'I've got some whisky,' Judith said without looking at him.
'I've already had quite enough to drink for one evening. I've been dining with one of the biggest bores in Westminster; drink was the only refuge to hand.'
She laughed spontaneously at his wry voice; their eyes met and she almost jumped at the expression in his. Her mouth moved without uttering a sound, forming the word: 'Don't.' She wasn't even aware of doing it, the word was ringing in her head like bells under water. Don't look at me like that, you mustn't!
He looked so tired, she thought. His eyes moved away from her suddenly, as though he had detached them with difficulty. 'Your flat's so quiet. I had a hell of an evening. I wondered how you were; I couldn't stop yawning while that fool was mumbling on at me. I'd have given anything to be playing chess with…' He stopped, his voice raw, and Judith went hot and then icy cold.
'With one of your chess master opponents back in your flat,' she supplied in as level a voice as she could manage.
He smiled wryly. 'Of course.' A pause, then he asked: 'Did you sleep?'
'For seven hours.'
'My God, you must have been tired! You shouldn't let yourself get into that sort of state.'
'We can't always help ourselves,' Judith said flatly, and Luke looked back at her with a grim, intent expression.
'No.'
Baba came back; she had managed to do the impossible—make herself look even more beautiful. She wound her hand through Luke's arm, her hair decorating his dark sleeve. He looked, Judith thought miserably, quite unbearably good-looking in his evening suit and stiff white shirt; a perfect foil for Baba's blonde beauty. Baba knew it, too. She smiled at Judith happily, her mouth pink and glossy.
'Darling, you're so good to me. It's been a lovely evening.' She glanced sideways at Luke, her blue eyes teasing. 'Luke would much prefer me to spend an evening with you than with some' gorgeous man, wouldn't you, Luke?'
'Much,' said Luke, and Baba laughed.
'We must have another party soon, a cosy little one— you and me, darling, and we'll find a man for Judith.'
Judith was rigid with outrage, but before she could snap angrily Luke steered Baba out of the room; almost hustling her along with an arm around her back. 'Goodnight,' he said shortly as he yanked Baba through the front door.
'Goodnight,' Judith said, closing it on the pair of them and forcibly restraining herself from slamming it. She walked back into the sitting-room and picked up one of the sofa cushions which Baba had been leaning on: it bore the soft imprint of her warm body. Judith punched it back into shape and threw it down again, then she went and did the washing up with brisk energy. Find a man for Judith . . . what a nerve! Baba never thought before she opened her mouth. She had no idea that she was being insulting; Judith was sure of that. Baba wouldn't dream of being spiteful, she simply didn't realise how what she said could sting. Find a man for Judith ... as though they might have to scour the four comers of the world to find anyone willing to put up with her for a whole evening. Baba didn't think she could get a man; that was the point. She had rung here this evening, sure of finding Judith in; it wouldn't have entered her head that Judith might be out on a date, that she wouldn't always be sitting here ready to provide a listening ear for Baba's problems.
Judith went to bed in a mood of angry irritation. She couldn't get to sleep again; she kept imagining Baba and Luke in his house, in his bed. Where else would they have gone at this hour? Jealousy burned her like swallowed acid; she turned over and punched her pillow, furious with herself.
He had been odd tonight; quiet and withdrawn; what had he been thinking when he looked at her in that grim way? His mood had seemed to be a reflection of her own, but that was just wishful thinking, pure imagination. Whatever had been wrong with Luke had nothing to do with her.
CHAPTER SEVEN
SHE met Lake as she got out of the lift next morning. He looked at her, his eyes penetrating. 'You still look pale—didn't you sleep last night?'
'Yes, hank you.' she said coldly. Some demon made her ask him: 'Did you?' Or had he been awake half the night, making love to Baba?
'Yes, I was exhausted after my four hours of tedium with that old fool Wentlow. I dropped Baba at her flat and went home and straight to bed. I slept like a log.'
'Oh. ' said Judith, suddenly lighthearted. 'Good.'
