Your Secret's Safe With Me Page 7

  ‘And where are your children now?’ I asked, wondering if the children could be coerced into telling their side of the story. It could add a whole new level of interest.

  ‘He wouldn’t let me have anything to do with them,’ Stella said. ‘He got a lawyer involved, it all turned very nasty. He poisoned them against me. I thought… I hoped,’ she gulped, and her eyes filled with moisture, ‘when they got to eighteen, they might try and find me.’

  ‘Do you mean to say you haven’t had any contact with your children since your divorce?’

  She shook her head. ‘No. I haven’t seen them for years.’

  ‘They haven’t tried to find you?’

  ‘No. I’m not that well-hidden, am I? I run a pub not a million miles away from where we used to live. If they Googled hard enough, they’d know where I was.’

  I was appalled. ‘Oh Stella, I’m so sorry.’

  She gave a shrug. ‘Don’t worry. I’ve developed a very thick skin. I’ve learned to live with their loss.’

  It was as if she had suffered a bereavement. No wonder she had lost her spirit.

  ‘I’m not surprised they turned against me,’ she continued. ‘Owen knew how to manipulate the press. The nationals lapped it up. I was a callous woman who had put her ambition before her family, just because I wanted to win a bloody yacht race. Do you know what he said to me? I let you go off chasing a whim, and this is how you re-pay me. Can you believe in the twenty-first century a man would actually say that about his wife? I let you go. After all the support I’d given him over the years, helping set up the restaurant business and then making it easy for him to have this marvellous TV career, and he accuses me of abandoning my children.

  ‘Do you ever read anything like that about all those men who on go on these fantastic adventures, setting endurance records or trekking across the Antarctic? No, you don’t, do you? Because it’s okay for men to go off chasing whims, isn’t it, but not us women?’

  ‘He sounds like a bit of a tyrant,’ I remarked.

  ‘Oh, he was,’ Stella agreed. ‘Forget that cosy image he created for the cameras, glugging back his Merlot as he tossed a mackerel onto the hot coals. He was a resentful and jealous man. This wasn’t about Chloe. This was because I won that race and for once he wasn’t the star of the show. Do you know, he’d actually taken part in the Tri-islander a few years earlier, when he was nobody, and his boat didn’t even finish.

  ‘He couldn’t face the fact that for once I had done something better than him. I would never abandon my children. I’d made full arrangements for their childcare while I was away. They had loving grandparents on both sides of the family, aunts, uncles, and friends. I recruited a whole team to look after them in my absence. I’d drawn up a bloody wall-planner, for Christ’s sake; I had to. Owen was flying out to Madeira to meet me halfway, and again for the final in the Azores. Although by then, of course, he’d started his smear campaign. He told us not to come back to the restaurant, banned me from my own home.’

  It was no wonder Stella was bitter.

  ‘And your parents, the extended family, they didn’t help to put you back in touch with your children?’ I asked. ‘Even after it all blew over?’

  She shook her head. ‘They all took Owen’s side. My parents were old-school conservative; in fact, I’d describe my father as homophobic, if the word existed back then. In any case, he died ten, fifteen years ago and my mother shortly after. Of my siblings, only one sister keeps in touch – a birthday card and an Amazon voucher at Christmas. One of my brothers did suggest that if I dumped Chloe, he might condescend to visit, but I decided I would rather have Chloe.’

  I tended to agree with her. She had chosen her love for Chloe over her family. That took some guts, but then it also took some guts to sail halfway across the Atlantic, and break records to boot. She’d accomplished a lot but been reviled rather than applauded. That was definitely something worth telling.

  Owen Markham still ran the restaurant he’d started with Stella. How was he going to react if his story was dragged up again after all these years?

  ‘You know Owen remarried?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Stella replied. ‘And no doubt the second Mrs Markham is a far better mother to my kids than I would ever have been.’

  ‘What did you have, children I mean?’

  ‘Boy and a girl. Tristram will be thirty-five now, Emily thirty-two.’

  ‘Have you tried Googling them?’ I asked.

  She looked at me as if I was stupid. ‘Of course I have, but I can’t just barge back into their lives, can I? I know they won’t want anything to do with me. Owen saw to that, just as he ensured my sailing achievements were belittled.’

