Secret Smile

by Nicci French

  He kissed me, outside Kerry's bedroom, very quickly, and I let him and told myself it didn't matter, didn't count, I'd done nothing. We had sex, one afternoon after school, on my bed, while Kerry went round the corner to buy cigarettes for him. I couldn't tell myself that didn't count. It took about two painful, horrible minutes, and even before we'd begun I realized I was making the biggest mistake of my life. I was no longer able to stand the sight of his shallow, self-satisfied face. I kept out of his way completely after that. If he was coming round, I went out. If the phone rang, I never answered it. I waited for the flooding shame to subside. He and Kerry stayed together a bit longer, but gradually he stopped calling her and then he didn't return her calls either. A week or so later, when he'd gone back to Hull, Kerry started university. I felt sure he would have left her anyway; I tried to find ways of justifying my actions so they weren't so bad, but never succeeded. I didn't know and didn't want to know how much Kerry minded. I couldn't believe what had happened. Sometimes, I still couldn't believe it. I'd never told anyone about it. Except for my diary. I had written it down almost as a way of getting it out of my head, turning it into an object that could be thrown away, or hidden. Because I never could throw my diary away. It would have been like throwing away a piece of myself.

  What I wanted to know now was this: had I done it because he was going out with my elder sister? I came to a stile going over a fence and sat down on it, feeling the dampness of the wood through my trousers, the moistness of the soil through my thin shoes. I put my head in my chilly hands, pressed my thumbs against my ears to seal me into my own interior world. Because if I had done that, what did that make me and what was happening now? What strange, ugly replica of that event was being played out, but now in full view and with everyone witnessing it? In my mind, I heard my mother's hissed commands, Troy 's whimper. I saw them all looking at me. Kerry's white face. I saw Brendan's smile.

  More to the immediate point, what was I going to do now? I opened my eyes and stood up. I saw it was cloudy dark, with no moon. Here I was, on some remote lane in the middle of fields and woods, and I had no idea of what to do next. A part of me just wanted to run away so I didn't have to deal with any of this. But you have to run to somewhere, make a decision to drive the car along this road to that town, where you eat that food and sleep in that bed and get up in the morning…

  So in the end, I returned to the car and got in it and turned on the ignition and drove back the way I'd come. I was so cold that, even when I turned the inefficient heating full on, I couldn't warm up. I bought milk and cocoa powder and digestive biscuits at the corner shop a few minutes from Laura's flat. When I let myself in, I could hear the sound of taps running in her bathroom, so I made myself a large mug of hot chocolate, with lots of sugar in it, and sat on the sofa with my legs curled up under me and drank it very slowly, trying to make it last.

  CHAPTER 19

  I plucked up courage and rang my own flat, and Brendan answered. My heart plummeted. I was tempted just to put the phone down, but Brendan would have been able to discover who had called and then he would have rung back or thought of something else and it would all have gone wrong. For me, that is. Again. So I said hello.

  'Are you all right, Miranda?' he said.

  'What do you mean?'

  'It must have been painful for you.'

  'Whose fault is that?' I said and then cursed myself immediately. I was like a boxer who had deliberately let his guard down. The punch in the face duly arrived.

  'Miranda, Miranda, Miranda,' he said in a horrible soothing tone. 'I wasn't the one who betrayed Kerry.'

  'You learned that by reading my diary,' I said. 'And then you lied. You said I told you about it.'

  'Does it really matter how I learned about it? But maybe it's all for the best, Miranda. Secrets are bad for families. It's cleansing to get them out into the open.'

  For a moment I wondered if I was going insane. It wasn't just what Brendan was saying that made me want to gag. I felt as if his voice was physically contaminating me, even over the phone, as if it were something alive and slimy, oozing its way into my ear.

  'I was ringing to say I'm coming round tomorrow to pick up some of my stuff.' I paused. 'If that's all right.'

  'Do you know what time?'

  I was going to ask why it mattered, but I couldn't be bothered. I would just get sucked back into some sort of argument and somehow come off worse.

