Can You Keep a Secret?

  I did once go along, to see what it was all about. But first of all, they have all these stupid rules about what you can wear, which I didn’t know, and some old guy nearly had a heart attack because I was in jeans. (Mum said she thought Kerry had told me what to wear. But she hadn’t.) So they had to find me a skirt and a spare pair of those clumpy shoes with spikes. And then when we got onto the course, I couldn’t hit the ball. Not that I couldn’t hit the ball well: I literally could not make contact with the ball. So in the end they all exchanged pitying glances and said I’d better wait in the clubhouse.

  “Sorry, Emma. Can I just get past you?” Kerry reaches over my shoulder for a serving dish.

  “Sorry,” I say, and move aside. “So, is there really nothing I can do, Mum?”

  “You could feed Sammy,” she says, giving me a pot of goldfish food. She frowns anxiously. “You know, I’m a bit worried about Sammy.”

  “Oh!” I say, feeling a spasm of alarm. “Er, why?”

  “He just doesn’t seem himself.” She peers at him in his bowl. “What do you think? Does he look right to you?”

  “Er …” I follow her gaze and pull a thoughtful face as though I’m studying Sammy’s features.

  Oh, God. I never thought she would notice. I tried as hard as I could to get a fish that looked just like Sammy. I mean, he’s orange, he’s got two fins, he swims around … what’s the difference?

  “He’s probably just a bit depressed,” I say at last. “He’ll get over it.”

  Please don’t let her take him to the vet or anything, I silently pray. I didn’t even check if I got the right sex. Do goldfishes even have sexes?

  “Anything else I can do?” I start sprinkling fish food lavishly over the water in an attempt to block her view of him.

  “We’ve pretty much got it covered,” replies Kerry kindly.

  “Why don’t you go and say hello to Dad?” A cloud of steam rises as Mum sieves some peas. “Lunch won’t be for another ten minutes or so.”

  I find Dad and Nev in the sitting room, in front of the cricket. Dad’s graying beard is as neatly trimmed as ever, and he’s drinking beer from a silver tankard. The room has recently been redecorated with stripy wallpaper, but on the wall there’s still a display of Kerry’s swimming cups. Mum polishes them all regularly, every week.

  Plus my two riding rosettes. I think she kind of dusts those, too.

  “Hi, Dad,” I say, giving him a kiss.

  “Emma!” He puts a hand to his head in mock surprise. “You made it! No detours! No visits to historic cities!”

  “Not today!” I give a little laugh. “Safe and sound.”

  There was one time, just after Mum and Dad had moved to this house, when I took the wrong train on the way down and ended up in Salisbury, and Dad always teases me about it.

  “Hi, Nev.” I peck him on the cheek, trying not to choke on the amount of aftershave he’s wearing. He’s in chinos and a tight white roll-neck that shows off his thick, muscular chest and glares off his reddened skin. Around his wrist is a heavy gold bracelet, and on his ring finger is a wedding ring with a diamond set in it. Nev runs his family’s company, which supplies water coolers all around the country, and he met Kerry at some convention for young entrepreneurs. Apparently they struck up conversation admiring each other’s Rolex watches.

  “Hi, Emma,” he says. “D’you see the new motor?”

  “What?” I suddenly recall a glossy new car on the drive when I arrived. “Oh, yes! Very smart.”

  “Mercedes Five Series. Forty-two grand list price.”

  “Gosh.”

  “Didn’t pay that, though.” He taps the side of his nose. “Have a guess.”

  “Erm, forty?”

  “Guess again.”

  “Thirty-nine?”

  “Got him down to thirty-seven-two-fifty,” says Nev triumphantly. “And free CD changer. Tax deductible,” he adds.

  “Right. Wow.”

  I don’t really know what else to say, so I perch on the side of the sofa and eat a peanut.

  “That’s what you’re aiming for, Emma!” says Dad. “Executive level! Think you’ll ever make it?”

  “I … don’t know! Er, Dad, that reminds me. I’ve got a check for you.” I awkwardly reach into my bag and get out a check for three hundred pounds.

  “Well done,” says Dad. “That can go on the tally.” His green eyes twinkle as he puts it in his pocket. “It’s called learning the value of money. It’s called learning to stand on your own two feet!”

