Woman with a Secret Read online

  Feeling hot and dizzy, I turn left into the library parking lot and take the first space I see: what Adam and I have always called “a golfer’s space” because the symbol painted in white on the concrete looks more like a set of golf clubs than the stroller it’s supposed to be.

  I open the car door with numb fingers that feel as if they’re only partly attached to my body and find myself gasping for air. I’m burning hot, dripping with sweat, and it has nothing to do with the weather.

  Why do I still feel like this? I should have been able to leave the panic behind, on Elmhirst Road. With him.

  Get a grip. Nothing bad has actually happened. Nothing at all has happened.

  “You’re not parking there, are you? I hope you’re going to move.”

  I look up. A young woman with auburn hair and the shortest bangs I’ve ever seen is staring at me. I assume the question came from her, since there’s no one else around. Explaining my situation to her is more than I can manage at the moment. I can form the words in my mind, but not in my mouth. I’m not exactly parking. I just need to sit here for a while, until I’m safe to drive again. Then I’ll go.

  I’m so caught up in the traumatic nothing that happened to me on Elmhirst Road that I only realize she’s still there when she says, “That space is for mums and babies. You’ve not got a baby with you. Park somewhere else!”

  “Sorry. I . . . I will. I’ll move in a minute. Thanks.”

  I smile at her, grateful for the distraction, for a reminder that this is my world and I’m still in it: the world of real, niggly problems that have to be dealt with in the present.

  “What’s wrong with right now?” she says.

  “I just . . . I’m not feeling . . .”

  “You’re in a space for mothers with babies! Are you too stupid to read signs?” Her aggression is excessive—mysteriously so. “Move! There’s at least fifty other free spaces.”

  “And at least twenty-five of those are mother-and-child spaces,” I say, looking at all the straight yellow lines on the concrete running parallel to my car, with nothing between them. “I’m not going to deprive anyone of a space if I sit here for another three minutes. I’m sorry, but I’m not feeling great.”

  “You don’t know who’s going to turn up in a minute,” says my persecutor. “The spaces might all fill up.” She pushes at her toothbrush-bristle bangs with her fingers. She seems to want to flick them to one side and hasn’t worked out that they’re too short to go anywhere; all they can do is lie flat on her head.

  “Do you work at the library?” I ask her. I’ve never seen a Spilling librarian wearing stiletto-heeled crocodile-skin ankle boots before, but I suppose it’s possible.

  “No, but I’ll go and get someone who does if you don’t move.”

  What is she, then? A recreational protester whose chosen cause is the safeguarding of mother-and-child parking spaces for those who deserve them? She has no children with her, or any books, or a bag big enough to contain books. What’s she doing here in the library parking lot?

  Get the bitch, says the voice in my head that I mustn’t listen to. Bring her down.

  “Two questions for you,” I say coolly. “Who the hell do you think you are, and who the hell are you?”

  “It doesn’t matter! What matters is, you’re in the wrong space!”

  “Read the sign,” I tell her. To save her the trouble of turning around, I read it aloud to her, “‘These spaces are reserved for people with children.’ That includes me. I have two children. I can show you photos. Or my C-section scar, if you’d prefer?”

  “It means for people who’ve got children with them in the car, as you well know! Shall I go and get the library manager?”

  “Fine by me.” I’m starting to feel better, thanks to this woman. I’m enjoying myself. “She can tell us what she thinks the sign means, and I’ll tell her what it says, and explain the difference. ‘People with children’ means ‘parents.’ Those with offspring, progeny, descendants: the nonchildless. There’s nothing in the wording of that sign that specifies where the children need to be, geographically, at this precise moment. If it said, ‘This space is reserved for people who have their kids with them right here and now in this library parking lot,’ I could see a justification for moving. Since it doesn’t . . .” I shrug.

  “Right,” Short Bangs snaps at me. “You wait there!”

  “What, in the parking space you’re so keen for me to vacate?” I call after her as she stomps toward the library. “You want me to stay in it now?”

