by Rebecca Lang
‘Don’t get yourself upset, sweetheart,’ he said quietly. ‘None of that was of your making, so don’t feel you have to take that on. It’s not like my situation, where I think I brought a lot of it on myself.’
That was the first time he had called her sweetheart, or used any sort of endearment, and for some reason it brought a lump to her throat. ‘Another thing,’ she said, unthinkingly, ‘Fiona’s lawyer said my chances were less because I wasn’t married, and Jerry could get married and strengthen his case that way. I know he has someone, but he pretends he hasn’t. When it’s to his advantage, she’ll come out into the open, I suspect.’
Flushed and far from calm, she became aware that she was talking too much. Shay stood and looked at her intently, consideringly, while the kettle emitted a shrill whistle, unheeded.
‘Jerry’s lawyer accused me of wanting custody of the children so that I could get some of their money,’ she went on hotly, clenching her fists. ‘That’s not true. Until very recently, I had no idea at all that they had been left so much money. It…it’s all so awful.’
‘I shouldn’t have brought it up, love,’ he said, coming over to her. As he stood looking down at her, not doing anything, the tension built up so that she felt she would scream at him.
‘Are you…are you going to kiss me, or what?’ she said challengingly, ‘Because I can’t stand this tension. It seems to exude from you.’
Shay gave her a slow, sensual smile that made her heart do strange things. ‘At least half of it is coming from you,’ he said.
‘Shall I…um…? Shall I pour the…um…?’ She made a motion, indicating the boiling kettle.
‘No, I’ll do it when I’m ready,’ he said. ‘And, yes, I am going to kiss you, but first of all I want to ask you a question. Sorry it’s not a wet Monday, but I can’t wait. Will you be my lover…my mistress?’
Before she could utter a sound, he kissed her, a slow, sensual kiss that left her without resistance.
‘I’ll consider it,’ she said weakly.
‘Let me know before you leave here tonight,’ he said, holding her at arm’s length. The kitchen was gradually filling up with steam.
‘What if I don’t?’ she challenged.
‘I’ll turn into a toad and neither of us will have another chance.’
Deirdre stared back at him, her pupils widening. His words had sent a strange chill through her, because she had been thinking a lot just lately about never having another chance at so many things. In her short life she had discovered that very often opportunities did not wait.
‘Hey,’ he said softly, grasping her arms and giving her a little shake, tuning in instantly to her mood. ‘I can wait…’
‘But you don’t believe in love.’
‘I said I don’t trust it,’ he said, still holding her by the arms, still looking down at her. ‘Not that I don’t, necessarily, believe in it.’
‘You’re…you’re splitting hairs,’ she said.
‘Maybe.’
‘We’d better make the coffee,’ she said. ‘If the kids come in, they’ll think we’re having a steam bath.’
She deliberately pulled away from him, putting some distance between them, shattered by his request and the inherent contradiction that he wanted to know soon, yet he could wait. Put subtly or baldly, it was the same. He wanted her. She wanted him. Yet she wanted him to love her, if only because she felt she was falling in love with him. Instinctively, she wanted to accept him on any terms—perhaps she was being juvenile to expect him to love her. ‘Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.’ She could not remember who had said that, but it was part of her family lore of literature and poetry, deeply ingrained in her psyche.
At last Shay made the coffee, while she looked on restlessly. Happy in his company, she still wanted to commit herself in some way, but was not sure what to say.
‘Dad!’ Mark came silently into the kitchen. ‘Could we have some hot chocolate, please? The three of us? I could make it.’
‘I’ll make it,’ Shay offered, ‘and we’ll bring it up to you. How are the computer games going?’
‘Just great,’ Mark said enthusiastically.
Deirdre and Shay drank their coffee in the kitchen, while he made three mugs of hot chocolate and Deirdre got a tray ready. ‘Could I take it upstairs?’ she said. ‘I’d like to see what they’re doing.’
‘Sure,’ he said.
