One Secret Summer (56 page)

To Niela, the whole evening had an air of unreality about it. In the soft, balmy candlelight, they all looked like actors
on the set of a spectacularly beautiful film. Rufus’s arrival had set Diana on
edge, and no wonder. It was hard to tell whether the incident Josh had witnessed all those years ago had happened only once,
or if it was part of a longer-term affair. Whatever it was, or had been, it was clear that Rufus still held some sort of power
over her. Niela found herself studying him intently, watching for signs that might give her a clue. There was none; he gave
absolutely nothing away. On the other side of the nervous Diana, Harvey was his usual charming self. It was hard not to like
Harvey. He was that unusual blend of brilliance and kindness – his humour had none of the calculated edge of Diana’s, nor
the sullenness of Josh and Aaron either. Did he know what had taken place between his wife and his brother all those years
ago? No. It wasn’t possible. He couldn’t have sat between the two people who should have been his closest allies and contemplate
the fact that he’d been betrayed at least once, if not repeatedly. No one could have that depth of understanding or forgiveness,
not even Harvey. As Niela watched them, she was slowly aware of a lump rising in her throat. She was used to the unexpected
ways in which the things she had to hide sometimes came to the surface of her thoughts without warning, but this was different.
She lifted her glass and tried to swallow the threat of tears. It was thinking about forgiveness that had done it. The idea
that Harvey might possibly be the person to whom one could confess something was suddenly overwhelming. It had been so long
since she’d had the need to speak … to say out loud what she normally kept hidden and buried … why
now
, of all times and of all places? But she knew why. She was sitting halfway down the table in the bosom of her adopted family,
listening to them talk, swap stories, watching them play to the audience of invited guests … doing just what families everywhere
did, every day. The family gatherings in Mogadishu were of a different order – the parents rarely spoke to the children, or
vice versa, and there was none of the gentle ribbing in front of guests that everyone seemed to enjoy. There was no alcohol
at the table and her mother would never have dared sit in between her father and Uncle Raageh, but the sense of belonging
somewhere, to people whose blood and history she shared, had been missing from her life for a long time. She’d shut out so
completely the pain and loss she felt when she ran away from them all that she’d thought there was nothing to go back to.
Now, sitting there in the midst of this family, sensing the poison that had slowly seeped its way through that very same love,
she found herself mourning what she’d lost, and afraid of what they all might one day lose if any of it came to light.

Next to her, Josh was quiet. His position in the family was precarious – she could see that; she could also see that he knew
it, and for all his sullen anger, was hurt by it. Whenever a joke or an anecdote was directed at him, she could see in him
a spirit of generosity that broke something in him that he knew needed to be broken … but as soon as he began to reach out,
he backed off. It moved Niela greatly, and over and over again, it broke her heart.

Maddy had drunk too much; she could feel it in the way her words kept sliding around in her mouth as though she couldn’t quite
handle them. She could feel it too in the way her gaze was drawn to Niela and Josh, who were sitting opposite her. She slid
a hand underneath the table and placed it provocatively on Rafe’s thigh, but he moved away in irritation. He was in the middle
of telling a long, complicated story about an operation and she could sense he was trying to impress Harvey – the last thing
he wanted was the distraction of her fingertips caressing him through the wool of his trousers. She moved her hand away, rebuked.
She took another sip of wine. Dangerous. Wine made her bold; it loosened her tongue and heightened her emotions. In this state,
who knew what might pop into her head and then come straight out of her mouth? She tried to concentrate on Rafe’s story. ‘When
we saw the blood, we thought we were bloody done for … it wasn’t quite tight enough … you know how it is, Dad, when you’ve
opened up the arterials … you just can’t tell, can you? Luckily for us, Martins had given her a triple dose of nembuthal …’
Stop trying
to please your father
, Maddy wanted to whisper to him.
Stop trying to impress him. Just be yourself
. She caught Niela’s eye on hers and quickly looked away. Was her impatience written all over her face? She took another sip,
and then another. She was drinking too fast but she couldn’t stop. There was someone else watching her – it was Rufus, Rafe’s
uncle. He was staring at her. He was very quick; she could see from the way he was studying her that he’d caught the look
in her eyes. He was sitting next to Harvey; there was a disturbing quality of sameness about them both, although Rufus was
dark where Harvey was fair. It was like looking into a mirror where the reflection was just slightly out of focus – the features
were the same but the cast was different. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. There was something very slightly off-kilter
about the whole evening. It was a birthday party, a celebration … and yet it was not. It had a tenor and climate all of its
own. She felt a light goosepimpling all over her skin. She shivered, though it wasn’t cold.

