Only We Know by Karen Perry Read Free Book Online

this without protest. It is only when I take my cigarettes
     from my handbag that he holds up his hand. ‘Sorry, Katie. Not in here.’
    ‘What’s this?’
    ‘I quit.’
    My eyes widen. ‘You quit?’
    ‘Three months ago,’ he says, a
     grin of pride brightening his tired features.
    ‘Why?’
    ‘To get healthy, of course.’
    I regard him now,
     taking him in properly for the first time in months, and notice a new leanness. He is
     slender and fit. The meatiness of his hands and in the bearded line of his jaw remain,
     but he looks neater somehow. I say, in a speculative manner: ‘You’ve lost
     weight.’
    He nods, keeping his eyes on the road, and
     bites down on an embarrassed smile. ‘Stop eyeballing me, Katie. It’s
     unnerving.’
    ‘Is it just the smokes, or have you
     gone the whole hog?’
    ‘Cigarettes, alcohol and red
     meat.’
    ‘Don’t tell me – you’ve
     also found God?’
    He widens his open shirt-collar and flicks
     out the crucifix on a chain. Grinning, he says: ‘Jesus loves me, Katie.’
    Reilly and I go way back. He gave me my
     first job at the paper, and has always been supportive, particularly since he became
     deputy editor. We know each other well but only on a certain level. There is something
     deeply private about Reilly. Sure, he goes for drinks after work and is always convivial
     and warm, yet I’ve no idea whether he has a partner or children tucked away
     somewhere, or whether he prefers to live in grand isolation. Rumours have flown around
     the office about him over the years, but somehow nothing has stuck, and I can’t
     help but think he enjoys the enigma that surrounds him.
    I feel light-headed, and try to ground
     myself while Reilly talks.
    ‘I met him once,’ he says now,
     ‘Luke Yates. Some years back, before he became the great man.’
    ‘What did you think of him?’
    He squints out at the glittering sea as we
     drive along the coast road. ‘He struck me as someone who had a great facility for
     sounding sincere.’
    ‘You
     don’t think he is?’
    He spreads his hands on the steering-wheel
     and smiles. ‘Who knows, Katie, what’s real and what’s fake? What about
     the brother? What’s he like?’
    ‘He’s … well, he’s just
     different,’ I say quickly, astonished to find myself flustered and hot.
    Reilly spots my discomfort, and asks, with
     interest: ‘Oh? Is there history there?’
    ‘God, no! We were like brother and
     sister, me and Nick, back when we were kids. And then in college we hung around in the
     same group for a while …’ I hear my voice, the uncertainty in it, and cut myself
     off. ‘Anyway, that was about a million years ago now.’
    ‘You’re not that old,
     sweetheart,’ he says, and I can’t help but smile. ‘So where is he? The
     brother?’
    ‘Africa,’ I say, and all at once
     I’m back sitting in a field of prickly grass, dizzy from the sun, and Nick is
     running towards me, helter-skelter across the lawn, water sploshing in the cup as he
     skids to a halt and falls to his knees beside me, offering the cup to me, like some kind
     of prize, dirt beneath his fingernails, hair falling into his eyes, the shy smile that
     he can never seem to erase – it’s even there while he sleeps – and I’m
     hearing his voice, low-pitched and gravelly for an eight-year-old, saying, ‘Here,
     Kay’, his name for me. No one else has called me that since.
    ‘Do you think he’s dead,
     Reilly?’
    ‘Perhaps.’
    ‘Murder?’
    He shrugs. ‘There was a rumour about
     him some years back, that he smashed up a hotel room.’
    ‘I never heard it.’
    ‘It was hushed
     up.’
    ‘So what happened?’
    ‘Nothing, really. The guy got drunk,
     went a bit berserk and totted up a massive bill.’
    ‘Was anyone else involved?’
    ‘Nope.’
    ‘You’re saying he has a
     self-destructive streak?’
    ‘What do I know, Katie? Often these
     things amount to nothing. They were at a party, right? So maybe the wife went to