Mark had a sitting room-cum-study next to his bedroom, Shay informed her, where he did his schoolwork. He had a computer and his own television and audio equipment, so that he could have privacy if he wanted it.
‘Mark seems like a very nice boy,’ she had remarked to Shay when his son had gone upstairs again.
‘He is, most of the time,’ Shay had agreed. ‘He’s had a lot of material things, but a bit of a rough deal when it comes to parental attention. I’ve tried hard, but the reality of my job is that I have to be away from him a fair amount. Since Tony—Antonia—left, I’ve cut back on my work hours as much as possible but, as you know, when you’re a surgeon you have to be available for emergencies and post-op care, elective cases, and so on. It’s a labour-intensive job. There’s a fine balance between delegating and being responsible oneself.’
‘I understand,’ she had said. The mention of his wife left her with an unfamiliar feeling of jealousy, an emotion that she despised and which she seldom felt. In spite of his denial, perhaps he still cared for Antonia, and would have her back instantly if she were to offer.
The prospect of it left her with a curious feeling of bleakness. Knowing him had shown her a glimpse of a life that had, up to the time of their meeting, not seemed a reality for her, a life in which she was attracted to an intelligent, kind, devastatingly attractive professional man who wanted her—sexually, if not in any other way. Just thinking about him when they were not together left her in a state of pleasurably agitated awe. Yet he was really the most down-to-earth man, easy to talk to, who actually listened with all his attention. That was a quality in itself that was very attractive, beyond measure. Very few people were good listeners, she had discovered. In order to be a good listener, you had to care about other people, not be focused on yourself all the time.
‘It’s a pity he’s an only child. Maybe if he had siblings he wouldn’t be so lonely, although I know that relationships between siblings are not all sweetness and light.’ He turned to grin at her as he made the drinks with hot milk. ‘On the positive side, he has good friends…apart from those he got into trouble with. They’ve stuck with him through bad times.’
As Deirdre climbed the stairs, carefully carrying the tray holding three mugs of hot chocolate, her thoughts and emotions were churning as she thought over what Shay had said about wanting her. It appeared that she could become his lover immediately, if she wanted to. No doubt he would invite her to his apartment in the city, where they could be alone, when the children were otherwise supervised. The very thought of going there to meet him, or being taken there in his car, filled her with nervousness and longing. Was it the right thing for her? They had known each other for such a short time. And did wanting something so much make it right for you?
What she had learnt in life was that you could not go on second-guessing yourself. At some point you had to make a decision and, having made it, take the plunge. If it turned out to be wrong for you, you had to acknowledge that and cut your losses, telling yourself that the decision had been right for you at the time you had made it, with the knowledge that you had had at your disposal.
All her instincts seemed to cry out that it was right for her. She let out a sigh as she reached the top of the stairs.
She heard the kids chattering and laughing, so just had to follow the sound. They seemed to be getting on like the proverbial house on fire, and she smiled to herself. ‘Here’s your hot chocolate,’ she called.
Mark came out of his bedroom and she could see the other two in the room behind him, looking through some CDs.
‘We’ll have it in my computer room, please,’ Mark said, indicating the room next to the bedroom, so she took the tray in there.
‘Thank you, Deirdre,’ he added, taking the tray from her and putting it on a side table. ‘You really don’t mind if I call you Deirdre… Deirdre?’
They grinned at each other and she was touched to see that he blushed. He was really more vulnerable and shy than he let on. ‘Oh, no,’ she said. ‘Unless you want to call me Dee, like Mungo and Fleur do.’
‘I’ll see,’ he said, considering the option. ‘I really like the name Deirdre.’ Then he blurted out, ‘I think it’s really great what you’re doing with those kids…looking after them for such a long time and all that when you’re so young yourself. They’ve told me all about it, and it’s really great. My dad told me about you, too. I mean, they’re not your own kids…’ His voice died away, his face redder.
