Standing at the bus stop, I heard a car come growling past, throaty exhaust rumbling just like the Porsche. Stop it. Now that I’d managed to admit to myself that Leo had been symptomatic of my urge to force my life along unnatural lines, Piers hung heavy in my mind. God, he was gorgeous, fabulous in bed and he said he loved me, but… Hadn’t I been here before? Letting one man go and simply moving on to the next?
I wished Mrs. Treadgold was here. This sort of emotional angst would have been right up her alley. I could almost hear her top set clattering with advice.
Webbe’s was open. I pushed the door to the tinny clacking of the disabled bell and found Simon himself manning the till, selling a cache of Asimovs to a young man with a guitar strapped on his back.
“Alys.” Simon jumped, dropping the young man’s change all over the counter. “I thought you were in Devon for the next few days.”
“Change of plan. I didn’t know you could work the till.”
“Sarcasm, Alys.” Simon tutted and shook his head. “So, what brings you in here on such a beautiful day?”
“Looking for Jace. Do you know where she is?”
A rather furtive expression crossed Simon’s well-formed features. It looked as alien on him as a nylon suit.
I sat down heavily on the stool. “What is going on? Am I phasing in and out of existence, or is there some conspiracy deliberately not to tell me things?”
Simon stared at me. The secretive expression was leaving, to be replaced by something which, if he hadn’t been so impeccably well brought up, I would have said was shame. “Well…er…I…Jacinta and I…we…”
Behind me the door rattled. I glanced towards it and my heart did a peculiar thing. It felt as though it tried to do the drop of dread, but was counteracted by a desire to become rather unnecessarily floaty and ended up by beating faster. “Great. Hello, Piers. Come and join my set of People Who Like to Keep Things from Me. I’ve nearly got enough to trade up to Total Paranoia.”
“We need to talk.”
“As a general premise, yes, we do need to talk. As a specific—too late, Piers. Just too bloody late.” I collapsed my head into my hands.
I felt an arm come round my shoulders and tried to shrug it off, assuming it was Piers, but it was Simon. “Alys, why don’t you go home? You’ve been under a lot of stress lately. I think I can allow you some compassionate leave.”
“Where’s Jace?” I raised my head.
“Alys.”
Piers again. I glanced up and our eyes met over the top of Simon’s head. Piers looked rough, which was unusual. He normally cultivated the appearance of a man who hasn’t had time to shave and has been too busy debauching to brush his hair, but managed it whilst looking otherwise impeccable. But now he looked like a man who’s been up all night and, if he’s slept at all, has done it in the clothes he’s currently walking around in.
To Simon’s intensely visible relief a customer presented through the door, followed by a family of confused Japanese tourists. Piers and I found ourselves standing outside the door. I felt as though my head had been taken off, rotated three hundred and sixty degrees, and then replaced.
“Where’s Jace?” I asked him.
“How the fuck would I know? Look, I don’t know anything anymore. I’m, like, kinda drifting here. I can’t sleep, can’t eat. I need to see you.”
“Ta da.”
“No.” Piers caught me by the elbow and propelled me backwards into the alleyway which ran between two buildings and around the back of Webbe’s. The street noises died and were replaced by the smell of dustbins and the sound of a lone toilet flushing. “What I said, yesterday. It wasn’t a cheap line just to get to you. I love you. Meant it then, mean it now.”
“You took advantage of me, Piers. You gave me bad news and then hit me with—with all that stuff.”
“I happen to know that Mrs. T would have approved of ‘all that stuff’ as you put it. And we’re not talking about that shit, Alys, we’re talking about us. About you and me.”
He’d got me cornered where two walls met, my back against brickwork and a cheap plastic bin preventing any kind of sideways escape. “Piers—”
“I know you, Alys. All the crap, all the shit and I still love you. I’ve been waiting so long. You’re thinking this is all to get a fuck, but remember that night? The party? I carried you to the taxi, took you home. I never touched you. I could have done it there, then, on the bed. You were out of it, you wouldn’t have known. But I didn’t. I stayed with you, Alys, watched you all night, never laid a hand on you, because—do you know what?” His face was very close to mine. I could smell the smoke in his hair. I shook my head. “I wanted you to want it too. And yesterday you wanted it. You screamed for me, Alys, and don’t try telling me you didn’t.” He touched my face. “Y’see Alys, what it is.”
