The Secrets Women Keep (33 page)

‘Mum! At the risk of embarrassing us both, d’you fancy a dance?’ Luke had come up behind them and was standing with his hand held out for her. He’d got rid of his jacket
and tie and was looking, if she thought so herself, extremely fit. His hair was tied back high on his head in the topknot that she’d quite come round to. The scar remaining from his cleft
palate operation was barely noticeable thanks to his carefully trimmed designer stubble. And six feet one, too.

‘We’re talking, darling,’ she pointed out as if he was six, while wanting desperately to take up his offer of rescue. If she knew Laurie, this conversation was likely to go
round and around in circles.

‘No, you go,’ protested Laurie, standing uncertainly. ‘I’ll find Teddy.’ With that, she set off across the floor, swerving past the dancers, to rejoin her other
half.

Luke was already swaying to the Beach Boys, waiting for Eve to join in. ‘What dinosaur put this playlist together? You must have been dancing to all this stuff when you were at
uni.’

‘We did,’ Eve admitted, as, out of practice, she tried to get in some sort of groove, following Luke’s example but not quite keeping up. Another drink would help. But no.
‘And the playlist was down to Millie and Dad. It’s meant to appeal to everyone, and look . . .’ she cast around at the gyrating middle-aged couples and the few cooler members of
the younger generation, ‘it does the job.’ Although, seeing her friends through his eyes, they all looked slightly tragic. But who cared? They were having a fun, and that was what
mattered.

Luke raised his perfectly shaped eyebrows and gave the smile that she knew would break many a girl’s heart before he’d done. They abandoned themselves to the dance. Five minutes
later, her shoes had been thrown to the side and she was dancing in a circle with all four of her children as the music segued from one golden oldie to another. Everyone was on their feet. Whatever
Luke said, Terry and Millie had done an excellent job. For as long as she was dancing, Eve didn’t care what she looked like. Being on the dance floor with the others like this was fun. She
stepped back and bumped into her bookkeeper, who was dancing on his own, eyes closed, while his wife was shaking it out with their foreign rights agent. Yes, you didn’t have to be rip-roaring
drunk to have a good time, Eve conceded, surprised at herself.

As the final chords of ‘I will Survive’ faded, Eve took herself to the side of the floor, leaving her children to do whatever choreographed group dance they had down for the next
track. She found her shoes and tried to slip them on, but the straps cut into her puffy feet. Abandoning the struggle, she carried them over to the bar, joining a band of friends who had gathered
there. Standing there, ignoring the nagging ache in her right knee, enjoying the congratulations and good will, she felt completely at home, surrounded by the people who were the warp and weft of
her life. From university, to the school gate, to her and Terry’s workplaces, there wasn’t one person in the marquee who hadn’t been involved in some part of their lives
together.

The only person missing was Daniel. Dear Daniel. How he would have enjoyed all this. The whole thing had been his idea after all. Perhaps this was the sort of bash he would have preferred to the
modest long winter weekend in Casa Rosa that he and Rose had hosted for the family when they’d hit their own silver anniversary. The celebratory family meal at Giovanni’s had been
delicious, but modest. She glanced around the marquee for Rose, suddenly aware that she hadn’t been keeping an eye on her. Jess and Anna were on opposite sides of the dance floor. But there
was no sign of their mother.

Whatever her friend was going through right now, Eve wanted to support her however she could. Rose must have left the steamy atmosphere of the marquee for some fresh air. Eve imagined her
returning to her room, like an injured animal licking her wounds alone. What she must be feeling was unimaginable. To discover your husband was having an affair was one thing, but a homosexual
affair . . . All those feelings of anger and betrayal must be compounded by self-doubt and inadequacy. Poor Rose.

‘I’ll be back in a minute.’ Excusing herself, Eve negotiated her way outside through the tables and disordered chairs. The air felt pleasantly cool on her shoulders, the grass
already damp underfoot as she walked back to the hotel. The lights beamed out of the lower rooms, while upstairs, curtains were tightly drawn. She couldn’t see anyone in the bar or the dining
room. Instead she ran upstairs and along the corridor to Rose’s room. She put her ear to the door. Ridiculous. What did she expect to hear? She knocked gently.

‘Rose?’ she said as loudly as she dared. ‘Rose? It’s me, Eve. Are you all right?’

Nothing.

She tapped again. ‘Rose?’

