“How do you manage to look so bright and cheerful all the time?” Sybil asked, handing Sue her tea.
The question had come right out of the blue and without hesitation Sue told her, “By taking a lover.” And proceeded with the story.
Lady Banks sat smiling, nodding so gently that the long blonde hair, which curled softly over her tanned shoulders, and the huge green earrings which matched her dress, hardly moved. And when Sue fell silent she reached out to take her hand and said, “Oh Sue, my dear, I’m so glad. So pleased for you. Not that it is a solution, but it does ease the torment, doesn’t it?”
Sue had thought for a minute before replying. “I have never quite thought of it that way . . . but yes, I think you’re right. Steve does make my life a lot happier, but I feel very guilty about him: I have the awful feeling I’ve ruined his life.”
*
The alterations at Les Marettes were finished and the Banks’ moved in late in October. It was no surprise that Sybil’s architect, Stephen Martel, just happened to call when Sue was having lunch with them one day: the simultaneous visits had become more than coincidental. After coffee, Sue had to drive off to collect the children from their respective schools, take them home and give them their tea.
Jonathan was waiting for them, the meal laid on the kitchen table – fingers of Marmite toast, biscuits and a glass of milk each. And a fresh pot of tea for Sue and himself.
“Sweetheart, how lovely! What a super surprise!” She bent to kiss his cheek before removing Debbie’s coat.
“It’s nothing, really. I should do it far more often. One of the few tasks I can manage.” Though his arms and shoulders were immensely strong, the muscles developed from wheeling himself all the time, the price was high: pain in his back steadily increasing particularly in the cold and damp of winter.
“Look, Stephanie! Your favourite!” Sue helped the child onto a chair.
The five-year-old took some toast and said “Thank you, Daddy.”
Her father smiled, noting how like her mother she was growing, with her dark hair and wide grin. Only the eyes were different, amber like Sarah’s had been.
Sue sipped her tea, wondering what was going on in Jonathan’s mind. He had had more and more of these nice, helpful moods, lately: was it possible that he knew about Stephen? Might he be scared of losing her, trying to make it impossible for her to leave? Or even hoping to rebuild a loving relationship again?
Love. She had loved three men in her life – all passionately. First David, whom she had let down so badly. Then Jonathan whom she had adored, and continued to do so long after his accident and change of character. She supposed she loved him still – sometimes as friend and companion, at others as one might a difficult and belligerent child. But no longer as a lover.
And now she had Stephen.
Jonathan wheeled his chair round the table to wipe Deborah’s face. He loved her red curls tied in bunches behind each ear – the same colour hair as his father’s had been – and he loved the sparkling green eyes. Sue’s eyes as they were when he had first known her . . . eyes which had dulled over the years, no doubt with pain and disappointment.
Dear God, what had he done? He turned away and reached for the teapot, asking himself the same questions that never left him, nowadays: what could he do about it? What was he capable of doing, that could ensure a normal and fulfilled family life for Sue and the children?
Of course he knew the answer. The only question was when?
Chapter Ten – Turn of the Tide
“Suzanne! Can you come?” The ringing telephone had interrupted the nine o’clock news and Aline’s voice sounded strange.
“Now?” Sue glanced down at her old housecoat and slippers.
“It’s your grandmother. She’s passed out.”
“Have you called the doctor?” Sue was reluctant to answer the summons unless it was really necessary.
“Yes. But I don’t know what to do while waiting.”
Sue grunted in exasperation: Aline could be so helpless when she chose. “Okay. I’ll be there in ten minutes,” she said, and ran into the bedroom to change.
“Poor you!” Jonathan smiled sympathetically when she explained. “Why couldn’t she call John? He is her brother.”
Sue grinned. They both knew the answer to that one.
Aline was waiting at the door as Sue came up the path. “The doctor’s still here making phone calls. I’ll have to remember to knock the charges off his bill when it comes. Anyway, you’re too late. She’s gone.” Slowly and dramatically she shook her head.
