The Darkest Secret (24 page)

‘So you're…'

‘Yes,' she says. ‘He couldn't do it, but I can. It was silly, holding on to all those things from before he was happy. Having them hanging around reminding him. I should have done it for him, I see that now. It's the very least I can do for him now. Only things from
us
in this house. This was our
home
.'

Oh, my God, I think, she's gone mad. We all stand around in awkward silence, unable to think of anything to say. There used to be photos of us in his study. I wonder if they're still there.

‘I wouldn't mind a shirt,' says Ruby eventually, humbly.

Simone stares at her as though she's only just registered her presence. As though she'd wiped her from her database along with everything else that pre-dated their fine romance. ‘Fine. Help yourself. Any particular one?'

‘No. Just… something of his.'

Simone makes a strange little tut of disgust. Sweeps an arm, ballerina-style, towards the bin. ‘Don't let me stand in your way.'

Ruby shuffles forward, leafs hurriedly through the pile of cloth and comes back with a blue-and-white-striped long-sleeve, the elbows worn thin. She clutches it against her chest like a blankey. Simone glares at her father. ‘Happy?' she asks.

 

We take the box up to Ruby's bedroom. It doesn't seem right, somehow, to start sharing out the dead man's belongings downstairs. Especially under the nose of a man who's clearly nursing some financial grievance. Ruby has been put in the attic. At her age I would probably have felt slighted, treated like a parlourmaid, but as it is it's the most characterful room in the house, all beams and sloped ceilings and a wonderful view through the dormer over the treetops to the estuary. Appledore. Such a wonderful name for a town. Probably all pound shops and charity shops, like the rest of coastal England, of course.

Inside the box is a jumble. A tangle of chains and watch straps, as though it has all been thrown in by someone fleeing the advancing enemy. I can't imagine my fastidious father treating his precious gold like that. Simone must have bunched it all together while she was out of the room at dinner and hurled it in, the way she's done with his clothes.

‘I think Simone's reached the anger stage,' says Ruby. I guess it's inevitable that she's read at least one book on the grief process, if she's already consulting the DSM on a habitual basis.

‘Looks like it,' I say.

‘I think I'm still in denial myself,' she says, and buries her face in the rescued shirt.

‘Oh, Rubes.'

‘It still smells of him,' she says, and passes it over. I take it reluctantly and give it a sniff, mostly to please her, and then I find myself breathing deeply. It's been washed since he last wore it, of course, but under the neutral scent of fabric conditioner he is still there. A faint, faint ghost of his custom-mixed cologne, heavy on the cedar and rich with citrus oils; the spice of once-warm skin; phantom Cohibas. And I'm back in the South of France, a little kid who's climbed over on to his lap to nod off as a long dinner progresses, bright moon-globes on the corniche, feeling safe and loved. What happened to us? God, he's been dead such a short time.

I give it back. I can't speak. Her pupils are huge as she meets my eyes. I up-end the box and the contents tumble on to the carpet.

There's a lot, and it's a mixed bag. Some of it must have come from his own parents, I realise: the cheap stuff, the worn-through gold-plated watch, the wedding rings. Well, maybe not all of those. He had amassed quite the collection of his own, after all. And a Rolex for each day of the week, enough cufflinks to carry him through two weeks in Dubai. A necklace with a single chip of purplish ruby in a golden heart. A christening mug, engraved. A couple of silver bonbon dishes. A gold hunter watch with his initials inside the lid.

A small gold bracelet.

‘How do we go about this?' asks Ruby as I stare at it. ‘Split them into types of thing, then choose?'

I clear my throat. ‘Yes. Why not?'

It feels to me as though a spotlight has been switched on in the room and that it's trained on the subject of my gaze. Ruby seems oblivious. She either hasn't noticed it yet or she doesn't know what it is, doesn't realise its significance. I stare and stare at it. It has to be. Ruby is wearing its twin on her right wrist. I remember now. It was how you told them apart. R for Ruby, Coco on the left. Given to them by Maria and Robert, each one a godparent, as christening gifts all those years ago, flexible metal and a sliding clasp so that they would grow with the wearer, and worn every day until she vanished.

