The Children's Hour (32 page)

‘Would you like some tea? Or something stronger?' He was standing up now, watching her, but he made no move towards her. ‘You look bushed.'

‘I
am
tired,' she admitted – and realized with another tiny jolt that it would be completely impossible to tell him about Nest's revelation. It would be like exposing one's deep, most private self to a kindly but indifferent acquaintance. She felt a sense of isolation accompanied by a feeble desire to burst into tears. ‘Thanks, some tea would be great.'

It was important to be alone for a few moments so that she might get a grip on herself; she felt incapable even of ordinary conversation. He made no attempt to come in and out of the kitchen as he would have once – wandering to and fro, asking how the Aunts were, demanding her news, no detail too small – and she sat at the table in silence trying to cudgel her recalcitrant brain into intelligent thought. Deep down, though, a secret fear was growing.

She listened as he talked to the Bosun, filling his bowl with cold fresh water whilst making the tea. There was the sound of noisy lapping and, presently, the Bosun shouldered out of the kitchen, went through to the hall and flung himself at full stretch upon the floor, groaning pleasurably. Liam put the mug before Lyddie on the table and went to sit down again. It occurred to her that they had not embraced; he had not even touched her shoulder or made any gesture towards physical affection. The fear grew a little stronger. She raised her head and looked at him across the table. He looked back at her, the pleasant, unmeaning smile playing round his mouth, his eyes bright and blank. As her look intensified he raised his eyebrows a little, a quizzical quirk as if questioning her interest. She was simply too tired, too emotionally unstrung to be subtle.

‘So you haven't missed me, then,' she said flatly – and picked up her mug.

It was a statement rather than an enquiry and his eyes flew wide open in genuine surprise before the mask was dropped again. ‘And who told you that?'

‘Oh, I'm just guessing. How's . . . everything?'

‘
Everything
,' he emphasized the word almost mockingly, ‘is just fine.'

‘And everyone?'

‘Now, who would you be meaning by “everyone”? That's a bit ambiguous.'

‘Oh, well,' she cradled the mug in her hands, pretending to ponder. ‘Joe? Rosie? Zoë?'

His smile slipped visibly and his eyes were unfriendly. ‘Could that be a leading question?'

‘I imagine you've seen them?'

‘I work with them, remember? It would be odd if I hadn't.'

‘Has Rosie been given her job back, then?'

His expression was hostile now. ‘She has not.'

‘Ah. You haven't seen Rosie, then?' The pause was a shade too long. ‘I take it that means “yes”. Well, I guessed she wouldn't miss an opportunity.'

‘It's you who left,' he reminded her. ‘You didn't have to go.'

She looked at him with a kind of smiling disbelief. ‘You're saying that it's all my fault?'

He shook his head. ‘I'm not saying anything.'

‘But you saw Rosie.'

He was losing his carefully controlled patience. ‘Yes, I saw Rosie. I've known her for a long time, remember. Long before you came on the scene.'

‘So she took pains to tell me. And I have this feeling, Liam, that you wish you'd stuck with her.'

The silence was even longer and, this time, Lyddie did not break it. She sat watching him, the fear blossoming inside her.

‘She accepts me for what I am,' he said at last, almost sullenly. ‘She takes the package.'

Lyddie swallowed some tea and put the mug carefully on the small round mat. These coasters had been a wedding present: six different cartoons of a shaggy dog. She stared at it, remembering her wedding day, how she'd felt, and was suddenly overwhelmed by a devastating sense of loss.

‘I was thinking,' she said, turning the mug round and round on its mat, not looking at him, ‘on my way down. Thinking about how it could be done. I'm not like Rosie, you see. I can't just share you around. I can't
do
that. But supposing we were to make a fresh start? Go somewhere new to both of us and you were to create another wine bar?'

She looked at him at last and caught his stare of complete incredulity.

‘Mother of God,' he said at last. ‘Are you crazy? And what about The Place, do I just walk away from it?'

