Our Little Secret (15 page)

And then I remind myself that Marnie is a self-confessed adrenaline junkie. But if she does that behind Edward’s back, then what else does she do? I suddenly remember Harry at the party last night telling me that the Parkers are slippery people. Have I got myself into something here that I don’t understand?

Telling myself to stop being ridiculous, I go upstairs to my room, but as I open the door, I see that my bed is covered with bags, some of which are tied up with ribbons.

I see a cream card propped up on the dressing table. The writing on it is in proper fountain pen and is loopy and flamboyant:

Oh my God. Edward Parker has sent me an entire new wardrobe. Is this a peace offering then? Does it mean he’s forgiven me for last night? But how has he arranged all this? Unless he arranged it yesterday and left the note for me this morning.

Was that why Gundred looked annoyed? Because she had to arrange for all of these bags to be brought to my room? Because she disapproves of me being spoilt?

Who cares, I tell myself. Forget Gundred. Edward has forgiven me. That’s all that matters.

I feel breathless with girly excitement as I open all the expensive carrier bags and take out the clothes, admiring myself in the mirror. There are jeans, plain T-shirts, but like proper designer-cool ones, some vests and sweaters, and a couple of sweet cocktail dresses and some funky red shorts, but everything kind of matches. I read once about how women are supposed to have a ‘capsule’ wardrobe. And this is it.

I am so stupidly overwhelmed and grateful that I see tears in my eyes as I parade in the sexy blue sundress with the matching bikini. It’s divine. I’ve only had cheap bikinis, but this one is lush, and I feel like I could flounce into a snooty club in Ibiza in this get-up. If only Tiff or Lisa could see this. They’d both die of jealousy.

I need to get a grip and put last night behind me, and embrace this opportunity and be the best nanny the Parkers have ever had. I won’t be alone again with Edward and, now that I’ve met his wife, I can see how stupid I’ve been. I shall make myself indispensable to them both.

Downstairs, I search out Gundred, whom I find in the hallway, and ask her if she can sort out the Internet connection for me.

If she knows about the clothes, she doesn’t let on. She doesn’t mention my pretty sundress, sandals or new shades. I get a perverse thrill from parading them in front of her.

‘I’m not authorized to help you with that, Miss Henshaw,’ she says. She’s wearing a formal beige suit today and her hair is scraped back. She is busy with an iPad and doesn’t look at me. She’s got an Internet connection. Why can’t I?

‘But I asked Mr Parker, and he said Mrs Parker would gladly help me.’

‘Then ask her.’

‘Well, I will, but she’s not here, and I really should contact my family. Perhaps I could use the laptop in the kitchen?’

She looks at me aghast.

‘No,’ she says harshly. ‘Please do not touch any equipment in the house. It is strictly out of bounds. Is that understood?’

‘OK,’ I tell her in surrender. She’s being so strict and touchy.

I shake my head and take off up the stairs, remembering too late that she told me to use the service lift.

‘Miss Henshaw. If I find out that you’ve touched a computer . . .’ she calls out after me, a threat implicit in her voice.

Then what? I want to ask. I’ll be put in the stocks? I ignore her and jog on out of sight. Just because she’s working in a place like a stately home, she doesn’t have to behave like I’m the wayward governess. Do the Parkers know what a harridan they’ve employed?

I decide to tackle Laura, when I bump into her in the upstairs corridor. She’s still vacuuming. I get the impression that the staff leap into action the second the Parkers leave the premises, and make it all tidy. She jumps in fright when she sees me.

I repeat my plea to get some internet access, and she is just as terrified of me touching any computers as Mrs Gundred, although she tells me that the gardener’s phone signal works at the bottom of the garden.

‘Thanks,’ I tell her.

We’re standing by the nudey-man brass sculpture. I catch her eye and nod at it.

‘What do you think of that?’ I ask.

She blushes bright red.

‘Don’t ask me,’ she says and I hear a hint of panic in her voice. She picks up the vacuum cleaner and scuttles in the opposite direction.

Man, she’s odd.

29

I can’t help turning my face up to the sun as I walk to the end of the garden, marvelling at the efficiency of Marnie Parker’s two-step hangover cure. I felt like shit when I woke up, but now I feel fine. More than fine.

