Perhaps Love

by Lindsay Armstrong

  ‘Yes! You don’t understand.’

  ‘But I do,’ she said wearily. ‘I’m sorry, Mike, I don’t think we’re going to see eye to eye over this and probably a lot of other things. So I think it’s best if we don’t see each other any more. I’m sorry,’ she said again, and put the phone down decisively just as a movement behind her made her jump.

  She turned to see her father standing behind her. ‘Oh, Dad!’ she said weakly. ‘You gave me a fright!’

  The tall, distinguished, silver-haired man in front of her smiled and patted her head. ‘What’s to be so sorry about?’ he asked with a twinkle in his eye. ‘And who don’t you think’ll ever see eye to eye with you?’

  ‘Mike Gibson,’ she said with a little sigh, and added reproachfully, ‘I thought you told me it just wasn’t done to creep, up on people and listen to their conversations.’

  ‘Did I? Ah well, when you get to my age you can disregard your own advice.’ They laughed together. Then he said more soberly, ‘Don’t think I’m prying, but you sounded pretty upset. That’s why I… inadvertently found myself listening. Did Mike do something objectionable to make you so angry?’

  Sasha sighed and twisted her hands. ‘Not really,’ she said. ‘I suppose he can’t help being who he is.’

  ‘And that’s … not the right person for you?’ her father said acutely.

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  He watched for a moment with narrowed eyes. ‘Then you should be feeling relieved, Sasha,’ he said gently, ‘instead of looking a picture’ of misery. By the way, I must admit I agree with you—about Mike. It’s a strange thing, but very young men are often a lot less mature than women of the same age.’

  Sasha looked up at him with parted lips.

  ‘What is-it?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh …’ Sasha shrugged, ‘nothing. Just that someone else told me something like that only—only a few days ago.’

  She coloured as her father’s gaze sharpened, and thought, now is the time to tell him. But she found she

  couldn’t frame the words somehow. Perhaps because Jonathan Derwent and Heath were very good friends. If it had been a stranger, it might be easier, she mused. But how to tell him of her feelings for Heath when she knew they admired each other, man to man?

  So she took a breath and made herself say gaily, ‘What brings you to this neck of the woods, Papa? Come to see me or to scrounge some of Cookie’s scones? It is nearly tea-time,’ she added with a whimsical smile as she glanced at her watch.

  It seemed he hesitated before he grinned at her and rumpled her hair again. ‘Both, my dear daughter.’

  It was on Sunday evening, a week exactly after Heath had gone, that Stephanie said to Sasha, ‘Could you ask Cookie to chill a bottle .of champagne for dinner, pet?’

  Sasha wrinkled her nose. ‘Whose birthday?’ she asked.

  ‘Does there have to be a birthday to have champagne?’

  ‘I suppose not. Yes, I’ll ask her.’

  But when she walked into the dining room that night she stopped and frowned. The beautiful old silky-oak table gleamed beneath its silver and china.

  ‘Something’s up,’ she muttered to herself. ‘Not only champagne but the best china.’

  ‘Sasha! There you are, dear.’

  She turned as her father came into the room and gave her a quick hug.

  ‘Dad! You again? You must be the mystery dinner guest.’

  ‘You could say so. Or just the man who came to dinner and …’

  ‘What’s this about a mystery?’ asked Stephanie as she swept into the room looking magnificent. And she and Jonathan Derwent exchanged looks of pure mischief.

  ‘All right, you two,’ Sasha said resignedly. ‘Out with it!’

  ‘Er—this might be a good time to open the champagne, Jonathan,’ said Stephanie.

  ‘Couldn’t be a better one,’ Sasha’s father said happily, and reached for the bottle that stood invitingly in a frosted silver bucket.

  ‘I know,’ Sasha exclaimed, suddenly enlightened. ‘That Ambassadorship you were telling me about that you were thinking of accepting if it came your way. Oh, congratulations, Stephanie!’ she said warmly.

  But it was a strange little silence that greeted her words and Sasha realised that her father and her employer both’looked slightly uncomfortable.

  ‘It’s not that?’ she said at last, more confused than ever.

