This Secret We're Keeping (12 page)

And then, once again, her mind made an unexpected detour towards the little copper statue in Will’s living room.

He must look at it every day
.
Does that mean he still thinks about us?

Fortunately, Natalie’s party hadn’t so far been the sort of occasion where people stumbled into the kitchen with their eyes half shut and tried to go to the toilet in the sink (she’d catered plenty of those). As yet she’d had only a couple of interruptions – someone sticking their head round the door and asking for an orange juice, another guest complimenting her on the excellent canapés – and she hadn’t seen Will all night. Twice, she’d felt as if perhaps he was watching her; but when she’d turned round, there had been no one there.

Now, though, she did have a visitor: a dark-haired child in
a fuchsia pink dress that looked as though it was probably something to do with a Disney film. She was a perfect little princess with deep green eyes, observing Jess with innocent curiosity.

‘Hello. You must be Charlotte.’

The girl nodded shyly.

Jess smiled. ‘Pleased to meet you.’

As she crouched down to Charlotte’s height, Jess felt her damaged leg twinge, and hoped that the child didn’t recognize her from the accident. She was fairly sure that it would have been traumatic for a seven-year-old to witness, especially as she’d been marooned in the back seat of the car the whole time with nothing by way of a coherent reassurance forthcoming from any of the adults.

Searching Charlotte’s face for signs of her father, Jess could see him straight away in her eyes and her little chin. Her heart was in momentary danger of snapping in two.

The girl frowned. ‘I’m seven,’ she informed Jess. ‘And Mummy wants some more meatballs.’

Jess laughed. ‘Well, as luck would have it, I think I do have some more in here somewhere. Would you like to help me carry them through?’

The child furrowed her brow, stuck a thumb in her mouth and shook her head, which made her curls bounce gently.

‘Okay,’ Jess said. ‘Do you know what else I have up there?’ She gestured above their heads to the worktop, and Charlotte’s gaze travelled upwards to where the desserts were ready and waiting.

Jess stood up. The profiteroles, drizzled in melted couverture chocolate, were stacked tall to make their grand entrance. She lifted the platter carefully from the work surface and squatted down with it to Charlotte’s height. ‘Do you think you can take this one from the top?’

Charlotte’s eyes widened and she nodded eagerly as Jess held the platter out. With chubby fingers the little girl reached up and gingerly removed the top profiterole from the stack, not pausing as some children might have done to check if she was allowed to eat it, but stuffing the whole thing quickly into her mouth in one urgent motion. Her entire face bulged for a few moments as she worked her little jaw against the pastry and cream, the chocolate sauce making a thick dark smudge around her lips.

‘Ooh, that made a nice mess,’ Jess said with a grin, reaching up for a napkin. She squatted down again and paused as Charlotte finished chewing before drawing it gently across her face. As the child waited, her gaze lowered slightly, eventually fixing upon a dark slick of chocolate sauce that had landed squarely down the front of her dress. Instantly, she started to cry, a long, thin wail, like a cat at midnight.

‘Oh Jesus,’ Jess muttered.

‘My dress,’ she began to bawl hysterically, ‘my dress.’

A door opened behind them.

‘What’s going on?’

It was Will. He rushed straight over to Charlotte and squatted down in front of her, the handsome white knight arriving to rescue his princess. In that moment, forming a little circle on the kitchen floor, the three of them could have been mistaken for a family.

‘I’m sorry,’ Jess breathed, ‘I gave her a profiterole.’

Will snapped his head round to look at her. ‘Didn’t Natalie tell you about her allergy? She’s only supposed to eat her own food.’ His tone was thunderous, his face dark.

‘It’s okay,’ she gabbled. ‘I checked everything before –’

‘Is there any peanut in there? ANY PEANUT?’

‘No,’ she stammered. ‘No, no. None. I’m so sorry, I didn’t think …’

He didn’t look at her after that. His arms were round his daughter, who by now was wailing a continuous note at a very high pitch. ‘Hey, darling, shush. Shush. It’s okay. We’ll fix your dress.’

His comfort felt like a reproach. ‘I’m really sorry,’ Jess said again.

He still didn’t look at her. ‘Shush, darling. Shush.’

Feeling increasingly like she was intruding on a private moment, Jess stood up. ‘I think Natalie wanted more meatballs, so –’

‘Charlotte needs changing,’ Will said sharply, and for a brief, terrifying moment, Jess thought he was asking her to do it. ‘And then we need some more ice.’ Still, he wouldn’t look at her. Charlotte’s howl had now turned into dramatic, shuddering sobs.

