A little disappointingly, if not exactly unexpectedly, the British weather lived up to its deserved reputation for unreliability and they set off for Southwold the following Tuesday beneath lowering grey skies that would have done as much credit to November as to May.
‘You are sure you don’t mind?’ Annie asked, for the half-dozenth time, as Richard stashed Davie’s small suitcase on the back seat of the car.
Davie, fidgeting impatiently, threw his mother a look of pure disgust. If you keep asking that, it said as clearly as words, then he’ll say ‘Yes’ and that will be that!
Richard shook his head. ‘I’m looking forward to it. It’s years since I’ve been to Suffolk, and this young lady’ – he patted the car – ‘likes nothing so much as a good long run.’
‘It’s really very kind of you.’
‘I do think she’s a real cracker.’ Davie was running a finger along the long, gleaming green bonnet.
Richard smiled.
‘Have you had her very long?’
‘A few months. I must say I think she’s the best I’ve had.’
‘She’s absolutely wizard,’ Davie said, ignoring his mother’s expressively rolled eyes. ‘Can I sit in the front?’
Richard glanced at Annie, eyebrows raised in question. She shrugged, smiling. ‘If you don’t mind, why not? I’ll be in the front all the way back, after all. Mind you – I don’t talk the hind leg off a donkey the way Davie does. Well, I don’t!’ she added, mildly injured at the laughter that had brought.
The big Wolseley purred slowly through the congested streets of London, through the trams and the buses, the plodding horse-drawn vehicles and the shiny modern motor cars. The pavements bustled with pedestrians, and bicycles wove their precarious way through the traffic. Davie was ecstatic.
‘That’s a Morris Oxford, isn’t it? It isn’t as nice as your car, is it? How fast will she go, Richard? Have you ever driven her really fast? Oh, I know you’re only supposed to go at twenty miles an hour, but that’s silly, isn’t it? No one bothers about it, do they? Hey – look at that motorbike! What a smasher! Look, Mother – d’you see?’
Annie, settled comfortably on the luxuriously soft leather of the back seat, propped her elbow on the armrest, leaned her chin on her hand and watched the busy, crowded streets through half-closed eyes.
‘That’s a Ford. My friend Tommy’s father’s got a Ford. But, d’you know what? He only takes it out on Sundays.’ Davie crowed with laughter. ‘That’s really silly, isn’t it? What’s the point of having a car if you’re only going to use it on a Sunday? D’you know, they go by bus on the other days of the week, just like anybody else!’
Annie smiled a little at her son’s excited chatter, turned her head to look at Richard. His thick, neatly cut reddish-brown hair grew to a point at the nape of his neck. His hands were big and relaxed on the steering wheel. He turned his head a little, half laughing, to answer Davie, and the light caught the line of his jaw, the lean planes and angles of his face, the narrowing of his eyes and the flicker of his long lashes as he smiled.
‘We’re going on the Lowestoft road, aren’t we? Mother and I looked it up on a map. It’s more than a hundred miles from London to Southwold. How long will it take, do you think? How much petrol will we use? We go past Chelmsford, and Colchester – the Romans were at Colchester, did you know? – and Woodbridge, and—’ He hesitated, frowning. ‘Somewhere else that starts with W. I can’t remember – where else, Mother? Mother? What was the other place in Suffolk that starts with a W?’
Annie was still looking at Richard. It came to her suddenly that there was something absurdly, and perhaps dangerously, intimate in being able to study him so closely and unobserved. ‘Sorry, darling?’
‘The place we go through that begins with a W. In Suffolk. It’s got two words.’ Her impatient son bounced in his seat. ‘What’s it called?’
‘Oh – something Market. Wickham Market,’ she said absently.
‘That’s it. I say – look at that! A Rolls-Royce. With a chauffeur,’ he accented the word exaggeratedly, pushing his small nose in the air with his finger. ‘Pooh, pooh, pooh!’
That was too much. Annie straightened in her seat. ‘Behave yourself, Davie.’
Davie, surprised if the truth be told that he had got away with as much as he had, subsided, for the moment at least.
Annie put her chin on her fist and looked out of the window again, very thoughtfully.
