The Secrets Women Keep by Fanny Blake

I . . .’ She stopped as he shook his head.
    ‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘It’s a long time ago. You went off with Will and I met Rose and . . .’
    ‘And you haven’t looked back.’ She finished the sentence for him, a game they used to play when they were young.
    ‘And you have?’
    ‘Not really.’ If she wasn’t careful, this conversation could take them into dangerous waters. ‘But Will made it so hard.’ Despite everything that had happened
since, she would never forget the evening she came back from work to find her first husband outside their flat, his car bursting with his belongings, his face more serious than she could remember
seeing it before. ‘I’m leaving you.’ That was all he had said. Later she discovered that he had tossed two years of marriage into the air because at a school reunion he had met
the girlfriend he’d had before her. They’d slept together that same night, while Eve was visiting an author in Manchester with her then boss. At the time she had watched in disbelief as
he had driven off. She remembered exactly the numbness she had felt as she went indoors, the grief she had endured when she saw the space where his pillow belonged. His taking that seemed so final.
And the pain she had suffered until, a year or so later, Rose had introduced her to her brother, Terry.
    ‘Do you know what he’s doing now?’
    ‘No idea. Once we’d divorced, there was no need. And I didn’t want to, once I’d started seeing Terry. And you two were so supportive.’ Rose and Dan had sided with
her and, as far as she knew, had never contacted Will again. ‘Is Rose OK?’
    ‘Mmm.’ He sounded distracted as he concentrated on spearing an olive. ‘I think so. Why?’
    ‘She’s not herself.’
    ‘It’ll be the girls. Rose worries too much about them – they’re grown up now, for God’s sake.’ He passed across the bowl of olives. ‘These are from our
own trees. They’re not bad at all.’ He waited while she took a couple.
    ‘You fathers find it easier to step back.’ Not that Eve was one to talk. She was moving forward into another stage of life at the same time as her children did, even if it
occasionally made her look as if she didn’t care. If only Rose could do something of the same. ‘Ouch!’ She slapped at her bare calf and scratched at the skin. ‘Bastard
mosquito. I’m drowning in Deet and it doesn’t make any difference.’
    ‘That’s fathers for you.’ Daniel smiled that smile that would melt an ice floe, the one that registered in his dark eyes as well. He stretched out his legs, crossing them at
the ankle. ‘Awful Neanderthal beasts without a grain of sensitivity in their souls.’ He threw back his head and laughed – a short sharp bark. ‘Oh Evie. If only you
knew.’
    There was an immediate one hundred per cent shift in her attention from the bite to Daniel. ‘Knew what?’
    But after a fleeting look of sadness, his face had closed up. ‘Let me get you something for that. Rose’s got a cupboard full of first-aid stuff.’
    ‘Don’t worry.’ She was anxious to get him sitting again, to get him talking. She’d
known
there was something wrong. ‘It’s not that bad.
Really.’
    ‘Well, another drink anyway. I know I could do with one.’ He took her glass.
    ‘Oh, good timing.’ Rose appeared in the doorway, undoing her apron and seeing their empty glasses. ‘Your dinner is served.’ She gave a mock curtsey. ‘Come
through.’
    Frustrated by having such a promising conversation curtailed, Eve rallied and followed them inside, checking that her BlackBerry was in her dress pocket. She’d never be able to eat without
the reassurance of knowing that she would be aware of the moment Amy and Rufus broke their separate silences. Whenever that might be.

 
     
     
     
8
     
     
     
     
    T he night had closed in around them. Now they were cocooned in the glow from the candle lanterns on the table. At one of the outside lights over
the