Really, I suppose it doesn’t matter now whether he was unfaithful with one girl or hordes … and my suspicions are growing that the Bit On The Side may be Alice’s sister.
After this I popped down to Mrs D.’s for some essential supplies. I was still afraid James would get in, but I mustn’t get paranoid about it.
I made myself walk on as far as the village pond for some air first, though. The bottom of it is coated with leaves like a golden bowl set in mud. There didn’t seem much point in walking further without Bess.
Bob’s mother had sent me a big basket of cooking apples and I’d decided to make apple chutney with them, so I needed a bottle of malt vinegar and some sultanas, though as usual I came out of Mrs Deakin’s with more than I intended to buy.
As I turned into the drive with my shopping, I was startled to see Fergal sitting on the doorstep, looking like an expensive advert for something: Sex Appeal, possibly.
He was holding a small cardboard box and, at the sound of my feet – and my shopping bag hitting the ground – he looked up, grinning. ‘Someone’s left you a present.’
Bemused by the beguiling grin (so different from the last time we met), I accepted the box as he rose lithely to his feet. ‘A present?’
The box moved suddenly in my hands like a jumping bean and said, crossly, ‘Mmrrow!’
I nearly dropped it.
Fergal proffered a grubby bit of lined paper. ‘This was underneath it.’
Clutching the rocking box to my bosom I read the following words with mounting horror: ‘ONE OF TIBBY’S KITTENS AS PROMISED. JARED SMITH.’
Tibby!
‘Oh, no!’ I moaned, my knees beginning to sag. ‘I can’t – not if it’s got millions of toes …’
Fergal neatly caught the sliding box and supported me with his other arm.
‘Millions of what?’ he asked, then added quickly, ‘Never mind, you aren’t well. Where’s your key?’
Things seemed to be spinning a bit, so I shut my eyes, grateful for the feel of a muscular arm around me, and when I opened them again I was sitting in a kitchen chair.
‘Here – drink this.’ He handed me a glass of water.
‘I don’t want—’ I began, looked at his face and meekly reached out a hand for the glass.
‘That’s better. I thought you were going to pass out on me. What’s the matter? Pregnant?’
I gave a startled gasp and burst into tears. ‘No! Yes! I – I might be, but—’
A gentle hand fleetingly touched my hair. ‘I thought so. Don’t forget I come from a big family, and there’s a certain look …’
‘I – is there?’ I mopped my eyes and sat up. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t think what got into me.’
‘It takes you like that, so I’m told. Congratulations – I expect your husband’s delighted?’
‘He – he doesn’t know. I’m not even sure myself, so – so would you mind not mentioning it to anyone yet?’
He gave me a long, uncomfortably searching look, and I went pink. But if he hasn’t heard about our Great Schism I don’t feel up to telling him about it just now. I’m not playing for sympathy with Fergal Rocco.
‘All right,’ he agreed coolly. ‘But you don’t look very well. I thought so last time I saw you.’
‘I’m OK.’ I managed a shaky smile and ran my fingers through my dishevelled locks. The chimera of pregnancy was thrust back into its pit until I could deal with it. I sat straighter. ‘It was just the heat, and then the kitten …’
‘The dust, the flies, the natives?’ He smiled sardonically. ‘Didn’t you want a kitten?’
I looked with a shudder at the box, which was now on the table. ‘No, especially not one of Tibby’s! She’s a deformed village cat, and an awful old man did threaten to give me one of her next litter.’
He began opening the lid of the box. ‘Just because the mother’s deformed, it doesn’t follow that the kitten is.’
Inserting his hand he removed a spitting ball of black fluff. A pink mouth opened in a tiny meow.
‘There doesn’t look to be much wrong with that.’
‘How many toes has it got?’
‘Toes?’ He captured a small foot. ‘One, two, three …’ He paused. ‘Six. That can’t be right, can it? Not that I’ve ever counted a cat’s toes before, but—’
‘It’s just like Tibby! She’s got about twenty on each foot!’
