The Secrets She Keeps, page 7
“You don’t have to, really.”
“How much?”
“A few hundred.”
“Is that enough?”
“If I had five hundred I could cover all my bills—the electricity and the gas.”
“I’m sure we can find it,” says Mr. Cole. “And don’t you worry about our Hayden. We’ll set him straight.”
* * *
Hayden calls me that night. I expect him to be angry with me for going behind his back, but he is sweet as can be. I act a little hurt and don’t accept his apology. The satellite image is clearer than last time. He keeps saying he’s sorry and he didn’t mean to hurt me. Slowly I soften my tone, but I wonder if he’s being nice to me under sufferance.
“I know you’re still getting used to the idea,” I say, “but you’re going to be a great dad.”
He flinches around his eyes. “Listen, Agatha—”
“Call me Aggy.”
“Right, Aggy.” He rocks forward. “I accept that I’m probably the father—”
“You are.”
“And I respect your decision to have the baby.”
“Thank you.”
“But I’m not going to marry you.”
“I didn’t ask you to marry me. I haven’t asked you for anything.”
“I know, I know. I talked to my folks. They made me realize that I’ve said all the wrong things. I mean, it came as a shock—the baby.”
“You’re telling me,” I reply, giggling nervously.
“I’ve had time to think and make some decisions.”
“I’m happy to raise this baby on my own, if that’s what you decide, but if you did want to play a part—I think you should have that right. I mean, how horrible would it be if you really wanted a baby and I didn’t tell you that you were a father?”
He nods in grim acceptance. The silence stretches out.
“Your mum and dad are nice,” I say.
“They don’t have any grandchildren.”
“I’m happy to let them help me. It’s not about the money, but I am going to struggle to pay the rent when the baby is born. Then there are expenses . . .”
“How much do you need?”
“If I tell the government, they’ll make you pay child support.”
“How much?”
“A hundred quid a week.”
His eyes squeeze shut. “Fine. So when are you due?”
“Early December, but it could be earlier.”
“I’m not home until Christmas.”
“That’s OK. My mother is going to be my birth partner.” I hold up an ultrasound picture. “Can you see it?” Hayden leans closer to the screen. “That’s his head and there are his little arms and legs. He’s all curled up.”
“Is it a boy?”
“Uh-huh. Hey! Do you want to see me?” I stand up and turn side-on to the webcam, holding my dress down and running my hands over my stomach. “Pretty big bump, huh? You should see my rock-star boobs.” I cup them and sit down again.
“Shame I’m not there to play with them,” says Hayden.
“Cheeky sod,” I say. My hands slide higher. “They are pretty big.”
“They were always pretty big.”
“Do you want to see them?”
He glances over his shoulder. “Someone might see.”
“A quick peek?”
I pull down the top of my dress and the cups of my bra. His eyes go wide.
“My nipples are extra sensitive. I can feel the fabric rubbing back and forth over them. Makes me horny.”
“You’d better cover up,” he says, his voice growing thicker.
I push my chair back from the screen and slide my dress a little higher, rocking my legs open and closed. Hayden looks ready to crawl through the screen.
“I’m not wearing knickers.”
His breath catches. He utters a groan. Poor boy. He’s been at sea for seven months. He adjusts something in his lap.
“Are you touching yourself?” I ask, grinning at him. “I wish I was there. I’d do it for you. I’ve been ever so lonely. If I were there, I’d run my fingers along your thighs, inching them closer and closer, bit by bit. Ooh, yes, would you like that?”
His breathing has grown ragged.
“Say it.”
“Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
“I’d like that.”
I slide my hands beneath my dress. “Ooh, I wish you were here right now. I’d let you fuck another baby into me.” I open my thighs wider. “I can feel you. I can feel you inside me. So big. So hard . . . oh, yes, yes, harder . . . I need you to touch me. Please, please, Hayden. Fill me up. Fuck me . . . yes . . . yes . . . Harder.”
I hear a different groan and the sound of a man dying a little death.
Hayden’s eyes are glazed and heavy-lidded. He looks at his lap, horrified.
“Let’s talk again soon, lover,” I say.
He doesn’t answer.
MEGHAN
* * *
I’m upstairs going through old baby clothes in the attic, wishing I had put labels on the boxes instead of just throwing everything inside.
I should put some of this stuff on eBay. I have the full DVD collections of Sex and the City and The West Wing, which may be worth something. Do people buy DVDs anymore? What about secondhand ski boots?
The doorbell sounds. Why do people always ring when I’m upstairs? Navigating the lumps of Play-Doh and odd bits of Lego on the stairs, I reach the front door. This had better not be a salesman.
I turn the latch. Simon Kidd smiles at me from behind a huge bunch of roses that have lost petals on the journey.
“Hello, Megs.”
I don’t answer, but my heart feels like a taiko drum.
“I bought you these,” he says, slurring his words.
“Are you drunk?”
“I had a long lunch.”
“Jack isn’t here.”
“I know. We need to talk.”
“No! We have nothing to say to each other.”
“It’s about the baby.”
My heart lurches. I try to close the door, but he steps forward and braces his palm against it.
