Want to Know a Secret? (25 page)

Gareth drank from his spouted cup before he spoke again. ‘Bastard!’ he hissed, a clammy sweat of fury on his forehead. ‘Wait till I get my hands on him, that shit –’ He halted, glancing down at himself, pinned together like a mannequin, plastered into immobility, muscles wasting with disuse. ‘What’s she going to do?’

Diane sat back with a sigh. ‘She won’t contemplate abortion and I think she’s possibly too far on, anyway.’

‘Will she keep it?’

‘I think so. I’ve made her an appointment with Dr Cooke tomorrow. She’ll need to have a check up and be put into whatever the programme is now for pregnant women. Tests and scans.’
Pregnant women
. It was only a minute since she’d been her little girl, with merry dark eyes and a giggle that rang out like a xylophone.

‘Is she all right, do you think? She wasn’t herself yesterday but I put it down to tiredness.’ His voice was gruff.

Diane nodded. ‘Anxious, of course, and shocked. But she seems healthy.’

‘I must see her, talk to her. I feel so helpless lying here.’

‘I’ll bring her tomorrow afternoon. She’ll be living with us for the foreseeable future, I think. There’s the money for you to give her a car now, isn’t there? It’s murder living in Purtenon St. Paul without one.’

His face flooded with colour. ‘I’ll arrange to have some transferred to you –’

‘Arrange it with her,’ she said, flatly.

He hesitated. ‘Are you all right for money, Diane? Are you managing?’

A smile crooked her mouth and she gazed at him with curiosity. ‘You’ve lain here with all that money at your fingertips and that’s the first time you’ve bothered asking. Your boss phoned to check I was getting your sick pay, your union rep asked if I’d like to draw from the welfare fund, Harold offered help and Freddy wanted to send me a cheque. Thanks, Gareth, thank you for finally bothering about me but I’m OK. For now, your sick pay’s covering the mortgage and I’m meeting everything else myself. I’ve even got in all the money Trish Warboys and Maria Cuthbert owed.’

Silence. Then, ‘I still love you.’

She made a rude noise. ‘Words are cheap.’

Fresh sweat broke out on his face. ‘We can get through this. I’ll have counselling. Some people don’t cope well when they have a big windfall. They go on the spree. I just did the opposite, that’s all –’

‘How did it happen?’ she interrupted.

‘What?’ The afternoon sun slanted low into his window, making him squint.

‘When Harold got in touch with you. Did he write? Phone? Just turn up one day when I wasn’t there?’

She watched the expressions chase across his face – indecision, guilt, guile. He cleared his throat. ‘A bloke waited outside for me one day. I sent him on his way.’

‘Why?’

He grinned. ‘I thought that Melvyn or Ivan had got in bother with a loan and maybe got a bit creative with my signature and put me down as guarantor. You know how those lads expect my help.’

‘Yes, I do.’ She didn’t smile.

‘Then a letter arrived at our house. It was directly from my father. I was … flabbergasted. Blown away. You can’t imagine – ’

‘Was I there when you read it?’

His eyes flicked left and she knew he was searching for the politically expedient reply. Probably he knew that the wrong answer would ignite her simmering fury. ‘It was a Saturday, you were upstairs in your workroom when the post came. I don’t think I meant not to tell you. But it was unreal. That’s it, honestly – unreal. I didn’t know what to do. He said that the agency believed that I was born to Wendy Jenner and he was likely to be my father. And he would very much like to meet me.

‘I couldn’t get my head round it. Didn’t want to be made a fool of by it turning out to be some crackpot joke.

‘I had to answer a load of questions about Mum’s age, height and colouring and the names of her parents and siblings. I had a meeting with somebody from the agency, then I had a meeting with my father.’ His voice shook. ‘It was at the Great Northern Hotel. You know how swanky that is.’

‘Yes. I haven’t been there since before we were married, of course.’

The eyes dropped again, uncomfortably. She so rarely alluded to the fact that marrying him had sent her finances hurtling downhill as fast as a bob sleigh. ‘We met for dinner. He was there, waiting for me. I was nervous, didn’t know what to expect. I’d bought a new white shirt so that I didn’t feel like a tramp in that swish dining room. I dropped my spoon in my soup and was so concerned with checking my new shirt that I didn’t realise I’d showered his suit. I felt such a berk! The waiter looked at me as if I’d come in on his shoe. But Harold just laughed and told me not to worry.’