“Where? To the hospital?”
Aline tilted her head sadly to one side and put an arm round her niece. “I know it is hard to assimilate, but you must try. Your grandmother has died.”
“Oh no!” Why on earth couldn’t the silly woman say so before? She moved on down the hallway into the sitting room. “Where is she? What happened?”
“Her body is in the kitchen. She went out there to make us some cocoa. She was a long time and I nodded off in my chair.”
Sue ground her teeth. Typical of her aunt to let an old lady in her eighties wait on her. When the doctor finished with the telephone she called John, who left home immediately.
Aline was not pleased to see her brother, allowing him into the house with grim reluctance.
Sue was glad to leave her uncle to cope with the morticians and with Aline’s crocodile tears: she couldn’t erase the vision of her aunt reappearing after a visit upstairs, wearing Granma’s pearls and a diamond brooch.
Nor, several days later, seeing her wear them at Marie’s funeral.
*
Months later, when Christmas was all over, Sue told her cousin Sybil that it had been the best ever. All the family were congregated under one roof, except, of course, for Sarah, Andrew and the two grandmothers. “And Jonathan was wonderful,” she added.
“It was sweet of him to get us all to stay the two nights in your hotel. And it was so thoughtful of him to take my mother under his wing, so to speak, and he started teaching her bridge.” Sybil enthused. “Do you know, she has taken to it like a duck to water.”
“So I gather. Dad says Aunt Maureen plays a decent hand, and coming from him, that is really something!”
“It was splendid that your Uncle William brought his family from England. Annemarie is a hoot.”
“And what a surprise to see Aunt Ethel as well, with her lot. You may have remembered them from our wedding?”
“Were you not expecting them?”
“No! Jonathan arranged it all behind my back. As a Christmas treat.”
“How extraordinarily kind!” Sybil exclaimed, wondering once again what had brought about Jonathan’s metamorphosis.
“Yes,” Sue acknowledged. “The only one missing was Aunt Aline.”
“What happened to her?”
“She probably guessed John and Edna would be with us, so she made other arrangements! Spent the day with a family called Mitchell.”
“The retired bank manager who’s wife died last year?”
“That’s the one. His sight is not too good so he gets Aline to drive him around, I believe.”
“I think it is remarkable the way Jonathan is able to drive himself, now. Amazing how the manufacturers can produce a car entirely hand controlled.”
Sue smiled. “Yes. Wonderful. He felt terrible when he couldn’t get about under his own steam.”
*
Jonathan was quite pleased with himself: he felt sure that Sue had no inkling of his secret. He looked at the calendar on his office wall – February already.
“Sue, darling!”
She slid round behind the reception desk into the office. “You want me?”
“Saw you pass by and wondered if you could spare some time. There are a few things I’d like to discuss with you.”
“I’ll be right with you when I’ve put this pile of sheets in the linen cupboard.”
He had a large box file open on the
desk when she returned. “I’ve taken these cuttings from magazines,” he said, passing her a clipful of printed papers. “Our kitchens desperately need updating. What do you think of those?”
Sue studied the adverts for magnificent stainless steel ovens and worktops, refrigerators and gadgetry. “Beautiful. But somewhat outside our price range at the moment, don’t you think?”
“We could get them on hire purchase.”
“And pray for enough profit this coming season to meet the instalments?” She grimaced at the thought.
“I don’t want you . . . us to take on any extra worries, but if we can follow up some other ideas I’ve had, maybe we can upgrade the hotel this year.”
Sue listened as he began to outline his suggestions, stunned that they were only suggestions, having become so used to his dogmatic decisions. What’s more, he was making sense. He wanted to aim advertising at more local trade, offering snack meals in the bar, thereby keeping a permanent chef busy through the winter, rather than taking on a new one each summer. “And packed lunches for the visitors,” he added.
“Could we have an arrangement with a car hire firm and get a small percentage per booking?”
“Brilliant idea.” He wrote it down on his list.
