by Penny Jordan
She heard a car pulling up outside and knew instinctively that it was Daphne. The palms of her hands were damp and when she looked into the mirror her face looked far too pale and set and her eyes correspondingly huge and over-brilliant.
She looked like some of her patients after she had given them their drugs, she recognised, but the only drug in her system was too much adrenalin.
* * *
‘It’s such a shame that some parts of the city have been spoiled by new buildings,’ Daphne was commenting snobbishly as Clifford drove towards the university. ‘Kenneth is very wise to have moved out of the immediate environs of the university. The houses there must have been so gracious once, but most of them have been turned over to student flats now…’
Sally gritted her teeth. Her sister’s inane, self-satisfied chatter felt like a drill being applied to a raw nerve.
‘I’m glad to see you’ve taken a bit more trouble with your appearance today, Sally,’ Daphne approved, adding bossily, ‘Although you really ought to have your hair properly cut and styled. It’s far too long and untidy for a woman of your age… Kenneth could be very important to Clifford’s career. With his connections at the university…’
Kenneth doesn’t give a damn about Clifford or his career, Sally wanted to tell her, but somehow she managed to hold back the words.
Kenneth’s house was at the far end of a cul-de-sac of similar tall, narrow Edwardian houses. Its red-brick façade, rather than being warming, had a repressive starkness about it, Sally felt as she studied it through the car window. The bricks were red and shiny, cold and hard, the house free of the softening effects of the ivies and climbing roses which adorned the other houses. The front garden, like the exterior of the house, was starkly immaculate, and mentally she contrasted it with their own garden and the clutter of bikes which adorned their pathway.
Something about the house made her feel uncomfortable, but before she could question what it was Kenneth was opening the front door and waiting to greet them.
Sally stood back while her sister gushed effusively.
Kenneth might be pretending to listen to Daphne but he was looking at her, Sally recognised.
‘Please come in…’
Somehow or another Kenneth managed to manipulate things so that he could take her arm as they walked into the hallway. It was wider than her own, the stripped, matt floorboards so free of any marks or dust that Sally almost felt afraid to walk on them.
The hallway was painted white and so was the sitting-room Kenneth showed them into. There were no expensive fitted carpets here like the ones Daphne had, just those bare, immaculate floorboards covered with neutral-coloured rugs. There was no colour anywhere in the room; everything was pale and neutral, immaculate and stark; even Daphne seemed to have lost some of her normal self-confidence and arrogance as the room imposed its austerity on them. Sally could see her looking round uncertainly.
Kenneth was watching Daphne and there was a look on his face that Sally couldn’t quite define. It was almost as though he was somehow enjoying Daphne’s discomfort. Sally frowned. It was the lack of any personal belongings that made the room seem so austere, she decided; there were no things… no books, no magazines, no photographs.
Where were Kenneth’s photographs of his family, his sons? Perhaps he kept them upstairs in his bedroom, she decided, her skin flushing slightly at what she was thinking.
‘Let’s go out into the garden, shall we?’ Kenneth was saying. Once again he managed things so that he fell into step beside her.
‘You’re looking very pretty,’ he told her softly as he leaned towards her.
‘It’s a suit Daphne gave me,’ Sally confessed.
Kenneth’s, ‘Yes, I thought it might be,’ made her tense a little bit. There had been something in the tone of his voice that once again disturbed her without her being able to put her finger on why it should.
Once she was his, the first thing he intended to do was to buy her a new wardrobe, Kenneth decided. Subtle, elegant clothes in subdued neutral colours… natural fabrics, not that appalling man-made mixture she was wearing now. His colleagues would have a field day if they saw her dressed like that. The sister would have to be held at a distance as well—very much at a distance.
He shepherded them towards the French windows and the garden beyond it. Sally caught her breath as they stepped outside, and Kenneth, hearing the tiny betraying sound she made, turned to smile down at her.
‘Like it?’ he asked her, plainly pleased by her reaction.
