One Secret Summer

by Lesley Lokko

  At quarter to eight on the dot, she opened her bedroom door and peered out. There was no one about. Dom had phoned up to instruct everyone to be in the drawing room for drinks fifteen minutes before dinner. She walked a little unsteadily down the corridor in her new high heels, trying not to think about her shoes, her dress, her hair and – most difficult of all – her makeup. She’d experimented with a little mascara and eyeliner, not sure whether she liked the effect or not. It wasn’t as if she’d never worn make-up before … more that she just wasn’t used to it. She put a hand up to her lips … yes, she’d remembered to put on lipstick too. She crossed the Great Hall, her heels making a loud clacking sound on the marble floor, and walked down the long corridor towards the sound of voices and music.

  ‘Ah, Julia … there you are.’ Lady Barrington-Browne, the picture of slender elegance in a dark blue silk dress, patted the seat beside her. ‘You look lovely, my dear. Come and sit next to me.’ Julia avoided Minty’s jealous glare and crossed the room, uncomfortably conscious of her every step. She perched on the edge of the sofa and gratefully accepted a glass of wine. She took a larger sip than was perhaps necessary and looked around the room. Aside from the four people she knew, there were six or seven others, all in evening dresses or black dinner jackets, dotted around the room. They all knew each other, of course … they’d either been to the same nursery schools, boarding schools or university halls. The well-trodden path, as Dom often put it. In one corner, standing by the window with a drink in hand, was Aaron. He was alone; Minty had been waylaid by a girl in a long emerald-green dress who’d been at boarding school with her, or so the conversation went. Quite why Minty’s voice carried so much further than anyone else’s was a mystery to Julia. She seemed to think it necessary to speak several decibels louder than everyone around her. ‘Ooh, did she really? Oh, how ghastly! No! I can’t imagine her …’ And so on. Julia took a further sip of wine, enjoying the warmth it spread through her, bolstering her rather shaky confidence just that little bit more. The clock struck 8 p.m. Lady Barrington-Browne clapped her hands. A maid appeared, followed by another. The guests turned and began to make their way towards the dining room. Dinner was about to start.

  ‘A printer?’ Minty’s voice carried all the way down the long, elegantly dressed table. ‘What’s a printer?’

  Julia was on her third – or possibly fourth or even fifth – glass of excellent red wine and the question neither surprised nor irritated her. She could feel Dom’s eyes on her as she lowered her glass. ‘A printing press. Newspapers. He worked for the Newcastle Herald.’

  ‘Oh.’ Minty seemed stumped by the answer.

  ‘He was in the union.’ Julia had no idea why she threw that little detail in as well.

  ‘A unionist?’ Peregrine couldn’t help himself. He was staring at Julia as though she’d just mentioned that her father had been in jail. For murder.

  ‘Mmm. All his life.’ For once, Julia was enjoying herself. She couldn’t have said why, but the uneasy looks the others were giving each other around the table amused her. Christ, they’d led such sheltered lives. ‘Bit of a firebrand, actually.’

  ‘I’ll say.’ Aaron’s muttered remark reached her ears alone. She turned her head slowly to look at him.

  ‘Something wrong?’

  He frowned, as though not quite sure how to respond. Dom, fearing that a situation was about to develop that might even end in the promised slap, suddenly launched into a diversionary anecdote about something that had clearly happened a decade earlier at school. Julia’s attention drifted. She took another sip. She’d ceased to care what they thought about her. In for a penny, in for a pound, as her father would have said. She smiled to herself. She’d never thought the day would come when she’d be able to think about him, or her mother, for that matter, with a smile on her face. It had been nearly ten years since they’d gone, and although time had certainly dulled the sharpness of the pain, it hadn’t gone away. Now, all of a sudden and when she’d least expected it, a smile had crept in. The day she’d been waiting for had suddenly arrived. ‘Excuse me,’ she said quickly, putting down her glass and standing up.

  Dom looked up at her, frowning. ‘You all right?’ he asked, concern tingeing his voice.

