Want to Know a Secret? (9 page)

Then, in a rush, taking her hand again as if he couldn’t get his feelings across without touching her, he fixed her with his dark grey stare. ‘If Tamzin doesn’t turn up tomorrow, I hope you’ll understand. Persist. Make her another appointment. She sometimes just ... runs out of steam. Stays in bed. She describes her depression as living in a labyrinth of caves. Every time she makes it out of one cave she finds she’s walking into another, just as grey and festooned with cobwebs as the last one. She only ever sees the sun in the distance but some things make it seem closer – I think that her interest in your work might be one of those things.’

‘I’ll be patient,’ she promised. Her heart rate had picked up, as if his enthusiasm was transmitting itself to her through the touch of his hand.

‘I wish more people would just show patience instead of treating her as if she’s feeble.’ His hand fell away, leaving her feeling suddenly cold.

‘Did it just come on? The depression, I mean.’

He grimaced. ‘During her first year at university she began to be overwhelmed in certain situations, unable to organise herself. She attracted the attention of some bullying bastards and began not to eat.’

‘Is she anorexic?’

‘That isn’t the diagnosis. The doctor calls it unhealthily thin.’

‘If she’d been to university she must be older than I thought.’

‘Twenty. She was the baby of the family, of course. Valerie says I’ve babied her too long.’ He sent her one of his fleeting smiles. ‘Tamzin’s so fragile, she brings out the guard dog in me.’

‘I’d thought sheepdog,’ she joked, gently, to disguise the compassion she felt for him as he tried his damndest for his child. ‘It must be horrible for her, to feel like that. And your wife must be out of her mind with worry about her, too.’

James’s eyes shifted to the wall behind Diane’s head. ‘Most mothers would be.’

His silence made Diane feel awkward. She wished Tamzin would come back. It seemed time for a change of conversational direction but none of the subjects they held in common were particularly cheerful – the accident, Gareth’s deceit and now Tamzin’s difficulties. She opted for the accident as the best of a bad bunch.

‘Have the authorities given you any indication of what the problem was with the helicopter? Why it came down, I mean?’

His eyes flicked sharply back to her face. He checked over his shoulder and saw that Tamzin was walking towards them. Words rat-a-tatted out of him like bullets. ‘Oh, I have a good idea what the problem was. Valerie forgot that alcohol and flying don’t mix.’

Chapter Six

‘That took ages. There are only two and they were both busy.’ Tamzin was slipping back into her chair before Diane could react to James’s shocking statement. ‘Diane, we’re going to see Pops. Why don’t you come?’

Diane tore her gaze away from the anger in James’s eyes. ‘Yes,’ she agreed, slowly, trying to process information and invitation simultaneously. ‘Yes, I think I’d like to. It’s not as if there’s anything spoiling at home.’

From the car park, the dreaded rush hour looked every bit as ferocious as Diane had feared, but she tucked her car in bravely behind James’s Mercedes. She was getting less nervous about busy roads and her hands only sweated a little bit. And James was either considerate of her modest progress or he always drove like an old woman on a sunny Sunday.

Harold lived in Castor, a village to the west of Peterborough shown on maps as Castor and Ailsworth, it being so difficult to see where Castor ended and Ailsworth began. Castor was beautifully kept, from the neat green umbrellas outside the pub to the village hall ornamented with Village of the Year awards. Harold’s home stood back from the road, an impressive thatched-roof house with fish-eye dormers over several sparkling bow windows, and a porch supported by massive oak posts twisted and split with the seasons. The garden was a small park of exemplary grass and architectural trees. James pulled up on the turning circle of gravel outside the front door and Diane crunched to a halt beside him.

Harold, dressed casually – still a shirt and tie but an olive buttoned-up cardigan instead of a jacket, and leather carpet slippers – seemed delighted with his extra visitor. ‘Diane! Come in, come in.’ His white hair was thin and looked incredibly soft, like a baby’s. He ushered them into a sitting room with tapestry upholstery, a carved sideboard and oil paintings in gilded and decorated frames.

