The back door had been left ajar for Charlie but the front was open too so fresh air was being sucked into the house with a vengeance. Without warning the back door slammed shut and jolted her back from the precipice. She stepped into the small vestibule and closed the front door, silencing the wind and allowing a sense of peace to settle around her. Then she wiped her eyes and took a deep breath. She could do this.
Elle had always wanted to be the kind of daughter her parents could be proud of, and they had been, first when she qualified as a nurse and then shortly afterwards when she met and married Rick. He was doing well in his career even then and with the generous support of his parents they had enough money to put down a deposit on a grand house in Southport. Within three years she had become a fulltime wife and mother and was doing far better in life than her parents had ever dreamed possible. The only thing she couldn’t improve upon was their marriage, although she hid it well. She had become an expert at making everyone else happy; everyone except herself.
Rapidly coming to the conclusion that giving in to self-pity was too exhausting, she steeled her emotions to face what needed to be done. Willing herself to be strong, she started systematically going through cupboards and separating treasured items to be kept from the jumble that would be binned or recycled. Whether she realized it or not, she was also looking for a small lock to match the brass key from the stolen watch.
In no time at all, boxes and bags began to pile up and Elle only briefly stopped for lunch. Even Charlie was reluctant to take time out. He hadn’t been put off by the bad weather and gobbled up his sandwiches as quickly as he could so he could return to the fresh air that had upgraded his cheeks from bright pink to neon red.
She spent the afternoon emptying her dad’s writing bureau. Rick had already rifled through the hoard of papers that Harry had crammed into its drawers and taken away a box full of documents that he said would help him settle the estate. The detritus waiting to be sorted included stacks of old bills that Harry should have thrown out long ago and a collection of keepsakes which sentimentality ruled that he could not. He had even kept hold of an assortment of greetings cards and Elle was trying to build up the courage to throw them out when the phone rang.
‘I’m not disturbing you, am I?’ Angie asked. ‘Are you at your dad’s house yet?’
‘Yes and no,’ Elle answered then added, ‘or should that be no and yes? I’m at Dad’s, but you’re not disturbing me. In fact I could do with a break.’
‘I can do better than that. How about I come over to help? I presume Rick’s still going out with Chris tonight, so I could always bring a bottle of wine and a takeaway.’
Elle was glad her friend wasn’t there to see her grimace. ‘It’s a tempting offer, but do you mind if I take a rain check?’
‘Or how about I come around after Charlie’s in bed so Rick need never know how you arranged to meet up without seeking his prior approval?’ Angie replied. She didn’t need to be standing next to her friend to register her discomfort.
‘He’s not that bad,’ Elle said, although Angie’s assumption had been frighteningly close to the mark. ‘It’s just that there’s so much to go through and I need to stay focused – and I don’t care what you say about helping, you will become a distraction. Unless you’re desperate for company …?’ she added, prepared to face her husband’s disapproval if her newly separated friend was in dire need of her support.
‘No, my offer was completely unselfish. I’m actually quite happy to stay at home in my pyjamas on a Saturday night and keep the bottle of wine all to myself,’ she said.
‘Thanks for understanding. I promise I’ll make up for it next week, assuming you’re still happy to go out with us married ladies?’ It was an arrangement that had been in place since Charlie was born. Rick had more than his fair share of nights out with the boys so she was allowed one night out a month with the girls. In theory that shouldn’t change just because Angie and Chris had split up.
‘Assuming your husband is happy for you to go out with a man-seeking singleton, you mean,’ Angie said. This was where Elle would leap to Rick’s defence and Angie would be forced to play along with the act, so she continued without waiting for or wanting a reply. ‘OK, I’ll leave you to it, but give me a shout if you change your mind. I can be there in half an hour.’
Returning to the task at hand, Elle looked at the stack of cards she’d been preparing to throw away. Her eyes were drawn to the box she had been filling up with mementos. It was the second such box and already heaving. She closed her eyes as she dropped the cards into the bin bag.