‘It’s in the garage,’ he added and, finally, he looked up and their eyes met. ‘Take those meatballs out to Natalie, I’ll sort Charlotte out. And then I’ll come and give you a hand.’

Most
of the daylight had by now been lost, and the air was damp and cooling. The handful of guests who’d been chatting and drinking outside on the back lawn had retreated indoors, leaving footprints imprinted in the gathering dew and a smattering of empty cups on the patio.

Jess waited while Will fiddled with the key in the lock. ‘Fucking thing.’

Inside, the double garage was cool and dark, the sort of place someone might realistically need as a bolthole if they lived with a woman like Natalie. The space seemed cavernous, housing only a weights bench, Will’s car, a chest freezer and a small stack of groceries along the far wall. Jess was pleased, though, that the strong, comforting scent of damp concrete and engine grease still hung in the air. It reminded her of perching on her father’s work bench as a child, watching him painstakingly restoring his Triumph Spitfire, both of them listening to political programmes she didn’t understand on his faithful Roberts radio.

Jess let her eyes rest briefly on the groceries: curries-in-a-can, baked beans, sliced pineapple, bottled water. She guessed it was the work of Natalie; for what purpose, she couldn’t quite imagine.

As Will turned to face her at the car’s front bumper, Jess thought about complimenting him on the size of his garage to break the ice. She thought about saying sorry for Charlotte’s dress again. She thought about saying sorry for everything else.

‘We should keep the lights off,’ he said. ‘I don’t want anyone to see us.’

She nodded. ‘Okay.’

There was a brief pause.

‘Hello again,’ he said. ‘Sorry about that, with Charlotte. I panicked.’

‘No, I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. Is she okay?’

‘Of course, she just … we bought that dress especially for the party. She’s an occasion girl, like her mother.’

‘She’s beautiful,’ Jess said softly.

‘Thank you,’ he said warmly, like he somehow knew what it took for her to be gracious about it.

‘There’s a lot of people in there.’ She had the impression he was relieved to be getting some air.

‘Yeah. Natalie’s something of a fast mover – socially, I mean. I don’t know how she does it. Catered house parties aren’t really my thing. No offence,’ he added quickly. ‘Your food was the best bit. Nothing says a good party like an asparagus cigar.’

‘I think you might be the only one still sober enough to appreciate it,’ she said with a teasing smile.

‘Ah. That’s because they all got pissed on your tomato vodka. They’re a discerning lot.’

‘Vodka gazpacho shots,’ she corrected him, trying and failing to keep a straight face.

‘Well, they went down a storm, Jess. You’ll have to come again.’

There was a pause.

‘So,’ Jess said, lowering her voice, ‘what are we doing in your garage?’

‘Ice?’

‘Ice.’

Neither of them moved for a moment or two, during
which time Jess’s gaze settled on Will’s weights bench. She smiled.

‘What’s funny?’ He was watching her, amused.

‘No, nothing, it’s just …’ She let a tiny laugh escape.

Will laughed too, like it was catching, his eyes lighting up. ‘What?’

She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. ‘I noticed before that you’d –’ she puffed her cheeks out slightly and made a shrugging motion with her shoulders that was supposed to indicate upper body bulk – ‘so I was going to ask if you’d been working out.’

He laughed again, loudly. ‘Nice. The opener to beat all openers.’

‘I resisted. I’m too classy.’

‘That much I do know,’ he said with feeling. He leaned back against the chest freezer then, regarding her with soft eyes. ‘I actually had a dream about you last night.’

She said nothing, sensing from his expression that this would not be a story that came with a punchline.

‘You were sitting in my living room with Natalie, and you’d told her everything.’

‘That’s really what you think? That I’m going to tell Natalie everything?’

‘That’s what my
subconscious
thinks,’ he corrected her. ‘Look, I’d understand, in a way. You’ve got every reason to hate me.’

‘Does it seem to you like I hate you?’

He shrugged stiffly. ‘Perspectives change a lot in seventeen years. You were fifteen back then. You’re over thirty now.’

‘That doesn’t change what happened between us.’

There was a brief silence. Jess eased the weight from her right leg, feeling the blood rush and then subside to a gentle pulse.

‘And how do you see it – what happened between us? Be honest.’