‘It’s beautiful,’ Sally told him truthfully, and indeed it was; perfect green lawns gave way to deep borders filled with flowers and foliage in every possible shade of white and green, the colour scheme mirroring the neutrality of the room they had just left behind. A dark green yew hedge bisected the garden and as Kenneth guided them along the path that led to the opening in it Sally could hear Daphne enthusing in front of her, chagrin mingling in her voice with her praise.
Beyond the yew hedge lay a small formal garden, secret and shadowy with its green lawn and dark yew boundaries. Even the seats in it were painted dark green and set perfectly opposite one another.
There was no doubt that the garden was spectacular, Sally acknowledged, even her untrained eye could see that, but it was impossible to imagine Paul running around in it playing with his football; impossible to imagine any child at all, no matter how well-behaved, being allowed to play in such surroundings… or wanting to?
For once even Daphne was silent. Was she contrasting this silent green perfection with her own flamboyant, brilliantly hued flowerbeds? Sally wondered. To judge from the look on her sister’s face, Sally suspected that Clifford would soon be being bullied and chivvied into replacing them.
‘I like to walk here at night, just as it grows dusk,’ Kenneth murmured to her. ‘Sometimes it is almost possible to imagine oneself a true inhabitant of the Renaissance; to capture a small echo of its perfection.
‘I want to walk here with you, Sally. You don’t know how often I imagine that you are already here with me.’
Sally could feel herself starting to tremble, caught up in the magnetism of his personality, aware suddenly and sharply of just how strong-willed he must be. A man who could impose this degree of perfection on nature had to be ruthless… She shivered again, not liking the sensation the word conjured up. It suggested someone with an implacable ego, a determination to enforce his own will on everyone and everything around him, a selfishness… and Kenneth was none of those things.
They had tea in the immaculate, austere sitting-room, where Sally felt too nervous to do more than sip at the clear pale liquid Kenneth had served her. Even the cups were plain and white, eggshell-thin and so fragile that she was terrified of even holding them.
‘Oh, by the way,’ she heard Kenneth telling Clifford, ‘I didn’t realise that Slater Hobbs was an old friend of yours. I happened to mention that I had met you and he told me that the two of you had met over the debating table in your younger days. He suggested that if you had time you might like to call in on him in his rooms before you leave…?’
Sally had no idea who Slater Hobbs was, but he must be someone important, to judge from Clifford’s expression.
‘I’d like to call and see him,’ Clifford began cautiously, ‘but——’
‘Oh, don’t worry about Sally,’ Kenneth interrupted him. ‘I’ve got an appointment at the hospital for a check-up, as it happens, and I’d be delighted to give her a lift back to town…’
‘Oh, no, we couldn’t let you do that——’ Daphne was saying, but for once Clifford overruled her, interrupting her to say enthusiastically,
‘Well, if you’re sure it wouldn’t be any trouble… You remember Slater, Daphne,’ he added, turning to his wife. ‘I introduced you to him at one of the Head’s social evenings. He’s head of the university’s maths department now, I understand.’
‘Yes… a very influential post, of course, but then you’ll already kn
ow that…’
Both Kenneth’s voice and manner were casually calm, but Sally wasn’t deceived. This Slater Hobbs, whoever he was, was obviously very important to Clifford, and she suspected this invitation to call and see him had not come about by any idle chance but had been deliberately contrived by Kenneth—so that they could be alone?
Half an hour later, when her sister and brother-in-law had gone, she voiced her suspicions to him. Kenneth laughed.
‘You credit me with rather more influence than I possess, I’m afraid… Who am I, a mere lecturer, to the likes of a senior chair…?’
Sally looked at him uncertainly. There was an acid edge to his voice which made her suddenly realise that there was a lot about him that she didn’t know.
‘So, now that we’re alone, what do you think of my home…? Do you think you could be happy here?’
He said it indulgently, like an adult teasing a child, sure already of her answer, but Sally was uncomfortably aware that, beautiful though the house was, it didn’t feel like a home.
