The Prodigal Wife

by Marcia Willett

  Phil would materialize at her shoulder, cheerful and comfortingly familiar, like a dear old dog: faithful and loyal. Pen would nod – firm but encouraging at a distance – and raise her glass as if it were a flag and she were urging her old chum to the starting point of a race. Some of Maria’s friends had been surprised and rather disapproving of her sudden decision to sell up and move into the annexe. They’d muttered all the old clichés about not doing anything in a hurry, not knowing that she’d had no choice but to sell and that the annexe was an absolute haven. Oh, how she dreaded the news leaking out somehow and then the whispers and the pitying looks; oh, the horror of it. Pen and Philip would remain loyal, of course. They might not even be particularly surprised. They knew Ed very well; knew his inability to stick to a job or be prepared to do anything mundane or boring. Ed had always had spectacular – and very expensive – ideas. Even so, she cringed with gut-churning shame at the thought of these friends of hers knowing the truth, discussing it behind her back. Not that she was destitute – Adam had left some very good investments and she had enough money from the sale of the house to buy a small flat, even here in Salisbury – but she could no longer compete with the social commitments of Philip and Penelope and the gang. Of course, just at the moment, nobody expected her to…

  She glanced down at her pretty frock with satisfaction. She knew she looked good and that she could still command the reluctant envy of her women friends and the sly admiration of their husbands. She straightened her shoulders, arranged her expression, feeling like a child arriving at a party of older children; hopeful, slightly winsome. And here was darling Phil, just as she’d known he’d be, eye cocked for her appearance, the hand under the elbow.

  ‘That’s right,’ he said approvingly. ‘Gosh, you look good. Now vodka, is it, or a gin?’

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Cordelia drove into Dartmouth, found a space for the car at the bottom of Jawbones Hill and sat for a moment summoning up her courage. She’d been determined not to be amongst the first of Angus’s guests to arrive and now, glancing at her watch, she was seized with panic lest she should be late enough to draw just the attention she wanted to avoid. She locked the car, walked down Crowthers Hill and turned up towards the house in Above Town. Tingling with nervousness she approached the dark blue door, which was propped open with a weighty door-stop: a beautifully painted cast-iron mallard.

  She hesitated, staring at it, recognizing it. She’d seen it many times at the house in Hampshire when she’d been visiting Anne, nearly always when Angus was at sea.

  ‘It would have to be Anne,’ she’d cried despairingly all those years ago. ‘I can’t stop being friends with her after seven years, Angus. How am I to do this?’

  ‘I never thought Simon would leave you,’ he’d answered wretchedly. ‘God, what bloody awful timing. But I’m committed now. Anne’s expecting a baby…’

  Cordelia could hear the sounds of jollity drifting down the stairs; voices, music: Jacques Loussier playing Bach’s Chromatic Fantasia. She and Angus loved Jacques Loussier, though she mustn’t mention that. She stood quite still, jittery with fear.

  She thought: Did I really think that I could get away with this?

  She stepped past the mallard into the big room, which was both kitchen and dining room, where a buffet supper had been laid out. Some guests were holding plates and napkins, choosing delicacies, and a pretty girl in a smart uniform was opening bottles at the kitchen end of the room.

  ‘I shall get some caterers in,’ Angus had told her, ‘if you really won’t help me.’

  ‘No way,’ she’d answered firmly. ‘Absolutely no way. You can’t be serious. For God’s sake, we might as well put it up in coloured lights that we’re having an affair…’

  ‘OK,’ he’d said equably. ‘Just be there.’

  And here she was, smiling at the girl and miming that no, she didn’t have a coat and yes, she’d go on up, nodding cheerfully at the people by the table, and climbing the steep narrow stairs to the first-floor sitting room. And here was Angus, seeing her come into the room, raising an arm high in welcome so that several people swivelled round to see who the newcomer was.

  ‘Cordelia,’ he was calling – ‘Don’t ever call me Dilly in public,’ she’d threatened him – and she was waving back, crying, ‘Wow! What a view! It’s nearly as good as mine.’ Then he was beside her, giving her a host-like hug and immediately offering her a drink.

