Love Unspoken

by Carole Mortimer

  ‘Mrs Tibbies?’ she laughed. ‘That isn’t really her name?’

  His mouth quirked. ‘It is.’

  ‘I’ll have a field day,’ Julie chuckled.

  She met up with Sharon on the way out. She had worked with the other girl often in the past and found her work excellent; the two of them were of similar age and tastes.

  ‘I’ve never been to Blackpool,’ Sharon smiled, settling herself into Julie’s car.

  ‘Neither have I,’ Julie turned to grimace. ‘But I don’t think we’re missing much.’

  As it happened, Mrs Tibbies didn’t live in Blackpool but had a little cottage just outside it. As the old lady took them into her living-room Julie looked about her in amazement. She hadn’t realised places like this really existed— the old-fashioned furniture, the faded photographs on the wall; a small fire was burning in the grate despite the season, the old lady was wearing a Paisley pinafore over her tweed skirt and pink twin-set.

  And lying in front of the fire, looking very comfortable, was presumably the subject of their story. Sammy was a huge ginger tabby, opening baleful eyes to glare at them for disturbing his sleep.

  Mrs Tibbies proved to be a twittering little woman, full of the fact that her darling Sammy had been saved from the jaws of death by his woeful miaowing. After receiving a vicious scratch from him Julie was inclined to think that Sammy shouldn’t have been so damned nosy in the first place.

  ‘That’s my husband, Harry.’ Mrs Tibbies had caught her looking at a very old faded photograph of a very handsome man in his early twenties.

  ‘He’s very good-looking.’ Julie turned with a smile; Sharon was outside trying to catch up with Sammy, who had decided he had been the focus of enough attention lately, and had run out of the house.

  Mrs Tibbies picked up the photographs, her lined face softened with love. ‘He was until the day he died.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry!’ Julie was instantly contrite ‘I didn’t realise.’

  ‘Don’t be sorry, my dear.’ Mrs Tibbies put the photographs back on the sideboard and turned to pour the tea she had insisted on giving them. ‘If I didn’t think we were going to be together again one day maybe I’d be sad too. But we loved each other so much I have no doubts.’

  ‘Do you have any children?’ Julie accepted the cup of tea.

  ‘My only regret is that I decided not to have any,’ the elderly woman said softly. ‘Harry and I always seemed so complete without them. Now I wish that I hadn’t made that decision.’

  ‘But your marriage must have been good. Maybe if you’d had children it wouldn’t have been.’

  ‘Harry would have made a good father,’ Mrs Tibbies said sadly. ‘I just wasn’t sure I would make a good mother. Now I think I would have been. Are you married, my dear?’

  ‘I—No.’ Julie was conscious of Sharon perhaps coming back at any moment, although she blushed at the lie.

  ‘Career-woman?’

  ‘Er—yes,’ she admitted reluctantly.

  Mrs Tibbies smiled. ‘I keep up with the times. But a career can’t keep you warm in bed at night.’

  Julie blushed. ‘No.’

  ‘I hope I’m not talking out of turn, my dear, but a career can’t last you a lifetime either. And there’s nothing more fulfilling than having your husband come home to you at night.’

  ‘What is he doesn’t?’ Julie asked.

  ‘He will if he knows you love him. I loved my Harry very much, and in an effort to hang on to that magical first love I decided I wouldn’t have children, that I would keep romance alive.’

  ‘Yes?’ Julie had stiffened now.

  ‘But love changed anyway. It has to. You certainly couldn’t live the whole of your life in that state of heady excitement,’ the old lady teased.

  ‘I suppose not.’

  ‘Of course you couldn’t,’ the old lady said briskly. ‘But when I said love changes I didn’t mean it lessened. It grows, becomes deeper, becomes such a part of you that you feel together even when you’re apart.’

  Julie bit her lip. ‘Why are you telling me all this, Mrs Tibbies?’

  The old lady shook her head, her eyes sad. ‘Because in a way you remind me of me when

  I was young. Oh, women have a lot more- freedom nowadays than I ever had,’ she smiled. ‘But nevertheless, there’s something about you…I just wanted you to know that even though I had my Harry I still feel I missed out on a lot of things.’

