Tell Me No Secrets

by Julie Corbin

  ‘I know. But Monica loves you and you love her. I know you do. This thing between us?’ I shake my head. ‘There’s nowhere for it to go.’ I breathe in. ‘I’m hoping that Paul will forgive me and that we can be a family again. He’s taking a sabbatical year in Melbourne. We’ll be moving there in August.’

  He steps backward and then almost immediately towards me again. ‘Grace?’

  ‘When we were young we had our chance. We didn’t take it. Nothing can make this right.’ Wind is whistling around our ears. I lean in towards him. ‘If we sleep together the guilt eats away at us and if we see each other every day but don’t sleep together then it’s a different sort of torment. We have to get right away from each other.’

  ‘The kids are almost grown—’

  ‘We’ve talked about this!’ I am almost shouting. ‘Neither of us wants to let our partners down.’

  ‘Grace.’ He puts a hand under my chin. ‘I love you.’

  It would be a lie to pretend that I’m not tempted just to give up the fight, leave Paul and set up home with Euan. But in my heart, I know that this would be foolhardy. These things rarely end well. The children are teenagers but still they need parenting and stability. And there is nothing wrong with either of our marriages. I can’t leave Paul, I love him and anyway, I don’t want Euan if he has to break Monica’s heart to be with me. I want to move on. I want to start over in a new country where I can be a better version of myself. ‘We have to give each other up.’

  The rain is falling heavily now and he pulls me inside Orla’s cottage.

  ‘You have to let me go, Euan.’

  ‘Lovers’ tiff?’ Orla is watching us. She has her shoulders against the wall but is pushing the rest of her body forward provocatively. Her pupils are like pinpricks and her head is loose on her shoulders. ‘Is she trying to dump you, Euan?’

  ‘Mind your own business,’ I tell her.

  ‘Isn’t it time we told her?’ she says, her voice like warm treacle. ‘Do you want to or shall I?’

  Euan isn’t listening. He’s staring at me intently as if by doing so he will change my mind. ‘I already know about the abortion,’ I say to Orla. ‘I’m sorry you had to go through that but—’

  ‘She’s sweet, isn’t she?’ She moves towards us and runs her fingers down my wet cheeks. ‘Sweet and innocent.’

  ‘And I also know that I didn’t kill Rose.’ I try to hold her eyes but she seems to be having trouble focusing and her gaze slides sideways out of reach of mine. ‘She was in the tent when I went back there.’

  She shrugs. ‘That’s only the half of it.’

  ‘So you have nothing on me,’ I finish. I feel strong. I’ve been running a marathon and now the finishing line is in sight. One last burst of energy and I’ll be there. ‘Game over, Orla.’ I open the front door. ‘Time for you to go off and bother someone else.’

  ‘You never quite get there, do you? Don’t you want to find out what really happened to Rose?’

  I turn back to them both just in time to catch a look that passes from Euan to Orla. It’s a warning look, a don’t-you-dare glance that makes my scalp tingle and my stomach turn over. And then he cracks his fingers, one by one, left hand and then right. ‘Euan?’ His face has shut down again.

  ‘Shall we give her a clue?’ Orla says.

  ‘Go home, Grace.’ Euan grasps my elbow and tries to urge me through the door but I push him away from me. His eyes beseech mine. ‘Please.’

  I look from one of them to the other. My instinct is to trust Euan. Orla is poisonous, unhinged, malevolent. Driving a wedge between Euan and me would please her no end – I know that. But still.

  ‘No.’ I close the door and walk back into the living room.

  They both follow me. We stand together in the centre of the room. A triangle. Orla is beaming, excited and I realise that this is what she’s been waiting for.

  ‘So tell me, Orla,’ I say. ‘Let’s just get this over with.’

  ‘Well, when you went to bed,’ she says, her eyes wide open and staring, ‘I stayed by the pond for a while. I’d arranged to meet Euan there. We were going to talk about the baby.’ She touches her flat stomach protectively as if she’s still pregnant. ‘I told him the week before that I was expecting and I was hoping . . .’ She gives a laugh. It’s as brittle as smashed glass. ‘I was hoping he was going to support me, but no! He accused me of trying to trap him.’

  ‘You were promiscuous,’ I say. ‘You had sex with loads of boys.’

  ‘Lying about the baby’s father? Do you think I would do that to a child?’ She shudders. It runs through her body from head to foot like a bitter wind. ‘My child?’

