Tell Me No Secrets

by Julie Corbin

  Euan is no better. He looks drawn, fatigued, snaps at his clients and sighs for no reason. We still work in the same space but keep our backs turned and our heads down.

  It gets easier. I work from home more and Euan has a huge project in Dundee that keeps him in the office on site. We manage this for four years. And then one day, I’m feeling low. Paul’s mother has died and Ed has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. I’m at work, trying not to think about Paul’s grief and the life that’s ahead for Ed. Euan and I reach for the kettle at the same time and our hands touch and hold. I start to cry. He takes me into the bedroom and we spend the whole day in bed, luxuriate in each other’s body and make up for time lost.

  Three weeks of loving each other again and then a jolt, a near miss. Sarah and Ella are moments away from catching us in bed together. We stop again. It’s difficult and painful but we do it. Another four years pass and then Orla comes back.

  12

  I have a recurring nightmare and whenever I’m stressed, it visits me with a religious vengeance. There’s a knock on the door. Two men are on the doorstep, their hands are in the pockets of their black overcoats and then they both pull out ID and hold it up to my face. One is young with an angular jaw; the other is an older man, taller, tough and jaded with an ugly scar running from his temple down the edge of his left cheek like the silver trail left by a slug.

  ‘Are you Mrs Grace Adams?’

  I nod.

  ‘Would you be good enough to accompany us to the station?’ the tall one says. ‘We have reason to believe you were involved in the death of a young girl back in 1984. Ring any bells, Mrs Adams?’

  He has a leering, jeering face that morphs into a demon with horns and burning coal for eyes. His scar breaks open and a slug climbs out. Its antennae are long and feel the air then lunge for my eyes.

  When I wake my hands are covering my face. I expect to feel slime but I don’t. It’s just me, myself, my own skin and bones. I don’t want to disturb Paul so I slither out of bed and go downstairs, make myself some tea, sit on the sofa with my legs underneath me and wait for my nerves to settle. It’s just one of those things, I tell myself. I’m prone to nightmares, lots of people are. No point in analysing it. No point in examining the guilt and the regret. It doesn’t help.

  It’s two o’clock in the morning and I’m wide awake, pumped full of adrenaline. I know there’s no point in me going back to bed yet so instead I go into the kitchen and make the pâté, set out the picnic cutlery and glasses.

  Orla was right – I am stuck. Just like she said, forever sliding backwards, remembering Rose, reliving that night, catching hold of Euan, seeing myself in his eyes; the self that existed before Guide camp, the self that is straightforward. I have tried to assuage my guilt with a life of family and love and commitment. I have made Rose’s father happy. Paul loves me and I love him. And yet what have I really been doing all these years? Delaying the moment when I have to pay for what I did. And all the while increasing the stakes. I could still be living abroad – but no, I came back to the village. Not only do I live in the heart of where it happened but I married Rose’s dad. I couldn’t have sealed my fate quite so spectacularly if I had deliberately planned it that way.

  And Euan. When he returned my call yesterday, he already knew that Orla was living in the village. Monica told him immediately after I met her on the beach. I asked him why Monica was so upset. Was it about her father’s affair or was it more than that? He didn’t know or didn’t want to talk about it, I don’t know which, because the very word affair brought us right up close to what we have both restarted. He asked me when I was coming into work. I said I thought we shouldn’t be alone together. I told him that we couldn’t repeat Monday. He said, of course not. He knew that. But we should talk about Orla. I told him that Paul and Ed are going away for the weekend fishing and the girls and I will go to Edinburgh. So that leaves Sunday free for him to meet Orla and bribe her? Persuade her? Leave that to me, he said, and we both hung up.

  When the picnic is organised, I go back to bed, turn towards Paul and shape myself around the curve of his spine. He doesn’t wake but his body yields to mine. I close my eyes and hope for emptiness but instead I see Angeline, with her potent mix of charm and sexuality, attracting men like moths to a flame. Her wanton seduction of Monica’s father, the repercussions far-reaching: a girl without her dad, a wife without her husband.

  I tighten my grip around Paul’s chest and wipe all thoughts of parallels from my mind. It’s only two hours until I have to get up and tackle the day and when I finally nod off, my sleep is fitful. I wake up as Paul leaves the bed.

