This Secret We're Keeping (30 page)

Something about the way he said this made Jess suspect the breakage might not have been a one-off. ‘Has it broken before?’

He laughed softly and scratched his chin. ‘Um, yeah. Fourteen times.’

She stared at him, incredulous. ‘You’ve mended it fourteen times?’

‘Well, I’ve glued it,’ he said. ‘Which basically involves being a bit too heavy-handed, fucking it up and sticking bits of myself to the table.’ He hesitated. ‘Not on purpose, obviously.’

Fourteen times. It means that much to you.

‘It was just bad luck that it broke the other night then,’ Jess said. ‘If it wasn’t the first time, I mean. Not a bad omen after all.’

He smiled in agreement, and there followed a light pause. ‘So … Sunday lunch,’ she said, an attempt at a change of subject, though she could tell he was still half thinking about Mr Robbins.

‘Natalie’s idea of heaven, mine of hell,’ he said, rubbing his chin. ‘Usually prefer to sweat my heatwaves out in the privacy of the back garden. Without the aid of a carvery roast and a climbing frame crawling with ADHD.’

She knew what he meant. Coming here on a sunny Sunday lunchtime seemed only one step removed from spending the morning in a soft-play centre with a raging tequila hangover.

She smiled at him. ‘You’re secretly annoyed you can’t swing from the monkey bars, aren’t you?’

He shrugged and slid her a sideways glance. ‘Well, I can always sneak back and do it later. You can join me if you like.’

A waitress rushed past them then from outside, making them both jump. She was staggering beneath a tower of empty plates so tall they almost reached her chin.

Will held Jess in his gaze for a moment before nodding in the direction of the beer garden. ‘So how’s it going out there? With your Spaniard,’ he added with a loose smile for clarity, though she knew he’d meant Zak.

For a moment Jess had no idea how to respond. Irrationally enough, spending time with Zak had already started to feel a bit too much like betraying Will.

‘I mean, he’s not technically Spanish. Only on paper, fifty per cent. It doesn’t really count,’ she ended up mumbling lamely.

He paused, as if trying to decipher the strange language she’d just been speaking. Abandoning the effort, he moved on. ‘And your sister – Christ, I haven’t seen Debbie since I had to give her detention for being menacing in charge of a lacrosse stick.’

Jess smiled weakly and a silence settled between them.

‘Sorry to labour a point,’ Will said then, ‘but how exactly is it going with you and Zak?’ His eyes were wide. ‘I mean, don’t get me wrong, I am fully aware that I’m not in a position to even ask you that. Just … humour me.’

She stared at him, inviting an explanation.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘After Steve – and with Charlotte playing outside – I’ve been glued to the window for the past twenty minutes. Watching you was compulsive viewing, I’m afraid. Didn’t want to look but couldn’t quite help myself.’

‘Creep,’ she offered, smiling to let him know she was joking.

There was a pause like a held breath.

‘I think about you all the fucking time.’

For a moment, Jess just stared at him, unable to speak.

‘I have no idea what you want me to do with that,’ she said eventually, trying to prevent herself from welling up.

He swallowed and nodded. ‘Well, that makes two of us, Jess.’

‘Are you asking me to leave him? Do you want me to tell you to leave Natalie?’

‘
Fuck
.’ He turned his back to her then, putting both hands to the top of his head in an expression of pure frustration. He stayed like that for a few seconds, breathing hard, while Jess attempted not to be distracted by an oversized gilt-framed watercolour to her right that depicted a pack of beagles tearing a terrified-looking fox into pieces.

Eventually he turned round. ‘Look, this is none of my
business. You can go out with whoever you want, of course you can. I’m just going to go back to my table and finish my lunch, and you should do the same. Ignore me, I’m sorry, I’m acting like a twat.’

He wasn’t angry with her, she realized. He was angry with himself.

‘It doesn’t have to be this way,’ she said, her voice soft. ‘Zak’s going back to London tonight. Maybe we can …’

‘Don’t, Jess,’ he said, cutting her off sharply. ‘Go back to your lunch. Eat your baguette, talk to your sister, spend time with your boyfriend. That’s what summers are for. You deserve it.’

Do I?
she wondered.
Would you still say that if you knew what I’d done?

But just as that familiar little shiver of sadness and shame began to rise once more inside her chest, Zak wandered through the front door and came to an abrupt halt in front of them both.

