The Darkest Secret

by Alex Marwood

  ‘No,’ says Claire, abruptly, ‘sorry, Sean, but I need to go and get this nail sorted out. The one you broke yesterday, with the mattress? You’ll have to look after the twins till I get back.’

  Simone goes over to the island to look for a spoon to measure the coffee with. In the drawer are last night’s pills, left there by Linda. Stupid place to put them, she thinks. At least three of those kids are tall enough to get in there. She tucks them underneath the cutlery holder, where they’ll be out of sight but still accessible for later, selects a spoon and goes back to the coffee machine.

  ‘Oh,’ says Sean.

  ‘Perhaps they’d like to go in the jacuzzi with you and Linda?’ Claire says, ever so sweetly, and holds his eye until he harrumphs and looks away. ‘Wouldn’t that be fun? They’d love that. Wouldn’t you love that, girls? Lovely hot bath with bubbles? And time with your Daddy?’

  The twins don’t look impressed by the suggestion, but they’re barely awake.

  ‘Can’t you do it later?’ he asks. ‘Or take them with you?’

  ‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘I’m going to have to just park up in town and walk around till I find somewhere.’

  ‘Why don’t you Google it on your phone?’ asks Simone.

  ‘You can do that?’ says Imogen. ‘Whatever next?’

  ‘Yes, look.’ She picks up Claire’s phone and finds the internet browser. ‘See? And here’s Google. You can Google manicurists in Bournemouth.’

  ‘Well, I never,’ says Claire, though she looks sick. ‘I’d heard you could do this on the new phones but I never imagined mine was one of those.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ says Sean, impatiently, ‘do you never look at these things? Of course I got you an internet phone. The whole office has one.’

  ‘I did think it was quite chunky. My last one was so little and neat. And all those little letters. It did seem pretty silly, just for sending texts. But how do I pay? Am I going to get some horrendous bill?’

  ‘It’s on your plan. Jesus. Women! Don’t you read anything?’

  ‘It’s a phone, Sean,’ she says in that little hurt voice of hers. ‘I know how to work a phone.’

  ‘I don’t believe in the internet,’ says Imogen.

  ‘It’s the wave of the future, Imogen,’ says Maria. ‘All the papers are putting themselves online. Charlie’s got a website. Didn’t you know?’

  Imogen looks startled, as though someone’s just told her her husband has a part-time job as a stripper. ‘Well, I’ll have to see about that,’ she says.

  ‘Oy oy,’ says Charlie, ‘old lady on the warpath. Up to my arse in alligators before long.’

  ‘Anyway,’ says Claire, ‘it’s beside the point. I’ll have to go into town and find the place and find a parking space and get to wherever we’re going from it with a pushchair and they really get fed up if you’ve got two three-year-olds in tow in those shops. They’re never exactly over-blessed with space. It’s no good, Sean. You’re the one who minds if my nails are a mess. Do you want me showing you up at dinner?’

  ‘No,’ says Sean, sulkily.

  ‘I know!’ says Simone. She’s been eyeing the jacuzzi hopefully since they arrived. She rather fancies the idea of a long morning wallowing among the jets. ‘Why don’t we take all the kids to the Jacuzzi? It’ll be fun!’

  She sees an odd little look pass between Sean and Linda. Joaquin leaps to his feet, suddenly awake, and punches the air. ‘Yay!’ he shouts. ‘Jacuzzi party!’

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  ‘Oh, my poor little girl!’

  Maria trots down the steps in her elegant heels and enfolds Ruby in a long, hard hug. ‘I should think you’re exhausted,’ she says. ‘How are you, darling?’

  Ruby lets out a sob and then a bleat, like a lost lamb. Her shoulders are shaking and I well up with guilt. It should be so easy. If Maria can do it, why on earth can’t I? All the kid needs is a hug and to be told it’ll be all right.

  The Clusterfucks shuffle about on the gravel for a few seconds, looking awkward. I must remember to tell Ruby about the nickname later. It’ll cheer her up.

  ‘We brought flowers,’ says Imogen, in some sort of bid for acknowledgement. Maria nods and takes them with one hand, never relaxing the arm that holds my sister’s shoulders. Big, white, waxy hothouse lilies. I thought people didn’t bring flowers to funerals any more? I’m sure I saw ‘No Flowers’ in the announcement in The Times. The Clusterfucks mill about for a moment, clearly surprised that they’re not at the front of the priority list for greetings, then they start to walk towards the house. ‘Robert’s indoors, presumably?’ calls Charlie over his shoulder.

