One Secret Summer (62 page)

She picked up the teacup and drank slowly until it was drained. Then she reached into her briefcase and pulled out her phone.
She looked at it for a second, then dialled.

‘Where are you?’

‘The Russian Tea Room. It’s on Chalcott Crescent, just—’

‘I know where it is. Give me half an hour. And Diana?’

‘Yes?’

‘Don’t run away this time.’

The tea room was almost empty by the time Rufus arrived. Diana was on her third cup; the slice of cake was still untouched.
She couldn’t bring herself to eat.

‘Diana.’ She looked up. He was suddenly in front of her. He filled the frame of her vision, as always, larger than life. She
felt her eyes suddenly fill with tears. ‘Sorry, traffic was heavy,’ he said, sliding into the seat opposite her. ‘Surprised
you’re still here, actually. Half-expected you to have gone.’

She blinked away the tears and took a deep breath. ‘Nowhere to run to,’ she said slowly.

‘What’s the matter?’

She’d never been able to hide anything from Rufus. Never. She took another deep breath. ‘Something’s come up,’ she said. ‘I
need to talk to you.’ She signalled to the waitress.

His dark brown eyes regarded hers evenly. ‘Mind if I smoke?’ he asked.

She shook her head. ‘No, go ahead.’ She waited until the waitress brought a fresh pot and cup over. She took a deep breath.
‘Look, I’m not going to beat around the bush. There’s no point. I’ve just come from seeing Geoffrey Laing.’

‘Harvey’s friend? The oncologist?’

She nodded. ‘Yes, the oncologist.’

‘Is it Harvey?’

She shook her head again. There was a short silence. She watched him light a cigarette, carefully disposing of the match.
‘So, it’s you,’ he said slowly. ‘And it’s cancer.’

‘Yes. It’s me. And yes, it’s cancer.’

‘Where?’ His voice was terse.

‘Breast.’

‘Operable?’

Diana paused. She pulled her lower lip into her mouth, releasing it slowly. ‘There’s new treatment available, Geoffrey says.
More radical and more invasive … but it’s too early to tell if it works or not. He wants me to do it, of course—’

‘What does Harvey say?’ Rufus interrupted her.

‘I haven’t told him yet.’ Diana lifted her shoulders and let them drop again. ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen, Rufus.
Obviously Harvey and I will talk it over … see what the options are. But I don’t want to leave things too late. And I don’t
want to leave things unsaid. Just in case.’

‘What’re you talking about? Don’t be silly, Diana. You’re going to be fine. You’ll have the best treatment available … Harvey’ll
see to that, of course he will.’

‘This isn’t about the treatment I’m going to get, Rufus. This is about what we do if it doesn’t work. Or if I opt not to have
it.’

‘Of course it’s going to work. Of course you’ll have it. There’s no question.’

Diana was quiet. The waitress brought over a fresh pot of tea and poured two new cups. Diana waited until she’d gone before
she spoke again. ‘It’s out of my hands, Rufus. That’s what I feel. I’m not religious, you know that. But there’s something
… I don’t know how to explain it.’ She spread her hands flat out on the table and gave a rather shaky laugh. ‘It’s as if I’ve
somehow brought this on myself.’

‘Don’t.’ Rufus was shaking his head at her. ‘Stop it. That’s absurd.’

‘Is it? Rufus … think about what we did. What
I
did. I can’t stop myself thinking about it.’

‘And believing that this is some kind of divine retribution is going to make it easier?’ Rufus’s voice was scathing.

Diana flinched. ‘You can mock me all you like,’ she said tightly. ‘I don’t care. All I care about is that we do the right
thing.’

‘And what’s that?’

‘We’ve got to come clean. We have to tell Josh.’

‘Why? What good could it possibly do him now?’

‘He has to know. He has a
right
to know, Rufus. I can’t … what if something happens? To me, I mean. What if the treatment doesn’t work and it turns out that
…’ She stumbled over the words. ‘That I don’t have much time left. I can’t leave things the way they are. It’s not fair.’

‘And what if Josh tells Harvey?’

‘He won’t.’

‘How do you know he won’t? How can you be so sure?’

‘I know Josh. He’s my
son
, Rufus.’

‘Don’t forget, Diana, he was mine first.’