  She makes an obscene finger gesture over her shoulder.

  I’d like to wait and argue with the librarian—all the librarians, if possible—but the return of my normal everyday self has brought with it the memory of why I left the house: to deliver Ethan’s gym bag to school. I should get on with it; I know he’ll worry until he has it in his hands.

  Reluctantly, I slam my car door shut, pull out of the library parking lot and head for the Silsford Road. I can get to the school via Upper Heckencott, I think. It’s a ridiculously long-winded way of getting there, involving skinny, winding lanes that you have to reverse back along for about a mile if you meet a car coming in the opposite direction, but you generally don’t. And it’s the only route I can think of that doesn’t involve driving down Elmhirst Road.

  I check my watch: 11:10 A.M. I pull my phone out of my bag, call the school, ask them to tell Ethan not to worry and that I’m on my way. All of this I do while driving, knowing I shouldn’t, hoping I’ll get away with it. I wonder if it’s possible, simultaneously, to be a good mother and a bad person: someone who enjoys picking fights with strangers in parking lots, who lies, who gets into trouble with the police and nearly ruins her life and the life of her family, who thinks, Fuck you, every time anyone points out what the rules are and that she’s breaking them.

  I blow a long sigh out of the open window, as if I’m blowing out smoke. Ethan deserves a mother with no secrets, a mother who can drive to school without needing to hide from anyone. Instead, he has me. Soon he’ll have his gym bag too.

  It could be worse for him. I’m determined to make it better, to make myself better.

  Three weeks and four days. A verbal scrap with a self-righteous idiot doesn’t count as a lapse, I decide, at the same time as I tell myself that I mustn’t let it happen again—that I must be more humble in future, even if provoked. Less combative, more . . . ordinary. Like the other school mums. Though less dull than them, I hope. Never the sort of person who would say, “A home isn’t a home without a dog,” or, “I don’t know why I bother going to the gym—forty minutes on the treadmill and what do I do as soon as I get home? Raid the biscuit tin!”

  As safe and honorable as those women, but more exciting. Is that possible?

  I like to have it both ways; that’s my whole problem, in a nutshell.

  AS SOON AS I arrive at school, I am presented with an opportunity to put my new nonconfrontational manner to the test. “We discourage parents from going into classrooms,” a receptionist I’ve never seen before tells me, standing in front of me to block my way.

  Since when? I’ve been into both Sophie’s and Ethan’s classrooms many times. No one’s ever complained.

  “It’s emotionally disruptive for the children if a parent suddenly pops up during lesson time,” she explains. “Some of them think, ‘Oh look, Mum or Dad’s here—they can take me home,’ and get very upset when Mum or Dad disappears again, leaving them behind.”

  “I promise you Ethan won’t be upset.” I smile hopefully at her. “He’ll just be pleased and relieved to have his gym bag.” And, obviously, since he wants it for gym this afternoon, he won’t, on having it handed to him, expect to leave school immediately and miss the PE lesson that he needs it for, you stupid cow. “There’s really no downside to letting me take it to him myself, honestly,” I add in what I hope is a wholly positive tone of voice. “It’ll save you a job too.”

  “Nicki!” a high-pit
ched female voice calls out, one that would be better suited to a cheerleader than a head teacher. Correction: headmistress.

  I sag with relief, knowing that everything is about to be all right. Kate Zilber is here: five foot short, petite as a ten-year-old, the most indiscreet person in professional employment that I’ve ever met. Kate refuses to be referred to as “principal” or “head”; “headmistress” is her title, prominently engraved on the sign on her office door, and she insists that people use it. She once described herself to me as a megalomaniac; I soon discovered that she wasn’t exaggerating.

  “Is that Ethan’s PE bag?” she says. “It’s OK, Izzie, we can bend the rules on this occasion. Actually, I can bend them whenever it suits me, since I run the place—perk of the job. We don’t want Nicki worrying about whether the bag was safely delivered, do we?”