  ‘Yes,’ answers Maria. ‘They’re in the drawing room.’ She turns back into the hug. ‘Oh, Ruby, I’m so sorry. Your darling dad. I know how much you loved him.’

  I see Ruby’s shoulders stiffen in her embrace, then she relaxes into it. She’s not going to argue. Because that’s the thing with dads like ours. They may be crap at the job, but they’re your only father. I feel a wave of misery for myself. God, life is complicated. They’re always going on about families and unconditional love, but they’ve no idea how complicated that is. How complicated those feelings are. What close bedfellows love and hate make.

  After half a minute, Maria lets Ruby go, strokes her face and squeezes her hand. Then she opens her arms to me and, despite myself, I find myself accepting a hug in my turn. I always liked Maria. Of Dad’s friends, she was the only one who showed any real warmth. She was the only one who treated us as though we were human beings, asked us questions about ourselves, offered us drinks and ice creams, laughed at our jokes. She taught us how to play Pinochle one rainy Tuscan holiday when I was eight and India ten, before Mum and Dad split up but not before they had started disappearing out of the house, hissing muttered swear words at each other under their breaths. Card games became a lifeline for us after that. I could still rip your eyes out playing Spit to this day.

  ‘Oh, girls,’ she says, ‘what a terrible way to see each other again.’

  She lets me go and picks up Ruby’s bag. Holds a hand out for mine, but I shake my head. ‘Come into the house. There’s tea on the go somewhere. I bet you could kill for a slice of cake.’

  ‘How’s Simone?’ I ask. Not because I care, but because I know it’s manners.

  ‘She’s…’ Maria’s brow furrows. ‘Oh, lord. I guess she’s as you would expect her to be. She’s doing her best. Come in. Everyone’s here now, I think. We’ll get you a cup of tea and get you settled. And I suppose I’d better see what the Clutterbucks want. I knew they were coming down early, but I didn’t think we were going to be hosting them five minutes after they got here. Still. It’s clearly that sort of day.’

  She reaches out her spare hand and squeezes Ruby’s again. ‘How are you doing, sweetheart?’

  Ruby wipes her face with her sleeve. ‘I’m okay,’ she says, in a little voice that says the opposite.

  ‘Oh, darlings. Such a terribly sad time. He adored you both. You do know that, don’t you? Nothing made him happier than his beautiful daughters.’

  Ruby lets out another sob as I pick my jaw off the floor. And this is how death works. I remember Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness sucking down great gulps of crocodile tears for the press after Ian Paisley died. You don’t get to say what you really think when death is in the air, at least until the body is in the ground and the canapés are cleared away.

  ‘I loved him too,’ says Ruby, and stops at the foot of the steps. Puts her face in her hands and starts to cry. We stand either side of her, a hand on each arm, and murmur those pointless words… oh, darling, oh, sweetie. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. He knew you loved him, he did. You couldn’t have been a better daughter.

  In the hall I hear Charlie Clutterbuck’s bellowing laugh. It’s always set my teeth on edge, but now it sounds like a deliberate insult. A man’s voice says something in response and they both laugh again. Robert? No. Robert has always known how to behave, w
hatever the circumstances. He and Maria, always present, always doing the right thing: Maria the vibrant, emotional one, Robert always there and quiet and thoughtful, making decisions so other people don’t have to. They were amazing after the Coco thing; amazing. Supporting everyone, propping Claire up when she was on the point of collapse, speaking for the family, helping Indy and me know what to do when the press descended with their questions. I still find it hard to believe that these people are the same ones who produced Soppy Simone. So there are more people in the house. Joaquin, I suppose. He’s her half-brother, after all. And staff. There must be staff. I can’t imagine she’s been running a house like this all on her own.

