The Secrets She Keeps: A Novel

The Secrets She Keeps: A Novel

by Michael Robotham
The Secrets She Keeps: A Novel

The Secrets She Keeps: A Novel

by Michael Robotham

Paperback(Reprint)

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Overview

“Two terrific female characters, both with secrets. Add Michael Robotham’s clean prose and whipcrack pacing. The result? A book you won’t be able to put down, although you may occasionally want to hide your eyes.” —Stephen King

“A premium delivery.” —People

Meghan doesn’t know Agatha, but Agatha knows Meghan. And the one thing Agatha looks forward to each day is catching a glimpse of her, the effortlessly chic customer at the grocery store where she works stocking shelves. Meghan has it all: two adorable children, a handsome and successful husband, a happy marriage, a beautiful house, and a popular parenting blog that Agatha reads with devotion each night as she waits for her absent boyfriend, the father of the baby growing inside her, to return her calls.

Yet if Agatha could look beyond the gloss and trappings of Meghan’s “perfect life,” she’d see the flaws and doubts. Meghan has her secrets too, especially one that she dare not ever tell. Soon the lives of these two women will collide in the most spellbinding and intimate of ways, until their secrets are exposed by one shocking act that cannot be undone. From internationally bestselling author Michael Robotham, The Secrets She Keeps is a dark, exquisite, and twisted page-turner so full of surprises, you’ll find it impossible to put down.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781501170324
Publisher: Scribner
Publication date: 01/02/2018
Edition description: Reprint
Pages: 400
Sales rank: 284,687
Product dimensions: 5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Michael Robotham is a former investigative journalist whose bestselling psychological thrillers have been translated into twenty-five languages. He has twice won a Ned Kelly Award for Australia’s best crime novel, for Lost in 2005 and Shatter in 2008. His recent novels include When She Was Good, winner of the UK’s Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award for best thriller; The Secrets She Keeps; Good Girl, Bad Girl; When You Are Mine; and Lying Beside You. After living and writing all over the world, Robotham settled his family in Sydney, Australia.

Read an Excerpt

The Secrets She Keeps
I am not the most important person in this story. That honor belongs to Meg, who is married to Jack, and they are the perfect parents of two perfect children, a boy and a girl, blond and blue-eyed and sweeter than honey cakes. Meg is pregnant again and I couldn’t be more excited because I’m having a baby too.

Leaning my forehead against the glass, I look in both directions along the pavement, past the greengrocer and hairdressing salon and fashion boutique. Meg is running late. Normally she has dropped Lucy at primary school and Lachlan at his preschool by now and has joined her friends at the café on the corner. Her mothers’ group meets every Friday morning, sitting at an outdoor table, jostling prams into place like eighteen-wheelers on the vehicle deck of a ferry. One skinny cappuccino, one chai latte, and a pot of herbal tea . . .

A red bus goes past and blocks my view of Barnes Green, which is opposite. When it pulls away again I see Meg on the far side of the road. She’s dressed in her stretch jeans and a baggy sweater, and carrying a colorful three-wheeled scooter. Lachlan must have insisted on riding to his preschool, which would have slowed her down. He will also have stopped to look at the ducks and at the exercise class and at the old people doing tai chi who move so slowly they could almost be stop-motion puppets.

Meg doesn’t appear pregnant from this angle. It’s only when she turns side-on that the bump becomes a basketball, neat and round, getting lower by the day. I heard her complaining last week about swollen ankles and a sore back. I know how she feels. My extra pounds have turned climbing stairs into a workout and my bladder is the size of a walnut.

Glancing both ways, she crosses Church Road and mouths the word “sorry” to her friends, double-kissing their cheeks and cooing at their babies. All babies are cute, people say, and I guess that’s true. I have peered into prams at Gollum-like creatures with sticky-out eyes and two strands of hair, yet always found something to love because they’re so newly minted and innocent.

