‘That’s not the point. She’s a part of your life, and...’ Jessica sought around for the right way of expressing herself. ‘And I won’t be any part of...’
Anthony propped himself up on his elbows to look at her. ‘Fiona and I... It’s not what you imagine,’ he said, without any show of self-defence.
‘That sounds very much like the married man who tells his mistress that his wife doesn’t understand him.’ She slipped off the bed and headed towards the wardrobe.
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, come back here!’
Jessica ignored him and began getting dressed, and he shot out of the bed and pulled her back to it.
‘Sit down and listen to me!’ He propped her on the bed and held her there while she resisted him. Finally, realising that it was futile trying to match her strength against his, she remained quite still.
Events were taking over her life. There was no getting around it. Ever since this man had appeared on the scene, her thoughts and actions seemed to have gone haywire. On the surface, she looked the same, she spoke the same, but something inside her had changed. It was like one of those spooky horror movies where people’s bodies were taken over by alien forces, so that nothing about them quite fitted together the way that it should.
He affected her. There was no other way to describe it. Why else would she react to him the way that she did, even though she knew that she shouldn’t? Why else did her normally calm, unruffled life suddenly seem like a churning, unpredictable ocean most of the time? Why else had she started analysing her past, asking questions of herself? Why else had she suddenly begun to doubt things that she had previously taken for granted?
Why else had she slept with him? She couldn’t quite believe that she had lost control to such an extent that she had forgotten all about Fiona.
Was she, she wondered, approaching some dreadful mid-life crisis a few years prematurely?
‘I don’t want to listen to you,’ she said, with a catch in her voice.
‘If I let you go, will you promise not to run away?’ Jessica nodded. What would be the point of running away? It was hardly as though she could leave, was it? He got dressed, but kept his eyes on her, then he sat down on the chair by the bed and looked at her without smiling. ‘What do you think is going on between Fiona and me?’
‘It’s obvious what’s going on between the two of you. You may not be married, but you’re as good as. And please don’t misunderstand me. Apart from the fact that she’s a bit on the young side, I’m sure you two are very well-matched...’
‘You are?’
‘Yes, and—’
‘Why?’
‘What?’
‘Why do you think that we’re very well-matched?’
‘This is beside the point,’ Jessica told him coldly. ‘The point is, I let myself get... I wasn’t thinking straight, but I’m just not the kind of woman who plays around with someone else’s... I disapprove thoroughly of that. There’s enough unhappiness in the world, as far as I’m concerned, without adding unnecessarily to it... It would look odd if I were to tell Lucy that we had to leave immediately, but I think that when we get back to London it would be preferable if ...not that there’s any reason why we should.. .even if...’ She was, she realised, being completely incoherent, but he seemed to understand perfectly what she was saying.
And now, of all things, she felt tearful. Tearful! Tearful over a man whom she barely knew! It was ridiculous. She was thirty-three years old, for heaven’s sake! She bit her lip and tucked her hair behind her ears; nervous gestures, she knew. ‘You have completely misread a situation,’ he told her calmly. ‘Understandable, but true.’
‘And what precisely is the situation?’
‘I’ve known Fiona for years. She’s always been like a kid sister to me, but recently...’
‘She’s blossomed and the ‘kid sister’ description no longer fits?’
‘Are you going to let me finish?’ They looked at one another in silence.
‘Right,’ he said.
‘Don’t interrupt. I like Fiona, but recently she’s got it into her head that what is basically a next door neighbour relationship could develop into something else. She’s infatuated with me. It’s something she’ll grow out of in due course.’
‘Have you slept with her?’
‘Would you be jealous if I had?’
Yes! ‘No, I wouldn’t, but I feel it’s only fair that I know.’
‘I have not slept with her. I have no idea how you could imagine that I would. No, I take that back. She’s a very beautiful young woman, but a child as far as I’m concerned.’ She felt a rush of relief flood through her.
‘We don’t have an ongoing relationship. We will never have an ongoing relationship, and maybe I should have told her that bluntly three months ago, but I thought that lack of response would be sufficient. Frankly, she’s a sweet kid and I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. Now, does that answer your questions?’
‘I guess so.’ So, there was a host of other questions not too far in the distance, but surely she could overlook that just for the moment’? Didn’t she deserve a little bit of excitement and happiness in her life? Bringing up Lucy had been a joy, incomparable, but time was moving on. So what if Anthony Newman was unsuitable as a life partner? Was she even looking for a life partner? She told herself that she wasn’t.
‘Anyway,’ he was saying, and she looked at him with a lovely feeling of standing on the edge of an adventure, hazardous though the adventure might be.
‘I don’t think Fiona will be a problem from now on.’
‘You mean that you’re going to tell her about...tell her that you don’t intend to become romantically involved with her?’
‘I would, but I don’t think it’s going to be necessary.’
‘Why not?’ Jessica frowned, puzzled.
