Every Little Secret Page 20

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Maddy: December 2019

  From the adjacent road, Maddy watches Alison load a cool bag in the back of the car. It is 8.20 a.m. She goes back in the house and comes out with an open map which she places on the passenger seat. Maddy thinks of Emily getting ready to go to the Science Museum for the day. Sophie and Emily have been pestering for ages. It’s Sarah’s turn to take them out. Tomorrow she’ll take them to the cinema and for pizza. It’s going to be so strange without Chloe and Max. She’ll try to be upbeat for Emily’s sake, but it’s such a struggle when her body feels so weighed down with grief.

  Alison straps Jamie in the back seat with a bottle of juice and an overstuffed bag of what she guesses are colouring books and toys. Legoland is at least two hours away. They’ll be gone all day for sure because Legoland at Christmas is a special day-long event. Plenty of time. According to Alison’s kitchen calendar, Sandra is in the Costa del Sol until Sunday evening.

  As soon as they drive off, Maddy sets a timer on her watch for ten minutes. If people forget something, they usually return within the first few minutes after they’ve left. While she’s waiting, she feels a kick. Smiling to herself, she lifts her jumper and presses her hands to her skin. Not long now, little one.

  The car doesn’t return, so Maddy puts on a baseball cap she’s taken to wearing and adjusts it low on her forehead. She snaps on a pair of black latex gloves and picks up her carry tray full of bottles of cleaner and all sorts of tools. The neighbour across the driveway opens her front door as Maddy is about to let herself in to Alison’s house.

  ‘Hello there,’ the woman shouts, ‘you’re the cleaner, are you?’

  Maddy freezes. The sold sign is lying on the ground in front of their garage door.

  ‘I’m Natty. We moved in yesterday. I wonder if you could give me a quote for a weekly clean?’

  Maddy nods.

  ‘Sorry, I won’t hold you up. I’m going out shortly, so just pop it through the door when you’re ready.’ She mimes scribbling on a piece of paper. Hopefully she thinks Maddy is Ukrainian or something and doesn’t speak English. Maddy gives her the thumbs up and lets herself in.

  Poppy is there to greet her, as usual, and she gives him a cuddle and a biscuit from her pocket. In the kitchen, there is no sign of a water bowl, only an old ice-cream tub with the tiniest drop of water. The bowl is outside, dirty and empty. Maddy has an urge to kick it up in the air. She takes it in, scrubs and rinses it and fills it with clean cold water.

  In the living room, there are toys strewn all over the floor and sofa, magazines piled on the coffee table. Does this little slut never clean up? She pulls out their holiday photo albums and unscrews a lid of superglue. Max swimming in the sea, eating out in the evening by candlelight, Jamie waving from a Helter Skelter. All those weeks away when she thought he was working hard, building his business. She squirts glue on each page and squeezes the album shut. She chucks it on the floor and stands on it, stamping her feet.

  Upstairs she opens Max’s wardrobe and snips several inches off the bottom of each pair of trousers, collecting the cut-off ends in a plastic bag to take away. In Alison’s drawer she runs the scissors along each pair of tights. She takes out several of her jumpers and sprinkles itching powder in each. She’s tempted to shred the last of Alison’s clothes, but doesn’t want to be too obvious.

  On the dressing table, she notices the jewellery box unlocked. Inside are pieces of gaudy costume jewellery: large hoop earrings and chunky necklaces, fashion watches with glittery faces. On the lowest tier is the asymmetrical heart necklace she saw her wearing, identical to hers. Too refined for this cheap slut. She holds it up to herself in the mirror. Her mother looks back at her, slowly nodding. What would have been the occasion for this? She imagines him buying both at the same time, wrapping them up, writing two cards, thinking he was being so clever deceiving them, all the time with his false heart.

  Her gut wrenches as she imagines Max stretched out on the king-size bed, Alison beside him, opening the small blue box. Then it’s her father lying there with Lisa, while her mum was only a matter of yards away across the road. All those times she dreamed of dropping a match through Lisa’s letterbox. She wishes she’d done it the night he died of a heart attack in her bed, so her mum hadn’t had to endure the humiliation. Everyone seeing his body being carried out of another woman’s house the next morning.

