Want to Know a Secret? (22 page)

She fiddled with the car door. It wouldn’t do any harm, would it? Bryony’s room had already been given the welcome-home treatment and the freezer filled with her favourites. Alone, Diane would probably spend the evening unable to concentrate on a film or a book or even her sewing while she waited for the clock to tick around to the day after tomorrow, the day that Bryony’s plane landed.

And she hadn’t eaten dessert …

They chose to sit outside with the midges and the kiddies. Both were a nuisance but it was a still evening and Diane liked the idea of letting the dewy twilight close peacefully around them, rather than be seated inside in the cheery but artificial light, washed by roars of approval or groans of dismay according to the fortunes of the darts players.

The creaking pub sign sported a beagle with an erect tail. ‘I call him Frank,’ said James, following the direction of her gaze. ‘He’s a randy old dog with an eye for pretty ladies.’

‘And an up-for-it expression.’

‘Always. He’s currently sniffing around Charlotte the King Charles Spaniel, who has a coquettish eye patch and a cute little nose. He can’t wait to get his paw over.’ His eyes crinkled. He hadn’t shaved and the stubble accentuated the hollows of his cheeks.

Diane snorted inelegantly. ‘How sad – you have a prurient interest in the imaginary sex life of a painted beagle.’

James settled more comfortably on the bench and sank the first half of his pint efficiently. ‘OK, let’s talk about your nephew, George – as he’s taken my fragile daughter out tonight.’

Diane lowered her glass. ‘They were getting on brilliantly the other day. I was pleased to see her cheerful and doing something as normal as taking an interest in a boy. Aren’t you happy?’

He waited as his lamb tikka was placed before him, ripping into an oval of naan bread before replying. ‘Of course I am, because, as you say, it’s normal for a twenty-year-old and Tamzin hardly ever behaves like a normal twenty-year-old. But I have this urge to charge round to George’s house, pin him against the wall and tell him the boundaries.’ His jaw hardened. ‘I hate it that he does drugs. It just needs her to fall for this clown – if he treats her like rubbish, she could be right back at square one. Depression, starving, self-injuring
 
–’

‘Whoa!’ Diane’s voice emerged loudly in the still evening air and two little girls with bunches paused in their game with a toy horse to gaze, wide-eyed. She lowered her voice to a fierce growl, her words rushing over one another in irritated little leaps. ‘George is all right. He sings and plays guitar in a band, he goes to Anglia Ruskin uni, he’s pleasant and polite. He’s been very close to Bryony and has never acted like “a clown” with her. And. He. Does. Not. Do. Drugs.’

James brought his face close to hers. ‘I’m afraid he does,’ he whispered. ‘I heard Tamzin on her phone ask him what was so special about an E and why he had to have one.’

Slowly, Diane relaxed. ‘Don’t be such an arse.’

James hesitated. ‘What?’

She felt the corners of her mouth begin to curl. ‘The only E he uses is his
harmonica
in the key of E. The key of E is his favourite vocal range. But you might have heard her talk about C or G, too.’

‘Oh ...’ Slowly, James’s smile crept across his fine lips. ‘That is such a relief. I didn’t even know that harmonicas were in specific keys.’ His grin widened. ‘All right, I’m sorry. You can stop your scary voice.’

Laughing unwillingly, Diane pulled a face. ‘Sorry. But George has a special spot in my heart.’

He began to eat. ‘So I see. Quite reassuring, the way you jump to his defence.’

Diane struggled with her conscience. Presently she said, ‘Of course, he’s not a saint. He’s a nineteen-year-old boy and I can’t pretend that he won’t …’ She hesitated. ‘I mean, they’re young adults – ’

‘I get the picture,’ he said, shortly. ‘Testosterone will kick in.’

Diane reached out and pinched a piece of his naan and a plump cube of lamb to go with it. ‘Like you?’

His eyebrows almost flew off his face. ‘What?’

She picked up his fork and stole some more lamb, with rice this time. ‘I said, “Like you?”’ She pointed his fork at him. ‘People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. Judge not lest ye be judged. If you’re the pot, don’t call the kettle Burned Arse.’

