She shut her eyes. The darkness was brilliant now. Despite his weight and the hard floor underneath her, nudging through the straw, she felt light and free and winged, as if she were soaring above her own slack and grounded limbs.
‘Jennifer!’ He was triumphing her name, hands scalding down her back.‘My darling. Oh, my darling …’
‘No, stop, Lyn. Stop!’
‘What’s the matter? What’s …’
She didn’t answer, just lay tense and rigid. She pushed him off, closed her legs against him. He mustn’t come. It was the middle of the month—her most fertile dangerous time. She had almost forgotten, almost risked a child. She could see the cellar in Hester’s house again, the murky shadows, the cold and musty gloom—not so different from this barn. She had conceived a child there, lost it, lost her husband, lost her peace of mind. It mustn’t happen a second time. Nothing must happen between them which could drive him away again, reinstate the fear or the resentment.
Lyn was crouching over her. ‘What is it? Did I hurt you?’
‘No, no, it’s nothing. It’s all right.’ She had recovered now and was drawing him down again, kneeling between his legs while she coaxed him on to his back. He had already dwindled. She bent over him, cupped him in her hands, moved him towards her mouth.
He tensed. ‘No.’
‘Yes,’ she urged. ‘Please yes. I want to, and it’s safer.’
She wanted him more than she craved a baby, needed a husband before she could add a child. He felt like a child—small and soft and helpless in her mouth. He tasted strange, unwashed. She licked him clean, licked him bigger. He was moving now, responding. She used her lips to rally him, swelled him with her tongue. His cries sounded faint and far away as if they were coming from another world, the smaller colder world beyond her mouth. She couldn’t speak herself—there wasn’t room. He was filling her whole mouth now, expanding it, moving faster faster faster until he was exploding in it, overflowing, running over. She gulped him down, triumphant, astounded at herself. She had never done that before, always been reluctant. But this time, it was different. She wanted every drop of his seed and self inside her, and if she couldn’t have it the usual way, then at least she had swallowed him and saved him, made him part of her body and her bloodstream. They were—as the marriage service said—one flesh.
She could feel him shrinking in her mouth, becoming child again. She kissed his tip, released it, continued the kisses across his belly, up his chest, along his neck to stubbly chin and soft lips.
At last, they rolled apart, lay still, their breathing roaring through the silence. Jennifer turned on her back, the sacking damp against her shoulders, Lyn’s jacket soft and crumpled, further down. She was in her husband’s bed again, mistress of his house. It didn’t matter that the house was poor and simple. It was only a temporary refuge. Hernhope was their true home, and they could return there now, rebuild their life and marriage.
She eased up from the straw, clutched the duffel coat around her, groped to the door of the barn, pushed it open. The sky had cleared and a million stars spelt the tiny glittering letters of infinity. The moon was riding higher now—Hester’s full moon which had led them to each other. They would stay together now—never part again. She glanced at her watch, the only thing she was wearing beneath the scratchy coat. The hands pointed to one minute after midnight. Even that was meant—a new day, a new start.
She was shivering again, but only with excitement. The moon was bursting out of the sky, the whole night spinning towards dawn. Only a few hours more, and they could leave. She gazed towards the allotment—dark shapes and shadows beyond a darker fence, the swooning scent of southernwood carried on the wind. They must gather Lyn’s harvest, take his produce with them as a symbol of hope and fruitfulness. She turned to fetch him, but he was already there, behind her—silent, staring past her at the stars. She gripped his hand—no need to spell it out.
He and his harvest were ready.
Chapter Twenty
‘Sunday Express? Give me the literary editor, please. Yes, I’ll hold on.’ Matthew shifted the receiver to his left hand and jotted down the list of other newspapers he could phone, in order of their pulling power or status—Sunday Times, Observer, Daily Express, Daily Mail, Guardian … He smiled as he sipped his coffee. He had allowed himself a dash of cream in it. He felt expansive, celebratory.
