Out of the Shadows

by Susan Lewis

  Susannah stifled a yawn. ‘You mean, apart from unreasonable?’

  ‘Well, look at it this way,’ Lola said, ‘would you want him popping up to Manchester all the time to see them? Or them coming down here, taking up his weekends? I know it all sounds like it could be happy families, but it might turn out to be a lot less complicated like this.’

  Susannah’s eyes went to Patsy and they both arched their eyebrows in a comical sort of way. ‘Best not say that to Alan,’ Susannah cautioned.

  ‘As if I would,’ Lola retorted, fumbling in her bag for a tissue. ‘The other thing is,’ she went on, ‘Neve might think she wants a couple of sisters and a brother, but if they’re not on the scene she’ll get Alan all to herself – and if today’s anything to go by, she’ll be quite happy about that.’

  ‘I wonder how she’d take it if you had another child?’ Patsy mused.

  Susannah gave a choke of laughter. ‘This is our second date,’ she protested, ‘give us a chance, will you? And in case you’d forgotten, we’re both still married.’

  ‘I think Neve would be all right with a baby,’ Lola commented ruminatively. ‘It would be having to share with someone her own age she might find difficult.’

  ‘Let’s just hope she doesn’t mind sharing him with me,’ Susannah joked. ‘Imagine having to take her everywhere with us.’

  With a laugh Patsy said, ‘You know the more I think about it, the better the timing seems to get for this, because Neve’s right on the brink of breaking free now. Once she’s over the novelty of having a man around she’ll stop worrying about you and become wholly focused on herself and making a life of her own, the way kids do at her age. And you won’t miss her quite so much, or feel so inclined to tie her to you, if you’ve got Alan in your life.’

  Susannah was regarding her incredulously. ‘You know, I just love the way you seem to have everything all worked out,’ she said drily.

  ‘It’s not my doing,’ Patsy claimed innocently. ‘It’s all down to fate, and my stunningly brilliant god-daughter, of course. Actually, it seems perfectly obvious to me that you’re being given a second chance – both of you – to do things the way you were supposed to twenty years ago. So count yourself lucky, not everyone gets a second crack at the right guy, and he always was right for you. Wasn’t he, Lola?’

  ‘No doubt about it,’ Lola agreed. ‘So now, the question I’m asking myself is, who are we going to find for you?’

  Patsy’s eyes glittered a warning. ‘Don’t even think about dredging up any dead wood from my past,’ she implored. ‘The only one I can think about without going into an uber-cringe is Jamie Stone, and the last I heard he’d finally come out of the closet. So you see what a knack I had of finding the right one.’

  ‘There were others,’ Susannah reminded her.

  ‘Yes, and please let them stay washed up on other people’s shores. I am so happy being single I’d marry myself if I could.’

  Laughing, Susannah said, ‘I bet there’s some gorgeous Frenchman waiting for you in Paris, divorced or heading that way … What’s his name again, the one you were telling us about?’

  Patsy wrinkled her nose. ‘You mean Frank – pronounced Fronk – Delacourt? As far as I can make out he’s a bit of a weirdo, so you’re barking up the wrong tree with him. Anyway, I swear it doesn’t matter what kind of package they come in, when you get the wrapping off they’re all the same on the inside, egotistical bastards with more hang-ups than a coat rail and less integrity than a slug.’

  Susannah was still pondering the issue. ‘I think I’ll ask Alan if he knows anyone,’ she said.

  Patsy turned to Lola in amazement. ‘Did she hear a word I just said?’

  ‘What was that?’ Lola asked.

  ‘You’re ganging up on me,’ Patsy objected. ‘Please read my lips. I do not want to get involved with anyone, ever again …’

  ‘No, it’s definitely your turn to find the right one,’ Susannah said, making it sound not only reasonable, but inevitable.

  ‘Listen, I know you mean well, but I’m deadly serious. In my experience men never turn out to be who they say are at the outset, and by the time you find out you’ve been had, it’s way too late.’

  Gazing off towards the church where Alan and Neve were just about to vanish from sight, Susannah said, ‘That was absolutely true of Duncan, but in Alan’s case we know he’s who he says he is, so we don’t need to be worried that he’s trying to deceive us.’

