Keep My Secrets

by Elena Wilkes

  She felt her face colour and burn and was thankful that it was so dark he couldn’t see how much of a kid she felt. He didn’t seem to have noticed; he was too busy loading the rucksack and filling his pockets. She chewed her cheek, embarrassed. Now she’d made herself look stupid. She desperately wanted to make amends and show how capable she was. She opened the fridge door again and pretended to look inside.

  ‘Martin.’

  ‘What?’ He didn’t stop loading his bag.

  ‘There’s all kinds of stuff in here.’

  ‘Yeah. Good.’

  She picked up a half-full carton of milk and unscrewed the top, bringing it up to her nose.

  ‘This is fresh.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  She didn’t think he was really listening. She frowned.

  ‘How long did you say these people have been away?’

  ‘Why?’

  A crack from above their heads and they both snapped up. Neither of them moved, breath held, hands stilled at the definite creak of footsteps. There was the squeal and clump of a door opening and then the sound of someone walking down the stairs.

  Martin’s eyes looked huge in his face as he blinked rapidly. Suddenly grabbing up the bag, he swung it onto his back.

  ‘The front door’s open. It’s my only way out,’ he breathed. He sounded scared. ‘I’m going to have to chance it. That’ll draw them away from the stairs. See if you can get out the same way as you got in. No one will imagine you’d do that. Okay?’

  She nodded frantically. Her heart was in her mouth. She couldn’t think, couldn’t speak, couldn’t move.

  He jerked forward and kissed her on the forehead, then, just as suddenly, he was gone. She stood motionless, not knowing if she should make a run for it now, not knowing whether to hide or run or—

  A woman’s voice called out, shouting and tremulous, echoing through the hallway. Frankie couldn’t make out the words, but it was enough to get her feet moving. Slipping quickly along the passageway, she listened as the voice grew louder and more urgent as the woman shrieked with anger. Frankie peered through a gap in the door. There were the stairs. A cold blast of air whistled past. An elderly lady was standing in the open doorway, brandishing a stick and clutching her dressing gown to her throat as she yelled into the darkness. Her fingers were fumbling with what looked like an alarm around her neck. Frankie watched as she shambled her way out onto the front step, her slippers crunching on the gravel, still bellowing loud enough to have the whole neighbourhood come running. There would only be seconds to spare if she was going to make those stairs.

  She took her chance.

  Keeping tight to the wall, she sneaked as fast as she could along the hallway and rounded the first few steps, not daring to pause or to look back, all the time waiting to hear a barking order telling her to stop right there! – but it didn’t come. She threw herself along the landing and ran to the bathroom where the window sat exactly as she had left it. Jumping onto the windowsill, she glanced around, realising the tree was the absolute worst option. The old woman’s voice wavered out into the dark. She was stuck. She’d break her neck if she tried to jump. Her brain went into overdrive. There was a drainpipe, that was the most obvious choice, but she knew it was inches out of reach – she’d never make it. Then she had a thought.

  Unbuckling her belt, she pulled it through the loops and slid the buckle over the window latch, pulling it hard and winding it around her fist. As long as she kept the tension on it, it might just give her the extra reach she needed.

  With a little levering swing… With one more push… Her shoulder jerked sideways, and she made a grab for the downpipe, feeling the cold iron under her fingertips at the same time as her foot left the wall. There was a nanosecond as her toes searched for the bracket – and then they hit home.

  Breathing hard, she let the belt go, the rubber soles of her trainers squealing as she manoeuvred her way down the pipe until she got to the metal grille. Every muscle shook with relief as she squat-landed heavily onto the ground just as the wail of sirens echoed shrilly into the night. In a flash, she hunkered down through the shadows along the side of the house, and then dipped to where she thought was the hole in the hedge – but immediately froze. The old lady was out there with her stick and a torch, smashing and poking the shrub-line, stooping right down and peering hard, almost as though she knew what they’d done. Frankie shrank into a tight ball, crouching painfully, her chest pressed against her thighs, her breath aching in her restricted lungs, every inch of her body flinching as the splintering bushes shook around her. She couldn’t stay there, that was a fact. A panic gripped her: if she made a run for it she’d be spotted for sure. There was a whole swathe of open lawn to cover. She was sunk.

