A Week in Winter: A Novel (31 page)

‘If only you could see it,’ she’d said, staring dreamily into the fire. ‘It’s such a lovely house. A family house. You and Luke will have the insurance money after … afterwards. But I want to use the money from the flat for Moorgate.’

‘Please,’ he’d said wretchedly. ‘Please, Melissa. I don’t care about the money.’

‘I know,’ she’d said quickly. ‘Oh, I know that, Mike, but I need you to understand.’

‘I understand,’ he’d said reassuringly. ‘Honestly, I do. I’m glad for Rob to have Moorgate after all he’s given you. It’s given you a stake in the future. I understand that.’

‘Yes.’ She’d looked at him gratefully. ‘It’s probably foolish but that’s how I feel.’

She’d talked on and on, describing, laughing, crying, until she’d been too exhausted to do more than climb the stairs and fall into the warm bed. He’d returned to sit by the fire and think about all that she’d told him.

Now, having fed Luke and settled him with some toys on his tray, Mike began to eat his own breakfast. He felt troubled and his heart was heavy. It seemed to him that Melissa wasn’t thinking clearly and that purchasing Moorgate for Rob was going to be much more difficult than she realised. It was unlikely, to begin with, that Rob would remain tamely in Cornwall for as many weeks as it might take to complete the sale. Melissa had been so tired and had looked so fragile that he’d been incapable of bringing her down to earth but he was finding it difficult to see how her dream might be achieved. Even as he wrestled with the problem, murmuring to Luke, his mind preoccupied, the door opened and Melissa came in. She wore a long green wrapper, her feet in espadrilles, a pashmina around her shoulders. Her eyes were enormous, dark-circled in her thin face, but she was smiling cheerfully.

‘Good morning,’ she said, bending to kiss Luke’s rosy cheek, taking the car which he held out to her with crows of pleasure. ‘Isn’t it a nice one? Look.’ She pushed it round his tray whilst he watched, chuckling, and then drove it lightly over his chubby fist and up his arm. ‘I wish I had a car like this one.’

‘How are you feeling?’ Mike stood up to make more coffee. ‘I was hoping you’d sleep in.’

‘I slept very well,’ she assured him. ‘I really did. But I wanted to see you and Luke. I’ve missed you.’

‘And we missed you, didn’t we, Luke?’

Melissa gave Luke his car and sat down at the table. It was comforting to be back, in these familiar surroundings, without the need to pretend, but her heart ached when she thought of Rob and of the old farmhouse at the moor gate.

‘I’ve been thinking.’ Mike turned to face her. ‘I’m very happy to help organise this, I really am, but I don’t think it’s going to be quite as simple as you’ve imagined.’

‘Why not?’ She looked alarmed. ‘Why shouldn’t it be simple?’

‘There are all sorts of reasons,’ he said gently. ‘To begin with, Rob is going to expect to hear from you regularly, isn’t he?’

‘Oh, that.’ Her face cleared. ‘Yes, I thought about that. He’s got the number of my mobile but he thinks I’m at work, you see. So we leave each other messages and I talk to him quite often. But he knows I’ve sold my flat and he thinks I’m staying with friends whilst I wind up my work. I’ve told him I’ve got a heavy case on so he doesn’t expect me to be too available.’

‘Right. OK. But it could take weeks to complete on Moorgate.’

‘I know.’ She was watching him anxiously. ‘I want you to have absolute power of attorney, Mike, so if anything happens you’ll just carry on dealing with it. You don’t mind, do you?’

‘No, of course not.’ The light on the percolator shone red and he began to pour the coffee. ‘Look,’ he said, his back to her, ‘I’m sure we can work through the legal bits. You’re going to speak to Jenny in Truro and you can lodge the money with her for the deposit, and she has limited power of attorney to deal with the sale? Have I got that right?’

‘Quite right. It means she can sign all the papers for me and I’m going to ask her to advise Rob to take out a simple repayment mortgage. I know paying the mortgage isn’t a problem for him and it lets me out of having to have a medical. Jenny knows the truth, remember. I can absolutely rely on her.’

‘That’s fine but there’s the other side to it.’

‘What side?’

‘Rob himself He put the mugs on the table, picked up Luke’s car, which had fallen to the floor, and sat down again. ‘Look, Lissy, don’t you think all this is a bit tough on him?’

‘How do you mean?’ She looked puzzled.

‘How do you think he’s going to feel when he finds out the truth? At
what point will you stop taking his calls? Think of the shock it will be for him.’