The crowded working-class areas of the east of London were made no more picturesque by the grey dullness of the weather. No Rolls-Royces with chauffeurs here. Even Davie found little to exclaim about, apart from the looming bulk of the Tower of London – which prompted a few interesting asides about executions and torture – and the towering cranes of the docks, which Richard admitted exerted a romantic lure for him far beyond the harsh reality of the gruelling everyday realities of life at sea, or in the docks themselves. ‘Silks and spices from the East, Davie,’ he said. ‘Cotton from America. Tea from Ceylon. Sugar from the West Indies. This is where they all come to. The greatest docks in the world.’
‘Together with the greatest exploitation in the country,’ Annie said tartly, but so quietly that she did not expect him to hear her.
But his hearing was sharp. He glanced at Davie, then across his shoulder, amused and enquiring. ‘You’re a Labour supporter? You surprise me.’ His glance was quizzical.
‘I’m a labour supporter – small “L”. I’m not actually political at all. But I read the papers. I talk to people. I make up my own mind. And – yes – I do think it’s wrong that decent men and women should be exploited so that the likes of you and me can live – relatively at least – the life of Riley. I didn’t know anything about the casual labour system until I read about it last year during the dock strike. Whatever your politics, you can’t approve of a system that treats men no better than work animals, that pauperises families and prevents them from caring properly for their children. Not just in the docks. In the mines; on the railways. No wonder they strike. I don’t blame them. Yet all the government can do is order out the army to shoot them. Very constructive, that.’
He laughed a little. ‘Well, well – sounds as if we’ve a real little revolutionary in the back there, Davie. We’ll be in for it when she can vote.’
‘Well, while we’re on the subject, there’s another thing,’ she replied with mild asperity. ‘Why can’t I? What makes the great and the good believe that a man of twenty-one can use a vote sensibly while a woman must wait until she’s thirty? It’s patently ridiculous.’
Richard swung the big car out onto a main road, edged his way into the traffic. He was grinning broadly. ‘Looks as if we’re going to have an interesting journey,’ he said.
As at last they drove out into the flat, green Essex countryside the traffic eased, and the road cleared. The car was warm, the ride smooth and comfortable. Half listening to Davie and Richard as they talked, Annie found herself dozing.
She woke up some time later, stretching and yawning. The sky had cleared a little and the sun gleamed fitfully between clouds. ‘Where are we?’
‘We’ve just gone through Ipswich.’ Davie had a map spread on his lap. ‘I’m the navigator,’ he added. ‘Richard says I’m very good at it.’
Not for the first time, it occurred to Annie that for a man who had no children of his own Richard appeared to have an almost uncanny knack of knowing exactly how to keep Davie happy and interested; a knack that Fergus, for all his efforts, and despite being a father, had never managed to acquire. ‘How much longer, do you think?’
Richard flicked a glance at her through the rear-view mirror. ‘An hour or so, I should think. Are you comfortable? Do you want to stop?’
‘No, no. I’m quite happy.’ She yawned again, sleepily.
Richard laughed, and the undisguised affection in the sound warmed her heart. ‘Go back to sleep. Davie’s doing an excellent job. We’ll wake you when we get there.’
They drove into Southwold at about half past midday. The weather now had cleared completely: the sun shone and a cool breeze blew from the sea. Jane was waiting for them, a simple lunch on the table. ‘I thought you might like a stroll along the beach before you go back?’ she suggested. ‘It seems a shame to come all this way and not to stretch your legs.’
Annie glanced at Richard. ‘Would you like that?’
‘Very much.’
‘I’ll come,’ Davie said, around a mouthful.
‘I rather thought, Davie,’ his grandmother suggested, ‘that you and I might do some shopping. At Mr Goffin’s. Essential supplies for a grandson’s visit, so to speak.’ She grinned like a child herself. Mr Goffin it was who ran the sweet shop that was famous county-wide for its gobstoppers.
‘Oh. Yes, please.’ Davie looked at his mother. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’
Annie shook her head solemnly. ‘No, no. You go ahead. We’ll be quite all right.’
‘I really like your mother,’ Richard said later as they strolled along the water’s edge, feet scrunching on the shingle.
Annie glanced up at him, smiling. ‘I’m fairly fond of her myself.’ They had left behind the huts and the fishing boats of the longshoremen, together with the bathing machines and the picnicking, sandcastle-building families on the town’s popular beach, and were strolling north along the wide, empty stretches of the deserted coastline, the waters of Sole Bay glittering restlessly to their right. Brandy, having raced around like a mad thing for the first half-hour, now trotted docilely at Annie’s heels. Shrimp boats bobbed, far out on the water.