  A pop and crunch of tyres and the pummelling of the bushes paused. She took a glance up. A load of emergency vehicles had squealed up to the kerb; their circling blue and red lights illuminated the driveway.

  A dark figure paused by the gates, its shadow wavering and elongating through the spooling lights. A policeman. So close. One look down and he’d have her. She was done for.

  ‘Frankie,’ said a low voice.

  She almost fainted with relief: Martin.

  ‘Move towards me now. I mean now.’

  She scrambled out of her hiding place quickly pushing her way along the privet and through the hole to where his legs were blocking the view. He was still wearing his rucksack. Arm aloft, he had his hand cupped to his eyes as though mesmerised by all the activity. She went to stand, seeing that his jacket had swung open, giving her the perfect cover. He looked like a student out for an evening stroll. He ignored her completely, gazing away and up at the house and then around at the police cars as though he was a curious bystander. She was just about to say something, when his arm slipped around her shoulders as though she had been next to him the whole time.

  A policeman’s radio twittered just a couple of feet away, but she didn’t dare look round.

  ‘Which direction have you just come from, son?’

  Martin pointed away down the road. ‘We were just walking from that way. A load of cop cars whizzed past me and we wondered what was going on.’

  ‘Did you happen to see anyone running along this road, or acting strangely in any way?’

  She was concentrating hard at staring into Martin’s neck. She could see the pulse of nerves in his throat as he turned his head to gesture up and down the street.

  ‘No,’ he frowned. ‘I haven’t seen anyone. We were only walking this way ’cos we missed the bus and there’s a cut-through up there back into the centre of Chester.’

  ‘Is that where you live?’

  ‘Yeah. We’re both students at Cheshire College.’

  The copper turned his attention to Frankie. He opened his mouth but the driver in one of the police cars called out to him and he was forced to turn away. He nodded back at them.

  ‘Thank you for your time, son. You pair just need to be on your way.’

  She almost giggled as the nerves flooded through her.

  ‘No problem.’ Martin lifted a hand in salute.

  They started to walk awkwardly up the road. Behind them she heard the slamming of car doors and radios clamouring as the police cars began to pull away. She found she’d gone from trembling to a full-bodied shake. Martin still had his arm around her, and her hand inched its way around his waist, her fingers clutching at his jumper, too scared to let go. She felt like dropping to her knees right there on the pavement, and giving in to total hysteria.

  ‘You okay?’

  She nodded. She wasn’t sure her legs would take her any further. Neither of them dared to speak and then she realised Martin was shaking too. She glanced at him.

  ‘How about you?’

  ‘Jesus,’ he breathed. He was almost laughing. ‘Jesus, Frankie! How the hell did we get out of there alive?’ He shook his head. ‘Did any of that really happen?’

  ‘Did that woman see your face?’ The th
ought suddenly struck her. A tremor of real fear jolted her back to reality. It had gone from just some mad stunt to something far more real.

  ‘Nah. Definitely not. A hundred per cent… She was a feisty old bird though, wasn’t she?’ They turned down an alleyway. He was chuckling properly now. ‘Fuck, can you imagine what she was like when she was younger? It’s a good job I legged it, if she’d smacked me with that stick she’d have probably caved my head in.’ He grinned round at her, the tension easing and lifting as a sudden wash of adrenaline gushed through her.

  They’d done it. They’d really done it. They had. The two of them together.

  She felt closer to him than ever. Pulling his arm close around her and turning her face, she nuzzled into the wooliness of his jumper, wanting to blur the lines between them, to meld herself to him. She wanted him more than she’d ever wanted anyone or anything before.

  ‘It’s here.’ He pulled away from her, breaking the spell. They were halfway along an alley. Martin dropped the rucksack from his shoulder and hoisted himself up on the wall to peer over.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Where we’re delivering.’