  It was quite possible Stella’s children were still on the Isle of Wight. Surely it wouldn’t be that difficult to track them down. Was a reunion possible? Could I persuade them to forgive and forget? Could Owen Markham be exposed as an ogre who had kept a good, honest woman away from her family for thirty years out of spite? Was I up to the task? I was used to assisting my mother with her light fluffy romances. I’d always been the sort of person who avoided challenges like the plague; I liked my security blanket. But that was the old me, and this was the new one. The one without a job.

  ‘Look, I’d really like to have a go at this,’ I told her. ‘How about I draft some chapters out? If you’re not happy with what I come up with, we’ll forget the whole project. But I think we should at least try.’

  ‘I’d have to discuss it with Chloe,’ Stella frowned.

  ‘Stella, this is your story,’ I reminded her. ‘You were the one who lost your family, not her.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Stella mused. ‘Okay,’ she said decisively. ‘Why not? Like you say, if I don’t like it, we don’t proceed?’

  ‘Exactly,’ I told her.

  I persuaded Stella to hand over the one precious album of family photographs she had retained, along with an entire folder of newspaper cuttings she had surreptitiously collected of articles relating to Owen’s career and his restaurant.

  ‘Occasionally he mentioned what the kids were up to in his interviews,’ she confessed, ‘especially early on. It was just my way of keeping tabs.’

  It seemed a very sad way to have to stay in touch.

  ‘No letters?’ I asked. ‘No birthday cards?’

  She shook her head. ‘Obviously I wrote and sent cards to them, but I never received anything back.’

  I thought of Nick’s attempts to contact me after we first split up. I’d felt too hurt, too broken to reply, but Stella’s children were too little to have felt so betrayed. Her husband had been a vindictive man indeed.

  As she walked me out to the front of the pub to avoid the kitchens, I asked her what she knew of the Robshaw family.

  ‘Not an awful lot, I’m afraid,’ she replied. ‘JJ was into powerboat racing as a youngster, made a bit of money on the circuit but I imagine he frittered it all away. As for Jack, I understand his first wife, Mary, belonged to the Dimmock family. Presumably, that’s why he got the house and inherited the boatyard business. The marina was well established by the time Chloe and I arrived in Kerridge. If you’re interested in local history, pay a visit to Portdeane library. There’s an exhibition there; they’ve got loads of lovely old photographs of all the old boat-building families. Dimmocks were based in Kerridge for years but I don’t think they could compete with the bigger firms down in Portdeane. I suppose Jack saw the commercial potential in developing the waterfront into a marina.’

  ‘Where’s Portdeane?’ I asked.

  Stella pointed towards the estuary. ‘Opposite Helme Point. There’s a couple of boat-building firms still based down there.’

  ‘Helme, isn’t that where you keep your houseboat? I understand you rent one out?’

  ‘Are you looking for somewhere to stay?’ Stella laughed. ‘Sorry, but The Solstice’s already taken. Another writer, in fact. Alex, you met him here on our quiz night. I rent a mooring at Chapman’s W
harf, hidden away in the marsh. It’s a lovely spot.’

  ‘How long would it take to walk there from here?’ I asked.

  ‘If you cut up through the village and take the road by the church, you’ll be there in thirty minutes,’ Stella replied. ‘It’ll be quicker than heading along the course of the river. There’s far too many inlets and creeks between here and Helme Point.’

  I thanked her and set off with a renewed vigour.

  Chapter Nine

  I only made it as far as the church before Nev’s familiar white Range Rover drew up alongside me.

  Pearl leaned out of the window. ‘That’s a bit of luck. Hop in.’

  It would be positively dangerous to reveal where I was heading or, more to the point, why. Fortunately, Pearl was too impatient to off-load the traumas of suit shopping to have any interest in what I was doing wandering around Kerridge in the middle of the afternoon. It was apparent Freddy had not yet broken his news. He sulked beside me in the back seat while Pearl unleashed a tirade on the horrors of finding suitable wedding attire.

  ‘The boy is too lanky,’ she complained. ‘We’re going to have to have something made-to-measure. Nothing fitted – arms, legs, all too short. He looked like a scare-crow.’

