Lesson to Learn

by Penny Jordan

  ‘Well, that’s as may be,’ Sally interrupted her husband. ‘But, if he was so keen to have access to his child, how come he’s now so irritable and distant with him?’

  Ross shrugged. ‘Who knows? Perhaps he’s afraid to let the boy get too close to him, or perhaps the boy won’t let him. After all, from what I’ve heard, the mother wasn’t the type to miss out on any opportunity to score off on Gray. Who knows what she might have told the boy? Can’t be easy for Gray.’

  ‘No. Well, let’s hope he finds someone suitable to take charge of him, and soon. Robert’s already tried to run away once, and a child of that age is so dreadfully vulnerable. It makes me shudder to think of what could have happened to him if Sarah hadn’t found him.’

  ‘I didn’t find him,’ Sarah corrected her. ‘He found me, so to speak.’ She was frowning as she turned to Sally. ‘Do you think he might try to do that…to run away again?’

  Only this afternoon she had gently tried to point out to Robert the dangers of what he had attempted to do. His grandmother had, it seemed, warned him of the dangers of speaking to strangers, especially those with cars, but she had neglected to explain why, and Sarah had been torn between wanting to strengthen that warning with something more concrete than his grandmother’s vague suggestion that strangers were dangerous and a reluctance to interfere in the upbringing of a child who wasn’t in any way connected with her.

  ‘So shall we ask him or not?’ she heard Sally saying to her, and came out of her thoughts to discover that her cousin was apparently planning a dinner party and that, moreover, she was asking her if she thought she should invite Gray Philips.

  ‘Don’t ask me. I mean…’

  ‘You’re embarrassing her,’ Ross told his wife, his comment increasing Sarah’s embarrassment rather than alleviating it.

  ‘Oh, Sarah, I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to matchmake,’ Sally told her immediately. ‘No, it’s just that we haven’t had a proper dinner party since we moved in here, and now that this long commission is almost completed I’m beginning to suffer from a slight touch of cabin fever, although I suppose officially the dinner party season doesn’t really start until the children go back to school. Still, as I’ve always said, some rules are made to be broken.’

  ‘Why don’t you admit that you’re as curious as hell about Gray Philips and that this is the only way you can legitimately think of to satisfy that curiosity?’ Ross teased her.

  Now it was Sally’s turn to flush.

  ‘Well, of course I’m curious,’ she defended herself. ‘And Sarah isn’t helping. My daily described him as “very much a man. You know what I mean,”’ Sally told them, imitating her cleaner’s manner, ‘but you, Sarah…well, you haven’t so much as mentioned what he’s like as a man…only how you feel about his shortcomings as a father.’

  She gave her cousin a distinctly speculative glance.

  ‘Is he as macho as Mrs Beattie seems to think?’

  ‘I wouldn’t describe him as macho exactly,’ Sarah told her truthfully, but even as she answered her cousin’s question she was acutely aware of all that she was not saying…all that she was withholding, even from herself…such as the way she reacted to him physically…such as the way she had so stupidly, so cringingly willed herself into believing that he’d been about to kiss her, even to the point where she had almost actually experienced the sensation of his mouth against hers.

  ‘To be honest with you, I haven’t really registered all that much about him,’ she lied now. ‘It’s his relationship with Robert that concerns me.’

  ‘So you won’t mind if I invite him to dinner, then?’ Sally asked slyly.

  What could she say?

  ‘As long as I don’t have to sit next to him. No, I don’t mind at all,’ she replied, striving to appear unconcerned.

  But she had forgotten how well Sally knew her and all those small betraying mannerisms that gave away so much, although it was later on when the two of them were alone that Sally said quietly to her, ‘Look, if it really does bother you, I won’t invite Gray Philips round for dinner.’

  ‘Bother me…of course it doesn’t bother me…why should it?’ Sarah retorted defensively, ignoring the look her cousin was giving her.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  TWO days went by without Sarah either seeing or hearing anything of Robert or his father. She told herself that she was glad, that Gray Philips had obviously found someone responsible to take charge of his son and that the little boy was settling down in his new environment.

  Sally, who had reluctantly gone back to work to finish her commission, was still making plans for her proposed dinner party, which had grown from the original intimacy of six or eight people to a number closer to twenty.

  ‘Perhaps we ought to have a buffet party instead,’ she murmured more to herself than to Sarah as they sat drinking their coffee one morning. ‘Yes, a Sunday lunch buffet party. What do you think?’

  ‘I think it sounds a lot of hard work,’ Sarah told her honestly.

  ‘Mm…maybe, but a buffet do would be much less work than a full-scale dinner party, and much more in line with my cooking skills,’Sally admitted with a grin, adding, ‘Remember that dinner party I gave when I was going out with John Howarth?’

  ‘Wasn’t he the one who was the embryo chef?’ Sarah asked her, her forehead crinkling as she tried to remember which of Sally’s many boyfriends she was referring to.

  ‘That’s the one,’ Sally agreed. ‘I remember I was planning to serve a soufflé for pud, only something went wrong and I ended up giving them ice-cream and apple pie…do you remember?’

