Dead Romantic (11 page)

This didn't seem to her to be true, but she couldn't muster the arguments to deny it. ‘I won't.'

‘Come on. It's not such a big deal. Don't pretend you haven't done it before.'

‘I haven't.'

‘Ha, bloody ha. What about laughing boy? What about that little wimp Paul Grigson? Go on, you've put out for him. I'll give you a better time than that.'

Sharon shook her head. There were tears -now in her eyes. ‘I haven't. Paul and I never . . . He never has, I'm sure . . . nor have I – really – not with anyone.'

Tony laughed. It was a brisk, unattractive sound.

‘And', she continued defiantly, ‘I certainly wouldn't want to do it with you.'

Tony swung his legs round on to the floor and looked at her. He was angry, and he knew he could have her if he wanted to. He was strong enough.

But a virgin . . . A weeping virgin at that. He wasn't sure that he fancied it.

He rose to his feet. Sharon flinched away from him, fearing a blow. But he just said, ‘Goodnight' lightly, and walked to the front door. He still felt angry as he walked home, but not that angry. He'd give Tracey Ruskin a call the next day. No point in going for things that were difficult when you could get them easy.

Sharon felt huge relief when he had gone. She rebuttoned and rezipped her clothes before taking them off and having her customary bath. It had been a narrow escape.

But she didn't feel the satisfaction of virtue triumphant. She felt ill-at-ease as she donned her crisp little nightdress and got into her crisp little bed. She found she could not concentrate on her newest Mills and Boon and, when she turned the light out, sleep did not bring its usual, immediate benison.

She couldn't pretend. She knew what was troubling her. When she had said she did not want to do it with Tony, she had been lying.

Paul Grigson was trying without marked success to keep his mind on Shelley the next morning, when at about half-past eleven his mother came through the front door. He looked up, surprised. Her face was once again drawn and grey.

‘You all right?' he asked.

She nodded wryly. ‘Oh yes, fine. Well, fine-ish.' She sighed. ‘Let us say that the doctor cannot diagnose anything wrong with me.'

‘You've just been to the doctor?'

Another nod. ‘Yes. Thought I should check with a so-called expert. But – surprise, surprise – he didn't know. I'm not sure why we bother going to doctors. Either they just admit they don't know or, if they're feeling really adventurous, they diagnose a virus.'

‘Well, if he couldn't find anything, you're probably OK.' But Mrs Grigson wasn't going to be comforted that easily. With a look of pity for Paul's acceptance of such a simplistic solution, she announced, ‘He wants me to go into hospital to have some tests.'

The panic thought of his mother's dying again swept through him, but only briefly. ‘When?'

‘Thursday. That's the next time they've got a bed free. Should be out by the weekend.'

Paul dared to ask what the tests were for.

‘Oh God,' his mother sighed dramatically. ‘You don't think they tell you
that.
' She became brisk and practical. ‘At least it gives me a couple of days to stock up for you. You'll have to cope on your own. Do you think you're capable?'

She couldn't resist that last dig. Paul didn't rise to anger, as she had hoped, but assured her that he could manage.

‘I'd better get to work,' his mother said wearily. ‘Late enough already.' And slowly, not allowing her son to be unaware of her invalid state, she started to collect her things together.

Paul felt a spasm of guilt, as had been intended, but it did not last. A new thought was blossoming in his mind. He would have the house to himself. For two blissful days he would be on his own, free to invite anyone ‘back to my place'.

One of his fantasies of Madeleine instantly shifted location. It moved away from imagined hotels and hillsides to the specific setting of his bedroom.

Julian Garrett was reaching the end of his third afternoon tutorial in a fortnight with the young housewife in Hove, and deciding that he had probably achieved as much as he was likely to for her progress. But she clasped her arms round him as he tried to put his trousers back on.

‘Julian, I wish we could have longer together. It's always so rushed. We don't have time to talk.'

‘No,' he agreed. ‘Well, it's difficult. You've got the kids, your husband.'

