Keeping Secrets (31 page)

‘Of course I'm coming back tonight.' His voice held an edge of irritation.

‘I thought you might be going to London.'

‘I've just been to London.'

‘I know.'

‘Dad!'

‘Coming!' Stephen looked at Miriam. ‘I'm not going to London again for another two weeks,' he said. ‘All right?'

‘Fine. I just wondered.' She put down her teacup. ‘I must get going, too. See you for supper then.'

‘Right.' And he was gone, running down the stairs, calling to Jonathan: ‘Got everything? Okay, let's go.'

‘Bye, Mum!'

‘Bye, darling!'

The front door banged, and they ran down the path through the rain.

Miriam got up, dressed and took two Paracetamol. Downstairs, she let out Tess and let her in again, and washed up the breakfast things. She had no breakfast herself. Then she, too, ran through the rain to the garage, and backed into the lane, driving off to Woodburgh with the windscreen wipers racing.

The shop was busy. With the quiet period of the summer holidays over, everyone wanted the house to look nice for Christmas, and Miriam measured and advised and snipped off fabric samples, in quiet moments telephoning orders to her suppliers. Last week she had done the window for the season: heavy swatches of crimson and wintergreen velvet hung with prints from Liberty and Osborn & Little. Just off-centre, the polished frame of a little chair, found in an auction and reupholstered, gleamed softly beneath concealed lighting; in a corner a Victorian doll – pale china cheeks, chocolate velvet bonnet and cape, buttoned boots – leaned, smiling, against a pile of presents.

The doll was perhaps a bit much, but it was also just what would draw people, and she had enjoyed doing it, the shop closed for the night, a play on the radio, a glass in her hand – though with something to occupy the evening, to absorb her attention, she had, then, drunk less than she might have done at home. In any case, she needed to be careful because of the drive back: her last drink in the shop was usually at lunchtime, allowing a good few hours before she shut up. When Stephen and Jonathan were at home, those lunchtime drinks were the last of the day; when they were not, her drinking sometimes began as soon as she was inside the house, standing with her coat on pouring out the first, finishing the last in front of the television. She replaced the bottle in the cellar, and climb the stairs very slowly; she rinsed her mouth with mouthwash for a long time in front of the bathroom mirror, watching the woman she saw there with a blurrily detached mixture of compassion and dislike.

Yesterday evening, alone, had been spent drinking. This evening she locked the shop door at five past five and walked quickly down the side street to the car park, wanting to be home before Jon was dropped off, not liking him to come back to an unlit house. The air was cold and fresh, the sky emptied of rain, and a light wind-rising; she drove through the town, past bright shop windows, and out to the Woodburgh Road. Clusters of council houses and neat rows of Victorian brick cottages began to thin; after a couple of miles there were only the fields, flat and dark, stretching away behind the hedgerows, the occasional lights of a country house in the distance.

It was from houses such as these that Stephen had commissions; Miriam, too, on a smaller scale, advising people like the Sadlers, with whom Stephen had dined last night, on design and decoration, making the perfect home. She supposed that another couple with such complementary skills might have gone into a business partnership working together, sharing a studio, talking over projects late into the night, arguing, gossiping, laughing.

She supposed, too, that the local people who, in their very separate domains, she and Stephen advised, must see them simply as a couple like themselves: busy, successful, living in yet another lovely country house. And happy? Moderately, as happy as anyone else. They cannot believe that, she thought, turning off to the Saxham road which led home; surely our emptiness, our lack of intimacy, must be visible to anyone. But perhaps not – after all, we have taken such pains, such separate pains, to conceal it. People, particularly clients, did not want to see unhappiness writ large; why should they? Not even Flora, who all those years ago had helped, in her kindly way, to get Miriam on to a new track, could guess what she was really like. And what
was
she really like? After years of secrecy Miriam no longer knew herself.