  Izzie shrugs ungraciously and returns to her desk.

  Kate pulls me out of the office and into an empty corridor. Once we’re alone, she says, “And the chances of it being safely delivered by Izzie are slim. She’s a lobotomy on legs.”

  “Really?” I must stop questioning everything she says. I keep assuming she’s joking, but she never is. I’m not used to people who work in primary schools speaking their minds in the way Kate Zilber does. Still, Freeth Lane is well known to be the best independent school in the Culver Valley, and Kate’s the person responsible for that. She could probably pelt the parents and governors with rotten eggs and get away with it.

  “Quick pep talk for you.” She gives me a stern look. “If you want to take Ethan his gym bag because you trust no one else to do the job properly, fine. But if there’s an element of wanting to get a quick glimpse of him to reassure yourself that he’s OK . . . not so fine.”

  “Why not?” I ask.

  “If you indulge your own anxiety, you’ll make Ethan’s worse. He needs his gym bag; you’ve brought it in—problem solved.” She squeezes my arm. “There’s no need for you to see him, Nicki. You’ll only read unhappiness into his expression, whether it’s there or not, and work yourself up into a state. If he smiles at you, you’ll worry he’s putting on a brave face in front of his new friends. If he doesn’t smile, you’ll imagine he’s in the grip of a powerful inner torment. Am I right?”

  I sigh. “Probably.”

  “How about I take him his gym bag instead?” she suggests. “I’m the most reliable person on the planet. You know that, right? I’m even more efficient than you.”

  “All right.” I smile and hand her the bag. For some reason, this tiny, shrewd, girly-voiced woman I barely know has a talent for very quickly making me feel ten times better. Every time she does, I can’t help thinking of Melissa, who has the opposite effect and is my closest friend.

  “Thank you.” Kate turns to walk away, then turns back. “Ethan really will be fine, you know. He’ll be as happy here as Sophie—you wait and see. Some children take longer than others to form emotional attachments and adapt to a new environment, that’s all. The other kids are really rallying around, looking after him—this term even more than last. It’s sweet. He’s made so many new friends.”

  “Ethan’s always been more sensitive than Sophie,” I say. “He doesn’t handle change well.” And his mother, knowing this, took him away from the school where he was happy. Two terms later, he still tells me at least once a week that he’ll never love this school as much as his old one—that however many friends he makes, Oliver-who-he-left-behind-in-London will always be his true best friend, even if he never sees him again.

  “Nicki.” Another stern look. “Ethan’s fine. He occasionally gets anxious about things. Lots of kids do. It’s really nothing serious. Your anxiety, on the other hand . . . You should take yourself to a head doctor, lady,” she concludes affectionately.

  “Kate, I—” I break off. What am I thinking? I can’t tell her anything. I can’t tell anyone, ever.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Bugger ‘nothing.’ You can’t start and not finish. Tell me or I’ll expel your children.”

  “I’ve . . . been under a lot of pressure recently, that’s all. I’m not normally so twitchy.”

  Kate raises a plucked eyebrow. “Don’t fob me off, Nicki. That wasn’t what you were going to say.”

  The urge to tell her—something, anything—is overwhelming.

  “I lied to you.”

  “Ooh! This sounds promising.” She moves closer, rubbing her hands together. No one else I know would react so enthusiastically to hearing they’d been deceived. If only they would. “Lied to me about what?”

  “First time I came in to look around,” I say, “you asked me why we wanted to leave London and move to Spilling.”

  “And you said what so many people who have moved from London say: better schools, bigger garden, cleaner air, perfect rural childhood, yada yada. Whenever parents tell me that, I think, ‘Ha, just wait till your fourteen-year-old’s roaming those big green fields you prize so highly, off his tits on illegal substances because there’s no subway to take him anywhere worth going, and absolutely nothing to do in his local idyll.’”

  I laugh. “Are you this frank with all the parents?”

