Our Little Secret (14 page)

‘Where are we—?’

I don’t get a chance to ask where we’re going, though, as we’re off and I have to grab onto the pale-grey leather handle on the door with one hand, and the seat with the other, as she shoots off around the driveway and accelerates down the drive. My hair is flying around my face and I am thrown back in the seat by the G-force.

I see the electric gates at the end of the drive parting and wonder if they’ll be open wide enough in time, and I grit my teeth, flexing my feet, but Marnie expertly changes gear and revs up. I hold my breath as she shoots through the gates, which are still not fully open, and we skid out onto the tarmac road.

‘Mrs Parker, please,’ I whimper, but Marnie just glances over at me, raises her eyebrows and grins.

‘You ready for some speed?’ she hollers.

More speed? That was enough! I’m ready to throw up. The smoothie is yo-yoing.

‘Let’s do this thing, baby,’ she cries as she thrusts her foot to the floor. The wheels spin. There’s smoke and the acrid, choking smell of burning tyres and then we’re off, careering up the road. Her leg is flexed as she pushes on the accelerator.

It feels like I’m on a fairground ride, but Marnie is loving it. She whoops with delight, keeping her foot to the floor. The car is singing fast up an octave, as it revs to the max, the spoke on the dial straining right around towards six o’clock.

As we approach the top of the hill, Marnie throws both her hands up in the air, with an almighty whoop. We’re about to take off at 120 miles per hour over the brow of a blind hill.

And her hands aren’t on the steering wheel.

I scream and grab the wheel as we crest the hill. For a moment we’re suspended in mid-air. I’m still holding the wheel and screaming as we land with a bump on the other side, like we’re in a movie shot.

The car careers down the hill towards the gatehouse. Marnie puts her hands behind her head, grinning at me to steer. We’re going to hit the gatehouse if she doesn’t take control. I stare at her wildly.

‘Fuck!’ I scream. ‘For fuck’s sake.’

She laughs and takes the wheel at the last possible moment, tearing past the gatehouse and the bemused guy inside. Is this a joke to her? Is she getting some sort of thrill from my terror?

We scream out onto the public road and I see her arms flex as she spins the wheel to turn the right-angle needed to set us straight. The back end of the car hip-wiggles terrifyingly as we get straight on the road. A truck is coming towards us, but we’re still out of control.

I scream again, covering my face, waiting for the impact.

26

When it doesn’t come, I look through my fingers. My heart is in my throat and I’m out of breath, panting furiously. I’ve never been so scared in my life.

Marnie whoops, then raises her middle finger high up in the air as the truck driver honks his horn, the tone changing as we pass at full throttle.

‘Slow down,’ I shout.

Marnie stares at me, as if genuinely surprised by my reaction.

‘Stop the car,’ I scream hysterically at her.

She slows and pulls down into a lay-by. We lurch forward as she applies the brake to make us stationary. Once we’re at a standstill, the car purrs, like the savage beast it is.

‘Are you fucking crazy?’ I shout at her. I don’t care that she’s my boss.

She tuts, like I’m making a big fuss, and laughs, running her fingers through her hair to ruffle it up. She’s had a serious kick out of that.

What the hell is wrong with her?

‘You nearly killed us,’ I continue, but I can see she’s not bothered in the slightest. In fact she ignores me and looks at her nails, in a kind of teenage gesture of nonchalance.

Growling with rage, I clamber of the car and slam the door. I walk away and try and calm down, but I’m shaking like a leaf and I’m out of breath.

‘Jesus Christ!’ I mutter under my breath, the image of the gatehouse and the truck imprinted on my retinas. I’ve never, ever been so scared.

Slowly, like it’s no big deal, Marnie gets out of the car, too.

I turn to face her, still furious, but her look is confused, like I’m overreacting. And suddenly a thought crosses my mind. Did she do that deliberately? Is her friendliness all just a facade? Maybe she does know all about last night, and how I behaved with Edward. Perhaps this is her sick way of revenge.

‘OK,’ she says, putting her hands up in surrender, then akimbo on her slim waist. ‘OK.’ Her tone is placatory. ‘I scared you,’ she says deliberately. ‘But that was the whole point of step two,’ she says, cocking her head at me.

‘What?’

‘Well, your hangover’s gone, right?’

I do a mental scan of myself. She’s right. My hangover has gone. She’s terrified it out of me.

