Love and Devotion (30 page)

‘
I know that,’
he replied.
‘And what’s a part of you is a part of me.’

‘
You write as though it will be easy to wrench them away from their father. Believe me, it won’t be. They love him and he loves them.’

The arrogant, self-absorbed nature of this reply made Harriet think of Dominic; without a doubt he fitted the profile perfectly. Except for the small matter of his sexual preference. True, he had spent part of his adolescence experimenting with Felicity - as Felicity had described what had passed between them - but his lifestyle, since those days, was all too clear. Many years ago, Harriet and Felicity had visited Dominic in Cambridge and they’d met for themselves his lover - Dominic always used the word
lover
and never
partner;
he claimed it implied a degree of permanency he wasn’t interested in. The man in question was a beautiful young music scholar from the Ukraine with startlingly pale skin and long blond hair. ‘You’ll be amused to know that Uri has a temper worse than mine,’ Dominic had said when Uri left them alone to go and prepare for a music recital. ‘He also has a fondness for too much vodka. But I tolerate him because he keeps me company. For the time being, anyway.’ A slight lifting of his shoulders suggested weary indifference. Thinking of this comment now, Harriet wondered just how lonely an existence Dominic led. Was it an inevitable fate for the promiscuous and self-obsessed?

All this Harriet put aside when she skirted Crantsford and headed towards the business park. Her journey into work had quickly developed its own routine and gave her time to readjust from the chaos of Maple Drive. One of her greatest skills, she liked to think, was her ability to compartmentalise her life. Work was work and her private life was exactly that; private. Spencer had been the only exception to this firm rule.

The good news was that she loved her new job. It was early days, but work with ACT was proving to be interesting and stimulating, even if she did still have months of settling in and learning the products ahead. Realistically, it would be some time before she had a firm grip on the large-scale applications going on. Until then she had to grit her teeth and make do with what she called the Noddy jobs: the simple applications she could be trusted with in the meantime.

However, her efforts to find a house were failing miserably. The details the estate agents were sending her were either grossly misleading or well out of her price range. That was the trouble with wanting to stay in Kings Melford, where she would be close to school and her parents. The latter was imperative; she just wouldn’t survive if Bob and Eileen weren’t within a two-mile radius. If nothing else, they were her safety net.

Although they hadn’t been much of a safety net when Carrie had performed her disappearing act at school. It still appalled Harriet to think what might have happened to her niece if Will hadn’t come across her. Which brought her full circle: Will Hart. Other than his taste in young girlfriends, he seemed a nice enough bloke and there really hadn’t been any need for her to make that barbed comment about his children not living with him. It had been unnecessarily rude of her, given that he’d been so helpful with Carrie and herself when she’d been having her asthma attack.

Feeling decisive, she made a mental note to give him a ring at his shop during her lunch break. She would apologise and get him off her conscience. When she’d done that, she would ring Miles and ask him for Dominic’s phone number so that she could wipe that slate clean as well. She might also ask Miles if he fancied a drink that evening.

 

Dangerous Dave poked his head round her office door just as she’d made a breakthrough on a particularly satisfying piece of programming and was leaning back in her chair, her feet up on her desk, a fist punching the air.

‘Hiya, Harriet,’ he said. ‘If you’ve got a minute, the Big Man says he’d like a word with you.’

‘Oh, hell. Any idea what he’s on the warpath for today?’ Yesterday it had been a tedious bean-counting exercise — ‘Keep the fiction out of your expense claims or you’ll be working on your obituaries,’ he’d told the assembled staff.

Expecting there to be a similar gathering as yesterday, Harriet was surprised to find it was just her who had been summoned to the Big Man’s office.

‘Ah, there you are. How do you fancy a trip over to Ireland?’

‘A potential client?’

Howard nodded and pointed to a chair. ‘That’s right. But don’t be getting your hopes up and thinking it’s that leather-clad clog-dancing pretty boy Michael Flatulence. I want you to convince the haulage company I’ve been chasing for some months now that we’re the boys to give them what they want. They’re the reason I employed you.’ He got to his feet and jangled some loose change in his pockets. ‘Presumably there’s no reason why you can’t go?’

