Never Leave Me

by Margaret Pemberton

  He couldn’t get enough of her. He was blind and deaf, lost in a world that held only Lisette. Lisette; crying out beneath him. Lisette; her mouth and tongue avid for his. Lisette; surrendering utterly, her legs around him, her nails scoring his flesh, as hungry for him as he had been, for years, for her. He felt himself spurt into her, heard himself shout with triumph, and then, his heart crashing against his ribs, he collapsed, spent, on top of her.

  For a long time neither of them moved. Motes of dust danced in the slatted light of the blinds. In a distant room music played. The pillows were on the floor, the sheets rucked around them. He lifted himself up on his arms, staring down at her. ‘Why?’ he asked, ‘after all these years, Lisette. Why now?’

  Slowly she opened her eyes and he saw pain and defeat in their violet-dark depths. ‘Because you know me,’ she said at last, her voice bleak. ‘Because you love me as I am.’

  ‘And Greg doesn’t?’

  She rolled away from him, standing and pulling her dress up on her shoulders, walking to the window. ‘No,’ she said, gazing through the slatted blinds at a miniscule lawn and a scattering of trees. ‘Greg doesn’t know me at all. I made myself a stranger to him when I allowed him to think that Dominic was his son. I thought that by that lie I would keep him. Instead, I lost him.’

  ‘And you still love him?’

  She turned to face him. Between them there had never been any lies. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘but apart from the early days when we were in Paris, I have never been able to show him how much. And now he no longer cares.’

  He lay on the bed, raised up on one elbow. It was pointless to ask if she loved him. He knew that she didn’t. But now they had become lovers he knew that they would remain lovers. He said brusquely, ‘Unpin your hair.’

  His body was less powerful than Greg’s. Leaner and darker. The tight black curls on his chest grew low, skimming his taut belly, merging with the thick tangle of his pubic hair. His body wasn’t the body she wanted. He wasn’t the man she loved. But with him she experienced a sense of freedom that she knew she would experience with no one else. There were no secrets between them. No pretence.

  Slowly she lifted her arms and eased the tortoiseshell pins free. The thick, glossy cloud of her hair tumbled to her shoulders, swinging forward at either side of her face. Luke’s eyes gleamed. That was how he had first seen her. Not sleek and sophisticated but with her face flushed with exertion and danger, her eyes bright, her hair loose and free.

  ‘Come back to bed,’ he said huskily. ‘The afternoon is only just beginning.’

  She stood, framed by the light seeping through the shutters and then slowly she slipped her dress from her shoulders, easing it down over her hips, stepping free of it. As she moved towards the bed she was overcome by a feeling of inevitability. This was the moment they had both been travelling towards for so long. The moment Luke had always known they would reach. She knelt on the bed, the slatted sunlight falling in golden bars on her nakedness. ‘I don’t love you,’ she said as he cupped her breasts in his olive-toned hands. ‘Whatever happens between us, there can be no lies, Luke.’ She shivered as his fingers brushed her nipples, as he drew her close against him. ‘I’m so very weary of lies.’ she whispered, and then he slid her beneath him, his mouth covering hers, and the only sound to fill the room was the urgent, hoarse cries of their love-making.

  It was dusk by the time they walked back across the motel’s car-park to her car. ‘I fly back to London in two days’time,’ he said as he opened her door for her. ‘I won’t be able to see you again before I leave, but I’ll be back soon. Within the month.’ He slid behind the wheel and eased the Lincoln out and onto the freeway. ‘And no more motel rooms. The ex-creative director of Johnson and Matthie’s Los Angeles office is in London for a year. He’s offered me his beach house at Carmel any time that I’m over here long enough to make use of it. And from now on, I’m going to be here quite a lot.’

  ‘And Annabel?’ she asked, a shadow touching her eyes. ‘Won’t she want to come with you?’

  ‘No,’ he said unequivocally. ‘We don’t have that kind of marriage, Annabel hates to leave London. Her friends are there. Her social life continues quite happily whether I’m at her side or not. Coffee with women friends at Fortnum’s. Afternoons at the Royal Academy. First nights at Covent Garden. Our affair will take nothing away from Annabel. She has my respect. She’ll always have that, but she’s never had my love.’