  ‘No, Sasha,’ Stephanie said gently. ‘I wonder if we haven’t handled this badly,’ she added quietly, then took a deep breath. ‘In fact I’m retiring from politics, Sasha. And we were rather sure you’d worked out the reason…’

  ‘Well, I obviously haven’t,’ Sasha said helplessly, and then was struck by a strange thought. She looked at her father to see him staring at her steadily. ‘You don’t mean …?’ She left her question in the air.

  He nodded. ‘Stephanie’s done me the honour of consenting to marry me,’ he said gently. ‘We had hoped to have your blessing,’ he added very soberly.

  For an instant she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry with pleasure.

  ‘Oh … darlings!’ she said at last beneath their anxious gazes. ‘Oh, I’m so happy for you both! I couldn’t think of anything more perfect! But I swear I didn’t have an inkling … although I should have,’ she added as a host of small recollections flooded her mind. ‘I don’t know how I could have been so blind. Oh, Dad!’ She hugged her father and spilt champagne all down his jacket, then turned to Stephanie.

  ‘You don’t … I mean, I thought you might resent me a little,’ Stephanie said anxiously. ‘I know how much you loved your mother. But it’s not that I would ever want to supplant her in your heart or your father’s.’

  ‘You could never do that, Stephanie,’ Sasha said very gently. ‘Because you have a very special place of your own, you see.’ She took the older woman’s hand and pressed it, then they hugged each other and more champagne was spilt, and a few happy tears too.

  Until Sasha said, ‘Darlings, I’ve just been struck by a thought, though. As one who knows,’ she grinned impishly at them both, ‘do you realise you are two of the most impossible people to get on with first thing in the mornings?’

  Stephanie gave a shout of laughter. ‘As one who knows, my dear, I thought you might have reserved that title for Heath.’

  ‘Oh, he’s not really…’ Sasha stopped abruptly and then pressed on. ‘I mean, it’s only when he’s had a heavy night. I mean, he can also be impossibly bright and energetic too, can’t he?’ she added, and forced a rueful smile to her lips.

  And he can be unbelievably sweet and funny and just so beautiful, and he can make you laugh and want to cry’ at the same time…

  ‘Does he know?’ she asked, as much to break the chain of her memories as anything. Then she was back to reality. ‘Of course not,’ she answered her own question. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said quietly to Stephanie.

  A shadow crossed Stephanie’s face. ‘I did so want him to be at the wedding,’ she said with an effort. ‘But after all,’ she added with an attempt at lightheadedness, ‘he’s been urging me to take a man for years,’ she grinned at Sasha’s father, ‘and he could be away for years, so we decided to go ahead as we’d planned.’

  ‘When is the great day?’ Sasha asked hurriedly to still her erratic heart beat at the thought of not seeing Heath for years.

  ‘Today week,’ her father said. ‘That is if you’d do us the honour of sharing your birthday with our wedding day?’

  ‘I’d love to,’ she said simply.

  It was a rushed week and for the most part a happy one.

  Sasha resolutely pushed Heath to the back of her mind as she and Stephanie went about the business of tying up her political career. In this they were aided by Stephanie’s parliamentary secretary, Edith West, a formidable woman in her fifties who adored Stephanie. And it was Edith who let the cat out of the bag and caused the one disturbance in that week.

  Jonathan and Stephanie had told Sasha they pla
nned to go to the Great Barrier Reef for their honeymoon.

  ‘Lucky … lucky them!’ said Sasha on another dismal rainy day.

  ‘Yes,’ Edith replied. ‘And if you ask me, much more sensible than traipsing around the world for a year,’ she added, being one of the breed who considered even New Zealand a dangerously foreign place.

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Sasha after a moment.

  Edith looked slightly uncomfortable, and then more so as Stephanie walked in and Sasha turned to her.

  ‘What’s this I hear about you and Dad wanting to go round the world, Stephanie?’ she asked. ‘It sounds a great idea! And I know Dad’s been wanting to do something like that for ages.’

  Stephanie shot Edith an annoyed look and said, ‘Well, we plan to get round to it one day, but not just yet.’