  “Valuable lesson,” says Nev, nodding. He takes a slug of beer and grins at Dad. “Just remind me, Emma—what career is it this week?”

  When I first met Nev, it was just after I’d left the estate agency to become a photographer. Two and a half years ago. And he makes the same joke every time I see him. Every single, bloody—

  OK, calm down. Happy thoughts. Cherish your family. Cherish Nev.

  “It’s still marketing!” I say brightly. “Has been for almost a year now!”

  “Ah. Marketing. Good, good!”

  There’s silence for a few minutes, apart from the cricket commentary. Suddenly Dad and Nev simultaneously groan as something or other happens on the cricket pitch. A moment later they groan again.

  “Right,” I say. “Well, I’ll just …”

  As I get up from the sofa, they don’t even turn their heads.

  I go out to the hall and pick up the small carton I brought down with me. Then I go through the side gate, knock on the annex door, and push it cautiously.

  “Grandpa?”

  Grandpa is Mum’s dad, and he’s lived with us ever since he had his heart operation, ten years ago. At the old house in Twickenham, he just had a bedroom, but this house is bigger, so he has his own annex of two rooms and a tiny little kitchen, tacked onto the side of the house. He’s sitting in his favorite leather armchair, with the radio playing classical music and his eyes tight shut. On the floor in front of him are about six cardboard packing cases crammed with stuff. I glimpse sheaves of papers, books dotted with age, an old wireless, an old-fashioned alarm clock, a set of plastic flowerpots, a slide projector, an Ordinance Survey map dating from 1977.

  “Hi, Grandpa!” I say.

  “Emma!” As he opens his eyes, his face lights up. “Darling girl! Come here!” I bend over to give him a kiss, and he squeezes my hand tight. His skin is dry and cool, and his hair is even whiter than it was last time I saw him.

  “I’ve got some more Panther Bars for you,” I say, nodding to my box. Grandpa is completely addicted to Panther energy bars, and so are all his friends at the bowling club, so I use my discount allowance to buy him a boxful every time I come home. (Apparently Panther employees used to get all the products for free. But then some guys from Design were found to be selling Panther Cola cheap over the Internet, so they clamped down.)

  “Thank you, my love!” Grandpa beams. “You’re a good girl, Emma.”

  “Where should I put them?”

  We both look helplessly around the cluttered room.

  “What about over there, by the fireplace?” says Grandpa at last. I pick my way across the room, dump the box on the floor, then retrace my steps, picking between a bundle of newspapers tied together with string, a pile of postcards and letters, and a heap of stuff that looks like total rubbish.

  “Pineapple and papaya?” Grandpa’s reading the label on the box. He looks up in dismay. “What happened to apple and black currant?”

  “They’re pushing the tropical flavors,” I explain, sitting down on one of the packing cases. “There’s a whole ad campaign around it. ‘Transport Yourself.’ These guys are playing volleyball, and they take a bite of a Panther Bar, and suddenly they’re on this exotic beach.…”

  I trail off as Grandpa shakes his head.

  “Papaya! Would you put papaya on your porridge?” He looks so disgusted I want to laugh.

  “Er, well, but these are oat health bars—”

  “Exactly
. Oats. Porridge!”

  “I’ll get you some apple and black currant ones. I promise—”

  “Apple and oats, yes. Pineapple and oats …” Grandpa pauses. “Barf.”

  I nearly choke in surprise. “Barf?”

  “It’s the new slang,” says Grandpa. “I read it in the paper. It means ‘to be sick.’ I’m surprised you haven’t heard of it, Emma.”

  “Well, I have. But—”

  “And another thing,” adds Grandpa before I can continue. “I read a very worrying newspaper article the other day, about safety in London.” He gives me a beady look. “You don’t travel on public transport in the evenings, do you?”

  “Erm, hardly ever,” I say, crossing my fingers behind my back. “Just now and then, when I absolutely have to.…”

  “Darling girl, you mustn’t!” says Grandpa, looking agitated. “Teenagers in hoods with flick-knives roam the underground, it said. Drunken louts breaking bottles, gouging one another’s eyes out …”

  “It’s not that bad—”

  “Emma, it’s not worth the risk! For the sake of a taxi fare or two!”