I’m supposed to be stocking the shelves in aisle three. This part of the supermarket is usually a safe place to slack off, because the manager, Mr. Patel, has a problem with feminine hygiene products. He won’t use words like “tampons” or “sanitary pads”—calling them “ladies’ things” or simply pointing to the boxes that he wants unpacked.

I work four days a week, early morning to three, unless one of the other part-timers calls in sick. Mostly I stock shelves and sticker prices. Mr. Patel won’t let me work the cash register because he says I break things. That happened one time and it wasn’t my fault.

With a name like Mr. Patel, I thought he’d be Pakistani or Indian, but he turned out to be Welsher than a daffodil, with a shock of red hair and a truncated mustache that makes him look like Adolf Hitler’s ginger love child.

Mr. Patel doesn’t like me very much and he’s been itching to get rid of me ever since I told him I was pregnant.

“Don’t expect any maternity leave—you’re not full-time.”

“I don’t expect any.”

“And doctor’s appointments are on your own time.”

“Sure.”

“And if you can’t lift boxes you’ll have to stop working.”

“I can lift boxes.”

Mr. Patel has a wife and four kids at home, but it hasn’t made him any more sympathetic to my pregnancy. I don’t think he likes women very much. I don’t mean he’s gay. When I first started working at the supermarket he was all over me like a rash—finding any excuse to brush up against me in the storeroom or when I was mopping the floor.

“Oops!” he’d say, pressing his hard-on against my buttocks. “Just parking my bike.”

Pervert!

I go back to my stock cart and pick up the price gun, careful to check the settings. Last week I put the wrong price on the canned peaches and Mr. Patel docked me eight quid.

“What are you doing?” barks a voice. Mr. Patel has crept up behind me.

“Restocking the tampons,” I stutter.

“You were staring out the window. Your forehead made that greasy mark on the glass.”

“No, Mr. Patel.”

“Do I pay you to daydream?”

“No, sir.” I point to the shelf. “We’re out of the Tampax Super Plus—the one with the applicator.”

Mr. Patel looks queasy. “Well, look in the storeroom.” He’s backing away. “There’s a spill in aisle two. Mop it up.”

“Yes, Mr. Patel.”

“Then you can go home.”

“But I’m working until three.”

“Devyani will cover for you. She can climb the stepladder.”

What he means is that she’s not pregnant or afraid of heights, and that she’ll let him “park his bike” without going all feminist on his arse. I should sue him for sexual harassment, but I like this job. It gives me an excuse to be in Barnes and nearer to Meg.

In the rear storeroom I fill a bucket with hot soapy water and choose a sponge mop that hasn’t worn away to the metal frame. Aisle two is closer to the registers. I get a good view of the café and the outside tables. I take my time cleaning the floor, staying clear of Mr. Patel. Meg and her friends are finishing up. Cheeks are kissed. Phones are checked. Babies are strapped into prams and pushchairs. Meg makes some final remark and laughs, tossing her fair hair. Almost unconsciously, I toss mine. It doesn’t work. That’s the problem with curls—they don’t toss, they bounce.

Meg’s hairdresser, Jonathan, warned me that I couldn’t get away with the same cut that she has, but I wouldn’t listen to him.

Meg is standing outside the café, texting someone on her phone. It’s probably Jack. They’ll be discussing what to have for dinner, or making plans for the weekend. I like her maternity jeans. I need a pair like that—something with an elasticized waist. I wonder where she bought them.

Although I see Meg most days, I’ve only ever spoken to her once. She asked if we had any more bran flakes, but we had sold out. I wish I could have said yes. I wish I could have gone back through the swinging plastic doors and returned with a box of bran flakes just for her.

That was in early May. I suspected she was pregnant even then. A fortnight later she picked up a pregnancy test from the pharmacy aisle and my suspicions were confirmed. Now we’re both in our third trimester with only six weeks to go and Meg has become my role model because she makes marriage and motherhood look so easy. For starters, she’s drop-dead gorgeous. I bet she could easily have been a model—not the bulimic catwalk kind, or the Page Three stunner kind, but a wholesome and sexy girl-next-door type; the ones who advertise laundry detergent or home insurance and are always running across flowery meadows or along a beach with a Labrador.

