by Cathy Bussey
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Of course. Especially when Minel and Paul started talking about it. Only natural, isn’t it, to think about it?’
‘It is for us,’ Faith said. ‘Women, I mean. First it’s all about not getting pregnant, then apparently once you turn thirty it’s like you have a gigantic clock sellotaped to your uterus, ticking noisily away and prompting even passers-by in the street to stop you and ask if you’re getting broody. Not sure it’s the same for men.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Rik agreed.
‘Do you want to have children?’
‘Yes. And I don’t want to be an old dad either.’ He frowned. ‘I know lots of men wait and wait, it’s quite normal for them to be in their late thirties or even forties before they even consider it, but I want to have the energy for kids. I don’t want to be sitting in an armchair reading my newspaper or wheezing around after them while they leave me for dust. But that does also depend upon meeting somebody you want to have children with.’
Or, Faith thought, it depends upon you meeting somebody you want to have children with, getting over them, and then meeting somebody else. He’d said yesterday he’d once wanted children with her. She could picture them, a rowdy, noisy, cheeky little rabble with dark hair and olive skin and maybe with his brown eyes, or her green ones, or light hazel, a combination of both. I want to meet those children, she thought longingly, those children I will never have.
‘Do you want me to change your dressing?’ she asked, wanting to put her hands on him again by any means necessary.
‘I’ll do it,’ he said, getting up. ‘It feels like it’s stopped bleeding now. It’s getting tight.’
‘Must be healing already,’ she said, feeling a little bit disappointed he didn’t seem to want her to continue looking after him. ‘I’d better get this tea out to Paul.’
Chapter 19
Faith drove to afternoon tea, and Minel and Sara complained nonstop as the Land Rover chugged noisily along. ‘I didn’t realise we were taking the scenic route,’ Sara moaned.
It was very scenic though, Faith noted with pleasure. The cow parsley had long gone but the verges were still lushly overgrown and bursting with crimson poppies, their fragile petals translucent and tissue-like, interspersed with clumps of cheery oxeye daisies. Their little yellow hearts seemed to bob and wink cheekily as they chugged past. There were cornflowers too, deep blue pom-poms bursting from the top of their dark green stalks, and thistles topped with softly spiked explosions of shocking violet.
The hotel was lavishly opulent, the carpets soft and thick, silencing all footsteps, and the walls were painted a glowing peach with stencils of violets, daffodils and tulips at the corners. ‘This place is famous for its assignations among married older gentlemen and their distinctly unmarried consorts,’ Sara confided.
Faith was squinting behind her, wondering if she was actually hallucinating the familiar figure at the check-in desk.
‘What the hell?’ she hissed.
‘Faith?’ Minel’s voice sounded far away. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
‘Not a ghost.’ Her voice wavered.
Minel followed her gaze, and Sara craned her neck.
‘Oh my god,’ she said. ‘Faith, is that…’
‘My dad.’
Faith watched as her father signed the check-in form, turning to the woman next to him. She looked a bit younger than him, probably in her mid-fifties, with poker-straight, ash blonde hair. Cliché straight out of cliché central.
‘No!’ Minel said but Faith ignored her and marched across the room. Anger was coursing through her and she felt so entirely filled with it, so suffused she half wondered if she was going to hit her father across the room.
‘Hi Daddy,’ she said loudly. ‘And I don’t mean sugar, in case you were wondering if this is a party for three.’ She glared at the woman next to him.
All the colour drained from Jeff’s face. ‘Faith.’
‘We haven’t met,’ Faith said to his companion acidly. ‘I’m Faith. Jeff’s daughter.’
‘Faith,’ her father said pleadingly. ‘Don’t….’
‘It’s weird,’ she continued, talking to the woman, ‘because you don’t look like my mum and somehow here you are, checking into a hotel room with my dad.’
‘Stop it.’ Her father took her arm and she shook it off, livid.
‘Get off me. What do you think you’re doing?’
‘I should go,’ the unfortunate blonde said. She backed out of the hotel, turning on her heels and scuttling across to the carpark.