  I’m pretty sure that if I asked Grandpa what he thought the average taxi fare was in London, he’d say five shillings.

  “Honestly, Grandpa, I’m really careful.” I adopt a reassuring tone. “And I do take taxis.”

  Sometimes. About once a year.

  “Anyway. What’s all this stuff?” I ask to change the subject, and Grandpa gives a gusty sigh.

  “Your mother cleared out the attic last week. I’m just sorting out what to throw away and what to keep.”

  “That seems like a good idea.” I look at the pile of rubbish on the floor. “Is this the stuff you’re throwing out?”

  “No! I’m keeping all that!” He puts a protective hand over it.

  “So, where’s the stuff to throw?”

  There’s silence. Grandpa avoids my gaze.

  “Grandpa! You have to throw some of this away!” I exclaim, trying not to laugh. “You don’t need all these old newspaper cuttings! And what’s this?” I reach past the newspaper cuttings and fish out an old yo-yo. “This is rubbish, surely.”

  “Jim’s yo-yo!” Grandpa’s reaches for the yo-yo, his eyes softening. “Good old Jim.”

  “Who was Jim?” I’ve never even heard of a Jim before. “Was he a good friend of yours?”

  “We met at the fairground. Spent the afternoon together. I was nine.” Grandpa is turning the yo-yo over and over in his fingers.

  “Did you become friends?”

  “Never saw him again.” He shakes his head. “I’ve never forgotten it.”

  The trouble with Grandpa is, he never forgets anything.

  “Well … what about some of these cards?” I pull out a bundle of old Christmas cards.

  “I never throw away cards.” Grandpa gives me a long look. “When you get to my age; when the people you’ve known and loved all your life start to pass away … you want to hang on to any memento. However small.”

  “I can understand that,” I say more quietly. Maybe this is all souvenirs of Granny. She died when I was seven, and Grandpa still visits her grave every two weeks.

  I reach for the nearest card and open it, and my expression changes. “Grandpa! This is from Smith’s Electrical Maintenance, 1965!”

  “Frank Smith was a very good man,” starts Grandpa.

  “Grandpa.” I try to sound firm. “You can’t possibly need to keep this. Nor do you need one from …” I open the next card. “Southwestern Gas Supplies. And you don’t need twenty old copies of Punch.” I deposit them on the pile. “And what are these?” I reach into the box again and pull out an envelope of photos. “Are these actually of anything you really want to—”

  I stop. I’m looking at a photograph of me and Dad and Mum sitting on a bench in a park. Mum’s wearing a flowery dress, and Dad’s wearing a stupid sun hat, and I’m on his knee, aged about nine, eating an ice cream. We all look so happy together.

  Wordlessly, I turn to another photo. I’ve got Dad’s hat on, and we’re all laughing helplessly at something. Just us three.

  Just us. Before Kerry came into our lives.

  I still remember the day she arrived as though it were yesterday. I remember red suitcases in the hall and a new voice in the kitchen and an unfamiliar smell of perfume in the air. I walked in and there she was, a stranger, all the way from Hong Kong, drinking a cup of tea. She was wearing a school uniform, but she still looked like a grown-up to me. She already had an enormous bust, and gold studs in her ears, and streaks in her hair. And at suppertime, Mum and Dad let her have a glass of wine. Mum kept telling me I had to be very kind to her, because her mother had died and her father, Mum’s brother, was too busy traveling to look after her. She was going to live with us for the moment, and then maybe her daddy would get a new job and move back to Britain. But in the meantime we all had to be very kind to Kerry. That was why she got my room.

  I leaf through the rest of the pictures, trying to swallow the lump in my throat. There’s the park we used to go to, with swings and slides. I loved that place so much. But it was too boring for Kerry, and I desperately wanted to be like her, so I said it was boring, too, and we never went again.

  “Knock, knock!”

  I look up with a start, and Kerry’s standing at the door, holding her glass of wine.

  “Lunch is ready!”

  “Thanks,” I say. “We’re just coming.”

  “Now, Gramps!” Kerry wags her finger reprovingly at Grandpa and gestures at the packing cases. “Haven’t you got anywhere with this yet?”