It was in the very bottom drawer of the bureau that she discovered a secret box of treasures, although this one needed no key and certainly wasn’t the kind of hoard Rick would be impressed with. The fragile cardboard box was barely held together with yellowing sellotape and contained practically every picture Elle had ever drawn, every card she had made for her parents at school and every school report. There was a scattering of photographs too. The toothy grin of a schoolgirl with a blonde mop of hair that would put Charlie’s to shame made her laugh out loud and even the photos of her standing on the stairs in her brand-new nurse’s uniform made her smile. The wedding photos and grainy baby-scan printout were among the recent additions. The collection had been her parents’ most prized possession and there was no hesitation about whether or not to keep it.
Only when the bureau was completely cleared did Elle’s attention return to the pervading emptiness. Charlie was still outside but when she peered through the kitchen window he was nowhere in sight. It was then that she remembered the shed. Had she told him he wasn’t allowed to go in there?
Other than an abandoned toy spaceship beneath the sycamore tree, the only sign of life in the garden was a set of muddy footprints leading to the shed. Elle’s immediate concern was that Charlie may have stumbled upon hazardous chemicals or sharp knives but as she neared the open door she heard him humming softly to himself and could easily imagine what he was up to. As a child, she too had been lured to the bottom of the garden to explore her dad’s inner sanctum. He had never told her it was out of bounds, but that hadn’t stopped her feeling as if she was doing something wrong every time she had sneaked in there without his knowledge.
A gust of wind pulled the door open wide and she caught a glimpse of the familiar line of tools hanging up along one wall. She had to peer further around the door to spot Charlie and had timed it perfectly to catch him struggling to unhook a trowel. He had his back to her and was teetering on a wooden crate but even at full stretch his fingertips were only just touching the loop of string that kept the trowel suspended out of reach.
‘Nearly there,’ he was telling himself. ‘Then we can start digging for buried treasure.’
‘And what treasure would that be?’ Elle demanded in her sternest voice.
Charlie jumped with fright and was lucky not to topple off the crate. As if in punishment for scaring her son, a vicious gust of wind caught the shed door and slammed against Elle’s back.
‘Mum!’
‘Don’t mum me,’ she said, rubbing her back. ‘What are you up to?’
Charlie scrunched his face. ‘Can’t tell you.’
‘I’m your mother; you have to tell me everything. It’s the law.’
Charlie didn’t look fazed. ‘I can’t tell you. I promised.’
‘Promised who?’
Charlie pursed his lips tightly as he pretended to zip them up, turning an imaginary key and then tossing it over his shoulder. It was a mime they often practised together when they wanted to keep a secret, usually from Rick.
She scowled at him but to no avail. His lips were sealed so she was forced to switch tactics.
Hooking a finger under her chin, Elle began to play detective as she took in the scene. It would appear that Charlie had been busy making use of her dad’s other tools before turning his attention to the trowel. There was a trail of fresh mud on the floor that led to a heavy spade. It
had a thin line of mud along its edge.
Rather than force her little pirate into a confession, Elle took a step back into the garden and made a point of inspecting the surrounding area. She could see where the grass had been muddied and squashed by Charlie’s footprints and there beneath the sycamore tree, immediately in front of the toy spaceship, she could make out a series of gouges in the earth. They were about the width of a spade.
She turned back to Charlie, who was looking decidedly guilty, and for a moment she considered offering to help him with his endeavours. The prospect of searching for hidden treasure, imaginary or otherwise was far more appealing than returning to the morbid task of sweeping away her parent’s existence. That was when her mobile began to ring again. It was Rick checking up on her but she couldn’t answer the call straight away. He would hear the wind howling around her and would at best complain that she wasn’t concentrating on the house clearance and at worst accuse her of being up to no good somewhere else. She ordered a sullen Charlie back into the house and only then did she phone Rick back. As she stood in front of the mountain of bags and boxes she had spent the day filling, she went to great lengths to tell her husband how little progress she had made. Rick wasn’t impressed when she explained how much she still had to do and that they were unlikely to be home before the following evening.
