The Secret

by Debbie Howells

  There’s a frown on her face. ‘I just saw Hollie running across the garden.’

  I look away. ‘Yeah. She suddenly remembered something she had to do.’

  My mother gives me an odd look. ‘Be careful, Niamh. I know you and Hollie are close, but there’s something going on. I’m worried about her.’

  My mother is now an expert on Hollie? I don’t think so.

  In the doorway, she hesitates. ‘Did you hear anything last night? Outside?’

  ‘No. Why?’

  ‘It’s just that someone slashed your father’s tyres.’

  I frown. ‘Who would do that?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’ She hovers.

  I raise my eyebrows at her. ‘I have homework,’ I say pointedly.

  Heat rises in my cheeks as she glances towards my unopened schoolbooks. ‘No doubt you do.’ Her voice is cool. ‘In that case, I’ll let you get on.’

  Chapter Five

  Elise

  In this house of charades, Niamh pretends to do her homework while I arrange the rest of the flowers, then start dinner for my disunited family. On the outside looking in, there’s nothing to set us apart from anyone else: soft grey curtains are drawn against the darkness, the smell of caramelising onions fills the house, the serene sound of Classic FM floats in the air, the teenaged daughter reluctantly studies in her bedroom, the wife cooks dinner for the doctor husband, who’ll soon be home after another day of healing people. Ludicrous façades when, underneath, we barely speak to each other.

  For a moment I imagine a different kind of life – one with honesty, laughter, and lightness, where love is demonstrated, not withheld or wielded with intent. My daydream is interrupted by the sound of a car outside. It pauses and a door slams before it drives away, the sound of footsteps on gravel drawing nearer. When the back door opens, it’s clear the day hasn’t improved Andrew’s mood. If anything, it’s worse.

  ‘You’re early.’ I’m icily polite, imagining he’s been stood up by his lover. He wouldn’t be here otherwise.

  ‘Hardly,’ he snaps. ‘But I might have been, if I hadn’t had to sort the car out.’

  ‘Is it fixed?’

  ‘For Christ’s sake,’ he bellows. ‘Didn’t you see it when you came in? You don’t give a shit, Elise. Why are there flowers everywhere?’

  Because there is more to life than vile deception and anger. Remember beauty, Andrew? How the gentlest of touches feels? How it is to love and be loved?

  ‘I wanted to cheer up the house. You know I hate winter. Dinner will be about twenty minutes.’ Speaking as calmly as I can, I go to the fridge and pour a glass of white wine, but he’s already storming through to the living room. He comes back seconds later, slamming something down on the counter behind me; I hear the splintering of glass.

  ‘Can’t we have one fucking room without fucking flowers?’ As he marches out, I turn to see the vase that used to belong to my grandmother, its crystal dulled by age. There’s a jagged crack down one side, from which water is seeping. It pools on the counter before running onto the floor.

  Ripping out the flowers I arranged only a little while ago, I drop them on the worktop, then empty the vase and throw it away, trying to ignore my rush of anger. The flowers are still scattered and my fury with my husband barely muted by the time Niamh comes downstairs. Her cool eyes skim over the stems before settling on me, her face impenetrable. I wonder if she heard the way Andrew spoke to me just now, or the shattering of glass. Of course she did. How could she possibly not have?

  ‘Can you lay the table, honey?’ My tone is light.

  Without speaking, Niamh sets three places at the kitchen table then fetches the peppermill and water glasses.

  ‘Do you have much homework?’

  ‘Not really.’ Niamh’s voice is expressionless as she comes over and peers into the pan I’m stirring.

  It pulls at my heartstrings to see her like this, to know that the poisonous exchanges between me and Andrew reach her ears, too. ‘Pork,’ I tell her, suddenly aching for connection, for a joking aside, an affectionate exchange, but Niamh and I are not like that. She’s inherited the same detached coldness that’s my defence against Andrew. ‘Would you like to tell him it’s ready?’

  Without speaking, Niamh wanders out of the kitchen to find her father, and I wonder what’s going through her mind as I start serving food onto plates. She comes back then, followed by Andrew. After pouring himself a glass of wine, he picks up a plate and a fork and goes back to the living room.