She could not imagine either of her children living here, for instance.
Rather than lie to him, she changed the subject, saying quickly, ‘Your sons—I thought you’d have had photographs of them somewhere…’
‘Photographs? What on earth for? The last thing I need is to be reminded——’ He broke off, seeing her face, adding more gentiy, ‘You’re far too sentimental, do you know that? I shall have to teach you better,’ he added lightly. ‘And, speaking of sentiment, you know, don’t you, that things can’t go on much longer as they are? I want you here with me, Sally, where I can look after you instead of knowing that you’re slaving away looking after that unappreciative husband of yours. Have you any idea how it makes me feel, knowing that you’re with him when I want you so much? Leave him, my darling; he isn’t worthy of you. He doesn’t appreciate you…’
‘I can’t leave him just like that,’ Sally protested huskily. ‘And the children…’
Try as she might she could not imagine their living here… or Kenneth wanting them to live here?
Quickly she dismissed the thought and the panic that came with it.
‘Please don’t rush me, Kenneth. I need time… Joel and the children need me and…’
‘Do they?’ Kenneth questioned her softly. ‘Or are they just using you? Look at me, Sally,’ he commanded.
Uncertainly she did so. What he had just said to her had touched a too painful nerve.
‘I need you,’ he told her fiercely. ‘I need you… not them.’
For a moment Sally thought he was going to take hold of her and kiss her, but although his hands did cup her face he almost immediately released her.
‘No,’ he told her thickly. ‘Not now… not yet…’
Sally felt his hands tremble slightly as he held her and a sharp frisson of corresponding excitement flared through her own body. It was a wonderful feeling, knowing how much he wanted her and knowing at the same time that he was prepared to control that wanting for her sake… to put her first.
It wouldn’t be long now, Kenneth promised himself as he looked down into Sally’s upturned face and saw her expression. And the first thing he intended to do was to teach her how to dress properly. The first time he took her to bed, she would be wearing a soft flowing nightdress in pure natural silk, or perhaps fine unbleached cotton. He hoped she wasn’t the kind of woman who had a lot of body hair. He remembered with a sharp sense of revulsion how his ex-wife had almost taken delight in flaunting the dark thatch of thick, coarse curls that grew between her legs, angrily refusing his hints that she ought to remove it.
Such a profusion of hair was not aesthetically pleasing in a woman; it was too coarse, too… too aggressively sexual.
No, Sally would not be like that, he assured himself, and unlike Rebecca she would be grateful to him for everything he did for her. How could she not be, when she compared the life she had now with everything that he could give her?
The sister might become a problem, but Kenneth knew that he would be more than a match for her.
‘Stop worrying,’ he told Sally gently when he saw her expression. ‘Everything’s going to be all right. I promise…’
‘I don’t want to hurt Joel,’ Sally whispered.
‘He deserves to lose you,’ Kenneth told her.
‘Me, yes… but not the children…’
She felt Kenneth tense slightly. ‘Sally,’ he began. ‘I don’t…’
As he moved his arm to release her, Sally glanced at his watch, shocked to see how late it was.
‘Oh, Kenneth, I must go; Paul and Cathy will be home from school soon and I don’t want Joel getting suspicious…’
She was already hurrying towards the front door, her body tense and anxious. She had stayed longer than she had anticipated…
‘No, you’d better drop me off here,’ she told Kenneth some time later as he turned into her road.
‘I’ll ring you soon,’ he promised her as he stopped his car and she got out.
‘Not at home…’ Sally begged him. ‘Joel…’
‘At work,’ he agreed.
As she started to straighten up he caught hold of her hand and lifted it to his mouth, gently kissing each individual finger.
Nervously Sally glanced over her shoulder to make sure that no one was watching.
‘One day soon I’m going to do that to every single inch of your skin,’ Kenneth promised her softly. ‘One day, very, very soon now, Sally.’
* * *
Her face still felt hot and flushed when she unlocked the back door. The untidiness of her own kitchen, instead of irritating her as it normally did, felt oddly relaxing.