‘Nice lady,’ Faith said. ‘Shame she didn’t stick around.’
‘Come on,’ her dad said. ‘Let’s go and have a drink.’
She wanted to run screaming, then she thought no, not this time. He can explain himself to me then I’m marching him straight home to my mother and he can explain himself to her too, and I want to hear every single word. She followed him through the lounge and into the bar, a long, narrow, oak-panelled room with Oriental-print wallpaper and tastefully low lighting.
For want of anything better to do, she sat down and stared at her hands. Her head was running on a furious loop, in a mini timewarp all of its own only very much present-day, from outrage to confusion to hurt to disappointment to anguish for her poor mother.
‘Drink this.’ Her dad put a shot of something brown and sweet-smelling in front of her.
‘I’m driving.’
‘One of your friends can take you home.’
‘I’m going to have to tell Mum. You know that, don’t you?’
Her father took a deep breath. ‘Faith,’ he said, quite gently. ‘Your mother already knows.’
She stared at him, some of her righteous indignation knocked out of her and replaced with yet more shock. ‘You mean she knows about her? About tonight, and whatever you were planning on doing?’ She shuddered. ‘Ugh. I don’t want to think about it.’
‘About all of it.’ Jeff took a sip of his own drink and fixed his eyes on her. ‘She knows I’m here, she knows who I’m with, she doesn’t know her personally, of course, but she knows I have a, um —’
‘A mistress,’ Faith spat. ‘I think that’s the word you’re looking for.’
‘Not exactly,’ he said carefully. ‘More of a friend with benefits?’
Faith wanted to gag.
‘Your mother and I,’ he began. ‘We love each other dearly.’
‘You’ve got a funny way of showing it.’
‘Faith, please. Let me finish. We love each other dearly but your mother hasn’t, how can I put this?’ He thought for a moment. ‘She hasn’t loved me in that way for a very long time.’
‘Oh, so this is all her fault now? She doesn’t understand you?’ Faith took a gulp of her drink, wincing as it burned its way down her throat. ‘Change the record. Mum adores you. She worships the ground you walk on and I can’t for a moment think why when this is how you repay her, for all of her loyalty, standing by you after everything you’ve done to her…’
‘She has stood by me,’ Jim agreed. ‘She’s not just stood by me, she’s given me her consent.’
‘No she hasn’t.’
‘Yes, she has. Your mother and I haven’t been intimate in a very long time and she made it very clear to me that she had no intention of ever rekindling that side of our relationship. We had this conversation years ago.’ He paused. ‘The year before you left home. I was indiscreet and your mother and I were on the verge of divorce.’ He sighed heavily. ‘We discussed it, and she was very hurt, but she was also absolutely resolute that she had no interest in having any kind of physical relationship with me any more.’
Faith opened her mouth to leap to her mother’s defence, but her father held up his hand to stop her.
‘I don’t suppose you’re going to believe me if I say people can sometimes be compatible in many ways, but incompatible in one very fundamental way, and if that happens, then you have a choice. You can either choose to allow one of you
to be persuaded into something that they don’t want, or you can compromise.’
Faith took another sip of her drink and she studied her father’s lined, familiar face. Part of her still refused to believe him. Her mother would never condone something like this, he was trying to put her off the scent, soon he’d be saying her mother was a very private person and asking her not to mention this.
It was just another line, another ruse, a way to cover his tracks. Her mother would never agree to this in a million years.
Then she thought about Judith sitting at the table staring at her tea leaves. The awkward way she continually asked her father about his golf weekends as if she was looking for information about something else. The way her mother was so strained when her father returned home, but at the same time so determined to carry on as normal.
Jeff was looking at her with sympathy, but also conviction. She put down her glass.
‘So what you’re saying is, you love Mum and she loves you but you aren’t in a physical relationship any more?’
