‘I don’t know. How do you feel?’
‘I’m happy if you are,’ was all he said, giving her no real idea what he thought. ‘You’ll have to take care of yourself from now on; no heavy gardening. Put your feet up in the afternoon and make sure you get plenty of rest.’
He sounded omniscient, but spoilt the effect by adding, ‘That’s Ella’s advice, anyway. But she said you were so fit and had such well-developed muscles you’ll have an easy birth.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me you thought I might be having a baby?’ Dylan asked him a little resentfully. He confided in his sister, he confided in Suzy—why didn’t he ever confide in her? Looking back over the months since their marriage, she couldn’t remember him talking to her as easily as he seemed to talk to either of the other two women. It seemed to her that he kept her at arm’s length. Only in their bed were they ever intimate; was passion all he wanted to share with her?
‘I didn’t want to upset you if it hadn’t occurred to you.’
To Dylan’s disturbed mind that sounded as if Ross didn’t want a baby, at least not yet. If he thought the mere idea of having a baby might upset her he didn’t know her very well, for one thing, and, for another, it must have upset him, or why would he be reacting like this?
‘Also,’ he said, ‘Ella could have been wrong. You might not have been pregnant, and then you might have been disappointed—it seemed better not to say anything, and wait and see.’
That had been thoughtful, but Dylan wished he would talk to her, not his sister, and that he wouldn’t keep what he was thinking to himself. They were married, for heaven’s sake! It was time he started treating her as his wife, not some stranger he merely happened to be sleeping with!
The summer was beginning to wane by the time Dylan had got over the worst of her pregnancy, had stopped being sick and feeling queasy every time she tried to eat.
Ironically, as her health improved the weather worsened. Winds blew rain across the hills; it was damp and cold outside. By evening she often had to light a fire in the sitting room hearth or the house seemed grey and chilly. On the edge of the forest trees turned gold and brown, beech, birch and sycamore began to shed their rustling leaves, which blew across the lawns and lay in heaps, the rain soaking through them until they turned cobwebby, skeletal.
For a few weeks her garden borders were filled with autumn colours; orange and fire-red dahlias burnt against hedges, and then warm russet and gold chrysanthemums, competing with purple Michaelmas daisies, but at last even these last flickers of summer died away.
The green fern turned brown and withered, the outer barrier of trees grew bare, and the dark interior of the pine forest seemed to Dylan to intensify, come closer. The lower trunks of trees were brown and withered, shut out from the sun because they were so close set; only the upper branches were green. If you walked into the forest a deep layer of pine needles crunched underfoot and dry clouds of dust rose at every step, choking you, unless it had just rained.
She had begun to hate the forest and would never go in there with Ross any more. He didn’t argue. Not that she saw much of him, even less than she had during the first months of their marriage.
He was even busier. Autumn was the time of planting, and Ross was out at work from first light until dark most days. She saw very little of him during the week, but if he wasn’t working at weekends he came shopping with her, took her out to lunch at Carlisle or one of the little market towns within easy driving distance.
But as the autumn wore on into winter the sunshine grew rarer and the winds fiercer. Dylan discovered what a windy corner of England they lived in. In London she had always been able to ignore the weather, dive in and out of buses or the underground, find plenty to do indoors, go to cinemas, museums, galleries. Up here nature refused to be ignored.
She was kept awake at night by the wind tugging at their roof, roaring over the fields, whistling through the trees, pulling some of them down, damaging roofs and power lines.
She could have borne all that if Ross had been beside her in the bed, but as her body changed, swelling like ripe fruit, dark blue veins appearing on the full breasts which had once been so small and firm, Ross started sleeping in a spare bedroom. He said he didn’t want to wake her up in the early mornings when he had to get up to go to work. But he wasn’t making love to her any more, and Dylan knew why.
As she was driving home from the antenatal clinic one darkening November afternoon she passed the forest entrance and slowed, noticing Ross’s Land Rover parked there.