But it vanished with her. I'm certain of it. That's what the story has always been. She was wearing it as she always did and the whole country – the whole world – was put on alert to find it. I remember it so well, on the Find Coco posters, on the TV screens, on the emails that came and came in those pre-Facebook days. No sharing, no retweeting, but still they think that a billion people have seen Maria's picture of Ruby's bracelet, blown up so you could see the engraving inside. Ruby's name, the twins' birthdate: 11.07.01. If it's the right one, it too will be engraved. I don't want to draw her attention by looking. Not now, not while I have no idea what to do. Because I have a sick feeling that, though she was far too small to remember it all, she will know what its presence must mean.

Ruby is working through the pile with her mother's punctilious efficiency. Watches here, cufflinks here, rings in a little Hobbit pile to the left, trinkets to the right, all the others – necklaces, chains, snaffle bracelets from the days before Sean reinvented himself as a country gentleman – in the middle. Her hand strays over the bracelet, stops. ‘How funny,' she says.

I can barely speak. ‘What?' I mutter.

She holds it up so it sits beside the one on her wrist. ‘I've got one exactly like it.'

I unglue my tongue. ‘Isn't that weird?' I say.

She doesn't look all that closely. Doesn't notice the inside. Lays it on the random pile. ‘No use to me,' she says. ‘Mine's at full stretch as it is. I'd never get it over my hand. Apparently I'd have to have it cut off if I ever needed an operation.'

I resist the temptation to snatch, but I see an opportunity. Ruby is much bigger than me, and I have my mother's small, elegant hands: useless for playing the piano but great for threading needles. I reach out for it, casually as I can. ‘I wonder if I…' I say, as though it's just an idle thought. I pull the clasp out till it's fully extended. Make my hand into a pincer and slide it on. It sticks at the joint at the base of my thumb. I push harder. It starts to hurt.

‘Here,' says Ruby, and reaches under the bed into her suitcase. She produces a big bottle of Vaseline Intensive Care. ‘She makes me take it everywhere. For my eczema.'

She flips the lid and squirts an obscene gush on to my hand, spreads it over my skin. As she pushes up my sleeve, she uncovers my most visible tattoo. I love them, but this is the only one that's not carefully placed where lawyers and interviewers and people's grandmothers won't be making snap judgements. It's a little line drawing of a pussycat, the first I ever had done. Just two curved lines in all, and two jade green eyes, on the tender underside of my forearm. I had it done when I was sixteen, and I never had another one done where India could see it and shout at me for being an idiot.

Ruby pauses and strokes it with a thumb. ‘That's pretty,' she says. ‘I'd love a tattoo.'

I'm still struggling to control my voice. Authoritative is easier, strangely. ‘No, you wouldn't,' I say. ‘It hurts like buggery and you're stuck with it for life.'

‘You're not telling me you regret
this
?' She looks up into my eyes and sees me blush. ‘Nah, thought not. Got any more?'

‘Yes.'

‘What?'

‘I'll tell you when you're old enough to know.'

‘Oh, God, don't tell me you've got a tribal armlet.'

‘Who do you think I am? Robbie Williams?'

Ruby sighs. ‘I probably won't be able to get one anyway,' she says. ‘What with the eczema and everything. I'd probably end up with a lump of seeping pus.'

‘You keep thinking that, baby,' I say. ‘Even when you've been drinking.'

‘So, go on. What else have you got?'

I consider for a bit. Decide to leave out the pubic stars. ‘Not much. A curled-up pussycat on my shoulder and a
nil illegitimi hoc carborandum
on my hip. And there's one on my scalp. Three shooting stars.' They match the one on my mound of Venus, but she doesn't need to know that. ‘But my days of shaving are well over. I'll probably never see those ones again unless I get cancer.'

‘Gosh, you like getting them in places where it'll hurt,' she says. ‘What does the Latin mean?'

‘Look it up.'

She bends her head back towards the bracelet. ‘Try now. Tuck your thumb in. Go on.'

I force my thumb joint that extra couple of millimetres further in and push again. It sticks, then slides and pops on to my wrist. The legend I know is there is safely pressed against my skin. I can look at it when I'm alone, verify its existence. Work out what the hell that existence means.

‘There!' Ruby looks up, beaming.

‘Well done! Top lube action!' I say, encouragingly.

