Want to Know a Secret? (28 page)

It was peculiar to be in a haze of happiness and a nightmare of misery at the same time.

Diane tracked back to the car in the afternoon breeze on wobbly legs, not knowing whether to sing or weep. Nobody would know, if she cried, that she was crying for James and the big emptiness that the joy of Unity’s contract had not filled up.

At the car park she was only half-surprised to find him leaning on her car boot. Glowering.

‘I’ve spent hours looking for your Peugeot,’ he said, sourly. He took her key and opened the boot then took the clothes, lying them as flat as possible without having to be told. His forehead was a frown and his slate eyes didn’t smile at all.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, unhappily. ‘I told you really badly, didn’t I?’

‘Brutally. I still need to talk to you, even if it’s to work out how we’re not going to have an affair, rather than how we are.’

She sighed and followed him to a pub. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been in a pub in the afternoon. But she ordered a glass of wine when he asked for a bottle of beer and they sat at a small round table on an inadequately padded bench as far from the few other patrons as possible.

‘What if I were to leave Valerie?’ he demanded.

She gazed at the grim resolve in his eyes and wanted to slide comforting arms around his firm body. Instead, she said, gently, ‘But you don’t think that’s the right thing to do, do you? Tamzin’s doing better but she’s so terribly brittle. She wouldn’t cope. James, think how we’d feel if she crashed back into depression and began on her arms. Or worse. You might not feel guilty about Valerie but you would about Tamzin.’

‘I don’t feel guilty about Valerie.’ But he didn’t disagree about Tamzin. His glance flickered over her face. ‘So you’re going to stay with your lying, deceitful husband and I’ve got to stay with a wife who doesn’t much like me? And do without each other?’

Under the table she took his hand and felt his electricity cross to her body. His flesh was warm and smooth and strong. ‘I think that that is exactly what we have to do. At least for now. Until Bryony and Tamzin can stand on their own feet.’

‘But we could make each other happy.’

‘And all the people we love unhappy,’ she whispered.

There didn’t seem to be much more to say. She blew her nose a couple of times and told him glumly all the marvellous, wonderful news about the Unity’s contract and he turned his stormy eyes to her and told her, grimly, how pleased he was.

‘You’ll need some capital,’ he pointed out.

She sighed. She’d shoved that aside to think of later. ‘I will, especially if I’m going to pay somebody to help me with the basics, and that’s before I start thinking about materials or what I’m going to live on. Maybe I’ll go to the bank.’

‘You don’t want to use Gareth’s money?’

She was shaking her head before the sentence had ended.

‘I can lend you what you need. Say £5,000, so that you don’t have to worry until you get your first big cheque.’

She burst into tears. ‘I couldn’t do that but you’re so kind,’ she sobbed.

‘I don’t feel kind,’ he snapped. ‘I feel like shaking you.’

He watched her until he couldn’t stand to see her shoulders trembling any more. ‘I suppose that if you’re going to a bank you’ll need a business plan,’ he said, eventually, to distract her.

‘Yes,’ she sniffed, emerging from her tissues, ‘but I don’t know what one is.’ Her eyes were pink.

‘They’re quite easy. Especially for such a small venture. You can find templates on the Internet.’

‘If you have a computer,’ she agreed, dolefully. ‘Maybe the bank has a form.’

‘I could give you a few headings and you could just fill it in.’

Her eyes swivelled to him hopefully, and she blew her nose. ‘Really?’

‘Really,’ he sighed. He wished he could stop being the guy who wore the white hat but when she looked at him as if he’d just solved all her problems … He searched through his pockets and came out with a folded envelope. Diane found a pen with a broken end, in her bag.

‘Introduction.’ He underlined the word. ‘Just give them an overview of what you’re going to do. Business opportunity.’ He underlined that, too.

‘What’s that mean?’

He considered. ‘It’s what you plan to sell, and how.’

She groaned. ‘Same thing, different words, yes. What else?’

‘Your marketing and sales strategy.’

‘I’ve marketed it. I’ve sold it.’

‘Personnel?’

‘Me. Maybe Bryony. Even Tamzin, if she fancies it.’

