Tell Me No Secrets (7 page)

‘She's trouble, Grace. She always was.' He lays a hand on my arm. ‘Do you want me to come with you?'

‘No.' The palm of his hand feels warm, his fingers firm around my upper arm. Safe. I shrug him off and move away, put the desk between us. ‘I'll be fine. I'll manage.'

‘I might be better at talking her round than you.'

‘I doubt it, Euan. She never liked you. I think I can do it.' I take a purposeful breath. ‘I know I can do it.' I go over to my own desk and sit down. There's a stack of photographs for me to look through. They are views from Margie Campbell's home in Iona: my next commission and one I was looking forward to. I love painting the sea in all its colours and moods and she has given me free rein to interpret the photographs however I want. The canvas is primed and I hoped to start today but I already know that I won't be able to concentrate. Orla's intentions loom large in my head. I just want to know what I'm up against and can't wait for tomorrow to be over so that I can get back to my life.

Euan and I are playing in our den at the edge of the forest. He's just joined the Scouts and now he always carries a penknife and string in his pocket. He's been practising his knots and I have both my wrists tied together and then the string is looped around the trunk of the tree. ‘I'm going to go back home and get us something to eat,' he says, running off. ‘Wait for me.'

I wait for him. There's not much else I can do, tied up as I am, so I rest my head against the bark and watch ants crawl up and over my hands. I drift off into the gap between sleep and wakefulness and the next thing I hear is the sound of my mother's voice.

‘What in God's name?'

I jump guiltily. ‘Euan's coming back in a minute.'

My mother wrestles with the knot. ‘What sort of a game is this, Grace? Look at the state of you!' My skirt has ridden up almost to my waist and she yanks it down. ‘And those are your new sandals!' When the knot comes loose, I try to wipe the dirt off them but my mother shakes me roughly and gripping on to my arm marches me back up the road.

Mo answers the doorbell, wiping her hands on her apron. The smile dies on her face as my mother speaks. ‘I have just found Grace.' She jerks me forward. ‘Tied to a tree down at the far end of the field. By herself. Her skirt practically up around her neck.
Anyone
could have found her.
Anything
could have happened to her.'

Euan appears at Mo's side. ‘I was going back.' He holds up a bag of sandwiches, some home-made gingerbread and two bottles of lemonade. ‘I've got the supplies.'

‘Next time, Euan, bring Grace back with you,' Mo says, stroking his sticky-up hair flat.

‘But I was guarding our den,' I say.

‘Yeah.' Euan is frowning at both our mothers. He drops the food on to the ground and pulls the ends of his fingers until his knuckles crack. ‘We weren't doing anything wrong.'

‘He had her tied to a tree, Mo.' My mother is shouting now and Mo takes a step backwards. ‘
Tied
to a
tree
.'

‘Now, Lillian, a wee bit of freedom doesn't do them any—'

‘
You
have the cheek to tell
me
how to raise a child? With Claire hanging out with the local boys and George drunk of an evening – and Euan! What of Euan? Never out of trouble!'

Mo's face turns whiter than her freshly laundered sheets that buffet and bounce on the line.

My mother looks down at me. ‘You're not to play with Euan any more.' She looks back at Mo. ‘I'll be making other arrangements for after school.'

My mother turns and I am half walked, half dragged down the path. I look back and see Euan still cracking his fingers and then he punches the doorframe and Mo urges him to come inside.

At school the next day, he won't speak to me. ‘I'm a bad influence on you.' He kicks dirt up on to his trousers. ‘Mum says I have to give you a wide berth.'

I am mortified and I try to explain that I'll win my mother round. He's not interested. I feel angry and then unbearably sad, my chest aching as if I've been punched. I don't join in with the skipping. I scuff my new sandals along the ground and watch Euan play football with the other boys.

I spend the next month going to Faye's after school. She won't play outside or climb trees. She says the sea's too cold to paddle in. She doesn't have dogs or chickens or Effie the goat and her sister is always correcting me. ‘It's not shined it's shone . . . Don't put your elbows on the table . . . It's please
may
I, not
can
I!'