  ‘Yes, I do. I think that getting your own way is more important than anyth—’ I stop talking as thoughts collide in my head: Euan was also there that night; Rose’s bracelet was found in the loft; Monica said Euan had lots of stuff up there too, stuff he hadn’t looked at in years. I take the bracelet from my back pocket and hold it up. My hands are shaking. I throw it to him.

  He catches it. He can’t look at me.

  ‘Ella came home with that. It was in your loft. Monica had no idea how it came to be there.’ I lurch to one side and then say quietly, ‘Please, Euan. Just fucking tell me it wasn’t you.’ I’m so afraid of the answer that I keep my eyes tight shut and wish myself somewhere, anywhere but here.

  ‘Yes, go on,’ Orla says. ‘And don’t spare us any of the details.’

  Seconds tick by and still he doesn’t speak. I open my eyes and look at him. He is standing with his arms by his side, shoulders back and hands loose. I sense that this relaxed pose is forced. Inside he’s dying. I would stake my own life on it.

  ‘Just tell me what happened,’ I say. ‘Please.’

  His eyes narrow and then reluctantly meet mine. He wants a reprieve. He doesn’t have to ask; it’s written all over his face.

  But we’re not kids any more and I’m losing patience. ‘Just get on with it,’ I say curtly.

  He stares up at the ceiling where cracks weave across the plaster from one corner to the next. ‘I had a lot to drink. I saw Rose twice: earlier in the evening before I was too far gone and then again later.’ His voice falters. He clears his throat. ‘First time I saw her she told me she had lost her bracelet. I said I would look out for it and less than five minutes later I found it in a patch of grass. The storm started up, I drank some more vodka and then I met Orla by the pond.’ He shrugs, gives me a look that’s half helpless and half disbelieving. ‘It didn’t go well. She was determined to have the baby, tell my parents—’

  ‘Don’t blame me,’ she cuts in. ‘You were the one who couldn’t face up to your responsibilities.’

  ‘Shut up!’ I swivel towards her. ‘This isn’t about you.’

  ‘Second time I saw Rose, Orla was hassling me, following me. It was late and I was well on the way to paralytic,’ Euan continues. ‘The storm had just passed through and I was trying to find my way back to my tent but the ground was slippery and I was too drunk to realise I was going around in circles. She asked me again if I had seen her bracelet and I said I had found it but—’ He stops. His mouth is trembling. He puts his hand up to his face then says quietly, ‘It was a case of finders keepers. That’s what I said to her. Finders keepers, losers weepers and I kept on walking.’

  I flinch. ‘Euan, the bracelet belonged to her dead mother.’

  ‘I know.’ I watch years of self-reproach flood into his eyes. ‘And that’s not the worst of it.’ His tone is uneven as if the words are being squeezed from a half-blocked tube. ‘I told her that if she wanted it, she’d have to find it and I pretended to throw it into the pond. I didn’t for one moment think that she would go in after it.’

  I feel incredibly still inside like the blood has stopped flowing in my veins. ‘And did she?’

  ‘I honestly don’t know. Eventually, Orla left me alone and I found my way back to my tent. I didn’t think about it again until you said you thought you’d don
e it and slowly I started to remember that night and then, weeks later, when I finally emptied out my rucksack I found the bracelet and knew that what I barely remembered had actually happened.’

  ‘So all these years you’ve known she didn’t die because I pushed her?’

  To his credit, he looks me in the eyes when he answers, ‘Yes.’

  My heart contracts to a tight fist. My bones feel heavy, my insides grabbed by gravity and I drop into a chair. I start to rock myself backward and forward. I wish I could cry but my eyes have never been drier. I want to wash it all away: the memories, the nightmares, the guilt and now this – Euan. I trusted him. Implicitly. I have made love to him, cried for him, held him, defended him, longed for him. God help me, I have even thought of running away with him. I have hurt Paul and threatened my girls’ happiness and all this time he knew I had nothing to do with Rose’s death.

  I look up at him. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I tried.’

  ‘Well, not hard enough.’ Rage peaks inside me and I stand up, slap him across the face, once and then again. He doesn’t defend himself and it doesn’t make me feel any better. ‘You shit! You spineless shit,’ I hiss. ‘You’re as bad as her.’