Now he was almost whispering. I had to bend in closer to hear him. “I don’t think you know how love is meant to feel. You don’t know it because you never felt it. And now, what you feel for me—sssshhh.” He put a finger over my mouth as I opened it to contradict. “It’s kinda burning, just here.” He laid his other hand over my heart. “That’s it. That’s love. That wanting, so bad, to be touched and kept safe and to lose yourself. That is love, Alys, not just liking the way someone is, but knowing who they are and not giving a shit.” He took his finger away from my mouth. “And this is the part where you kiss me.”
“You reckon?”
“Yeah. I reckon.”
“You’re a cocky bastard, aren’t you?”
“Uh huh.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
I sat silent next to Piers as he drove towards Thirsk, the big engine making mincemeat of the miles. “You could have told me earlier that Alasdair wanted to talk to me,” I said, peevishly. “What about? Is it Florrie’s going modelling?”
“Dunno. We had a kinda big family-discussion thing. Ma and Alasdair were asking me what my plans were. Was I still looking to move into my own place. They both seem to think it’s time I moved on. Guess they’re right. I can work anywhere after all.”
“Oh yeah. Your translation stuff.” Piers had worked for the last three years as a freelance English/Spanish translator. A remarkably respectable job, considering that he looked as though he spent all day wafting about the streets dressed like a breakaway faction from an historical drama. It was a complete waste of those immaculate cheekbones.
His hand brushed mine as he changed gear. “I know you’re confused,” he said softly. “Trust me, I’m at least twice as confused. I kinda thought, y’know, I’d grow out of it. Fantasy older-woman thing, yeah? But it seemed the more I knew you, the closer we got, that everything before was kinda like practicing. I talked to Jace a lot too. She reckons you got it bad for me, you just don’t see it yet. She thinks we’re made for each other. Now, me, I really know it.”
“But you’re too young to have any idea what you want.”
“Hey, Alys? I’ve been having sex since I was fourteen. All kinds of women, old, young, some I paid, some seduced me, some I thought I loved. And I can tell you this. Not one of them made me feel the way you do. Yeah, I’ve had sex that ripped my mind apart, had women I could relate to, feel for. But I’ve never had both things with one person.”
“And you do with me? Really? Sex that ripped your mind apart? With me?”
Without taking his eyes off the road, Piers reached over and ran his hand down the side of my face. “Yeah. With you. It was real. Special. Couldn’t you tell?”
“I don’t know. You always seem pretty ripped to me.”
“Ha.”
“Ah, Alys. Nice of you to come over.” Alasdair met us outside the house in the tarmac-turning circle the size of a tennis court. “Piers, your mother is upstairs resting. Would you go and ask her if she’d like some tea?”
I hadn’t seen him for about three years so, as soon as Piers had galloped off up the lengthy flight of stairs, I gave Alasdair a thorough, if covert, examinatio
n. If it was possible, he looked even more professorial than he ever had. I’d take bets that at least one of his wardrobes now contained a tweed jacket with patched elbows. His thinning sandy hair had thinned even further and was showing a few touches of grey, his six-foot-plus frame was filling out around the middle and he was wearing slippers. He looked scarily clichéd, top professor married to American wife. I half expected to see a Stars and Stripes festooning the wall inside the front door, but there was nothing more controversial than family photographs.
“Feel a bit guilty that we haven’t had you over for a while,” Alasdair was saying, being every inch the good host. “But, you know how things are. Anyway. Thought we ought to have a chat.”
