This Secret We're Keeping (5 page)

‘Yeah,’ she said, deadpan, ‘but I’ve heard maths club’s really dross.’

For some reason, that made me laugh. I didn’t bother to ask her what dross meant – it clearly wasn’t a compliment.

‘Tuesdays,’ I said as we reached the nurse’s office. ‘Check with your mum first.’

‘I might do,’ she said.

‘Tuesdays,’ I repeated.

A few days later, she caught up with me after school. As I was unlocking my car I sensed someone standing behind me, and when I turned round, there she was – with significantly more colour in her face than the last time I had seen her. ‘I bought you a present, Mr L.’

‘A present?’ I repeated, slightly confused. In my experience, pupil–teacher presents only really featured at Christmas, Easter and (when the parents were feeling flush, which at Hadley was always), the end of term. I regarded her with a bemused expression as she fished around in her bag,
admittedly slightly intrigued to see what she was going to pull out of there.

‘Here you go.’ She held it aloft, triumphant.

It was … a can of Diet Coke.

She looked so excited to give it to me that the smile I shot her was genuine. In fact, I probably seemed a lot happier to receive it than I should have been. ‘Wow, thank you. What have I done to deserve that?’

She thrust it towards me, and I took it. The scar from her scissor wound was still a mess of stitching across her palm.

‘To say thanks for looking after me the other day. And you work so hard,’ she added, her expression steady, as I gave the can a jaunty little toss without thinking. ‘I thought you could maybe do with a Diet Coke break.’

Of course, I completely missed what she was saying – mostly because I was wondering if this could be an opportunity to renew her interest in solving basic formulae.

‘Well, that was very thoughtful of you, but you really shouldn’t be spending your money on me,’ I told her. ‘And you know, fizzy drinks aren’t good for your teeth.’ I wiggled the can at her like a twat and she started laughing.

‘Oh, by the way, Mr L,’ she said then, brushing her hair back from her face, ‘my mum said it’s okay.’

I smiled at her. ‘Your mum said what’s okay?’

‘Maths club,’ she said, as if there could only be one thing in the world that a fifteen-year-old would be begging her mother permission to do after school (ironically enough, such a scenario was indeed the stuff of my teaching fantasies). ‘I’m coming to maths club.’

I didn’t know it then, of course, but the simple act of signing her up that afternoon was the moment the tide began to rise.

‘Fuck,’
Zak growled. ‘Late.’

Zak had a habit of restricting his sentences to single syllables when he was tired or stressed – something Jess assumed had come straight from his hospital A & E department, where such efficiencies probably meant the difference between life and death. Hung-over and sour-tempered, he was supposed to be dashing off to meet his father, a retired architect who was redesigning the roof of Zak’s new weekend bolthole to let more light in. Zak always referred to it as a beach house but, in fact, it was of that industrial style of architecture that made it look more like a misplaced storage facility. There was steel involved, and talk of tensile forces, and given that Zak’s neighbours already considered him to be a crass city-dweller with no respect for surrounding sand dunes, Jess could envisage raised voices, which she didn’t foresee doing much for her headache. So she opted to quietly nurse her hangover solo with the aid of some fresh coffee – a free sample from Colombia via Philippe, which was very generous of him, given that he usually sold the stuff for five quid a cup.

Unable to sleep, she’d risen early this morning, creeping down the staircase and on to her mother’s old Shaker-style chair next to the Aga in the kitchen. Smudge, her border collie, had loyally migrated from his basket to lie on top of her feet, squeezing his eyes shut and keeping her toes warm while they’d waited together for the sun to rise.

One year with Zak, yet all she could think about when she closed her eyes was Matthew.

‘Where are my fucking keys?’ Zak was raging now, his neck going pink as he turned over the contents of Jess’s living room with escalating frustration like a drug addict in urgent need of items to sell for cash. ‘Jesus, Jessica. If you actually chucked out some of this junk then maybe you wouldn’t lose things so often.’

The junk he referred to – her trinkets made from driftwood, collection of vintage postcards, half-burnt candles, old photographs and miniature glass milk bottles – was scattered lovingly across her stuffed, creaking bookcases, mantelpiece, mismatched furniture and upright piano that still had the book of Christmas carols open on ‘Joy to the World’. She knew that it was ramshackle and tumbledown, and that it all probably could have done with a squirt of furniture polish, but it was her.

‘I like my junk,’ Jess replied, feeling a little bit riled that Zak was criticizing her for losing things while he looked for something he’d lost.

Finally he located his keys within the folds of her cotton paisley scarf, which he’d hastily unwound on her behalf last night before discarding it on the sideboard. ‘Okay,’ he said, shaking his head and bending down to kiss her where she was curled up on the sofa, ‘I’ll see you tonight. I’ll pick you up at seven, okay? Be ready.’

She nodded up at him, hands wrapped round the coffee cup. He’d surprised her with a dinner reservation at Burnham Manor, where apparently there was no leeway for being late as they served the food in a single sitting, shouting out the Michelin-starred menu to a room full of salivating food fanatics.

