Sisteria (19 page)

Chapter 17

Four weeks later, Beverley was back in Harley Street.

She closed the door of Mr Pettifer's consulting room and went into the reception to make her next antenatal appointment.

‘All right, Mrs Littlestone,' the receptionist smiled, ‘we'll see you in another month then.'

Beverley returned the smile, slipped her diary back in her handbag and walked into the hall. She was standing doing up her coat when the front door opened and Tom walked in.

‘Good Lord,' she said, startled. He looked breathless - as if he'd been running. ‘What on earth are you doing here? God, there's nothing wrong, is there? Is Naomi OK?'

‘Yes, yes, fine,' he said, trying to catch his breath. ‘Nothing's wrong. I was running because I thought I'd missed you.'

‘What is it, then? Why are you here?'

He held his hand out in front of him while he took another couple of breaths.

‘I know when we spoke after the scan you said you were coping fine with the whole surrogacy thing and that you and I didn't need to talk, but I've been really worried about you.'

‘You have?' she said, reddening. Having not seen or heard from him for a while, she'd just about recovered her emotional equilibrium. Now she was starting to get the hots for him all over again.

‘Look, it's nearly lunchtime,' he said. ‘It's freezing out. How do you fancy a bowl of pasta?'

Beverley's pregnancy sickness had in the last couple of days started to give way to constant hunger. A bowl of pasta? She could have downed a bucket of the stuff. Nevertheless she had to refuse. Lunch with Tom was a mad idea. It was crazy. If they said goodbye now, she might well escape with a minimal amount of churned emotion. She opened her mouth, expecting ‘No' to emerge.

‘OK,' she found herself saying brightly. ‘Why not?'

‘Brilliant,' he said, grinning. ‘I know this great place round the back of the BBC.'

As they sat in the cab (Tom insisted, even though it was only a ten-minute walk), Beverley asked him how he'd known about her appointment with Mr Pettifer.

‘Resorted to subterfuge, I'm afraid,' he said, pretending to look guilty. ‘I phoned masquerading as your husband and told Pettifer's secretary that you'd mislaid your diary and didn't know when your next appointment was.'

He was clearly desperate to see her, Beverley thought. But why? Could she possibly have been right? Did he have feelings for her? The hell he did. Gorgeous sophisticates like Tom Jago did not fall for dowdy suburbanites like her. Not that she looked remotely dowdy these days - thanks to Rochelle and Natalie - but Beverley found it hard to see herself as anything other than a frumpy forty-something housewife. No, she said to herself, Tom Jago was simply a very caring, compassionate man. Naomi was a very lucky woman.

***

The restaurant was packed with a mixture of BBC grey suits and pairs of Home Counties women up in town for the sales. As they ploughed through great steaming plates of spaghetti Napolitana, Beverley's guilt about having lunch with Tom forced her to keep directing the conversation towards Naomi. She talked about how much she'd missed her sister during the five years they didn't speak.

‘When she rang back in October, I couldn't believe how much she'd changed. She's so much more easygoing than she used to be. I mean, she's an absolute pussycat now compared to how she once was.'

‘Oh, really?' Tom said, raising his eyebrows.

‘God, yes. And I can see how much being in therapy has helped her.'

Tom virtually choked on his spaghetti.

‘You OK?'

‘Yeah, I'm fine,' he spluttered. ‘Bit of tomato went down the wrong way, that's all.'

After a few seconds he stopped coughing.

‘You know, it's going to be wonderful,' she said brightly, ‘after the baby's born and we're one big family again. I can't wait.'

Tom reached out and forced her to put down her fork.

‘Come on,' he said gently, holding her in his grey-blue eyes, ‘that's not quite how it feels for you, is it? Has it got any easier, knowing you have to part with the baby?'

She said nothing for a moment or two. In the end she could see no point in lying.

‘No,' she said softly. ‘No, it hasn't.'

He put his hand on top of hers and kept it there for a few moments.

Beverley decided to change the subject. This was getting far too heavy, too intimate for comfort. ‘So,' she said, desperate to steer the conversation back to safety, ‘tell me a bit about you.'