  ‘You have every right to be angry—’

  ‘I’m not angry,’ I shout. ‘I’m furious and hurt and betrayed and . . .’ My voice gives way. I shake my head and start to walk the floor.

  ‘When would have been the right time to tell you?’

  ‘Any time was the right time!’ I stalk around him. ‘When I couldn’t get out of bed and was plagued by nightmares, when I was ill and you came back to Scotland. Hell! Even just two weeks ago when Orla turned up.’ I lean into him. ‘But not like this, Euan. Not me finding out from her.’

  Orla is standing in the shadows. She lights a cigarette and walks towards me. ‘He really has betrayed you, Grace. Hasn’t he?’ She tries to lay an arm on my shoulder.

  ‘Get off me!’ I push her roughly and she wobbles on her heels. ‘Do not touch me.’ I look at Euan. ‘Either of you.’

  I stand by the window. The sky is almost completely dark now. The storm is directly overhead. Hailstones are hammering against the windowpane, on and on like an extended drum roll. Some of them are the size of golf balls. As kids Euan and I would run around outside, jumping with pleasure and pain as they smacked our faces and bruised our skin.

  ‘I fully intended to tell you before I went to university,’ he says. ‘But mum told me you were engaged. I thought you had moved on. Like loving Paul had wiped it out somehow.’

  ‘And when you came back to live in Scotland?’ I turn back to him. ‘Why not then? You saw the mess I was in.’

  ‘You were ill. I didn’t—’ He stops, sucks in his cheeks.

  ‘Christ!’ I read the truth behind his reluctance. ‘You were afraid I would tell on you?’

  ‘You weren’t yourself.’

  ‘Jesus! I would never have done that!’ I start pacing again. ‘And all the years after? It didn’t occur to you that perhaps you should be truthful?’

  ‘Before Orla turned up, you hardly talked about Rose.’

  ‘Euan, there are photographs of Rose in my house, I married her father, she has never been far from my thoughts. Never.’ I try to keep my voice steady. ‘And last week when Orla called? You couldn’t have said something then?’

  ‘Look, I’m not proud of this.’

  ‘Proud?’ I push both my hands against his chest. ‘You should be ashamed of yourself! I would never have believed this of you.’

  ‘His mother didn’t help,’ Orla cuts in. ‘She was a control freak if ever there was one.’ She saunters over to stand beside us again. ‘Ruthless when it came to protecting her boy.’

  ‘Mum, she—’

  I point a finger at him. ‘Don’t blame this on Mo.’ And then another penny drops. ‘Mo knew?’

  ‘I had to tell someone.’

  Like a pendulum swing, I lurch from anger back to grief again. It catches in my throat and I moan. Mo knew about this. She cared for me and loved me and was almost as close to me as my own mother and yet she also let me down. It’s too much to take in.

  ‘She didn’t know that you thought you’d done it,’ Euan says quickly. ‘She wouldn’t have chosen between us.’

  I want to believe him but I can’t. It’s not that I blame Mo for putting Euan first – of course she would choose her own flesh and blood over me – I just wish that she had told me. ‘Why did you keep the bracelet?’

  ‘I always intended to give it back.’ He looks apologetic, desperate even, but I don’t feel for him. Not after what he’s done. ‘I wanted to tell you. At Mum’s funeral—’

  ‘It’s too late,’ I say sharply and turn to Orla. ‘Did you see Rose go into the water?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous! I would have stopped her. I was following Euan.’

  ‘And next day. When we found Rose’s body. You knew it couldn’t have been me, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’ She makes a petted lip. ‘I’m sorry about that but I was protecting Euan. He was the father of my child. Then later when I realised he wasn’t going to support me I wrote to you but—’

  ‘So both of you knew.’ I look from one to the other. If it wasn’t so tragic it would be funny. ‘My boyfriend and my best friend and neither of you saw fit to tell me.’

  ‘Well, what could I do?’ Orla shrugs her shoulders, feigning innocence. ‘I had to put Euan first.’

  ‘And the best way to do that was to pin it on me?’ Anger spikes inside me. ‘You were the one who told me I’d killed her. You were the one who made me believe that I’d done it when you knew perfectly well that she was still alive after I went back to my tent.’

  ‘And you might have done it. You did push her after all.’

  ‘What sort of twisted logic is that?’

  ‘Well, if you’d read the letters—’

  ‘Fuck the letters!’ I’m shaking with rage. ‘You convinced me that I was guilty. You, Orla.’ I point my finger into her face. ‘I have spent twenty-four years thinking I killed a little girl.’

