‘Thank you, Milly,’ said Lucia.
‘We’ll have it in the den, please, Milly,’ Roz requested. ‘Come through, Lucia. This is a … surprise.’
Lucia smiled a faint, cool smile, and Roz was reminded of the last time she had seen her sister-in-law on the fateful morning Nicky had tried to run away, and she recalled the venomous green glances she had been on the receiving end of and the sudden conviction she had
had that Lucia had bitterly resented her intervention on Richard and Nicky’s behalf. It occurred to her that Lucia might also resent her shopping spree with Flavia—or at least, what it represented—a closer relationship with Flavia.
But for about half an hour they drank their coffee and sampled the cook’s special melt-in-the-mouth shortbread and chatted quite amiably about nothing in particular.
Then Lucia asked abruptly, ‘How’s Adam?’
‘Fine. He’s in Sydney but due home tomorrow. Why … I mean, why do you ask?’
Lucia shrugged. ‘Oh, I just wondered. I must say you cope with it all very well, Roz. But then I did realise quite some time ago that yours was a … rather different marriage.’
Roz blinked. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Don’t get me wrong!’ Lucia waved an elegantly manicured hand. ‘I’m all in favour of businesslike marriages. Although I did expect Adam to be … well, more discreet about it. But you seem to be able to handle that, so …’ She stopped and glanced at Roz’s dazed, uncomprehending face. ‘Do you mean you didn’t know that he took his mistress to Japan with him? My dear, I happened. to have a close friend who was on the same flight, and they were not only together on the flight but together at the hotel in Tokyo! And she—this friend of mine—later happened to see him buying this gorgeous, fabulously expensive kimono for her the night after,’ she paused, then. went on significantly, ‘she’d seen him coming out of her bedroom. ‘Their… er … affair was rather well publicised some years ago, but of course Adam would never have married her.’
‘Why not?’ Roz heard herself saying as if from a great distance.
‘She’s been divorced twice, she’s a career woman and I’ve personally heard her say she’s not interested in giving up her career to raise children. I expect this new arrangement they have now, suits them both very well.’
Roz licked her lips. ‘And what …’ She stopped and started again. ‘And what gave you the idea that our marriage was so different, Lucia? Apart from this . . ‘
Lucia smiled. ‘You did, Roz. I’ve seen enough young girls in love to know that you weren’t. Was I wrong?’ she asked indulgently.
‘No… But I am, now …’ Oh God, did I say that? Roz wondered frantically. Yes … She put a hand to her lips and stared at Lucia and thought, how could you … how could you do this to anyone? What business of yours is it anyway, whatever, even if you are right, were right … what have I ever done to you? And now,you’ve made me bare my soul to you…
‘Well,’ said Lucia, ‘that’s unfortunate.’
‘Lucia!.’ Roz gasped, at the wave of anger that overcame her, but without it she would never have been able to say what she did. ‘Don’t think I don’t know why you’ve chosen to tell me all this. For some reason you resent me having any influence in this family, yet it’s the last thing I want or seek.’
‘Oh? What about Nicky?’
‘What happened. with Nicky was entirely coincidental—how I came to be involved in it, at least!’
‘Tell me about it,’ Lucia said tauntingly.
‘No. it’s between me and Adam, and that’s the way it’s going to stay. But if you’re jealous that I might be somehow upstaging you in this family, you’re wasting time and petty emotion, and l can’t believe that anyone could be so … so pretentious and ridiculous?’
Lucia narrowed her green eyes. ‘And you don’t think it’s pretentious, Roz, to be queening it among us when you’re no better off than l am …’ She stopped and her face paled, then to Roz’s utter amazement, it crumpled and she put up a hand, then turned away abruptly, but beneath the elegant lines of her saffron suit, Roz could see that her shoulders were shaking.
‘Lucia…?’
No response.
Roz tried again, then went down on her knees beside her distraught sister-in-law’s chair. ‘Please—I don’t understand,’ she said huskily. ‘Don’t cry so … let me help. You said …’ She broke off and her eyes widened.
