Sworn Secret (2 page)

‘Here he comes! Like a flash of light. It’s the one, it’s the only . . . family drum roll . . . iiiiiiiiitttttttsssss
Superdad
!’ Anna cried, her smile wide across her face, as she held their dad’s arm aloft like a boxing champ.

Looming Tuesday

Jon seemed about to speak to her, so Kate dropped her eyes and turned away from him.

‘Are you coming down for breakfast, Mum?’

Kate briefly looked up at Lizzie and forced a smile. ‘In a minute,’ she whispered, still trembling from the aftershocks of Lizzie’s scream. Though the frantic fear that filled her had begun to ebb, she was still finding it terribly hard to breathe.

‘Come on you,’ Jon said to Lizzie. He walked over to their daughter and took her hand. ‘Let’s get some toast on.’

Kate waited until they’d gone down the stairs and then covered her face with her hands. She felt queasy. Unnerved and shaken. How on earth would she cope with meeting Stephen now? And she had to; this was her last chance to stop Tuesday. She’d been over the words again and again. She thought she’d mustered the strength to tell him she just couldn’t go through with it. That he’d have to cancel. She was sorry. Really sorry. She appreciated everything he’d done, but there was no way. But now, standing shivery and faint on the upstairs landing, she knew she wouldn’t get those words out. She should have told Jon how she was feeling. Stopped trying to be brave. She should have told him as soon as the doubts had begun to darken and gather. Jon would have understood, and he would have had no problem telling Stephen. Maybe she could even have painted while he did it, her thoughts safely tucked a million miles away, and when she emerged the threat of Tuesday would be gone. But instead of confiding in her husband, instead of being honest, she’d tried to be strong, pretended she was, and now, because of it, she was struck dumb with sick fear.

Kate was halfway down the stairs when the phone rang. Her immediate thought was that it was Stephen calling to cancel the meeting.

‘Oh, God, please, please, please,’ she muttered, running the remaining stairs two at a time.

Between a Rock and a Sad Face

Jon was buttering the toast when the telephone rang. He balanced the knife against the pot of butter and went to answer it just as Kate appeared at the door and grabbed for the phone.

‘Hello?’ she said urgently. Then a muted: ‘Oh.’

He guessed who it was. Kate bowed her head and held the receiver out towards him.

‘Hello, Mother,’ he said.

‘Jonathan . . .’

Her voice was weak and unsteady. His stomach turned over.

‘Is everything all right?’ he said.

She didn’t reply. He could hear she was crying. He asked her again what was wrong, but she still couldn’t speak as quiet sobs stifled her words.

‘Mother? Speak to me. What’s wrong? Is it Dad?’

‘I’d like . . . to see you,’ she managed. ‘Can . . . you come now?’

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘What’s wrong?’

No words, just soft gasps of breath.

‘Mother,’ he said, as calmly as he could. ‘Sit down and wait for me. I’ll be with you as quickly as I can.’

His knees gave a little as he replaced the phone. ‘That was my mother,’ he said to Kate, who was leafing through the pile of post, her eyes locked on the middle distance, her mouth set. Ignoring her lack of response he began to rifle through the collection of keys in the wooden bowl on the side. ‘She, um, needs to see me. Shit!’ He emptied the contents of the bowl in frustration. ‘Where are the car keys?’

‘What’s wrong with her, Dad?’

At last he found his keys. He turned to Lizzie and tried to smile. ‘I don’t know yet, sweetheart. She couldn’t really tell me.’

‘Poor Granny.’ Lizzie stood up from the kitchen table. ‘Shall I come with you?’

‘No,’ he said. He smiled another tight smile. ‘Thank you. I’m sure she’s fine.’

‘You can’t go.’

He reached for his jacket, which hung on the back of a kitchen chair and made for the door.

‘Jon,’ Kate said, stepping into his path. ‘Didn’t you hear me?’ She paused and shook her head. ‘You can’t go.’

‘I have to. You heard the conversation.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I didn’t hear the conversation, I only heard you say you’d be there as quick as you can.’

‘What if it’s my father?’ Jon said, more to himself than to her.

He rubbed a hand across his mouth as his question echoed over Kate’s silence.

‘You didn’t hear her,’ he said. ‘If you had, you’d tell me to go. She was so upset, distraught even.’ As he spoke, the dread in his stomach thickened. ‘When is she ever distraught?’

‘Maybe if it was more often she’d be more understanding of it in other people,’ Kate said with stale apathy. She went back to the post and picked up an unopened envelope.

