The Keeper of Secrets (7 page)

The distant clatter of a spaceship crashing to earth was swiftly followed by a small boy's mournful cries. Next came a frustrated sigh closer to home. ‘What the hell is wrong with that child?' Rick asked.

‘I'll go and check.'

‘No, leave him!' he barked. ‘He's got to learn that you're not at his beck and call.'

Elle didn't respond. She had done very little talking in the last few days. She had screamed herself hoarse as she stood at the edge of the river and if she wasn't talking to Charlie, she found she had barely any energy or inclination to speak at all.

‘Do you have to skulk around with that miserable look on your face?'

There wasn't even a flicker of a reaction from Elle. She was staring intently at the magazine on her lap where impossibly happy faces smiled up at her.

‘It's your own fault. I told you not to go to your dad's house, you haven't got the mettle for it. Thank God it's been cleared now. I'm telling you, Elle, you're not to go back there again. That part of your life is over. It's time to move on. Elle? Are you even listening to me?'

Elle had been listening. In fact it was fair to say she was seeing and hearing things far more clearly than she had in a very long time. She closed the magazine. ‘I'm going up to him,' she said, pushing herself off the sofa and turning her back on Rick. She heard his spluttering demand that she stay where she was with crystal clarity but she went anyway.

‘What is it, Charlie?' she asked when he was safely wrapped up in his duvet and his mother's arms. It was a question she had asked every night for the last three weeks. She kissed the top of his sweaty head.

‘Nothing,' he lied, as he always did.

‘If I read you another story will you promise to go to sleep?'

Charlie nodded and sniffed back his drying tears. Recent experience told her that he wouldn't, but she didn't mind. She'd have been only too happy to spend the whole night lying next to him, reading stories that would whisk them both off to magical worlds where it was easy to tell who were the heroes and who were the villains.

But there would be no escape tonight for Elle. She heard the creak of a floorboard as Rick crept upstairs to invade their sanctuary. The flutter of a shadow danced on the wall as he hovered near the door.

She finished a chapter and turned the page, as eager as Charlie for the next instalment. ‘Enough for one night,' Rick said.

Charlie's groan was punctuated by a note of panic.

‘I won't be far,' she promised.

It broke her heart to leave him but she knew she had to, not because Rick had told her to but because she accepted that she needed to be firm with Charlie. She didn't want him regressing into babyhood. She needed him to be stronger so she could be strong too.

‘I'm worried about you,' Rick said once they were back in the living room. He had adopted a softer tone. Elle's behaviour was confusing him and he hadn't yet worked out how to deal with it.

‘I'm not happy, Rick,' she said.

She was surprised at how calm that statement was. Her life had been broken into pieces, her beliefs ground to dust and blown away by the same winds that had carried her screams across the Mersey. She couldn't stop thinking of the pain her mum must have gone through and how she must have felt when she discovered that her marriage was a sham.

Elle was faced with a choice. She could let those thoughts weigh her down as she trudged from one day to the next, or she could learn from it. Rick had locked her in a gilded cage and taught her the songs to sing to make him happy. She felt herself pushing against the cage door, testing its resistance, testing her courage.

‘You've just lost your dad, I know that, but at least you're not running yourself ragged looking after him any more. He's at peace now and you can get back to concentrating on your own family.'

She shook her head in an effort to knock back the conflicting emotions. Her dad didn't deserve to rest in peace. She wished he was still around so she could make him suffer more. He ought to be there so that the anger building up inside her could be directed at the person who deserved it most. But it was Rick she was looking at and she could almost feel sorry for him.

‘It's the future we should be focusing on now, not the past,' he was telling her as her heart filled with loathing. ‘I know we agreed no more kids, but maybe it's time to start thinking about having another baby.'

Elle blinked away the shock. ‘
We
didn't agree, Rick. It was
you
who didn't want any more children. You can barely cope with one child in the house.' She recalled how fraught those early days of parenthood had been. Rick hadn't been comfortable sharing his wife and had stormed off on more than one occasion when she was too tired or preoccupied with the baby to pay him the attention he demanded. At the time she had seen it as a failing on her part and, determined as always to emulate her parents' successful marriage, had tried to do better.

