by Anna Jacobs
Stu took his possessions back to his tiny flat, scowled at them and decided to go for a walk. He didn’t want to stay in this dump, staring at the ruin of his working life. He kicked one of the boxes out of the way as he moved towards the door.
Half an hour later, he realized suddenly that he hadn’t planted the bugs as Radka had instructed. What would she say if he went back without doing it? That was a no-brainer. She didn’t allow any leeway when she wanted something doing, even the minor tasks around her flat.
Anyway, it’d be a bad tactic to ask her help in finding a full-time job if he’d just demonstrated inefficiency in other areas.
Sighing, he got out his list and travelled from one part of London to another, using the Tube to save money. He went into one business car park after another, doing as he’d been ordered, finding the cars exactly where she’d said.
All the time, his thoughts kept wandering. Why did she want this doing? How the hell was he going to earn a living, even with Radka’s help? He didn’t speak any foreign languages fluently, only knew a few get-by words and phrases in French, German and Italian. Bilingualism was becoming increasingly useful in Europe and he’d met people who were fluent in several languages.
The trouble was, in the UK he’d muddied the waters in one or two places in his haste to trample his way to the top, and word about that sort of thing spread.
He didn’t always think clearly when he was feeling high – couldn’t understand why. At those times he always assumed things would go well. And they often did, for a while at least. But nothing lasted. That was one lesson he’d learned the hard way.
He didn’t know whether he was glad or sad to get on the plane going back.
In Prague that evening, Radka was waiting at the flat. She greeted him with ‘You got the sack!’ in an accusing tone.
No greeting, no commiserations, he thought angrily. ‘I didn’t. I was made redundant and that’s not the same thing at all. I wasn’t the only one made redundant, either. They’re cutting back a lot on staff. Streamlining, they call it.’
‘Why you? I thought the project here had gone well.’
‘It had. They’re giving me an extra month’s pay as a bonus because of that. But I’m still going to have to look for another job. And I’m … a bit short of money. I had a few debts, had to pay something on account before I left England.’
‘I know about your debts.’ She sat staring at him, her expression giving away nothing of her feelings. ‘I will give you a trial working for me.’
He relaxed a little. ‘I’d like that. Doing what? Running your company’s relations with the UK?’
She laughed. ‘No. We have no relations with the UK and we’re not going to. That was only a pretence to allow me to come to London. I’m talking about my own company now, not the one you were dealing with here.’
‘You said you worked for someone else, then you said you were a director. What do you do exactly?’
She shrugged. ‘I say what is necessary, and I do what is necessary as well. Now be quiet and listen. I do not give people top jobs when they first start working for me. Never. They must work their way up, doing whatever is necessary when I need it. Even if it is something menial, they must do it.’
She was talking to him differently, not bothering to sugarcoat what she was saying. He tried to keep an interested expression on his face, but he was starting to feel apprehensive about what she’d want him to do and whether she’d really help him to gain a higher position or just use him.
‘You have stopped listening to me.’
He jerked to attention. ‘Sorry. I’m a bit tired, Radka.’
‘As your employer, it is not my concern whether you’re tired or not, and it is your duty to listen to me when I am talking. Still, you have had an unpleasant shock, so I will make an allowance this time. We will go over again what I need. Tomorrow morning will do.’
Her voice changed tone. ‘Now we will go to bed. I have missed your attentions. That, at least, you do very well.’
‘Sounds good to me. It’s easy to love a woman like you.’
She didn’t smile back at him. Looking thoughtful, she picked up her handbag and led the way into the bedroom. And there she continued to give the orders, acting far more arrogantly than before.
He didn’t enjoy their lovemaking that night.
He didn’t at all like the helpless feeling of having to do what she said.
Gabrielle didn’t feel hungry, and, for all Dan’s urging, she left some of the food she’d ordered. He cleared his plate, then she realized he was studying her face, looking thoughtful.
‘Is what you have to tell me so bad? Are you worried it’ll frighten me away? If so, I have to tell you that I don’t dislodge easily once I consider someone a friend.’
She shook her head. ‘It’s not that … well, not exactly. Let’s go somewhere private.’
‘I’ll pay for our meal and meet you outside.’
She walked up and down as she waited for him, dreading what was to come. No matter how many times she told herself she wasn’t guilty, she couldn’t believe it. She was guilty. Morally, if not actually.
Dan didn’t try to chat as he drove back to Brook House, for which she was deeply grateful. Her stomach was churning and she felt sick at the thought of reliving the worst months of her life.
As they walked towards the house, he put his arm round her shoulders and gave her a quick hug. ‘I’m on your side, you know.’
‘Mmm.’
Inside the house, she moved instinctively towards the kitchen, with its views along the valley. They called to her, those views did, made her feel part of a more peaceful world. She went to stand by the window and could feel him nearby, waiting for her to start.
But she suddenly remembered that the people from the antiques centre were coming to see the bathroom suite. ‘We shouldn’t start this till Chad and Emily have left. I’ll be too upset to speak to them if we do.’
He frowned as if puzzled, then gave a slight shrug. ‘Whatever you think best. Or I could put them off.’
