The Secrets Between Us

by Louise Douglas

  I smiled and shuffled a little in my seat.

  ‘Well, here she is,’ said Alexander.

  ‘Here I am,’ I said like an idiot.

  ‘You’re not what I imagined,’ Mrs Churchill said.

  ‘What did you imagine, Virginia?’ Alexander asked.

  Virginia ignored him. In a pleasant but loaded voice she said: ‘I know my daughter would never have dreamed of leaving her son in the care of a stranger.’

  Alexander started to object but Mrs Churchill held her hand up to stop him.

  ‘Things being as they are, perhaps, Sarah, you’d be kind enough to tell me what exactly are your childcare qualifications?’

  ‘I …’

  ‘The main thing is that Jamie likes her. And I trust her,’ Alexander said.

  Mrs Churchill leaned forward. Her eyes were blue, pale blue like ice, and her face, although etched with the anxiety and distress she’d endured over the past few weeks, was still strong and determined. It was so close to mine that I could detect a staleness of breath amongst the late-summer warmth of the air. She must have had a bad tooth in her mouth or an infection.

  ‘Do you have any relevant qualifications?’ she asked me.

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘Have you worked as a nanny or an au pair before?’

  I glanced at Alexander but he was staring up at the ornate chimneypots on the roof of the house.

  ‘No.’

  ‘And you don’t have any children of your own?’

  The quiet, still face of my son came into my mind. His perfect little lips. His eyelids. His tiny fingers that closed around my little finger, not gripping like a normal baby, but touching; his fingernails delicate as cowslip petals; the unique design of his fingerprint that would always be a secret.

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘In other words, you have no valid professional reason to be here!’

  ‘Virginia, please …’ said Alexander.

  ‘What were you thinking?’ Virginia asked him calmly, but in a voice that was so cold it made me ache inside.

  ‘Sarah’s only looking after Jamie while I’m at work, a couple of hours a day at most. If there are any problems she’s perfectly capable of asking for help. When I come home, I’ll take over again.’

  ‘And what’s she going to do with herself while Jamie’s at school and you’re at work?’

  ‘She’ll be acting as housekeeper.’

  ‘Acting?’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  Virginia put her cup delicately on her saucer and turned back to me.

  ‘Alexander told us he met you in Sicily,’ she said.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And that your relationship is purely a business one.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Sarah,’ she said, ‘can you look me in the eye and assure me there is nothing going on between you and Alexander?’

  I hesitated. Alexander stepped in. He did his best. He insisted to Virginia that there was nothing untoward between the two of us. He argued that, in Genevieve’s absence, he was best placed to decide what, and who, was best for Jamie and himself. Virginia said that, in Genevieve’s absence, his position was debatable. There was some undercurrent going on, something I didn’t understand. The two of them argued politely, bitterly and coldly, without once raising their voices, until Philip from beneath his hat and without opening his eyes growled: ‘That’s enough.’

  I apologized to Alexander for my lack of quick-wittedness as we drove back to Avalon. He had the window open, and rested one elbow on it. He drove with his left hand, and gnawed at the knuckle on the forefinger of his other one.

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said. ‘Virginia can think what she wants.’

  I did not know how to respond to that.

  He turned his head slightly and smiled at me in a resigned fashion.

  ‘Let her do her worst,’ he said. ‘We’ll survive.’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  I DON’T RECALL dreaming that night. I don’t remember anything about it until something disturbed me in the early hours.

  I lay for a moment with my eyes closed. My heart was thumping, but I didn’t know what it was that had woken me. Gently I eased myself up on one elbow and with shaky fingers and my breath catching in my throat I drew back the edge of the curtain. A weak light was seeping into the field. There was nothing there. I tried to calm myself; it was just nerves. I exhaled and relaxed. I closed my eyes. And then I heard a distinct noise, and it wasn’t coming from the window, but from the wall, just behind my head.

  I sat up straight, clutching the eiderdown to my chest. My heart was beating so fast it hurt. I could hardly breathe. It was a scrabbling noise, loud and insistent, as if something bricked into the wall was trying to fight its way out. It was a desperate noise, like the clawing of fingernails. It went on for several seconds, there was a pause, and then it started again.