‘I was worried that you were taking on too much,' he said, seemingly convinced that if he spoke the lie with conviction she would be inclined to believe it. ‘But you're more organized now, even if I do have to remind you to pick up Charlie once in a while. It'll be good for you, Elle, and it might help Charlie too, give him a bit of responsibility helping out. We've had two funerals in two years, we could do with something to celebrate.'

‘I'm not ready,' Elle said. She was evading the issue and her weakness frustrated her. She jumped up for the second time that evening. ‘I'm making a coffee, do you want one?'

‘Erm, yes, but then I want to have a proper talk.'

She was standing at the door now, looking down on her husband. Her heart was pounding and her mouth dry as she willed herself to take back some control. ‘Me too,' she said. ‘And by the way, since you messed up my night out with Angie, I've arranged to go out this weekend instead.'

She didn't wait for an answer but scurried out into the kitchen. She switched on the kettle and then held onto the work counter to steady herself. She hadn't even spoken to Angie yet, the idea had just popped into her head. Elle wasn't sure whether she was trying to assert some authority or was simply picking a fight. Either way, her exhilaration lasted only until Rick stormed into the kitchen.

‘I don't know what the hell's got into you, Elle, but I don't like it. There's no way you're going out with Angie this weekend.'

‘Why? What is your problem with her all of a sudden? If Chris can remain on civil terms with her, then why can't you? She's the only friend I have left and if I can't go out on my own once in a while I'm going to go mad.'

‘Look at you, you're acting crazy now! I wouldn't be surprised if Angie was behind all this. I don't know what she's playing at, but as far as I'm concerned she can do what she likes. She's a free agent now and good luck to her. You, on the other hand, are not.'

‘And you don't trust me?' She had meant it to sound like a challenge but it was more of a plea.

‘You are not going out with her, Elle.' Rick had lowered his voice only a fraction but it was no less intimidating. ‘Argument closed.'

Elle was holding onto her anger but as her husband stared her down into submission, she was too scared to release it. She could feel herself stepping away from the door of her cage and she hated herself for it. ‘You can't tie me to the kitchen sink, barefoot and pregnant.'

Despite her defiant words, Rick had picked up the tell-tale quiver in her voice. ‘You're not going out,' he said, the curve of a victorious smile pulling at the corners of his mouth.

She turned away from him before he could see the tears welling in her eyes. She was weak-willed and they both knew it. What was the point in fighting it? she asked herself. Would it be so bad to live a miserable life in pampered luxury?

Rick stepped closer and put his arms around her waist. ‘Look at the state of you. You can't be going out when you're so run-down.' Elle dropped her head in defeat and Rick took this as an invitation to kiss the back of her neck. She shuddered but not in a good way. ‘But I really am sorry about the other night. You're right, I could have behaved better with Angie. I just didn't like coming home and finding you both in a drunken heap,' he said. ‘I tell you what, why don't you invite her over for dinner here instead?'

Elle didn't feel run-down, she felt beaten. She had wanted to see Angie so she could tell her about her meeting with Corinne. She had wanted someone to justify her feelings about her dad and to help her find a way of putting her life back together. ‘I'll ask,' she said, but suspected it would be more a matter of begging Angie to accept an invitation to dinner with Rick.

Inviting Angie wasn't as much of a problem as Elle had envisaged. She suspected it had something to do with the desperation in her voice and the way she gulped back a sob as she waited for the refusal.

Elle spent most of Saturday afternoon in the kitchen with Charlie. She had discovered a joy of cooking like never before. It gave her an excuse to avoid Rick. Every time she looked at him she was reminded of what she had become and, more painfully, what she had given up. As she lowered the heat beneath a pan of spiced soup, it was the questions in her head that continued to bubble and roil.

