Solo

by Jill Mansell

  “Thanks.”

  He wanted to kiss her, but knew that he mustn’t. “Is there anything else you need? Money?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Right. I’d better go then.” Stepping back, he watched her smoothing Olivia’s dark, silky hair, her head bent protectively toward her daughter as if to shield her from the rest of the world.

  “Tess, I really am sorry.”

  She glanced up at him, and at that moment he saw the hurt, the disappointment, and the sorrow in her clear, green eyes.

  “Yes,” she replied slowly. “So am I.”

  Chapter 45

  Having always enjoyed meeting new people, Holly nevertheless wondered why on earth, in a moment of either weakness or sheer madness—possibly both—she had agreed to meet Adam’s parents. Now, as the dark-blue Rolls purred up the motorway at a sedate eighty miles an hour and the North grew steadily closer, she was seriously regretting her decision.

  “They won’t think I’m your girlfriend, will they?” she asked anxiously, imagining the horrors of such a scenario. Adam, overtaking an ancient Mini and popping another Rolo into his mouth, grinned at her.

  “I’ll make sure they don’t, angel. No need to panic.”

  “But I still don’t understand why you even invited me. Do you take every woman you’ve ever met to see them?”

  He shook his head, still smiling. “By no means. Hardly anyone in fact, but I thought it would be helpful for you to meet them.”

  It was no use; he was being deliberately, infuriatingly enigmatic, and she wasn’t going to get a single sensible word out of him. Unwrapping the last Rolo and deliberately not offering it to Adam, Holly ate it. This was the last time, she reflected moodily, the very last time that she was going to be stupid enough to allow Adam Perry to persuade her to do anything against her will.

  • • •

  Little Tollerton, nestling in a fold of the Yorkshire Moors, was pure James Herriot. The small but sprawling village with its gray, slate-roofed cottages, colorful front gardens, and narrow, winding lanes was shielded on all sides by rolling, pinky-mauve moors dotted with farmhouses and sheep. With the sun blazing in a blue sky, it was all too picturesque for words, but in the winter, Adam had explained, the roads would disappear beneath several feet of snow and the village, cut off for weeks on end, became a small world of its own, entirely self-contained and relying for survival upon the sturdy, no-nonsense determination of its inhabitants.

  “What are you, the local boy who made good?” said Holly, as the Rolls-Royce pulled up outside a row of terraced cottages and an old man walking past with his dog touched his cap in a signal of recognition.

  “No,” replied Adam, refusing to rise to her bait, “I’m just Bill and Netta’s eldest son. As far as these people are concerned, running a profitable farm is their idea of really making good. And catching yourself a reliable wife, of course,” he added cheerfully. “That’s far more worthwhile than owning a few dozen gambling emporiums, as old Jethro Blacker always calls them.”

  “But you’ve made so much money,” she persisted, still needling him. “Millions! I thought people in your position bought their parents nice new houses. It’s what soccer players always seem to do.”

  “Ah,” said Adam, helping her out of the car and doing up an extra button on her shirt so that no cleavage remained exposed, “but I’m a Yorkshireman, pet. We don’t waste our hard-earned money on fripperies. Besides, if I started splashing out like that, buying new houses for every Tom, Dick, and Harry I’d ever known, I’d just end up back where I started, and where’s the point in that?”

  But they’re your parents, Holly wanted to scream at him. At that moment, however, the front door opened, and Bill and Netta Perry, together with their daughter Jeanette and an assortment of dogs, spilled out of the cottage.

  “We didn’t even know you were here until I happened to glance out of the window,” scolded Netta, reaching up and giving her son a hug. Then, turning to Holly and smiling, she said, “When he had that Ferrari we could hear him coming for miles. This new car’s much too quiet. Hello, my dear, you must be Holly. Adam’s told us so much about you. Come along inside and I’ll make us all a nice cup of tea.”

