by Frances Pye
“Inconsolable.”
“Yeah. That’s it. Inconsolable. Just like you.”
“I’m perfectly happy, I’ll have you know.”
“Yeah. Right.”
“I am. I’ve got my boys.”
“And your pride.”
“It’s not about that. She didn’t tell me. She could have mentioned it anytime.”
“And you’d have been fine about it, would you?”
“Yes. I would. Well, I think I would.”
“But you can see why she’d have been reluctant?”
“She lied to me, Ray. Then she let me find out the truth in the newspaper. She’s two-faced, hypocritical, deceitful. I can’t go back to someone like that. Can I?”
Ray downed the last of his drink. “Obviously not.”
“Well, I can’t.”
“Okay. So you can’t.”
“Hey. I’m the one in the right here.”
“And that’ll warm your bed for you. Sean, you’re an idiot. Come on, Babs’ll have dinner ready.”
JULES TWISTED and turned, trying to spread the sunscreen evenly. One hand over her shoulder, the other behind her waist, she stretched to make them meet in the middle of her back, then move from side to side. Last year she had missed a bit and had suffered badly as one spot about an inch in diameter burned and peeled and itched. And in the end left a small but very obvious white patch in the midst of gorgeous tanned skin.
Finally satisfied with her efforts, she lay down on the pale blue linen cushions and prepared for another day in the warm Caribbean sun. She thumbed through her book but found she couldn’t remember what she had read the previous day. Over the wall separating her suite from the one next door, she could hear the empty-nest, fiftyish couple who had been there for the past few days joking with each other. They wouldn’t have to contort themselves to rub lotion into their backs.
She sighed. She had been looking forward to getting away, but now a large part of her wished she hadn’t come. She hadn’t had to. She could have changed her mind, canceled her reservation, and remained at home. There would have been no problem about her avoiding her family this year. Diana would have insisted on her staying away from Bevingdon Hall. But she had decided to stick with it. And had been regretting that decision almost since the moment she’d arrived.
Two Christmases ago, still hurting from Will, she had gone to the Virgin Islands to hide. From her family, from the season, from herself. The Gorda Point Hotel had been recommended to her by a client and it had been perfect. Small, luxurious, and so private, the only access was by boat; she had loved the place so much—the warmth, the seclusion, the peace of it—that she had returned the next year. And again this time.
She had expected to feel the same way about it. By now the manager, the waiters, even the chambermaids treated her more like an old friend returning home than a paying guest. She had booked the same suite, a short distance from the beach, with its own small private pool; she’d indulged herself with lots of new shifts and bikinis and sarongs; and she’d picked up all the latest, held-me-from-first-page-to-last thrillers.
She had been determined to enjoy herself. And for the first day or so, she had. Until she’d realized that she was lonely. Everyone else had company at breakfast, at dinner, on the beach, everywhere. And they all seemed to be happy, their arms wrapped around each other, their hands clasped, their bodies touching. The past years, she hadn’t cared; she’d been so pleased to be without Will that she relished being alone.
But this time she hated it. The setting was as beautiful, the service as gracious, the food as delicious, the weather as glorious as always, but now it was diminished for her by its not being shared. The sight of all those so-together couples made Jules ache with what felt like a kind of envy. And wonder if she had been wrong about not wanting another partner. Certainly it was true that the only way to guarantee not getting a Will was to remain aloof. But she was no longer sure that security was more important to her than anything else. Looking at the couple next door, seeing them breakfasting on the patio, reading their books, not even talking to each other and yet still so obviously together, she had a telling glimpse of what she was giving up by shunning even the idea of a partner. They had twenty years or more of history between them, twenty years of shared experiences, of jokes and anger and memories. By refusing to get involved at all, with anyone, she was abdicating all chance at that kind of companionship.
And letting Will control her still. Letting his abuse continue to dictate her behavior, even though it was over two years since she’d seen or spoken to him.
It could take Jules a long time to learn things. She knew that. She could be blind, stubborn, and very willful. She hated admitting faults or mistakes to herself. Or to anyone else, for that matter. But occasionally, very occasionally, if she was given time and space and not put under any pressure, she could see through her own pigheadedness to the truth. And when she did, she never tried to hide from it.
Terry had been right. About the donor scheme, about Sean, about Jules’s insistence that she didn’t need any part of him once she’d conceived. And not only because of the child—although she was able to admit to herself now that she had always known, deep down, that the baby having no contact with the father was far from ideal—but because of Jules as well. She wasn’t sure exactly what she did want, but she knew she wasn’t Greta Garbo. She didn’t want to be alone. Or even like Lily. She needed more of a connection with a man than sex a couple of days a week.
She had a brief vision of Michael. In the last few weeks, since their night together, she had tried her best to wipe all thoughts of him from her mind, but she hadn’t succeeded. Every now and then, much more often than was comfortable, memories of him as he had been that night came to her unbidden. And each time she thrust them away. He was not for her.
But there would be someone. In a few days, she could go home and start looking.
“SHE SHOULD be in a hospital.”
