Want to Know a Secret? (10 page)

Diane objected, ‘But even if Wendy had accepted your offer to keep her, if you wouldn’t marry her then Gareth would still have been a bastard and still have to fight everybody at school who told him he was. Having a father who paid his mother’s rent wouldn’t legitimise him. He
minded
not having a father. It ate at him. Not knowing his father caused a gigantic chip on his shoulder, but I don’t know whether having a father who tidied him out of sight would have been any better. And then his stepfather cleared off, leaving Wendy with two more kids to bring up alone. He couldn’t even finish his apprenticeship because he had to bring in every penny he could for the family coffers.’

Harold’s eyes shifted her way and she caught a glimpse of Gareth in the hardness of his stare. ‘Quite.’

It was several moments before he spoke again. ‘Eventually, I married Eleanor, Valerie’s mother. I loved her in a quiet way and she was the right sort: nice family, decent education, properly brought up. But she never had half the strength of character of Wendy. And, I’m afraid, proved not to be an affectionate mother. Valerie always had to beg for her attention. I’m not sure I’ve done particularly well by either of my children.’ He turned to gaze out at the garden. ‘But I never forgot that I’d fathered another baby, although it might have looked as if I had. Then I began to suffer with angina and the doctor did a bit of straight talking about what might happen … well, I realised that I didn’t want to die without ever having met my son.’

Having let the rush hour grind by whilst she enjoyed a delicious meal and a cosy chat with Harold, the journey home was easy.

But, unlocking her kitchen door, Diane was struck by the difference between the silence of a
nobody’s home just now but they’ll be along later
empty house and a
you live here alone
empty house. It was like the difference between a daughter who was out hanging with her friends and a daughter who was half the world away.

She wondered when Gareth would return to their modest brick-built semi. Or if he would. Stripping off her laced shirt and zippy jeans in the bedroom she glanced at the double bed, as neat as a cushion of moss with its green quilt, and tried to imagine sharing it again with Gareth, lying beside the warm, snuffling, fidgeting body that never seemed to find tranquillity, even in sleep.

The next room was her sewing room, crammed and cramped. The overlocking sewing machine stood at one end; garments hung from the picture rail and wrapped about the tailor’s dummy she’d bought eighth hand, its plush covering long ago worn shiny and the original maroon turned to rusty streaks. Shelves were buried by pots of beads and sequins, fabric, interfacing, thread, zips, and clothes that were destined to be unpicked for their fabric or other treasures – sometime. An octagonal Victorian sewing box that her grandmother had passed to her when Grandma’s fingers had become too swollen to hold a needle, its mahogany as dark as treacle, stood on the floor beside a stack of glossy mags. Also passed on.

Automatically, Diane began to make her way through the comfortable clutter, but the ringing of the phone made her shift suddenly into reverse and run downstairs to answer with a breathless, ‘Yes?’

‘If Tamzin keeps her appointment, let her order what she wants.’ James’s deep voice buzzed in Diane’s ear. ‘Tell her you’ve arranged it with me.’

‘A big order will take time. I don’t have a mini factory here – it’s just me.’

‘One item at a time will be fine. She’s obviously taken a fancy to your work – and to you, I think – so I want to make the most of it. She pretty much disappears into a black cloud if I try and get her into a shop so I don’t want her to be considering the money aspect.’

Diane tried to remember what it was like not to consider money. ‘Perhaps now’s a good time to talk about cost, then.’ She pulled a face at her reflection in the window at the weediness of her voice. Negotiation wasn’t her big thing, but she didn’t want James to think that creating garments was something she did to occupy her hands whilst she watched
EastEnders
.

‘How about your standard customer commission charge, plus twenty-five per cent?’

She paused, caught between curiosity and avarice. Curiosity won. ‘Why plus twenty-five per cent?’

He laughed. She wasn’t certain she’d heard him laugh properly before. It was a deep, dry chuckle that prickled its way along her hairline to settle right at the base of her skull. And spread lower. And lower. ‘Because Tamzin might be a difficult client. And whatever you charge, I’ll bet it’s not enough. You’re no toughie.’ The laughter was still in his voice.