  ‘As you said, things weren’t so liberated for women in those days—’

  ‘No, I don’t mean those sort of things,’ the other woman dismissed. ‘I mean that through my selfishness, my fear of sharing Harry with children, I denied us both a lot of things. I wouldn’t have meant any less to him for having his children, for sharing him, in fact I would probably have gained from it. In a lot of marriages children bring you even closer together.’

  ‘And in a lot of them they drive you apart,’ Julie said bitterly.

  ‘As you say,’ Mrs Tibbies nodded. ‘There are two sides to it. But I wouldn’t want you to make the wrong decision like I did.’

  ‘Mrs Tibbies—’ Julie broke off as Sharon joined them and the talk became general, and if Julie was a little subdued no one mentioned it.

  She made the drive back to town automatically. What Mrs Tibbies had said had disturbed her. A woman she had never met before had guessed at the real reason she hadn’t wanted children, the reason she had continued working. Maybe Zack had always been too close to the problem to be able to guess the reason for it, but it was somehow unnerving to have a complete stranger guess the truth.

  She had been frightened, terrified that Zack would become bored with her, that as Mrs Tibbies had so rightly pointed out, she would become less important to Zack if they had children.

  Maybe if she had loved him less, or if he had loved her less, she would have been able to accept the inevitable indifference, the possible breakdown of their marriage when they had two or three children, of Zack leaving her for a younger woman.

  As it happened, Teresa was older than her, possibly in her early thirties, but she would be better as a wife for Zack, wouldn’t expect so much from him, certainly not total commitment.

  Oh, how she still loved him! Her only consolation was that Zack couldn’t possibly know that. During the whole night of love they had shared, no words of love had passed either of their lips, indeed they had hardly spoken at all.

  When she reached home later that night she knew without doubt that Zack no longer felt anything for her. She received notification of their divorce in the mail.

  After that things took a definite downward plunge, and were not helped by a bad bout of ‘flu. At first she thought it was a cold, but when she fainted at the office she knew it was time to take to her bed until she felt better.

  The only trouble was she didn’t feel better, not even when the ‘flu had passed, and she felt so tired all the time.

  ‘Pregnancy often makes you feel like that in the first few weeks,’ the doctor told her when she visited him.

  Pregnancy! Heavens, why hadn’t she thought of that?—the tiredness, the occasional feelings of weakness, the nausea at the thought of fried food. She should have realised… All the signs had been there and she had missed them all. Her night with Zack hadn’t been premeditated by either of them, and the idea of pregnancy had been far from either of their minds.

  But she had no intention of telling Zack about this baby; she intended asking him for nothing.

  ‘I’ve lost weight.’ She looked worriedly at the doctor.

  ‘That isn’t unusual during the first months.’ He smiled. ‘Don’t worry, you’ll put weight on soon enough!’

  ‘Yes,’ she gave a rueful smile.

  ‘In the meantime,’ he handed her a sheet of paper, ‘these are the dos and don’ts. Although there aren’t many don’ts any more. This pregnancy is perfectly normal, my dear,’ he assured her gently. ‘Enjoy it, hmm?’

  She tried hard to do that o
ver the next few weeks, and the weight did go back on, in fact with her natural slenderness it wouldn’t be long before her pregnancy became obvious. She had no idea what she was going to do then.

  ‘Your flu’s dragging on, isn’t it?’ Connie frowned at her worriedly when she came up to London and called in after her shopping.

  ‘A bit.’ Julie avoided her friend’s eyes.

  ‘Have you seen a doctor?’

  ‘Yes. He says it’s just a bug I’ve picked up.’

  ‘It isn’t Zack, is it?’

  ‘Zack?’ Julie looked up sharply, dark circles beneath her luminous green eyes; ‘morning sickness’ was taking its toll with her. ‘I don’t understand?’

  ‘I meant the divorce…’

  ‘I agreed to that, Connie.’ She almost sighed her relief that Connie hadn’t guessed at her real feelings for Zack. ‘I haven’t changed my mind.’

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Very sure,’ she said firmly.

  ‘We haven’t seen much of Zack lately.’

