Phantom Marriage

‘Of course now that the kids are growing up they’re beginning to show an interest in more exotic venues—we took them to Paris at Easter and we’re spending a week in Holland later in the year; they’re just reaching that stage where they’re beginning to tire of the beach, so we’re force-feeding them with a little culture.’ She chuckled as she spoke and glanced at the twins before saying warmly, ‘Your two will love it here, I’m sure. It isn’t far to the coast, and there are some wonderful beaches. My husband will be back with our three shortly. They’ve gone into Dartmouth on a shopping spree—we’re here for a month this time and needed to re-provision. Once you’ve settled in we must go out for a drink together one evening. Gill, my eldest, is fourteen and well trained as a baby-sitter, if you fancy the idea.’

By the time Tara got up to leave she felt as though she had made a friend, as had the twins with the Burtons’ family pet, Robot, as the large mongrel was somewhat improbably named.

By the time she had prepared a light meal, discovered how the Calor gas cooker and other equipment worked, and unpacked the car, it was almost time for bed. A quick shower

in the minute but attractive bathroom still damp from the twins’ baths, and her eyes closed the moment her head touched the pillow.

It must be something to do with the country air, Tara decided drowsily the following morning when she opened her eyes to sunshine and bird song. She couldn’t remember when she had last enjoyed such a deep and untroubled sleep. The morning was warm and languorous, and she experienced a feeling of letting go, of relaxing in a way she had not done in years; not since the twins’ birth, she admitted to herself, a little disconcerted to realise how tense she had actually become without knowing it, unaware of each further winding of her already over-stretched nerves until her tension was something she had learned to live with.

The first two days of their holiday were spent exploring their environs. There were plenty of attractive walks close at hand, the twins’ favourite being to the farm, where they went every morning with the Burton children to collect milk and eggs. The farmer who owned the cottages called to check that they had everything they wanted, and warned Tara in a very friendly way about the danger of allowing the children to run free on the moor—something she had no intention of doing, and when he discovered how fascinated Simon was by the farm and its animals he invited them all to spend a morning there.

Simon returned starry-eyed and ecstatic. He had actually been allowed to touch a week-old calf, all wobbly-legged and big-eyed; Mandy had preferred the ponies, sturdy moorland creatures which ran free on the moorland pastures.

On the third day of their holiday Tara packed the twins and their swimming gear into the car and on the Burtons’ suggestion drove to a beach they had recommended as being ideally suited for children.

They saw the sea long before they reached it, unbelievably blue, tiny waves shimmering silver under the clear sky.

The tiny bay—it was really nothing more—was reached by descending steep steps cut into the cliffside, but once reached it more than repaid the effort involved. The cliffs sheltered the bay from the light breeze, heat bouncing off the pale golden sand. Only a dozen or so other families had braved the steps, and Tara was glad to see that the beach was completely free of icecream sellers and the like and completely uncommercialised.

Both the twins could swim, but Tara made sure that they never entered the water without her. Watching them playing together like baby seals, their newly tanned bodies gleaming with the seawater, she experienced an overwhelming need to share the moment with James; to exchange with him a look of doting parenthood over their oblivious heads. Pain swept her, her eyes drawn involuntarily to the other families on the beach; complete units, mothers and fathers with their children. She was being foolish, she warned herself; she was an adult and knew better than to fall into the trap of the ‘perfection’ of family life, and yet the pain inside her wouldn’t go away. She closed her eyes on betraying tears, shocked by the images shimmering against her eyelids of herself and James, lying together beneath the hot sun, his hands on her body. Forcing the images away, she tried to concentrate on the present, to blot out all memories of the past, on her love for James, and her yearning need to have him with her.

Margaret had been marvellous about not asking questions, and although Tara had been a little perturbed when she first discovered the cottage was not on its own, she admitted now that she was glad of a little adult company, especially when it was as unobtrusive as Margaret and Sam’s.

The twins too, had made fast friends with the Burtons’ two younger children, Philip and Robert, aged ten and twelve respectively, while Gill made no secret of the fact that she adored the twins.

