A Class Apart (63 page)

“And you call yourself stable? Running off to New York the minute you couldn’t make a decision. Where will you run to next, Ashley, when Conrad leaves you high and dry? At least if Alex was with me he could continue his schooling in England, where it began, and where he is familiar with his surroundings. And his grandparents will be there, the grandparents who have brought him up. What kind of a mother have you been, Ashley? What kind of a mother do you call yourself?”

“He’s my son,” she spat. “And no one on God’s earth is going to take him away from me. So get that into your head now.”

“And he’s my son. And no one, least of all you, is going to take him away from me. So you think on that, Ashley darling.”

“Do you actually mean to tell me that you want the whole sordid story of the break up of our marriage to go back into court? The drunken father, the womanising father, the one who abandoned his wife and son and went off screwing someone else the night the child was born. The father who all but threatened to kill him rather than see him stay with me. Do you want all that brought up again? Alex is eight now, Keith, he will understand. Do you want him to know what you’re really like?”

“You bitch!” he snarled. “You’ll do anything, won’t you, to get what you want.”

“I don’t want him growing up with you, and if you must know, I never did. You’re no good, Keith. You’re a failure.”

He lifted his hand to strike her. She didn’t flinch. “Go on, hit me. Show us all what you’re really like. You haven’t changed, Keith, and you never will. And that’s why you will never win custody of your own son. I will see to it that you don’t.”

“You’re going to regret this, Ashley. I’m warning you, you will regret this.”

“There’s nothing you can do, and you know it.”

“Alex will stay in England with me. I’ll do everything I can to discredit you. You and your advertising lover. The man who won’t marry you. The man who will only use you, and then leave you, just like his partner did. You’re out of your league, Ashley, I’m going to take Alex away from you. I gave you your chance, but no, you chose yourself and your career instead. Well, now you’ll see just how dearly you’re going to have to pay for that.”

“If you do anything to hurt him, or to take him away from me, so help me, Keith, I’ll kill you. I swear it, I’ll kill you.”

“Then you’d better change your mind about keeping him here in New York. Because he’s never coming here to live. Never!”

Ellamarie wandered through the deserted theatre, dragging her feet and running her hands along the back of the chairs. She hadn’t seen Bob since Friday morning, and she hadn’t heard from him. Before he went he had thought that he might have been back again on Saturday night, after he’d told his wife. Or Sunday morning at the very latest. But now it was Monday morning, and there was still no sign of him.

She had rung and rung the mews house, but there was no answer. She was tempted almost beyond endurance to call his home, but managed to stop herself. And now, because she had to get out, she had come to the theatre. She hadn’t really expected him to be here, but her heart had sunk when his secretary said she hadn’t seen him.

Every minute that passed increased the fear that he had changed his mind. She fought hard against even thinking about it, but she had to face the fact that as she hadn’t heard from him, it could only mean one thing. But perhaps Linda had taken it harder than either of them realised she would. Perhaps he was having to comfort her. What if she had threatened to kill herself? He would have to stay then. It was the not knowing that tore at Ellamarie.

She looked up at the stage and pictured him standing there, his back to her, talking with the actors and making them laugh. The way he would run his fingers through his beard, his eyes belying the stem expression.

It was all over now. In her heart she knew it, and in her heart she knew that no matter what, she would always love him. Maybe it would never have worked between them, knowing what had happened that terrible night over four months ago now. But if only she could see him just one last time. To say goodbye to him and tell him that she didn’t blame him, that she understood that he could never leave his wife to take on the bastard of a rapist. She understood, and would never reproach him.

This was the meeting Nick had not been looking forward to. In fact, he had been dreading it. Now, standing face to face with Kate’s father in the library of their home in Surrey, the meeting had all the promise of failure.

Calloway’s face was stern, yet there was something close to a sneer around his mouth as he scrutinised Nick’s face. Kate had tactfully disappeared to somewhere else in the house, and there was no sign of Mrs Calloway.