‘Because I think she will have got the message by the fact that I’ve asked you up here for the weekend.’ He half smiled. ‘Is that why you asked me up?’ Jessica said in a little voice. She frantically tried to remember every last detail of that conversation, and her memory was alarmingly accurate. Why else would he have made a point of asking her in front of Fiona? Why not have waited and phoned her a bit later? And he had changed the conversation when she had tried to explain that it was going to be purely platonic, an outing for the children, really.
He had planned the whole thing. Or rather he had thought on his feet, and no doubt had congratulated himself afterwards on his cleverness.
She felt the sour taste of disappointment in her mouth. ‘So, in other words, you used me,’ she said tightly, sickly.
‘Of course I didn’t use you. I saw an opportunity to let Fiona know, as gently as possible, that I wasn’t interested in her.’
‘I see.’
‘No, you don’t!’ he said angrily.
‘You see what you want to see. I would never have suggested that you come up here for a weekend with Lucy if I basically didn’t want you to. Dammit, Jessica, are you listening to me?’
The walls seemed to be closing in. Why had she let herself ever believe that this man had genuinely wanted her company? Why had she let herself be used again? She knew that she should be angry, but she wasn’t. She just felt crushed. ‘Well, I’m sure Lucy’s enjoyed herself,’ she said bravely.
‘And you haven’t?’
‘It’s been an experience.’ She stood up to go downstairs. On the way, she would rescue her book from the dressing table, find a quiet place, she decided—there must be one in this sprawling mansion—and she would immerse herself in reading until her daughter returned.
‘And you haven’t?’ He walked quickly behind her and held her arm, forcing her to look at him.
‘You’re hurting me.’ In more ways than one, she thought bitterly.
‘Answer me!’ He waited, and she refused to oblige. ‘I didn’t plan on you and I ending up in bed together,’ he grated, releasing her and standing back.
‘I could unde
rstand that you might have felt exploited if I’d manoeuvred the situation with a view to seducing you, but I didn’t.’
No, of course you didn’t, she thought fiercely. Why on earth would you assume that you might possibly find me attractive’? Fiona might be too young and too familiar for you, but your taste in women doubtless runs along those lines. I was here, though, and life’s full of hiccups.
She thought of her restless, eager submission to him and cringed.
‘I don’t care what you say, Anthony Newman. You were an opportunist, and I don’t like opportunists.’
‘And I don’t like being lumped into the same category as that man.’
‘What man?’
‘The man who put you in that ivory tower of yours and left you there so that you could observe life from the sidelines. Or maybe he didn’t leave you there. Maybe you just decided to stay there of your own accord because it seemed the easy thing to do.’
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’ They stared at each other for a while, and Jessica was the first to break it by snatching up her book and walking out of the bedroom. She hoped to God that he wasn’t following her, but she didn’t care.
She took the stairs two at a time and ferociously hunted down a small sitting room in the far corner of the house, where she curled up in a chair by the French window and stared out at the breathtaking view of perfectly cut grass and creatively manicured beds.
The book lay unopened on her lap. It was pointless even bothering to open it. She knew that she wouldn’t be able to concentrate.
She could hardly think coherently. She kept expecting him to walk through the door, and her nerves were on edge, waiting, dreading.
But he didn’t. Lucy was the first person to enter at a little after six. She flung herself into a chair, sprawled back with closed eyes and said with great feeling, ‘I can’t believe that I spent hours mooching around Stratford. It was crawling with tourists, Mum. I haven’t seen so many cameras outside a camera shop!’ She opened one eye and promptly closed it. ‘So, how was your afternoon?’
‘Lucy!’ Jessica injected disbelief into her voice. ‘You’re asking me about my day? I’m shocked.’ She felt more normal now, with Lucy here giving her something else to think about. She realised that Lucy had always given her something else to think about. She had never really sat down and thought about herself and about the direction that her life was taking because she had always had other things on her mind. A baby, a young child, a job, childhood illnesses, her daughter’s achievements and disappointments—a life of enjoyment, but also a life of coping.
Anthony Newman had forced her to see outside that world of coping into another world.
‘I always ask you about your day, Mother.’ She still had her eyes closed, but she was grinning. The country life obviously agreed with her more than she would ever have admitted. ‘Ha!’
‘Well, I always mean to, but before I can get to it you end up diverting me by nagging about homework or school or late nights or something else.’
‘And so it’s my fault! I might have guessed!’ There was a grin in her voice.
‘That’s right. And—’ Lucy looked at her with open speculation ‘ —how did you and your host hit it off?’ She adopted a phoney
American accent. ‘Did sparks ignite or did they fly? Tell all.’
‘Lucy, really! Mr Newman is a very nice man.’ She thought of his hands roaming over her body, his mouth on hers, demanding, and she resolutely kept her own eyes closed rather than subject herself to her daughter’s inquisitive stare. ‘A reasonable man, would you say?’
‘I suppose. Why?’ She opened her eyes and looked at her daughter suspiciously.