She looked at her watch. ‘They’re coming in half an hour. We could go into the garden till then. It’s not all that warm today but part of the back is fairly sheltered. I think I’ll feel better outside.’
It seemed a very long half hour and she was relieved when they heard a car come up the lane and stop outside the house.
Chad and Emily were as charming as before. Chad said the bathroom suite was particularly valuable and in excellent condition, so they made arrangements to contact the plumber he used in these cases.
Emily reminded Gabrielle about coming to spend a day at the centre, so they arranged for it to take place while Dan was away.
Normally, Gabrielle would have enjoyed their visit but today she was glad to see them go and could hardly force out a word of farewell.
As she closed the front door, she turned to Dan. ‘Let’s get it over with now.’ She sat down at the kitchen table opposite him. She couldn’t face the kindness in his face, so stared down at her clasped hands.
He followed suit, calm and patient as always, reaching across to give her hand a quick squeeze. ‘If this is so painful for you, you don’t have to tell me. Truly. I trust you absolutely, Gabrielle.’
‘No. I need to be honest with you. Something slips out occasionally and it’s better that you know. If you … still want me, you’ll need to understand why I get upset.’
‘Very well.’
‘I was married before Stu,’ she began.
He went very still, didn’t comment, except to give a small nod as if to encourage her to continue.
‘We were happy together, Edward and I. Very happy. The only problem was I couldn’t get pregnant.’ She gathered the strength to say the next words aloud. ‘Then he fell ill … and the doctors sent him for tests, so many tests, till one day they told us it was cancer.’
She could feel the waves of panic and grief rising, as they always did when she spoke of the few
agonizing weeks that had followed. Only a few weeks, but it had felt like a dark, sunless eternity as they lived through it.
‘That must have been dreadful.’
‘It was. When we discussed treatment with the oncologist, he was very kind. He promised to do everything he could to cure the cancer. But after we went home, we got online and found out just how low the survival rate for acute lymphoblastic leukaemia was.’
She tried to breathe steadily, to hold back the tide of grief.
‘I didn’t know when we married that Edward had had leukaemia as a child. That apparently increases the risk of developing ALL. That was why I hadn’t become pregnant. He had a low sperm count because of the treatment. I was angry about not having known. I needn’t have had all those ghastly fertility tests. And I was furiously angry about him falling ill again.’
She took another deep breath. ‘Angry! How stupid was that? But I couldn’t help it. Edward didn’t deserve it. I didn’t deserve it. How could it happen to us?’
She paused to gather her strength. ‘I tried to hide the anger, be supportive. I tried so hard, Dan, I really did. And I – I …’ She began sobbing. She always wept when she had to tell anyone about this part, which was why she never spoke of it if she could help it.
‘Take your time. Or don’t tell me anything else if you don’t want to.’
Dan reached out to her again, but she couldn’t bear anyone to touch her while she was telling the tale of her shame, and jerked her hand away.
‘It turned out we’d discovered the cancer too late. The ALL had spread to the area around his brain and spinal cord. And … he had the Philadelphia chromosome, which meant there was very little hope of a cure. No hope at all, really, but they never say that to you.’
She dug her fingernails into the palms of her hands to hold back the tsunami of grief that threatened to overwhelm her. Even that small act brought back memories of how often she’d had to dig in her fingernails during those final weeks, to distract herself by the pain of it when dealing with Edward.
‘That must have been hard for both of you.’
She nodded and forced out the final revelations. ‘It was hard to get through every single day. They arranged to start the chemo and said Edward had to take another drug as well because of the chromosome problem. But he felt so ill and was going downhill so rapidly that he decided to stop the treatment after a week. He said it was no use, and he didn’t want his last weeks to be so desperately uncomfortable.’
Dan nodded, but, to her relief, he didn’t reach out for her again. Thank goodness.
‘Edward gave in, Dan – just gave in. I couldn’t bear it. I shouted at him, begged him to try, begged him not to die.’
She was sobbing loudly, speaking jerkily, about to lose control of her emotions, but couldn’t do anything to stop that. It had to be told. Dan deserved that honesty.
‘In the end, Edward took his own life – and it was my fault. He left a note, saying it would be easier for all concerned. But he meant easier for me, I know he did.’
‘Didn’t he have any family?’
‘Yes. Parents. A brother. They were devastated. They too wanted him to continue the treatment. We all harangued him, Dan. We didn’t mean to add to his burden, but we did. Only, I was worse than the others because I loved him so much. I was so selfish.’
‘Dear heaven, you can’t be blaming yourself about what he chose to do.’
‘But I do.’
‘How did he …’ Dan broke off.
‘Edward got hold of some drugs. They told me afterwards it wasn’t painful; he’d just have gone to sleep. He even went to a hotel, so that I wouldn’t be the one to find him. That was the kind of man he was.’
There was silence, then she said, ‘I had a breakdown, and it took a while for me to get on with my life. But if ever I have to talk about it, tell people, I fall to pieces. Even now, years later. So I don’t tell anyone if I can help it.’
‘I feel honoured that you’d tell me.’
‘I was bound to slip up and say something. Anyway, I love you, so I won’t lie to you.’