This road was narrower, the bare trees closer together, their branches almost touching – in summer, she drove through an arch of leafy green. Now, they swayed and creaked in the rising wind, wet leaves blew across in front of her, and one or two clung to the windscreen. Miriam knew each yard ahead, she had made this journey five days a week for ten years; still, she slowed, and turned on the wipers, brushing the leaves away. Years of drinking, far from making her reckless, had made her extra-careful – not for herself, or for Stephen, but for Jonathan, who needed her. Reckless, she might have confronted her husband with a discovered photograph, with accusations; she might have left, after a quarrel, driving off pell-mell into the night, speeding, dangerous. But there had been too many confrontations, too many pleas in the past. They had made their unspoken agreement, and she had stayed, carefully guarding secrets – her own, and the knowledge of Stephen's.

She was through the village and had reached the turn-off to the lane, an entrance which only someone familiar with the road would notice, even in daylight, and braked, indicating right for the car which had appeared behind her, its headlights blazing into the mirror. When she turned the car behind drove straight past, roaring impatiently away – did she really drive so slowly now?

At other times of the year, she was often made to slow still further in the lane by the tractor from the neighbouring farm, bumping home with a trailer of turnips, manure or hay bales; now, with the autumn ploughing completed, the brown fields furrowed and bare, the tractor was rarely out after dark. Mr Innes left the farm early, taking feed to the sheep and cattle grazing a mile away, and came home early, driving into the shed and tramping across the yard for his tea. Miriam missed the tractor, and the slow lifting of the farmer's hand as he acknowledged her, waiting behind him. When Jon was little he had spent happy days in the farmyard, following Mr Innes about, carrying buckets. Now, he never went over.

The house was dark, so he wasn't back yet. But the outside light on the garage was on, so Stephen must be. Yes, she could see lights from the garden studio shining through the gap in the hedge. It was very cold now; Miriam hurried indoors, flicking switches, taking off her coat, brushing her hair in the hall mirror.

‘Hello, Tess.' She put down her brush and patted the thick yellow coat. Tess was hungry, she always was at this time – unless Stephen, home first, had fed her. No. The bowl in the kitchen was as clean as it had been this morning, the tin in the cupboard unopened. ‘Here you are, girl.' She set down the full bowl, shaking in biscuits on top, and moved the kettle on to the hotplate. What were they going to eat? Miriam did not feel like eating, she rarely did, but it was unthinkable not to cook for her family. She prepared good hot meals and sat with her husband and son at the table, picking at the edges of her plate. It irritated Stephen, she could tell that it did, but he rarely commented: they often ate, the three of them, in what she hoped seemed to Jonathan like an ordinary family silence.

She sat down, waiting for the kettle to boil, and drew towards her the post Stephen had flung on to the table. Whatever had come for him he would have taken out to the studio; Miriam, in her weekly trips out there, had found no other letter for him in that neat black hand from Highgate. Today there were two for Jonathan, one an airmail, the cheap thin envelope addressed in a wavering ballpoint that looked vaguely familiar. The postmark was Amsterdam: Miriam recalled the postcard in the summer, the lurid punk photograph. What was the girl's name? The other letter was in a large brown envelope, from UCCA, university application forms. What was he going to read, where? She supposed they might discuss that over supper, although the subject of Jonathan leaving was something she did not want to think about. And the girl from Amsterdam – presumably they would not be discussing her. Miriam turned over the envelope, looking for a name on the back. M. van Eycken, Vondel Straat. She put it down, face up, on top of the letter from UCCA; in the hall, the phone began to ring.

Miriam jumped. She waited to see if Stephen, out in the studio, would pick up his extension, but he did not and she hurried into the hall.

‘Hello?' It was chilly out here, the central heating wouldn't come on till half-past four. Miriam, listening to clicks on the line, and silence, found she was shivering as she had done last night. ‘Hello?'

‘Hello?' A thin, distant little voice.

‘Yes?' said Miriam. ‘This is Saxham 738.'

‘I am sorry?'

She repeated the number, slowly. Whoever was at the other end sounded young, uncertain, not English. She realized, suddenly, who it was.

‘You want to speak to Jonathan?'

‘To Jonathan – yes.' The little voice was audibly relieved. ‘I am calling from Holland.'

‘I'm afraid he's out.' Miriam heard herself speaking loudly, slowly, almost as if she, too, were speaking a foreign language. ‘He will be back soon. Can I take a message?'

