“I’m glad you know,” he said, in a small voice into my neck. “That was the worst bit. You not knowing. You thinking he loved us.”
I drew back. Held his shoulders. “He does love you, Rufus. This has nothing whatever to do with you. It’s me he stopped loving.”
He shrugged. “Whatever.”
My heart began to beat fast. And not for Alex’s sake, for Rufus’s. I had to mend bridges here, had to let Rufus know he still had a father. I kept hold of his shoulders, looked into his eyes.
“Rufus, Daddy loves you very much. It’s me he’s leaving, not you.”
He picked up a stick he’d been whittling for a while and his Nutella sandwich, slipped off his chair, and made to go outside. He turned at the door and gave me a wise look.
“Actually, Mum, I prefer to think we’re leaving him.”
And then he headed out for the barn.
***
The following afternoon, when Rufus was at school, I went to see Piers and Eleanor. I badly wanted to stay in the cottage, as I knew Rufus did, but they needed to know the score. After all, it was Alex who was their friend, Alex who’d been invited to live on their estate. I was also aware that the rent was due soon and since I didn’t have a bean and had spent all the painting money settling my debts, I wasn’t entirely sure how I was going to pay it. Would Alex carry on forking out even though he wasn’t living here? Unlikely, I thought uneasily as I rang the bell. If I’d had a cap, I’d have put it in my hand.
Eleanor wasn’t there, and Vera took me through to see Piers in his study. Now I really did feel like a forelock-tugging tenant, I thought, as I went in and saw him sitting at his desk in his tweed jacket, half-moon glasses perched on his nose. He did stand up, though, and give me a kiss, before waving me into a chair on the other side of his leather-topped desk. I outlined the situation in the baldest terms and asked if it would be possible for Rufus and me to continue living in the cottage.
Piers took his glasses off. He pushed his chair back, got up from his desk and turned to look out of the long Georgian window behind him. His hands were in his pockets, his profile to me. He looked tired. Old, even.
“You and Alex are going to separate?”
“Yes.”
“He’s leaving you?”
I smiled. “That…hasn’t been discussed yet, believe it or not.”
It hadn’t. I’d just left, that night at Kate’s, and thus far, I’d had no contact with him. He hadn’t rung me, written to me, attempted to discuss Rufus with me. Did it surprise me? No. Not really. I think he was waiting for me to make the first move.
“But as far as I’m concerned he’s never coming back. I’ll change the locks if I have to.”
Yes. Yes, I would. And even if Kate stayed with Sebastian, I still wouldn’t want him. I found this thought remarkably cheering. Perhaps Rufus was right, perhaps I was leaving him, after all.
“And I know you and Eleanor are very fond of him,” I rushed on, “and that it was he you invited to live here at a peppercorn rent, so I just want you to know—well, you need to know—that the situation’s changed.”
He nodded. “But then I’m sure you’ll know that my situation has changed too.”
I took a deep breath. “Ah. I’d wondered.”
“Eleanor’s gone. She went last Friday. She’s living with Daniel Hunter.” A muscle went in his face, betraying him.
“I’m sorry, Piers.”
He didn’t reply for a while. Stayed staring out of the window at his rose garden, working his mouth a bit, jutting his chin for composure. Then: “I always knew she would, actually,” he said in a low voice. “Knew in my heart I wouldn’t keep her.”
I blanched with recognition. “That’s…rather how I felt about Alex. But never really admitted it.”
“No, you don’t. You can’t believe your luck when you marry someone like that. Or when someone like that marries you. Just thank your lucky stars and hope it will continue. Hope it’s for ever. But Eleanor was always discontented with me.”
“Was she? Why?” I knew I was being disingenuous, but it would be rude not to.
He turned from the window to face me. Smiled sadly. “I’m a dull chap, Imogen. Set in my ways, wedded to this house.”
“Yes, but Eleanor loved this house, didn’t she?” I said, confining myself to the latter part of his remark.