  ‘But why not?’ Sasha demanded, and chose just that moment to empty out a desk drawer from which fell a passport and a whole lot of travel brochures together with a tourist agency brochure and cancelled itinerary dated from the date of the wedding. She stared down at all this and then lifted her face to Stephanie.

  ‘Oh no!’ she said threateningly. ‘You’re not going because of me, is that it?’

  Stephanie looked helpless for a moment. Then she said placatingly, ‘Blossom …’

  ‘Don’t you “Blossom” me!’ snapped Sasha with the light of battle squarely in her eyes. ‘I’ve been treated like a baby for long enough by all of you. Do you honestly believe I can’t take care of myself?’

  ‘Sasha—look, pet, it’s not that, but you’ll probably want to look for another job, for one thing, and for another…’ Stephanie stopped and sighed.

  ‘What?’

  ‘To be quite honest, we wouldn’t have minded so much if Heath had been here to keep an eye on you,’ Stephanie said desperately.

  Sasha nearly laughed hollowly at the awful irony of this. But she managed to say steadily, ‘Assuming I do have to have someone to keep an eye on me, Edith will be here, won’t she? Won’t you?’ She turned to Edith and then swung back to Stephanie. ‘Anyway, before you cancelled your trip, before Heath left, what plans had you made for this place? Were you going to let it out, or what? Because Heath wouldn’t have spent much ‘time here.’

  Stephanie gritted her teeth. ‘No. Er,…’ Edith was going to stay here and manage both properties.’

  ‘That’s perfect, then!’ Sasha cried. ‘She can manage me too—as well as anyone else could. Can’t you, Edith?’

  Edith looked at her warily like someone caught in an unexpected burst of crossfire. Then she said gruffly, ‘As well as Heath could, I suspect.’

  ‘Then that’s settled,’ Sasha said determinedly. She reached for the phone and checked the number on the brochure.

  And she remained adamant even when Stephanie called her father up. So adamant that they finally gave in, although right up to the last minute, when they were due to board their plane, having exchanged their vows in the beautiful old rose garden at home, they were still clucking over her anxiously.

  Until she said finally, ‘I promise I’ll write to you regularly, wherever you are. Now will you get on that plane and forget about me!’ Then she relented. ‘Please, just be happy, because it makes me so happy to see you two together like this!’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Sasha stared at the letter she was writing. She nibbled the end of her pen and noted the date she’d put at the top with a tinge of surprise. For it was exactly six months to the day since Stephanie and her father had married. She also noted that she was nineteen years and six months old precisely now.

  Six months which had seen a lot of changes in her life.

  ‘Six months,’ she murmured out loud with a faint smile, ‘during which I managed to get myself a very good job, not get run over by & bus or taken advantage of by any strange men—or any familiar men, for that matter. And yes, say it, Sasha,’ she urged herself, ‘six months and two weeks since you last saw or heard from Heath.’ She flinched and added, ‘Oh, shut up! Forget about Heath and think about Brent.’

  She laid her pen down and let her mind roam back to that incredible day a week after her father and Stephanie had left, when she had come into town for a job interview and bumped into, of all people, Brent Havelock.

  Sasha had been embarrassed and flustered as she had once again recalled all the things she had said that fateful night of the party. But Brent had calmly overridden her desire to get away from him as fast as she could and steered her into a coffee shop. And to her surprise he had managed to put her so much at her ease that she had found herself telling him all that had happened to her lately and how she was looking for a job. But he had taken her breath away when he had said immediately that it so happened he was looking for an assistant and offered her the position.

  She had stared at him open-mouthed. ‘After what I said that night?’ she had asked faintly. ‘Surely…’

  ‘Well, a lot of it was true, but

  ‘Was it?’ she interrupted. ‘If you only knew how much I regretted saying those things! And if there was any truth, I aimed it at Veronica and everyone else travelling on her bandwagon. But who did I hit?’ she said bitterly. ‘Only Heath. And he has more compassion in his little finger than the rest of them put together.’ Her voice was husky with emotion.

  Brent had sat forward. ‘I wondered about that,’ he had said thoughtfully. ‘If what you said had anything to do with him going like that. Veronica, in her own inimitable manner, maintained it was because of her. And I think in all fairness, for the first time in her life, she was quite cut up about it. But she also reckoned he’ll come back to her sooner or later.’