A second later she recognised the car parked right next to his. It was Suzy’s car, but Suzy was not in it. She and Ross were sitting in the back of his vehicle, very close together, their heads almost touching.
Dylan stared, dry-mouthed in shock, then instinctively put her foot on the accelerator and drove past.
When she got home she went indoors, moving like a robot, and made herself a cup of tea. She was shivering from head to foot. It was a chill, wet November day, but that wasn’t why she was so cold. She was in shock.
Sitting in front of the living room fire, she clasped the cup between her palms, staring into the flames, seeing it all again, like some slow-running film inside her head.
They had been so absorbed in each other that they hadn’t noticed her. Jealousy ached like a knife-wound, agonising, making her feverish and icy cold at one and the same time.
Suzy was beautiful, sophisticated, sexy—and she wasn’t pregnant. Dylan knew Ross found her body a turn-off these days. When they’d first met he had watched her all the time, his eyes passionate. Now he rarely looked at her, and when he did he hurriedly looked away again.
Oh, God, she thought, tears in her eyes—what was she going to do? Confront him with it? Accuse him of having an affair with Suzy? But what if he wasn’t? What if it hadn’t yet developed that far? He would laugh at her, be angry with her—but, even worse, if it had never even occurred to him before she might put the idea into his head! She was certain it had occurred to Suzy, who was very obviously not happy with her own husband. Dylan hated hearing the other woman nag poor Alan, snipe at him, constantly run him down.
A shiver ran down her spine. Did Ross talk about her to Suzy? Did Suzy know they weren’t sleeping together, had separate rooms?
She couldn’t bear the idea. To stop herself thinking about it she went into the kitchen and made a casserole for dinner. When it was in the oven she went upstairs and had a long, warm bath, then lay down on her bed for an hour.
She was in the kitchen later that evening, checking on the dinner, when Ross got home and came into the house on a flurry of leaves and rough wind, his face flushed, hair ruffled.
‘What a miserable day! Winter’s really here now. I’m starving,’ he told her. ‘What’s for dinner? Can we have it early?’ He joined her and sniffed the air. ‘Smells of garlic—what’s cooking?’
‘Pot au Feu,’ she said, her voice sounding unbelievably normal. She didn’t know how she was managing to talk, let alone smile, but she did it. ‘Beef braised with vegetables for a couple of hours—it can be served whenever you like. Do you want dumplings in it?’
‘Yes, please—I’ll just wash and change out of my work clothes. Twenty minutes’ time?’
How polite he was, talking to her as if to a chance-met stranger! Their marriage had withered like the summer leaves; only the pale skeleton of it remained, and he behaved as if nothing was wrong. Dylan found it hard to believe they had ever been passionate lovers. Did love always wear out this quickly?
He kissed her lightly on the cheek. He smelt of winter, wind, pine; his skin was cool on her own. She had given up everything for him and now she didn’t know who she had married—who was he, this stranger she had thought was her husband? What did he really think, feel, want?
‘I won’t be long,’ he promised, smiling at her. The smile of the betrayer, she thought, watching him go out, biting her inner lip. She had never been so unhappy in her life, or so scared.<
br />
CHAPTER FIVE
THAT winter was the longest of her life—she began to think it would never end. Just before Christmas Ross told her he had to go away for a night. ‘I’m sorry, they sprang it on me out of the blue, but I have to go. This is a vital meeting; I must be there!’ Taking a clean shirt from the wardrobe, he began shrugging his broad shoulders into it.
Dylan swallowed, her throat moving convulsively as she watched him with a mixture of anger and helpless desire. Before he buttoned the crisp white linen of the shirt she could see his naked chest, a ruffle of dark hair, the gleam of smooth flesh. He was always vibrant with health, his body lean and fit and agile, and she felt clumsy and ugly.