The only possible reason I could come up with for Alasdair suddenly wanting a face-to-face talk was opposition to Florrie’s career decision, which instantly made me want to back her to the hilt. Either that or—I was glad he was leading the way as we walked through the monument to good taste which was their beech-floored, hint-of-grey emulsioned hall, because I flushed at the thought. Maybe he’d found out about Piers and me. Although, how could he? Unless Piers had talked, and I really couldn’t envisage Piers saying anything along the lines of “your ex-wife, shags like a stoat, doesn’t she?” After all, that really was all that had happened, wasn’t it? We’d had a damn good session of pure sex. I had another one of my sudden visions. Piers naked. His slim body, hair streaming over his shoulders, huge dark eyes nailing me to the earth beneath.
“Are you all right? You look a bit flushed.” Alasdair paused in a doorway. “Touch of the sun?”
“Oh yes,” I said emphatically, then muttered, “just don’t ask whose,” passing him to enter a room lit by enormous windows hung with floor-length velvet curtains, studded with soft couches and chairs and carpeted a smooth beige. It looked like a tasteful padded cell.
“Sit down. Tea? Coffee?”
“Tea. Thank you.” As Alasdair left the room, I wandered around like Goldilocks until I found a chair to sit in. The place was immaculate.
“I’m sorry to drag you all the way over here.” Alasdair entered by another door, at the far side of the room. “Shouldn’t think Piers minded bringing you, did he?”
“What are you getting at?” Defensive again. Guilt did that to me.
“Oh, nothing. He’s a good chap. At heart. Bit of a prick sometimes but he’s sensible. Mature. Turned out very well.”
Absolutely nothing I could say to that. Agreement might confirm suspicions, denial would have been wrong since it all sounded true.
“Anyway.” Alasdair poured tea, putting two sugars in mine out of habit. I didn’t tell him I hadn’t taken sugar for five years. “Thought this was best done face-to-face as it were. A bit sensitive, you see.”
Oh God. I felt myself blush again. He did know. He was about to warn me off Piers. Having done the advert for his stepson’s charms he was going to tell me that they should be used on someone nearer his own age.
“Thought if I told you then you could pass it on to Florence. Sound better coming from you.”
“What?”
“Tamar. She—er—we, that is, we are expecting a baby. Early days yet, of course, but things are going well, so about February we’re told.”
My first thought was “you brought me all the way here to tell me that?” closely followed by “but that’s impossible”.
“So if you break it to Florrie. Not that it’s going to affect anything of course. Still be welcome here anytime, obviously. But things might be a bit, well, different, what with Piers moving out. You look stunned, Alys.”
Piers had made it sound as though the results of Alasdair’s tests had made him marginally less fertile than Death Valley. “I was thinking. We tried for so long with nothing happening.” Couldn’t give away the fact that I knew about his infertility, not without some awkward questions. Questions which, if she ever came to international attention, were going to have to be addressed. If Flick ever read anything these days other than Art House Monthly.
Alasdair had the grace to look a bit shamefaced. “Promise me this won’t go any further?” He dropped his voice and raised his eyes as though Tamar might have suspended herself above his head specifically to prevent any such confidences. “We tried, Tamar and I, for several years. Eventually, well, they couldn’t find anything wrong.”
Liar, I thought, and gave an inward grin.
“But we tried a few cycles of IVF, nothing doing. Tamar was getting so het up about it all. Then we had a shot at AIDS, and bingo. So here we are.”
“AIDS? That sounds a bit drastic.”
“Er, no. It’s A.I.D.S. actually. Um.” Alasdair was looking extremely uncomfortable, so I just looked at him over the top of my teacup. We might have been apart for a lot of years but I could still tell when he was trying to work up to something. “Artificial Insemination by Donor Sperm,” he said eventually, when it became clear that I wasn’t going to help him out by asking.
“So technically Tamar is carrying someone else’s baby?” I gave a cough. “Alasdair.” It was no good. I was going to have to tell him. My heart was thrumming like a turbine. There was absolutely never going to be another opportunity like this. My head went a bit swimmy as I tried to work out my approach.
“It doesn’t matter, not a jot. Not to me, not to her. It’s our baby, that’s what counts, whoever else had input. Like with Florence. I’ll be there at the birth, changing nappies, all that kind of thing. The genetic father doesn’t count, he’s just so much DNA.”