  ‘There are always exceptions,’ Patsy conceded, ‘and I’m prepared to accept that Alan is very probably one. However, we’ve only heard his version of why his marriage broke up, and if his wife’s refusing to let him see the children, you have to wonder, is she really as stubborn as he’s saying, or is she using them to punish him for something he hasn’t got round to telling us yet?’

  * * *

  Alan’s expression was both amused and hurt as Susannah repeated Patsy’s question about his wife. ‘I wonder if I should try to come up with something dastardly, just to satisfy her,’ he responded, closing the front door and following Susannah into the kitchen. ‘If I don’t she might start thinking I’m too dull for her best friend.’

  ‘Oh no, please don’t start pandering to her wronged-woman paranoia, it’s bad enough already. Anyway, I promise you she wasn’t serious. She just likes to add a little intrigue where it hasn’t managed to find its own way in. Would you like tea? Or something stronger?’

  ‘Tea sounds good,’ he said, leaning against the sink and folding his arms. Then, with a half-laugh, ‘I hope she doesn’t start sharing her doubts with Neve, because I should hate anything to …’

  ‘She wouldn’t,’ Susannah assured him. ‘She’s well aware of how impressionable teenage girls are, so she wouldn’t dream of doing anything to spoil the great start you and my incorrigible daughter seem to have got off to. Besides, like I said, she didn’t mean anything by it, and I only mentioned it because I thought it would make you laugh. I can see now that it was pretty insensitive, so I’m sorry. I wish I’d thought first.’

  Smiling as he regarded her dismay, he said, ‘No, I’m the one who should be apologising. Helen’s behaviour is as big a mystery to me as it is to everyone else. In my case though, I have the frustration, and dare I say pain, of it too, so my sense of humour often tends to fail when the subject comes up.’

  Going to stand in front of him, Susannah took his hands in hers. ‘There is no funny side to it,’ she told him earnestly, ‘so please forgive my stupidity, and if she’d had any idea it would upset you so much I know Pats would be saying sorry too – before taking me aside to give me the kind of earbashing I deserve for repeating it.’

  His eyes were full of amusement as he gazed into hers and put a hand to her face. ‘All you deserve is to be cared for and loved,’ he told her softly.

  Her eyes went down as her throat tightened with feeling.

  ‘This has been a wonderful day,’ he whispered. ‘From the way Lola welcomed me so warmly when I picked her up, to spending time with you and Pats again, to meeting Neve who’s a very beautiful young lady and an absolute credit to you …’ His voice grew huskier as his fingers spread out over her cheek. ‘I want to give you the perfect end to a perfect day,’ he said, ‘but I know Neve’s going to be home in the next hour or so …’

  Susannah raised her eyes back to his. Her pulse was shaky and her voice barely audible as she said, ‘We can always take her school things over to Lola’s.’

  His gaze seemed to deepen, and tilting her face towards him, he kissed her tenderly on the mouth. ‘I don’t want to rush you,’ he said, his lips still touching hers.

  Having to swallow first, she said, ‘It’s not as though we’ve never done it before.’

  He smiled and kissed her again. ‘If I stay the night I’ll have to leave early in the morning to go home and change for work. Is that OK?’

  ‘Of course it is.’

  Pulling her into his arms he kissed her more firmly, holdin
g her against him and making her feel desired in a way she hadn’t in so long.

  ‘Would you like me to take Neve’s things over?’ he offered after a while.

  ‘Would you mind?’ she said, not wanting to presume, but also glad for the chance to prepare. Then with a mischievous twinkle, ‘I’ll be waiting when you get back – and mine is the first door on the right.’

  It took him a moment, then remembering the time he’d crept into Lola and Fred’s one night and ended up stumbling into the coat cupboard and crashing over the vacuum cleaner, he laughed and kissed her again.

  After the front door closed behind him Susannah quickly picked up the phone to let Lola know he was on his way and to warn Neve not to say anything crass.

  ‘Like as if,’ Neve protested. ‘And what happens if you haven’t put everything in my bag? How am I going to get it?’

