An All-Consuming Passion

by Anne Mather

  ‘Okay.’ Morgan reached for the handle of the door. ‘I won’t do anything before we’ve had another chance to talk.’ He broke off, and then added cautiously, ‘About Holly: are you going to tell her what’s going on? I think she ought to know.’

  ‘You tell her,’ said Andrew swiftly. ‘Give her a ring at home. Ask her to have dinner with you. I know she’d like that. Holly always did have a soft spot for you, Morgan. You know that.’

  In fact, Morgan did try to ring Holly that afternoon, but without any success. Mrs Percy could only tell him that she was out—she didn’t know where—and could she give her a message when she got back?

  ‘No. Don’t bother,’ said Morgan, half afraid the girl might get the wrong idea. Had it not been for the fact that he knew Andrew was likely to put off telling Holly what was going on, he would never have agreed to act as mediator, and the last thing he wanted was to create the wrong impression.

  For himself, Andrew’s abrupt volte-face had caused him to have second thoughts. In spite of Andrew’s arrogance and selfishness, they had worked together too long for Morgan to dismiss their relationship without cause. If Holly did decide to go back to the island, it would make a mockery of the gesture he was making, and wouldn’t it be simpler to buy a house here in London and let Jeff and Jon choose where they wanted to live?

  Andrew rang again, just before he left the office that evening. ‘I don’t want to rush you, but have you given my offer any serious consideration?’ he probed anxiously, and Morgan sighed.

  ‘Yes, I’ve given it consideration,’ he said propping the receiver behind his ear, to enable him to go on packing his briefcase as they talked. ‘Give me some time, Andrew. I’m not about to jump on the next flight to Boston. I’ll let you know in a couple of days. After I’ve had a chance to talk to the boys.’

  ‘Ah, yes. They’re due back at the end of the week, aren’t they?’ Andrew acknowledged thoughtfully. ‘Which reminds me, did you speak to Holly?’

  ‘Not yet,’ replied Morgan flatly. ‘But I haven’t forgotten.’

  ‘Good. Good.’ Andrew was evidently trying to think of something else to say, and Morgan clicked his briefcase closed, and removed the receiver from beneath his ear.

  ‘Until tomorrow then,’ he said pointedly, and Andrew gave a grunt of resignation.

  ‘I meant what I said about that rise,’ he added swiftly. ‘I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. Five per cent more than Shafer’s are offering you.’

  ‘All right, Andrew.’ Morgan nodded. ‘I appreciate it.’ And without giving his employer time to make any further comment, he firmly replaced the receiver.

  The worst of the rush hour was over when Morgan emerged on to Horseferry Road. It was an easy matter to hire a taxi, and he sank back against the worn leather upholstery with a feeling of total weariness. It was more than just being tired. He had been tired before without experiencing this awful sense of depression. It was the way he had felt the night before, after he had left Andrew’s house in Hampstead, and he had the unpleasant conviction that he would go on feeling this way, until he got Holly out of his system—if he ever did!

  During the day, he was able to cope with it. His work was demanding, and there were always other people to see, to talk to, to distract his mind from the ultimate abyss that thinking of Holly created. He knew she was not for him; he had accepted that any relationship between them was unthinkable; but, when he was alone, he could not prevent her image from tormenting him.

  He wanted her. He could not deny that. He had only to think of her for the stirring heat to invade his loins. God, he thought angrily, he was like a sex-starved youth, lusting after his first date! It was ludicrous! It wasn’t as if he had lived a celibate life. Since he and Alison split up, there had been several women only too willing to satisfy his normal instincts, but this was the first time he had ever felt like this. He could hardly remember how he had felt about Alison when they got married. There had been no grand passion, he knew that. They had gone out together for over a year before they got engaged, and then marriage had been the natural progression. People got married in those days. They didn’t live together first, to see if it worked. He doubted the outcome would have been any different if they had. The cracks in their relationship had taken too long to split apart.