  'I'll come over on my way back from work.'

  'Which will be when?' he said.

  'I guess about six-thirty,' I said. 'Does it really matter?'

  'We always like to have a welcome ready for you, Miranda,' he said.

  'Is Kerry there?'

  'No.'

  'Can you ask her to call me?'

  'Of course,' he said affably.

  I put the phone down, rather hard, and then looked guiltily up at Laura. Breaking her phone would not be a helpful contribution to the household. She looked at me with a concerned expression. She was being nice to me yet again.

  'Are you all right?' she said.

  'You don't want to know,' I said. 'It's just that I feel like I virtually have to make an appointment to visit my own house. I'm sorry. You'll notice I said you don't want to know and then told you.' She smiled and gave me a little hug. 'You know, it's important that you and Tony start having children as soon as possible.'

  'Why?'

  'Because I'll need to do about eight years of babysitting to pay you back for what you've done for me.'

  She laughed.

  'I'll hold you to that,' she said. 'But don't mention it to Tony for the moment. Whenever the idea of children gets mentioned, his face closes down.'

  Laura and Tony were rushing round the flat getting ready to go out. They had obviously had an argument because Laura was being curt and efficient, and Tony sulky. I was going to have a maudlin, self-pitying Sunday evening alone. I had it all planned. A couple of glasses of wine. A sandwich for dinner, made out of avocado and pre-cooked bacon and a jar of mayonnaise that I'd bought on my way home from work. More wine. A bath. Bed. Drunken stupor. Various sobbing and howling at moments yet to be decided.

  I must have looked like a child on a poster because I heard some muttering behind me, Laura hissing, and then Tony asked me if I wanted to come with them.

  'What me?' I said, feeling embarrassed and pathetic. 'No, no, my gooseberry costume's in the wash. I'll be fine.'

  'Don't be stupid,' said Laura. 'We're going to a party. There'll be loads of people. You'll have a good time. You won't be in our way.' This last sentence she said to Tony rather than me. Turning away from her, he raised his eyebrows in a complicit gesture that I tried not to notice.

  'It's not right,' I said.

  'Shut up,' said Laura. 'It's a friend of mine, Joanna Gergen. Do you know her?'

  'No.'

  'Well, she knows about you.'

  'Have you told her I'm insane?'

  'I've told her you're my best friend. She's having a flat warming. It'll be fun.'

  They were insistent, and in the end I let myself be persuaded. I had a thirty-second shower and then took another forty-five seconds to throw my black dress on, and then I sat in the back of their car as we drove across London and tried to apply mascara and lipstick in incredibly adverse conditions.

  Joanna had a flat off Ladbroke Grove that must have cost… Well, I made myself not think about how much it cost. I was not at work. I was going to have an evening that was an escape from my wretched normal life. Joanna, who had expensive blonde hair and a shamefully lascivious scarlet dress, looked a little surprised when she opened the door and saw me standing behind Laura and Tony like someone who had come to a fancy dress party as a fifth wheel.

  'This is Miranda,' said Laura.

  Joanna's face broke into a smile.

  'You're the woman who's been kicked out of her own flat?' she said.

  Laura looked apologetic.

  'I just said that you were my
best friend and that you'd had one or two problems,' she said.

  It didn't seem to matter and it broke the ice. Joanna escorted me in and started telling me in too much detail about what she'd done to the house and how long it had taken. She obviously knew other things about me as well.

  It was an improbably good party, though. It was a large flat with a garden you could walk out to through French windows in the kitchen. The garden was flickering with candles in jam jars. There was a salsa band, a real-life salsa band, in the living room and the bath was full of ice and bottles of beer. Apart from Laura and Tony, there was nobody at all I knew, which I've always found kind of fun. A party crammed with strangers is like going to another planet for the evening. I was struggling with the top of a bottle when a man next to me took it, used his lighter to get the top off and handed it back to me.

  'There,' he said.

  'You're looking a bit too proud of yourself,' I said.

