Our Little Secret (24 page)

I feel my heart pounding as I watch him bend down and his lips kiss hers. They stay there for a long moment, then she pulls away and laughs, putting her arm up and dancing away from him, but he’s entranced. He grabs her, circling her from behind, pressing against her. She’s squashed up against the bars at the front of the DJ booth. I see her eyes narrowed, smouldering.

Then she opens her eyes and stares down into the crowd below and her eyes lock immediately with mine. It’s like she knows I was there all along, watching her.

She smiles at me and winks, then puts a finger to her lips, like she’s telling me to shush. Like this is our secret.

Then the black guy is pulling her away and she’s laughing as she’s swallowed into the dark shadows.

I go to the bar and have a bottle of water to try and sober up, but my pulse is still racing.

What did that little display just mean? Why did she put her fingers to her lips to tell me to shush? To tell me to keep her secret, because that’s what she was doing.

And the guy she was with? There was no mistaking what he wanted from her. What she’d promised him in that long kiss.

I’m totally confused and so shocked, but I can hear Marnie taunting me in my head that I’m little Miss Prim-and-Proper.

Does that mean she has an open relationship with Edward? Does he know that she’s unfaithful to him? Is that why he’s been flirting with me? Does that make what happened between us in the sauna OK?

I’m so lost in thought that I don’t notice until too late that there’s a guy standing next to me at the bar. He’s staring at me.

Oh, for fuck’s sake. It’s him. It’s Harry.

49

In the mass of sweating, half-naked dancing bodies he looks out of place in a black sweater. When I notice he’s there, he grins at me and lifts his bottle of water to me in salute.

‘I’ve been looking for you,’ he shouts over the music. ‘I thought you’d be here.’

I remember now that I told him about the party.

‘Are you having a good night, Sophie?’

I’m annoyed that he’s calling me by my first name. That he’s presumed some kind of intimacy. I think of him telling me earlier that the Parkers are not what they seem. He’s certainly been proved right, from what I’ve just witnessed, but even so, I still feel fiercely loyal.

‘I heard Marnie was playing. I remember the old days, of course,’ he shouts, a nod of his head, like he’s one of the old-school cognoscenti.

What old days is he referring to, I wonder?

He nods his head to the music, pretending to enjoy it. I desperately scan the crowd of faces, looking for a familiar one, but all of Marnie’s staff seem to have vanished. And now that Marnie has disappeared with that guy in the booth, I feel a stab of sobering fear. What if they’ve just left me here? What if Marnie has abandoned me on my own in New York to fend for myself?

She can’t have done, I tell myself. She’ll come and find me, I’m sure. I’m just going to have to wait it out. But in the meantime I’m stuck with Harry.

‘I’m going to dance,’ I tell him.

I dance until my legs ache. I find a group of people in the middle who are truly off their faces and, even when the music changes to some thumping techno that I normally hate, I don’t stop dancing. I can’t stop. Harry is sitting at a small table in a booth and doesn’t stop watching me. If I stop dancing, he’ll corner me. It feels like hours go by, but he still sits and watches me, and even though I try very hard to ignore him, his sly smile makes me know that he knows I’m not getting away with it.

Eventually I dance away out of his direct eyeline and, running to the corner booth, retrieve my tiny clutch bag. I get to the loos, where I dial Marnie’s number, but I get a voicemail.

I realize that I don’t have a number for Edward, or any real clue how to get back to Thousand Acres.

In desperation, I sneak out of the toilet cubicle and, checking to see that Harry isn’t looking, slip outside.

To my colossal relief, Trewin is parked further along the kerb. He gets out of the driver’s seat when he sees me, and I run on trembling legs towards him, worried in case Harry is following me.

‘I think I should wait for Mrs Parker,’ I tell him, breathlessly.

‘That won’t be necessary,’ Trewin says.

‘But . . .’

I stare out of the back of the limo window and see Harry coming out of the club and looking along the street for me.

Trewin pulls off from the kerbside as I duck down in the back. I sneak a peek and see Harry staring after the car.

There’s no sign of Marnie.

50

There’s no sign of Marnie the next morning, either, but Edward is home. When I arrived late last night, all the lights were out and I crept upstairs alone, but Edward is whistling when I go downstairs, and I pass Mrs Gundred in the corridor, who gives me a cold smile.

