Tell Me No Secrets

by Julie Corbin

  She shrugs. ‘What’s it to you?’

  ‘I’m curious.’

  ‘It didn’t work out.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘We weren’t suited. Sometimes that happens, doesn’t it?’ Her voice thickens. ‘It seemed like we were compatible. We were both half French. We both loved rock music. He was sexy.’ She pauses. ‘We knew each other three weeks and were married in Las Vegas. It felt overwhelming, exciting. We were together a year before it dawned on me that he wasn’t all he seemed.’ Her eyes slide away from mine. ‘That’s it. There’s nothing more to say.’

  ‘And the drugs? And the prison sentence?’ I say quietly.

  She starts back but recovers almost immediately. ‘Congratulations. You really have done your homework. Euan’s idea, was it?’

  ‘No, it was my idea. And your mother helped.’

  She flinches. It’s brief but acute and, in spite of myself, I feel for her. Even now she wants Angeline to put her first.

  ‘You went to see her?’

  ‘Yesterday.’

  ‘She must have been delighted when you turned up! She doesn’t dare talk about me to all her posh friends. She is denied the pleasure of gossiping about me because it would reflect badly on her. I am kept out of sight and out of mind.’ She is visibly rattled, her foot shaking, her fingers tapping a rhythm on the arm of the sofa. ‘I’ve no doubt she took great delight in telling you about all the bad men I’ve chosen over the years. The drug abuse. And then there’s my stint in prison. Convenient for her – meant I couldn’t visit. And did she visit me, I hear you ask?’ She raises her eyebrows. ‘Not once.’ She laughs. It’s a discordant sound that makes me recoil. ‘Kept you away from Murray, did she?’

  ‘He went out for a round of golf. He’s under the impression your father was unfaithful.’

  ‘I know. My mother as a victim?’ Her tone is acerbic. ‘Can there be anything less likely?’

  ‘I never noticed as a child quite how manipulative she was.’

  ‘She has a patent on that al—’ She stops short, seems to remember that we’re not meant to agree on anything.

  ‘So should I believe your mother?’

  ‘I don’t care what you believe.’

  ‘Lying about your dad’s death. That was . . .’ I try to find the right word. ‘Cheap. It was cheap and it was callous.’

  ‘So? It got you to meet me, didn’t it?’ She says it without emotion. Her mood has oscillated from pent-up agitation to disengagement. She has the most disconcerting stare – knowing and yet compassionless. It makes me realise that she’s not the girl she was. I thought I was dealing with a grown-up version of the girl I once knew – a girl who was impulsive and headstrong, who could lie and cheat but underneath it all had a beating heart. This isn’t that girl.

  ‘I don’t remember you like this.’ I reach across and shake her knee. ‘What has happened to you?’

  ‘We all have to choose sides.’

  ‘What sides?’

  ‘Right and wrong. If someone does wrong they should be punished, shouldn’t they?’

  ‘Well, yes but—’

  ‘What do you think, Euan?’ she says loudly. ‘Should people get off scot-free?’

  ‘Rose’s death was an accident,’ he says. ‘Punishment doesn’t always have to be public or direct. There are many ways to make good.’

  ‘And I have,’ I say. ‘I make Paul happy. I do. Telling the truth about what happened to Rose will not serve him well.’

  ‘Are you entitled to make that decision for him? I wonder, if you were to lose one of your daughters, wouldn’t you want to find out who was responsible?’

  The thought of losing either of my girls is abhorrent to me. I’m not about to go there. And I won’t explore Paul’s lingering pain either. It’s something that even in my quietest moments, when the family is asleep and I’m curled into Paul’s back, I daren’t think about.

  I change direction. ‘You’re not becoming a nun then?’

  ‘Says who?’

  ‘Sister Bernadette. No suggestion of it, she said.’

  Orla shrugs. ‘So what?’

  ‘So what you’re a liar? So what you’re a meddler? So what you don’t give a shit about anyone except yourself?’

  ‘Grace.’ Euan rests his hand on mine and I sit back, take a deep breath.

  ‘Yes! Listen to Euan,’ Orla says, a sideways smirk on her face. It makes me want to slap her. ‘He’ll keep you right.’

