Want to Know a Secret?

by Sue Moorcroft

  His voice was deep and low. ‘I’ll make it as unsqualid as I can. You won’t have to face staff in hotels. I’ll arrange something.’ Lifting her face to his he kissed her damp eyelids and leaned against her.

  ‘I don’t know if I can,’ she repeated, weakly. ‘It’s so deceitful. I don’t know if I’ll cope. The guilt.’

  He sighed. ‘You could always ask Gareth how it’s done.’

  ‘Ouch!’

  He kissed her, quickly, his mouth firm and hot. ‘Sorry. It can’t have been nice for you to find out about that. But you did find out. You know that he has someone else. Doesn’t that clear your conscience?’

  ‘Or make me as bad as him?’ The summer night had thickened around them, the air full of the scent of damp grass and the sound of a thousand insects. Diane allowed herself to relax into his arms, feeling the thud of his heartbeat. It felt safe.

  They stood, bodies pressed together, for so long that night-time creatures began rustling the hedges around them.

  James said, quietly, ‘We could make each other happy.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  Diane squashed in, forcing herself as close as she could get to the barrier.

  Other bodies jostled, other heads craned. She’d almost made it to the front of the mob by the time the one she awaited emerged beneath the brightly lit Arrivals sign, squinting with tiredness, short brown curls on end as she fought an airport trolley stacked with scratched suitcases and a brightly coloured backpack.

  ‘Bryony!’ The name burst from the depths of Diane’s lungs and a woman in front of her winced in irritation. Diane only shouted louder. ‘Bryony, here, darling!’ And she squirmed out of the press, thrusting aside elbows and shoulders, to sprint around the length of the barriers. In seconds she could crush her daughter to her for the first time for almost a year.

  ‘Mum!’ Bryony’s embrace was just as fierce. ‘I’m so glad to see you. Thanks for driving all the way down to the airport. We had turbulence – I was sick. And when they could finally serve icky dried-up meals I didn’t feel like eating, so now I’m empty.’ She rubbed her tummy under a yellow-and-green shirt that looked at least two sizes too big.

  Diane turned towards the nearest coffee shop. ‘Let’s get you something. I could murder a cappuccino. Let me push the trolley, darling – you’ve enough luggage. Oops, sorry,’ as she cornered awkwardly and clipped somebody’s suitcase.

  Eventually she was able to park the recalcitrant trolley and Bryony on the edge of a seating area while she queued along the shiny stainless steel counter for cappuccino and a scone for her and water and what looked like a yard of cheese-and-pickle baguette for Bryony.

  Bryony was home! As she queued she darted looks at her daughter, almost excited enough to bubble and steam like the cappuccino machine.

  ‘Now,’ she said, back at the table, passing Bryony her baguette, plus a chocolate brownie that she’d picked up knowing how Bryony adored them. ‘Tell me about Brasilia and the orphanage where you worked and everything.’

  ‘God, Mum. It’ll take hours.’ But Bryony began, between bites of baguette, and the subject lasted her through her meal, into the car park, around the M25 and up the M11. The people, the wealth and the poverty, the institution at Lago Norte, the towers of Congress on the skyline, the vast expanse of City Park, the yellow-flowered trees and how it was rainy in summer but dry in winter. ‘It’s tropical downpours there, Mum. You want to see the rain. You could shower in it. Honestly, you could rinse your hair.’

  For the first time, it occurred to Diane that, with all that money in Gareth’s account, they could’ve seen it – and Bryony. The hollow, pulsing ache of longing for her only child could’ve been assuaged if Gareth hadn’t hoarded all his riches to himself like Scrooge McDuck.

  As they approached Peterborough, Bryony began to yawn, giant, eye-watering yawns.

  ‘You need to be in bed. Not long now.’ To be truthful, Diane wouldn’t have minded a nap herself. She’d hardly slept for the last two nights for thinking of Bryony. And James, a little voice added.

  Bryony stretched. ‘After seeing Dad.’

  Diane shifted her eyes briefly from the thundering lorries ahead. ‘You want to go now?’

  ‘Of course. He texted me the minute I landed. He says he’s counting the hours. What sort of shape is he in?’

  Diane checked her mirror and moved over into the inside lane. ‘He’s improving all the time.’ And, honestly, ‘But pretty horrible.’

