Torn

by Gilli Allan

  ‘From a distance,’ James acknowledged. ‘It’s the hair. Close up you can see Sasha has Gilda’s Mediterranean colouring.’

  ‘Before I went white,’ Gilda said, patting her thick, immaculately cut hair. ‘Sasha’s the spit of you, darling.’

  ‘Poor thing. She may have my colouring but she’s inherited her mother’s build, which is probably just as well. While Rory has Celtic colouring, like his mother. Dark hair, but blue eyes and a pale complexion … very pale this morning,’ he added. ‘You look tired, Jessica. Didn’t you sleep well?’

  Why lie? No need to go into details about the whys and wherefores. ‘Afraid not.’

  ‘It wasn’t our fault, was it? Me and Piers? We were a bit worse for wear when we came up. Don’t know what time …?’

  ‘Not your fault. The bed is comfortable, the room airy. It was just one of those nights when your body wants to sleep, but your mind doesn’t. The brain keeps buzzing.’

  ‘You should have got up, come downstairs. A trouble shared?’

  ‘You think you could have eased my mind?’

  ‘It’s a possibility.’

  ‘Unlikely, unless you can assure me it’s the right time to sell my shares, or that the by-pass is definitely not coming past my house.’ Immediately she felt guilty. She’d conjured these possible causes for anxiety out of the air. Though both had the potential, neither had been the cause of her wakefulness.

  ‘You’re right,’ James answered with a frown. ‘I can’t help with either.’

  ‘Why sell your shares?’ Imogen asked. ‘There’s loads of potential in the market. The only way is up. You should hang on in there when everyone else is bottling!’

  Jessica ignored the slightly patronising tone.

  ‘I’m sure Jess knows what she’s doing,’ James said. Jessica looked across at him and smiled her thanks. Much better to have others champion your reputation than do it yourself. James looked surprisingly refreshed, given the over-indulgence of the previous night, although his ebony hair looked as if he’d just stepped out of his own personal cyclone and his heavily stubbled jaw, which on anyone else might have been labelled ‘designer’, was testament to the fact he’d not yet shaved this morning. He smiled back, dark eyes creasing; a small, yet disturbing throb of response pulsed through her.

  ‘So, what’s all this about a by-pass?’ Imogen asked. Their smiles faded, their eyes disengaged.

  ‘You don’t want to know. I take it Sideshow’s not up?’ James directed the question to his mother. Jessica caught her breath. What did he want to do, put Danny back to work? Or challenge him about his illiteracy?

  ‘He is. Sasha dragged him downstairs before even I was up. She was determined he should read her new book with her this morning.’

  Imogen laughed. ‘That should be fun! Shall we all go in and listen?’

  James ignored her. ‘You shouldn’t allow Sash to pester him like she does, Ma. He’ll never recover at this rate! I wanted him to stay in bed, get properly well. He’s no good to me at only half strength.

  ‘OK. So … what are we doing this morning? Sasha’s pony should be arriving before lunch and Piers is after some shooting, is that right? Might have to postpone that till tomorrow. I’ll take him up on Spine Hill, bag a few jays and magpies. See if we can’t get Kit to retrieve for us.’ He looked back towards Jessica. ‘I realise you don’t approve, but shooting is one of the reasons I try to discourage people rambling on the hill. Shooters and walkers don’t mix too well.’

  She nodded noncommittally. ‘Actually, it’s time we made a move. Think I’ll collect up Rory’s things and head home. I’ll never get him away after the pony arrives.’

  ‘You’re probably wise. You know he’s welcome any time, but everything’s going to become a bit chaotic when it gets here. Sash will be beside herself. Let things calm down … the pony will still be here next time he visits.’

  ‘I’ll make up a carton of eggs for you to take home,’ Gilda offered.

  Jessica entered the playroom quietly. Wrapping paper and streamers still strewed the floor and, while most of the balloons hugged the ceiling a few, perhaps punctured by over boisterous buffeting, were now sunk to half-mast as the helium gradually seeped away. Many books, including the one she’d given Sasha last night, were scattered around the giant cushions, where Danny and the two children sat. They were all too absorbed to notice her quiet approach.

