This Secret We're Keeping (37 page)

If sorry is all she wants, just swallow your pride and play along. Think of Jess. Just do it.

I forced my mouth to form the words. ‘I’m sorry.’ I felt like I was gagging on a particularly repulsive foodstuff, like undercooked egg or a forkful of mollusc. Dry and at a higher pitch than was strictly acceptable, it didn’t even sound like my own voice, but Sonia didn’t seem to mind. In fact, she looked positively gleeful.

‘
Are
you?’ she said, folding her arms, enjoying every second. ‘How sorry, Mr Landley?’

I should have known that it wouldn’t be as simple as just saying the words and booting her off my property, but still I clung to the idea that if I just played along, I could get hold of that camera and regain the upper hand. I could always pour salt into her tea on Monday morning, let her car tyres down at lunchtime, accidentally trip her up as she walked back from supervising detention. The potential for inflicting a long, slow campaign of needling revenge was infinite, I told myself.
Infinite.

So I swallowed. ‘Really sorry.’

‘Yeah?’

I nodded. My mouth was annoyingly dry.
Okay, you’ve got what you wanted.
Now just hand over the fucking camera
.

Sonia shook her head and made a sarcastic little tutting noise. I wanted to punch the sound right out of her. ‘You’re
going to have to
show
me how sorry you are, I’m afraid. Saying the words – well, that’s just not going to cut it.’

My heart thudded helplessly. ‘What?’

She smiled again, and spoke slowly, relishing every word as if it tasted delicious. ‘Yeah. Get down on your fucking knees and beg me for forgiveness.’

‘Come on, Sonia.’ My words came out like I’d dry-heaved them up. ‘You’ve got what you wanted.’

‘Oh no, I haven’t, Mr Landley – not yet.’ She let out a little laugh. ‘Don’t worry, nobody’s looking! Or did you want your sexual exploits with a
child
made public knowledge by Monday morning?’ She waved the camera gleefully from side to side.

I made a groaning sound that was supposed to indicate no.

‘Then you had better get on your knees right now.’ With that, she stood up in front of me and crossed her arms, waiting.

So, I’m ashamed to say, I did it. I got down on my knees right there on the carpet in my own living room and let her make me beg her like a dog, three times, for her forgiveness, apologize for ignoring her, tell her she was beautiful – and all the while she towered over me, snapping away with her nasty little camera.

It must have only lasted a minute or so, but the grinding humiliation was such that it felt more like days. When she finally permitted me to get up off the floor, I experienced a minor head rush, sweating, feeling faint and needing air.

Get it together, you pathetic fucking loser.

‘So give me the camera,’ I rasped, holding out my hand, failing to meet her eye. In an attempt to preserve my dignity on an internal level at least, I attempted to recall all the things I had promised myself I would do to her when we got
back to school on Monday.
Car tyres, salt … what was the other thing?

Sonia laughed shrilly then, smashing my naive illusion of closure like a soprano shattering glass. ‘Oh, Matthew,’ she said, making a big show of sliding the camera tauntingly away into her handbag. ‘You didn’t think I was actually going to hand this over, did you?’

The realization of my own stupidity struck me in the stomach with the approximate force of a wrecking ball. I struggled to focus. I thought for a moment that I might have to grab her by the hair and neatly knock her face against my living-room wall.

‘Sonia,’ I said, my voice shaking dangerously, ‘you got what you wanted. Now give me the fucking camera.’ I couldn’t let her walk away with it, I just couldn’t. I even put out my hand, a last vestige of hope.

‘Oh no, Mr Landley.’ She patted her handbag and – evidently sensing my panic and the related possibility I might be about to do something rash – began to edge backwards towards the front door. ‘This is staying with me. In case you ever decide to start behaving like a cunt towards me again.’ Her eyes sparkled with greedy delight at the prospect of forever having a hold over me. ‘But thank you for being so game.’ She started laughing. ‘That was absolutely priceless.’ She offered up a jaunty little wave, waggling those poisonous red fingernails, before finally leaving.

I sank straight back on to my knees, hanging my head right down towards the carpet like I was about to be sick.

I knew then that it was over. I knew then that we were going to have to leave.

