Tell Me No Secrets (22 page)

‘You look thin,' he says finally.

I try to laugh. ‘Thin is good, isn't it?'

‘Is it?'

‘So most women would say.' I feel like I'm choking and I cough into my hand. ‘So why have you come to see me? I was under the impression you were avoiding me. Mo's kept me up to date, of course. Congratulations on your children, by the way. Mo tells me they're great wee bairns.' I try to imitate her good humour but it falls flat.

He is looking me up and down, measuring me with his eyes. ‘You don't look well on it, Grace.'

I am hurt, devastated even. It takes all my effort not to cry and I dig my fingernails into my hand. I know what he means, of course. God knows I am the first to admit that I am a mess. My hair is unkempt. I cut the fringe myself with a pair of scissors. I'd had enough of it falling into my eyes so I hacked away at it and now it sits higher on the right than it does on the left. Fingerprints pattern my clothes. Four little hands. I never seem to be able to keep them clean. No sooner have I wiped yoghurt off one daughter's hands than the other has found a crayon, a puddle, a melted chocolate. And I'm thin, I know. My blouse hangs off me, my eyes look too large in my face, my cheekbones angle sharply under my skin. There is a mirror in the hall and in the two bathrooms. I see myself. But his words hurt because I want him to see me like I was.

He's watching me, waiting for me to say something, give him some explanation. What? That I can't be bothered eating? That I'm too tired to eat? That the very act of rousing myself to lift forkfuls of food up to my mouth is enough to kill my appetite? That, anyway, I can't taste it? And worst of all, that I don't see the point?

‘Are you visiting your folks?' I say at last when the silence threatens to suffocate me.

‘Yes and no. I'm moving back to the village with Monica and the children.'

I stop my hands shaking by sliding them under my thighs. ‘Why? I thought you couldn't wait to get away from here?'

‘Well, we decided it wasn't so bad here after all. Sarah is almost four, Tom just two.' He looks out of the window, past the climbing frame and garden hut, over the low picket fence to the sandy beach where the sea races up and down the shore. ‘Didn't we have it good here?' he asks me. ‘What better place is there to raise children?'

‘You sound nostalgic,' I tell him and my own mind skips back to beach picnics, treasure hunts, camps we built in the dunes. Running, running, running shoeless along the beach no matter what the weather. Rock pools, sand-castles in the rain, ice creams melting on to our fingers, skipping along the harbour wall. Dares and double dares. Bet I can climb higher up that tree than you, bet if you chap on Mrs Young's door you'll get caught. Chickenpox, both of us off school for two weeks confined to the living room playing Monopoly, letting each other cheat so that we can rush on to the hotel stage. I have all the reds and greens, the Strand, Trafalgar Square, Bond Street, Regent Street; he has Park Lane and Mayfair. We play snakes and ladders, down the ladders and up the snakes. We learn how to play chess and sit opposite each other locked in concentration until one of us finds the edge and beats the other.

‘So you're coming back?' My voice is so quiet I can hardly hear it myself.

‘Monica has been offered a position in a GP's practice up in St Andrews.'

‘She's done well,' I say, wondering how she managed it with two small children. ‘But then she was always the organised one.' It sounds bitchy. I don't mean it to.

He smiles. ‘Monica was always more willing to apply herself than you or me.'

‘But you're an architect?'

‘Yes, but not a very ambitious one.' He laughs like it might be a sore point. ‘So we're coming home. I will start a part-time business that fits around the children. Monica will work full-time. We've bought the Jardines' old house. Do you remember it?'

‘Along Marketgate?'

‘That's the one.'

‘It needs a lot of work done to it.'

He nods, pushes his mug away and leans his elbows on the table. I can hardly breathe. My head is buzzing, lighthearted and joyous; like a funfair ride it abruptly jolts forward ahead of me and I imagine having him in my life again, the delicious possibility, years of bumping into him in the newsagent's, Sunday lunches in the pub, PTAs, our girls becoming best friends, New Year parties and maybe even the odd summer barbecue.

‘So, Grace, twelve years, huh? How's it going?'

