Edge Of Deception

by Daphne Clair

‘Sholto’s good with them,’ Chantelle said, coming to Tara’s side.

  ‘You didn’t tell me he would be here,’ Tara accused her.

  ‘Didn’t know,’ Chantelle answered tranquilly. ‘Phil mentioned it to him last night, and he asked if we needed more helpers. Phil said—quite rightly—that we never turn down a volunteer.’

  Had Phil mentioned that Tara would be attending? Probably not.

  Chantelle said thoughtfully, ‘Averil’s brothers and sisters all have children. I remember her saying they brought out a different side of Sholto. He seems to be one of those buttoned-up people who only relax with kids.’

  The children lined up for running races, three-legged races, sack races, and less competitive games where everyone got a prize.

  The adults ran races, too, first the women, then the men.

  Tara, beaten marginally by a racehorse-thin house mother from the home, while Jane huffed in last, sub­sided, panting, on the grass and watched Sholto, urged on by his junior cohort, resignedly shed his shoes and line up with the other men amid laughter and cheers.

  He won easily, even Andy trailing behind, and ac­cepted his prize of a plastic whistle and the proud con­gratulations of his small team of supporters with all solemnity before strolling over to lounge on the grass by Tara.

  ‘Congratulations,’ she said.

  ‘Thanks.’ He turned to the boys who had followed adoringly after him. ‘Hey, fellers, do me a favour and fetch my shoes for me, would you?’

  They ran off immediately, jostling each other in their eagerness to be first.

  ‘Don’t you have a bunch of kids to look after?’ he asked her.

  ‘Over there.’ Tara nodded to where four youngsters wearing sand-encrusted T-shirts were happily building a lopsided castle.

  Sholto glanced at them and looked back at Tara. She thought he was about to say something to her, but Andy and Jane, a gaggle of children surrounding them, strolled up hand in hand, and stopped to chat. Jane lifted her free hand to wave at someone, and catching the glint of dia­monds, Tara asked, ‘Is that an engagement ring?’

  Jane exchanged a sheepish, secretly delighted look with Andy, and he grinned like a particularly proud Cheshire cat. ‘Bought it yesterday,’ he said. ‘We’re getting mar­ried after Christmas.’

  Knowing what was expected of her, Tara jumped to her feet, gave them each a hug and congratulated them. If she had some misgivings, she was determined to hide them.

  Sholto also got to his feet and added his best wishes. One of the children tugged at Jane’s hand and led them away just as Sholto’s group scampered back, with the outspoken little Maori boy in front, triumphantly clutching Sholto’s shoes.

  Sholto slipped into them. ‘Look at that sandcastle over there.’ He pointed. ‘Pretty impressive, isn’t it? Think you guys can do better?’

  ‘Better than girls?’ a freckled child said with scorn. ‘‘Course we can!’

  ‘There goes a budding male chauvinist,’ Sholto mur­mured as he watched the boys scamper across the sand after each other.

  ‘You seem to have some influence with them,’ Tara replied. ‘Use it.’

  He cast her a slightly mocking glance, almost a smile. ‘I may, later,’ he promised. ‘Meantime I’m glad of a breather. They use a lot of energy, kids.’

  ‘I never realised that you liked children.’

  He said after a moment, ‘Until recently I hadn’t had much to do with them.’

  ‘You seem to cope very successfully. Some of these kids are pretty tough. They’re not always easy to deal with.’

  They’re all damaged, but hiding it. Aggression, com­petitiveness, accusations, it’s all good cover.’ He looked down and picked a blade of grass, idly splitting it.

  ‘That’s rather...perceptive of you.’ Tara hesitated, then asked, ‘Do you speak from experience?’ Would he admit to her anything of what she now knew about his background?

  Sholto’s eyes briefly and searingly met hers. His mouth hardened as he looked out at the glittering water. ‘Yes.’

  After the single affirmative, his teeth clamped.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, her voice very low.

  He shrugged. ‘I survived. These kids will, too.’ Catch­ing her shocked look, he added, ‘I’m not saying they shouldn’t have help.’

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘Not much.’ He stirred and rose to his feet. ‘It looks like another contretemps is developing over the sandcastle project. I’d better go and sort it out.’

