‘I know a secret about you.’
Alice had been sure she knew everything, but she was wrong about the secret.
It had rained on the Saturday afternoon so, after their illicit trip to the Tide Mills that morning, the girls had ended up in the dining room, at the long oval table, doing pictures with oil pastels and the pencils that Eleanor loved because they went like paint when the ends were wetted. The mess created by the boxes of crayons emptied on the green baize tablecloth, the crumpled sheets of discarded efforts strewn around the chair legs, was at odds with the chilly formality of the room. Over the years Isabel had redecorated most of the White House but Mark had not allowed her to touch this room, presided over by the thickly daubed oil portrait of Judge Henry Ramsay.
They had come close to their first argument during a debate about whether it was better to be deaf or blind, a subject brought up by Alice and on which she had, as usual, a firm opinion. Although later Eleanor couldn’t think what Alice had replied. She did remember that Alice had refused to answer when Eleanor asked if it was better to be alive or dead. Just as Eleanor had wondered if they could get away with being silent until it was time for Alice to go, she had spoken so quietly that Eleanor nearly didn’t hear:
‘I know a secret about your family.’
‘Secrets are stupid.’ Eleanor leaned closer to her picture: the Tide Mills from a small plane. She was the pilot, in goggles and a leather helmet.
‘I don’t care if you do.’ But she did care because she knew what the secret would be. It was what the secret always was and so really no secret at all. This time though, because she had been careful never to leave Alice on her own or with Gina, Eleanor had thought the secret was safe.
‘Not all secrets are stupid. If this was my secret I would care.’ Alice had on her teacher’s voice: stern and disappointed. She pulled her bubble-gum pink cardigan tighter around herself, implying that, as well as dusty, the dining room was cold.
‘So what is it?’ Eleanor hadn’t meant to ask. She snatched up an orange crayon to make the sun as hot as possible, and busily colouring, she pressed too hard and snapped the crayon. She felt disloyal, but was unclear who or what she had let down.
‘Guess! I’m not going to make it easy.’ Alice hovered over her drawing of a stick girl with a bunch of flowers. She gripped the pencil like a dart. The figure took up one corner of the paper leaving an expanse of white space. Abruptly putting down her pencil, she sat back in the chair with folded arms. She was smiling with unblinking eyes. Later all Eleanor could think of was that when they had been out in the garden before the rain, Alice had refused to have a staring contest in case it was bad for her eyes. She hadn’t told the policeman this.
Four days after this conversation, as Eleanor leaned over to dip into the policeman’s paper bag, feeling his fingers through the paper, she heard Alice’s voice and saw her face staring up from the sweets.
‘Wings off the table!’
It was rude to slouch, she had hissed at Eleanor over lunch before their painting session, darting a look at Mark Ramsay, who had smiled back, which meant he liked her. Up until then Eleanor had been sure her Dad felt sorry for her for having to play with Alice. The shock of realising that along with everyone else, he too liked Alice had made her drop her fork on to the floor. As she reappeared above the line of the tablecloth, she caught the forbidding glare of Judge Henry reading her thoughts. That day Eleanor had realised that, contrary to family tradition, the Judge had no power at all. He could not stop anyone liking Alice.
‘Is it about Gina?’ Most things Alice talked about ended up with Gina. Eleanor considered it impossible that a secret about Gina would be interesting, but it might be useful.
‘No! Warm though.’ Alice picked up her pencil again and softly touched the rubber end with her tongue. Pink-red flesh whipped in and out. Alice always finished ice creams after Eleanor, taking small sippy licks to make them last. Her eyes would half close like Crawford’s when tucking into a lamb bone, content yet wary.
‘I give up.’ Eleanor purposefully gave the sun sharp fins: the heat was burning up the fields and evaporating the sea, and scorching the grass on the lawn. She picked light green and brown crayons, making the paper thick and slippery with colour. The rays of light fired like laser beams at the wings of her plane, as she soared into the distance beyond the horizon line, where the earth met the sky. Far away from Alice.
‘No. Guess! It’s really funny.’ Alice made the snuffly noise behind her cupped hands, glancing quickly at the closed dining room door. Eleanor looked too, hoping someone would come, even Gina would do. The house was quiet. Alice tucked her hands under her legs as if they might give her away, she wriggled with suppressed glee, making a show of forcing herself to look serious. Eleanor did not think any of Alice’s expressions were real. Alice was always being someone else. She wanted to tell the policeman with the crack in his chin that Alice had pretended all of it. This pretence was odd because Alice wouldn’t play spies or spacemen, saying they were not real.
‘If it’s about my Dad breaking the club house window with the cricket ball, I know, I was there.’ Relief made Eleanor exhilarated. It would be all right. ‘He doesn’t care, a cheque will sort it, I heard him telling my Mum.’
‘Cold again! We were all there, how could that be a secret?’
Later Eleanor remembered birds’ wings rushing by her ears and then complete stillness before she heard Alice’s voice down a long pipe:
‘It’s about your Mum!’ Alice pulled a face pretending the words had slipped out by accident and clapped her hands to scare them off. She leaned on her elbows, resting her witchy chin in her hands, watching Eleanor, with the Judge behind her left shoulder. The table creaked under her weight.
‘It’s stopped raining.’ Eleanor began shovelling up the crayons. Gina was upstairs with Lizzie, she could hear their voices and footsteps through the ceiling. Her father was working in his study and Lucian had gone fishing. Her Mum was in her bedroom lying down.
‘Don’t you want to know what it is?’ Alice snatched up her own drawing and screwed it up, tossing the paper ball back and forth in her hands.
‘I said I don’t care.’
The crayoned sun stung her cheeks, yet her body was crammed with ice, aching cold spreading into her legs. She couldn’t move.
‘I’m not letting you go until you answer the question.’ Alice rose up from the table. She threw off her cardigan and grasping a wooden ruler, sidled towards the door.
‘If it’s a secret, that’s the thing.’ Eleanor was briefly pleased with herself. Originally she had planned to draw a metal frame around the picture to make the edges of the aeroplane window. But now she had packed the grey away. She must not be scared. Outside a watery sun lifted the greenish light of the storm.
‘We can go out in the garden now. Or, if you want, you can go home.’
‘So is it true? You must know.’
‘What do I know?’
‘Your Mum tried to kill herself by eating cheese with her medicine!’ Alice made a shrill noise and still she paced in front of the closed dining room door, smacking the ruler across her palm in time to her words: ‘Is it true?’
Slap. Slap. Slap.
‘What do you mean?’ Eleanor made the question part of a hearty guffaw. She went on packing up the crayons, drawing out the activity. Light colours at the left, getting darker to the right. Black at the end. Where was the black? She shoved the paper around, and lifted the heavy baize cloth. She must find it, or someone would tread on it and blame her.