  ‘I looked like a bloody trussed-up penguin,’ Freddy corrected. ‘I’ll never live it down if any of those photos get onto Facebook.’

  ‘I would imagine that would be highly unlikely,’ I assured him. Despite her new iPhone, Pearl had not yet mastered social media and I had no intention of posting anything to do with the upcoming nuptials, even though I had given Pearl my blessing. Weddings were firmly off my radar. Most of my friends knew better than to invite me to share their big day. It wasn’t that I didn’t wish them well, but for obvious reasons the thought of being present at any kind of formal marriage ceremony tended to bring on flashbacks and palpitations. I was doing my best to keep a calm head at the thought of Pearl’s impending celebrations. Freddy’s schoolboy attitude wasn’t helping.

  ‘Trussed-up penguin or not, you will wear the outfit I choose,’ Pearl insisted. ‘This is my big day and I won’t let you spoil it.’ I couldn’t help but feel the second half of the sentence was directed me. One wedding day had already ended in tatters – mine. Hers was not going to befall the same fate.

  Freddy continued to sulk, but cheered up over dinner when Heather dished up a vegetarian curry.

  ‘Isn’t there something missing?’ Jack asked after a couple of mouthfuls.

  ‘Freddy’s a vegan,’ Pearl informed him. ‘I almost forgot to mention it to Heather, but she’s come up trumps again, hasn’t she?’

  ‘Vegan?’ Jack grunted. ‘What’s that mean?’

  I could see Freddy itching to begin his spiel. He could talk for hours when it came to promoting his cause.

  ‘Did you tell Pearl you were applying for jobs?’ I broke in before he could start.

  ‘Jobs?’ Pearl paused. ‘You’re not telling me there’s a chance you’ll get a private commission?’ I could hear the hint of hope in her voice.

  ‘What is it you do exactly, boy?’ Jack asked, perhaps also seizing the opportunity to forestall a lecture on the wonders of veganism.

  ‘I told you he’s a painter,’ Pearl replied.

  ‘Well, our bedroom could certainly do with decorating,’ Jack said. ‘I had thought about getting someone in.’

  ‘No. Art, you silly old thing. I’m sure I’ve told you, Freddy is studying fine art.’ Pearl gave Jack a playful shove.

  When Freddy had announced his intention to study fine art, my mother had imagined a modern-day Constable or Turner, or at the very least a Jackson Pollock. Instead, Freddy’s forte was ‘conceptual installations’, an idea I was convinced originally stemmed from a trip to A&E at the age of twelve when he had broken his femur playing rugby. It had been a serious injury and ruined whatever hope Freddy, or at least Pearl, might have had that he could pursue an international sporting career. It had, however, resulted in a fascination with Plaster of Paris – an obsession which one of his art teachers had unfortunately encouraged when it became clear that Freddy had very little talent for anything else. Freddy’s POP and chicken-wire creations had adorned our living room shelves for several years.

  Freddy liked to ‘create’, but it wasn’t necessarily art as Pearl and I knew it. He wanted to ‘open’ our minds to the ‘unimaginable’, and over the last four years had produced a collection of obscure videos, audio recordings, collages, and mash-ups of still-photographs which made no sense to me at all. ‘That’s the whole point,’ he argued.

  ‘The stable block will need a bit of a spruce up if Becca wants to move in,’ Jack continued. ‘I’m serious, by the way, about the decorating.’

  ‘Who said anything about moving into the stable block?’ I asked.

  ‘You’re going to need somewhere to live when Beech Mews is sold,’ Pearl pointed out. ‘Jack has very generously offered to put you up in the flat above the garage.’

  ‘These things can take months to go through,’ I said, not wishing to sound ungrateful. ‘I’ve got plenty of time to look for something to rent in London. You know I’d prefer to stay up there.’

  Pearl looked unimpressed. ‘The change of scenery might do you good,’ she said. ‘I feel positively invigorated since I’ve been on the coast.’

  ‘What about me?’ Freddy asked. ‘Where am I going to go? I was planning on moving back to Battersea. I can’t afford to stay in my digs without my student loan.’ He looked hopefully up at Pearl. ‘Unless you want to carry on paying my rent?’