  Lisette looked across at his hawk-like silhouette. ‘Not ever?’ she asked, suddenly chilled. He turned his head towards her, amused. ‘No,’ he said. ‘How could she? All the love that I’m capable of has been yours and you know it.’

  ‘Poor Annabel.’

  ‘Annabel is perfectly happy. She has a beautiful home in Knightsbridge, a delightful daughter, a husband who rarely refuses any of her requests. If you need to feel sorry for anyone, feel sorry for me. How the hell am I going to survive with the width of America and the Atlantic between us?’

  ‘You’ll find a way,’ she replied, knowing that she must not think of Annabel.

  He grinned, swerving out of the mainstream of traffic, drawing to a halt behind the dark blue Cadillac that he had driven from Los Angeles. ‘I’ll telephone you,’ he said, switching off the ignition, turning towards her, his face fierce. ‘And when I do I’ll give you the address of the cottage in Carmel.’ He pulled her close, his hand sliding up into her hair, holding her fast as his mouth bruised hers. Seconds later he was gone, slamming the Lincoln’s door behind him, striding switfly towards his hired Cadillac.

  She slid across into the Lincoln’s driving seat, watching as he gunned the Cadillac into life, deftly easing it out into the busy stream of traffic heading south. She waited until she could no longer see him and then she turned the key in the Lincoln’s ignition, knowing that Greg would already be home, that he would ask her courteously how she had spent her afternoon, that once again she would be caught up in the familiar pattern of deceit.

  ‘Did Lisette leave a message as to where she was going?’ Greg asked Simonette as she supervised the children’s supper.

  Simonette shook her head. ‘No, Mr Dering. I had a dental appointment this morning and when I got back after lunch, her car had gone but there was no message.’

  ‘Perhaps Mummy has gone to Auntie Chrissie’s,’ Lucy suggested helpfully. ‘Did you know that Auntie Chrissie is going to get married and that I’m going to be a bridesmaid? I’m to have a pink satin dress with rosebuds on the sleeves and all around the hem, and …’

  Dominic snorted derisively and Lucy glared at him. ‘Dominic is jealous because he thinks he’ll look silly if he’s a pageboy and so he isn’t going to be anything at all.’

  ‘Thank goodness,’ Dominic said with heart-felt relief. ‘Aunt Chrissie wanted me to wear a white satin shirt and white satin trousers.’ He grinned at his father. ‘I told her I was too old to be dressed like that, that I’d just look stupid, and she’s asked her boyfriend’s nephew to be a pageboy instead.’

  Lucy began to say that Auntie Chrissie’s boyfriend would make a much better pageboy than Dominic, and Greg, knowing how long the argument would continue, ruffled Dominic’s hair and left them to it.

  It was nearly eight o’clock. Although Lisette often drove quite considerable distances in her search for solitude, she was nearly always back in time for dinner. He poured himself a scotch, walking out onto the patio, staring reflectively down the hillside towards the bay. It was too early yet to worry about her whereabouts and in a way he was relieved by her absence. He needed to be alone to think about the letter that Jacqueline had written him and that he had received at the agency that morning.

  He had known from the very beginning of their renewed relationship that he was being unfair to her. She had believed that his marriage was disastrous and that it would only be a matter of time before he freed himself of it. His hand tightened around his whisky glass. She was damned right about his marriage being a disaste
r, but he had never intended to free himself of it, and he didn’t intend to now. He had not brought the letter home with him. He had not needed to. It had been quite short: pathetically dignified. ‘… if I accept the offer to become fashion editor of Femme, it will mean becoming permanently resident in Paris. I doubt that I shall ever receive another such offer. The magazine has a vast circulation and the position as fashion editor is a prestigious one. But if I accept, it will mean the end of everything there is between us. Please, please my darling, tell me that it is a step I must not take. That there is a future for us. The years of waiting for you to return when you were fighting in Europe were so long. And when you did return, it was with a girl you scarcely knew, as your bride. You know now what a mistake you made. Why, oh why, won’t you admit it? I love you so much and yet, even now, I am not sure that my love is returned. I’m leaving for New York this evening, for I know that if I see you again, no matter what your answer is, I shall not have the strength to say goodbye to you. I shall be at the Plaza. Please, my darling, please tell me that I can turn down Femme’s offer. That I can return to San Francisco, knowing that you do truly love me and that we will soon be married …’