  He blamed himself. He always had. Even though it was Alison herself who had caused him to take the irrevocable step of moving out of the house. He could still remember the disgust he had felt that day, when he had arrived back unexpectedly early from a trip abroad, and discovered Alison with another man. But that was all he had felt—disgust. Not pain; nor violence; nor jealousy; just disgust. And that was when he had realised that anything he had felt for her was long dead, strangled by the continuous pressure of her demands.

  His feelings for Holly, therefore, had taken him completely by surprise. He had begun to believe he was in control of his destiny, that perhaps he deserved the claims that he was cold-blooded which Alison threw at him from time to time. He had not been worried. He had always liked women, and generally they liked him. He enjoyed sex, and he would never have believed there was anything more. But now he knew differently, and the unguarded claws of blind passion were tearing him to pieces.

  By the time the taxi dropped him outside the block of flats in Queen’s Terrace, Morgan’s spirits had sunk to an all-time low. As the lift transported him to the eighth floor, he was mentally making an inventory of the contents of his drinks cupboard, and he decided, with a savage grimace, that unless he was prepared to walk to the nearest off-licence he would have to drink brandy instead of Scotch this evening.

  To his relief, there was no one about in the corridor, and he reached his door without incident. But, as he inserted his key in the lock, he thought he could detect the sound of voices inside, and he guessed, with a feeling of resignation, that his neighbour had decided to come and check on the casserole. She invariably put the radio on when she was in the flat, though, and it was just possible that she had forgotten to turn it off that morning. Morgan prayed that that was what had happened. He didn’t much feel like being civil to anyone in his present frame of mind.

  The door opened into an oblong hallway, from which doors led into his bedroom and its adjoining bathroom. A third door opened into the living room, the kitchen being only an extension of the living area, and it was from the living room that the sounds were coming; not a radio at all, but voices: his sons’ voices interspersed with a woman’s tones.

  The female voice was familiar, but Morgan was in no state to identify it before he thrust open his living-room door. In the back of his mind was the angry suspicion that it must be Alison, that somehow she had inveigled her way into his flat, and he was furious. But the reality that met his savage gaze was so much different, he could only stand there in the doorway, at the mercy of his raw emotions. It was not Alison who was seated on the sofa, sharing a pot of tea with Jon and Jeff, but Holly, and, if the laughter he had interrupted was anything to go by, they were managing perfectly well without him.

  CHAPTER TEN

  ‘HI, Dad!’

  ‘Hello, Dad!’

  The two boys spoke in unison, and Holly was glad of their uncomplicated greeting to give her time to recover her composure. She had been existing on a high plane of tension ever since Morgan’s next-door neighbour let them into the flat, and although she had been anticipating Morgan’s arrival, nothing had prepared her for the sudden hollowing of her stomach when he opened the door and looked at her. She didn’t know how he felt. Morgan was adept at concealing his real feelings, and it had taken more than a little nerve on her part to make this unwarranted intrusion. But she had to see him. She had to talk to him. And, as going to the office was out of the question, she had had no other alternative.

  Morgan came into the room now, dropping his briefcase on to a chair by the door, and sliding his hands into the pockets of his trousers. Sometime, in the lift, perhaps, he had unfastened the top button of
his shirt and pulled his tie a few inches away from his collar. The less-than-immaculate appearance made him more approachable somehow, but his expression was constrained, and she longed to go and massage the tension out of his shoulders.

  ‘I thought you two weren’t due back for another three days,’ Morgan said now, dealing with his sons first, and, watching them together, Holly knew a different kind of emotion. Although the boys were twins, they were not identical. Jeff, she now knew, was the shorter of the two. He was stocky, too, and she guessed he resembled Alison’s side of the family. Jon, however, was his father’s son. Tall and thin, still with the adolescent angularity of youth, which made his wrists project too far from the sleeves of his sweater, and his trousers hang too loosely on his bony hips. But give him another three or four years, she reflected, and those limbs would acquire Morgan’s supple muscularity. Already, she had learned, he possessed his father’s humour and his self-assurance; all he needed was to gain his father’s strength.

  It was Jon who answered now, explaining that the course had had to be curtailed, due to the fact that so many of the young people had been ill. ‘The seas were pretty rough,’ he added, casting a sympathetic glance in his brother’s direction. ‘Jeffs been really sick. I don’t think he ever wants to see a ship again.’

