Want to Know a Secret? (16 page)

‘Diane! I should have –’

‘We shouldn’t have, more to the point. It was stupid and it was wrong.’

‘It wasn’t! It couldn’t be more right.’ Aghast, he watched her stalk off, her dress swinging against her bare legs.

He should have rung. Even if Tamzin had yanked him as taut as a violin string with her methods of expressing the deep melancholy that had sucked her into its scary embrace.

The ugly and frightening scores on her arm had been such a disappointment, after her recent good patch, that black moods had swum over him. He’d coped, he always did, but he hadn’t wanted to taint his next conversation with Diane with the misery that permeated him so thoroughly.

Sometimes he could only deal with things by compartmentalising. And so he’d tucked away the wonderful episode, to be brought out later and enjoyed.

With hindsight, one quick call to explain would’ve been a good plan ...

He shouldn’t have presumed upon Diane’s understanding, when he hadn’t offered her anything to understand.

Chapter Eleven

It was a lovely place. Old red brick and bright white render with a tall chimney and a corner plot hedged in with glossy green privet. Highly desirable in today’s market; so quirky and pretty it was an estate agent’s dream.
Mature property on the edge of sought-after Whittlesey … many original features, herringbone brickwork, latticed windows, decorative roof tiles …

The lawn was cut and edged, the shrubs trimmed. Diane wondered at the prideful rage that had caused Wendy to turn down such a sweetheart of a house and whether she’d often thought of it when she lived at Brightside or in even more grisly accommodation.

Principles. Harsh masters.

Inside, the cottage was a delight. The brand new leather suite in the sitting room could scarcely be compared with the balding green velour at home, which would’ve been laughed at by the sexy little stereo, wide-screen television and cream wool carpet that looked so elegant with the gold slubbed-silk curtains and red-tiled hearth gleaming with polish. Upstairs, she made the power shower in the bathroom whoosh into life and bounced on the king-sized bed, its mattress a foot deep, and looked out over a reedy brook to fields of sheep.

She opened every wardrobe and drawer and poked through the contents.

Thoughtfully, she wandered back down to admire the kitchen, fitted with 1920s’ style painted cabinets and enamelled appliances. She helped herself to biscuits and tea and settled down at the oak table.

In silence, she drank an entire teapot, four cups – she had to visit the luxurious black-and-white tiled bathroom – and ate half a packet of chunky Marks & Spencer cookies. The kitchen’s colour scheme of cream and lemon with accents of forest green pleased her, all set off by the dried-blood red of the quarry tiles.

Even the china she was snacking from was tasteful, creamware with a pierced pattern edge.

As she ate, savouring the yummy chocolate chips in the cookies, she mulled over everything she’d observed in the delightful cottage. And so wasn’t totally surprised to hear the front door open.

Shoulders aching with tension, she listened to somebody humming and rustling in the hall. Then the door swung open and a woman swirled in.

‘Stella!’ Stella: Ivan’s sister-in-law, who Gareth had so often roundly stigmatised.

The small blonde squawked in shock, her hand flying to her throat. ‘
Diane
. You’re not supposed to be here.’

Diane suppressed her desire to drum her fists on the table. ‘No, I’m not, am I? I’m not to know about this place, or Gareth’s money, or his father or his sister or his nieces. And, now, it seems, not about you. Sit down, Stella. I’ll make you some tea.’

Stella hovered, glancing back at the door as if planning flight.

Then she flounced into a chair, folding her arms on the tabletop and regarding Diane warily.

Hospitably, Diane fetched another cup. ‘So. Tell me all about your affair with my husband.’

Stella flushed. Her hair was carefully styled to frame her face, her nails were perfect ovals painted pale sugary pink with silver diagonal stripes. ‘Gareth got in touch after I split up from my husband. It all went from there.’

‘Rewind, Stella. There’s more to the story than that.’

Stella met Diane’s gaze with more defiance. ‘All right. Me and Gareth had a thing, before that. I didn’t want to hurt you, honestly, although I don’t suppose you’ll believe it. We were very, very careful. We even used to bicker at family gatherings, as a smoke screen.’

