The Winter Folly (44 page)

There was a long, frozen silence and then John got up, throwing his napkin down on his plate, and strode over to the curved French windows that gave out onto the lawn behind the house.

She turned to watch him, twisting in her seat, feeling as though she’d been a fool. All along she’d believed that he was trapped inside a dreadful lie. But that wasn’t the
case. The only person who hadn’t known the truth was her. She tried to adjust everything to this new reality. ‘You did, didn’t you? You knew she was alive! How long have you
known?’

He gave a great sigh, putting his hands in his pockets. At last he said, ‘I’ve known for about as long as I’ve known you.’

‘What?’ she said, her lips feeling suddenly dry.

‘I’ve got power of attorney now, you see. I’ve had it for a while, so my father’s business affairs are an open book to me. But he’d left instructions that I
wasn’t to be told about my mother living in Greece until after his death or her death, or unless there were unavoidable circumstances that meant I had to know. The solicitors managed to cook
up one of those unavoidable circumstances between them over the Greek euro crisis and whether or not my mother’s allowance would be guaranteed no matter what might happen to the banks there.
So they summoned me to London and, in that cold official way of theirs, they broke the news that my mother was living on an island in Greece, and what would I like to do about guaranteeing her
allowance?’

She was filled with pity for him. ‘You’ve known since then?’

He nodded. ‘I thought I could come to terms with it. But it’s been eating away at me ever since.’

No wonder he had been subject to those black moods of despair. No wonder he had wanted his mother’s clothes burnt. How could anyone begin to understand something like that? She said
softly, ‘What did you do when you found out?’

He turned to look at her and smiled his funny lopsided smile. ‘I came to find you.’

‘I don’t understand.’ She had the disconcerting feeling that she’d been playing an unwitting role in all of this for far longer than she’d realised, as though
she’d been dancing a waltz while asleep.

‘I needed something good and true in my life. I’d been thinking about you ever since the day of the shoot. You stood out among all those ditzy fashion people in your normal clothes
and in the way you seemed so natural. I liked the pencil in your hair, and the way we laughed together at the madness of everything . . . it struck something in me. That day I found myself walking
to your offices and asking to see you. The moment I laid eyes on you . . . it was like the sun coming up after a black night. You were so beautiful and so real, and so untouched by all the
darkness. I felt like I
needed
you. You made me believe I might find love and happiness and all the things I wanted so badly. When we fell in love, I hoped that our relationship would blot
out what I’d discovered. I wanted it to make me forget.’

Delilah looked at the table, her heart aching for him. ‘And I wanted to make you remember.’

He let out a long breath, his shoulders slumping a little. ‘It was wrong of me to ask so much. I should have guessed it was impossible – unfair on you, for one thing. You
didn’t even know that I wanted you to be the magic fairy who would make all the badness disappear.’

‘Oh, John.’ She looked back at him, biting her lip. He seemed tired and beaten, his grey eyes full of sadness. She loved him so much. Had she failed him? ‘I only wanted what
was right for you,’ she whispered. ‘I was trying to help.’

‘I’ve been a beast to you, I know that. I can’t blame you for . . . well, for responding when someone like Ben turns on the charm, not after the way I’ve been.’
Is he apologising?
she wondered, surprised. But before she could begin to ponder it, he said in a low voice, ‘So what happened in Greece? You’d better tell me
everything.’

He remained at the window, staring out at the deepening twilight as she told her tale of going to the island, of hearing the English voice at the monastery and then finding the Villa Artemis and
finally Alexandra herself.

John stood very still as she recounted everything up to the meeting. ‘How was she?’ he asked in a curiously flat voice. ‘What did she look like?’

‘She looked very like her photographs. She wore a headscarf so I didn’t see her hair. Her face was older, of course, and lined . . . darker too from the sun. But her eyes were the
same. Very vivid blue, the same shape. She seemed . . .’ Delilah thought, trying to find the right word to describe Alexandra. ‘She seemed incredibly and deeply alone. The loneliest
person I’ve ever met.’