‘You wait,’ Margaret had predicted gloomily, watching her with them. ‘This year it’s kids, next it will be boys!’

Later in the afternoon Tara drove into Dartmouth to do some shopping. She bought postcards to send to Chas and Janice, and was amused when Mandy announced importantly that she too had postcards to write and asked for stamps to stick on them.

Her school friends, no doubt, Tara decided, passing over the requisite stamps. Poor little girl, this was the first opportunity she had had to send rather than receive, and she was obviously determined to make the most of it, even though the stamps were not the exotic variety she received from her friends.

That evening they had supper with the Burtons, and when Margaret suggested that they stroll down to the village pub for a drink, Tara felt relaxed enough to agree.

There was a moment, when she urged the twins to behave themselves for Gill, when she remembered coming home to the shattered teapot and the appalling silence that accompanied it, but she banished it firmly, reminding herself how she had always striven to allow the twins some measure of independence. Simon had disconcerted her by clinging a little to Sam Burton, and watching him blossom and gain confidence as he copied the Burton boys she had experienced a twinge of fear that she was depriving him of the male influence he seemed to need.

It was a pleasant walk to the pub—crowded with holidaymakers and locals, and Tara thoroughly enjoyed the hour or so they spent there before walking back, although she couldn’t help noticing on the return journey how Margaret slipped her hand companionably into Sam’s, and the teasing smile they exchanged. A great sense of desolation overwhelmed her. She had to stop feeling like this, she warned herself. She simply could not succumb to morbid envy every time she witnessed intimacy between another couple.

The days passed pleasantly, the good weather holding. They toured the moors one day and ate a picnic lunch in the shade of a tumbledown cottage, Simon entranced by the sturdy ponies who watched them inquisitive and greedy. All three of them were tanned, scarcely recognisable from the city dwellers who had arrived such a short time ago. They must try and do this every year, Tara decided as she set the car in motion. It had done them all good.

The following day Margaret announced that they were visiting a nearby safari park and invited the twins to go with them.

‘I won’t suggest that you come,’ she told Tara. ‘Have a day on your own. Read a book, laze about. Something tells me you don’t get many opportunities to be alone.’

Silently blessing Margaret for her kindness, Tara passed on the invitation to the twins. As she had suspected, they were thrilled, and although she felt a tiny pang when she saw how blithely unconcerned they were that she was not to accompany them, she told herself that it was only right and natural. Simon in particular had been too clinging.

They left after breakfast, waving enthusiastically to her from the Burtons’ Range Rover.

When they had gone Tara washed up and made the beds before unearthing a book she had brought with her. If anything the weather had improved, today the sun shone from a cloudless sky with only the merest suggestion of a breeze. Donning her bikini, Tara wandered into the attractive cottage-style garden at the back of the cottage. After a while her book failed to hold her attention. She could hear a bee humming drowsily nearby, and a pleasant lethargy crept over her. She closed her eyes.

Footsteps crunching on the gravel woke her. She sat up, swivelling round to see the intruder, then all the breath left her lungs on a painful gasp as her eyes travelled incredulously upwards over lean, jean-clad thighs to James’s dark inscrutable face.

For a moment she thought she must be hallucinating and that her dreams had conjured him up out of nowhere. She blinked, dazzled by the sunlight bouncing off his sunglasses, wishing he would remove them so that she could at least see his eyes. He moved, and the thin body-hugging shirt exposed the fluid muscles of his torso.

‘James!’ Her voice ached over his name. ‘What… what are you doing here?—How did you know where to find us?’

‘Mandy sent me a postcard.’ The grimness round his mouth seemed to relax a little. ‘She put your address on it, but I would have found you anyway, if it had meant searching every inch of the country.’ He removed his glasses and Tara shrank from the anger she saw blazing in his eyes.

‘How could you?’ he breathed, walking towards her, his stance almost menacing as he towered over her. She longed to scramble to her feet, but something kept her where she was, her heart pounding in longing and fear.