Sue hardly dared breathe in case she woke to find she’d been dreaming. Jonathan had been much easier to live with for the past few months, but this . . . he had never sought her opinion or agreed with an idea of her’s since his accident, and suddenly he seemed unable to fault her! She looked up and found he was watching her.
He smiled. “I’ve written this over a carbon so we can keep a copy each. Then we can add to it whenever a thought occurs and compare notes, later.” Seeing her surprise as he handed her the top copy, a wave of guilt stained his face and neck red. God, what a swine he had been in the past . . .
Sue thanked him, mumbled something about lunch, and bolted. She wanted to find a corner where there was no chance he might find her, read her thoughts. Upstairs, she shut herself in one of the bedrooms, stood at the window watching the thin dusting of snow melting on the lawn, her mind dazed by a tangle of conflicting emotions. What was going on? Why, after making her life hell for eight years, was Jonathan being so . . . nice? What had brought about the change? Not that it was new. He had had phases of being his wonderful, charming old self all along; but they never lasted more than a day or two, or maybe just an hour! Now, apart from a few minor bouts of irritation he hadn’t really lapsed since well before Christmas. He was almost his old self again: charming and lovable! Except that she no longer loved him.
It was her turn to experience a wave of guilt, remembering how their lovely Christmas had been shared with Stephen. And his parents, and Jessica, of course. And Dad and Aunt Maureen, Gordon and Sybil. Twenty-seven of them all together. And apart from the children, she had been more conscious of Stephen’s presence than all the rest put together.
Oh God! Am I very, very wicked?
*
“Your Aunt Aline is on the phone, Sue!”
“Can you finish cutting your sausages, Debbie?” Sue asked, wiping her fingers on the dishcloth.
“‘A course I can,” the little redhead frowned indignantly.
Sue hurried into the hall. “Hello, Auntie. How are you?”
“I’m fine, but I want to see you. I’ve something I need to ask you about. Can you come round for a coffee tomorrow morning?”
“Er . . . yes, I suppose so. What is it?”
“I’ll tell you when I see you. Goodbye.”
Sue puzzled over her aunt’s call all evening and arrived at the house in town still mystified. She assumed it had something to do with Grandma: the old lady had only been gone four months.
Aline had the percolator on the stove and a tray laid with cups and biscuits. “Leave your coat in the hall,” she said, “and come and sit down.”
Sue did as she was told and waited.
“Bertrand has asked me to marry him.”
Sue nearly dropped her coffee. “Marry?” She managed to stop herself commenting that, at fifty-seven, it might be a bit late to start thinking about wedded bliss. “Who is Bertrand?”
“You know, Bertrand Mitchell.”
The banker! “Oh yes. I know of him but we’ve never met.” Over the rim of her cup she studied her aunt’s superbly cut navy-blue suit and matching blouse with white spots, the wide bow tied at her neck; the shapely nylon-sheathed legs and navy and white punched-leather shoes. Aline’s grey hair was drawn back with soft waves into a French roll, new diamond stud earrings matching Grandma’s diamond crescent brooch. She looked marvellous, could be absolutely charming . . . and was the world’s worst troublemaker! “Did you accept his proposal?”
Aline gave a coy smile. “Well, I didn’t say no, but nor did I say yes. I wanted to speak to you, first.”
“Me! Why me?”
“Well you are a married woman, and I thought you would be able to advise me.” A flush of deepening colour rose into her face. “Bertrand is a charming man, very wealthy and very fond of me. But he is seventy-six, you know, and I was wondering if he might be likely to want . . . well, you know, that sort of thing, after we were married. You see he was married before and accustomed to . . . that sort of thing, whereas never having been married myself, well I don’t know that I would want to start.”
The picture in Sue’s mind made it very difficult to keep a straight face. “You mean you would only want to marry him for companionship?” And his unlimited wealth?
Aline stared at the carpet, nodding.
