Want to Know a Secret? (17 page)

Love for his daughter was in every line of his face. Diane identified with his corresponding lack of concern for himself – Parent’s Disease, she called that, having had a hefty dose. ‘She missed her fitting on Tuesday.’

His eyes darkened. ‘But you can give her time, can’t you? I’m sure contact with you is good for her. I don’t know when she’ll make another appointment, though.’

She let herself smile at the way his eyes were trying to compel her to agree – but not for himself, for Tamzin. She was still mighty pissed off at him, but this wasn’t the moment to act it. This was about Tamzin. ‘How about if I were to bring the fitting to her? She might co-operate if I just turn up.’

His eyes brightened. ‘I ought to refuse; I live in Webber’s Cross, so it wouldn’t be a quick trip for you – but it would be brilliant. Thanks,’ he added softly. His eyes smiled.

Despite the unresolved tension between them, she touched the warmth of his hand as she got up to leave. For an instant, his fingers tangled with hers.

Tamzin was in her favourite spot – rolled in her duvet like a giant larvae.

Gazing at the curtains, gold on pink and still drawn shut, she picked out the segment of pattern that looked like a wild-maned lion resting his chin on his paws. She saw things like that. In the grain of her bathroom floor there was a goblin, winking, and on the wallpaper in the hall a bishop, in profile.

Staring at the lion sometimes helped on a day, like today, when her organs felt too heavy for her body, except for her stomach, which felt hollow. A day when memories of the Coven made her inert with misery.

And though she had heard two knocks at her door, she kept her gaze fixed on the lion. It would be Dad. He’d knock once more and then look in. Check on her. She wished he wouldn’t.

The third knock was louder and more impatient.

Then the door flew open. ‘Hello, Tamzin!’

Startled, Tamzin watched as Diane, billowing with fabric, unloaded a basket onto the bedroom chair. ‘I’ve come to do your fittings.’ The curtains swished back and were snagged deftly behind their ties. From the basket, Diane plucked a tape measure to loop around her neck and a pincushion to clip onto her wrist. She looked at Tamzin expectantly.

Tamzin pushed back the duvet, slowly, and rolled to the edge of the bed. ‘I don’t really feel like it.’

‘But I can’t get on without a fitting. Are those pyjamas?’

Looking down at herself, Tamzin had to admit that they were. A white top with a piebald pony and non-matching yellow seersucker bottoms. Baggy.

‘You’ll be OK in jeans on the bottom half but can you put a decent bra on the top?’ With an impatient movement, Diane consulted her watch then turned to the window. ‘I’ll admire your garden while you change.’

Tamzin gazed at the safety of her tumbled bed.

‘Tell me when you’re ready.’

Sighing, she clambered to her feet and opened her underwear drawer. Lying still for so long had left her feeling creaky, leaden.

She managed to find a bra and a pair of knickers respectable enough to be seen. From the wardrobe she selected a pair of black jeans that hung from her hips. She tried not to look at herself in the mirror, at her arms. Mingin. She curled up inside. ‘I don’t want to do this today.’

‘But I’m here today.’

Sullenly, Tamzin climbed into her clothes. ‘OK. Ready.’

Diane swung around.

Tamzin stared at the floor.

There was one still moment.

Then Diane swept up the pink fabric. ‘This is the double-breasted shirt, do you remember? I’ve set the sleeves in but they’re only tacked. I want to see how we are for length – left arm, please. Can you come to the mirror? Fasten the buttons, then I can see if I’ve brought the darts up far enough.’

Diane’s busy fingers twitched and smoothed. ‘The embroidery will be
here
, if you remember, with the little rings incorporated into it. I’ve done an experimental piece on this swatch, look, and I’m really pleased. Good, yes? I think the darts are OK, don’t you? But the cuffs need lifting about half-an-inch.’

The fabric felt smooth against her skin. Tamzin risked a glance at her reflection; more sufferable now she was covered. The colour was well cool; in it, she didn’t look like the neighbourhood ghost. ‘It looks nice!’ she observed, unwillingly captivated.