‘Dress up,’ he threw over his shoulder as he exited the cottage. ‘Wear your new shoes.’

She glanced over to where her anniversary present – a pale brown paper bag bearing the famous scrawling logo of Christian Louboutin – was resting by the fireplace. Inside, a matching cardboard box stuffed with folds of creamy tissue paper, and nestled down amongst it all, a pair of shoes – flawless black patent with distinctive scarlet soles, heels not much sturdier than chopsticks.

Her stomach had churned when she’d opened the box, partly because she suspected Zak was still basing all his gift choices on the things that had made Octavia happy, but partly because the shoes were two sizes too small, and she hadn’t had the heart to tell him.

As lunchtime approached, Jess took a shower, soaping her skin in something vanilla-scented and finishing with a blast of cold water for her damaged leg – admittedly not the ice she’d been advised to use, but the sole item currently in her freezer was an oversized portion of home-made beef lasagne, and she could only think that combining it with compression and elevation would result in half-thawed beef and marinara sauce becoming inconveniently smeared across her sofa and thighs.

She finally chased away the stubborn dregs of her hang-over with a late lunch, caramelizing some cauliflower in the Aga with olive oil and coarse sea salt before devouring it greedily from a soup bowl with loosely scrambled yellow eggs, her thoughts rotating steadily between Zak, Octavia and Matthew. Finishing off with a damp slab of banana bread, she exchanged a couple of texts with Anna as she ate, although she was currently unable to say much about last night without wanting to caramelize her own head.

While the air was still warm, she popped several ibuprofen,
eased on her wellies and headed for the beach with Smudge at her side.

Walking extra slowly, they made their way on to the perfect expanse of empty marsh, transected at its horizon by a dense block of clouded sky. Jess took time to savour the salty breeze, allowing it to whip her bob of blonde hair across her face.

The southern edge of the marsh closest to the village was where children came to play on the hot summer mornings of their school holidays, to cake themselves in mud the colour and texture of treacle and hunt for slim, silver fish in the creeks and pools with bright, cheap fishing nets purchased from Wells-next-the-Sea. It was where dogs could charge freely and parents could stand idly chatting, collecting plump strands of electric-green samphire from the damp ground, getting clay between their toes and salt spray in their hair.

The tide was going out, so the mud was still wet and the creeks half full. Together Jess and Smudge picked their way expertly across the thick carpet of sea lavender and fleshy crops of sea purslane, Smudge bounding along his favourite well-worn route over the winding channels, the white patches of his coat quickly turning grey. Jess favoured her own path across the uneven ground, averting her eyes as she always did from the small wooden cross planted near the bridge.

Sunk deep into its own little patch of wiry sea lavender, nobody else would even have known it was there, but Jess did. It stared her down every single time she passed it, but she never stopped and she never looked.
Just keep walking
.

The roar of the outgoing tide crescendoed and the breeze became a stiff wind as they approached the beach. Smudge
picked up speed, jumping and delighting in the vast stretch of deserted sand ahead of him. They crossed it together to the shoreline, where Jess stared out at the horizon and thought – as she had almost every day for as long as she could remember – about Matthew. She threw Smudge’s tennis ball into the edge of the surf over and over again, while he cantered around in delight like an overexcited pony. Then the sun dipped down behind a bank of solid cloud, so they turned back and headed for home.

The knock on the door came as Jess was mixing up Smudge’s tea. Setting his bowl on the floor, she rinsed her hands and hobbled through to the living room, Smudge at her ankles, too curious to ignore a visitor in favour of eating.

And just like that, Matthew Landley was on her doorstep, locking eyes with her properly for the first time in seventeen years.

For a few moments, he didn’t speak, seemingly needing to absorb the sight of her. Then, eventually, he found his voice. ‘Hello,’ was all he said.

As she moved silently aside to let him past, she caught the scent of him, still deliciously familiar. He was an attractive combination of muscular and brown that suggested he worked outside shifting things for a living, his back and shoulders far broader than she remembered. Suddenly he became the only man she could think of who could carry off a grey T-shirt and jeans quite so impressively. Tattoos that hadn’t been there before covered his upper arms, and she couldn’t help noticing that his biceps had bulked up too. But the most significant difference was his shaved head and jawline.

He’s aged so well he’s barely aged at all
.

She shut the door, and they turned to face one another.
Trying to speak, she realized there was a lump in her throat she needed to bypass first, and it was proving problematic.

Eventually she succeeded. ‘I can’t believe it. How are you?’ She knew it was a question so vast that he wouldn’t have a hope of answering it, but she thought it might at least buy her some time to try and remember how to behave normally.

He laughed softly, and scratched the back of his neck. ‘Er, a bit head-fucked.’ His voice, unbelievably, sounded just the same. ‘But very relieved to see you’re still in one piece.’

