Tell Me No Secrets (31 page)

‘Give them to me and go upstairs.' This time his tone is stern and both girls respond at once. He holds the gifts towards Orla. ‘Take these and leave now.'

Orla doesn't move. ‘What do you say to that, Grace?'

Tension is cramping my stomach and I can do no more than stare at her. Paul, impatient now, takes her by the shoulders and marches her towards the front door. I wait for her to shout out the truth but she doesn't. She lets him lead her out on to the front step and close the door behind her.

It's quiet. I'm breathing. It's not the end of the world. My legs are wobbly and I collapse down on to an easy chair.

Paul pulls another one up opposite me, sits down, our knees touching. He takes both my hands in his. ‘So are you going to tell me what's going on?'

‘Orla is a bad person,' I say slowly. ‘When we were young she was involved in all sorts of stuff—'

‘Last week,' he interrupts me. ‘When we were talking. Before Sophie came to see Dad. You were upset. Was it because of Orla?' His fingers find the curve of my wedding ring and he moves it gently then strokes the palms of my hands. ‘Is she the one who knows something about you?' I freeze. He feels the tension in my hands and he rubs them harder. ‘You don't have to tell me,' he says. ‘But it might be easier if you did.'

I can't look at him. The room is completely silent. All I can hear is the sound of my own blood pounding through my ears. I remember one of the phrases from the newspaper clipping: ‘Recently . . . well . . . she's been in prison. She was an accomplice in her husband's murder.'

He tilts back in his seat, his forehead creased with concern. ‘Honestly?'

I nod. ‘It was in the newspapers. Wherever she goes she makes trouble. It's what she does. And—' I stop. I don't want to tell Paul about the bedroom. I can't let him know about that. I stand up. ‘I'll go and clean the glass out of my car and take it along to the garage to be mended.'

‘Sweetheart, I'll do that for you.' He urges me to sit back down again. He takes the brush and dustpan from the kitchen cupboard and goes outside.

I relax into the chair and close my eyes, think about what just happened and more particularly what didn't happen. She's smart, Orla. Everything she's doing, she's doing for a reason. Just now, she had the chance to tell Paul all about Rose, but she didn't take it. She is biding her time. Clearly she has something else in mind for me and whatever that is, I have to make sure she is stopped before she can carry it out.

‘Shugs McGovern is a weirdo,' I say.

We're lying in the sand dunes, sheltering from the winds, tearing up strands of marram grass and then tossing the pieces over our shoulders.

‘He's worse than a weirdo, he's a psychopath,' Orla replies. ‘Being cruel to animals – it's one of the first signs. I read about it. Most psychopaths start by torturing and killing animals.'

‘Faye's going to tell her dad so he'll do something.'

‘We should do something.'

‘What?' I think of the poor cat, his tail set alight and I shiver then jump up and wipe the sand off my shorts. ‘If we're quick we'll have time for an ice cream before the café closes.'

‘Fuck's sake, Grace! This is important! Sometimes you have to have principles, stand up for what's right.'

Since Orla turned fourteen she's taken to swearing a lot. I look around, scared someone is going to hear us. Callum and Euan are running across the sand kicking a football between them. When they're close enough I hold up my hands either side of my mouth and shout to Euan, ‘Do you know if Faye's told her dad about Shugs McGovern and the cat?'

‘Not yet.' He comes over and throws himself down next to Orla then puts his arms behind his head. ‘Her dad's still out on the rigs. He won't be home till the weekend.'

‘It'll all be forgotten by then.' Orla is sitting up now and putting on her shoes. ‘We have to do something now!'

‘I'm up for that,' Callum says, bouncing the ball up and down on one foot. ‘I've wanted to give him a doin' since Primary Three when he dobbed me in for breaking the window.'

‘We're not resorting to beating him up, Callum,' Orla tells him. ‘Nothing as crude as that. If he's to learn his lesson then we have to hurt him long-term.'

‘Two wrongs don't make a right,' Euan says. ‘We should just report him to the police. Let them deal with it.'