‘No reason at all. When were you thinking?’

Back in her office, Harriet dug out her personal organiser and pencilled in the days she would be away. Looking ahead, assuming there wouldn’t be a problem with her parents handling things in her absence, a couple of days guzzling Guinness and eating out seemed okay.

Her stomach rumbled, reminding her that it was now lunchtime. Which in turn reminded her that she had two phone calls to make. Will’s number was engaged, so she tried Miles.

‘You’re lucky you caught me,’ he said when one of the girls in the bookshop had located him. ‘I’m just off for lunch with one of the publishing reps. How have you been? The new job going well? The kids okay?’

‘Yes to all of the above. I shan’t keep you, but have you got Dominic’s phone number to hand?’

‘I have, but what on earth do you want that for?’

‘I need to speak to him. Actually, I need to apologise. I was pretty hard on him when he was up here and I’ve been feeling bad about it ever since.’

‘Well, don’t. Dominic’s never felt bad about another living soul. Besides, he won’t know what to do with an apology, apart from pour scorn on it.’

After she’d rung off, having arranged to meet for a drink next week — Miles was busy tonight — Harriet tried Will’s number again and got through. ‘Hi,’ she said, ‘it’s Harriet Swift, your neighbour from across the — ’

He cut her off with a laugh. ‘It’s okay, I know exactly who you are. What can I do for you? Oh, by the way, how’s your asthma? No further attacks I hope.’

Harriet stalled, picturing herself making an embarrassing fool of herself wheezing and crying in his office. She must have looked and sounded a total mess. An apology over the phone, though convenient, suddenly didn’t seem entirely appropriate or adequate. More to the point, it might make her look weak and cowardly. If she had any bottle at all, she’d do it in person. ‘What time do you finish work?’ she asked.

‘Hey, didn’t you know? I’m the big honcho round here; I finish work whenever I want to.’

‘And in the real world?’

‘About six. Why? Do you want to negotiate a fair wage for Carrie when I put her on the payroll? I’ll warn you now; there’ll be occasional chimneys for her to clean as well as the odd Spinning Jenny to crawl under.’

‘I’m sure my niece is more than capable of sorting out her own financial package without my intervention.’ Harriet steeled herself. ‘If you’re around this evening, I wondered if I could nip across and speak to you. I won’t keep you long.’

‘You can keep me as long as you like. I have nothing planned for the evening.’ He laughed. ‘Or for the rest of time, come to think of it. Why not have that drink I’ve been threatening you with?’

Mm ... she thought, when she’d said goodbye, idly moving the cursor about on her computer screen. It sounded like the pretty blonde girlfriend was no more. Was she pushed, or did she go of her own accord? And was there a danger, if Will was used to pulling girls much younger than himself, that he might try it on with Harriet?

Let him try!

 

 

 

 

It was a while since Will had had anyone other than Suzie and Gemma to the house, and after a hurried tidy-up and a blitz round with the Dyson and a duster, he deemed the place verging on the half-decent. I’m letting myself go, he thought, pushing the Dyson back into the under-stairs cupboard. But then lately he hadn’t had much time for the pinny and rubber-glove routine. If he wasn’t chasing his tail with the shop, driving hundreds of miles every week to auctions and being called out by people who’d watched one too many episodes of
Bargain Hunt
and
Flog It
and now believed they had a stash of priceless
objets d’art
languishing in the attic, he was keeping the peace between Suzie and her mother. A full-time job in itself.

When he’d driven Suzie away from the clinic, he’d brought her back to his house before taking her home to Maywood. She’d cried for most of the journey and it was only when he’d settled her in the armchair in the sitting room and had made her a hot drink that they talked about the baby. ‘You don’t have to justify why you changed your mind,’ he said. ‘It’s your decision, no one else’s.’

‘But Mum’s going to kill me.’

‘Nonsense. She doesn’t handle change too well, that’s all. Once she gets used to the idea, she’ll be fine. She’ll start organising the mother of all nurseries for you. The whole shebang.’

