BY JAMES BEMBRIDGE
12:30 pm, The Beaujolais, Soho. A meeting with Cloe.
Behind us, a table of lunching women – that is, women who don’t lunch. About their bones, dresses hang like sheets caught on a telephone pole. One braves a grain of mozzarella, hesitates on it, and then returns it to the plate. ‘Filling, isn’t it?’ she asks. The plate is one of two mozzarella balls and spinach.
Cloe is busy with the book I’ve brought her.
‘Andrew Gold. The Psychology of Secrets. Is it any good?’ she asks.
‘Well, it starts with a man having his eyes gauged out, the blood, puss and what’s what draining from his body along with his life. Of his last terrible moments, we are spared nothing.’
‘Darling! I love a good murder!’
Colour fills her cheeks.
‘It’s not just murders. There are also stories of cults, paedophiles and sex robots,’ I add for no reason.
She gives me a ‘how do those connect?’ look and I explain that Andrew catalogues these strange and disturbing stories to make sense of why we hold, share and are burdened by secrets.
Secrets, we all have them – 15, by Andrew’s count – and I mean to find out Cloe’s by playing on her a trick I learnt from the book.
For months, Cloe and I have been fighting a battle of pranks, a battle of catty one-upmanship, a battle in which her foul cunning always outdoes mine.
Last week at the Groucho, Cloe said our friend Matt had died, only for me to nearly do the same when seeing his spirit at the bar – gin it was he ordered. Like a triumphant witch, Cloe laughed. Merlot bubbling, frothing and staining the upturned corners of her mouth. ‘6-0, Bembers, ’ she said. ‘6-0’.
Well, today shall see an end to her streak.
‘Much of the detective work involved in finding out a suspect’s secrets relies on not letting them know how much – or how little – you know,’ writes Andrew.
With my hands on hers, I tell Cloe, as slow and firm as I can manage, that I know, that I know all of it – that I know the secret.
Oh, your face is paling now, is it, Cloe? As well it should. Now you, the player of tricks, know how it is to be played. Now you are… crying? Christ, why is she crying!?
‘Is everything alright there?’ one of the lunching women asks, her friends still picking at their detestable salads.
‘Everything’s fine,’ I say, trying to wipe away the evidence of Cloe not being.
‘It doesn’t look fine.’
No longer is Cloe crying – she’s wailing.
The more I wipe, the more I smear, and her eyes now look to everyone bruised.
‘ARE. YOU. OK?’ the lunching woman mouths to Cloe.
Cloe gives the ghost of a nod before leaving for the toilets.
What in cold Christ is going on here? What could she think I know that would be so bad as to cause her to cry? Is she in love with me? No, for things that are obvious cannot be secret.
Then comes a call from Richard. Have I heard about Cloe? he asks.
‘Y… yes, she told me. But it was all in a kind of mad rush and I didn’t catch much of the details – can you remind me of them?
‘It will have to come from her.’
‘Richard, keeping secrets is stressful and painful, even when we keep them on behalf of our friends.’
‘What is that? Are you reading a quote or something?’
‘No!’ I deny, clutching Andrew’s book a little tighter.
‘It’s been great chatting, Bembridge, but I have to go.’
Great chatting? We barely said hello. Where’s he scurrying off to? And why now do I have no less than five people on WhatsApp asking about Cloe?
She returns from the toilet looking not much the better for having gone there, and I throw her another Andrew Gold quote: ‘Shame keeps you in a rut, which is why having secrets is so devastating to body and mind.’
‘Thanks, Bembs, it feels quite cathartic to know you know mine. And you understand the worst part of it.’
‘Of course, darling. I understand,’ I say, not understanding a whit of it. What specific part are we talking about again?’
‘The dildo! Have you ever heard of someone using one in that way?
With my mouth hanging like it is without hinges to close, a waitress asks if I want another drink. ‘Large,’ the word comes in barely a whisper.
‘Large?’ asks Cloe. ‘It was gigantic! And the tears.’
‘Tears of..?’
‘Agony, obviously.’
All patience leaves me, and I scream, ‘The secret, woman! Just tell it me!’
A strange creaking and grinding noise can then be heard, like the turning of aged, unoiled cogs. Indeed, something is turning – the bloodless faces of the ‘lunching’ women towards mine.
I tell Cloe there isn’t much time, that these creatures are sustained not on food but gossip, and that their Harley Street noses have caught the whiff of ours.
Finally, Cloe whispers me it, and in fury I throw Andrew’s book to the ground whereupon it opens to a page I’ve not yet read.
As Cloe leaves and the vile figures of the lunching women advance, I can only laugh.
The page reads, ‘If you want to get the truth out of them, then reading their body language and judging their behaviour can only take you so far. You’ll have to be deceptive yourself […]. They’re bound to spill the beans.’
Cloe’s truth?
‘The secret is, there is no secret. 7-0, Bembs.’
The Psychology of Secrets: My Adventures with Murderers, Cults and Influences comes highly recommended by the Squires and can be purchased in physical copy at waterstones.com or as an audiobook at audible.co.uk
James Bembridge is Deputy Editor of Country Squire Magazine.