Sitting three spaces down from Maddy and sandwiched between Aaron and Harvey, Julia was also struggling to keep hold of her
thoughts. She too had had too much to drink, but where Maddy’s attention seemed fixed on the company around her, Julia’s was
anywhere but. She kept returning to Africa, not just to her chance meeting with Josh in Johannesburg, but to the trip as a
whole and the chain of emotions it had set off in her. She was restless; without ever having put it into words, she’d been
steadily growing away from the path that Bernard, Bennison & Partners had set her upon. The fact that Aaron seemed so content
to follow it had become a greater source of irritation than she could ever dare admit. The trip had changed her utterly; it
had moved her to what could become the centre of her own life – everything that had previously lain dormant had suddenly come
to attention. She felt as though she’d stepped into something she’d always intended to do, and the fact that Aaron seemed
unable to understand what had happened to her was putting a strain on what had once been easy between them. In a
strange and not so pleasant way, Aaron was slowing coming full circle. When she met him at Bernard, Bennison & Partners, he
seemed to have abandoned the arrogance that had characterised him at Balliol and allowed her to see something else inside
him …
that
was what she’d fallen in love with. The night after she’d lost her first case, it was the note of uncertainty in his voice
that had made her see him differently. She could still remember every detail – the way he’d leaned against the door jamb,
his shirt sleeves rolled up, the desire that had swept over her to be held by him … all of that. But as time went on and he
grew more confident in the role that everyone else seemed to have mapped out for him, the Aaron she’d fallen in love with
slowly began to fade. Now he was returning to who he’d always been all along. Conventional to the core. And in that, they
were diametrically opposed. For Julia, especially after what she’d just experienced in Maputo, the law wasn’t simply a means
to a particular kind of lifestyle; it was as much a moral as a material means, and to her distress, it was becoming increasingly
clear that in this, as in so many other things, she and Aaron were worlds apart. To compare him to Josh was an unfair comparison
– chalk and cheese, those two, as her father would have said. In some ways, not dissimilar to Harvey and his brother, Rufus,
she suddenly thought. She stole a quick glance down the table. They were talking to one another, their heads bent close. Rufus’s
darker head, with its smattering of grey hair, and Harvey’s, so fair that he appeared silver – and next to them, sitting with
all the upright tension of someone on a bed of nails, was Diana. Her eyes darted this way and that, never still. She seemed
to be measuring the evening according to some criteria other than her own enjoyment. Something else was being said underneath
the laugher and the anecdotes and the good wine and food, but Julia was damned if she could work out what.

The house was deathly quiet. After the din of the evening’s celebrations, the silence that had descended like a blanket once
everyone had gone to bed was unnerving. Diana lay stiffly awake beside Harvey, unable to sleep. She’d hardly touched a drop
of alcohol all evening, unlike everyone else. She’d been too nervous. The evening had dragged on and on; all she could remember
was the longing for it to be over, for Rufus to leave, for things to return to normal. She gave a small, stifled groan. Normal?
There was nothing normal about her situation; nothing normal about anything any more. Next to her, Harvey snored softly. For
him, at least, the evening had been a great success. If he’d noticed the fact that she was quieter than usual, he’d made no
comment. Every now and then, during the course of the dinner party, he’d touched her lightly on the shoulder or her arm –
small, thoughtful gestures that kept him in touch with her, as he liked to say. Harvey was good at that sort of thing. Rufus
was not. For almost fifty years she’d pondered the question – why?

