This Secret We're Keeping (39 page)

Finally, she permitted herself to exhale.

‘Well?’ He was waiting for her answer.

She mumbled something incoherent.

‘He was fucking pathetic, Jess, honestly. Miserable cunt – wobbling and crying and spewing up all over himself. He was trying to keep the whole thing a secret from his girlfriend too, that was the best bit. I mean –
Hello? You’re a PAEDOPHILE.
’

Zak had started to go a bit red in the face, like he did when he was talking about religious fanatics or people he went to school with who now had more money than he did.

‘Was she there?’ Jess whispered. ‘His girlfriend?’

‘Was she fuck. They’d had a steaming row and she’d fucked off with the kid, he reckoned. Refused to let us call her. Refused to let us call anyone. Pathetic.’ He shook his head, visibly attempting to soothe his own hatred with another swig of champagne. And then he set down his glass
and fixed her with a steely gaze. ‘You know, I had this crazy little theory about you and him.’

Jess went very still.

‘I had this theory that you’d shagged each other. Had a one-night stand or a little fling.’

Breathe. Breathe
.

He paused. ‘I mean, if you’d done that …
ugh
. You’d feel dirty now, wouldn’t you? That would just be … well, it would be pretty disgusting, wouldn’t it?’

‘Okay, Zak,’ she said, finally biting.

He held up his hands, all innocence. ‘What? Just looking out for you,
cariño
.’

‘Can we drop it now?’

His eyes narrowed. ‘You know how much I hate a liar, Jess. Octavia was a liar. I would hate to think you’ve been lying to me too.’

She held the urge to speak in her mouth.

‘Thank me if you like,’ he said then, throwing her a sarcastic little nod. ‘For saving you from someone like that. It’s decent of me, I know.’

‘Drop it now, Zak. I’m serious.’

There was a pause. Finally, he was finished toying with her. ‘All right, Jess,’ he said. ‘I’ll drop it, if you promise never to see him again.’ He swigged from his glass. ‘And while we’re at it, I’ll make you a little promise of my own. If he comes anywhere near you again, I’ll see to it that his legs get snapped in half and everybody finds out about his grubby little secret. So, do we have a deal?’

She shut her eyes briefly, and the tears began to fall.

‘Oh, and Jess? I really do think you should consider moving to London with me.’

She swallowed, hardly able to form the words, unable to look at him as she spoke. ‘Or what?’

He leaned forward and plucked another oyster from the pile of ice. It was dribbling now, melting along with Jess’s brief illusion – if she’d ever really had it – that she might have been able to finish things with Zak tonight.

Leaning back in his chair and tipping the oyster down his throat, Zak swallowed, then shone her a winning smile. ‘You must remind me to tell you what happened to my brother just before he left for San Francisco.’ He fired a wink at her. ‘Better not while we’re eating though. Come on, baby. Have some more.’

As midnight approached he tried to kiss her, and for a couple of moments she let him before pulling away. The feeling of his lips on hers made her stomach clench, the scent of gutted shellfish filling her nostrils. Zak’s breath smelt rankly of parsley and garlic, the remnants of their lobster dish.

He waited for her explanation, eyebrows raised, carefully cultivated threats at his fingertips. She had to tread carefully, she knew that.

‘I just need some time to think,’ she said, swallowing. ‘About London. I think I want to do it … I just … I need to be sure. Can you give me a few days?’

Though he had one arm locked round her, even Zak wasn’t quite animal enough to try and force her into bed. She had to trust him on that front at least.

He was chewing it over. There was not a lot else he could do at this stage. ‘Fine,’ he said eventually. ‘I’m working tomorrow anyway. But I’ll be back on Friday. You can tell me what you’ve decided then.’ He fixed her with his gaze. ‘Though I’m pretty sure I know what your answer will be. I’ll have the champagne ready and waiting.’

Twenty minutes later, she was climbing into a taxi, shutting her eyes against the thought of Zak standing there outside the house, watching her depart as the car swept away down the length of the drive.

I have to warn him. I have to warn Will
.

They
were sitting together in the car outside the locked gates to Hadley Hall. Will had turned silently off the road and down the long poplar-lined driveway, coming to a gentle halt just in front of the school crest.