I’m none of the above. I’m not particularly pretty, nor am I plain. “Unthreatening” is probably the right word. I’m the less attractive friend that all pretty girls need because I won’t steal their limelight and will happily take their leftovers (food and boyfriends).

One of the sad truths of retailing is that people don’t notice shelf-stockers. I’m like a vagrant sleeping in a doorway or a beggar holding up a cardboard sign—invisible. Occasionally someone will ask me a question, but they never look at my face when I’m answering. If there was a bomb scare at the supermarket and everyone was evacuated except me, the police would ask, “Did you see anyone else in the shop?”

“No,” they’d say.

“What about the shelf-stocker?”

“Who?”

“The person stocking the shelves.”

“I didn’t take much notice of him.”

“It was a woman.”

“Really?”

That’s me—unseen, inappreciable, a shelf-stocker.

I glance outside. Meg is walking towards the supermarket. The automatic doors open. She picks up a plastic shopping basket and wanders along aisle one—fruit and veg. When she gets to the end she’ll turn and head this way. I follow her progress and catch a glimpse of her when she passes the pasta and canned tomatoes.

She turns into my aisle. I push the bucket to one side and step back, wondering if I should nonchalantly lean on my mop or shoulder it like a wooden rifle.

“Careful, the floor is wet,” I say, sounding like I’m talking to a two-year-old.

My voice surprises her. She mumbles thank you and slides by, her belly almost touching mine.

“When are you due?” I ask.

Meg stops and turns. “Early December.” She notices that I’m pregnant. “How about you?”

“The same.”

“What day?” she asks.

“December fifth, but it could be sooner.”

“A boy or a girl?”

“I don’t know. How about you?”

“A boy.”

She’s carrying Lachlan’s scooter. “You already have one,” I say.

“Two,” she replies.

“Wow!”

I’m staring at her. I tell myself to look away. I glance at my feet, then the bucket, the condensed milk, the custard powder. I should say something else. I can’t think.

Meg’s basket is heavy. “Well, good luck.”

“You too,” I say.

She’s gone, heading towards the checkout. Suddenly, I think of all the things I could have said. I could have asked where she was having the baby. What sort of birth? I could have commented on her stretch jeans. Asked her where she bought them.

Meg has joined the queue at the register, flicking through the gossip magazines as she waits her turn. The new Vogue isn’t out, but she settles for Tatler and a copy of Private Eye.

Mr. Patel begins scanning her items: eggs, milk, potatoes, mayonnaise, arugula, and Parmesan. You can tell a lot about a person from the contents of a shopping cart; the vegetarians, vegans, alcoholics, chocaholics, weight watchers, cat lovers, dog owners, dope smokers, celiacs, the lactose intolerant and those with dandruff, diabetes, vitamin deficiencies, constipation, or ingrown toenails.

That’s how I know so much about Meg. I know she’s a lapsed vegetarian who started eating red meat again when she fell pregnant, most likely because of the iron. She likes tomato-based sauces, fresh pasta, cottage cheese, dark chocolate, and those shortbread biscuits that come in tins.

I’ve spoken to her properly now. We’ve made a connection. We’re going to be friends, Meg and I, and I’ll be just like her. I’ll make a lovely home and keep my man happy. We’ll do yoga classes and swap recipes and meet for coffee every Friday morning with our mothers’ group.

Reading Group Guide

This reading group guide for The Secrets She Keeps includes an introduction, discussion questions, and ideas for enhancing your book club. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.

Introduction

From internationally bestselling author Michael Robotham, The Secrets She Keeps is a psychological thriller about an unlikely friendship between two pregnant women that asks: how far would you go to create the perfect family?

