A Class Apart (62 page)

When they got back to the house, Jenneen excused herself and went up to her room. She was feeling calmer now, but she didn’t feel up to idle chat.

An hour or more later there was a knock at the door and Vicky let herself in, carrying two glasses of wine. “Thought you might like to try some of Dad’s home brew.”

“Thanks,” said Jenneen, taking a glass from her.

“How do you feel now?”

Jenneen went to stand by the window. “I don’t know. I don’t feel anything really.”

Vicky stood beside her.

“Look at the sunset,” Jenneen said, in a quiet voice, gazing out over the countryside.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?”

“’Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore, And coming events cast their shadows before.”

Vicky turned to look at her.

“Thomas Campbell,” Jenneen said.

Together they stood at the window, watching the blaze of changing colours until the sun had disappeared over the horizon.

“Vicky,” Jenneen whispered, when it was quite dark outside.

“Yes?”

“Just, thank you. Thank you for making me think, and thank you for listening, and being there. I don’t know if it’s helped, but thank you anyway.”

“It’s important for someone to be there. Paul was there for me once. It seems like another life now, but that’s why we’re so close. He knows everything about me.”

Jenneen looked at her. “And you know everything about me.”

“Almost.”

Jenneen sighed. “It’s been such a lovely weekend. I’m glad you brought me here,” and she put her arms round Vicky and held her close.

Vicky hugged her back. “I’m glad you’ve enjoyed it. I know I have.”

Jenneen pulled away, and stood looking into Vicky’s face. “You’re so kind,” she whispered. Vicky leaned forward and brushed her lips very gently against Jenneen’s. It was a gentle kiss, of friendship, and love, and Jenneen thought how right it felt. She lifted her hand to touch Vicky’s face. “Thank you.”

Vicky covered her hand with her own. She pulled it round to her lips, and gently kissed her palm. Jenneen watched her eyes, as they watched her. Then she took Vicky’s hand, and pulled it to her mouth; softly she kissed it. Vicky stroked Jenneen’s hair, and then leaned towards her, and kissed her again. Jenneen felt her lips begin to tremble in response.

Abruptly, Vicky pulled away. “I’m sorry,” she said, and started to turn away.

“No, please, don’t be sorry.”

Vicky smiled at her sadly. “You’re so lovely.”

“So are you.”

Vicky’s eyes became soft again, and she took Jenneen’s face between her hands. Jenneen leaned towards her and pressed her mouth gently against hers. She slipped her arms about her waist, and held her closely. Then she laid her head on her shoulder.

“Are you sure this is what you want?” said Vicky, a tremor in her voice.

“I don’t know.” Jenneen kept her head on Vicky’s shoulder. “All I know is that I want you to go on holding me.”

Finally she pulled away. “I’m going to get into bed now.”

Vicky’s face clouded over. “I’ll go.”

“No, please don’t.”

“But Jenn . . .”

“Sssh. I’m not afraid. Not if you’re not.”

Vicky smiled and pushed Jenneen’s hair back behind her ears. “Is this Mrs Green talking, or is it Jenneen?”

“It’s me, Jenneen.”

“Then I’m not afraid.”

They undressed in silence, neither of them looking at the other. Still in silence, they got into bed. Vicky reached up and turned out the light, and they lay there, side by side in the darkness, still saying nothing.

“Jenn.”

“Yes?”

“Did you know? About me, I mean?”

“No,” said Jenneen. “No, I never knew.”

“I should have told you.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Do you mind?”

Jeneen turned over towards her. “No.”

“Honestly?”

“Honestly. Give me your hand.”

Vicky pulled her arms from beneath the covers, and laid one hand in Jenneen’s. Jenneen took it, and held it to her heart. Then she lifted the hand to her lips, and kissed it.

“I’d like to hold you again, Jenn,” Vicky whispered, “very much.”

Jenneen moved over, and laid her body against Vicky’s and Vicky wound her arms round her. “You feel so good. So soft.”

They kissed again, and this time there was the hint of passion in the kiss. Jenneen pushed her body closer. She heard Vicky gasp, and then she felt her hands, gently caressing her, and she too lifted a hand, and laid it on Vicky’s breast.

The lovemaking that followed was like nothing Jenneen had ever experienced before. New and hidden sensations stirred inside her and she marvelled at the warmth and softness of the skin beneath her fingers, and the tenderness of the lips that touched hers. And as they stroked and caressed one another in the darkness, Jenneen could feel herself changing and moving, and knew that Vicky was with her, and would never leave her. She fell back against the pillows, and pushed away the covers, until Vicky’s hands and lips had taken her through the journey to its end, a journey she had never taken before, in love. It didn’t end with an earth-shattering explosion inside, but with a sensation so warm, so deep, that it transcended any other. She smiled.

Vicky was looking down into her face.

“No regrets?”

“None. This is the first time, for I don’t care to think how long, that I have made love with someone, and not hated them after. Do you know what you’ve done?”

Vicky shook her head.

“You’ve just shown me that Jenneen Grey is capable of making love with someone, without becoming Mrs Green.”

“I’m glad. That’s what I wanted to hear.”

Jenneen lay back on the bed. “I suppose that I should feel that I’ve got myself into yet another situation. But I don’t. Did you know this was going to happen?”

“Not at first.”

“And you’re not sorry now that it has?”

Vicky smiled and took Jenneen’s hand. “How could I be sorry?”

“But you sound so sad. What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” said Vicky, turning her head away.

Jenneen took her face, and pulled it back. Gently she kissed her on the mouth. “Please. Tell me, what is it?”