‘Did you have blood tests?’ Diane felt a creeping sensation of unreality that Gareth, her husband, could have been living in the same house as her yet keep hidden all these momentous developments in his life. Was she blind? Complacent? Stupid?

‘Yes. Neither of us wanted to find later that we’d believed in something that wasn’t true. Diane, he’s a really good bloke and we get on well.’

‘Yes, he’s a gentleman.’

‘Then he took me to meet Valerie, and we hit it off, too. She took me out in her sports car and up in her helicopter. I mean – a
helicopter
. My relationship with her is all novelty. Not just the flying, not just that she’s a sister instead of a brother – but because she doesn’t expect me to make her decisions for her.’

‘And it was all just too nice to share?’

He sagged wearily on his pillows, hunted and grumpy. He was being honest(ish) and she was still responding with her sour little comments, not cutting him any slack at all. In a minute he’d lose his temper and ability to apologise and this cautious, uncomfortable conversation would be wasted. Implacable, angry Diane was wearing to deal with. The normal Diane, the one who liked a quiet life, was easier to manipulate. He studied his wife. She looked half her age today in cropped jeans with a red and gold cuff at the bottom. He thought, irrelevantly, that he’d forgotten how blue her eyes were. Blue steel.

But maybe it was time for a controlled offensive. ‘You know how I feel about what you did to me about your parents’ money. And you know what lies are like. Suddenly, I was creating a whole new life for myself. For
me
. Not for you, not for my brothers or mum.’

‘Nor for your daughter,’ she added, helpfully.

He hesitated. Thought about Bryony and the baby. ‘I’m going to make it up to her.’

‘Put her in your will, do you mean? So she’ll have to wait about 30 years, but if there’s anything left, she’ll get it?’ Diane laughed.

Abruptly, the hold on his temper snapped. ‘Oh, fuck off!’

‘Good idea. I’ll drop Bryony off to see you tomorrow afternoon.’ And she sauntered out of the door, humming.

He seethed out at the sky and the treetops for a long time. It wasn’t fair of her to stroll out on him when he couldn’t chase her!

And … it was worrying that she didn’t seem to give a bugger for his opinion any more. He had never actually wanted his marriage to end or he would’ve ended it. It was just that his feelings for Diane had been coloured for such a long time by resentment.

He sighed, wondering how long it was since he’d had sex with his wife.

See, that was a bit of carelessness, to get out of that habit. Just because he was being nicely looked after by Stella he’d sort of let things slide with Diane during the cold war and, once intimacy had lapsed, it could be bloody awkward to make it routine and natural again.

Sex was a great destroyer of barriers. Which was probably why he hadn’t wanted sex with her, because he wanted the barriers up, to punish her. But he’d expected her still to be waiting at the barrier when he chose to haul it aside.

The crash had mucked everything up. He’d had everything under control until then but now he had the feeling that nothing was under control. Particularly Diane.

He picked up his mobile and pressed the speed dialler. ‘Guess what?’ he said. ‘I’m going to be a grandfather.’

His sister’s precise tones were amused. ‘Good God! I didn’t know your daughter was in a relationship.’

He laughed shortly. ‘It was over before she realised she was pregnant, unfortunately.’

‘What does Diane think about it? Is she pleased?’

He realised, belatedly, that he hadn’t enquired. ‘I think she’s concerned for Bryony, and that Bryony makes the decision that’s right for her.’ He was on pretty solid ground with that, Diane would be putting Bryony first; she had for all of Bryony’s life.

They performed the routine comparison of recovery rates, then Gareth said, ‘Can I ask you something, between you, me and the bedpost? Haven’t you got a close buddy who’s a lawyer? Would she come over and see me for an hour one morning? I need some information on something.’

A pause. Then, instead of agreeing instantly, Valerie said, ‘I don’t like being brought into your nefarious schemes.’

‘Who said it’s a nefarious scheme?’