“You rang me and asked me whether we used a condom that night.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“The condom broke.”
“What?”
“It broke. I didn’t tell you because . . . I didn’t think it was . . .” He is staring into my eyes as though hoping I might finish the statement.
I’m shocked, but won’t let him see it. “You’re right—it’s not important. Please go away.”
“I’ve been thinking about you.”
“What?”
“About that night.”
“Christ, Simon! It was sex. A one-night stand. Not even that. A mistake. An embarrassment.”
He looks miserable. “It was more than that for me.”
“What does that mean?”
Simon lowers his eyes, looking at the flowers, whispering, “What if the baby is mine?”
“It’s not.”
“You don’t know if it’s Jack’s.”
“Yes I do.”
“If you knew that, you wouldn’t have asked me if we used a condom.”
“It’s Jack’s baby, OK? I don’t want to mention this ever again. We agreed.”
“I need to know if it’s mine.”
“What?”
“I need to know.” Simon gives me his lost-puppy look.
I make a strange unworldly gurgle in my throat. “Why would you risk my marriage, your friendship with Jack . . . ?”
“I want . . . I want you . . .” He doesn’t finish. “I want to be a father.”
“Fine. Ask Gina to marry you. Get her knocked up. Leave me out of this.”
“You don’t understand.”
My voice is getting louder. “No! You don’t understand! This is my home. This is my family. I am having Jack’s baby. You have no right to come here and ask me these questions.”
I’m crying now—tears of frustration and anger. I want to hit Simon. I want to hurt him. But mostly I want to make him go away. He steps back and I slam the door, turning the key in the deadlock and bracing my back against the heavy wood. Sliding to the floor, I sit on the inner doormat, my shoulders shaking, frightened of what I’ve done. We don’t have extramarital affairs in my family. We don’t have one-night stands or wild flings. Braced against the cold door, my knees bunched up, I stare at the polished floorboards of the hallway.
What if Jack finds out? What if the baby is Simon’s?
I’ve been stupid, but I don’t deserve this grief. I’ve been a good wife. I love Jack. I shouldn’t be punished for one mistake.
AGATHA
* * *
I haven’t seen Meg in almost a week. She didn’t meet up with her mothers’ group this morning and hasn’t come into the supermarket. Her last blog post went up ten days ago and none of the comments have been liked or acknowledged.
I wanted to wait outside Lachlan’s preschool this afternoon, but Mr. Patel kept me back because we had a delivery. I had to take an inventory of every box because he’s convinced our suppliers are shorting us.
Finally, he lets me go. Unclipping my name tag, I take off my smock and stash it and the tag in the usual place before hurrying across Barnes Green, past the pond and the church, turning left and right through the streets until I reach Cleveland Gardens.
Meg’s car is parked outside the house. The front curtains are open, but I can’t see anyone inside. I cut through to Beverley Path and walk as far as the railway underpass before climbing the fence and following the train tracks. When I reach the right house, I crawl through the undergrowth and climb onto my favorite fallen tree. There are toys outside the playhouse, but the French doors are shut up and there’s no sign of anyone downstairs.
I contemplate calling the home phone. What would I say? I could hang up if Meg answered. At least I’d know she was there. I take out my mobile and look for the number. My thumb hovers over the green button. I glance again at the house and notice a shadow moving behind a curtain upstairs. I wait, watching, hoping she might reappear.
There she is! I feel a surge of relief. She’s healthy. Pregnant. Perfect. She’s in the kitchen, opening the fridge door, taking out ingredients. I relax and lean back against the trunk of the tree, happy again, able to breathe comfortably and dream.
My biggest flaw is my attraction to people. I find somebody new and attach myself, desperate for a friend. That’s why I’ve been so careful around Meg, watching from a distance rather than getting too close. I know her timetable, her friends, her habits, and the rhythm of her life. I know where she shops for groceries. I know her favorite coffee shops, her family GP, her hairdresser, her younger sister, and where her parents live—all the connections and intersections, the geography and topography of her life.
I think I’d make a good spy because I’m gloriously bland, as adaptable as water, able to flow into spaces and settle into cracks, becoming so smooth and still that I reflect my surroundings. I learned how to do that as a child, when I was rarely seen and less often heard. I tell people I grew up in foster care, but that’s only partially true. When it comes to my past, people get some of the truth some of the time.
My real father disappeared on the day I was born. He dropped my mother at the hospital, went home, packed his things, and cleaned out her bank account. Who says chivalry is dead?
It was just the two of us, Mum and me, until I was four. That’s when she started going to Bible studies and became a Jehovah’s Witness. I had to become one too. No more holidays, no more birthdays, no more Christmases or Easters. I didn’t mind. It didn’t matter which religion I chose to reject later, but my mother embraced it wholeheartedly because it offered her a community.
We went to weekly services at Kingdom Hall, which were called “meetings,” and sang Kingdom songs, praising Jehovah. I had scripture classes that taught me about “The Truth” and how the rest of society was morally corrupt and under the influence of Satan.
Within a year my mother married one of the elders from the church. She became a trophy wife, sailing through life in her Hermès scarf, faultlessly charming, always reaching for the next rung on the social ladder. I have no doubt that she loved my stepfather, who did tax returns from a small office above a furniture store in Leeds. She was ambitious for him, prodding and cajoling and networking until his business grew and we moved into a bigger house.