The pale, clean austerity of Kenneth’s house had made her feel uncomfortable, she acknowledged; it was too perfect, too immaculate… not really a home at all. She’d felt constantly on edge the whole time she was there, afraid that she might drop something, damage something, ruin that perfect paleness.
She shivered suddenly, the euphoria induced by Kenneth’s company and his flattery abruptly deserting her. No matter how hard she tried she just could not imagine her children living in Kenneth’s immaculate home.
Or wanting to leave Joel?
The tiny nagging feeling that somehow over these last months Joel had supplanted her in their children’s affections suddenly crystallised into a full-blown fear that, asked to make a choice between them, they might actually choose their father.
The children had always been closer to her than to Joel, not by her choice or design, but surely mothers generally always were closer to their offspring?
Now Joel was the one they turned to, not her; Joel was the one…
She froze as she caught sight of the note propped up on the kitchen table, panic exploding inside her as she frantically ran across the kitchen and picked it up.
‘Cathy in hospital,’ Joel had written baldly, his handwriting hurried and unsteady.
Sickly Sally put down the note. Cathy—in hospital. Why… when… how…?
Picking up her car keys, she ran towards the door. It didn’t matter that it would be easier and quicker to ring up and find out what had happened… she had to be with her daughter.
As she drove towards the hospital she realised for the first time what it felt like to be on the other side of things, what it felt like to be a mother whose child lay ill or injured in alien surroundings.
It wasn’t Sally the professional, the nurse who parked her car haphazardly and then ran all the way to the hospital entrance, but Sally the mother.
She saw Joel first.
He was standing with his back towards her outside the doors that led to the children’s ward.
‘Joel, where’s Cathy?’ she demanded as he turned round and saw her. ‘What happened… what’s wrong…?’
‘They don’t know,’ Joel told her tersely. ‘They think it could be appendicitis.’
Appendicitis… Sally felt the floor start to give way beneath her as her leg
s threatened to buckle.
They had had a teenager in only last month but his condition had been caught too late, after the appendix had burst, and he had died soon after admission.
Appendicitis—the word trickled into her consciousness like ice-cold water filtering through her brain, ice-cold water tinged with an acid which left an afterburn that made her want to scream in pain and denial.
Why on earth hadn’t she listened this morning when Cathy had complained that she didn’t feel well? But she had been more concerned with seeing Kenneth than her daughter’s health, she told herself bitterly…
‘Where is she…? I must see her.’
‘You can’t… the specialist is with her. Where the hell have you been?’ Joel added, demanding, ‘I’ve been ringing your bloody sister’s for the last two hours.’
‘I—we got delayed,’ Sally told him.
Oh, why wasn’t I here; why didn’t I know? Anguish and guilt filled her.
‘Where’s Paul?’ she demanded anxiously. ‘He…’
‘He’s just gone to get us both a cup of coffee. I thought it would give him something to do. I rang the school and asked them to send him straight here. I didn’t want him going home and being on his own, worrying…’
Sally flinched as she caught the accusatory note in his voice. ‘It wasn’t my fault I wasn’t there,’ she protested defensively.
‘No, but you were the one who insisted on Cathy going to school this morning, weren’t you, just so that you could go out with your bloody sister?’
Joel knew he was over-reacting, punishing Sally for something that was not her fault, but he had never felt so afraid or so atone in all his life as he had done when Cathy had turned up at the leisure centre looking so very ill.
‘The teacher at school said I should come home, but no one was there so I came here,’ she had told him. ‘You don’t mind, do you, Dad?’
‘No, of course not!’ Joel had been able to see that she was in great pain. They had gone home, but as the pain had got worse Joel had decided he needed to get her straight to hospital. Frantic with worry, but trying not to show it, he had attempted to reach Sally on the phone, having to leave her a hasty note when his calls went unanswered. Cathy had been terrified when he had insisted on bringing her to hospital, but too weak to do anything about it when he had handed her gently into the car.