  ‘Yes, I’m fine. Just need a bit of fresh air, that’s all. No, don’t get up. I’ll just step outside for a minute.’ She pushed back her chair and walked quickly to the end of the room. The French doors led out on to a long, wide balcony. She pushed them open and stepped into the inky darkness. She wrapped her arms around herself and took a deep breath. The weekend had turned out to be far less of an ordeal than she’d feared. She’d experienced something else alongside the good food and wine and the wonderfully comfortable bed. She struggled to put it into words – graciousness? The gulf that separated her from Dom and his background was neither as wide nor as intractable as she’d thought. There was a grace in the way they handled and displayed their wealth that had disarmed her. Perhaps – she hesitated as the thought came to her – perhaps the constant out-of-placeness that characterised her every waking moment at Balliol was her problem, not theirs? Perhaps she wasn’t quite as out of her depth as she feared? Dom had teased her often enough about it – you don’t carry a chip on your shoulder, Burrows, it’s a bloody great boulder. You ought to try putting it down every once in a while. You’ll wind up with a slipped disc. She couldn’t help herself; she giggled out loud.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ A voice suddenly materialised out of the darkness behind her.

  She whirled round. It was Aaron Keeler. She felt the weight of the boulder reassert itself. ‘Nothing,’ she said tightly. What the hell was he doing there? She heard the worrying into flame of a match; he’d come outside for a cigarette.

  ‘Smoke?’ He held out the packet.

  Julia hesitated. She wasn’t much of a smoker – the odd one or two at a party, nothing more. But she didn’t know what to do with her hands, and Aaron’s proximity was unnerving. She could smell his aftershave – a subtle, tangy scent that brought her father to mind. ‘Thanks,’ she muttered, taking one. He bent down to give her a light; for the briefest moment as their hands touched, there was a spark that ran straight through Julia, leaving her slightly dizzy and drawing on her cigarette as if it might save her, keep her upright. She was furious with herself. It was the wine. Or the fresh air. Or both.

  ‘So … a printer and a trade unionist. What does he do now? Retired, I suppose?’

  ‘He’s dead. They’re both dead. Killed in a traffic accident when I was fifteen.’ It came out more abruptly than she’d intended. She looked away, flicking the ash from her cigarette over the balustrade.

  ‘Oh. Shit. I’m sorry. I … I didn’t know.’ Aaron’s voice was suddenly gentle.

  ‘Why would you?’

  ‘No, really. I’m sorry. It … it sort of explains things, though.’

  ‘What?’ She turned back and eyed him suspiciously. He was looking down at her with the strangest expression on his face. She was aware of a sudden increase in her heart rate.

  He gave a small shrug. She looked up at him. They stared at each other for a second, then his hand came out, catching her off balance. He touched her arm, producing a second wave of tiny electric shocks running up and down its length. ‘I don’t know … You’re … you’re so …’

  But whatever it was he was going on to say about her, he was suddenly cut short. ‘Aaron?’ It was Minty. Her voice was plaintive. ‘What’re you doing out there?’ There was the sound of the door being opened and Minty stepped out. Aaron drew back from Julia and the shocking, unexpected moment of intimacy was lost. He turned around; in a flash, Minty’s hand was on his arm, pulling him away. Julia felt as though she’d been slapped. Her face was hot and her hands were clammy. She didn’t wait for another second. She tossed her cigarette over the edge and quickly walked back into the dining room. She slid back into her place beside Dom, her heart racing.

  ‘Have you been smoking?’ Dom as
ked, his eyebrows going up in surprise.

