Cruel Legacy

by Penny Jordan

  ‘Oh, Daphne,’ Sally had protested. ‘That’s not fair-Joel’s not that sort of man. He would never…’ She had stopped, unable to go on.

  It wasn’t the money he had spent on the magazines, she wanted to tell Joel, not really, but the words were stuck in her throat, the anger she felt refusing to subside. He was walking towards the kitchen… and away from her, ignoring her.

  He paused in the doorway and turned round.

  ‘I didn’t buy those magazines, Sally, I was given them,’ he told her bleakly. His pride wouldn’t let him tell her that he didn’t have the money in his pocket to buy them.

  She never seemed to think, when she was doling out money to the kids and banging on about not wanting them to suffer because he was out of a job and it being important to them not to lose face in front of their friends, that he might feel the same. How did she think it made him feel, having to refuse to go out with his friends because he didn’t have any money in his pocket—or any chance of earning any, from what he had learned at the Job Centre this morning?

  Sally swallowed guiltily.

  ‘Did you go down to the Job Centre today?’ she asked him, avoiding looking at him.

  ‘Yes, and there wasn’t anything… not that I thought there would be.’

  ‘Oh, Joel, please stop feeling so sorry for yourself. You could find work if you wanted to… I’ve just told you, Daphne wants some decorating doing. We need the money,’ she told him exasperatedly. ‘The tyres on my car are practically bald… I daren’t keep on driving with them. We’re so lucky that I’ve got my job…’

  ‘Are we?’ Joel turned on her. ‘I don’t feel so damn lucky having a wife who can’t stop ramming it down my throat that she’s the breadwinner and I’m just another useless mouth to feed… not like the kids. You don’t begrudge what you spend on them, do you? What is it you really think, Sally? That you’d be better off without me… that you don’t really want me around any more?’

  ‘No,’ Sally protested. ‘You know that’s not true.’

  ‘Isn’t it? Well, you’ve got a funny way of showing it.’

  Sally looked away from him. Please don’t let him start on about that again. She’d tried to explain to him over and over again that she was just too tired to make love. She had so many other things on her mind, so many other problems, so many other demands on her, draining her, sex was the last thing she wanted.

  It angered her that he could be so selfish, so lacking in understanding and awareness. Sometimes, lying there stiff with resentment, feeling his hands on her body, she’d itched to tell him just to get on with it and get it over so that she could go to sleep, but she had held back, remembering how it had been between them when they were first married, when the children were small, when her body had come alive at the smallest touch and their lovemaking had been so urgent that they had very often not even made it upstairs.

  Joel watched her broodingly. He could see from Sally’s face that she knew what he was getting at and that she didn’t want to pursue the subject. Didn’t she realise how bad it made him feel when she turned away from him, when her body received his in a cold, unmoving silence, her lack of response filling him with a fear that to him completely demeaned him as a man? He was showing her how vulnerable he was, how much he needed her… how much he ached for the comfort of this intimacy with her; the knowledge that he was still important to her; that she still wanted and needed him; that, despite the fact that he had broken all the promises he had made to her about always looking after her and the kids, she understood and still loved him. Yes, he was showing her how vulnerable he was, and all she was doing was turning her back on him, telling him that he was as little use to her as a man as he was as a provider. That rejection struck deeply to the heart of his manhood, hurting him far more than her angry, bitter words. He could feel the ache in his throat, the pain that filled him.

  ‘You might at least get in touch with Daphne and find out exactly what it is she wants doing and how much she’ll pay you,’ Sally said quickly, anxious to get off the subject of sex as quickly as she could.

  Joel’s mouth tightened.

  ‘You find out,’ he told her. ‘She’s your damned sister.’

  ‘But you will do it… ?’ Sally asked him.

  He looked bitterly at her. ‘Do I have any bloody choice?’

  Shakily Sally went over to the phone and dialled her sister’s number. She was working an extra shift today; one of the other nurses was off sick and Sally had leapt at the chance to earn some extra overtime, even if it did mean she’d have to go without sleep.