We have tea at five but I won't eat so I spend evening after evening with a full plate in front of me. After a couple of weeks of this, I grow tired and listless and my mother has to do the thing she hates most – take time off work – because I can't go to school.

I move three peas on top of a pile of potato and pat it down with my fork. ‘I hate Faye and I hate her sister,' I say. ‘I'm not going there any more.'

‘How about the new girl, Orla?' my mother asks, in her too bright voice.

I shake my head. ‘I don't know her yet.'

‘How about Monica? She's a lovely, clever girl.'

I scream so loudly that my father comes through from the living room. ‘What's going on in here?'

My mother is scouring the pots. She doesn't turn around, just carries on scrubbing. ‘She's acting up again.'

‘Then perhaps we should listen,' my father says to my mother's stiff back. ‘What sense is there in all this misery?'

‘Misery? Who's causing the misery?' She bangs the pressure cooker down on to the draining board. ‘Always wanting her own way.'

‘Lillian!' my father bellows and I force a forkful of food into my mouth. It catches in my throat and makes a lump as if I've just swallowed a gobstopper. ‘She's eight years old. She's making herself ill. Now climb down from that high horse of yours and go next door to Mo.'

‘I will not!' my mother shouts back, turning round at last, her mouth twisted, her eyes wide open and fierce. ‘I will not, Mungo! She will
not
run this house with her tantrums and her temper.'

Before my father has a chance to shout back, I bolt from the table and up the stairs, spit the potato into the toilet and sit with my hands over my ears until I can no longer hear the muffled sound of their voices.

Minutes later, the kitchen door bangs shut. I run to the back window and watch my mother walk down the path and into Mo's garden. I can only hear snatches of words . . .
wilful . . . wearing me out . . . was wrong
. Halfway through my mother puts her hands over her face. Mo reaches out and hugs her like she does with children. She gives her a handkerchief and my mother blows her nose then comes back to the house. I hold my breath. She comes into my room. She doesn't speak, just looks at me. I clutch her around the waist, tight as I can, then run down the stairs. My father glances up from his paper and I catch his smile as I whizz past him. I run through the gate and into Mo's arms.

She laughs and pushes me away from her. ‘You'll be knocking me over next.'

I jump up and down. ‘Where's Euan?'

‘Down by the cove. And don't forget your bucket!' she calls after me.

Still running, I lift the pail and shout back, ‘I love you, Mo,' then head off down the beach. The wind whips at my dress, my hair. I run barefoot, making squidgy footprints on the sand, my arms aeroplaning either side of me.

I see him along the shore bending to look at something in a rock pool. I call out to him but the wind lifts my voice up and away. When I reach him I can barely speak I'm so excited and I jump up and down and turn around on one leg. ‘Euan! Euan! Guess what? We can play again! My mum gave in. I went on hunger strike like they do in Ireland and my mum gave in!'

He squints up at me. His face has sand stuck all over it in little clumps. ‘Who says I want to play with you any more?'

I stop, deflated, feel tears sting at the back of my eyes. ‘But you do,' I say. ‘Because we're best friends.'

‘Aye, maybe. But no more crying and no more showing your knickers.' He grins at me. ‘Unless you want me to pull them down.'

‘That's rude!' I push him and he pushes me back. I fall over and he sits on top of me, holding my arms. Seawater laps at my feet and I try to dig my heels in but they slide away from me.

‘Do you submit?'

‘Never!' I struggle and push as hard as I can but he holds my wrists into the sand and ignores my knees kicking into his back.

‘Do you submit?'

His weight is pressing down on to my stomach. ‘All right, all right! I submit!' I grumble. ‘This time. Only this time, mind.'

He climbs off and lies beside me, lining up his head with mine. We stay together, catching our breath, squinting up at the clouds.

‘Those big round ones that look like cauliflowers' – he points up and to the left – ‘are called cumulus and those ones over there, see, really high up, are called cirrus and they're made at thirty thousand feet from ice needles.'

‘Who told you that?' I ask him.

‘Monica.'

