Vanessa was a child, that was all, she tried to remind herself. A child…
Numbly she realised that Tom was still complaining loudly about his posters and that Marcus, who had disentangled himself from Vanessa’s tearful embrace, was giving her an irritated, impatient, frowning look.
‘It’s not fair,’ Tom wailed. ‘She can do just what she likes… I wish I didn’t have to live here with you. You always take her side in everything…’
As she saw the tears standing out in his eyes, saw the accusation in his face, heard the dented male pride in his voice, Eleanor looked helplessly from his flushed, angry face to Vanessa’s smooth, triumphant one.
A child? No. Vanessa’s actions had not been those of a child motivated by a misunderstood reactionary impulse; it had been deliberate and spiteful; its result carefully planned and understood.
A sick sensation of despair overwhelmed her as she stood there, knowing that there was no reasonable explanation she could give her son to help him to understand why it seemed that Vanessa received more favourable treatment and was therefore more ‘loved’ any more than she could explain to Marcus just why his teenage daughter made her feel so vulnerable and so on edge; so wary of saying or doing the wrong things in case it prejudiced her own relationship with him.
Her body tensed. Where had that thought come from? Surely she didn’t really think that Vanessa had that kind of influence over Marcus? To do so was an insult both to him and to their relationship, and yet the thought… the fear must have come from somewhere…
A relic from the days of always coming second best… of always feeling that she was not important enough in her own right to be unconditionally loved… of feeling that she must always work hard to deserve love.
Surely she had thrown off those old shackles years ago?
If so, what were those old doubts and fears doing resurfacing now?
She looked at Marcus, searching his face for some sign that he understood what she was going through, that he could see past the mayhem Vanessa had caused to her own pain and confusion, but the only thing she could see in his eyes was her own reflection, its defensive, drooping posture and his irritation with the scene around him—and her!
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
FERN heard the post dropping through the letterbox on her way downstairs. She picked up the letters and took them with her into the kitchen. Most of them were for Nick and, of the three addressed to her, two were from charities asking for money.
The third one, though, was a fat, bulky envelope, and the sight of her oldest friend’s handwriting made her mouth curl into an anticipatory smile as she methodically placed Nick’s post on one side, quickly making herself a cup of coffee before sitting down to open and read Cressy’s letter.
She and Cressy had met while they were still at school and their friendship had survived not only their very different temperaments and upbringings, but also their university days and the widely diverging lives they had had since.
Admittedly, since she had married Nick, their friendship had been conducted more through letters and telephone calls than in person.
Cressy, a committed environmentalist, had opted for a career which involved her in projects which took her to some of the most remote parts of the world. This letter, though, was postmarked Lincolnshire. Normally, when she was in England, Cressy stayed in Cambridge, where she had done her post-degree studies and where she had several friends among the university fraternity.
Nick had never really taken to Cressy, considering her to be too outspoken and objective for a woman; too inclined to challenge him on issues on which he considered that he as a man held a much more valid and well balanced view than any woman.
Fern had tried to protest that he was being unfair to her friend, who was not only highly qualified and knowledgeable in her field, but who was also genuinely concerned about the effect the modern industrialised nations were having on the earth’s environment, but Nick had turned on her, claiming that she didn’t know what she was talking about; he had, she remembered, even tried to suggest that Cressy’s affection for her had some kind of lesbian undertones to it.
It had been one of the few times when Fern had actually been angry enough to want to argue with him. She suspected that, had she known Cressy less well, his insinuations would have undermined their friendship completely. As it was, Fern, who had grown up alongside Cressy, knew quite well that his innuendoes were unfounded: Cressy, although not promiscuous, was enthusiastically heterosexual.
The letter was so typical of Cressy’s breezy, no-nonsense manner that, as she read the opening line, Fern felt almost as though she was there in the room with her.
Guess what! I’m getting married! Graham and I met last year when we were both with a team working in Russia studying the effects that Chernobyl has had on the environment. He’s a Scot—Presbyterian ancestory and hugely conventional and moral—and he’s said that it’s to be marriage or nothing. Since the nothing was impossible to live with, I’ve given in, less than gracefully, I must tell you. However, having given in, we’ve bought a rectory here in the Fens, with enough land for us to try some experimental crops. The wedding isn’t until October—I did say he was conventional, didn’t I?—and since Graham is away at the moment with a team studying the effects of sea pollution on plankton I was wondering if you could spare the time to come and spend a few days with me here.
It’s been too long since we last had any time together, and it would give us an opportunity to catch up on one another’s news. I’m sorry I missed your mother’s funeral, by the way.
I know how devoted to one another your parents were, but I know it still must have been a shock to lose her so soon after your father’s death.
Thoughtfully Fern put the letter down. What Cressy was suggesting was impossible, of course. Nick would never agree.
She remembered how difficult he had been in the weeks before her mother’s death, when the pneumonia which had finally killed her had meant that she was confined to bed and Fern had had to go and stay with her to take care of her.
She sighed, closing her eyes. Cressy’s letter had brought back all the pain and unhappiness she had felt when her mother died.
She had badly needed Nick’s support then, his support and understanding… his mature acceptance of the fact that her mother needed her. Instead he had behaved like a spoiled, possessive child.
Adam would never…
Abruptly she got up and walked over to the window, staring blindly out of it.