I wish now that I’d had more time to savour the car. I wish I’d taken some pictures. And, most of all, I wish I hadn’t overreacted when she drove like she did. Looking back, I was a bit prissy. Not cool. Certainly not as far as Marnie was concerned.

Right at the end of the grass where the lawn runs out, there’s a wooden kissing gate and a path leading down to a row of weeping willows and a lake. As I approach, I see there’s a slatted wooden diving platform in the middle of it and on the other side a sort of Scandinavian summerhouse. It’s so idyllic; with the birds tweeting and the water reflecting the trees above, it looks like the kind of scene that should be on the front of an architecture magazine. No wonder the Parkers fell in love with this place. I can see a long rope tied to one of the trees at the far end by the summerhouse. I can’t wait until the boys are here. I can already picture them in my mind’s eye, swinging into the lake – boyish limbs flailing in mid-air, braced to hit the water.

I walk to the end of the jetty and sit down, dangling my feet so that my toes just touch the water. I watch the birds in the trees and the shadow of the branches in the water, and the concentric circles as the fish beneath break the surface. It’s so beautiful here and I experience something I’ve never felt before. A sense of satisfaction in my solitude. I realize that I never get to be alone. Not really. I’m always at work, or with Dad and Ryan, or with Tiff or Scott. I honestly can’t remember the last time I had a day to myself, stretching out ahead of me. It feels like the most heady of luxuries.

Time seems to have done something odd to me. It’s as if I’ve had ten years’ worth of emotions and experience condensed into barely three days. I feel so different from the girl who left Manchester.

I feel solicitous about all the exciting things I have to analyse, now that I’m on my own. Part of me longs for Tiff to be here, so I can tell her everything. And yet, at the same time, I can’t deny I like the fact that all of this is just mine. Besides, I couldn’t explain it to Tiff when I can’t explain it to myself.

I can’t comprehend exactly what my relationship is to either of the Parkers and, with things unresolved with Edward, I feel more scared than ever that he and Marnie will talk about my behaviour last night.

Perhaps it doesn’t matter? Marnie is so obviously thrilled about the dress and the impact I made at the gallery, and we laughed so much when I finally relaxed about the car, I can’t imagine her taking Edward seriously if he did tell her that I tried to kiss him.

I was so sure that I’d be fired and sent packing; and now, lying here, I’m so grateful that I’ve got a second chance. Because I’m pretty sure I have, now that I’ve met Marnie. I laugh to myself, both thrilled and baffled about the drive this morning.

I’m sweating now and I squint up at the hot, bright sun in the sky. The water looks so cool and inviting that I quickly make my decision. Sod it! I’m here on my own. I’m on holiday, and I’m damn well going to jump in.

Quickly I strip down to my bikini, then laugh at myself when I realize how much I don’t want it to get wet. I check once more that I’m definitely alone. Then I quickly take the bikini off and, holding my nose, jump into the lake.

It’s absolutely glorious. The water is cool and smooth, and I swim a few strokes into the middle of the lake and then lie on my back, looking at the sky through the trees. I feel my nipples poking through the surface of the water, and look down at my body and think how wonderful it feels, after the winter in England, to be warmed by the sun.

And then I think of Edward and, as soon as I do, I picture how his eyes were when he made me wait for him on that walkway. I see it, as if I’m watching a film. Me in that astonishing dress, him walking towards me, his eyes devouring me. I think of how he felt when I was dancing against him, how he gripped my hands.

My legs kick in the water as I picture his lips, and how he looked at me. Somehow the clothes he sent me feel like an apology as well as an admission of guilt. Is he feeling bad about what happened, too, I wonder?

I know logically that last night was all about me being photographed in the dress, but there weren’t photographers in the car, were there? There weren’t photographers when he came to my room yesterday morning.

Was I really that wrong to try and kiss him? Surely I can’t have misread the signals that badly? He wanted me, too. I know it. I know it’s wrong, because he’s married to Marnie and she’s amazing, but they obviously have a weird relationship. After all, she keeps secrets from him – like that car. What does he keep from her, I wonder? He resisted me last night – and rightly so. But only just. Maybe he wasn’t angry with me, but angry at himself.