‘Do you mean you and Gareth———?’
Lucia huddled lower in her chair, looking boneless and pathetic in a way Roz would never have dreamt possible.
‘Does he… is he…?’
‘Yes,’ Lucia wept. He’s been unfaithful to me for years, and it’s killing me slowly, because I love him and hate him and I could never leave him …’
It all came out, a many of misery that for years, Roz guessed, Lucia had barricaded within her heart, and camouflaged beneath, her naturally somewhat, abrasive personality. ‘But the price she had paid had been to watch herself growing more waspish, even shrewish …
‘I just can’t seem to help myself—sometimes I hate myself even more than I hate Gareth, only of course I don’t hate him. I … I tremble like a foolish girl every time another affair is over and he wants me again. I fall in love all over again, I … why,’ she went on with bitter, tearful intensity, ‘can’t I either leave him or accept that that’s the kind of man he is and be content that he’s happy to stay married to me, even though he strays and probably always will. Why do I torment myself and tear myself apart like this every. time it happens, and … and torment anyone else who happens to be within reach?’
What can I say? Roz thought, and said nothing. But she put her hand over Lucia’s and held it.
They sat like that for a long time until Lucia had quietened at last. Then she said, ‘It seems we are in the same boat, so perhaps we could help each other.’
‘Oh, Roz,’ Lucia said miserably. ‘I’ll never forgive myself for this, especially if you didn’t know.’
‘There’s … there’s no chance of it being wrong—your friend, I mean?’
‘She’s never been wrong about Gareth,’ Lucia said with irony, then closed her eyes briefly and bit her lip.
‘But perhaps it was, just an interlude for Adam,’ she said then. ‘Just something that happened when they found themselves in Tokyo together, and alone. In fact there’s nothing to suggest otherwise,’ she said almost eagerly. ‘What I said about her being his mistress was only … sort of conjured up because … because …’ She took an unsteady breath. ‘Because of my paranoia. And that’s true, Roz.‘
And that’s true, Roz …
For some reason for the rest of the day, those particular words of Lucia’s stayed in Roz’s mind like a refrains.
She had stayed to lunch, and by the time she left, the only indication that she might not be her normal self was that she was a bit pale. Unless you looked closely into her eyes, which Roz did, and saw the guilt and the anxiety. But, as Roz had said to her, it’s an ill wind, and at least we understand each other now, and can be friends.
And that, she thought, as she watched the silver Alfa-Romeo drive away, is something of a miracle, because if anyone had told me I would one day achieve this kind of rapport with Lucia Whatney, I wouldn’t have believe it. And that is true, Roz.’
But before she turned to go back inside, she took a deep breath and concentrated carefully on how to project a carefree image to Milly and Jeanette, both of whom would be curious about the visit anyway.
It wasn’t until she was getting ready for bed that night that it occurred to her that she had put her heart and soul into allaying any suspicions Milly and Jeanette might have had to stop herself thinking about Adam. And had been highly successful—on both fronts. Except for those four words of Lucia’s she had so stupidly got on the brain.
But you can’t not think about its for ever, Roz, she told herself as she showered and changed..For example, didn’t he say that something had happe
ned to him in Tokyo, something unexpected? And he didn’t actually deny it when I asked him if there was someone else. Is he really in Sydney on business?
She climbed into bed, the bed where Adam had made love to her so restrainedly the night before, and that was when the clinical numbness that seemed to have her mind in its grip faded, and she found herself hugging a pillow, dry-eyed but battered by so many emotions at last, the uppermost one disbelief. Even if it had happened in Tokyo, surely the way they were now meant there couldn’t be another woman in his life‘? But, the thought kept creeping in, the way they were now hadn’t been what Adam had planned for them, had it? She had almost forced it on him, and in the end, perhaps it had only been an act of kindness on his part. Poor Roz … she flinched. Poor lonely Roz.