‘Joe could take it over. You could do it again in another town. Why not? It happens all the time. Shops, bars, start with one and then two and then chains of things in the end.' Suddenly she remembered their first conversation and how he'd answered when she asked why he'd called his wine bar The Place. ‘You could call it The Next Place or The Best Place.'

For a second, just for a fleeting moment, she watched him catch the vision, saw the glow of it touch his face alight before it died and his eyes were bleak again.

‘We couldn't afford it,' he said, ‘even if I wanted to. Joe couldn't run it alone and it wouldn't stand a bar manager's salary yet. Anyway, we'd never get another loan to start a new place.'

‘What if we used the money from the house in Iffley for the new place?'

He laughed and shook his head. ‘I wondered how long it would be before that was dragged in. A drop in the ocean . . .'

‘You could sell this house.'

‘Have you forgotten I've got a huge mortgage on it? Forget it.'

Another pause.

‘You said “even if I wanted to” just now.' Lyddie spoke slowly. ‘That's the whole point, isn't it? You don't want to change, or leave The Place and, if you're really honest, I think you don't want us even to try, do you?'

‘I can't see what all the fuss is about. You were perfectly happy before. Nothing's changed.'

‘Oh, but it has,' she said quickly. ‘Everything's changed as far as I'm concerned.'

‘I'm the same person I always was.'

‘Oh, yes, but, you see, I didn't really know the person you've always been. I only knew a part of you and I fell in love with that part. But now I know that you lie and cheat, that I'll never know in future whether you really are going to the bank, or the cash and carry, or a meeting with the accountant, or whether you're upstairs in the storeroom with the new waitress. That's quite a change.' She watched him for a moment. ‘You really can't see it, can you?'

He shrugged. ‘So what do you want to do?'

‘I've already told you what I'd like us to do.'

‘It's out of the question.'

She was silent, the fear mushrooming so that it filled her with misery.

‘I knew it was over when I came in and saw you,' she said at last. ‘It was as if you were a complete stranger.
As if, in those three days, you'd changed completely.'

He looked away from her. ‘You shouldn't have gone away,' he said.

‘What does that mean?' she cried. ‘If I'd stayed would you now be considering my suggestion for a new start?'

‘No,' he answered. ‘No, I wouldn't. But it gave me the time to see that . . .'

He hesitated so long that she guessed his meaning. ‘It gave you time to see that you don't need me enough to change for me. For us.'

He nodded, still not looking at her. ‘Something like that.'

‘And how much input did Rosie contribute to your decision?'

‘Rosie's always been there when I needed her.'

It was as if he'd struck her across the face. ‘And how many times was that during these last two years?' she asked furiously. ‘My God! And I thought we were so happy.'

He frowned almost distastefully, as if she were in some way offending his sensibilities, and looked at her at last.

‘You're right,' he said. ‘It has changed, I see that, but,' he opened his hands and then let them drop, ‘I see no point in talking about it.'

‘Fine,' she said. ‘Great. So that's it, is it? Two years of marriage down the pan, just like that.'

‘I've got to go,' he said, and stood up. ‘Sorry. I'm really sorry, Lyddie. I made the mistake of falling in love. Oh, I did. You were different, you see. Clever with words. Aloof. Just that bit unattainable and it was a challenge. But I don't need it. I know that now, not if it means rows and arguments and questions. I can't hack all that stuff. Rosie knows me. We're on the same wavelength. She knows how I feel about The Place and puts up with it. She accepts that I need variety now and then. She doesn't like it but she doesn't complain.
She knows that I don't want kids and neither does she. She'll go along with what I do and what I want.'

‘And what do I do?'

‘Well.' He didn't quite shrug it off. ‘You've got your work and, after all,' he gave a little laugh, ‘there's always the money from the house in Iffley.' Even he seemed to feel the brutality of his quip and he bit his lip. ‘Sorry,' he said. ‘That was cheap. I'm no good at this stuff, I'm afraid. You've always got the Aunts as a stopgap.'

‘Thanks,' she said. ‘So I have.'

‘I'll be at The Place,' he said, ‘if you need me. You'd better speak to your lawyer.' He paused, his jacket hanging over one shoulder, head lowered. ‘And thanks, Lyddie.' He looked at her, grimaced. ‘It was great while it lasted.'

