The Secrets Women Keep (29 page)

‘But you like it. Don’t try and tell me you don’t.’ He grinned and put his hand in the pocket of his cream linen jacket to pull out a distinctive blue box.
Tiffany’s – she recognised it at once. ‘A little something to mark the best four months of the year so far. Well, that’s my excuse. I was going to give it to you later, but
if you insist on going . . .’

Her heart beating a tattoo, she undid the white satin ribbon and removed the lid, gasping as she saw the contents. Inside was a thin woven silver bangle. ‘But I can’t take this.
It’s far too generous.’

‘Of course you can,’ he said. ‘Now stay with me.’ He took the bangle and slipped it on to her wrist, where it sat glinting in the light.

‘Will, I really can’t. I must get this work done before we go away.’ She noticed his pout at the ‘we’. ‘I’ve an author expecting to hear from me and I
can’t let her down. She’s worried the book’s not as good as it should be and I want to put her out of her misery, otherwise she’ll spend the weekend worrying.’

‘Bloody agency,’ he muttered. ‘Don’t you want to spend time with me?’

She experienced that flash of irritation she got whenever he behaved like a spoilt child. ‘Of course I do.’ She sounded more tetchy than she meant to. ‘But with Terry still out
of work, I’ve got to do what I can. And I’m doing my best to find a replacement for Rufus.’

Now, standing in the garden of Trevarrick, Eve twisted the bangle around her wrist, pushing it back under her sleeve, where she kept it hidden. At first she had imagined only wearing it when she
was alone with Will. But her caution vanished in the face of Terry’s apparent indifference. As distracted as he was, he wouldn’t notice if she appeared dressed in a silver suit of
armour. Nothing she said or did impinged on his gloom. Was it just his lack of work and his consequent lack of a place in the world? Or could he possibly suspect her of having an affair? She had
learned a lesson from what had happened between Dan and Rose, and had been so careful not to leave any clues. Nothing Terry had said or done had given her reason to think he knew. But she was aware
of reaching a place where she would have to make a decision about her future. She couldn’t continue the deception. Other people managed a double life, but not her. Where they might regard the
necessary lying as a game, she couldn’t bear the strain, the constant possibility of being found out. However, the irony of her position hadn’t escaped her. Could she really do to Terry
what Will had done to her all those years ago? Was she capable of inflicting so much pain on the dear father of her children, whom she had loved, did still love, but who no longer excited her?
Being with Will had brought that last consideration home in no uncertain way.

As she stared out to the white horses racing across the surface of the sea, she felt an arm around her shoulder. She spun round. Rose.

‘Penny for them.’ Rose had a reliable sixth sense for when Eve needed to talk.

‘Where have you been? I’ve been looking for you.’

‘Showing Simon the sights, such as they are. That awful old sheepdog by the church wouldn’t let us past, so we had to come the long way back.’

As she laughed, Eve was pleased to hear her sounding so relaxed. ‘I’m glad he could come.’

‘Mmm.’ Rose bent to retie the laces of her trainer. ‘It’s so odd. I feel as if I’ve known him for years. I don’t know what it is. He makes me feel anchored
again, I suppose. It’s a good feeling. But what did you want to talk about?’

Eve took a deep breath. She absolutely did want to talk about Rose and Simon. Their apparently platonic relationship intrigued her as much as it pleased her. But at this second, her own problems
were pressing in on her. ‘I don’t think I can go through with this evening,’ she confessed. ‘I feel such a hypocrite.’

‘Bit late for that now, isn’t it?’ Rose was matter-of-fact. ‘Terry doesn’t know, and as long as you’re carrying on with Will, you should make sure it stays
like that. You’ve got to keep up the charade until you decide what you’re going to do. I’d far rather not have found out about Dan.’

Eve slipped her arm around her friend’s waist. ‘This is difficult for you, I know.’

They stood for a moment, twined together, then their arms dropped.

‘Yes, it is.’ Rose paused, snapping off a head of cow parsley and beginning to tear the flower heads into little pieces. ‘I’m torn between the two of you. Of course I
want you to do what makes you happy, but just not at the expense of my brother.’

