Tell Me No Secrets (34 page)

‘I'm sorry.' I face Euan again. He is doing up his jeans. ‘Of course I'll give you an alibi. I'm not meaning to sound like I doubt you.' Sand blows up from the beach and I use it as an excuse to try to rub the tension out of my face. ‘You smell of the sea. I love the smell of the sea.' I rest my forehead on his chest and feel the warmth spread into my cheeks.

‘I need to check on the boats.' He puts his hand on the nape of my neck and gives me the briefest of kisses. ‘I'll call you tomorrow.'

I watch him walk away from me then I go back to my car and drive home.

When I come in through the back door both girls are already there. Daisy is making a sandwich and Ella is eating cereal. I step out of my boots and walk into the kitchen in my socks. ‘I'm sorry, I hadn't quite got round to making any tea yet.'

There's no room for either of them to sit down. Ella has the stuff from Monica's attic spread over the kitchen table. There are dusty hardbacked books and bits of old clothing, a box of buttons and some old postcards. ‘I thought I could sell some of it on eBay,' Ella says.

I pick up an ancient tennis racket and wave it at her.

‘It's a collector's item,' she says defensively, grabbing it back from me.

In among the junk, there is a silver charm bracelet. The chain is delicate and is joined at either end by a heart-shaped lock. The six charms hang at regular intervals around the chain. The first is a tiny fan. When opened, one side is engraved with ‘Espana', the other ‘Malaga'. The second charm is a Welsh dragon, the third a spinning wheel, the fourth a rose, the fifth a child's interpretation of a Viking boat and the sixth is a gondola. Small and perfectly formed, it is complete with gondolier and a couple sitting at the back, arms entwined. Along the prow of the boat it reads ‘Venice'. Somewhere in the back of my mind I have an idea that I've seen the bracelet before. I turn it over in my hands and try to think but I can't place it. ‘Did Monica say you could have this?'

‘Yes.' Ella has finished her cereal and is rummaging in the fridge.

I hold it up. ‘But did she actually see it, Ella?'

‘Yes. I told you!' She has a juice straw hanging from the corner of her mouth. ‘Can we have money for chips?'

I finger the cool silver charms. ‘Help yourself to money from my purse. It's in my handbag by the front door. Take enough for a fish supper each.' My fingers seek out the gondola, feel along the spine of the boat. ‘And a drink. Take money for drinks.'

‘Shall we eat in, then?' Daisy says, filling Murphy's water bowl. ‘Should we bring some back for you?'

I shake my head. ‘I'm not hungry.' I think of the spoiled breakfast, Ed's words and the repercussions. Bile rises in my throat. I swallow it down and my eyes start to water.

The girls slam the front door behind them and I sit down, exhausted, overwhelmed by the turn the day has taken. I want to cry but I know that when I start I won't be able to stop so I have to wait until the girls are in bed. Although Paul is in Skye, his shadow is everywhere in the house. His brogues are by the door, his shaving stuff is next to the sink and the book he was reading is beside his chair, the bookmark sticking out halfway through. Murphy is padding around looking for him. He goes into his study then out again, upstairs to our bedroom and back downstairs into the kitchen. Finally, he settles down on the rug by the front door and rests his chin on his paws.

I hold the bracelet on my lap. It's still niggling me. Where do I remember it from? I begin to doze, find it surprisingly comforting, drift off into the mesmerising gap between sleep and wakefulness where random thoughts float before me and hang there like pictures on film. I relax further into the sofa, my eyes heavy as lead, and I roam through splinters of memory: the girls as babies, plump, rosy cheeks, podgy ankles, fingernails like pearly pink shells; a weekend in New York, Paul's hand holding mine as we skip over puddles, on and off kerbs, along Forty-Second Street late for a play; Euan sitting in the pram opposite me, Mo telling us my eyes are as green as grass, his as blue as the sky; Ella and me winning the mother and daughter's three-legged race, hugging each other, giggling.