  ‘Alexander!’ I called, but no sound came from my mouth; I was gagged by my panic. I could not formulate the word; the only noise I could make was the catching of my breath. I slid my feet out of bed and crept from the room, too frightened to look behind me. In the almost-light, with my fingers on the wall to my left, I crossed the black tunnel of the landing, round the corner to the door that opened into Alexander’s bedroom, and I knocked with my knuckles. My hands were so shaky and my arms so weak with fear that I hardly made a sound, and there was no answer.

  Almost crying, I leaned on the door and I called: ‘Alexander! Alexander! Please wake up!’ and I heard the creak of bedsprings, a rummage of covers and a grunted: ‘Hmm?’

  I pushed the door open a little and stepped forward. It was dark in the room but, through the gloom, I made out Alexander’s shape as he propped himself up on one elbow and squinted at me.

  ‘What is it? Are you OK?’

  ‘I’m sorry’ – my voice was fragile – ‘only somebody … there’s something …’ I paused and listened. I could still hear the noise, the rattling and scrabbling in the wall down the corridor, fainter now but it was there. I had not imagined it. I wrapped my arms around myself.

  ‘Something’s inside the wall, Alexander. Something’s trapped. It’s trying to get out …’

  Alexander swung his legs out of the bed. My eyes had become accustomed to the gloom and I could see his face was screwed up as he struggled to wake. I could smell him more strongly in the mustiness of the warm air that came up from the bedclothes.

  ‘It’s the squirrels,’ he mumbled. ‘I should have warned you.’

  ‘Squirrels?’

  ‘They’re in the roof. They chew the wires. I put a trap up. It must have fallen into the wall cavity.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘They go berserk in the cage trying to get out. It’ll have rocked it off the rafter and knocked it down.’

  ‘Can you get it out?’

  ‘I’ll try. Pass me my shirt, would you?’

  Alexander pointed and I turned to reach out for a T-shirt hooked over the back of a wicker basket in the corner of the room behind me.

  I sensed Jamie at the door before I saw him. The child stood just behind me, barefoot in his pyjamas.

  He was standing on tiptoe, one arm extended, and I couldn’t work out why but then there was a click and the room filled with light.

  Jamie rubbed his eyes with his fist. The blue teddy bear was tucked under one arm and his pyjama bottoms sat low under his skinny little belly. He smelled of wee. He looked from me to Alexander and said: ‘Grandma said you would be together in Mummy’s bed.’

  ‘No, Jamie, no, it’s not like that,’ I said.

  ‘What about Mummy?’ he asked. ‘If you’re in Mummy’s bed where will she go to sleep?’

  ‘Oh, honey, no, I just came in because …’

  ‘Sarah had a nightmare,’ Alexander said firmly.

  ‘That’s right,’ I said.

  Jamie looked at his father with suspicion.

  ‘She’s going back to her roo
m now,’ said Alexander.

  I nodded.

  ‘I’ll see you later,’ I said to Jamie.

  ‘You’re a hole-digger!’ Jamie said. The dismay in his voice cut me, and I realized why he thought a hole-digger was worse than a gold-digger. I saw myself through his eyes: a stranger to the child whose mother had left him only a few weeks previously, an intruder in his parents’ house, a female stranger, lank-haired, pale-faced, standing barefoot in his parents’ bedroom, their private place. And then, worse, I saw myself as he imagined his grandmother saw me, a hole-digger with a spade in my hands, a good, solid shovel, standing shoulder-deep in a grave-shaped pit, the mud piling behind me. From nowhere the image of something grey and broken lying ragged and open-eyed on the ground beside me came to mind and I shuddered.

  ‘Come on, soldier,’ Alexander said. ‘Let’s go back to your bed for a bit.’

  He swooped Jamie into his arms and I heard his footsteps go back along the landing.

  I couldn’t bear to go back into my room. I didn’t want to hear the desperation of the poor trapped squirrel. I reached round the door to pick up my bag and crept into the bathroom to shower. I was careful to slide the bolt shut; even so, I felt shivery when I took off my nightshirt. I felt peculiarly bare. Oh, it was stupid, the squirrel noises had spooked me and everything was still strange. Nobody was looking, nobody could see.