  ‘I thought we could go up to the graveyard for eleven, Grace.’

  ‘No problem.’ I swing my feet on to the floor. ‘I’ll make us all some breakfast first.’

  The day is warm, the sky high and clear. The family join me for breakfast and afterwards we all climb into the car. Ed sits in the middle of the girls, bolt upright. For the last day or so he has been avoiding me. Every time I look at him, he looks away. I don’t know whether it’s something to do with the Alzheimer’s. I tried to have a word with him about it but when I asked him what was wrong, he gave me a withering look and said, ‘If you don’t know, then I’m not the one to tell you.’

  We gather in front of Rose’s grave. Paul, the girls and I sit on the grass. Ed is busy digging up the small plot in front of her headstone and is arranging some bedding plants in the newly turned soil. Emotions swirl around inside me like a sea gathering to a storm. Coming to the graveside reminds me that my whole life revolves around Rose and what happens next is dependent on keeping what happened all those years ago a secret.

  ‘Mum!’ Daisy calls. ‘You keep drifting off. Is everything okay?’

  Paul is watching me. Everybody is. ‘I’m fine.’ I pull my lips back into a smile. ‘I’m sorry, what were you saying?’

  ‘How did you two end up getting married?’ Daisy says. ‘You’ve never really told us.’

  ‘We met in La Farola a few months after Rose died,’ Paul says. ‘Well, in fact, it wasn’t La Farola’s then. It was called Donnie’s Bites.’

  ‘Donnie’s Bites? Sounds like a greasy spoon.’

  ‘It was better than that, wasn’t it, love?’ He looks over at me and I nod.

  ‘Donnie was a bit of a gourmet on the quiet,’ I say.

  ‘Ahead of his time, was Donnie,’ Paul continues. ‘He had quite a cordon bleu repertoire for a dyed-in-the-wool Scot. No haggis or stovies for Donnie. He had an Italian mother-in-law if I remember rightly.’

  ‘She lurked in the kitchen in her black headscarf,’ I say. ‘And the only English she ever uttered was “you lazy girl” or “you good-for-nothing boy”.’

  ‘Your mum was a waitress. She wore a dinky little uniform that showed off her legs.’

  ‘Do you still have it, Mum?’ Daisy says. ‘It might come in handy for fancy dress.’

  ‘It’s probably in the attic somewhere.’

  ‘It’s my birthday coming up,’ says Paul. ‘As a special treat, perhaps?’

  I laugh and Ella screws up her face. ‘Do you mind?’

  ‘So?’ Daisy says, leaning across and shaking Paul’s knee. ‘Did you eat there a lot?’

  ‘I had nothing to go home for. And as you know, I’m not much of a cook.’

  ‘You can say that again,’ Daisy says.

  ‘I’m not much of a cook.’

  She laughs obligingly.

  ‘I spent a couple of nights a week in there. We got talking.’ He looks at me and smiles. ‘We found out that we had a lot in common. We started to play squash together, went for long walks, your mum would bring her sketchbook, I always had a camera with me.’

  ‘Not the most exciting of courtships then?’ Ella says. We all ignore her.

  ‘And were Granny and Grandad okay about you marrying so young, Mum?’

  ‘They didn’t take much persuading.’ Paul holds my eyes. ‘When they saw how much we loved ea
ch other’ – he leans over and kisses my lips – ‘any reservations they had melted away.’

  ‘Can we go easy on the mush?’ Ella says. She is pulling the petals off a buttercup. ‘And anyway, shouldn’t we be talking about Rose?’

  ‘I remember Rose,’ Ed says, swivelling around on his knees. ‘She had her own little set of garden tools and she would wash them down with the hose so that she could take them up to her bedroom at night. She loved to help me in the garden.’

  I stand up to stretch my legs while Paul takes up the story. The path ahead is clear, all the way to where the land slopes down to the sea. In the other direction is the church. It’s stone-built and weather-worn and has stood on the hill battling the elements for more than two hundred years. It’s the church I was married in and in my mind’s eye I can still see Paul standing at the altar, turning around to take my hand, holding my gaze all through the ceremony. I loved him so completely then, so utterly and completely. And I love him still. But it isn’t the same. And I was the one to spoil it, not him. When Euan came back into my life, part of me was reborn. I can’t explain it even to myself but he gives me something, a feeling, a love, an affirmation that is nigh-on impossible to live without. How can I love two men at once?