  Tara went to check on her charges’ effort, admiring it extravagantly and helping with the finishing touches of shells and seaweed. By the time she’d finished, Sholto’s group were dragging him off for some cliff climbing.

  When it was time to pack and go home, the children went readily enough. Most of them looked tired but happy, and they were all replete with unaccustomed junk food and a surfeit of sand, sun and exercise.

  Tara and Chantelle had arrived in the bus while Philip brought his car loaded with cartons of food, but

  Chantelle had arranged for other volunteers to accom­pany the children and their supervisors on the way back. ‘One way is enough to ask of anyone,’ she averred with cheerful cynicism. ‘I did the double trip once with the little darlings, and never again. I was deaf for days.’ Tara was to go home with her in Philip’s car. She didn’t real­ise until they were getting into the car that Philip had brought Sholto along, and that they were all travelling back together.

  ‘Go straight to your place, Phil,’ Sholto suggested. ‘I’ll pick up my car there and drive Tara home. Save you the extra trip.’

  Tara wanted to protest, but it made logical sense, and she bit her tongue. Ten minutes alone with Sholto in his car wouldn’t kill her, and he sounded as though it wasn’t a problem for him.

  The transfer was made quickly, both Sholto and Tara declining to come in for a drink with Philip and Chantelle.

  For the first five minutes of the journey neither of them spoke. Then, as he slowed for a traffic light, Sholto said, not looking at her, ‘How fond are you of Andy Whatsisname?’

  ‘Very,’ she said. ‘But I’m not in love with him, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘You weren’t thrilled at the engagement.’

  He had noticed her split-second hesitation before she’d congratulated them. ‘I have a small reservation, that’s all,’ she said coolly. ‘I’d hate to see Andy hurt.’

  ‘Jane seems a pleasant sort of person to me.’

  ‘She’s very pleasant. She’s also a professor at the uni­versity.’

  Sholto glanced at her, his lips pursed slightly as though he might have whistled. ‘I see the problem.’

  ‘Andy isn’t stupid,’ she said, ‘but he thinks he is. I just hope Jane’s friends don’t reinforce the notion.’

  ‘You wouldn’t think they’d have much in common.’

  ‘They both like the same music.’

  ‘So did we.’ He glanced at her again. ‘It isn’t enough, is it?’

  ‘They have other things going for them.’

  ‘Like—?’

  Tara wondered if he was really interested or just mak­ing conversation. ‘Andy’s one of the nicest people I know.’

  ‘And I’m not.’ He was looking at the road ahead, his face betraying nothing.

  ‘I wasn’t talking about us,’ Tara said. After a short pause she went on, ‘But I wasn’t very nice, either, at times. Jealousy is a nasty emotion.’

  Sholto went on driving in silence as though he hadn’t heard.

  He didn’t want to discuss their marriage, Tara thought tiredly. He was probably wise. What point was there in reopening old wounds? He had moved beyond that period of his life, closed the door on it. Sholto would never indulge in vain regrets about the past.

  Then he said, rather carefully, as if he’d been thinking the words out, ‘You’re right. I shouldn’t have allowed it to wreck our marriage.’

  Regrets? Sholto was expressing regret? Tara hasti
ly beat down an unwarranted leap of hope. ‘We both made mistakes.’

  He said, measuring the words, ‘I... wasn’t having an affair with Janette.’

  ‘I know.’ She saw his quick, incredulous glance and said, ‘I guess it’s far too late, but I know you weren’t. I’m sorry I was so stupid about it at the time.’

  He turned into her street and drew up outside her house before he spoke again. With the engine still run­ning, he said, ‘What made you change your mind?’

  ‘Growing up,’ she owned frankly. ‘And... thinking about things.’

  ‘You still seemed convinced of my guilt when we met at Chantelle’s party.’

  ‘Believing it had become a habit by then. And... I suppose I wanted it to be true, because if it wasn’t, then I’d lost you over something that never happened.’

  Sholto half-turned in his seat so that he was facing her. His hand went to the key and he switched off the engine. The silence seemed very loud. ‘You told me,’ he said slowly, ‘that nothing had... taken place... between you and Derek.’ She saw his chest heave deeply. One hand was still on the steering wheel, holding tight. ‘Was that true, or were you just frightened into denying everything?’