Diane laughed. ‘No need to sound so surprised. Of course it looks nice, what with my sewing skills and your good looks.’ She swooped suddenly on a wide-bristled hairbrush lying on the dusty dressing-table. ‘Do you mind if I get your hair out of the way? Then I can see the shoulders properly.’

Tamzin looked away from the mat of old hair in the brush. Mingin. Meekly, she allowed her hair to be brushed, pulled back and swished up onto her head, not even complaining when the knots were tugged.

‘What gorgeous hair you have – I wish mine had more colour.’

‘But yours is so pearly blonde!’

‘At least I’ve avoided going silver – so far. We’d be like the hymn about daisies and buttercups, then – me silver and you gold. Probably uncool, now, but it was my favourite when I was a child. Just let your arms hang while I pin.’

Scrutinising the collar and smoothing the shoulders, Diane began to sing, under her breath. ‘Daisies are our si-ilver, buttercups our gold ..
.
’ Her voice was OK and she sang the hymn right through, all about diamond raindrops and emerald leaves, as she helped Tamzin carefully out of the pink shirt. Hymns reminded Tamzin of her primary school, a traditional private school where
All Things Bright and Beautiful
or
Morning Has Broken
contributed to the cosiness, along with blue gingham and grey serge. It had been a silken nest compared to university.

The other shirt was the delicate colour of clotted cream and the fabric as soft as tissue. Diane held it up. ‘Don’t be disappointed in the plainness, at this stage. The over-layer of gold gauze is going to bring out the lovely colour of your hair. Slide into it carefully … there. That round neck suits you, Tamz. Your dad’s invited me to stay for supper – are you in tonight?’

As if Tamzin was ever anything but ‘in tonight’, except for visits to the hospital. ‘I should think so.’

‘Great. Because I’d like to start on the decorated jeans, so we can throw ideas around. Your dad says he’s grilling steaks. Can he cook?’

Tamzin watched Diane’s efforts through the mirror, with growing interest. ‘He can do anything he decides to. Ask him to make mustard sauce as well – it’s wicked.’

Chapter Thirteen

Part of Diane’s long hair was bunched up on the top of her head and the rest was a moon river down her back. Pleasurably, James turned over the memory of her hair tumbling around her nakedness in the back of his car. What had happened had happened only once and maybe he ought to be glad that his complicated life hadn’t been sent spinning by it happening again. But he would really like to see her like that again. Daily.

Although it made him feel odd to see Diane here, in Valerie’s home in the upmarket village of Webber’s Cross, he couldn’t stop watching her eating her steak and salad as if it was a treat – in stark contrast to Tamzin, who treated every mouthful as a trial. Finally, Diane sat back with a sigh. ‘You were right about the mustard sauce, Tamzin, it was wicked. And the chocolate ice-cream with mini doughnuts, even wickeder.’

Tamzin just smiled. From her lack of participation in the conversation and her pallor, James could tell that she was shattered. Soon, she’d retreat to her room. But at least Diane’s breezy presence had dragged her out of it for a few hours.

Sure enough, it was only five minutes later that Tamzin climbed slowly to her feet. ‘I’m tired.’

Diane looked up. ‘Going to bed? ’Night, sweetheart.’

‘Night, Diane.’ Tamzin wafted through the open French doors and marked her progress through the house with a trail of illuminated windows.

James, hoping that Diane wouldn’t make Tamzin’s departure a sign that she ought to be turning for home herself, poured her a fresh glass of fruit juice. ‘She had a good evening. I haven’t seen her so bright for a fortnight.’

‘How do you feel about the quantity she ate?’ Diane slapped at one of a squadron of bugs out on its evening sortie.

‘For her, it was OK. Most of a small steak and salad, plus a small portion of dessert.’

Diane pulled a face. ‘It’s funny to think that Bryony and Tamzin are exactly the same age because they don’t seem it. And Bryony would have eaten eight times what Tamzin ate. It seemed incredibly little.’

‘I suppose it does, when you’re not used to it.’ The ‘small’ steak that Tamzin hadn’t quite managed to finish had begun as the size of a modest burger; the salad consisted of a cherry tomato and two leaves of frilly lettuce.