  As I turn to walk back towards my family, I notice that someone else is there – a woman. The way she is standing, the tilt of her head, jolts me back into the past. Angeline. The holiday we shared in Le Touquet when Orla and I were fourteen; Orla suppressing her agitation as her mother chatted to men and then disappeared for days without so much as a word.

  But this woman can’t be Angeline – she is too young. She is wearing red three-quarter-length trousers and a white blouse. Her hair is straight and lies loose around her shoulders – that’s why I don’t recognise her immediately. She’s straightened it and, with no curls to soften the edges of her cheekbones, it makes her face more angular. As I draw closer, I see that not only has she dropped the plain clothes but she is wearing make-up. Her eyes are grey across the lids, her lashes long and curled with black mascara. Daisy and Ella are both admiring her shoes and she holds on to Paul’s arm as she slides them off her feet. Ella immediately puts them on and starts to parade up and down.

  ‘You look fantastic in them!’ Orla exclaims. ‘I can tell you the name of the shop where I bought them.’ She claps her hands. ‘Even better! Why don’t I take you both on a shopping trip? Now that I’m home to stay, your mum and I can be friends and I can be—’

  ‘Like a surrogate auntie?’ Ella says, handing the shoes to Daisy.

  ‘Exactly!’

  ‘Mum?’ Daisy spots me watching them. ‘What do you think?’ She walks towards me. ‘She could come with us on—’

  ‘Orla! What a surprise,’ I say, interrupting Daisy before she mentions Sunday’s shopping trip. ‘Back in the village.’

  ‘Where else?’ She turns a full circle, her arms out, eyes closed. ‘There’s nowhere quite like it.’

  ‘We felt the same when we came back.’ Paul looks towards me. ‘We lived in Boston when we were first married, didn’t we, Grace?’

  ‘Yes.’ I am tight-lipped, both hot with fury and cold with a steely, focused anger that I have never experienced before. The feelings alternate inside me, rising and falling with my breath.

  Orla reaches forward and hugs me, brushes my hair aside with her fingers and whispers, ‘Relax! I won’t tell him. Not yet.’

  I hold myself still, stop short at pushing her away.

  ‘A picnic!’ she exclaims. ‘How wonderful! Is this a special day?’

  ‘It’s the anniversary of Rose’s death,’ Paul says.

  ‘Of course. I’m so sorry.’ She lays a hand on Paul’s forearm. ‘How stupid of me.’ Her expression is solemn as she looks around at all of us. ‘I’m intruding on family time.’

  ‘Not at all,’ Paul says. ‘We were just about to walk down to the beach and enjoy our picnic. Why don’t you join us?’

  ‘I couldn’t possibly. I’m sure Grace is a wonderful cook’ – she throws me an admiring glance – ‘but I really don’t want to intrude.’

  ‘You won’t be intruding,’ Paul says, looking to me for confirmation. ‘Grace has packed more than enough, haven’t you, love?’

  ‘I’m sure Orla is busy with her move,’ I say. ‘Perhaps another time.’

  ‘Grace is right. The cottage will need a lot of work done to it before I can call it home.’ She sighs happily. ‘But I’m not planning on moving anytime soon so I have all the time in the world.’

  I don’t react. She really is laying it on thick, each comment set to scare me further. But it isn’t working. I feel strangely powerful as if I can tackle anything, anyone.

  ‘Rose was such a lovely child,’ she says, her eyes on Paul. ‘Grace and I enjoyed looking after her at camp, didn’t we?’

  I say nothing.

  ‘Do you remember how much she loved that song we were all singing? What was it again?’ She pretends to think. ‘It was a folk song. She wanted to learn to play the guitar.’

  ‘I didn’t know that.’ Paul looks at me quizzically.

  ‘I’d forgotten,’ I say, knowing full well that Orla is lying but I’m damned if I’ll contradict her and open myself up to more games. Ed and the girls start to drift down towards the beach and I follow them with my eyes.

