Every Little Secret, page 15
The solitary letter lies on top. Grace picks it up and slides the flimsy piece of paper out of the envelope, the then king of Thailand staring back at her through the pink and green hues of Thai postage stamps. She looks up for a moment, feeling David and Martina’s eyes on her, but they immediately avert their gaze, and with a deep breath, she starts to read.
Dear both of you,
I don’t know why I’m writing this really. My flight leaves soon so I could just tell you when I see you. We can put on Hunter wellies and Barbours and romp through the Cotswold countryside, catching up on all our news. There’s a pub in your village, right? I couldn’t do a walk without a pub at the end, but I imagine neither could you.
I probably won’t send this letter anyway. I bought an envelope and stamps in the airport shop, and there’s a post box somewhere here, so there’s nothing to stop me. I’ll just lose interest though – that’s what I do, isn’t it? Except when I should lose interest, then I don’t.
I’ve just done something. Something big. And I can’t decide if I’m Mother Teresa or fucking Lucifer. A selfish bitch or the best friend ever. Who knows? I would say who cares, but it turns out I do. I do care.
Anyway, it’s done now. So I’m coming home. And do you know what? I actually want to come home this time. I’m going to get a job, earn some decent money for once. I’m going to make you proud of me. (Shit, ignore that, we’re not Modern fucking Family.)
Sorry for all the swearing. I’m drunk. There’s not much else to do in an airport lounge, is there? Go shopping I suppose. But I only had enough money left for my air ticket. A Dutch guy bought me some drinks, I forget his name, Luke or Lucas or Liam or something. He was fucking dull to be honest.
If you’re worried that they won’t let me on to the plane, don’t be. I can hide my drunkenness. I’m good at hiding things.
Like him. I hide how I feel about him. And I fucking hate myself for being under his spell, even now, after everything. I thought we were just two teenagers in love. But that was pure fantasy. I was his dirty little secret, and then he became mine.
And now I’m here, drinking myself to oblivion. Destroying myself because of him. And still, I’d probably go running back, if he asked.
I won’t though. You’ll help me, won’t you? Invite young suitors round for champagne and canapés. We can quaff and laugh and get married in a field full of primroses. See? It’s all going to be fine.
Okay so my flight has just flashed up. It’s boarding. It’s still fifty-fifty whether I’ll post this letter to be honest. But you’ll see me, in the flesh, really soon, so stick the Dom Perignon on ice. The prodigal daughter is coming home.
Love, Coco
Grace pushes her lips together. We were two teenagers in love. The sentence reverberates around her head. The man Coco was in love with is someone she knew as a teenager. Destroying myself because of him. Is leaving her three-week-old baby the destruction she’s referring to? Is this man she’s in love with Kaia’s real father, not just a random guy she picked up in Phuket?
Coco left England when she was 16, so she had three years of teenage life as a traveller to meet and fall in love with someone. There was the boy she met in Saint-Tropez, the one who convinced her to go travelling in the first place. Grace remembers how excited Coco sounded when she texted about him. How long did they stay together? Could he be Kaia’s real father? Grace looks up from the letter. ‘Do you know who she’s referring to? The man she calls the love of her life?’
Martina purses her lips. ‘No idea, I’m afraid.’
‘Could it be the boy she hooked up with when she stayed with you in Saint-Tropez? When she first went travelling?’ Grace tries to hide the hope in her tone.
‘Perhaps,’ Martina muses. ‘She was certainly acting like a lovesick puppy those few weeks, and she took her time getting down to us. We guessed there was some French boy involved, but she didn’t introduce him.’
Grace tries not to let the frustration show on her face. She wants conclusive proof that Marcus isn’t Kaia’s father, that Coco fell in love with someone else that summer, and he’s the man who’s haunted her ever since. But she’s not surprised that her best friend kept her new boyfriend from her parents. They always had a way of ruining things for her.
David is right about one thing though – the letter does suggest Coco was serious about returning home. So what happened between Bangkok airport and leafy middle England that changed her mind? Grace’s thoughts wander to Marcus, and him arriving in Bangkok the day after Coco walked out on her and Kaia. But it’s ridiculous of course, the chances of them bumping into each other in that busy airport must have been close to zero. She shakes the thought away.
