The Secrets Women Keep (18 page)

He slowed down, letting her slip her arm through his. ‘Agreed,’ he said. ‘Let’s do what we can to support Rose, poor thing. Today’s about her, not us.’

They walked the rest of the short way in silence, turning into the familiar Victorian cul-de-sac. At the end stood the Canonford: three London terraced town houses that had been reconfigured
into one oasis of luxury. This had been the most ambitious of Daniel’s hotel makeovers; the flagship of his business. He had taken ideas that had worked at Trevarrick, transposing those he
could to the town-house hotel, then adding to and adapting them. To begin with, the family had worried that the project was going to be nothing but a money pit. But with hard work bordering on
obsession, Daniel had proved them wrong. The hotel was fifteen years old now, and had achieved the reputation for excellence that he’d hoped for.

Eve leaned against one of the pillars at the bottom of the steps to exchange her shoes while Terry sprinted up between the two bay trees clipped like lollipops, their pots chained to the
railings, then waited with exaggerated patience by the open door.

‘Nice shoes,’ he muttered as they entered the reception area together.

‘Thanks,’ she whispered as he pecked her on the cheek. Turning on her expensive heel, she crossed to the concierge’s desk. The young concierge could have passed for an Armani model, with his regular features, bee-stung lips and fine bone structure. Daniel had always believed in the importance of creating good first
impressions. Choosing someone like this as the face of the operation was all part of that.

‘Do you know where I can find Rose, John?’ She adjusted her necklace.

‘Last seen in the lounge.’ That even-toothed smile was enough to make any woman go weak at the knees.

Eve allowed herself a smile back. To her left was the lounge, its rich green walls complemented by the yellows, reds and turquoises in the furnishings. The room was now crowded with guests. She
nodded at Terry and they entered together, arm in arm.

Rose felt too hot in her suit, but couldn’t take off the jacket because Dylan had smeared jam across the shoulder of her pale blue blouse just as she was about to leave
for the church. A business associate of Dan’s had cornered her to offer his sympathies. Behind him she could see Anna and Terry, standing by the bay window, talking earnestly. They made an
odd couple: Terry in a dark lounge suit, serious, nodding in response to whatever Anna was saying. Her bangles slid up and down her arms as she gesticulated to make a point, in her hand an unlit
cigarette. When Terry finally spoke, Anna concentrated on what he was saying, intently chewing the side of a nail as she listened. Then they both laughed, their heads leaning together as though
they were sharing something intimate.

She felt a tug at her skirt and looked down. Dylan, chocolate biscuit in hand! Adam was right behind him, looking uncomfortable in a suit, protecting his son as he toddled through a forest of
legs.

‘Excuse me.’ She interrupted her companion to pick up her grandson. With a final word, the man tactfully withdrew.

‘Ganna. Mwah.’ A chocolatey kiss on Rose’s cheek, then two small chocolatey hands on either side of her mouth that pursed her lips together.

She laughed, took one of them and began to suck it clean. ‘What have you been doing?’

Adam put his arm around Rose and for a second she leaned into his reassuring warmth. ‘You looked as if you needed rescuing.’ His face was just close enough for her to feel the faint
tickle of his beard. His wrists, scattered with reddy-gold hairs, spread into large workmanlike hands, patterned with thin scars. There was toothpaste on his breath.

‘Thanks. But I shouldn’t have been rude.’ She adjusted Dylan’s position on her hip.

‘You weren’t. Don’t worry. He’d had his moment.’ She liked that about Adam. He was always calm, always fair.

‘You’re so wise.’ As she kissed her grandson, Dylan blew a loud raspberry against her cheek, making her laugh before Adam disengaged his boy and took him off to find Jess.

‘They do look happy.’ Eve had found Rose at last. She had been scanning the crowd for her, wanting to make sure she wasn’t overwhelmed, knowing how being the
centre of attention didn’t come easy. She was watching Jess and Adam, whose joint attention was focused on Dylan.

‘Don’t they? If only Daniel . . .’ Rose stopped.

‘Don’t. Not now, anyway. We’ve got to keep it together. Who else is here?’ Eve adjusted the wrapover front of her dress, which had slipped to expose more cleavage than
was strictly suitable for the gathering. Rose didn’t notice.