‘Because perhaps you two could see your way to agreeing to allow Mark and I to spend three weeks away.’
‘What?’ Jessica sat bolt upright, fully alert now.
‘Nothing sordid, Mum. You have a one-track mind.’
‘I wasn’t thinking anything of the sort! Three weeks away? Where?’
‘Italy. Over the summer holidays.’
‘Forget it, Luce!’ Jessica thought of her daughter backpacking through Italy, hitching lifts from dubious lorry drivers, and her mind went blank with anxiety. There had been two school trips over the years—heavily supervised—and that was the extent of her daughter’s travelling solo as far as she was concerned. Anything else would have to wait until she was much older. ‘You haven’t even heard me out!’
‘I don’t need to.’
‘Why do you have to be so difficult?’ Lucy’s face had closed into that stubborn, rebellious look that Jessica knew so well. ‘I’m only being protective.’
‘But, Mum, it’s not...’
‘No, Luce! And, anyway, we simply can’t afford that sort of trip for you. I’m sorry, but that’s the end of the matter.’ She sighed in frustration as her daughter flounced out of the room. Another headache, she thought. Will they ever end?
CHAPTER EIGHT
OVER the following fortnight, the subject of Italy was lost amidst a flurry of exams. Lucy barely seemed concerned about any of them. She sauntered out of the house every morning and returned to recount how she had done with an air of casual indifference. And for once Jessica allowed the e show of indifference to wash over her. No prodding, no frustrated attempts to prise information out of her daughter. She was concerned, but not frantic, much—she could tell after a while— to Lucy’s amazement.
‘What’s wrong with you, then?’ her daughter demanded on the
Thursday before the end of term. Lucy had cornered her at a little after nine in front of the television, and now stood at the door with her arms folded and an expression of weary persistence on her face.
‘Just relaxing,’ Jessica told her with some surprise. ‘I thought you were going out with your friends to celebrate the end of exams.’
‘I am going out with my friends,’ Lucy told her. ‘A bit later.’
‘Oh, right. Should I stay up for you?’ The very late nights had recently been abandoned. Lucy told her that she was bored with the same faces in the same places, but Jessica suspected that she was too busy studying, though she knew better than to contradict her daughter’s explanation.
‘No reason to. You know you always hit the roof whatever time I get back.’
‘Right ho, then, darling; I’ll hit the sack now, in that case.’ She switched off the television and began stacking the newspapers on her lap into a bundle. She had no idea why she bothered buying two newspapers. Lately she never managed to get through one, far less both of them. Too much on her mind and too much energy spent trying to avoid thinking about things. ‘You’ve been acting a bit odd,’ Lucy said in an accusatory voice.
‘Odd, darling? What on earth do you mean?’
‘Well, for starters, you haven’t lectured me about passing these exams...’ Lucy glared at her mother.
‘I just hope that you did your best, Luce.’ She felt a twinge of guilt that she had spent the last couple of weeks letting her daughter get on with things instead of helping her with her revision.
‘Well, whatever,’ Lucy shrugged and continued to stare implacably at her mother. ‘You’ve been different ever since that weekend in Dullsville.’
Lucy had adopted that nickname for their weekend in the country with Mark and Anthony—never mind that she appeared to have thoroughly enjoyed the place.
‘Have I?’ Jessica looked vaguely around her, gathering up final bits of discarded newspaper.
The last thing she wanted to discuss was that weekend at Elmsden House. She had thought of nothing else for the past two weeks. She went to bed at night thinking of Anthony Newman and she woke up the following morning thinking of him. It was as though his image had taken root in her mind and started growing.
At work she was distracted. The smallest of jobs seemed to require inordinate amounts of concentration, and by the time five-thirty rolled around she couldn’t wait to leave. But then, once home, she found herself wis
hing that she was back at work, where at least the routine went a little way towards taking her mind off things.
‘Yes, you have. And could you please try and pay me some attention when I’m talking to you?’ Mother and daughter looked at one another, and Lucy was the first to look away with an expression of sheepishness on her face at the outburst. ‘I’ll do my very best,’ Jessica said lightly.
‘Is it all right if I take these newspapers to the kitchen? This sitting room looks like a tip, and I have to be out of the house by seven tomorrow morning.’
‘And who’s going to do my breakfast?’ Lucy demanded, distracted by the prospect of having to fend for herself. ‘Well, with me not in the house, I guess that just leaves one of us!’ Jessica headed towards the kitchen with the bundle of newspapers in her arms, stacked them into a cardboard box— currently brimming over with newspapers which should have been disposed of at least a week ago—and then began wiping the counters. Quickly, efficiently. ‘Ha, ha.’
‘Well, Luce, I don’t suppose you’ve got to arrive too early for school, if your exams are all over. You’ll have more than enough time to fix yourself something.’
‘Why do you have to leave so early for work?’
‘I’m behind.’ She was too. For the first time ever. She would have to get her act together.
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