One Secret Summer (67 page)

‘OK, OK. You need to get some rest. Here, lie down on the couch. That’s it … just close your eyes. I’m here. Everything’s
going to be fine, d’you understand, Diana? Everything’s going to be fine.’

And it was. Three days later the two men arrived late one night and disposed of the tiny body that Rufus had hidden, God alone
knew where. She couldn’t help herself; she walked out into the night and stood watching them as they prepared the shallow
grave. They buried Josh underneath the paving stones of the driveway that she’d told Harvey simply had to be replaced, immediately.
Rufus was there; he would help her supervise the workers … by the time they all came back in September, it would be done.
Harvey agreed immediately. ‘You sure it’s not too much work for you, darling? After all, you’ve got Josh to look after.’

‘No, n-not at all. It’ll be f-fine. Rufus is here. He’ll help.’

‘All right. Whatever you say.’

And that was that. They buried him; the earth was patted over and stamped upon. The two men left, their silence paid for by
Rufus. The following morning, workers arrived with the new paving stones. It took them the better part of the morning; by
lunchtime, it was almost done. No one would ever know or believe it.

Towards the end of the afternoon, when the sun was beginning its slow descent towards the horizon and the air was still thick
with pulsing insects and bees, Rufus drove up. He got out of the car carrying something wrapped in a bundle of white. He came
into the kitchen. For one long, dreadful moment they looked at each other, the knowledge of
what they’d done in their eyes, between them; she looked at the beautiful, sleeping infant and then slowly that knowledge
disappeared, rolling away in light, empty waves, like the waves at the beach at Antibes where they sometimes went swimming.
She couldn’t believe how easy it was – she looked at the tight, tiny face swaddled in cloth and fell in love. He was so like
Josh – a little darker, perhaps, but nothing that couldn’t be explained by the sun. The same dark eyes, dark eyebrows, thick,
rich dark hair … just like hers. Just like Rufus. Slowly, as she took the infant in her arms, she felt herself dissolving,
the terror and guilt of the previous few days suddenly slipping away. He wasn’t just like Josh – he was Josh. She hugged him
to her tightly, hot, silky tears of relief sliding down her face, unstoppable. Rufus said nothing; just watched her holding
him, the only sound in the room the three of them breathing steadily, quietly, as one.

JOSH

London, October 2000

He stumbled down the stairs, running from the disclosure that had just been made. He couldn’t think straight. Somehow he found
himself walking along Northumberland Park Road, turning right on to Ball’s Pond Road and walking up towards Highbury, to the
station. Interspersed with the creak and sway of the train and the shouts that came from further down the carriage, fragments
of Diana’s story came back to him, washing over the outside noise. He accepted the facts as she told them; it had happened.
This decision followed that. But he couldn’t accept their finality. They had pulled his world out from underneath him and
now there was nothing left to stand on, nothing to hold. He listened to her with the intuitive understanding of someone who
knew the story before it was told, familiarity and
distress breaking over him in equal amounts. In the train, sitting opposite him, an elderly gentleman sat reading. Josh blankly
followed his eyes as they moved across the newspaper from left to right; he was in his own trance. He got out at Shepherd’s
Bush and crossed the road without looking. He made it across the road in one piece, God alone knew how.

The flat was empty. He looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. It was almost four. Niela would be home in an hour or so. He
felt the need for her wash over him, almost bringing him to his knees. He threw his jacket on the dining room table and walked
into the kitchen. He needed something to drink – anything. He found a bottle of whisky in the cupboard beside the cooker.
He twisted off the cap and poured himself a glass, looking around him uneasily. It was like being in someone else’s home,
he realised suddenly. His duffel bag lay on the living room floor, but apart from that and a few toiletries in the bathroom,
it was essentially Niela’s flat into which from time to time he inserted himself and his strange, peripatetic life. He took
a gulp of whisky. Was that part of the problem? he wondered slowly. His inability to attach himself to anything, to anyone
… wasn’t that what Rania had thrown at him, always? ‘You don’t love me,’ she’d screamed at him time and again. ‘You
can’t
love me. You can’t love anyone because you can’t love yourself.’ He’d dismissed it, of course, lashing back at her in anger
and rage … he’d put it down to the ridiculous magazines she read or the friends she spoke to – a silly, trite comment of the
sort that women always made, a comment that had no place in reality, least of all his. But today, this morning, listening
to Diana, a horrible sense of déjà vu had come over him as she spoke. It was Rania he was listening to, and Niela, though
Niela’s judgements were never as harsh. He had to put out a hand to steady himself. He couldn’t wait to see Niela, to explain.
She would understand – Niela understood everything. That was why he loved her. Diana was dying; he was not his father’s son;
his brothers were not his own. He lay down on the couch, his head spinning. Nothing was as it had been; nothing was as it
seemed. Niela.
Everything would be fine as soon as he saw her. He’d known that about her, always. Right from the start.