Quickly Deirdre moved to put him at his ease. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘they really needed me and we liked each other from the beginning. Now I think we love each other. So it’s not really like a job, more a labour of love, so to speak.’ She had to be careful what she said in case he was comparing her to his own mother, so that she did not seem to imply to Mark that his mother did not love him, otherwise she would not have taken off. For one thing, she certainly did not know all the details of their family situation.
‘I wish I had someone like you,’ he said. The wistful note in his voice moved her so much that her throat constricted with emotion.
‘Maybe we can be friends,’ she said. ‘After all, I’m working with your dad three days a week, so our families can certainly get together, if you would like to.’
‘I would like to,’ he said.
Behind Mark, on a shelf attached to the wall, Deirdre could see a framed photograph of a smiling woman, who she assumed immediately must be Mark’s mother. The woman was beautiful, her skin glowing, her pale blonde hair pulled back away from her face. With her brilliant smile, slightly tanned skin, large, expressive eyes and arched eyebrows, she looked like a movie star.
‘That’s my mother,’ Mark said matter-of-factly, following her gaze. ‘Did my dad tell you about her?’
‘He told me something,’ she said carefully.
‘She’s out of the country,’ he said.
‘You must miss her, especially at Christmastime.’
‘Yes, I do,’ he said pensively. ‘But I’m coming round to the idea that she has to have her own life. I just wish she was closer, that’s all…in Prospect Bay, or maybe Vancouver… so that I could see her.’
‘Have you told her that?’ Deirdre asked gently, thinking of her own parents and how much she missed them and wished they were home. ‘I expect she misses you.’
‘No, I haven’t told her,’ he said. ‘She’s with a man.’
‘That’s all right,’ Deirdre said. ‘You would just be telling the truth, and very often people appreciate the truth, much more than we all think. We spend a lot of psychological energy telling people that everything’s all right when it isn’t.’
‘Do you think she would come back if I said that?’ he asked. ‘I don’t mean come back to my dad. I think that’s all over—they don’t even like each other any more. I mean, would she come back for me?’
‘I think she very well might,’ Deirdre said, a mixture of emotions making her voice tremble a little as she recognized twinges of jealousy in herself at the image of the beautiful Antonia and the prospect of her being back. ‘You’ll never know if you don’t ask.’
Feeling that she was maybe shooting herself in the foot, Deirdre nevertheless persisted in giving this rather lost boy some gentle advice. Not that she really thought she herself had much of a chance with Shay, of being anything to him permanently. She just knew that at the moment he did not have a woman in his life and that he appeared to like her. Perhaps it would not matter to her whether his ex-wife were here or not, in terms of any possibilities with him, other than the purely physical ones. Then she recalled how Shay’s eyes lit up when he looked at her, with desire, hungry for her. At those times the tension was almost unbearable because the feeling was reciprocated, yet she was loath to make it obvious. She hoped that her eyes did not blaze at him in the way his did when he looked at her. A lack of reciprocation of her love on his part was something that gave her an odd sense of mourning.
Of course, she had been aware that at first Shay had tried to hide his lust for her, or whatever it was, but as time had gone by he had given way to it.
She could not tell Mark that she was in love with his father, yet maybe she didn’t have to. He was an intelligent and astute boy who would obviously be wondering about her relationship with his father, putting two and two together and coming up with four. The more he saw of the two of them together, the more obvious it would become.
‘What about…him?’ Mark said hesitantly. ‘The man?’
‘That’s something about which she will have to decide,’ Deirdre said. ‘You don’t have to do anything about him, or worry about him. After all, you were part of your mother’s life long before he appeared on the scene. You have a right to have your say.’ Then she laughed deprecatingly. ‘It’s easy to give someone else advice, isn’t it, Mark? That’s what I’m doing. It’s not so easy to get one’s own life in order. I think it helps to listen to advice and comment, even if you don’t follow it. It’s nice that someone else should take the time to think about what’s happening to you. I go to a counsellor myself, and just hearing myself talk is a great eye-opener. I think afterwards, Did I really think that, or feel that? You gain insight, which is what really changes things…if you let it.’
