Love and Devotion (24 page)

All this, while Steve and Gemma had made themselves scarce, Maxine had put in her own inimitable way. She’d then gone on to say that she would go to the doctor in the morning with Suzie; that, in her own words, they’d ‘get things moving’. Will was too stunned to speak. Too stunned because it felt as though he was already going through some kind of weird grieving process for a child he would never know.

For the first time ever, he felt distanced from one of his children, sidelined by the very fact that he was a man and this was women’s business. He was clearly not needed. This was something that was going to take some getting used to.

One of Maxine’s favourite weapons that she frequently loosed from her deadly arsenal of killer complaints was: ‘You always make me out to be the bad parent, the villain.’ He’d once sniped back at her that he didn’t need to do that; she made a tidy job of it herself. Another complaint was that he deliberately left her out in the cold when it came to the girls. Not true. She’d left herself standing on the wrong side of the door, always claiming that she couldn’t pick up the children from school or attend a parents’ evening because she had an accountant to see, a meeting to chair. He’d sympathised with her to a degree; after all, it wasn’t easy juggling those slippery balls of selfish ambition, but now, when it was him standing the wrong side of the door, he could feel the icy chill of exclusion swirling around and he didn’t like it.

He drained his glass, letting the last of the liquid slide down his throat and dull what was left of his senses. He wondered, cruelly, if the real reason Maxine didn’t want Suzie to go through with having the baby was because it would turn her into a grandmother. A concept that would be anathema to her.

Far away in the distance, he heard the sound of a church bell striking the hour - just the one mournful chime. Aware of something moving along the path, he leaned forward to peer into the silvery darkness. A fox perhaps?

He smiled. It was the Hedgehog, and beneath the peak of her baseball cap she looked as prickly as ever, hair tied back in a ponytail, her shoulders hunched. What was she doing out at this time of night when all sensible people were tucked up in bed? ‘Hi,’ he said, making his presence known so that she wouldn’t be startled by suddenly coming upon him.

‘Where are you heading? An illegal after-hours drink at The Navigation.

She studied him intensely before saying, ‘I fancied a walk.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘At this time of night?’

‘I couldn’t sleep.’ She glanced at the empty glass on the arm of the bench. ‘Whenever I see you, you have a drink in your hand.’

‘It’s the neighbourhood; it’s driving me to it.’

He waited for her to say something, but she didn‘t, just kept on standing there, her hands pushed into the pockets of her baseball jacket, her shoulders up somewhere around her ears. She looked like a rebellious teenager. She also looked tired. ‘Well, don’t let me keep you from your moonlit stroll,’ he said. ‘But you know; you really oughtn’t to be out on your own so late at night.’

Her cool blue-grey eyes locked with his. ‘I’m not a child.’

‘And luckily for you I’m not a crazed psycho on the lookout for a fresh victim, but who knows what excitement lurks further down the towpath for you?’

‘I can take care of myself.’

‘I’m sure you could, if you were attacked by a one-legged midget with both arms tied behind his back.’

She bristled; every one of her hedgehog spikes was up and ready to repel him. ‘A one-legged vertically challenged individual is the correct term, I think you’ll find.’

He laughed. ‘Priceless! The PC approach. I heard on the radio the other day that we’re not allowed to say children are naughty any more; we have to say their behaviour is challenging.’

‘Children are challenging, full stop,’ she said with feeling.

‘But also very rewarding,’ he countered.

The shoulders relaxed, came down to about jaw level. ‘I wouldn’t know about that. So far, it seems to be nothing but one drama after another.’

‘Take it from me, the reward is that when you’ve moved onto the new drama, the one you’ve just recovered from seems like light relief in comparison.’

Again she made no comment and, distracted from his own problems, Will suddenly felt sorry for this young woman. Knowing more of her background from the conversations he’d had with her father, he said, ‘Any luck on the job front, yet?’

‘No.’