I hesitate before I enter the kitchen. Should I tell him? Should I tell him what I saw? Should I tell him about how flirtatious Marnie was? How I saw her kissing another man? How I lost her in the crowd and came home alone?

But I’m hardly an innocent snitch. I was involved in her deception of him, too. I think of Marnie, how I danced so suggestively with her and how she held my hair. I can’t stop thinking about her eyes. The question she asked. The question I didn’t answer, but the one that still makes me feel guilty. Like I’ve done something wrong. Like I’ve already somehow strayed somewhere forbidden.

‘Good morning,’ Edward says brightly, when he sees me.

He’s wearing shorts and a pale-blue Fred Perry shirt and has shades in his hair. He looks refreshed and groomed and in an exceptionally good mood, which only makes me feel worse. I haven’t had enough sleep and I’m feeling the effects of all those vodkas. My feet are killing me from dancing in those purple shoes all night.

‘I hear it was fun last night,’ he says.

I’m confused. How would he have heard that, I wonder? Did Trewin tell him that he drove me back at four o’clock this morning? That I crashed out like a baby in the back of the limo?

I avoid his eye. I don’t want him to ask me about Marnie, or where she is, when I have no answers. I don’t want to land her in it, but in the cold light of day her betrayal feels monstrous. Why would she go off with that guy when she has someone as wonderful as Edward at home? I can’t help the feeling that she only did it to annoy me, even though that makes no sense.

He is packing a straw bag and I watch him as he goes to the fridge to select some wine. Is he going on a picnic?

‘Marnie said her set went well. She was nervous, although I guess you’d never be able to tell, if you didn’t know her.’

‘You’ve spoken to her?’

He looks at me, confused. ‘Of course. She told me all about it when she got back last night.’

‘She’s here?’ I ask in astonishment. ‘She’s back here?’

Edward laughs. ‘Of course she is. She’s in bed.’

‘Is she? Are you sure?’

‘Don’t you believe me, Miss Henshaw?’

His tone makes me flush, but I deserve it. I did sound very rude.

‘Of course, I’m sorry. It’s just that I waited at the party . . .’

‘She said you were having fun dancing. She didn’t want to drag you back home, so she left the limo for you and came back with me in my car.’

Marnie drove home with Edward, and left me at the party?

I know it shouldn’t matter, but it does.

‘I didn’t realize,’ I say, my voice catching. ‘I waited. I thought . . .’

I shake my head. I don’t know what to think now.

‘But Trewin was there all along. You were perfectly safe,’ Edward replies. ‘She wanted you to have a good time. She says the boys will be here soon enough, and then there won’t be any nightclubbing for you.’ He laughs at me, like I don’t know what’s about to hit me, but I can’t think about that now. About my impending responsibility.

Marnie really is home. I think of her dancing. I think of her on the balcony with the black guy, and realize it was all a facade. She came home with her husband.

Did she sit in that big green bed surrounded by candles and tell Edward about me dancing? The thought makes me irrationally furious.

‘Did you meet anyone interesting?’ Edward asks.

I can’t work out the tone of his question. I wonder for a second if he knows about Harry.

‘Not really. There were so many people there. I danced a lot.’

I sound surly and unfriendly, even to myself.

‘I heard. Marnie says you’re a great dancer.’

Does she? I wonder what else she’s told him. I catch his eye and he smiles at me. Does he know about me dressing up in Marnie’s room and doing a burlesque dance, or is that still our little secret? Just like Marnie kissing the guy last night is ‘our little secret’, I suppose.

I can’t look at Edward. Instead I busy myself making a cup of tea, although I don’t want one. I don’t know what I want.

‘It’s a beautiful day,’ Edward says.

I haven’t even noticed, only having just got up. I want to go back to bed and pull the covers right over my head, but now I glance out of the open back door and see that the sky is a deep, clear blue. The green grass of the gardens is blindingly bright.

‘I’ve got the day off,’ Edward says, as I dunk my teabag in the hot water.

The day off what, I wonder? I look up at him, unsure of what he means and whether it has anything to do with me, but with the next sentence he crushes the vague glimmer of hope I have.

‘I’m going sailing.’

‘Oh. That’s nice.’

‘Do you like sailing?’

‘I don’t know. I’ve never tried it.’