‘Now people will always be able to tell that we're sisters.'

I smile back at her, but it feels a pale and watery smile. ‘Yay,' I say. ‘Sisters.'

She has always been prone to stress headaches, and the stress of this weekend, and of four hours of gluttony and shouting, has produced a doozy. She can barely see for the pain and the party is showing no signs of slowing down. Jimmy produced a little bag of Ecstasy tablets for what he called a ‘cheeky cheerer' while Simone was checking on the kids, and by the time she got back they were all as high as kites. Sean, of course, rolled his eyes, the way he does, when Claire declined to join in. Half an hour later he was pawing Linda and Simone in turn with a big goofy grin on his face and informing the table how much he loved each and every one of them. The only painkillers Jimmy had on his person were a mixed collection of opiates and, as it turns out, Health and Safety laws prohibit the restaurant from handing out things like aspirin or ibuprofen to customers because, well, Health and Safety, innit. Her head throbs and she's starting to get the dancing lights. If this doesn't turn into a migraine, she will be very lucky.

Now they're throwing shapes along the seafront while Linda shrieks out a painful version of ‘Ride on Time' and lights go on in upstairs windows as they pass. Claire stumbles along fifty feet behind, the fireworks inside her skull impeding her progress, overlooked and glad of it. I married a man and now I'm stuck with a twelve-year-old. Or is it me? Am I the odd one out? Even Robert Gavila is joining in, and dicking about with drugs would get him unlicensed in hours if the Law Society ever found out about it.

They stop up ahead at the foot of a pontoon where a small collection of tenders is tied up, attached to dangling chains with bike locks and padlocks. She can hear giggling and laughing and ‘ooh yes'es. She catches up. ‘What's going on?'

‘We're going to go for a nightcap on the
Gin O'Clock.
' Imogen points out to the deeper water, where a huge white gin palace bobs in the current among the quieter, lesser boats.

‘Skinny-dipping!' cries Linda.

Sean jumps down into one of the tenders while Robert bends to unlock it, throws his arms out wide as it wobbles. ‘Close one,' he says. ‘Come on, ladies.'

Linda totters towards his out-held hand.

‘No stilettos on boats, Linda,' says Maria. ‘Come on. You'll go right through.'

‘Oh,' says Linda. Puts a hand on Charlie's shoulder for balance and starts to fumble at the buckle on her ankle. ‘Bloody hell, I'm all thumbs.'

‘C'mere,' says Sean. She tittups over to the edge of the pontoon and stands above him, holds out a foot. He's looking right up her dress, thinks Claire. I thought she at least must have a thong on under those scraps of lace, but evidently not. He used to love telling me to turn up to our dates without underwear. Once he sent me a fur coat – real fur, not fake; something that had been on the back of some ferret or another – and had me stand on the edge of Park Lane in it alone until he arrived in a limo and fucked me in the back seat while we drove round Marble Arch. He loves that stuff, the clandestine exhibitionist thing, at least until he marries you. I'm such a fool. I thought it was all sexy, just a kink so mild it was almost vanilla, but now I know it was all about power.

Sean starts to unbuckle the shoe. ‘I'm going home,' she announces.

‘Of course you are,' says Sean, and carries on staring at Linda Innes's vulva.

‘I've got a blinding headache.'

‘Well, there's a change,' says Sean, and Charlie Clutterbuck chortles, actually chortles. Claire is gripped by a wild, tooth-and-claw rage, almost hurls herself on the arrogant arsehole's face with her new red manicure. Crushes the urge down, as she always does, and stumbles off unwatched through the darkness and the flashbulbs in her head.

I hate him, I hate him. I thought until this weekend that I just disliked my husband, but now I know that I actively hate him. It's my own stupid fault, of course. I should have been able to work out that a man who treated his first wife the way he did wouldn't change just because it was me. God, women can be so stupid. All the evidence in front of our eyes and our own stupid vanity persuades us that we're different, that we're The One. Feminists claim that romance novels twist women's expectations, but I think it's far worse than that. I think they simply reflect the pernicious, self-sabotaging thing that's already there in us.