“This might seem like the answer, Jenn, but it’s not. At least not all of it. It might be that this is what you have been fighting all along, that this is why you do what you do, to deny what is really there. Maybe you have been afraid of yourself. But I don’t know, neither of us can know that. You will have to have help, you know, more than I can give.”

Jenneen was silent.

“Will you?”

“If you’ll stay with me.”

Vicky took Jenneen in her arms and kissed her tenderly. “Yes, I’ll stay with you.”

THIRTY-FIVE

Putting the phone down, Ashley gazed up at the painting on the wall. It had been a gift from Ellamarie, Kate and Jenneen, “just a little something to hang in your smart new apartment,” Ellamarie had said. Ashley had cried when she opened it and found a reproduction of Claude Monet’s “A Corner of an Apartment”, featuring his wife Camille and son Jean. She wished her friends were here with her now, she so badly needed to talk to them. Turning back to Keith, she sighed as she saw that his face was still taut with anger.

“That was Conrad,” she said, needlessly waving her hand towards the telephone. “I have to meet him in his office at eight in the morning before we go to see David Burgess.”

“So the big man has spoken, and Ashley goes running.”

“He’s my boss.” She wished Keith would go back to his hotel. It was late, and she had had a long day.

“And is that all he is, Ashley? Your boss?”

“I’m not even going to bother to answer that.”

“And is that how it’s always going to be?” Keith went on. “Conrad speaks and Ashley runs? Because if it is, you’re making a big mistake as far as my son is concerned. You’re making a big mistake full stop. But I’m not going to let you ruin Alex’s life as well. I’m warning you, now. I will not allow you to take him out of the school he’s already got to know, and bring him here to New York.”

“I have custody of him,” Ashley pointed out, wishing she could find a way to end this conversation.

“Not for much longer, if I have anything to do with it. Which I will.”

Ashley paled slightly. “Look, if everything goes according to plan, I’m likely to be here for at least another five years. Maybe longer. I don’t want him to grow up without me.”

“Selfish to the end. You’ll let him grow up without me!”

“You can always visit him, you know you can.”

“New York is not exactly round the corner.”

“But we’ll be coming back often, to visit Mum and Dad.”

“For God’s sake, Ashley, just where do you get off patronising me?”

“Keith, don’t shout. You’ll only wake Alex.”

“And you don’t want him to know that his mother is planning to take him away from his father, is that it?”

“That is not the motive for bringing him here, and you know it.”

“Ashley, don’t you care about the fact that he’s English? That he was born there, that he has grown up there? Doesn’t any of that matter to you?”

“Of course it matters to me, but I don’t see that it’s so important. I think he would be better here, with me.”

“With you! You’re so damned wrapped up in yourself and that bloody agency, when will you ever find time for him?”

“I will.”

“When? For an hour after work once or twice a week, when you don’t have to stay late at the office? And what about the nights you go swanning off with Conrad Frazier? What about Alex then?”

“I don’t, as you put it, go swanning off with Conrad Frazier. We had one night out together last Thursday. It was an official function, nothing more.”

“You want it all, don’t you? You want the career, you want the social life, you want the money, you want the bloody Chairman. And it would seem any bloody chairman will do.”

“You’re being ridiculous,” said Ashley, turning away so that he wouldn’t see the heat in her face. “There is nothing between me and Conrad, you’re imagining things.”

“Imagining him taking my son to a baseball game? Imagining him take my wife to a ball?”

“I am not your wife!”

“Then why do you still wear my ring?”

Ashley looked at her left hand. She had never known quite why she continued to wear it. Perhaps it was for Alex’s sake. Now she realised how stupid it was, that it made no difference whether she wore it or not. She twisted it off her finger and handed it to him.

“Thank you, but you can keep it. No doubt the only reason you’ve taken it off now is to make room for the one you’re hoping Conrad Frazier will put there.”

“Keith, shut up, for God’s sake, shut up.”

“A harder nut to crack than you thought, is he?” he jeered. “I must say, you really have moved in to the big time. Chairman of his own advertising agency, and in New York. Makes poor Julian look positively parochial over there in London.”

“How many times do I have to tell you, there is nothing between me and Conrad and never will be. For one thing, he doesn’t even like me.”

“So it was just chance that he happened to turn up at the weekend, and take Alex riding? Because, of course, he’d do that for the son of someone he doesn’t like.”

“Maybe he likes Alex? Have you thought of that?”

“Don’t be so naive. Bit of a shock, though, when Alex came back and told you about the ‘fantastic lady’ he had met at Conrad’s. The one who’d gone riding with them. Wouldn’t you like to know who she was?”

“As a matter of fact, I do know who she was. It was Candida Rayne. She and Conrad have been seeing one another for some time. Now does that satisfy you?”

“It might satisfy me, but it obviously does nothing for you.”

“Precisely. It does nothing for me because it is none of my business.” She got up and walked across the room. She didn’t want to continue this conversation. They had to discuss Alex’s future, and his coming to New York, but she didn’t want to discuss Conrad Frazier. Not with Keith, or with anyone else, come to that.

“Well, whatever happens to you, Alex is not coming to live here, and that’s my final word.”

Ashley turned and looked at him. “It might be yours, Keith, but I can assure you, it’s not mine.”

“I’m going to fight you for custody,” he said.

“Don’t be stupid.”

“I just thought I would give you fair warning. I will put it in motion the minute I get back to England. He is not coming to America. And if you want to see him, then you will have to cross the Atlantic, not me.”

Ashley’s face had turned white. She knew, from the look on his face, that Keith wasn’t bluffing, and the thought of a custody battle for her son was terrifying – and not only for what it would do to Alex. “You’ll never win,” she said. “With your past you’ll never win. No judge in his right mind will ever give you custody. You’re not stable, and you know it.”