Can You Keep A Secret?

'The thing is, Jack, that's not a real relations.h.i.+p. A real relations.h.i.+p is two-way. A real relations.h.i.+p is based on equality. And trust.' I swallow the lump in my throat. 'So why don't you just go and be with someone on your level, who you can share your precious secrets with? Because you obviously can't share them with me.'

I turn sharply before he can say anything else, and stalk away, two tears rolling down my cheeks, trampling the lucky heather underfoot.

I don't get home until much later that evening. But I'm still smarting from our argument. I have a throbbing headache, and I feel on the verge of tears.

I open the door of the flat to find Lissy and Jemima in a full-scale argument about animal rights.

'The mink like being made into coats-' Jemima is saying as I push open the door to the living room. She breaks off and looks up. 'Emma! Are you all right?'

'No.' I sink down onto the sofa and wrap myself up in the chenille throw which Lissy's mum gave her for Christmas. 'I had a huge row with Jack.'

'With Jack?'

'You saw him?'

'He came to... well, to apologize, I guess.'

Lissy and Jemima exchange looks.

'What happened?' says Lissy, hugging her knees. 'What did he say?'

I'm silent for a few seconds, trying to remember exactly what he did say. It's all a bit jumbled up in my head now.

'He said... he didn't ever mean to use me,' I say at last. 'He said I got in his thoughts. He said he'd fire everyone in the company who teased me.' I can't help giving a half-giggle.

'Really?' says Lissy. 'Gosh. That's quite romant-' She coughs, and pulls an apologetic face. 'Sorry.'

'He said he was really sorry for what happened, and he didn't mean to say all that stuff on the TV, and that our romance was... Anyway. He said a lot of things. But then he said...' My heart beats with fresh indignation. 'He said his secrets were more important than mine.'

There's a huge gasp of outrage.

'No!' says Lissy.

'b.a.s.t.a.r.d!' says Jemima. 'What secrets?'

'I asked him about Scotland. And rus.h.i.+ng off from the date.' I meet Lissy's eyes. 'And all those things he would never talk to me about.'

'And what did he say?' says Lissy.

'He wouldn't tell me.' I feel another sting of humiliation. 'He said it was too "sensitive and complicated".'

'Sensitive and complicated?' Jemima is staring at me, galvanized. 'Jack has a sensitive and complicated secret? You never mentioned this before! Emma, this is totally perfect. You find out what it is and then you expose it!'

I stare at her, my heart beating hard. G.o.d, she's right. I could do it. I could get back at Jack. I could make him hurt like I've been hurt.

'But I have no idea what it is,' I say at last.

'You can find out!' says Jemima. 'That's easy enough. The point is, you know he's hiding something.'

'There's definitely some kind of mystery,' says Lissy thoughtfully. 'He has all these phone calls he won't talk about, he rushes off mysteriously from your date-'

'He rushed off mysteriously?' says Jemima avidly. 'Where? Did he say anything? Did you overhear anything?'

'No!' I say, flus.h.i.+ng slightly. 'Of course not. I don't... I would never eavesdrop on people!'

Jemima gives me a close look.

'Don't give me that. Yes you did. You did hear something. Come on, Emma. What was it?'

My mind flashes back to that evening. Sitting on the bench, sipping the pink c.o.c.ktail. The breeze is blowing on my face, Jack and Sven are talking behind me in low voices...

'It was nothing much,' I say reluctantly. 'I just heard him say something about having to transfer something... and Plan B... and something being urgent...'

'Transfer what?' says Lissy suspiciously. 'Funds?'

'I dunno. And they said something about flying back up to Glasgow.'

Jemima looks beside herself.

'Emma, I do not believe this. You've had this information all this time? This has to be something juicy. It has to be. If only we knew more.' She exhales in frustration. 'You didn't have a Dictaphone or anything with you?'

'Of course I didn't!' I say with a little laugh. 'It was a date! Do you normally take a Dictaphone on a...' I tail off incredulously at her expression. 'Jemima. You don't.'

'Not always,' she says, with a defensive shrug. 'Just if I think it might come in... Anyway. That's irrelevant. The point is, you have information, Emma. You have power. You find out what this is all about and then you expose him. That'll show Jack Harper who's boss. That'll get

I stare back at her determined face, and for a moment I feel a sheer, powerful exhilaration bubbling through me. That would pay Jack back. That would show him. Then he'd be sorry! Then he'd see I'm not just some nothing, n.o.body girl. Then he'd see. Then he'd see.

'So...' I lick my lips. 'So how would I do it?'

'First we try to work out as much as we can ourselves,' says Jemima. 'Then, I've got access to various... people who can help get more information.' She gives me a tiny wink. 'Discreetly.'

'Private detectives?' says Lissy in disbelief. 'Are you for real?'

'And then we expose him! Mummy's got contacts at all the papers...'

My head is thumping. Am I really talking about doing this? Am I really talking about getting revenge on Jack?

'A very good place to start is rubbish bins,' adds Jemima knowledgeably. 'You can find all sorts of things just by looking through somebody's trash.'

And all of a sudden sanity comes flying in through the window.