John turned back to her at last. ‘And what did she say?’

‘She told me that she’d always loved you. She wouldn’t say why she left but she did insist that it was for the best, that it was the only thing she could do. Of course I asked
her how she could leave you when you needed her so much, even if she was in desperate pain about Elaine’s death. She told me that even if Elaine hadn’t died, she would have gone. She
even claimed that it would have been better if she’d died but your father begged her to spare herself.’ Delilah hoped she was treading as lightly as possible over John’s pain
while telling him the truth that he clearly needed to hear. ‘Do you have any idea why she would think that?’

He walked over to her and sank down in the chair next to her, his shoulders slumped, his hands clasped. He shook his head. She reached out and stroked his dark, silver-threaded hair – more
silver threads lately, she thought – and rubbed his shoulder.

‘I’ve got no bloody idea,’ he mumbled. ‘It’s all too much for me to understand.’

‘She obviously thinks she’s to blame for Elaine’s death. I wondered if that was why she felt too wicked to stay here with you but she said that wasn’t it. But . .
.’ Delilah took a deep breath. This was the moment she had most feared. ‘She said that you would eventually discover that she hadn’t died and she asked me to give you this.’
Slowly, she drew the slender folded envelope out of her pocket and held it out to John.

He looked up, frowning, his eyes reddened, and saw what she was holding out. An expression of horror passed over his face and he shook his head, recoiling from it. ‘No, no, no!’ he
said fiercely. ‘I don’t want it!’ ‘You don’t have to read it now. Perhaps it’s best to wait.’ ‘No, you don’t understand. She’s not coming
back into this house. Not in any way.’ John pushed back the chair and stood up, his eyes panicked. ‘I can’t have that. She can’t do that to me, she can’t start coming
back now. I’ve spent a lifetime accepting that she’s dead and I won’t undo it now, do you understand? I won’t start all over again like that! I couldn’t stand
it!’ His voice was rising with a mixture of fear and anger.

She rose to her feet, still clutching the letter, holding it out to him. ‘But, John—’

‘Stop it!’ he yelled. She gasped at the ferocity of his voice, staring at him wide-eyed and stunned. ‘Haven’t you caused enough bloody trouble? Don’t you understand
what you’ve done? You can’t just go down to the underworld and fetch back the dead and say, There you are, it’s all right now, isn’t it? It doesn’t work like that!
Don’t you understand that I
want
her dead! She had her chance and she made her choice. She chose death. She chose to be away from me year after year. If she’d killed herself in
a moment of madness, I could have understood and forgiven. But to keep rejecting me the way she did . . . It’s unbearable, can’t you understand? I refuse to have her brought back to
life to make me suffer in new ways. Don’t you see? It’s
easier
for me if she’s dead.’

He snatched the letter from her and tore it to shreds, scattering the pieces all over the table and the remains of their meal.

‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘It’s over. It’s what I’ve been trying to make myself believe for the last seven months. She’s dead.’

Then he turned and walked out of the room, leaving her staring after him in shock.