  Holly was reminded of the afternoon at Tessa’s cottage, when Ross had instructed everyone to make themselves as large and noisy as possible. Even as they made their way through the house, Adam was introducing her to his father, his younger sister, and the dogs. Netta, bustling ahead of them into the kitchen, was telling Adam that his car needed a good wash and that Susie Ackerton had given birth to twins the previous week. Jeanette reminded Holly that they had met before, at the wedding reception at The Grange, during which Adam had so publicly blackmailed her into going out to dinner with him. Bill Perry, gently but firmly removing the teapot from his wife’s hands, said, “Leave it, lass. Why don’t we all go out into the garden and get acquainted over a proper drink? How about you, Holly? Now you look to me like a gin-and-tonic girl if ever I saw one. Or would you prefer a can of lager?”

  Half an hour later, everyone was still talking nonstop. Holly, relaxing over her second drink—an astonishingly stiff gin—was struck by the easy familiarity and good-humored badinage flowing constantly from one member of the family to the next. Bill Perry, gray haired and dark eyed, was openly flirting with his pretty wife. Netta, whose own hair was of the same tawny shade as her son’s, laughed and joked and gave every inch as good as she got. Their affection for each other was undisguised, their general air of happiness infectious.

  “Thirty-five years, we’ve lived here,” Netta was explaining to Holly. “And whoever would have thought it would last five minutes when we were first married? Why, almost every other day I was either packing my bags or throwing Bill’s clothes out into the street. We argued so much that it’s a wonder we ever managed to produce young Adam. We were terrible…!”

  “Scarlett O’Hara, the rest of the village called her,” continued her husband fondly. “We struck a few sparks, I must say. Still, it gave the neighbors summat to talk about. And then, after seven months of marriage, we simply ran out of arguments. Couldn’t think of another blessed thing to fight about. It was a shock to the system, I can tell you. There we were, ground to a halt and having to come to terms with the fact that we’d been in love with each other all along, without even realizing it.”

  “So we decided to make the best of a bad job and stay married,” supplied Netta cheerfully. “And here we are, all these years later, really stuck with each other. After all, who else would have either of us now?”

  “Hmm, I don’t know,” said Adam with a wink in Holly’s direction. “Jethro Blacker’s always had his eye on you. And then there’s old Ted Marston up at Hillcrest Farm…”

  “Away, son!” exclaimed Bill Perry, taking his wife’s hand and squeezing it. “Those two old scoundrels don’t have more than seven teeth between them. They’re nowhere near good enough for my beautiful wife.”

  “Ted Marston’s rumored to keep his life savings under his mattress,” put in Jeanette, her tone persuasive. “Apparently he’s loaded.”

  “And since when has money made the heart grow fonder?” demanded Bill as Netta pretended to consider the possibility. “Whoever could prefer a pile of dirty banknotes to a kiss and a cuddle from a man with a full set of teeth? And besides,” he added forcefully, “this is the woman who turned down the offer of a fast car, a world cruise, and a brand-new, five-bedroomed house up on Tollerton Heights. Money wouldn’t turn her head if it fell from the sky like snow.”

  Holly looked blank. Leaning across, Jeanette explained with a giggle, “Poor old Adam was absolutely dying to spoil Mum and Dad in their old age, but they refused to move.”

  “And why should we?” said Netta comfortably, gesturing toward the apple trees, the carefully tended banks of delphiniums, hollyhocks and honeysuckle bordering the immaculate lawn.
“We’ve spent over thirty years getting this garden how we like it! And as for fast cars, what on earth would we look like, two old geriatrics bombing around in something out of a James Bond film? We’d be laughed out of the village… Now, Holly, how about another chicken sandwich, or do you think you could manage a slice of this walnut cake?”

  As Holly bit into the moist, deliciously rich cake, Jeanette caught her attention once more. In a stage whisper, she said, “So are you and Adam really serious about each other, or are you just after him for his body?”

  Holly almost choked. Adam wore his most irrepressible grin. Bill and Netta Perry tried not to look expectant and failed miserably.