  ‘I don’t,’ confirmed Jeff fervently, revealing his own sense of humour. ‘God—I wanted to die sometimes, I felt so bloody.’

  Morgan winced a little at his son’s language, but he didn’t embarrass him by commenting on it, and Holly was relieved. It wasn’t important how they described their trip. The important thing was that they had come to tell their father all about it.

  ‘So,’ said Morgan now, ‘have you been home? Does your mother know you’re back?’

  ‘No. Not yet.’ Jon grimaced. ‘We did go to Wimbledon, Dad, honestly, but Mum wasn’t home, so we just dumped our stuff in the garage and came on here. That was how we met Holly.’

  Holly wondered what Morgan was thinking right then. His expression was unreadable, and she wished she had a more credible answer for the question she was sure was to come.

  But before Morgan could say anything, Jeff took up the story. ‘You don’t mind us being here, do you, Dad?’ he exclaimed. ‘Your next-door neighbour—Mrs Latimer, isn’t it?—she let us in.’ He grimaced. ‘It was quite amusing really. We were all hanging about outside the flat, when she came home after collecting her kids from school. She recognised us, of course, but she didn’t know Holly. Anyway, when Holly found out who we were, she had to identify herself.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Nice surprise, hmm?’

  ‘Hmm.’

  Morgan was non-committal, and Holly wondered what he really thought of her intervention. Of course, had she known the twins were likely to be here, she wouldn’t have come, but, having rung Morgan’s bell, she had been obliged to say who she was. Even then, she had not known the twins were just back from a sailing holiday. That had come out afterwards, after she had offered to make them a cup of tea.

  Of the two, Jeff had been the most forthcoming, though she sensed a certain ingenuity in his manner. He was evidently curious about her relationship with his father, and although they had both made her laugh in recounting their adventures, with Jeff she suspected it was a means to an end.

  ‘Holly’s been telling us about your accident,’ Jeff said now, and Holly cringed at the way he made it sound. In actual fact, she had said very little, except to excuse her presence there on the grounds of coming to enquire how their father was, but Morgan was not to know that.

  ‘Really?’ he said now, making his way across the room to a cabinet which proved to contain drinks. Intercepting Holly’s distressed gaze, Jon intervened.

  ‘She said you’d had a fall from a horse, while you were staying with her,’ he put in evenly. ‘How did it happen? I didn’t even know you could ride.’

  ‘Evidently I can’t,’ responded Morgan drily, pouring himself a measure of some amber-coloured liquid. Scotch or brandy: Holly couldn’t be sure which. ‘Unfortunately, it meant I had to spend rather longer on the island than I had intended.’

  ‘Unfortunately!’ echoed Jeff, with a sidelong glance at Holly. ‘That’s hardly the way I’d have described it.’

  Morgan shrugged. ‘No, well, I’m sure you would have enjoyed it,’ he conceded. ‘You could have water-skied to your heart’s content, and I imagine the conditions for scuba-diving are excellent.’

  ‘Didn’t you do any scuba-diving, Dad?’ asked Jon eagerly. ‘You were quite good at it when we were in Mauritius a couple of years ago.’

  ‘I’m afraid I’m getting a bit old for that sort of thing,’ retorted Morgan crisply, and Holly guessed his statement was directed at her. ‘I did manage to get in a day’s sailing while I was there. That’s more my scene than all these physical pursuits.’

  ‘Even so …’ Jeff seemed determined to provoke his father’s anger. ‘I bet Holly could have shown you all the best places to dive. Hasn’t she been living out there for two years? Hell, I bet she’s a whizz at any kind of watersport.’

  ‘Yes.’ Morgan inclined his head. ‘Well, she is more your age than mine, Jeff,’ he essayed bleakly. ‘Now—I suggest we consider dinner, don’t you?’

  While Holly absorbed the impact of Morgan’s implied rebuff, Jon got to his feet. ‘I don’t think we ought to stay for dinner, Dad,’ he declared firmly, ignoring his twin’s gasp of protest. ‘Really, we haven’t seen Mum yet, and I think we ought to let her know we’re back. We can come round tomorrow and tell you all about the trip. If you’re going to be here, of course.’