'She's flying to the States again tomorrow, she tells me, but I can't see her tonight, I've got to fly to Sydney this afternoon. I'll be away for a few days. You can manage while I'm gone, can't you? I'll keep in touch on the phone, but I'd be glad if you'd ring my mother everyday and tell her what's been happening.'
'Of course.' Judith said, wondering if that was to please his mother or to keep a check on her.
She was kept very busy all day and was still hard at work when Luke came into her office that afternoon, his Burberry over his arm.
'I'm just off. Don't work too hard while I'm away.' His eyes held a wry intimacy. 'I don't want to hear you've been having any more migraines—especially as I won't be here to deal with them!'
Judith tried to smile and couldn't. Luke stood there, watching her, his grey eyes full of a feeling she couldn't miss but dared not admit she noticed.
'Welt have a good flight,' she said huskily.
'Thank you.' he said, his mouth twisting, then he turned and walked out, and she stared at where he had been with eyes that had blurred. Eye strain again, she told herself; she must see an optician if this went on.
While Luke was in Australia, he rang Judith, every day; his voice coming and going in a buzz of crackle so that she lost the odd word. 'Yes, everything's fine here,' she would yell, and he would say in dry amusement, 'No need to shout, I can hear you as if we were in the same room.' And then she would turn her head in superstitious uneasiness half expecting to see him behind her. She got to know when he was smiling from the sound of his voice; when she rang off she would sit staring at the phone and seeing his grey eyes with that smile in them. 'My mother says you keep in touch every day,' he said once. 'Thank you for taking the trouble, I know you're up to your ears at the moment.'
'I'm going down to see her on Sunday,' Judith told him.
'Good, give her my love.'
'I will,' she said, hoping her voice didn't sound husky. If she ever had Luke's love, she thought, the last thing she would do was give it to anybody. 'When are you getting back?'
'Monday, if I'm lucky, I'll have to see how things go.' She looked at the calendar on her desk and counted the days like a child waiting for Christmas. When she had put the phone down she had to force her mind back to work, but it wasn't easy.
She had her grandmother to dinner on Saturday night. Robert was the other guest and helped Judith in the kitchen before Mrs Murry arrived. He opened the door wearing an apron and Mrs Murry was quite shocked. 'Poor Robert, you shouldn't make him work for his dinner,' she scolded Judith. Mrs Murry had never once asked her husband to peel carrots or make a salad dressing. 'Our generation didn't,' she said. 'I wouldn't have wanted him in the kitchen, anyway, that was my province. If men get into the kitchen, there'll be nowhere private to go, you know.' Judith listened, smiling; she didn't argue, but her grandmother knew very well she did not agree.
Robert chimed in: 'I've had a whale of a time, Mrs Murry—cooking is fun. Who do you think cooks my meals? I'm a pretty good cook, although I say it myself.'
'You need a wife,' Mrs Murry told him firmly, and Judith moved away, her face impatient.
'Now why didn't that occur to me?' said Robert, laughing. 'You're very bright, Mrs Murry, that's what I need, all right—a slave to do all my domestic work for me.'
'Don't look at me,' Judith said over her shoulder, then wished she hadn't said it.
'Is that a proposal? I accept,' Robert said with amusement, and her grandmother looked from one to the other of them, obviously wondering how serious the discussion was meant to be.
'Forget it.' Judith teased, laughing. She did not want her gra
ndmother to get the wrong idea, nor did she want Robert to think the wrong things, either. 'At least I get paid for my slavery at work. Unpaid slave is a job I'm not applying for.'
'Feminist!' Robert jeered, and she bowed.
'Thank you. ' She pointed to the sink. 'For that you can do the washing up.'
When she was alone again that night the flat seemed oddly empty and silent; she lay listening to the sound of traffic, the noise of people walking along the road outside, and felt lonely. There was a queer, persistent ache inside her. She switched on the radio and a female singer with m sob in her voice began to moan out her longing, Judith angrily switched off again—the woman sounded like a cat on a moonlit night, sitting on a roof and wailing at the stars. Judith could do without that. She curled up in the warm bed trying to get to sleep…but the words of the plaintive love song sang inside her head; the lyric was hardly pure poetry, but the simple, poignant words kept on being repeated, they seemed to mean something, but she wasn't sure what, she only knew they got to her, they really got to her, and that made her angrier than ever.