Richard tilted back his head and took a deep breath of the cool, fresh air; then suddenly he stopped walking and turned to Annie, both his hands outstretched.
With no hesitation she took them. It was as if she had been waiting for the gesture.
‘Thank you,’ he said.
She laughed, startled. ‘For what?’
‘For letting me bring you here,’ he said lightly. ‘For walking with me. For sleeping in the back of my car.’ He glanced down, and all at once the laughter was gone. ‘For taking my hands,’ he said quietly. ‘For being Annie.’
In the silence the sea washed almost to their feet, then rippled away again, restlessly tumbling the shingle as it went. Annie said nothing.
Still holding her hands he drew her close to him, bent his head, kissed her very gently. Annie stood quite still, his lips on hers. She tasted salt. The breeze ruffled their hair, the sea rushed and murmured, above them a seabird wheeled and called, mournful and haunting; and still, gentle and undemanding in the cool air, he kissed her. After a moment he released her hands to lift his own and cup her face. She closed her eyes; in that moment it was as if every sense she possessed was more vivid, more acutely tuned than she had ever known before. It was as if the world had stopped. The sound of the sea and of the bird call, the brush of the sea breeze on her skin, the touch of the man’s salty lips on hers: the moment was perfect. Too perfect. Painfully perfect. When finally he lifted his head she leaned to him and he wrapped his arms about her, holding her to him, looking over her head to the shimmering distances of the sunlit sea. She rested her head against his shoulder, the rough, sea-damp tweed of his jacket scratching her cheek.
Neither spoke for a long time.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said at last. ‘I really shouldn’t have done that.’
She stirred, opened her eyes, lifted her head to look at him. ‘Why not?’
He looked down at her. ‘I wouldn’t want you to think—’ He stopped.
‘At the moment,’ she said softly, touching his lips with her finger, her words almost lost in the sound of wind and sea, ‘I’m actually not thinking at all.’
His arms tightened around her; he laid his cheek against her hair. And Brandy, bored, suddenly shot yapping along the beach to chase off a huge seagull that had had the temerity to land at the water’s edge nearby. The spell was broken. Laughing they stepped apart, hands still linked, turned to stroll back towards the town with the dog trotting proudly beside them. Neither broke the silence that had fallen between them; but when they arrived back at Jane’s cottage they were still holding hands.
‘I got your letter,’ Jane said quietly, a little later. She was standing at the kitchen window, cup and saucer in hand, watching Davie and Richard in the garden playing an arcane and apparently rule-less game involving sand buckets, spades and tennis balls.
Annie looked up. ‘And?’ she asked quietly.
Her mother shrugged, glanced a smile across her shoulder. ‘I can’t say I was actually surprised.’
‘Do you think I did the right thing?’
‘Would it matter if I didn’t?’ Jane was genuinely amused.
Annie shook her head and stirred her tea. ‘No.’
‘That’s what I thought.’ Her mother joined her, sat down across the table from her. ‘But for what it’s worth – yes, under the circumstances, I think you did.’
‘Circumstances?’ Annie made only a half-hearted effort at innocence. She knew her mother too well.
Jane did not even dignify that with an answer; she simply raised wry brows and smiled.
Annie tinkered with her spoon in her saucer. Her mother watched her in patient silence. Annie raised her eyes, opened her mouth to speak, shut it again.
‘What?’ Jane asked.
Annie shrugged. ‘I don’t know. It’s just… things seem to be happening rather quickly.’ She lowered her eyes again, blushing a little. ‘Richard just kissed me. On the beach.’
‘I rather thought he had.’
‘I don’t understand.’ Her daughter spoke in a rush. ‘I don’t know what he sees in me. Oh, I don’t mean’ – she stopped, shook her head – ‘I don’t think I know what I do mean.’
Jane laughed softly. ‘That,’ she said, ‘sounds very much like the onset of love. Or, of course,’ she added, ‘of infatuation?’
‘Exactly.’ Annie was quick to pick that up; it was the thought in the forefront of her own mind. ‘How do you tell the difference?’
‘An age-old question, that, and not an easy one to answer.’ Jane got up, took her cup and saucer to the sink and ran it under the tap. Then she turned, leaning on the sink with arms folded, surveying her daughter. ‘Annie, darling, you’re a grown-up woman. Just a few weeks ago you were bemoaning the lack of romance in your life—’
‘I know. That’s the trouble, can’t you see? How do I know that—’
‘You can’t know anything,’ her mother interrupted gently.