Saturday
evening, and a fine mist of pre-thunder drizzle was trying and failing to disperse some of the humidity that had slithered eastward from the mid-Atlantic via Wolverhampton last week to hang selfishly around like a hot fog ever since. Jess was at work in the small unit she rented near Carafe, preparing salted cod fishcakes for a lunch party the following day. She paused when she heard car tyres, ripping off her vinyl gloves and quickly rinsing her hands, hoping it might be Will.

Through the glass panel of the front door, only an enormous bunch of flowers was visible. As she hesitated, Zak’s head slid out sideways from behind a purple chrysanthemum.

Her heart flexed slightly. Not Will. For one reason or another (one being Natalie, the other being Charlotte), she hadn’t seen him since that night out on the marsh, and she was missing him.

She opened the door. ‘Do chrysanthemums even come in that colour?’ was all she could think of to say as she pushed a damp strand of hair from her face, already strangely resentful of the fact that Zak would probably be expecting her to gasp and swoon under the enormity of his gesture. She noticed, somewhat ungenerously, that the bouquet contained no carnations.

He stepped past her, swiping the flowers against her chest and smothering her whites in powdery yellow pollen, possibly deliberately. Oddly, she noticed, the blooms barely carried a scent.

‘You’re welcome,’ he said, making a big deal of offloading the bouquet into the sink in the manner of a harassed executive forced to shoehorn the funeral of an ancient relative in between a Canary Wharf lunch meeting and after-work cocktails in the West End. He glanced at Jess’s iPod. ‘Oh, okay. Now it all makes sense.’

The music was Ani DiFranco, Zak’s least favourite singer ever – mostly because she was politically minded and an advocate of feminism, and Zak was definitively neither.

‘What all makes sense?’

‘The twitchy suffragette act. I can spot it a mile off.’

Jess sighed. ‘It’s not an act, Zak, I’m just busy.’

He pushed a hand through his hair, a small gesture that indicated he was already struggling to preserve his own patience – though he managed to style it out with a smile. ‘Well, that’s a relief. Since I’ve only just turned up, I’d have thought that even you would find it hard to be pissed off with me already, Jess.’ He checked his watch to make his point, then leaned back against the work surface to observe her.

‘Well, give it ten minutes,’ she mumbled, failing to look at him, feeling suddenly and stupidly self-conscious in her stained whites, clogs and hairnet. She tried to forget the times he’d turned up here unannounced and they’d had sex against the sink, and once on top of a chopping board where she’d been rolling pastry for an apple pie. Zak had thought it hilarious that the following morning she was still emitting a tiny fog of flour from her knickers; Jess was more annoyed that the pastry had gone to waste. They’d done it in the cold store once too, a sort of thrill-thing that she secretly worried fell somewhere on the same spectrum as erotic asphyxiation – but in the end she had been so paranoid that the door was going to shut on them, condemning
them to a long and horrible death by hypothermia, that she couldn’t really get into it. That evening had concluded with Zak roaring back off down the A11, playing Eminem at top volume and making repeated calls to her mobile for the sole purpose of ranting at her for spoiling a great weekend.

‘Well, I must say, you look beautiful,’ he said now. ‘How many girls can pull off a hairnet and clogs?’

She attempted a smile but it didn’t come as easily as it once might have. ‘I need to finish off these fishcakes.’

‘Hmm. I wondered what the smell was.’ He wrinkled his nose, then shrugged and wandered over to the fridge. ‘Any wine?’ He stuck his head into it optimistically, like he was half hoping it might turn out to have a false back leading to a magical world of lonely supermodels, Carlsberg on tap and a rolling cull on poor people.

‘Sorry,’ she told him. ‘Only Amontillado sherry.’

‘Does it contain alcohol?’

She paused. ‘Yes, Zak. It’s sherry.’

‘That’ll do then.’ He followed her gaze to the cupboard on the right of the cooker hood, opened it and extracted the sherry bottle. He removed the half-screw half-cork with his teeth and spat it into the sink before throwing back his head and taking a long, hard glug like he was drinking orange juice straight from the carton. ‘Oh, baby,’ he declared as he eventually came up for air, and she wasn’t sure if he meant her or the sherry.

‘So, Jess,’ he said then, lowering his head to meet her eye. ‘This is no good. How come we haven’t seen each other for two weeks?’

