The Secrets Between Us (20 page)

I put my hand through the tear of the bag and took hold of the softest, silkiest material I could find. It slipped through
the torn plastic like water. I shook it out and held it up to the light. It was a shift dress, just a plain shift dress, nothing fancy, but it was beautiful. I felt the quality of the fabric between my fingers, the slip and rub of it. I had never owned anything like it. I had never been, and doubted I ever would be, able to afford a garment of such quality. I slid it over my head, pulling it down over the top of my jeans and sweater. It was emerald green, deeply cut at the front with tiny, fabric-covered buttons running down the back. It was made of the most exquisite material, so fine that I could have pulled the whole dress through the ring on my finger. I turned this way and that, watching a dark reflection of myself in the door-glass. It was a beautiful dress, far too good to be put in a recycling bin – and it fitted me.

I kept the dress, screwed it up like a guilty secret, re-bagged the rest, and took it to the end of the drive, where I left it with the paper, plastic and glass beside the cattle grid, ready for collection.

After that, I set to work in Jamie’s room. It took a while to sort out all the toys into their proper boxes and bins, and to make up the beds, and it was only when I was polishing the desk where Jamie sat and did his homework that I found the letter, still in its envelope, sticking out from between the pages of the atlas that Jamie always kept there.

The envelope was addressed to Jamie, just the five letters of his name written in blue felt pen. It was covered in stickers of smiling ladybirds, spiders and beetles.

My first response was surprise. I’d tidied Jamie’s bedroom often and I’d never seen the letter before. I picked the envelope up, and held it to my lips. Then I put it down. What it contained was private, not for my eyes. I put new bedding in the hamster cage and topped up the water bottle. I lined Jamie’s collection of Transformers on the window ledge. I’d opened the windows to air the room, and a late wasp buzzed confusedly in and flew a few spirals before disappearing
outdoors again. The envelope lay on the desk. I opened it and took out the paper folded in half inside.

Only a few words were written on the paper, words that Jamie would, I knew, understand. They were: ‘Blue teddy is for Jamie. I love you, from Mummy.’

Beneath were three simple little pictures. The first was of a little boy with sticking-out ears: Jamie, looking glum – well, his mouth was an inverted smile at least. The second was an outline of the blue bear, also looking unhappy. The third was of the boy cuddling the bear, and both were smiling. It was done so tenderly, these instructions to the child to pick up the bear when he was feeling sad, that I felt my eyes grow hot and prickly. It wasn’t much, but it was as much as Jamie could take in and understand on his own, without help from another adult. It was enough. Genevieve would have known that when she left the letter for her son.

I lay back on the bed and closed my eyes. I felt overwhelmed with sadness, the feeling so strong that it seemed to be in my bloodstream, like a drug. The weight of it held me down. The sadness came from nowhere, it filled me up, and for one strange, nightmarish moment it occurred to me that it was Genevieve’s sadness I was feeling. She was punishing me somehow for taking her place, or else she was trying to show me how it was to be her and how much she missed Jamie. Then I heard the Land Rover pulling up on the drive and the feeling slipped away, although I still felt odd, dizzy and not quite myself.

I crossed to the window and looked out. Alexander climbed out of the car and walked towards the house. I folded the letter carefully and put it back in the envelope. I slipped the envelope back between the pages of the atlas, and put several different books on top so that Jamie would not know I’d seen it. I ran downstairs and met Alexander in the kitchen. He held out his arms to me and kissed me full on the lips. He smelled of outdoors.

‘The pump’s broken at the yard. I had nothing to do so I thought I’d come home early. Is the coast clear?’ he whispered into my hair.

I nodded.

He said: ‘Thank God!’ and his mouth was on my ear and his hands slid down the back of my body, one on my waist, the other fingers working down the waistband of my jeans. He turned me on, oh God, he turned me on, but although my body was Alexander’s my mind was full of Genevieve.

Jamie’s letter had made her more real to me, that’s what it was. It was easy to think of her as a bad mother, a heartless woman who had walked away from her family without a second thought. Now I knew how much she cared and I felt guilty. I felt as if I should not be there, about to make love with Genevieve’s husband in the house that belonged to her, on her son’s birthday, when I was certain, wherever she was, she was wishing she was with Jamie.