  I stepped into the shower and pulled the curtain to.

  The cubicle was greasy and the water only lukewarm. It trickled sullenly through my hair and down my back. I had trouble working the shampoo into a lather and it didn’t fill the room with its usual fruity fragrance. There was an underlying smell. I poked with my toes at a crust of matted hair and soap scum around the plughole. The vinyl curtain stuck to my backside and as I turned to peel it off I thought I saw a movement beyond. Holding my breath, I peered around the edge of the curtain, but the bathroom door was still closed and locked, and the cold little room was still empty. It must simply have been steam swirling that I glimpsed from the corner of my eye.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  BREAKFAST THE NEXT morning was strained. I tried to jolly Jamie out of his misery and keep him distracted while Alexander went up into the attic and fished the squirrel trap out of the wall cavity, but I was jumpy. I dropped a glass and broke it and I couldn’t ramp up the Rayburn to warm the last of the milk for Jamie’s breakfast. It stayed resolutely cold in the pan but, when I put my hand on the hob a few minutes later, it burned me and, as I snatched my hand away, I knocked over the pan and the milk went everywhere.

  Jamie was pale and sulky. Alexander came down with the trap hidden beneath a towel and disappeared outside with it for a while – I assumed he was releasing the animal somewhere far from the house – and when he returned he smelled of the cold and of fresh air. He put a pair of leather gauntlets down on the counter, washed his hands under the kitchen tap with Fairy Liquid and then wandered through the downstairs rooms searching for lost pieces of paper, his telephone charger and various other paraphernalia.

  Jamie sat at the table in his school uniform – long grey trousers and a blue sweatshirt – swinging his legs and spooning dry Coco Pops out of a cereal bowl. All there was for him to drink was orange squash. It was not a nutritious breakfast for a growing boy on his first day back at school. I resolved to stock up with fruit and other fresh food.

  After Alexander and Jamie left in the Land Rover, I spent an hour or so in the front garden, pulling up weeds by the handful. I worked hard and soon my hands were filthy and a huge pile of weeds was heaped on the lawn by the top flower bed, but when I stood back it was clear that I had hardly scratched the surface of what needed to be done. The garden was large, far too big to manage without the help of a gardener. In the past, somebody must have come in.

  Already half-exhausted, I went back inside and made myself a mug of black coffee and some cheese on toast. I ate outside, watching the birds and the squirrels busying themselves burying hazelnuts. I enjoyed their quickness, the way they sat on their bottoms, looking this way and that with their nut-shaped, bright little eyes while the breeze riffled through their grey-brown fur. Every so often they would chase one another hectically along the lawn, up a tree and through the branches, dropping twigs and making the boughs sway and dip. I wondered which was the squirrel that had been trapped. In the sunshine, it seemed ridiculous that something so small and cute could have scared me so.

  A stream ran along the bottom edge of the garden; it attracted insects that shimmied in the sunshine and ducks, and I was sure I glimpsed a kingfisher. The garden was beautiful and full of life but all the time I was aware of the house behind me, those tall old windows looking out as if they were watching. I should have been happy; at last I had what I had craved in Manchester: peace and quiet and time to myself. Instead I was nervous as a sparrow.

  I wasn’t used to the countryside, I told myself. That was all.

  I looked back towards Avalon. It was just a big, empty house and it was my job to clean it. If I was to prove my credentials as housekeeper, it was imperative I did some actual housekeeping.

  I found a bottle of bleach, some cleaning fluid and a couple of worn cloths amongst a tangle of carrier bags in the cupboard under the sink, put my iPod in my pocket, plugged in the earphones and went upstairs.