‘I’m having counselling too,’ he said. ‘Why…why are you having counselling—if you don’t mind me asking?’ His blush deepened, and Deirdre had the urge, which she resisted, to give him a hug. Maybe that would come later, when and if she got to know him better.
‘Well…’ she began, wondering how she could put it, ‘I was under a lot of stress because I wanted to go back to work as a nurse, and didn’t see how I could do it. I suppose you could say that I had…have…too many responsibilities and not enough time for myself. Something like that. And my parents and brother are out of the country, so I feel alone sometimes. It’s not easy to explain.’
‘I know what you mean,’ he said, very seriously.
‘I just knew that something was wrong,’ she said, ‘and I didn’t know what to do about it. I knew I needed help.’
‘I know that feeling,’ he said quietly, sadly.
‘Hey, Dee!’ Fleur came into the room, her face flushed and excited. ‘We don’t have to go yet, do we? We’re having so much fun.’
‘Not just yet,’ she said, ‘but I don’t want to leave it too late, as I have to drive us home and the old car might give me trouble if there’s snow on the road. I’ll call up to you when it’s time to go. Here’s some hot chocolate for you.’
‘OK. Thanks.’
‘See you later, Mark,’ she said, smiling at him.
As she went down the stairs, Deirdre smiled to herself at the irony of giving advice to someone else when she herself found her own life more than she could comfortably cope with at the moment.
An hour later, when she and Shay had spent an enjoyable time talking to each other in front of the fire in the sitting room about everything that occurred to them, laughing a lot, it was time to depart. They had managed to skirt around anything really very personal. Many times Deirdre had had to remind herself of the brief time that she had known Shay, yet it seemed that somehow the idea of him had always been in her consciousness, as though in shadow, just out of reach, all her life. It was a very odd feeling and, contemplating it, she wondered if she were going mad. She understood that love, attraction could do strange things to you. It was almost a sense of precognition.
She could see through the windows that a light snow was still falling, although not settling much on the ground, not enough to make the roads particularly dangero
us.
‘Have you snow tyres on your car?’ Shay asked her as he helped her into her coat in the front hall. The children were just outside the front door, their outer gear on, throwing snowballs at each other with the meagre amount of snow that they could collect from shrubs and grass.
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘When you’re going down the hill,’ he said, ‘it’s better to stay in first gear, right down to the flat ground, because the road here can be very slippery, even if it doesn’t look it. There’s black ice sometimes, so you take care.’
Touched by his concern, Deirdre smiled up at him. ‘I’ll keep that advice in mind,’ she said. ‘Thank you so much, Shay, for a great dinner and a lovely evening. I haven’t enjoyed myself so much for a very long time. I…I’ll see you at work.’
‘Thank you for coming,’ he said. ‘It’s been delightful for me and for Mark.’ He bent forward and kissed her, moving his lips warmly and gently over hers, putting a hand up to stroke her hair in a gesture that was totally intimate and loving. ‘If you’re wondering, this is not the home I had with Antonia. That was sold. Neither Mark nor I were particularly attached to it, and we didn’t want to stay there with all the memories, some of which were not good. Mark and I chose this house—we fell in love with it, you might say.’
‘It feels like a home, not just a house, and it’s beautiful,’ she said, glad that he had told her, as she had indeed been wondering. She returned his kiss gently, not touching him otherwise, closing her eyes, aware of the children through the slightly open doorway that let in a blast of cold air.
‘If you have an answer for me,’ he murmured, holding her gaze intently so that she could not look away, ‘please, put me out of my suspense. If you can take me as you find me, we may be all right together. I prefer to be up-front and honest, and I would be lying if I said I could offer you any kind of future. But I find you totally captivating. I’m not sure why, I can’t put it into words right now—and I can’t imagine what you see in a cynic like me, although I know that you do see something.’