Edward laughs. ‘My goodness, Miss Henshaw, you’re so green. There really is so much you’ve never experienced.’

I flush again, feeling foolish. I want to tell him to stop teasing me. That it’s not my fault I come from where I do, that we never had any money, that my parents couldn’t afford to drive us on holiday to the seaside, let alone give their children sailing lessons.

Edward sees that he’s offended me. ‘I’m sorry, that sounded rude. I only meant that it’s so wonderful to be young. To have so much ahead of you.’

I shrug. I should go, but somehow my feet won’t move.

‘Marnie hates sailing. She lets me indulge in my hobby occasionally, though.’

I wonder what else she lets him indulge in. I wonder why she hates sailing with him. I wonder why everything is so separate with them.

‘I’m leaving soon for the coast. Would you like to come with me, Miss Henshaw?’

‘Me?’

‘Yes, of course you,’ he says and then he smiles right at me. That smile. That intense, right-to-my-bone-marrow, attentive smile that sets loose and hot and fluid again all those feelings I’d resolved to harden into stone.

I clear my throat. ‘Won’t Marnie mind?’

‘No. She says it’s fine.’

So he’s cleared it with Marnie, then? They’ve discussed me. They’ve discussed this . . . this plan?

‘Ah. Sounds like our lift is here.’

And right at that moment I hear the sound of an engine and, staring through the kitchen window, I see that a helicopter is about to land in the garden.

51

As I run and grab my bikini and sun cream, I’m sure the noise of the helicopter must wake up Marnie. That is, if she’s here. But I’m still not convinced that Edward is telling the truth.

As I run down the stairs, though, I hear Marnie in the hallway talking to him. I arrive downstairs, and she’s makeup-less and wearing her red kimono.

‘Have you got a hat?’ she asks me, as I get to the hallway. The helicopter is loud through the open doors.

As she meets my eyes, she shows nothing. There’s no mention of last night. No sign that just hours ago she was taking pills and grinding against complete strangers on the dance-floor, let alone kissing that lithe black man. She looks like a mum, asking a logical mum-like question.

‘You sure you won’t come?’ Edward asks her. ‘It’s the perfect conditions.’

‘
Gahd
, no. You know I get seasick.’ She turns to me, pressing a large cotton hat into my hands. ‘I can’t stand it. And Edward is so bossy. Do you have sea legs?’ she asks me.

‘I don’t know. I’ve only ever been on a ferry.’

‘Well, you’ll find out soon enough,’ Edward says, laughing.

‘You go. Have fun. I’ve got a ton of stuff to sort out here.’

‘I can help. I told you,’ Edward says, and it’s like he could back out of the plan at any second.

‘I’ll be quicker without you here. Don’t mind me. Don’t forget Becca and Angelo are over later for dinner.’

‘I’ll be back. I promise,’ Edward says.

He leans forward and kisses Marnie on the cheek. He squeezes her shoulder and she grabs his hand and kisses his fingers. It’s such a sweet gesture, I turn away.

Oh my God. He has no idea. No idea what she’s like when he’s not around.

‘Good luck,’ she calls, but I don’t know if she means for me or for him.

We get into the helicopter and I watch Marnie shielding her eyes on the terrace, her kimono flapping around her legs as we rise into the air. The house behind her seems much larger than I’ve even pictured in my head. I look down and see the willow trees and the lake. Further out, I see that Thousand Acres is surrounded by a high wall.

The wall’s hidden from the house by the trees, but I’m shocked to see the scale of the fortified perimeter. They certainly have gone to some lengths to protect themselves.

I smile over at Edward, who is sitting squashed next to me. I have to clench my fist to stop myself reaching out to grab his hand, as the helicopter nose dips, then soars high above the fields and away to the east. I feel my stomach fall in that thrilling way it used to when Dad drove over the humpback bridge near Granny’s house when we were kids, but I’m not sure if it’s just the helicopter that’s making me like that or because Edward is smiling back at me.

52

It takes about forty minutes before the helicopter lands near the coast. I stare out of the window down at the blue sea and the strip of yellow beach, the surf breaking onto it and the cars on the coast road, and grin over at Edward, excitement bubbling up in me.

I can see a big marina surrounded by low buildings and palm trees. It looks very exclusive. I’m nervous about landing and laugh about it with Edward, but we land with hardly a bump.