‘What is it?’ Alexander asked, holding my chin in his fingers so that I had to look into his eyes. ‘What’s wrong, Sarah?’

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Everything’s fine.’

‘Hey,’ he said gently, ‘you are still with me, aren’t you?’

‘Of course I am.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes, I’m sure.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

WE MADE LOVE
and, this time, for the first time, I let go, because I felt as if I had already seen the end and I had nothing left to lose. Whatever happened, whatever Genevieve did next, whether she returned or she did not, was out of my control. It was nothing to do with me and everybody knew about Alexander and me now so what was the point of pretending? I abandoned myself to Alexander. He was inside me and on me and over me and under me like a poem. I was rubbed raw, I was slippery as silk and strong as pearl. Alexander’s mouth, his hands, the scar beneath his ribcage – he was everywhere and I was nothing but an exhaled breath between lips kissed sore. I was found and at the same time I was lost.

Afterwards, we went to the Quarrymen’s Arms. It was Alexander’s idea. We walked to the pub, which was about halfway between Avalon and Jamie’s school, and Alexander went to the bar and ordered a pint and a large glass of red wine. I sat on a bench with my hands clasped between my knees and my hair all messed up, trying to look like I hadn’t just been doing what I had just been doing. But I must have had it written all over me.

Alexander came back with the drinks and people were staring because everybody knew about us now. Phoebe’s
whispers had established themselves as facts and had, most likely, been exaggerated. The regulars were wondering if we were deliberately flaunting ourselves. I could feel their angry, disgruntled thoughts knocking about the pub’s walls and its low ceiling.

Alexander put our drinks on the table, sat down on the bench beside me, took my hand and held it between his knees. The other people in the pub didn’t hide their distaste for us. I felt uncomfortable. The clientele was mostly elderly, mostly men, mostly tenants of Virginia and Philip’s, decent country people with their dogs and their preconceptions watching as Genevieve’s husband and his housekeeper sat, love-flushed, drinking alcohol in the middle of the afternoon.

A scruffy Jack Russell came up to our table, begging for crisps.

‘Come away,’ its owner called. ‘I don’t want you mixing with their sort.’

There was a murmur of approval around the bar.

‘We shouldn’t have come,’ I said quietly. ‘Can we go?’

‘We’ve as much right to be here as the next person,’ Alexander said.

‘Please, Alex …’

I half-stood but he shook his head and pulled me down again, almost roughly.

‘Let them think what they like,’ he said, a little too loudly. ‘They’re the ones with the dirty minds.’

A heavily built man at the bar snorted.

‘Where is she then?’ he asked. ‘Where is your wife?’

‘I don’t know,’ Alexander said.

‘Convenient, though, isn’t it, that she’s out of the way so you can carry on with your fancy piece?’

Alexander picked up his glass and swallowed slowly.

I had not touched my wine. I did not want it now.

‘Please, Alexander …’

‘We’ve done nothing to be ashamed of,’ Alexander said in a low voice. Something about his tone made the hairs on my arms stand on end. One of the group at the bar whispered something and there was a chuckle of cynical laughter.

Alexander stood up and pushed back his chair. I made a grab for his arm but he shook my hand off and walked the few steps back to the bar. His posture was relaxed but determined. The men held their drinks defensively in front of their chests. Their faces were set firm, but they backed off a little.

‘If any of you has something to say, I’d appreciate it if you’d say it to my face,’ he said pleasantly.

‘I’ll say something,’ said a small, elderly woman I hadn’t even noticed. She was perched on a stool that was half-hidden from my view by a wooden-backed chair. ‘Don’t you have a heart, Alexander Westwood? Don’t you even care that our Genevieve’s missing and nobody knows where she is, or if she’s alive or dead?’

‘She’s not missing, Mrs Spencer,’ said Alexander. ‘She left because she wanted to leave.’

‘And why was that? What had you done to her?’

The men stepped forwards now with a bristle of indignation, and the landlord intervened.

‘Maybe it’s best you went home,’ he said to Alexander. ‘We don’t want any trouble.’