  ‘What is this about, Orla? Twenty-four years later and you turn up to set the story straight. Why?’

  She shrugs. ‘Memories. Past lives. You know how it is.’

  ‘No. I don’t know how it is. I don’t know how you get from that to this.’

  ‘I don’t have to explain myself to you.’ She looks at Euan. ‘Either of you.’

  In my handbag, I still have the photo I took from my parents’ wall, the one where Orla and I are dressed in jodhpurs and riding boots, splashed in mud, happy with our rosettes. For six years we were best friends. We spent almost all our free time together. We knew the other’s likes and dislikes, could speak for one another and anticipate each other’s thoughts. Surely that’s still worth something.

  ‘I brought a photo with me.’ I dig around inside my bag to find it. ‘Do you remember this?’

  She glances at it and then away again.

  ‘No, look!’ I stretch to put it into her hands. ‘Really look at it.’

  I watch her eyes roam over the picture moving from one detail to another.

  ‘You won that day, didn’t you?’

  ‘We both did.’ I point to the rosettes. ‘You over the jumps, me on the cross-country.’

  ‘Bobbin never had the patience for cross-country. He always stopped to chomp on something.’ She hands it back to me. ‘We had some good times.’

  ‘We did. We really did.’ I smile, watch her face harden.

  ‘But, in the end, we weren’t such great friends, were we?’

  ‘Orla—’

  ‘My letters.’

  ‘What letters?’

  ‘The ones I sent after Rose died. You didn’t read them, did you?’

  She’s right, I didn’t read them. She sent about twenty letters in the space of three months – half of them were hand-delivered, and then they moved house and the other half were sent from England. At first I tore them up and tossed the pieces into the wind. Then I didn’t even bother doing that. I simply binned them unopened.

  ‘I took a lot of time over them. I was trying to make it up to you. You should have read them.’

  ‘Orla . . .’ I hesitate. ‘I was really upset. I couldn’t get out of bed. I could barely stand. I went about in a daze, terrified that someone was going to find out what I’d done and, at the same time, terrified that they wouldn’t and I’d have to live with the guilt for the rest of my life.’ She’s looking down at her feet. I almost reach for her hand, then change my mind and screw up my fist on my lap. ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you but I wasn’t even there for myself! I was like a zombie. Wasn’t I, Euan?’

  Her eyes flick upwards. ‘Why do you do that? Why do you look to him for verification?’

  ‘He was there!’

  ‘You always look at him like he knows and you don’t.’

  ‘He does know me. He has seen me go through it.’

  ‘I bet he has.’

  ‘Look! You’re not the only one who has a conscience. But telling the truth won’t change the outcome. There is nothing to be gained.’

  ‘I’m looking for redemption. And I will have it.’ She stands up. ‘That night, what happened to Rose? It wasn’t all about you. We could have helped one another. If you had shown me the slightest concern . . .’

  I stand up opposite her. ‘You’re doing this to me because twenty-four years ago I didn’t read some letters that you sent?’ I almost laugh. ‘Christ, Orla! I’m sorry I hurt you.’ I clutch my chest. ‘But—’

  ‘It’s too late. I don’
t need your permission to tell the truth. Or yours.’ She throws Euan a malevolent stare. ‘Now fuck off, both of you.’

  She leaves the room. Euan is on his feet and after her before I have a chance to react. When I find them in the corridor, he is holding her arm just above the elbow. He is talking quickly, urgently and she listens and then she laughs, spits in his face and says something. He reaches for her throat and pushes her back against the wall. I hear the thud of her head as it ricochets off the stone.

  ‘Euan!’ I try to pull him away from her but it’s as if I don’t exist.

  Their eyes are locked. She doesn’t try to remove his hand from around her neck. And she doesn’t look scared. In fact, weirdly, she is smiling. After a few moments he lets her go, turns and walks towards the front door.

  I am stunned by his sudden aggression and even more by Orla’s delight in it and I look to her for an explanation. ‘Orla?’