She saw him sprawled out on the couch as soon as she opened the door. He was fast asleep, one hand flung away from him as
if he was warding off something, even in sleep. She closed the door quietly, hung her bag and jacket on the back of a chair
and then crossed the room to where he lay. She looked down at him; his face was troubled … there was a flicker of a frown
between his brows and the muscle in his cheek clenched and unclenched itself as he slept. Something was wrong. She wondered
if he’d been to see Diana. She was just about to turn away and walk into the bedroom, leaving him to sleep, when he woke suddenly.
‘Niela.’ His voice stopped her. She turned around.

‘I didn’t want to wake you,’ she began hesitantly. ‘You were fast asleep.’

‘Niela,’ he repeated and there was an urgency in his voice she hadn’t heard before.

‘What is it?’ He sat upright and ran a hand through his hair. He was agitated. ‘What is it?’ she repeated.

‘I … I … there’s something … I need to talk to you about something. I need to tell you something.’ He looked up at her. ‘It’s
Diana.’

‘Diana?’ Niela repeated, surprised. She’d been expecting something else – someone else. ‘What’s wrong with Diana?’

He seemed unable to answer immediately. ‘It’s … she’s not well,’ he said eventually, slowly. ‘She’s ill.’

‘What d’you mean? What sort of illness?’

Again there was a hesitation before he spoke. ‘You’d better sit down,’ he said, patting the space beside him. Niela stared
at him wordlessly for a few moments, then walked back over to the couch and sat down gingerly next to him. He took her hand
in his, turning the palm over slowly. ‘I’ve been with her pretty much all day. I got back in this morning and you’d already
gone to work so I rang her at the office – they said she wasn’t in. I went round to the house, and that’s when she told me.’

‘Told you what?’

‘It’s cancer, Niela. Breast cancer.’ His voice was strained. He let go of her hand; his own dangled helplessly in front of
him. ‘We’ve been talking all day. Niela …’ He got up suddenly, almost catching her off balance. He strode to the window and
picked up his jacket, fishing around agitatedly in the pockets for his cigarettes. He lit up and she could see his hand shaking
ever so slightly. She sat back, stunned by the news. Cancer? She couldn’t believe it; couldn’t take it in. She’d seen Diana
only a few days earlier … she’d looked tired, yes, and a little withdrawn, but Niela had put it down to the strain of what
it was they’d talked about. Cancer? She felt the cold hand of fear travel slowly up the length of her body.

‘Is it … treatable?’

Josh turned away from the window. ‘She says it’s not. I don’t know … I need to speak to Dad … to Rafe …’ He stopped again.
He swallowed. ‘We talked about a lot of things, Niela. I … I don’t know what she’s told you. She said … she said the two of
you’d become close.’ He shook his head. ‘She’s changed, somehow … she’s different.’

‘I like her,’ Niela said slowly, a note of wonder in her voice. ‘I never thought I would … or that she’d like
me
. I was always so afraid of her. But she’s nothing like that … like how I thought. She’s … she’s great.’

‘Niela.’

She looked up at him. There was such anguish in his voice. His whole face was contorted with pain. She didn’t know what to
make of the way he dropped his hands to his sides. He stubbed out his cigarette and came over to her suddenly, pulling her
to her feet. He bent his head to bury it in her neck. She could feel his lips moving against her skin; his arms bound her
tightly. ‘Shhh,’ she said quietly, feeling his whole body tense. ‘Shhh.’

‘Niela.’ He was holding on to her so tightly she was unable to breathe. ‘There’s something else … she told me something else.
About me.’