  All it takes is a sharp tug to snap the delicate silver chain in half.

  The roar of an engine splits the silence. Out of the bedroom window, she watches Natty drive off in her old estate car. Downstairs, Poppy is waiting for her. She sits on the bottom stair and strokes his tummy. He needs more than a walk: he needs to be loved and properly cared for. She picks up the lead and clips it to his collar. She locks the front door from the inside and takes Poppy out the back, leaving the kitchen door and side gate ajar and walks him across the road. He has no qualms about leaping into her car. Once she’s attached his lead to a seatbelt, he settles down with a biscuit. Poor neglected boy. We’ll look after you. She goes back to the front garden with a screwdriver and screws a thin piece of wire across the gate, two inches from the ground.

  On the drive home, she switches on the radio. Mum’s favourite song ‘Baby Come To Me’ by Patti Austin and James Ingram is on. She shivers. It’s playing just for her. In the rear-view mirror she mouths thank you. She turns it up loud and sings along to the chorus.

  This is it. Her stomach fizzes. She knows what she needs to do. It’s the definitive sign she’s been waiting for.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Max: December 2017

  On Christmas Eve, Max, Maddy and the girls caught an evening train home after seeing Dick Whittington at the London Palladium. Maddy had been planning it for months. She’d been so excited for the girls to go to the theatre and see the Christmas lights, like she did with her parents. They’d chatted all the way home about how funny the show was, until Chloe fell asleep in Max’s lap and Emily snuggled under Maddy’s arm.

  Max stared out of the window at the waning crescent moon in a cloudless sky. Jamie would be tucked up in bed by now, waiting for Santa. Alison had bought him a ridiculous number of gifts for his stocking and on top of that there was a mountain of presents under the tree. He rubbed his fingers across his forehead. Their credit card bill was going to be crazy. Yes he was grateful that Jamie had recovered so well, but was it really necessary to spoil him so much? Or was he being a bad father thinking that? He winced, picturing the disappointment on Jamie’s face when he’d told him he couldn’t be there on Christmas Day. Shit. Why did he ever think it would be easy splitting himself between two families?

  When they reached home, the front garden was coated in a crispy layer of frost. Max felt in his pocket for his key. He carried it on a separate fob to Ali’s house. He slipped Chloe off his back into Maddy’s arms and tried all the pockets of his navy woollen coat.

  ‘Don’t you have your key?’

  ‘You always have yours.’

  ‘Why not bring it anyway?’ He hadn’t meant to snap.

  ‘Let’s not argue, I’m tired, the girls are tired, and my feet are killing me.’

  He checked each pocket again. ‘Are you sure I didn’t give them to you?’

  ‘You definitely did not.’

  He stood back and looked up at the house. There was a chance they’d left a window open upstairs. He examined the side gate.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Maddy sounded irritated.

  ‘Take the kids next door to Sarah’s, then come back and give me a hand.’

  ‘You’re not going to climb up there, are you?’

  ‘I will if I have to, but I think I can take out the window above the letterbox. I reckon I can get my hand in. Do you have a pair of scissors in your bag?’

  She let the bag slip down her arm and into his hands. ‘There’s a metal nail file in the small inside pocket. I’ll be back in a minute.’

  He took
the bag and she carried Chloe, with Emily at her side. He took out the file and eased the pointed edge into the lead trim. Bit by bit he eased out the small pane of glass. It was a solid oak door, not one of these PVC jobs they put in the new houses. There were still jemmy marks indented in the wood where a burglar had tried to prise the door open years before Maddy moved in.

  Max laid the stained-glass pane on the floor of the porch and stuck his hand sideways through the hole not much wider than the letterbox. He pulled back the bulk of his sleeve and wormed his hand further in. As soon as it was halfway up to the elbow, he felt around until his fingers skimmed the latch, but he couldn’t quite reach.

  ‘Good thing we weren’t any later, Sarah was about to go to bed,’ Maddy said, coming through the open gate.