  ‘Wine,’ she murmured, continuing to beam around, ‘whatever,’ and waving brightly into the sea of faces: nearly all naval couples. ‘Hi, Neil. Tasha. How are you both? Mike, how lovely.’ And then, to her utter relief, someone she trusted and loved was moving out of the crowd and coming towards her and, for the first time, she felt as if she might be able to survive this terrible ordeal.

  ‘Julia,’ she said with relief. ‘Oh, my darling, how are you? You look fantastic. Is Pete here? Oh, yes, there he is. How wonderful to see you.’

  ‘We were so thrilled when Angus said you might be coming,’ Julia Bodrugan was saying, embracing her. ‘I nearly phoned and then some drama blew up. It’s been far too long.’

  Cordelia hugged her tightly. ‘Much too long,’ she agreed. ‘We’re all so busy these days. But how noble of you to come all the way up from St Breward.’

  ‘It’s noble of me,’ agreed Julia, ‘because I’ve promised not to drink. But it’s not noble of Pete. Pete doesn’t do noble. He has a simple social rule: if he can’t drink, he doesn’t go.’

  Cordelia laughed and then was engulfed in Pete’s bear hug. ‘What’s she saying about me?’ he demanded. ‘Whatever it is I deny it. Have you seen this view, Cordelia? He can see right down the river. Look. He can practically see his mooring off Noss. He says that’s why he bought the house, because the privately owned moorings went with it. He’s even got a running mooring in Bayard’s Cove for his dinghy. Lucky devil. Of course, you’re not likely to be impressed by a view of the River Dart, are you, not with the English Channel on your doorstep?’

  Cordelia squeezed his arm. ‘Your own views from Trescairn are pretty good,’ she reminded him. ‘But this is lovely. Different from my view but just as beautiful. I love seeing all the little boats.’

  Standing between Julia and Pete she felt safe; as long as she didn’t say anything compromising. Angus brought her a drink and she smiled her thanks, not looking at him, gesticulating at the river and making polite noises.

  ‘I might get a bit of sailing in before I have to take the boat out of the water for the winter,’ he said. ‘What about it, Cordelia? Fancy a run up to Salcombe one fine afternoon?’

  She saw how his jokey invitation was giving her an opportunity to establish their supposedly casual relationship publicly. ‘It shows how little you remember about me,’ she retorted. ‘I get seasick on the Lower Ferry. No thanks.’

  Someone called to him, claiming his attention, and he turned away.

  ‘Isn’t it nice that Angus has got so many friends to help him settle in?’ Julia was saying. ‘I hope the boys will make the effort to get down to visit him.’

  Cordelia stopped herself just in time from saying that one of them had been down this last weekend, and was seized anew with terror. How easy it would be to make a mistake. And now Lynne Talbot was approaching with her thin, vinegar smile and cool, penetrating stare.

  ‘Cordelia,’ she said, offering her cheek, ‘Jeff and I were just saying the other day that we hardly ever see you. Scribbling away as usual, I suppose.’

  ‘That’s my job,’ agreed Cordelia amiably. She held her drink to one side and touched her cheek very lightly to Lynne’s. ‘I don’t have a grateful government paying me a whacking great pension like you and Jeff. And I’ve never been one for the sailing club; not really my scene. Like I just told Angus, I get seasick on the Lower Ferry. And I can’t seem to master the intricacies of bridge. I’m a social disaster. Are you well?’

  ‘Pretty well. Julia and I were just talking about grandchildren. H
ow’s Henrietta?’

  ‘Childless so far,’ said Cordelia promptly. ‘But that’s fine. You had two the last time I saw you. Is there any advance on that?’

  ‘No, still just the two. Someone – who was it? – was saying that they saw you upcountry a few weeks ago. Oxford, was it? Coming out of The Randolph with some man? No? Oh, well, she must have been mistaken. It’s good to have Angus around, isn’t it? He’s coming over for lunch next week. Perhaps you’d like to come too.’