She was staring at him, huddled into her wrap, eyes wide with anxiety. ‘But what else can I do? I don’t want him to know, Mike. If I tell him he’ll want to come and find me, I know he will. I can’t bear the thought of it. Everything will change. There will be all that pity and horror. I can’t do that. I want to be free to … to just finish peacefully. Please, Mike, don’t ask me to tell him.’

‘I know how you feel’ He felt utterly miserable, hating to upset her, trying to think of a way which would be right for both of them. ‘But we have to think of Rob too. I want to do it your way but I don’t want the shock of it to ruin everything for him.’

‘Is that likely, do you think?’

Look, love.’ He took a deep breath. ‘From what you’ve told me this has been a really important thing for you both. Not just a light flirtation but something that would have gone on into a permanent relationship. From what I’ve heard about Rob I think he’s going to feel terribly hurt that you couldn’t confide in him. No. Wait. This isn’t a criticism. I know just how you feel and I quite understand but
he
might not, not unless it’s explained to him. After all, this poor guy is down there thinking you’re going back to him, that you have a life together. Try to imagine how he’ll feel when the letter arrives from the solicitor telling him that he’s suddenly the sole owner. I’m sure that he’ll be delighted to have Moorgate but I suspect that it’s you he wants, not a farmhouse.’

‘But what else can I do?’ she cried angrily. ‘How could I possibly tell him now, even if I wanted to? I can hardly introduce it into light conversation on the telephone, can I?’

‘Of course not,’ he agreed compassionately, understanding her desperation. ‘I absolutely agree that you can’t possibly tell him on the telephone.’

Luke was distracted from his game by the tone of their voices and Mike stood up, swung him out of his highchair and sat down again, holding him on his lap. Luke leaned against him drowsily, crooning to himself, and Melissa watched them both, her face softened by love and sorrow.

‘I couldn’t go back, Mike,’ she said quietly. ‘Even if I had the stamina, I simply couldn’t do it. Fancy walking in and saying, “Hi, Rob. Yes, great to see you too, and by the way …” I hear what you’re saying but I can’t think of a way round it. Oh, I can’t bear it. It was all so perfect.’

‘I know,’ he said quickly. ‘I can tell that. And we simply mustn’t
destroy the memory of all that or ruin Moorgate for Rob but I think he’s going to suspect something’s wrong and I’d rather be prepared for it.’

‘Perhaps I could write to him.’ She sounded dejected, all the joy gone, and he cursed himself for spoiling it for her. Why should he care how Rob felt, after all? He’d never met the guy so why should he worry about his reaction? ‘I wasn’t really thinking. I’ve been so happy and, selfishly, I wanted to forget everything else except that happiness.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with that,’ he said strongly. ‘You were both happy and he’s going to have Moorgate. He’ll never forget that week, either. I just don’t want anything spoiled for either of you.’

‘But how could it be done?’ she asked wretchedly.

‘I have an idea,’ Mike said slowly. ‘He’ll have to know the truth but, because he loves you, he’ll understand what it meant to you as long as it’s explained properly to him. I just don’t want him to have some kind of official letter out of the blue and if you write to him he’ll want to see you. So suppose
I
go down to see him and explain exactly how it is?’

She began to look hopeful. ‘Would you? But would that work? Suppose he refuses to accept Moorgate once he knows the truth?’

‘That is the danger.’ They stared at one another.

‘Let’s see if we can get it through quickly,’ Melissa said pleadingly. ‘He’s expecting me to be tied up for several weeks. Let’s hope we can get to completion and then you could go down to see him. That would be wonderful, Mike.’

‘OK.’ He sighed with relief. ‘We’ll leave it like that, then. Tomorrow morning you can telephone Jenny and tell her to get her skates on. If she has limited power of attorney it will save weeks. There’s no chain, nothing to hold it up. It could be done in a fortnight if we really tried.’

‘Bless you, Mike,’ she said gratefully. ‘And then you’ll go down and tell him?’

‘Whatever happens,’ he said, ‘I’ll go and see Rob and tell him everything. Drink your coffee and pour me some more, would you? Luke’s gone to sleep and I don’t want to disturb him.’