  ‘You’ll have to do the shopping this afternoon. I’m going back to work,’ she told Joel as she waited for her sister to answer the phone.

  ‘Oh, and don’t forget it’s Paul’s computer club tonight. I’ve made out a shopping list and I’ll leave you some money. You’ll have to run me to work as well, Joel.’

  She started nibbling on her bottom lip, worrying about how long it would take her to earn enough to pay for those new tyres.

  ‘Oh, Daphne, it’s me… About that decorating you wanted Joel to do…’

  Silently Joel walked out of the room. Didn’t Sally realise what she was doing to him? For God’s sake treat me with a bit of respect, he wanted to say to her, but how could he? How could he ask for something he no longer had any right to?

  Sally hadn’t even mentioned to him, discussed with him the fact that she was thinking of working an extra shift. What had happened to the girl who had stood there in the playground looking up at him so adoringly, the girl who had loved him so ardently and passionately?

  That Sally was gone, he acknowledged, and in her place was a woman who looked through him rather than at him, who treated him with impatience and irritation, who no longer bothered to include him in any of her plans… her decisions.

  He felt like a spare part in his own home, useless, unwanted… a liability.

  He had been so proud being Sally’s husband… of being loved by her, of knowing that her love for him was stronger than her parents’ disapproval of him.

  Did she still love him? How could she? He had let her down, failed her.

  Later, he drove her to the hospital and watched her get out of the car, quickly avoiding looking at him.

  He looked at the petrol gauge on his car. It was almost on empty. There was probably just enough in the tank for him to do the shopping.

  Well, there was no way he was going to ask Sally for any money. No way.

  * * *

  Tiredly Sally pulled off her cap and ran her fingers through her hair.

  It was only eight o’clock, but all she wanted to do was go home and crawl into bed. She had just left the hospital when she heard a car drawing up alongside her. When she turned her head and saw that its driver was Kenneth Drummond her heart gave a funny little excited jerk.

  ‘No car?’ he asked her through the open window.

  Sally shook her head, suddenly oddly tongue-tied.

  ‘Get in, then, and I’ll give you a lift.’

  She shook her head again, but he didn’t drive away. Sally hesitated, some inner sixth sense warning her to resist his invitation, but the queue of impatient traffic building up behind him and Kenneth’s obvious intention of staying right where he was until she gave in forced her hand.

  The air inside the car was warm and smelled faintly and disconcertingly of Kenneth’s aftershave. The leather seat enfolded her, the cold, raw night shut outside the expensive luxury of the car.

  She saw Kenneth frown as he looked at her.

  ‘You look exhausted,’ he said abruptly. ‘What on earth have you been doing to yourself?’

  For some reason Sally felt tears pricking her eyelids. Not once had Joel noticed the physical effects the strain she was under was having on her body. He was too wrapped up in his own self-pity to notice her, she thought bitterly as she told Kenneth shakily, ‘Very flattering, I must say… I’ve just worked a double shift and…’

  ‘You’v
e done what?’

  ‘We need the money,’ Sally protested. ‘Joel’s still out of work.’

  ‘Then why isn’t he here to take you home?’ Kenneth asked her with soft anger.

  He still wasn’t sure what it was about her that aroused such intense feelings inside him, such intense desire; there was, after all, nothing particularly outstanding about her; she was just another pretty and rather ordinary woman who was nowhere near in the same academic class as he was himself, and he could already imagine the eyebrow-raising there would be among his colleagues if they were to find out about her.

  Dear Kenneth… trying to play Pygmalion, the older ones would say, while the younger, brasher lecturers would guffaw and tell him, You’ve been watching Educating Rita too often, Kenny boy…

  No, he had no illusions about how they would treat her or him. He lived in a highly competitive world, even if that competitiveness was never acknowledged; a world that was intellectually competitive and not materially sound; yet, just as in a much less rarefied atmosphere, a man’s worth was still judged on how he and his partner measured up to their peers.