Smiling nervously at one another, they could have been teenagers on a first date. Smudge, who had positioned himself at a neat equidistance between them, kept looking from Jess to Matthew and back to Jess again, as if to say,
Hello?
What the hell is going on here? Can someone fill me in? Guys? Guys?

‘This is great,’ Matthew said then, his gaze conducting a tour of her living room, of all the things Zak had been flinging around and swearing about only hours earlier. ‘It really suits you.’

‘I collect trinkets,’ she said apologetically. ‘I’m not very of-the-moment.’

He shook his head to disagree. ‘My house has hand sanitizer where all the ornaments should be. Trust me, this is much better.’

She smiled. And then, because she couldn’t quite believe he was standing in front of her and she’d been waiting to say it for seventeen years, she said quickly, ‘I’m sorry, Matthew.’

This seemed to catch him off guard, and for a couple of moments he remained motionless, just looking at her. Eventually he spoke, his words tumbling out on a tightly coiled snatch of breath. ‘Jess … don’t be crazy. You’re not the one who should apologize.’

Absurdly, she disagreed by nodding fiercely. ‘I am. I am. I’m so sorry for what happened to you.’

He stepped forward then and grabbed her hand, fingertips grazing the scar that crossed her palm. His grip dwarfed hers as it always had, the warm clasp of it enough to send her heartbeat into full pelt.

‘It’s me who should apologize. I’ve been trying to find you so I could say it. I’m so sorry – for everything. I know I was the one in the wrong. I know that, Jess.’ He was squeezing her hand on every second word.

‘No,’ she managed, working her fingers against his in return, aware somehow that this might be her only chance to rediscover him. ‘You weren’t.’

‘You don’t have to say that.’

‘I know I don’t. But I never blamed you. Never.’

Matthew seemed surprised enough by this to gently relinquish her grasp. ‘Fuck,’ he said, rubbing a hand across his face in apparent confusion. ‘None of this is making sense in my head.’

‘Did you come here expecting me to hate you?’

‘Yes,’ he said simply, and then became quite still. They were both now staring helplessly into the eyes of their past, unable to change a thing.

‘I don’t hate you,’ she said. It was only a half-sentence, and she wanted to finish it, but she swallowed back the words just in time.

Matthew moved forward then and pulled her into an unexpected hug. She slipped her arms round his waist in return, burying her head against his shoulder with the same quiet ease as she used to. His body felt almost exactly the same as it had all those years ago – more muscular, perhaps, but otherwise just the same.

‘Sorry,’ he mumbled into her hair. ‘Just tell me to get off.’

She shook her head against his chest and they stayed like that for maybe thirty seconds, breathing in sync, before he finally pulled away.

He took her hand and they sat down next to each other on the sofa, knees almost but not quite touching. Smudge trotted over from his usual spot next to the hearth and positioned himself with satisfaction on top of Matthew’s feet, claiming him for the duration of his visit, however long that should happen to be.

‘Yesterday, Jess,’ Matthew said, ‘when I saw it was you …’ He ran a hand backwards over his head, a gesture of lingering disbelief. ‘I’m so sorry I let them cart you off like that. I have never wanted anyone to be carted off less in my entire life.’

She waited, sensing there was more to come.

‘But Natalie … my girlfriend … she doesn’t know. She doesn’t know about my past. And neither does my daughter, obviously.’ He winced, like it pained him to admit it. ‘I was planning on being at the food fair alone yesterday because I wanted to see you. But then at the last minute Natalie said she’d join me.’ He shot her a half-smile of resignation. ‘She normally hates things like that.’

‘How can she not know about us?’ Jess whispered, like she was afraid Natalie might somehow be able to hear them.

‘She was out of the country at the time it all happened, working in New York. She completely missed the whole thing. And I just … never got round to telling her. So now I inhabit this weird little world where I’m half normal person, half paranoid wreck. I regret not telling her, obviously, but now it’s too late. If she found out … well, I’d never see my daughter again, for one.’

‘You really can’t … ?’

‘No,’ he said quickly. ‘I’ve come close to telling her,
sometimes. But that kind of thing … it’s not Natalie’s bag, if you know what I mean.’

Not Natalie’s bag
. Like they were discussing gangsta rap or anti-establishment rallies.

‘You don’t have to explain anything to me,’ she said.

‘Well, I think an explanation’s the least you deserve, Jess. Not that I’m doing a particularly great job at it.’

She wanted to take his hand again, to reassure him if that was even possible, but as she looked down she noticed that he was wearing a bracelet, woven in black leather and fitting snugly round his tanned wrist.

The sight of it coursed through her chest like electricity.

Attempting and failing to swallow, she began to produce words at a previously unvisited pitch. ‘Do you wear that all the time,’ she asked him, nodding down towards his wrist, ‘or is today a special occasion?’

Following her gaze, he paused for a couple of seconds, like he was trying to work out what to say. ‘Both,’ he replied eventually. ‘I’ve worn it every day for the last seventeen years. But, yes – today feels …’ He paused. ‘Slightly extraordinary.’