In a Good Light (50 page)

While he prepared us a plate of prosciutto, and opened jars of pickled artichokes and mushrooms and sun-dried tomatoes, I gave him a detailed account of my reunion with Penny and Donovan, bringing him up to date with Aunty Barbara's undimmed eccentricity.

‘Well, well, well,' was his judicious reaction to the news. ‘That's all very interesting. Very interesting indeed. And it just goes to show that happiness can turn up in the most unexpected quarters.'

‘He didn't actually say she was
happy
,' I admitted, but Dad just smiled at me. ‘How did you get on with your future daughter-in-law?' I asked, chasing a glossy mushroom around
the plate. After Sunday's excursion to the garden centre the three of them had come back to the Old Schoolhouse for tea so that Elaine could meet Dad properly, and visit the scene of Christian's childhood. I'd had a version of it from Elaine, but wanted to hear Dad's side. She had claimed they got along famously, and pronounced him ‘a treasure. An absolute sweetie.' I didn't pass this on.

‘Oh, yes, very nice girl. Woman, I should say,' said Dad, with his usual tact. ‘I'm sure she'll be very good for Christian.'

‘Did she offer you any wise words of advice?' I asked innocently.

Dad made throat-clearing noises to indicate demurral. ‘She does have a certain zeal for organisation,' he conceded, ‘but that's no bad thing.'

‘I'm coming round to her,' I said. ‘She's actually pretty kind.' I told him about her offer of accommodation, and he sat up.

‘Really?' he said, pulling meditatively at a sprig of eyebrow. ‘We were discussing your . . . er . . . circumstances over tea. I'm rather concerned that you're getting a raw deal.'

‘Oh? How?'

‘Well, you're thirty-two—'

‘Thirty-four,' I corrected him.

‘Yes, and you've no house, no savings, no pension, no career, not much in the way of income, and no one to support you.' I opened my mouth to protest but he raised his hand to hush me. ‘I'm not in any way belittling your achievements as an illustrator. You know I'm extremely proud of you. But these are the facts. And the point I put to Christian is that you have contributed to that house over the years in much the same way as a wife.'

‘That's ridiculous,' I replied. ‘He paid for it with his
windfall and I've lived there rent-free. He doesn't owe me a bean. Quite the contrary.'

‘You've arranged your working life to accommodate Christian, and you've cared for him and put him first, and done his laundry and cleaned and shopped, and redecorated the rooms and bought things for the house when you could have been setting up a place of your own and advancing your own career. And in all that time the value of the property has more than doubled, and you've missed your chance to buy. I just think that needs acknowledging.'

I sagged under the weight of all this praise.

‘So if Christian and Elaine do make you any such offers in the near future, I recommend you accept,' he said, with a final tug of the eyebrow.

We shared a farewell hug on the doorstep. ‘I'll be there next week,' I promised. ‘Bang on time.'

‘Don't worry,' Dad replied cheerfully. ‘I mean, if something more exciting turns up . . .' Sometimes I honestly don't know what he's on about.

On the drive home I was so preoccupied with what Dad had said about my dizzying lack of financial security that I failed to notice the dark green saloon parked outside. As I let myself in Christian emerged from the sitting room, making urgent signals with his eyes, but saying in a voice suitable to be overheard, ‘You've got a visitor, Esther.'

For a second my heart sprang to attention. A tall male figure stood up when I entered: with his back to the light he seemed to loom over me. It was Geoff. This was unprecedented. There was a discreet click as Christian shut the door on us.

‘I've left Mary,' he said.

I GAVE A
gasp and stared at him, open-mouthed in shock and disbelief.

‘You haven't.'

‘I have.'

‘Why?' Blood roared in my ears and I thought I was going to faint. I sank down on the couch and put my head in my hands.

‘Because I can't bear to lose you, and if it's the only way we can be together—'

‘How could you?' I wailed. ‘After I'd told you it was over.' It wasn't Geoff I was thinking of, but Mary, lying on the floor in her Burberry raincoat, howling like a beast. Now my name would be poison on her lips for ever. If I'd had the strength I would have run out of the house and kept right on running, but I was too breathless to move.