  A nursing sister intercepted Diane as she crossed the foyer. It was Kirsty, the lovely Irish nurse who was one of Gareth’s favourites because she could make him laugh. ‘He’s not quite so well today, Mrs Jenner. He’s got a water infection so we’ve turned some fans on him and the antibiotics will start to work very soon. But he’s hot and uncomfortable until they do.’ She turned her smile on Bryony. ‘If you’re Gareth’s daughter then I think there’s a welcome waiting for you. He can’t wait for you to turn up. In fact, he’s having such lurid dreams with the infection that twice he’s been convinced that you’ve been already.’

  Bryony beamed. ‘Poor Dad. I can’t wait to see him, either.’

  But when they reached Gareth’s door they discovered that they were not the only visitors. Harold looked to have arrived just before them and Gareth was glaring at him balefully across the white and ordered room, challenging, ‘So, where were you?’

  Diane halted, recognising the sound of Gareth getting something off his chest. ‘This might not be a good time,’ she muttered, sliding her arm around Bryony.

  Harold was wearing an astonished frown. ‘Am I late?’

  Gareth reached for his iced water, eyes moving feverishly. ‘A few bloody decades. Where were you when Mum took up with Denny and had Melvin and Ivan, then Denny left us and we were shoved away in a damp, rat-infested dump because he turned out to be just another bastard who sent no fucking money for his own kids?’ His voice rose. ‘The benefit system wasn’t quite so generous, those days, you know. Where were you when I had to leave school, when Mum and me had two jobs each and there was no one much to look after the little ’uns and they ran around like hooligans? When I had to give up my apprenticeship because it didn’t bring in enough? Where were you?’ Fresh sweat ran down his forehead.

  His gaze dropped to the small basket of fruit that his father clutched, done up with cellophane and a curly gold ribbon. ‘You can fuck off with that! I’m ill, I can’t eat. I just want to know where you were.’

  Harold looked bewildered. ‘Gareth you know how sorry I am but I can’t change history –’

  ‘I’ll tell you where you were, shall I? You were sitting on your posh arse in the back of your Rolls Royce, with your posh wife and your spoilt little daughter. And I’ll tell you what you weren’t doing, too, shall I? You weren’t finding out what happened to the girl you got pregnant or your child that she’d given birth to. You waited until I was forty-bloody-three and that girl was dead as a door knob before you got off your posh arse and did that.’ He wiped his face roughly with his good hand.

  ‘You are criticising me for depriving my family of money?’ barked Harold, evidently spurred into giving as good as he got.

  Gareth fell silent. The two men glared at each other like pitbulls.

  Then Bryony pushed past Diane, bursting onto the scene, brown eyes round under aghast eyebrows, and broke into noisy sobs. ‘Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, Dad. Your face!’

  Gareth turned away from Harold as Bryony dashed forward and bent awkwardly to hug what she could of him. ‘Dad, the reality didn’t sink in. Oh, Dad, you nearly died.’

  Automatically, he put his left arm around her, exchanging an uncomfortable look with Diane, hovering in the background. ‘I didn’t realise it was time for you to be here. I keep having these dreams.’ His face softened, even as he grumbled, ‘You’re making me hot, sobbing down my neck.’ But he closed his eyes and patted her back.

  ‘Perhaps I’d better give you some time alone.’ White and sh
aken, Harold climbed to his feet.

  Gareth lifted his eyes to his father. ‘You bloody stay where you are and meet your granddaughter. Bryony, this is Harold Myers, my father.’ Diane heard the pride in his voice.

  Theatrically, Bryony sprang up, wiping her eyes. ‘Oh. My. God!’ And she flung herself around the bed and into Harold’s arms as if she’d known him all her life.

  After a startled moment, Harold beamed. ‘Hello, young lady,’ he said, quietly.

  Gareth looked up at Diane and she saw the pride of parenthood in his gaze. They still shared Bryony.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Tamzin rang Diane. ‘Can I come over, today? Or do you want to be left alone with Bryony? I understand, if you do. But if I do come, can I bring George? He’s got no exams this morning so he said he’d pick me up and bring me over.’

  She heard the smile in Diane’s voice. ‘Yes, come. Bryony won’t wake until afternoon, I’ll bet. She’s shattered.’