Still silence. Rose must be in bed. She couldn’t blame her. She’d have offered her a Diazepam if only she’d thought. Eve headed back to the party. At the top of the stairs, by
the large oil painting of St Ives harbour, she hesitated. Everyone had admired her sandals. Those who hadn’t weren’t going to now. Why not change into something more comfortable for
dancing? She backtracked past Rose’s room, stopping for a second outside it again, then hurried on to her own and Terry’s.

Opening the door, she chucked her sandals on the bed. She resisted the temptation to throw herself alongside them, and bent to pull out her oldest pair that she’d brought along just in
case. The glitter had all but faded from them (a bit like their owner, she reflected), but she had restuck a couple of sequins that had been hanging on by their last threads and . . . they would
do. As she slipped them on, her feet giving up thanks as she did, she heard her BlackBerry. The phone lay where she’d left it with her make-up in the bathroom. Who would be calling her this
late? Everyone knew it was the day of their party. She checked the caller ID and almost dropped the phone – Will. Suppose Terry had picked it up. She thought she had covered every base,
making sure Will understood that he wasn’t ever to call her on this number except in a real emergency. But she shouldn’t have given it to him at all. Was the fact that she had
significant, a sign that her subconscious was working overtime? Deep down did she want Terry to find out? If he did, everything would be in the open and . . . then what? She couldn’t bear to
think about the turmoil and hurt the discovery would cause. But Terry wasn’t here. He was downstairs enjoying himself.

‘Hello.’ She whispered the word as if there was a danger of being overheard.

‘How’s it going, babe?’

How she hated Will calling her that, as if she was a woman half her age. He meant to flatter her, but in fact the word made her feel like Grandma Moses and him sound like a superannuated
Lothario.

‘I had a feeling you’d be there.’ His voice was full of longing.

‘What are you doing calling me now? It’s complete chance that I was up here. You know the party’s tonight.’ Then, worried that she’d sounded too sharp, she added,
‘We said we’d talk tomorrow, that I’d call you when I could get away.’

His breathing was in her ear as if the phone was pressed up close to his mouth. Her stomach cartwheeled. She sat on the lid of the loo, shutting her eyes and stretching her legs out in front of
her, flexing her feet.

‘I couldn’t wait.’ His pleasure at having reached her was obvious. ‘Simple as that. Just wanted to hear your voice.’

She opened her eyes, only to notice the varicose vein that trailed across her shinbone like a knotted blue worm. She pressed at it with her free hand to make it disappear, but it sprang back,
resistant. She bent her knees so she couldn’t see it any longer.

‘But darling, you can’t call me when I’m with Terry. That’s one of our rules.’

‘Rules are for breaking, Evie. Otherwise why have them?’

She heard the chink of ice cubes in his drink and pictured him stretched out on his soft black leather sofa, navy-blue (only) silk-socked feet on one end, his head propped against a cushion at
the other, raising his glass. The murmur of music was just audible in the background.

‘Anyway, I couldn’t resist trying. And now I’m glad I did.’

She could feel herself melting under his attention. But she couldn’t talk to him. Not now. She glanced at Terry’s bracelet gleaming on her wrist, at his toothbrush next to hers.

‘I’ve been thinking of all the things we could have been doing if you were here instead.’ His voice reminded her of warm dark treacle. He gave a little groan that all but did
for her.

If only she
could
be with him. Some of the things they had done together only days earlier swam into her mind, making her giddy with longing as she remembered the more intimate detail.
She had surprised even herself with a flexibility she didn’t know she still possessed, and she couldn’t help wondering what other positions he had tucked away in his repertoire. At the
same time, she knew where she belonged right now. With her family.

‘This isn’t right, Will.’ Yes, she must be firm. ‘I can’t talk to you now.’

‘When can we talk then? I need you here, with me. You belong here.’

Eve peered at herself in the mirror. Instead of the young woman she had once been, the young woman that Will brought out in her, a middle-aged woman stared back. However flirtatious and girlie
she felt inside, the outside was never going to change – only age more. She put an elbow on the grey marble counter, knocking her SP20 super-restorative day cream to the floor, and rested her
forehead on her fist. This was utter madness, but . . .

‘I’ll call you tomorrow and we’ll fix something then. Promise.’ She knew she’d keep that promise, however difficult it would be to find a moment on her own. She
couldn’t resist him. ‘I must go. They’ll be wondering where I am.’