Jess pulled on a fresh pair of gloves and resumed shaping. The mixture itself was simple – just salt cod, potato and a touch of white bread – but the magic came in the hot sauce
accompaniment. Moulding the little patties, sticky and damp against her fingertips like potter’s clay, should have been a therapeutic and creative process, but this particular client was insistent on everything being uniform. A long-time sufferer of OCD, he had recently sent a meal back at Burnham Manor because it wasn’t arranged with
quite
the right level of symmetry on the plate. And that was after he’d called in advance to request it.

‘You know why,’ she said mildly. There’d been back-to-back work commitments on both sides – Jess was moving into her busiest time of year, and Zak had cancelled on her last week when a colleague asked to swap shifts. This had disappointed her more than it might usually have done, because at that point, she’d already made her decision.

She had to –
had to
– end it.

She’d realized too late that Zak needed to be with a girl who wanted everything he had to offer. He was simply one of those guys who was all about the package – for the right girl an unbelievable catch, exceptional enough on paper even to cancel out the worst of his faults. To a different girl, perhaps, Zak’s good looks and passion, amusing anecdotes and undoubted charisma would probably make it matter less that he was quick-tempered, possessive, and apparently above keeping things casual yet with a version of commitment that could loosely be described as setting out his position and refusing to budge.

It was funny, in a way, because Jess was beginning to realize that the girl Zak really wanted was probably a lot like Octavia – a woman whose territory was more mews house than marsh, who cared about postcodes, who craved cars with added horsepower and credit cards with no spending limit. Who would kill for a pair of designer shoes, even if they were two sizes too small. The reality, Jess knew, was
that Zak had probably been happy with Octavia, right up until the moment he’d discovered her with his brother at the theatre, wobbling away on top of a cistern.

His natural reaction to all the operatic unsavouriness, of course, had been to seek out Octavia’s opposite, so that he might have a chance at least of avoiding an encore. And he had been the antithesis of Jess’s usual type too. When they’d eventually stumbled upon each other, they both believed this strategy to have led them to a rare find – a gem to be joyfully plucked from the muddy aftermath of a divorce or series of disastrous dates. But in fact, she realized now, all that had just been the novelty of newness, which had carried them as far as their one-year anniversary before dumping them rather unceremoniously straight back in the mud they had come from.

Perhaps if Jess had moved to London when he’d first suggested it she might have discovered all this sooner, but the distance had enabled her to conveniently dip out of reality several times a month. It wasn’t even to do with Will, in the end. It really was all about Zak.

Jess turned a fistful of fishcake mix over between her palms, rolling it into a ball before flattening it gently with the heel of her hand against a peppered mound of organic white flour. And although it went against every one of her principles, she knew she would now have to crack out the pastry cutter. Just the idea of it made her wince. She took a deep breath, shook some flour over it and bore down on her lovely, irregular fishcake. The act of popping it from the cutter was like making a child colour inside the lines, she thought.
Takes all the beauty out of it
.

They said nothing else for a few more moments, the only sound Ani’s voice, sublime against the silence of the room. Eventually Jess moved the fishcake carefully to one side and
scooped her next handful of mixture from the bowl, at which Zak jumped impatiently off the counter, still clutching the sherry bottle by its neck like he’d been swigging from it since noon.

‘Right, come on. Can’t you leave that until the morning?’

‘Er, no?’

‘Okay,’ he said, oddly agreeable. ‘I’m going to come back later and pick you up.’

She hesitated. ‘Where are we going?’

‘The beach house. I want to stare at you over dinner.’

He couldn’t be more different to Will, the man who had waited seventeen years to present her with a necklace because he was worried about appearing cheesy. Zak, on the other hand, lived for cheese. He was probably planning champagne and candlelight. He was probably planning oysters. Hell – he was probably planning lobster.

She agreed to meet him later for one reason: she was going to finish it. Tonight she was going to end it with her charming practitioner of emergency medicine, once and for all.

‘I hope you’re hungry. I fancied lobster.’