‘He works away a lot. I could unload the kids on to friends for a night. We could spend a whole night together.' Julian rose from the bed to button up his Turnbull and Asser shirt. ‘What you forget, my dear, is that while your family can be so conveniently abandoned, my wife is likely to prove less accommodating.'

‘What's she like?' asked the housewife.

‘I don't think there's anything to be gained from my answering that question. It's not relevant to any relationship you and I may have.'

‘But I feel awful when you're not here. It's terrible trying to pretend with my husband, when all I really want is to be with you.'

‘I'm sure you will manage.'

‘If only I could make contact when I need to talk to you.'

‘I've told you about the situation with my wife. You can't possibly ring me at home, I'm afraid.' He felt increasingly glad that he had fabricated a spouse for this particular encounter; the housewife promised to be very clinging, given the opportunity.

‘Surely I can ring you at the school.'

He shook his head. ‘My secretary is the nosiest woman I have ever encountered. She's a widow who fills the emptiness of her life by creating romances for everyone she meets. You can ring me at the school only if you want to put me out of business.'

‘Well, it's just so. . . When you love someone, you want to be with them all the time.'

She was nearing post-coital tears. Julian briskly put on his jacket, straightened his almost-regimental tie and smoothed his hair back in the bedroom mirror. Then he made for the door.

‘I'll ring you,' he lied.

Madeleine lay in a hot bath on the Thursday evening, feeling satisfied with her day. She had washed her red-gold hair, which once again fanned out in the water, a detail from Millais'
Ophelia.
She raised one delicate toe and pushed the tap for an infusion of hot water.

She had had her lunch with Laura and, as anticipated, Laura had wanted to talk. Her aunt could see this as soon as the girl walked into the health-food restaurant. Laura was thin, excessively thin for Madeleine's tastes. Madeleine reckoned a certain opulence of line was a prerequisite of feminine beauty. Nor would she have accentuated the angularity with the loosely-hanging, garishly-striped T-shirt dress that Laura had chosen. The hair, too, could have been shown to better advantage. It was reddish, not of course of the same splendour as Madeleine's, more of an auburn, really, but not an unattractive colour. The short, lop-sided cut did not do a great deal for it, though. And no one, surely, could think that those silver ear-rings dangling from a row of perforations were actually attractive . . . Still, Laura was young. It would take her a few years to develop her own style, Madeleine reflected indulgently.

She felt great warmth for her niece as they embraced. It was good for them to be together again. There was a reassuring furrow on Laura's brow which denoted a problem and which promised confidences.

Laura's problem, it soon became clear, was love, and Madeleine, her past experience of the subject now intensified by the new feelings for Bernard that were growing within her, felt more than competent to offer advice.

Laura's problem, for once, though, was not unrequited love. The man involved, Terry, apparently felt for her on exactly the same scale as she felt for him. The problem was one of parental opposition, strong opposition from Aggie.

As the situation was unfolded to her, Madeleine glowed. This was her kind of scene, one at which she knew she excelled.

Quickly, she dramatised it in her mind into a Romeo and Juliet scenario, with Aggie cast as both Montagus and Capulets. Laura and Terry became the ‘star-cross'd lovers' and she, Madeleine Severn, would have to take the part of a benign Friar Laurence.

‘Mum's being an absolute pig about it,' Laura had said, as they settled down with their bean-sprout and kidney-bean salads, their grainy wholemeal bread and their carrot juice.

‘She doesn't like him?'

‘Certainly the impression she's giving.'

‘What about Keith?'

Laura shrugged. ‘Keith doesn't have a mind of his own. He thinks whatever Mum thinks.'

Madeleine gave a pained nod. ‘Yes. I'm afraid I never could quite fathom that relationship. I know I shouldn't say it about your mother, but I just do not understand what she sees in him.'

Laura gave a wry grin. ‘Sex. Pure and simple. Nothing more than that. God, you should try living in the house with them. Bloody embarrassing. They're at it all the time.'