Diane flinched at just how long, and how easily, they’d fooled her.

‘And then we had a big bust up. Gareth didn’t speak to me for months.’

‘He’s good at that.’

‘So I began the thing with that teacher to make Gareth jealous. It worked too well and he split on me to the old man.’

Wearily, Diane nodded. ‘I hadn’t thought about him being instrumental in the ending of your marriage, but it makes sense. Gareth isn’t very good at sharing.’

Stella sniffed. ‘Well, my marriage went for a burton and me and Gareth got back together. After a bit, Gareth got this place.’ She encompassed it with a wave of her hand. ‘I’m sorry, Diane.’ She did look sorry – in a cross-to-be-caught-out kind of way.

Chin on hand, Diane gazed back. ‘I used to like you. I called you my friend.’
STM
in Gareth’s phone book, she thought, suddenly. Stella Teresa Musgrave.

‘You don’t live here, Stella, do you? You’ve got some shower gel in the bathroom cabinet and a couple of changes of clothes in the wardrobe but that’s as far as he’s let you encroach, isn’t it?’

Stella looked found out. ‘He doesn’t live here, either.’

‘So far as I can work out, he lives here two days a week plus an occasional evening,’ corrected Diane. ‘How often do you come? Once or twice a month?’

Stella jumped up, hunting around the kitchen as if looking for something to occupy her. Her voice wobbled. ‘It’s been horrible not knowing how he is. He borrowed someone’s phone and sent me one text but I’ve been going out of my mind. I … I care for him.’

‘I’ll make sure he gets his phone.’ Hearing her own voice, so cold and composed, a wave of nausea sluiced over Diane. How casual she could be about her husband having an affair. How unsurprised that it was Stella in his bed; Stella, who’d pretended to be Diane’s friend. Nobody was reliable.

Not even herself.

And not James. Not James.

Chapter Twelve

Banging the door to Gareth’s room open, Diane burst in like a gangster on a death mission.

Gareth jumped. ‘Enter,’ he drawled, pointing the remote at the television and pressing the off button.

Diane flung herself into the chair, breathless and flushed. ‘Shall we stop pretending?’

‘About?’

From her back pocket she extracted a navy blue passbook and threw it on the bed. Slowly, he picked it up, smoothing out the slight curve it had taken on from the shape of her behind. He didn’t speak. Probably waiting to hear what she had to say.

Which was fine because she had plenty! The words tumbled over each other in their efforts to leave her mouth. ‘I’ve been to see your cottage. Nice, isn’t it? Nicer than our house, rather nicer furniture and decor, bigger garden – no vegetables in your garden, I see, but then you don’t have to eke out the pennies as I do.

‘Two hundred thousand pounds,’ she hissed. ‘And a house.’

He held on to the passbook, his eyes flickering. ‘You wouldn’t believe what those bastards took off me in tax –’

She leaned her elbows on the bed. ‘Rich people do pay a lot of tax. They pay a lot of everything. Including alimony. And Harold paid the tax up-front and so you
netted
two hundred K, didn’t you, Gareth? And as long as Harold doesn’t die in the next seven years you won’t have to pay tax on the cottage. Harold has just explained it all to me on the phone, very interesting, it was, about the financial specialist who negotiated with the taxman when Harold discovered his eldest child and wanted to make up to him for all the lost years.’ Launching herself out of the chair, she prowled around the bed.

‘Sit down. Calm down. Let’s talk.’

She halted at the foot of his bed. ‘OK, let’s talk about Stella – who I met at the cottage, today, making herself at home in your absence.’

‘She hasn’t got a key,’ he denied, instantly. And then, ‘Oh, Christ!’

‘Obviously, you’ve realised that she has. Your bit on the side.’

Gareth looked sour. ‘Must’ve got a copy cut, somehow.’ His injuries tied him to the bed literally and figuratively; the paraphernalia of the sick room, the bedpan and bottle in slots at the side of the bed; he looked exposed.

Abruptly, she returned to the chair and rearranged herself, calmly. Made her voice gentler, musing, though her heart still hammered with fury. ‘It all came from me refusing my parents’ money, I can see that, even your affair with Stella. But what I don’t know is whether you only ever put up with me because you thought money would come your way eventually.’