I stared at him. “You knew?” An enormous gulp of tea, which I’d been unable to stop halfway down my throat, sidelonged itself into my windpipe and I choked. Tea came out of my nose and my eyes streamed, but it was a useful diversion, stopped me having to look at Alasdair’s face.
“Knew?” His face swam into focus gradually as my eyes settled down. Very blue eyes Alasdair had, with such fair lashes that they were almost indiscernible, giving him the startled, bald look of a new baby. “About Florence? Oh yes, Alys, of course I knew.” Gently he patted me on the back until I could take a gasp of air. “You weren’t invisible, you know. You and that arty chap.” Reassured that I wasn’t going to cause a permanent stain on the noncommittal flooring, he stopped patting and sat down again. “When Florrie was born, well, then I knew. Didn’t know if you did though, oddly enough. You always seemed so certain that she was mine.”
Miserably I looked down into my tea.
“Time she got to be about oh, two or three I should think, she looked so much like him. All that blonde hair. Sam used to fancy him terribly, remember?”
Sam was Alasdair’s best friend. I’d always liked him. “How is Sam these days?” I tried to change the subject.
“Fine. Looking forward to being a godfather.”
“He does know that godfathers are supposed to be upright, moral citizens?” Sam, who had about as many morals as the average ten-men-in-a-bed participant.
“He’s doing his best.”
My hands were shaking.
“I know this wasn’t a good time to spring it on you but…I thought it would be best if we cleared things up between us. Florrie might not be my natural daughter, but I was there, wasn’t I, when you were sick every morning for the first four months, when you had those cramps, when you couldn’t face anything but raspberries for weeks? I was there when she was born. Just as I’m going to be this time. So, what I wanted to say was—I don’t mind if you never tell her the truth. As far as I’m concerned, I’m her father.”
I had a sudden memory of Flick, standing at the doorway to his van, holding it shut behind him so that I couldn’t see past, while I tried to tell him I was having his baby. What would I have seen if I’d been able to? Another half-finished canvas dripping paint in the weak March sun? Or another woman, sprawled across his divan, awaiting his attentions? He’d been irresistible, Flick, and I’d not been the only person to find him so.
“As far as I’m concerned, you are to
o. Oh, and congratulations.” I meant it.
“Thank you.”
“How’s Tamar?”
“Not too bad. Still a bit sickly. Otherwise she’s blooming. It’s Piers we’re most worried about. He’s been a bit—”
“Hard.” Whoops. “I mean, he must be taking it hard. Moving out and all that.” I think I got away with it, because Alasdair never even flinched.
“Oh, he’s decided to go back to the Argentine, work out there for a bit. He’s got dual nationality so there’s nothing to stop him. He’s been so terribly restless these last few days. Wondered if you might have a word with him. His mother will miss him if he goes.”
“Me?” I squeaked. “Why should he listen to me?”
“Oh, come on, Alys. You can’t tell me you’ve never noticed that Piers has the most almighty crush on you! If you told him to go and live in the Sahara, he’d buy a camel tomorrow.”
“Crush? Has he?” My voice had gone very small. How did I feel about the prospect of him leaving the country?
“Good Lord, yes. Has done for years. No wonder he’s confused with the girls he goes out with. Maybe you could have a quiet word with him about that too. You know, point him in the right direction?”
“I’m not sure he needs any help with that,” I muttered weakly. “I’ll go and find him, shall I?”
“Oh, no need, he’ll have gone up to his flat. You know the way, I believe? Oh, and Alys—”
“Mmmmm?” I was thinking, Please don’t make me go into his flat. Please. Things might happen. You know, things… Things I had determined to myself would never happen again. Couldn’t. Shouldn’t. Ought not to—
“I admire you. Turning down the money that I offered. I realise now that you were doing it from the most honourable of reasons. I had thought that you were being typically stubborn, all that ‘I can do it alone’ sort of thing, which is why I used to overindulge Florrie a little. But now I see it was because you did know and I think it was jolly decent of you. Misguided, but decent.”
“And you’re not worried about her modelling?”
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