  A large colourful picture book was open flat on Danny’s crossed legs. Each page had a couple of simple sentences running beneath the illustration. He ran his finger along the line, eyes narrowed intently, as Sasha read each word. Rory watched and attempted a word here or there, but his reading was nowhere near as developed as his friend’s. Now and again Sasha totally misread a word, but Danny didn’t correct her. And now and again his finger and her reading went out of synch, but she patiently pushed his hand back until his finger pointed at the correct word. Only when she came to a total halt would he supply a likely word. Occasionally he would be right, but as often as not the word he came up with was closer to a mirror image of the word on the page.

  ‘Hello,’ Jessica said. ‘What are you three doing?’ Danny started and the book fell off his lap to the floor.

  ‘Ffff –! You nearly gave me a heart attack!’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Danny is reading us a story,’ Sasha said.

  ‘So I see, but I’m afraid I’ve come to say that Rory and I are going home now.’

  There were the inevitable grumbles and complaints. Only when Jessica suggested Sasha help Rory to find his things and help pack his bag, did the project begin to sound more like fun. After the pair quit the room skipping and cantering, Jess could not resist touching Danny’s thick, ashy coloured hair. He looked up.

  ‘How are you this morning?’

  ‘Better.’ But the expression in his eyes seemed to belie his words.

  The sun came out from behind a cloud. A shaft of brilliant light through the window behind him momentarily dazzled Jessica and triggered a fizzing buzz in her sinuses. Her nose prickled, eyes began to water. Her hands flew to her face and she sneezed.

  ‘Oh wow! Sorry! Bless me!’ she exclaimed, sniffing and pinching her nostrils. Already dislodged, the emerald stud dropped and bounced, coming to rest on the open book. Jessica could see the stud clearly from where she stood and expected Danny to pick it up.

  ‘What was that?’ he asked puzzled. ‘What fell?’

  ‘My stud. Look, it’s on the book there.’

  He squinted at the pages open flat on his lap, then spread his fingers over the surface, feeling for the stud. He fumbled, then managed to locate it, and handed it to her.

  It must have taken another half hour before everything belonging to Rory had been tracked down and packed away. By the time they were ready to leave Piers, looking slightly the worse for wear, had arrived downstairs and joined the others standing out in the warm courtyard near the house. Rory was strapped into the car and Jess turned to say goodbye.

  A certain amount of elbowing – Piers’ elbow, James’ ribs – and low-voiced discussion, was going on between the two men. James, still wearing nothing more on his feet than the yellow socks, looked pressurised and a bit cross.

  Jessica heard him say, ‘All right! All right!’ As he walked the few paces over to her he glanced skyward. ‘Nice day.’

  ‘Yes. Look, thanks for inviting me yesterday evening. It was really … nice … enjoyable. And thanks for having us both to stay and everything.’

  ‘Pleasure. Thank you for agreeing to stay on. Certainly added another dimension to the evening.’ What did he mean? ‘And thank you again for all your help with Sasha’s party. I shouldn’t have left it to Gilda … she shouldn’t have passed it all on to you. I’m very grateful for your organisational skills and your hard work. As soon as you’ve worked out what I owe you …?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Um, Jessica?’ he looked at the sky again. She followed his eyes but could
see nothing interesting up there. ‘Jess, do you like Shakespeare?’

  She began to laugh. ‘Shakespeare? I’m just going and all of a sudden you want to talk literature?’

  He laughed too. ‘I meant … Stratford’s not a million miles. Can do it from here in an hour, give or take, depending on traffic?’ He was looking intently into her face now, frowning slightly as if expecting a negative response to the question he’d not yet asked. ‘I don’t know if it’s your thing,’ he added. ‘But, do you think … would you like to go to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre?’

  ‘Go?’ She gaped at him. ‘To Stratford? Haven’t been for years. The theatre, I mean. Never been to Stratford! Yes, that would be … um, I’d like to. Thank you.’

  He smiled, as if relieved a bit of very tricky business had been got out of the way.

