Want to Know a Secret? (3 page)

Harold shifted. ‘I’m not sure … Valerie’s my daughter. And Gareth, I’ve only known him a couple of years –’

‘A couple of
years
?’ murmured Diane. James looked at her sharply. Harold was obviously shattered by the shock of having his child – his children – badly injured and he didn’t need Diane interrogating him, not now.

James tried Tamzin. ‘And I think you’ve had enough.’

Tamzin clutched her chair, her pleading eyes melting his heart. ‘I want to see Mum when she comes round.’

James patted her arm, avoiding words like,
careful
,
medication
and
rest
. ‘I could drop you off at your sister’s. Nat won’t mind you crashing in her spare bed. She’ll fix you up with night things and something to read.’

Shaking her head mutinously, straw hair quivering, Tamzin’s voice tightened, a great tear trembled on her lashes. ‘I want to see
Mum
.’

James had to relent. ‘All right, we’ll take Pops home and pick up Mum’s stuff.’

He noticed Diane watching them gather their things. ‘Rather than staying here alone, you could come with us,’ he offered.

‘No, thanks,’ returned Diane, cordially. ‘I’ll be OK.’

‘Fine.’ It might be a struggle to look after his exhausted father-in-law, his waif-like daughter,
and
this agoraphobic nervous wreck half-sister-in-law of his wife’s who never left home. But, unaccountably … here she was out.

Still, she was a woman alone in the middle of the night, far from home, and she’d just sustained a series of bruising shocks ... He sat down again, ready to cajole her into co-operation. ‘It might be better if –’

‘– you stop knowing what’s best for me. Because I’ll probably slap you if you use that patiently patronising voice on me again.’

He frowned horribly to disguise the almost overwhelming urge to laugh at her awful politeness. ‘I’m not patronising.’

‘You bloody well are, you know.’ She patted his hand. ‘I’m not a child, I’m not an imbecile and, as we now all know, I’m not ill. So I’m the one who makes up my mind. OK?’

Chapter Two

‘Oh-kay,’ he conceded.

Diane watched them leave, the big man and his lame ducks, leaving behind them only silence and space.

She fetched herself another drink and settled down in contemplation of her world gone mad. Two years, Harold said he’d known Gareth.
Two years
. Had Gareth’s behaviour changed in that period, had he been more than usually secretive? Done anything that should have alerted her to the fact that for two days of each week he was not at work, but
 
…

… where? Almost any other man who was leading a double life would have a mistress tucked away. But Gareth’s secret, it seemed, was a nice family.

She was word perfect on the story of Gareth’s childhood and how Wendy had brought him up any way she could. In the sixties, the benefit system hadn’t been what it was now. Unmarried mothers had found it hard to scrape by and, like many others, Wendy had drifted into a relationship, trading sex and housekeeping for a man to put his roof over her family’s head. Or surviving on jobs that paid peanuts.

So why hadn’t she made Harold cough up for Gareth’s keep?

Diane’s eyes grew gritty as the wee hours stilled the antiseptic corridors. James returned with weary tread, a wraith-like Tamzin drifting beside him, just in time to be allowed in to see Valerie.

And Diane’s vigil was rewarded when she was shown in to see her
poorly, battered, but stable
husband. ‘Just ten minutes tonight, please.’ The nurse consulted Gareth’s chart, pen in hand. ‘He’s just about conscious but we’d like him to rest.’

‘I understand,’ breathed Diane, staring down at the bed

Gareth’s face was grotesquely swollen. Diane had difficulty recognising this purpling balloon-head as her husband. Every feature was puffed, distorted and discoloured beneath his incongruously normal thatch of iron-grey hair. His jaw was swollen shut, there was an enormous egg at the left side of his forehead and that, and the eye socket beneath, were flooded a dark angry red. He looked as if an elephant had pirouetted on his head.

But he was evidently sensible enough to recognise her and, un-Gareth-like, groggily search out her hand with his chilly fingers. His other hand, the right, was encased in plaster and plastic troughs.