With the bitterness of her lies fresh on her tongue, Elle risked the wrath of Charlie, too, by demanding he remain in the house for the rest of the day. It was late afternoon and the colourless day was beginning to darken. Charlie’s complaints were short-lived when she explained that they had the whole weekend to themselves and that if he would consider taking her on as his assistant then they could search for buried treasure tomorrow.
She wasn’t expecting to find anything but with plenty of time on her hands she would enjoy sharing an adventure with her son. Charlie was less enthusiastic but promised to give her offer of help some thought. Unlike his mother, he knew there was treasure waiting to be unearthed, he simply wasn’t sure he wanted to share it.
3
Charlie had visited his grandparents’ house often in the past but that sense of familiarity wasn’t going to make bedtime any easier, not when he had cried himself to sleep every night since the funeral and not when he would be sleeping in the room next to where his granddad had died.
The spare room had once been her bedroom. It had a single bed, pine wardrobe and matching chest of drawers and what little floor space remained had been taken up with bin bags and boxes. It was going to be a tight squeeze for Elle and Charlie but neither objected to sharing a bed. By delaying his bedtime and bringing her own forward they were snuggled up together beneath the duvet by nine o’clock.
The copious amounts of fresh air had been enough for Charlie to find sleep in his mother’s arms despite his initial attempts to keep her talking. He had wanted to know all about her time growing up in the house and those memories played on Elle’s mind as she lay awake long past midnight, watching the shadows dance across the woodchip wallpaper each time the headlights from a passing car flashed across the walls.
The decor had hardly changed and Elle could almost convince herself that the exhaustion she felt was the result of a long shift at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital and she willed her mum to peak around the door with a much-needed cup of tea. But it hadn’t only been a demanding job that used to leave her languishing in bed. Although it had made her angry at the time, she smiled as she recalled the look of disapproval from her dad whenever she dared to stay out late or how her mum deliberately banged doors if she made the mistake of seeking sympathy for a self-inflicted hangover.
The inevitable battle of wills as she was growing up had been Elle’s way of claiming her independence but it was a battle she had never won. And when she had eventually left home it had been to begin a married life where she would be forced to fit in with someone else’s rules and expectations. As she thought back to some of the dreams she had nurtured while lying in this very spot, she was keenly aware that life hadn’t turned out as she had imagined. With disappointment weighing heavily on her mind, sleep finally found her.
The chirp of her mobile phone was a rude awakening and not only for her.
‘Mum?’ moaned Charlie as Elle scrambled for the phone.
‘It’s fine, it’s just your dad,’ she whispered, doing her best to hide her annoyance as she checked the time. It was two thirty in the morning. She kissed the top of Charlie’s head which was damp with sweat. ‘Go back to sleep.’
Charlie objected only briefly as Elle tiptoed out of the room and closed the door.
‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘Did I wake you?’ Rick’s words were slurred and his teeth chattered.
‘Yes.’
‘It’s freezing out here,’ he moaned.
With a sinking heart, Elle knew what he meant. She could hear the dull rumble of a taxi-cab engine. ‘You’re outside, aren’t you?’
‘I couldn’t go home to an empty house now, could I?’
Elle had no choice and held her tongue as she let Rick into the house. He smelled of alcohol and although it wasn’t unusual for him to be a touch worse for wear, he seemed more drunk than usual. He began rambling on about his night out and repeated what was becoming a regular complaint in recent months: how heartbroken Chris was; how much of a bitch Angie had always been; how Chris should leave her penniless for walking out on him. Elle held a different view. There had been no affairs, no betrayal. Angie and Chris had simply drifted apart. They didn’t have children and had simply agreed to divide the assets. The divorce when it came ought to be perfectly amicable – and would be, as long as Rick didn’t try to persuade Chris otherwise. But this was a view that she didn’t share with Rick. He rarely listened to her when he was sober, less so when drunk. Instead she made a point of telling him it was late and that Charlie had already been disturbed by the phone call.