  Kate considers my question, then says, “I tone it down a bit for the squeamish ones. So, come on—the lie?”

  “My real reason for moving here was entirely selfish, nothing to do with fresher air and bigger gardens. I wasn’t thinking about my children, or my husband. Only myself.”

  “Well . . . good,” says Kate.

  “Good?”

  “Absolutely. It’s when we imagine we know how others feel and presume to know what’s best for them that mistakes are made. Whereas no one knows our own needs better than us.” She glances at her watch. “Looking after number one’s not as daft a policy as it sounds: make the only person happy that you can, let everyone else do the same and take care of themselves. So why did you want to move to Spilling?”

  I shake my head, look away. “It doesn’t matter. It stopped being relevant shortly after we got here anyway. Sod’s Law. I just wanted you to know: that’s the reason I get anxious about Ethan.”

  “I get it,” says Kate. “His suffering is your punishment. You don’t believe you can avoid retribution for being as selfish as you’ve been, therefore Ethan must be suffering horribly?”

  “Something like that,” I mutter.

  “I wouldn’t think that way if I were you. Women need to be ruthlessly selfish. You know why? Because men are, and so are children. Both will turn you into their slave unless you give back as good as you get on the selfish front.” I find myself looking at her left hand to see if she’s wearing a wedding band; I’ve never noticed, and her name gives nothing away: she’s Dr. Zilber, not Miss or Mrs.

  She is wearing a wedding ring. A thin one—either white gold or platinum. The skin around it is pink, chapped and flaky, as if she’s allergic to it.

  “Listen, Nicki—much as I’d love to pry further into your secret reason for moving here, I’d better get on. There are people still on my staff who belong on the welfare line.” She nods toward Izzie. “I can’t rest until that’s rectified. But first stop: Ethan’s bag.”

  I thank her, and return to my car feeling more optimistic than I have for a while.

  Maybe nothing all that terrible has happened to me. Maybe I’m not the guiltiest woman in the world. If I told Kate, she might laugh and say, “God, what a story!” in an appreciative way. I’m so used to Melissa’s harsh glare and pursed lips and, more recently, her refusal to listen, but she is only one person. The wrong person to try and share a secret with, if the secret’s anything more controversial than “This is what I’ve bought so-and-so for their birthday—don’t tell them.”

  The conclusion I’ve been strenuously trying to avoid reaching glows in neon in my brain: I need to give up on Melissa and find myself a new best friend. I can’t get away from her—she’s managed to tie us together forever, even if that wasn’t her
intention—but I can demote her in my mind to “acquaintance”; she’ll never know I’ve done it, if I’m still friendly on the surface.

  Is there a website, I wonder: newbestfriend.com? If there is, it’s probably full of people trying to turn it nonplatonic, looking for “fuck buddies” or “friends with benefits.”

  Kate Zilber wouldn’t have let a run-in with a policeman stop her from doing what she wanted and needed to do. She wouldn’t have been doing it in the first place unless she’d decided it was OK, and she wouldn’t have been terrified and ashamed if caught. I doubt she’d have disappeared from Gavin’s life with no word or explanation, as I did.

  The fairest thing to do, for his sake and my family’s—that’s what I told myself.

  Liar. Coward.

  I owe him an explanation. For whatever reason, however stupid and crazy it was, he was significant to me for a while. He mattered. I think I mattered to him too.

  I drive along the Silsford Road with the window open, thinking about the possibility of contacting him now. Could I extend my definition of being good to include emailing him just once more, to tell him that my disappearance wasn’t his fault, that he did nothing wrong?

  No. It wouldn’t be only once. He’d hook you again.

  Cutting off from Gavin took all my willpower; I might not have the strength to do it a second time.

  I decide to allow myself the luxury of not deciding immediately. I want to cling to the possibility—not of going back to how it was, but of one last communication, to end things in a proper way. I know better than anyone that sometimes a possibility is enough to keep a person going, even if it never becomes a reality.