‘Hello again,’ he said, tilting his head at Will and speaking in the manner of a Crown Court barrister warming up to decimate the witness box. ‘Will Greene, isn’t it?’

‘Now heading off, I’m afraid,’ Will muttered, at the same time as Jess grabbed Zak’s elbow to try and steer him back outside.

‘Don’t be daft, mate,’ Zak said, shaking Jess off. ‘Come out and join us. No good hiding in here on a nice day like this.’

Will regarded him steadily. ‘Thanks anyway, but I was just leaving.’

‘You know,’ Zak said, taking a step forward, hands in his pockets, oh-so-casual and wearing a self-satisfied little smile, like he knew something they didn’t, ‘I still can’t think where I know you from.’

Will swallowed. ‘Then you probably don’t. Excuse me.’

Zak put out a hand. ‘Oh, hold on! Sorry – you look like you can’t wait to get out of here – but I’ve been thinking perhaps you could help me with something.’

Jess’s heart began to pound. She didn’t dare to imagine what Zak was about to say next.

‘Did Jess ever show you that bastard leg injury of hers?’

‘Zak,’ Jess said, her voice rigid with fear, ‘shut up. Come on.’

‘We really don’t know each other that well,’ Will said. ‘Sorry. I can’t help you.’

‘Oh, that’s funny,’ Zak said. ‘Because you two seem to have your heads together every time I see you.’

There was a dangerous pause.

Will took a single step towards Zak. ‘Maybe, if you’ve got something to say, you should just come out and say it. I’m here with my family having lunch, so I really don’t have time to piss about.’

‘But you have time to chat up my girlfriend?’

His accusation hung in the air for about five seconds and then, from out of nowhere, Zak followed it up by throwing his fist against Will’s jaw. Jess registered a collective gasp from four generations of the same family frozen in shock just outside the front doorway, no doubt arriving for a nice civilized Sunday lunch without anticipating the forced digestion of actual bodily harm before they’d even seen the menu.

Will’s reply to Zak’s provocation was swift. Muttering, ‘This won’t take long,’ in the direction of their aghast audience, he delivered a hefty punch to the centre of Zak’s face, the force of which sent Zak staggering backwards through the open doorway on to the gravel drive. As he struggled to
regain his balance, Will advanced. Jess tried to grab his arm and pull him away, but he shrugged her off.

Zak put one hand to his face and raised the other in a quick, reluctant surrender. ‘Fucking hell,’ he spluttered at Will through the torrent of blood streaming from his nose, ‘okay, okay.’

‘Okay?’ Will hovered for just a couple of seconds more before turning away and heading wordlessly past Jess, back inside.

Jess stared at Zak. Blood was dripping through his fingers and landing in fat crimson splats on the gravel. ‘Fucking animal,’ he heaved.

‘You started it, mate,’ someone called out. Their little audience had expanded now, and with it came a line of raised smartphones, held steadily up in the air like lighters at a Coldplay concert.

‘Yeah, all right,’ Zak spat out in the direction of the voice, still holding his face together with one hand. ‘Thanks for that. Fucking dickhead. Go back to your fucking lunch.’

Despite her own anger, Jess leaned over him. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Call the police.’

‘We can’t,’ she said, beginning to panic that Zak might not be the only one to have had that particular brainwave. ‘You started it. They were all filming you.’

She managed to convince Zak to stay put while she went to fetch Debbie, who thankfully had been oblivious to the whole drama, concentrating instead (her jaw set in disgust) on the sight of a nearby mother who was allowing her children to run laps of the beer garden wearing only their pants.

By the time Jess had persuaded her sister to part with the
remainder of her lunch – though Debbie did insist on necking the last of the wine before they left – there was no sign of Charlotte anywhere, and Will’s car had disappeared. For once, she felt grateful that she’d missed him.

Zak headed back to London with Debbie just after seven. Jess had spent the rest of the day trying to get her sister to shut up about Zak’s nasal injury, while Zak occupied himself by sulking in front of the mirror, rearranging his hair to divert attention from his bright pink punch mark and pretending he was going to call the police. When that didn’t make him feel any better, he attempted to repair his battered ego by ardently making a play for Jess whenever her sister left the room.

While Debbie waddled to and from the car with her multiple bags, gabbing on about the estate agent who was coming round on Tuesday to value the cottage, Zak – who though slightly more charming than Debbie was no less exasperating – wrapped his arms round Jess and whispered into her hair, ‘Move to London with me, Jessica. Please. It’ll be perfect, I promise.’

