by Ann Charlton
Teressa understood now why Ashe had been so unreasonable about Tony’s presence here that morning.
He had gone to a lot of trouble to find out that she wasn’t like Cecily. Tony had changed his opinion.
Tony had been history repeating itself. She hadn’t decided what to do with this new insight before Tony himself arrived for their dinner date. At least she assumed it was Tony when a knock took her to the door.
But a stranger stood outside, a sandy-haired young man who smiled at her.
‘Would you know if Mrs Richards will be home soon? She’s not answering,’ he said.
Teressa stared at him, her mind full of Ashe and indecision. She wondered where she had seen this face before. It reminded her of fern fronds and china ornaments …
‘You’re Dan!’ she cried, and put her hands on her hips. ‘Well, of all the—come in.’
‘No, real1y—I can come back.’ He put up a hand.
Teressa grabbed him and almost dragged him inside.
‘Don’t you dare go away,’ she scolded. ‘You can wait here until Thelma gets back.’ She told him his mother was cleaning offices and cut short his questions about that with a fairly harsh lecture on his failure to write.
‘She talks about you all the time—did you know that? A card at Christmas would have made her the happiest woman in the country. And not a letter, not a line to tell her where you were. Where were you, anyway?’
Dan was chastened. He eyed Teressa with some caution and pointed out that he had in fact written.
‘I’m not much of a correspondent, but I did write when I went to work in the North Sea.’
‘She never got a letter,’ she said more mildly, and studied Dan. Around six foot, strongly built and not a sign of any jewellery. Wait until Thelma saw him!
He relaxed when she smiled at last, accepted some coffee and told her that he had hired a car at the airport and come straight to see his mother.
‘I could go over to Mark’s house while I’m waiting,’ he ventured.
‘Don’t you move,’ she commanded. ‘You can see your brother some other time. Your mother is the one who desperately needs to see you.’
He was wary again, but volunteered to talk about his eighteen months away. He had been working on oil rigs, he said, after a bit of bumming around on charter boats in the Indies. Teressa’s mind wandered again.
‘Yes,’ she said, and ‘Oh, really?’ to Dan’s biographical details, but she was thinking of Ashe and how there had to be a way to …
‘—at the door,' Dan said loudly. ‘Someone’s at the door.’
‘Tony. I’d forgotten Tony,’ she said, and went to let him in.
Dan rose to his feet and smiled pleasantly at the newcomer.
Tony gave him a belligerent look and his brows drew together. ‘Is he the one?’ he demanded.
Dan stepped back. Even after Teressa had explained his presence, he shook hands with a certain wariness with the black-haired, big-shouldered young Italian.
‘I’ll go, I think,’ said Dan.
‘No, stay. We’ll be going out as soon as I get ready. You can wait here for Thelma.’ Teressa hurried into the bathroom and began to put on her make-up. She would give a lot to see Thelma’s face when she saw her youngest again.
The murmur of the men’s voices was interrupted by the phone. When she went into the livingroom, Dan held out the receiver to her. ‘It’s a man,’ he said with an odd look in his eyes.
It certainly was. Ashe’s voice sounded curtly in her ear, driving the hectic colour from her face. Tony and Dan stared at her.
‘Your friend Thelma has had an accident.’ The turmoil his voice produced prevented the words sinking in right away. While Teressa grappled with the news he went on to give her the name of a hospital.
‘Hospital?’ she echoed. ‘How serious is it, Ashe?’
She looked over at Dan, who was making apologetic signs and bowing himself out. ‘Don’t go!’ she cried.
‘Hold on a minute, Ashe.’ She thumped the receiver down and seized Dan’s arm. ‘It’s your mother,’ she said quietly. ‘She’s had an accident.’
‘What?’ Dan was completely baffled. He looked from her to Tony in disbelief. But he waited while she resumed her conversation. ‘Ashe—how bad?’
‘She may have injured her hip. Damn fool woman polished the floor like glass and slipped on it. She’s asking for you.’
‘I’ll be right over,’ she said swiftly.
‘Did he stay?’ Ashe asked coldly.
‘Who?’
‘The man you were so eager to keep there. He said he wasn’t your Latin friend Manetti. Who is he?’
‘Oh, never mind that, Ashe,’ snapped Teressa. ‘You’ll meet him when I bring him with me.’
‘I can hardly wait,’ he said sarcastically, and hung up. He sounded different. And jealous. Jealous!
Breathlessly, Teressa relayed what Ashe had said.
‘We’ll go in your car, Dan,’ she decided.
‘What about me—our date?’ Tony objected, eyeing her old jeans and the long Indian cotton top she was wearing.
‘Wait for me here. I’ll get a taxi back and…’
But Tony went too. Teressa suggested he might wait outside the hospital, which appeared to make him more determined to go in. Her hands twisted together in anxiety. Thelma in pain and with a possible permanent injury. And Ashe who sounded as if he’d had second thoughts at last about Tony. But if he saw him with her again tonight—
Tony stuck like a limpet. They went to the fifth floor and to the desk for Thelma’s room number.
