by Penny Jordan
‘The plain truth is that Heather was a spoilt, temperamental little bitch who never put anyone ahead of herself. It’s no wonder those poor kids are so screwed up. They must be so scared inside.’
‘Yes, that’s what I thought.’
The two women exchanged a long look.
‘You do mean to marry him, then?’ Justine said at length.
‘I’ve said that I will.’
‘He’s told you I take it that the marriage will…’
‘Exclude sex?’ Jessica said for her. ‘Oh, yes, we’ve been into all that. Quite frankly, if that hadn’t been the case I wouldn’t have agreed to marry him. I seem to be one of those women who have an extremely low sex drive,’ she added in answer to Justine’s unspoken question.
‘Well, I wish you luck with what you’re taking on,’ Justine told her frankly. ‘And if I can do anything to help—’
She liked her prospective sister-in-law, Jessica reflected, when Justine had left. There were the makings of what could be a rapport between them already. Justine had explained to her that her husband worked abroad for one of the oil companies, but that she was expecting him home in the near future.
‘You’ll have your hands full with Stuart and James,’ she had warned just before she drove way, and Jessica had smiled rather grimly, privately reflecting that it was not the two boys that were going to cause her the most trouble, but their irritatingly masculine father. It struck her later as she prepared for bed that it would have made life much easier for her if Lyle were less physically attractive. Days later she was still vividly aware of the maleness of him—aware of it and faintly disturbed by it, without really being able to analyse why.
* * *
THEY WERE GETTING MARRIED at two o’clock in the afternoon and the arrangements were that they would meet at the register office and then after the ceremony drive separately to Sutton Parva where Jessica would unload the first of her possessions from her car, transporting the remainder of them to her new home over the next week.
By twelve o’clock she was more nervous than she had ever been in her life before and totally convinced that she must have been mad even to think of entering into such a commitment.
At twelve-fifteen the phone rang and she cravenly hoped it might be Lyle saying that the wedding was off. But it wasn’t, it was Andrea, ringing primarily to wish her ‘good luck’, and to check that she had not had second thoughts about not wanting her to attend the wedding.
Once she had confirmed this Andrea said guiltily, ‘Jess, I feel awful about those things I said to you, but I was so frightened I was going to lose David to you. You’re everything I’m not. Clever, successful… David’s got a real thing about you. He never stops comparing us. I’m so relieved that you’re getting married! I’m sure that once he accepts that you’re out of his reach, he’ll turn back to me again.’
And Jessica knew that there was no escape left for her. She would have to marry Lyle.
At one-thirty, just as she was about to go out to her car, a taxi drew up outside and as she watched, Lyle got out. He looked unfamiliar in his dark formal suit and crisp white shirt, and for some reason as he turned to look up at her window, her heart lurched drunkenly. What was he doing here? Her palms were sweating slightly as she opened the door to him. He looked at her in silence for a moment, slowly taking in her cream linen suit and high-heeled shoes.
‘I thought I’d come and collect you,’ he told her by way of explanation. ‘I didn’t want you getting cold feet.’
For a moment their eyes met, and Jessica knew that he shared every one of her doubts, but that like her he was determined to go through with the marriage.
All the way to the register office she tried to tell herself that she was doing no more than millions of women before her had done; reminding herself of how in her book she had praised the institution of arranged marriages.
Lyle was driving. She had been too bemused to beat him to the driver’s seat, and unexpectedly after that brief demonstration she had had of his ability he was proving to be a good driver.
The register office was surprisingly festive, decorated with fresh flowers, the registrar a charming man in his mid-forties, who greeted them with a smile.
The service was brief, but not rushed, and it was only after it was over that she realised the enormity of what she had done. It was like being douched with cold water. She turned automatically to Lyle to tell him that she had made a mistake, and totally unexpectedly he smiled at her; really smiled for the first time. The world spun dizzily round her, her lungs bursting as she forgot to breathe. It was like suddenly discovering a totally unexpected and powerful ally in the middle of an alien and terrifying war, and its effect on her was so paralysing she could do no more than stare at him open-mouthed.
‘Jessica?’
The smile was gone, his eyes sharply questioning, the impatient sound of his voice bringing her back to reality.
‘I’ve left the boys with Mrs Hedges, my receptionist-cum-nurse. She won’t be pleased if we’re late back.’ He looked rather grim and she suppressed a faint sigh.
‘Do they know about…that we’re getting married?’ she supplemented, still unwilling to use the word ‘us’ in connection with them as a unit. She had a feeling that Lyle had no desire to be thought of as part of a married couple. He had married her to provide his children with a substitute mother, not because he wanted a wife.
‘I told them last week, after you’d agreed,’ he informed her, maddeningly not adding anything else.
How had they taken it, Jessica wondered. Had they been shocked, hurt, surprised? Well, she would be able to find out for herself soon enough.
Lyle had parked his car quite close to the register office and while she got into her own he went off to get his.