In the garden outside Davie was laughing so hard he could hardly speak. ‘Oh, come on, Richard – nobody can be as cack-handed as that—’
‘Oh, no? Try me – why do you think I’m a solicitor and not a brain surgeon? – blast it, missed again!’
‘What are you afraid of?’ Jane asked softly. ‘Why shouldn’t he be attracted to you? What else could he possibly want? He’s obviously not short of money, so it can’t be that. He’s a very attractive man…’
‘The most attractive I’ve ever met.’ Annie’s eyes went to the window; there were more shouts of laughter from the garden.
‘He gets on well with Davie and Davie with him.’
‘Yes.’
Jane came to her, rested a hand on her shoulder. ‘Then just enjoy yourself. And give it time. You don’t have to rush into anything. I suppose that’s the answer to your question; if you’re falling in love, time will tell. Infatuation doesn’t last. You like him very much, don’t you?’
Annie lifted her head and her face broke into a dazzling smile. ‘Yes. I do.’
Her mother dropped a quick kiss on the top of her dark head. ‘And so do I, if that helps at all.’ She grinned impishly. ‘I could quite fancy him myself, as a matter of fact.’
‘Mother!’ They were still laughing at that when Richard and Davie appeared in the doorway. The man’s arm was resting across the boy’s shoulders in an easily companionable way, and they were both smiling; Richard’s eyes were warm on Annie’s. ‘Time to go,’ he said.
‘I’ll get my things.’
A few minutes later Jane and Davie stood at the door waving as the big green and black car pulled away. Annie’s shining bob blew in the wind as she leaned from the window to wave back. ‘I expect Richard will look after Mother while I’m away,’ Davie said.
Jane looked down at him affectionately. ‘Oh, I’m sure of it,’ she said, smiling. ‘Now – what do you say to toasted buns for tea?’
The big Wolseley purred along the quiet country lanes towards the main London road. For a long time neither Richard nor Annie spoke. She sat with head averted, watching the passing countryside, apparently absorbed but actually taking little in. She could feel – physically feel – the man’s presence beside her. Without the protection of Davie’s relentless and distracting chatter she was suddenly stricken by an odd and confusing combination of excitement, apprehension and an almost paralysing self-consciousness. She could think of absolutely nothing to say.
Richard sat easily, hands relaxed on the wheel, humming quietly to himself as he drove. They turned a corner, came up behind an ambling horse and cart. Richard slowed the car to a patient crawl, glanced at her with a smile. ‘Penny for them?’
At that moment she had been wondering if he would stay for the evening. If he would kiss her again. Her cheeks warm, she shook her head quickly. ‘They aren’t worth it.’
The lane widened. Richard swung the car carefully out to overtake, lifting an acknowledging hand to the cart driver, who nodded, unsmiling, lifting his ancient whip. The car surged forward again, Richard settled back in his seat. ‘May I ask you something?’ he said, after a moment.
She looked at him enquiringly.
‘Will you truly never go back to Paris?’
The question took her entirely by surprise. She thought about it for a moment, then gave a small shrug. ‘No, I shouldn’t think so. There’s no real reason why I should.’
‘It seems such a pity. I know she holds unhappy memories for you, but I truly believe she is the loveliest and most romantic city in the world. Hasn’t enough time passed for you to forgive her?’
Annie said nothing, but gave the tiniest, stubborn shake of her head.
Richard glanced at her again. ‘Davie was born there. Won’t you take him back to see his birthplace?’
‘We’ve already discussed that,’ she said evenly. ‘Davie understands. He knows how I feel about the city and he knows how I feel about crossing deep water. He’ll go eventually, when he’s grown up. It doesn’t seem to bother him at the moment.’
‘Paris in June,’ he said musingly. ‘Coffee and croissants at a pavement cafe. Shuttered windows on a hot afternoon. The sun shining on the river. Sacré Coeur gleaming on top of her hill…’ He shook his head as he pulled out onto the main road and headed south. ‘I don’t see how you can resist going back, I really don’t.’
Annie’s fingers were clasped in her lap and she had dropped her head a little, her eyes fixed upon them. Her mouth, suddenly, was set in an obstinate and unhappy line.