They had not made love for weeks now and her body ached for him, yet at the same time she sometimes felt she hated him. It was all his fault she couldn’t stand to look into a mirror at the moment. The sight of her heavy, swollen body, those full, aching breasts, with their enlarged, dark-circled nipples, made her want to scream, especially when she remembered how she had looked a year ago.
Bitterness thickening her voice, she muttered, ‘I don’t want to be left alone here all night, Ross! Especially as tomorrow is Christmas Eve! How can you even think of leaving me alone at this time of year, miles from anywhere, with nobody to turn to if anything goes wrong?’
‘Nothing is going to go wrong! Why should it? I’ll only be away for one night, for heaven’s sake!’ He pulled dark brown cords up over his long, dark-haired legs, belted the waist and reached for a green sweater.
He wasn’t looking at her, though. He rarely did lately. He hadn’t really looked at her since the autumn turned to winter and her body changed so drastically. He couldn’t bear to see what was happening to her, any more than she could. Her body turned him off. That was why he rarely touched her any more. Who would fancy a woman who looked like a great pink balloon when she was naked? She fought against tears which were burning under her lids. Ross hated it if she cried. He wanted her to be as strong and down to earth as he was. Sometimes she wondered how it was possible to go on loving someone you knew did not love you.
But she was desperate not to be left alone here. ‘Ross, I’m really worried,’ she pleaded. ‘I don’t like the look of the sky and it’s so cold, even with the central heating on. I think it’s going to snow. If it does, and the phone lines go down the way they did during that last thunderstorm, I wouldn’t be able to call anyone for help if...’
‘If, if, if!’ Ross muttered impatiently. ‘For God’s sake, stop working yourself up into a state. You’re letting your imagination run away with you again. You know what it does to your blood pressure if you get upset. Dr Easter warned you about that. She says you’re the creative type, you can’t help it, and I’m sure she’s right.’ His mouth twisted angrily. ‘You should have come with a government health warning. Dancing ballet can be bad for your health!’
‘What has dancing got to do with it?’
‘I know you miss your old life. Don’t pretend you don’t!’
Honesty made her hesitate. ‘Well, now and then, but...’
‘Do you ever hear from him?’
She didn’t pretend she didn’t know who he meant. ‘No,’ she said flatly, meeting his eyes.
‘There was a review of this new ballet in the paper the other day; Suzy showed it to me. It seems to be a big hit. They’re going on a world tour with it, it said.’
‘Yes, I saw reviews of it.’ She had bought a pile of newspapers after the first night and read them avidly, then burnt them in the garden trash burner so that Ross shouldn’t know how much Michael and the ballet still mattered to her. ‘I’m very glad for them, him and his new partner.’
She saw the flicker of disbelief in his face. ‘Are you really? Even though it should have been you? Don’t tell me you don’t wish you had been the one to create that part?’
‘It was my decision, my choice,’ she said levelly, knowing she was lying but refusing to admit it. Only a saint would not have envied the new girl the chance to create an entirely new role in such an important ballet, and Dylan was no saint.
‘Does that make it any easier to bear?’ Ross turned away, looked towards the window, frowning. ‘It isn’t going to snow today. The forecasts all said no snow until the end of the week. I’ll be back tomorrow lunchtime, and the baby isn’t due until the end of January.’
Taking a heavy tweed jacket from the wardrobe, he threw her a brief, unwilling glance. He must be able to see how close to tears she was, but he refused to take her worries seriously—what else had she expected? They had so little in common. He didn’t understand her and she certainly did not understand him.
They were opposites in every way; they came from different planets. They should never have met, let alone got married. She had had no idea just how far apart they were when she made that fatal decision to marry him and give up her career and her life in London. Did Ross regret having married her?
‘If you really loved me you’d take me with you!’ she accused, and he swung towards the bed, face grim.
‘Stop it! You should know by now that I won’t stand for that sort of emotional blackmail. You knew the sort of life you were marrying into; I didn’t lie to you. I told you I might sometimes have to leave you alone for hours on end. I told you the house was isolated and we had no close neighbours.’