“Please, Doctor. She hated the idea so much. I couldn’t bear her to wake up in the middle of a ward. I know there’s not much chance of that happening, but just in case. For the last few hours?”
“You’ll stay with her?”
“Of course…of course I will. Until, you know.” Mara made the only choice she could. The girls would have to manage by themselves for one night. She was only a few doors away.
“All right. I don’t suppose it’ll make any difference at this stage.”
“Thank you, Doctor.” Mara held out a heavy wool overcoat. The doctor, a stout, bearded man in his late fifties, shrugged himself into it and wrapped a thick scarf around his neck.
“Good night to you,” he said. And slipped out of the door and away into the bitterly cold, hard-frost night.
He had been perfunctory at best, but Mara couldn’t complain. It was Christmas and he’d come when called. She supposed it was a miracle that people still made house visits in London, and on a national holiday, but she wished Amy’s own GP had been the one on call. Not that it sounded as if he would or could have done anything differently, but the hurried, whispered, businesslike consultation seemed less than Amy deserved.
Two hours before, Mara had just put the girls to bed when she decided to run quickly up the street to check on her friend. She wasn’t sure why—Amy had left only a little while before, after dinner and presents and a nap in front of the TV, and had seemed fine, if very tired—but something, some instinct, had made her want to have a quick look. Just to reassure herself. And she had found her lying on the floor, out cold.
Months before, Mara had promised her friend never, under any circumstances, to call an ambulance for her. Even if she was dying. So she had carried Amy upstairs to her bed, amazed by how little she weighed, and then rung for an emergency doctor’s visit. And a couple of hours later had heard the verdict she’d dreaded. Amy was dying. It was unlikely she’d last the night. Her heart had just about given up.
Mara went upstairs and int
o her friend’s dark-wood and lace 1930s bedroom. Amy was lying on her back, hardly moving. Mara could only just make out the shallow rise and fall of her chest as she struggled for breath. She sat down next to her and reached out to stroke her pale, wrinkled face. The doctor had said Amy was past feeling her touch, that contact would make no difference, but Mara believed that somewhere her friend would be aware that she was with her. And that she was in her own bed.
Mara had never seen anyone die. She’d never been in the same house, let alone in the same room. She thought she’d be scared. But she wasn’t. Amy was still Amy. The friend she’d loved for years. The friend she’d depended on, who’d always been there for her and the girls.
Amy had always insisted that nothing she could do for Mara would be equal to what Mara had given her; at the end of her life, she’d had a taste of the family she had never been able to have herself, of the grandchildren for whom she had always yearned. But Mara knew that what she had done was very little compared to all the unconditional love and endless encouragement provided by Amy. And she had no idea how on earth she was going to manage without her.
It was almost dawn when it happened. For the whole night, Mara sat close to her friend, listening to her slowly lose her struggle for life, hoping for a miracle. But there was to be none. Amy’s heart was exhausted. Mara held her hand and talked softly to her about things they had done together, about the time they’d gone to the circus and Moo had been scared of the clowns, about the birthday cake the girls had baked for her last year, about Tilly’s appearance as a sheep in the school play. Little things. Family things. And Amy slipped away quietly, without fuss or pain. In her own bed. The way she would have wanted.
seventy-nine
Jules ran to the toilet, leaned over it, and threw up her breakfast.
She’d felt queasy the moment she’d taken a bite of the buttered toast, but she’d dismissed that as hunger pangs and soldiered on. Only to find herself unable to keep anything down.
There wasn’t much there to come up, but her stomach kept heaving even after it was empty. Finally, she managed to stand up and half walk, half weave out of the little downstairs loo and into the kitchen. She poured herself a glass of water and sipped it. She supposed she must have picked up a bug somewhere. It couldn’t be anything she’d eaten; her last meal had been lunch the day before. But then again, she didn’t feel ill. No sweats, no cramps, no fatigue. Just the sudden sickness.
The sudden morning sickness. Jules quivered at the thought. And then tried to dismiss it. It seemed very unlikely. It had been just that once and not at the most promising time. On the other hand, her hormones had gone haywire because of the miscarriage. And what about the odd way her depression had lifted the following morning? She took a few deep breaths, trying to control her excitement.
Still feeling weak, she went into the living room as fast as she could manage, scuttled over to her briefcase, and fumbled in it for her diary.
She riffled through the pages, counting back. November 24. The night of Charles Pilkerton’s party. All of six weeks ago. Easily time enough for her to be having morning sickness. Or so the books said. She hadn’t had it the last time, but she remembered reading that sometimes you did, sometimes you didn’t. It wasn’t a hard-and-fast thing. People even said it depended on the sex of the baby.
She poked around in her medicine cabinet and found a pregnancy test, left over from the time with Sean. Five minutes later she was holding it in her hand, looking at the telltale, clear blue line. She was going to have Michael’s baby.
Ten minutes later, she was in a panic. She didn’t know what to do.
Once she’d gotten over the initial excitement of being pregnant, and thought about the situation she was in, she had realized she was facing a major dilemma.
Should she tell Michael?