Richard did not appear to notice her silence. ‘Think of Paris at night.’ He smiled suddenly. ‘Was there ever such a combination of fairytale and madhouse? Grand opera. Grand passion. Pretty girls in feathers and spangled tights. The Champs Élysées glittering like a string of diamonds. Bars packed with destitute artists and writers wrecking themselves with cheap absinthe, falling in love, falling out of love, putting the world to rights. The rich and the fashionable promenading on the boulevards, the down-and-outs clutching their bottles and bedding down under the bridges…’ He stopped speaking for a moment as he negotiated a tight corner. Annie turned her head to stare again sightlessly out of the window. ‘You knew Paris before the war,’ he said quietly. ‘You grew up there. You were young – beautiful—’
She turned, startled, to look at him, but his face, like his words, was matter-of-fact. His eyes were on the road, his voice was quiet. ‘I know it ended in tragedy. As it did for so many. But you must, surely, remember the good times? The beauty, the life, the love? It was ten years ago, Annie. A war, and a lifetime, away. Wouldn’t you think of coming back to Paris? With me?’
‘I…’ For a fraction of a second she hesitated. Then, ‘No,’ she said, shaking her head, her heavy hair swinging about her face. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘So am I.’
She struggled for a moment. ‘You’ll never understand,’ she said at last, flatly. ‘In fact I don’t even want you to try.’
There was a small silence. Then, ‘Fair enough,’ he said lightly.
They motored on. The sun, moving westward, lit the underside of suddenly gathering clouds to a picturesquely lurid glow in the wide East Anglian sky.
‘Tell me something?’ Richard asked.
She turned her head.
He smiled, not looking at her. ‘Am I invited to supper?’
Her heart lurched. ‘Yes. If you’d like.’
He glanced at his watch, then at her, eyes glinting. ‘Then when we get to town, best I find a sensible off-licence, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Sensible?’
He grinned. ‘One of the kind that sells Champagne,’ he said.
‘That was splendid. Thank you.’ Richard laid his knife and fork on his plate and pushed it a little away from him.
Annie shook her head. ‘It wasn’t exactly the Savoy.’ Richard leaned back in his chair and lifted his glass. ‘Who needs it? Suffolk ham, new-laid eggs and Champagne. A feast, no less!’
She smiled. ‘The Champagne certainly adds a certain something, doesn’t it? I seem to have run right out of lobster and asparagus. Perhaps next time?’ Despite her barely acknowledged apprehensions, the evening had been a delightful one. Richard had been an easy, entertaining and attentive companion. She felt light-hearted and not a little light-headed; they were already on their second bottle of Champagne. It was, she reflected wryly, becoming something of a habit.
Richard grinned. ‘Perhaps.’
The candles on the table flickered a little. In the darkness beyond the dining-room window rain had begun to fall, steadily and heavily.
Annie started to collect the plates. ‘There’s fruit if you’d like some?’
He shook his head, still smiling. As she reached for his plate he caught her wrist lightly. ‘Leave it,’ he said, ‘for now. We’ll do it later.’
There was a small, somehow slightly precarious silence. In the dancing light of the candles Richard’s eyes were very steady on hers. Her skin tingled beneath his light touch; she nibbled her lip. He smiled, a sudden flash of mischief in his face. ‘Anyway,’ he said, letting go of her wrist, ‘you can’t use the sink yet. There’s another bottle of Champagne in it. It wouldn’t do to waste that, would it?’
Annie sat down again, leaned her elbows on the table and her chin on her cupped hands, watching him, eyebrows raised a little. ‘Are you trying to get me tiddly?’ she asked.
He laughed, shook his head. ‘That’s the last thing I’m trying to do.’
She surveyed him for a long moment, then reached for her glass and held it up to the candlelight, studying the glittering effect with apparently absorbed interest. Then her eyes flickered back to his. ‘Oh?’ she asked innocently. And with a daring touch of no doubt Champagne-induced impudence, ‘So, what’s the first thing?’
His eyes gleamed appreciatively. ‘Right now?’
‘Right now.’
He reached across the table for her hand again. ‘First this,’ he said, turning her hand and kissing the palm gently. ‘Next – with your permission – a cigarette and a drop of your excellent whisky. Then I should like to turn on the wireless and dance with you.’ He stood up. ‘You bring the Champagne,’ he said, ‘I’ll bring the candles.’