‘Shhh,’ Niela repeated, lifting a hand and running it through his hair. She let her fingers come to rest on the nape of his
neck, stroking it lightly. ‘Not now. Don’t think about that now. Diana’s going to get better – that’s all. Nothing else matters.
Everything else will heal with time.’

He pulled his head away from hers slightly, looking down at her. His eyes were dark pools in which she could see herself reflected.
‘Everything else?’

The question hung in the air between them; the slight emphasis on the ‘every’ was not lost on her. She understood immediately
what he was asking. She closed her own eyes for a brief, halting second. When she opened them again, his were still on her.
The question was still unanswered. He tightened his grip on her arm.

‘Everything,’ she said quietly, firmly. ‘Everything.’

MADDY

London, October 2000

Maddy looked at Rafe in disbelief. She struggled to get her mouth around the word. Cancer?
Diana?
‘No,’ she said automatically. ‘No. Not Diana. That’s crazy.’

Rafe’s eyes were half-closed. He looked exhausted, utterly drained. He’d spent the last few hours with Harvey and Geoffrey
Laing. In addition to his fears as Diana’s eldest son, there was a deeper layer of knowledge that only he and Harvey were
privy to that made it difficult to speak. ‘Not crazy, Maddy,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s serious. It’s happening.’

‘Not to Diana!’ Maddy blurted the words out. ‘No, not to her. Anyone else, but not her.’ For all her insecurities where Diana
was concerned, Maddy was suddenly aware of Diana’s
strength. She was the one who held the Keelers together; not Harvey. Diana’s hand was everywhere. It was she who organised
the Sunday lunches, the dinners … she never forgot a birthday, never missed an important event. Why, only the other day Maddy
had received a card from her:
Break a leg
– the traditional actor’s good-luck greeting. A beautiful hand-drawn card from one of the museum collections; the sort of
thing only Diana would choose. She felt a sudden chill pass through her. Diana demanded much of others; you either rose to
the challenge or sank beneath it. Maddy had sunk at first – unnerved by the weight of an expectation she sensed in her. But
in the past few months, another side to Diana had emerged. It wasn’t just her generosity – that was on evidence week after
week, at one family gathering or another. That much was easy to see. In Mougins, one evening, they’d sat over a glass of wine,
talking about the theatre. Diana was far more knowledgeable than Maddy had ever guessed. Perhaps more important was the way
she held herself back, allowing Maddy a chance to show off, and therefore to shine. It was a small gesture – Maddy couldn’t
even remember who or what they’d been talking about – but it spoke volumes in a way that nothing else could have, or did.
She’d come away from the conversation that night with a renewed sense of faith in herself. The resentment she’d harboured
towards Rafe and everyone else for forcing her to make the choice between an audition and Harvey’s birthday party had suddenly
gone out of her. She knew her own best qualities, and after that evening, she trusted Diana to see them. A small triumph,
but a significant one nonetheless. And now here was Rafe … telling her something she didn’t want to believe. Diana was dying.
No, it wasn’t possible. Not her. Somewhere buried deep down and pushed to the back of her mind was the horribly familiar fear.
Another source of strength in her life was about to disappear. She turned to Rafe, gripping his arm fiercely. ‘No, it won’t
happen. Not to her.’ Rafe was silent. His eyes were still closed. She could feel the fear of what they couldn’t bring themselves
to say emanating from him, like sweat. She wasn’t the only one
whose sense of self had been quietly bolstered all along. She let her hand fall from his arm, lacing her fingers through his
instead. They sat there together in the deepening gloom, not speaking or moving, simply holding on. Holding each other. Holding
fast.

JULIA

London, October 2000

Some things didn’t bear thinking about. Not now, at any rate, not whilst the damage had already been done. She sat alone in
the kitchen of their flat, her hands going automatically to the hard, rounded dome of her stomach, as if in protection of
what lay there. Aaron believed her;
he
had no choice. She did. She alone knew the truth – as did Josh. But if there was one thing she’d learned it was that sometimes
the truth wasn’t enough. Or, perhaps more accurately, sometimes the truth was too much. What would be gained by telling anyone
what had happened? She would destroy two marriages in the process and probably the entire family to boot. Diana was ill; Aaron
had gone to her. She didn’t know precisely what was wrong but from the garbled messages Aaron had left her, it didn’t sound
good. No, now was not the time to start making a disclosure of her own. There would probably never be a time.