  ‘Yes, we must be off,’ Paul says, lifting the picnic basket up off the ground. ‘Did you mention Sunday lunch, Grace?’

  ‘I haven’t but I will.’ I put my arm through Orla’s. ‘I’ll walk you to the gate,’ I say, allowing her a few moments for a quick goodbye before I steer her uphill and away from the beach. My forcefulness surprises her and I am able to move her out of my family’s earshot before she shakes herself free.

  ‘Do you mind?’ She glares at me.

  ‘About Sunday,’ I say, determined that she should still keep the lunch appointment and come up against Euan instead of Paul and me. ‘We were wondering whether you have any dietary considerations: vegetarian, vegan, peanut allergy. That sort of thing.’

  ‘Really?’ She crosses her arms.

  ‘Yes, really.’ I match her body language. ‘Do you have any?’

  ‘No. But I wonder.’ She taps her foot. ‘You hustled me away pretty quickly just now. Something you’re not telling me?’

  She’s second-guessing me again. I smile through my irritation. ‘All that nonsense back there – we weren’t singing folk music at camp.’

  ‘No, but it sounded good. And it made Paul happy. That’s what you do, isn’t it? Make Paul happy with a lie?’

  ‘I have never lied to him.’

  ‘Not even by omission?’ She tips her head to one side and her hair slides across her shoulders. ‘The clock is ticking, Grace.’

  ‘Is it money? Is that what you want?’

  ‘You think I’m doing this for money?’ Her laugh is derisory, contemptuous.

  ‘Why then? Because of some letters I didn’t read?’

  She doesn’t answer.

  I try the obvious. ‘A guilty conscience?’

  She laughs. It’s a cackling noise that sets my nerves vibrating. ‘I’m not driven by guilt. I didn’t push her. You did.’

  ‘Why then, Orla?’ I’m right in her face. ‘Why are you doing this?’

  She thinks for a moment. ‘Because I can.’ She looks beyond me, down to the shore. ‘I had a lot of time to think when I was in prison. One of the first things I did when I came out was to come back to the village – just the once – to check up on you. I saw you and Euan walking on the beach. And you looked so’ – she searches for the right word, her face twisted with a manic look that is unsettling – ‘so fucking happy.’

  I take a step back. ‘This is about me and Euan?’

  She doesn’t answer me. I watch her. She goes to speak, stops, bites her bottom lip. Her eyes are black, fathomless. Her thoughts are somewhere else. I can see her playing a memory through her mind. I know that this is it. If she doesn’t level
with me now she never will.

  ‘You know what?’ Her head jerks towards me. ‘I hope that when Paul discovers the truth, he chucks you out on to the streets. I hope your girls never want to see you again. I hope that you are shunned by everyone.’ Red spots highlight her cheekbones. ‘And I hope the regret eats away at you until there’s nothing of you left.’

  Her hostility is palpable but still I have no trouble taking a breath. ‘You hate me that much?’

  ‘I don’t hate you. I despise you.’ Her saliva spits on to my face. ‘You are nothing more than a pawn to me.’

  I wipe the back of my hand over my cheek and keep my face lowered as anger swells inside me then drops back and settles to a simmer in the pit of my stomach. ‘I never saw it before, just how much of a spiteful, vindictive troublemaker you are. And always were.’ I look up at her. ‘You need to stop now before this gets out of hand.’

  ‘Are you threatening me?’

  ‘It’s more of a warning.’

  ‘Are you going to set Euan on me?’ She makes a scathing sound and I wonder just how come she is always able to work out our next move. ‘Is he going to have a quiet talk with me? And if that doesn’t work, will he progress to not-so-gentle persuasion?’ Her eyes sparkle. ‘I know! Why not kill me?’ she whispers.

  ‘I don’t want you dead,’ I say flatly. ‘I want you gone.’

  ‘Euan was always good at doing what had to be done, wasn’t he?’ She paces around me, leaning into my body as she speaks. ‘You can hold me down and Euan can do the deed. Then his hands will be dirtier than yours. You’ve lived with one death all these years. Hell! Why not make it two? I won’t struggle.’ She crosses her heart with her fingers. ‘I promise.’ Then she walks away, laughing, turns to face me again and blows me a theatrical kiss.