‘Graham Lord? Ah, hallo! Matthew Winterton here. How are you? Good, good. Enjoyed your week in Portugal? Wonderful! Look, Graham, I thought you’d like to be the first to know we’ve sold half a million copies of Born With The Century. Yes, I did say half a million.’ Matthew was doodling with his pencil on the pad. A figure five, with five noughts after it. He crossed out the five, changed it to a one, added another nought. Success like that had always been impossible. Now, he had London’s leading publishers clamouring for contracts, foreign agents jamming his telephone lines. At the Frankfurt Book Fair, his stand had been all but mobbed, VIPs begging the honour of a drink with him.
‘Yes, of course we’re celebrating. We’ve giving a party here next month—December 14th. You’ll get your invitation in a day or two. Don’t miss this, Graham—it’s going to be the party of the year. In fact, I’ll want a word with your gossip columnist later. I think he’ll find our guest list quite impressive!’
Matthew put the phone down, drained his coffee. He had just a month to make this half-a-million mark celebration the most talked about event in London. Hartley Davies had suggested the party as a tribute and congratulation, but had proposed a low-key Christmas luncheon to be held on their own premises and involving less than a dozen guests. Matthew accepted both the offer of a party and the cash to pay for it, but moved the venue to his own offices and upgraded the occasion to a full-scale jamboree—a secular Te Deum—to be held in the evening and include London’s leading literati and anyone of influence in the media. That way, the full spotlight of glamour and attention would be directed on his own firm, instead of on Hartley Davies. The fact of playing host to such a high-powered gathering would increase his status and attract new authors to his ever expanding list. It would also help whip up a new surge of interest in Born With The Century—indeed, in all his books—for those important post-Christmas months when sales were often sluggish.
‘Ah, the invitations! Good.’ Matthew was fining down his guest list as Allenby knocked and entered, with Kenneth just behind him. ‘I was hoping they were ready. Let’s have a look.’
Jim laid the cards on Matthew’s desk. He had grown a little plumper since the spring and had started wearing hand-made shirts and smoking Davidoffs. Success had affected all of them, as well as their surroundings. There were new pictures on the office walls, expensive flower arrangements in reception.
‘Well, what d’you think?’ asked Allenby, glancing at the row of more conventional invitations on Matthew’s mantelshelf. Now the firm was thriving, they were invited everywhere.
‘Mm … Not bad. Not bad at all. Mind you, I think we could have made them more spectacular—something three-dimensional, perhaps or …’ Matthew stared critically at the drawings of flowers and birds taken from the book. Lyn would have done better; made them more original, added some touch of genius exclusively his own. Except Lyn had been absent now for weeks. In fact, he hadn‘t seen his half-brother since that disastrous day when he and Anne returned from Tokyo and found the house in chaos. He had had to remove him from the pay-roll, explain to his colleagues that Lyn was convalescing after some new-strain virus infection which had left him debilitated. According to Jennifer, he was genuinely ill. She never brought him with her on her visits—only some excuse. He was sulking, more likely, or deliberately avoiding him, but he didn’t press the matter. Lyn’s demands for his share of the profits, to be paid immediately and in toto, could prove highly inconvenient. Lyn was a worry altogether, especially now he knew about Hester’s bastard, baby. He’d been shocked when Jennifer stuttered out that news. How did Lyn know, and why had he
never mentioned it before? Would he start asking awkward questions, raise fraught and dangerous issues such as copyright? He had tried to buy his silence by paying some of what he owed him directly into his bank account—trifling sums, in fact, but enough he hoped, to keep him compliant. He missed Lyn’s work, his unique and quirky talent, but it was safer in the circumstances to employ another artist, a yes-man with no claims on him.
He opened the invitation, checked the printing inside. Even without Lyn’s skills, the design was at least unusual—white lettering on a grey and azure ground, and distinctive silver envelopes which would immediately catch the eye in an average morning’s mail.
‘Yes, they’re fine. I’d like to get them off as soon as possible, which means finalising our guest list. Any bright ideas since we last discussed it? Remember, I want as many VIPs as we can coax along. I intend this party to be the talk of London, the sort of occasion that gets turned into publishing myth.’
