He felt like a spare part in his own home, useless, unwanted… a liability.
He had been so proud being Sally’s husband… of being loved by her, of knowing that her love for him was stronger than her parents’ disapproval of him.
Did she still love him? How could she? He had let her down, failed her.
Later, he drove her to the hospital and watched her get out of the car, quickly avoiding looking at him.
He looked at the petrol gauge on his car. It was almost on empty. There was probably just enough in the tank for him to do the shopping.
Well, there was no way he was going to ask Sally for any money. No way.
* * *
Tiredly Sally pulled off her cap and ran her fingers through her hair.
It was only eight o’clock, but all she wanted to do was go home and crawl into bed. She had just left the hospital when she heard a car drawing up alongside her. When she turned her head and saw that its driver was Kenneth Drummond her heart gave a funny little excited jerk.
‘No car?’ he asked her through the open window.
Sally shook her head, suddenly oddly tongue-tied.
‘Get in, then, and I’ll give you a lift.’
She shook her head again, but he didn’t drive away. Sally hesitated, some inner sixth sense warning her to resist his invitation, but the queue of impatient traffic building up behind him and Kenneth’s obvious intention of staying right where he was until she gave in forced her hand.
The air inside the car was warm and smelled faintly and disconcertingly of Kenneth’s aftershave. The leather seat enfolded her, the cold, raw night shut outside the expensive luxury of the car.
She saw Kenneth frown as he looked at her.
‘You look exhausted,’ he said abruptly. ‘What on earth have you been doing to yourself?’
For some reason Sally felt tears pricking her eyelids. Not once had Joel noticed the physical effects the strain she was under was having on her body. He was too wrapped up in his own self-pity to notice her, she thought bitterly as she told Kenneth shakily, ‘Very flattering, I must say… I’ve just worked a double shift and…’
‘You’v
e done what?’
‘We need the money,’ Sally protested. ‘Joel’s still out of work.’
‘Then why isn’t he here to take you home?’ Kenneth asked her with soft anger.
He still wasn’t sure what it was about her that aroused such intense feelings inside him, such intense desire; there was, after all, nothing particularly outstanding about her; she was just another pretty and rather ordinary woman who was nowhere near in the same academic class as he was himself, and he could already imagine the eyebrow-raising there would be among his colleagues if they were to find out about her.
Dear Kenneth… trying to play Pygmalion, the older ones would say, while the younger, brasher lecturers would guffaw and tell him, You’ve been watching Educating Rita too often, Kenny boy…
No, he had no illusions about how they would treat her or him. He lived in a highly competitive world, even if that competitiveness was never acknowledged; a world that was intellectually competitive and not materially sound; yet, just as in a much less rarefied atmosphere, a man’s worth was still judged on how he and his partner measured up to their peers.
A partner who had trained as a nurse rather than following the path of a degree would leave him open to the delighted mockery of his fellows.
And yet that didn’t stop him wanting her. He could still remember how he had felt when he’d opened his eyes in that hospital bed and seen her leaning down looking at him. The realisation that he was alive, that he could think and feel… and feel in every part of himself… had brought him such an intense flood of emotion…
Sally was so perfectly right for him. Of course she would need teaching, moulding, but unlike his first wife she would not argue or try to compete with him. She would respect his judgement, know that he was right.
He felt his body surge with sexual power and desire, but he made no attempt to reach out and take hold of Sally, to show her how he felt.
When they did make love for the first time it would not be quick or hurried, an unplanned, impromptu event. In fact he already knew where and how it would happen. In his mind’s eye he could already see them together, smell the fresh, clean scent of the pure white cotton bedlinen that covered his bed, see it half masking the delicacy of Sally’s body, see the expression in her eyes—half-awe, half-delight—as she surveyed the cool elegance of his bedroom.
With Sally he would be in control as his wife had never allowed him to be.