‘I could have polished it off in three mouthfuls,’ said Diane, feelingly. ‘I pigged out on a steak like a butcher’s buttock, a mound of salad and coleslaw and what felt like half a French stick. Was it tactless to take a second dessert?’

He laughed at her guilty expression. ‘Not at all. It’s fine to eat normally in front of her. The only rule, really, is not to pressurise her to do the same.’ The light from the house fell on one side of Diane’s face. She looked relaxed, her legs stretched out, her elbows on the arms of the chair and her top clinging interestingly across her chest.

The house, once the vicarage, lichened grey stone with a slate roof and a gravel drive, stood in the centre of the village on a little square green. The village shop and the pub, The Old Dog, stood opposite, and provided them with a background noise of cars pulling up and their doors slamming. He crossed one leg lazily over the other and thought how comfortable he felt, lounging here on a balmy evening with Diane, listening to the rise and fall of her voice and her occasional flickers of laughter.

‘It’s been a pleasant evening,’ she said, as if reading his thoughts. ‘All I would have done at home alone is think what a shit Gareth has been.’

He could have made an anodyne response about enjoying her company. But he never let a sleeping dog lie if he thought he’d achieve more by giving it a good old shake. He let his voice drop. ‘Is everything all right, after that night? Do we have any pregnancy worries?’

Diane was reaching for her glass and it wobbled alarmingly as she swung around to frown at him. ‘I thought it was too good to be true that you were co-operating with me to forget that madness,’ she whispered.

‘How can I?’ he murmured. Forget her hands, her mouth, the satin of her body, her pleasure in the act? In him?

She swallowed a mouthful of juice. ‘Yes. All fine.’

‘And you know … how?’ The light from the window hadn’t fallen on him so she wouldn’t be able to see his smile as he delved into the subject she so obviously wished left alone.

She sent him a darkling look. ‘Dr Cooke is a sensible woman and pleasantly unshockable about prescribing the morning-after pill.’

‘Good.’ He paused long enough to let her think she might be off the hook. Then, ‘You’ve never had to consult her about anything … like
that
, before?’

‘Scandalous, do you mean?’ she returned, smartly. ‘Or perhaps a 43-year-old woman who’s had a one-night stand isn’t scandalous, in your world? Maybe it’s just what people do? And move on?’

‘I feel terrible that I didn’t phone you. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to, but Tamzin’s been –’ Having made the opportunity to talk about it, he hesitated, not knowing how to go on.

Then Diane sighed and the tension seemed to seep from her. ‘Yes. I can see how she’s been. I’m glad you warned me before I went in – about her arms. I had no idea.’ Her voice was sadder than tears.

He watched her shiver. The ladder of scabs and scars that ran up the soft inner of each of Tamzin’s arms made him feel like that, too. Some fresh, some old, some no more than white or pink cords. Each scar an ugly statement he couldn’t completely understand or a question he wasn’t hearing. ‘She tries to hide it. Self-harmers do that, they find it deeply personal.’

For a moment she touched his hand, her fingers cool in the evening air. ‘I’m so sorry, James. Even though you’d warned me I’m afraid it took me by surprise. I don’t think I quite carried on as if I hadn’t noticed. I’d like to understand what makes her do that.’

He laughed, mirthlessly. ‘So would I.’ He fell silent. Tamzin was that rare thing – a problem he couldn’t fix.

Diane reached for her bag and made an obvious attempt to change the subject. ‘Look, I bought a mobile phone, yesterday. I’ve made one call on it to check that it works but I’m useless with it, really.’ She held the flat black phone out for his inspection.

He took it. ‘Sensible to have one.’ His thumb moved over the touch screen. ‘There. The first entry in your phone book.’ He turned the screen so that she could see
James mobile
and his number. The thumb went into action again and he showed her:
James home
.

To view the screen properly, she had to draw close to him. And if he shifted his hand a little – even closer. ‘So they’re there forever, are they?’

‘Yes, you press
menu
, then
phone book
, then the first letter of the name. See? Then press the green button.’ After a pause a muffled buzzing soaked out into the evening air. He reached into his pocket and brought out his BlackBerry. ‘Hello?’