  ‘Did she mind having the girls?’ Max pushed against the door to pull his arm back out of the hole.

  ‘Not at all. I said I hoped we wouldn’t be long anyway.’

  Max stuck his hand in the hole again.

  ‘Emily is worried that Father Christmas won’t visit if we don’t hurry up.’ She pushed the sleeves of her coat together into a hand muff.

  ‘I’m trying my best. Perhaps if we’re still here at midnight, Santa will give us a hand.’

  ‘Very funny.’ After a silence, she said, ‘I remember the night I found out he wasn’t real. I was only eight. I couldn’t sleep because I was so excited and I was half hoping I might catch sight of him if I stayed awake, but when he came in with the sack of presents, it was my dad.’

  ‘Did you tell him you knew?’

  ‘I remember asking him lots of awkward questions the next morning, like how did Father Christmas go into every house in every street in all the different countries of the world and what did he do if a house didn’t have a chimney, and what really happened if a child had been naughty. He answered every question, but all I wanted was for him to tell me the truth, that he was Santa.’

  ‘Do you remember the first year we left presents for Emily?’ He pushed his arm further into the hole.

  ‘We sat up till midnight in case she woke up.’

  ‘Then I fell asleep, so you had to take the presents in.’

  ‘We were stressing about nothing. She was far too young to even know what it all meant. Maybe that’s why we do it, because really it’s more for us than them.’

  ‘So we can relive a fantasy?’ At last he could feel the latch with his fingertips. ‘Not sure I ever believed in him in the first place. I was lucky if I got a chocolate Freddo and a satsuma.’

  ‘Why do we keep doing it, even if we suspect they’ve found out?’ She pulled her collar up higher round her neck.

  ‘What age do they stop believing?’ he asked.

  ‘When they realise the world isn’t the magical place we pretend it is.’ She tugged his sleeve, an urgency in her voice. ‘I don’t want their childhoods to end, Max. I want them to go on forever.’

  Max hesitated. Did she have an inkling of what he was up to? If they found out about Ali and Jamie, he would be the monster responsible for spoiling their childhoods, wouldn’t he? The latch clicked and the door swung open. ‘You can’t stop them growing up, Maddy. What are you so afraid of?’

  ‘That sometimes the ones who love us the most tell us the biggest lies.’

  Max bowed his head. In trying to protect everyone from the truth, was he destroying them instead?

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Alison: December 2019

  In the rear-view mirror, Alison glances at Jamie, slumped sideways, fast asleep. The dog will have messed up all over the kitchen floor by now. Good thing she didn’t leave too much water. He’ll be starving though, poor mutt. It’s taken her longer than she thought to drive back from Legoland, but what a great day they’ve had. Jamie’s last treat before the baby comes. He’s already asked when can they go back. He’s excited about having a brother or sister, someone to play with. When they stopped at the services for something to eat, the sky tipped it down at such a rate they had to wade ankle deep back to the car. She wriggles her damp toes in the soaked trainers. Should have worn boots. It’s been a day of getting caught in showers and, to top it all, Jamie wanted to go on Pirate Falls three times, thankfully by himself.

  There is a rainbow above their house and the daylight has muted to a pink hue as though she is entering a dream. The side gate to the back garden is wide open. She remembers bolting it. For God’s sake, has Adam been again? How is it he seems to know when she’s going to be out? She gets out of the car, wades through the long grass and hesitates. A fist of cold presses her chest. It is too quiet. There is no sound of Poppy scrabbling at the back door. She takes a deep breath and strides into the garden, but her foot catches on something and she falls. One hand scuffs along the gravel, the other springs to her bump. A line of scarlet beads bursts out of the ripped skin, edged with tiny stones and mud. Her left hip throbs. She presses the blood on her palm and caresses her hardening bump. Tears sting her eyes. She wills her baby to move. As she shifts to stand up, a silver thread running along the bottom of the gateway from post to post catches her eye. She reaches out, expecting to touch a cobweb, although it’s thicker than that and couldn’t possibly have stayed intact. Her fingers wrap around a solid thread of steel. She sits back on her heels. The wire has been bolted to the posts two or three inches from the ground. A shiver runs the length of her body. Why would he do this? Does he want her to lose the baby? A pain draws around her middle like a lasso, almost unbalancing her. After it’s passed, she carefully pushes herself up. Does this mean the baby’s okay? She’s had a few Braxton Hicks contractions today, but this is the strongest by far.