Sue, still only twenty-eight, also found difficulty in imagining a doddery old gentleman having the strength and energy to overcome Aline’s virginity. Then it came to mind that at least at her aunt’s age they wouldn’t need to worry about contraception! Arranging a serious expression on her face, she said, “Why not ask him?”
“Oh! I couldn’t do that!” Aline turned puce.
“You wouldn’t have to get technical. Just say that if you did marry you would need to have separate beds, or you would never get any sleep.” Then it occurred to her she might have worded her advice a little better.
Aline and Bertrand were married two weeks later. Sue never did discover what the marital arrangements were, but it did not take her long to realise that Bertrand had known all along exactly why he wanted to marry. He required someone to do his shopping, cooking, washing and cleaning. Someone to nurse him in his declining years.
*
The car swayed, buffeted by the wind. Rain lashed the windows. Sue shivered and snuggled closer to Stephen. They were parked on Vazon Headland where the pounding of the breakers vibrated up from the rocks below.
“Want to go back home now?” Stephen asked, nuzzling her hair.
“No. But it is getting late, so I must.” Sue tilted her face up for his kisses, desperately clinging to him. When she pulled away it was with a sigh of misery. “Parting is always the worst part, isn’t it?”
“Almost as unbearable as not having the opportunity, never meeting. Oh, darling, must this go on forever? Will there ever be a chance for us?”
Sue fastened the buttons on her mac and retied the scarf round her head. “Don’t,” she muttered in the darkness, “I cannot bear it. The worst part is that Jonathan is being so good, now, that he makes me feel more and more guilty every day. It didn’t seem so awful when he was giving me hell, but for the past few months I could hardly fault him.”
“I’m glad, for your sake and the children’s, but not for mine.” He peered through the water on the windscreen at the faint lights across the bay.
“I keep telling you we should break this up to give you a chance to find someone else.”
“I keep telling you I don’t want to.”
“But I will never be free. Ever.”
He drove her back to her car which they had left a mile down the road, and they pecked briefly before going their separate ways.
Sue brooded on the cards Fate had dealt her
as she followed the west coast road. Her thoughts drifted back to the war years: all the hymns and songs they had sung at school assembly about peace and freedom. Freedom! Was this freedom? Or would God continue to punish her for jilting David for the rest of her life? But there never had been any freedom, even before she met Jonathan; she had hated her mother’s attempts to dominate her.
She smiled into the darkness. Poor Mummy. It was only now, with Roddy approaching the age she had been when she left the island in 1940, that she could truly understand in depth just how her mother must have suffered, having her then only child wrenched away from her. Thank God they had made up their differences before she died.
At Cobo the sea was cascading over the wall, flinging stones and seaweed across the road, so she had to divert inland to avoid being hit. Her ‘alibi’ was Sybil, and there would be no excuse for sea damage to the car between her cousin’s house at Bordeaux and the hotel at Port Grat. She hated the lies more now than ever; hated answering Jonathan’s questions about Sybil and Gordon, dreading he might have telephoned to speak to her and been told some story to cover her inability to take the call . . . a story she wouldn’t know or be able to back up. The last thing she wanted was to hurt him; he would be devastated if he ever found out.
Yet was there any way she could ever break with Stephen?
*
“Let’s go down to Jersey for a weekend with the children.” Jonathan and Sue were sitting either side of the fireplace, reading the newspapers.
Another first! Sue smiled at him, “They would love it!”
“Wouldn’t you?”
“Of course I would. Wonderful idea. What made you think of it?”
“This advert in the Guernsey Press. Look.”
She leaned forward to take the paper from him, and studied it. “I can’t believe they can do it for the price! It includes the boat trip and bed, breakfast and evening meal.”
“Yes,” he said thoughtfully. “Perhaps we could get in on that act. In reverse.”
“And from the mainland. Package holidays. That’s a rather exciting idea!” She grinned at him. “In fact they are both exciting ideas! But let’s us do the Jersey one first and see how it works.”
The Guernsey Saga Box Set Page 49
