by Joy Wodhams
Spreading his hands on the table before him, he leaned forward. “We have a hell of a good product,” he said. “If we all pull together, we'll have a hell of a good Company. So – are you with us?”
Someone roared “Yes!”. Others cheered, and soon the noise was too great for Rod to say anything else. He waved his hands in dismissal, but as they began to file out he beckoned Frank Fuller to stay.
Frank's expression gave nothing away. His face was still pale, making the crisp red hair that surmounted it more fiery.
“We know what's been happening, Frank,” said Gabriella.
“I don't know what you're talking about.”
“Minerva. Mr Turvill.”
He looked away. “I expect you'll be wanting to sack me then,” he said after a moment.
“That depends,” said Rod.
“If we'd known before – everyone thought Englands was going to be sold,” Frank burst out. “I've got a family. Minerva guaranteed my job if I – if -”
“There'd have been no job, Frank. Minerva would have closed Englands down.” Rod looked at the man thoughtfully. “Frank, we don't like getting rid of people and you're basically a good manager. If we can be assured of your loyalty in future, maybe we'd be prepared to give you a second chance. What do you think?”
Frank seemed unable to speak but he nodded.
Rod smiled. “On my terms though. There are going to be a lot of changes
Frank nodded again.
“You're being very charitable,” Gabriella said when he had gone.
“I don't think we'll have any more trouble with Frank. In face, he'll probably be one of our greatest allies from now on.”
“Should I have said anything during the meeting?”
“Did you want to?”
“Not particularly. You're much better at that sort of thing. You seem to have the ability to get people on your side.”
He smiled a rueful smile. “A pity it doesn't work with you.”
Had he but known, it was working very well. Rod in action, first with Torvill and Kemp and then at the meeting, had aroused a glow of warm admiration that she was finding difficult to conceal. She backed away. “I must go. I've some letters to dictate.”
“By the way, are you free tonight?”
“Why?”
“I thought you might like to go and see White Gables.”
Her eyes widened.
“I've arranged to meet Mrs Priddy there at seven thirty.”
“Mrs Priddy?”
“Ben's old housekeeper. She's looking for another job but in the meantime Brewster is paying her a retainer to keep an eye on things. She's a nice woman, a widow in her mid-fifties. One daughter, I think, but she's working abroad somewhere, so she's alone here. I haven't said anything to her but I thought, if you like her, we might think of keeping her on, partly as housekeeper but chiefly as a companion for your mother.”
“That's – very thoughtful of you.”
“I do have occasional human impulses, you know.”
She looked away from the dark eyes that teased her, wishing that he would stop being nice. She could deal with him so much more easily when they were at loggerheads, yet more and more, as circumstances threw them together, she was seeing aspects of his character that disarmed her. She would have to take care. He was still Rod, still a sensual philanderer without a scrap of integrity where women were concerned. And if she ever let him get beneath her guard she would be sunk.
“I can be ready at seven,” she said, already moving to the door.
At Gabriella's request they left Rod's car at the gates of White Gables and walked down the long drive. The tulips that had been planted so many years before by Mrs Stevens were in bloom and the buds on the cherry trees were fat and pink. She stopped at a gap in the trees and stared across at the pond which summer after summer herons from the nearby country park had raided for fish.
Rod placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Coming back like this must feel quite strange.”
She nodded.
Mrs Priddy opened the door to them. She was a sturdily built woman with a broad smiling face surmounted by a crop of light brown curls. Her grey eyes held a friendly warmth.
“Welcome to White Gables, Miss Stevens. Mr Nicholson told me you used to live here.”
“Most of my life,” said Gabriella.
“Then you'll want to look round on your own. I'll be making a pot of tea.
Gabriella turned to Rod. “Do you mind? Just for a few minutes?”
“Of course not. I'll go and help Mrs Priddy.”
She went slowly up the broad staircase, her hand trailing the smooth mahogany bannister. As a child she had slid down this bannister when she had thought herself unobserved. In her bedroom the walls still wore the same lemon striped paper that she had chosen twelve years ago. Only the curtains had been changed.
She had cried so wretchedly here. First when she had read the letter her father had left for her and later when she and her mother had had to say their final goodbyes to the house.
Her mother's bedroom and the dressing room which led from it had been redecorated in a more masculine style. A set of regimental prints hung over the fireplace and a table that used to stand in the small library had been brought up and placed before the window. This had been Ben's room. She could almost hear that rasping voice, smell the tobacco he smoked. Strange that her life should have come full circle, bringing her back to White Gables, and she wondered how long ago the notion had first entered his head and if it had pleased him to imagine her here again after his death.
She had come to the room that her father had used as an office. He had chosen the east facing room on the first floor so that he could look up from his work and gaze out across the woods of Chidley to the river. Reluctantly she opened the door.