MADDY

London, September 2000

Maddy put the phone down and only just managed not to scream out loud. With delight. With joy. She stared at the phone, unable
to wipe the grin off her face. The gods were on her side. Smiling down upon her. Her prayers had been answered. She’d missed
out on one part but somehow, against the odds, another had appeared. She’d jotted down the address where auditions were being
held the following Friday; it was another small role –
very
small, Stef warned – but again, it might lead to bigger things. She wrote down the name of the play –
Phaedra
– hands shaking with excitement and rushed upstairs to the study, where she switched on the computer and tried to find everything
she could about the Greek play. She looked at the address again. Goodge Street Studios, just off Tottenham Court Road, a ten-minute
walk away. Yes, the gods were truly
listening. Auditions would begin at 9 a.m. sharp. She’d be there at 8.30, just to be sure. She would drop Darcy off at playschool
first and pick her up at lunchtime, hopefully with a smile on her face.

She printed off a list of books she would buy and devour in the week … by Friday, she’d be ready and raring to go. She picked
up the phone again. She couldn’t wait to tell Julia. She frowned. It suddenly occurred to her that she hadn’t spoken to Julia
in almost a fortnight. In fact, she’d hardly spoken to her all month. Julia had been very busy in the weeks that followed
their return from Mougins; there’d been another conference somewhere, Maddy couldn’t remember where. Then she’d had an important
case to prepare for; then she’d been unwell for a week – a cold, a stomach upset … again, Maddy couldn’t remember the details.
They’d made loose plans to have dinner and to invite Niela, but there’d been one reason or another why she couldn’t make it.
Diana had invited everyone to Sunday lunch a fortnight or so ago but then had called to cancel it. Strange. Strange, too,
that Maddy hadn’t noticed how quickly the time had gone by.

She dialled Julia’s number. The phone rang and rang but there was no answer. She left a message and put the receiver down
slowly. She hoped nothing was wrong. She suddenly missed their chats. Come to think of it, Julia had been odd since the last
few days of their holiday. She’d hardly seen her or Aaron on the last day, or since. They’d all left at different times –
Niela and Josh had been the first to go; she, Darcy and Rafe had driven to Cannes the following morning and caught the afternoon
flight back … Julia and Aaron had driven all the way down from London – they were the last to leave. She looked at the phone
again. She hesitated; should she call Niela and share the good news? She’d enjoyed spending time with her in Mougins but there
was a natural reserve in Niela that had always kept Maddy at bay. It wouldn’t hurt to reach out, though, would it? After all,
that was exactly what she’d done with Julia and it had worked … She picked up the phone, her fingers hovering over the keypad.
But after a few seconds she replaced it gently.
Better to wait. Let others come to her every once in a while, not always the other way round. It was the one lesson she’d
learned in the nearly four years she’d been in the UK. She
was
an over-eager, impulsive and impatient American – but she didn’t always have to act that way. She picked up her reading list
and began to go through it, her earlier excitement slowly returning as she contemplated what books to buy.

Her part
was
small, just as Stef had warned. Maddy couldn’t have cared less. The feeling of being back in a theatre again, surrounded
by actors, director, agents and producers, hit her like a thunderclap. The director, a short, intense, energetic man named
Jack, looked her up and down, nodded to himself and asked her to read out a few lines of a script that he handed over in his
office, just like that. Maddy stared at him nervously, cleared her throat and began. ‘No, no … it’s an English part. Get rid
of the American,’ he interrupted her almost immediately. She stopped. She felt the cold hand of fear snake its way up her
back. She coughed, cleared her throat again and started afresh. She could feel the sweat prickling under her arms. Stef wasn’t
there; it was just her and Jack in his small, untidy office. She glanced at him, half-expecting him to yell at her to stop
again. But he didn’t. He nodded to himself several more times and then grinned. ‘Yeah, all right. We were right. You’ll do.’

Maddy had almost stopped breathing. ‘I will?’

‘Yep. You’ll do. You’ve got the part. Your accent’s near-perfect. I like your hair, too.’ And that was it. She stumbled out
of his office, clutching her lines to her chest.

Stef was pleased, but not unduly surprised. ‘I told you he liked your tape. It’s just a small role, Maddy. You’ve got a handful
of lines but you and Carys Douglas complement each other. Good for you. Well done. See you back here on Monday.’

