Every Little Secret Read online

  ‘I used to help my gran. She grew onions, tomatoes and potatoes mostly.’

  ‘So satisfying, isn’t it? And so much tastier than shop ones.’ She took two French beers out of the fridge.

  ‘We had whopping great tomatoes every year. God knows what she did to them.’

  They laughed. She stretched up to the top shelf of the cupboard but couldn’t quite reach the glasses.

  ‘Let me do that,’ Max said, touching her arm to gently move her aside. She gazed up at him and their eyes met for a second.

  ‘It’s all right, I’ll get the step.’

  ‘It’s no trouble.’ He took down two half pint glasses.

  ‘Sorry, can’t abide beer being drunk straight from the bottle, has to be in a glass, much more civilised.’

  They sat under a parasol at the end of the garden, near a gnarly old apple tree. Maddy poured the beers and handed him one. ‘Now then, you have a quote for me?’

  He handed her a folded sheet of paper from his pocket. She glanced over the figures for some time. Perhaps she’d changed her mind. He surveyed his surroundings. It was one hell of a garden, mature and substantial. He’d love to get his hands dirty here.

  ‘All looks fine to me. I think we have a deal.’ Her smile made her whole face glow, as though she’d just delivered the happiest news of her life.

  ‘That’s brilliant. It’s a no-brainer for me, to be honest. It’ll really help me get on my feet.’

  ‘I’m glad. You can start tomorrow if you want to.’ She took her hat off and ruffled her shoulder-length hair. ‘I’ll get you some cash for materials.’

  ‘That would really help, thanks.’ He couldn’t believe his luck. A measly £6.74 was all he had left in the world after the bus fare. Maybe it was obvious how skint he was.

  ‘Good.’ She raised her glass. ‘Here’s to a fresh start for both of us.’

  They chinked their glasses together. It felt so good to be starting somewhere new, be someone different earning an honest wage instead of being stuck as someone’s lackey.

  * * *

  He arrived the next day and every day at 6 a.m. Maddy would let him in and go off to the cafe, leaving him a massive fry up and a pot of tea. After the lunchtime rush, she came back to make him a sandwich and see how he was getting on. They spent the afternoons chatting and he’d usually finish about 6 p.m.

  ‘I’ve finished prepping all the walls in the spare room. Thought I’d better make a start in here as it’s the biggest room,’ he told her one Saturday afternoon. He’d started pulling up the worn-out carpet in the living room.

  ‘This is going to be the hardest so far, I think,’ she said.

  ‘I reckon you’re right there.’ The rubber backing had turned to mounds of black dust. Instead of underlay, there were sheets of yellowed newspaper which had imprinted blurred lines of words onto the grey tiled floor.

  ‘I’ll get changed and give you a hand. Tea?’

  ‘Please.’ He rolled the carpet up and vacuumed.

  When Maddy came back, she’d changed into cut-off jeans and an old button-less shirt she’d tied in a knot at her slim waist. She’d wrapped her hair up in a red checked scarf and tied a bow on the top. For God’s sake, did she realise how sexy she looked? She left the tray of tea on a chair and knelt on the floor.

  ‘It says here that on 20 March 1983, Prince Charles and Princess Diana began their royal tour of Australia. Must be around the time my parents moved in. I remember Mum saying there were no carpets.’

  ‘These nasty tiles instead.’ Max jabbed a flat-head screwdriver under the corner of one. ‘A hell of a job to get these up. See how gluey they are? No wonder your parents carpeted over. You might want to do the same.’

  ‘I don’t mind leaving them. What about wooden flooring?’

  ‘Yeah, they’d go over the top, would look great. Last longer too.’

  ‘Let’s do it then. I want to transform the place.’ She sat back on her heels and sighed. ‘Living here has always felt like living in the past.’

  He nodded, gulping down a mouthful of hot tea. ‘Not good to live in the past, is it?’ He gazed out of the window at a flock of starlings. This was his chance to move on too, forget about the family of sharks that ruined his life.

  ‘Talking of which, you’ve not told me much about yourself,’ she said interrupting his thoughts.