“She did. Too much, initially. And my bank balance. But that’s never enough, is it? As my mother always says, if you marry money, you pay for it. She should know too. But luckily for her, my father died relatively young.”
Right. Which was clearly a good thing. Blimey. The family skeletons were clattering out of the closet now, weren’t they?
“People think it’s an asset, a house like this, lord of the manor and all that, but it’s a bit of a poisoned chalice, actually,” he said ruefully. “Women don’t see me at all, just the trimmings.”
“Rather like Alex,” I said suddenly.
He frowned. “How d’you mean?”
“He’s almost too handsome for his own good. Women fall for it too easily. But actually, there’s not much substance to back it up. I don’t mean like you,” I said quickly. I didn’t. I was warming to Piers. He didn’t seem quite so arrogant and aloof today.
“I’ve always been rather scared of you, Imogen.”
“Me?” I yelped.
“Yes. You and Alex were such a glamorous London couple, and you’re so clever and talented. I thought you looked down on us rough country folk.”
“But I thought you looked down on me for being common!”
“Common?”
“Well, you know, my family and everything.” I blushed.
“Oh, I think they’re great fun. Your father’s a hoot and your mother’s frightfully amusing. My father was a turkey farmer, you know. A self-made man.”
“No, I didn’t.” Blimey, that closet door just wouldn’t stay shut, would it? “I thought he was Sir Somebody-something?”
“He was. Got knighted for services to food and industry. Started the trend for reconstituted poultry. Probably get his head chopped off now—Turkey Twizzlers, and all that.”
“Right.” I looked at him with new eyes. So, all this, via trade, and in only two generations. Three, counting his children. His children. I almost daren’t ask.
“Are the children…? I mean, is Eleanor…?”
“They’re staying here,” he said, meeting my eye. “Eleanor agreed to that. Obviously she’ll have them in the holidays, but she and the teacher man are moving to Shropshire. He’s got a job up there, you know.”
“Yes, I heard.”
“And the children don’t want to go. Can’t say I blame them. We gave them the choice, you see. All frightfully civilised.”
“And they chose you.”
“Yes.” He blinked, surprised. “They chose me. Well,” he countered, “they chose their home.”
“Yes, but with you in it. That’s quite a vote of confidence, Piers. Even Theo?”
“Even Theo.”
I breathed in sharply. Heavens. Quite something when an eleven-year-old chooses to live without his mother. So she’d gone without any of them. She’d said she didn’t want to lose them, but she had. I wondered how that had felt. It didn’t bear thinking about. And yet, still she’d gone. I wondered if the children had been told about the baby. Wondered if Piers knew.
“I knew she was pregnant long before she told me,” he said quietly, reading my face. “You don’t live with someone for fifteen years and have four children and not know things like that. Not notice she’s gone off coffee and eased off the wine and that her periods have stopped—what does she take me for?”
“And yet you never said anything?”
“No, I never said anything.”
“Why?”
He smiled. “Because I had a vain, foolish hope that it might be mine. I am married to her, after all,” he reminded me, sadly.
“Yes, of course.”
; We looked at one another, and it seemed to me we’d learned more about each other in the last five minutes than we had in all the years we’d known each other. And I liked what I saw.
“As to the cottage,” he went on, “of course you can stay. I’d like you to. Theo would like it. And it might be good for the two little chaps in view of their rather similar circumstances.”
“Yes, you’re right, it might. Thank you, Piers. But I’m not sure when I’ll be able to pay you. Alex and I haven’t worked out finances yet—haven’t worked out anything yet—so I don’t know…”
“Oh, don’t worry about the rent.” He waved his hand. “Pay me whenever. You need somewhere to live, and if it suits you, it suits me. We’ll sort out the finer nuances in due course.”
I got up suddenly and crossed the room. Reached up to kiss his cheek impulsively. “Thank you. Thank you so much. You’ve been very kind.”
He looked taken aback, but not too displeased. As we moved as one towards the door, the interview seeming to be at a natural close, I thought, yes. Yes, that’s what he is, a kind man. A good man. And what, after all, is a little dullness, set against that?