  “Unfortunately, neither,” said Adam, as Holly, scarlet-cheeked and hating him for landing her in this most embarrassing of situations, glared accusingly at him. “It’s a sad story, trite but true. Mad as I am about this gorgeous girl, she is besotted with another man who in turn rejects her in favor of another woman. All that remains now in order to complete the daisy chain,” he concluded triumphantly, “is for me to have an affair with the other woman, and then we can all be unhappy together.”

  “How fascinating!” said Netta, her sparkling blue eyes alight with interest. She patted Holly’s forearm in a gesture of encouragement. “Now that I no longer have any of my own, I just adore hearing about other people’s traumas. Tell us everything, my dear. Every detail. Maybe we can help you to sort it all out…”

  • • •

  “It was a complete and utter setup,” stormed Holly, still seething three days later and oblivious to the fact that Tessa—in the precious and lamentably few free hours Olivia allowed her—was trying to work.

  “Maybe he really was just trying to help?” suggested Tessa, narrowing her eyes and testing the perspective of the landscape she was roughing out on canvas.

  “Help himself, you mean!” retorted Holly, throwing herself down on the sofa. “That man is shameless. And if he thought that introducing me to his parents would make me change my mind about him, he couldn’t have been more wrong.”

  “Why, what are they like?”

  “Wonderful! Blissfully happy, still besotted with each other after thirty-five years… It almost made me cry, just seeing them together. I didn’t realize marriages like that really existed.”

  Tessa didn’t either. But she couldn’t understand why the fact that they obviously did should be having such a profound effect upon Holly.

  “But doesn’t that cheer you up?” she asked, resuming her painting and determinedly averting her own mind from thoughts of Ross. “You always wanted to get married and live happily ever after.”

  “Of course I do,” wailed Holly, banging her fist against the side of the sofa in despair. “But not with Adam bloody Perry. I want to marry Max!”

  • • •

  Ross, having mounted his own all-out attack on Tessa, was equally determined to win her back. The fact that she had returned to Bath of her own accord had been, he felt, a promising sign, but the going was by no means easy. The unspoken subject of his thoughtless, ridiculous, careless one-night stand with Antonia stood like a barrier between them; he had betrayed Tessa, dissolved her trust in him…and much as he wished it could, somehow, miraculously happen, there was no way in the world that he could go back and undo the deed.

  But if there was anything else he could do—anything at all—he made very sure indeed that it was done. Despite the fact that he found the idea of Tessa and Olivia spending the following winter in the cottage utterly intolerable, he organized the installation of an efficient central-heating system so that at least they wouldn’t freeze. Replacing the ancient stove with a state-of-the-art microwave was the next step, closely followed by an equally hi-tech fridge-freezer, decent carpets, and a telephone—an unbreakable one this time. Insisting that she needed reliable transport, he also returned the white Mercedes into her possession. And whenever she protested, which was every time he turned up with something else new and efficient and sensible, he was able to kill her arguments stone dead simply by employing that most irreproachable of alibis—Olivia.

  “I’m not doing it for you, I’m doing it for our daughter,” mimicked Tessa, jumping in before he had a chance to say it for what seemed like the twentieth time in as many days. “Ross, she’s ten weeks old. She doesn’t watch videos yet.”

  • • •

  But what Ross didn’t realize was quite how hard Tessa was finding it, simply coping with the situation. Unfortunately, knowing that a man wasn’t ideal husband material didn’t automatically cancel out all that natural attraction that had so drawn her to him in the first place. Chemistry—or whatever it was, she thought despairingly during her weaker moments—was no respecter of common sense, as poor Holly knew only too well. Knowing what was sensible didn’t make it any easier to remain constantly on her guard against the totally unfair onslaught to which Ross was submitting her.

  But gradually, very gradually, as the summer lengthened and finally gave way to autumn, she found herself able to come to terms with the situation. It still wasn’t easy, but Ross tried so hard, and he was so totally besotted with Olivia that attempting to reduce the frequency of his visits would have caused more difficulties, and Tessa had become only too acutely aware now of the fact that since Olivia had a father, she should grow up knowing and loving him, irrespective of his faults.

