If I think that’s the right thing to do,’ Jessica told him acidly. ‘I certainly have no intention of leaving her in some free-loving community to her own devices.’
‘You have no idea what the place is going to be like. You’re merely jumping to erroneous conclusions. Do you ever give anyone or anything the benefit of the doubt? Or do you think that would be setting a dangerous precedent?’ Jessica looked away and gritted her teeth together. They were in the air. Land had been left behind, and the clouds underneath resembled a bed of pillows. It had been such a long time since she had been on a plane, way back in the distant days of her childhood when her parents had taken her to Portugal where they had waged a silent war for a week. Now she wished that she hadn’t always opted for the safety of holidays in Britain. She wished that she had just blown the money now and again and taken Lucy to some place across the seas, just to feel this excitement at the prospect of leaving one country behind and arriving at another. ‘I refuse to argue with you,’ she said, closing her eyes and enjoying the sensation of being in the air. She could feel him staring at her. Unnerving.
They passed the flight in relative silence. She read her book. He pulled a stack of papers out of his briefcase and became lost in whatever they were about. Jessica had no idea. She glanced over at them a couple, of times. They all looked massively complicated.
It was only when they had landed and were being taxied to the address on the slip of paper left for his father by Mark that Jessica realised how calm she was. Still worried, still angry, but not nearly as frantic as she would have been had she been making the trip on her own.
She gazed out of the car window, while in the background Anthony conversed in very passable Italian to the taxi driver, and wondered whether single-handedly raising Lucy had turned her into that worst of all possible things—the over-protective mother. Would she have been different if she had had someone around to share things with’?
‘How much further?’ she asked, looking at Anthony, somehow resenting the fact that she was grateful that he was sitting next to her.
‘Few minutes,’ the taxi driver said, catching her eye in the rear-view mirror, seemingly proud of his knowledge of the English language.
Jessica scowled, and Anthony, who was looking at her, said in a cool voice, ‘You might as well relax. There’s no point in getting over-excited about something that’s already happened. Lucy’s here, and you’ve got no option but to accept the fact.’
Oh, very easy for you to say! she thought, ignoring his unwanted advice. Mark’s well able to take care of himself and, in all events, you probably don’t care one way or another anyway. Lord knows, you washed your hands of him long ago. The thought was so uncharitable that she turned away and resumed her inspection of the scenery flashing past them. They appeared to be heading into nothing. They had been driving for what seemed like days, going at an abnormally sedate pace, and now there was open countryside all around them, bathed in sunlight.
A’few minutes’ turned out to be anything but a few minutes. Anthony appeared utterly unconcerned, and the taxi driver was rattling on about the surroundings in rapid Italian. It was hopeless even trying to interpret what he was saying. Her only knowledge of the Italian language were the words ‘Cornetto’ and ‘mamma mia’.
Anthony asked him a question, and, after listening to the answer, he said to her that the nearest hotel was at least forty-five minutes’ drive away.
‘And there’s no guarantee that there’ll be rooms available. Apparently there are two hotels, for want of a better word, and there’s a local festival of sorts taking place this week so there’s a good chance that everywhere will be fully booked.’
‘You mean we’ll have to head back this evening?’ Jessica asked him in some dismay. She felt hot and sticky and tired. Anthony shrugged. ‘Unless this place has spare rooms.’ She contemplated the prospect of no accommodation in silence.
‘I guess I could always squeeze into Lucy’s room,’ she said finally. ‘And you can sleep with Mark.’
‘I don’t think that would be suitable,’ Anthony informed her, resting his hand over his knee and staring at her. ‘Why not?’
‘In case you haven’t noticed, Mark and I don’t see eye to eye on quite a number of things.’
Jessica fully turned so that she was facing him.
‘And don’t give me that look,’ he grated.
‘What look?’
‘The look that tells me that you’re about to climb onto your bandwagon of lecturing me on the importance of bonding with one’s offspring.’
There wasn’t time to reply to that. They were drawing up, quite suddenly, it seemed, to a clearing amidst the rolling countryside, turning left, and then there it was. Nothing at all as Jessica had pictured. A large block, with offshoots on both sides, and an air of learning. Or at least an air of activity. Groups of young people strolled around the grounds, and she scoured them for Lucy.
‘I can feel your blood pressure rising,’ Anthony said dryly from next to her.
‘My blood pressure is fine,’ Jessica returned, squinting and trying to spot Lucy’s familiar shape. ‘I don’t guarantee what it’s going to be like once I’m through with Luce, but right now I’ve very relaxed.’
‘I’d hate to see you if you were tense.’
‘Ha, ha,’ she said distractedly.
The taxi driver pulled up outside the building amidst yet more rapid Italian, removed their bags from the boot of the car and, almost before she could turn around, was rattling off away from the place.