‘May I hold you now?’
She nodded and let him pull her to her feet and put his arms round her. Then she gave in to her pain, knowing it was inevitable that she’d weep herself senseless. She always did.
He held her the whole time.
Dan held her close as the sobs lessened, and even after they’d stopped. He had never seen anyone weep so painfully. Twilight deepened around them but he waited for her to make the first move.
How could she blame herself for what had happened? That didn’t make sense.
He thought it’d been brave of Edward to cut short the time of suffering for his wife and family. He wondered if he would have been as brave.
Only when Gabrielle pulled away and let him guide her to the sofa in the nearby living room did he say quietly, ‘I love you, Gabrielle. I’ve been wondering whether I dare say it for days. I love you dearly.’
‘How can you, after what I just told you?’
‘Because you’re you. A fallible human being, like the rest of us. I don’t think it’d be easy to live with a perfect human being. Anyway, what happened wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. Bad things simply happen sometimes. What you’ve told me hasn’t made any difference to how I feel about you.’
She studied his face as if trying to tell whether he meant it.
He stretched out one hand to caress her cheek, and when she didn’t jerk back, he moved towards her. He didn’t try to kiss her on the mouth, but touched his lips to her forehead, then to each damp cheek. ‘I love you and I intend to go on loving you for as long as we both shall live. I can’t guarantee not to fall ill, but I’ll do my damnedest.’
‘You don’t … blame me?’
‘Of course not. I’ll repeat it a hundred times if that’s what it takes to convince you.’
‘I love you, too, Dan. So very much.’
A few more tears rolled down her cheeks, but the faintest trace of a smile was there behind them now, as delicate and fragile as a rainbow peeping through the unfolding clouds.
He gave her a quick hug, then let her go. ‘There now, we’ve both said the words I’ve been longing to use, the words that start to bind two people together: I love you.’
‘You don’t usually sound Irish, but you did just then.’
‘When I’m very moved by something, it comes out – shades of my grandmother, who never even tried to get rid of her Irish accent, even though the Irish weren’t liked by many people in the UK in the days when she and Grandda moved here.’
Her voice was almost a whisper. ‘Will things really be all right between us?’
‘It won’t be my fault if they aren’t. What you’ve told me makes no difference whatsoever to how much I love you. And I’ve never been a quarrelsome fellow.’
The room was dark now, except for the moon shining through the window, turning all the colours to black and white, like an old movie.
Dan’s voice was full of love. ‘We need to go back to the hotel and get some sleep now. We have to be here again by seven o’clock in the morning.’
‘It’s hardly worth going back.’
‘There’s no food in the house. And you ate hardly anything of our late lunch. Let’s buy something to eat at a supermarket, maybe a bottle of wine, too, and picnic in our hotel room.’
He led her to the door, and she moved at his guidance, as meekly as an exhausted child.
She didn’t speak while they were driving back, but once, at some traffic lights, her hand rested for a moment on his thigh and she squeezed it slightly. He felt that was a good sign.
They stopped at a small all-night supermarket and she wore sunglasses to hide her swollen eyes.
He walked into the hotel between her and the reception desk.
In their room they unpacked the food and he ate some, teased her into eating too and giving her a glass of wine to relax her a little. He hoped he was
doing the right thing. He’d have to find someone with the appropriate expertise – a psychologist maybe – and ask how best to help her shake off the unnecessary guilt.
In the meantime, he finished his food and turned to make a casual remark about a celebrity who had just appeared on the TV news. Only Gabrielle was asleep, her glass tilted to one side, so that the last of the wine had spilled into her lap.
He took away the glass, used a tissue to mop the damp patch, then picked her up and carried her across to the bed.
She muttered sleepily as he pulled off her shoes, but she didn’t wake. When she turned over, she seemed to fall instantly asleep again. He cleared up their food before joining her in bed.
He loved her more because of what she’d told him, not less, because it showed how deeply she could love. She’d said she loved him, but he knew how fragile she was about love.
It wouldn’t be his fault if they didn’t stay together and settle down to build a happier life.
But would she allow herself to let go of the guilt?
In the morning Gabrielle woke with a start, to find Dan already awake, lying on his side next to her, smiling. The memory of what had happened stabbed her sharply, making her gasp, and she searched his face, trying to see whether he was looking at her differently.
His voice was quiet, casting hardly a ripple of sound into the morning stillness. ‘I still love you.’
‘I find it hard to believe you can.’
‘Why are you so hard on yourself?’
She closed her eyes, muttering, ‘Let’s not talk about it again. Ever.’
‘Is that really what you want?’
‘It’s what works best.’
‘We’ll see how we go. I’m not promising anything, except to continue loving you.’
‘I don’t deserve you.’
‘Of course you do, my darling Gabrielle. Now, let’s see if they’ve left some breakfast outside.’ He opened the door of their hotel room. ‘Ah. They have. Shall we take it with us and eat it at Brook House?’
‘Yes. I’d like that. Our first proper meal there.’
He put his hands on her shoulders and gazed into her eyes. ‘We not only have a house to open up and bring to life, but we start living together properly from today.’