‘Oh.’ He picked up his beer and stared sightlessly at the tubs of flowers losing their colour in the twilight.

She took up the dessert menu. Chocolate fudge cake
.
Very pub grub. Probably sticky toffee pudding, too. Yes, there it was near the bottom. Ooh, cherry crumble … Mmm, summer pudding … Lemon meringue, ice cream sundae. ‘What’s dime cake, do you think?’

‘No idea.’ James balled his napkin and tossed it onto the table where it unfurled and hung in his tikka. Diane flinched automatically at such a waste but her mind had turned to dessert. ‘Would you like –?’

‘No, thanks.’

She wiggled her fingers to catch the attention of a waitress who was clearing nearby tables, ordered, then sat back and awaited the arrival of her dime cake, while James scowled into his beer.

The dime cake arrived – chocolate biscuit base, chocolate mousse, marshmallow, meringue and chocolate sauce. Slowly, she dug her spoon through the squidgy mousse and broke into the base. And groaned. The first mouthful was orgasmic. She shut her eyes the better to concentrate on the mousse’s contrast with the biscuit and meringue and the rich chocolate that pervaded them all.

She opened her eyes ready for the next bite to discover James’s gaze fixed on her. She offered him a spoonful.

For a moment he did that thing where his eyes smiled but his lips didn’t bother. Then he leaned forward to close his mouth gently around the spoon. His eyes widened. ‘Mm.’ He signalled a thumbs up. ‘Mm-
mmm
.’

She agreed with a, ‘M
mmm
,’ of her own. His hand closed over hers to guide another load between his lips.

When the last skerrick of mousse and crumb of biscuit had been scraped from the thick white plate by the surprisingly intimate act of taking turns with the same spoon, James sighed. ‘So. Now you’ve had some time to think about it, what’s the state of our relationship?’

Heart thumping suddenly, she blinked, licking crumbs of chocolaty meringue from around her lips. ‘You’re my husband’s brother-in-law?’

‘I made love to you.’

Her blush was so hot that she could’ve doubled as a patio heater and she glanced around to check that they couldn’t be overheard. ‘I hadn’t forgotten. But not every sexual encounter … I mean, it doesn’t follow that you’ve necessarily got a relationship … there are one-night stands.’

He folded his arms on the edge of the table. ‘I don’t want it to be a one-night stand.’

‘But,’ she pointed out, ‘it was just the one night.’

‘That’s just how it worked out. To me it was … an experience. I began the evening hardly knowing you, thinking that you were quiet – if quietly stroppy, sometimes – and probably a bit doormatty where Gareth’s concerned. After all, he’d somehow pulled that crappy trick on you without you even noticing – or you simply hadn’t wanted to see what was under your nose.’

‘So, naturally, you wanted sex with me,’ she observed. ‘Everyone gets uncontrollable passions for quietly stroppy, dim doormats.’

His eyes smiled again, as if he didn’t want anyone else to know that he had something to smile about. ‘I had already noticed you, physically,’ he murmured. ‘Not being blind. Then as we talked over dinner I realised what a great person you are, how switched on, how courageous, how principled. I took the Merc for a burn up purely to show off to you. And when we were alone in the dark, I experienced all the lust of a teenager on viagra. Afterwards – I drove home absolutely dazed. Then I messed everything up by not ringing you the next day, which was bloody crass. But while I was listening for hours outside Tamzin’s door, wondering if she was OK, wondering whether this would be the time when she would slice a vein, all the time I tried to keep that night with me, thinking that when Tamzin’s crisis was over I’d have this thing with you to explore.’ He drew in a deep breath. The smile in his eyes had vanished. ‘Only to find, of course, that the last thing I had was a thing with you.’

The gnats were being a nuisance, spinning around the lamps until they were dizzy and then splashing down in glasses of beer. Weary children were being gathered up by patient parents, the local teenagers had congregated in the middle of the green, their shouts of laughter drifting through the evening.

He slapped suddenly at his arm. ‘Bloody bugs! Come on, I’ll walk you back to your car.’ He settled the bill with a young waitress called Sarah, asking how her sister was doing at uni. They turned through the gap in the flower tubs and headed for James’s house, leaving their footprints in the dewy grass. The part of the drive where Diane had parked the car was screened by rounded green hedges, throwing the area into deep shadow. As she turned to say goodnight she found herself sandwiched between the car at her back and James at her front, a breath away, the heat of his body radiating over the space between them.