  ‘Nothing to tell. Parents died in a plane crash when I was ten years old. Gran brought me up. Been living in and out of digs since she died when I was fifteen.’ He watched her face crumple in sympathy.

  ‘That’s terrible. Don’t you have any other close family?’

  ‘Not that I know of. Cousins in Canada, I think. I was fortunate to get on a building and decorating apprenticeship. It set me on my way. I’ll build my own house one day.’

  ‘I can see you doing that.’ She smiled and pointed a knowing finger at him.

  She seemed to believe in him more than he believed in himself. He put his mug back on the tray.

  ‘So, what’s next in this room?’ she said.

  ‘I’ll strip the paper and prep the walls for painting. Have you decided what colour you want?’

  ‘White, I think it’ll freshen it up. Dad painted this room dark green once. With all his plants in here, it was like a forest indoors – I loved it, but it was very oppressive. Trouble was the cracks in the walls started to show through, so Mum made him paper it over.’

  He pulled at a torn strip of cream paper exposing the green paint. ‘That’s going to be a bugger to paint over if you have white walls.’

  ‘I wrote my name and the date somewhere,’ she said, tearing at the paper with a ferocity that surprised him.

  ‘Here it is,’ she said, breathless. She stood back and unveiled the scribble in black pen: ‘Maddy Dunn 22 July 1997’. ‘I was fourteen.’ She stared at it, entranced. ‘The following year Dad died and I finished school.’

  ‘Was he ill?’

  ‘No, nothing like that.’ She looked away.

  He wasn’t going to push her if she didn’t want to talk about it. He continued stripping the paper around Maddy’s name.

  ‘It was probably the last time I was really happy.’

  He stopped what he was doing. ‘That’s a sad thing to say.’

  ‘It’s true. Until now, that is,’ she turned to him, beaming.

  He winked at her and finished his drink. Perhaps he should tell her what really happened to his bastard parents, how they ran off to Canada in the middle of the night, leaving him with Gran in a pokey old flat and the rent overdue. Gran’s voice was forever carved in his memory: Well I never – gone without so much as a cheerio! It did make him smile in a sick sort of way. Married too young, Gran decided. They wrote to him once. Promised to come back for him, but they never did. Joined some sort of cult or commune. Said they’d all be together again once they’d set up their new life. His guts twisted just thinking about how fucking selfish two people could be. As the years went by he gave up hope of ever seeing them again. It became easier to think of them as dead. Gran always said, they weren’t the people we thought they were. She was the only one who ever cared about him. Nursing her until her last breath was the least he could do. Aged fifteen and all alone. Nice way to start out in life. Thanks for nothing, Mum and Dad. Shame you’re not worth a second thought.

  They’d almost finished stripping the second wall when chips of plaster began to fall away with each strip, revealing deeper cracks.

  ‘Bugger. I’ll have to dig out all the loose pieces and fill the holes before I can do any painting,’ he told her. ‘It’s going to take twice as long as I thought.’

  ‘This house is full of cracks. They’re worst at the front. Dad said the old lady who lived here before them told him a bomb fell on the house across the road during the Second World War.’

  ‘This is actually crumbling away, though. I’ve never seen anything so bad. When was it built, 1930s?’

  ‘Yes, 1933, I think. Dad said somet
hing about the glue they used back then wasn’t very good.’

  ‘So the plaster wouldn’t stick to the brickwork.’

  ‘Something like that.’ Maddy picked a chunk out of the wall. ‘Mum pretended the cracks weren’t there. If we pointed one out to her she’d say: There are no cracks in my walls. She gave a half-hearted laugh and followed the jagged line with her finger. ‘He papered over them. Do you know she’d really lost it by the end? I think the anger kept her alive.’

  Max didn’t know what to say. Her parents sounded as fucked up as his.

  ‘I’d better take this chair out. I don’t want it getting damaged,’ she said.

  ‘I can do that.’ He picked it up.

  ‘It’s an Arts and Crafts piece,’ Maddy said, following him into the sitting room. He carefully placed it against the wall. ‘Mum loved it.’

  ‘You’re wasted in that cafe. You should have been an antiques dealer.’