  'I'm Callum,' he said.

  I looked at him suspiciously. He was tall, with dark frizzy hair and with that funny form of hair growth about the size of a postage stamp just under the bottom lip. He caught me looking at it.

  'You can touch it, if you want,' he said.

  'Is there a word for it?' I asked.

  'I don't know.'

  'Is it difficult to do?'

  'Compared with what?' he asked. 'Brain surgery?'

  'A beard.'

  'It doesn't seem that hard.'

  'My name's Miranda,' I said.

  'I know,' he said. 'You're the woman who's moved out of her own flat.'

  'It's not that big a deal. It's just a pathetic, sad tale.'

  'It sounded pretty funny the way I heard it,' said Callum.

  'Well, it isn't,' I said. 'It's sad.'

  I went into my Ancient Mariner mode, telling him the full story. While I was talking, he steered me towards the food table and loaded up a plate for me with a slice of pork pie and two kinds of salad. I'd told the story to numerous people, but the odd thing was that this time it did come out funny. Partly it was because Callum was about five inches taller than me and was looking down at me with a quizzical expression, his hair drooping over his forehead. Also, it's hard to remain dignified and solemn while simultaneously telling a story, drinking from a bottle of beer, holding a plate and trying to eat from it.

  'What you should do,' said Callum when I had finished, 'is chuck them out.'

  'I can't do that,' I said instantly.

  'Then treat this like a holiday, except that it's in the place where you already live. You've got housesitters, so you can go out and have fun in London.'

  The conversation meandered on to other areas. He already knew what I worked at and, like most people, he was too impressed by the fact that I went up ladders and sawed pieces of wood for a living. In the end he asked me for my phone number and I told him I didn't have a phone number, that was the whole point, hadn't he been listening? He laughed and said that he was a friend of Tony's and he would ring me there.

  I felt a bit ashamed when I saw Laura and Tony hovering, obviously wanting to be on their way. I was meant to be the depressed one and I'd apparently had a better evening at their friend's party than they had. In the car on the drive back I remembered what Callum had said.

  'I'm going to chuck them out,' I said.

  Laura looked round with a puzzled expression.

  'What?' she said.

  'I've got too caught up in all of this,' I said. 'I haven't been thinking straight. Now I'm going to act like a normal person. I'll find somewhere for Kerry and whatsisname to stay, even if I have to put them up in a hotel.'

  'You can still stay with us, you know,' said Laura. 'Can't she, Tony?'

  'What?'

  'Can't she stay with us?'

  'You're the boss.'

  'Oh, for God's sake.'

  I intervened.

  'No. You've been lovely. I feel like I've been trapped in a room with the heating on and the curtains closed and something rotting somewhere. I'm going to pull back the curtains and open the window.'

  'What about the thing that's rotting?' asked Laura.

  'I think that was just in my imagination. You know, if other people want to be weird, that's their problem. I'm going to get on with my own life.'

  'It's good to hear you talk like that. Why the sudden change?'

  I laughed.

  'Maybe it was talking to Callum. I'd been thinking I was in a Greek tragedy. Maybe I'm just in a situation comedy.'

  CHAPTER 20

  I fastened the laces of my trainers and drank a glass of water before opening the front door. It was half past six in the morning, still dark outside and much colder than the previous day. There was a glint of frost on the pavement, and car windows were iced up. For a brief moment, I allowed myself to think that this was masochistic. Instead of torturing myself like a medieval nun, I should go back to bed – or, at least, the sofa bed. It would still be warm from my body. I put aside that thought, pulled the door shut behind me and set out on a run that would take me up the small roads to the park.