‘When did it arrive, the letter?’
‘On the 31st October,’ Martina says. ‘It was Halloween – we were hosting a little party that evening. I remember putting an extra bottle of champagne on ice.’ Her voice cracks at the memory, and tears form in her eyes. ‘I was never a good mother. The truth is, I didn’t like children. Still don’t. But I was looking forward to having an adult daughter – going for spa days together, shopping trips. But I never got that chance.’
Martina is still thinking about herself, Grace notices, not Coco’s happiness or safety. ‘It sounds like you’ve written her off. She could still come back.’
David stands up, rubs his palms together. ‘We can’t spend our lives hoping for something that will likely never happen. As far as we’re concerned, Coco is gone for good.’
‘Do you think she’s dead?’ Grace asks quietly.
‘Perhaps,’ David says, his voice almost business-like. ‘One risk too many, maybe. But the private investigator looked into that possibility too and came up blank. The truth is, I don’t know where Coco is. Our door is always open, but other than that, we’re getting on with our lives.’ He sighs, and his voice softens a notch. ‘Listen, thank you for coming all this way, Grace. It’s been good to see you. But you need to let Coco go – we all do.’ He walks to the door of the living room, and looks at her expectantly.
Grace doesn’t feel ready to leave yet, too many questions still hang in the air, but she knows her time is running out. She looks back towards the open box. ‘The memory cards, have you looked at those?’
‘No clues there. All the photos are from her first few years of travelling, before we got her an iPhone for her twentieth birthday and the camera became surplus to requirements.’
We were two teenagers in love. ‘Can I take them?’ Grace asks. There might not be any clues about Coco’s whereabouts now, but these are her teenage years. Kaia’s biological father might be on there. She thinks of her final years of study, A levels in Cheltenham, degree in Oxford, the weeks that would go past without her seeing Marcus. His international rugby tours.
But Coco met someone in Saint-Tropez, she reminds herself. Someone she fell for so deeply that he convinced her to leave her life behind.
David shrugs. ‘We’d like them back. They’re all we’ve got left of her.’
‘I’ll take good care of them,’ Grace promises, and drops them into her bag.
Chapter 29
MARCUS
2005
Marcus looks at the heavy oak gates and swears loudly. Best-laid plans shot to fuck. He leans his head back against the warm wood, wipes the dripping sweat off his forehead and wonders what to do next.
When they left Lyme Regis yesterday, Marcus had quickly accepted Josh’s offer to drop him at the B&B; he was knackered after mixing vodka with his colossal effort on the water. But he’d forgotten that his bike was leaning up against the garage door at Northcross House. When he’d woken up with an image of it sitting there, it had seemed like the perfect plan to combine his morning run with picking the bike up. He’d assumed someone would be home – the Windsors are that kind of family – so hadn’t bothered calling Josh first. But now, as he stares at the pair of locked main gates, a clear sign that nobody is in, he realises that was a mistake.
He eyes the intercom and, with a sigh and heavy sense of futility, prods it.
‘Hello?’ Coco’s voice chimes through the speaker.
Marcus straightens up. ‘Uh, it’s Marcus,’ he says, sniffing under each armpit and wondering why he’d hadn’t foreseen this problem before setting out on a run in twenty-five-degree heat. ‘I came for my bike.’
‘Well, I’m in the summer house. It’s the perfect spot for morning yoga. Or so Faith tells me anyway. Everyone else is out, I think. Why don’t you come down?’ Coco’s invite is followed by a small click, and then the soft drone of the gates opening.
Marcus stares at the vast drive, and the rolling garden beyond the border of rose bushes. He can see his bike in his peripheral vision, exactly where he left it, but he ignores it. Instead, he imagines Coco lying on a thin mat in the summer house, wearing Lycra yoga pants and a tiny vest top with Namaste scrawled across it. Stretching out in the sunshine with feline hedonism. He remembers her comment: everyone else is out. Was that code for something?