She was stung by this truth. ‘Tough enough for you if I charge you double?’

He was unmoved. ‘I’ll pay if you do. Charge me garment by garment or weekly or something. I’ll give you notice if I want to call a halt.’

‘Thank you, that will help with cash flow,’ she acknowledged smartly, in a way she imagined business people must speak. Maybe James’s niceness wasn’t a disguise for control freak tendencies, as she’d assumed. He actually wanted to be fair with her over money, and she was so damned used to people being
unfair
with her about it … But she must start thinking realistically about cash. Gareth might be rolling in filthy lucre but his windfall wasn’t in her hands, apart from what she’d lifted from his wallet. And she wasn’t certain she wanted that. To take it had been a kick. Spend it and she’d have to be grateful.

‘Cash flow must be a consideration, with Gareth in hospital.’ James must have read her mind. ‘I can let you have a deposit, if that helps. I don’t …’ He hesitated. ‘I don’t want you to have to struggle.’

The words fell about her ears with a bang and crash like one of Bryony’s drum rolls. ‘Don’t you?’ she squeaked. Unexpectedly, her eyes filled up at the thought of a man not wanting her to struggle. ‘Be careful or I might take advantage of you.’

His laughter rolled down the line again. ‘Do try.’

It wasn’t until the call was over that she realised why he found ‘taking advantage’ funny, and blushed. ‘Grow up, Diane,’ she scolded herself. ‘You’ve got to think about earning money. Earn money, earn money,’ she chanted. ‘Toughen up, think about profit.’

Leafing through the spiral pad that served as her order book, she saw she had only to hem the prom dress for Maria Cuthbert’s daughter’s prom dress to complete the order; she could do that in the morning. Next on the list was an extravagantly beaded wedding suit for Trish Warboys, which required only buttons. Last time, Trish had said, airily, ‘Leave your invoice and I’ll get Jeremy to see to it.’ Jeremy had taken six weeks.

‘That’s not tough enough.’ Diane dialled the number on the top of Maria Cuthbert’s order, beginning all in one breath, ‘Hi, Maria the dress will be ready tomorrow. Shall I bring it round?’

‘Oh,
brilliant –
’

And on the second breath, ‘I’ve got your deposit so could you have a cheque for the balance ready for me please? Thank you.’

Maria squeaked like a startled chick. ‘Oh, gosh! It might have to wait until my husband gets paid again.’

Diane slashed an angry question mark beside the order, though she forced herself to sound calm. ‘That’s OK.’

‘Oh,
thank
y –’

‘Just let me know when you can settle the account and that’s when I’ll deliver the dress.’ Dialling again, she gave Trish Warboys the same treatment, clattering the phone back into its cradle with relish. There. Business
could be fun!

Pity James hadn’t been there to witness her being a toughie.

Chapter Seven

James halted just inside Valerie’s room.

The setting sun was giving its last blast through her window. Valerie, her decency preserved by only one white sheet, looked hot, irritable and desperately uncomfortable. He went to the blinds and turned the slats.

A metal contraption skewered Valerie’s right hip and one leg was in traction. The tide of bruising that rose from beneath the strapping on her ribs to her shoulder was streaking jammy red. The crescents beneath her eyes were purple and her poor broken nose looked as if it been put in the oven and risen unevenly.

Her expression was baleful when she answered his greeting but then, in hospital, there were no bottles of red wine to ignite her flashing smile.

The room, however well-equipped and pretty, smelled stale. He opened a small window.

Valerie already had a visitor. Diane was perched on a royal blue chair studying Valerie, a tiny frown curling her brow, hair a pale stream down her back. One elbow rested on her knee and he spent several seconds appreciating the way that her square neckline framed what lay beneath. Resolutely, he averted his eyes, determined not to be caught looking – again – like a teenager. But it was lucky that there were no Thought Police around.

He fixed his gaze on Diane’s face so that he was smiling at the correct part of her when she turned to look at him. After a grave moment, as if perfectly able to read his thoughts, she let the corners of her lips curl up.