‘I feel about a hundred,’ Jessica said to Anthony, not looking at him. The average age group of the people she could see milling around—most of them with books or portfolios under their arms —looked to be about nineteen. Several were eying them with curiosity, as though they were weird dinosaurs that had somehow been transported through time. ‘You don’t look it,’ Anthony told her, picking up both their bags and striding into the building, unconcerned. She followed him inside, still looking for a glimpse of Lucy, and allowed him to handle the question-and-answer torrent which started off in broken English on the part of the woman behind the reception desk, then quickly changed to Italian as soon as she realised that Anthony was fluent in the language. ‘We can leave our bags here,’ he said eventually, turning to Jessica. ‘And we can try the studio for them, or else the refectory.’
‘The refectory,’ Jessica said promptly, thinking of Lucy’s gargantuan appetite.
‘And, by the way, they can squeeze us in for a couple of nights if we want.’
‘Squeeze us in?’
‘There aren’t many rooms, but they’re going to do a bit of reshuffling.’
Jessica breathed a sigh of relief. One problem solved.
Now just one left to go.
CHAPTER NINE
JESSICA had no idea how this place would be classified. Too small for a proper university, but too big for a school. Definitely not a commune, though, and that in itself was reassuring. The people, she thought with relief, looked normal. No one appeared to be salivating at the mouth, and there were no dubious chants emerging from behind suspiciously closed doors.
It occurred to her that if she had listened to what her daughter had been saying, if she had shown the slightest bit of interest instead of simply refusing point-blank to broach the subject, then she might have been more capable of making a rational, informed decision on the matter.
She suddenly saw herself through her daughter’s eyes, and the sight was not a particularly happy one.
‘Did you know that it would be like this?’ she asked tentatively, taking in the surroundings.
Anthony shrugged, as though he had given the matter little thought and was, anyway, bored by such speculation. ‘I knew that it wasn’t a hell-hole of rampant sex.’
‘But beyond that you weren’t overly concerned.’ She glanced sideways at him and felt the energy radiating out of him, that strange, restless, captivating power that attracted and infuriated
at the same time.
She felt a sudden, impatient urge to shake him, make him see that he was wasting an opportunity with his son, to tell him that if he wasn’t careful the opportunity might well just slip through his fingers, never to be recaptured. Mark was still at an age when parental blessing would matter, whether he said so or not. In a few years’ time he would probably cease to care, and then the distance between them would be virtually unbreachable.
Does it matter, though? she thought. Does it really matter whether he gets along with his son or not? And, uneasily, she thought that it did. Inexplicably.
‘The refectory’s just along here, if I understood the moustached lady correctly,’ he said, neatly sidestepping her question. They entered a large, packed room. At one end was a bar of sorts, around which several dozen students hovered like a collection of bees buzzing around a pot of honey. Alongside it was a door, through which she could see tables and chairs laid
out in charmless, utilitarian rows, and she guessed that hot food was probably served there.
The rest of the room was sprinkled with chairs here and there and the odd table. In the centre, a couple of steps led down to an area where yet more students were sitting on the ground conversing, with those peculiarly intent expressions of young adults. No doubt setting the world to rights. Jessica’s eyes flicked around the room and finally found what they were looking for. She nudged Anthony’s elbow and pointed to a small group. Lucy and Mark both had their backs to them, and Lucy, as she had expected, appeared to be eating. She felt a rush of affection, and said, shakily, ‘Shall we make our presence known?’
‘I suppose we might just as well, now that we’re here.’
‘You sound reluctant,’ she said sharply, turning to look up at him, and he raised his eyebrows.
‘You’re projecting your own feelings onto me,’ he commented mildly, at which she frowned.
‘You needn’t come with me,’ she told him stiffly, blushing. ‘You’re happy enough that Mark’s here, and Lucy is hardly any concern of yours.’
He clicked his tongue in annoyance, though he didn’t look annoyed. More exasperated. The way she knew she sometimes looked when Lucy dug her heels in over something silly. It was a look guaranteed to make her feel like a child, and she pulled herself up with a dignified expression.
‘Come along,’ he said, touching her elbow lightly, then quickly allowing his hand to fall to his side.
‘Let’s go and get this over with.’
It was a question of wending their way, attracting the occasional glance of curiosity, but on the whole passing unnoticed.
In fact, the three young people in the group with Mark and Lucy didn’t acknowledge their presence at all until Jessica said, brightly, ‘Lucy!’
Lucy turned around, and Jessica continued to force a smile on her face as she watched the colour steadily creep into her daughter’s cheeks.
‘Mum!’ she said in dismay, then she lowered her voice.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Just passing by, so I thought I’d drop in,’ Jessica quipped, which didn’t elicit the slightest return of humour. Mark, she noticed out of the corner of her eye, had greeted his father with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm, and appeared equally embarrassed by the presence of his parent.
‘Please don’t make a scene,’ Lucy hissed, looking furtively around her as though she might be recognised.
Since they were in a foreign country, that seemed highly unlikely to Jessica.
‘I wasn’t about to!’ Jessica told her.
‘And please could you keep your voice down?’ Lucy grabbed Jessica by the arm and whispered frantically, ‘I think we ought to clear out of here. It’s far too crowded for conversation.’