‘Only – I telephoned, this is Marietta, but there was no answer. I want to know, has he received my letter?'

‘I –' Miriam wavered between wanting to reassure her and not wanting to sound as if Jonathan's mother read his mail. ‘I think so, yes. Funnily enough, I think it has just arrived.'

‘I am coming to England,' the little voice announced. ‘I ask him to find me a job.'

‘Oh.' She felt herself flounder. ‘Well, I …'

A rapid series of pips sounded on the line. ‘I'll tell him;' she said quickly; there was an abrupt click at the other end, then silence. Miriam put down the receiver and went slowly back to the kitchen, where the lid of the kettle was rattling frantically, wreathed in steam. She took it off absent-mindedly, pouring boiling water into a tea-less pot. The front door banged and she turned, smiling, the empty kettle still in her hand, calling out: ‘Darling? News.'

‘What's happened to meat in this house?' Stephen finished buttering a baked potato and surveyed his plate of spinach flan and salad.

‘Meat?' Miriam drew the salad bowl towards her.

‘Yes, meat. Anyone remember it? Sunday lunch, joint and two veg something
hot?
Remember that?'

‘This is hot,' said Jonathan, through a mouthful of flan.

‘You know what I mean.' Stephen looked at Miriam.

‘Sorry,' she said, automatically. ‘I didn't realise you were missing it. I suppose Jon and I've got used to being vegetarians on our own.'

‘What do you mean, on your own?'

‘I mean when you're in London.'

‘London, London. Anyone would think I lived there, and visited here on rare occasions.' He sliced through the flan with his fork.

‘That's what it feels like, sometimes,' she said lightly.

‘You two,' said Jonathan. ‘Have you got any ideas about a job for my Dutch lady?'

Stephen put down his fork. ‘What Dutch lady?'

‘She's called Marietta,' said Miriam. ‘He met her in Amsterdam, at Easter.'

‘Can't he tell me himself?' Stephen looked at Jonathan, who said gently: ‘Dad. Cool it. What's biting you this evening?'

For a moment there was a silence; then Stephen said: ‘Okay, sorry. Too much on my plate, I suppose.'

‘But not meat,' said Jonathan, and added amidst the groans: ‘You shouldn't be eating it anyway, it's disgusting – full of hormones, robbing the land, robbing the Third World …'

‘All right, that's enough. Who is Marietta? Is she beautiful?'

‘Sexist.'

‘Surely I'm allowed to know what she looks like.'

‘You wouldn't ask if it was a male, would you? If I said someone called Pieter was coming over looking for a job you'd have just asked what kind of a job he wanted. Wouldn't you?'

Stephen sighed. ‘I feel old. All right. What kind of job does she want?'

‘Anything. She's coming as soon as I've got something for her.'

‘If she's that liberated why can't she find her own job?'

‘Could you find a job just like that in another country?'

Stephen looked at Miriam, half laughing, half exasperated. ‘Does he go on like this all the time?'

‘Only sometimes.'

We have something to talk about, she thought, something new. And Stephen's going to be here for two weeks, he said so this morning. We feel like a family. Aloud she said: ‘How long is she coming for?'

Jonathan shrugged. ‘She doesn't know, it all depends. I think she's failed some exams and wants a break.'

‘I tell you what she could do,' said Stephen, ‘come to think of it. She could be an au pair for the Sadlers; the French one's given in her notice. Rather dramatically, I understand.' He opened his hands, made a
moue.
‘“But it ees too hard work here, and all zees children are so spoiled! In France it is not like zees.”'

They all laughed.

‘But it ees too hard work also for Marietta?' Jonathan asked. ‘I can't remember the Sadlers'domestic arrangements.'

‘I can,' said Miriam, relaxed now. ‘There are three children, all very energetic and interested in themselves. Like their parents.'

‘There's nothing wrong with the parents,' said Stephen, and all at once the laughter and warmth had gone from his voice. ‘Why are you so critical?'

Miriam flushed. ‘Sorry. I didn't mean to be.'

‘If you'd come last night you might actually have enjoyed yourself. The food, by the way, was excellent.'