‘You couldn’t fit twenty on a cat’s foot,’ he pointed out.
‘Well, that’s how many it looks like!’ I snapped sulkily. ‘And I don’t want it.’
‘If you’re pregnant, it’s not a good time to house-train a kitten anyway – there’s some bug they can pass on if you aren’t careful with the litter trays. I remember my sister Lucia telling me.’
‘Is there? But what on earth shall I do with it, then?’ I mean, it might look quite sweet, really, but …
‘I’ll have it. God knows, there’s enough room up at the Hall for a hundred cats, and just think how interesting the pawprints will look on the new cement.’
The kitten, resisting to the last, was thrust back into the box.
‘Thank you, Fergal. I’m very grateful – I really couldn’t have coped.’
‘Yes you could. You were already starting to weaken. You’re too soft-hearted to do anything else. At least, I used to think you were.’
He slanted a considering glance at me from those devastating green eyes and added abruptly, ‘Why didn’t you answer my letters?’
‘What? Which letters?’ I stammered, confused. ‘Do you mean the one about the fence?’
‘Not that one, stupid! The letters I wrote to you from America, after you refused to come with me. God, they must have been really memorable!’
My jaw nearly hit the table. ‘But you never sent me any letters!’
‘I did.’
‘But – you can’t have done!’
‘Are you trying to tell me you never got them?’ he demanded incredulously.
‘Of course I never got them,’ I said shakily. ‘You know I would have answered if you’d written to me.’
Turning away, he stared out of the window, shoulders tense, while I cast my mind back to that terrible summer.
‘The day after we argued, Grandpa had a heart attack and I went up to stay with Granny – you know how useless Mother is in a crisis. Grandpa had another heart attack later and died … so I was there right up to the start of the university term.’
‘I’m sorry. I liked your grandpa.’
‘Mother promised to tell me if you tried to get in touch with me, and send any letters on.’
‘Did she? And did she happen to mention the phone calls?’ he enquired bleakly, turning to face me.
‘Phone calls?’ I faltered.
‘Phone calls. The ones I made when you didn’t reply to my letters. You were never there – she told me you were going out with someone else and didn’t want anything to do with me.’
‘Of course I was never there – I was at Granny’s! And I certainly wasn’t seeing anyone else. She did send me a cutting from a magazine, though – you and that American model coming out of a nightclub … How could you, Fergal!’
He shrugged. ‘I’m only human, and if you didn’t want me … or that’s what I thought, anyway. Your mother should be put in a sack and drowned,’ he added pleasantly.
There were a couple of things I’d like to do to her personally before she went in the bag.
‘I even went round to your house when I got back from America, you know, and your mother told me you were living in college, and she was sorry but you’d found someone else almost immediately. I should have suspected something when she was so nice to me!’
‘She always thought you were too unsteady – she was afraid I’d get hurt.’
‘And were you hurt?’
I looked away, blinking rapidly, and tried to summon a smile. ‘It’s all water under the bridge now, isn’t it? But you should have known I’d have answered your l
etters.’
‘And you should have come to America with me when I asked you.’
‘Asked? You never asked me! You just assumed I was going with you.’
‘I can’t have been that arrogant, Tish,’ he protested, looking taken aback.
‘Yes, you were! That’s what made me so cross, I suppose, though if you’d asked me again next day I would have changed my mind, I think. Still, it wouldn’t have lasted, would it? You need someone more glamorous and sophisticated – like Nerissa.’
‘And you need someone steady and dull and safe, like your James? You didn’t waste much time, did you?’
‘But I didn’t even meet James until the final year of my course, and we only got married after I finished college!’
I got up and wandered abstractedly about the kitchen, the pain of reopened wounds warring with the underlying spectre of pregnancy that Fergal had dragged, kicking and screaming, out of my subconscious. And yet, my heart was warmed by the thought that he had cared about me after all. Even our arguing had a cosy familiarity about it.
