Merger By Matrimony

‘So what shall I do about…?’

‘Rearrange everything in the foreseeable future. When I come back, you can schedule my time.’ On which note, he disconnected the internal line and remained sitting for a few minutes longer, staring into space and brooding.

It was becoming an addiction.

Memory lane was now so well trodden that it was beginning to seem more real than what was happening in his life at the moment.

He fished into his trouser pocket, took out his wallet and extracted a crumpled piece of paper from one of the compartments.

It was a fairly pointless procedure, since he knew what was written on the paper by heart, but still he hung on to it, compulsively reading and re-reading the handful of lines that had been waiting for him two months ago on his return from New York.

She had, regrettably, turned down his proposal, she’d written, though she’d appreciated the offer. Under the circumstances, she felt that nothing further would be gained by remaining in England, and was thereby handing over responsibility for the sale of the company to Derek.

He savagely scanned the note, his mouth tightening, as it always did, when he came to the bit about wishing him all the best for the future.

Enraged, as if reading it for the first time, he crumpled the paper, then reluctantly smoothed it out and replaced it in the wallet. Then he strode to the door, flinging on his jacket in the process, and out into the connecting room where Rosemary glanced up from her computer with long-suffering wariness.

‘Look,’ he said awkwardly, ‘I’m sorry if I overreacted just then.’

‘That’s all right,’ Rosemary said quietly.

‘I’ve had a lot on my mind recently…’

‘Of course. I understand. Felt Pharmaceuticals has taken a lot of financial resources out of the company profits. Naturally, that would be on your mind…’

‘Naturally,’ Callum said, going along with that piece of fiction. In truth, the temporary drain on his financial well-being had barely crossed his mind. Within a year things would have evened out, and within a couple of years Felt’s would be more than paying for itself. Life would have been a piece of cake if his only worries centred around something as piddling and unimportant as money.

‘It would help if you could call me when you’re about to come back,’ she said, absently flicking through the diary, which, standing above her, he could see was liberally speckled with entries. Important meetings with important people to discuss important things. Who cared?

‘I’ll try,’ he said slowly. ‘But I’m not sure how feasible that will be.’ For the first time in a little over two months he managed something resembling a smile, and Rosemary offered a tentative one back in return. ‘Where I’m going, the phone lines might be a little bit erratic.’ He felt a wild thrill soar through him as his decision was made. No more mindless, brooding introspection, spending every waking moment haunted by images of her while he outwardly attempted to control the reins of his life and convince himself that he was better off without her around. He would go, he would find her and, if nothing else, he would get her to explain how someone could strain in his arms and then hours later bid him farewell via a note and without a backward glance.

She’d gone and he hadn’t even told her that he loved her. Pride and fear of being rejected had held him back, and he was willing to shed both even if it meant trekking back to England with nothing but his wounds to nurse in private.

He packed a suitcase like a man demented, remembering her descriptions of the stifling heat and her gentle amusement at Derek’s garb when he’d shown up on their compound. He flung in tee-shirts and the only three pairs of shorts he could rustle up, and underwear, and then an assorted selection of other items which he hoped would tide him over.

Then he telephoned the airport and, after an aggressive approach, during which he didn’t hesitate to mention every influential name he remotely knew working in the airline industry, managed to secure a seat on the next plane out to Panama the following day.

Destiny eyed her class with a jaundiced and resigned expression. Today, only five children had shown up. The rains had come and the missing faces had caved in at the prospect of a walk in sodden undergrowth in pelting rainfall. Three were ill with the fever, which meant that she would probably have to do the trip with her father later in the evening to make sure that the fever was confinable and not something more rampant and sinister. It was a prospect that made her heart sink.

Ever since returning to Panama she’d found that the simple enthusiasm with which she’d greeted these physical and tiring duties had been difficult to muster. And there was no one in whom she could confide. Henri had taken extended leave and was currently in Paris at his mother’s bedside, tending her through the final stages of a cancer about which he’d known nothing until he’d got to England, and to confess to her father that she missed England would break his heart. He needed her and she had to respond to that need, even though her heart was no longer in it. At least, not in the way it used to be. She still efficiently did what she had to do, but in the manner of an automaton, completing functions so that it could then shut down, leaving her private time to think back. Her desperate dash back to Panama, far from assuaging her wounded heart, had been a failure. The torment she’d sought to escape had dogged her right back to the jungle and showed no signs of letting up.