‘I want to make love to you again.’ His voice was quiet and almost conversational. ‘Lots of times. Now. In the future. All the time. I want privacy and light and comfort so I can relax and enjoy you. Your body.’

His fingertips brushed against her left hip.

She sucked in her breath. She hadn’t realised she had quite so many jangly nerve endings there. ‘You mean an affair?’

‘Yes.’

‘We’re both married.’

‘We were last time, too.’ He lifted his hand to her face, stroking her cheekbone and down to her neck, pushing back her hair. His skin was hot, yet Diane shivered. ‘Diane, it seems to me that your marriage is in injury time and you might be thinking about leaving Gareth. And I shouldn’t have feelings like this about another woman but I view my wife as a responsibility and she views me as an annoyance. Still, I can’t leave home at the moment, regardless of Valerie being stuck in hospital or whether she even cares about me. Tamzin couldn’t handle it.

‘But none of that stops me wanting you. I want to be with you, to hear your opinions and laugh at your jokes. When we’re alone I want to be able to kiss you and hold you and touch you. I can’t offer you much – certainly not anything that’s fair or equitable. I’m just telling you what I want. However messy.’

Straining her eyes to see his expression in the darkness, her heart thudded so hard that it was almost unpleasant. ‘I haven’t thought about leaving Gareth. Much,’ she amended. ‘Bryony’s coming home in two days and she’s full of happy family stuff. She’s made up a misunderstanding with Gareth – I think he orchestrated that. I –’ She paused. ‘I don’t know what I want.’

‘But it’s not me?’ His voice was gentle but gravelly with disappointment. His hand dropped from her hair.

She caught it and held it between both of hers, her voice husky. ‘That’s not true … I don’t know if there’s any point in beginning an affair. And I don’t know if I can do it. Sneaking around, lying to everyone. Making do in the backs of cars or in fields. Or checking into hotels for a few hours here or there and the staff being terribly polite but
knowing
. And I’d still be living with Gareth – wouldn’t you mind?’

He laughed shortly and his fingers tightened over hers. ‘I already mind. I mind that you’re his wife, I mind that he’s a shit, I mind that he’s slept with you for years. And, obviously, I’d mind about all the sneaking around, that that’s all I can offer you and all you can offer me. But millions of people do it. They meet when they can and take what happiness there is.’ Each of his fingers slid slowly between hers, lacing their hands together. ‘I think that that’s all there is for us, for now. I’m prepared to take it. Are you?’

She let her head droop until her forehead was lodged against his collarbone, hard and warm and real. ‘I don’t want a lovely thing to be squalid.’ Two hot tears escaped from her closed eyes.

His voice was deep and low. ‘I’ll make it as unsqualid as I can. You won’t have to face staff in hotels. I’ll arrange something.’ Lifting her face to his he kissed her damp eyelids and leaned against her.

‘I don’t know if I can,’ she repeated, weakly. ‘It’s so deceitful. I don’t know if I’ll cope. The guilt.’

He sighed. ‘You could always ask Gareth how it’s done.’

‘Ouch!’

He kissed her, quickly, his mouth firm and hot. ‘Sorry. It can’t have been nice for you to find out about that. But you
did
find out. You know that he has someone else. Doesn’t that clear your conscience?’

‘Or make me as bad as him?’ The summer night had thickened around them, the air full of the scent of damp grass and the sound of a thousand insects. Diane allowed herself to relax into his arms, feeling the thud of his heartbeat. It felt safe.

They stood, bodies pressed together, for so long that night-time creatures began rustling the hedges around them.

James said, quietly, ‘We could make each other happy.’

Chapter Eighteen

Diane squashed in, forcing herself as close as she could get to the barrier.

Other bodies jostled, other heads craned. She’d almost made it to the front of the mob by the time the one she awaited emerged beneath the brightly lit Arrivals sign, squinting with tiredness, short brown curls on end as she fought an airport trolley stacked with scratched suitcases and a brightly coloured backpack.