  Was that what he had thought, that she was too terri­fied to admit the truth? ‘I asked him into the bedroom,’ she admitted, her voice low and ashamed. ‘We were in­tending to...to make love—’ She faltered at the sound of his hissing, indrawn breath, but he hadn’t moved. ‘And then I changed my mind. I told Derek I couldn’t go through with it after all. I told him he had to go.’

  She’d let Derek gently slip her dress off as he kissed her and held her without overt passion. She’d deliberately shut out everything but the tenderness with which he’d surrounded her, but when he began to shed his own clothes cold reality had hit her like an icy shower. She couldn’t do this, it was wrong, totally wrong.

  ‘I can’t!’ she’d said in panic, and when Derek swiftly tried to take her in his arms again, she’d pulled away, crying, ‘I can’t! I should never have let you—’ She looked at him in horror, aware that she’d led him on. ‘Oh, God! Derek, I know it’s unforgivable. But you’ve got to leave now! You have every right to hate me—I’m so sorry!’ She’d backed from him, aghast at the unrestrained wanting in his face, afraid that it was too late to stop him, that he’d insist on her following through. ‘Please—I made a mistake—’

  But his face changed as she shrank from him, the glit­tery look of desire changing to compassion. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘It’s okay, Tara.’ He took her hands, even though his own were trembling. ‘It’s all right, I think I half-expected this, anyway.’ He leaned forward to kiss her forehead as she looked at him with guilty distress in her eyes.

  And that was how Sholto had found them.

  ‘I wronged both of you,’ she said, ‘you and Derek. I didn’t love him, not in that way, and I never even thought so. I was just intent on some puerile, tipsy revenge. And there wasn’t even anything to revenge myself for. I’ll never regret anything so much as I regret that, for as long as I live.’

  Sholto still hadn’t moved. She said, ‘I don’t suppose it means anything to you now, but I can’t help hoping you believe me. I know it’s no use asking you to understand.’ As he remained still and silent, she tried to smile, rather shakily. ‘You wouldn’t listen to me then. Well, thank you for listening now. I... I’d better go in.’

  She made to find the door handle, and Sholto reached across her to put his hand on it, but didn’t open it. His voice deep and steady, he said, ‘May I come with you?’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  She made them coffee while he waited for her in the liv­ing room. Carrying in the cups, she tried to extinguish the renewed flare of hope in her heart.

  He drank his coffee in silence, and Tara sipped at hers, hardly tasting it. Sholto had taken a chair opposite her, but as soon as he’d finished his cup he stood up as though he couldn’t remain sitting a moment longer. She was afraid he was going to go, but instead he wandered to the mantel and began fiddling with the ornaments on it-picking up and putting down the Wedgwood vase, tracing the pattern on the Indian brass tray with a fingertip, and lifting and replacing the lid of the Dresden china box.

  When finally he started to speak, he still had his back to her, and at first his voice was so low she had to strain to hear it.

  ‘I never told you exactly how my parents died,’ he said. ‘My father—’ He stopped. ‘He—’

  ‘I know.’ Her voice was very quiet. Perhaps she shouldn’t interrupt, but this was obviously difficult for him. ‘Derek told me,’ she explained as he shot her a frowning, questioning glance. She hoped it wasn’t the worst thing she could say.

  When Sholto didn’t volunteer any more, she added, ‘He said that you blamed yourself, but he didn’t know why.’

  His shoulders moved, and she thought he wasn’t go­ing to reply, but then he said, apparently concentrating his attention on the empty fireplace and the fan-shaped firescreen before it, ‘The night before, I’d squared up to him. Told him to leave my mother alone, or buy a fight with me. I was fifteen, and he was still bigger than me, but he was drunk and I think I might have stood a chance.’

  Tara’s breath caught. ‘Did he hit you?’

  He gave her a fleeting glance of mild surprise. ‘He yelled a lot about teaching me a lesson and being boss in his own house, and threw a few wild punches that didn’t do me any serious harm. But he didn’t touch my mother. I thought I’d won—oh, I was very cocky. But the next day he came home from work early and... and nearly killed her. He did kill her—when he’d finished with her it was only a matter of time.’