  It’s a pattern I’ve grown used to, but today rage flares inside me at his deliberate contempt. Stifling the urge to tell him what I think, I take the two remaining plates over to the table as Niamh joins me. Sitting there, picking at my food, I watch her eat. I’m filled with resentment that Andrew’s behaviour dominates everything in this house – including Niamh. He doesn’t care about either of us.

  Until now, I’ve forced myself to tolerate his behaviour, wanting to hold our marriage together for Niamh, believing it’s better for her that Andrew and I are together, hoping that he might miraculously change. I’ve refused to accept that he isn’t going to, because once I do that, I become a woman who knowingly chooses to remain in an abusive marriage.

  So you’re not denying it? That Andrew’s bullied away what love there was, betrayed your trust. How much longer can you keep this up? There is only contempt between you. He doesn’t care about your marriage any more than you do.

  For the first time I see myself as others might see me, and something snaps. After eating, I wait for Niamh to go up to her bedroom, for the sound of her TV to filter through her cracked-open door, and then I go to find Andrew in the living room.

  It’s a large room with high ceilings and a row of three sash windows that look out onto the garden. He’s slouched on the sofa, his empty plate on the coffee table, his shoes kicked off, his attention focused on his phone. In the home we share, having eaten the meal I cooked for him, he’s blatantly ignoring me and texting her.

  Pushing the door closed behind me, I walk over and stand in front of him.

  ‘Not now,’ he says sharply.

  ‘Yes now.’ I don’t budge. ‘For fuck’s sake, Andrew. Why are we doing this?’

  As he laughs cynically, I stare at him, trying to discern even the faintest trace of the man I fell in love with twenty years ago. But he doesn’t exist anymore. ‘Oh, I think you know the answer to that.’

  Leaning down, I snatch his phone away. ‘The very least you could do is show me some respect,’ I hiss, keeping my voice low to prevent Niamh from hearing. ‘I know you don’t care about me, but what about Niamh? She sees the way you treat me. She sees everything. You could make an effort for once, for her sake, instead of texting one of your sluts.’ The word is unfamiliar on my tongue, but I’m driven by the desire for a reaction from him.

  Standing up, he twists his phone out of my hand. ‘You have no idea what you’re talking about.’

  His words are loaded with contempt and I stand there a moment longer, unfairness washing over me, followed by frustration that we can’t even hold a civil conversation, before I give up and walk away. On my way back to the kitchen, I glimpse a movement at the top of the stairs and look up to catch the back of Niamh’s head before she closes her bedroom door. If there was any closeness between us, I would go up there and talk to her, reassure her that everything’s fine, that Andrew’s just cross about what happened to the car tyres this morning. We could even laugh about it – a shared moment between a mother and her daughter. We both know what he’s like.

  But as well as fuelling self-doubt, my abusive marriage has destroyed our mother–child relationship. I can’t lie to her, can’t tell her platitudes that neither of us believe, because Niamh’s smart and she’d see through it. She knows what’s going on, but we’re too distanced for me to talk to her about it. Far easier for us both to extend this silence.

  Niamh

  My parents’ marriage falls another step to
wards ruin, and I wonder again why they stay together. But, as always, my mother says nothing.

  I don’t see Hollie again until Saturday, when she comes over after making sure my parents won’t be there. Her eyes hold mine, making contact yet telling me nothing.

  ‘D’you want a Coke?’ When she nods, I get a couple from the fridge, passing one to her.

  She pulls out one of the kitchen chairs and perches on it. ‘I don’t know what to do.’ For once, she isn’t theatrical. ‘Too many things are too wrong.’

  Not sure what to say, I watch her.

  ‘Do you really know your dad?’ Her eyes are huge. ‘Or your mum? Like, really know? Do you ever think they might be this person with all this stuff in their life they’ve been hiding from you?’

  I’m silent. There’s so much my parents don’t say. I try not to think about it.