‘I know.’ Eve looked back out to sea, flattening her skirt against the wind with her spare hand. ‘I don’t want to hurt him either. I do love him. I do. But these last
weeks with Will . . . well, they’ve made me feel young again. I’d never have thought . . .’ She saw Rose wince. ‘I’m sorry, but it’s true.’

That last conversation with Daniel in his study, when she’d tried to convince him to talk to Rose. Had he been feeling the same confusion of lust and regret that she had felt every day
since going to Will’s flat for the first time? Beside her, Rose stood with her arms crossed over her chest. How sad she looked, and how alone.

‘But you know that’s not real, don’t you?’ Rose shook her head. ‘Perhaps you should take some time out. Leaving him because of a fling that makes you feel good
about yourself – is that really what you want? And for Will?’ Rose’s voice was full of dislike. ‘After what he did to you.’

Eve took Rose’s arm, despite feeling her friend’s resistance. ‘I shouldn’t have told you. I’m sorry. But if I didn’t have you to talk to . . .’ She left
the sentence unfinished. ‘Besides, sleeping with your first husband isn’t really the same as having an affair, is it?’

‘Ex,’ Rose pointed out firmly. ‘What’s the difference? Of course it’s the same thing. Look, I don’t want you to break up your family when I know this is a
phase Terry’s going through and he’ll be back to normal before we know where we are. He will. And then you’ll regret all this.’

Rose sounded so certain that Eve felt bound to believe her. She had recognised the risks she was running when she agreed to meet Will for their first lunch after so long, but their affair had
gathered a momentum that she had been powerless to stop. She hadn’t planned to lose control of her emotions, but things had happened so fast that she hadn’t realised how far she was
falling. She couldn’t turn the clock back now, whatever she or Rose wanted. She sighed. ‘Perhaps you’re right. I’m being selfish and I’m going to have to sort this out
my own way, without hurting Terry or the kids. That’s the last thing I want to do. Let’s not talk about it again. It’s too hard. We should get ready.’

‘So you’re not calling a halt to the proceedings, then?’

‘No. This is Terry’s night too. I’m going to forget about Will and have a good time. Tomorrow I’ll begin to put things right.’

‘I hope so.’ But Rose didn’t sound entirely convinced as they began the walk up the path towards the hotel. From the tennis courts came the pock, pock of a match in progress,
occasionally accompanied by a yell of frustration or triumph. If she was honest, Eve wasn’t entirely convinced either.

Eve was in the shower when Terry came up to their room. Wrapping herself in one of the hotel’s fluffy white dressing gowns, she emerged pink and scented. At least
she’d succeeded in scrubbing off the streaks of fake tan applied too hastily the previous day. She found her husband lying on the bed. His sturdy walking shoes were higgledy-piggledy on the
sandy carpet.

‘Good walk?’ She picked up the shoes and lined them up in the wardrobe.

He opened his eyes, and gazed at her, propping himself on one elbow. ‘Beautiful. You should have come. I took Sam and Minty with Pete and what’s-her-name on the valley walk. They
were bowled over – wild flowers everywhere, and skylarks over the field by the cliff path. Rose and Simon were sitting on the old bench up there – it was great to see her laughing
again. He’s good for her. We didn’t stop because I was worried about the time. Pete had a bit of trouble climbing the road up from the Mill at the end, but we made it.’ For the
first time in ages, he sounded enthusiastic. Serious all of a sudden, he sat up and wiggled himself backwards until he was leaning against the mound of pillows and cushions, then patted the spot
beside him. ‘We need to talk.’

Immediately, she felt apprehensive. ‘Can’t it wait till after the party? We should be getting ready.’ She tugged the towelling turban from her hair and rummaged in her case for
her hairdryer. ‘We mustn’t be late. Rose and Jess will kill us.’

‘No, it can’t. Anyway, we’ve got a couple of hours.’ He patted the bed a second time.

She had rarely heard him sound so decisive. And certainly not recently. But he sounded nervous too. Her guilt made her more sympathetic towards him than usual, so she sat down, lifting her legs
and tucking her feet under the tan-and-chocolate-striped bed runner.

‘Look at me.’ Terry put his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face him, eye to eye. She felt the first intimations of alarm. He clasped her hands, holding them on her lap.
‘This won’t take long, but I just wanted to say sorry. I know I’ve been impossible for the last few months. This redundancy was a bugger to deal with.’