Kicking off her flip-flops, Jess stepped on to the icy polished stone of Zak’s vast hallway. The space smelt of vanilla oil and musk – a comforting, homely scent that was slightly at odds with the person she knew Zak to be. There were flowers too, and mood lighting, which made Jess feel a bit like she’d wandered barefoot into a five-star boutique hotel or exclusive wedding venue. She wouldn’t have been surprised to see a butler step out coolly from behind the coat stand to offer her a glass of something chilled. Or maybe complimentary slippers.

‘Oysters to start,’ Zak added.

Of course.

The beach house was inverted, which meant the bedrooms were downstairs and the living space was on top. It was better that way, he’d told her before, if you had a view.

She followed him up the stairs, conscious that her bare feet, still warm from the heat of the day, might be leaving an inelegant trail of damp patches behind her as she walked.

The exterior of the house, perched just behind the sand dunes overlooking the beach, was what architects would hail a triumph and locals would call an eyesore. A combination of steel and glass, its design was all very self-storage warehouse, the only nod to its stunning coastal location an occasional window mimicking a porthole – hardly enough to appease the neighbours. But the interior was easier to like, with its clean lines, muted palettes and plush textures. The ceilings were low, and the place felt surprisingly cosy where she’d initially expected draughts, sharp edges and acres of cold, hard flooring.

Upstairs, the vast open-plan living space was designed to dazzle. The far wall, which was made entirely of glass, came on hinges, and Zak had opened it up to reveal an oak-decked balcony boasting a dramatic vista over the North Norfolk coastline. Tonight, the view was even enhanced by a blood-red sunset, complete with the sound of the sea gently pulsing as it worked the shoreline below. The setting couldn’t have been more perfect if Zak had ordered it in.

He was dressed smartly for the occasion in a sharp grey shirt – sleeves folded carefully to the elbows – and pressed black trousers, though his feet were bare. The table on the balcony was laid for dinner, an elaborate display of crystal
and white linen, red roses, a candelabra and champagne on ice.

Jess hesitated, wondering if she should just tell him now and get it over with; but before she could say anything, he was murmuring, ‘Take a pew, beautiful,’ and pulling out an oversized cushioned rattan chair in shades of cream and chocolate that would have been far better suited to a beach club cabana in Marbella. It was big enough for two, really, and as she sat, she instinctively tucked up her feet underneath her.

The view was stunning. Wisps of cloud were strewn across the sunset like they’d been scattered deftly over it by hand, and the sea had turned flamingo-pink.

Zak flicked the remote on the sound system. It took her a couple of moments to place the music, elegant trumpet jazz, and she felt him watching for her reaction.

‘Christian Scott?’ she guessed.

‘I remember you saying you liked him,’ he replied smoothly. Removing the champagne bottle from the chiller, he popped the cork, dripping fat beads of condensation on to the tablecloth as he filled their glasses.

She nodded. She had mentioned it, she remembered now, on the very first night she’d met him at that wedding reception in Holkham, when she’d been drunkenly and ungraciously criticizing the playlist for being a bit too heavy on the Billy Joel. By the time she’d started reeling off a list of her own favourite musicians, she could have sworn he’d zoned out – so she was surprised to discover now that, actually, he’d been listening to every word.

He raised his glass then, and waited for her to do the same. ‘To us,’ he suggested.

She hesitated, but he went ahead and chinked her glass
anyway, so she let it slide and they both drank. The champagne was dry and creamy, a pale shimmering gold, and it made a beautiful buzz as it settled softly in her stomach.

She could feel Zak’s gaze trained steadily upon her. A slight breeze tickled the hair at her face and she brushed it back.

‘You’re looking very brown,’ he observed. ‘It suits you.’

‘Thanks,’ she said. She wanted to make a comment about his nose seeming better now, but she thought she could detect on it the very faintest traces of concealer, which she suspected he might get defensive about.

‘I love your dress too. You look stunning.’

Jess had deliberately chosen a dress she thought might not be to Zak’s taste – a wispy creation of loud, clashing colours in a particularly bold geometry. It was long enough, thankfully, to cover the large brown smudge that remained on her thigh – the blueprint of a faded bruise which she now suspected might never fully disappear; a mark, like the scar across her palm, that would always remind her of Will. She enjoyed the way the dress set off her tan but it was the sort of outfit that would normally make Zak wince, in the way that most people winced at girls with their knickers on show falling out of nightclubs.