She didn’t feel married despite the service, Jessica decided as they drove towards Sutton Parva. In fact she didn’t feel any different at all, merely slightly disorientated. She didn’t want to think too deeply about that illuminating moment in the register office when Lyle had smiled at her. It provoked too many questions she had no wish to answer.
* * *
MRS HEDGES, Lyle’s receptionist, turned out to be a smartly dressed, well-upholstered woman in her mid-fifties, with carefully sculptured blue-rinsed grey hair. She looked, Jessica thought, as she was introduced to her, the type of woman who would be a staunch supporter of the local Women’s Institute, and a demon for efficiency and routine.
She didn’t express either surprise or curiosity when Lyle introduced Jessica as his wife, merely greeting her with a formal smile and explaining that she had to rush off as it was her bridge evening.
The two boys had followed her into the hallway and now stood side by side watching Jessica in silence.
There was something nerve-racking about such silent scrutiny, she acknowledged, forcing herself not to fill the void with empty chatter, sensing that it would be best to let the children come to her when they were ready.
She proffered them a smile and then turned to Lyle without speaking to them.
‘If you’ll show me my room, I’ll make a start on emptying the car.’ She paused and added uncertainly, ‘I’ll also need a room to work in if that’s possible.’
‘The house has six bedrooms,’ Lyle told her, ‘I’ve put you in one with a small boxroom off it which I had thought of converting into a bathroom, but somehow I’ve never been able to get round to it. If that isn’t large enough for you to work in, then we’ll have to find something else, although we’re a little short on space downstairs because two rooms are taken up by my surgery and the waiting-room.’
‘Isn’t that a little old-fashioned?’ Jessica commented as she followed him upstairs. ‘I mean most places these days have modern purpose-built health centres, surely?’
‘In the cities, and in commuter areas rich enough to afford such luxuries, but not in the country.’ He sounded rather grim.
‘But what happens in case of an emergency, or
if you’re out on call?’ Jessica persisted. She wasn’t too happy at the thought of an emergency call coming through to the house when Lyle wasn’t available.
‘They have to call out the ambulance service from the cottage hospital. Between us we cover a radius of just over fifty miles. Not very reassuring if you happen to live on the outer edge of that radius and you need treatment urgently. I’ve been pressing the local health authority for funds to equip a small clinic here. There’s room in the grounds to build a purpose-built unit, but it’s the policy these days to cut down on facilities—not extend them.’
From his voice Jessica could sense the frustration he obviously felt, and it altered her view of him fractionally, giving her an insight into what she had previously thought of as merely bad temper, but which now she could see could well be a mixture of exhaustion, worry and frustration.
‘This way.’
They were on a long, rectangular landing with several doors going off it. The floor was uncarpeted, the boards dull and in need of a good polish. Housework wasn’t one of Jessica’s favourite activities, but the boarding-school which both she and Andrea had attended after their parents’ divorce had held old-fashioned views on cleanliness. Did Lyle have any help in the house? Surely he must, but from what she had seen so far it was of a very indifferent quality. It struck her as he strode across the landing and pushed open one of the doors how little she knew about him, or his lifestyle—which was now going to be her lifestyle. Dismayed, she followed him into the room. It was comfortably large, but furnished with the same poor-quality oddments as the rooms she had seen downstairs. An old-fashioned square carpet of indeterminate colour covered most of the floor, apart from the edges which to her horrified disbelief were covered in a cracked, grainy lino, which she vaguely remembered last having seen in her grandparents’ house as a child.
‘Not exactly the Ritz, I know.’
His voice had gone hard and faintly hostile and when Jessica looked at him he was regarding her with narrowed eyes, densely blue between their thick black lashes. Something inside her turned to warm liquid, a sensation so disturbing that she actually felt quite weak. It took her several seconds to conquer it and say calmly, ‘I hope you won’t have any objection to my making some changes in the house—at my own expense, of course.’
His eyes hardened, and she recognised that she had made a mistake. ‘I bought the house complete with furniture from the previous occupant. He’d lived here all his life, and for the last part of it, completely alone. You can do what you want as regards decorating and refurnishing—but I’ll pay the bills.’
Thus effectively stopping her doing anything more than the basic necessities, Jessica thought angrily. Since she left university she had been financially independent, and it galled her that he should dare to patronise her in such a way. She opened her mouth to tell him as much, and then realised that she herself had possibly been equally patronising; her comment perhaps even a little high-handed, and undoubtedly offensive to such a male creature, and so she tempered what she had been about to say by suggesting calmly, ‘Why don’t we go halves? That way I won’t feel guilty if I’m a little extravagant here and there.’
To her relief he nodded, and walked past her to push open another door.
‘This is the boxroom I told you about. It has this connecting door with your room and another to the landing. It’s only small, but…’
‘But large enough for my needs,’ Jessica confirmed, going to look into the room. Because he was leaning in the doorway she had to stand close to him, looking over the arm he had propped against the door frame into the room beyond, as she mentally sized it up for her desk and computer equipment.