  ‘Yes, I do, since I was the one who had to go hurtling out to buy the damn thing,’ Sarah agreed feelingly.

  ‘I never saw John again after that. I wonder why.’

  Both of them burst out laughing.

  ‘Ah, well, back to work,’ Sally explained, finishing her coffee. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Take myself off for a long walk,’Sarah told her.

  Sally frowned. ‘You mustn’t let this school business get you down,’ she told her gently. ‘I know you, Sarah. You’re a delicate plant, all too easily inclined to withdraw and curl up inside yourself when you feel you’re under attack. I wish I could do more to help you through this difficult time.’

  ‘You are helping me,’ Sarah assured her. ‘But it’s something I’ve got to sort out for myself. Who knows? Perhaps they’re right and I’m not cut out for teaching.’

  ‘But you love it so much, and besides…’

  ‘What else can I do?’ Sarah asked her drily. ‘I don’t know, but there must be something; after all, according to the Press, teachers are leaving the profession in droves, and they must be going somewhere.’

  ‘Well, with your qualifications I’m sure you wouldn’t have any problems in finding something else, although it would mean starting again, probably at the lower end of the career ladder.’

  ‘Stop worrying about me,’ Sarah told her cousin affectionately, smiling at her, but in reality she felt far from smiling as she reviewed the problems that lay ahead of her.

  Did she really want to go back to teaching, to her old school, knowing her every move was being monitored and criticised? It was true that she loved teaching…loved her pupils, but wasn’t it also true that she was over-inclined to become too emotionally involved with them? That was a flaw in her own personality and not something that could ever be entirely eradicated, no matter how much she might try to train herself to do otherwise. And yet if she wanted to continue with her career she was going to have to find a way of stopping herself from caring so deeply.

  She walked for a long time, trying to resolve the feelings of guilt and inadequacy which had hung over her like a dark cloud ever since that fateful interview. It didn’t matter how often she told herself that she was not a failure, she could not reassure herself; she had been tried and found wanting, and, no matter how much her friends and family tried to comfort her, they could not allevia
te the burden of despair that knowledge had brought her.

  And yet, if she left teaching, what was she to do? Retrain in another field? Which field, though?

  It was late afternoon when she returned to the cottage, approaching it from the back across the fields, using the gate in the hedge at the bottom of the long garden rather than walking round to the front.

  As she walked up the garden path Sally opened the back door, beckoning to her, and pressing her finger to her lips as Sarah frowned and called out, ‘What is it? Is something wrong?’

  ‘You’ve got a visitor,’ Sally told her almost conspiratorially. ‘Gray Philips. I’ve put him in the sitting-room. He’s been here ages. I thought you’d be back much earlier.’

  Gray Philips! Why did he want to see her? Her heart had started pounding erratically, and she was conscious of a sense of anxiety coupled with a reluctance to see him. Her hair was all tousled from her long walk, and she suspected that she must be the complete antithesis of the women he was used to…the women he admired and desired. She only had to remember the way he had described his late wife…the emotion she had sensed beneath the cynical words he had used.

  Stop that, she derided herself as she pulled off her boots in the laundry-room, ignoring Sally’s desire for her to hurry.

  ‘If he’s waited this long, he can wait a little longer. At least until I’ve combed my hair and washed my hands,’ Sarah told her grimly, unwilling to admit even to someone as close as her cousin how reluctant she was to see him.

  ‘He’s getting pretty impatient,’ Sally warned her. ‘I’ll go and tell him you’re here.’

  Despite her intention not to hurry, once she was upstairs in her room Sarah discovered that her hands trembled as she washed them and that she was combing her hair far faster than normal, while anxiously scanning her unmade-up face and wishing that it looked different…less ordinary. She even told herself that the lipstick she was so unsteadily applying was simply a confidence booster and nothing more, but when she realised that she was halfway through stripping off her old jeans and shirt and exchanging them for a clean top and a skirt she knew it was pointless trying to deceive herself any longer.

  She stared down at the floor, shivering a little. What was the matter with her? Did she really think she was going to make an impression on Gray Philips as a woman simply because she was changing her clothes? Did she really not have the intelligence to know that, while initially clothes—or at least the right kind of clothes—might attract a man’s visual attention, attraction, real, gut-wrenching physical awareness of the kind she had experienced for him had nothing to do with clothes, and everything to do with something far more subtle and sensitive?

  She was simply not Gray Philips’s kind of woman, and if she had any sense she ought to be thankful for that fact. Ross had suggested that his marriage had left him feeling bitter and antagonistic towards the female sex, and she suspected that, though he might be willing to enter a physical relationship with a woman, he would be extremely guarded where his emotions were concerned, while she…

  Shaking her head, she pulled on her clean clothes. She had to stop this. It was not only dangerous; it was addictive as well. Instead of allowing her thoughts to stumble heedlessly down such forbidden paths she ought to be concentrating her mind on trying to work out just why Gray Philips had come to see her. Was it because of Robert? Had something happened to the little boy? Had he perhaps run away again?

  Her fingers shook as she zipped up her skirt, mentally praying that that wasn’t the case. But no, it couldn’t be. Gray Philips would hardly have wasted so much valuable time waiting for her to return if Robert was actually missing.

