The Baby Verdict

by Cathy Williams

  ‘Carry on along this road until you come to the next junction, then turn left.’

  ‘How’s your sister-in-law’s baby?’ he asked, after a few minutes’ silence.

  ‘My sister-in-law’s baby?’

  ‘The one she was due to have on the very day you couldn’t possibly accept a lift home with me because you had to get back for a telephone call from your mother.’

  ‘Oh. That sister-in-law. That baby.’ That convoluted excuse. ‘Both well and doing fine.’ She had had the baby three days later, so as far as lies went that one was petty close to the truth.

  ‘Must be glad to have your mother out there to help,’ he said casually, and Jessica didn’t reply. She was not a revealing person by nature, and she seldom, if ever, discussed her family with anyone. Her background and all the attendant heartache was something she kept to herself.

  ‘Guess so.’

  ‘How long has your mother been over there? Seems a very far-flung place to go and live.’

  ‘My brother was out there,’ she said shortly, staring out of the window. Through the rain and the darkness, the lights looked like watery splashes of colour against a black, velvet background.

  ‘But you were over here,’ he pointed out, and she didn’t say anything.

  ‘I take it your silence means that I’m treading on delicate ground.’

  ‘You’re treading on ground that’s none of your business,’ she told him bluntly. ‘Go straight over the traffic lights and my street’s the third turning on the right.’

  ‘How does your father fit into all this?’

  Her fists curled into tight balls and she felt a knot of acid bitterness gather in her stomach. She had so successfully managed to slot her father into a disused cupboard in her mind that every time his memory was pulled out and dusted down, for whatever reason, she was overcome with the same, familiar feelings of anger.

  ‘He died seven years ago,’ she said tightly.

  There must have been some indication of how she felt in her voice, because he glanced swiftly at her before turning back to the road.

  ‘Should I offer you my sympathies?’

  ‘You can offer whatever you care to.’ Her father had spent his years ruling his house with a reign of terror, bellowing at her and her brother, lashing out at whoever had happened to be closest if his mood had happened to be off-key. Sympathy was the least appropriate feeling she could be offered, but there was no way that she would tell any of that to the man sitting next to her behind the steering wheel.

  ‘My house is the third on the right Bit hard to see in this weather, but you can just drop me off here.’

  He slowed the car down and as she turned to face him, ready with her neat phrases of thanks and hope-it-wasn’t-too-much-of-a-bother, he said, killing the engine and resting his head against the window, ‘A cup of coffee would be nice. These are hellish conditions to be driving in.’ He rubbed his eyes with his thumbs and she felt a pull of sympathy. He had been under no obligation to pick her up and drop her at her house, and whatever he had said about having no plans for that evening she was pretty certain that he had had. He was not a man to enjoy the comforts of a solitary meal, a cup of cocoa and a late-night movie, on a Friday night.

  ‘Sure.’ She got out of the car, only realising how thoroughly she had been drenched when the weight of her coat threatened to drag her to the ground. Her hair was still damp as well. She would look like a scarecrow in the morning.

  ‘And perhaps you could rustle up something for us to eat,’ he suggested, following her to the front door, then into the house.

  In winter, she always made sure that she left the hall light on, so that when she returned home the place wasn’t in complete darkness. And the heating had switched itself on three hours previously, so that it was beautifully warm inside. She felt some of the chill drain out of her bones.

  ‘Rustle you up something to eat?’ she asked, removing her coat and jacket and looking at him with incredulity.

  ‘Nothing fancy. Just whatever you were going to do for yourself.’ He was looking around without making it glaringly obvious, and he followed her into the small sitting room, with the large bay window overlooking the street. It was her favourite room in the house, the one she spent most of her time in, and had been decorated in warm, rich colours—deep greens and terracottas—and she had replaced the sixties-style electric fire with a real one, seldom used but beautiful to look at.