The distortion of his features seemed appropriate, somehow, as everything Diane thought she’d known about this elusive, self-contained man had warped, too. He was inclined to guard what was his and she’d always known he wasn’t good at sharing. But finding his natural father two years ago and keeping it a secret ...

She glanced at her reflection in the huge window. Her hair hung long in its neat plait, her clothes were, admittedly, self-made, but then that was her
job
. What was he so ashamed of?

It might’ve relieved her feelings to round on him with ferocious questions but she kept her anger to herself. Habit. Long habit. She never roused Gareth’s temper unnecessarily. She liked to have her challenge all worked out in her mind before she incurred his house-shaking rage or punishing silence. And she had been punished plenty, in recent years.

‘So,’ she observed. ‘You survived.’

‘Uh.’

She took the grunt for assent. ‘The doctors say you’ll recover.’

‘Uh.’

‘I expect you’re woozy.’

‘Uh.’ He closed his eyes. His breathing deepened.

Sliding her hand from his, she turned to the scarred locker beside the bed and opened the drawer. Beside a handful of change lay his wallet, black and soft with use. She’d bought it several years ago at John Lewis’s one drizzly, dank December morning, £24.99, as a Christmas gift. He’d said one from the market would’ve done just as well, £4.99 or even less, but she’d argued that this would last longer.

She’d never had it in her hands since the day she gave it to him; they respected one another’s private space so far as things like wallets were concerned. Gareth was particular that way. But now, defiantly, she flipped open the snap. Her purse was housing mainly moths and she’d need money to get home.

Cards in the card sleeves, including one Bryony had sent with her contact details in Brazil. Lonely in the note slots, a twenty-pound note and a five.

She fingered the leather thoughtfully. Its substance suggested further paperwork in there somewhere. Her fingertips found the smooth oval tag of the zip to the inner compartment and she ran it gently along the top edge,
ZZZzzz
.

The inner compartment was full of twenties.

She almost dropped the wallet in shock. Heart picking up, fingers stiff and trembling, she counted. Twenty.
Twenty twenties
! She stared at the lightly mauve notes, unable to remember the last time she’d held twenty twenties. A fortune. She’d almost exhausted the housekeeping for the week and there might be all kinds of incidental expenses for her to meet while Gareth was in hospital. And why should Gareth squirrel away dosh, when things were squeaky tight at home?

Slowly, she slipped out two notes and dropped the wallet back in the drawer.

Twenty twenties. Eighteen twenties, now.

After a moment, she picked up the wallet again and extracted another three twenties. Then five more. That was fair. Halvies.

She jumped to see that Gareth’s eyes had opened. ‘I’ll be back tomorrow.’ Her voice emerged matter-of-factly, as if she were the type of wife who routinely rooted through her husband’s personal possessions.

Gareth said, ‘Uh,’ again, moving his head and then sucking in his breath in pain. She could almost hear the protests he was too ill to make.

She licked her lips. ‘You’d better sleep.’ The unfamiliar substance of two hundred pounds clutched in her hand, she crossed the room slowly, waiting for objections and reprimands to bound after her like maddened cats. But Gareth said nothing. Two hundred pounds. The notes felt soft and thick, coated with the prints of all the fingers they’d passed through, fingers perhaps more used to holding a wedge of notes than hers were. Two. Hundred. Pounds. She’d never suspected robbing her husband would be so empowering. Fun, in fact.

The door shushed as she opened it and clunked softly closed behind her. She let out her breath.

In the corridor, James was pacing, glancing at his watch. Lines of fatigued grooved his face. ‘I thought you must still be here. I waited to run you home.’

She rubbed her temples, her mind still on the blast of Gareth’s outrage that had never come. ‘But I live way out in the country.’ Her eyes went to Tamzin, who was propped against the wall, eyes huge with weariness.

‘Purtenon St. Paul. I know it.’ He pressed a flat chrome button and the lift doors opened.

She didn’t want him to take her home, didn’t want to have to be grateful, to satisfy his obviously over-developed protective streak by needing his help. Proudly, she flourished the stack of twenties. ‘Don’t worry, I just raided Gareth’s wallet for taxi fare.’