But Maxine was far from fine when Will drove Suzie home and explained the situation while Suzie rushed upstairs to her bedroom. ‘But she can’t keep the baby!’ Maxine had screeched. ‘She’s only nineteen. What about university? How does she think she’s going to manage? Has she figured that out yet? Oh, this is madness!’

Unable to keep his temper in check a moment longer, Will turned on Maxine. ‘I’ll tell you how’s she going to manage: she’s going to have all the love and support she bloody well deserves. And if you’re not prepared to do it, I’ll do it alone.’

‘Oh, there you go again. You always have to be the good guy.’

‘Change the record, why don’t you?’

She glared at him. ‘I blame you. If you’d been firmer with her at the clinic she wouldn’t have backed out. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you deliberately engineered this just to put her against me.’

‘For God’s sake, Maxine, listen to yourself! Where’s your love and compassion? This is our daughter. She’s just made the most crucially important decision of her life and you’re twisting it round to make it proof that I’m some kind of bastard. What’s the sense in that?’

‘Don’t you ever question my love for Suzie. It’s because I love her that I want the best for her and that doesn’t include being a single mother at nineteen.’

‘I agree it’s not ideal, but this is the choice she’s made and I for one am going to help her all I can.’

Steve had arrived home from work at that point and Will had taken it as his cue to exit stage left. Since then, Maxine had calmed down but Will knew Suzie was hurt that her mother had pointed out several times that it wasn’t too late for her to change her mind and have a termination. She was also repeatedly warning Suzie of the difficulties that lay ahead.

Will was also worried about the numerous practicalities Suzie would soon be facing. His primary concern was where Suzie and the baby would live and what they’d live on if Maxine didn’t have a change of heart. Benefits would be available, he supposed, but parental pride and something horribly middle-class in Will made him feel he’d be letting Suzie down if this was what she was reduced to. Plan B was to invite Suzie to move in with him and somehow he’d earn the extra money needed. He’d be damned if he’d go cap in hand to Maxine. But he couldn’t believe that Maxine wouldn’t finally come round and be there for Suzie.

He gave the sitting room a final checking over for dust and cobwebs, then opened a bottle of Merlot, which he fancied for himself, and made sure there was also a bottle of white and some beer in the fridge. He then decided the house felt a bit chilly, so he went out to the garage and set about making a fire with logs from the diseased apple tree he’d chopped down at the bottom of the garden. The previous owners had had lousy taste in decor, but thankfully they hadn’t got rid of the fireplace in the sitting room. It was small but effective and he soon had a good blaze going. Washing his hands at the kitchen sink, he wondered what the Hedgehog wanted to discuss with him. What was so important that she couldn’t have said it over the phone?

 

Harriet went downstairs after reading Joel his bedtime story. Her mother was in the kitchen emptying the children’s lunchboxes of half-eaten apples and muesli bar wrappers and her father, yet again, was nowhere to be seen. Toby’s basket next to the washing machine was empty. ‘Dad out with Toby again?’ she asked.

Eileen slammed the lid of the bin shut. ‘Looks like it.’

Her tone was as stark as the overhead striplight that for years Harriet had wished her parents would get rid of. In its harsh brilliance, she could see how tired her mother looked, how pale and gaunt her face was.

‘You look ready to drop, Mum,’ Harriet said, going over to her and taking Carrie’s lunchbox out of her hands. ‘Let me finish that for you. You go and sit down.’

‘I will later, when Carrie’s finished watching Top
of
the Pops. I didn’t mind sitting through it with you and Felicity, but I’m past it now.’

‘I know what you mean. Even to my ears the music all sounds the same and the girls look like cheap hookers.’

‘You don’t suppose we should stop Carrie watching it, do you?’

Harriet shook her head. ‘It’s too late for that. Anyway, she says Jeff and Felicity used to let her stay up to watch it.’

Eileen sighed, alerting Harriet once again to the worry that perhaps her mother was overdoing things. She hadn’t yet mentioned the trip to Ireland and she was suddenly concerned that she might have taken too much for granted. What if her mother’s illness was getting progressively worse? What then? Would her father be able to look after Mum
and
babysit the children when required? The obvious answer was to hire a childminder, she told herself firmly, squashing flat the concern before it got out of hand. ‘Are you all right, Mum?’ she asked.