  He strolled around it, dwarfing it in a way no one ever had before, looking at the photos of her mother and her brother with his family in their carefully chosen wood and silver frames. Did he notice that pictures of her father were conspicuously absent?

  ‘I think it might be a good idea if you change,’ he said out of the blue, turning to look at her, and she flushed. Yes, that had occurred to her but, no, she had had no intention of doing any such thing. Her working garb, however damp and bedraggled, was, somehow, her protection.

  ‘Do you ever stop giving orders?’ she asked politely.

  ‘It’s a bad habit of mine. You’ll catch your death of cold if you stay like that.’

  Jessica glared and watched as he removed his jacket, tossed it on to one of the chairs and sat down, stretching out his long legs in front of him.

  ‘I won’t be a minute,’ she muttered.

  Never mind bad habits, she thought, the man had some insufferable traits. She shut the bedroom door behind her, hesitating briefly, then locking it, though why she had no idea, and she stepped out of her shoes with a sigh of relief. Then she hurriedly flung on a white tee shirt and a pair of jeans, and replaced her shoes with the pair of worn, flat-heeled sandals she wore around the house.

  She glanced at her reflection in the mirror and then unpinned her hair, which had optimistically started the day as a perfectly coiled chignon. With speed born of habit, she plaited it, one long, blonde plait. Not exactly a sophisticated hairdo, she thought, but it would have to do.

  When she returned, it was to hear rummaging in the kitchen, and she found him there with two wineglasses in his hand.

  ‘I see you had some wine in your fridge.

  ‘Go right ahead and make yourself at home.’

  ‘Care for a glass?’ The bottle was on the kitchen table and, with a huge sigh of resignation, she nodded and he poured them both a glass.

  ‘I really wouldn’t want to keep you from whatever you had planned,’ she began, folding her arms, uncomfortably aware that despite his casual attitude he had taken in her change of clothes, her alteration from businesswoman to homebody.

  ‘Your hair is much longer than I thought.’

  He had noticed her hair? What else had he noticed?

  ‘There’s not much to eat here. I’m not accustomed to cooking for someone else without preparation.’

  ‘You wouldn’t be trying to get rid of me, by any chance?’ he asked, sitting on one of the chairs by the table and looking at her. There was amused challenge in his blue eyes and she went pink.

  Was he a mind-reader or was she just a lot more obvious than she thought?

  And what would he think if she admitted that she felt uncomfortable being in her house with him? She knew what he would think. He would think that he made her nervous, he would think that she felt more than merely the polite indifference of employee towards employer, which she had been at such pains to cultivate over the past few weeks. He would think that she was attracted to him.

  She should have laughed at this conclusion, but instead of laughing to herself she felt a sudden surge of alarm.

  ‘Of course I’m not trying to get rid of you!’ she denied, her voice high. ‘I just can’t believe that you haven’t got something more interesting to do on a Friday night than sit here and have a dreary meal with one of your employees.’ It seemed a good idea to remind him that he was her boss.

  ‘Between Rachels at the moment,’ he said, and she could hear laughter in his voice.

  So he was temporarily lacking in female comp
anionship. That would account for the fact that some of that unused charm was spilling over onto her. He probably couldn’t help himself. Under normal circumstances, she would be the last woman in the world he would look at twice, but they had been working closely together for a few weeks, albeit not always in perfect harmony, and he was without the distraction of a mistress.

  ‘Poor old you,’ she gushed with overdone sympathy. ‘Your brain must be missing the intellectual stimulation.’ She paused, and then added, grudgingly, ‘I apologise, that was uncalled for. She seemed a perfectly nice girl.’ When in the company of men, she thought to herself.

  ‘Oh, I think I’m doing all right on that front at the moment.’ He tilted his glass towards her with a mocking salute, and she turned around and began foraging through the cupboards in search of something palatable for them to eat.

  Her dietary requirements were virtually non-existent. Living on her own, she ate when she felt like it and very rarely cooked for herself. Pre-packaged foods were the norm, or else fresh bread and cheese. Sometimes, when she was particularly tired or particularly lazy, a bowl of cereal filled the gap.

