but worth it.’

  She turned to him with that long, assessing gaze. ‘I can see it’s pretty and shiny but I’m hopeless with cars. Is it a Mercedes?’ She indicated the circular badge in the centre of the steering wheel.

  ‘That’s right. Mercedes E 55 AMG. Double spoke alloys, sports exhaust –’

  ‘Is it fast?’

  ‘Nought to sixty in 4.7 seconds.’

  She made a face like a question.

  He grinned. ‘Fast, yes.’

  Following a line of stitching along the dash with her fingertip, she glanced at his jacket. ‘You like leather, don’t you?’

  Something funny happened to James’s voice. ‘Yes,’ he croaked. And couldn’t think of a single other thing to say.

  Inside, the pub boasted pink-painted woodwork and exposed-brickwork walls. Framed sepia photos of bridges and barges and the River Nene hung between brass bugles, copper warming pans and corn dollies. Consulting the slightly sticky menu decorated with photographs of the food, James opted for the lamb steak and chips with onion rings and salad. Diane chose a beefsteak sandwich.

  He ordered at the bar, returning with shandy for himself and pink grapefruit juice for her. ‘So,’ he began, taking the wheel-back chair opposite hers, ‘what made you introduce yourself to Valerie?’

  She shrugged. He had to fight to keep his gaze away from that square neckline. ‘She’s my sister-in-law, apparently, lying injured just along the corridor from Gareth. I’m sure it would be rude to ignore her. And I’d have to be made of concrete not to be curious, especially if what you say about the accident is true. She could’ve made me a widow.’

  ‘And now you’ve met her?’

  She sipped her drink. ‘Yes. Now I’ve met her.’

  He frowned. ‘Now you’ve met her, what do you think?’

  Another shrug.

  He studied her narrowly. Nine out of ten women would exhibit huge curiosity about an instant sister-in-law. Valerie had certainly been agog about Diane and the screen of lies Gareth had erected between his wife and the family.

  Her eyes flickered to his. ‘She and Gareth seem very fond of each other.’ The pale brows shifted very slightly. ‘To an … unusual degree.’

  James laughed. ‘Whatever Valerie’s foibles, I’m certain an unhealthy affection for her half-brother isn’t among them.’

  Her expression didn’t change. ‘But they enquire after each other like over-anxious lovers.’

  The food arrived, plates in the hands and balanced casually on the forearms of a pretty, blonde girl who looked about nineteen.

  James used his fingers to pop the first scalding chip into his mouth. ‘In my view,’ he said, when the swallowed chip lay like an ember in his gullet, ‘it’s about acceptance. I try and police her drinking, whereas Gareth actually enjoys her being her flawed self. Hence, he ended up aboard a helicopter she was piloting when she’d been on the pop.’

  Diane was cutting her sandwich into tiny triangles. ‘I’ve no idea what it’s like to fly in a helicopter.’

  ‘It’s not much like being on a big airliner or even a small plane. The damned thing always feels as if it wants to crash, dancing about in thin air. Especially when it takes off, it’s as if you’re one of those plastic ducks at the funfair and some kid has just hooked you up in the air. It’s flying for show-offs, so Valerie loved it. Her favourite, the newest chopper that the flying club owned – that’s the one she crashed.’

  ‘Do you think she’ll go back to piloting helicopters, when she’s fit?’

  ‘If she can survive the Civil Aviation Authority enquiry into the crash an
d pass the medicals, I don’t doubt it. But the CAA is deadly serious about air safety and regulation. They make the rules and pilots follow them – you can see where the conflict’s going to lie between them and Valerie.’

  ‘How will it affect her if she can’t fly? Does she fly away on business, for instance?’ A tiny frown pulled at her brow.

  He laughed. ‘Nothing so functional. Valerie flies for fun. She does meet friends at the Fenland Airport for lunch or whizzes us off to Silverstone for the Grand Prix, occasionally. But, generally, she flies because she likes flying.’

  Diane sipped her drink. ‘I can see why Gareth’s fascinated by such a flamboyant display of wealth. With her he could be Gareth-with-money, whereas he had to remain Gareth-without-money with me in order to avoid the sharing of it.’

  Tucking into his lamb, James cocked his head. ‘Why wouldn’t Gareth want to share his money with you?’