“Sit down,” Calloway said, waving Nick to a chair.

“Thank you,” Nick answered, and walked across to one of the pair of neo-rococo armchairs that flanked the hearth. Calloway sat in the one opposite.

“I guess you probably know why I’m here.”

Calloway put his head to one side and continued to stare at him.

“It’s about Kate.”

“Yes.”

“We’d like to get married.” Not for the first time, it struck Nick as absurd that in this day and age he should be asking Kate’s father for permission to marry her. But it was what she had wanted.

“Yes,” said Calloway.

Nick moved slightly in his chair. It was obvious the older man was going to do nothing to help him. He cleared his throat. “It was Kate’s idea, that you and I should have this talk.”

Calloway nodded.

Nick looked around the room, along the rows of old books that Kate’s father had collected over the years. The desk beneath the window where he sometimes worked was piled high with papers, and the slightly threadbare carpet reached comfortably across the floor as if trying to eke itself out to the walls. “Well,” he said, looking back at the older man, “I expect you would like to know the date we have set.”

Calloway paused before he answered. “No, not really.”

Nick watched his face, trying to see if it would tell him anything, but it remained inscrutable. “Does that mean you won’t be coming?”

Calloway seemed to ponder the question. Finally he said: “I think you would be right in that assumption.”

“But surely you must know how much it would mean to Kate, to have you there?”

Again Calloway seemed to think about this. “It might,” he answered. “Tell me, Mr Gough, are you actually asking for my permission to marry my daughter?”

“Well, yes, I suppose I am.”

“And if I refuse?”

“Kate is past the age where she needs parental consent.”

“Yes.” Calloway stood up and walked slowly over to a small cabinet in the corner. “Would you like a drink? Scotch?”

If it hadn’t been so important to Kate that they do things right, as she had put it, Nick would have refused and said that he was leaving. But as it was . . . “Just a small one, thank you.”

Calloway poured the drinks and handed one to Nick. “Kate has accepted you, I take it.”

“Of course,” Nick answered.

“Yes, of course, she would.” Calloway sat down again.

“We’re very much in love.” Nick felt foolish even as he said it.

“I don’t doubt that you are.”

“Are you going to refuse?” Nick asked him.

Calloway lifted his glass to his mouth and took a large mouthful of whisky. “I have to.”

“Can I ask why?”

“You can ask.”

Nick could have sworn with exasperation. Instead he stayed silent. Two can play at this game, he thought.

Calloway stood up again. He walked to the window and looked out across the sloping garden. He stayed there for a long time. Nick waited.

“Mr Gough . . .”

“Maybe you should call me Nick.”

Calloway ignored the interruption. “There is a great deal in this family, Mr Gough, of which you know nothing.”

It was perhaps more the tone of Calloway’s voice than the actual words that made Nick uneasy. He waited for him to go on.

“I don’t know,” Calloway eventually continued, “Whether it would be right to tell you.”

“Whatever it is,” said Nick, “I can assure you that nothing you say will change the fact that I am going to marry Kate.”

Calloway walked back to his chair and sat down. He gazed into the empty hearth. “You think you know Kate, don’t you?” he said. “You think you know everything there is to know about her.”

“Not everything, no.”

“Good. Because you don’t.”

“I know what I feel to be important.”

“And what, may I ask, is that?”

“I know that I love her, isn’t that enough?”

“No. No, it is not enough.”

Nick’s patience snapped. “For God’s sake, you’re behaving like somebody who hasn’t seen their way out of Victorian times. I don’t have to sit here and listen to your mysterious meanderings, I’m only here because Kate wanted me to come. If it had been up to me we would have just got married and been done with it.”

“It’s as well for you that you didn’t.” Calloway didn’t appear to be in the slightest put out by Nick’s outburst. “Did you not wonder why Kate asked you to speak to me first?”

“Because of how close you are. There’s nothing to wonder about in that.”

“But you must admit that it was, shall we say, a little odd for her to have insisted that you come.”