‘Nothing much to tell. All pretty boring really.'

He told her he'd been brought up in Middleton, just outside of Manchester. His father was retired but used to run his own printing business. His mother was a housewife. He'd been married briefly to a girl he met when he was a student at Sheffield.

‘Brothers and sisters?'

He shook his head.

‘So what are they like, your mum and dad?'

‘Mum's a hygiene and housework fanatic. You know the kind of thing - washes her rubbish before she takes it out, and puts newspaper under the cuckoo clock.'

‘She doesn't,' Beverley said, laughing.

‘No, you're right, she doesn't, but you get the picture. Drives my dad mad. Not that he's any less strange. Hates all foreigners. Always going on about how the Asians should be repatriated. Yet at the same time he loves animals and babies and every Saturday he stands in the local shopping precinct collecting money for the blind and disabled. I suppose you'd call him a Nazi with a small N.'

She found this hysterical.

‘God, do you know, I haven't laughed this much in ages. Everything's been a bit heavy at home since I agreed to have the baby.'

He took her hand again. This time Beverley didn't pull away.

They sat chatting, laughing and drinking coffee for the next couple of hours. When Beverley finally looked at her watch it was gone three and they were the only ones left in the place.

‘Lord, I'd better get going,' she said. ‘I'm meeting an old schoolfriend for tea at the Churchill at four. Then we're going to the pictures. But it's been great seeing you. I'm glad we had this talk. You really cheered me up.'

She stood and picked up her coat from the back of the chair.

‘I've really enjoyed your company too,' he said, getting up and towering over her.

By now he was standing directly in front of her, his hands on her shoulders. They stood in awkward silence for a moment or two, gazing at each other. She watched Tom bring his hand towards her face. He was going to touch her. She felt her heart begin to race. Once again she began to consider the possibility that he might have feelings for her which went beyond affection and indebtedness. She felt his fingers on her fringe. He flicked some hair out of her eyes. She couldn't remember the last time she'd felt so desperate to be kissed. Slowly she started to bring her face closer to his. He was wearing the same expensive aftershave he'd been wearing at Christmas.

It seemed to take a few seconds for her to realize what was happening. Or to be more precise, what wasn't happening. She was suddenly aware of his entire body going rigid. Then his hand left her face at lightning speed. He planted two pecks on her cheeks. Humiliation hit Beverley like a blow from a wrecker's ball. She just about managed a choked ‘Bye. And thanks again' before making a dash for the door.

After the warmth of the restaurant, the bitter cold almost took her breath away. She stood in the doorway putting on her gloves. A few seconds later she began making her way, virtually at a trot, towards Oxford Street. How could she have been so dim-witted? she thought. How could she have misread the signs, have mistaken affection for desire? The long looks over lunch, the flirting, the fingers on her fringe just now were nothing more than gestures of fondness. Tom and Naomi adored each other. Why couldn't she get that into her thick head? By now mascara tears were streaking her face.

‘Beverley. Beverley. Hang on.'

She shot round to see Tom, breathless once again, running to catch her up. Quickly she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and stood waiting for him.

‘I couldn't let you go like that,' he said.

‘Like what?' she said, pretending to have no idea what he was talking about.

‘Stop it,' he said softly. ‘You know as well as I do what's been going between us - ever since we went for the scan.'

‘There's nothing,' she said in a choked voice. ‘Nothing's been going on.'

‘Well, I think there is and now I'm going to prove it.'

He put a leather-gloved hand to her chin and turned her face gently towards his. For a moment or two they simply looked at each other. Tom wiped away a brown streak of mascara from Beverley's cheek. Then he bent down and kissed her on the mouth.

‘You've no idea how much I've been wanting to do that,' he said afterwards.

‘Then why didn't you - back in the restaurant?'

‘Guilt, I suppose. You've got a husband - even though I know you're not happy. I'm not blind. At Christmas, you and Melvin hardly said a word to one another. I'm right, aren't I?'

‘It's a long story, Tom. But let's just say things between me and Mel have never been hot in the bedroom department. And since I got pregnant with your baby, it hasn't exactly improved.'