‘I know that,’ said Eve, squeezing his hand back, feeling supportive but guilty.

He hesitated, as if he was about to say something important, then clearly thought better of it. ‘I, er . . .’ He stopped, then screwed up his face with a slight shake of his head.
‘I’ve got something for you. Twenty-five years is a hell of a long time, and I want you to know how much it’s meant to me and how much
you
mean to me.’

All Eve’s senses were on high alert. This wasn’t Terry at all. Emotional outpourings were something they tended to avoid. Not his thing. But he hadn’t finished.

‘I know I haven’t been much good at showing it recently.’ He turned away to open his bedside drawer and pull out a small, neatly wrapped parcel, which he handed to her.

She hesitated, embarrassed by the memory of the inadequate silver birch sapling that she’d bought hastily the previous day and that was waiting for him downstairs. How on earth were they
to get it home? She should have thought. She would get him something else. ‘I was going to give you yours later.’

‘That doesn’t matter. Open this. If you don’t like it, you can change it.’ But she could tell he was pleased with his choice. It would be earrings. Always was. She
didn’t need a sixth sense to tell her that.

She peeled away the white and silver paper to reveal a box, identical to the one given her by Will only days earlier. Two Tiffany boxes in one week . . .

‘A girl could get used to this.’ She smiled at him, knowing he had no idea of the real meaning of her joke.

He’d already removed the white ribbon, so all she had to do was lift the lid. Taking as long as possible so the tension and pleasure built in equal measure, she peeled back the tissue
paper. And there, lying on a white foam backing, was a thin woven bangle in silver, absolutely identical in every way to the one given to her by Will.

She gasped, as stunned by Terry’s deviation from form as by the awful coincidence. Aware that he was waiting eagerly for her response, she looked up. ‘It’s lovely, Terry.
Really lovely.’ Genuinely touched, her eyes welled up with unexpected tears as she leaned forward to kiss him. They laughed, awkward, unsure which of them was most surprised by this unusual
moment of intimacy. At that exact moment, she remembered the other bracelet, this one’s identical twin, sitting by her wash bag on the shelf in the bathroom in plain sight.

‘Steady on, old thing. It’s only a bracelet. But I thought you deserved something a bit special for putting up with me for all these years.’ A note of pride entered his voice.
‘Twenty-five of them. And I know it hasn’t always been easy.’ He stopped, then realised she wasn’t going to agree or disagree, so began again. ‘And there’s
something else I’ve . . .’

But Eve wasn’t listening any more. By now, she was sobbing – whether from gratitude or guilt she had no idea. Everything was muddling up in her mind. Giving something so generous was
quite out of character for her ever-thrifty husband, the man who thought that, apart from the customary earrings, a decent Christmas present was a set of percale bed sheets or a replacement
non-stick saucepan. Knowing how hard it was for him to say something so personal and appreciative made everything much worse. His words were an awful reminder of how her behaviour was threatening
their marriage and how devastated he would be if he found out.

Terry inched towards the edge of the bed and stood up.

‘Where are you going?’ she gulped, still unable to control her tears.

‘To get you a tissue.’ He patted her shoulder and went towards the bathroom.

‘No!’

He turned, surprised by her urgency. ‘It’s no trouble,’ he reassured her.

‘No, no, I’m fine.’ She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, to prove she didn’t need anything, and sat up straight, her towel falling to her waist. Was that hope in
his eyes as she yanked it up over her breasts and tucked the end in tightly. Come on. She wasn’t
that
grateful! ‘Honestly, I am. Come back here.’

But too late. He had disappeared through the door. She could hear him moving around, then . . . silence. Eve lay back on the bed, holding her breath, waiting. There was no escape. This was the
moment she had feared, done everything she could to avoid – the moment of discovery. Now she understood even better what Daniel must have been feeling that day: dread, shame, guilt, despair,
desire to do anything but face up to the reality of their situation. Whatever was said in the next few minutes could determine the course of their future together.

The loo flushed and she heard running water, followed by the sound of tissues being ripped from the dispenser for her. Any moment now. The door handle moved and the door opened. She lay back on
the pillows, her eyes tight shut, waiting for him to speak, unable to think of any kind of convincing explanation. She felt the bed give as he sat down again.

‘Here you are. Feeling better?’