One Secret Summer (25 page)

Diana nodded. It was true. Rafe and Aaron were both open books. It was Josh who was closed, and secret. She knew nothing about
his relationships, nothing at all. It was Aaron who’d told her that Josh had been living with someone in Amman. A Jordanian
girl – Randa, Rania … something along those lines. She wasn’t even sure how Aaron had found out. Whatever the source, she’d
asked Josh about it once and had had her head bitten off as a result. She’d never dared ask again. ‘I just hope it’s not another
Cecily,’ she murmured. Rafe fell easily; he was the sort to whom trust came naturally. He didn’t suspect deviousness in others
because he was incapable of it himself. She’d lost count of the number of times she’d picked him up, dusted him down, consoled
him and sent him on his way … only to see the whole thing repeat itself again and again. It didn’t help that her sons were
beautiful. Rafe and Aaron were carbon copies of Harvey – tall, blond, athletic … strong, splendidly healthy-looking
young men who would age well, just as Harvey had. Josh was different, of course, dark-haired, olive-skinned, more like herself,
but no less striking. Girls and women of all ages practically threw themselves at her sons; Christ, she could remember a time
or two when her own friends had started behaving like teenagers in their presence! She pulled away from Harvey gently. ‘I’d
better go upstairs and take a bath,’ she said, straightening the lapel of his jacket. ‘Will you bring me up a glass of wine?’

‘Good idea,’ Harvey said. ‘Go ahead and run your bath. I’ll be up in a minute.’

Diana picked up her handbag. ‘Oh, I almost forgot to tell you. I got a letter from Josh. He’s coming home too.’

‘Josh? Josh is coming home?’

She watched his face light up and a sharp stab of pain went through her. ‘Mmm,’ she murmured, turning away. ‘Said something
about a fortnight’s leave. He should be here next week. Friday or so.’

‘That’s wonderful.’ The pleasure in Harvey’s voice was genuine. Diana couldn’t bring herself to turn back round again. She
made a small, incoherent sound and walked quickly out of the room.

JOSH

London, December 1996

Heathrow was crowded, even at dawn. He pushed his way past the crowds standing indecisively in front of screens and signs
and made his way towards Immigration. He slid his passport across the desk, ignoring the officer’s quick questioning glance
– stamps of entrance and exit from Bogotá to Baghdad – and returned it to the back pocket of his jeans. He carried no luggage
other than a battered dark green backpack that had clearly seen better days. He bought a ticket and boarded the train, tossing
his backpack on to the seat opposite him. He was tired. He hadn’t slept properly in a couple of days. He ran a hand over his
stubble and smiled faintly. Diana would be horrified. Hopefully there would be no one at home; he needed a few hours to readjust.
Coming back to England was never easy. The train shot out of the tunnel and into daylight. As they sped past the industrial
sheds and yards, their corrugated steel sides dissolving in the weak early morning winter light, his feeling of dislocation
intensified. By the time they pulled into Paddington, a curious sensation of distress was prickling over his skin. He was
coming home. And yet he was not.

The house was empty. He slid his key into the lock and pushed open the front door. He stood in the hallway, breathing deeply.
The smell of childhood washed over him, the very particular combination of furniture polish and cigar smoke from the thin
cigarillos Harvey liked to smoke after dinner. There were fresh flowers on the antique side table in the hall. A rich, densely
patterned Persian rug drew his eye lengthways down the corridor to the partially open door of Diana’s study, which overlooked
the garden. The rug was new. He didn’t remember it from his last visit. They’d changed a few things, he noticed. The walls
of Diana’s study were now a rich buttery yellow instead of white; her desk, which sat directly in front of the window, was
the same, but the high-backed leather chair he remembered had been replaced by a modern-looking one of leather and chrome.
He set his backpack down on one of the hallway chairs and walked into the living room. Light flooded in from both sides. After
months spent living and working in the most crudely put-together shelters imaginable, there was something disconcerting about
the comfort in front of his eyes. The sofa – an enormous burnished leather chesterfield that sat five people – cost more than
the row of ten prefabricated huts he’d just finished constructing. He shook his head. It was always the same. The
luxury, even modestly displayed, was faintly obscene. He closed the door behind him and walked upstairs.