‘I play Phaedra’s handmaid,’ she told Rafe that night, her voice rising with excitement. ‘I’ve only got a few lines but I’m
in
almost every scene. Carys Douglas is playing Phaedra. You’ve seen her. She was in that Dickens adaptation that we watched,
remember? The dark-haired woman with—’ She stopped mid-sentence. Rafe’s attention was elsewhere. Anywhere but on her. ‘Am
I boring you?’ she asked stiffly.

‘Huh? No, no … I was just drifting off for a bit. I’m tired, that’s all. We had a hell of a list today. Two similar cases
of arteriovenous malformation and a cranioplasty that pretty much took up the whole afternoon. I told Giddens that he could
make the primary incision in the afternoon case but he was surprisingly nervous. I suppose I keep forgetting that he’s only
a year post-qualifiying. It takes quite a while to—’ It was Maddy’s turn to drift off. No matter how hard she tried to interest
Rafe in things beyond the scope of his own world, the conversation always returned to him. She finished the rest of her dinner
in silence – not that Rafe appeared to notice. He had some post-operation notes to complete, he said, getting up from the
table as soon as they’d finished. And that was pretty much it.

By the time she climbed the stairs to their bedroom, he was already in bed and asleep, one hand still loosely holding a copy
of a memo he’d been reading. She glanced at it. It was a departmental circular.
To All Heads of Surgical Wards
. She sighed. There were times when the worlds in which they moved seemed so diametrically opposed, she wondered if they would
ever meet. In the beginning she’d found the differences between them fascinating. Rafe’s work and the mystery of it had captivated
her. Now … she hesitated to say it, even to herself. Boring. It was boring. She was no longer interested in the minutiae of
his daily life, much less his operations. A cranioplasty was much the same as an endarterectomy. There’d been a time when
she’d dutifully noted all the different terms, struggling to understand the intricacies of each. Now she couldn’t even remember
a quarter of them. There seemed to be very little point. Rafe probably wouldn’t be able to tell her the name of her character
or the play’s title. He probably didn’t even know when the damn opening night was. She climbed into bed beside him, her
chest tight with resentment. It occurred to her just as she closed her eyes that Julia still hadn’t rung back. She made a
mental note to call her again in the morning. It was most unlike her, she thought as she drifted off to sleep. Most unlike
her.

JULIA

London, September 2000

Julia’s first waking thought each and every morning was:
Today’s the day
.
Today I must tell Aaron
. She should tell him. She
ought
to tell him. But what exactly was she going to say? Soon it would be too late and she’d be forced to keep it. Keep
it
? She had to keep reminding herself of the fact that there was no ‘it’ – there was a child, hers and Josh’s, which, if the
passing of time had anything to do with it, was slowly beginning to take shape in her body and mind as
her
child, not his. If that meant bringing the child up as hers and Aaron’s, well, that was just the way it would have to be.
After all, what was the alternative? She and Aaron had been trying for months and it looked increasingly as if nothing would
ever happen. It was a lie, but was it really so terrible?

She plugged in the kettle and made herself a cup of tea. Aaron was in the bathroom; she could hear the familiar sounds of
the shower being turned on and off, the tap that dripped unless you tightened it all the way and then she’d have to call him
to come and loosen it for her again, the sound of the medicine cabinet door being opened and closed; the small rhythms of
their daily life that set the day on its course. Now all that was about to change.

She was sipping her tea when Aaron came into the kitchen. He was surprised to see her still in her dressing gown. ‘Jules?
You’re not even dressed. Aren’t you going to work?’

She gave a start. ‘Y-yes, of course. I was just … just thinking.’

‘’Bout what?’ He took a slice of bread from the loaf and stuck it in the toaster.

She looked at him, his blond hair still wet from the shower, freshly shaved … A wave of mingled guilt and love washed over
her, leaving her trembling in its wake. ‘N … nothing much,’ she said, rinsing her cup. ‘Is that the time?’ She glanced at
the clock on the wall. ‘I’d better hurry up.’

‘D’you want me to wait for you?’

She shook her head. ‘No, you go ahead. I’ll … I’ll just have a shower. I’ll phone in and tell Liz I’ll be late.’

‘You’re never late. You sure nothing’s wrong?’ Aaron was looking at her closely. ‘You all right?’