  ‘Good. I’m glad. I’ve not been myself since it’s been redeveloped. I’ll phone you then, when I’ve found out what’s on. Of course, Gilda will have Rory to stay.’

  Of course. More and more convinced that Imogen was right, and Gilda had always intended to engineer a relationship, she now wondered if they all knew what he was asking her. Otherwise, why had they kept their distance? She got into the car and James walked back towards his mother, daughter, and friends standing around the front door. As the car started up another figure appeared in the frame. James stepped back, almost as if to give Jessica and Danny a clear view of one another. She waved at no one in particular, reversed round, and drove away.

  There was no way of avoiding the fact that James Warwick had asked her out. And asked her to Stratford, to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre no less. He was evidently an intelligent man; judged solely by the hundreds of books which lined the walls in his house, she would have come to the same conclusion even without the knowledge he had read English at Oxford. He was the kind of man she could almost wish she’d met years ago, before Rory, before Sean, before life became so rackety. But no. In those days, suitability was the very last thing she looked for in a man. The only qualities she’d wanted then were ‘sexy’ and ‘fun’.

  And following that phase she’d plumped, disastrously and misguidedly, for dependable. So what was she looking for now? She told herself crossly that she’d not been looking for a man at all, but less than three months ago one had dropped in her lap. One who scored top marks on the unsuitability scale. He’d said as much himself. She hadn’t listened to him then – not properly. But now she knew, if not the whole story a lot more of the story. The differences between the two men could not have been more stark.

  At one end of the spectrum was the highly educated, mature, successful, and financially secure Mr Warwick, whose gypsyish looks only slightly undermined his conservative establishment persona. At the opposite end of the spectrum, in every comparison one cared to make, was Danny – young, uneducated, vulnerable, in insecure employment and without money or prospects. But he was gentle and thoughtful, if a touch fey at times, and non-judgemental. As for his looks? Well, Imogen had been right. Perhaps, if he took up a career in modelling, he could ensure his future. But that was no answer. The public were fickle. The face of one year could go out of fashion the next. And anyway, Jess could not see Danny modelling; it was too far removed from everything he believed in.

  So, did it matter that he couldn’t read? Of course it mattered. It would hamper him at every turn in life, particularly if he continued to keep it secret. The idea of him floundering around on his own hurt her. How had it happened in a family where two of the children went to university and the mother was a teacher? At the very least he should have had his eyesight tested. But without revealing what she knew, it would be difficult to find a way of suggesting this simple first step.

  Another day, another trip down the lane to the nursery school. This morning they’d been late and feeling vaguely guilty about such profligate use of fossil fuels, Jess had bundled Rory into the car for the half mile round trip. At least they weren’t the only ones late this morning. Although activities had already commenced, Jessica noticed that Rory’s best friend, Sasha, wasn’t there yet.

  Between the gate and the front door Tubs did his best to trip her up, and then ran straight for his empty bowl, mewing crossly.

  ‘OK! OK! Give me a break!’ Increasingly she questioned their life in this cottage. Though she’d known it was an interim measure, she’d enjoyed those first months. Now she was fed up with living with other people’s furniture, of never having enough light, of finding that her books were cockled from the damp, of knowing that one day – perhaps in a year, perhaps two – a by-pass would probably be torn through the landscape she looked out on, the landscape she’d walked. Those long walks had ceased since she’d found out about the road’s probable route. It was time to get her act together and look for a place to buy.

  ‘So what are we going to do with you, old boy?’ she asked the cat, as she put his filled plate back on the floor with a saucer of water, not milk, as Danny had instructed. ‘You’re not going to want to move, are you? You wouldn’t even put up with going next door!’ Just then there was a knock. It could only be Ethel Dell, the neighbour, with whom Tubs had declined to reside. Or maybe one of those men selling dusters and oven gloves. Still in her jacket, Jessica went to the door.

  Chapter Twenty

  Jessica immediately recognised the beaten-up Land Rover parked by the kerb, but its driver was nowhere to be seen. She stepped out onto the path to see James Warwick emerging from the side passage, staring up at the roof. He did her the courtesy of saying ‘Hello’, but then walked straight past her at the front door, and began to dig a pen knife into the sitting room windowsill.