  Behind the door – perfectly stripped and painted a neutral black – I’m immersed immediately in the Sean-ness of it all. Blackheath may be three hundred years old, but it’s identical, really, to every one of the houses we grew up in. Dressed for sale, not for life, even though this was to be his forever house. For this was Sean’s peculiar talent: restoring something perfectly while sucking out its very soul. English Heritage will have swarmed all over the restoration while it was being done. Blackheath must be at least Grade II listed, and once you’re listed you can’t move for regulations. They will have watched with baleful bureaucratic eyes, checking plaster mixes and tiles and window frames to make sure that the snow globe of Olde Englande remained intact. And they will have come away unable to complain, but still come away with heavy hearts. Walls, floor, wood and cornices are all perfect, as though the original builders had tipped their caps and accepted their gallons of ale only a few minutes ago. It looks, of course, a way it has never looked in its entire history. It’s a Disney mansion, an Astor refurb with underfloor heating and fabulous water pressure.

  And he’s been to the warehouse. I can’t think who else has picked out the sale-room ancestors who adorn the smooth white walls, the French-polished side tables, the elegant bergère sofa that waits by the umbrella stand for no one to sit on, now that Linda’s dead, head smashed in like an eggshell at the bottom of a flight of marble footballers’ stairs. Simone? Did she adapt herself so thoroughly to his ways and his tastes even before they got together that she was able to simply step into her predecessor’s shoes? The Gavilas found the body, of course. One of those weird coincidences, coming in to look at the place for a client. Was there some kind of freaky personality swap, like in a horror movie? The essence of Linda being sucked vampire-like into the child bride from her last breath? Is that how she managed to be so ripe and ready and perfect in every way? Because she’s not just herself, she’s both of them?

  The entrance hall widens fifteen feet up into a central lobby from which the staircase rises. In the middle, a marble pedestal table I remember from my childhood, and, dead-centre on that, the urn that always sat there. It is filled with dead tulips. It’s like one of those gloomy Dutch still lifes; all that’s missing is the shot corpse of a piebald rabbit. Instead, the table is piled carelessly with more bouquets, wilting foliage rotting in their cellophane.

  ‘I must cancel the order,’ says Maria, quietly, and drops the Clutterbucks’ offering on to the top of the heap. ‘The florists keep sending them, once every three days, but she’s just not up to doing the necessary.’

  ‘I can imagine,’ I say. I make a note to get rid of them when I find out where the bins are. It seems odd that no one else has thought of that.

  Another burst of laughter from the drawing room. ‘Who’s here?’ I ask.

  ‘Oh, Jimmy Orizio, I’m afraid,’ says Maria. ‘He turned up this morning and we could hardly turn him away. He’s not well, I’m afraid.’

  I lower my voice. ‘Good God. I’m amazed he’s still alive.’

  A dry laugh. ‘Just about.’

  ‘I had no idea they were still in touch.’

  ‘Your father was better at keeping up with the old friends than you give him credit for,’ she says, reprovingly.

  I can’t help myself. ‘Oh, so it’s just his kids he dropped, then?’

  She gives me the ‘don’t’ look.

  ‘What’s happened to him? When did he get out of prison?’

  ‘Who went to prison?’ booms Ruby.

  I put my finger to my lips. ‘Jimmy Orizio. The man in there with Charlie Clutterbuck. He was Linda’s ex. Tiggy and Inigo and Fred’s father. Don’t you remember him?’

  ‘Oh,’ says Ruby, and she’s ameliorated her tone to match ours. I’m not sure if she’s ever thought about Tiggy and Inigo and Fred having a father. They were probably just there, in her mind. And even then not very much. They went to live with Linda’s parents pretty soon after she hooked up with Dad. Surprise surprise. ‘And what was he in prison for?’

  ‘He was a doctor. A private doctor on Harley Street. Slimming drugs and painkillers and that.’

  ‘Oh,’ she says again.

  I don’t think she’s getting it. ‘Speed and opiates,’ I whisper, though God knows why we’re keeping the information from the man who knows best what that information is, ‘for those who could afford his fees’.

  ‘Vicodin,’ says Maria. ‘He was convicted for misprescribing Vicodin. He used to go on tour with bands and somebody died.’

  ‘They called him Doctor Death,’ I say. ‘The papers.’

  ‘He got six years,’ says Maria. ‘Out in less than four, though. And of course he got struck off.’

  ‘When did he get out?’

  ‘Best part of four years ago, I think.’

  ‘What’s he been living on?’

  I see her eyes flick to the right. ‘I think your father’s been helping him out, actually.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is there no end to my father’s munificence?’