For years she had kept calmly to the path she had laid out for herself, contented enough with her work, her friends, her well-organised days. Sometimes she had stopped to think: is this all? Sometimes she had felt a lack, an empty space somewhere inside her, she had been briefly nostalgic for something she had never had and could not even put a name to—but after that pause for thought in the midst of a lively day she had gone on enjoying what she was doing, whether it was casting an assessing eye over a company balance sheet or sitting in a theatre on Broadway watching a black comedy with someone who would take her on to supper afterwards. Those instants of personal doubt had never lasted, Judith had too much sense to dwell on them, she had instinctively felt that to do so would be to look down from a high wire. The probable result would be a fall, so she always coolly looked up again and went on unwaveringly.
What was happening to her now was much worse. She knew she was walking that high wire unsteadily, sinkingly aware of the abyss beneath. She knew what it was that she needed to fill the empty space inside her and she knew she could not have it. The feeling obsessing her was not so much frustration, although she certainly felt grimly conscious of the fact that what she wanted was out of reach and always would be—it was a seeping sadness because the one man she had ever felt like this about should be forbidden to her, and she knew it was a hundred to one against her ever finding anyone remotely like him.
She had waited years to fall in love and then done so with the wrong man. It seemed so unfair.
She was up very early next day to drive to Lambourne. On a fine Sunday morning in early summer the Kent countryside had a clarity and tenderness which made driving through it a permanent delight. Judith had trouble concentrating on the road ahead, she kept looking sideways at the landscape, her eyes dreamy. Love was undermining her, she thought impatiently; she felt her foundations crumbling. Six months ago she would have looked at the scenery, thought 'Hmm, pretty', then turned her attention back to what really mattered, whether the old blue van in front of her was really intending to move to the right at any second or whether the driver had forgotten to switch off his right side light which had been blinking for several miles now. You merely ran into trouble if, instead of giving your attention to the road ahead, you kept gazing romantically at the alluring prospects on either side, and that applied to life as well as to driving a car.
When she finally turned into the long drive and parked outside the house she found another car parked there. She walked to the front door, wondering if there were to be other guests for lunch. Mrs Doulton hadn't told her she was inviting anyone else, and Judith couldn't help feeling rather disappointed. She had been looking forward to talking about Luke to his mother, there were a thousand questions she wanted to ask about him, but she would have to be subtle about it, she couldn't just at down like a reporter and fire off personal questions. His mother would wonder what on earth was going on! Judith had meant to angle their conversation with the hope of eliciting the answers she wanted without Mrs Doulton realising that she was being interrogated.
The front door opened abruptly, but it wasn't Fanny facing her, it was a small girl in a red swimsuit. Judith stared down at the round, clear-skinned face and long straight brown hair, and the child's hazel eyes stared back at her.
'Hallo,' Judith said uncertainly. 'I'm Judith.'
'Hallo, I know who you are. You're to go up to Grandma's bedroom, they left me here to wait for you 'cos Fanny's in the garden picking mint, but she'll be back in two shakes of a lamb's tail' The little girl used the phrase unconsciously, but Judith could hear Fanny's grumpy voice behind it. 'We're swimming, they said I could come when you got here.' She grinned suddenly, showing small, irregular teeth. 'I can dive, can you dive? It's easy.' There was a light scattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose and her grin was mischievous. 'I'm going to creep up behind Daddy and push him in; that's what the boys do at school.'
'Make sure he's wearing his swimsuit first,' Judith told her, and the child laughed. She must be one of Angela's children; Pauline had said she only had one son, so the little girl could not belong to her. Judith liked Angela, she would enjoy meeting her again, but Pauline was far too sharp and critical; she had a censorious eye.
'See you,' the little girl said, disappearing at a run. Judith went into the house, her fingers crossed behind her back as she went up the stairs. Please, don't let Pauline be here, she pleaded with fate; that would ruin the day.
She tapped on Mrs Doulton's door and heard her call: 'Come in!'