As we got to the front door, his ancient black Labrador lumbered up from the Persian rug in the middle of the hallway to say good-bye. I patted her.
“She’s huge,” I observed.
“She is. About to pop. This house is full of pregnant females.”
“Oh!” I looked at him, but his face gave nothing away.
“And she’s far too old to be giving birth—like someone else I know—but she slipped away while she was on heat. No doubt found some rough trade in the village.” This too delivered deadpan. “Can I interest you in a puppy?”
“No, thanks. I’ve got enough animals.”
“Well, quite, me too. I’ll have to keep one, though, to placate Theo. But Pat will deal with the rest.”
“Oh—you mean…?”
“Better than a sack at the side of the M25.” He saw my face. “It’s kinder, Imogen,” he went on more gently. “A humane injection. They won’t know about it. I suggested the same to Eleanor, but she wouldn’t hear of it.”
He had a way of delivering these black lines that made me keep glancing up at him.
“Sorry,” he said softly. “It’s my way of dealing with the situation. Got to get through it somehow.”
I gave him a hug and, to my surprise, he held on tight. There were tears in his eyes too. I patted his tweedy shoulder.
“We’ll get through this, Piers, you and I. We could even form a club for abandoned spouses,” I grinned.
He chuckled. “Well, we’d better find some more members, or we’ll be the talk of the village. They’ll think we’re Finding Solace in Each Other.”
I laughed, only a trifle nervously. Drew back. “Thank you for the cottage, Piers.”
“Ah, yes. Back to the landlord-tenant relationship. My pleasure, wench. That’ll be two guineas and a spot of deflowering on the first of every month.”
I giggled and turned to go, tripping lightly down the steps, crossing the gravel to the car. Gracious. He’d come out of his shell, hadn’t he? Positively sparky.
Yes, it was odd, I reflected as I drove off towards Rufus’s school. Once the barriers had been broken down—or crashed down, by circumstances—you saw people for what they really were. The same as oneself. Insecure, fallible, but not without humour, if one bothered to look for it.
On the road to the village, I flew past the turning to Winslow, where Dad lived. It was a good eight miles away, but…I glanced at my watch. I still had an hour to kill before I picked up Rufus. I hesitated, then on an impulse, performed an emergency stop and reversed dangerously up the lane, swinging the car left and driving off towards the bypass. Twenty minutes later I was threading through some backstreets to the middle of Dad’s little market town, coming to a halt outside the wisteria-clad exterior of his pale blue terraced house. I turned the engine off and gazed up at it. I’d dreaded telling my family, but now that I’d told one person, actually, it wasn’t so terrible. And maybe if I told Dad, who was the least likely to fall apart at the news, well, then maybe he could tell Mum and Hannah, and I wouldn’t have to?
He came down the passage to the glass front door wearing a broad grin and a blue towelling dressing gown. Tom Jones was crooning away in the background and Dad was why-why-why Delilah-ing along with him in his broadest Welsh accent. Something in his swagger and the way he slid his hand seductively up the doorframe as he swung back the door with a flourish, told me he had company.
“Ah. Bad moment.”
“Not the best.” He grinned.
“I’ll come back later.”
“Could you, darling? Marvellous.”
I smiled. “Helena Parker?” He inspected the paintwork on the architrave and attempted to look demure and sheepish, but actually, more like the cat who’d got an entire pint of cream. If he’d had a moustache he’d have stroked it. “Well…” his bare chest swelled under his dressing gown, “you know how it is.”
I did. You had to hand it to Dad, didn’t you? I’d only seen him motoring off to London to wine and dine her a few days ago, and now, here she was, flat on her back in his king size.
“You all right, luv?” He gave me a quizzical look as I turned to go.
“Yes. Fine.”
“Sure?”
I took a deep breath. Actually, this would be ideal. Dad only had a few moments before he’d want to get back to prancing round the bedroom, shrugging his dressing gown off theatrically and twanging his thong to Delilah, prior to launching himself headlong at the bed and ravishing Helena. Why not?