With a little persuasion and a lot of patience she convinced Rick it was time for bed, intending to settle him on the sofa in the living room. But her husband had other ideas.
‘I can’t sleep down here on that grubby sofa, not when we can use the double bed upstairs,’ he told her.
‘No, Rick, please,’ she said, ‘I don’t want to sleep in the bed where my dad died. Besides, I’ve stripped it.’
Rick smiled woozily. ‘Who said anything about sleeping?’
Rick’s soft snores blew clouds of stale breath across Elle’s face and neck making her skin crawl. She was lying on her back wide awake as the four walls of her parents’ room closed in around her until there was nowhere to hide her shame. She didn’t want to be there. She certainly didn’t want to think about what she had just been doing. Unable to bear it a minute longer, she slipped off the bare mattress as quickly and quietly as she could, although from experience she knew there was little risk of raising Rick from his ale-induced stupor.
She locked the bathroom door and filled the sink with warm soapy water then slipped out of her nightdress. The house was cold and her skin burned as she scrubbed herself raw, but even as she dried off, she still felt unclean. There was no way she could lie back down on her dad’s bed so she returned to her old room, desperate to breathe in Charlie’s sweet, sweaty innocence. She only made it as far as the door. In the dimness of the streetlight leaching through the curtains she could see rumpled sheets littering an empty bed.
Elle took the stairs two at a time and cast a quick glance around the living room. The air downstairs was markedly colder and the reason became apparent as she rushed into the kitchen. The back door was wide open. She was ready to storm out into the night in nothing more than a thin layer of blue satin but through the window she caught a glimpse of a flashlight. She had found her wayward son.
When Elle trudged out in her winter coat and boots, she made no effort to disguise her approach.
‘What on earth are you doing?’ she demanded.
Charlie didn’t look up. He had somehow mana
ged to unhook the trowel that had eluded him earlier and was busily digging a small hole in the exact same spot where the spade marks had been. His Buzz Lightyear torch was perched next to him and cast a surprisingly strong beam of light onto the ground he was churning up. ‘I think I’ve found something,’ he gasped.
Elle was juddering in the cold wind and had no interest in Charlie’s imaginary treasure which was more than likely a tree root. She was about to manhandle him back into the house when she heard a distinctive clink as the trowel blade hit metal. She looked behind her briefly, suddenly afraid of being caught, and then back to her son who was groaning with renewed efforts. ‘Here, let me,’ she said.
The metal box was smaller than a shoebox and rattled when she shook it. It had two brass handles on each side but there was too much mud to distinguish any other features. ‘How on earth did you know it was there, Charlie?’ she asked.
‘It’s a secret,’ he said, reaching up to take the box from her.
She lifted it out of reach. ‘I think I’ll keep hold of it for the time being.’
‘No, it’s not yours! It was Granddad’s box and now it’s mine!’ he cried. The tears were already threatening.
‘Granddad buried it?’ Elle took another look at the box and pushed her fingers into the layers of mud that hid a set of hinges on one side and what could only be a keyhole on the other, one that might be opened with a small brass key.
Charlie folded his arms and pouted. ‘No.’
‘Really?’
‘Nana and Granddad left it for me. It’s mine.’
‘But I thought we were going to be a team? Let’s get in out of the cold and then we can wash some of the muck off it,’ she offered, trying to distract him from the issue of ownership.
Charlie remained stock-still as she stamped down the disturbed earth to cover their tracks and returned the trowel to the shed. Even when they were back in the kitchen, Charlie didn’t say a word as he watched his mum doing her best to wipe the box clean.
The Keeper of Secrets Page 2