James stepped back to allow her into the lift, Tamzin drifting in beside her. The doors breezed shut and they stood in the small space for a few silent seconds until the doors opened again in the foyer where a cleaning crew were buffing the floor. Through the main doors, the night they stepped into was cool and fresh. And damn! The taxi rank was empty. Diane tutted. She’d been looking forward to putting some of her ill-gotten gains to frivolous use.

Gareth so disliked frivolity.

She turned back. ‘I’ll ask at reception for the number of a cab company.’

James groaned, rubbing a square hand over his hair. ‘Please, Diane. It’s nearly morning and you’ve had a shock and I can relax if I know you’ve made it home. Let’s not bicker about it. Just get in the fu – in the car.’

Diane glared up at James. His gaze met hers. She hesitated. He looked really tired yet – judging by the obstinate set of his mouth – was apparently unwilling to abandon her, a woman he’d never met until tonight – a fairly awkward and ungrateful woman he’d never met until tonight. She found herself looking at his mouth, as she examined the thought and wondered what she had to prove by refusing his kind offer.

‘Give in,’ Tamzin advised. ‘It’s easier in the long run.’

Tamzin didn’t like riding in the back of the car but insisting that Diane sit in the front beside her father was the sort of courtesy her parents had drummed into their kids.

The sky was just thinking about turning silver and pearly. She could sit in the middle of the back seat and watch it, occasionally letting her gaze slide over to the still figure of Diane Jenner.

Uncle Gareth’s wife! How strange was that? For two years they’d referred to her as ‘Mrs Rochester’, the unbalanced wife that Uncle Gareth hid away and cared for so heroically.

Diane was well unusual, with a gaze to read your soul and an impressive ability to resist doing anything she didn’t wish to do. She certainly wasn’t suffering from any nervous, emotional or phobic difficulty so far as Tamzin could see. And Tamzin would know, because of Her Condition.

So, either Diane had made a
mega
recovery ... or Uncle Gareth had been telling porkies.

Mega recoveries were rare. So. Uncle Gareth hadn’t wanted them to meet his wife. That was totally pants.

Natalia and Alice would be as mad as hell to have missed this skeleton rattling out of its closet tonight, and their father taking ages to catch on that the facts about Diane Jenner weren’t facts at all. But James had asked Tamzin’s sisters to stay at home. Valerie wasn’t in danger, Nat was working shifts and Ally was in the middle of accountancy exams. Tamzin, as usual, hadn’t been given an option; James had just said, ‘Come on, Tamz.’ Because of Her Condition he wouldn’t leave her home alone when anything bad happened – not that she’d wanted to be left at home. She’d wanted to see her mum. And now she had, so broken and bruised. Her dad would be watching her like a hawk for days, if not weeks.

Nat and Ally were lucky; strong and confident and well-adjusted, with healthy lives full of healthy problems like annoying boyfriends, impossible bosses and killer hangovers. She loved Nat and Ally. She wished she
was
Nat or Ally.

Depression was a bastard.

She yawned. She hadn’t got up till lunchtime but she longed to retreat to her cool sheets. On bad nights she would only lie and stare at the ceiling, but still she loved the cocoon comfort of her bed. Bed. Her heart lurched to remember Valerie strung up like a fly in a web in that hospital bed. It was so crap that Valerie had been hurt. Really hurt. Tamzin felt a familiar hollowness in her chest. It would be ages before Mum was home. Could Tamzin hack undiluted James for so long? Her father got so stressed about her getting better it made her feel guilty that she couldn’t.

Valerie placed less importance than James on things like washing and dressing. Possibly, she didn’t always notice whether Tamzin had. That was cool. Less pressure.

Yet, the baby of the family, Tamzin’s childhood memories included perching proudly on her mother’s lap at parties in her Laura Ashley dresses and white knee socks while Nat and Ally, less malleable and less pretty, careered around with sashes untied and lace ripped. Valerie loved parties, having always been beautiful and vivacious so that men made idiots of themselves over her, which made her dead snappy with Dad, sometimes, because he refused to be made angry by them.