  An odd look. Maybe I’ve gone too far. It’s difficult, changing the habit of a decade just because you’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead. ‘Anyway,’ she says, ‘it explains why he’s here. Your dad had more of an effect on other people’s lives than perhaps you think.’

  The drawing-room door opens and Robert emerges. Barely changed in all this time; just a touch more distinguished grey at the temples and a couple of manly crow’s feet around the eyes. He’s always had a touch of the Clooneys about him, Robert. Was always going to be one of those men who improved with age, like his wife. I know they must both have had procedures, to be so unchanged, but both of them have had the sense to keep it subtle, to age well rather than trying to stop ageing altogether.

  ‘Hello!’ he says, and closes the door. Comes over and kisses Ruby on the cheek, squeezes her shoulder. ‘How are you?’ he asks, solicitously.

  ‘I’m okay,’ she says.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ he says.

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ she replies.

  He turns to me. Holds out a hand for a moment, then steps forward and kisses me on the cheek. He smells of sandalwood and woodsmoke. They must have lit the fire in there. ‘Camilla,’ he says. ‘It’s been a long time.’

  ‘Yes,’ I say.

  ‘I’m so sorry for your loss.’

  ‘Yours too,’ I say. After all, he’s seen a lot more of Sean over the years than I have.

  ‘You must both be terribly tired after your journey.’

  ‘No,’ I say, ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘I’m okay,’ says Ruby, and stares around her at her father’s last home.

  ‘I wasn’t expecting the Clutterbucks,’ says Maria. ‘I thought they were staying in a hotel?’

  ‘Don’t worry, they are. But they rang earlier and got wind of the fact that Jimmy had turned up. Thought they’d come and check him out.’

  ‘Oh, God,’ says Maria. ‘Does Simone know?’

  ‘Yes. She’s insisting they stay for dinner.’

  ‘Great,’ she says, and some little message passes between them.

  ‘I’ll keep them all out of the way till then. Imogen says she’ll drive.’

  ‘Okay,’ says Maria. ‘Really – we don’t need a houseful, though. T
hey need to go to their hotel.’

  ‘Don’t worry. He’s going on about having a “bit of business” to do in the local constituency. I don’t think they’ll be here too much.’

  ‘Good. I really think we should just be family, Robert. Until the funeral.’

  ‘Jimmy doesn’t have anywhere to go.’

  ‘Yes. Jimmy. Okay. We need to keep an eye on Jimmy.’

  ‘It’s what Sean would have wanted,’ he says, and another little message passes between them. I’m surprised, I must say. I never exactly got the impression that they were intimates even before Dad waltzed off with Jimmy’s woman.

  ‘Anyway!’ says Maria, turning back to us. ‘Come through to the kitchen. I know Simone will want to see you.’

  My final stepmother is seated at the kitchen table, smiling like a robot, peeling sprouts. A fearfully good-looking dark-haired young man I take to be Joaquin stands by the kitchen sink, as though frozen in place, and a little girl in pink dungarees sits on an alphabet mat on the floor, waving a wooden brick. The side nearest me has a picture of a duckie, and squashed beneath her fingers is a horsie. I remember having the same set of blocks when I was little. Not as new, though.

  Another half sister, the one I’ve never met. Emily? I think. No, Emma. My God, am I really having to question myself as to whether I’ve got her name right? Am I really so self-absorbed?

  I smile at them all and turn to Simone. Soppy Simone, Moaner, the Constant Nymph, her straight hair drooping like the Mona bloody Lisa’s into a watermelon cleavage. I almost reel back, the surprise is so huge. When I last saw her – what, five years or so ago? – she was one of those creepily thin girls, always pulling down the cuffs of their tops to hide the fact that their skin is blue. She looks like she’s doubled her body-weight. She’s bursting out of her dark blue dress, all breasts and tummy and a bum that pushes her whole body away from the chair-back. The only thing that’s left that’s thin is the hair. Linda piled the pounds on, as well – there were all sorts of mean-spirited gibes about how she’d compromised her balance with her embonpoint and that was why she’d fallen down those stairs – and Claire, and my mum is three dress sizes smaller now than she was when we were young. I used to think it was something to do with relationships, but she’s not put it back on since she got with Barney.