She had lit the fire in the sitting room earlier, against the chill of the damp evening. Whilst Richard set the candles on the little table and went to fiddle with the radio, Annie poked the embers into life and tossed on a small log. Flames leapt and flickered. She straightened to find that he had come up quietly behind her. Before she could move he had slipped his arms about her, drawing her towards him, burying his face in her neck. She tipped her head back onto his shoulder and closed her eyes. They stood for a moment, swaying to the quiet sound of the music that did not drown out the thunder of the rain. Then, perfectly naturally and entirely without thought, she turned around in his arms and put her own arms about his neck.
Later she thought that, whatever had gone before, that kiss was her undoing. Perhaps she had willed it to be so. Perhaps after the years of sober responsibility, straitlaced respectability and stubborn self-denial, it was inevitable that the genie, once released from the bottle, could not be reconfined. They did not dance. They made love, on the floor in front of the fire, a thing she had never done in her life before.
‘What do you mean?’ he asked, smiling down at her when she told him so. He had sat up, propped his back against an armchair, a cigarette in one hand and the other stroking her hair in a shining fan across his thigh. She was lying naked upon her back, arms outstretched, her head in his lap, watching him. The firelight flickered upon her skin. It was still raining.
‘I’ve never made love on the floor before.’ She lifted a hand, ran a finger down the sharp-angled curve of his cheek. ‘Only ever in bed.’
He drew once more on his cigarette, tossed it in the fire. Smiled down at her. ‘You like making love in bed?’ he asked softly, tugging at her hair a little. ‘Come on, then. Let’s go to bed.’
This time, at his gentle insistence, their lovemaking was more leisurely. ‘Wait, my darling,’ he whispered, tongue and fingers rousing and teasing. ‘We have… all… the time… in the world—’ He had turned on the bedside lamp. Helpless, she watched the play of light on his face and could have wept in the wonder of what she saw there. Indeed, in the end, weep she did. He leaned above her, resting on an elbow, bent to kiss her wet cheek. ‘I’m sorry. Did I hurt you?’
Smiling, she shook her head, tears still welling. ‘No. Far from it.’
He watched her carefully for a moment longer, then he too smiled. ‘Time for that other bottle of Champagne, I think?’
Beyond the drawn curtains of the window the rain still fell in sheets. The room, lit by its single lamp, was an intimate cocoon enclosing them. Annie put her tall glass on the bedside table, threw her head forward so that her heavy hair covered her face, and teased at it with her fingers. ‘I must look an absolute mess!’
He shook his head, smiling, but said nothing. The smoke from his cigarette coiled in the air. He sipped his whisky.
Annie threw back the sheet, reached for the silk robe that was draped on the chair next to the bed.
‘Please,’ he said, ‘don’t do that.’
‘What?’
‘Cover yourself. Hide from me. You don’t need to. You’re beautiful.’
A fiery colour rose in her cheeks. She hesitated.
‘Please?’
She nibbled her lip; then slipped from the bed and walked, naked, to the dressing table, perched on the stool and reached for a hairbrush.
Outside, a wind was lifting. The rain was being driven in gusts against the window.
He watched her. ‘Annie?’ he said quietly.
The slow, lazy brush strokes ceased; she turned her head a little, her face bright, to look at him in the mirror. ‘Yes?’
‘Will you marry me?’
Shock froze her. She looked at him in complete incomprehension. ‘What?’
‘I said – will you marry me?’ His voice was gentle. ‘I would have thought it a simple – and time-honoured – question?’
‘Marry you?’ she repeated blankly.
‘I do believe that’s what I said.’ His voice was patient.
‘But – Richard – I… we can’t! Not just like that! We hardly know each other!’
He lifted his eyebrows, glanced around the disordered room.
She flushed, swung the stool round to face him, looked at him for a long time, her arms suddenly and defensively crossed over her bare breasts. ‘Don’t you think this is just a little… premature?’ she asked uncertainly. ‘We’ve only met half a dozen times. Oh – I know—’ She shook her head sharply at his significantly lifted brows. ‘I know we’ve made love. And it was wonderful. But – marriage?’ Suddenly she was fighting something very close to panic. She walked to the bed and, forcing herself not to fumble, slipped on her silk dressing robe and belted it firmly before turning to face him.
Richard was watching her calmly. ‘I could have asked you the very first day I met you,’ he said, with tranquil certainty. ‘That, I agree, would certainly have been “a little premature”.’ He smiled. ‘If you ask me, I think I’ve been very forbearing.’ He stubbed out his cigarette, leaned forward and held out both hands to her, his smile disarming. ‘I love you,’ he said simply.