  Angus was back; she could feel him just behind her, smell the scent of his aftershave. Lynne was watching her with that familiar, narrowed stare, the faintly knowing smile on her lips, and it occurred to Cordelia that she might give much more away by behaving stiffly with Angus than by being her normal self.

  She turned, took his arm, made big eyes at him. ‘Darling,’ she said, ‘Lynne’s matchmaking already. We’re having lunch with her next week. Are you ready for this?’

  He grimaced comically, miming pleasurable anxiety. ‘I can see that I shall have to be careful. Anne always said that you were a dangerous woman.’

  It worked perfectly. As she glanced around she saw tiny mental connections being made: ‘Of course, Anne and Cordelia were friends, weren’t they?’ and approving smiles: ‘Isn’t it nice to see Angus happy again?’ and meanwhile Julia was laughing, and Angus was asking everyone to go downstairs and get some food. Cordelia released his arm quite naturally and turned away with Pete and Julia to fetch some supper. She felt confident now; the worst was over.

  She left quite early: that was planned too.

  ‘You could pretend to go,’ he’d suggested when they’d talked about the party, ‘and come back after everyone’s gone.’

  ‘And how would I know?’ she’d demanded. ‘Do I hide under a rug in the car and count everyone out? You must be joking.’

  So she waited until three or four people had already gone and then glanced at her watch and said she’d be on her way. There were the usual polite protests and she hugged Angus quite naturally. It was Pete and Julia who came downstairs to see her off and remind her of the new plan for her to drive down to Trescairn for the day.

  ‘I’ll phone tomorrow,’ she promised, ‘when I’ve looked at my diary. It’d be wonderful.’

  She got into the car, light-headed with relief, and drove home: out through Stoke Fleming and Strete, along Torcross Line, through Kingsbridge, and then plunged into the narrow winding lanes that led to the cliffs.

  She let herself into the cottage, greeted McGregor and, still high on adrenalin, flung her jacket and bag on to the table. Her phone rang just as she’d made herself some camomile tea.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Angus asked. ‘You did so well, Dilly. Bless you for coming. I really thought you might chicken out at the last minute.’

  She sat down in her rocking chair, hugging a little patchwork cushion, longing for him.

  ‘I nearly did. I had a really terrible attack of cold feet but I’m glad I made it. It was…OK. And fantastic to see Pete and Julia. Why don’t I like Lynne?’

  ‘Troublemaker,’ he said succinctly. ‘Always was. Tiny innuendoes and carefully worded comments that spread gossip. She can’t hurt us. Not now.’

  ‘No,’ Cordelia agreed cautiously. ‘But you were right about telling Henrietta as soon as possible now. When I saw Lynne I thought how it might be if Henrietta were to be told by someone else and I felt quite ill. It was a great party, Angus. But it was scary at times. Pretending that I’d never been to the house before, for instance.’

  ‘You looked very calm,’ he assured her. ‘Very poised. The professional journalist.’

  She chuckled. ‘Lynne took pains to mention my scribbling. Are we really going to lunch with them next week?’

  ‘I think it’s a brilliant move if you can face it. Just what we want, isn’t it? To look as if we’re re-establishing an old connection. It would be a perfectly natural thing to do, wouldn’t it?’

  Quite unexpectedly she was shaken by an irrational bitterness.

  ‘Do you mean my connection with Anne or with you? Would Anne consider it perfectly natural, I wonder?’

  There was a silence. ‘I think it’s too late in the evening to pursue this line of conversation,’ he said evenly. ‘And especially on the end of a telephone.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said tiredly. ‘Yes, it is. We’ll speak tomorrow. Sorry, darling. Suddenly, I’m very tired. Reaction, I expect. It was a great party. Goodnight, Angus.’

  She sat in silence with McGregor stretched beside her, racked by the old, familiar sensations of resentment and hurt.

  ‘You went away,’ she’d suddenly wanted to shout at him. ‘After that amazing year of love and happiness we had you just went away for two years. Said you were too young to commit, that you needed time to see the world. And then you come back and break up my marriage and then proceed to devote yourself to one of my friends for the next twenty-five years. And now she’s died and so it’s my turn again. I can be taken out of the cupboard and dusted down and put back in your heart.’