Trying to keep his pace to a languid stroll, and the bubble of possibility in his belly to a gentle fizz, Marcus walks through the garden, and towards the small timber-framed structure next to the tennis courts. He sees Coco before he reaches her, sitting sideways on a double swing seat, her legs sunk into the plump cushions and crossed at the ankles. No tight yoga gear, but she looks hot enough in a short white sundress covered in tiny lilac flowers. ‘All right?’ he says, awkwardness taking over now he’s reached her side.
‘Good to see you, Marcus. Take a seat.’ Coco swings her feet onto the floor and pats the now empty cushion.
Marcus eyes the space, but feels himself hesitate, a danger sign flashing somewhere in his subconscious. He flicks his head back up towards the house. ‘None of the Windsors around then?’ he asks.
‘Eurgh, Grace has gone completely mad and decided to try wild swimming in the River Axe,’ Coco starts, pulling her legs under her and scrunching her nose up. ‘Faith is meeting a friend in Exeter, and Josh and Henry have gone for a run.’
‘They’ll be back soon then, I guess.’ Despite his efforts, Marcus’s comment sounds loaded.
‘Josh and Henry? No way. They won’t be satisfied unless they’re crawling back with at least half a marathon under their belt, Henry red-faced and wondering if this is the day he meets his maker.’ She pats the cushion again. ‘Come on, we’ve got the place to ourselves for at least a couple of hours.’
Marcus grins and feels his shoulders relax. But as he drops down beside her, his weight causes the seat to lurch backwards. Coco squeals and tips forward. Marcus acts on instinct, thrusting his arm out to block her from falling, but his hand connects with her chest, the curve of her breast. ‘Shit, sorry!’ He whips it back.
But Coco doesn’t look offended. Her eyes dance, somewhere between a jive and an Argentine tango. ‘What for?’ She giggles. ‘Maybe I liked it.’ Then she flashes a suggestive smile and laughs again, but it sounds false to Marcus.
He leans back against the soft cushion and tilts his head towards her. ‘You don’t have to do this, you know.’
‘Do what?’ She scrapes her bottom lip with her teeth.
‘Put on a performance for me.’
‘Who says it’s a performance?’ She starts to raise her eyebrows, but then looks away.
With her red hair and green eyes, it’s easy to see Coco as a chameleon, but it’s more than her colouring that creates that image. Sometimes she looks sassy and intimidating, other times playful and fun. And right now, she looks unsure of herself. He feels a sudden urge to reassure her. ‘I just recognise it, I guess. Because I spent two years doing something similar at school.’
‘What, flirting with rugby players?’ she asks, but the tease sounds strained now.
‘Pretending to be confident when I felt the opposite,’ he explains. ‘I was the state-school kid when I arrived at Chilford. My rugby helped a bit, but that was a niche crowd. To most people, I was the poverty case on a scholarship.’ He shrugs. ‘So I acted. Did a pretty good job to be honest.’
‘A very good job, I’d say, if Josh is a measure of your reputation. He talks about you like you’re some kind of man god.’
‘He does?’ Marcus asks, surprise overriding any sense of pride. Josh has always been so confident in his own (extensive) abilities; it’s hard to imagine him revering anyone else, especially someone like Marcus.
‘Totally looks up to you.’
‘I doubt it,’ Marcus scoffs, kicking his worn trainers against the cedarwood decking.
‘But you’re right that the Windsors are perfect,’ Coco continues. ‘Grace too. What do you think makes them that way?’
Marcus has never considered the ‘why’ behind Josh’s brilliance before. ‘Money, I guess, and good genes. Brains, athleticism, looks. They did pretty well out of the man upstairs.’
‘And a stable family, no insecurities to fuck them up.’
Marcus thinks about his own mum and dad, his twin sisters. What a tight unit they’ve always been over the years. ‘Everyone has insecurities, if you dig deep enough.’
‘Not the Windsors. They’re in a league of their own.’
‘And you? How deep are your insecurities?’
She laughs, a deep, dirty cackle. ‘Oh, mine are pretty unruly. They turn up whenever the fuck they like, usually when they can do the most damage. They’re high-achieving that way.’