  ‘He … he might,’ Sasha had agreed painfully. ‘I never pretended to take all the credit for his going.’

  Something in Brent’s gaze had sharpened then and she’d looked away quickly. But he had only gone on to explain to her that he had agreed to fill Heath’s shoes only temporarily. And what he had really come back to Australia to do was a television series on Australia and Papua New Guinea for an overseas television company. ‘What I would need you for, Sasha, is really more of a research position. Someone to do the Australian groundwork for me. It would mean a lot of travel, quite a bit of it on your own, a lot of exploring and a lot of fun, I should think …’

  Sasha came back to the present with a laugh gurgling in her throat as she recalled some of the places she had ‘explored’ and some of the fixes she had got herself into. But it had been a lot of fun, in fact Brent’s job had been a lifesaver, and now the groundwork for a series of ten programmes had been laid and they were set to get down to the serious business of filming.

  But if you’re honest, Sasha, she thought, you have to admit it’s not only Brent’s job that’s been a lifesaver, but Brent himself.

  Their friendship had blossomed not only because it was heaven to have someone to talk to about Heath occasionally, someone who knew him and had known him for years. And yet…

  She got up and moved restlessly across to the window of the small, comfortable flat she now rented in town. If you’re honest you have to admit too, Sasha, that Brent wants to step over the line of friendship now. And therein lies a problem.

  She sighed and rested her head against the cool glass. She liked Brent so much, and some days she knew that it was because she liked him so much she could never marry him as a substitute for-Heath. But on other days she chided herself that she wasn’t giving Brent or herself a chance. Perhaps he could erase Heath from her heart and mind if only she’d let him try.

  She rubbed her temples wearily and her eyes strayed back to the letter she was writing ta Stephanie and her father, who were now in Peru. And she couldn’t help a faint twitching of her lips as she remembered what she had gone through to get them to go on this trip while now it seemed as if they might stay away for ever.

  Still, she told herself, with Edith managing both properties so successfully—which she discovered anew, every time she managed to get home fo
r a weekend— and she herself with such a stimulating job, there was no need for them to worry about home.

  ‘Which is just as it should be,’ she muttered to herself with a grin that intensified as she pictured her ultra-conservative father and her elegant stepmother climbing the Andes …

  The phone Jang beside her, disturbing her thoughts and causing her to glance at her watch in surprise, for it was very late.

  ‘Hello.’

  A blood-chilling whisper came down the line. ‘Blossom? Is that you?’

  ‘Edith!’ said Sasha, and smiled. ‘I was just thinking of you.’ Her smile faded. ‘Is something wrong?’

  ‘Oh, Sasha,’ Edith’s despairing whisper came down the line, ‘I’ve been trying to get hold of you for days. Where’ve you been? Never mind. It wasn’t easy for me to get to the phone …’

  Sasha took the receiver from her ear and stared at it nonplussed. Then she replaced it and said, ‘I don’t understand. Why couldn’t you get to the phone?’

  ‘Because he wouldn’t let me. He threatened me with all sorts of things if I contacted anyone. But I had to. You don’t know …’

  Sasha said dazedly, ‘Are you trying to tell me some maniac has you … but why aren’t you ringing the police, Edith … never mind. Look, hang up and I will…’

  ‘No, Sasha!’ Edith’s whisper became more urgent. ‘It’s not just some maniac. It’s Heath!’

  ‘Heath’s … home?’ Sasha went as white as the blouse she wore. ‘But how … I mean …’

  ‘He’s home all right,’ Edith whispered grimly. ‘Has been for nearly a week.’ Then she sighed heavily. ‘And he’s in a bad way, Sasha. What’s more, he’s planning to leave again, but he’s not fit to be going anywhere and I know Stephanie would never forgive me if I let him. But he made me promise … not only that,’ her voice rose indignantly only to sink again, ‘he watches me like a hawk! Sasha, for your new mother’s sake, please come and see what you can do. Only don’t let him know I rang you. Just make out you popped in unexpectedly.’

  Sasha licked her lips. ‘I’ll be there in a couple of hours. Edith …’