‘I know I've put you in an impossible situation for years, and I'm sorry. I totally understand you've reached the end
of your tether, and you're such a lovely person you don't want anyone to get hurt. But someone's bound to get hurt. Someone always does. The important thing is that we love each other, and we can try to salvage something from all this awfulness.' Geoff was ashen-faced and sweating from the effort of delivering this speech. He looked like he might have a heart attack at any moment. The room swayed around me as if I was drunk. The worst had happened. My belated attempt to do the right thing had backfired in the most hideous fashion.

‘What about the children?' I shrilled. ‘It'll ruin their lives. They'll despise you for ever.'
I have become Mary
, I thought.

‘They're sixteen and seventeen. They're practically adults.'

‘Oh my God, this is a nightmare,' I moaned. ‘I never wanted this.' How could Geoff have mistaken the finality of my intentions so disastrously? ‘When I said I wanted to end the relationship,' I said, my voice quavering treacherously, ‘I meant exactly that. It wasn't a ploy or an ultimatum: me or her. I couldn't have made it plainer.' Panic and indignation made me hard. ‘I don't want you, Geoff. Married or divorced or any other way.' And then I started to cry, great cowardly sobs with my head on my knees. Any minute now, I thought, I'm going to feel his arm round my shoulder, comforting me, and I'll have to shrug him off, because he'll interpret anything less than cruelty as a lack of resolve. I couldn't sit up: my face was weltering in snot and tears and I didn't have a tissue, but I had to eventually, and when I did he had gone, and Christian was tapping at the door, saying, ‘Esther, are you all right? Can I come in?'

Christian held my damp hands and listened to the whole miserable story.

‘Shit,' was his verdict.

‘Exactly,' I agreed. ‘It couldn't be worse. Poor Mary.'

Christian squeezed my hand a little tighter. ‘Your empathy for Mary is all very worthy,' he said gently. ‘But it's about four years overdue, and it's no use to anyone now. I mean, you've been risking an outcome like this every time you and Geoff met.'

‘What can I do to fix it?'

‘Nothing now. What you certainly mustn't do is go back to him out of a feeling of guilt.'

‘You don't like him, do you?' I said – something that had never occurred to me before.

‘I don't dislike him. He's a good GP. But you could do so much better.'

‘One of the things that attracted me to him was that he wouldn't ever try to take me away from you.'

Christian looked horrified. ‘That should never have been a consideration. All that skulking about. Keeping him a secret from Mum and Dad. You've sacrificed too much for me, Esther.'

‘Why didn't you ever say anything before?'

‘No point. No one ever listens to advice in matters of the heart.'

‘That's true.'

‘Wait here,' he said, ‘I've got something for you.' He left me sitting there, puzzled, while he went into the study. Presently he returned holding a folded piece of paper, which he handed over with an air almost of apology. It was a cheque for £50,000 and it was made out to me.

‘What the hell's this?' I demanded.

‘It's for you. To help with moving out.'

‘You don't owe me any money, Christian. It's your house. I'm just a squatter here.'

‘No. You've contributed plenty over the years. I don't mean financially. If we were married, for instance, I'd have to buy you out,' he said.

‘This is Dad's bright idea, isn't it?'

‘We did talk about it, but I'd already decided.'

‘So this is my divorce settlement?' I said, looking at the row of noughts on the cheque in wonderment.

Christian laughed. ‘If you like.'

‘I don't want it, Christian.'

‘You may not want it, but you certainly need it. And you're entitled to it – and more probably.'

‘How can you possibly afford to give away this sort of money?'

‘I've been earning all this time without any mortgage to pay. I've been saving and investing since I got my first wage slip. Plus, Elaine's got a house and savings of her own. Don't worry about us.'

I put my arms round his neck and he patted my back. ‘If only all divorces could be like this,' I said.

Handwritten envelopes are the only kind worth opening, Dad always said. This one must have landed on the mat after dark as it was there first thing next morning, before the regular post arrived, and I'd been awake since dawn and heard nothing.