On the one hand, she’d now realized she’d been wrong before. She wanted a father for her child. She wanted some kind of relationship with a man. And, if she were honest with herself, she couldn’t imagine anyone she would prefer in the role more than Michael Hungerford. On the other hand, the way he had left in the middle of the night, without saying good-bye or even leaving a note, the fact that he hadn’t called since, told Jules that he wasn’t interested in seeing or hearing from her again. Though it hurt her to think it, chances were he only went to bed with her to prove that he could.
So what should she do? Tell him about the baby and so force him into something he wanted like a Sunday-night party? Not tell him and deprive her child of a father? Or wait and see if she carried the baby to term and then decide?
She could see arguments in favor of all three options. Waiting was the easiest choice, as it was no choice at all; it allowed her to put off her decision until later. Telling Michael had definite appeal. Not least because it would allow her to see him again. But also because she knew he wouldn’t walk away. From her or her baby. He might be touchy where she was concerned, he might be a bit cold toward her on occasion, and he might lose his temper once in a while, but he was not the kind of person to renege on his responsibilities.
Or she could say nothing. Perhaps that was the fairest option from Michael’s point of view. He hadn’t wanted to have a child with her. He hadn’t even wanted to go to bed with her. It couldn’t be right to foist a baby on him when it was the result of a late-night, half-drunken, and mostly one-sided seduction.
In the past, Jules would have done what she wanted and let everyone else go hang. But not now. Maybe it was the effect of the miscarriage, maybe the knowledge of the hurt she had caused Sean, maybe the triumph over her mother, maybe the thinking she had done at Christmas, and maybe a combination of all four, but Jules had changed.
She found herself worrying more about Michael’s feelings than her own. And thinking of the baby’s needs, putting its welfare and happiness first. Months ago Terry had tried to make her see how important it was for a child to know both its parents. At the time, she hadn’t been able to hear. But now she couldn’t forget that conversation. And it threw her deeper and deeper into doubt. Something had to give. She couldn’t both respect Michael’s wishes and do the best thing for her baby. And she couldn’t decide what to do.
She needed help.
eighty
“We did what?”
“You borrowed money against the house.”
“No. We didn’t. I didn’t.”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Moore, but you did. I just got the paperwork yesterday.”
“But…but…We can’t have. I’d’ve remembered. I know I would. When did we do this?”
“About six and a half years ago.”
“I don’t believe it. I don’t borrow. I never have. I just wouldn’t.”
“You had no idea?”
“No. None.”
“Forgive me, Mrs. Moore. Would your husband perhaps have done it without your knowing?”
“Jake? I suppose it’s possible. But wouldn’t it have come out? You know, when he died?”
“Not necessarily. The lien’s against the house, not him personally, and because you owned the property in common, his part would have been automatically transferred to you, so whoever did his probate could easily have missed it. It seems to have been a private deal. A colleague of some sort. The agreement was for it to be paid back, with interest, when the house was sold.”
Mara slumped in her chair. This was a disaster. “Could he do that?”
The local, inexperienced, cheap solicitor she’d hired to do the conveyancing on the house had never come across such a case himself but he’d asked a senior colleague, who had assured him it was all permissible. Unusual but legal. “Yes. I’m afraid he could.”
“But wouldn’t I have had to sign as well?”
“You did, Mrs. Moore.” He handed a piece of paper over to her and pointed out her signature at the bottom, along with Jake’s. “He probably slipped it to you with other things. It’s easily done.”
Mara would have been busy with the kids
. Getting dinner. Doing any one of the hundred things that would have distracted her from whatever Jake was saying. And she would have signed without looking. She would. In those days, she’d trusted Jake implicitly.
“How much?” She might as well know the worst now. If it was ten or even twenty thousand, perhaps she’d still have enough to buy somewhere for them to live.
“Seventy-five thousand pounds.”
“Seventy-five thousand? He can’t have. He can’t.”
“Plus interest, of course, set at fourteen percent a year in the terms of the loan, that’s about one hundred and forty-five thousand pounds in round figures.”
Mara didn’t know what to say. When the solicitor had called her in for a meeting, she’d presumed it was to sign papers or discuss dates for completion or something minor. Not that he was going to tell her that she was broke. That the sum total of all she was going to make out of the sale of the house was five thousand. Take away the commission and the money for the solicitor and she would be lucky if she came out of it with anything at all.
She thought back six and a half years but couldn’t remember anything significant. Jake hadn’t been particularly flush with money at any time. Or especially worried. She tried to imagine what he could have done with 75,000 pounds, and supposed it must have been gambling or drugs or both. Not that it mattered. He had borrowed it. She had to repay it.
And she’d thought finding out that Jake was a serial adulterer was hard.
eighty-one
Jules stood on Terry’s doorstep. She hadn’t called ahead because she hadn’t known what to say. Instinct had told her Terry was the person to talk to about the baby. Lily would be delighted for her and would tell her to do whatever she wanted. Mara would be hesitant, unable to decide between the baby and Michael, wanting Jules to do the best for both. But Terry would tell it as it was. She always did. And while that kind of honesty could be an uncomfortable trait in a friend, it was what Jules needed.