  ‘Just the one,’ Julia said tightly. She reached for her wine glass. Her hands were still shaking. What the hell had happened to her out there? She hated Keeler. But the surge of emotion he’d drawn out of her so easily and quickly had nothing to do with hate … the opposite. For a brief, mad second when his hand came down on her arm, all she could think about was being pulled close. From the far end of the room she could hear Aaron and Minty coming back in. Minty was laughing at something he’d said, and as they returned to the table and took their places again, Julia glanced up briefly, caught his eye and was forced to look away. She’d never given much thought to it – who cared if they were a couple or not – but she was horrified to find herself gripped by a feeling that was suspiciously close to jealousy. She couldn’t help herself; she stole another quick glance down the table. Aaron’s hand was resting casually on Minty’s in almost the same place he’d touched her: on the forearm, his fingers moving lightly across Minty’s pale skin. His own arm was tanned and strong. He looked down the table at Julia, and again their eyes caught and held. She watched as he lifted his arm from Minty’s and draped it slowly across her back, pulling her to him. He turned his head and whispered something in her ear. Minty smiled, one of those awful smiles of smug, self-satisfied possession, and she too turned to look at Julia. They were probably laughing at her, Julia thought to herself miserably, and felt the awful burn of tears behind her eyes. She got up again, ignoring Dom’s puzzled frown, and practically ran from the room. The dinner party was nowhere near ending but she’d had enough. The question, the piercing look he’d given her and the briefest of touches had triggered a host of unfamiliar feelings inside her, and she wasn’t sure she knew how to cope.

  She walked quickly down the corridor to her room and shut the door firmly behind her, leaning against it with all her weight, as if that might lock out what it was in Aaron Keeler that she feared. As she angrily scrubbed off the mascara and lipstick she’d put on for the evening and brushed her teeth, it came to her in a flash that it wasn’t just Aaron Keeler she was afraid of – it was herself. He’d exposed a moment of weakness in her and she’d been unable to stop herself from revealing it to him. She lifted her head and looked at herself in the mirror. Her eyes were reddened with tears. There was a hollowed-out trembling in the pit of her stomach and the taste of sorrow was back in her mouth. She’d been a fool – she was a fool. It was March – another four months to go. She would avoid him at all costs; it was the only way.

  23

  MADDY

  New York, February 1992

  Maddy pulled back the curtain for the tenth time and stared out anxiously across the sea of faces. The auditorium was packed full; there were people standing in the back row. It was the final show of the second semester, a new play by Joel Silver, and she’d somehow won the leading role. Her stomach gave a lurch. She let the curtain drop, ran her hands down the fabric of her hot-pink pantsuit and tried to remember everything she’d been taught about controlling her nerves and her breathing. It was the first time since she’d been at Tisch that she’d landed a leading role, and to say she felt sick was the understatement of the century. It was a good role – a juicy, well-crafted, complex role – all she had to do was deliver the performance she’d been working on for nearly a month to the exclusion of almost everything else. She breathed in and out slowly, holding a hand over her diaphragm, forcing herself to calm down.

  The music suddenly swelled, the lights dimmed and all of a sudden, It Was Showtime. ‘Break a leg,’ someone whispered as the opening score faded away and the curtains peeled back. Maddy drew a deep breath, steadied herself and then walked on to the stage. All concentration in her was channelled into the single point of her performance. Sydney, her hyper-thin, hyper-rich and hyper-selfish character, took over; Maddy Stiller ceased to exist. For the next ninety minutes, she was truly someone else. And then suddenly, it was over. She delivered her last lines, there was a moment’s pause and then the audience erupted in applause. Dazed and unable to see more than a few feet beyond the edge of the stage, Maddy took her place alongside the other cast members, bowed deeply and was called back twice more. She’d done well; she could feel it. She stumbled off the stage with everyone else, too drained of emotion to think.

  Backstage, her fellow students were full of praise. Sandy hugged her as soon as she came through the wings. ‘You were just awesome!’ she cried, squeezing the breath out of her. ‘And you’ll never guess who was in the audience?’

  ‘Who?’ Maddy asked, still too dazed to speak properly.

  ‘Althea Katzmann.’ Sandy delivered the news with the air of someone giving away state secrets. ‘Althea Katzmann!’