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘That guttering needs replacing. This sill is very soft. And the lean-to at the back looks positively hazardous.’

  ‘Look, thanks and all that, but …’

  ‘What’s the problem?’

  ‘Surely the deficiencies of my house are between me and my landlord!’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Oh my God! You are my landlord, aren’t you?’

  ‘You didn’t know?’

  ‘Of course I bloody didn’t know!’

  ‘I assumed –’

  ‘I suppose I should have guessed, but the tenancy is handled through the estate agent, and the property company is …’

  ‘Thornton Holdings. My … Serena was a Thornton. I never saw the need to change the name. Sorry. Must have seemed a bit strange, me poking around.’

  ‘Just a bit. Do you want to come in, look round the interior, make sure I haven’t done anything to contravene my lease?’

  He straightened, brows drawing together in a frown. ‘I didn’t come over here to check up on you! I’ve just delivered Sash to nursery and thought I’d make a social call. And while I was here …’

  Instantly ashamed of herself, Jess said, ‘Look … Come in, please? I’ll make coffee.’

  James Warwick ran his fingers through his hair several times. The gesture, added to his shut down expression, suggested irritation and impatience. She sat at the table opposite him. Behind her, with murmuring sighs, the kettle heated.

  ‘It’s a long time since I’ve rented a place. I suppose you put me on the defensive, it made me spiky. I apologise.’ Even as Jess said it she realised that her reactions to him were too often like that. ‘I’m afraid I can’t help being spiky. I’m a Scorpio.’

  His eyebrows hooked up quizzically. ‘Not you too? You’re not into all this new age mumbo jumbo, are you? Like Sideshow Bob?’

  ‘Not seriously, but I like the story of the frog and the scorpion. Do you know it?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘The scorpion wanted to cross the river and asked the frog to ferry him over. The frog said, “No. You’ll sting me.” The scorpion promised he wouldn’t. So the frog agreed to carry him. Halfway across the scorpion stung the frog. “Why did you do that?” the frog asked. “Now we’ll both die.” The scorpion answered, “I
couldn’t help it, it’s in my nature.”‘

  James watched her as she recounted the fable, rubbing his fingers across his mouth; she found herself contemplating the set and curve of his lips.

  ‘I get the picture. I’d better watch out for that sting then, hadn’t I? You’ve not told me yet how much I owe you for the party?’

  ‘It’s just here.’ She gathered up some invoices which were lying in a pile on the built-in dresser. A handwritten page of additions was on top. He couldn’t disguise surprise, even shock, at the bottom line.

  ‘If that’s what it cost, that’s what it cost,’ he said with a slight sigh. Again Jessica felt anger rising in her. What the hell had he expected? She’d warned him it was going to cost a lot. And given the time she’d had to prepare she’d done bloody well!

  Anyway, he could patently afford it. The kind of man who bought his four-year-old daughter a pony for her birthday shouldn’t quibble over the amount her party had cost. But he was already reaching into an inner pocket for his cheque book and without another murmur wrote out the full amount.

  ‘Let’s hope it doesn’t bounce,’ he said, as he handed it over. Presumably this was a joke and she gave it the smile it deserved. ‘As for Stratford? Were you just being polite? Or do you still want to go?’

  This was a question she’d asked herself. Would going out with James only add complications to her life? Did she like him enough? At least half the time in his company he made her cross. And what about Danny? Wouldn’t it hurt him to witness her going out with his boss? Underline his place in the world? He forever the loser and people like James the winners? But then that was life – something he would have to get used to. Anyway, was protecting Danny’s feelings her responsibility?

  ‘Yes, of course I’d like to go. As I said, I’ve never been to Stratford. It will be … an experience.’

  ‘If nothing else? Well, let’s hope I can make it a pleasurable experience,’ he replied with a slight lift of the brows. ‘I’ve already made enquiries. I can probably get tickets for A Comedy of Errors. It’s not my favourite but it’s a new production, opening in a week or so. The word is it’s going to be good. Do you have any preference for dates … days of the week? I can probably get tickets for late April. And of course Gilda will have Rory to stay. What do you think?’