‘I guessed it was something like that. Beverley, I can't help it. I'm crazy about you.'

‘You are?' she said, almost in a whisper, hardly daring to believe him.

He nodded.

‘But what about Naomi? I thought the pair of you were mad about each other.'

‘Mad with her, more like. Oh, come on, Beverley... she's your sister, you know her better than anyone. It's taken me over a year to realize that the only person Naomi loves is herself. When we got together everybody warned me about her. They said she was manipulative, had an evil temper and walked all over people to get what she wanted. Of course, I was in love and couldn't see it. All I saw was this beautiful, exciting woman with fire in her belly, and I wanted to tame her.'

‘But she loves you. I know she does.'

Tom put his arm through hers and they carried on walking.

‘She doesn't, Beverley. I know that now. Naomi is the best actress I've ever met. Christ, you want to see how she fakes it in bed. She's brilliant.'

‘Tom, please,' Beverley said, putting up her hand. ‘Spare me the details.'

‘Sorry, but it's true. She pretends to fancy me, but I know she doesn't. I suspect she never has. I don't know why she stays with me. I get the feeling she sat down one day, made a list of my good points - you know, presentable, reasonably rounded vowels, good job, that kind of thing - and decided I would make excellent husband material. She feels she ought to be with me. I'm not sure she particularly wants to.'

‘You've got her all wrong,' Beverley began protesting anxiously. ‘She's changed. Five years ago she was all the things you describe. But since she's been in therapy...'

‘Naomi seeing a shrink? Yeah, right. Twice-a-week group therapy with the boys from Hamas. Come on, Beverley, don't you think I'd know about it if she were in bloody therapy? She's not. Never has been. She's the same old Naomi. She lied to you to get what she wanted.'

Beverley stopped in her tracks, her face etched with disbelief.

‘No, you're wrong. I know you're wrong.'

‘Beverley, listen to me. I've told you, she's a wonderful actress. She's had you fooled. Christ, she had me fooled and I live with her.'

They walked on. Beverley said nothing for a minute or so while she tried to take in what Tom had told her.

‘I thought she wanted to be friends. Instead she's just treating me the way she always has. Rochelle and Mel were right. They said people like her never change.'

‘The thing is,' Tom said, ‘she treats everybody like dirt. She doesn't think about it. I swear it's a reflex action. God knows what goes on in that brain of hers.'

‘I suppose I should feel sorry for her really. The thing is, apart from the five years we didn't speak, I've never done anything else except make excuses for Naomi. How much longer is she going to keep doing this?'

Beverley didn't wait for an answer. Instead she stopped in her tracks.

‘But she is definitely infertile, right?' There was more than a hint of panic in her voice. ‘Please don't tell me she lied about that as well,' she said.

‘No, that part's true,' he said. ‘I spoke to her gynaecologist on the phone a couple of times.'

He pulled her gently towards him.

‘Come home with me,' he whispered. ‘Now. Please.'

‘Tom, we're not starring in some Old Testament story. You can't finish with one sister and then take up with the other.'

‘I thought the first sister had to die before...'

‘Tom, stop it,' she said, smiling despite herself. ‘You know what I mean. Look, you and Naomi are about to have a baby together - the one I have growing inside me. You have responsibilities. You can't simply ditch her because she's giving you a hard time. You have to get your relationship sorted.'

‘It's not like that and you know it, Beverley. You know there's something powerful going on between us. I felt it the first time I saw you under that desk, when you couldn't take your eyes off my crotch. Do you remember how tongue-tied you were? You were just so, so sexy.'

She looked down in embarrassment.

‘Why don't you phone your friend and put her off? Then come back with me. I've still got my flat in Battersea. I sometimes use it as an office. In fact I'm staying there at the moment while Naomi's away...'

He pulled her towards him and began kissing her face and neck.

‘Look,' she began. She was trying to sound adamant, but the lust rising inside her was causing her to fail miserably. ‘If I... er... if I agree, it would be on the understanding that... what happens between us is nothing more than a fling. We have to make a pact that this will not develop into anything heavy. You need a break from Naomi. I, well...'