‘I cleared it with Tom in the gatehouse, so we’d have a fast run up the private road. I wasn’t expecting the truck, I’ll admit that,’ she laughs, ‘but actually we were perfectly safe. I’ve done a lot of driving in my time. I used to race – you know – professionally.’

I stare at her and feel myself calming down. I didn’t know that about her, but then I hardly know anything about her at all. I guess I would have reacted differently if I’d known. Even so, I find her level of overfamiliarity disarming. It’s like she’s pretending we actually know each other – like this is something she might do with a friend – but we’ve only just met.

‘Well, your idea of “perfectly safe” and my idea of “perfectly safe” are very different.’

I sound like a school matron, even to myself. Marnie picks up on it.

‘Sorry, Miss Henshaw,’ she says in a sing-song voice that makes me furious. How dare she take the piss out of me? Only Tiff gets to take the piss like that. ‘It was supposed to be funny.’

Funny?
Funny?
She’s serious. Jesus Christ! No wonder her children need a nanny, if their mother behaves like this.

I growl with frustration. I turn away and fold my arms, completely stumped. I don’t want to look at her, let alone speak to her. I certainly don’t want to get back in the car with her. Everything about this encounter has shaken me up. I don’t know where I stand with her at all. She’s behaving unlike anyone I’ve ever met.

I swallow hard, determined not to cry.

‘So . . . all right, I’ll admit it. I’m an adrenaline junkie,’ she says, softly, and I realize she’s come round the car to stand next to me. ‘I can’t help myself. Edward says it’s exhausting that I love living on the edge, but that’s why I was drawn to you,’ she says, prodding me playfully on the shoulder. ‘Because I think you’re the same. I think you like to challenge yourself. Try new things. Feel the fear and do it anyway.’ She raises one eyebrow at me in a challenge. She’s quoted me, too. I’m totally cornered.

Her tone soothes me.

‘I wouldn’t let anything bad happen to you. You’ve got to know that, right?’ she says, her eyes searching out mine. They are filled with sincerity. She reaches out and cups my face. I stiffen. It’s weird that she’s touching me. ‘I only wanted to have some fun. And get rid of that pesky hangover.’

I swallow and nod. I can’t do anything but believe her. And even though I didn’t exactly have a choice, I did follow her of my own free will into the car. As she continues to stare at me, I feel like a jerk for overreacting.

‘And now for your reward,’ she says with that wide-eyed smile, obviously relieved that I’ve softened. She turns and gestures to the car. ‘Ta-dah!’ she sing-songs, walking backwards away from me. ‘It’s your turn. You can drive.’

I put my hand on my chest as she goes to the driver’s door and opens it, waiting for me to get in.

Is my driving licence even valid in the States?

‘Come on,’ Marnie coaxes, seeing me hesitate. ‘You won’t get to understand unless you get to feel the buzz yourself, will you?’ And she eyeballs me in such a way that I know that if I don’t get in and prove myself, I’ll have made a liar of myself and everything I impressed her with in my interview.

27

She’s a good teacher. I’ll give her that. She’s patient when I kangaroo-jump the car away from the lay-by and forget that I have to drive on the right.

I’m squinting into the sun, wishing I had shades on, as I grip the wheel, but after five minutes of Marnie’s gentle coaxing I’ve got the hang of it.

I hate to admit it, but she’s right. Boy, it’s a kick, to drive such a powerful car. It’s like taming a wild beast. Egged on by Marnie, I up the speed, feeling all-powerful as we gun it down the open road. I can’t help but whoop loudly as my hair flies around my face. This is
epic
.

There are fields on either side of the road and it feels like we’re in the middle of nowhere. The Thousand Acres estate is entirely surrounded by farmland, and I see a huge red combine-harvester-type tractor way off in the distance. I guess this must have been a huge landowner’s estate at one time. All this land must be worth a fortune, though, I reckon. And I suspect that the Thousand Acres development has taken steps to ensure it remains cut off from the usual sprawl of urban development.

The buzz of this car keeps on giving and soon I’m squealing with delight, too. It’s part-hysteria, of course. This can’t be legal. If I crash a car this valuable, I’ll be in serious shit. That’s if I’m not dead.

But, God, it’s fun being given permission to let my hair down. All the anxiety of last night flies away, driven out by the speed we’re going at. I can only think about right now, right this minute.