  The pink light has faded to beige and erased the rainbow. She did not leave the back door wide open. ‘Poppy, Poppy!’ she calls, but there is no rumble of the dog scampering to greet her. She takes in a sharp breath and calls again. The kitchen is empty. There is water in the dog bowl; it’s been washed and brought in. What is going on here? She rushes out to the car and wakes Jamie. His lashes flicker, eyes open.

  ‘Come on, Jamie, please – I can’t find Poppy.’

  He manoeuvres himself out of the car. ‘What do you mean?’ he groans, eyes red like he’s about to cry.

  ‘I don’t know where he is. You didn’t leave the gate open, did you?’

  He shakes his head.

  ‘But wasn’t it you who put the bins out?’ She hates her accusing tone, but why has Adam done this? Why is he torturing her? She wants to scream at him and chuck all his stuff out of the bedroom window. Kick him out. Who does he think he is treating her like this?

  ‘That was yesterday.’ Jamie is crying now. She takes his hand and kisses it, leading him into the kitchen.

  ‘Poppy, Poppy! He’ll have got himself stuck in a room somewhere.’ She takes a tin of dog food and taps a spoon against it. But all the doors are open. Nevertheless, they search every room. There is no sign of him anywhere.

  ‘Who let him out? Where has he gone?’ Jamie’s nose is running alongside his tears. Darkness has fallen quickly by the time they go back outside.

  ‘I remember bolting it. Someone has opened it.’ She stands in the middle of the garden, hands on hips, while Jamie checks behind the shed. What if it’s not Adam? He adored that bloody dog. Been a wedge between them from the start; she’d have much preferred a cat, but still. She calls all the local vets and RSPCA, but no one has handed Poppy in.

  ‘Can I make some posters to put up around the village?’ Jamie asks.

  ‘If you want to, but let’s have a drive around first, we might still find him.’

  ‘Can we?’ His eyes brighten.

  ‘After we’ve changed out of these damp clothes.’

  Upstairs, she takes out a clean sweatshirt and jeans. She opens her lingerie drawer and gasps at a pair of tatty grey knickers – size 16 – and a huge black bra with holes in the lace. She swallows a sour taste in her mouth and drops garment after garment on the floor until the drawer is empty –
none of them are hers.

  She opens the deep drawer underneath and a swarm of moths flies into her face. She screams and tries to cover her eyes and her head, but they keep coming at her as though she is a beacon, fluttering around and crashing into her. Jamie runs in, straight over to the windows and pushes them open.

  She drops down on the bed and draws in a breath as another sharp contraction bolts through her. Less than a minute later another comes, then another even stronger than the last with barely a pause in between. Are you okay, little one? She whimpers, cradling her bump.

  ‘What’s happening, Mum?’ Jamie rocks from one foot to the other.

  ‘Call a taxi! The baby is on its way.’

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Max: May 2019

  Ali was standing on the doorstep when Max pulled up in his van. She was wearing a pair of mules and a short pinafore dress, flexing her feet up and down on the step. He chucked his cigarette packet in the glove box and went round the back to unload the sacks of bark.

  ‘Do that in a minute,’ she called, click clacking towards him on the tiny pair of heels. Her hips swayed in a way most women had to learn. He smiled at her, expecting a hug, but she stood in front of him, clasping and unclasping her hands. She couldn’t stand still.

  ‘What is it?’ He shut the van door.

  ‘I’ve got a lovely surprise.’ She gave a little clap of her hands.

  He hated surprises.

  She pecked him on the stubble of his cheek and trotted into the house.

  Inside, the musky smell of an incense stick wafted towards him. Ali had laid out the dining table for two. In the middle was a bottle of champagne and two glasses.