  He had crumpled the letter in his palm, despising himself for the hurt he had caused her and that he was about to cause her again. Now he drained his whisky glass, knowing what it was he must do, wondering if he were mad. Jacqueline idolised him. She had been faithful for four long years while he had been away in Europe, fighting the Germans. She had loved him then and she loved him now. And he was going to sever their relationship for a woman he no longer slept with; a woman who no longer made any gestures of physical love towards him; a woman who so obsessed him that anything was preferable to being separated from her. Grim-faced, he turned on his heel and walked back into the house, picking up the nearest telephone, asking to be connected to the Plaza Hotel, New York.

  Lisette heard the click of the telephone receiver being replaced as she hurried past the closed door of the living room and up the stairs to her bedroom. It was eight-thirty. She wondered if he had eaten alone or if he had waited for her. She gazed, appalled, at her reflection in the mirror. Her hair was dishevelled, her face bereft of make-up. Swiftly she unzipped her crumpled dress, tossing it to one side, taking a turquoise silk Balmain from a padded hanger and laying it on the bed. She powdered her face quickly, applied lipstick and mascara, and swept her hair high into a simple knot. Without changing her shoes or stockings, she stepped into the Balmain, smoothing the skirt, spraying perfume on her throat and wrists, leaving the room without even pausing to check her reflection in the glass.

  For a split second, as she entered the living room, she thought that he had been in an accident, or that he had received bad news. The flesh was drawn tight across his cheekbones, the lines running from nose to mouth, gouged deep.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked anxiously, remembering the telephone call, thinking immediately of the children. ‘Is anything wrong?’

  His mouth quirked into a humourless smile. ‘No, I was just wishing an acquaintance success in a new job they are going to in Paris.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said awkwardly, sensing that something, possibly at work, had disturbed him. ‘Have you eaten?’

  ‘Not yet. Would you like a drink?’

  ‘Yes please. A scotch.’

  He raised one eyebrow slightly. She rarely drank anything other than wine. ‘I take it it’s been a bad day,’ he said, pouring two fingers of scotch into a glass and topping up his own.

  ‘No.’ Her voice was unsteady. She wondered how she had ever imagined that this new deceit would be bearable. He handed her her glass and she took it, her eyes avoiding his, turning away from him and walking over towards the windows.

  ‘Luke rang me this morning from Los Angeles,’ Greg said, watching her, his eyes curious. ‘He said he might try and visit here before he flies back to London. Did he ring you?’

  ‘No. Yes.’ Her hand tightened nervously on her glass. ‘Yes, he rang me, but no, he isn’t going to have time to visit us. He’s flying back to London almost immediately.’

  ‘That’s a pity,’ Greg said neutrally. ‘I would have liked to have seen him away from Valmy. I can’t imagine him anywhere where else. Certainly not here.’

  Lisette stared out over the bay. Luke and Valmy. Luke shooting Dieter in the black and white flagstoned hall. Luke asking her to marry him. It would have been better if she had done so. She hadn’t loved him then, and she didn’t love him now, but if they had married, no one else would have been hurt. Not Greg. Not Annabel. With Luke there would have been no need for deceit. She would not have turned into a person she abhorred.

  ‘Let’s eat,’ she said, knowing that Simonette would have left a cold meal ready for them. The first deceit had been so very long ago. Deceiving her father over her work for the Resistance. Then she had fallen in love with Dieter and deceit had become a way of life. There had been a short time when she had been free of it. After she had married Greg and before Luke had told her of the enormous mistake she had made in thinking that Greg knew, and did not care, about her love for Dieter. She could scarcely remember what it had felt like. From the moment Greg had taken Dominic in his arms, believing him to be his son, deceit had become her permanent companion. Now, wilfully, she was adding to it.