We turn around eight miles later, when we hit the outskirts of the next town and its giant mall. I see drivers stop and stare at us, as we drive in through one end of the car park and out the other side with a throaty roar. Their looks only prove to me what a cool thing I’m doing. We’re doing. That we’re two hot chicks in a kick-arse car.

I look at Marnie, thinking she’ll want to swap, but she lets me drive back towards the house, putting her feet up on the dashboard, like it’s no big deal.

When we arrive back at the entrance of the estate, though, Marnie makes me stop. She gets out and I see her lolling by the window of the gatehouse, talking to the guy inside. I see her flip her hips to one side, her toe pointed on the ground behind her. She’s like a flirtatious fourteen-year-old and a sex goddess, all rolled into one.

I watch the guard as she speaks. He’s probably fifty or so, with thinning hair and a bushy moustache. He’s the kind of guy who I can imagine in
The Simpsons
as a corrupt lazy cop, but right now he looks as if all his Christmases have come at once, as Marnie chats to him. When he speaks, I see her laughing, rocking her head back. If she was in trouble, it’s absolutely smoothed over now. She blows him a kiss as she flicks her head for me to get out. Then she jumps back into the driver’s seat and puts on her shades.

This time we drive at a more sedate pace up the road and, on the crest of her hill, she wiggles the back of the car somehow, in a final salute to the security guy. I had thought she was out of control, but now that she’s driving slowly, I can see that she’s not only totally competent, but unbelievably skilled. What else can she pilot, I wonder? A jumbo jet? I wouldn’t put it past her.

The tall iron gates open as we approach the house and, all of a sudden, I feel an overwhelming urge to confess. I feel like I should tell her what I did with Edward. That I tried to fling myself at him. But just as I’m about to, we reach the house and the moment passes.

It feels weird as we stop in the drive. I feel as if something has fundamentally changed, but I can’t put my finger on it. Perhaps it’s the fact that I didn’t know Marnie Parker half an hour ago, but now she’s made me more furious than anyone I can ever remember making me, whilst simultaneously making me feel special and included.

‘So I want you to promise me something,’ she says, turning in her seat. She takes the shades off and puts them back where she found them. ‘About today.’

Her expression seems serious, even though laughter is dancing in her eyes. She presses her hands on my thigh. I like the way she touches me. I like it that she’s so tactile.

‘Sure. Of course.’ I smile back. I can’t believe how much better she’s made me feel.

‘I don’t want Edward to find out that we went for a drive, OK?’ She is suddenly serious. ‘You OK with that, baby?’

‘Uh-huh,’ I say, although I’m not sure what I’ve just agreed to. But my acquiescence has obviously been the right thing, because Marnie nods.

‘Good. Then it’ll be our little secret,’ she says.

28

The second we step out of the car, the magic is broken. As we get through the front door there are two phones ringing, and Mrs Gundred is there, giving Marnie one of them. She looks harassed, and annoyed that Marnie has gone out. She gives me a filthy look, as if it’s my fault. She seems horrified that we’ve been out in the car.

Maybe it was Gundred who was watching the porn. Maybe she suspects that I caught her. That I know her guilty secret.

Trewin is there with the limo, clearly waiting for Marnie. He doesn’t even acknowledge me.

‘See you, sweet pea.’ Marnie waves to me as she takes the phone and I suddenly feel deflated. I liked being with her and, now that she’s gone, having dismissed me with just a wave, I feel strangely rejected.

I hang around in the hallway near the service lift as she talks on the phone.

‘Yes, I’ve met her,’ she trills. Is she talking about me, I wonder? I watch her as she starts jogging up the stairs. ‘She’s a delight. Just as you said.’

I feel myself flushing with relief. Then I hear her laugh. ‘Yes, honey, your car is here. It’s magnificent. Oh, Ed . . . as if I would! Of course I’m not going to drive it. Relax.’

Her voice trails away, but I’m astonished by how easily and convincingly she’s lied to her husband. She’s taken out his brand-new car, against his instructions, and
I’ve
driven it, too. And now I’m complicit in her lie, because I’ve promised to keep our drive a secret.

As I get in the lift, I look at myself in the tinted mirrors, but I know I look pale. I feel wobbly and worried. What have I just done? What if something terrible had happened in the car? What if I’d crashed it? What if Edward finds out about today?