  The journey to Purtenon St. Paul took twenty-five minutes. Thirty-five if you counted the initial ten minutes spent kissing in the car, slewed around and scrunched over to avoid the hand brake. It was George who broke it up, golden-brown eyes regretful. ‘I could do this all day but I suppose we’d better hit the road or I won’t get back for uni.’

  After they’d cleared Crowland and turned right off the main road he picked up her hand from where it lay on the seat and placed it just above his knee. Whenever his left hand wasn’t occupied on the gear stick or the steering wheel, he dropped it casually on hers. His flesh was warm and firm through the fabric of his jeans and she went suddenly breathless and shy.

  George treated her like a proper girlfriend and his friends had made themselves her friends, too, slicing through the distrust for groups and gangs that the Coven had given her.

  ‘The others want to see a film tomorrow night at The Showcase. I said I’d see if you were up for it.’

  ‘Yes!’ she squeaked, before she could think about being cool or laid back. ‘What are we seeing?’

  George glanced in his mirror, indicated and turned left. ‘Erica and Marty are still bickering about it. What’s your sort of thing?’

  ‘Not horror, not cowboys.’

  ‘You’re such a girl.’

  Tamzin giggled. ‘It seems a while since anyone noticed.’

  She thought about being alongside George in the darkness of the cinema. Probably holding hands. About the way their relationship was going. How long it would be before he went for it, sex-wise. Her heart bumped, uncertainly. Sex hadn’t happened for her until uni. Was that what had marked her out to the Coven as different?

  Certain that all she had to do to be accepted was bin her virginity like a dress in last year’s colour she’d thrown herself into bed with Lucas – until Lucas began referring to her as his ‘fuck buddy’. Pathetically, hoping he thought she didn’t care, she moved on from unprotected sex with Lucas to unprotected sex with others. She’d been so lucky not to get herpes or chlamydia.

  At least she’d guarded against pregnancy with the pill. Some days, it had been her only solid food.

  Since then, she’d discovered that counsellors link casual sex with depression, risky behaviour and low self-esteem. A counsellor wouldn’t demand, ‘What were you thinking? That letting boys you hardly knew inside your body would solve something?’ But, instead, would explore good-for-me and bad-for-me relationships, carefully avoiding passing judgement.

  But Lucas had been bad for her. So had all the others. She didn’t need anyone to tell her that.

  Tamzin hadn’t had sex since she’d left university. Sexual opportunity didn’t leap out at you when you lay alone in bed or on the floor or hung out with your mum and dad.

  But it could be pretty important to the girlfriend of a funky young god who was something of a local hero.

  ‘Diane, this is amazing!’

  Diane beamed as Tamzin stroked the ivory fabric of the first top. The slightly boxy style made her appear slender rather than thin. And maybe she was putting on just a pound or two? She looked miles better, with a flush on her cheeks and her hair brushed into a corn-coloured sheet.

  While Bryony slept the sleep of the jet-lagged upstairs they’d indulged in a cosy half hour around the kitchen table with coffee and a biscuit tin and Tamzin had eaten two biscuits that George selected for her. She was certainly going through what James termed a good patch. Diane let her mind linger on James: his smiling eyes, his brushy hair. She’d received a text from him this morning: Thinking of u. Want 2 b with u.

  She had still been considering her reply when her text alert beeped again. Can u come here alone? Would like 2 talk.

  But it was from Gareth.

  She’d flushed with guilt, as if Gareth’s text could somehow look into her inbox and scurry back to him to report. She’d returned, OK, will have 2 b 2morro. Fittings 2day. Perhaps, by then, she would have decided on a path to dance through the marital minefield. She really didn’t see that she was going to be able to bring herself to have a relationship with James without distancing herself from Gareth, but Bryony wanting to play Happy Families made that difficult.

  Unnerved, she sent to James: Me 2. And turned to applying her talents to dressing his daughter in something more flattering than shapeless T-shirts and old oversized jeans.

  Rewardingly, Tamzin looked like a model in the creamy top with the brassy gauze. Diane saw her looking at George for approval and ached. She wanted to warn, ‘Don’t, Tamzin! Don’t expose your fragile heart. George is a good boy but he’s … a boy. He doesn’t think in the long-term or that you might fall to bits when it ends.’ But, of course, she just smiled auntishly. And she crossed her mental fingers really hard.

