Secrets and Lies by Heather Pollitt
4 August 2020 { General Fiction }
The term secret holds many connotations. It can suggest mystery, romance, betrayal, excitement. It’s a universal key to all kinds of life-change. A secret can turn things round so that you might wake up one morning with a set of circumstances that have prevailed for decades but then by sundown the whole scene has changed irrevocably. This is what happened to Maude and Jane. Or was it? Decide for yourself.
Maude had been married to John for eighteen years. They had two sons, both in their mid teens and people saw them as a ‘lovely family’, living in a modest but comfortable house in the better part of town. Maude worked as a dental nurse and John as assistant bank manager at a high street branch of one of the ‘big four’. They did all the predictable things that such a family does. Holidays in the Dordogne, family Christmases with both sets of parents staying, in addition to all the school- related activities such as soccer, netball, parents’ evenings and fund-raising concerts. Maude was pretty, in an English Rose kind of way, and sported a limited but good quality wardrobe comprising a couple of pastel coloured cashmere sweaters, tailored trousers and Chanel style jackets. John turned out to the bank in the obligatory dark suit and conservatively styled silk tie. Over his suit, on unpredictable weather days he wore a light gaberdine raincoat and carried a black rolled umbrella.
Being a two-car family, Maude drove a hatch-back Nissan Micra in dark red and John a saloon Audi in metallic grey. Both cars were kept in the double garage and never showed any sign of dirt or wear and tear.
Maude had a friend of many years, Jane, who worked at the dental surgery with her. They were of a similar age and their children went to the same school. About twice a month Maude and Jane went out to eat together or to see the latest rom-com. On these occasions the two women would confide in each other as to what was on their minds and in their hearts. Although they were both quite conventional, they reverted to being young girls when they were out together and it felt to both of them as though they were back in the school playground sitting on their favourite bench and exchanging thoughts about boys, and kisses and lipstick shades. These evenings were such a break for them both. Neither complained about their lives but both began to realise that this lifestyle was likely to be the extent of their self-development. In other words, this was it. Since the children had been old enough to assert themselves and move away emotionally, both women had sensed, and confessed to a lack of fulfilment, now that their role as mother was diminishing.
‘Perhaps we should go on a girls’ holiday!’, Maude suggested, and from that seed of an idea came the day that they were at the airport ready to board the plane to Malaga. The flight took a couple of hours and in seemingly no time at all, Maude and Jane were sipping cocktails in the bar of the sea front hotel, prior to dining at a local restaurant.
The week flew by with days by the pool, walks along the Paseo Maritimo and visits to the local markets. They bought lovely gaudy necklaces and bangles for Jane’s girls and fake Rolex watches for the boys. They’d managed to get a tan without burning because, of course, they knew better than to expose themselves to the mid-day sun. They looked glamorous and attractive and enjoyed the fact that they were turning heads wherever they went.
This holiday had made the two women even more restless in their marriages, even though, and they stated this perhaps too much, they loved their husbands dearly and were entirely happy. After the trip to Spain, they began to plan the next one, and at the same time re-living the last one with smiles and memories of things that had happened to them while they were there.
One of these ‘things’ was that they’d made friends with two young men who were holidaying at their hotel. The two guys had persuaded them to go dancing with them on a couple of occasions and they’d found themselves strolling down by the sea in the early hours, each holding hands with one of the men, laughing and joking and looking into their faces.
This felt quite dangerous to both Maude and Jane. But the sense of danger had spurred them on. They discussed the fact that they’d been tempted to go even further than the flirtatious walk and the dancing, and that they’d found the men attractive and seductive. Neither of them had ever strayed from the marital agreement, nor had they ever wanted to before this. They’d been too busy bringing up the children and following their careers.
‘Is this what people refer to as midlife crisis?’, Maude said to Jane as they sat on a park bench three weeks after the holiday.
‘Yeah,’ replied Jane. ‘That’s what I’ve been thinking too. ‘I’ve been pondering as to what we should do. I’ve been wondering whether to tell Paul about it. We always tell each other everything important and this feels important somehow.’.
‘No! That’s crazy! Said Maude. Why would you want to tell Paul about something that has absolutely no consequence in your lives?’.
‘Because I want to get it off my chest. It’s bothering me and, to be honest, it’s making me feel guilty’.
‘Well, isn’t that selfish?’, persisted Maude. ‘And, you never know, something like that could cause damage in a perfectly good relationship. Let sleeping dogs lie. You’ll just have to live with your guilt. And anyway, you didn’t actually do anything’.
‘But I wanted to. Isn’t that the same? And we’ve been texting since we got back and saying all kinds of things to each other that I wouldn’t want anyone to see’.
‘No. It’s not the same! I sometimes want to strangle one of the kids, but I don’t actually do it!’.
‘So: just because I didn’t jump into bed with Andrew that night in Spain, that makes all the difference, does it?’, asked Jane. ‘Is that the watershed? I think I’d rather my husband jump into bed for a quick bunk-up with some floosie than conduct a platonic but sexually smouldering affair. Wouldn’t you?’.
‘I don’t know’, said Maude quietly. Then; ‘Yes, I do know. I wouldn’t want either of these, and if they were happening I certainly wouldn’t want to know about it, so long as it wasn’t affecting my marriage’.
‘You really wouldn’t want to know?’, asked her friend. ‘Are you sure about that?’.
‘Sure.’, asserted Maude, with conviction. ‘Sure.’.
Jane decided to take Maude’s advice and restrain herself from offloading her guilt to Paul. There had been moments since the holiday when she’d been really tempted but she’d been convinced by her friend that it would be best to keep that little episode to herself. She and Paul had been closer of late, possibly as a result of her experience with Andrew, and the holiday romance that had never happened.
Paul and Jane had been having more of what they called date nights and it was during one of these that they drove a little distance out of town to a traditional country inn where the food was good and the atmosphere was cosy.
Paul asked Jane if she and Maude had finalised their plans for their next holiday, and Jane was explaining that they needed to get their holiday dates synced. As the topic came up, Jane began to feel prickly and, again, the temptation to spill all about Andrew came over her. She leaned forward to pick up her glass for a fortifying sip of red wine, when, in an instant, she needed it even more. Right ahead, and behind Paul, was a table for two where a handsome couple were having a very intimate exchange. The man was stroking the woman’s cheek, as she looked into his eyes and smiled in a way that told everything about their relationship.
The man was John! John was Maude’s husband!
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