As she sank into a vast high-backed sofa, Diane breathed in the scent of furniture wax with the slightest accents of age and dust, complemented by warm grass and rose petals from the windows open to the spacious front windows. The fragrance of childhood.

Either the unbelievably comfortable sofa or the day’s confrontation made her feel almost as if she could go to sleep. The others discussed Valerie’s condition and treatment, but she just let the words drift past: plaster, pins, pelvis ... external fixation device.

Presently, Harold disturbed her reverie. ‘James and Tamzin already have plans but would you stay and dine with me? Just a casserole – Mrs Munns usually makes twice what I eat and it will save you cooking.’

Diane beamed, nestling still deeper into the cushions. ‘That would be
lovely
.’

James offered Diane a business card, having added his private numbers to it in pen.
Furness Durwent, Printed Circuits. Production Director – James North
. Stiff white card with a discreet logo. ‘It makes sense if we swap contact details.’

Digging out an old shopping list from her jacket pocket Diane wrote her home phone number on the back. ‘I haven’t a card.’

‘Mobile?’ he suggested.

She flushed. ‘I haven’t got one of those, either.’

He paused. ‘I think there’s a pay-and-talk one at home somewhere if you’d like to use it. It might be useful, whilst Gareth’s in hospital.’

She smiled gratefully but – as usual – didn’t feel the need for his help. ‘Thanks, but I’ll be fine.’

After James and Tamzin had gone, Harold made a fresh jug of coffee and Diane kicked off her shoes and curled her legs up on the sofa. ‘This house reminds me of my parents’ home. They liked the same type of furniture.’

Harold added a spoonful of brown sugar crystals to her cup, fine porcelain with a tiny handle and the gilding worn off the rim with use. ‘I understand from Gareth that your parents were not cordial towards him.’

She threw him a glance. She didn’t – couldn’t – discuss her parents with many people. With Gareth his antipathy always got in the way and with Freddy it was the money. ‘My parents gave me a lovely childhood full of holidays and activities and love. They sent Freddy and me to decent schools. The house was always full of people; there was a boat on the River Nene, summers in France, winter skiing in Switzerland. And always love. Lots and lots of love.’

‘Sounds idyllic.’ His emphasis on the first word made his comment a question.

She nodded, stroking the delicacy of the old cup in her hands. ‘So long as I was a good daughter, it was. Mum was accommodating about friends staying or cheering me at hockey matches and swimming galas and running me to music lessons. She was content to be the person who made things possible for everybody else, while Dad ruled the roost.’

The fragrant coffee took her attention and she paused to sip. She did like coffee. Much more expensive than the loose-leaf tea that she generally drank at home. She was so used to economy that she rarely yearned after luxuries she didn’t have but she had always envied people who could afford rich, dark coffee.

She fixed her eyes dreamily on the brick-and-stone hearth, the fire basket cloaked for the summer with a brass peacock-tail screen. ‘I had a strong-willed father.’ She smiled. ‘But I grew up strong-willed, too, and I began to fight him.’

‘One needs a bit of backbone.’

She sighed. ‘It could all have been different. If Dad hadn’t taken one look at Gareth and ordered me to dump him. If he’d discussed his worries and explained where he saw trouble for us instead of wagging his finger in my face and roaring, “He isn’t our kind.”’

‘Indelicate,’ Harold agreed.

‘He should have given me a bit of time to discover the differences between me and Gareth –’ She ground to a halt, realising that she was all but confessing to her newly discovered father-in-law that her marriage had been a mistake. She cleared her throat. ‘I became incredibly stubborn. The more he raged against Gareth, the more I flouted him. It seemed right to follow my heart rather than do as I was told.’

Harold’s lips twitched as he poured more coffee. ‘Yes, it’s a pity that my son’s not of sufficiently good family.’

Diane let her head fall back as she laughed. It felt almost unfamiliar; she hadn’t seemed to have done much laughing since Bryony got on the plane to Brasilia. ‘Isn’t it ironic? I wish I could tell my father about you.’

‘I wish you could, too,’ sighed Harold. ‘It would be comfortable to be able to change the past.’