  ‘You must have been disappointed at not seeing Luke while he’s over here,’ Greg was saying as he sat opposite her at their rosewood dining table.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, her voice tight in her throat, the last shreds of her self-respect shrivelling and dying.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  There were times, through that first long, hot summer of their affair, when she wondered if she would ever be happy again. She had the sexual release that she had craved for so long, but she had neither joy nor peace of mind. Her unfaithfulness had made the division between herself and Greg complete. They were like two people standing on opposite sides of a river bank, exchanging polite courtesies and very little else. They met at the breakfast table, they met in the evening, but the endearments, the gestures of affection that had once been part of their life together were now gone. She could no longer call him chéri. Not when she knew that a mere telephone call would take her again to Luke’s bed. There were times when she could barely remember the hope she had felt in the early days of their marriage. The warm, encompassing security of knowing that he loved her. The joy and delight as her affection for him had deepened into a love transcending even the love that she had felt for Dieter. It had all seemed so wonderful once. And it had all come to nothing.

  Once a month, sometimes twice, she drove south out of San Francisco and down to Carmel. She never stayed the night, not even on the occasions when Greg was away on business trips in New York or London. Staying away from home at night would mean lying to Dominic and Lucy about her whereabouts and there had been enough lies already. A multitude of them. She had no intention of beginning to tell them to her children.

  The cottage in Carmel was set back from the beach, surrounded by a windbreak of trees. There were times, at dusk, when she could imagine herself in Normandy again, but then she would feel the warmth in the evening air and the illusion would vanish and the old desolation would creep around her heart as she longed for a very different sea, a very different coast.

  ‘I would take you back there,’ Luke had said to her, striding across the beach to where she stood, her hands deep in the pockets of her jeans, the sea wind tugging at her hair.

  She had not needed to ask where he was talking about. Luke had always had the ability to read her thoughts. She had not turned to him as he came up behind her, his hands cupping her shoulders, his head bending forward, his mouth brushing her hairline, the curve of her cheek, the corner of her mouth.

  She had stared out over the inexorably rolling waves and had allowed temptation to surge over her. Normandy, with its salt marshes and sand dunes, and its cold, dear light. Normandy and Valmy. Home.

  Her nails bit
deep into her palms. It wasn’t Dominic and Lucy’s home. Their home was with Greg. He would not allow them to be taken away from him.

  ‘No,’ she said bleakly, ‘I shan’t be going back to Normandy again, Luke. Not ever.’

  He shrugged, turning her round to face him, confident that she would one day return. And that when she did, he would be at her side.

  ‘Let’s make love one more time before you drive back to’Frisco,’ he said, holding her close as he began to walk back with her towards the cottage. ‘It will be another three weeks, maybe four, before I see you again.’

  She leaned against him, her arm around his waist. The vast distance between San Francisco and London was treated by Luke as if it were a mere twenty-minute drive. Sometimes they had only the one afternoon together. She had told him he was mad, flying so far and at such expense, for little more than a lunch date. He had grinned, telling her that he would be the judge of whether his journey was worth it or not. The trips had continued. To Luke, determined to continue seeing her at any cost, the Atlantic Ocean was as easily traversable as the English Channel.

  They stepped into the cottage, closing the door behind them. It was autumn now and driftwood was piled high in the open fireplace. A copy of Thérése Raquin in French lay open on a low table. There were more books in French on the shelves. A silver-framed photograph of her mother and father stood on an old English desk, a photograph of Valmy beside it. The room bore witness to both their personalities. The flowers in pretty porcelain bowls were arranged with a flair that was exquisitely French. The modern paintings on the walls were unmistakeably Luke’s choice, collected by him on his many trips to the Los Angeles art galleries.

  As they climbed the burnished wood stairs to the little, yellow-painted bedroom above, Lisette wondered for the thousandth time why it was that she was able to give to Luke freely and without inhibition that which she longed to give to Greg. She paused in the doorway of the room, suddenly loth to enter. The ferociousness of their love-making had never abated. There were times when it shocked, even frightened her. There was no gentleness in their couplings. Little tenderness. Luke’s need of her and hers of him were violent and deep, a thirst that had constantly to be slaked, but it wasn’t love.