‘I guess I’ll have to be satisfied with that then.’ But there was a smile in his voice. She had pacified him. Until the next time.

They said their goodbyes and she sat staring at her BlackBerry, the bringer of good news and bad. She had got herself in far too deep. Whatever she decided to do would hurt one of them: Terry or
Will. Choosing between them was impossible.

She got up and ran the tap, to hold a cold flannel to her cheeks, then to the back of her neck. Having repaired the resulting damage to her make-up, she stowed her phone in the pocket of her
suitcase, somewhere Terry would never look, with the ringtone off. If she underestimated her husband and he did find it, at least there was no text trail for him to follow. She had made sure of
that by only contacting Will through her office email or phone. The BlackBerry was only for emergencies – she thought she’d made that plain.

Locking the door, she stood for a second, head held high, shoulders back and down, stomach in, back straight. Deep breath. Right. She was ready to face the fray.

Back in the marquee, she rejoined her friends at the bar. If anything, the music was louder than before, the dancing more frenzied. Someone pressed another glass into her hand. An ex-colleague
of Terry’s engaged her in a paralysingly dull exchange about the benefits of train travel to Cornwall. Behind her, two of her friends were discussing a third at the tops of their voices.

‘Her husband doesn’t suspect a thing,’ yelled one of them.

Eve froze, horrified. How had they found out?

‘When’s she going to tell him?’ said the second, struggling to make herself heard. ‘Surely he’ll guess? You can’t keep something like that secret.’

There was a rushing in Eve’s ears as the cold hand of panic gripped her in a stranglehold.

‘When they get to the airport. Not till then.’

What? She glanced over her shoulder. Annie, an old family friend, overflowing from a tight purple satin sheath that might have graced the wardrobe of
Strictly
, was shaking her head as her
companion, comparatively dowdy in a patterned dress Eve recognised from a mail-order catalogue, caught Eve looking in their direction.

‘Eve,’ she shrieked. ‘We were wondering where you’d got to. I was just telling Jenny that Susie’s planning a surprise holiday for Pete. They’re going when
he’s finished this terrible child abuse case he’s involved with.’

‘Isn’t it marvellous? I’d be bound to be found out if I tried anything like that on Charles. He’s far too quick,’ said Annie, her bosom shaking like a milk
blancmange as she laughed.

‘Really?’ Eve said weakly as the final chords of Coldplay drew to a close. The dance floor thinned out as a slow number Eve didn’t recognise took over. ‘How
lovely.’ She turned back to the conversation.

‘Space on your dance card?’ Terry was at her elbow. She raised her spritzer to her lips. She could see the danger signals: the flushed cheeks, the pinkish rims to his eyes, the
wine-stained lips. For all his disapproval of her ‘inappropriate’ drinking, Terry knew how to enjoy himself when the time was right. Earlier, she had spotted him dancing with one of
their neighbours, a young blonde woman who’d lived alone with her young son since her husband went off with the local hairdresser. Drink might make him flirtatious but Terry was a one-woman
man. Of that she was confident. Just as confident as Rose had been in Daniel, it occurred to her. But he was waiting.

‘I do seem to be free,’ she said, taking his hand and following his lead. To begin with they danced separately, and out of synch. A sense of rhythm was not one of the blessings
gifted to Terry at birth, though his enthusiasm made up for it. She caught sight of Charlie saying something to Anna, who nodded towards them and giggled. Now that they were one of only five or six
couples left on the dance floor, but the only one not in a clinch, Eve began to feel self-conscious. As if reading her thoughts, Terry reached for her and pulled her into his embrace. She shut her
eyes and tried not to think of Will.

‘What a party.’ The smell of red wine on his breath made her turn her head away. ‘You’ve done it all brilliantly, darling.’

She was about to explain how Jess was really the guiding force when he tightened his grip.

‘We need to talk.’ The urgency in his voice made her pull back to look at him. His earnest expression gave her a sense of foreboding. Their young blonde neighbour. Could the bracelet
have been more of a farewell than a celebration? Had she completely misjudged him? Could he be going to pip her to the post and announce he was leaving her? Being so wrapped up in her own affair
had made her ignore what must have been going on under her nose. She felt oddly panicky despite knowing how ridiculous the idea was. Guilt was making her imagine things.