And with that, belief came crowding in. Adam had been different, hadn’t he? In between times. But she’d closed her mind to it. Now she could only understand why. While she might be receiving his comfort and support, another woman had his heart, because despite
Lucia’s attempts to lay the spectre of a permanent relationship, didn’t it all fit in with what had happened since her twenty-first birthday? Yes …
Then, as the night wore on, came the thoughts she was to think of as the bottom line. What to do? Pretend she didn’t know‘? Be torn apart like Lucia? Was it worse or better to know there was only one other woman in your husband’s life rather than a succession of them? Worse, she decided. Because it meant he must love her.
Roz woke the next morning with nothing resolved in her mind and the knowledge that Adam would be home that night.
But one source of consolation was that she unexpectedly found herself alone during the day. It was Milly’s day off, but Jeanette, who had been looking somewhat subdued for a couple of days, finally broke down and admitted that she had toothache but hated going to the dentist.
Roz dosed her with aspirin and packed her off to her own dentist with stern admonitions not to return if she chickened out, then commanded her to spend the afternoon with her mother.
The pain must have got the upper hand, because Jeanette went like a lamb.
But the relief Roz felt at not having to act a part any longer was tempered by a sense of miserable confusion and intolerable sadness. She just didn’t know what to do next, and no amount of thinking about it seemed to help.
She finally wandered out to her new herb garden, observed that the weeds were growing a lot faster than the herbs and set out to get rid of them.
Half an hour later, hot and grubby, she glanced up suddenly, for no reason other than a suddenly uncomfortable feeling, to see Adam standing there watching her.
She gasped. ‘Adam! I didn’t hear you! Have you been home long?’ She scrambled up off her knees and pushed a strand of hair off her face, leaving a steak of dirt on her cheek.
He moved. ‘No—about five minutes. You were obviously engrossed.’
‘Yes. Yes, I was.’ She stripped off her gloves and brushed her white shorts and tucked in the back of her sky blue T-shirt. ‘I also wasn’t expecting you until this evening, but I’m not complaining. Isn’t it hot! Come in and I’ll make us something cool to drink. How was Sydney?’ she asked brightly.
Adam didn’t reply immediately, just watched her shake out the mat she’d been kneeling on and wrap her tools up in it, then hesitate for a fleeting instant before she walked towards him and tilted her face up for his kiss.
Then he said, ‘Sydney was cold. How are you?’ and kissed her briefly.
‘Fine!’ she heard herself say gaily.
‘Where is everyone?’
Roz explained as she led the way into the kitchen and chatted on about heaven knew what as she washed her hands at the sink, then mixed a jug of lime squash and asked if he was hungry.
Again he took his time about replying, and as he stood watching her, leaning his shoulders against the wall, she was able to think that he looked tired but that there was something else in his dark eyes that she couldn’t fathom, something that frightened her and spurred her to further small talk when he finally said no, he wasn’t hungry.
‘Let’s go into the den and be comfortable. It’s not often we have the place all to ourselves, is it?’
The ceiling fan was on in the den, but Adam discarded the jacket of his beautiful lightweight grey suit and pulled off his navy blue tie before saying, ‘No, we don’t., Nor could their timing be better in this instance.’
Roz put their drinks down and said lightly, ‘Is something wrong? Would you rather have had a beer? I didn’t think of that …’ But at last she was able to get a grip on herself, because of course something was wrong—he had come to a decision. She put a hand briefly to her mouth and forced herself to look across at him and quietly, ‘Sorry. What is it?’
‘I thought you might like, to tell me that. At least I did think that, but you appear to be perfectly normal, happy and bright, in fact.’ He looked at her sardonically.
‘Adam … I don’t understand,’ she whispered.
‘You don’t do you, Roz? You honestly don’t. Well, I’ll tell you.’ He strolled over to her and took her chin in his fingers, while she stared up at him, her eyes wide and dark. ‘When I got back from Sydney this morning, earlier than anticipated, I went straight to the office, where there was a message for me. An urgent message,’ he added softly, but a shiver went down her spine, ‘to contact my beloved sister Lucia.’
Her lips parted and her eyes were dazed,then stunned. ‘She …’ she licked her lips, ‘she told you?’