  Tamzin’s eyes were shining. ‘It doesn’t need any alteration, does it, Diane? It doesn’t. It’s so cool, I want to take it home.’

  ‘Cool,’ George agreed.

  Diane walked around her, critically. ‘What do you think about the length?’

  ‘Great.’

  ‘And the sleeves?’

  ‘Excellent.’ Tamzin put her arms out at her side like a scarecrow.

  George blew her a kiss. ‘You look amazin’.’

  Immediately, Tamzin declared the top to be perfect and rushed off to the bathroom to change to the pink one. When she reappeared, she was beaming at how the beautiful, delicate colour lent its blush to her skin. George ran his fingers over the clear washers and black embroidery. ‘You design cool stuff, Diane. When the band’s famous I’m going to get you to do all my stage stuff. Tamz just looks really wicked.’ He gave Tamzin a hug.

  … Just as Bryony bounced through the door in pink shortie pyjamas. ‘George, I heard you – Oh. Who are you?’

  Diane’s heart sank as, looking about ten, curls on end and a thunderous scowl on her sleepy face, Bryony glared at Tamzin.

  The warming tone of the blouse couldn’t disguise Tamzin’s sudden pallor.

  George looked at Bryony as if trying to remember who she was. ‘Wow,’ he said, at last. ‘Hey, Bryony. Great to see you.’ He let go of Tamzin long enough to stoop to kiss his cousin’s cheek. ‘Wow, can’t believe you’re home. Diane said, like, you’d be asleep until this afternoon.’

  ‘I heard your voice.’ Bryony’s dark gaze flipped from George to Tamzin.

  ‘Oh, right, sorry. Diane kept telling us to be quiet but I forgot.’ George laughed. ‘This is Tamzin, by the way. She’s your half-cousin, same as I’m your half-cousin.’

  With a frozen smile, Bryony said, ‘Hello, Tamzin.’

  With an uncertain pucker between her eyes, Tamzin returned, ‘Hello, Bryony.’

  They stared at each other until Bryony said, abruptly, ‘I met Granddad, yesterday.’

  Tamzin nodded, slowly. ‘The rest of us call him Pops.’

  ‘Shall we get on?’ Diane pulled her tape measure from around her neck. ‘George has to get off to uni after Tamzin’s fitting. There’s plenty in the fridge if you’re hungry, Bryony.’


  Bryony shrugged. ‘I think I’ll go back to bed now I’ve said hi to George. You’re all obviously … busy.’ She turned on her heel and stalked from the room.

  ‘Right, Tamzin,’ said Diane, ignoring both Tamzin’s uneasy expression and Bryony’s less-than-perfect manners. ‘I’ve decorated the first two pairs of jeans. Hop into a pair and we’ll see how you look.’

  Diane waited until she’d seen Tamzin and George off and then made two cups of tea and a couple of slices of toast to carry upstairs to the room at the front of the house where her daughter had slept since she was a few weeks old. Knocking, she walked in. The curtains were closed and the room thick with the mustiness of sleep. Bryony was a shape beneath the quilt. ‘I’ve brought your breakfast.’ She didn’t insult Bryony’s intelligence by pretending she thought Bryony might be asleep.

  Slowly Bryony stirred. ‘You shouldn’t have.’ Her voice was dull.

  ‘It’s been ages since you ate.’ She waited while Bryony hauled herself up, propping her pillows between herself and the pink-buttoned headboard, then deposited a mug on the bedside and passed over the plate of buttery toast before opening the curtains and a small window.

  Bryony regarded her toast with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm. A blue inhaler lay on the bedside table and she took two puffs from that instead. Bryony would always have an inhaler and use it several times a day.

  Diane was just grateful that modern drugs let her lead a normal life with so little intervention and pushed away the memory of the years of Bryony’s childhood, when that certainly hadn’t been the case.

  She parked herself on the foot of the bed and blew across the surface of her tea to cool it. ‘Is it very odd?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Coming home after a year. Is it like Narnia? You feel as if you’ve been away for ages but now you’re home nothing’s changed?’

  Bryony nibbled one corner of the toast. ‘The opposite. It’s as if I’ve been away no time but everyone else thinks I’ve been away forever.’

  ‘Dad’s narrow squeak must have rocked you.’