He admired her candour, the fact that she didn’t give out any bull about there being any number of offers she was currently considering - the kind of face-saving remark he might have made in his former life. ‘By the way, I was being serious when I said you ought to be careful walking along the canal late at night.’ He received a look that seemed to dare him to go on and annoy her further. Which, of course, he did. ‘If you’d like, I could trail you by skulking along in the shadows and act as your bodyguard. I’ve got an old CIA raincoat somewhere I could wear. Along with the regulation sunglasses.’ This at least elicited a smile. Possibly the first he’d seen on her face.

‘And there I was, thinking you were only good for sitting on benches and making out you were a dedicated wino,’ she said.

‘That’s me; Jack of all trades.’

‘I heard you used to be a lawyer. Why did you give it up?’

A question from the Hedgehog? This was a new phenomenon. ‘I had to,’ he said. ‘I was beginning to imagine myself running amok in the office with a machete and massacring anything with a pulse.’

She raised an eyebrow. ‘So much for not being the crazy psycho on the lookout for a fresh victim.’

‘Ah, but I’m all cured now. I put my unstable past behind me when I became a convert to the school of thought that believes tomorrow is but a dream and yesterday no longer exists. What matters is today and seizing the opportunities that come one’s way. As a lawyer you can’t live like that; the two aren’t mutually compatible. Would you like to sit down?’

She shook her head. ‘Carpe diem is a bit passé, don’t you think?’

‘Tell me that when you’re all grown up. Meanwhile, I’ll give you my personal philosophy on life; I’ve discovered it’s nothing but a very tricky egg and spoon race.’

‘You’re very patronising, you know.’

‘I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be. It’s just that you look so young.’

‘I’m thirty-two.’

He smiled. ‘Okay, so you’re older than I thought you were by a few years, but I guarantee one day you’ll remember this conversation and think what a wise sage I was.’

‘I think you’re living in a fantasy world. One simply can’t live without planning tomorrow.’

‘Ah, but as Jung said, “What great thing ever came into existence that was not at first fantasy?” You sure I can’t persuade you to let me keep you company on your walk?’

‘Thanks, but I need to think.’

‘Tell me about it. That’s what I was doing before you showed up.’ Torn between wanting to respect Suzie’s privacy and suddenly feeling the need to talk about his rotten evening, he chose his next words carefully. ‘Someone very close to me has got herself pregnant and, well, the thing is she’s very young and has decided to have an abortion. And for reasons I’m almost ashamed to confess, I hate the thought of her doing that. I know it’s selfish, that the decision is hers, but I can’t help it.’

‘You’re right, it is selfish of you. You can’t dictate her life.’

‘But what if she regrets the abortion?’

‘That’s the price of choice.
Her
choice.’

‘Do you always see things so dispassionately?’

‘If you mean do I always view things rationally and with an objective eye, then yes, I do.’

He folded his arms across his chest, beginning to feel the cold. ‘You’d have made an excellent lawyer.’

‘And you’d probably have hacked me to death.’

He smiled. ‘There’s still time. Anyway, I’m going in now; the cold’s getting to me.’ He stood up. ‘It was nice chatting with you. We must do this again, but maybe in the warm and at a more sociable time of day. Take care.’

Closing the gate after him, Will thought that if there were any psychos out there on the towpath, they were the ones who might need to take care. She was one formidable girl.

 

 

 

 

At last Harriet had a job interview. It had come her way not through an agency, but by word of mouth. Adrian, her old boss down in Oxford, called to say that he knew of a company in south Manchester that was desperate for someone with her level of expertise and in particular, her specific knowledge of AVLS - automatic vehicle location systems. ‘Howard Beningfield, who runs the company, is one of the brashest, most straight-talking men I know,’ Adrian had said. ‘Get on the right side of him and he’ll be your friend for life.’

‘And the wrong side of him?’

‘You’ll be out on your ear.’

‘He sounds a regular charmer.’

‘That’s the funny thing; he is. What do you think? Shall I give him a ring and put in a good word for you?’

‘Absolutely.’

Adrian had one final piece of advice for her. ‘Whatever you do, Harriet, don’t underestimate Howard. It’s his favourite trick, fooling people into thinking he’s an idiot.’