He nodded. ‘I don’t expect you to understand, sweetheart,’ he said sadly. ‘I don’t want to sit and tell you how it feels to know that a door to something you once valued — once cherished — has been closed without you getting any say in it. I would never want to make your mother feel guilty, or ask her to do something she didn’t want to do just to please me.’ He shook his head. ‘If she ever wanted to I would stop all this, in a heartbeat. But like I said, she’s been very clear that she can’t ever see a time when she may want to, and I know I must seem ancient to you but I still don’t feel old enough for a life without physical intimacy.’
‘Actually,’ she said, surprising herself. ‘I do understand that sentiment.’
He looked astonished. ‘You do?’
She shrugged. ‘It’s one of the reasons I left Rob. We were pretty incompatible in that area.’
Jeff looked taken aback. Well, she thought, if he’s going to gross me out whining about his sex life, or lack of it, he can stomach hearing about mine.
‘I thought, I’m only twenty-six. I’m too young to be in a relationship that feels more like one between a brother and sister.’
She didn’t add that Sara was also contemplating the same dilemma.
‘It’s not just about sex, is it?’ she said. ‘It’s about feeling wanted, valued, known.’
‘It is,’ he said slowly.
‘Mum’s really OK with it? You know I’m going to have to talk to her about this?’
‘You can try. I’m not sure I’d say she’s OK with it,’ he said, sighing heavily. ‘It’s complicated. If I were to ever find I had any real feelings for anybody else it would have to stop. But she understands that she can’t ask me to just give up on a physical relationship altogether, and so, like I said, we compromise.’
Faith was astonished to find herself feeling suddenly compassionate towards her father. ‘It sounds lonely.’
‘It is lonely,’ he agreed. ‘But it’s not as lonely as the alternative.’
She nodded, thinking that she could understand that too. ‘It must be,’ she said, ‘because surely the best kind of connection is with somebody who knows you inside out, all your foibles and your flaws, and still wants to be with you.’ She frowned. ‘It’s like the ultimate acceptance, really.’
‘I think so, yes.’
‘OK,’ she said finally. She wrinkled her nose. ‘I think it’s going to take me a while to get my head around it.’
Her father nodded. ‘Take all the time you need.’ He gestured at their empty glasses. ‘Do you want another drink?’
‘I’m going to go back to my friends,’ Faith said. ‘You should probably go and sort out your affairs.’ She paused. ‘If you’ll pardon the pun.’
Her father laughed sadly. ‘I’m sure you’re going to want to discuss this with your friends, but remember your mother is a very private person. I don’t mind what you tell people about me, and I know you will want to discuss it with Judith. But I would hate to think of your mother feeling like people were talking about her.’
‘Well,’ she said. ‘I’ll think about that too.’ She stood up. ‘See you soon.’
‘I hope so.’
Faith shook her head slightly and wandered back through into the lounge. All the anger had drained out of her body and she felt numb and extremely tired. Part of her still hated her father, but what he had said had resonated with her and she knew she needed to let it rest for a while, before she could really make up her mind what she thought about it all.
‘Are you OK?’ Minel asked. ‘What happened?’
Faith sat down. ‘I need to think about it,’ she said. ‘He explained some things. I feel like I need to sleep on it before I tell you, because it’s not really my stuff to tell, if you know what I mean.’
‘You don’t have to tell us anything,’ Sara said gently. ‘We’re here for you.’
Faith yawned, suddenly exhausted. ‘I need to get some sleep. I’m done in after last week and I need — I need.’ She didn’t know what she needed other than not to be here.
‘Come back to the house,’ Minel urged.
‘I have to go home later,’ Faith said. ‘My mum.’ She couldn’t leave her mother alone again, not knowing the true meaning of her dad’s ‘golf weekends’. ‘You’re going to have to drive,’ Faith said to Minel. ‘Sorry.’
Minel shrugged. ‘No problem. Although how that heap of yours even moves is beyond me.’
They dropped Sara off and then Minel took Faith up to the house, sitting her down at the table and insisting she drink a cup of hot, sweet tea. GT leaped up onto her lap and curled up happily. ‘You’re always there when I need you,’ she told the little puppy lovingly.
‘Do you want to talk?’ Minel’s eyes were huge with concern. She wants to fix it all for me, Faith thought, and she shook her head. ‘Not yet,’ she said. ‘I need to just let it sit. Please, Min.’