  She smiles, triumphant, delighted with her own deceit. I want to slap her hard but my anger is being sapped by a profound sadness. Rose died because none of us helped her, and while Euan’s actions were more final than mine, I know that I also let her down. Perhaps, if I had listened to her, I could have changed the course of events, but I was too caught up in my fight with Orla.

  I stand by the window again and look out to sea. A ship’s light shines bravely through the storm. I imagine the men on board battling the waves, listening to the deck groan and heave as it plunges down into the water, reaches a low point and is forced up again, praying the deck doesn’t split or the cargo shift. Hanging on in there until the storm passes.

  ‘So what to do, Grace?’ Orla is a vulture waiting for a turn at the carrion.

  ‘I’m doing nothing. I’m walking away.’ I feel drained. ‘I never want to set eyes on either of you again.’

  ‘But you’re missing an opportunity!’ She throws an arm out towards Euan. ‘He’s the villain here. Why don’t we turn the tables on him? Why don’t we give him what’s coming to him? You and me? What do you say?’

  ‘I say – fuck you.’ I lean towards her. ‘I say you’re a manipulative, twisted bitch who needs psychiatric help.’

  She flinches at this but it’s through her in a moment and she’s back on track. ‘I expect you agreed to let him deal with me.’

  ‘We’re not killers.’

  ‘Correct me if I’m wrong but I saw you thinking about it.’ Her eyes are piercing and I turn away from them. ‘The knife block in your house. You imagined sticking a knife in me, didn’t you?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘So why didn’t you?’

  ‘I’ve told you.’ I look back at her, raising my voice. ‘Unlike you, I’m not a killer.’

  She throws back her head and laughs at this. It’s a mirthless sound that echoes t
he mania in her eyes. ‘I’ll destroy you, Grace.’ She tilts her head and purses her lips regretfully. ‘You have to strike first. Really, you do.’

  ‘I don’t have to do anything. You’re not my problem. He’s not my problem. In fact’ – I shrug my shoulders – ‘I can walk out of here with a clear conscience.’

  ‘But you’ve spent twenty-four years thinking you killed Paul’s daughter.’

  ‘Well, now I can say with conviction that I didn’t.’

  She is circling me, breathing heavily. ‘I’ll tell Paul you’ve been having an affair.’ She is using the best piece of leverage she has left. ‘I’ll tell him you’ve been at it for years.’

  ‘You’re too late.’

  That stops her short.

  ‘Paul already knows.’

  ‘Should we tell Daisy and Ella too then? Or is truth-telling selective?’

  I’m tired of this. I’m not blameless; I know that. But Orla is an arch-manipulator and I’ve had enough of her games. ‘You have no control over me.’ I start moving towards the door and she follows me.

  ‘You are not going to walk away from me!’

  ‘Oh yes, I am.’ I’m inches from her face. ‘I’m going to find Paul and I’m going to grovel and beg and hope that he has enough compassion to forgive me.’

  ‘I’ll keep watching you.’ Her mouth is crippled with an ugly smile. ‘I’ll come after your girls.’

  ‘Why?’ I shake my head. ‘Why pursue me?’

  ‘Because I’m not done with you yet.’ Her tone is adamant. ‘You can’t just throw me off like this. I won’t let you.’ She flashes a glance across at Euan. ‘I spent a lot of time in prison thinking about you both and then when I came back to Scotland and found out that you were playing happy families, I made up my mind not to let you away with it. You think you deserve to have perfect lives when I have nothing?’

  Her eyes are bright with enmity. Her hand is around my throat. Her forearm stretches the length of my sternum and she pushes me back against the wall. She is surprisingly strong, strong enough to stop me breathing and no matter how much I try, I can’t get any air into my lungs. Panic overwhelms me. I struggle against her, digging my nails into her hand and kicking out with my feet. My lungs are fit to burst and I want to scream but I can’t. Pressure builds at the back of my eyes but just before I close them I see Euan pull her away from me, hard. She falls back, almost in slow motion, her arms windmilling, her eyes wide with surprise. Her head strikes the cast-iron fireplace. The sound is like nothing I’ve ever heard before: a cross between the thud of a football against a wall and the cracking of a very large nut. I don’t move and neither does Euan. Her eyelids flutter once and then stay closed.