She could tell that he was half expecting her to talk about a gross abuse of trust, a disgusting act of power play. ‘We fell in love,’ she whispered, looking right at him.

He exhaled sharply, like she’d just shoved a fist into his stomach. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘You really still think that?’

‘You don’t?’ she breathed, a ripple of sadness moving through her.

He kept his gaze fixed firmly on the concrete floor. ‘Well, I did. I’m not so sure any more.’

‘Why not?’ Her voice was tiny, barely audible, even in the silence.

‘Well, unfortunately that’s what a prison sentence and enforced psychological assessment does for you. Oh, and let’s not forget all the hate mail from members of the public I’d never even met.’

‘I’m sorry. I thought our plan would work. I really did.’

‘Well, of course you did,’ he said, his voice slightly dazed, ‘you were fifteen.’

‘Don’t keep saying that,’ she said, ‘like you’ve had it drilled into you. It’s crap.’

He laughed then, a proper laugh. ‘It’s crap? Would you like some selected highlights from the assassination of my character to date?’

‘No,’ she whispered.

‘I’m a monster,’ he said. ‘I’m evil. I deserve to die, to be chemically castrated. I should never be allowed near children again, never work again, never be happy again. I’m an animal, clinically insane, a danger to society. I should be locked away in prison for the rest of my life. I should never stop looking over my shoulder. I should be stabbed to death,
have my throat slit, my genitals mutilated.’ He looked at her. ‘What do you think about that?’

She shook her head, wiping away a single, silent tear that had dribbled down her cheek.

‘Or I could tell you all about what happened to me in prison, if you like? They were waiting for me, Jess. Do you want to know?’

She shook her head again, and he appeared to check himself. As a silence descended, the gloom seemed to intensify. From somewhere that sounded very far away, she could just about hear the music – ‘This Love’ by Maroon 5 – drifting towards them.

‘Sorry,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Sorry, Jess. It’s not your fault. It’s just that tonight is the first time in a while that I’ve been forced to shake hands and make small talk with strangers, and I’m terrified. I’ve literally spent the entire night hiding out in the playroom with Charlotte, telling everyone that she doesn’t want to come out, that she’s shy. No wonder my girlfriend thinks I’ve got mental health problems. I had to take a sedative just to make it downstairs tonight.’

She said nothing, waiting.

‘I thought I was ready to come back to Norfolk, Jess, and start meeting people again, but … I’m not. I’m terrified that I might bump into an old face. Or that someone could see you and me in the same room together – that it might jog a memory and they might remember something, recognize me, tell the papers. And that’s it, my life would be over. Natalie would leave, I’d lose Charlotte. Or they might … you know. Something might happen. I don’t care if they hurt me, but I love my daughter, Jess.’

I care if they hurt you
.

‘I do the same thing myself all the time,’ she told him. ‘I
think about who’s around. But there’s no one in there who knows. I promise.’

He swallowed and nodded. ‘Funny. That’s exactly what my sedative said.’

She permitted herself a careful smile at his joke. ‘Would it help … I mean, don’t take this the wrong way, but maybe you’d be better off back in London.’

‘We’ve already had that conversation,’ he said. ‘And by conversation I mean screaming row. Coming to Norfolk, doing up the house … it was Natalie’s big plan for family time. If I go back, she and Charlotte are staying and I can find somewhere else to live.’ He hesitated. ‘She puts up with a lot, you know.’

‘You really can’t tell her? She might surprise you, Will, she might understand.’ Jess swallowed. ‘She clearly loves you.’

He smiled faintly. ‘She loves who she thinks I am, and that’s not her fault because she doesn’t know that Will Greene isn’t real. For God’s sake, I chose her because she’d been in America while everything was happening. We met online, Jess: I picked her out of everybody else because I knew she’d be ignorant. I wanted to date her for the sole reason that I could lie to her more easily.’ He shook his head, like he couldn’t quite believe it himself. ‘Added to which, she campaigns for women’s rights, you know? She fundraises for Women’s Aid. She helps to run a rape crisis helpline every other weekend.’ He looked at Jess. ‘Trust me, she wouldn’t understand this.’

A moment passed.

Will frowned, working his jaw, lost in his thoughts. ‘She saved my life, actually.’

‘How … how do you mean?’ Jess asked him, her voice small.

‘She made me feel like I had a horizon again,’ he said without hesitation, as if it was something he had thought about a lot. ‘You know, like I had somewhere to look other than at my feet. I actually think … I’ve become a better person since I met her.’