  “It’s difficult,” I hear myself saying defensively. “There are loads of memories in here. You can’t just throw them out.”

  “If you say so.” Kerry rolls her eyes. “If it were me, the whole lot’d go in the bin.”

  I cannot cherish her. I cannot do it. I want to throw my treacle tart at her.

  We’ve been sitting around the table now for forty minutes, and the only voice we’ve heard is Kerry’s.

  “It’s all about image,” she’s saying now. “It’s all about the right clothes, the right look, the right walk. When I walk along the street, the message I give the world is ‘I am a successful woman.’ ”

  “Show us!” says Mum admiringly.

  “Well.” Kerry gives a false-modest smile. “Like this.” She pushes her chair back and wipes her mouth with her napkin.

  “You should watch this, Emma!” says Mum. “Pick up a few tips!”

  As we all watch, Kerry starts striding around the room. Her chin is raised, her boobs are sticking out, her eyes are fixed on the middle distance, and her bottom is jerking from side to side.

  She looks like a cross between an ostrich and one of the androids in Attack of the Clones.

  “I should be in heels, of course,” she says without stopping.

  “When Kerry goes into a conference hall, I tell you, heads turn,” says Nev proudly, and takes a sip of wine. “People stop what they’re doing and stare at her!”

  I bet they do.

  Oh, God. I want to giggle. I mustn’t. I mustn’t.

  “Do you want to have a go, Emma?” says Kerry. “Copy me?”

  “Er, I don’t think so,” I say. “I think I probably … picked up the basics.”

  I can’t control the snort of laughter that erupts, so I turn it into a cough.

  “Kerry’s trying to help you, Emma!” says Mum. “You should be grateful!” She beams at Kerry, who simpers back. “You are good to Emma, Kerry.”

  I just take a swig of wine.

  Yeah, right. Kerry really wants to help me.

  That’s why when I was completely desperate for a job after the photography disaster and asked her for work experience at her office furniture company, she said no. I wrote her this really long, careful letter, saying I realized it put her in an awkward situation, but I’d really appreciate any chance, even a couple of days of running errands, to gain experience. r />
  And she sent back a standard rejection letter saying she’d “keep my details on file.”

  I was so totally mortified, I never told anyone. Especially not Mum and Dad.

  “You should listen to some of Kerry’s business tips, Emma,” Dad is saying sharply. “Maybe if you paid more attention, you’d do a bit better in life.”

  “It’s only a walk!” quips Nev with a chortle. “It’s not a miracle cure!”

  “Nev!” Mum frowns in half reproof.

  “Emma knows I’m joking, don’t you, Emma?” says Nev easily, and fills up his glass with more wine.

  “Of course!” I force a merry smile.

  Just wait till I get promoted.

  Just wait. Just wait.

  A sudden image of the cranberry drink spraying over Doug Hamilton pops into my head, and I feel a twinge of unease. Not one of my best moments. And when I got home yesterday night, I found a message from Paul on my mobile, asking how the meeting went and saying we’d speak on Monday.

  But I have to think positive. He wouldn’t not promote me just because of one mistake, would he? I mean, if it was anyone’s fault, it was the design department’s! They should make better cans. Or the drink should be less fizzy.…

  “Emma! Earth to Emma!” Kerry is waving a comical hand in front of my face. “Wake up, dopey! We’re doing presents!”

  “Oh, right.” I come to. “OK. I’ll just go and get mine.”

  As Mum opens a camera from Dad and a purse from Grandpa, I start to feel excited. I so hope Mum likes my present.

  “It doesn’t look much,” I say as I hand her the pink envelope. “But you’ll see when you open it.…”

  “What can it be?” Mum says, looking intrigued. She rips open the envelope and takes out the flowered card, and her whole face lights up. “Oh, Emma!”

  “What is it?” says Dad.

  “It’s a day at a spa!” exclaims Mum. “A whole day of pampering!”

  “What a good idea!” says Grandpa, and pats my hand. “You always have good ideas for presents, Emma!”

  “Thank you, love! How thoughtful!” Mum leans over to kiss me, and I feel a surge of pleasure. I had the idea a few months ago. It’s a really nice daylong package, with free treatments and everything.