  ‘Is that unusual?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Connie frowned. ‘He seems —well, different.’

  Julie drew in a deep breath. ‘Connie, I realise you’re concerned, and that Zack is your brother-in-law, but his welfare is no longer of any interest to me.’

  ‘I can’t believe that—’

  ‘Believe it, Connie,’ she insisted hardly. ‘Zack is no longer a part of my life.’

  ‘And Steve?’

  ‘That’s finished too,’ she revealed reluctantly.

  ‘I liked him.’

  ‘So did I.’

  ‘Then why—’

  ‘Because I only liked him. Stop matchmaking, Connie,’ Julie chided impatiently.

  ‘Zack didn’t have anything to do with it, did he?’

  Julie grimaced. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I think he did,’ her friend nodded. ‘He was out to cause trouble that weekend.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘And you’re angry with him?’

  ‘No,’ Julie sighed.

  ‘But you are. I can tell, you’re different towards him.’

  She stiffened. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  Connie nodded. ‘Before you were indifferent towards him, cold almost. Now you simply avoid talking about him or get angry.’

  Julie stood up in her agitation, the straightness of her skirt already showing the beginning of a thickening waistline. ‘Maybe I’m just tired of talking about him. You’ve become rather obsessed with him lately,’ she softened her voice to take the sharpness out of her words.

  ‘I’m worried about him,’ Connie confessed.

  ‘Then talk to Ben, not me!’

  ‘You’re his wife—’

  ‘Teresa is the one you should be talking to,’ Julie said vehemently. ‘Teresa, his future wife, not me.’

  Connie chewed her bottom lip. ‘Ben says they’ve argued.’

  Julie shrugged to hide how this news affected her. ‘Maybe she’s chafing at how long the divorce is taking. It does seem rather slow.’ She had heard nothing more since giving her lawyer the notification of divorce.

  ‘Ben says they’ve argued badly.’

  ‘I’m not interested,’ Julie said through stiff lips. ‘If I never see or hear anything about Zack again it will be too soon!’

  Unfortunately life can’t be that kind. Just when you think you’re getting your life back together it deals you another blow.

  Doug called her into his office late Monday afternoon. Tress conference,’ he told her abruptly.

  She was already putting her jacket on. ‘Where?’

  ‘The Global News.’

  ‘The Global News…?’ Julie repeated dazedly, all colour leaving her face.

  ‘Zachary Reedman’s just taken over a magazine in Italy. He’s going to give all the details in—’ he looked at his wrist-watch. ‘Twenty minutes.’

  She swallowed hard, fighting down the nausea. ‘Why doesn’t he keep it as an exclusive?’

  Doug shrugged. ‘Publicity, I expect. This is his first step into Europe.’

  ‘Who knows, the world next?’ she joked lamely.

  ‘Maybe,’ Doug nodded. ‘Make sure you ask him that.’

  ‘I—’ she licked suddenly dry lips. ‘Do I have to do this one, Doug? I—I’d rather you gave it to someone else.’

  ‘It’s yours, Julie,’ he told her firmly.

  ‘I’d rather not.’

  ‘I’m not asking, Julie, I’m telling,’ he said in a voice that brooked no argument.

  She could tell that unless she actually collapsed at his feet this was one argument she was going to lose. Besides, if what Steve had said about everyone knowing she had had an affair with Zack was true, then Doug probably already knew the reason she didn’t want to do this story. She was just increasing his speculation.

  ‘Is Matt coming with me?’ The other man had completely recovered from the gunshot- wound and had been back at work a couple of weeks now.

  ‘Steve’s with you this time. He—’

  ‘I’m here,’ he said from behind them, his camera already in his hand. ‘Ready, Julie?’

  She looked at him pleadingly, although she knew there was no way he could help her out of this. The sympathy in his eyes seemed to say he would help her all he could.

  ‘Ready,’ she said in a strong voice. ‘Let’s go.’

  It didn’t take long to reach the Global News; all the major dailies were in Fleet Street. Julie was still shaking as they went up to the boardroom on the eighth floor.

  ‘All right?’ Steve prompted huskily.