Backward and forward through my life until finally I land where I need to. I reach for the memory, grasp it and make the connection. My eyes snap open. I look at the bracelet on my lap. I hold it up in front of me. My heart hammers a hectic rhythm then seems to stop altogether. The bracelet – I know where I've seen it before.

Paul and I honeymoon on the New England coast. We base ourselves in Cape Cod where the weather is kind to us. It's every day the same: sunshine and soft breezes. Perfect. We stroll along the wide sandy beaches, cycle up country paths and visit the numerous lighthouses that stand guard over the coastal waters. On the first night we discover a beach restaurant that immediately becomes our favourite. New England clambake: cod, scallops, lobster and all types of clams covered in seaweed and steam-baked in charcoal pits then served with red bliss potatoes wrapped in wet cheesecloth.

We talk and we laugh and every morning and evening we make love. At first I'm shy, afraid to let go to the rising tension inside me and I automatically squash it back down again but soon I learn to let go and my body wakes up to his. I can't help but touch him, everywhere, all the time. We are seldom parted. He goes into the post office and I mind the bikes. Within minutes I am aching for him. When he comes out I grab him, hold him in a kiss until the ache is rubbed away. I want our honeymoon to last for ever. I want to trap the moments in aspic and jump in alongside them so that I can relive the sense of completeness where all desires are met and past mistakes wiped clean.

We both love living in Boston. We have a home in the suburbs where the garden stretches into an orchard. Paul studies with Professor Butterworth at the State University and we are welcomed into a circle of friends, some of them Europeans like us. Within the year I have a place at art college and start to live out my dream of becoming an artist.

We've been married for four years when we start trying for a baby. Making love is tender, significant, each ejaculation, each long swim: this could be it, this could be our baby, the melding of us both into a completely new and wonderful human being. First month, nothing, second month, I'm two weeks late. Then I wake up and immediately throw up. I ring one of the other wives and she comes with me to the gynaecologist. I'm pregnant: happily, deliriously, unbelievably pregnant.

When I tell Paul he falls to his knees and hugs me, strokes my belly and I giggle. He is a model expectant father. Those first three months, I vomit both morning and evening. He brings me dry biscuits and weak tea in bed. He does all the shopping and cooking; he comes with me for the first scan.

‘Well, well, well!' the doctor says, grinning at us both.

We wait, our smiles frozen, not sure how wide we should make them.

‘There's one heartbeat and then there's another! Two for one. How clever are you?'

‘Twins?' We both look at each other and then laugh, incredulous. It is a shock, a happy readjustment.

I love being pregnant. I feel like I'm incubating a miracle, two miracles, in fact. I spend hours visualising my babies, what they will look like, their smiles and gurgles, the sound of their breathing. And when they start to move inside me it feels like the flutter of butterfly wings and then, as the months pass, their movements become stronger, proper kicks, hiccups that make my growing stomach shake.

The babies are born, time passes and Daisy becomes as summery as butter with cheeks as round as red apples. And she is content. She's in no hurry to grow up. She watches Ella and learns from her mistakes. It isn't Daisy who bashes her head on the side of the coffee table or breaks her wrist swinging from the elderberry tree.

Ella is a cat. She seeks attention on her terms, wants to be mistress of her own fate. She reaches all the milestones first. She smiles first, crawls and walks first. Her first word is dada; her second is dog.

‘I think we should have six children,' I tell Paul. ‘And live in the country. On a farm with chickens and goats and—'

He's just come home from work and he kisses me quiet. ‘Well! There's the thing, Grace. It's time for me to apply for a professorship. And guess what?'

‘What?' I help him out of his jacket and hang it over the back of the chair.

‘There's a post coming up in St Andrews of all places.' He takes my hand. ‘Wouldn't you like to go back home?'

I don't answer. I don't know what to say. I had given up on the idea of ever living in Scotland again. I no longer see it as my home.

‘Your mum and dad would be able to help with the twins,' he continues. ‘And my parents. Skye isn't so far from the village. Great for holidays, fishing, hill walking. It's an ideal upbringing for children.'

I see the sense in it. But going back? I'm not so sure. We've made a life for ourselves in New England. I'm a different person here.