The grandfather clock in the hall bonged, six resonant chimes. Diane waited for the last to fade before suggesting, diffidently, ‘Would you mind telling me where you’ve been for most of Gareth’s life? I have a lot of blanks to fill.’

Harold’s face sank into deeper folds. He put down his empty cup and steepled his fingers. His voice was bleak. ‘I’m afraid it was all too common a story in those days. I was young and I got a girl in trouble. I’m not proud of it. Father owned a big shop with several departments and our family, we thought ourselves grand. We had cars and we even went abroad on holiday.’

Abroad. Diane remembered going abroad, feisty France and dreaming Italy, the excitement of visiting a country with a different climate, foods, smells, sounds, language, culture and people. Since her marriage she hadn’t managed even a cheap break in Spain because Gareth liked a sturdy British holiday in July at a seaside holiday camp with his brothers and their families, so that if the weather wasn’t great there was always good company. The three brothers never seemed to tire of each other.

Diane hadn’t ever suggested linking up with her own brother. Just imagine Freddy’s face if she’d suggested a fortnight in a static caravan site with a clubhouse and a crowded outdoor swimming pool! Freddy took his holidays in La Manga in a big villa with a spacious private pool surrounded by high walls.

He had the money – as Gareth never ceased to remind her.

Harold cleared his throat and applied his neat handkerchief to his watering eye. ‘Wendy worked in Father’s department store. Tight skirts were all the thing and she was so tall and willowy the fashion could’ve been designed for her.’

‘You’re
kidding
,’ Diane breathed. Even over a quarter of a century ago, when Diane had first known her, Wendy hadn’t been within four stone of ‘willowy’. Tall, granted, but with a body that was a series of pears and tyres, topped by a set of turned-down, worn-down features.

Harold tipped his head against the back of the chair. ‘Stupidly, I got Wendy pregnant. I thought a great deal of her but still I took advantage, didn’t take proper responsibility. Perhaps I thought that kind of dreary obligation was for other people. I was the boss’s son! I had an Alvis and a flat of my own, very nice. Going about with a girl like Wendy was not uncommon for a young man used to a bit of class privilege. Oh, yes, it survived the sixties, you know!’

‘Certainly do,’ Diane murmured, thinking of her father.

‘My friends referred to her as my bit of fluff and were perfectly pleasant to her, as long as I didn’t take her to the wrong places. I wasn’t expected … didn’t have to ...’ Angrily, he shook his head. ‘I didn’t have to treat her as I would a daughter of a family friend – with respect. And I didn’t introduce her at home.’

Diane grappled silently with the image of gruff, forceful Wendy being Harold’s
bit of fluff
.

‘Anyway. When she told me she was having my baby I’m afraid I failed to offer to marry her. I arranged to buy a little place for her instead, where I could visit her and the child. Gareth.’ He laughed bitterly, a suggestion of colour coming to his face. ‘I didn’t even attempt to explain
why
. I simply thought of my parents’ shame if I were to “marry beneath me”.’

‘I suppose that’s how things were, then.’

‘But I was arrogant. I didn’t think of Wendy’s feelings at all. And she, of course, was too smart to fool.’ He managed a small, painful smile. ‘She came along to see the cottage. I explained how I’d be responsible for her finances and she wouldn’t have to worry. “I’ll keep you,” I said. The next day, she didn’t turn up for work, nor the next, nor the next. When the personnel lady tried to trace her she found no forwarding address. I never saw Wendy again. Gareth has been very blunt –’ he coughed, ‘about the hard life she lived, subsequently.’

For the first time in her life, Diane felt a flutter of sympathy for the abrasive, pugnacious woman who had been her mother-in-law; too late now, because Wendy’s cider-drinking, cigarette-smoking, lard-eating lifestyle had brought an end to her several years ago. She sighed. ‘Whatever pride made her turn her back on your cottage had certainly withered by the time I met her. Did you try and trace her?’

Sadly, he shook his head. ‘I was angry. In those days, a man could pretty much wash his hands of a woman like Wendy. And that’s what I did. I let my child be brought up a bastard.’