She laughed. ‘Why don’t you ask your wife to arrange it, then?’ A longer pause. ‘No, I don’t think I’m going to do it, Gareth. You’ve been perfectly bloody to your wife and I don’t want to be any part of it. You’ll have to pull this one off on your own.’

Dumbfounded, he hung up. She’d said no! His
sister
. Hadn’t she read the unwritten rule that siblings said yes? She’d been brought up as an only child, and it showed. Melvyn or Ivan wouldn’t have said no. Ever.

Chapter Twenty-One

‘This is
so
weird.’

‘You don’t have to do it today if you don’t want to. You’ve had an emotional few days; be kind to yourself.’

‘I want to do it. It’s just weird. I can’t believe that I’ve had all these relatives all my life, and I’m twenty, and you have to introduce me to them.’

A dozen paces out of the lift stood a leather chair pushed up against the wall of the corridor. Bryony sank down in it. ‘My legs are wobbly.’

Diane fetched a waxed paper cone of cold water from the dispenser for her. ‘Why not leave it for today, sweetie? It’s been a trying day, seeing Dr Cooke and then the midwife.’

Immediately, Bryony climbed back to her feet. ‘No, I want to do it; I’m dead curious. We can see Dad later.’

There was no ‘we’ about it. Diane intended Bryony to see her father alone today. Bryony and Gareth needed time together – and Diane and Gareth needed time apart.

At Valerie’s door, Diane knocked and stuck her head into the room. Tamzin and James were seated at the far side of Valerie’s bed. Tamzin beamed delightedly to see her; James smiled with his eyes. Diane smiled back, but addressed Valerie. ‘Is it a good time to bring Bryony in?’

Valerie brightened. ‘Oh yes, let me meet my niece!’

Bryony was already squeezing past but paused as her eyes fell on her aunt. ‘Oh. My.
God
. You and Dad are a real pair – you look as if you’ve been run over by a truck. Oh, hello.’

‘Hello,’ replied Tamzin, briefly, as she scooted around the bed to hug Diane.

Diane gave her a big hug back. ‘You’re looking good.’ Even though Tamzin wore a white top – it looked new – she had some colour in her face. Her hair had been brushed, too, the top pulled back into a red scrunchie and the rest rippling down her back.

‘I feel amazing.’

Valerie, too, was looking better than when Diane last saw her. Her hair was glossy and she had less of a preoccupied and anxious air.

Diane broke away from Tamzin. ‘Valerie, this is Bryony.’

Valerie smiled. ‘You’re like your father, Bryony. But prettier.’

When Bryony beamed, Diane suddenly saw a flash of resemblance to Valerie, too. There was something about the mouth and the way Bryony held herself. It was unsettling.

‘And this is James, Bryony.’ Diane had known that James would be there from a text conversation conducted late last night as she snuggled under her duvet. All day she’d looked forward to the meeting with tingling warmth, catching herself smiling at the thought of being near him. And she’d thought herself prepared to see him with his wife and daughter – but found herself trying to remember how to act normally around him. Disconcerted, she flashed a panicky glance at Valerie and found those hazel eyes regarding her almost with affection.

Guilt lurched through her like the first downwards drop on a roller coaster.

In cold blood, she was planning to have an affair with this woman’s husband.

Valerie – her husband’s half-sister and Tamzin’s mother. If she were to go through with it, it would always be this way. There would be one relationship with James in public and another when they were alone. Echoes of Gareth and Stella. Had they felt like this? Guilty and remorseful? Or had they hugged their secrets and giggled over them when they were alone?

To hide the sudden trembling of her hands, she pushed the chair set out for her back from the bed, and from James, so that Bryony could sit close to Valerie.

Tamzin, luckily, was uncharacteristically streaming with chatter about her sisters’ envy of her new clothes and all Diane had to do was listen and nod and smile, screamingly conscious of James’s hands, resting loosely, still and calm, on his jeans-clad thighs. The same hands that tomorrow would be holding hers in the streets of Cambridge. Perhaps sliding beneath her clothes in the privacy of a car in a secluded spot … Pleasure and self-reproach butted heads and she felt sick.