Agatha is pregnant and works part-time stocking shelves at a grocery store in a ritzy London suburb, counting down the days until her baby is due. As the hours of her shifts creep by with her in increasing physical discomfort, the one thing she looks forward to at work is catching a glimpse of Meghan, the effortlessly chic customer whose elegant lifestyle dazzles her. Meghan has it all: two perfect children, a handsome husband, a happy marriage, and a stylish group of friends; and she writes perfectly droll confessional posts on her popular parenting blog—posts that Agatha reads with devotion each night as she waits for her absent boyfriend, the father of her baby to-be, to maybe return her calls.

When Agatha learns that Meghan is pregnant again, and that their due dates fall within the same month, she finally musters up the courage to speak to her, thrilled that they now have the ordeal of childbearing in common. Little does Meghan know that the mundane exchange she has with a grocery store employee during a hurried afternoon shopping trip is about to change the course of her not-so-perfect life forever . . .

Topics & Questions for Discussion

1. The Secrets She Keeps opens with the following declaration from Agatha: “I am not the most important person in this story. That honor belongs to Meg.” Compare this with Meg’s opening lines a few pages later. To whom do you imagine the two women are telling this “story”? Do you think Agatha and Meg have the same readers or listeners in mind?

2. How did you feel about following two points of view throughout the novel? How does Michael Robotham establish distinct voices for Agatha and Meghan? If not from the very beginning, at what point did they become fully realized characters for you?

3. We all project certain ideals onto strangers we observe as we go about our days. What do you think accounts for this nosy impulse? Is it more extreme in Agatha than in the average person? What is so different about her?

4. As its writer and most dedicated reader, respectively, Meg and Agatha have complicated attitudes toward Meg’s blog, Mucky Kids. Discuss how their consideration of the blog evolves as events unfold. What does the blog represent for each of them?

5. For Agatha, lying to Meg comes easy because, she tells us, “the lies I tell others are nothing compared to the ones I tell myself” (p. 113). What are Agatha’s greatest self-deceptions? What are Meg’s? Which woman is more convinced by her own lies?

6. How is motherhood portrayed in the novel? In what ways does having children define Meg and Agatha? Discuss how other female characters in the book define themselves in relation to motherhood, including Jules, Hayden’s mother, and Rhea Bowden. Compare the portrayal of motherhood with depictions of fatherhood. How do Hayden, Jack, Nicky, and Simon define themselves in relation to having children?

7. How does Agatha’s relationship with her mother affect her attitude toward having children of her own? What do you imagine Meg’s parents were like?

8. According to Meg, she and her husband approach life very differently: “Jack anticipates problems in advance and prepares for the worst, marshaling resources to handle things. I take problems as they come, bending rather than breaking” (p. 55). Do these approaches, as spelled out by Meg, speak more to her compatibility with Jack, or her incompatibility? How would you describe Agatha’s approach to life? Hayden’s? Are they a compatible couple?

9. What is the creature inside Agatha’s body that speaks to her? Do you think Agatha is the only character in the novel with such a critical voice inside her head?

10. His professional credentials aside, what about Cyrus Haven’s background enables him to understand Agatha better than everybody else? Even though we aren’t privy to his perspective, did you find him to be a relatable character? Why or why not?

11. Discuss your reactions to the novel’s final chapter, where Agatha’s fate is revealed. Is she dead? Who is the daughter she is expecting to visit her? What is she waiting for?

12. Many fans of The Secrets She Keeps are surprised that Michael Robotham was able to get inside the heads of two female characters in such a convincing and sympathetic way. How did the fact that this book was written by a man influence your reading? Were there instances where you thought a female author might have written things differently?

Enhance Your Book Club

1. The plot for The Secrets She Keeps was inspired by the true story of a baby abduction at a London hospital in 1990. Research media reports of the Alexandra Griffiths case online. How does it compare to the fictional media coverage in the novel?

2. The Secrets She Keeps has been compared to Paula Hawkins’s novel The Girl on the Train. Read both books, then compare and contrast Agatha Fyfle and Rachel Watson. What common experiences do the characters share? What overlapping themes appear in these two works?

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