  ‘Text what you need and I’ll bring it first thing in the morning.’

  ‘OK, but this is really gross, I hope you know that. You’re my mother, I’m not supposed to know about your love life.’

  ‘Hang on, wasn’t it you telling me to take condoms with me last night?’

  ‘See, I told you you’d need them. Have you got any?’

  ‘Mind your own business. Is Pats still there?’

  ‘Yep. I’ll put her on. Good luck, and if you can’t make it, fake it.’

  Blinking, Susannah said, ‘You’re not supposed to say things like that to me.’

  ‘Bye! Here’s Pats.’

  A moment later Patsy’s voice came down the line saying, ‘I get the impression a big event is about to take place.’

  ‘I’m starting to consider selling tickets,’ Susannah quipped. ‘Anyway, I just wanted to warn you not to say anything else about his wife and only knowing his side of the story. I mentioned it just now and he got quite … Well, not upset, exactly, more concerned that you’d think that.’

  There was a moment before Patsy said, ‘You amaze me sometimes, Susannah. Why on earth did you tell him what I’d said, when it was only en passant … In fact, I’d completely forgotten it until you just brought it up again. And as for thinking I’d say it to him …’

  ‘I’m sorry. Of course you wouldn’t. I don’t know what I’m thinking. I guess it’s nerves.’

  Patsy’s tone was a little gentler as she said, ‘It’s OK, but if you do think it’s an issue …’

  ‘No, I don’t. His wife might tell the story in a different way to him, but I have no problem believing him. Do you?’

  ‘No, none at all.’

  ‘So that’s all right then.’

  ‘It would seem so.’

  Aware of how tense she suddenly was, Susannah took a deep breath and let it go slowly. ‘I feel completely foolish now,’ she said, ‘not only for telling him, but for bringing it up again with you.’

  Laughing, Patsy said, ‘That’s the trouble with romance, it makes fools of us all, but the important thing is to enjoy it anyway.’

  Susannah laughed and shivered, and after a hurried goodbye she ran upstairs for a quick tidy round and to light some candles, before diving into the shower.

  Half an hour later a moody jazz sound was drifting from her old CD player, and her bedroom was bathed in a soft amber glow that undulated gently around the walls. She sat expectantly, anxiously, on the edge of the bed, listening to the front door opening and closing, followed by the tread of Alan’s footsteps on the stairs. Her heart was thudding with so much anticipation that she could barely breathe, and when he came into the room, seeming so large and masculine in her very feminine domain, she gave a gasp that she tried to cover with a laugh.

  Coming to sit beside her on the bed, he took the wine glass she was holding and put it on the nightstand. ‘There’s a lot I’d like to say to you right now,’ he told her, letting his eyes roam over her lovely face, ‘but when I look at you, sitting here like this, I start finding it hard to believe it’s real. Am I dreaming? Will I wake up in a minute and find myself back in a world where you were a memory and I was the fool who’d let you go?’

  Putting her arms tentatively round his neck, she pressed her mouth to his. ‘Did that feel real?’ she asked huskily.

  He nodded, his eyes holding lovingly to hers. Pulling her closer, he kissed her with a growing passion that seemed to wrap itself around them as though binding them in a world that contained only desire.

  Their lovemaking was tender and fulfilling, and as fluid as a well-practised dance. He seemed to know her in ways she barely even knew herself, his fingers and lips arousing her and playing with her, making her gasp and moan, his body covering hers and moving with her as though it might be one with her. She felt an intimacy with him that only a shared past could bring, and connected to him in ways that went beyond words. At the peak of their lovemaking he held her as she soared, urging her higher and still higher until she was dizzied and breathless and couldn’t take any more.

  ‘Are you OK?’ he asked, several minutes after his own release.

  ‘Mm, I think so,’ she murmured, and they smiled into one another’s eyes.

  Her heart was still racing, her skin remained alive with sensation, and as she looked at him she felt as though she was losing herself in the depths of their shared emotions.

  ‘I don’t know what happens from here,’ he whispered, the shadows on his face moving and darkening in the flickering light, ‘but whatever it is, I want us to be together.’

  ‘So do I,’ she answered. ‘Yes, so do I.’