Ad astra per aspera
.

To the stars through difficulty
.

‘Not quite … sure why we’re here,’ he said, as if the car had located the school and parked neatly up of its own accord.

‘I think your subconscious took over.’

‘Yeah.’ He rubbed his chin with one hand, looked across at her and smiled. The bruise on his face had more or less vanished now, save for some traces of yellow along the edge of his jawline. ‘Although I have to admit I was hoping I could rely on you to stop me doing something stupid. Like – oh, I don’t know – driving back to the scene of the crime with you in the passenger seat.’

She laughed. ‘Sorry. Directions aren’t really my strong point.’

Neither, it had transpired, was finding the courage to somehow tell Will what had happened at the beach house before Zak returned at the end of the week, tapping his watch and demanding a decision.

Jess knew that for Will, panic wasn’t so much an inclination as something that was hard-wired into his muscle fibre. If she told him now about Zak, she felt sure he would bolt back to London with his girlfriend and daughter as fast
as a Mafia defector fleeing hand-delivered body parts. And she didn’t think she could deal with being abruptly parted from him all over again.

Which was probably why she was having trouble forcing the words to leave her mouth. It felt as if she’d been working them over and over on her tongue for days, like they were fish bones at a dinner party and she was waiting for the right moment to cause a fiasco by spitting them out.

‘Was it hard to get away?’ she asked him now, meaning from Natalie. The question tasted duplicitous, sly. She hated the sound of the words.

‘Not too bad,’ he said. ‘Had to feign a craving for a particular type of beer.’ He shrugged, but heavily, in a way that suggested the deceit was starting to get to him.

But then he took her hand, and after two weeks of only sporadic contact by text and the occasional hasty call, his touch made her feel like a tiny acrobat was doing backflips somewhere deep inside her belly.

Jess stared straight ahead out of the windscreen towards the main school hall, an imposing example of high-Victorian architecture sitting at the top end of a sweeping green lawn, the grandeur and beauty of which she’d never appreciated as a pupil, of course. It was lit up against the black of the night sky like a great ship twinkling out at sea.

‘It
is
stunning,’ she said now.

‘Yeah. Coffee was fucking diabolical though.’

She laughed. ‘That’s your abiding memory of teaching here?’

‘Well, no,’ he said, looking at her meaningfully, ‘but I doubt the amazing architecture is yours of being a pupil, is it?’

‘Not exactly.’

A brief silence followed.

‘Let’s go in,’ she said.

He turned his head to look across at her. ‘What? It sounded like you just said, “Let’s go in.” ’

She laughed. ‘I did. Come on, it’ll be fun.’

‘Fun like a long-overdue drinking session or fun like inspecting my own toenails for fungal ingrowth?’

She thought about it. ‘We could reminisce.’

‘Oh, Jess, now you’re just toying with me.’

She opened the passenger door and stepped out into the quiet warmth of the night. Across the wide expanse of lawn, Hadley Hall was floodlit and majestic in the manner of a luxury wedding venue. In fact there had been talk a few years ago of turning it into one – a bit of extra income for the school at weekends – but then the trustees got scared about creating dual purpose literature and confusing their Russian feeder schools, and the whole thing got shelved. Jess leaned back down into the car. ‘Are you coming?’

‘I might wait here. Looks like a one-man kind of a job.’

‘Don’t you think your subconscious brought you here for a reason?’

‘If it did, that reason wasn’t breaking and entering.’

‘We won’t go
inside
. Just walk around the grounds.’

‘They have twenty-four-hour security. CCTV. Strangely enough, I don’t fancy another spell in prison, Jess, it didn’t really agree with me the first time round.’

She thought about it. ‘Okay. Do you mind if I go? I won’t be long. Just want to … have a look round.’

‘Not at all. I’ll treat myself to Radio 4. If I’m lucky I might catch
Book at Bedtime
.’

She smiled, shut the door softly and walked across to the low brick wall skirting the school’s perimeter. Wooden signs threatening trespassers with prosecution were planted along
its length like sentries, no doubt to ward off ex-pupils and disgraced teachers in mind of breaking and entering for a quick trip down memory lane.