Elijah was born when I was six. I loved him and he loved me. I became his second mother, pushing him around in his pram and spoon-feeding him in his high chair. Later I would dress him up and we “married” under the willow tree in the back garden.
At age three he became sick and spent two months in hospital. My mother and stepfather took turns sleeping by his bed and barely saw each other as they passed in the night and the day. Elijah got better. Life carried on. But my parents watched him more closely after that, letting their anxiety show in dozens of small ways.
I grew older. Elijah kept pace. He was like a shadow, following me around, asking me endless questions that I couldn’t possibly answer. “What if whales could walk?” “Are there dinosaurs in heaven?” “Where does the light go when you turn it off?”
Usually I made stuff up and his little face would beam with pleasure when he learned something new, even complete bollocks. Occasionally, he made me angry and I yelled. Elijah’s mouth would turn down in a perfect frown and tears would pool in his eyes. I hated myself for that.
He turned five and started school. I had to walk with him every day, holding his hand at intersections as he bounced up and down in his new shoes, wanting to run ahead. My friends thought he was cute. I thought he was embarrassing.
On show-and-tell day, Elijah brought a castle that he’d made from shoeboxes and toilet paper rolls. He needed both hands to carry it and could barely see over the tops of the turrets.
“Hurry up. Hurry up,” he said, excited to get to school.
He waited at each intersection, knowing I was supposed to hold his hand. Once we’d crossed, he ran ahead, the turrets swaying above his head. Nobody saw exactly what happened next. I heard the high-pitched squeal of tires against tarmac and turned my head as Elijah bent against the hood of the car and sprang back again. He turned in midair and for a moment seemed to be looking directly at me. The cardboard castle disintegrated against the windscreen. Elijah landed on the road and his head snapped in a different direction. He came to rest on his back with one leg twisted beneath him at a strange angle. I could see a bone poking out through a ripped hole in his trousers.
Like an explosion in reverse, people were sucked inwards, appearing from nearby buildings and cars. I cradled Elijah’s head in the crook of my arm. He lay, looking up at me, a scattering of freckles across his nose and cheeks and a cold fog clouding his eyes.
“What happened to his shoe?” I asked someone. “He can’t lose a shoe. They’re brand new. My mum will be angry.”
The driver, Mrs. McNeil, had a daughter in my class. We found out later it was Mrs. McNeil’s birthday. She hit Elijah at thirty-five miles per hour—fifteen over the speed limit in a school zone—but was never charged.
The paramedics came but they didn’t take Elijah away. They put curtains around him and left him lying in the street for hours, taking photographs and interviewing witnesses. People assured me it wasn’t my fault and that Elijah had run out onto the road.
My parents arrived. My stepfather took off his glasses so he could sob into his cupped hands. Meanwhile, my mother kept asking, “Where were you, Aggy? Why weren’t you holding his hand?”
“He was carrying his castle,” I said, but that was no excuse.
Later, whenever a therapist asked me what I most wanted from our sessions, I told them, “To be normal.”
“What makes you think you’re not normal?”
“I killed my brother.”
“That was an accident.”
“I should have held his hand.”
From the day Elijah died it was clear to me that God or fate had made the wrong choice. If my mother and stepfather were going to lose a child, why couldn’t it have been me? That might sound melodramatic or self-loathing, but the truth cuts deeper than the lie. Elijah’s death stole all the oxygen in our family and nothing I did would ever allow my parents to breathe easily again. I could have aced my exams, helped old ladies across the street, rescued cats from trees, and cured cancer, but none of it would have mattered. Dead or alive, my half brother could do no wrong, while I could do no right.
I could understand my stepfather loving me less than Elijah, but not my mother. Why did she mourn Elijah and ignore me? I wanted to scream at her. I wanted to bite and scratch and pinch to generate some emotion or recognition that I counted too.
Although I didn’t realize it yet, Jehovah had turned his back on me long before I turned my back on Him.
MEGHAN
* * *
I wake with a start, my heart pounding and panic filling my throat with cotton wool. I dreamed my baby came out looking exactly like Simon, with smoky gray eyes, sharp cheekbones, and dark hair parted on the left. He was wearing a rumpled linen jacket and brogues—baby-sized—and had a designer stubble shading his jawline.
What sort of wife sleeps with her husband’s best friend? I’m not some sixteen-year-old groupie at a rock concert, throwing myself at the drummer because the lead singer is already taken. I’m not a sex-starved housewife who flirts with tradesmen or answers the door naked under her housecoat. I don’t even own a housecoat.
Jack rolls over and puts his hand across my chest. His fingers cup my right breast. My heart slows. I breathe. Close my eyes. Drift off. His hand drifts lower, over the rising slope of my belly and down the other side between my thighs. He snuggles closer. I feel his erection. That’s more like it.
I raise my hips and he pulls off my knickers. His boxer shorts go twirling through the air.
“What is Daddy doing?” asks Lucy, who is standing with one hand on the doorknob and the other holding a bunny.