  A partner who had trained as a nurse rather than following the path of a degree would leave him open to the delighted mockery of his fellows.

  And yet that didn’t stop him wanting her. He could still remember how he had felt when he’d opened his eyes in that hospital bed and seen her leaning down looking at him. The realisation that he was alive, that he could think and feel… and feel in every part of himself… had brought him such an intense flood of emotion…

  Sally was so perfectly right for him. Of course she would need teaching, moulding, but unlike his first wife she would not argue or try to compete with him. She would respect his judgement, know that he was right.

  He felt his body surge with sexual power and desire, but he made no attempt to reach out and take hold of Sally, to show her how he felt.

  When they did make love for the first time it would not be quick or hurried, an unplanned, impromptu event. In fact he already knew where and how it would happen. In his mind’s eye he could already see them together, smell the fresh, clean scent of the pure white cotton bedlinen that covered his bed, see it half masking the delicacy of Sally’s body, see the expression in her eyes—half-awe, half-delight—as she surveyed the cool elegance of his bedroom.

  With Sally he would be in control as his wife had never allowed him to be.

  He frowned abruptly, not wanting the unpleasant memory of his marriage to mar what he was feeling now. Sally was nothing like his ex-wife—she was a completely different type of woman, a far less sexually aggressive and far more feminine woman—his type of woman, even if she was still clinging to her stubborn and misplaced loyalty to her husband.

  Sally tensed, sensing Kenneth’s arousal, waiting for him to react as Joel would have done in the same circumstances.

  ‘This isn’t the way home,’ she told him quickly, her previous pleasure in his company evaporating. No matter how much she might be attracted to Kenneth mentally and emotionally, her body still reacted against the thought of any kind of physical intimacy; sex to her was a chore, something she felt obliged to endure for the sake of peace and quiet.

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ Kenneth agreed. He turned his head and smiled at her. ‘I’m kidnapping you,’ he told her softly. ‘And there’s nothing you can do about it.’

  He saw her face and the expression she was unable to control, and his awareness of how right he had been in his judgement of her made his voice intensely tender as he reached out and touched her hand lightly, telling her, ‘Oh, Sally… no… what’s happening between us goes far, far beyond the narrow confines of sex… How could you think otherwise?

  ‘It isn’t the mere sexual gratification of possessing your body I want, Sally. It’s you… you… the whole person. I want your smile, your laughter, your conversation, your calm silence. You…’

  Sally shook her head. Tears were threatening to blur her vision. A feeling of joy and relief flooded through her, of gratitude and euphoria.

  ‘What did you think?’ Kenneth teased her. ‘That I was kidnapping you to have my evil way with you?’

  When she flushed, he laughed.

  ‘The last thing I would ever do is force myself on any woman, but most especially not one whom I… love… Is that what he does, Sally?’ he probed, watching her. ‘This husband of yours—does he… ?’

  Sally shook her head quickly, not wanting him to continue.

  ‘Have you told him about me?’ Kenneth asked her.

  ‘No,’ she told him quickly—quickly and guiltily. ‘I mean…’

  ‘You mean what?’ Kenneth asked her softly. ‘That I’m not important enough to mention, or that… I’m too important for you to do so?’

  His perception took Sally’s breath away. She could feel herself flushing.

  ‘I—we… We don’t get much chance to talk about anything these days,’ she prevaricated hesitantly. ‘I… Joel doesn’t like me talking about the patients at home. He——’

  ‘The patients?’ Kenneth interrupted her. ‘Is that all I am to you, Sally, just a patient? I thought we were friends…’

  Friends. Her heart bumped uncomfortably.

  ‘Well, yes…’ she agreed. ‘But Joel…’

  ‘Joel what? Joel doesn’t like you having your own friends? You shouldn’t let him dictate to you like that, Sally… You’re not his possession, you know. You’re a human being with your own rights and needs. That is the worst mistake a man can make: to deny a woman the right to be an individual, not to recognise her as an individual…’

  That was exactly what Joel was doing to her, Sally reflected bitterly. He was treating her like a possession.