Minel nodded reluctantly. ‘Take all the time you need,’ she said. ‘We’re all here for you.’
Paul strode in. ‘How was the cackling?’ he asked. ‘Did all the other customers run away screaming?’
Minel took him aside. ‘She’s had a bit of a shock,’ she told him quietly, as Faith stared blankly at the wall. ‘Just let her be.’
‘How are you feeling?’ he asked Minel. ‘Still tired?’
Minel nodded. ‘Really tired,’ she said. ‘Feel like I could sleep for a hundred years.’
‘Early night tonight,’ Paul said gently.
‘Again.’ Minel giggled. ‘Not much fun, am I?’
‘Nothing I’d rather do than lie up there with you and watch reruns of Friends,’ he murmured, and Faith felt cocooned by the warmth of their love for one another. This was what a marriage should be. This was what she wanted and she wanted it with —
Rik came in and Faith was about to ask him if he wanted to marry her, or, more realistically, walk GT with her. They could go to the quarry and scope out what needed doing tomorrow and she might cry and she might not but even if she did, he wouldn’t press her if she asked him not to. But then Lucinda came trotting in, looking weekend casual in navy chinos and a becoming pink blouse, the peachy colour illuminating her perfect skin, flushed like the petals of a peony, and Faith scowled.
‘Hey,’ Rik said. ‘How was afternoon tea?’
Faith grunted noncommittally.
‘That good?’
‘Hi Lucinda,’ Faith said reluctantly.
‘Oh, hi Faith.’ Lucinda smiled as delightedly as if she’d been reunited with her long-lost BFF. ‘Nice to see you. You look pretty.’ Faith glanced down at her white sundress and saw GT had left paw-marks and wiry, sandy coloured hairs all over it and it was already crumpled.
‘Hmph,’ Faith said ungraciously.
Lucinda looked happier than ever.
‘How’s your knee?’ Faith asked Rik.
‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Just a scratch,’ he added and caught her eye, grinning.
&nbs
p; ‘What happened to your knee?’ Lucinda asked sharply.
‘Fell off the bike yesterday,’ he said. ‘I got a bit silly.’
‘Let me see!’
‘It’s fine,’ Rik insisted. ‘Faith patched me up a treat.’
Lucinda was starting to look distinctly less friendly. She turned her china blue gaze onto Faith, who looked back at her blankly. What’s your problem, she thought. I wasn’t exactly going to leave him there bleeding and shaking until you turned up ready to sink your pearly pink claws into him.
She had had pearly pink nails. The woman. That woman. That bitch – but no. She wasn’t culpable for whatever sordid arrangement she had made with Faith’s father.
Or rather she was culpable, but that didn’t make her a bitch, it just made her a woman who, for whatever reason, thought it was perfectly acceptable to hook up with married men.
Did she know he was married? Did she care? What kind of woman would do that?
Maybe she, too, was married to somebody who only wanted to offer her half a relationship, a Sara twenty years down the line. Maybe she was a widow. Maybe she was going through a divorce. Maybe she’d never managed to find anybody in the first place. Maybe her father had lied to her.
Or maybe she actually is just a bitch, Faith thought bitterly, watching Lucinda sidle closer to Rik and raise her face to his. He kissed her lightly on the cheek and turned to look out of the window.
Undeterred, Lucinda snaked herself still closer to him, coiling her body possessively around his. Get off him! Faith wanted to shriek, but instead she could only watch with revolted fascination as Lucinda ran her hand meaningfully down Rik’s back and put her face right up next to his. She kissed his cheek again and Rik turned to her, and Lucinda launched herself at him, kissing his lips demandingly, winding her arm up around his neck to hold his head down to hers. Look away, Faith screamed internally, but her eyes were riveted to the horrific scene, much like a rubbernecker at a car crash, and she could only watch, bile rising in her throat, as Rik finally got the message and kissed Lucinda properly, her pleasure and satisfaction so blatantly visible she looked like she might erupt in his arms.