‘It wouldn’t start,’ Philippa told him, adding drily, ‘And besides, walking’s cheaper.’
They both stopped walking and looked at one another.
‘Yeah,’ Joel agreed. ‘It helps to fill the time as well. Did Social Services give you a hard time?’
‘Not really, but I feel so bad about being there.’
‘Tell me about it,’ Joel derided.
‘You… you haven’t been able to find another job?’ Philippa ventured.
‘No, and there isn’t much chance that I will find one either,’ Joel told her. ‘Not round here.’
&nbs
p; He paused as he saw the look in Philippa’s eyes, his voice softening slightly as he told her, ‘It isn’t your fault.’
‘I feel as if I’m to blame,’ Philippa said, stopping as she realised how intimately they were talking. They were strangers, she reminded herself, and yet…
‘You’re not,’ Joel told her. ‘In many ways we’re both in the same boat.’
‘Well, if we are, I’d better warn you now that we’re not likely to get very far,’ Philippa told him humorously. ‘Because I’m not much good at rowing… or anything else,’ she added more soberly.
‘It isn’t really that hard,’ Joel told her. ‘Rowing… all you need is someone to show you how.’
As she listened to the lightly husky timbre of his voice a tiny shiver of awareness ran down Philippa’s spine. There was nothing either overtly or covertly sexual about his comment and she could see from his expression that he hadn’t intended to make any sexual innuendo, and yet… Did he have the same awareness of her that she had of him?
Philippa was used to men being aware of her, making passes at her, but she certainly wasn’t used to being sexually aware of them like this.
‘Your wife…’ she asked quickly. ‘Does she… does she work?’
‘Yes… she’s a nurse,’ Joel told her. He suddenly looked very bleak, Philippa recognised, as though talking, even thinking about his wife was somehow painful for him.
‘Have you got children?’ she asked, anxious to establish some kind of neutrality between them and to banish that disturbing sensual intimacy she had sensed earlier.
‘Two—a girl and a boy. Not that you’d know it. It’s their mother they’ve always turned to, and why not? She’s also the one who holds the purse strings now…’
‘I’ve got two boys,’ Philippa told him. ‘They’re both at boarding-school. Andrew… I didn’t want… but Andrew insisted. He said I was spoiling them.’
‘Sally spoils our two, especially Paul. The minute they want anything she drops everything else…’
Philippa could sense the resentment in his voice. Was he really jealous of his children? she wondered.
‘It’s a habit mothers fall into,’ she said gently. ‘You see, when they’re little they’re so dependent on us that we automatically have to put them first. It doesn’t necessarily mean…’
She stopped and Joel looked at her.
‘What? That they do come first? No, when I was growing up it certainly didn’t then but Sally keeps on telling me it’s different now.’
‘We all want to give our children the things we feel we didn’t have ourselves.’
‘Mmm… well, all my two seem to want is the latest piece of electronic rubbish… a new computer is what Paul is after now… I offered to take him fishing the other day but he said fishing bored him…’
He stopped as he saw the small betraying expression flicker across Philippa’s face. ‘What is it?’ he asked her.
‘Nothing,’ she denied and then added quickly, ‘Your children are very lucky to have a father who wants to spend time with them.’
She didn’t say any more, and Joel didn’t press her to explain.