‘So many people I don’t really know who knew Daniel through the business. I’m glad your boys and Millie could make it.’ Rose paused to shake hands and exchange a few
words with an elderly couple come to thank her for such a wonderful service. Eve looked about her, taking in everyone there. Old family friends and acquaintances, even a couple of people
they’d known from university. She stopped. Double-took. She thought she had spotted everyone she knew in the church, but clearly not. She would have recognised him anywhere, despite the
passing years. Rose returned to her side.

‘What is it?’ She followed Eve’s gaze.

‘You didn’t mention Will was coming.’ There was an infinitesimal shake in her voice.

Rose clasped her arm. ‘I’m sure I did. He wrote after the memorial announcement was in the paper.’

A prickling glow was rising from Eve’s chest into her face. ‘You definitely didn’t. I’d have remembered.’ She could feel the sweat beading at her hairline. She took
a tissue from her bag and blotted her forehead, but not so hard that she wiped off her make-up. She breathed deeply, willing herself to normal.

‘You don’t have to talk to him.’

‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to.’ Her heart was thumping now. Still slowing her breath, she studied her ex-husband. He hadn’t changed so much over the years –
apart from the hair. Not only greyer and thinner; it was cut so close to his scalp that from a distance he could be mistaken for bald. He still had that rangy, loose-limbed look that she remembered
so well, but on his nose was a pair of rectangular dark-rimmed glasses. Despite the changes wrought by age, he was unmistakably Will.

As another couple claimed Rose’s attention, Eve looked around for Terry. He was talking to Daniel’s lawyer, an earnest middle-aged man with a firm sense-of-humour bypass whom she had
been glad to avoid. Perhaps they should leave now, except she didn’t want to abandon Rose to deal with all this. She was being silly. Years had gone by, and the ground floor of the hotel was
quite big enough for both her and Will. She would simply avoid him.

She made her way across the reception to the bar, helping herself to a couple of roast beef and horseradish canapés en route. Line the stomach – always wise. As she requested a
second glass of wine, she felt a hand on her shoulder. She spun round, but her sixth sense told her who to expect.

‘Evie. I thought it was you.’ Same voice, same slight Scottish burr. Memories that she had long ago buried knocked at the inside of their coffin.

‘Will!’ She heard her voice shoot up at least two octaves higher than normal and cleared her throat.

As she said his name, the perfectly rare roast beef and horseradish slipped from the crostini that she had halfway to her mouth. Her other hand rose to catch it, but too late. As she stood nose
to nose with her ex-husband for the first time in years, the raw curls of red meat dropped straight down into the depths of her cleavage, one rogue piece draping itself neatly over the front of her
bosom, leaving a playful smear of horseradish on the black pattern of her dress.

‘Long time,’ he managed, then, clearly trying to compose himself, he took her wine from the barman and asked for one for himself. He stood holding both glasses while she fished out
the beef from between her breasts. Boiling under his scrutiny, she returned her catch to the crostini, then took a knife from the table and scraped at the horseradish. The result would have been
considerably more successful without the serrated edge. With one stroke she removed some of the sauce, simultaneously hooking out several threads of fabric so that the neck of the dress lifted up
as she moved the knife away.

‘Oh, shit!’ A drop of sweat ran down the side of her face.

Freeing the threads, she straightened the irretrievably frayed neckline. Then, with the little dignity she had left, she put the knife down and took her glass. As she raised it to her lips, she
caught the twinkle in his eye and couldn’t help herself. Instead of all the things that she’d thought she might say if she ever saw him again, that she had rehearsed so tirelessly in
those first months after he’d left, she started to laugh.

‘What’s Eve doing? Who’s that?’

Rose turned from Anna to see Eve delving into her dress, then throwing her head back and laughing.

‘That’s Will, her first husband.’ She was so sure she’d warned Eve he was coming, but perhaps she hadn’t in the flurry of organisation. In any event, this was the
last reaction she would have expected. Fireworks, perhaps. Greeting, chilly. Conciliation, unlikely.

‘You’re joking. He looks pretty OK for his age. Does Terry know?’ Anna glanced over at her uncle.