I turned. “Not great, actually. Alex and I have split up.”
“Ah.” He nodded.
I blinked. “‘Ah’? Is that it—‘ah’?”
“Well, I had an idea it was coming. Can’t say I’m surprised. Rufus told me.”
“Rufus! But when have you seen Rufus?”
“Oh, not recently. But he told me when it happened. Alex and Kate.”
I breathed in sharply. “Did he?”
“Yes. About two years ago.”
“Two years!” I had to clutch the drainpipe. Dad had tried to screen it with pyracantha, so it was horribly prickly. “Ouch!” I sucked my finger as it bled. Looked at him aghast. “I had no idea! Why did he tell you?”
“Well, I suppose it was a big thing for a little chap to be carrying around. He had to tell someone. Couldn’t tell you, obviously, and I suppose he thought I’d had some experience in the field.”
“What…did you tell him?” I gazed, horrified.
“I told him that in all probability it was a one-off. That drunken adults did things like that at parties, and that it didn’t mean anything. That’s what I hoped too.”
“It wasn’t that sort of party. It was a seven-year-old’s birthday.”
“I know, luv,” he said softly. “Anyway, I told him to forget it, but when he saw them use tongues one night, he said he couldn’t forget it.”
“Use what!”
“Rufus said Kate returned some eggs she’d borrowed. You weren’t there, and he was in his room, but he saw them over the banisters. Alex closed the front door for a second and kissed her with his tongue.”
I had a sudden mental image of Alex, daringly pressing Kate up behind the door, pushing himself against her, kissing her again and again, running his hands over her body; Kate, the eggs in her hand, aroused, murmuring for him to stop, loving it.
“Right,” I muttered. “Well. You obviously know. No groundbreaking news here, then. It seems the wife, as ever, is the last to find out.”
“I couldn’t tell you, luv. It seemed to me you wouldn’t want to be informed. Wouldn’t want the truth.”
I thought about this.
“You were wrong, actually, Dad. I wouldn’t have wanted to know about Eleanor, who I thought it was, but Kate…oh, yes. I’d have liked to have known. We all have our breaking point. Our saturation level
. And that would have been mine. Has been mine. He’s gone, Dad. For ever, as far as I’m concerned.”
He nodded. “And I applaud your decision. There are rakes and there are bounders, but Alex…well, I hate to say it about one of my own, but he was a bit of a…”
“Shit.”
“Hmm.” He looked uncomfortable.
I straightened up. Collected myself. “Anyway, I’ll let you go. I’ve got to go and get Rufus.”
“Give him my love.”
“I will.”
“He’s all right?”
“He’s fine. He…what are those doing there?”
“What?”
He turned as I pointed to the hall table behind him.
“Mum’s reading glasses. I recognise the case. I bought it for her in Bath when I…oh my God.”
I’d seen his face. He was blushing. My father, who never blushed, who had so much neck he could challenge an emu, was turning the colour of the geraniums in the pot on the step.
“Dad! I don’t believe it. Have you got Mum in there?”
Chapter Twenty-nine
Dad’s bravado staged a dramatic comeback and he began to whistle softly as he pretended to dead-head a rambling rose around the door.
“Mum?” I shoved him bodily aside and poked my head round. “Mum, are you in there?”
My father cleared his throat. “Um, Celia, my dear, we appear to have been rumbled. I hope you’re decent.”
“Perfectly decent, thank you. I was just throwing away these ghastly coasters—oh, hello, darling.”
By now I’d pushed past Dad and made it down the hallway into the sitting room, where Mum, looking elegant in a buttermilk silk robe, her hair pinned up but falling down attractively à la Napoleon’s mistress, was disdainfully dropping Carlsberg beer mats into the waste-paper bin. I planted both feet apart, more for balance than stance.
“Mum! What the hell are you doing here?”
She tried to maintain her composure but I saw her neck redden. “Well, aside from ridding your father of some ghastly mementoes he’s picked up over the last ten years, what does it look like?”
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