  ‘I’ll be here, Jon,’ answered Morgan swiftly, but Jeff was definitely put out.

  ‘There are phones,’ he told his brother aggressively. ‘Why don’t we stay and have dinner with Dad? Mum will most likely be out anyway.’

  Jon gave him a speaking look, and Jeff hunched his shoulders resentfully. ‘Okay, okay,’ he muttered. ‘I know when I’m not wanted. I just thought Dad might have wanted to spend a little time with us, as we’ve been away for over two weeks.’

  ‘Look, I’d better be going, too,’ murmured Holly unhappily, standing up herself. ‘I—I only came to see—to see how you were, Mr—er—Morgan——’

  ‘Don’t leave on our account,’ Jon interrupted her quietly. ‘We really do have to go. Whatever this tactless oaf says!’

  He hauled his twin to his feet and, in the fuss of their departure, Holly had no further chance to make her own farewells. ‘I hope we see you again,’ said Jon, as he reached the door, and Jeff pulled a mocking face. ‘Soon,’ he added as Jon propelled him outside, and Morgan followed them into the hall leaving Holly on her own.

  Left to herself, Holly started to sit down again, and then changed her mind and remained standing. She had been nervous when she arrived here, but not half so nervous as she was now, and she pushed her hands into the pockets of her leather jacket to hide her unsteadiness.

  The skirt of her suit seemed absurdly short suddenly, ending just above her knee and exposing the slender length of her leg. But it was the warmest suit she possessed, having been bought on one of her infrequent trips to St Thomas; and, having been made in New York, its style was unmistakable. She had wanted to look good—to look mature; but Morgan had succeeded, with Jeff’s help, in accentuating the gulf between them once again.

  To fill in the time, she tried to take an interest in her surroundings, but she had already had plenty of opportunity to study Morgan’s living room. It was quite attractive, with its plain cream walls, hung with framed art nouveau posters, and the squashy suede sofas that faced one another across the wide expanse of off-white carpet. The living area was separated from the small service kitchen by a screen of dark wood, upon whose shelves paperbacks and magazines jostled side by side with a couple of heavy bronze figurines and a Swiss cheese plant. The casserole, which had been on the point of burning when Holly arrived at the flat, was sitting on top of the oven, giving off a faint, but delicious, odou
r of cooked meat. She had guessed Mrs Latimer used the key in her possession for other purposes than to let in unexpected visitors, and she wondered with a pang whether there was a Mr Latimer.

  The outer door slammed at that moment, and Holly tensed. She decided, belatedly, that she ought to have been sitting down, but it was too late to do anything about it now. A more sophisticated woman—a woman like Alison, for example—would have removed her jacket and made herself at home, but Holly had not prepared her approach. She was here; and she was nervous; that was as far as she could go. How she should face Morgan was not something she could anticipate.

  Morgan came into the room at that moment, his dark face revealing no element of welcome. Instead, he went across to where he had left the bottle of what she now saw to be brandy, and poured himself a generous measure before facing her again.

  ‘I assume Mrs Percy gave you my message after all,’ he remarked bleakly, and Holly blinked.

  ‘Your message?’

  ‘I phoned,’ said Morgan, taking a swallow of the liquid in his glass. ‘I should have had more sense!’

  Holly moistened her dry lips. ‘I—I got no message,’ she stammered uncertainly, and Morgan’s expression darkened.

  ‘Then what the hell are you doing here?’ he snapped, his grey eyes spearing her like chips of ice. ‘For Christ’s sake, I thought I was to blame for this crazy invasion! Do you mean to say you came here without a reason?’

  ‘No.’ Holly winced. ‘I mean—I did—I do—have a reason.’ She took her hands out of her pockets and they flexed and balled against her thighs.

  ‘Not that shit about wanting to find out about my health!’ swore Morgan furiously. ‘I don’t believe that!’

  ‘Not—not that,’ exclaimed Holly quickly. ‘But I had to say something in front of your sons, and——’