‘So what do you think?'

He is excited. He holds both my hands and waits, smiling. I want to please him. After all he has given to me, I want to give him something back. ‘If it's the job you want then we should go for it,' I say.

He twirls me round and then we collapse on the sofa and start to make plans. While Paul's at work, I pack. I'm sorting through some boxes when I find it. It's a close-up photo of Paul and his first wife Marcia. They were married in the registry office in Edinburgh. It's summer and she's wearing a short-sleeved dress. They are both grinning, holding their hands in front of them, showing off their wedding rings. Around Marcia's wrist is a silver charm bracelet. I can clearly see two of the charms: a Viking boat and a gondola. When Paul comes home from work I ask him about it.

‘The Viking boat was to remind her of her gran who lived on the Shetlands.' He points to the gondola. ‘We went to Venice in the spring before we got married,' he tells me. ‘I bought that charm for her at one of the markets in the square. Had to haggle a bit on the price.'

‘It's a beautiful bracelet.' I run my finger along the image of the silver chain. ‘What happened to it?'

‘I'm not sure,' he says. ‘When Marcia died I gave it to Rose. She took it everywhere with her but the catch was loose. She had it with her at Guide camp.' He shrugs. ‘She must have lost it somewhere there. I went back several times to look for it but I never found it.'

16

‘What's going on?' Ella is standing at the bottom of the ladder staring up at me. ‘The hall is full of junk.'

It's the next morning and I've already turned out the understairs cupboard and now I'm climbing into the attic. ‘I'm looking for something.'

‘If you're trying to compete with Monica, I'd give up now. We've got ten times as much junk as her.'

‘Do you want to help me?'

She makes a face and goes into her bedroom. Within seconds the thump of music starts. I continue up the ladder until I'm in the roof space. I hook a light over one of the crossbeams and survey the scene. We have more boxes of books and paraphernalia than I would have thought possible. Almost every inch of space is taken up with a box or bin bag of stuff. I wish I had developed a system for cataloguing it all but it was one of those rainy day jobs that I never got around to. I need to find the photograph of Paul and Marcia's wedding and if it means turning the whole house upside down then that's what I'll do. I have to make sure that my memory isn't making links that don't exist. And if it is the same bracelet, then how did Monica get it? And why has she kept it all these years?

I start working through the bags and boxes, trying not to be distracted by everything else I come across, but when I find the photograph taken during my ultrasound scan, Ella and Daisy, their bodies coiled around each other, head to toe, wrapped up in each other's rhythm, I stop and sit for a moment. Sometimes I play that game: if you had to describe yourself in one word what would it be? Nine times out of ten the answer would be mother. I am more a mother than anything else and my love for them remains as solid and true as the day when I first saw the scan and heard the two baby heartbeats. By the time they were born, at thirty-six weeks and five days, I was already smitten beyond anything I could ever have imagined.

And I remember another time. Five months pregnant, waking up in the middle of the night to discover Paul's side of the bed empty, finding him in the living room, fast asleep in his chair, this photograph in his hands. We parent the same children, live in the same house, make love, have fun, and plan for our future. Why wasn't that enough for me?

I put the scan photo away again and get back to it. Wind is whistling through the roof space from west to east and the light swings backward and forward, illuminating first one corner and then the other, stuff that is no longer relevant to our lives but somehow we're unable to throw it away.

I tread carefully over the sheets of hardboard that act as a temporary floor, bending my head under the rafters to bypass cardboard boxes of Paul's old toys, soldiers and Airfix models. There's a plastic bin bag of old clothes. I look through it and see my waitress uniform, think back to Donnie's Bites, serving Paul his dinner, making up my mind to love and care for him.

The final cluster of boxes I come across look like they could well have been there for some time. Since we moved back to Scotland? Possibly, judging by the amount of dust and cobwebs that lie over the top. As soon as I open the first one, I have the feeling that I've struck lucky. It's all the photographs that Paul took before I met him. I scan through the ones on top then decide to look through them downstairs away from the draught.