She kicks her shoes off as she walks up the drive, and carries them into the house. Leaves them on the island counter in a gesture of defiance because she knows it's one of the things he hates most of all in other people's behaviour. No one has bothered to lock up. It's as though they think that Sandbanks is too posh to have burglars. She goes up to her room and finds the ibuprofen, washes four down with a glass of water at the bathroom basin. In the mirror she sees an angry woman with big black circles under her eyes. Thank God I stopped drinking after the first course, she thinks. The last thing I need on top of this is a hangover.

She's tempted to just crawl beneath the cool sheets on the king-size bed here and now, but maternal responsibility drives her back down the stairs and out to the annexe.

 

All is quiet inside, just the peaceful sound of six little bodies breathing, breathing, breathing. But it doesn't smell right. The warm air is thick with the acid smell of vomit. She flips on the light and finds that Ruby has at some point rolled over and thrown up all over her end of the air mattress. My God, she thinks, thank God she rolled over. I can't think we didn't at least think to put them in the recovery position. The poor little thing is still lying there, fast asleep in her own sick. Oh, God, I don't feel well enough for this. I'll throw up myself.

But she leaves the door open and takes a deep breath of night air before she forces herself to go and deal with it. She starts by lifting Coco off the sheet – she flops in her arms like a rag doll, but doesn't wake – and laying her back down on the flock surface of the mattress itself. It'll be hot, but she doesn't want to run the risk of waking any of them by doing more than she strictly has to. Then she sweeps the sheet, the pillow and Ruby into one big noxious bundle and carries them into the bathroom, gagging.

She unwinds her daughter from the bedclothes, throws them into the corner and places the child in the bath, gets down on her knees to strip off her pyjamas. There's another pair in her suitcase, at least; un-ironed and rolled in a ball, but clean. Ruby half wakes, groggy and barely there, and starts to grizzle. Her forehead is hot, her cheeks flushed. Hopefully just one of those twenty-four-hour bugs, she thinks. She's always getting them. My second twin, so much more vulnerable than her sister. She picks up every bug she passes, as though she is catching them for the two of them so Coco can go through life unscathed. No wonder Sean is so naked in his preference for Coco: she's so much less trouble.

‘There, there, my darling,' she soothes. Her own nausea has worn off, the way it does. A couple of thousand nappy changes will alter your revulsion response forever. ‘There there. Just sorting you out. I'll get you back to bed in a minute.'

She finds the Baby Bath, runs the shower lukewarm and hoses her daughter down. Ruby raises a starfish hand to fend the water off her face, but otherwise she doesn't resist. A lathering and another sluice, and all the yuk is washed away down the drain. She grabs one of the big white spa towels from the shelf and wraps her up. Rubs at her hair to get the worst of the wet out.

‘My poor baby,' she says. ‘Such bad luck, your silly tummy. You'll grow out of it one day, I'm sure.'

It's hard work getting a dozing child into clean pyjamas, but she's well practised. Once Ruby is clean and dressed, there's no sign that anything was ever wrong. Claire carries her back to the airbed, lays her down on her side and waits as the doze deepens, the breathing slows and she goes back to sleep. Claire kisses her girls on their foreheads, smooths their hair back, loves them once more, as she's always loved them.

‘Night night, darlings,' she whispers. ‘Sleep tight.'

Her daughters don't respond. Over by the window, Joaquin shifts in his sleep, mutters something about it being over there, falls quiet. She goes back to the bathroom and gathers up the soiled bedlinen to put in the washing machine with Ruby's dress from earlier. The pillow is ruined. No point trying to keep it. She can stuff it in the kitchen bin, which is big enough to hold a pig. She stands in the doorway for a moment and studies all the sleeping faces. Thank God they won't remember any of this, she thinks. I would be covered in shame if they ever knew. She turns off the light. Trudges back across the garden, checks that the swimming pool gate is latched, throws the bedclothes into the washing machine, turns it on and stumbles back up the stairs to fall, exhausted, into bed. She is asleep almost as soon as she is horizontal.

 

She wakes to dim daylight and the sound of laughter. Dawn has arrived but the sun has yet to lift itself over the trees, and the others are clearly home from the boat. She is begrimed by sleep, her mouth dry, eyes fuzzy. But the headache has gone, and with it her ability to sleep any more. She checks her watch. Nearly half-past four. Long past the time when anyone planning to take part in childcare in the morning should have gone to bed. I at least thought better of Maria than this, she thinks. But I suppose her kids are older now. She probably doesn't feel she should have to stay
compos mentis
to look after other people's toddlers, and why should she?