  Picking up the vase again, he half-turned towards her, but his eyes were on the raised Wedgwood pattern, his thumb gently rubbing over it, although she doubted if he was seeing it.

  Tara said, ‘It wasn’t your fault that you couldn’t pro­tect your mother.’

  ‘But I had to try,’ he said on an acrid note of satire that at first puzzled her, ‘didn’t I? Had to be the little hero. And it only made things worse.’ He turned and carefully replaced the vase. Staring at it, he said, ‘Ever since I could remember, he’d been hitting her. For anything, everything. His meal wasn’t on the table dead on six o’clock, or the potatoes were burnt, he couldn’t find his clean shirts, there was a hole in his sock—and she always made excuses, explanations, tried to make him under­stand why she’d... failed this time. She never seemed to understand that it didn’t do any good, that he was going to hit her anyway. Sometimes I got angry with her be­cause she wouldn’t see...she just kept on talking at him, trying to stave off the inevitable with excuses... endless, futile excuses.’

  Tara sat biting her lip hard, trying to envisage what it must have been like for a child.

  He said, ‘I was nearly ten before I realised that other people didn’t live like that, that Derek’s father, for instance, wouldn’t have dreamed of laying a hand on his wife. All I wanted, from that time on, was to grow big enough to give my dad back what he deserved and get my mother out.’

  She wondered why he’d chosen suddenly to talk to her about it. Perhaps Averil’s death had brought it back to him, and he needed to confide in someone?

  ‘When I was twelve, I told my mother we should leave, that we could go away somewhere, she didn’t have to stay and keep taking it. She put up all sorts of objections— what about my schooling, what could we live on, where could we go—but when I kept on at her she came up with what for her was the final, inescapable argument. He loved her, she said. She couldn’t leave because he loved her.’

  Tara couldn’t help a small gasp of revulsion. Sholto turned again, his eyes briefly on her face before he thrust his hands into his pockets and transferred his gaze to the mellowed old rug he stood on. ‘When I asked her what earthly reason she had to think that this brute, this ani­mal we lived with had ever loved her, she said, “But Sholto, you know how sorry he is after he’s lost his tem­per.” You know how sorry
he is. That’s what she said. Because after he’d left her bruised and crying and stormed out of the house yelling how useless she was, he’d come back hours later and apologise. Say he was sorry, it wouldn’t happen again. Almost grovel before her. It was nauseating.’

  ‘Did she believe him?’

  ‘She’d pretend to. She’d take him in her arms and kiss him as though he was the one who needed to be comforted. It made me physically sick. Sometimes I’d go outside and throw up in the garden.’

  Tara swallowed. She felt sick herself.

  ‘I’m not saying all this to make you sorry for me,’ he said, looking at her fully at last.

  ‘I know.’ It wasn’t a bid for sympathy. Sholto would never ask for that. ‘You said once that you don’t believe in forgiveness. You’re telling me why.’

  He was telling her why he hadn’t let her explain what happened with Derek, why he gave no one a second chance, the reason he’d said he could never trust her again, couldn’t forgive her.

  ‘You don’t believe that excuses or apologies mean anything,’ she said. ‘It’s why you refused to defend yourself when I accused you of being unfaithful.’

  He said, as though he hated the memory, ‘I’d already done more explaining to you than to anyone in my entire life.’

  About to dispute it, she paused. He’d told her why he’d been to Janette’s place that evening she’d thought he was staying home. Given her the bare facts, but for him even that was a major compromise. ‘I suppose you tried,’ she conceded. She hadn’t realised at the time how hard it was for him to feel required to justify his actions. ‘Did you care whether I believed you or not?’

  His eyes momentarily blazed. ‘Why do you think I came home in the middle of the day? Did you think I was spying on you—that I expected to find you in bed with Derek?’

  Tara flinched. It had never even occurred to her to wonder. Had he come home hoping to mend the cracks in their relationship? Only to be confronted with proof that it was irretrievably damaged.

  But he wasn’t waiting for her to reply. He said bit­terly, ‘Why the hell do you think I let you go with Derek that day!’