  She abandoned the sandwich, stretched – interestingly, he thought – and sighed. ‘We’ve never had enough money. And my parents didn’t want me to marry him, a boy from a council estate.’ She laughed, but her eyes were angry as she balled her napkin and flipped it into the middle of the table. ‘They said he’d never be able to give me what I was used to – they were right. But I didn’t think it mattered.

  ‘As well as giving me a clothes account my parents had bought me a brand new Mini Cooper, green, with white rally stripes. I loved it. After I got married we sold it and bought a cheap Ford Escort van and did some decorating with what was left over. I think Gareth hated the car as a symbol of what he couldn’t provide.

  ‘“Don’t come running to us,” my parents used to say. “You’ve made your bed. If we helped you out financially we’d be playing into his hands.”’ She sipped her drink.

  ‘And they were right about us never having enough money, but it was almost as if Gareth manipulated things so that we wouldn’t. He always “had” to help his family. First his mum, then his brothers, forever leaving us just that bit short. I don’t know if he was punishing me for my parents’ snobbery or if he thought that if we were perennially broke my parents would relent and help us.’

  ‘He had to help his brothers? Even when they were grown men?’

  ‘Still does. He’s always sorted out everything for them with the result that they became adults who were bad with money, spending it the instant it landed in their hands. They award themselves a reasonable standard of living – Sky TV, cars, computers, things we don’t feel we can afford – but they’re always a payment or two short at the end of the month. That’s when they come to Gareth.’

  He couldn’t suppress the question that was burning his lips. ‘And did Gareth see you as a conduit to your parents’ money?’

  Her eyes were bleak. ‘I’ve spent so many years denying it —’ She sighed. ‘But, yes, of course. I think that was why his love seemed angry – which was exciting for a long time but eventually crumbled under pressure. He was waiting for my parents to break. But they never did. Gareth blamed me for having all that financial potential and never realising it.’

  James turned back to his meal, using the serrated knife to slice the steak into small pieces but not eating much of it. It wasn’t very good. Veins of gristle ran end to end. Suddenly he wished he hadn’t brought Diane here, where the dining was cheerfully cheap; where there were no tablecloths and the cutlery came wrapped in thin, blue-chequered paper napkins. It was all right, but all right was only all right. He would never have dreamt of bringing Valerie here, or Tamzin, Natalia or Alice.

  As a director of Furness Durwent he received a big beaming salary, bonuses, dividends and profit sharing. Investments added to his income. Valerie had a private income from the chain of department stores that had eventually swallowed up Myers. All three of his daughters were beneficiaries of grandparental trusts.

  His family were used to plenty: plenty of money, clothes, a lovely house, new cars; they were used to being pleasantly and materially spoilt.

  He wished that he could return Diane to that kind of comfort.

  Certainly, he could’ve taken her to a nicer restaurant – her clothes were slightly crazy but always good. She would’ve enjoyed a decent restaurant and he would have enjoyed her enjoyment. And they would have lingered longer over a meal that wasn’t bashed out in the kitchen of a chain of pubs. It would have been good for both of them to lay down their respective burdens for a while.

  ‘And did you blame Gareth?’ he heard himself ask.

  Thoughtfully, she shook her head. ‘No, I never did. For being an ordinary man? It’s hardly a crime, is it?’

  ‘You must’ve loved him, to marry him?’

  She smiled suddenly and he wished he could capture it, like a photo, capture the light in her eyes and the lazy way she turned up the corners of her fine mouth.

  ‘Yes. I think I loved him. He was what Bryony would called “so cool” with his scooter and Parka. He stopped to help me when I had a flat tyre at the side of the road, me gazing at the jack, mystified. By the time he’d changed the wheel, I was in love. Gareth was quite –’ She drew in a long breath. ‘He was quite different then. Assured, capable, friendly, sexy, good-looking. He only had to smile and I’d melt. Of course, I quickly realised he had issues. He was all attitude and grievances, very us and them. It took me a while to realise that I would never be anything else but them.’

  James’s meal was only half-eaten but he was getting a bad taste in his mouth. He laid down his knife and fork. ‘Surely that’s not why he “forgot” to tell you about Harold and Valerie? And about the money?’

  Her eyes managed a tiny twinkle. ‘I’m afraid that was good old-fashioned tit for tat. My parents left everything to my brother, Freddy, when they died. I refused to allow him to make half over to me.’