  ‘If I tell you …’ Hollie’s bottom lip wobbles as she goes on. ‘You have to swear, Niamh. On your life. You can’t tell anyone. Not ever.’

  I stare at her. Is she actually going to tell me? ‘I swear.’

  Hollie’s eyes dart around, and then she blurts out. ‘I’ve found out something about my dad.’

  I take a swig of Coke. ‘What about him?’

  I wait for her to tell me, but then she changes her mind. ‘I can’t.’ She puts down her can.

  ‘But you’ve started. And it can’t be that bad …’ It’s so annoying when she does this.

  She gazes at me for a moment and I look for the answer in the depths of her wide brown eyes. The horror, sadness, sense of betrayal she feels are all there, clear as day, but she breaks our connection as she jumps up.

  ‘Let’s get out of here.’

  ‘Hollie, it’s raining. And there isn’t anywhere to go.’

  ‘I know somewhere,’ she says as she pulls on her jacket and does up her boots.

  There’s nowhere around here – just scattered big houses behind garden walls and a village church – but under her spell, I pull on my boots and follow her.

  There’s a rawness in the air as we step outside. Hollie’s introspective mood is replaced by recklessness as she runs across the garden into the lane.

  ‘Wait …’ Zipping up my jacket, I run after her. ‘Where are we going?’

  She doesn’t answer me, instead hissing, ‘Oh my God … Ida Jones has seen us. Run!’

  As I glance at Ida’s window, I see that she seems to be beckoning me. Pausing, I’m momentarily torn between finding out what she wants and following Hollie’s retreating figure. Deciding to follow my friend, I break into a run.

  Catching up to her, we turn up Furze Lane side by side, moving past the row of terraced flint cottages with their small, dimly lit windows, and coils of wood smoke coming from the chimneys. Further on, beneath tall trees on either side, the lane narrows before there’s a left-hand bend, looping it back towards the village. Most of the lanes in our village are single tracks off which large houses are set back, hidden behind walls and hedges, their gardens mostly obscured from one another.

  ‘Over here.’ Hollie points towards a metal farm gate, the top bar of which is wrapped in barbed wire. Undeterred, she climbs over into a field, waiting for me to join her before heading towards the middle of the thick grass. ‘There’s a back way.’

  My head fills with questions, but I don’t ask any of them. Being with Hollie is like how it always was with Dylan – an escape into a world so different from mine that I don’t question anything, just let myself be swept along with her.

  At the other side of the field, there’s a post and rail fence, which we slip through.

  ‘This way.’ Hollie skips through an orchard where most of last year’s apples lie rotting underfoot. As we reach the other side, she stops and gestures dramatically at the stark hedges, beyond which a sweep of lawn slopes uphill towards Deeprose House. Set behind heavy gates and high stone walls, it can’t be seen from the road. ‘Crazy, isn’t it?’ She shakes her head. ‘The Penns have a place like this, but they’re not even here half the time.’

  If I had a house like this, I’d never want to leave it. The gardens have a wildness about them, from being untouched, and there are dead flowers and fallen leaves everywhere I look. As I glance towards the house, taking in its cold walls and dark windows, I shiver. ‘We shouldn’t be here, Hollie.’ Gazing at the windows, I imagine someone watching us. ‘If someone’s there, they’ll easily see us.’

  She stares. ‘No-one’s home. The Penns are away for three weeks.’

  Suddenly, I’m freaked out. ‘Why have we come here?’

  But it’s as if someone’s walked over her grave. There’s a look of desolation on Hollie’s face. ‘Let’s go,’ she mumbles, turning back towards the field.

  I’ve no desire to change her mind. Spooked by the empty house and the darkening sky, I follow.

  *

  When we get home, my father’s car is in the drive. Refusing to come in, Hollie runs off up the lane.

  Chapter Six

  Elise

  On the way to Stephanie’s salon on Monday morning, I’m curious to know what she might have heard about Andrew. Villages like ours are hotbeds for gossip, but as she starts on my hair I get the sense that she’s distracted, our conversation stilted until I ask her a direct question.

  ‘Tell me, Stephanie. Do you like living here?’