He began to feel like laughing. ‘I don’t think you’re going to chase Jaeger out of the market, do you?’

She shook her head. There was a glimmer of a smile.

‘Premises?’

‘Home.’

‘Equipment?’

‘Only when I take on another machinist. But maybe I need a new table. Materials and money to live on are my priorities.’

‘Financial forecasts?’

She looked horrified. ‘Are you absolutely certain a bank will want a business plan?’

He kissed the tip of her nose and tucked the folded envelope into her hand. ‘Or you could just smile at the bank manager and he’ll lend you the money.’

She gazed at him reproachfully. ‘She’s a woman.’

‘Better write the business plan, then.’

They kissed for the last time before he walked her back in silence to her car. There was none of the heat and passion of the back-seat episode. He cradled her against him and explored her mouth as if committing it to memory. He kissed her throat and the palms of her hands. Then waited, impassive, while, her lap full of tissues, she reversed out of the parking space and drove home to Purtenon St. Paul.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Tamzin had been going out with George for three weeks. Three blissful weeks of holding hands. Kissing. Laughing, talking. Eating fast food.

George had such a huge appetite and punctuated his days with, ‘I need a McDonald’s,’ or, ‘How long till I get a pizza?’ Tamzin was actually beginning to gain weight because she sat beside him and opened her mouth like an obedient little bird as he fed her titbits of pizza dough festooned with cheese or strips of spicy chicken, while he ate.

Besides Erica, Rob and Marty, George had loads of friends; it made her head spin how many. He fell over them at every pub, club and gig.

In the busier of these, Tamzin withdrew – and tonight was happy-cheapy night at Danny Boyes, so mega busy. As the place heaved and voices rose she grew sweaty and tense. To her surprise, George seemed to realise and, when holding her hand didn’t make her feel any better, just whispered, ‘Let’s go,’ in her ear and led her out into the night, out of the rafter-shaking racket.

‘Are you a panicker?’ He pulled her close to kiss her.

She snuggled into his arms, the evening air chilly after the cheerful fug inside. ‘Kind of. I’m sorry if I spoilt your night.’

‘So what is it? Crowds?’

She felt her hands become fists. ‘Not always. It’s certain kinds
… Certain people. It sounds so stupid when I say it aloud.’

‘It can’t be stupid if it makes you feel so crazy bad.’ The street was quiet. He pulled her down beside him on a wall. ‘Tell me about it.’

‘You’ll think I’m babyish.’ She shivered.

He squeezed her tightly. ‘I’m on your side, Tamz.’

She leaned her forehead against his collarbone, squeezing shut her eyes as if it would be easier if she couldn’t see him, and took a deep breath. ‘You know that I dropped out of uni in my first year? I had problems with some people.’ She swallowed down her thudding heart. ‘They were known as the Coven, this group. They appointed themselves arbiters of popularity; decided who was in and who was out. They had this well cruel sense of humour. You were OK if they thought you were cool, and OK if they ignored you, but if they
picked
on you – they just made life hideous.’ Her voice was muffled.

He kissed her hair. ‘Girls can be bitches.’

Moisture leaked from her eyes and onto his T-shirt, anxiety rising in her throat. ‘The Coven weren’t girls. They were all clever and good-looking blokes – and hateful! Patrick and Lucas were the leaders. They’d select somebody and ridicule them constantly, for entertainment. The somebody was me.’

She hid her eyes against him. ‘It sounds so childish. But they condemned every aspect of my life, my clothes, music, car, accent, hair, skin, body. I began to smoke dope. I’d never smoked it before but some of the girls thought it would help me chill. It didn’t. I had a thing with Lucas and the Coven used it to spread lies about my supposed perversions. I smoked and smoked but I couldn’t chill. I couldn’t not care.’

She choked on a sob. ‘I got terrible downers. And as the coming down got worse and worse, I smoked more and more.’

‘Cannabis would only fuck you up more, you poor little sod.’ He rocked her in his arms. ‘Those shitty bastards. I’d like to rip their fucking heads off.’

The ice of his anger somehow began to make her feel better. ‘Dad came and got me. He wanted to bring in the police, lawyers, make them pay, shave their heads, put them in the stocks. But I just wanted to go home and curl up and forget it.’