‘Mmm … About all the things she’d told you, Roz. Didn’t you believe her?’
‘I …’A tide of hot colour stole into Roz’s cheeks and she couldn’t go on’.
‘She was right, you know,’ he said. .‘I did find myself next to an old flame on the flight to Tokyo, I did leave her hotel room at an ungodly hour, I did purchase a kimono in her presence.’
‘Oh, Adam!’ breathed Roz ‘I …’
‘But apparently you didn’t mind findings all that out, Roz,’ he overrode her roughly. ‘You were prepared to go on as if nothing had happened. ‘Indeed,’he traced the outline of her mouth with one finger. ‘It wasn’t an earth-shattering event for you at all. And of course I know why,’ he told her with devastating irony.‘
‘Do you?’ her voice wasn’t working too well and the words came out huskily.
He smiled, the coolest smile she’d ever seen. ‘So long as you can keep all this you don’t really care what I do behind your back.’
Roz pulled free. ‘I gather you didn’t discuss that with Lucia?’
His mouth hardened and flash of brilliant anger lit his eyes. ‘No. It was quite a brief conversation,’ actually, and the last we’ll be having for some time. Just as this is the last conversation you and I will be having, Roz. You see, I’m no longer content to be just a stopgap for all the lonely places of your heart, my dear. I want it all or nothing.’ She gasped, but he went on unheedingly, ‘Oh, you’ve been a brilliant actress since I apparently shook you out of your self-preoccupation and frightened you into thinking you were going to lose all this …’
‘No!’ she cried. ‘I haven‘t, it wasn’t… . ’
‘Roz, if I thought you were sleeping with someone behind my back I’d probably do something essentially violent. How can you expect me to believe you don’t give a damn—if you feel anything for me at all?’
‘I didn’t know how you really felt! Adam … ‘
‘Then I’ll tell you,’ he said unpleasantly, ‘And for the record, I never realised it so clearly as on that first night in Tokyo when l was tired and depressed and convinced you were drifting further and further away from me whatever I did—and coming to understand what it meant to me. But I persuaded myself to think, what the hell, Roz isn’t the only woman in the world, and there’s another one I right here in this hotel sending out unmistakable signals. Why not avail myself of her?’
Roz stared at him, her face still and pale apart from the streak of
dirt on it. ‘Did you?’ she asked barely audibly.
‘l certainly tried to,’ he said harshly. ‘That l didn’t succeed doesn’t alter the fact that the intention was there. I’m sure what they say of good intentions applies to the other kind, don’t you think?’
‘So… are you trying to tell me this woman means nothing to you? She whispered bewilderedly.
‘Beyond that she was astonishly understanding where many mightn’t have been, no. But what I’m really trying to tell you …’
He stopped as silent tears slid down her face, but they were tears of relief and comprehension.
‘Roz,’ his mouth set in a hard line, ‘it’s too late for that. I … ’
‘Adam,’ she interrupted, swiping. the tears away resolutely, ‘you said once that we were at cross purposes, but never more so than now. Will you let me explain?’
He said nothing, but she thought that he looked fractionally less angry, although his gaze was as sharp as an eagles and chillingly dispassionate.
She drew a breath. ‘Something happened to me too. Something that made me—I don’t quite know how to put it into words—afraid. Made me so afraid to fall in love with you that I tried to pretend it wasn’t happening to me. It will probably sound crazy to you, and perhaps because it happened when so much had gone wrong for me, it made more of an impression than it should.’ She stopped for a moment, then she told him baldly the real reason why the Howards had found her so unsuitable for their son.
He stared at her and she saw the shock in his eyes. Then the almost murderous glint that came to them. ‘Roz, why the hell didn’t you tell me this before?’
‘I—I didn’t even want to think about it,’ she stammered. ‘It made me feel so awful and … cheap, somehow.’
‘And that’s why you married me.’
She managed to smile faintly. ‘I’d often wondered what it would be like to be married to you well before that, actually. Do you remember the very first time we met, when l was about fourteen? Well, I used to dream about you for months afterwards.’
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