  Her eyes are glowing, bright and lively, as if she’s having the best time. It is so at odds with what has just taken place that I back away and at once her attention shifts to Sister Bernadette who is coming towards us from the other direction. ‘I’m so looking forward to Sunday lunch,’ Orla says loudly, pulling me into her. ‘Paul and I have such a lot to catch up on.’ She kisses my cheek and murmurs, ‘You’re not fooling me with your I-love-my-family-more-than-anything crap.’ She gestures towards Euan’s retreating back. ‘Just think yourself lucky I don’t tell Paul about him too.’

  April 1996

  I open the door. Euan is standing on the step. He is wearing a dark brown leather jacket and has the collar pulled up around his ears. His hair is longer now and is being blown by the wind. Curls drift across his forehead and back again.

  ‘Grace,’ he says.

  I stare at him. His eyes are so blue that I see the summer sky in them.

  ‘Grace,’ he says again and smiles at me.

  I can’t speak. The truth is I don’t want to. I feel completely lost in the moment like I’m dreaming the best dream and if I blink or speak I’ll break the spell.

  ‘Can I come in?’ he says.

  I move aside and he climbs the steps. As he passes me I breathe in deeply and shut my eyes. We stand in the porch. It’s square, less than five feet either side. He smells of the wind and the sea but mostly he smells of himself.

  ‘Grace?’

  I look into his eyes. I feel very brave doing this, like I am about to bungee jump off a bridge. ‘You smell the same,’ I tell him.

  ‘I smell the same?’ he repeats then laughs. ‘I suppose I would, wouldn’t I?’

  I consider him. I drink him in. ‘You look the same.’

  ‘As I did twelve years ago?’

  I nod. We haven’t seen each other since we were both sixteen and he went to live in Glasgow.

  ‘I have some lines now around my eyes.’ He smiles. ‘See?’

  I nod again.

  His hands are in his pockets and he swivels on his heels. ‘Is it okay for us to go in?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He walks through to the back of the house and I follow him. He stops at the kitchen window, looks out over the view. ‘Mum tells me you have twin girls now. Are they here?’

  I shiver. I don’t mean to. I reach across him and close the open window. ‘Paul’s taken the girls up to his parents in Skye,’ I tell him. ‘They’re due back tomorrow morning. He’s very good with them,’ I add.

  He looks at the mess of paper across the table, lifts one of my charcoal pencils and puts it down again.

  ‘I was drawing. I was thinking.’ I stop, breathe, and try again. ‘I was hoping to draw. I was thinking of organising myself to paint. I want to paint again,’ I finish, helpless in front of him.

  He leans back against the worktop and crosses his arms. ‘Haven’t you been painting?’

  I don’t answer.

  ‘You were good. What happened?’

  I clear the papers into a tidy pile and shrug. ‘Life, babies.’

  ‘Do you enjoy your life?’

  ‘Do you?’

  He nods. ‘Yeah. For the most part, I do.’

  I avoid his eye, switch on the kettle, empty spoons of coffee into two mugs. I fill them with boiling water, top up with milk and slide along the bench seat, hugging my coffee mug. He sits down opposite me. His left leg touches mine under the table and I move further along.

  ‘I’m sorry I don’t have any biscuits,’ I say. ‘I was going to bake some this afternoon but—’ I stop and look down into my mug. There’s too much milk in it. I push it away. ‘Truth is I’m not much good in the kitchen.’ I think about the mess in the rest of the house. ‘I’m not much of a housewife.’ I laugh; it sounds shrill and I frown.

  ‘Do you have any help?’

  I screw up my face. ‘Why would I need help? It’s perfectly simple. I just have to apply myself.’

  ‘So why don’t you?’

  ‘Because . . . because . . . I’m tired.’ I shrug like it should be obvious.

  ‘The girls. They’re almost four now, right? Do they sleep?’

  I nod. Then shake my head. ‘It’s not the girls.’

  ‘What is it then?’

  ‘What is what?’

  He doesn’t answer straight away. He just looks at me, like he’s disappointed, like I should be pouring my heart out, then and there, all over the table, spilling my guts like a knifed corpse in an abattoir.

  ‘You look thin,’ he says finally.

  I try to laugh. ‘Thin is good, isn’t it?’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘So most women would say.’ I feel like I’m choking and I cough into my hand. ‘So why have you come to see me? I was under the impression you were avoiding me. Mo’s kept me up to date, of course. Congratulations on your children, by the way. Mo tells me they’re great wee bairns.’ I try to imitate her good humour but it falls flat.