Except for a few cardboard boxes in one corner the room was empty, and somehow its emptiness allowed the past to crowd in without hindrance. She closed her eyes, seeing her father at his desk, papers strewn before him, one hand ruffling through his thick dark hair, making it stand on end. He would be talking into the telephone in French or German or any of the half dozen other languages he had picked up during his travels. He spoke them all ungrammatically but with confidence and people always understood him. His call finished, he would turn and see her, small and adoring in the doorway, and with a whoosh he would sweep her to his shoulders, laughing as she shrieked in mock terror, and jog her along the landing and down the stairs to tea. She could remember the feel of that thick hair, like a horse's mane between her fingers, remember the brightness of his smile and the dark laughing eyes and the way he would light up the day for her.
Later, when she was older, the pleasures they shared were quieter ones. He had taught her the world of poetry, reciting from the nineteenth century Romantic Poets who were his favourites in his deep beautiful voice that carried a hint of Irish brogue. He was a handsome man, everyone said so, with his ruddy strongly-cut features, his laughing black eyes and that way of making one feel the only person who mattered.
But neither she nor her mother had married. One day he had abandoned them with as little concern as if they had been casual acquaintances. And they had not seen him since.
“Gabriella?” Rod opened the door quietly. “I thought I'd come and find you, you've been so long.”
She couldn't face him and there was an ache in her throat that made it impossible to speak, but when he came and gently took her in his arms she let him hold her.
“All these tears,” he murmured. “I shall have to re-stock on handkerchiefs.”
“Sorry.”
“What is it, Gabriella? What's upset you?”
She gave a long shuddering sigh. “I was remembering my father.”
He said nothing but pulled her closer to him, his hand coming up to stroke her hair while he made soothing noises against her wet cheek. And Gabriella was grateful for the comfort he offered. Tomorrow she would have to re-erect her defences ag
ainst this man who paralleled so closely the father who had betrayed her. Tonight she wanted nothing more than to stay within his embrace and let the hurt that she had bottled up for so many years seep away in silent tears.
“We must go down,” Rod whispered at last. “Unless you want Mrs Priddy in here as well.”
She knuckled her eyes, feeling the burning heat of them, and nodded obediently.
Mrs Priddy, tactfully ignoring the evidence of Gabriella's blotched cheeks, bustled about with the teapot and insisted they try a slice of the cake she had baked that afternoon.
“Have you found another job yet?” asked Rod.
She sighed. “A couple of elderly gentlemen but I didn't really take to either of them. Besides, neither has a garden to speak of.”
Gabriella raised her eyes from her cup. “You like gardens?”
Mrs Priddy beamed. “I'd spend all day in a garden if I could. I even enjoy weeding.”
“You'd have a lot in common with my mother.”
“Is she coming to live here with you?”
“Yes.”
“The lucky lady,” said Mrs Priddy. “I hope the garden gives her as much pleasure as it's given me.”
She was a nice woman, Gabriella decided. She would speak to her mother and arrange a meeting between them.
****
“Tell me about your father,” said Rod. They were in his apartment, the first time she had been there since the night he had cooked pasta for her. She had avoided being there alone with him ever since but tonight her mood was strangely passive and she had not resisted when he suggested a nightcap.
“He was an importer,” she said. “Mostly carpets and rugs, but other things too, such as paintings and sculptures. He had an instinct for finding beautiful things all over the world.” Beautiful women too, she added to herself. “He was very successful, made a lot of money. Enough to buy White Gables, for instance, when I was only a baby.”
“When did he die?”
“Oh, he's not dead! At least, I don't think so.”
“Then what happened? Or would you rather not talk about it?”
She was silent for a long time.
“It might help to talk.” Rod's words were gentle and encouraging.
“I've never spoken to anyone about him. Not even m mother very much. You see, she loved him, even at the end – and still does, I'm sure.”
“So do you.”
She looked at him, startled. “Oh no. I hate him.”
“Hate and love are very close.”
“He doesn't deserve to be loved.”
“Tell me about him,” Rod said again and, slowly at first, she began to talk.
“He liked women, you see. There were always other women, right from the beginning of their marriage. French women, Italian, Arabian, South American – wherever he went he collected them like he collected his carpets and rugs. I never knew, of course. I was too young. But my mother knew – and he must have known that she knew. Even my name -” She choked and grabbed for another of Rod's handkerchiefs.
“It's a pretty name.”
“I hate it. He chose it. He'd spent some time in Italy, just before I was born. It was obviously the name of one of his mistresses.”
“You don't know that.”
“I do. I feel it.”
Rod poured another glass of wine and pushed it towards her. She picked it up and gulped a mouthful.
“How did it end?” he asked.
“He'd been to Brazil. Naturally he met a woman over there. She had some sort of business marketing Brazilian artifacts. We found out later he'd put quite a lot of money into it. Anyway, he didn't come home when he should have done. He stayed an extra week, then another week, eventually more than two months. When he did come back he seemed different. Sort of closed in, abstracted, irritable. He spent a lot of time with his solicitors, with the bank. My mother thought he was having financial problems, I heard her asking him, but he denied it. Then one day when my mother and I were away somewhere for the day, he disappeared. When we came home we found two letters, one for her and the other for me.”