She couldn’t deny it. He had told her all that, warned her that his was not the sort of life she was accustomed to, that she might find it hard and lonely, but she hadn’t cared then. She had been head over heels in love. All she had registered was that they would be alone together day after blissful day. It had sounded like heaven to her, then.
‘It was spring and I wasn’t pregnant!’ The changes in her body had been mirrored in her mind; lately her thoughts were as heavy as the way she moved, and the weather certainly did not help. Winter was more depressing than she had ever realised during the years when she’d lived in the city. It was easy to forget bad weather when you didn’t have to put up with frequent power cuts, when the streets were brightly lit and you could take a train underground, away from the rain and snow.
He sighed. ‘I know, you’ve had a difficult pregnancy, and Ella told me in her last letter that the last month is the worst of all. She always gets very restless.’
His sister had three children; she should know. Dylan wished Ella lived somewhere nearby—it would be so reassuring to be able to talk to her every day—but Ella’s husband worked for an oil company, which meant he and his wife and children lived abroad. At the moment they were all in Dubai, and wouldn’t be home in Britain for another year.
Dylan’s own sister, who had children too, lived sixty miles away in the Lake District; they could talk on the phone, but that wasn’t the same as sitting down to chat together face to face. You could talk more frankly, take time to get out what was on your mind.
Ross sat down on the side of the bed and took her hand. He was trying to be patient and understanding, but somehow, in her contrary mood, that didn’t please her either.
‘Dylan, I have to be at that meeting. Try to see it from my point of view. My job is important to me. This is an emergency meeting. If I’m not there they may take decisions I don’t agree with and it might be too late to change those decisions later. I can’t take you with me. I wish I could, but there won’t be any other wives coming.’
Eagerly she said, ‘But I could stay in the hotel and...’
‘Dylan, I won’t have any free time. I wouldn’t be able to see you. And if you’re honest you know a long drive wouldn’t be a good idea. You would get bad cramp and backache; you always do lately, even on short drives.’
Bumping over rough roads to go shopping in the village two miles away was making her feel ill at the moment. In every way her body was letting her down, after years of discipline and obedience. She looked up at Ross, biting her lower lip in frustration, wishing she could deny what he had just said.
He put a hand into his inside jack
et pocket. ‘Look, I’ll leave my mobile with you—then if anything did happen to the phone lines you could still call for help.’ He put the mobile phone on the bedside table and bent towards her. ‘Feel better now?’
‘I’m not a child, Ross! Stop talking to me in that patronising voice. Being pregnant doesn’t make me stupid. ’
‘You could have fooled me!’ Ross pushed a hand impatiently through his thick black hair. ‘I can’t stand here arguing with you all morning. I’m sorry but I have to go. I must get to York in time for lunch with the others.’
He kissed her, his mouth warm against her cold, averted cheek. Her nostrils quivered, picking up his male scent, his skin freshly showered and shaved, his aftershave the fragrance of pines, arousing memories of those long-ago nights last summer, when they had made love in the forest, on a bed of green fern in the warm, breathing twilight.
It seemed so long ago. At the memory she was on the verge of tears again. They had been so happy in the beginning—where had it all gone, the laughter and passion, the closeness and need?
Ross didn’t love her any more. He hadn’t even tried to cuddle her for weeks; he always slept in the spare room.
He couldn’t bear to share the same bed and she couldn’t blame him; she took up so much of it and she wasn’t sleeping too well, moving restlessly all night, kicking out in spasm of cramp all the time.
‘Aren’t you going to say goodbye?’ he asked, half teasing now, trying to get a smile out of her. ‘What do you want me to bring you from York? You can have three wishes.’
Her head swirled with the muddle of emotions she felt so often lately—anger and resentment, fear and misery. She turned her head at last, her tangled mop of curly brown hair tossing on the pillow, and looked at him bitterly, blue eyes wide and wet in her flushed face.
The Yuletide Child Page 7