  She looked at him, wide-eyed. ‘We’re going in there?’

  ‘Don’t worry. This old chap never locks his back door. He says if someone wanted to break in and steal stuff they’d be sadly disappointed, and if they broke in and murdered him it would be a blessing.’

  ‘That’s sad.’

  ‘Yeah, and d’you know what’s really the saddest thing of all?’ The anger came off him in waves.

  ‘That this poor old bugger lives only round the corner from that lot.’ He thumbed over his shoulder. ‘They have more than they know what to do with, and he has nothing. How can that be right?’ He bent to lift a broken bit of fence panel. ‘Here you go, we can squeeze through here.’

  She took half a step forward and then stopped. ‘I can’t, Martin. I just can’t.’

  ‘Yeah you can. Don’t be scared. You’ve done the scary bit.’

  ‘Really, I can’t. Not after…’ She gestured weakly. ‘Seriously. Seriously. It was too much. Please don’t ask me.’

  He stood coolly watching her for a few moments, not saying anything.

  ‘You’re not going to do this again?’

  The disappointment in his tone was almost more than she could bear.

  ‘I didn’t say that—’

  ‘Then what are you saying?’

  She’d failed. It was like a punch in the gut. She’d been set a test and she’d let him down.

  He took her hand. ‘Frankie. Look…’ He chafed her fingers. ‘All this… this stuff we do. It’s outrageous and it’s uncomfortable. We have to push ourselves beyond our own boundaries, and that’s exactly what you’ve just done. Don’t retreat back into your old life now. You were brave, you were ballsy, you took control… Changing people’s lives takes all that. You and I are a rare breed.’ He tugged her hand a little towards the fence. ‘Please. Please come with me.’

  She looked into his face: into those eyes. She found her fingers turning over and finding the warmth of his palm.

  ‘Yes?’

  Her banging heart steadied a little. The shaking paused. She took a breath and gripped on tight. ‘Okay,’ she said.

  ‘Good.’

  The splintered board lifted easily. Glancing round, he knelt and pushed the rucksack through before gesturing for her to follow. She immediately found herself crawling into a dark tunnel of wet weeds before she entered a bit of a clearing and managed to stand. He was right behind her.

  ‘This way… The old fella’s as deaf as a post. He won’t hear a thing. He’ll just have a fantastic supply of food left on his kitchen table. Look, I’m even leaving this just in case.’ He laughed and rummaged about down the side of the bag before producing a tin opener. She managed a smile.

  ‘See? Someone needs food, we feed them. Someone needs shelter? We find them an empty house. Someone needs money? We take from the rich and give to the poor. We don’t do things by the book. We’re the kinds of people who see injustice and fix it, yes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He was so sure, so impassioned; he radiated certainty. Of course, he was right, it was so obvious a child would understand the simplicity of it.

  ‘Then don’t let go of those ideals. They’re why we’re here, so let’s do this.’

  He gestured for her to go in front. She wouldn’t disappoint him, not this time. She nodded, letting go of his arm and threading her way determinedly through the wild garden to the back door. She paused before forcing herself to reach out and turn the knob. The door shuddered open, catching on the torn linoleum floor.

  Of all the places they’d been, this was the worst. It was supposed to be a kitchen, but the only indication was the chipped stone butler sink with a cold tap above it. The cooker, if you could describe it as that, was a rusted box with a filthy door. A flimsy table sat next to it with two plates on top and a knife and fork.

  ‘Appalling, isn’t it?’ Martin whispered. ‘A human being lives in all this… Come on, we’ll leave the stuff through here.’

  He led her through a hallway that was so dark, she was only just aware of him moving in front of her. The darkness lifted, revealing a small, high-ceilinged room. It was sparsely furnished with an old dining table pushed against one wall and a couple of wooden chairs either side. There were two floral covered armchairs positioned in front of an empty grate, with a TV on a stool in the hearth. It felt as though no daylight would ever be able to force its way in there.

  Martin dumped the rucksack on the floor and began pulling out the tins and packets, piling them up in the centre of the table. She stood back, watching him work, her eyes darting this way and that, ears pricked, listening for movement from above, but the house stayed quiet.