  Far from it, but she wasn’t going to turn tail and run now. ‘I’m a reporter, aren’t I?’ she said brightly.

  ‘And reporters don’t have emotions?’

  ‘So it’s reputed.’

  ‘Then it’s reputed wrong.’ He took hold of her arm. ‘You look as if you’re about to pass out.’

  Julie felt it too. ‘I’ll be fine,’ she assured him ‘Just don’t let go of me, hmm?’

  ‘It’s a deal!’ he grinned.

  Zack sat at the head of the long table, a man either side of him, although they both paled into insignificance next to Zack, the dark pin striped suit and snowy white shirt giving him an air of distinction, the grey hair at his temples adding to that impression.

  He looked in their direction as she and Steve moved quietly into the already full room. Representatives from all the other major news papers were already here. His eyes were cold as his gaze swept over her, no sign of recognition there.

  Colour slowly tinged her cheeks, her huge green eyes dominating her face as the colour ebbed again. She hadn’t seen Zack since she had fallen asleep in his arms, and her embarrassment was acute.

  But she needn’t have worried, his gaze moved on again without even a flicker of emotion on his hard face. Her legs felt shaky as he began to talk, outlining the magazine he had taken over in Italy, the fact that it was a magazine that dealt with fashion, concentrating mainly on the female population. Once he had given them the briefest outline of his future plans for the magazine he invited questions.

  The questions were endless, and Zack answered them all calmly and precisely, never once consulting the notes in front of him or the men at his side. Steve moved forward to take photographs, dragging Julie along with him.

  She was only feet away from Zack now, §way from the man that she loved, and who was the father of her baby.

  ‘Does the acquisition of this magazine mean you’ll be spending more time out of England?’ The question was asked with cool clarity—and with a feeling of horror she recognised her own voice!

  Cool grey eyes narrowed on her. ‘Do you imagine I’m leaving England, Miss Slater?’ Zack’s tone was no longer friendly but mocking now as he answered her.

  She tightly clutched her notebook in front on her. ‘I merely—wondered.’

  ‘Then don’t. I have no intention of leaving England.’

  ‘Er—
but does this mean you’ll be spending more time out of the country?’ she persisted.

  His eyes cooled even more, his mouth hardening. ‘Again no, Miss Slater. I am not handling the running of this magazine myself. I’m sorry to disappoint you.’

  ‘Oh, you haven’t—I mean, why should I care if you leave England?’ She blushed at how rude that sounded, receiving several curious looks.

  ‘Why indeed?’ he drawled.

  Her head went back. ‘I hear you have plans to marry, Mr Reedman,’ she said curtly. ‘Will this interfere with those plans at all?’

  ‘I fail to see what the purchase of a magazine has to do with my private life,’ he returned icily.

  To Julie it was as if they were the only two people in the room, everyone else here ceasing to exist. ‘I’m sure the public would like to know,’ she challenged.

  ‘The public, Miss Slater?’ he taunted.

  ‘Yes.’ She flushed.

  He gave an impatient sigh. ‘The purchase of the magazine does not change any of my own personal plans,’ he told her coldly. ‘Now if Miss Slater has finished this line of questioning perhaps someone else has some more- relevant questions to ask.’

  It was a cruel put-down and Julie paled as the room seemed to sway, her surroundings beginning to blur.

  ‘For God’s sake, someone catch her!’ Zack was on his feet, not quickly enough to stop her falling himself as he moved hurriedly around the table.

  She swayed into Steve’s arms, at once feeling safe—she had been sure she was going to crash to the floor and hurt the baby. And she couldn’t have suffered that…

  ‘Julie!’ Zack was at her side, the aloofness gone as he made no effort to hide his concern.

  ‘I—I’m fine.’ She was recovering fast, the colour slowly coming back into her cheeks. ‘It’s the room, it’s so warm in here, there’s no air.’

  He frowned down at her, feeling her fevered cheek. ‘It’s air-conditioned, quite cool in fact.’

  ‘She hasn’t been well—’

  ‘When I want your advice I’ll ask for it,’ Zack cuttingly interrupted Steve. ‘Is it true, Julie?’ he lowered his voice, his searching gaze on her face. ‘Aren’t you well?’