  She located a can of tuna and some tinned sweetcorn and then scoured the fridge for whatever else might be lurking there. Three tomatoes, she found, a bag of mushrooms which she had planned on using two days previously and half a tub of cream, which she surreptitiously sniffed just in case.

  Clearing out her fridge on a daily basis was always one of her New Year’s resolutions, and thus far never one that she had actually got around to putting into practice.

  ‘Would you like a hand?’ he asked from behind her and she shook her head.

  ‘No. But I feel I should warn you that cooking was never one of my strong points, so don’t expect anything exquisite.’ She glanced over her shoulder to see him wearing that amused grin of his, the sort of grin that implied that her discomfort was a never-ending source of enjoyment to him.

  ‘Oh, don’t apologise. Lack of culinary skills is a trait I thoroughly approve of in a woman.’

  ‘Strange. I thought that the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach.’ It was all right having this conversation with him while her back was turned away and while she could busy herself with the frying of mushrooms and tuna and all the ingredients that seemed to be converging into a colourful mishmash of food. Lord only knew what it would taste like. Whenever she cooked for someone else, she always made sure that a recipe book was close to hand. Spontaneous creations were things she tried to avoid at all costs.

  ‘My point exactly.’

  Jessica risked a look at him from over her shoulder, to gauge. whether he was joking, but his expression was serious.

  ‘Am I supposed to ask you to clarify?’

  ‘I would have thought that I was being fairly obvious.’

  ‘In other words, the way to your heart is firmly blocked off with a “No Trespassing” sign.’

  Actually, she didn’t need him to spell that out for her. One look at him was enough to tell her that he was a man who preferred the freedom to do precisely what he pleased without the obstruction of a wife. He worked long hours, was away for long stretches of time on business. In between, she assumed, he liked simple, undemanding recreation with someone who didn’t tire him by challenging his intellect.

  Her voice was light when she spoke. She stirred the contents of the saucepan, hoping that her mysterious, thrown-together concoction would not taste too appalling, and when she gauged that it was nearly cooked she put a pot of water to boil for some pasta. Then she sat down at the kitchen table and took a sip from her glass of wine.

  She idly wondered what he would look like in jeans and a tee shirt. He had the sort of physique that was designed to look good in clothes. Wide shoulders, lean hips, long, muscular legs. Her heart began to beat a little faster.

  ‘Was that Rachel’s downfall?’ she asked curiously. It occurred to her that this was hardly a typical boss-employee kind of conversation. She had had many amiable chats with Robert, her immediate boss, about his family, his grandchildren, his holiday plans. None of them had carried this intangible air of treading on delicate ground. She could feel herself stepping too close to quicksand, but when she looked a bit harder, to see if she could recognise the danger, there was nothing there.

  He had given her a lift home because of the weather. She had invited him inside through politeness. She was now cooking him a meal out of guilt at having spoilt his evening. Where was the danger in that?

  And if they weren’t consumed with work talk, then what was the problem there? It was hardly as though she feared that he might suddenly draw a deep breath and lunge for her.

  ‘I enjoy the family life,’ he said with a careless shrug, ‘just so long as it belongs to someone else.’

  Jessica didn’t answer. She tossed some pasta into the boiling water and then remained where she was with the glass in her hand, leaning against the kitchen counter.

  She could understand what he was saying. The companionship of married life was never something that had beckoned. Her friends had taken to making dark comments about shelf-life, and intimating that they would arrange a love life for her if she didn’t want to do it herself, and she always laughed at their underhand persistence. She simply could not conceive what it would be like to be tied to the cooker, waiting on a man hand and foot. As her mother had done for so many years.

  ‘How do you feel about the lawsuit?’ she asked, changing the subject abruptly. She didn’t like it when her mind started wandering down the road of men and marriage and families, even if her response was to deny their importance in her life.