Dear Esther

Please try not to be angry when you read this: I couldn't think of another way. Maybe you won't be angry: maybe
you'll just be relieved. I don't know.

What I told you this morning was a lie: I haven't left Mary, or told her anything about us. I'm sorry for the distress it caused you. I only said it because I honestly hadn't a clue from our conversation in the car what it was you really wanted. I thought if I told you there were no obstacles to our being together, I would know from your reaction whether it was our situation you'd had enough of or just me. Now I know. Thank you.

In case you're wondering whether I would have gone ahead and left Mary if your response had been different, the answer is yes. But that's irrelevant now. I hope you will spare me a kind thought now and then. I don't regret the time we spent together, and I don't feel any anger or bitterness towards you, Esther, only tremendous love and tremendous sadness.

Geoff

THE TEMPERATURE DROPPED
and the weather forecast promised ‘serious snow' for the end of the week, which caused Elaine some anxiety on behalf of her acer, and sent Christian into a mood of despondency. A heavy fall would represent too great a challenge for the wheelchair and leave him imprisoned indoors until there was a thaw. As one not personally inconvenienced by it, I couldn't help harbouring a disloyal excitement about the prospect of snow, tempered on this occasion by concern that bad driving conditions might deter Donovan from calling in. But by Saturday morning, in spite of icy air and a mushroom-coloured sky, not a flake had fallen.

When I warned Christian about the intended visit he was infuriatingly non-committal. ‘It's you he's coming to see. Will you be in?' I asked him, while he whipped up some pancake batter to christen the skillet.

‘I don't know. We're supposed to be going out looking
at wedding venues sometime,' he said, vaguely. ‘Depends how long it takes Elaine to get ready.' Her protracted preparations and resistance to chivvying were already the subject of much affectionate teasing by Christian.

‘Can't you wait till after lunch?' I asked. ‘It'll look funny if you're not here.'

‘Why didn't you agree a time?' Christian wanted to know. ‘I don't want to hang around all day.'

‘It was just a casual arrangement,' I tried to explain.

‘So he may not turn up at all?'

‘Possibly.'

He rolled his eyes.

In the event, Donovan arrived mid-morning while Elaine was at Waitrose and I was taking an overseas call from Mum. She had heard about Christian's engagement from Dad and wanted the full story. ‘What's she like? Is she reliable? Does she know what she's taking on?' she said, firing off questions in threes to save money. There was a disconcerting delay on the line, so each exchange sounded hesitant and unspontaneous, as though something was being held back. In addition, Mum's hearing had deteriorated in the last few years, and I was reticent about bellowing my opinions, however anodyne, within earshot of Christian. ‘Why don't you ask him about it?' I suggested.

Silence. ‘I will in a minute. I want to talk to you. Have you decided where you'll live?'

‘No.'

Silence. ‘You could come out here. They always need volunteers, even unskilled ones.'

‘Thanks.' The irony got lost somewhere between Caterham and Nepal.

Silence. ‘Don't thank me. It's no picnic, I can tell you.'
She talked some more about life at Dhankuta. She was getting over a bout of bronchitis and only just starting to feel well again. Her knee was misbehaving. She promised to come home for the wedding, whenever it happened to be. ‘Put Christian on if he's there,' she said at last. ‘Let's hear the good news from him.'

When I went into the study to give him the phone I found Donovan was already there, being given a demonstration of the latest PC game Christian was developing. They must have rattled through the polite ice-breaking protocol in double-quick time, if they'd bothered with it at all, as they were now deep in one of those technical discussions about computers that Christian enjoys so much.

‘It's got to be as compulsive as
Tomb Raider
, but less arbitrary,' he was explaining. ‘The problem-solving needs to be more logic-based.'

‘Like
Myst?
' Donovan suggested, browsing the shelves on which Christian's encyclopaedic range of games was displayed.

‘Yeah, but with three hundred and sixty-degree view and completely free walk-through. Plus film-quality graphics, and a really strong narrative. So it's a bit like being inside a classic thriller.'