  ‘No, she doesn’t, boy,’ Jack retorted. ‘Sounds to me like you’ve had years of bumming around on your backside, living off your mother’s charity. You should be looking for a proper job. JJ can find you something on the marina. I’ll give him a ring later this evening. There’s always boats that needed hosing down or barnacles scrubbing off. A monkey could do it.’

  ‘It sounds right up Freddy’s street,’ I said with a smile. ‘Seriously, Jack, do you think you could get Fred a job in the boatyard?’

  ‘If I ask JJ to take the boy on, he’ll take the boy on.’ Jack gave an assertive nod of his head. ‘Bit of hard work never did anyone any harm. Be physical, mind. No disrespect to you, Pearl, but he doesn’t look very robust.’

  ‘That’s what veganism does to you,’ Pearl said with a shake of her head. ‘I have told him in the past. But still, Freddy, you could do it, couldn’t you, at least until something else turns up? It would be good for you to learn a bit about Jack’s business. And you could also come and live here with us. You can have the old nursery on the top floor.’ She beamed around the table. ‘Isn’t that wonderful? We’d be a proper family again. One big happy family.’

  I almost willed Freddy to tell her then, on the spot, about the impending new addition to our one big happy family, but he looked so shell-shocked by his sudden promotion from art student to barnacle scrubber that I didn’t have the heart.

  We were due to return to London on Sunday evening. Although there was no pressing need for Freddy to return with me, he’d arrived at Rivermede with no evidence of any change of clothes, so I assumed he was only planning on staying the one night.

  Jack announced over breakfast in the conservatory that he’d already spoken to JJ, and Freddy should report to the office on the marina at eleven.

  Freddy was still in bed.

  ‘You’re not expecting him to start straight away, are you?’ I queried, slicing the top off my boiled egg with great gusto.

  ‘Does he want a job or not?’ Jack grunted. ‘Marina operates seven days a week.’

  ‘I’ll go and wake him,’ Pearl offered, folding her napkin. The napkins were pure Egyptian cotton. I dabbed at a spot of egg yolk I could feel on my chin. I briefly wondered if Jack’s offer of accommodation above the garage included participation in Rivermede’s full-board dining arrangements. Pearl had certainly got used to being waited on hand and foot, but I didn’t relish the thought
of Heather and Neville watching over my every move. Pearl seemed to think the stable block flat was self-contained. It wouldn’t do any harm to take a look.

  Don’t be tempted, Becca, I told myself. Don’t be swayed. It’s not what you want.

  The truth was I wanted my old life back, the familiar routine. I wanted Pearl back in Battersea, and Freddy out of sight out of mind causing havoc in the creative art studios at Goldsmiths. The reality was, though, that what I wanted wasn’t going to happen. Freddy needed to have a job on the marina because he would soon have a child to support, and Pearl was getting married. It was time for a new start – for all of us.

  Freddy emerged from his room in a state of confusion. Pearl plied him with coffee, reassuring him that this was just an interview, and no, of course no-one expected him to work on a Sunday.

  I Googled Chapman’s Wharf and calculated it was no more than a fifteen-minute walk from the marina. I offered to drive Freddy to his job interview.

  ‘I’m not really going to be washing boats, am I?’ Freddy asked.

  ‘It’s either washing boats and living rent-free here, or it’s washing beer glasses and paying your own rent in London,’ I pointed out. ‘If you think you can earn enough by being a kitchen porter in Soho, then go for it.’

  ‘Okay, okay, you’ve made your point.’

  ‘I’m sure there’s more to the job than washing boats.’

  Robshaw Marine Sales occupied very prestigious offices at the entrance to the marina. A vast selection of boats of all shapes and sizes were offered for sale – everything from the smallest rib to a large cabin cruiser, propped on steel cradles and girders. I’d never seen so many boats on dry land.

  I knew from discussing the situation with Jack the previous evening, after Freddy had retired exhausted to his guest quarters, that JJ was in charge overall and took personal responsibility for the brokerage side of the business, buying and selling new and used yachts and motor boats. A foreman was responsible for the dry storage area and on-the-water berthing facilities. Various other marine-related businesses leased workshop and office space from Jack.