From outside, they heard Maroon 5 get louder, and then a voice – not Natalie’s – calling his name. A door slammed. They both froze, waiting for the sound of footsteps crunching on gravel. None came.

‘Jess,’ Will said then, into the gathering darkness. ‘I know this is coming about seventeen years too late, but … thank you for your statement. I just wanted to say that.’

She shook her head, a rejection of his gratitude. ‘Don’t be crazy. I just told them the truth.’

‘Well, it helped me. So thank you.’

‘I’m so sorry I couldn’t be there,’ she said, her voice a rush of remorse. ‘In court. Me and Debbie were at my aunt’s in London, with my mum. She wouldn’t let me go back, not even for the sentencing. And when you went to prison … social services banned me from seeing you.’

‘Don’t apologize, Jess. Seriously, the whole thing was a big fucking mess. It must have been hell for you too.’

She could only nod, disarmed for a moment as the secret she had yet to confess to him rose rapidly in her mind once again, silent but ominous like the lick of a flame.

‘Jess.’ An expectant stillness briefly settled. ‘What happened with your mum? I mean, I read about what happened, but not … what
happened
. If that makes sense.’

‘Well, there’s not much to say, really,’ she replied, meaning only that the story wasn’t at all complex.

‘Please tell me. I need to know.’

Jess kept her eyes on the floor. ‘Okay. Well, it was … it was a Tuesday night. She’d cooked shepherd’s pie for me and
Debbie. We were all sitting round the kitchen table, listening to Jeff Buckley.’ She released a breath, slow and steady. ‘And then she just … got up and walked out of the front door.’ Swallowing, she looked up at him. ‘Me and Debbie were still eating.’

He was just watching her, saying nothing.

‘I had this strange feeling about it. It was late, dark. She hadn’t taken the car, or her wallet, or a coat.’

Silently, he reached out and took her hand, giving it a tiny squeeze and bringing tears to her eyes.

‘She’d planned the whole thing. It was a huge tide. She’d borrowed a shotgun from her friend Ray, and she just … shoved it into her mouth and pulled the trigger. We heard it from the house. So I went out to the salt marsh and found her on her back, floating in a creek.’ She shook her head, remembering the sight of it, the smell, the deathly sound of the bitter silence. ‘I mean, it didn’t really look like her, though. Her head was … well, it was obliterated, obviously. From the force of the blast. I just couldn’t grasp the fact that I’d only seen her walking around our kitchen ten minutes earlier. Still can’t, actually.’

‘What did you do?’

‘Um, I just stood there. And then I threw up all over my shoes. And then I waded in there and pulled her out.’

‘Fucking hell,’ he muttered.

She was quiet for a long time before she spoke again. ‘I think that was the beginning of the end, for me and Debbie. Life went downhill for her after that and she never really recovered from it. She blames me. Although –’ Jess paused, and looked down at where their hands were welded together – ‘I’m actually glad that it was me who found my mum, and not Debbie. I don’t think she could have handled that.’

‘Well, in fairness,’ Will said, ‘no one should have had to handle that.’

She made to nod, but she wasn’t sure if she entirely agreed. She had always partly felt that being the one to find her mum was a form of just punishment for what she had done.

‘Did she leave a note?’

Jess shook her head. ‘No. Nothing.’

‘You don’t know why … ?’

‘Well, we’d had a fight the night before. About …’ She trailed off. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘God, Jess. I blame myself. Everything that happened with us – it must have been devastating for your mum.’ His voice wavered slightly as if he was battling some deep internal pain. ‘I didn’t really realize what I’d done to you until I had a daughter of my own. I had a hard time coming to terms with that, after Charlotte was born.’

‘Don’t ever feel guilty about my mum, Will.’ Her voice grew quieter. ‘You know what she was like.’

‘Jess,’ he said, all at once abrupt like there was something he’d been trying to tell her. ‘I want you to know. I came back to find you, before –’

But then Natalie’s voice came sharply at them, a drunken bark across the lawn.

‘I should go,’ Will said, into the dark, though his fingers firmed around her hand.

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I like your garage, by the way.’

‘Oh, thanks. I’d give you a tour, but it’d be a bit bumpy.’

‘So who’s been stockpiling the non-perishables?’ she asked, nodding somewhere in the direction of the groceries. ‘Is there some impending doom I should be worrying about?’