Walking back from the station, having seen her father off on the train, Posy was beginning to feel the need of someone to whom she could talk. She couldn’t decide what her stance should be. ‘Guess what! My dad’s going off to do this incredible thing. He’s giving everything up for it.
Brave isn’t it?’ It reminded her of the Indians who left their families and went out with begging bowls. What was it called—sannyasi? She understood it to be some kind of spiritual quest, undertaken late in life, when they had fulfilled their commitments to their families, but it was rather different when it was your own father. Or she might take a different line. ‘My dad’s walked out on us. Chucked it all in. He couldn’t cope any more and he’s gone to live in a commune.’

At least Jude would sympathise. His father had walked out when he was hardly more than a baby and he’d had to cope with various men who had lived briefly with his mother before disappearing in due course. Jude had survived. She could talk to Jude. Jude was a bit like Hugh; there was a calmness, a stability, which was odd when you thought about how unstable Jude’s life had been.

‘Mum loved me,’ he’d say. ‘That’s all you need. One person really loving you and believing in you. Anything else is a bonus.’

He’d said that when she’d been whingeing once about her mother always getting at her and how they’d always argued.

‘What about your dad?’ he’d asked—and she’d admitted that her father had always been on her side, always defending her and encouraging her.

‘Well then.’ Jude had shrugged. ‘It’s more than a lot of people have.’

She’d thought about it afterwards, wondering if it were feeble to want your mother’s approval too. After all, she’d always had Maudie. She could telephone Maudie, of course. Maudie was always ready to listen to her problems, although she’d been on Patrick’s side over the Mary thing. Maudie always held a rather detached view, which was helpful but not always particularly comforting. She’d once told Posy that too much sympathy could be ruinous, enervating, weakening, and that it was more helpful to look at things with a clear eye, but there were moments when unadulterated sympathy was very pleasant. Now, she felt, was one of those moments. At times like these she longed to ride out on to the moor with Hugh. The combination of Dartmoor and Hugh’s brand of companionship always lifted her spirits—but both were too far away on this Sunday afternoon to be of much help.

As she turned into Hyde Abbey Road, Posy found that she was thinking of her mother. What a shock it must have been for her; how humiliating. Posy shrank from thinking about how she must be feeling; how bitter and lonely it would be to face life alone after nearly thirty years of marriage.

Posy thought: She’s got the boys. They’ll be on her side.

Scrabbling in her bag for her key, Posy felt guilt creeping round her heart. She’d tried not to judge her father nor to feel angry with him, waiting until she could think it through calmly. It was selfish to expect him to stay in an unhappy relationship and an unsatisfying job, simply so that she could have him there on the few occasions when she wanted to go home. At the same time she felt that it was wrong to walk out on a marriage simply because you’d had enough. She felt thoroughly muddled and miserable and longed to talk it through calmly with someone who would understand.

Posy shut the door behind her. She could talk to Jude, if he were around, or Maudie. There was no sign of Jude, however, and Jo was out too. Posy stood for some moments beside the telephone before she dialled the number.

‘Hello, Mum,’ she said quickly. ‘It’s me. Posy. Just wanted to see how you are.’

Her mother laughed somewhat mirthlessly. ‘You mean that your father has told you his news.’

Posy’s heart sank. ‘Well, yes. It’s a bit of a shock, isn’t it?’

‘It’s not a shock to me to know that your father is a coward. You’ve always been prejudiced about him, of course, so I can’t expect you to understand how I feel.’

‘I just wondered if you wanted to talk about it.’

‘Why? So that you can gloat?’

‘No.’ Posy tried to hold on to her temper. ‘I don’t particularly approve of his going if you want to know the truth.’

‘You amaze me. I thought he could do no wrong as far as you’re concerned. I thought you’d encourage him to go off and help the disabled. Didn’t you tell him how wonderful and noble he is?’

‘Actually, no. No, I didn’t. Well, never mind. I just thought you might like to know that I’m sorry …’

‘I’m sure you are. You’re going to miss him. It’s not nice to be rejected, is it? Perhaps, now, you’ll just begin to understand how I’ve felt about you and Maudie all these years.’

‘Right. OK then.’ Posy felt disappointment, along with all the old familiar antagonism, burning inside her. ‘I’m here if you need me. See you.’

She replaced the receiver, wanting to burst into tears. After a moment or two she dialled another number.

‘Hi, babe,’ she said. ‘It’s me. How are you? … Great. And Polonais? … Well, yes, I do. I’m hoping I might come down again next weekend if that’s OK? Brilliant. Thanks, Maudie. Oh, and do you think you could arrange for me to go out with Hugh for an hour or two? … Thanks. Yes, I will. I’ll be really looking forward to it. So what’s been going on down in Devon, then?’