And then there was the movie. The movie playing in the empty room. I can’t for the life of me work out what it means.

I’m swimming in the clearest of lakes, but Edward fills my mind. I kick my legs out in breaststroke, feeling the water caress my naked body. I get to the steps on the other side of the lake from the diving board near the summerhouse and grab onto the bottom one, which is just concealed in the water, and swing round to sit on it.

I smooth my hair back, looking at the rivulets of water dripping down over me to my wet stomach sparkling in the sunshine.

I lean back and close my eyes, feeling the sun on me, feeling the water lapping against my hips. It’s so sensual and such a turn-on.

As the birds sing in my ears, I start to fantasize. I imagine Edward standing in his suit as he was last night, his hand in his trouser pocket. Then I picture him standing on the diving platform, looking across at me right now.

I suck the moisture off my bottom lip, imagining him staring at me from across the lake. I open my eyes a tiny way, but I’m looking into the sun and I imagine I can see him through the droplets of water.

What would I do if he stripped off now and dived into the water? What would I do if he swam across to me as I sat here, waiting for him? I picture him sliding up against me and how his wet body would feel against mine.

Under the water I reach down and press my fingers against myself. I feel a longing to be filled. For it to be him that fills me.

30

Afterwards, when I’m dressed again and sit dripping on the diving platform, I feel like a fool. It’s ridiculous to go around fantasizing about my boss, when nothing is ever going to happen. But maybe, after last night and all that pent-up sexuality, I just needed to get that out of my system.

I look at the phone in my hand and the reception bars, which are now filled in. I have no excuse. I have to call home.
Come on
, I tell myself.
After this morning, how hard can it really be?

I brace myself to call Scott and am secretly delighted when I get his voicemail, but even his jokey, laddish greeting seems tacky and annoying. I leave a neutral message, telling him I’m fine and that I’ve arrived safely and I’ve been busy.

Busy? Busy is such a pathetic word to describe what I’ve been up to. Busy is how I usually describe a double-shift at work, followed by an Asda weekly shop for Dad. That’s ‘busy’, in my world. Not flying business-class halfway around the world, or riding in limousines wearing a cutting-edge designer dress. Busy doesn’t usually involve midnight dances, or driving at 120 miles an hour in a brand-spanking-new Aston Martin, or swimming naked in a clear-water lake and nearly giving myself an orgasm as I fantasize about another man. Except that, perhaps now, it does.

My message sounds lame even to my ears. I add a hurried and chirpy, ‘Love you, miss you, bye.’

I press the red button and wince. I think of Edward’s hand on my knee in the back of the limo last night, when I told him about Scott. When I told him the truth. And now I’ve gone and made a liar of myself again. It’s as if the Parkers have called me out – to be a better person – and lying now feels worse than ever.

I look up at the expanse of blue sky between the trees. As I dial Dad’s number I think of home, in the rain, our cramped flat, the noise of Ryan’s PlayStation, and I realize just how much I don’t want to go back. How they could never understand how different this world is from theirs? How everything can change in three days.

‘So what are the kids like then? You got them licked into shape?’ Dad asks, after I’ve given him the details about what I ate on the flight. I don’t tell him about the couple shagging in the toilets. He’s trying to be jolly, but I know from his tone that he’s just attempting to be nice and that he’s missing me dreadfully.

I explain about the Parkers being in the process of moving, and how the kids are still at camp.

‘That’s weird,’ he says. ‘Surely that’s the reason they wanted you there right away.’

‘It’s kind of nice to be having a break, though.’

‘How the other half live,’ he jokes. ‘Ryan, come and say hi to Soph.’

Ryan is monosyllabic as usual. I tell him that I’m looking after twin boys and that he’d love it here, but he’s not impressed.

‘Have they got any good computer games?’ he asks.

‘I’m not sure yet,’ I tell him. ‘I’m sure we’ll have lots of fun, though – you know, being outdoors.’

Being outdoors is not Ryan’s thing at all and he knows I’m teasing him.

‘Look after Dad, OK?’ I tell him.

My conversation with them both leaves me feeling unsettled. Perhaps Dad is right. It is weird that the kids aren’t here. I determine to search out their rooms. To hell with Gundred’s red-room policy. I need more information about what I’m getting myself into.