She won't sleep now. The party still going on downstairs will assure that. Though the pain has gone, her head still feels stuffed and she knows she will soon be having to make some decisions. She feels hemmed in and beaten down and angry. I need some exercise, she thinks. While the rest of them are busy drinking. It'll help me think. I'll do some lengths of that swimming pool. It'll be gorgeous at this time of day, with the sun coming up. There will be mist coming off the water and no one to bother me.

She gets up, pulls on her swimsuit and a sundress over the top, goes downstairs. The Gavilas and the Clutterbucks are spread out on the sofas, drinking tea. Well, the Gavilas and Imogen are drinking tea. Charlie is drinking Cognac from one of the oversized snifters Linda has put in the cupboards to show off their storage capacity. Jimmy is asleep on the third sofa, snoring, covered in a rug. I don't suppose he'll ever make it as far as a bedroom, she thinks. I wonder when was the last time he did?

Robert sees her come down the stairs. ‘Claire!' He calls. ‘How are you feeling?'

‘Better, thank you,' she says. She feels naked under their scrutiny, as though she's come down in the swimsuit alone.

‘Where are you off to?'

‘Thought I'd go for a swim to wake myself up.'

A short, sharp exchange of looks among them all. ‘No, no! Stay!' says Imogen. ‘Let me make you a cup of tea! How's your poor head? Still hurting?'

‘No, thanks.' She doesn't want to spend any more time with these people. They're not her friends. ‘I'm feeling a bit yuk, like I've not moved in centuries. Shouldn't you lot be in bed by now, anyway?'

‘Why?' asks Charlie. ‘What time is it?'

‘Going on half-four.'

‘Well, bugger me,' he says, ‘doesn't time fly when you're having fun? How about a nightcap? Come on. A nice brandy to get the circulation going?'

She feels sick at the very thought. ‘This is first thing in the morning to me, Charlie. Thanks, but I'm not so far gone I need a brandy to get me up. Maybe you should wake Jimmy up if you want someone to drink with.' She's passed the point where she can bother to be civil to the man. That laugh on the pontoon was the final straw.

‘Well!' he harrumphs. ‘Please yourself.'

Maria starts to get to her feet. ‘Come on,' she says, ‘a coffee to wake you up, perhaps?'

She holds up a hand. ‘No, Maria. Thank you, but no. I don't want tea, I don't want coffee, I want a swim.' She knows they're trying to stall her. Wants to know what they're trying to stop her seeing.

‘Oh, for God's sake,' says Charlie, ‘let the silly bitch go. It's not like we owe her anything.'

‘Thank you, Charlie,' she says. ‘Always good to get things out in the open.'

‘No, Claire —' Maria begins.

‘Forget it,' she says, and walks out into the beautiful morning. She has a good idea what she's going to see when she gets to her destination, and her heart is pounding in her chest. Got to get it over with, she thinks. It's not like I don't
know
already, but if I catch him then he can't pretend any more that it's all my fault, tell me I'm mad while he lies and cheats and…

They're in the pool, humping on the steps in the shallow end. He's screwing her from behind, her skinny bottom rising in and out of the water with the rhythm of his thrusts. Eugh, is her first thought. My children will be wanting to play in that water tomorrow. Claire is barefoot, so they don't hear her approach. They've left the gate open so she makes no sound going through it. Stands by the sun-loungers and watches them for a minute before she speaks: Sean's shaven head bobbing back and forth, back and forth, the woman's buttocks smooth and brown without a single tan line. It's not
real
sex, she thinks. It's that performance sex he always liked: the sort that makes you wonder if he hasn't got a video camera secreted somewhere so he can watch himself later.

‘You're going to have to change the water in that pool,' she says. ‘I don't suppose anybody's going to want to swim in it now.'

He jumps like a pantomime villain, nearly loses his balance on the step and steadies himself by grabbing on to Linda's backside with both hands. ‘Ow!' she cries; she was making too much noise of her own to notice Claire speaking. She twists round to give Sean a piece of her mind, sees her lover's wife and says, ‘Oh.'