His old room was exactly as he’d left it. The few boxes of possessions that he’d cleared out of the flat on Marchmont Street
were stacked up in the corner – mostly books and records. Nothing much else. The girl he’d been living with at the time had
taken the rest. He tossed his jacket on to the bed and sat down to unlace his boots. The reddish dust of the camp still clung
to the soles. He needed a hot shower, a coffee and a cigarette, in that order. He peeled off the rest of his clothing and
walked naked into the bathroom. There were fresh towels on the radiator, soap, shaving foam and shampoo on the shelf beside
the sink. He opened the shower door, turned on the taps and stepped in. The scalding water ran down his hair and plastered
it flat against his head. He let the full stream of it run down his belly as he turned his face up towards it, giving himself
over finally to the comfort of his family’s home. He stepped out of the hot, steamy fug of the bathroom into the cooler air
of his bedroom. He pulled on a pair of torn jeans and rummaged around in the chest of drawers until he found an old woollen
jumper. He towelled his hair dry, pulled on a pair of socks and padded his way downstairs, tiredness already beginning to
sweep over him in waves.

The kitchen was spotless, the only sound the faint hum of the giant stainless-steel American-style fridge. He pulled open
the door and stood in bemused silence for a minute or two, surveying the contents. After the past few months of eating nothing
but canned food and camel meat, the sheer magnitude of everything that was available was overwhelming. Yoghurts, fruit, fresh
vegetables, wine, cheese, chocolate … he grabbed a pint of milk and shut the door, slightly nauseated by the surfeit of choice.
He found a packet of cornflakes in the pantry and carried it to the table. He finished off two bowls, made himself a cup of
coffee and lit a cigarette. He opened one of the sliding doors to let the air in and shivered in the unaccustomed cold. For
almost a year he’d felt nothing but heat. He finished his cigarette and shut the door. It was time for a nap.

MADDY

New York, December 1996

He won’t call. Of course he won’t call. Why would he? Why
should
he? It was a one-night stand, nothing more. I know he
said
he would call … but he won’t.
The disjointed sentences floated around and around in her head until she thought she would explode. After Rafe left, she
ate an entire tub of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, two packets of salsa-flavoured potato chips, a piece of leftover chicken Kiev
that she’d brought home from Sunshine’s a couple of days earlier and – for no other reason than it was there in the fridge
– a bowl of cold creamed spinach. When she brought everything up a few hours later, she couldn’t bring herself to look at
what she’d deposited in the toilet bowl. It would have genuinely made her feel sick. She rinsed her mouth, twisted her curls
into a ponytail and resumed the crazy monologue in her head. When she couldn’t stand it any longer, she picked up the phone
and rang Sandy.

‘You did
what
?’ Sandy’s voice was predictably astonished.

‘I know, I know. But he’s really nice … I mean,
really
nice. He’s a doctor.’

‘Meaning what? That you’ll hear from him again? Maddy … are you
nuts
? What do you know about this guy? Nothing. For all you know, he’s probably married. In fact, he is married … of course he
is. In New York for a weekend, meets some waitress in a bar—’

‘No, it wasn’t like that. OK, it
was
… but it was different.’

‘Like how?’

‘Like … like … I don’t know. He’s English. They’re not like that.’

‘Oh, Maddy.’

Maddy chewed the inside of her lip nervously. She’d phoned
Sandy to make her feel better, not worse. ‘Anyway, it’s only been two days. Maybe he’ll call tomorrow …’

‘Yeah, and maybe his wife will.’

She put down the phone a few minutes later feeling even worse. Sandy was right. She was mad. Not because she’d slept with
him – this was New York, after all, and Maddy was no innocent fool. It wasn’t as if she’d never had a boyfriend, or a one-night
stand, for that matter, although the decision about those two encounters turning out to be one-night stands hadn’t been hers.
She’d never had a boyfriend or slept with someone without thinking – or hoping – it would lead to something else, something
more.
If that’s what you want
, Sandy told her crossly,
then don’t sleep with them
. She didn’t know how to explain to Sandy that she simply didn’t have the courage to say no. If a man she liked singled her
out, she was generally so astonished that it didn’t occur to her to say ‘hold on’ or ‘wait until I’ve got to know you better’.
Deep down she was both hopelessly romantic and romantically hopeless. She’d read enough self-help psychology books to know
that the issue was somehow tied to her father’s abrupt disappearance and the fear it had produced in her that everyone else
would do the same – but she’d have no sooner understood what to do about it than she could bring him back. So she muddled
along, oscillating wildly between elation and despair, punctuated by late-night trips to the refrigerator and the toilet and
the gnawing sense that something wasn’t right … and then she’d met Dr Rafe Keeler. Whom she knew was different, only she didn’t
know how. Or how to explain it to Sandy.

The phone rang suddenly, causing her to jump. She picked it up. It would be Sandy, of course, feeling remorseful. ‘Besides,’
she said quickly before Sandy could get a word in, ‘I really don’t care if it
was
just a one-night stand. It was great … best sex I’ve ever had.’