He took me by the shoulders and turned me to face him, gazing deeply into my eyes. I never could look away when he did that. ‘I suppose I should have known you better,’ he muttered. ‘But you were so young … I should have realised.’
He let me go so suddenly I staggered. ‘So you settled for respectable dullness, Angel, while I settled for—’
‘Disreputable excitement!’ I finished for him, rather tartly. ‘And I don’t know why you think my life is dull – especially since we moved here.’ (That was true at least!) ‘Anyway, I’d rather have dullness than be a hanger-on on the fringes of the sort of life you lead.’
‘You know nothing about the sort of life I lead.’
‘The papers and magazines—’
‘So you were interested enough to keep track of me?’
I flushed. ‘Not on purpose! But you can’t open a magazine without seeing your goings-on plastered all over it.’
‘Publicity stunts, most of them. And, as you’ve discovered, the camera – and journalists – can lie.’
‘And is buying a country house a publicity stunt, too?’
‘No. It’s a mark of the parting of the ways. The band haven’t exactly split, since we’re still going to record new material together, but we all want to go our separate ways. I’m settling down – I’ve had more than enough of life on the road. And when I saw the Hall … Have you seen it?’
‘No.’
‘I’ll show you round sometime.’
‘Does Nerissa like it?’ I blurted, then bit my lip. I hadn’t meant to ask that.
The arrogant black eyebrows twitched into a frown. ‘What does it matter?’
‘She told me you were engaged, so it must matter to her!’
‘When did she tell you that?’
‘She called round a few days ago.’
He smiled, rather unpleasantly. ‘She’s a pretty little thing, isn’t she? But I’ve no intention of marrying her, as she knows very well.’
‘How very trendy!’
‘Don’t be sarcastic,’ he said absently. He seemed to be thinking something over. ‘You’d recommend marriage, would you, Tish? Everything in the garden coming up roses?’
Watchful green eyes …
‘Lettuce and peas mostly!’ I hoped my smile was convincing. ‘Yes, I have everything I ever dreamed of.’ (Except Fergal and/or a faithful husband.)
Since he was still watching me, I babbled on, ‘But I didn’t ask you – did you get that ring I sent you?’
‘That’s why I came.’ He patted the pockets of his black jeans and produced a small blue velvet box. (Amazing – I wouldn’t have thought there was room left for a door key in there, let alone a box.) ‘Here it is.’
I opened it to a gentle sparkle of blue and gold, and exclaimed in surprise, ‘Oh, how pretty! You wouldn’t think it was the same dirty, twisted bit of metal I picked up.’
‘I’ve had it restored, and taken advice about who owns it, and it’s yours.’
‘M-mine? I’m sure that can’t be right! Besides, you must have paid for it to be restored.’
He shrugged. ‘You found it, and you ought to have it – and wear it. The motto suits you: fidelity does deserve love.’
I eyed him suspiciously, but he looked quite serious, so I thanked him and slid the ring on to my finger, where it looked and felt strangely familiar. ‘Well, thank you, Fergal. I hope this means that we’re friends again?’ I ventured.
‘Friends?’ He savoured the word. ‘Is there room in your cosy little life for anyone except your wonderful husband?’
‘Of course!’ I said lightly. ‘I – oh, are you going?’
‘I have to see a lady about some cat food,’ he replied, picking up the box from which we’d been serenaded throughout our conversation with soft sounds of distress and temper: very appropriate really.
‘Mrs Deakin? She’ll also sell you a cat tray, bowl and flea powder!’
‘So she will.’ He smiled as he went past me. ‘But she can supply me with everything I need, don’t you think? Including the most up-to-date village gossip.’
Oh God, I hope not! I don’t want him to feel sorry for me (or know I’ve been lying through my teeth).
He paused on the doorstep and demanded abruptly, ‘Tish, just how pregnant are you?’
‘I’m not even sure that I am yet.’
‘That early?’ He scowled down at me. ‘Go and see your doctor. You’re too pale, and you don’t look well – and tell your husband he should be looking after you.’