  ‘Like?’ She looks surprised. ‘Of course I do. It’s a lovely place, don’t you think?’ Her words aren’t convincing.

  ‘No.’ I’ve no reason to lie to her. ‘It’s pretty enough, but it’s too quiet. And I can’t bear the gossip.’ I watch her face in the mirror. ‘Though I suppose as a hairdresser, you’re the agony aunt for all the local villages.’

  ‘It can be a bit like that.’ She hesitates, her face seeming too close. ‘I don’t much like it, either, if I’m honest. You’d be surprised what people say sometimes.’

  ‘I don’t think I would.’ My expectations of human nature are not high. ‘I try to stay away from most of the gossip.’

  ‘It isn’t so easy in here.’ Stephanie’s voice is flat. ‘People come in and like to make out that their lives are perfect, when I happen to know that most of them are not. But then …’ She pauses. ‘Most of us don’t want the world to know about the less-than-perfect parts of ourselves – or our lives. By the time you reach our age, you become expert at hiding them, don’t you?’

  As our eyes meet in the mirror, a slight frown crosses her face and I wonder if she’s talking about herself or me. ‘Is everything OK?’

  ‘No different to any other family with a wayward teenaged daughter!’ She pretends to make light of it, but a worried look crosses her face. ‘Not always easy, is it?’

  ‘No.’ I’ve often wondered how Hollie felt about her father remarrying so soon after they’d lost her mother. On the brink of asking Stephanie if she’s heard any rumours about Andrew, I change my mind. As it always does, fear gets in my way that it would get back to him.

  *

  I rarely sleep well and after an early start yesterday for work, I’m exhausted when my alarm goes off on Wednesday morning. The room is in darkness and Andrew doesn’t stir as I shower and dress. I wonder how it feels to have no conscience. Pulling a cardigan on over my uniform, I tiptoe downstairs, glancing towards Niamh’s room, hoping I haven’t disturbed her.

  In the kitchen, I glance at the clock. It’s nearly six, giving me time to make a mug of tea and a bowl of muesli, a tenuous layer of peace settling around me that comes from the certainty that it’s too early to be interrupted by Andrew. Unable to stop my mind from wandering, I imagine how different this house would be, how free my life would feel, without him.

  Having finished my muesli, I check my schedule on my phone. I’m rostered on a flight to Athens. At this time of year, it should be an easy day with only a few passengers, on their way to a beautiful place where the winter sun shines, where life could be so different. A yearning fills me to be free of my life here – of
Andrew – followed by a grim determination. I need to get through these intolerable years and let Niamh grow up, while doing my best to mute the effect her father has on her.

  It’s still pitch-dark as I go outside and get into my car. Starting the engine, I let it idle while the layer of ice on the windscreen clears before setting off down the drive. When I turn onto the lane, frost sparkles in the beam from my headlights as they pick up an otherworldly landscape, one in which each branch of every tree is dusted white where freezing fog has touched it, the grass verges glinting silver.

  Reaching the main road, I glance at the road sign. The airport is clearly marked, ten miles away, to the left. But this morning, there’s something else I need to do. Slowing down and pulling over, I pick up my phone and make a call. Then flicking on my indicator and pulling out, I turn right.

  *

  With the disruption caused by ice and snow, my schedule changes at short notice and on Thursday, my flight is cancelled. That I am at home that evening, instead of conveniently out of his way, means the tension between me and Andrew escalates.

  ‘I thought you were in Zurich tonight.’ When he comes in, he doesn’t attempt to hide his irritation. As always, he gives no thought to Niamh. Home early, he’d clearly planned to shower and change before going out again, leaving her here alone.

  ‘My flight was cancelled because of the weather. Does it make any difference to anything?’ It’s an innocent enough question but he chooses not to answer, instead storming upstairs and reappearing ten minutes later wearing different clothes. Grabbing his jacket, he walks out without speaking to me. When I hear a car pull up outside minutes later, my heart sinks as I imagine Andrew coming back for some reason, preparing myself for another verbal onslaught, but instead, there’s a knock at the door.