Keeping Secrets (47 page)

‘That would be nice. Thanks.'

They walk across, and heave out boxes.

‘What is all this stuff?'

‘Hasn't Mum told you?'

‘What?'

‘I'm not going to work in London any more.'

‘Oh.' Jonathan dumps a box on the path. ‘Because …'

‘There's a slump in the housing market, hence the building trade. Hence I don't have as much work as I did.' He reaches into the car for the last box. ‘So …' He emerges from the car and closes the door. ‘I'll be around a bit more.'

Jonathan looks at him, and turns away. He fiddles with the flap of one of the boxes. ‘What about this baby?'

Stephen leans against the car, and shuts his eyes. ‘Shall we just … give it a rest? Just for a while.'

There is a pause. ‘Okay.'

‘Unless …' He opens his eyes again; Jonathan is picking at a bit of loose label. ‘Unless of course you want to see him. Is that it? Do you?'

Jonathan shakes his head. ‘No. Well … perhaps one day.'

‘Okay. Come on, then, let's get rid of this lot.' They stack up the boxes and carry them round the back of the house, down the path through the hedge to the studio, passing Tess's grave. Stephen opens the door and turns on the light. They dump all the boxes on the floor. Jonathan looks round. The studio is cold, unheated for weeks. There is dust over everything, and some of the plans pinned up above the long white desk have been torn, and mended with Sellotape.

He says: ‘I can remember when you first built this place. I can remember coming in here when you first got it organised.'

‘Can you?'

‘Yes. You gave me a spin in that chair.'

‘Did I? I don't remember.'

‘No,' says Jonathan. ‘I don't suppose you do.'

They go out again, turning off the light.

In the kitchen, Miriam has made tea, and is buttering toast. The table is laid with plates, and pots of jam.

Jonathan says: ‘I'm just going to the loo.' He goes out, walking quickly up the passage. Stephen sees Tess's empty basket and pulls out a chair and sits down. He is very, very tired.

‘Here,' says Miriam. She puts the plate of toast on the table, and pours him a cup of tea.

‘Thank you.' He pulls it towards him, and they drink their tea in silence; Jonathan does not come back. They hear the ting of the phone as he picks it up.

‘Miriam?'

‘Yes?'

‘Are you all right?'

She puts down her teacup. ‘Yes,' she says, ‘I am.' She turns to look at him. ‘What about you? Are you all right?'

‘Not really.' The room is warm and familiar, but he feels like an intruder. ‘Do you think –' He puts out a hand towards her, on the table top. ‘What are we going to do?'

‘I don't know,' Miriam says slowly. ‘Don't let's talk about it yet.'

London, the Easter holidays. Hettie and Annie are out in the garden, where it is cold, but not so cold that they need to have their coats on. They are wearing old jeans and sweaters, Hettie on the swing, and Annie putting Sylvanian animals into their plastic tree house. The sun is out; a light wind blows Hettie's hair across her face; she pushes it away, and swings higher. Annie puts Mr Badger on the ladder and helps him climb the steps. ‘Up you go.'

Indoors, upstairs, on the other side of the house, Tony is lying in bed. The windows on to the street are open a little at the bottom, and the lace curtains move in the breeze. Tony's eyes are closed; he has been trying to read the paper and given up. His hand rests on the pages, he is beginning to drop off. Alice comes in with a tray.

‘Tony?' She puts it down on the bedside table, two mugs of coffee; he opens his eyes, gives a half-smile, and shuts them again. She lifts the paper from beneath his hand and puts it on the floor, feeling his cheek to make sure he's not cold. Then she picks up the tray and goes quietly out again.

In the kitchen she stands at the sink peeling potatoes and watching the children through the window. Sheets and pillowcases billow on the line. Annie looks up, and wipes mud off her hands; she comes to the door, her hair in a tangle.

‘I'm hungry.'

‘It'll soon be lunchtime.' But Alice knows Annie; she nods towards the fruitbowl. ‘Have a banana, go on, and take one for Hettie.'

‘Thanks.' Annie reaches up, and almost knocks the bowl to the floor: ‘Whoops.' She pushes it back on to the table.

‘You are getting sensible.'

Annie gives her a smile. ‘What's for lunch?'

‘Chicken. Hilda and Sam are coming over, remember? I've bought Sam a present.'

‘What is it?'

‘Wait and see, I'll show you when I've finished the potatoes. Go on now.'

Annie is struggling with the banana skin. ‘Can I go up and see Daddy?'

‘Later. He's sleeping.'

She frowns. ‘He's always asleep.'

‘He's getting better, though, darling. He needs it.'

Annie goes out into the garden again, leaving the door to bang shut.

On the other side of the common, Hilda is walking slowly beneath the trees. She is pushing Sam, who has been awake since six, but who was taken by Anya at nine, so that Hilda could have a rest.

‘Are you sure?'

‘Of course I'm sure.' Anya held out her arms. ‘Come on, Sam, let's have a look at the garden.'

This can't go on, thought Hilda, as she climbed the stairs, but she slept until almost eleven. And now Sam is asleep, mittens on, hood up, face to one side. Hilda walks down the broad sloping path towards the playground. Someone is calling her.