Having scaled the wall, Jess stuck to the far edge of the dew-soaked lawn, which was mowed meticulously into stripes, following the line of the shingle driveway. She was careful to keep the hall to her left, so she wouldn’t illuminate herself in the glow thrown off by the building’s elaborate uplighting.

Then, from somewhere behind her, she heard a car door slam, and a few moments later he was at her side, grabbing her hand.

‘Oh, hello,’ she said, turning and smiling at him. ‘What was the book at bedtime?’

‘
The Bell Jar
,’ he said. ‘As a member of the patriarchy, I was made to feel quite unwelcome.’

‘Oh. Well, they might do the
Witches of Eastwick
tomorrow for balance.’

‘Updike?’

She nodded, privately impressed. ‘A little different to Plath.’

‘I’ll listen out for it.’ He fell into step with her across the grass. ‘Just so you’re aware, this really isn’t very good for my anxiety levels. I try to stay at the averse end of the risk spectrum these days.’

She thought about it. ‘Like, no smoking, five-a-day, keeping criminal activity to a minimum?’

‘Exactly.’

‘Well, this can be the only criminal activity you engage in this year, if you like.’

‘I’ll hold you to that. Though there does seem to be a pattern emerging here.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Of you being the common denominator whenever I’m caught breaking the law.’

She laughed. ‘Ah, that’s sweet. Some maths-speak to make up for the Plath. Do you feel better now?’

He grinned. ‘Yeah, much. Thanks.’

They walked a few paces further.

‘Hey, Jess – let me ask you something.’

‘Go on.’

‘Do people ever talk about me when you’re around? I mean, do you ever overhear anything or get strange looks?’

Jess thought about it. ‘Yes, sometimes. Not very often. Hardly at all now, actually. It was worse back then, straight after it happened.’

He seemed to be mulling something over. ‘It’s just that I was out with Charlotte the other day, walking down the road to the playing field, and … there was this woman. She was on our side, but she crossed over when she saw us.’

‘Okay …’

‘The strange thing is, she was staring at me the whole time. Properly staring, like she knew exactly who I was. And it was almost to the point where I would have said something, but Charlotte was with me. Anyway, I carried on walking, but then I glanced back over my shoulder and I swear she’d just taken a picture.’

Jess felt her heart begin to thump. Had Zak started spreading rumours?

‘It was creepy. I even picked Charlotte up and carried her, I was that weirded-out. Spent the rest of the night waiting for Natalie to get a strange phone call or for someone to knock on the front door.’

‘What did she look like – the woman?’

‘Hard to say. She had sunglasses on. Average height, non
descript clothes. Almost too non descript, though – and absolutely enormous hair. If I didn’t know Sonia was dead, I’d have sworn it was her in disguise.’

Jess felt her chest stiffen with fear. She shook her head, trying to override it. ‘Maybe she thought you were someone else.’

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Like Matthew Landley, circa 1994.’

She took his hand, wanting to reassure him but knowing she’d have to follow it up with a conversation about Zak. She swallowed, promising herself she would do it as soon as they had finished their impromptu little tour of the school.

They were approaching the far end of the hall and the cluster of buildings to its right, where the driveway fed into the large shingle car park. She used to scan the cars in it every day, feeling her heart thump with disappointment if she couldn’t see Matthew’s.

Will grabbed her hand and steered her along the paved footpath that transected the shingle. ‘We don’t want to crunch,’ he whispered.

Another minute passed, and they were almost in line with the back of the hall. The tennis courts lay dead ahead and to the left of them was the school playground, encircled by buildings housing the design and tech workshops, lecture theatre and music school. To their right was the drama studio, surrounded by the same shiny-leaved shrubbery as it had been almost eighteen years ago.

‘Wow,’ said Will. ‘Talk about a head-fuck. Being back here … it’s really, really weird.’

‘God, it is,’ she breathed. ‘I can just picture you striding about in your cowboy boots …’

‘… Sonia Laird boring holes into my brain …’

‘… making all the girls swoon,’ she teased.

There was a pause. They reached the side of the drama
studio and came to a halt. Around them, the air was as calm as something sleeping, not a whisper of wind to disturb them.