  James tried, but failed, to conceive of a grudge so black and bitter that it continued past the grave. Of parents who’d let their child and grandchild live in straightened circumstances while they rested on their fat bank account, a husband who’d condemn his wife to unnecessary adversity out of spite. It went against his nature. At various times his family had given him to understand that he was managing, controlling, overprotective and/or an obsessive provider, but if any one of them were to be listening to Diane, they might even begin to feel grateful. He was always there for his own, even though it was a long time since Valerie had deserved it. ‘Has money … been a big problem?’

  She laughed, but he saw that her eyes shimmered. ‘If you mean the lack of it, then desperately! And Bryony was ill so much that I was always rushing to the village shop for cough medicine and paracetamol stuff. The doctor used to put as much as he could on prescription for her but just getting to him – in Holbeach – was almost impossible, sometimes. Her asthma meant I couldn’t hold down a full-time job. Hence the sewing.’

  After coffee – as if to make up for the almost uneaten sandwich, she drank two cappuccinos, each with double sprinkles – they walked out to the car park. The air was soft with rain and the dusk smelled pleasantly fresh.

  Inside the car, Diane patted the leather dash. ‘So it’s really fast?’

  ‘Very fast,’ he agreed, as he steered towards the exit of the pub car park.

  ‘And it’s an expensive car?’

  ‘Pretty much.’

  ‘I’ve never been driven really fast in an expensive car.’ She turned and grinned, her eyes gleaming in the umbrellas of light cast by the enormous car park lampposts.

  He tried to withstand the temptation. He was a responsible adult. There were one-eyed monsters on every verge around Peterborough and he’d only just copped three points on his licence from one of the little bastards.

  But he heard his voice say, ‘Would you like to?’ as the car purred up the service road and back onto the dual carriageway.

  And before she could answer he thrust his foot down on the accelerator and the seat delivered a punch to his back as the car launched itself at the road ahead.

  ‘Who
ohoo!’ She grabbed her seat.

  James drove faster, surging along the dual carriageway from Paston Parkway to Perkins Parkway, weaving, overtaking taillights that were like red stars on either side until he hit a clear patch of road and he could really open up, enjoying Diane’s yelps and whoops as she rocked in her seat and he let the car do what it was made to.

  Her laughter bubbled around them. ‘I hope you don’t get stopped!’

  ‘So do I.’ One wary eye on his mirrors in case a flashing blue light materialised out of the dusk, he braked dangerously hard to pass a camera. But this was fun. And the woman beside him seemed to be having fun, too, clinging on and squeaking with delight at every swerve.

  She gasped as he let the back end drift out. ‘Wow, James!’ He liked the way his name sounded on her tongue.

  Eventually, he slowed.

  The car slid sedately onto a slip road, past McDonalds and the cluster of car showrooms around the cinema, around a couple of roundabouts and into the Farcet Fen lane, safely reined in to thirty as they approached Farcet village. The main road through the village, busy during the day, was quiet now. Over speed bumps, they passed the school and friendly family homes in red brick and pebbledash. Just as the village became the countryside again he rolled the car to a stop in a lay-by beside the wall and railings of a small cemetery. The light had faded into the long deep twilight of a clear summer evening. No moon or stars yet, just infinite indigo sky.

  Diane unfastened her belt and turned in her seat, breathlessly. ‘That was great. Thanks for the ride.’

  ‘My pleasure. We all need to kick back, sometimes. I do, anyway. That was irresponsible – but overdue.’

  Her look was sympathetic. ‘I suppose Valerie’s drinking must be a strain. For the whole family.’

  Usually, he blanked remarks like that, but Diane’s husband had nearly lost his life as a direct result of Valerie mixing liquor with a helicopter. And he realised that he wanted to talk about it. It might be a relief to open up. Not to have to be the strong one. He sighed. ‘Harold doesn’t seem aware. The girls don’t know the extent of it. Or, at least, I don’t think so, although Natalia and Alice occasionally make remarks about boozing. Valerie drinks. It’s part of her life. She drinks. Not just sometimes, not just socially – she drinks steadily. We have furious rows about her driving anyone else, especially the girls. She insists that she rarely drinks before six and rarely drives after. She’s only rated to fly in daylight, too, so it’s quite simple so far as she’s concerned: only drink in the evening ... on good days. On good days, most evenings she drinks a bottle or two of wine. I rage about her still being over the limit in the morning but she dismisses it as “fussing”.