On the drive home he had discarded his jacket and immediately she was conscious of the movement of his muscles beneath his white shirt. Her body stiffened slightly as she again became aware of the masculine scent of his skin, and automatically she took a step back. He looked at her and frowned, opening his mouth to say something, and then closing it again as he looked over her shoulder and into her bedroom.
Instinctively Jessica looked too, smothering her surprise when she saw Stuart and James standing in the open doorway.
‘Are you going to live here now?’
The question was Stuart’s, his tone belligerent, but Jessica didn’t let it put her off. Children who had been through the traumas they had endured were bound to be suspicious about any further changes in their lives; they would want to know and had a right to know how permanent, or otherwise, her presence was likely to be.
‘Yes, I am,’ she told them quietly.
‘Does that mean that we won’t have to stay with Peter any more?’
Now it was James’s turn to question her, and she allowed herself to relax enough to smile.
‘That’s right. Your father thought it would be better if you could stay here in your own home, but since he has to go out to work, he married me so that I could stay here and look after you.’
She had given the problem of the two boys a great deal of thought since agreeing to marry Lyle, and she had promised herself that where possible she would be as honest with them as she could be, so that there could be no misunderstandings. Children as suspicious and hurt as these two were needed the reassurance of being told the truth.
‘Will you go out to work?’
James again, his tone slightly more relaxed.
‘I do work,’ she told him, ‘but I shall be working here in this room.’ She gestured to the small box-room.
‘So does that mean you’ll always be here?’
Again that suspicion and doubt in Stuart’s voice.
‘Most of the time,’ she told him. ‘Sometimes I might have to go away on business, but not a lot, and I shan’t be doing any work until after the school holidays.’ She regarded them quietly and then took a deep breath; they were old enough to be curious about adult relationships and she wanted them to know right from the start that she was here on their side, as someone who cared and not a gaoler.
‘The four of us are a family now,’ she told them, ‘but it’s going to be very strange for all of us at first, because we’re all going to have to get to know one another and to find out if we can like each other, and that takes time.’
‘Does that mean you’re going to be our mother?’ James asked.
Immediately Stuart’s face closed up, his eyes bitter and mutinous. ‘We don’t want another mother,’ he told Jessica brutally, adding under his breath, ‘mothers go away.’
Inwardly she wept for him, but she knew instinctively that now was not the time to give in to emotion.
‘No, I’m not going to be your mother, James,’ she replied answering his question and ignoring Stuart’s comment, and then deliberately glancing at her watch she asked calmly, ‘Did Mrs Hedges give you any tea? It’s almost six o’clock now, so if she didn’t, I think it’s time we had some.’
It turned out that the receptionist had not made them a meal so Jessica went back downstairs letting Lyle guide her into the kitchen where she struggled hard to conceal her appalled distaste at its shabbiness.
This place wasn’t a home, she thought, staring round at the shiny painted walls, dingy with dirt in places, noting the hideous ‘fifties’ cupboard which leaned drunkenly against one wall. She turned accusingly to Lyle, disturbed that he had not made more of an attempt to provide his sons with a more comfortable background—on his own admission he could afford it—but she managed to check back the words. There was no point in quarrelling with him at this stage. He had given her carte blanche with the place, and that would have to be enough.
Both the cupboards and the refrigerator were ill-stocked. Sensing her feelings, Lyle said off-handedly, ‘Justine normally brings me some groceries when she brings the boys back on Fridays. Mrs Falmer who comes in once a week to clean takes care of the rest.’
Making a mental note to go shopping first thing in the morning Jessica decided that all she could give them to eat tonight was an omelet
te.
There was room to eat in the kitchen, which was a good size, but the Formica table she found folded against one wall was a leg short and could not be extended far enough to seat them all, so they had to eat in the dining-room which was at the back of the house, and as depressing as all the other rooms.
Tea was a silent meal, but she was pleased to see that both boys cleaned their plates. She had been worried that they might be faddy eaters, so emotionally disturbed that they had to be coaxed to eat.
When she saw that James was yawning over his milk, she decided that one of the first things she would have to do would be to talk to Lyle about their routine. Presumably during the week when they lived with Justine they had a set bedtime, but she was aware that this was an area where she would have to tread carefully before instituting any rules of her own.
When they had all finished eating Lyle excused himself, saying that he had some work to do. Taking this as a sign that he did not wish to be disturbed, Jessica took their dishes into the kitchen and washed up. Neither boy offered to help her, but both of them hovered round her while she was working, saying nothing, but watching everything she did. When she had finished she said calmly, ‘Right, now I’m going to empty the car.’
Both of them followed her, Stuart in particular eyeing her Mercedes with distinct lust. Repressing a small smile, she started to take the first of her cases out of the boot.