‘Let me go in first, Dan,’ said Teressa. ‘She’s certainly not expecting to see you and it might be a shock for her just now.’ He looked as if he might argue, but the doctor emerged from the room just then and Dan nabbed him to find out the extent of Thelma’s injuries. Teressa pushed the door open.
Thelma Richards’ neat grey head was tiny against the bank of plump pillows. Her eyes were closed and lines of pain creased her brow. One knobbly hand clenched and unclenched on the wrinkle-free sheets, the other was firmly clasped in Ashe’s. Even in her concern for Thelma, Teressa’s heart jolted at the sight of him sitting there, tall and powerful, his body curved sympathetically towards the little woman. His business shirt was open at the neck and the end of his tie hung over the edge of his pocket. Ashe looked a little off balance. He turned to inspect Teressa with a chill in his warm-coloured eyes. Icily he looked beyond to Tony.
Eyes closed, Thelma was talking ‘—flowers as well; so kind, Mr. Warwick. I’ve often said that to Teressa … kind, I said, and a real man. Well, of course I realise now that you wear a chain around your neck, but none of those fiddly bracelet things … now my Tom, he…’
A nurse came in with a vase of flowers. ‘M. Rossini,’ her name badge proclaimed above a shapely bosom.
She had brown eyes, glossy dark hair and a glorious olive skin. ‘There you are, Mrs Richards,’ she said with a glance at Tony.
‘Thank you, nurse—and thank you, Mr. Warwick. The flowers are lovely.’
Nurse Rossini went out. So did Tony. Mrs Richards opened her eyes fully and saw Teressa.
‘Oh, my dear.’ She held out her other hand, keeping a grip on Ashe. ‘Of all the stupid things for me to do—did Mr Warwick tell you?’
‘Yes, he did. Are you in pain, Thelma?’
‘A little, my dear. They gave me something for it and took X-rays, and everyone’s been so good to me. Mr Warwick here—'She shook his hand a little. ‘So kind. He came in the ambulance with me. I’m afraid I was a bit shocked, hysterical almost.’ She looked to Ashe for confirmation.
‘Yes, almost.' he said drily.
‘Thelma, are you over the shock, do you think?’ asked Teressa. ‘There’s someone else to see you.’
‘Oh, is it Mark? Well, that’s lovely, but don’t you two dash away, will you?’ Thelma held on to them both, plainly hoping to play Cupid.
‘—a sweet, loving girl,’
Teressa heard Thelma say to Ashe as she went to beckon Dan along the corridor.
‘Just like I told you. Depth, that’s what she’s got. Anyone who wanted to get to know her would have to be prepared to look a bit further than their nose. Girls like that are rare these days … and her hair’s natural too…’ What else had Thelma been saying?
Ashe raised his head as Dan stepped into the room. He glared at the young man. Dan swallowed nervously, but he was getting used to hostility. He moved closer to the bed. ‘… now in my day, girls were…’
‘Mum!’
There was silence. Utter, complete silence until a trolley went rattling along the hallway. Ashe got up and Thelma’s hand dropped to the counterpane. Her mouth opened and shut and tears appeared suddenly on her lined cheeks. Dan went to her and he seemed huge as he wrapped her in a hug. There was a muffled
‘Dan!’ from Thelma.
‘I’m glad someone is pleased to see me,’ Dan said in a husky voice. Then there was no sound at all for a few minutes.
Teressa sighed, her eyes soft on the mother and son.
‘So that’s Dan, her youngest.' said Ashe. He wasn’t smiling. There was a drawn look to his face, shadows beneath his eyes. But the chill was gone. Teressa felt a lump in her throat.
‘Yes, he turned up tonight out of the blue.’
‘I’m grateful to him. That’s the first time she’s been silent since she fell outside my office.’ He looked Teressa over. ‘Why is Manetti with you?’
‘I’ve got a date with him—’ she began, and his jaw tensed. ‘He’s Cecily’s brother-in-law and a stranger in Sydney, and tomorrow he’s going back to Western Australia … but Ashe, that morning you called, it wasn’t what you thought—’ She looked up at him and saw that her explanation was unnecessary.
‘Thelma told me,’ he said stiffly. ‘Say your goodbyes. We have some talking to do.’
‘But Tony—’
‘He’ll have to eat alone.’
'You promised not to tell,’ Teressa mildly scolded Thelma as she said goodbye.
‘No, dear, I promised not to tell in the office. And Mr. Warwick will confirm that not a word concerning your Italian friend passed my lips until I was in the ambulance.’
‘You’re a rogue!’ Teressa smiled and planted a kiss on her neighbour’s cheek. ‘What did the doctor say?’
‘No fracture, but they want her under observation until tomorrow,’ Dan smiled. ‘Mum won’t be risking any more falls by cleaning! I’ve saved a bit—enough for a deposit on a shop for her to run.’
They left quietly. ‘A shop?’ they heard Thelma repeat ecstatically after another uncharacteristic silence.