  ‘Mmm, maybe. I didn’t really have a choice.’

  ‘Why was that?’

  ‘I had to keep an eye on Mum, look after her. I ended up being her carer and taking over the cafe soon after I left school.’

  ‘So the cafe was her business originally?’

  ‘Yes. Both my parents ran businesses, but unfortunately it meant they didn’t spend enough time with each other.’

  ‘What do you really want to do? You have a choice now, surely?’

  ‘I have been wondering about selling up.’

  ‘It would set you free. You can do what you like now.’

  ‘I suppose I can. Look, why don’t I fix us something for lunch while you carry on here?’

  ‘Yeah, great.’

  ‘I’ve got Lincolnshire sausages from the butcher and some fresh white rolls. Does that sound good?’ She gave him one of her warm smiles that made all his bad thoughts melt to nothing.

  ‘Sounds perfect.’ He smiled back, letting his eyes sweep over her. She’d started wearing a bit of make-up, not too much, not tarty, but it really suited her, made her even more gorgeous. Lately, when he got back to his lodgings in the evening, he couldn’t stop thinking about her. How crazy was that when he was with her every single day? But it was real, it made his chest ache with longing. He hadn’t known anyone apart from Gran who was so straightforward and kind. For a second he fought the urge to pull her to him and kiss her. But he needed to pick his moment, not scare her off.

  He covered his nose and mouth with a dust mask and got back to work.

  Chapter Ten

  Maddy: Late September 2019

  Maddy wakes early, still paralysed by sleep, mouth slack. Her dress hangs with his suit outside the wardrobe like spectres in the grey light. She listens for the door clicking or Max’s footfall on the stairs. Nothing. He’ll be back soon. He has to be. There’s still time.

  She pushes herself up. It took hours last night for her mind to finally stop racing, going over where Max could be and everything they last said to one another. She’s been so deep in her own grief, it didn’t occur to her that he wasn’t coping. Out of the window, the birds are pecking at empty feeders in the dim light, fooling themselves with their vainglorious chirping. Peals of laughter from Chloe’s previous birthdays rise up from the garden. Why didn’t she stop to savour each moment; Chloe pulling silly faces or blowing out her candles?

  She crawls back into bed on Max’s side, cold as a slab. Her hand goes straight to her bump. Her eyes shut. She conjures up Max’s boyish face, always smiling or winking no matter how bad things were. She fights the urge to cry and folds her arms over herself, trying to rub warmth into her skin. She dreamed last night that Max had been standing at the front door, knocking endlessly. The only reason she hadn’t seen him all this time was because he’d been standing there, and she hadn’t heard him.

  Absentmindedly, she picks a hair off her pillow, then another. She drags the pads of her fingers across the cotton, collecting enough hair to twist into a thin rope.

  In the shower she stands under the heat for too long, leaving her skin blotchy and scalded. When she peers in the mirror, there are lines she hasn’t noticed before. Her skin is pale as though she is fading away. Where her hair is pushed back, a fan of thinning white frames her face. For a split second, it’s her mother staring back at her. A wisp of air wafts in from the window. She closes her eyes and breathes in Chloe’s sugary scent.

  In her dressing gown, she wanders downstairs, into the garden to refill the bird feeders. The Black Moon pansies are in full bloom around the sundial. Chloe helped her plant the flowers last autumn. They’d had such fun. Chloe squealed every time she came across a worm and was mortified when she found one sliced in half.

  It must be an hour before Emily discovers her sitting there.

  ‘Mummy, you need to get ready.’ She is wearing one of Max’s sweat shirts over her dress. It looks ridiculous but Maddy is too exhausted to complain.

  ‘Have you seen these, darling?’ She points to the pansies.

  ‘You said Daddy would be here,’ Emily whines and stamps her foot.

  A lump rises in Maddy’s throat. Her eyes fill up. He can’t be dead, he can’t be! Not her Max. But why isn’t he here? She covers her face with her hands and grief chugs out of her like a steam train, in deep shattering gasps. She doesn’t think she will ever be able to stop.