  Maddy’s mouth suddenly went dry. Althea Katzmann was one of New York’s top casting agents. ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Yep. She was sitting one row behind Loughlin. Oh shit, here he comes! Call me later, OK? We’re all going to Jimmy’s on Canal.’ She rushed off, winding her scarf around her neck, and blew her a kiss from the stage entrance door.

  ‘Maddy.’ Loughlin was suddenly upon her. He stopped and for a brief, giddy second, Maddy thought he too might actually hug her. ‘Good performance,’ he said, smiling broadly. ‘You did well.’ It was probably the first and only time she’d ever seen him smile. It was such a far cry from the man who’d snarled contemptuously at her a few months earlier that it was all Maddy could do not to burst into tears.

  ‘Th … thank you,’ she croaked out, her eyes smarting.

  ‘Well done. Some pretty important people out there saw it too. Keep at it, Stiller. You’ve got talent.’ And then just as suddenly as he’d appeared, he was gone. Maddy remained where she was, wondering if the whole thing hadn’t been a dream. There was a part of her that almost didn’t want to believe it could happen. She held on tightly to the childish superstition that if she said something – anything – she’d jinx it, or worse. She watched everyone around her scurrying about, putting things away, shutting the theatre down, high-fiving one another and tossing out congratulations over their shoulders. The evening had gone well; she knew from the horror stories that circulated around the drama department of evenings where things hadn’t gone well. Freshmen students who’d fluffed their lines, delivered wooden or flat performances or just simply had a bad day had had their careers wiped out before they’d even started. Alongside the humiliation and the pain of their weekly classes, there was the stress of the final semester performance thrown in, weeding them out even further. Well, she’d been in New York City all of six months; she hadn’t given up; she hadn’t fluffed her lines or delivered a weak performance. Somehow she managed to muddle her way through, and in those moments when she felt she couldn’t give anything more, Sandy had stepped in. To Maddy’s immense surprise, she’d resisted Maddy’s attempts to draw away. The more Maddy retreated into herself, the closer Sandy came. Perhaps it really was as she said. Her mother was a shrink; somehow she’d picked up more than her fair share of empathy. She’d said no more about the thing Maddy feared the most – that she’d guessed her little secret – and to Maddy’s great surprise, the better she got at acting, the less she felt the need. By the time spring rolled around and she’d won the part of Sydney, it had been weeks since she’d crept away to the bathroom after supper or lunch. She didn’t dare believe it, but … perhaps she really was on the way to curing herself. It didn’t seem possible, and yet … She picked up her clothes from her locker and quickly made her way to the showers. Time to scrub off the theatrical paint, put on her own clothes and see if some of Sydney’s confidence had rubbed off on her … hopefully for good.

  24

  NIELA

  London, December 1992

  The continent came and went in long, unbroken expanses of fields, mountains, rivers, occasionally punctured by towns and cities. Graz. Innsbruck. Basel-Mulhouse. Niela sat stiffly upright in her seat, unable to close her eyes. She stared blankly out of the window but did not see the ti
de of green or the snow-capped peaks as the train shot out of one tunnel after another, crossing the Alps. In her handbag was the envelope containing just under five hundred Deutschmarks. She’d opened it expecting to see four hundred, and found an extra hundred instead. Christian must have slipped it in. She’d almost wept. No tears, she’d told herself fiercely, choking back a sob. No tears. Not now, not ever. She stuffed the envelope into the inside pocket of her handbag and tried desperately to think of something else. London. She was on her way to London. She’d been once before, when she was twelve. She remembered very little – rain, tasteless food and, one day, a very long queue to see a building full of wax models. They’d stood patiently outside for hours and then when they finally got in and Korfa realised the scale of the deception, he’d been inconsolable. He didn’t understand the concept – when Niela told him he was going to see Michael Jackson, he’d believed her. What was this lifeless waxy figure in front of him? They’d had to take him out, still crying. She smiled a little at the memory. It was enough to prompt an answering smile from the older woman sitting opposite her. Niela turned her face away. She couldn’t bear another act of kindness, not now, no matter how small.