  ‘Isn’t that a question I should be asking you?’ he returned, helping himself to more wine and watching her lazily as she began moving around the kitchen, opening drawers, pulling out crockery and cutlery.

  She could feel his blue eyes on her and it made her skin tingle. It was a new experience for her. Normally, she had no difficulty in treating men as her equals but now, for some reason, she was acutely aware of her body, her movements, her hair dangling against her back. Her tee shirt was baggy and unrevealing, but she could feel the weight of her breasts beneath it, she could feel her nipples pushing against the thin, silky bra. A thin film of perspiration broke out over her body and when she began setting the table she found that she was purposefully avoiding his gaze.

  ‘I don’t think we have a problem,’ she said, draining the pasta and tipping the contents of the frying pan into a casserole dish. ‘When do you think I’ll be able to have a look at those drawings?’ She put the pasta and the tuna on the table and indicated for him to help himself.

  ‘Oh, haven’t I mentioned? Ralph Jennings delivered them to me this afternoon. I’ve got them in my briefcase, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘You have?’ She paused and looked at him with surprise. ‘You should have mentioned that sooner. We could have gone over them at work.’

  ‘You can have a look after we’ve eaten.’ He began helping himself and she looked at him with sudden dismay.

  Inexplicably, she didn’t want him hanging around after dinner. She had anticipated feeding him and sending him on his way in the minimum amount of time.

  ‘You haven’t got a problem with that, have you?’ he asked, glancing up to catch her eye, and she shook her head hurriedly.

  ‘No. I just feel a little...tired... I’m not sure I’ll be able to concentrate fully...’

  ‘It’s a drawing,’ he - pointed out dryly. ‘Fairly self-explanatory. It’ll take ten minutes for me to run through it with you.’

  ‘Yes. Fine,’ she said dubiously, sitting down.

  ‘Good. And don’t worry about the concentration aspect. Even at half tilt, your brain is better than a lot of men’s I’ve come across in my business dealings.’

  ‘Thank you very much for the compliment.’ She was certain that there had been a time when she would have been thrilled at what he had just said, but now she had a hollow feeling of disappointment. She su
pposed that it was akin to being described as ‘one of the lads’. Was that ever a compliment for a woman? Who wanted to be ‘one of the lads’?

  For the first time ever, she wondered what it would be like to be remarked upon for her looks as opposed to her brains. Her boyfriends had always appreciated her intelligence, had warmed to the fact that she had definite opinions on most things, and she had never found that a matter for complaint

  Now, she thought, What would it be like to be a Rachel? Blonde and fluffy and undemanding, with bedroom eyes and a smile that promised sex?

  Ridiculous notion, she told herself shakily.

  But now that the thought had taken root, it began eating away inside her, nibbling insidiously at all her firmly held beliefs that intelligence in a woman was what mattered, that men who were attracted to the outside packaging were not the sort of men she could ever be interested in.

  She heard his voice wash over her as he discussed intricacies of the lawsuit, and she knew that she was responding with all the correct answers, but it was as if she was suddenly functioning on autopilot, while her brain wandered along its merry way.

  She was not an unattractive woman. She knew that. True, she might not be overtly sexy in the way that the Rachels of this world were, but neither was she a picture of plainness. Her problem, she realised, was her inability to play up her good points. Her figure was quite acceptable, but she never wore tight clothes. Her long, well-shaped legs were always hidden under calf-length skirts or trousers. Her hair, thick and long and naturally blonde, was always pinned back severely into her neck. Her approach was essential in her career, but it hardly turned heads, did it?

  Just thinking like this flustered her, and she couldn’t wait for the meal to finish, hastily rejecting his offer to help with the washing-up, rambling on about doing it herself after he had gone because she found it strangely relaxing. Good heavens. Washing dishes was something she found strangely tedious, but the thought of standing next to him at a kitchen sink and doing a mundane domestic chore was almost beyond her level of tolerance.