Why does everyone want me to see a doctor? I don’t look that bad!
‘I’m just not sleeping very well.’ With a disintegrating marriage, who would?
‘You’re not worrying about anything?’
‘Me? No! Not a care in the world,’ I assured him, not quite meeting his eyes.
‘Then when you come up soon and see Greatness Hall, I expect you’ll be looking much better.’
‘See the Hall?’
‘Yes. I’ll show you round.’
‘Well – thank you,’ I began.
‘You can see how the cat is doing.’ He favoured me with one of his more enigmatic smiles. ‘Ciao, Angel.’
Later, when I’d calmed myself somewhat by making several jars of apple chutney (I don’t know why I find this kind of thing soothing, but I do), I discovered that Toby had let himself out of his cage and was chewing the corner of the cloth that covered the table it stood on, in a bored kind of way.
‘Hello?’ he said, fixing me with a beady gaze. ‘Toby want biccy.’
You’d swear he knew what he was saying sometimes!
As I lured him back into his cage with a trail of leftover sultanas, it occurred to me how very difficult it would have been having a cat about, when Toby might escape at any time.
So really, I should be feeling even more grateful to Fergal … only I’m not exactly sure what I feel about him at the moment, and it’s probably much better not even to try to find out.
Fergal: September 1999
‘Fergal Rocco – First exclusive pictures of the star’s new country home …’
Trendsetter magazine
Once Tish’s husband knows about the baby, he’s bound to see sense and come running, and I’ll have to back off, even if I don’t think he deserves her.
And what makes me vain enough to think she’d have an affair with me, just because I caught her in a weak (and drunken) moment in London?
Do I think I’m so irresistible?
And why is she still so irresistible to me? Pregnant, and another man’s wife, and I only have to touch her, like yesterday, and I want her …
Why her? She’s not even really beautiful (unique, yes), she’s got prissy little ways, and one week in her company and I’d be so clean I’d squeak . . .
Chapter 27: Similar Conditions
It’s disconcerting having the real Fergal about, especially now I know he didn’t behave
quite so badly to me. And he’s been kind. Perhaps he really isn’t as black as he’s been painted. (Just darkish grey.)
I bet he knows all about my marital difficulties now too. Maybe he did before and that’s why he was so kind.
But he could be wrong about the pregnancy. He’s only a man, how on earth could he tell from my face? I’m not even going to consider the idea. There’s already too much to think of without such a remote possibility.
Like that box belonging to James I found in the attic, when I was searching for the one containing all the old possessions I couldn’t throw out, but didn’t want around the house, including some mementoes of Fergal. Suddenly I needed to see them again – it was either that or go and strangle my interfering, impossible mother.
I might do that later.
As I pushed my box towards the hatchway I caught sight of another behind it, and remembered that James had stored some old things up there too, so I thought I might as well get those down while I was at it.
Compared to the several months’ fuzz of dust on my box, his was singularly free of it; clearly he’d been in it for something recently. I wondered what, and lifted the lid.
The top layer was crammed with letters: love letters. And the very first one I looked at was signed ‘Little Snookums Wendy’ – the bitch! I was right then, because I’m sure Wendy was the name of Alice’s sister. It all ties in.
Once I’d read all the letters I could see the double life that James had been leading since soon after we moved here, without stupid, credulous old me ever realising it.
But who would have thought he was clever enough to conceal it? I didn’t think he had such deviousness in him. And why on earth didn’t he keep his letters at the office, when I can see from the envelopes that that’s where they were sent?
Wendy’s letters show an increasing determination to hang onto him, and quite a bit of jealousy of me. I bet that’s why she made those silent calls.
And the day of the SFWWR dinner I’d seen him with her and he’d made me feel guilty!
Swine.
If I could be so deceived in the man I married, how could I ever trust anyone again? What with Fergal’s revelations and James’s infidelities, it’s as though my whole life has been shaken up like a kaleidoscope into a totally different pattern.
Good Husband Material Page 24