  ‘Won’t he wonder where this has all come from?’ she whispered.

  ‘When people are lonely and sad and desperate, they don’t ask too many questions,’ he said grimly. ‘They’re just grateful for a bit of kindness.’

  Frankie nodded. How often she’d seen that with the girls in care, running from one lad who mistreated them to another, looking to fill some terrible dark pit of loneliness – and then the babies, born in the hope that they’d bring a tiny bit of love into their lives. She shook her head silently. Thank god for Martin.

  The moonlight showed a single lightbulb hanging down from a kinked flex, and shadows of damp spreading dangerously across the ceiling and down the walls. She looked a little closer at a darkened patch by the window, and realised that what she’d thought of as a blotch of mildew, was actually a faded black and white photograph. She took a step closer. In the dim light, she could see it was a woman, a girl really, high-cheeked and pretty, the whole of her face filling the frame. There were white patches in her hair that she realised must be flowers. A wedding photograph.

  ‘That was his wife. She was seventeen.’ Martin put the last of the boxes on the table and came over to stand beside her. ‘Pretty, isn’t she? He got the album out one day when we were chatting. I had it framed for him as a surprise.’

  ‘What a lovely thing to do.’ The fact that she was the same age as this beautiful girl hadn’t escaped her.

  ‘Yeah, the damp’s got into the back of it and spoiled it a bit. They were married for seventy years.’

  ‘Wow.’ She couldn’t even imagine what that amount of time would look like.

  ‘That’ll be us one day.’ He paused and tickled the side of her face with one bent finger. ‘We should be going.’

  Her heart began to sing. Did he really just say that? Would that be them? She followed him out of the house as though she was walking on air. She felt like laughing and shouting up into the night sky.

  ‘I’m in the mood to celebrate.’ He offered a hand to help her through the fence. ‘Let’s go and find some place to party.’ He dipped his head, kissing her fingers and she breathed in the scent of the skin of his cheek for a second. She felt
completely intoxicated.

  ‘Where, though?’

  ‘Oh there’s loads of places. Tons of all-nighters going on.’ The cut-through led them straight onto the main road.

  ‘Just stay out, you mean?’

  ‘Why not?’ He laughed at her expression. ‘We’ve just got to get you back home before anyone’s awake, that’s all.’

  Nothing mattered apart from being here with him, right now. She didn’t care – she felt free and light and excited.

  ‘We’ll have to get some booze then. Is there somewhere near here?’

  ‘Already sorted.’ He dived into the rucksack and pulled out a bottle of wine. ‘Courtesy of the old lady’s larder.’

  ‘I thought it was all for the old guy?’ she frowned.

  ‘Aw, I left him the whiskey,’ he grinned. ‘I’m sure he’ll appreciate a tot of the hard stuff far more than a cheapo bottle of this crap. What do you think? Or do you want me to go back?’ He paused and waved the bottle towards the house.

  ‘No, no, god, no!’ she laughed pulling at his arm. ‘Waay enough drama!’

  They began to walk down the road. ‘Jesus, when that copper came over…’ She shook her head.

  ‘He had no idea though, had he?’

  ‘Who would’ve thought of standing outside a house after blagging it? That was inspired,’ she grinned.

  ‘Yeah, what house-breaker would do that? It messes with their heads, see?’ Martin laughed and tapped his temple.

  She felt as though she was brimming with good things: the excitement and magic of tonight; the joy of Martin. She squeezed his arm tighter.

  ‘Always hide in plain sight. That’s the thing; the more obvious something is, the less people see it.’ Martin chuckled as they saw a bus trundling around the corner. ‘Let’s grab this one. I think it’s going more or less where we want to go.’ She knew she’d go anywhere he asked her to. He swung the rucksack off his shoulder in readiness. ‘I once met a guy who’d just come out of the nick for breaking and entering, and he told me—D’you know the very best place to hide a key?’

  She shook her head. Just listening to him talk was enough.