‘Of course I didn’t only put up with you –’

‘So it was all about revenge?’

He halted. He stroked his swollen jaw. ‘See if you can get one of them nurses with some Tramadol, will you?’

‘What hurts?’

He laughed, shortly. ‘All of it, aching fierce. Head, ribs, hip, leg. And fingers. I need my pain pills and a nap, that’ll put me right. They make you feel dead swimmy.’ Then, when she didn’t move, ‘Diane … love. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about my father, or Valerie or the money. I was just …’ He drew in a breath and winced, theatrically. ‘You know I’ve never had much. I kind of felt I deserved something.’

Slowly, she stood up. ‘And I deserved you to punish me by keeping your sad little fortune to yourself? Revenge – not very attractive, but probably satisfying.’ She glanced at the blue building-society passbook that still rested protectively in his good hand. ‘What a lot of money you’ve got, Gareth. What a lot of lovely, lovely money.’ She laid his mobile phone on the bedclothes. ‘Happy texting.’

Diane rarely cried. But walking across the car park she felt as if her life was nothing but nasty surprises. There was no reason to stay with Gareth. She’d had a bellyful. And were her lies and betrayal OK because of his lies and betrayal? How sordid her marriage had become.

‘Is there anything I can do?’ A voice came softly.

She jumped, but knew before she turned that it was James. His presence was like a breath on the back of her neck.

He rose from a bench beside a fall of cream and pink honeysuckle. ‘I don’t like to see you crying.’ His eyes were compassionate. The earlier frigid scene between them might never have happened.

‘I’m teetering on the brink of thorough self-pity.’ She wiped her cheeks, inelegantly, with the backs of her hands.

‘There’s a lot of it about.’ He smiled, ruefully. ‘Tamzin’s a bit fragile.’ He hesitated. ‘In fact, I was hoping to see you. I was going to try to force you talk to me again by taking advantage of your kind nature – but I can see now’s not the time to ask your advice.’

She sniffed. ‘Ask. Might take my mind off poor little me.’

He sighed. ‘It’s Tamzin. She’s been ill for so long. Your daughter had a sickly childhood – how did you cope?’

Diane looked at the frown lines between his worried eyes, and suddenly felt hugely sorry for him. ‘She’s lucky to have you.’

He grimaced. ‘But it’s so obviously her mother’s approval that’s key and Valerie has trouble facing up to Tamzin’s situation.’

Somehow, Diane found that she was sitting beside him on the wrought-iron bench. ‘Is that where the drink comes in? Valerie trying to avoid problems?’

‘I don’t know which is the grit and which is the pearl, frankly. Is Tamzin depressed because of Valerie’s drinking? Does Valerie drink as a refuge from Tamzin’s depression? The drinking seems to have been going on longer than the depression but how much has Tamz been hiding and for how long?’

Diane frowned. Behind the silver birches came the incredibly pure warble of a blackbird. The flowerbed blazed with marigolds, the sun lazed behind a sultry haze as a breeze scampered across the lawns. Pity that on such a perfect day two people should have nothing better to do than wrestle with problems. ‘Bryony had good patches when she could race around like other children but there would always be a bad patch around the corner. We kept her away from animals but sometimes all it took was sitting with a girl who had a cat and she’d be in bed on the nebuliser – we bought a second-hand one because we’re so far from hospitals in Purtenon St. Paul. And, bless her, she only had to get excited about a treat in the offing, a birthday party or Christmas, and she’d be wheezing. It made her a stoical little thing.’

‘But she’s OK now?’

‘Much improved, thankfully. She began to grow out of it when she was about fifteen. I’ve never been so grateful for anything. She would never have been able to join this scheme in Brazil a few years ago. But now she can have fun like other people, if she’s sensible.’

‘That’s all you want for them, isn’t it? Just to be like other people.’ He passed his hand over his hair, making it bristle. It changed colour like velvet, darker when brushed the wrong way. ‘Tamzin had a good patch and I got over-optimistic. I think that’s why this bad spell hit so hard. She really did have a shitty week, you know. I wasn’t making excuses.’