Tony was leaning on the duty desk. Nurse Rossini was showing teeth as brilliant as his own in a dimpling smile. He didn’t even notice Teressa and Ashe go to the lift. .’
‘I kept hoping he’d find someone like her in his parents’ vineyards,’ Teressa sighed. Ashe didn’t comment. He was taut as a bowstring. Her own nerves stretched.
They got a cab and went to Warlord to pick up his car. In silence they drove to his house.
‘Coffee?’ he asked tersely when they had gained the livingroom.
‘I think,’ she said, ‘I need a Scotch.’
One table lamp glowed. The grandfather clock ticked sedately. Ashe went to the kitchen and came back with some ice.
‘She told me what you thought,’ he said in a harsh tone. ‘About me getting engaged to Lara or some such rubbish. Where did you get a bloody silly idea like that?’
Teressa took a swallow of whisky and coughed at its fire. ‘You never told me that you weren’t involved with her. Every time I mentioned her you let me think it was still on. You took her out the night after I first came here. You said ‘Lara loves me, with all my faults.’
‘I took her out, sure. But it was one of those damned black tie, ticketed things that had been arranged months before.’ He studied her. ‘And I suppose the fact that I was tied up for that weekend after we’d been to Deception made you think I was with Lara?’
She nodded.
‘I went to visit my mother in Dubbo. She had a small financial problem with her shop and wanted my advice. And I wanted to tell her about you and ask her advice.’ He surveyed her soberly. ‘She told me I hadn’t looked so alive in years and that I should snap you up. So you see my weekend was business and pleasure. What the hell, Teressa, did you think—I was making love to you one day and Lara the next?’
'I tried not to think about it,’ she gulped at her drik, ‘but when you said you were too busy to come to dinner at my place, and then Lara phoned talking about presents and everything turning out exactly the way she wanted and seeing you that night—’
‘The present was one I’d sent her and John. And she thought I’d be going to a party at Laramor that night. As it happened I had to cry off because of an important client.’
‘I know that now. But at the time it looked as if you were still involved with her.’
Ashe whirled about, disgusted. ‘And because of that you actually let me think that you’d drafted in another man for the night?’
‘You decided on the situation the moment you set eyes on Tony. That’s what hurt me enough to make me pretend. And I didn’t understand then why you believed it so readily. But today I—spoke to Cecily.’
His head came up sharply. ‘What—?’
‘I’ve been fooling myself about her. Deep down I suppose I knew I was covering up her flaws with words like “scatty” and “highly strung”. But today I had to face up to the real Cecily.’ Teressa looked down into her glass.
‘Teressa,’ he said softly.
‘Oh, don’t think it makes any difference,’ she put her chin up, ‘she’s my sister and whatever she’s like, I love her.’
Ashe nodded. He looked bleak suddenly.
‘You kept a years-old promise to protect me from the truth. Maybe you didn’t want to be the one to disillusion me. But Cecily’s story was the one thing that stopped me realising what you were really like, up until we’d been to Deception again.’
He started to speak and she held up a hand to silence him. ‘Just a minute. There’s one more thing I want to say … ‘ She tossed back the remainder of the whisky and swallowed it. Its fire spread through her body.
‘1 love you,’ she croaked as the clock began to strike nine.
Ashe reached her on the third chime. ‘Teressa, my love.’ He gathered her into his arms. ‘How could you love me after the things I said to you last week—when you actually rang to set me straight—'He groaned the words into her hair. ‘I’m a blind, jealous fool, old enough to know better.’
‘Yes, you are,’ she said shakily.
Cupping her face in his hands he looked at her a long time and the smile on his lips was in his eyes. The whisky’s fire was as nothing compared to this.
‘How I love you,’ he said at last, and put his mouth to hers. ‘I went through hell trying to convince myself that you weren’t in the least like Cecily-but all that play-acting of yours—and Merrow, then your footballer friend, made me wonder if I was being a fool all over again.’
Thelma would have told you about Tony—and Joel was, in the end, just a friend. I’d already decided to finish with him before you played the heavy and forced me to give him up.’ Teressa told him.
‘Merrow’s a smooth operator—just the kind of man that—’ He stopped, put his mouth to her hair and held her in a strange gesture of apology.
‘That Cecily would have liked,’ she finished for him. ‘Yes, I suppose he would have appealed to her, too. Maybe for different reasons. But you persisted anyway.’
‘When you told me why you’d led me on at Deception I knew it was going to be a battle to change your mind about me. You were so loyal to Cecily. At the same time it was that loyalty that made me think you couldn’t be as hard-boiled as you seemed. And your feelings for Thelma Richards too. Cecilv—’ he hesitated, ‘—would not have found an office cleaner very in
teresting.’
‘Tell me about you and Cecily, Ashe,’ she urged.
He looked dubious. Letting her go, he shoved his hands in his pockets and paced across the room. ‘She was beautiful and bubbly as champagne when 1 met her. Cecily had a sort of vitality—a capacity for enjoyment that 1 found—’ He raised his eyes to Teressa. ‘I was genuinely in love with her.’