‘Like that's going to work!' Orla is scathing. ‘He'll tell the police it wasn't him and they'll believe him and that will be that. He'll know he's got away with it. Where's the justice in that?'

‘Yes, but . . . if he's going to be a psychopath then we can't really stop that, can we? I mean, if he's like that then . . .' I shrug.

Orla's already walking away, her heels pushing prints into the sand. ‘Are you coming or not?' she calls back.

I look across at Euan. He's back to playing footie with Callum. ‘I wouldn't get involved, if I were you,' he says, heading the ball out towards the sea. ‘We're going to di Rollo's for an ice cream. Come along if you like?'

I'm in two minds. I watch Orla's retreating back. She's my friend. I want to run after her, take her arm and chum her wherever she's heading, but I don't because I know that when she has an idea in her mind there's no changing it. I don't know what she has planned for Shugs but I think Euan's right – I'm better staying out of it.

At school next day, Orla seems to have forgotten all about Shugs. Our first lesson is English. While Mrs Jessop is writing on the board, I turn round and try to catch Orla's eye but she's busy copying down the questions. When class is over, we climb the two flights of stairs to the science labs together. She puts her arm through mine and asks me whether I want to go to St Andrews with her at the weekend. Her dad will drop us off and we can go swimming then have a fish supper in the chippie on the high street.

When we get to biology, both teachers are standing at the blackboard with their hands in front of them. Miss Carter looks like she's been crying.

‘Everyone sit down, quickly and quietly,' Mr Mason orders. He is visibly shaking. We slide on to our stools and wait. Even the worst behaved boys in the class don't dare make a sound.

‘This morning when I came in to work I found Peter dead.'

A couple of girls gasp and then there's complete silence. Peter is the class rabbit. We have three guinea pigs, a snake and half a dozen gerbils. Mr Mason likes to bring biology to life.

‘Only
this
class has access to the room before school begins. Only
this
class feeds the animals. Only
this
class knows the combin ation to the animals' cages.'

Orla is next to me. I sneak a look at her. She is twirling her hair around one finger, her mouth slightly open.

‘Who fed the animals this morning?'

Breda Wallace stands up. ‘It was me, sir.'

‘Was Peter alive?'

‘Yes, sir.' Her voice trembles. ‘When I left he was eating a carrot.'

‘Sit down, Breda.' He paces backward and forward, his fists clenching and unclenching. ‘Does anyone have anything they want to tell me?'

Seconds tick by. No reply.

‘Turn out your bags.'

The tension is palpable. We look at Mr Mason, then at each other and then we do it. Books, pencil cases, lunch boxes and gym kit spill across the science benches. We shake every stray penny and empty crisp packet out of the bottom of our bags. A commotion breaks out on the back row and we all turn around.

‘I didn't do it, sir. Honest!' There's a knife in front of Shugs. ‘That's not my knife!'

Mr Mason uses a tissue to pick it up. ‘You're saying this isn't yours, McGovern? And yet it was in your bag?'

‘I don't have a knife like that!' He looks at the boys either side of him for verification. ‘Somebody must have put it in my bag.' Nobody comes to his defence. Even worse follows.

‘You set fire to that cat's tail, though,' the boy to his right says.

‘It was Faye's cat,' someone else pipes up.

I glance over at Orla. She has a hand up to her face and seems to be as shocked as the rest of us.

Mr Mason takes Shugs by the arm and brings him to the front. ‘We'll see what the police have to say about this. The rest of you turn to page twenty-six and copy out the diagram of the Krebs Cycle.' He casts an eye over each of us. ‘And don't give Miss Carter any trouble.'

He leaves with Shugs, who is all the way protesting his innocence, and the rest of us repack our bags and open our books. There's a heavy silence in the room and then Faye says, ‘Miss Carter, what exactly happened to Peter?'

‘His throat was cut.' She swallows. ‘There's blood all over his white fur. Not a pretty sight.'

There are quiet murmurs of ‘That's terrible' and ‘Poor Peter' and then we get on with the lesson.

As soon as it's over and we're on the way out of the door I grab Orla's shoulder and swing her around to face me. ‘You didn't kill Peter, did you?'

