Something to Hide by Deborah Moggach Page A

Paul was a good lover; that’s how he expressed his emotions. A handsome man whose handsome body spoke to mine. But all those unsaid words I had swilling around my head – they had nowhere to go and they died a million deaths. After a while, with no ears to hear them, they stopped existing at all.
    Paul spent years up a ladder, restoring the cornices. With a chisel, and a stiff little brush, and some sort of steam machine that kept breaking down, he silently toiled away, scraping off the layers of paint. Nobody could speak to him up there, he mustn’t be disturbed. When my marriage was over I used to look up at the plasterwork, acanthus leaves and tiny scrolls, and think how every inch was an unsaid conversation and who gave a shit about cornices anyway? Sometimes I wondered if he talked to his lovers more than he talked to me. This made me more jealous than the sex.
    Jeremy and I sit down to eat. ‘So what are you up to this week?’ I ask him.
    â€˜Few meetings. Bit of shopping, see my old mum in Marlborough. I really ought to catch up on some culture, bloody starved for it out there, if I watch the DVD of
Ocean’s Eleven
one more time I’ll slit my throat. You’re arty. What should I see?’
    It turns out that he’s never been to Tate Modern. I haven’t much work at the moment so we agree to meet there tomorrow afternoon.
    I’m calling it Ngotoland, the West African country where Jeremy lives. I’ve changed the name of his town, too. It’s just a precaution; I hope I won’t need it. Likewise with the name of the pharmaceutical company for whom he used to work.
    Used to, because he doesn’t any more.
    As I’ve said, Jeremy is slightly dodgy. It’s part of his charm. He likes to sail close to the wind, he gets his kicks that way. Bev calls him a handful but that’s putting it mildly. He’s reckless and impulsive and drinks too much. I remember some incident in Kuala Lumpur, when he was working out there – some road accident that was later hushed up. He’s always been a manic driver. When we were young he had a Triumph Stag and I remember us careering from party to party, me and Bev screaming as he shot all the lights down the Fulham Road. Long ago he would have been an adventurer, seeking his fortune in the Gold Rush or on the North West Frontier, dressed as a Pashtun and speaking the language like a native. Some people are born in the wrong century and he’s one of them. Of course there’s plenty of reckless men around, they brought our economy to its knees, but I could hardly see Jeremy on the trading floor at Lehman Brothers. He’s a maverick, a loner.
    That’s why it’s surprised me, that he’s been employed by a corporate giant like Zonac all these years. But it turns out he’s always been freelance – a troubleshooter, working in the morally dubious area of litigation.
    Which is what took him to West Africa.
    We’re sitting in a café outside Tate Modern, the sun on our faces, sharing a slice of carrot cake. Hoards of tourists shuffle through the entrance; a bunch of schoolchildren jostle each other as they’re swallowed up inside. It’s such a beautiful day, however, that we simply can’t bear to go in. We agreed about this, what the hell, let’s just not, and feel pleasurably like truants. It’s so warm that Jeremy’s in his shirtsleeves (striped this time, he’s been in a meeting) and I’m wearing a T-shirt. I surrender myself up to the sun, voluptuously, as he tells me what’s been happening in Ngotoland.
    It concerns a tribe called the Kikanda. Apparently they’re hunter-gatherers who live deep in the bush. Until recently, their habits hadn’t changed since the Stone Age. They have a nomadic existence, the men disappearing for weeks, hunting animals with poisoned arrows, while the women gather nuts and fruits; they speak in a language of clicks