She heard his footsteps pass the window and die away. The Bosun came in and looked at her hopefully. She stared back at him, wondering if it were remotely possible that she should be capable of standing up, let alone walking, but, after a moment, she got up and fetched her coat and they went out into the evening together.

‘Of course she must come,' said Hannah. ‘Of
course
she must. The kids could go to Mum for a couple of days.'

‘It's just for two nights and then she's going to Ottercombe until she can sort herself out,' said Jack who was sitting on the sofa with Caligula lying on his chest, purring loudly. ‘Apparently she's got to get back to work again by next weekend – she's booked up until Christmas and she doesn't want to let anyone down. Lucky that this late delivery happened. The editor she works for has agreed to give it to another copy-editor if it turns up this week.'

‘She daren't lose her contacts, I can see that,' agreed Hannah. ‘She'll need her work. But can she live on it?'

Jack shook his head. ‘I've no idea. Roger pays her interest in her share of the house. That should help.'

‘Poor Lyddie. It's so devastating to find out that someone you trust has been cheating. It destroys your self-confidence, apart from anything else. Did you suspect anything?'

‘Well, she seemed fine when we saw her at Ottercombe,
didn't she? In fact I thought she was on rather good form.'

‘Almost too good?' suggested Hannah. ‘Rather over the top? And remember when she couldn't come to stay – I wonder what that was about? It's always easy to be wise after the event but Liam always struck me as being a bit of a handful.'

‘The trouble is that there is absolutely nothing that one can do to help. Nothing can take away the pain or the reality of it. Why is loving people so damned agonizing?'

She smiled at him. ‘I had no idea when I married you that you were such a complete mother hen. I should have guessed when I saw all those little boys trailing after you, “Sir, I've lost this . . .” or, “Sir, I've done that . . .”, and you behaving like a dear old nannie.'

‘I am nothing like a dear old nannie,' he answered indignantly. ‘I'm an absolute brute to the little monsters. Good grief! They're terrified of me.'

‘Oh, yes,' she agreed mockingly. ‘Scared to death. Like Hobbes the other evening, for instance? Reading him a story at ten o'clock at night?'

‘He misses his mum,' said Jack defensively, ‘and I didn't want him to wake the others . . .' – Hannah snorted disbelievingly – ‘and he'd had a rotten day.'

‘You're a big softie and they all know it,' she said, grinning at him. ‘Marshmallow right down to the centre. Flora had you sussed when she was three days old.'

He grinned too. ‘Our daughter has an unerring instinct for a weak spot,' he agreed. ‘Attila the Hun could take her correspondence course.' A pause. ‘Will your mother cope OK?'

‘Oh, now
don't
start fussing about that,' cried Hannah, exasperated. ‘She manages them brilliantly and they love being with her. You know they do.'

‘Yes, I do,' he admitted.

‘Well then. I'll give her a buzz and, if it's OK, I'll take them over when I pick Tobes up from playschool. I think it would give Lyddie a freer rein to talk things over if we're on our own. There's nothing worse than being interrupted every five minutes when you're feeling like that. The best thing we can do for Lyddie is to concentrate on her. That's quite impossible with Flora in the house.'

‘You're absolutely right,' he said. ‘I'm going to watch the news and I'll make you a cuppa when you've finished talking to your mum.'

‘That sounds great,' she said. She paused at the door, looking at him affectionately. ‘Did I ever tell you that I have a thing about mother hens?'

‘It's too late for soft soap,' he answered with great dignity. ‘My feathers are already ruffled.' He flexed his shoulders, as if puffing himself up, and clucked several times like a meditative hen. ‘Haven't you noticed?'

‘Looks great,' she said admiringly. ‘I'll be back later to check out your quills.'

She disappeared and Jack sighed heavily, as if shocked, reaching for the remote control. ‘And people ask where Flora gets it from,' he murmured to Caligula. ‘Well, we all know who rules the roost in
this
house,' and he switched on the television, swung his feet up on the sofa and closed his eyes.