  She went downstairs, heading for the sitting-room. The door opened and Sally came out just as she approached it. Sally grimaced wryly at her and whispered, ‘Rather you than me. Sexy he might be, but he’s not exactly communicative, is he?’

  When Sarah walked into the sitting-room Gray Philips was standing with his back to her, looking out into the garden.

  She had walked in very quietly, her feet not making any sound on the thick pile carpet, but nevertheless he must have either heard her or seen her reflection in the window, because he turned round immediately.

  To her own intense annoyance, Sarah heard herself apologising breathlessly, ‘I’m sorry you’ve had such a long wait. I was out walking.’

  What on earth was she doing? Why on earth did she feel this need to placate him almost?

  The frown with which he had greeted her lifted, an oddly thoughtful look lightening his eyes as though he too was aware of the contradiction of her behaviour.

  ‘I should have rung first,’ he responded curtly. ‘But, once I’d got here, it seemed foolish not to wait…although…I’ve got an appointment at five, so I’ll come straight to the point if I may.’

  When Sarah inclined her head he asked her coolly, ‘Is it true, as I’ve heard on the local grapevine, that you’re here to think about your future career and that although you’re a qualified teacher you may not be returning to that career?’

  His words were carefully chosen, Sarah recognised, so as not to antagonise her, and that in itself was surprising enough to make her focus on him.

  He was watching her very closely, and had also closed the distance between them, so that there was only the length of the sofa between them.

  A tiny pulse started beating frantically in her throat as all her fears and vulnerabilities came crowding in on her. She knew all too well what else he would have heard on that same grapevine, and reflected how cynically contemptuous he must have been on hearing the gossip.

  It was that awareness that made her lift her head and face him challengingly to say almost as cooly as he had spoken to her, ‘If you mean have my superiors suggested to me that it might not be a good idea for me to return to teaching because of my getting too involved with my pupils, then yes.’

  The look he gave her made her skin flush vividly, although for once there was neither contempt nor anger in his eyes. Instead he was looking at her with something that in someone else she might have described as humour and approval, and yet the thought of this man having a sense of humour and approving of her seemed so remote as to be impossible…a trick of her imagination.

  ‘And you haven’t lined up a fresh job for yourself as yet?’ he was asking her.

  Sarah shrugged. ‘No…not as yet.’

  Her tone implied that it was not a line of conversation she wished to pursue and that neither were her future plans any of his business.

  ‘Good.’

  Good? What did that mean? Her eyes rounded as she looked questioningly at him. ‘What does that mean?’ she demanded bitterly, her introspective thoughts of the afternoon colouring her reaction to his satisfied exclamation. ‘That you’re glad I’m not inflicting either myself or my irrational emotions on a fellow employer?’

  What on earth was she saying? she asked herself angrily as she fought to rein in her absurd over-reaction.

  ‘What it means,’ Gray Philips told her, ignoring her outburst, ‘is that I’m glad you haven’t committed yourself to a new job, because it means that I can ask you if you would contemplate coming to work for me.’

  Going to work for him. Sarah felt her jaw drop as the shock of his words hit her.

  ‘But I don’t know anything about engineering,’ she heard herself say stupidly.

  There was a small pause, as though what she had said had taken him off guard, and then he was saying wryly, ‘You won’t need to. At least, not unless Robert suddenly develops an interest in it.’

  ‘Robert? But—’

  ‘What I’m asking you is whether you’d be prepared to come and work for me as Robert’s companion and mentor,’ he told her, forestalling her questions.

  ‘You want me to look after Robert.’

  Her shock showed in her voice and her face. After what had happened between them she had felt that she would be the last person he would want anywhere near his son. ‘But I
thought…you said…I thought you were interviewing nannies.’

  ‘I was, but unfortunately none of them proved suitable—or, at least, four of them seemed to be well qualified for the job, but when I took your advice and introduced them to Robert he rejected them all. Then he told me that what he would really like was for you to look after him.’

  Sarah was still staring at him. Whatever she had thought about him, however she had judged him, she had never, ever thought that he would allow his son—a son, moreover, whom he appeared to view more in the light of a nuisance than anything else—to sway his own judgement.

  ‘But…you don’t like me.’

  She bit down hard on her bottom lip, wondering what on earth had happened to her common sense. What an idiotic thing, to say something that, no matter how true it might be, should never, ever have been voiced.

  He seemed to think so as well, because his eyes darkened and his mouth thinned.

  ‘I don’t have to like you,’ he told her grimly. ‘Nor, for that matter, is it necessary for you to like me. I’m trying to put Robert’s need first here, Sarah. Isn’t that what you wanted me to do?’

  The soft accusation was more of a taunt than an admission that he might have been wrong in his treatment of his son.

  ‘But…but…I’m not trained for that kind of work,’ she protested. ‘I’m a teacher.’

  ‘A teacher who, according to the local grapevine, is so soft-hearted that she spends more time trying to sort out her pupils’ emotional problems than she does in teaching them. A strong mothering instinct isn’t something that can be taught or learned, Sarah.’