His voice is gentle, like he's talking to a little girl but it cuts through me like a chainsaw through oak and I try not to choke. ‘It's . . . yeah . . . it's . . .' I stop. Think. Stall for time. ‘How is what? Specifically, I mean.'

‘How's life? Do you enjoy being a wife and mother? How are you?'

I fiddle with a spoon, start to hum, pick up a pile of tumble-dried children's clothes and fold them. I'm on my fourth T-shirt when he stops my hand with his.

‘How are you?'

I don't take my hand away. He feels so warm, so overflowing with heat that I want to take off my clothes and sunbathe.

‘Tell me.'

Of late I have been feeling bloodless, like there's nothing in my veins but now colour rushes to my face and floods my cheeks. ‘I'm managing,' I say at last.

‘Look at me.'

I look.

‘Tell me,' he says.

I shake my head.

‘Grace?'

‘What?'

‘I'm your friend.'

‘Are you?' It's a whisper and he leans forward to catch it, pushes my hair back from my face.

‘Tell me,' he says.

‘I don't lie to you,' I tell him. ‘I don't lie. Not to you.'

‘Oh, Grace.'

That's all he says – oh, Grace – and then he reaches across the table and I begin to weep, not to cry, but to weep heavy tears that crack me open like footprints on an icy pond. He stands up and lifts me off the bench, rests his back against the wall and holds me against his chest while I weep his shirt wet. He says nothing, just holds me, strokes my hair and when I'm finished he takes my hands, leads me into the living room and sits me on the sofa. He gives me tissues, hunkers down in front of me and rubs my knees.

‘You're freezing,' he says. He pulls the blanket off the back of the sofa and wraps me in it, swaddling me up like a baby so that in spite of myself I giggle.

‘You're a good dad,' I tell him.

‘Mostly. Not always.' He smiles at me, smooths his fingers over my swollen eyelids. ‘So tell me. What's going on with you?'

‘I see her,' I say at once. ‘I see Rose. Mostly in my dreams and she's drowning and I can't save her but then other times I see her on the beach or in the garden and in my girls – I see her in my girls. I was fine until I came back to Scotland.'

‘You're tired, Grace.' His face is solemn, his jaw tight. ‘That's all.'

‘It's not just tiredness.' I clutch his hand. ‘I do see her, Euan. I do.'

‘Ghosts don't exist. You're exhausted from young children. You don't eat enough. Listen!' He holds my face close to his. ‘I would bet all the money I had that Rose didn't die by your hand.'

‘You would?'

‘Yes. I would. You're a good person. A better person than most. There is no one I know who is a better person than you. I mean that.' His tone is compassionate and urgent. It feels like balm, like forgiveness. ‘You have to let this go. Otherwise it will destroy you. And it will affect the girls and Paul.'

I nod. ‘I can't tell Paul. I've never been able to tell him. The doctor says I have depression.'

‘You don't.' He looks fierce. ‘You just need to be kind to yourself. You need to move on and you need to eat.' He goes into the kitchen. I listen to him as he opens the fridge and the cupboards. I rest my head against the back of the sofa and for the first time in years I feel like I can just be. I feel warm and cosy and I rub my cheeks against the soft edges of the blanket.

Euan comes back. He's made scrambled eggs for us both. ‘Now don't say you don't like them,' he tells me. ‘Because I know you do.'

My stomach gives an appreciative rumble at the sight of the food. I take the plate from him and swallow the saliva that fills my mouth. I sit the plate on my knee and look at it. It's one of Paul's mother's plates, willow pattern, exquisite blue and white. The eggs are sunshine yellow from our own chickens that peck around in the run Paul made for them at the bottom of the garden. The toast is granary. It looks perfect but I don't want to eat it. Instead, I toy with rearranging it so that the eggs sit neatly on the toast and the sprig of parsley is dead centre. (Parsley? I didn't know we had any. I have no idea where he found it.)

The room is so quiet I can hear the ticking of my own watch. I turn my fork around in my hand. He's waiting for me to start. ‘Tuck in,' I tell him.

‘Not until you do.' He lifts the fork to my mouth. I keep it shut. ‘I can do aeroplanes,' he says.