  And so, almost without noticing that it was happening, they had fallen back into that easy familiarity that had always bound them. The only difference now was that since she knew there to be absolutely no future in it, the relationship remained purely platonic. Tessa couldn’t cope with the emotional turmoil she knew would result if she were to weaken and go to bed with Ross, even once. After all, she reminded herself with sardonic humor, look what had happened the last time she’d risked it.

  Chapter 46

  “But you were supposed to be coming home tonight,” snapped Antonia, irritated beyond belief by Richard’s casual tone. She was the one who was supposed to be casual, dammit, and the fact that they were supposed to be attending the opening night of a play at the Theatre Royal only served to increase her frustration. “What the hell am I supposed to do now? I can’t possibly go to this thing on my own.”

  But Richard remained unconcerned. “Take a friend.”

  I haven’t got any bloody friends, thought Antonia, gazing moodily at the gin and tonic in her hand. Other men’s wives or girlfriends were always too wary of her and she, in turn, naturally preferred the company of males, but she had never nurtured platonic relationships of the kind that made inviting a man to the theatre acceptable. Sometimes she felt as if she existed within an impenetrable plastic bubble, knowing that people talked about her, but never actually hearing the defamatory remarks herself. But as long as she had had Ross—and Richard—it hadn’t bothered her in the slightest.

  “Hmm, I may just do that,” she said, her tone deliberately sly in order to make him think that if he was going to let her down like this he would regret it.

  “Good,” replied Richard equably. “I’m sure you’ll enjoy yourself. Look, I’d better get back into the meeting now.”

  “Say hello to Harvey for me,” said Antonia, smiling to herself. Harvey Russell was a mega-successful entrepreneur and a notorious womanizer whose advances she had regularly rejected over the years. Maybe now, though, she could be persuaded to change her mind. If the man was wealthy enough, the size of his paunch became magically less of a turnoff, she’d always found, although of course with Ross she’d been spoiled; that lean but muscular athlete’s body was simply faultless.

  “Harvey.” Richard paused. Then he said, “Yes, of course I will. He’s in great form, putting deals together like nobody’s business. The Germans don’t know what’s hit them. My God, you should have seen the way he handled Franz—”

  “Fine,” interrupted Antonia, adrenaline suddenly racing through her
bloodstream. “Right, you get back to your meeting. ’Bye.”

  It had never occurred to her before, she thought as she replaced the receiver and sat back, nursing her drink in both hands. It would never have occurred to her in a million years, and she still couldn’t believe that it was actually true, but that momentary hesitation, followed by the hearty extraneous detail were dead giveaways, the stumbling blocks of inexperience so instantly recognizable to practiced deceivers such as herself.

  Richard wasn’t with Harvey Russell. He might not even be in London. He, Richard, her husband, was having…an affair.

  The shock of it made her feel breathless, as if all the air had been sucked out of her lungs. Reaching for the bottle of Gordon’s, she poured an extra inch into her glass and drank it down in one go. How dare he? Who was she? Why the bloody hell was life so unfair? And why the bloody, bloody hell, she thought viciously, didn’t Ross Monahan dump that stupid little tart who called herself an artist and come back to her?

  • • •

  Ross, having deftly fitted Olivia’s chubby brown limbs into a scarlet onesie—he had overcome his fear that the slightest pressure on her joints would result in those terrifying greenstick fractures he’d read about—hoisted her into the air, waiting for the precious reward of her smile. Olivia, uncritically adoring, didn’t hesitate to oblige.

  “You see?” he protested, turning to Tessa, who was putting the finishing touches to a summery, impressionistic watercolor. “Olivia thinks we should go. Ah, what a magnificent smile! What a magnificent tooth you have, my darling! Quick, look at her tooth, Tess.”

  “I’ve been looking at it for the last four days,” replied Tessa patiently, though his enthusiasm secretly suffused her with pleasure. “Ever since it arrived. And since you’ve taken about a hundred pictures and countless videos recording its existence, no doubt we shall be looking at that tooth for the next fifteen years at least.”