‘I need some time to think,’ she replied, pulling back from him, wondering if it was normal to view a fist fight as the prerequisite for a fresh start.

He looked at her like she’d just turned down the offer of a trolley dash around Louis Vuitton. ‘
Cariño
,’ he said. ‘Tell me you’re not still pissed off about that dickhead at the pub?’

She had to admire his attempt to brazen it out, pretending that Will’s right hook to his face had been nothing more than a heated exchange of words over a spilt pint of lager.

‘No,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘London … it’s a big decision, Zak. We’ve talked about this. You’d better go.’ She
shifted uncomfortably from his grasp, not wanting to get drawn into any more discussion about it.

‘All right,’ he said, feigning deference by delivering a chaste kiss to her cheek. ‘But I’m not going to give up, Jess. You do know that, don’t you?’ And though there was a twinkle to his eye, the veneer of a jocular grin on his face, there was something about his expression that was almost daring her to underestimate him.

It made her strangely nervous.

He squeezed her hand then, slightly more firmly than he needed to, and headed outside to wait for Debbie.

Despite the fact that he’d seemed to be hovering pretty close to the truth, Jess was still convinced that no one had actually told Zak about Will mowing her down with his car last month. Self-restraint in the face of damning evidence was simply not Zak’s style – had he known the facts, he’d have speed-dialled the police within minutes, hungry for blood in the manner of Ian last summer when some teenagers tried to ride their bikes near his special edition Mondeo.

Debbie pulled Jess in for a hug on her way out. Jess noticed she’d combed her hair, changed her smock top and reapplied her Dior Poison for the ride home.

‘Listen,’ Jess said as Debbie deposited a couple of half-hearted air kisses somewhere near her face, ‘Zak doesn’t know anything.’

‘Hmm?’ Debbie pulled back. ‘What do you mean?’

‘About the past. Our past. My past. He doesn’t know anything and I’d like to keep it that way.’ She simply couldn’t risk him putting two and two together about Will.

Debbie pushed a stubborn clump of fringe out of her eyes. ‘Well,
I’m
not going to be the one to tell him. I find the whole thing embarrassing, frankly.’

Jess swallowed and looked down at Smudge, who was making anxious herding circuits of their legs.

‘Come on,’ Debbie said. ‘Tell me now while he’s outside, quickly. Who-the-fuck is Will Greene, and why were they fighting?’

Clearly Zak – probably for reasons relating to personal pride – had not yet succumbed to Debbie’s repeated requests for information, and Jess wasn’t about to either. ‘He’s no one,’ Jess said. ‘I don’t know. Who knows?’ Her words came out scattered, like she’d plucked them from her mind and thrown them haphazardly into the air.

Debbie exhaled. ‘Ok-ay!’ she sing-songed, like she was personally of the opinion that Jess was nuts, a view that Jess thought to be slightly ironic. ‘Don’t forget the estate agent on Tuesday. Don’t go out or anything. This is really important.’

‘Thanks for reminding me.’

‘It’s nothing personal,’ Debbie threw back at her smugly, which Jess concluded was exactly the same sort of bullshit platitude as used by bankers when they were running around firing each other for cocking up the Libor.

‘Look, Debbie,’ Jess said then, thinking that she might as well throw her pitiful hand of cards down on the table, ‘I’m not planning on moving in with Zak, okay? So don’t spend the whole journey back to London going on at him about it. Just leave it alone. Things between us are … they’re complicated at the moment.’

‘So make them simpler,’ Debbie clipped. ‘Stop trying to do everything from opposite ends of the motorway.’

As her sister turned to go, Jess picked up a wodge of business cards from the sideboard and handed them to her, desperate to salvage if she could at least one positive thing from the weekend. ‘Look, if you come across anyone who needs catering … I’m willing to travel.’

Debbie looked doubtful. ‘You know, no offence, but I normally recommend my woman from Chigwell. She’s a bit more of what I’d call a … classic cook.’

‘Oh, really?’ Jess mumbled, trying not to feel humiliated. ‘What sort of thing?’

‘Well, you know. All the favourites. She does a really great sausage roll.’

The call came at midnight.

At first, all she could hear was the gusting sound of a stiff breeze.

Then came his voice. ‘Jess. Fancy a swim? The water is warm as fuck.’