  ‘I nearly rang you last week,’ Kenneth was saying to her.

  Her heart thumped crazily again.

  ‘I’ve missed you, Sally. Have you missed me?’

  ‘Kenneth… I can’t…’

  ‘We’re friends, remember?’ he told her soothingly. ‘Friends are allowed to miss one another, to spend time together. I like talking to you… I like the way you listen to me…’

  And she liked the way he listened to her, Sally acknowledged. He made her feel valued and appreciated, unlike Joel, who never seemed even to allow her to finish a sentence these days without jumping down her throat.

  It was so peaceful here with Kenneth—so peaceful…

  ‘I want to take you out properly,’ Kenneth told her softly. ‘Take you out somewhere and spoil you a bit… Where would you like to go?’

  Sally stared at him. She couldn’t go anywhere with him. He knew that.

  ‘Kenneth, I can’t… I’m… I’m married.’ Her voice wobbled slightly, betraying her so much that her face flushed and she couldn’t look at him. Would he guess from her voice how much she longed to put aside the burden she was carrying and to be cosseted and cherished for a little while?

  ‘I’d never let a man support me—I like my independence,’ one of the younger nurses had said robustly earlier, but what she had wasn’t independence, Sally recognised; what she had was in its way just as restrictive and imprisoning as being dependent on someone else. Being the one who had to go out to work, who had to pay the bills did not confer freedom and independence, she was beginning to realise—instead it brought worry and responsibility.

  ‘And you and I have already established that we are friends and that you have a right to your own life. There can’t be any objection to friends spending a few hours in one another’s company, Sally… I’m sure that husband of yours spends time with his friends.’

  ‘Yes, but they’re… they’re men…’

  ‘So am I,’ Kenneth pointed out, laughing.

  Sally laughed too—she couldn’t help it, and, after all, wasn’t Kenneth right? She did deserve something of her own, some reward for all the hard work she was doing… some pleasure of her own.

  ‘I… I don’t think Joel would like it…’ she appeased. ‘He…’

/>   ‘Tell him you’re working another double shift,’ Kenneth suggested.

  Sally stared at him. His words had stripped what lay between them of any pretence. Her mouth had gone dry. She touched her tongue-tip to her lips nervously, panic stirring inside her.

  ‘Kenneth, I can’t,’ she protested. The clock on the dashboard showed that it was gone nine. She had been with him nearly an hour and yet it felt like only five minutes… less.

  ‘Please take me home, Kenneth… the children… they’ll be wondering where I am.’

  ‘The children?’ Kenneth frowned. ‘I thought they were teenagers.’

  ‘They are, but…’

  ‘Then they’re almost adult… almost independent,’ he told her lightly. ‘Stop worrying about them and worry about yourself instead.’

  ‘Don’t you worry about your children?’ Sally asked him. Beneath the lightness of his voice she had sensed a hardness that disturbed her slightly. ‘Don’t you miss them?’

  ‘I hardly know them to miss them,’ he told her. ‘They look on my wife’s second husband as their father, not me, and, as I told you, they are already adults.’

  As he heard the small distressed sound she made Kenneth acknowledged her naïvete. He did not miss his children simply because he had never really formed any kind of attachment to them, had never really wanted either of them in the first place. His concern for what others would think and the social mores of the times had been what had led him into marrying in the first place. A young man in his position, striving to establish himself in the academic world could not abandon his pregnant girlfriend, especially when that girlfriend was as strong-willed and verbal as Rebecca.

  In his haste to cover up his… their error he had not thought as far ahead as the effect the child they had conceived might have on his life; had even convinced himself that as a young lecturer the gravity that a wife and family would add to his life would only make his older and more senior colleagues view him with greater approval.

  The actual reality of what having a child, a baby in his life meant had come as an unpleasant shock.

  The small house he had bought—and furnished—with an eye to the kind of effect it would create both on his colleagues and his students was totally unsuitable for a baby, so Rebecca had claimed.