Why didn't she believe in herself? She may not have been clever enough to go to Cambridge University but she had qualified as a nurse. That proved something, didn't it?

She had never lived on her own but that was only because her parents lived so close to the hospital. She could have fended for herself. Couldn't she?

And why had she given up her career so easily? Why had Rick made her believe that she couldn't juggle a career and motherhood? Why, when he was telling her how incompetent she was, had her parents simpered to Rick's scathing judgements, crudely wrapped up as concern?

Why didn't anyone believe in her?

Why didn't she believe in herself?

There were so many questions but when it came down to it, only one answer. It was simple. She had inherited her dad's inferiority complex and Rick had thrived on it.

With half an hour to spare before her guest arrived, Elle went upstairs to change. Charlie sat on the bed and watched her applying her makeup.

‘Can I stay up until ten o'clock?'

She stopped what she was doing and turned to face him. Charlie was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the bed and using the pattern on the patchwork quilt to line up his spaceships, creating a miniature landing pad on the criss-crosses of an imaginary planet. He rolled a bright orange moon-buggy absentmindedly up and down his shin as he met her gaze. He was becoming a tough negotiator and his eyes narrowed. She narrowed hers. ‘Eight.'

Charlie raised an eyebrow. ‘Nine-thirty?'

‘Eight o'clock,' Elle repeated. ‘Any more objections and it's seven-thirty as usual.'

Her son huffed.

‘We could always ask your dad?'

‘No, no,' he said, immediately forgetting his poker face. ‘Deal.'

She turned back to the mirror. A final dusting of foundation and a smear of pale lipstick and she was done. Elle tucked a blonde curl behind her ear as she slipped on a pair of gold earrings. She stood up to fasten the matching necklace that sat just above the V-shaped neckline to her dress, which revealed the tiniest glimpse of cleavage.

‘Here, let me do that,' Rick said. He had been in his study all afternoon and she had been hoping his work would keep him preoccupied through to the evening so she could have some time alone with Angie.

Elle gave Charlie a brave smile as Rick struggled with the clasp.

‘Mummy looks beautiful, doesn't she?'

Rick finished what he was doing and turned her around to face him. She hadn't worn this particular dress since before Charlie was born. It was a deep maroon satin with classic lines that curved around her waist and was cut just above the knee. ‘Yes, she'd make a few quid on the streets.'

By the tone of his dad's voice, Charlie could only assume that this was a huge compliment. ‘Ten thousand pounds!'

Rick's insult stung and Charlie's innocent complicity only compounded her misery. She tried desperately to think of a retort but struggled to find one that wouldn't hurt Charlie's feelings.

Taking in the dumbstruck expression on her face, Rick laughed then shook his head. ‘I'm going to have a quick shower. Can you dig out a clean shirt and the grey suit for me? Thanks, sweetheart,' he said without waiting for a response.

Swallowing her pride, Elle did as she was told, then took a moment to watch Charlie gathering up his toys. She would do anything for her son and if years of ridicule were all she had to sufferer to secure a better life for him then that was surely a small price to pay.

The doorbell rang and Charlie gasped in excitement. ‘It's Angie!' he cried and grabbed the last toy spaceship in his already laden arms. He ran out of the bedroom and into his own. There was a clatter of metal as he threw everything into his toy box. Elle was following and barely registered the smile of amusement that had crept onto her face. He was her reason for being.

‘Not so fast, you're going to fall,' she warned as he raced down the stairs, not stopping until his body hit the front door with full force.

Charlie was trying to jump up to reach the door knob and Elle was laughing now as she wrapped her arms around his waist and lifted him up to reach it. With a little help, the door swung open wide.

‘Oh,' Elle said after she and her son had stood staring at their new visitor for longer than was strictly polite. ‘Sorry, we weren't expecting it to be you.'

The man standing in front of her was six foot two with broad shoulders and short-cropped hair. He lifted up a bottle of wine and gave her an uncomfortable smile. ‘Rick invited me, I assumed you knew,' Chris said.