Marcus smiles at the image, but he feels sad for her too. She’s only 16, but already talks like she finds life exhausting. ‘And does anything make them go away?’ He wants to know what he can do to make her feel more secure, but her answer is way off romantic.
‘Of course.’ She smiles, then starts counting her fingers. ‘Vodka, skunk, speed, wine if I drink enough, a shag with a stranger can sometimes do it. I have plenty of options.’
A wave of repulsion sweeps over him suddenly. Is he really contemplating getting close to this girl? Him, a future rugby international, and her, a messed-up 16-year-old tramp? What the fuck is he thinking? Maybe he should just grab his bike and get the hell away from her.
‘I’m joking about shagging strangers by the way.’
‘It’s hard to work out the lies from the truth,’ he says, his voice hard.
‘I’m sorry. I do that, I think. Try to shock people, push them away.’
Marcus turns to look at her; she’s blinking back tears, trying to look brave. He softens a bit.
‘As a rule, I don’t get close to people,’ she continues. ‘Just Grace. And Faith, I suppose.’
‘Why not?’ Marcus stares at the dense trees beyond the tennis court. Even in the sunshine there’s something ominous about them.
‘Too much of a risk.’
‘What about the risk-reward continuum? You sounded like a fan when it was about Henry’s parenting strategy yesterday. Lending Josh the car to test his sense of responsibility.’
Coco’s hand is resting on the cushion between them and he picks it up, lets her fingers run loosely through his. The voice telling him to get away is still there, nagging at him inside his head. But it’s just noise now. The truth is, he loves the enigma of Coco. She’s not driven like he is, but she’s also not horizontal like his family. She’s a free spirit, but one flying at breakneck speed.
‘I am a fan,’ she says, her forehead creasing slightly in thought. ‘But it’s easier with a sports car that’s been proven to make your belly flip. It’s different with people. No guarantee the reward will be worth it.’
He looks at her hand entwined in his. Fuck it. If he’s going to do this, it may as well be now.
‘Maybe you just need to do your research well?’ He leans towards her and brushes her hair away from her face. She looks unguarded now, more genuine, and he feels a new surge of desire. But it’s too open out on the deck, the grand house and sparkling lake in the distance, the dark woodland muttering in the breeze. He takes her hand in his, and gently pulls her up. Then he leads her inside the summer house. He pulls her down next to him on the sofa and leans in. At first, he just brushes her lips with his, testing the water, but she doesn’t resist and millimetre by millimetre, he pushes further, deeper, lingering but insistent.
Gently, he guides her onto her back. As he hovers over her, she smiles, but there’s a childlike apprehension spreading across her face. He kisses her, to reassure her. Then he runs his hand down her body until he reaches a hem. Should he do it? Push her dress up, snap open her bra? He’s done it before, both his ex-girlfriends wanted sex as much as he did. And Coco is bound to be at least as experienced as them. He pushes her dress up a little, runs his hands along her thighs. She doesn’t protest, so he keeps going, cupping the mound of her bottom and fighting the urge to squeeze it. A little further and now he can explore the curve of her hipbone, the silky skin of her flat stomach.
‘Marcus?’
His breathing is getting heavier; she’s beautiful and he’s hard now. He nudges her dress a little higher and slips his hand underneath. She’s not wearing a bra. He closes his eyes and squeezes her nipple between his finger and thumb. It hardens and rises and oh my God this is fucking amazing.
‘Marcus, I’m not sure …’
‘It’s okay,’ he rasps, not opening his eyes. ‘Just relax and enjoy it.’ He finds the edge of her knickers, just a tiny triangle of lilac silk.
‘I just feel a bit …’
Stop fucking talking – you’re ruining the mood! That’s what he wants to scream at her. You flirted like a minx and now you owe me! Her flesh down there is soft and warm. It’s so tempting.
But then a talk at school starts rubbing at his memory. And his dad’s voice reminding him about consent, respect. An image of his feminist mum pops up, then his two little sisters, their blue eyes staring at him in horror. He pulls back. ‘What is it?’ he asks.