  Cordelia rocked to and fro, clutching the cushion, aghast at the strength of this emotion, which she believed she’d conquered. She wondered if by keeping Angus at arm’s length she was subconsciously punishing him for leaving her all those years ago. Perhaps fear of Henrietta’s discovery had simply been a convenient excuse for keeping control over the relationship. So what now: now there was no longer any excuse?

  Tomorrow she would see Henrietta, and describe the party, and so begin to lay the foundation for the future. She remembered Lynne’s remarks about being seen in Oxford – and quite suddenly she thought about the piece of paper stuck under the windscreen wiper. Could it have been a photograph of her and Angus outside The Randolph? But who could have taken it – and why? Fear reasserted its grip: whatever happened, the growing relationship between Henrietta and Jolyon must not be put at risk. Thoughtfully Cordelia finished her tea, put the cushion to one side and went upstairs to bed.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Jolyon was pottering in his tiny sitting room in the gatehouse. He was only half listening to the voice of Lea Delaria singing ‘Losing My Mind’ whilst he held his mobile and tapped a text to Henrietta with one hand and swung the guard in front of the dying fire in the grate with the other. As the weekend approached he grew less confident about how he should handle the meeting between his mother and Henrietta. Resentment lurked, reminding him that he was under no obligation to present Henrietta for inspection to the woman who had made him so unhappy.

  Jolyon sent the text message, put the phone down and picked up Roger’s books, which were piled on the sofa and the floor. He put them on to the shelf and paused, his attention caught by the softly gleaming pink and blue glaze of the ginger jar. Jolyon stretched out his hand and touched it, tracing the cracks, remembering when Fliss had given it to him.

  She’d talked about how each person had to face crossroads in their lives: had choices, decisions to make…

  Well, this was one of them – and he would decide now. There was no way that he was prepared to expose Henrietta to the kind of humiliation he’d suffered; he wouldn’t be coerced into it. The music drifted into silence and he turned away. Switching off the radio and the light, he picked up his mobile and went up to bed.

  Across the courtyard Fliss was sitting on the window seat in the little sitting room that adjoined her and Hal’s bedroom. Once it had been her grandmother’s room, a private place of sanctuary, and very little had been changed: here was the bow-fronted bureau with its shallow drawers, a tall glass-fronted bookcase full of well-loved books, the small inlaid table with its bowl of flowers, and the Widgerys hanging on the pale walls.

  Fliss watched the light go out downstairs in the gatehouse and another flash on upstairs.

  ‘I can’t decide,’ Jolyon had said to her earlier, ‘whether I want my mother to meet Henrietta yet.’

  He’d glanced sideways at her; defensive, embarrassed that he even needed to be mentioni
ng it to her, yet somehow requiring her support. She’d been surprised at a sharp sense of triumph; that he was appealing to her as if he and she were on the same side – against Maria.

  ‘You must do what is right for you and Henrietta,’ she’d told him. ‘It’s tricky with new relationships, isn’t it? They need nurturing.’

  He’d flashed a look of relief at her. ‘That’s it. It’s very early days…Only Dad thought it might be nice to get Henrietta over for lunch or something…’

  His voice had tailed off, and she’d touched his shoulder encouragingly. ‘If I were you I’d play it by ear,’ she’d advised. ‘Don’t make any plans till you see how you feel once Maria’s arrived.’

  He’d nodded, given her an awkward, grateful smile and gone out.

  Now, sitting at the window, Fliss suspected that she was somehow conniving with Jo against Maria and Hal; that she was taking sides. She knew very well that Hal’s suggestions sprang from his natural generosity and self-confidence, but she was less sure about her own reactions. Old antagonisms and fears had resurfaced since Maria’s visit a few months ago and, as she stared out at Jolyon’s light, she tried to pin them down. She felt cross with Hal for putting Jolyon into an awkward position, yet it was something much deeper than partisanship for Jo that was gnawing at her peace of mind. Maybe it was simply that it was impossible to be indifferent to Maria. After all, she was Hal’s ex-wife; they’d been married for twenty years and she’d given him two sons.