‘Hilda! Hilda!'

She looks up to see Jane, pushing her battered old pram. Hilda smiles, and waves back.

‘Hello.'

‘Hi.' Jane's cheeks are pink from the fresh air, she looks younger than ever. ‘Isn't it a lovely day? You haven't been in touch, I've been wondering how you are. What's been happening?'

‘Quite a lot,' says Hilda. She looks into the pram, where Daisy is sucking her covers. ‘Hello, Daisy. What about you?' she asks Jane.

‘How are you?'

‘I'm pregnant,' Jane says happily. ‘Can you believe it?'

‘Oh.' For a moment Hilda is utterly disconcerted. ‘Oh … that's wonderful. Well done.'

‘Well, it wasn't exactly planned,' says Jane. ‘Still, we're really pleased.' She looks at Hilda, and suddenly kisses her. ‘I know you won't tell me anything unless I prise it out of you. Will you?'

Hilda shakes her head. ‘Not at the moment. I'll ring you, though. I'm going to see my sister now.'

‘All right.' Jane looks down at Sam's sleeping face. ‘He's beautiful.'

‘Thanks.'

They say goodbye and Hilda walks on, crossing the road, making her way through the side streets to Alice's house again. She heaves the pushchair up the steps, and rings the bell.

After lunch, they all go out into the garden. It is surprisingly warm now, more like early summer. Alice and Hilda sit at the garden table with their coffee, watching the children. Sam is sitting on a rug, surrounded by Sylvanians. He picks them up one by one and chews their heads.

‘Stop it,' says Annie. ‘Stop it!'

Alice laughs. ‘Give him something else.'

Annie looks round, floundering. She picks up his teething ring and holds it out. ‘Go on, that's yours, you have that.' Sam pushes it away, and picks up Mrs Rabbit. Annie snatches it back. ‘No!' Sam begins to cry. Hettie, who has been squatting down in a corner, digging, gets up.

‘I know,' she says. ‘Let's put him on the swing.' She looks across at Hilda. ‘Can we?'

Hilda looks at the narrow seat. ‘I suppose so. So long as you hold him tight.'

‘No, no,' says Hettie. ‘Not
this
swing. We've got a surprise.'

‘Oh. How nice.'

Alice gets up and goes into the kitchen. ‘I meant to put this up before you came,' she says, coming out with a box. She pulls out a baby's swing-seat, yellow, with a safety bar.

‘Isn't it brilliant?' says Hettie. ‘Isn't it wicked?'

Hilda laughs, and gets up, dropping a kiss on Hettie's dark head. Then together she and Alice unhook the big swing and clip on this one; she picks up Sam, who has stopped crying and is looking up at things with interest.

‘There.' She eases him into the seat, pulling his legs through the gaps. ‘What do you think of that, then?' She gives him a little push, and he giggles.

‘He likes it,' says Annie.

‘He does, doesn't he?' She pushes him again, and he smiles and laughs. ‘What a success.' She turns to Alice, and puts her arm round her. ‘Thank you. Very clever.'

‘Not really,' says Alice. ‘Anyway, I'm glad he likes it.'

They go back to the table, and sit down; they drink their coffee in a silence which feels, after all these years, companionable, and watch Hettie and Annie, one behind Sam and one in front, pushing him to and fro.

Hilda tells Alice about Jane. She says cautiously: ‘What about you? Do you want another one?'

‘No,' says Alice. ‘Not any more.'

Inside, upstairs, Tony is making his way to the bathroom, slowly but with more confidence. He no longer feels as though he might collapse every time he gets out of bed; he has rested, and eaten a bit of lunch and can feel himself picking up strength. In the bathroom he has a pee, hearing the voices of the children from the garden below. He slowly washes and slowly shaves; he stands at the window and looks down.

The girls are pushing Sam on the swing, back and forth, back and forth; he is smiling all over his face. Alice and Hilda are out of sight from here, but Alice is suddenly visible, getting up and going across the garden to get the washing off the line. He watches her, her slender arms reaching up to unpeg clean cotton sheets, her soft pale hair brushed by the corner of a pillowcase.

Tony goes out, and carefully along the landing. In the bedroom he looks absently at the overflowing bookshelf, wondering if he is up to reading anything yet. The shelf is full of novels, a muddle of his and Alice's, jammed in when they unpacked from the move and waiting, seven years and two children later, to be sorted out. He runs his eye along them, books he hasn't thought about for ages. He pulls out
Vanity Fair,
and sniffs the pages. He'd read that years and years ago, long before Alice. Standing here now, leafing through it again in his pyjamas, he remembers how it ended, although usually he cannot remember endings. He must be getting better.

Amelia had loved her dashing husband George, who betrayed her with Becky Sharp; she was loved all the time by faithful Dobbin.

When George was killed on the battlefield of Waterloo, Dobbin, at last, was able to marry her.

And what happened then? After all the waiting and longing, something had changed. He went on loving her, oh, yes, but it wasn't quite as he'd always thought it would be.

First published in 1991 by Century

This edition published 2012 by Bello an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR Basingstoke and Oxford Associated companies throughout the world

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ISBN 978-1-4472-3435-7 EPUB
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Copyright © Sue Gee, 1991

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