“Not odd, no. And she didn’t insist. She asked, and I agreed.”

“But you’d rather not have come?”

“I won’t deny it. Especially now.”

“But you would have had to come sooner or later,” said Calloway, “of that you can be certain.”

“Whatever you say, nothing is going to change my mind about marrying Kate. Now if there is something you want to tell me, then by all means do. But as I said, whatever it is, Kate and I are getting married at the beginning of next month, and nothing you say or do will alter that fact.”

Calloway looked surprised, and a little ruffled. “The beginning of next month,” he repeated. “So soon?”

“No, she is not pregnant,” Nick snapped. He stood up and put his glass on the mantelpiece. “Now, if you’ve quite finished . . .”

“Sit down,” said Calloway.

Nick glared at him.

“I said, sit down.”

Nick sat down.

“Another drink?”

“No thank you.”

Calloway took the glass from the mantelpiece and went to refill it. He handed it to Nick. “Take it,” he said. Not knowing what else to do, Nick took it.

“I mentioned earlier,” Calloway said, as he sat down, “that there were things in this family of which you know nothing. Because I am forced to, I’m going to tell you what they are. But before I do I want you to remember something. I say this, not as a threat, but as a statement of fact which you will do well to heed for your own good, and indeed my daughter’s. I am a very powerful man, Mr Gough. Probably a great deal more powerful than you realise. Joel Martin found that out to his cost. I have no wish to illustrate it again to you, but I will if you force me to.”

Nick watched his face closely, but there seemed to be no violence in it.

“I want you to remember that, and remember it for a long time after what I have told you.” He waited to see if Nick was going to speak, but when it was evident that he had nothing to say, Calloway continued. “Mr Gough, you cannot marry my daughter.”

Nick sat forward. “And I tell you, I will marry her.”

“Will and can have two entirely separate meanings.” said Calloway. “You say you will, and I say you cannot. And I will explain why indeed she
can
marry you, but why you
cannot
marry her. She can marry you because she knows. You cannot marry her because you don’t know.”

“Mr Calloway,” said Nick, trying to hold back his anger, “I am getting a little tired of your riddles. Please, come to the point.”

“Yes, the point.” Calloway looked down into his glass. “You cannot marry Kate, because Kate is in love with me.”

The colour drained from Nick’s face. He stared at the man sitting opposite him. “You’re insane!”

“No,” said Calloway, “I am in full possession of my faculties, and what I tell you, unfortunate as it might be, is the truth.”

“You’re a liar,” Nick said, the full force of his disgust sounding in his voice. “She’s not in love with you, it’s you who are in love with her. Your own daughter. Your own bloody daughter. I knew it, but I didn’t want to believe it. I didn’t want to believe that anyone was that . . . that, depraved! It
was
you who was phoning, wasn’t it?”

Calloway looked perplexed for a moment. “Phoning?”

“Ringing Kate and whispering your foul lust down the telephone. Terrifying the hell out of her.”

“Is that what she told you? Yes, I suppose she would have to.”

“For God’s sake, she didn’t even know it was you.” Nick couldn’t stop himself from shouting.

“Please, keep your voice down. Of course she knew it was me. But obviously if I called whilst any of her friends were present, she had to pretend.”

“That was no pretence,” Nick cried. “I was there, I saw her face. She was terrified, I tell you. Terrified.”

“Terrified that any of you would find out, yes.”

Nick sprang up from his chair and began to pace the room. “Dear God, you’re sick, Calloway. Kate knows nothing about this, does she? She doesn’t know the way her own father lusts after her. The way his mind warps around what he would like to do to her. Good God, I’ve got to get her away from you.”

Calloway smiled. “That wouldn’t be wise. Besides, she wouldn’t go. Perhaps if I tell you why she agreed to marry you, it will help you to accept what I am telling you. Having a husband would give her the respectability she needs, and the cover that perhaps both of us need. However, I have no wish for her to take those measures.’

“This is a nightmare,” Nick cried. “It’s all a bloody nightmare.”