Valerie ran her fingers through her hair so that it stood up in crests. ‘You already know Gareth’s wife, I understand.’

James shucked off his jacket. ‘How are you, Diane? Tamzin turned up for her fitting, I hear?’

‘Why wouldn’t she?’ Valerie interrupted.

‘Because she regularly fails to carry out planned activities?’ suggested James.

Valerie made a face. ‘You blow normal teenage behaviour out of all proportion. She’s just a girl.’

James considered letting it go. But, on the other hand, the reluctance of both his wife and his daughter to face up to the realities of the condition of the other was constant grit in his eye. ‘It’s not teenage behaviour in Tamzin. She’s clinically depressed.’ He resisted the pleasurable pedantry of pointing out that Tamzin was twenty and not, therefore, a teenager.

Valerie dismissed him by turning to Diane. ‘So Gareth is improving?’

Diane nodded. ‘Still a mess, but less of a mess.’

‘They won’t let me see him.’ Valerie plucked at the sheet.

James felt his eyebrows lift. ‘Seems logistically difficult.’

‘We can always rely on you to state the obvious, darling!’

Diane rose. ‘I’ll tell Gareth that you’ve been showing sisterly concern, shall I? He’s been asking after you, too.’

Valerie blew out her breath in a frustrated sigh. Then she grinned and for a moment James caught a glimpse of the sexy, pretty woman he’d married, when every glimpse of her happy face had been a pleasure. ‘You’re nice. It was good of you to come and introduce yourself. I’ve often wondered about the mysterious sister-in-law. You’re not at all as I imagined.’

Diane moved towards the door, her long black skirt flipping around her calves in a series of handkerchiefs. ‘Well, as you see – quite ordinary.’ With a last smile she melted from the room.

James didn’t realise he was going to follow her until he found himself outside the door. ‘Can we talk?’ he suggested. ‘How about a drink – in an hour, say?’

She considered him, blue eyes curious. ‘OK. I can hang around.’

Back inside the room he found Valerie had laid down her prickles, now that he was the only company left to her. ‘My dear brother is playing silly buggers, James, isn’t he? That woman’s as normal as any of us.’

After a dutiful forty minutes with his wife, James found Diane waiting on a bench in the gardens, watching the dancing shadow of a rose bush, hair flipping in the breeze. Overblown roses had exploded in a lemon-and-pink confetti of petals around her feet, landing on the thin straps around her arching insteps. At least this time when she looked up, he was only staring at her feet. ‘You’re early.’

‘Valerie’s tired. I missed lunch and I’m starving. I hope you want to eat or don’t mind watching me. I’ve had no time for anything since breakfast. Work was a nightmare of end-to-end meetings.’

‘I could eat.’

He drove them to a large pub, one that was part of a national chain. He flipped off his seat belt in the car park but she remained motionless, her eyes running over the stitched leather car interior. ‘This is a nice car.’

He patted the steering wheel. ‘I love it. Expensive, but worth it.’

She turned to him with that long, assessing gaze. ‘I can see it’s pretty and shiny but I’m hopeless with cars. Is it a Mercedes?’ She indicated the circular badge in the centre of the steering wheel.

‘That’s right. Mercedes E 55 AMG. Double spoke alloys, sports exhaust –’

‘Is it fast?’

‘Nought to sixty in 4.7 seconds.’

She made a face like a question.

He grinned. ‘Fast, yes.’

Following a line of stitching along the dash with her fingertip, she glanced at his jacket. ‘You like leather, don’t you?’

Something funny happened to James’s voice. ‘Yes,’ he croaked. And couldn’t think of a single other thing to say.

Inside, the pub boasted pink-painted woodwork and exposed-brickwork walls. Framed sepia photos of bridges and barges and the River Nene hung between brass bugles, copper warming pans and corn dollies. Consulting the slightly sticky menu decorated with photographs of the food, James opted for the lamb steak and chips with onion rings and salad. Diane chose a beefsteak sandwich.