Jess looked across to the shrubbery. ‘Let’s go in.’

‘In where?’

‘Secret footpath,’ she reminded him, and started walking, leading him down the side of the studio. Although still in existence, the footpath was no longer visible – it was completely overgrown by vast shocks of bold green laurel, and they had to force stiff clumps of foliage apart to make progress. Eventually they reached their little wooden bench, diseased now with creeping green moss and blue-grey lichen, completely encased in shrubbery.

Will snapped a couple of branches to make room for them to sit. ‘Poor old Peggy,’ he said, reading from the little bronze plaque, blackened up from the years of weather and solitude. ‘She loved this place and now she’s got even less of a view than she had before. And she’s neglected her personal hygiene a bit.’

Jess smiled. ‘Well, at least we’re here to keep her company.’

‘I think we’re the only ones who ever were. Hey, we should look her up, now we’ve got Wikipedia. Who was Peggy? What terrible crime against tap dancing led her to end up dumped and unloved in the middle of a laurel bush?’

‘Hadley Hall love triangle?’

He feigned outrage. ‘Not at Hadley.
Never
at Hadley.’

They settled down against Peggy’s inscription, their little hideout carrying the intense aroma of rich soil and green leaves. Tipping her head back, Jess could see a smattering of stars decorating the dark sky. They looked as if they had been shaken across the canvas of it like glitter.

‘It’s beautiful,’ Will remarked quietly. ‘You know, I’m
quite the amateur star-gazer these days, Jess. Turns out insomnia and cloudless nights are perfect partners.’

Recalling his comment in the cafe about craving outside space, Jess was struck by an image of him alone across the years, sitting out the dark in London parks. And then she remembered how carefree he used to be, and the futility of it all tugged at her somewhere deep inside.

‘The last time we sat here, I was trying to finish with you, I think,’ Will said then, into the still of the night air. ‘Before it had even begun. I had a speech prepared and everything.’

She shut her eyes, attempting to remember what he’d said to her. ‘Your opener was, “Saturday night was a mistake, Jess.” ’ She dropped her voice into baritone to imitate him.

He laughed. ‘Surely I was more creative than that?’

‘No, you definitely weren’t. I remember laughing heartlessly at you when you said it.’

‘That sounds about right.’ He smiled.

A few moments of silence ensued.

I have to tell him. I have to warn him about Zak
.

She frowned. ‘Look, Will, I need to tell you something.’

He looked across at her. ‘Something-like-herpes or something-like-you-don’t-think-we-should-do-this-any-more?’

She smiled. ‘Well, which would you prefer?’

‘Herpes,’ he said, without missing a beat. ‘Definitely, herpes. Go on. Please. Hit me with the full extent of your various undisclosed STDs.’

‘Zak … still wants me to move to London with him,’ she said, and then tried to work out how to say what she needed to say next.

He nodded. ‘And what do you want?’

She hesitated. Somewhere in the distance, she could hear the swish of a car passing by on the road. The sound of
it was strangely comforting, a little reminder that nobody knew they were here. The lack of scrutiny felt luxurious, something intoxicating she could happily have drunk.

He looked away from her then, up to the scattering of stars in the sky, and decided not to wait for her answer. ‘Okay, look. I’m aware that I have no right
at all
to say this, but I really hope you don’t.’

‘Move in with him?’

‘Think about it, move in with him – any of it.’

She waited for him to elaborate, wondering at what point she should stop him.

‘He just doesn’t strike me as a very nice guy. And I know that’s coming from me, so you can laugh and disregard everything I say, but –’

‘Oh, I will,’ she said. ‘I mean, you’re the worst.’

He stuck an elbow softly into her ribs. ‘Listen, Jess – I’m sure he’s okay, but I don’t think you should be with someone who’s only okay, who’ll do because he’s got a house and you haven’t. I think you should be with someone who really and truly loves you.’

Someone who really and truly loves me – like you?
she desperately wanted to ask him, but she didn’t, because deep down she was afraid of what his answer would be. Instead she said, ‘Well, I always think principles are great, provided you can afford them at the time.’
He’s blackmailing me, Will
.