She turned carefully on to her side, not wanting to disturb Harvey. She tried to relax, to breathe deeply and evenly in the
hope of drifting off to sleep, but it was no use. The sleep she so desperately craved simply wouldn’t come. She turned back
the covers and slid quietly from the bed. The floorboards made a single squeaking sound as she walked across the room in her
bare feet, but Harvey didn’t wake. She pulled her silk dressing gown from its hook and opened the door carefully. All down
the corridor, doors were closed; behind them, her entire family was asleep. She walked downstairs, wrapping her dressing gown
around her more tightly. She went into the kitchen; all was quiet except for the refrigerator humming reassuringly in the
corner. She walked over to the sink and opened the window; the sweet night air rushed in, bathing her in its familiar fragrance,
a
combination of pine and lavender, the smell of Mougins. She looked out over the driveway, now bathed in silvery moonlight.
Everything was still and perfectly calm. She turned on the tap and slowly poured herself a glass of water. She drank it standing,
her gaze resting on the spot where she’d stood thirty years ago, waiting. There was a creak behind her; the kitchen door opened
and closed again with a soft thud. She could just make out footsteps coming up behind her. She knew without turning round
just who it would be.

‘Do you ever think about it, Rufus?’ she asked in a low voice, holding the cold glass of water to her burning face. ‘Do you?’

‘No.’ He caught hold of her shoulder and turned her round to face him. ‘No, I don’t.’

‘Never? Not even—’ She stopped, unable to complete the sentence. In the dark, she couldn’t make out his features; was he frowning?

‘Your son is asleep upstairs with his wife. That’s all you need to know.’

‘But Rufus—’

‘Stop it, Diana. There’s no point. It’s over and done with. The whole thing’s buried—’

‘Buried?’ Diana gave a short laugh. ‘Yes, you could say that. In fact—’

‘Stop it.’ His grip on her shoulders tightened. ‘This isn’t like you, Diana. What’s the matter?’

There was silence for a few seconds as she struggled to bring her voice under control. ‘I don’t know,’ she whispered finally.
‘I can’t seem to stop thinking about it. About him.’

‘Don’t. Josh is safe. He’s alive. That’s all there is to it.’

‘But—’

‘Stop it.’ His hand slid from her shoulder down the small of her back. He pressed her close to him.

‘No,’ she whispered, ‘not here. Please.’ He held her loosely for a second, his hand sliding further down to hold her buttocks.
She felt the surge of customary desire and it took all her strength
to push him away. ‘No,’ she repeated, hoping her voice was steady.

He sighed and held his hands up in mock defeat. ‘OK. I’ll be gone first thing in the morning, Diana.’ His tone held a touch
of mock regret. ‘You win.’ He touched her very lightly on the chin and moved off into the darkness. She heard the kitchen
door shut quietly behind him. She could breathe again. She turned back to the window, staring out into the night. This time
there was no stopping the memories as they flooded out, one after the other, a waterfall of pain.

DIANA

London/Mougins, June 1969

She woke up feeling as though she’d only just shut her eyes. She struggled upright in the narrow hospital bed and looked around,
as if forgetting for a second why she was there. The room was empty. Harvey couldn’t stay, he’d told her so the night before
– he had a long list scheduled for that morning but he’d promised to pop in whenever he could. In the small cot next to the
bed lay her newborn son, her third. Josh. Joshua Alexander Keeler. She shifted uncomfortably in the bed and leaned over to
look at him again. He was sleeping. His tiny, delicately painted features were relaxed; she felt the same surge of emotion
that she’d had after the births of both her older children. So perfectly made, so perfectly formed. She couldn’t stop staring
at him. The other two had both come out resolutely blonde, like Harvey. Josh was barely a few days old, but already his hair
was darker, and darkening by the day. She resisted the temptation to insert a finger in one of his tiny little hands; she
didn’t want to wake him. He was a screamer, it seemed. ‘Right pair of lungs on him,’ one of the nurses had commented the night
before. ‘Once he gets started …’ She’d smiled good-naturedly at Diana, who was too exhausted to reply.

She swung her legs out of bed and carefully stood up. Her lower body was still heavy from the epidural; it would take her
a while to get back on her feet. She was still shocked by how difficult the birth had been. The
first two had been easy by comparison. With Rafe she’d been in labour for only a few hours before he made his rushed appearance
into the world; he’d almost been born in the back of the car on the way over. Aaron too … an easy delivery … she’d gone home
the very same morning. But Josh was different. Almost twenty-four hours’ worth of contractions followed by another four of
pushing against the most excruciating pain she’d ever known … until she thought she couldn’t possibly stand another second
… and then he’d arrived, kicking and screaming, and he hadn’t stopped since. She’d stared at him, too drained to even see
properly but she’d known, right there and then, that this one would be special.