  It had been a long time. At first I felt chilly and a little stiff, but gradually I settled into a rhythm, and as I jogged – past the newsagent that was just opening up its metal shutters, past the deserted primary school, the recycling centre – I watched the dawn turn to day. Lights came on in houses; street lamps turned off; cars spluttered into life along the roadside; the sky that had been dark grey became gradually lighter and streaked with pink clouds. The postman was doing his rounds. A woman walking three huge dogs straining at their leads was pulled past me. I thought of people turning over in bed to stop their alarm clocks; children stretching and yawning and wriggling down under their duvets for the last snatch of sleep; showers running, kettles boiling, bread toasting… All of a sudden I felt a small stab of happiness, to be running along the empty London streets as the sun rose on a glorious late autumn day.

  I stopped at the bottom of the road on my way back to pick up a pack of streaky bacon and some white bread. In the flat, no one was stirring yet, so I had a quick shower and pulled on trousers and a jersey that was old and warm and raspberry pink. I put on the kettle for coffee and started to grill the bacon. Laura's door opened and her head poked round. She looked half-asleep still, like a young girl, with mussed hair and rosy cheeks. She sniffed the air and murmured something unintelligible.

  'Coffee and bacon sandwiches,' I said. 'Do you want it in bed?'

  'It's Monday morning!'

  'I thought we should start the week well.'

  'How long have you been up?'

  'An hour or so. I went running.'

  'Why are you so cheerful all of a sudden?'

  'I'm taking my life in hand,' I said. 'This is the new me.'

  'God,' she said, and withdrew her head. A moment later she had joined me in the kitchen, wrapped in a thick dressing gown.

  She sat at the kitchen table and watched as I put the rashers between thick slices of bread, and boiled milk for the coffee. She nibbled at her sandwich cautiously. I chomped into mine.

  'What are you up to today?' she asked.

  I slurped at my coffee. Warmth was spreading through me.

  'I had an idea in the night. I'm going to ring round the people who I know are going to be out of the country for a bit. There are quite a few because our customers often want us to do work for them while they're not there. I'll ask if they want a responsible couple to housesit for them. There's at least one family with loads of pets that someone would have to feed twice a day anyway. Maybe they'd be glad of Kerry and Brendan staying. I'm sure I can find someone like that – it's much better than looking in the classifieds. So…' I poured myself another cup of coffee and topped it up with hot milk, then took another sandwich. 'I'm going to find them somewhere else to live because they're obviously not going to do it themselves, are they? And then Troy can be with me like we'd planned. Then I'm going to the Reclamation Centre with Bill and then I'm going t
o do my accounts and then I'll go to my flat and collect a few things and tell them when they've got to be out by. There.'

  'I feel tired just thinking about it.'

  'So I'll be out of your hair soon.'

  'I like you being here.'

  'You've been fabulous, but I feel in the way. I want to leave before you're wishing me gone.'

  'Shall I cook us supper?'

  'I'll buy a takeaway,' I said. 'Curry and beer.'

  Laura left for work and I cleared up breakfast, put a clothes' wash on and vacuumed the living room. I promised myself that I'd buy her a big present when I left.

  I went to Bill's office, just a few hundred metres from his house, and started making phone calls. The family with pets had already arranged for a friend to housesit. The young woman who lived in Shoreditch didn't really want someone she didn't know living in her flat. The couple with the beautiful conservatory had changed their plans and weren't leaving for several months. But the two men with a small house on London Fields were interested. They'd call me back when they'd talked it through.

  I started on the accounts while I was waiting. It didn't take long before the phone rang. They were going to America in eight days' time for three months, maybe for longer if everything went well. They hadn't thought of getting someone in, but as it came through a personal recommendation, and as long as the new kitchen was still done while they were away, and as long as Kerry and Brendan paid some rent, kept the house clean and watered the date palm and the orange tree that were in the bathroom, then that would be fine.

  'Eight days?' I said.

  'Right.'

  Their house was lovely, far more spacious than my flat, and overlooking a park. It had a circular bath and deep-pile carpets, and when we'd installed their kitchen it would have a stainless-steel hob and quarry tiles and a large sunroof. There could be nothing that Brendan could find to object to, surely. In eight days I could be back in my flat. I'd paint my bedroom wall yellow and change all the furniture around. I'd clean windows and throw things out.