There was silence on the other end. And then a faint cough. A
male
cough. The static of an international line crackled momentarily.

‘Sandy?’ Maddy croaked, feeling faint.

‘Um, no … it’s not Sandy. It’s Rafe.’

‘Rafe.’ She closed her eyes.

‘Maddy.’

‘I nearly fell over,’ Maddy told Sandy a few hours later. ‘I mean … I was so sure it was you.’

‘So tell me this again … he’s invited you to
London
? For
Christmas
? And he’s
paying
?’

Maddy nodded. She lifted the bottle of beer to her lips, enjoying the look of stunned disbelief on Sandy’s face. She felt
the slow burn of excitement in the pit of her stomach. She was going to London! At first she thought she hadn’t heard him
properly. ‘London? London,
England
?’

‘Um, not sure which other London there is,’ he’d said, his deep baritone voice coming down the line towards her.

‘Me?’

‘Well, who else? I don’t know anyone else called Maddy. Do you?’

She’d blushed violently. ‘But I … I don’t even have a passport. I’ve never been anywhere before. I’ve never even been in an
aeroplane.’

‘Oh. Well, the plane bit’s not difficult. I send you a ticket, you go to the airport and pick it up and then you get inside
this big metal bird and it hurtles down the runway, gathering speed until it takes off. I can explain the principles of flight
if you like … insofar as I can remember them, of course, but—’

‘Rafe,’ she protested weakly, laughing. ‘I know what a plane is … I’ve just never flown anywhere before. But … what if I can’t
get a passport in time?’

‘You’re not a felon, are you? Haven’t killed anyone lately, or been to jail?’

‘No,’ she said, shaking her head as if she could see him and laughing. God, she really, really liked him.

‘Then it shouldn’t be a problem. Can you find out and let me know?’

‘Yes,’ she whispered, her voice suddenly disappearing on her.
They’d chatted for a few more minutes … and that was that. The following morning she rang the passport helpline. For $165
she could get one in forty-eight hours. She gathered together all the documentation and practically ran to the nearest passport
agency offices. She waited behind the bulletproof glass window as the clerk checked her application, too nervous to even speak.
Finally, the woman looked up.

‘OK, Ms Stiller. Everything’s here. If you’ll come back on Wednesday morning, we’ll have your passport ready for you.’

She left the building in a daze and walked all the way uptown to Sandy’s. It was barely lunchtime but she had to have a beer.
Sandy, predictably, demanded to hear all the details – from the minute Maddy first set eyes on him until she put the phone
down after he’d called a few days later. She couldn’t believe it either. A good-looking, English neurosurgeon. Did such a
thing exist? Clearly. Maddy happily answered all her questions. A week in London over Christmas. Even her mother was excited.
‘Of course you should go,’ she said emphatically. ‘I’ll be fine. I’m going over to the Steenkamps’. I won’t hear another word.’
Maddy put down the phone, her stomach trembling with nerves. Sometimes, it seemed, fairy tales
did
happen. Even to her.

DIANA

London, December 1996

Diana checked her reflection in the gilt-framed mirror in the hallway. She’d never quite trusted the soft, weak light that
came in through the small window above the front door. She suspected it of being too flattering. She swung her head slowly
from side to side, checking her new cut. Claire, her hairdresser, had persuaded her to add a few warmer, lighter highlights
to her
hair. She’d worn the same expertly cut bob that framed her face for the past twenty years. She brushed away a stray strand,
turned up the collar of her crisp white Armani shirt and made sure the heavy silver and pearl necklace Harvey had given her
for her fiftieth birthday was properly balanced around her slender neck. She turned sideways … the shirt was tucked into dark
blue wool palazzo pants with a lovely thick hem. Patent black stiletto boots completed the outfit. Ferragamo, of course. She’d
seen them in the window at Selfridges and walked straight in. Not cheap, naturally, but she’d wear them for the rest of her
life. She pulled a face. She hated such phrases, especially now. At fifty-four, it sounded as though the rest of her life
might arrive sooner than she thought. It was the ridiculous sort of phrase her mother had always used. She turned away from
the mirror, irritated with herself. Why on earth did she have to think about her mother now? She looked at her watch. In a
few minutes Rafe would be here. With this woman he’d met in New York. Once. At a bar. She’d listened to him the night he came
round for dinner in pained silence. Now he was bringing her to their house. Well, at least they’d get a chance to meet her
before
Christmas lunch, she’d told Harvey that morning. She was staying for a fortnight.