She shook her head again in confusion, desperately – and belatedly – wishing that she had not drunk so much Champagne. Of all the things she had hoped for – expected, even – this was the very last. ‘I—’
‘Yes?’
‘Richard, it isn’t that easy! You must know that. We can’t simply get married! Not just like that! It isn’t reasonable. It—wouldn’t be right!’ She was all too aware of the sudden narrowing of his eyes, the tightening of his long mouth, but stumbled on stubbornly, the words tumbling over each other. ‘We need time to get to know each other. There are… things that you don’t know about me. Things that I don’t know about you. We can’t just ignore that.’
‘Why not?’ The words were cool and quiet. Then, ‘Don’t you trust me?’ he asked, in the same tone.
‘It isn’t that!’ she said quickly.
‘Then what is it?’ He was implacable.
She stared at him helplessly.
‘I’ve told you. I love you. I want you to marry me. That’s simple enough, isn’t it?’
‘Simple!’ Faintly hysterical laughter rose; she fought it down. ‘Look, Richard, I’m flattered and—and delighted that you feel…’ she trailed off.
‘I don’t want you to feel flattered and delighted,’ he said flatly. ‘I want you to say “Yes”. You may not have thought about this, but I have. I don’t want us snatching time together like this when Davie’s away—’
‘Davie,’ she said, snatching gratefully at that straw. ‘We do have to think of Davie. We can’t just—’
‘I’ve thought of Davie. He won’t mind. You know it.’ The quiet words were all but lost in a sudden squally blast of rain and wind against the window.
She said nothing for a moment.
‘Annie?’ he asked.
She stood up, walked over to the window and drew back the curtains a little, looking sightlessly out into the drenched night.
‘One of the things you don’t know,’ she said, almost steadily, ‘is that I… can’t have any more children.’
‘I don’t want children,’ he said, immediately and with no pause for thought. ‘I want you. And Davie.’
She swung round, hands outstretched. ‘Richard, please! Don’t be so unreasonable! At least give me time – time to think, time to—’
‘Time to find excuses?’ he interrupted. He stood up, reached for his shirt. ‘I’m sorry to have upset you. I’m sorry to have… embarrassed you so. I should have known. You’ve made your opinion of marriage quite clear—’ His movements as he dressed were sharp and fierce. ‘I’m sorry if you find this’ – he made a curt gesture at the tumbled bed – ‘so much more romantic, more desirable.’ He hesitated. When he spoke again his voice was stiff and held the faintest edge of bitterness. ‘I’ve made a fool of myself. Again. I should have recognised the likeness—’ He stopped abruptly.
She swung to face him. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked fiercely. ‘Likeness? To whom?’
‘Never mind.’ He picked up his tie, cracked it like a whip to smooth the creases, stalked to the mirror.
‘I do mind. Likeness to whom?’ Her own temper was beginning to slip.
‘I said never mind.’ Stone-faced, he fixed and straightened his tie, then reached for his jacket. He stood looking at her for a long moment. ‘The fact is, as I said, you don’t trust me. You want me. But you don’t trust me.’
‘That isn’t fair! It isn’t so!’
‘Isn’t it?’ He took one long step towards her, caught her shoulders in his hands and jerked her roughly to him. ‘Think about it,’ he said, and kissed her, hard, and with not the faintest trace of tenderness, before striding to the door. There he paused. ‘Think about it!’ he said again, and was gone, running fleetly down the stairs, his very footsteps sounding angry.
‘Richard!’
The front door crashed closed.
Annie turned back to the window, watched bemusedly as the tall, obviously furious figure wrenched open the door of the car and flung himself inside, slamming the door behind him. She could not understand – could not believe – the abrupt and bizarre turn the evening had taken. What in God’s name had happened? And how – how? – had it happened so suddenly?
She watched in miserable disbelief as the big car slid, gleaming, from beneath the lamplight and into the sodden darkness; then she turned, looked around the room. The smell of his cigarette still hung in the air. His empty glass stood on one of the bedside tables. As she moved she caught a gleam of gold from the floor beside the bed. Moving slowly and tiredly, she bent to retrieve a small, heavy cufflink with an ornately etched ‘R’ upon it. She laid it carefully upon the dressing table. Her mind was all but blank with misery; she hadn’t, she discovered, even the energy to cry.
A half-empty bottle of Champagne stood on the other bedside cabinet.
She picked it up, carried it into the bathroom and, upending it over the basin, bleakly watched the frothy sparkle of it as it ran down the plughole.