'Hallo,' said Judith, smiling across the room, and Mrs Doulton held out a hand. Judith went over to the bed and sat down.
'It's nice of you to give up one of your precious days off to me,' Mrs Doulton said, smiling at her.
'It's such a lovely day, I can't think of a nicer way of spending it,' Judith told her, and Mrs Doulton patted her hand.
'You're looking tired, have you been working too hard?'
'I've got a lot to learn in a very short time—this job is a million light years from the work I've been doing, there's so much more to it.'
'All the same, you mustn't push yourself too hard, it doesn't pay in the long run. My husband always said that if you work so hard that you're too tired to unwind after leaving the office you're heading for trouble.' Mrs Doulton leaned back, her eyes serious. 'I hope Luke isn't difficult to work for.'
'He's impossible to work for,' Judith said lightly, laughing, then shook her head. 'No, I think I already see the light at the end of the road, and Luke isn't a hard boss, he takes a lot of trouble to explain things clearly. I'm fascinated by the job.' She tried to keep her tone light, she hoped her smile looked natural—she remembered all too vividly that Mrs Doulton was not easily taken in by forced smiles. She had immediately seen through Caroline Rendell's smiles; Judith hoped her own eyes were not as betraying as Caroline's had been.
Hurriedly Judith changed the subject. 'Who was the little girl who opened the door?'
'Stephanie, my daughter Angela's eldest—she's been keeping me company.'
'She's about six, is she?'
Mrs Doulton nodded. 'Angela has a three-year-old, too: Benny. They're all down at the pool, I should have told you to bring a swimsuit. I'm sorry, I forgot; I think Angela has a spare if you'd like to…'
'Oh, no, it doesn't matter, I'd rather sit and talk to you. I wanted to ask you how Doulton-Klein International came into being—that was your husband's doing, I suppose? He set it up, didn't he?'
'In 1946,' Mrs Doulton said, her eyes moving to the window. The blue sky had that impossible radiance that an English summer has for far too brief a time; Mrs Doulton seemed to be watching the far distance, her eyes wide and nostalgic. She was looking back into the past. She talked about her husband, about the early days of their marriage, and Judith listened intently, realising that Mrs Doulton had almost forgotten she was there, she had no need to say anything beca
use the older woman was half talking to herself, remembering aloud what she no doubt often remembered in silence.
Judith couldn't hear enough about Luke's background, hearing about his father and the rise of the organisation helped her to understand him better. Nobody springs from a void; everyone comes from somewhere and their past, their childhood and family, can explain their present, if you have the right clues. Judith felt a hungry curiosity about Luke, no detail was too small for her, she was busily filing it all away while she listened.
'He never told me how ill he was,' Mrs Doulton said some time later. 'When he died so suddenly the shock almost killed me. Luke was still so young, he had been working his way through the firm, learning all he could, but some of the board thought he wasn't ready to take over his father's position. There was a lot of backstairs intrigue and in-fighting; it was all very nasty, and I think it toughened Luke to have to face that out of the blue. Once I was sure he was past the worst, that he was safely in control, I bought this house and came over to England. I thought it would be best; I was part of the past, Luke had to forge his own weapons. Of course he asked my advice and I was always ready to discuss the firm and advise him if I could, but he had to do it on his own in the last resort. It seemed best for him to start off the way he would have to go on…' She looked at Judith wryly. 'It wasn't easy to step out of the picture. I'd spent most of my married life talking the business over with his father. I enjoyed being part of it all. But you have to know when to let go, and Luke had to be free.' 'He still values your advice, he told me so,' Judith told her gently.
Mrs Doulton laughed. 'I hope he goes, but I'm still very careful to wait to be asked for it. There's nothing worse than a mother who won't let go of her children; it must make it very hard for them to grow up.'
Fanny came into the room with some coffee and Judith solemnly said: 'Good morning, Fanny.'
'Morning,' said Fanny, handing her a cup of coffee. She looked at Mrs Doulton measuringly. 'You look tired, you should have a nap before lunch.' Her grim eyes went back to Judith. 'She has to rest for at least an hour morning and afternoon, you'd better take a walk in the garden when you've finished your coffee.'
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