Madeleine curled her lip. ‘Well, yes, I can see that that would be part of it, but surely not enough to. . . She caught Laura's curious expression, and retreated quickly. She did not wish to appear ignorant of the powers of sex. And the unaccustomed feelings that Bernard had aroused made her wonder whether perhaps in the past she had underestimated its influence. ‘No, I suppose you're right,' she conceded. ‘There's no explaining physical attraction.'

‘No, and that's what makes Mum's behaviour to me over Terry so bloody annoying. Bloody hypocritical, in fact.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Well, Terry and me. . .' Laura blushed prettily. In spite of her surface poise, she was still only seventeen, and not a very worldly-wise seventeen. ‘I mean, ours is a physical relationship, too.'

‘You mean you've slept together?'

‘Sure.' The word was meant to sound casual and defiant, but Laura still coloured as she said it.

‘Does Aggie know?'

‘I haven't actually told her, but she must be bloody stupid if she can't work it out for herself.'

‘Is Terry older than you?'

Laura nodded. ‘Twenty-six.'

‘Married?'

‘Separated. You see, he's working down here in Brighton on a building project. He's an architect. So he's only here weekdays, and he's staying in this guest-house, and there's no way he can take me back there, so we're–'

Madeleine interrupted. ‘Where does he go at weekends?'

‘Back to Hereford. He's still got a house there.'

‘Are you sure he hasn't still got a wife there?'

‘She may live there, but I told you they're separated.'

‘Then why does he go back every weekend?'

‘His mother. She's in a nursing-home. Getting very frail now. He feels he must see her whenever he can. Doesn't think she'll be around for very much longer.'

‘Hmm. And Aggie won't have him in the house?'

Laura's head shook impatiently. ‘It's not that. On the couple of occasions they've met, she's been more or less civil to him. That's not the problem. It's just that whenever I mention the idea of me staying away for a night, she thinks I'm planning to spend it with him and she goes off the deep end.'

‘And are you planning to spend these nights with him?'

‘Of course I am,' said Laura defiantly. ‘I've got to. I need to. It's hopeless. We're in love, he's twenty-six, I'm over sixteen, and so far our sex-life has been limited to the back of his car and the golf-course. Well, I don't know if you've ever conducted an affair like that, but you take my word for it, it's not ideal.'

Madeleine gave a wise, experienced smile. ‘I've been lucky. Never been reduced to those sort of expedients.' She moved into her shrewd-observer-of-human-psychology mode. ‘Of course, you know why Aggie's behaving like this to you?'

Laura shrugged.

‘It's because of what happened to her. You're a constant reminder of where she went wrong, and she's afraid of history repeating itself. You're seventeen, exactly the same age that she was when she . . . made her little mistake. That's why she's overreacting.'

‘OK,' said Laura contemptuously, ‘I can see that. But she can't think that I'm as naive a little twit as she was at the same age.' Another blush. ‘Terry's not the first man I've slept with. I am on the pill.'

‘Have you told Aggie that?'

Laura shook her head, ashamed.

‘I see your problem,' Madeleine summed up. ‘Don't worry. I'm sure it will sort itself out. Give Aggie a bit of time to get used to the idea that you're grown up and responsible for your actions. And if it's the real thing with Terry, I'm sure it'll survive these difficulties. It may sound a cliché, but love usually does find a way.'

Madeleine's recognition of the cliché didn't make it any less of a cliché, and it didn't satisfy Laura. ‘That's not good enough for me, Madeleine. I don't want to know that love will find a way – I want to know the exact way that love is going to find.'

‘Well, I suppose you could just ignore Aggie and get Terry to move in somewhere where you can be together without problems.'

‘We've been through that. His company's paying for where he is at the moment. He can't afford to go anywhere else. And I can't afford to move out of home – otherwise I'd pack my bags and be in a flat tomorrow.'

Madeleine smiled with a touch of pity and a touch of mockery. ‘Then it looks as if you're just going to have to grin and bear it for the time being. At least it's a good test of your love for each other.'

‘We don't want our love bloody tested!' snapped Laura. ‘We want it expressed. And not just in secret. Have you any idea how cold it is on the golf-course this time of year?'

Madeleine gave a little laugh. ‘I sympathise, Laura, but I don't really see how I can help.'