‘I’m not going to embarrass you, Luce!’ Jessica said, affronted. ‘I mean, I promise I won’t raise my voice or gesticulate too much or do a striptease on one of those plastic tables.’ Out of the corner of her eye she could see Anthony stifle a grin, and she felt a sudden empathy with him, a sudden feeling of irrational closeness that defied description. ‘Mum! Everyone’s staring.’
‘Who?’
‘They’re going to think that...’
‘Who’s going to think what?’ Jessica asked, perplexed. ‘Perhaps we’d all better just move along outside,’ Anthony said in an exaggeratedly conspiratorial voice which made Lucy frown.
‘I really would prefer some privacy with my mother, Mr Newman,’ she said loftily, which rendered him temporarily speechless.
‘Yes.’ Jessica looked at him briefly and their eyes met in perfect, tacit understanding, which he found not in the least to his liking. ‘You stay with Mark. Perhaps...’ she looked enquiringly at Mark ‘..you could show your father where you’re working... He did mention to me on the plane that it was about time he took more of an interest in your art...’
‘He did? Ha.’
Anthony was no longer looking at her. His hands were firmly stuck in his pockets, and he was glaring at the tips of his shoes. She hardly needed to see his face to know that that was his expression.
It was, she had to admit, a low trick, but Mark needed him whether he could see that or not, and, besides, the opportunity had been just too impossible to resist.
She walked off, with Lucy’s arm firmly linked through hers, as though her daughter was scared that at any minute her mother would do something horrendously, embarrassingly unpredictable. And in exceedingly bad taste. ‘I wouldn’t have minded something to drink,’ Jessica said as they walked away from the refectory.
‘I have a kettle in my room. Mum, what on earth are you doing here?’
‘You didn’t expect me just to shrug my shoulders when I read that note of yours, did you?’
‘I told you that I would call!’
‘I was worried sick, Lucy. Have you any idea how irresponsible it was of you just to vanish, without a word?’
‘Please don’t launch into one of your speeches, Mum,’ Lucy said miserably. ‘I would have told you, but you would probably have locked me in the bedroom!’
‘Don’t be ridiculous!’
They were walking quickly, purposefully, though where exactly they were heading Jessica was unclear about. Once outside, however, in the warm, breezy air, she stopped and said, ‘Let’s go sit under that tree and talk, Lucy.’
‘Only if you promise not to start shouting.’
‘I never shout!’
‘All right, then, shout’s the wrong word. Use that voice is probably what I mean.’
‘What voice?’
‘The one that was fine to use when I was five years old and needed reprimanding.’ But not now, her expression implied, and Jessica tacitly took the point without objecting. ‘I just wish you’d told me what you were planning to do,’ she said, on a sigh, and sat down under the tree, tucking her legs underneath her.
‘I would have,’ Lucy said, sitting down as well and holding her face up to the sun like a flower.
‘I tried. You don’t understand. I really wanted to come here. Not just because it sounded like fun, but because I needed to ...be free.’
‘Are you trying to say that I smother you?’ Jessica tried to sound light-hearted about that, but something inside her turned over. Was this what letting go felt like? Shouldn’t it have been a gradual sort of process?
Lucy blushed, but didn’t deny it.
‘I only try...’ Jessica heard her voice sound exactly how she’d hoped it never would. Self-pitying, bewildered.
‘I know,’ Lucy said quickly.
‘But, you’re right. Absolutely right. You’re not a baby any longer.’ She stroked her daughter’s hair and thought how good it felt to feel close without the inevitable arguments rising to the fore. ‘Of course, you’ll always be my baby, but you’ll be entitled to vote soon, drive a car...
‘Does that mean that you’ll pay for some driving lessons for me?’ Lucy asked eagerly, jumping on the bandwagon with breathtaking speed.
‘It’s a dist
inct possibility.’ She restrained herself from adding that only if the car she eventually bought had an engine the size of a sewing machine.
‘And does that mean that I can stay here? That you won’t haul me back home?’
‘Well...’ Jessica glanced around her. ‘Looks a safe enough place to me, I guess. And independence has to start somewhere.’ She stood up and pulled Lucy to her feet. ‘Now, shall we head back in?’
‘Rescue Mark from his father?’ She shot her mother one of those childishly adult looks from under her lashes. ‘What’s he doing here anyway?’
‘He came to make sure that Mark—’
‘And pigs fly!’ She snickered meaningfully. ‘Are you sure he didn’t jump at the excuse to be next to you?’
‘Don’t be ludicrous!’
Jessica could feel herself growing hot under the collar. Her instinct was to launch into full-denial mode, in fact to explain why her daughter couldn’t be further from the truth, but too many protestations, she knew, would only have the opposite effect. She still didn’t dare meet Lucy’s eyes, though. Too much risk of her seeing the thousand guilty, confused thoughts in her mind.
‘I think he felt responsible for you because he had no idea that you were going to come over here without permission. In fact, he had no idea that you were involved in the scenario at all.’
Her voice bordered on the stilted.
‘Oh, really? Sure you’re not leaving out anything?’
‘Lucy!’
Lucy laughed and let the subject drop, and they strolled back towards the refectory, where there was no sign of either father or son. So they moved on.
The Unmarried Husband Page 14