I take a breath. ‘I think I'll manage.' I close my eyes and open my mouth. I want to spit it out but I don't. I chew it. Slowly. It tastes good. He's grated cheese through it. He feeds me some more. ‘I think I'd like to be your baby in a high chair,' I tell him.

‘You need that much looking after? Then I'm your man.'

When I've finished my eggs, he hands me his plate and pats his flat stomach. ‘My mum's taking every opportunity to stuff me full. You'd be doing me a favour.'

This time I feed myself. I finish his eggs, stop short at licking the plate. Then I lean back and puff out my cheeks. ‘That was good. I never knew how hungry I was.'

He touches my arms, runs his hands the length of them and clasps my hands again. ‘Okay, Grace, here's the deal,' he says. ‘You're going to let go of Rose and start remembering stuff. You're going to remember that we're friends and that you can draw and paint. Do you promise?'

‘Yes.'

‘I can't hear you.'

‘Yes,' I say, a bit louder.

I look at him. He holds a hand up to his ear.

‘Yes, yes, yes.' My insides are smiling. ‘I promise.'

We talk and we talk, about everything and nothing: what it's like being parents, whether he still listens to the radio in the dark, whether I still have to draw everything I see. He leaves around midnight. He holds me on the step and we hug then he turns me around and pushes me indoors. ‘Meet you down on the harbour wall tomorrow?'

I nod.

‘Two o'clock? Bring the girls. It's time I met them. I'm practically their uncle.'

I watch him walk to the end of the street and then I come inside. My heart is floating behind my ribcage and my face is sore from so much smiling. Euan is the closest I've ever had to a brother. When we were growing up he was my constant companion. Sure, sometimes we fought, but mostly we had fun sharing our childhoods. And still, even now, he makes me feel good about myself, reminds me that I am the person I want to be. And as the only other person who knows about Rose, he is a counterpoint to my own fear. Having him back in the village will be a gift. All my Christmases and birthdays rolled into one.

I rise early in the morning, shower, wash my hair and dry it into something that resembles a shape. I find a top that highlights the green of my eyes. I layer it over a white long-sleeve T-shirt and a pair of casual trousers with deep pockets halfway down the leg. I rummage through my make-up tray and find eye shadow, an almost dried-up mascara and a lipstick. I empty the dishwasher, write
hairdresser appointment
on the whiteboard in the kitchen and lay out a bowl and a spoon on the table. I pour some muesli from the container and cover it with milk. I lift my spoon and hesitate, close my eyes, take a deep breath. I eat slowly and carefully, as if to make noise and draw attention to myself will trigger an alarm. I finish a whole bowl and want to cry with relief. Instead I stand in front of the mirror and smile at myself, refamiliarise myself with my face. I'm still too thin, too tired-looking, but behind that there is a light in my eyes that I haven't seen in a while. If I had to give it a name I would call it hope.

When my family arrives back home I'm drawing – simple, charcoal sketches of the girls, partly from memory, partly from the photographs that line the wall in Paul's study.

Paul comes into the kitchen alone; the girls have fallen asleep in the car, and I hold the drawings up for him to see. ‘What do you think?'

‘I love them.' He examines each one, lifts them up to the light, angling them in his hand. ‘Can I keep them?' He looks at me. ‘I'd like to have them framed.'

I lean against the top of his arm and smile. ‘They're not good enough for that, Paul.'

‘I beg to differ. And what's more I can tell the girls apart.' He points to each of the drawings and picks out one child from the other.

‘That's right. Their posture isn't the same.' I think about it. ‘Ella just has a different attitude.'

He hugs me suddenly and speaks into my hair. ‘I've been so afraid that we might have lost you,' he says, his voice thick with emotion.

I pull up my head so that I can look into his eyes. ‘Paul, I know I haven't been the best wife and mother lately.' He goes to answer me and I put my hand over his mouth. ‘No, really, I know I haven't. But I think I can change. I'm sure I can.'

He starts to kiss me and I lean into him, relax my body against his, breathe in his familiarity and close my eyes to everything except the feeling that I am loved and wanted much more than I know.