So here she was, looking for the road that would lead her to a small business-park on the outskirts of Crantsford. This way lies my sanity, she told herself. Once she had a job, she would soon be back on track. It wouldn’t solve everything, but she’d have her self-respect up and running again and she’d be able to start making plans for the future. She was desperate to get a place of her own. Or rather, a place for her and the children. The thought of taking on the full weight of responsibility for Carrie and Joel still terrified her, but biting bullets was what she did best. Dodging had never been an option. Wasn’t that why Felicity had entrusted her with the task in the first place?

A week had passed since Harriet had read the first of her sister’s secret emails and she was still shocked at what she’d discovered. Felicity’s had been no lightweight affair, the kind of fling that quickly runs out of passion and burns itself to dust. It was obvious that Felicity had been involved with whoever it was for some time.

A lot of the emails they’d written to each other had been near-pornographic in content and Harriet had baulked at reading some of them, but curiosity had won out. Wanting to discover the identity of Felicity’s lover, she had forced herself to go on, hopelessly trying not to imagine her sister’s voracious appetite for this man. And all the while, she kept thinking of Jeff. Had he been such a terrible husband that he had driven his wife to these lengths? Harriet didn’t think so; she’d always liked him. Perhaps he’d been a little staid - steady was what Mum and Dad had called him - but he’d been devoted to Felicity in his quiet, measured way. Felicity had always claimed that she fell in love with him the moment she set eyes on him, when they were at university. ‘That’s the man I’m going to marry,’ she had said in a loud voice when they were standing in the dinner queue during a ball up in Durham. ‘His name’s Jeff Knight and he’s my knight in shining armour. He doesn’t know it yet, but he’s going to sweep me off my feet.’ It was nearly the end of the summer term and Felicity was drunk, as they all were - Miles and Dominic were spending the weekend with them - and they’d laughed at her, thinking her quite mad.

‘But darling,’ Dominic had said, his voice overtly camp and booming through the stratosphere so that the student in question, further up the queue, turned round, ‘he looks like one of those frighteningly hale and hearty types. Not our sort at all. Where’s the aesthetic content? I ask myself.’

As soon as Dominic had made the transition from boarding school to university, he’d come out as gay and delighted in shocking those who were uneasy about such matters. Including his parents.
Particularly
his parents. Had Harriet not heard his lurid tales about the gay bars and clubs he frequented in London, or seen for herself a set of moody black-and-white photographs of him lying naked in the arms of a man a good deal older than him, she would have said it was another of his affectations.

‘He’s exceptionally hearty,’ Felicity had said proudly. ‘He’s a rower and has the most wondrous legs. He has muscles you McKendrick boys can only dream of.’

‘I can’t speak for my brother,’ Dominic had drawled, ‘but for myself, I’m rather partial to something with a brain.’

‘He has one of those too,’ Felicity crowed. ‘He’s a third-year maths scholar.’

Dominic shuddered. ‘Another maths bore, just like Harriet. How extraordinarily dull.’

‘I don’t care what you think of him. He’s the man I’m going to marry. What’s more, I’m going to ask him right now if he’ll dance with me when dinner is over.’

True to her word, Felicity sidled up to him and introduced herself. Her reward was a smile of such tender embarrassment that Harriet had felt sorry for him. You don’t know what you’re getting into, she thought.

This was during their first year at Durham. Felicity had suffered a prolonged bout of glandular fever during her A-level year and had to repeat the upper sixth, which meant that she and Harriet started university together. Everyone had thought they were mad both opting to go to Durham, but to them it seemed perfect. Dominic was still at Cambridge and thinking of extending his stay by doing a doctorate; Miles had taken a gap year before taking his place at Bristol. No way in the world would he have contemplated going to Cambridge. ‘Not even to rub Dominic’s nose in it?’ Harriet had asked him. ‘To prove the point that you made it without all the advantages he’d been given?’

‘Tempting, I agree,’ Miles had said, ‘but the thought of following in his footsteps holds little appeal.’

The night of the ball, when Felicity had declared her intention to marry Jeff Knight, Miles had slept on the floor of Harriet’s college room, while across town Dominic had slept alone in Felicity’s bed. The last they’d seen of her had been as she’d disappeared down to the river, hand in hand with her shy husband-to-be, her dress trailing in the damp grass.