‘I’m not causing any trouble,’ said Alexander. He glanced back at me. ‘And Sarah certainly isn’t. We just want a quiet drink.’

‘Bastard!’ said a young, heavyset man. ‘You bastard! We know how you treated Genevieve! We know what you did to that girl! We don’t want your sort in here, not you or your little tramp of a girlfriend.’

Alexander turned – he was so quick – and he grabbed hold of the young man’s collar and raised his fist.

‘Alex!’ I screamed, and the scream distracted him, and as he turned to me the young man hit him and he stumbled and
fell backwards, hitting his head on the corner of the fireplace.

I clambered out of my seat, and got to him before the young man did. The landlord and a couple of others were holding him back, but he was fighting to get at Alexander, spitting swear-words from between his fat lips. He was pale with rage and I could feel his aggression, I could smell it in the air. He wanted to kill Alexander and I was terrified.

I helped Alexander to his feet. There was blood on the back of his head, sticky and warm on my fingers, and his eyes were rolling like somebody drunk.

‘Get out!’ the landlord said quietly to me, and there was not a flicker of compassion or pity in his eyes. ‘Get out and don’t come back.’

The barmaid passed me our coats as we hobbled to the door, with Alexander leaning heavily against me. I was whispering to him like a mantra: ‘Don’t worry, we’ll be OK, we’ll be all right.’

All the eyes in the pub were on us and it was awful; it was humiliating. I felt ashamed and I felt dirty and I was sick with anxiety about Alexander’s head wound.

I took him home and bathed the back of his skull; it was thick with hair matted with blood. It wasn’t so bad: his scalp had sliced cleanly and the skin was already beginning to knit over the cut. I made him promise to rest but stay awake, then I drove back to the school to meet Jamie and Christopher. Word of the fight hadn’t reached the school gate; nobody looked at me any differently from normal, although I was shaky and nervous. Betsy tried to tell me a story about her eldest, but I couldn’t listen. As soon as the boys came down the path, I bundled them into the car and took them straight back to Avalon.

Alexander had showered. He had a towel wrapped around his head and, though his skin was grey, he didn’t let on to the boys that anything was wrong. He put his energy into
making sure they had a brilliant time, setting up the fireworks, preparing the bonfire and even making a guy. Both children were so busy and happy, their shouts and laughter ringing out across the fields, that I think Alexander was distracted, too. As I prepared the dinner, I watched them in the back garden throwing sticks on to the fire, the boys dancing around in their wellingtons and hats with flaps over their ears and Alexander, huddled into his coat, allowing them a thrilling degree of access to the flames. I felt a surge of affection for him.

There were plenty of other pubs in Somerset. We didn’t have to go to the Quarrymen’s Arms. I told myself that I didn’t care. I would not let people who knew nothing of the real nature of Alexander and Genevieve’s relationship dictate how we lived our lives.

No, I didn’t care then. Only, later that night, after the fireworks had been set off and the bonfire had been reduced to a pile of hot ash, while Alexander was downstairs locking up and I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth, I had a very strong sensation of being watched. The connection to the bulb in the light was bad; the light flickered constantly. Alexander had told me it was because the squirrels had gnawed at the wire, but the flickering was spooking me. I spat out into the basin, rinsed my mouth and felt a draught about my bare legs.

I switched off the electric toothbrush and put it in its holder. I cleaned the basin with my fingers and turned quickly, catching sight of myself on and off in the stammering light in the mirrored door of the bathroom cabinet. Something drew me to it. I squinted and drew closer to the mirror.

Then I realized it wasn’t my face reflected back at me but Genevieve’s. There was panic in her eyes, absolute fear, and I knew she was pleading with me for help.

I was terrified.

In my room, I swallowed half a sleeping pill and one of the others, and still my night was racked with nightmares of the worst kind.

CHAPTER THIRTY

THE NEXT DAY
, I called Betsy.

‘It’s me,’ I said.

‘I thought it would be,’ Betsy said in a weary voice.

‘Are you OK?’

‘The baby’s teething. She had me up all night.’

‘Poor you. I’ll come over and take her out in the buggy. You can have a rest.’

‘No, you’re all right,’ said Betsy.

That’s when I knew something was wrong. Betsy never turned down the offer of free childcare.