  He is looking me up and down, measuring me with his eyes. ‘You don’t look well on it, Grace.’

  I am hurt, devastated even. It takes all my effort not to cry and I dig my fingernails into my hand. I know what he means, of course. God knows I am the first to admit that I am a mess. My hair is unkempt. I cut the fringe myself with a pair of scissors. I’d had enough of it falling into my eyes so I hacked away at it and now it sits higher on the right than it does on the left. Fingerprints pattern my clothes. Four little hands. I never seem to be able to keep them clean. No sooner have I wiped yoghurt off one daughter’s hands than the other has found a crayon, a puddle, a melted chocolate. And I’m thin, I know. My blouse hangs off me, my eyes look too large in my face, my cheekbones angle sharply under my skin. There is a mirror in the hall and in the two bathrooms. I see myself. But his words hurt because I want him to see me like I was.

  He’s watching me, waiting for me to say something, give him some explanation. What? That I can’t be bothered eating? That I’m too tired to eat? That the very act of rousing myself to lift forkfuls of food up to my mouth is enough to kill my appetite? That, anyway, I can’t taste it? And worst of all, that I don’t see the point?

  ‘Are you visiting your folks?’ I say at last when the silence threatens to suffocate me.

  ‘Yes and no. I’m moving back to the village with Monica and the children.’

  I stop my hands shaking by sliding them under my thighs. ‘Why? I thought you couldn’t wait to get away from here?’

  ‘Well, we decided it wasn’t so bad here after all. Sarah is almost four, Tom just two.’ He looks out of the window, past the climbing frame and garden hut, over the low picket fence to the sandy beach where the sea races up and down the shore. ‘Didn’t we have it good here?’ he asks me. ‘What better place is there to raise children?’

  ‘You sound nostalgic,’ I tell him and my own mind skips back to beach picnics, treasure hunts, camps we built in the dunes. Running, running, running shoeless along the beach no matter what the weather. Rock pools, sand-castles in the rain, ice creams melting on to our fingers, skip
ping along the harbour wall. Dares and double dares. Bet I can climb higher up that tree than you, bet if you chap on Mrs Young’s door you’ll get caught. Chickenpox, both of us off school for two weeks confined to the living room playing Monopoly, letting each other cheat so that we can rush on to the hotel stage. I have all the reds and greens, the Strand, Trafalgar Square, Bond Street, Regent Street; he has Park Lane and Mayfair. We play snakes and ladders, down the ladders and up the snakes. We learn how to play chess and sit opposite each other locked in concentration until one of us finds the edge and beats the other.

  ‘So you’re coming back?’ My voice is so quiet I can hardly hear it myself.

  ‘Monica has been offered a position in a GP’s practice up in St Andrews.’

  ‘She’s done well,’ I say, wondering how she managed it with two small children. ‘But then she was always the organised one.’ It sounds bitchy. I don’t mean it to.

  He smiles. ‘Monica was always more willing to apply herself than you or me.’

  ‘But you’re an architect?’

  ‘Yes, but not a very ambitious one.’ He laughs like it might be a sore point. ‘So we’re coming home. I will start a part-time business that fits around the children. Monica will work full-time. We’ve bought the Jardines’ old house. Do you remember it?’

  ‘Along Marketgate?’

  ‘That’s the one.’

  ‘It needs a lot of work done to it.’

  He nods, pushes his mug away and leans his elbows on the table. I can hardly breathe. My head is buzzing, lighthearted and joyous; like a funfair ride it abruptly jolts forward ahead of me and I imagine having him in my life again, the delicious possibility, years of bumping into him in the newsagent’s, Sunday lunches in the pub, PTAs, our girls becoming best friends, New Year parties and maybe even the odd summer barbecue.

  ‘So, Grace, twelve years, huh? How’s it going?’

  His voice is gentle, like he’s talking to a little girl but it cuts through me like a chainsaw through oak and I try not to choke. ‘It’s . . . yeah . . . it’s . . .’ I stop. Think. Stall for time. ‘How is what? Specifically, I mean.’