George’s arms tightened around her. ‘You can forget it now.’

Being in love with George made Tamzin something she’d pretty much forgotten how to be. Happy.

George was wicked, George was amazing, and every time Tamzin thought about him the space between her shoulder blades prickled and the pit of her stomach felt hot.

So it was a small blow a couple of days later to find him full of what, to him, was good news. ‘Bryony’s going to meet us at the pub, tonight. Be amazin’, we’ve hardly seen her since she came back.’

Tamzin smiled as her heart sank.

It had never really struck her that a lot of George’s friends would have been Bryony’s friends, too, even though first Diane and then George had told her that they’d been buddies all their lives. If she’d thought of Bryony at all it had been as safely out of the way in Purtenon, with Diane, or perhaps visiting Uncle Gareth in hospital.

She hadn’t envisioned her borrowing her parents’ Peugeot and bursting right into the middle of Tamzin’s good time. But there she was, hurling herself at Erica and Marty for joyous, wet-eyed hugs. ‘Oh, oh, it’s so good to
see
you! This is so
cool
.’ And then George, an especially long, meaningful hug. ‘I’ve missed you, Gorgeous.’

George laughed. ‘Yeah, so much you’d forget to email me for weeks ’n weeks.’

Bryony pouted. ‘I didn’t have my own computer, I had to wait to get to a cyber café and there were none near to where I worked. Hello.’ She sat down with a brief smile and nod to Tamzin. George reclaimed his seat and even gave Tamzin back his hand to hold but his eyes and ears were Bryony’s for the next hour as she poured out her life since she’d left Peterborough. ‘The school, the school needed so much doing to it and the children, the children were so beautiful but so poor. We talk about underprivilege here but it’s nothing,
nothing
like there.’

Rob, across the table from Tamzin, was the only one to look unimpressed. He even yawned a couple of times. Tamzin, who found yawns contagious, had to struggle to suppress her own, causing Rob to wink conspiratorially at her.

Tamzin liked Rob. There was no bullshit about him, he was just a nice guy who usually had too many zits to shave and the face fuzz didn’t show because his bedhead hair hung all over his face anyway.

Rob began to tell Tamzin about his college course and the part-time job he’d just started at a care home and how, on his first day, he’d somehow managed to kick an elderly man’s stick out of his hand. ‘Luckily I caught him before he hit the deck.’

She grinned. ‘I bet the old ladies love you.’

‘Yeah, as it happens. I put new batteries in their hearing aids for them.’ He nodded towards Bryony and dropped his voice. ‘Bet she wants to come back to the band.’

Tamzin’s lip dropped in dismay. ‘Can she? You’re the drummer, now.’

Rob shrugged, drawing a sad face on the table in spilt beer. ‘Suppose. But bands are democratic. If the others say they want her instead of me, then I’ll, like, have to go. She and Georgie started the band. She’s one of the Jenners of Jenneration.’

‘But she left.’

‘Like that’s going to change anything.’

‘Oh. Right.’ They turned to look at Bryony burbling at the end of the table, looking like a busty imp with her dark eyes and curly hair and curious low-waist jeans with braces that Diane had apparently already been let loose on, judging by the tawny embroidery and silver oval beads.

But it wasn’t long before the burbling had died down to a sputter, and Bryony’s eyes were filling up. Tamzin felt a spear of jealousy to see her put her forehead against George’s shoulder, much as Tamzin had done the day before. ‘I’m pregnant,’ she confessed.

‘No!’ everybody breathed.

And among the gasps of surprise and murmurs sympathy, Tamzin couldn’t help but meet Rob’s eye. He grinned and mimed a drum roll on the tabletop.

At the end of the evening, Tamzin and George saw Bryony to her car. It was dark because some of the streetlights were out; even the moon seemed to be having a bad cloud day. George held Tamzin’s hand, although both Bryony and George were so quiet that Tamzin began to wonder whether they wished she wasn’t there. But Bryony drove straight off and George watched the tail lights disappear. Tamzin had brought her own car, feeling really cool and brave to have brought it all the way into the city. Climbing into the passenger seat, George flung himself back with a sigh.