‘It’ll be damned expensive,’ grumbled Jim.
‘That’s not our problem. And anyway, it’s money to make money. It worked with the book itself and it’ll work again. You had your doubts a year ago, and here we are with half a million sales. That’s some achievement, Jim, and we want the world to know about it. I think I told you Hartley Davies are going to present us with the half-millionth copy bound in real gold plate. That should make headlines on its own. We’ll have it on display, of course—make sure our top celebrities are photographed beside it.’ Matthew paused a moment, made a jotting about the catering. Party food was often execrable. He wanted something unusual, even exotic. He must discuss his plans with Anne.
‘I think we should also aim for some focal event to be staged halfway through the evening. We don’t want formal speeches—they’re a killer—but some sparkling or amusing little interlude which works also as a disguised advertisement for the book. I’ve already arranged for a band of Northumbrian pipers to play Hester’s local music, but that will be simply background. So if you’ve any bright ideas, get them down on paper and perhaps you’d be good enough to see they’re on my desk by five o’clock.’
Kenneth opened his mouth to object. He looked tired and drawn.
‘All right, make it seven, then. I’ll still be here. Now, the next thing I’d like to discuss is the problem of gatecrashers. Once the rumours get round, we may find we’re overrun by …’ Matthew’s words were drowned by the shrilling of the phone. He snatched up the receiver.
‘Anne, I told you I wanted no interruptions for the next half hour. What? Well, who is he? What d’you mean, won’t give his name? I’ve no intention of …’ He covered the mouthpiece, gestured to Jim and Kenneth. ‘Forgive me, please. My wife’s got some … nutter in reception.’ Back to Anne. ‘No, I’m sorry, he can’t see me—not at the moment. Tell him he’ll have to wait.’ He tapped his fingers on the blotter. His wife needed stricter handling.
‘I’m not arguing about it, Anne I’m in the middle of a meeting and I instructed you to divert all calls. Don’t disturb me again, please.’ He pushed the phone away from him, sorted through his lists. ‘Yes, do smoke, Jim. We’ve covered the most important items now, I think. As I was saying, I want this party to be more than just a jolly evening. It’s publicity we’re after and a clear message to the publishing world that Winterton and Allenby are now …’
He frowned as heavy footsteps echoed along the passage outside his office. Jim swung round as the door-knob rattled and a tall but portly man strode into the room. He was dressed neatly in a navy suit which although obviously expensive and well-cut, looked a trifle out of style and was too lightweight for November. His balding head was domed and shining; what hair he had clipped severely short at back and sides and heavily streaked with grey. His suntan looked somehow wrong on him—out of keeping with his rigid, almost military bearing, as he traversed the stretch of carpet from door to desk, then drew himself up in front of the six foot of mahogany.
‘Am I addressing Mr Matthew Winterton?’
‘You are.’ Matthew rose slowly to his feet. The two men were matched for height, but Matthew was overshadowed by the intruder’s broad shoulders and heavy build, and looked pale beside his tanned and ruddy face. ‘But it is not normal for total strangers to barge in here without a prior appointment or even the courtesy of knocking …’
‘This is not a normal situation.’ The accent was faintly Antipodean, but cultured and low-keyed. ‘I have a very urgent matter to discuss with you—one I think you’d prefer to discuss alone. So if you’d like to dismiss your colleagues …’
Matthew gestured to Jim and Kenneth to remain where they were. ‘I shall dismiss nobody except yourself, Mr … er …? If you are the same individual who’s just been pestering my wife, I understand you refused to give your name.’
‘You know the name, Mr Winterton, though it may still be a shock to you, since it is one I believe you have endeavoured to suppress.’ The stranger’s voice was steely. ‘It is also the maiden name of the woman who brought you up.’
Jim and Kenneth were staring. Matthew steadied himself against his desk. ‘I … I beg your pardon?’