She took another sip of her wine, more slowly this time. “I think my mother knew, before she got the letter. I think they'd already talked about it.”
“What did your letter say?”
“Oh, that he would always love me, he would never forget me – a lot of rubbish in that vein.” She looked at Rod, her eyes dry now. “I was sixteen, still at school. My mother was already beginning to suffer with arthritis. When he'd gone we found that he hadn't even provided for us. The house had been remortgaged and all but a few thousand pounds had been withdrawn from the bank.”
“It must have been hell for you both.”
“The worst part was finding out how little we'd meant to him.”
“I'm sure that's not true.”
“Oh, it's true,” she said bitterly. “If he'd loved my mother he could never have hurt her so badly with all those women. And if he'd loved me – how could he have – just walked out without even a proper goodbye?”
“Poor Gabriella.” Rod left his chair to sit beside her on the long beige sofa. “Don't think about it any more tonight.”
Drained and exhausted, she let her head droop against his shoulder. When he put his arm around her, cupped her face and raised her lips to his she offered no resistance, yearning still for the comfort that tonight he seemed able to give her.
“Poor Gabriella,” he murmured again, his mouth moving over hers.
She wasn't sure when the comfort changed to something else but gradually she became aware of an excitement building within her as they kissed more and more deeply, and as his hand slipped within the collar of her blouse and moved down towards her breasts an urgent tingling filled her. When she felt his warm mouth against her bare nipple she thought she had never experienced such exquisite pleasure.
“Rod,” she whispered. “Rod.” There was a fire within her body and a languor within her limbs that drove out all fear of the man and if at that moment he had ordered her to his bed she would have gone without hesitation.
When he pulled away she felt a wrench of disappointment that was almost a pain. There was a dark flush to his face and his breathing was deep and fast. She was sure that he had been as aroused as she was. Why had he stopped?
“This is no good,” he said when his breathing had slowed.
She stared at him without comprehension.
“I can't take advantage of you like this. I know that if you hadn't come back to White Gables, if you hadn't been so upset about your father, you wouldn't have let me come near you with a – with a barge pole!”
She opened her mouth to contradict him but the heat was leaving her and caution taking its place.
He reached forward and rebuttoned her blouse, smoothed her tousled hair. He touched a finger gently to her lips. “I've bruised your mouth,” he said. “I'm sorry.”
She wanted to turn her mouth into his hand and kiss it but she didn't.
“Come on,” he said. “I'll take you home.”
She lay awake for an hour or more as she relived the evening with Rod. He had been so kind when she told him about her father. And later – she touched her lips and breasts, feeling an echo of desire course through her, marvelling that she had reached the age of twenty four without experiencing such an overwhelming emotion. And when two people experienced it together …
Yet it had been Rod who drew away, and somehow that pleased her most of all, because surely it proved that she had been wrong. If he was as unprincipled as she had believed, wouldn't he have seized his opportunity?
She had been wrong about so many things, she realised now, and thought of her father with renewed bitterness. At an age when she was probably at her most emotionally sensitive he had shattered her illusions and she had lived a warped existence ever since, believing that the only safe relationship between a man and a woman was a passionless one which made no demands on either side.
Poor Berna
rd. She had been completely blind to his needs. God knows how much she had hurt him.
Poor Rod, too. Just because in his dark charm he bore some physical resemblance to her father and because, like him, he was attractive to women, she had condemned him untried. Was it possible, she wondered, that marriage to Rod might not be hell after all? He had so many good qualities, although she had stubbornly refused to credit him with them until now. His wit and intelligence. His good humour. His tenderness, the concern he had shown for her mother. The wide range of interests that made him such a good companion.
She yawned. From tomorrow, she resolved, things would be different. Rod would find he was dealing with a new person. Oh, she wasn't going to make a fool of herself, throw herself at him. She blushed, remembering the evening – had she in fact done just that? But he would find her more prepared to meet him half way. A fresh start, she thought, yawning again.
She slept dreamlessly and awoke feeling refreshed and eager for the day ahead. Catching sight of herself in the mirror as she buttoned the jacket of her navy suit she was suddenly struck by the dullness of her appearance. I look like a lift attendant, she thought with dissatisfaction. She loosened her hair from its usual smooth roll and looped it in various positions. But it was still boring.
“I'm going to get my hair done,” she told her mother over breakfast. “Can you phone Jenny for me at nine and tell her I'll be an hour or so late?”
She saw the suit on her way to the salon that she visited once every six weeks or so for a shampoo and trim. For a few moments she watched the boutique owner assembling the suit on a model that lay with severed arms and legs in the tiny window. It was a colour that she had never worn, a light singing red, the colour of a ripening tomato. Quite unsuitable for the office.