  Chapter Seven

  OVER THE FOLLOWING weeks, as her relationship with Alan renewed and deepened, Susannah could feel an aura of happiness settling around her as though it were a tangible, even a visible force. She saw it reflected in the eyes of people who smiled at her in the street, or sat next to her on buses. It was as though she was reaching a place inside them that had sat too long in darkness, lighting it up with her own inner radiance. She felt the way she always used to, full of confidence and kindness, unfearful of life and enthusiastic about the future – and at times so exhilarated that she might erupt with joy.

  ‘Haven’t seen your feet on the ground for a while,’ Lola would cheerfully grumble every now and again.

  ‘He’s the best thing that ever happened to us,’ Neve kept gushing, so often that even Susannah wanted to gag her.

  ‘If you could see the difference between the way you look now, and how you were three weeks ago,’ Patsy declared, on a brief visit from Paris, ‘you’d swear you’d been exorcised. It’s like the lights have come back on … Actually, you’re making me feel so emotional I might cry.’

  Patsy relocating to Paris had been the only dark spot, but at least her job called for her to be in London two or three times a month, and they were able to catch up on the phone most days. Susannah was always full of Alan, and how he was trying to persuade her to give up her job at the club (strictly office-only now) and let him make up the money she’d lose – an offer she’d so far refused.

  From Patsy’s end the chat was mainly about how hostile she was finding her French colleagues, with the surprising, and curious, exception of Frank, pronounced Fronk, who, according to Patsy’s wry observation, had to be seen to be believed.

  ‘No, he’s definitely not good-looking,’ she cried, when Susannah asked, ‘but OK, I have to give credit where it’s due, he has this smile that’s … Well, let’s put it this way, they could save on bills if they plugged him into the Eiffel Tower.’

  With a splutter of laughter, Susannah said, ‘What’s he like otherwise? Tall, short, fat, thin? Charming, rude, fastidious, flirtatious?’

  ‘Let me see. Neither tall nor short – about five ten, I guess. Pot belly, partly bald, apart from his seriously scary eyebrows that are like a pair of pubic outcrops with a life all their own. Charm would certainly top the list of his attributes, though he has a pretty unique brand of it. Rude wouldn’t feature at all, because he’s polite to a fault; I’d call him dedicated rather than fastidious, and if
he tries flirting with me one more time I’m going to slap him.’

  Laughing again, Susannah said, ‘I can’t wait to meet him.’

  ‘Don’t hold your breath.’

  ‘What about life outside the office?’

  ‘Still non-existent, apart from work-related events. I’m just not finding the time to go exploring, or shopping, or do any other kind of socialising. Besides, I don’t really know anyone yet, and from what I can tell, the French don’t do things quite the way we do. They’re incredibly formal, and everyone here, at the office, is so distant with me they might as well be in Sydney once the working day is over. Anyway, I’m sure it’ll get better, and once I’ve managed to find a place of my own and move out of Claudia’s apartment, I’ll be able to do some entertaining. I don’t want you to wait that long, though. Please come for a weekend, just as soon as you can.’

  As soon as Susannah mentioned the invitation to Alan he was all for it. ‘Just say the word and I’ll book the flights,’ he told her, ‘unless you’d rather go by train.’

  Susannah didn’t mind how she got there, but as she still couldn’t afford to give up her job at the club, a wonderful romantic break in Paris wasn’t on the cards just yet. At least not for her. Neve, on the other hand, was bursting to go, and even suggested that Alan should take her instead, an idea he didn’t seem wholly averse to. However, Susannah drew the line at such overindulgence. He was spoiling Neve enough already, having bought her an iPod and a laptop computer, not to mention the extremely expensive birthday dinner at the Ivy so Neve could star-spot and boast to her friends about who she’d seen.

  In fact, he was slotting so easily into their lives that it soon became hard to imagine how they’d ever managed to get along without him. He’d started taking care of all the little jobs around the house and Lola’s flat that Susannah couldn’t manage, and insisted on paying the grocery bills on the grounds that he ate with them far more often than he did at home. He even drove Neve to and from school when it fitted in with his schedule.