‘I know you’re angry with her—’

Kate snorted and shook her head. He saw her eyes well. She pinched the bridge of her nose: her tried and tested way of stemming tears.

‘Something’s wrong and I need to go over there.’ He put an arm through his jacket. ‘She never cries,’ he said under his breath.

Kate walked over to the swing bin on the other side of the room and deposited the mess of junk mail and torn envelopes. ‘Stephen’s coming.’

Jon swore silently and stopped in his tracks. He turned to face his wife, but her eyes dropped away from him.

‘I’d forgotten.’

She gave a nod, heavy with I-expected-nothing-more, which rankled. He clamped his lips shut to stop himself snapping.

‘What time?’

‘Ten.’

Jon looked at the clock on the wall. ‘Half an hour. That’s OK,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back for him.’

‘You won’t.’

‘I will. Ten minutes there, ten back. I’ll spend ten minutes with her, make sure she’s OK and then get back for him.’

‘Jon,’ she said, looking directly at him, any challenge now gone, her eyes pleading with him. He had to look away.

‘I have to go,’ he said.

‘Jon . . . I can’t . . .’

‘I’ll be back,’ he said, glancing up and catching her injured look square on. ‘I—’ He stopped, interrupted by the memory of his mother crying. ‘What if it’s my father? She couldn’t even speak, Kate.’

They held each other’s gaze for a few moments. Her eyes searched his face. He knew she was waiting for him to change his mind. He stayed silent and watched her eyes harden to a familiar glaze. She nodded once and turned towards the sink. He watched her roughly put the plug in, turn the taps on, squeeze too much Fairy into the water.

‘It’s fine. It doesn’t need both of us.’ She forced the words out of her like a stubborn splinter.

He hesitated, but again he heard his mother’s crying. ‘I’ll be half an hour. OK?’

Kate fixed her eyes on the suddy water and didn’t say anything more.

The Fourth Chair

Lizzie grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl, went through to the living room and sat in the armchair beside the window to watch the rainy street for her dad’s car. It was three minutes to ten and there was no sign of him. He was usually pretty good at keeping promises, but even she knew he was going to struggle to get to her grandparents’ and back in time, especially if her grandmother was as upset as he’d said. She hoped it wasn’t anything too serious. She was pretty sure it wasn’t her grandpa, not dead anyway; her dad would definitely have called them by now.

She sighed and took a large bite out of her apple. She didn’t want to be there, but she couldn’t let her mum be alone for the meeting with Dr Howe, even though she couldn’t bear the thought of it.

‘Come on, Dad,’ she whispered, craning her neck to look down the road.

He wasn’t going to make it. She lifted her apple but hesitated before she bit, then decided against it. She put it on the window sill and then pulled her knees up to her chest, listening to the sounds coming from the kitchen – the boiling kettle, clinking crockery, biscuits tipping onto a plate – and tried not to let the living room get to her. She hated the room. So miserably gloomy. It never used to be; just another thing morphed by crippling sadness. Ironic, she thought, that it was called the living room, when it felt like the complete opposite. She was never comfortable in the room now, not even on those rare evenings when the three of them sat and stared at the television make-believing they were spending quality time together. It was that spot on the mantelpiece. The new and hideous heart of the room. Lizzie never looked anywhere near it, terrified in case she saw the urn still there.

She rested her chin on her knees and felt the rough graze of the large scab she had. She lifted her head and looked down at it, deep and crusted, the surface beginning to crack with healing, new skin beneath literally itching to break free. She was far too old for scabs. This wasn’t even a grown-up version, a graze from tripping in the street or falling up a step, no, this was falling off a swing. She’d tried to jump off when the bell rang for the end of break, and landed right on her knees. It was the most painful thing ever, totally made worse by a couple of Year Sevens who laughed and pointed like idiot hyenas. At least she’d managed not to cry. Now Lizzie picked at the edge of it with a tentative fingernail, which was a welcome distraction from the chill around her.

‘Do you want me to get that?’ she called, when the doorbell rang a few minutes later.

There was no reply, but she heard her mum’s footsteps in the hall, so stayed where she was and looked back out of the window. There was still no dad to be seen, and a heavy weight fell down on top of her.