  I started with Alexander’s bedroom. It was a mess. Clothes and towels were strewn everywhere, empty mugs and glasses crowded the surfaces and empty beer bottles littered the carpet. A riding crop was hooked over one of the wardrobe door handles, and a muddy black jacket over the other. A pile of Horse and Hound magazines had been untidily stacked beside the dressing table. Photographs of Genevieve’s two horses had been tucked into the rim around the mirror’s edge. I picked up the T-shirt that Alexander had worn that morning, and held it to my face. It made me feel better. I put it on over my jumper, like a talisman, and began to collect the dirty linen and pile it on the landing ready to wash. I wasn’t sure what to do with the jacket but thought it would be pointless to leave it there, dirty, so I picked that up and put it on the pile too. A single blond hair was stuck to the collar, so fair that it reflected the sunlight. It was longer than Genevieve’s hair had been in the picture downstairs, about the same length as mine.

  As the room became clearer, my mood began to lift. I sang along to the music on my iPod and was almost relaxed, almost enjoying myself, when, on the other side of the room, I thought I glimpsed somebody watching me. I saw a slight, fair-haired woman crouching as if in fear, holding out her hand to me, pleading. Her lips moved. I heard her say: Help me.

  ‘Genevieve?’ I whispered, pulling the earphones free, raising myself slowly to my full height, and as I did so the woman stood too and I realized that all I’d seen was my own reflection, distorted in a mirror that was slanted away from me. The outstretched hand had been mine, reaching forward for a pair of discarded jeans. The slightness and blondness of the image must have been an illusion, a trick of the light. And the words, they must have been something I’d been singing along to, that was all. I stood there for a moment or two, staring at myself, but I could not recognize the woman in the mirror; it did not look like me.

  I felt nauseous and a little giddy.

  I took off Alexander’s T-shirt and left the room quickly.

  I did not give myself time to dwell on what had happened. I turned up the volume of the music and went straight into Jamie’s room. It was smaller, but just as untidy as his father’s. The walls were patterned with a paper that showed the moon and stars and, at various intervals, spaceships with smiling green aliens sitting in pods. There was a low child’s bed and a wardrobe, its open doors and drawers spilling clothes and toys. There was also a small desk and chair and a golden hamster in a cage that needed cleaning out. The cage was perched on a little wooden chest next to the window. I refilled the hamster’s water bottle and made a mental note to buy new bedding for it the next time I went into the village. I picked up all the clothes to wash,
stripped the sheets from the bed and piled them on the landing, beside Alexander’s.

  There was another door on the landing. It opened into a long, narrow room with a small window at the far end. It was a walk-in wardrobe and it was full of Genevieve’s clothes.

  I ran my fingers over the fabrics. They were beautiful to the touch, expensive, lovely, and all size eight. They made me feel big and unwieldy. Genevieve’s competition coats, jackets and shirts were covered in protective polythene, obviously fresh from the dry cleaner’s. There was also a range of hunting jackets, breeches and silk stocks in different colours. Boots polished to a mirror-like shine and a range of different kinds of riding hats took up most of the space below. A small part of the room had been given over to a dozen or so evening dresses and designer suits. Beneath these was a rack of shoes. I picked one up, a beautiful, light, Italian heeled sandal with a leather sole and gladiator straps. It was pretty and a dainty size three; like the clothes, far too small for me.

  A full-length mirror stood by the window. This house was full of mirrors, I thought. It was full of mirrors and memories. Why had Genevieve left so many of her clothes behind? Had she been in such a hurry to leave?

  I remembered the day I packed for Sicily, how I had stuffed random clothes into my bag, not really caring what I put into it; it was the act that was significant, not the packing. Maybe Genevieve had felt like that too. I wondered if Alexander had been standing behind her, begging her to stop and talk to him while she packed. I didn’t like to think of him like that. I’d rather imagine him angry and proud than belittled and humiliated.

  He’d said he was resigned to her leaving, that their relationship had been over. Then why had they parted so badly? And why did he still seem so bewildered and so lost?

  I told myself to stop speculating. Their marriage, what went on between them, wasn’t my business. These things that happen are private between man and woman.

  I backed out of the room, closed the door quietly and set to work cleaning the bathroom. It took ages but eventually everything was spotless and shiny. The tiles and enamel-ware gleamed and the room smelled of soap and lemon. As an afterthought, I buffed the mirrors and opened the door of the little medicine cabinet that hung on the wall beside the window. It contained an assortment of old pill bottles, razors and hotel toiletries and I picked up what was obviously out of date and put it in the bin.