The Secrets Between Us Read Free

and if the driver won’t wait we’ll find another. You take your time.’
    May walked over to the open window and gazed out at the sunset on the sea. Inside, a mosquito hummed. I reached down to scratch a trio of bites on the back of my left calf, then I opened the wardrobe door and took out a navy maxi-dress. In the mirror fastened to the inside of the door, I could see May, reflected, watching me, rubbing her lower lip with the tip of her index finger like she always did when she was worried.
    ‘You were thinking about the baby again, weren’t you?’ she asked.
    I shook my head. ‘I was dreaming, that’s all.’
    ‘Has something happened?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘You haven’t spoken to Laurie?’
    ‘No.’
    I pulled the damp dress off over my head and folded it over the bed-frame to dry.
    ‘Did he text you? I thought he might text you. I know you told him to leave you alone but I thought …’
    I shook my head.
    ‘No, he didn’t.’
    I turned my back while I took off the bikini top and slipped the blue dress over my head.
    ‘Well, anyway, you’re looking better,’ May said so brightly that I knew the opposite was true. ‘Are you feeling any better?’
    ‘I’m fine,’ I said.
    ‘Sarah …’
    ‘Honestly, I am.’
    ‘I shouldn’t have left you by yourself in the garden earlier. I knew I should have stayed with you.’
    I wriggled the dress down until it hung properly with the straps crossing my back and sitting in the dip in my shoulders.
    ‘Actually I was glad you left me. I had a nice time by the pool,’ I said. ‘I swam and I sunbathed. I met some English people.’
    ‘Oh yes?’
    ‘A man and his little boy.’
    I sensed May tense. I knew what she was thinking: that the man and his child had reminded me of what I had lost. I knew her concern was borne entirely of love, but at the same time I hated being the cause of her anxiety. I carried on quickly, as if the obvious parallel had never entered my mind: ‘He’s not that little, the child, he’s nearly seven. I watched him for a few minutes in the pool while his father took a phone call. He’s called Jamie, the boy.’
    ‘And what about his mum? Did you meet her?’
    ‘No, she isn’t with them. Jamie said she’d gone away.’
    ‘Maybe she’s visiting friends or had to work while they’re on holiday,’ May said.
    ‘Maybe.’
    May stepped back to look at me.
    ‘You’re a bit burnt,’ she said. She picked up her bag, rummaged inside and passed me the jar of expensive after-sun cream she’d bought in the airport duty-free shop. ‘Use this.’
    Obediently, I unscrewed the lid and dipped my finger into the lotion. It was cool and sweet-smelling. I smoothed it on to my sun-hot face, concentrating on the half-circles of parched flesh above and beneath my eyes. I tried to smile at May and this time I must have been more successful because she smiled back at me.
    ‘I shouldn’t have left you by yourself,’ she said softly. ‘I should have looked after you better.’

CHAPTER FOUR
    THE NEXT DAYS passed slowly. During daylight hours, May and I stayed in the hotel grounds. I would have been happy to spend every moment beneath the trees by the pool, but the heat always became too much for May and she didn’t want to leave me on my own so, every afternoon, when she began to puff and flag, we both went inside.
    We ate oily fish, olives and tomato salad in the chill of the air-conditioned dining room and then sat on reclining chairs in the deep dappled shade of the terrace, listening to piped music – an Italian tenor singing love songs that we didn’t understand. We sipped iced water, switched away the flies and talked of this and that, nothing much. A large fan blew warm air towards us, turned its face away, and then returned in a soporific rhythm.
    As the afternoons wore on, and the heat became a little less intense, May and I followed a steep, winding footpath cut into the cliff at the back of the hotel. It led down between waist-high walls