A Savage Adoration

She grimaced slightly as Christy interrupted fiercely, 'He does, Meryl. I know he does.'

'I wonder. That's what I've always told myself, but now I'm beginning to wonder. It wouldn't be so bad if the others all shared your moral code, Christy.' She saw her start with surprise and allowed herself a grim smile.

'Oh, I might be stupid, but I'm not dense. Women like me with wandering husbands soon learn to recognise the signs. I must admit that with you it took a bit longer than usual. It was when he wanted to buy you that fox that the truth dawned.'

'But you still…'

'I chose it for you because it was a present that you richly deserved. I must admit that for a while I wondered if you'd be able to resist him. In fact, I couldn't see how you could. He can be very persuasive when he wants to be… but when you said you were going to resign I knew then that I had nothing to worry about from you.'

Christy saw the tears standing out in Meryl's eyes and cursed David for his insensitivity. Never had she been more glad that she hadn't given in to the physical impulse to take David as her lover. She could never have faced the grief and torment in Meryl's eyes if she had.

'Oh, and I promised myself I wouldn't behave like this. It's just that…' Meryl broke off, and as Christy looked at her she realised that she had put on weight, and that she was moving less briskly than usual.

Meryl watched her and then said tiredly, 'Yes, ridiculous, isn't it, at my age? And what on earth David will say I don't know. At the moment he thinks I've just been indulging in a bout of over-eating, and I want him to go on thinking that way, at least until we're all safely established in Hollywood. If I tell him that I'm pregnant now, he'll seize on that as an excuse to leave me behind. And we all know what happens to wives who get left behind, don't we? A temporary separation all too often becomes a permanent one.'

'You're having a baby!'

'Thanks,' Meryl said drily. 'You're doing wonders for my ego.'

'Oh no, I didn't mean it that way…'

'No… I know. It came as something of a shock to me as well, I can tell you,' Meryl confided,

leading the way to her parked car. 'To say nothing of what it's going to do to David. It was a genuine accident, but remember—not a word to him.'

The traffic was very heavy and Christy didn't try to distract her companion by trying to talk to her, but at last they were out of the city and heading for the Galvins' comfortable house in Wimbledon.

'David's out, and the kids are at school,' Meryl told her as she unlocked the front door and led the way into the comfortable study that David worked in. 'He stormed out in something of a huff. No doubt he's gone round to see Mirabelle Hastings for sympathy and comfort.'

There was an edge of bitterness to her voice that Christy wasn't used to hearing. 'He'll get tired of her eventually, Meryl.'

'Yes, I know. He always does. But what I'm not sure about any longer is whether I've got the resilience to make myself wait. I always used to tell myself that I was lucky to be married to a man like David, and that because he is the man he is I must just pay the price that being married to such a man demands, but just lately I'm beginning to wonder if I wouldn't have been better off married to someone else—someone who puts me first and not himself.'

Christy looked at her in consternation. 'Meryl…'

'Oh, don't take any notice of me. It must be this baby. Come on, help me to find this damned script. I'll go and tell Helga to make us some coffee.'

Helga was the latest in a long line of au pairs and while Meryl went off to find her, Christy started to go through the files.

It took them two hours to find the missing script; jammed in between two files, it had slipped to the bottom of the drawer.

'Between "G" and "H",' Meryl said in disgust. 'What on earth was it doing there?'

'God alone knows… or, more probably, David alone,' Christy said ruefully, being perfectly acquainted with her late boss's habit of pushing unwanted documents anywhere and everywhere simply to get them off the top of his desk.

'Well, that's that, then,' Meryl flopped into a chair. 'You must be cursing me for dragging you all this way simply to find this…'

'No, it's all right. I had to come to London anyway. I need a ballgown.'

More to distract Meryl than because she was actually worried about finding something to wear, Christy told her of Dominic's plans to open the new health centre, and more particularly of her own involvement in it.

'No, you mustn't bother to go out and buy anything,' Meryl told her. 'What you ought to do is to hire something. Use one of the theatrical agencies. They have the most fabulous outfits.'

Meryl was right, Christy recognised. She gnawed anxiously at her bottom lip. 'I thought you had to be a member of Equity at the very least to hire anything from one of those places.'

'Being David's wife has some advantages,' Meryl told her darkly. 'I know the very place. I hired an outfit from them for the Palfrys' New Year do. It was fabulous. Come on, I'll give them a ring and then we'll go straight round.'

Sensing that Meryl needed to keep busy to keep her mind off her husband, Christy allowed herself to be persuaded.