‘Monica!' I turn to face him and giggle. ‘You played with Monica?'

He shrugs. ‘She kept on following me around. She knows a lot of stuff. She even knows about fishing.'

I pinch him hard on the arm.

‘Ow!'

I jump up and start to run.

‘I'll catch you,' he shouts. ‘I will.'

4

I take the late morning train through to Edinburgh. I try to read a magazine and flick through articles jauntily titled, ‘My Husband Left Me for Another Man' and ‘Babies Who Never Learn to Breathe' before settling for a piece on foods with a low glycaemic index. After a couple of minutes, I throw the magazine aside. I can't concentrate. I'm impatient to get there and get it over with.

I pace up and down the aisle. The carriage is empty apart from one teenager who is attached to an iPod and spends the entire journey texting on her phone. As the train crosses the railway bridge over the Firth of Forth, I stop and look out of the window. The water is a gunmetal grey. A container ship has just passed underneath the bridge and I start to count the multicoloured boxes on board, stacked high like building blocks. It reminds me of the game I played as a child; the one that was meant to break up the monotony of a long journey. Count the number plates beginning with V or the number of caravans driving north. Count the red cars, the hatchbacks and the cows that are lying down. Count the number of times I have thought of Rose since she died. Thousands. Tens of thousands. Too many to count.

The train arrives and I alight first. Waverley Station is buzzing with people and the hum echoes up into the steel rafters high above my head. I have five minutes to spare and I go into the bookshop to choose a book for Paul's birthday which falls just two weeks after the girls'. I know the one to buy. It's an autobiography by a famous musician, an entertaining and revelatory account of his life. I pay for the book and walk out into the wind, stopping for a minute to fasten my jacket and look up at Edinburgh Castle. Built on a plug of volcanic rock, it watches over the city and the Firth of Forth beyond. Sometimes sunlit and benevolent, today it is brooding. Gloomy grey clouds cloak the ramparts, casting long shadows on to the jagged rocks below.

I dodge a throng of tourists heading towards Princes Street Gardens and make a slow climb up Cockburn Street. My stomach grumbles and grinds, as if eating itself, but behind the anxiety I feel curious. I want to see her. I want to know what she's been doing with herself for the last twenty-four years. And most of all, I want to know why she got in touch.

I'm about ten feet away when I spot her, just inside the doorway. I'm surprised by how she looks. She isn't wearing any make-up and her black curly hair is pulled back in a plain band highlighting the grey that spreads at her temples and forehead. Her clothes are simple – a pair of jeans, a white T-shirt, a navy blue cardigan and flat lace-up shoes. Up in the castle, the one o'clock gun goes off and it startles me so that I automatically step towards her and she sees me, calls my name, rushes forward and kisses me on both cheeks. She smells of lavender.

‘You look wonderful,' she tells me, standing back and holding on to my elbows.

We are the same height and our eyes are level; hers are deep brown, almost black, like cocoa-rich chocolate.

‘You haven't aged a bit.' She laughs, looks me up and down and shakes her head. ‘Adult life suits you, Grace. Come!' She gestures behind her and starts to walk backwards, almost tripping over a chair leg. ‘I've bagged us a table in the corner here.'

We sit down. I feel happy, sad, nervous, but most of all I feel awkward. She looks so much like herself and yet the spark is missing. Even at fifteen she was glamorous, mischievous, sexy. Boys trailed behind her, bug-eyed and tongue-tied, and she would flash them smiles so sultry, so promising, that they would melt into puddles of hormones.

She takes a breath, holds on to it as she looks at me, then lets it out slowly. ‘It's so good to see you! I've thought of you such a lot over the years.' Her eyes grow wistful and then warm again. ‘Do you have any family photos with you?'

I haven't spoken yet and now all I can do is shake my head. I don't know how to articulate my way past the strangeness.

‘Well, never mind. Hopefully, I'll be able to come up and meet them in person sometime soon.' She gives me a playful smile. ‘Let's play catch-up. Last twenty-odd years.' She leans her elbows on the table and her chin on her hands. ‘Start wherever you want.'