'Rubbish bins?' I say in horror. 'I'm not looking in any rubbish bins! In fact, I'm not doing this, full stop. It's a crazy idea.'

'You can't get all precious now, Emma!' says Jemima tartly, flicking back her hair. 'How else are you going to find out what his secret is?'

'Maybe I don't want to find out what his secret is,' I retort, feeling a sting of pride. 'Maybe I'm not interested.'

I wrap the chenille throw around me even more tightly, and stare at my toes miserably.

So Jack's got some huge secret he can't trust me with. Well, fine. Let him keep it. I'm not going to demean myself by grubbing after it. I'm not going to start poking around rubbish bins. I don't care what it is. I don't care about him.

'I want to forget about it,' I say, my face closing up. 'I want to move on.'

'No you don't!' retorts Jemima. 'Don't be stupid, Emma. This is your big chance for revenge. We are so going to get him.' I have never seen Jemima look so animated in my life. She reaches for her bag and gets out a tiny lilac Smythson notebook, together with a Tiffany pen. 'Right, so what do we know? Glasgow... Plan B... transfer...'

The Panther Corporation doesn't have offices in Scotland, does it?' says Lissy thoughtfully.

I turn my head, and stare at her in disbelief. She's scribbling on a pad of legal paper, with exactly the same preoccupied look she gets when she's solving one of her geeky puzzles. I can see the words 'Glasgow', 'transfer' and 'Plan B', and a place where she's jumbled up all the letters in 'Scotland' and tried to make a new word out of them.

For G.o.d's sake.

'Lissy, what are you doing?'

'I'm just... fiddling around,' she says, and blushes. 'I might go and look some stuff up on the Internet, just out of interest.'

'Look, just stop it, both of you!' I say. 'If Jack doesn't want to tell me what his secret is... then I don't want to know.'

Suddenly I feel completely drained by the day. And kind of bruised. I'm not interested in Jack's mysterious secret life. I don't want to think about it any more. I want to have a long hot bath and go to bed and just forget I ever met him.

TWENTY-THREE.

Except of course I can't.

I can't forget about Jack. I can't forget about our argument.

His face keeps appearing in my head when I don't want it to. The way he stared at me in the sunlight, his face all crinkled up. The way he bought the lucky heather.

I lie in bed, my heart hammering, going over it again and again. Feeling the same smart of hurt. The same disappointment.

I told him everything about myself. Everything. And he won't even tell me one- Anyway. Anyway.

I don't care.

I'm not going to think about him any more. He can do what he likes. He can keep his stupid secrets.

Good luck to him. That's it. He's out of my brain.

Gone for good.

I stare at the darkened ceiling for a few moments.

And what did he mean by that, anyway? Is it such a disaster for people to know the truth about you?

He can talk. He can so talk. Mr Mystery. Mr Sensitive and Complicated.

I should have said that. I should have said- No. Stop thinking about it. Stop thinking about him. It's over.

As I pad into the kitchen the next morning to make a cup of tea, I'm fully resolved. I'm not even going to think about Jack from now on. Finito. Fin. The End.

'OK. I have three theories.' Lissy arrives breathlessly at the door of the kitchen in her pyjamas, holding her legal pad.

'What?' I look up blearily.

'Jack's big secret. I have three theories.'

'Only three?' says Jemima, appearing behind her in her white robe, clutching her Smythson notebook. 'I've got eight!'

'Eight?' Lissy stares at her, affronted.

'I don't want to hear any theories,' I say. 'Look, both of you, this has been really painful for me. Can't you just respect my feelings and drop it?'

They both look at me blankly for a second, then turn back to each other.

'Eight?' says Lissy again. 'How did you get eight?'

'Easy-peasy. But I'm sure yours are very good too,' says Jemima kindly. 'Why don't you go first?'

'OK,' says Lissy with a look of annoyance, and clears her throat. 'Number one: He's relocating the whole of the Panther Corporation to Scotland. He was up there reconnoitring, and didn't want you spreading rumours. Number two: He's involved in some kind of white-collar fraud...'

'What?' I stare at her. 'Why do you say that?'

'I looked up the accountants who audited the last Panther Corporation accounts, and they've been involved in a few big scandals recently. Which doesn't prove anything, but if he's acting shadily and talking about transfers...' She pulls a face and I stare back, disconcerted.

Jack a fraudster? No. He couldn't be. He couldn't.

Not that I care one way or the other.

'Can I say that both of those sound highly unlikely to me?' says Jemima with raised eyebrows.

'Well, what's your theory, then?' says Lissy crossly.

'Plastic surgery, of course!' she says triumphantly. 'He has a face-lift and he doesn't want anyone to know, so he recuperates in Scotland. And I know what the B is in Plan B.'

'What?' I say suspiciously.

'Botox!' says Jemima with a flourish. 'That's why he rushed off from your date. To have his fine lines smoothed. The doctor suddenly had a spare appointment, his friend came to tell him-'

What planet does Jemima come from?

'Jack would never have Botox!' I say. 'Or a face-lift!'

'You don't know that!' She gives me a telling look. 'Compare a recent photo of Jack with an old one, and I bet you see a difference-'