‘I am Edward Ainsley—Hester Ainsley’s first and eldest son.’
Matthew’s features registered a fleeting spasm of panic before he forced them into their usual impassive mask. He cleared his throat, as if to find his voice again, turned to Jim and Kenneth. ‘I wonder if you’d mind … stepping outside. We c … can resume our meeting … er … later on.’ He saw them to the door, shut it securely behind them. His hand was shaking as he went to greet his stepmother’s bastard child.
‘No, I won’t shake hands, Mr Winterton. This is not a social call. In fact, I ought to warn you I have come straight from my solicitors.’
‘S … solicitors?’
‘Yes. A leading London firm. I consulted my own lawyer back in Auckland and he recommended …’
‘Auckland?’ Matthew was so disorientated, he could only repeat Edward’s words. His head was reeling from the shock of a new-born baby, disposed of more than sixty years ago, resurrecting into this six-foot martinent. How could a housekeeper’s obscure and bastard offspring, buried if not in a coffin, at least in secrecy and shame, be now standing in his office threatening him with apparent legal action? And yet he could tell this was Hester’s son. The eyes bore witness to it—Hester’s eyes and Lyn’s, transplanted in that sullen jowly face—eyes of a colour so strange and so distinctive, they trumpeted the Ainsley name. They were narrowed now and frowning.
‘Well, Warkworth, to be precise. It’s some forty miles from Auckland. I was taken there as a babe-in-arms and have lived there ever since. I can truly call it home in the sense that everybody knows me there, and trusts me—or at least they did until these last few weeks. I can only assume that my present … er … embarrassments are due in some way to your publication of my mother’s private diaries—a matter I take the strongest possible exception to.’
Matthew slipped a finger inside the collar of his shirt which seemed suddenly too tight for him. ‘Mr Ainsley, please. Your presence here is something of a … shock for me. Can’t we at least sit down or …’ He walked over to his elegant Regency chiffonier where he kept the glass decanters. ‘Let me offer you a drink—a whisky or a …’
‘No, thank you,’ Edward made a curt dismissive gesture, refusing both seat and drink. ‘I find it utterly distasteful that my mother’s personal papers should have been hawked around the marketplace until they found the highest bidder, the … the … intimate details of her life dragged into the public gaze.’
Matthew tensed. That was the line which Lyn himself had taken when he had first mooted publication. Had the two men been in contact—Lyn somehow traced the bastard son and then joined his cause to spite him? Would that explain Lyn’s absence, his mysterious illnesses? Surely not. How could anyone have traced that clandestine child, least of all when he had been living half a world away? Who had spirited him to New Zealand in the first place, and
why had he come back? Edward was a closed chapter, an infant corpse mouldering in a coffin, a page in Hester’s diaries long since burnt and destroyed.
He stared at the corpse, the infant—who seemed to be swelling as he stood there—the huge form bearing down on him, the quiet voice growing shriller.
‘I am also extremely upset that my … my … own existence was totally ignored. I was neither warned nor consulted on a matter which …’
Matthew cut in. ‘How could I have consulted you when I had no idea that you were still alive? I mean, even now, I’m … I’m stunned to see you standing here in front of me—a full-grown man—when I assumed you …’
‘You knew of my existence, then? That itself is obviously no shock.’
‘Well … er … yes, I …’ Matthew floundered. Too late to deny it, now. And anyway, if Lyn had already divulged the facts, it would be dangerous to take a different line and be branded as a liar.
‘L … look, Mr Ainsley, all I had to go on was a couple of lines scrawled in Hester’s diary—simply a brief and cryptic record of your birth—nothing more at all.’
‘Well, that was proof enough that my mother had two sons, and not just a single heir. You had a duty to inform your lawyer of that important fact before going ahead with any negotiations. I understand my mother left no Will, or if she did, it has never been found, which means, of course that I was entitled to be joint administrator with my half-brother, to deal with her affairs. Yet I have just been informed by my solicitor that no one was appointed executor or administrator. Why was that?’
Born of Woman Page 42