‘Me?' Her eyes are the colour of volcanic glass, obsidian, like black marbles. ‘Of course not! For heaven's sake, Grace! Save your imagination for English lessons.' She jumps down two stairs at a time and then looks back up at me. ‘It was good he got caught though, wasn't it?'

14

Once more I sleep fitfully. My dreams are full of Orla and Rose, photographs, water, lightning and the sickening feeling of regret. By the time I get up in the morning I feel no more rested than when I went to bed. And to make matters worse, although he doesn't know the half of it and, of course, I can't tell him, Paul is genuinely worried about the threat Orla poses to our family. When he comes back with a hired car for me to use while my broken window is being fixed, he tells me that he will cancel the fishing trip to Skye. I try to persuade him that we will all be fine but he is not prepared to leave us. So I promise him that we will join him and Ed at the cottage. I will drive up late afternoon when the girls have had their sailing lessons.

I'm still mulling everything over:
Why didn't Orla seize the opportunity to tell Paul yesterday? Is she planning an elaborate showdown that will publicly disgrace and humiliate me?
And I've yet to translate the newspaper clippings. Euan's French is much better than mine and I decide to meet him later and ask him to help me.

As I chivvy the girls to have breakfast, the post arrives; Paul has been accepted for his sabbatical. We leave for Australia in less than two months. I couldn't be happier if we'd won the lottery. Melbourne. Paul breaks open a bottle of champagne and we combine it with orange juice then toast our good fortune. My own silent wish is that we will all grow to love it so much that we won't come back.

The girls go off for a day's sailing with the youth club, Paul and Ed are packed and ready to set off to Skye and I'm desperate for some time alone to think. The three of us are having a late breakfast.

‘I'm sorry, Grace,' Ed says. ‘My knife is not quite equal to this bacon.'

‘I have overcooked it, haven't I?' I put my own knife and fork together and take both our plates away. ‘More coffee?'

‘It's not that bad, love.' Paul drinks some water. ‘Just takes a bit of chewing.'

He's being generous. I can't concentrate. Ed's face is serious. He frowns across at Paul. ‘Where's your mother?'

‘She's not here right now, Dad. Busy, I expect.'

Ed looks up at me. ‘You're not my daughter. You're not Alison.'

‘I'm Grace.' He's wearing a crew neck sweater and I pick some fluff off his collar and smooth it down. ‘I'm married to Paul, your son.'

He laughs. ‘Not a bit of it. Aren't you married to that young man I saw you kissing along Marketgate? It was the other day when I was on my way to bowls. You were standing by his gate.'

Instantly it hits me that this memory is true and the air around me thickens. I try to take a breath. I can't. It was on Monday, after we'd made love. I looked up and down the street but saw no one. Then we kissed. Ed must have been passing by. That's why he hasn't been speaking to me.
If you don't know, then I can't tell you.
He didn't say anything then but now the memory has spilled out.

I don't look at Paul. I don't need to. I can sense that he has straightened his back and is now perfectly still and waiting. I shake my head. ‘Couldn't have been me, Ed,' I say. ‘I'm married to Paul.' I reach sideways to take Paul's hand but he moves his away a split second before they meet.

‘It was you all right!' Ed chuckles. ‘And if you're not married to that young architect then you should be!' He helps himself to more coffee. ‘Passionate embrace if ever I saw one.' He looks down the table at Paul. ‘Took me back to the days when your mum and I were courting. She was the bonniest lassie for miles around. Sweet and bright as . . .' He frowns. ‘Where is she anyway? Surely not shopping again?'

Paul is still waiting. I feel his eyes on my face. I need time to dissemble but I don't have it and my face flushes up red and guilty as the sin I have committed.

Ed looks up. ‘Have I got it wrong? I'm so sorry.' At last he seems to see us both and he looks from one of us to the other. ‘What have I been saying?'

‘Nothing, Dad.' Paul stands up. His face has turned a greyish colour and his mouth is trembling. ‘Why don't you start packing the car? The tackle's in the front porch.'