‘Anna, honestly! Looks aren’t everything. I don’t think Terry’s ever met him.’ Rose was experiencing a profound sense of unease as she watched the exchange. She
looked over at Terry, whose attention, despite being mid conversation, was also firmly fixed on what was happening on the other side of the room. She didn’t think of him as a jealous man, but
perhaps he had never had reason. But none of them missed the loud laughter and the way in which Eve and Will moved away from the bar together, his hand possessive at the small of her back, his
other arm extended to guide the way.

E
ve and Will had not seen each other from the day she’d found him driving out of her life for good. Any communication they’d had since
was via angry phone calls or solicitors. Eve had never had the chance to tell him how much he’d hurt her. Her desire for payback had diminished over time, until she rarely thought of him. Yet
to her secret shame, her subconscious had refused to let him go completely.

At night, he still very occasionally came to her in dreams. There, they made rough, passionate love: the sort of lovemaking that she and Terry had long forgotten. She had read numerous articles
about how couples should be honest with each other about what gave them greatest satisfaction, but the years had made them either too inhibited or too indifferent to bother. Perhaps neither of them
even knew any more. But in her dreams, she and Will had romped in silk-sheeted circular beds, on shag-pile carpets, in moss-floored beech woods or on white-sanded beaches. In the morning, she would
wake, confused, riddled with guilt about something over which she had no control, wondering what it all meant.

And now here he was. Anything she had once meant to say was driven from her mind. Time had dropped away to bypass their last encounter and take her right back to their first year at Edinburgh,
when they had met in the canteen. Back then, Will was a showman (some might, indeed some did, call him an attention-seeking idiot) wearing a kilt, a cape, his long glossy hair in a ponytail. She
was immediately attracted to his eccentricities and his principles. He didn’t give a damn about what anyone thought. He wore, he said, and he did what he wanted. Authority was there to be
flouted, rules to be broken.

‘Coming?’ he’d said, offering her his hand. It wasn’t his smile that persuaded her but his eyes, intense and inviting.

Her friends had stared at him, then at her, wondering how she would react. She’d looked at him again, then, driven by a sudden unexpected urge to shock, she had taken his hand and left
with him. That night they’d climbed Arthur’s Seat.

His voice broke into her thoughts as he suggested they go through to the buffet. Just as she had all those years ago, intrigued but aware of the danger . . . she followed him.

As they crossed reception, Eve heard Anna’s voice: ‘For Christ’s sake, Jess! This is completely unnecessary.’

‘You did it on purpose. That’s so typical.’ Jess was squaring up to her sister by one of the mahogany console tables. Adam was making a timely exit, Dylan on his hip, changing
bag over his shoulder.

‘Look, I know you feel bad about not being there when Dad died and you want to do your best by him now, but messing up your lines isn’t important.’ Anna flicked her hair back
over her shoulder. There might be some truth in what she was saying, but this was not the moment to say it. Jess looked stricken. Eve wished she could help her. They all knew how much she regretted
her last words with Daniel, and the fact that she would never be able to make up with him.

‘I didn’t mess up anything.’ Jess’s voice rose in fury. ‘You went right on and said what we agreed I’d say. The story about him using icing sugar in the gravy
was mine to tell.’

‘Oh, rubbish! We were both there when it happened. That story belongs to both of us. OK, I know we agreed you’d tell it, but you blanked, so I just carried on. I thought I was doing
the right thing.’

Jess was holding on to the marble-topped table as if it was the only thing keeping her upright. A tissue poked out of one hand. ‘Well you weren’t. You completely threw me. So you
said nearly everything. And I said nothing.’

‘Oh, grow up.’ Anna was dismissive. ‘Nobody noticed. And even if they did, it doesn’t matter. It’s not a competition to prove who loved him the most.’

The guests standing nearby were beginning to stare, quietly identifying the girls to each other. As word went round that they were Daniel’s two daughters, the attention on them grew. Both
of them were so engrossed in their argument that neither of them noticed.

‘Girls, girls!’ Eve detached herself from Will, leaving him looking amused on the sidelines. ‘What
are
you doing?’ She gripped them both hard by the arm.