When Dr Howe came into the living room she was polite enough to say a brief hello to his, but didn’t engage any further. It felt too weird. It was bad enough that her mum and dad were on first-name terms with the man, without her having to endure his forced chat. It wasn’t that she didn’t like Dr Howe; in fact, she wished she felt warmer towards him, especially given the support he’d been to her parents. She just would have preferred he didn’t constantly pop up in her actual home like some sort of bizarre, besuited jack-in-a-box. Violated was too strong a word, but she definitely felt compromised by his visits.

Dr Howe was tall, very tall, and his tallness made their living room feel even smaller than it was. There was just enough room for the two-seater sofa, the armchair, TV and the small circular table with four chairs, but not really enough for the glass coffee table squished into its middle or the sideboard that held the CD player and a vase of immortal silk sweet peas, and with Dr Howe looming in the doorway the room felt like Lilliput. He was also broad, with the air of a retired Olympic rower. His eyes were Swedish-blue, his teeth too white and too straight, and his dark hair was grey only at the sideburns. He always wore a navy suit, which that day went over an open-necked shirt that looked uncomfortably casual. Lots of the girls at school said they fancied him. She’d even heard Anna call him
kinda hot
. But they were talking in tongues. He was their headmaster; he couldn’t be any sort of hot, and he shouldn’t be in her living room.

‘Goodness me,’ he said, brushing rain off his shoulders. ‘Cats and dogs out there!’ He smiled at them both.

‘I’m afraid Jon can’t join us,’ said her mum. ‘There’s been an emergency.’

His eyes hooded with concern and he stopped brushing off the rain. ‘Nothing serious, I hope?’

Her mum ignored his probe. ‘Lizzie’s going to join us instead. She had a bit of a shock this morning.’

‘I’m fine,’ Lizzie mumbled, wishing her mum hadn’t mentioned her.

‘Delighted for her to sit in.’

Dr Howe gave Lizzie a wide smile showing all of his teeth. She felt her cheeks flush.

Her mum sat down at the small table with the four chairs where they used to eat their meals. Lizzie couldn’t remember the last time they had. Eating was mostly a routineless mixture of standing in the kitchen or on laps in front of the television. The problem was the fourth chair. As soon as they sat it screamed loud as a klaxon, far too loud for them to enjoy a conversation. Or even eat. The fourth chair made swallowing difficult, which left over-chewed food in her mouth like lead. Of course, it wasn’t just the fourth chair. There were stacks of reminders: the ever-closed door of her bedroom, their old and rusted swing in the garden that creaked with the memories of childhood games, her name carved into the damp plaster on the garage wall, and the spot behind the compost (two steps to the north, one to the west) where a box was buried with some Jelly Tots, a pair of tiny Barbie shoes, a cotton hankie and a book of matches from Bertolli’s down the road, all waiting patiently for a lucky prospector from the future. It was an endless list of foghorns all shrieking: ‘She’s gone! She’s gone! She’s gone!’

Dr Howe sat on the fourth chair and Lizzie closed her eyes as the two of them began to engage in empty small talk, with Dr Howe asking inane questions and her mum delivering clipped one-word answers. Then the discussion appeared to run out of steam. Lizzie opened her eyes and turned to look at them. Dr Howe was watching her mum, waiting for a reply, it seemed. He cleared his throat, but her mum just stared through him, her eyes glazed. Dr Howe glanced downwards at the open file in front of him.

‘So,’ he said, clearing his throat. ‘I think we’re almost there. There’s just a few final—’

‘Actually, Stephen,’ interrupted her mum quietly. ‘There’s something I need to say.’

He rested his hand on the open file. ‘Yes?’

‘Well . . . it’s . . .’ Lizzie looked up in alarm; her mum was about to cry. ‘I . . .’ Her voice trailed off to nothing.

‘Is everything OK, Kate?’ Dr Howe’s voice was creamy with concern.

Her mum looked up at him. Her mouth opened then closed a couple of times.

‘Mum?’

Her mum turned towards her and seemed surprised to see her there. Lizzie smiled. Her mum looked down at her lap. ‘Nothing,’ she whispered. ‘Carry on.’

They started talking again, their voices low, his laced with efficiency, her mother’s muttered syllables distinctly reticent.

Lizzie started to pick at her scab again and tried to think of her sister, tried to magic up a gorgeous memory of the two of them together. Maybe it was being in the ghastly living room, or her mum and Dr Howe’s soft, serious voices, but there were no gorgeous memories at all. All Lizzie could think of was her lack of Anna, the lack of her that sat in the fourth chair, that creaked the swing, that made her mum cry and her dad look shattered. The lack of her that set those strangers whispering whenever Lizzie walked past.