In bed that night after the revelation of her trip to Greece, Delilah did what she always did when John was low: she used her whole body to comfort him, wrapping him in her
embrace and trying to give some of her life force to him. He lay there, absorbing her comfort for a while, and then he turned to fold her in his arms and take her mouth with his. He seemed
possessed by an angry and desperate need as he reached for her, running his hands over her body as if using it only to spur his own desire rather than to cherish it and love it. He squeezed and
pinched at her breasts, bit down on her lips and pressed his fingers roughly between her legs, as though his lust needed an element of something hard and fierce. He didn’t hurt her, but she
felt like a vessel rather than a partner as his hands and mouth moved over her. He tugged at her nipples with his teeth while his hands pushed her legs wider, exploring her with a ferocious need.
She did not resist or even attempt to return caresses. She sensed that he didn’t require that. His arousal stemmed not from her but from working on her, and all she had to do was be there,
his willing object. They had never made love like this before and she found it strange and almost frightening. It had always been the two of them making love to each other, and now for the first
time she wondered where he was in his head. He seemed almost absent as he turned her over with needy hands and plunged into her as she knelt on the bed with her back to him. She absorbed the
pressure as he thrust forward, his hands on her hips as though to propel her forward and back in time to his own movements. The action began to stimulate her despite her slight sense of
disconnection from him. She gasped out loud as he rammed himself home inside her, and that aroused him further to stronger, harder movements. She began to moan without meaning to as each thrust hit
her deep and hard, and then she wanted to turn around to him, to kiss him, to have him pressed tight against her so that they could ride this wave of desire together to the end. But she
couldn’t move. He wanted to keep her there, she realised; he was pressing more of his weight down on her, his hand now on her shoulder and then heavy on the side of her neck. She began to
resist the thrusts as they grew harder, but he was caught up in his lust now, producing a guttural noise in his throat with each slam into her. He went faster, pistoning in and out as she gasped
for breath and tried to take the shock of the motion without being driven forward into the bedhead. Then he reached his peak and with a grunt of release he poured out his climax into her, letting
it subside completely before withdrawing with a sigh. He reached to her night table and pulled some tissues out of the box there, passing two to her and keeping one for himself.

She turned slowly round and lay back, mopping with the tissue while she stared up into the darkness, not really sure what had just happened. He lay beside her in silence for a while, then rolled
over, kissed her cheek and said, ‘Night, darling,’ before rolling back the other way and going to sleep.

The next morning Delilah woke to find John was already gone, and she lay back on the pillows, staring up at the bed hangings with a kind of black despair. The whole of
yesterday afternoon had been a disaster, from Vanna’s visit to the scene over dinner. She was still astonished that all this time John had known his mother was alive. He had kept that from
her. But in a way, she could see why he had. He’d wanted to convince himself that Alexandra was dead. It would no doubt have helped him if Delilah believed the same thing.
But
that’s it then
, she thought.
There’s no way he’ll want to see her now. He can’t understand why she did it, and until he does he’ll never forgive her.

She wondered what Alexandra had said in the letter that John had ripped up and now would never read. Perhaps she, Delilah, had better write to Alexandra and tell her what had happened. But she
shied away from the thought of getting involved again. Things were complicated enough as it was. If she and John were going to have any chance of rebuilding the trust between them, she was going to
have to be very careful what she did.

The thought of Ben came into her mind, and she reached over and picked up her phone off the night table. It was very bad luck that he had decided to be away from the fort at the same time as she
was. Where had he gone? Should she warn him about John’s suspicions or would that make everything worse. She opened a text message to compose something but then, on second thought, put the
phone down. Contacting him would only strengthen the impression that there was something going on between them, and she knew now that she didn’t want to give him that idea. She put the phone
down and went to get dressed. On her way to breakfast, Delilah passed the huge staircase window and saw by the dark dampness of the gravel paths that it must have rained in the night, but the sun
was shining again and the gardens were serenely beautiful. Downstairs the estate office door was firmly shut. John must be in there. She wondered if he was on the phone to the solicitors’
office, giving them a rocket for that misdirected letter.

In the kitchen, Janey was fretting over a shopping list.

‘I don’t mind going to the shops,’ Delilah offered. ‘I need something to do this morning.’

‘You’re only just back from your trip. I’m sure you’ve got plenty to do,’ Janey said.

‘Not really. I might walk there and back. I could do with the exercise.’

‘It’ll take longer than you think,’ Janey cautioned. ‘I walk down to the lodge and it’s a good three quarters of an hour just to get there. But don’t let me
stop you if you want to. I’ll just finish this list.’

‘Okay. Great.’ She felt pleased to have a purpose that would also give her plenty of thinking time. The longer the walk to the village, the better as far as she was concerned.

‘By the way,’ Janey remarked as she began to complete the list in her neat print, ‘there was confetti all over the dinner table this morning. Were you playing some sort of game
in there? It was a real fiddle to clear it all away so I could throw it out.’