  * * *

  The taxi pulls up outside the house at eleven. Maddy stumbles outside and leans against the car door. Somewhere between getting up this morning and walking to the car, she has lost her balance. She can’t do this. Not without Max. But she must. She climbs into the back. Emily sits next to her, looking paler than ever. Has she even eaten? Maddy locks her hands together, flexing her fingers. She gazes at the world through dark tinted glass and when she’s certain she has no more tears to shed, her swollen eyes brim again. This must mean it’s real, it did happen. Chloe’s gone. And now him.

  The car pulls through the cemetery gates and up the narrow pathway. Tall oak and sycamore trees around the perimeter block out the sun creating a pool of light in its centre. Maddy stares up at a weeping stone angel as they pass by.

  They stop alongside Chloe’s grave. Maddy opens the door and takes a moment to breathe in the fresh air. Emily leans over and hugs her. When Maddy steps out, she feels like she’s arriving from a life-long journey. Her knees almost give way. She links arms with Emily, and together they shuffle towards the grave side.

  She imagines Max’s strong arm holding her up as he did at the funeral. He shook people’s hands and exchanged whispered words. But she couldn’t speak. There were no words for this. The reverend strode towards them, long swathes of dark material swishing behind him like beating wings. He took their hands between his smooth cold palms and asked if they were ready. Max’s nod was so slight, his eyes creased into tiny chips of black jet. She remembered thinking how will I ever be ready? And now they have to come to terms with Max not coming home either.

  Maddy kneels and places the wreath on the small mound of earth and blows a kiss. ‘Happy birthday, my darling angel.’ Her fingers lightly touch the ceramic teddy bear. Head bowed, arm around her bump, her sobs roll through her body. Emily clings to her coat arm, hiding her face.

  Just then a dark cloud of cackling jackdaws swoops across the sky, blistering the silence. They land on the branches of the tallest sycamore, weighing them down, squabbling for position. Maddy and Emily hold hands tightly, heads bowed. A distant gunshot scatters the birds into a splash of black across the sky. Maddy watches them circling the church spire, their mocking chatter grinding through her head.

  * * *

  After Emily has gone to bed, Maddy runs out to the garden and picks up the scythe propped against the greenhouse. Her arms swoop as one in a wide curve, beheading her beloved China roses. This renewed strength surprises her. She clenches her teeth to temper the force pushing her on, groaning with the effort into the eerie silence. Her mind fills with Max’s blackened face floating in water. She tries to shake the
image away. She hacks at the rows of delphiniums and hydrangeas, scattering them across the grass. She holds up the blade and turns it so it glints in the light. She wields the scythe again chopping at sunflowers and gladioli, slicing through dahlias and chrysanthemums, watching them topple before she moves on. The compulsion doesn’t end until she has massacred the whole garden. With a last burst of energy, she throws off her shoes and stamps on the fallen flowers, crushing their heads, staining the soles of her feet.

  All around her are the remains of the plants and flowers she’s nurtured over a lifetime, like children to her.

  * * *

  The following day, dressed in black and wearing sunglasses, Maddy takes Emily to the nearest garden centre and selects pots of towering black millet, Oriental black bamboo, Black Knight irises, Can-Can Black Moon pansies, Queen of the Night bulbs, black dahlias and Black Baccara roses. She loads them into the car, cramming every space with their fresh pungent smells. The foliage covers all the windows, even part of the windscreen so it’s almost impossible to see out.

  Back home, Emily silently helps her unload the various sized pots, lining them up against the wall like a gathering of monks. Maddy digs up any remaining roots, twisting them out of the earth with her fork while Emily sweeps away remnants of the coloured flowers.

  They plant deep rows of the millet, bamboo and irises creating a shroud of darkness in front of the fences. They fill the rest of the borders with roses and, finally, nearest the lawn’s edge and around the island of bushes enclosing the sundial in the middle. By the time they finish planting, daylight is fading.

  Later, Maddy stands alone in the garden with a glass of white wine, watching the moon’s silver sheen highlight the outline of dark leaves and flowers. She lets out a deep sigh. At last, a sense of peace and calm descends on her. No more pink or blue or yellow flowers, only shades of black.

  Chapter Eleven