For Better for Worse

‘SHALL we head for Passport Control?’

‘Yes,’ Marcus agreed tersely, pulling away slightly as Sondra leaned closer to him. He could feel the warmth of her body through the thickness of his suit, smell her perfume. He paused for a moment, looking back over his shoulder, hesitating, but Sondra was urging him forward, telling him how excited she was about the trip and how much she was looking forward to seeing something of The Hague.

Marcus said nothing. These consultations with his Dutch and fellow European peers were commonplace affairs: hours spent in dark, crowded rooms while some fine point of international law was thrashed out.

The International Court of Justice had no power to enforce its decisions, but its judgments nevertheless carried considerable weight. Once, Marcus acknowledged, he had treated these consultations with as much enthusiasm as Sondra, but these days they were just something else to be crammed into an already overstretched schedule.

He was now approaching that point in his career when he had to decide whether to continue into the higher echelons of taking on only the cream of the work he was offered, or whether to put aside litigation work and opt instead for another role within the judiciary. He had already received tentative approaches to sound out how he would feel if he were invited to become a judge.

There was of course another option; he could always move permanently to Brussels and accept one of the many lucrative offers he regularly received to act as a consultant for one of the huge multinational companies.

Part of the problem was that, at this stage in his life, he wasn’t sure if he was ready to give up the adrenalin-activation of litigation work, and yet at the same time he acknowledged that he could not continue to take on the amount of work he was doing at present.

Couldn’t Nell see how impossible it would be for him to work as he was doing at the moment and to commute from Wiltshire?

‘You will be able to work at home sometimes,’ she had burbled happily.

Couldn’t she see—didn’t she realise…? He moved uncomfortably in his seat as the jet prepared to take off.

Beneath the anger he still felt, the belief that Eleanor wasn’t listening to him, wasn’t aware of the problems he was facing, was more concerned with other issues, other people than she was with him, lurked other emotions… Emotions he was too cowardly to confront?

He wished Eleanor could find a way to make peace with Vanessa, despite the girl’s bad behaviour, which seemed to be designed to shock Eleanor.

He had been shocked too, but what was he supposed to do? Vanessa was almost an adult, old enough to know right from wrong; far too strong-willed to be disciplined by anything he could say or do.

After the break-up of his first marriage, everyone had said how sensible he was being in allowing Vanessa to remain almost permanently with her mother. Much better, especially for a girl, all his friends had said. How could he, a single man, working the hours he did, have taken charge of a young child?

It would have been impossible. Financially he had made sure that she never lacked for anything, and yet recently, listening to Eleanor, he had felt almost as though she were somehow accusing him… blaming him…

He remembered the first time he had discussed Vanessa with Nell and the surprise she had quickly hidden when he had admitted that he didn’t see very much of his daughter.

Was it his fault that he simply wasn’t a particularly paternal man? Was Eleanor blaming him… rejecting him because she considered that he had somehow failed Vanessa?

Just how important was he to his wife? he wondered tiredly as he opened his briefcase and removed some papers. How far down the list did he come? Well beneath her sons? Beneath his own daughter? And certainly well below that damned house.

If Nell hadn’t been so wrapped up in that, he might have had a chance to talk to her about his own problems, to explain to her that, while he realised they needed more space, he simply did not have the time at the moment to get involved in the kind of domestic disruption she was planning.

As he checked through his diary, his frown deepened. He had a meeting which would take up most of tomorrow morning. There were some facts he wanted to check up on in the library, and then at six there was a reception at the British Embassy he would have to attend.

Beside him Sondra moved slightly, so that the soft, full weight of her breast pressed against his arm.

It has been a surprise to discover that she was accompanying him on this trip. She had thought it would be a wonderful opportunity to see the European Court system in action, she had told him. He had known two days ago that she would be going with him, but he had said nothing to Nell.

But then, why should he? It wasn’t as though he was doing anything wrong… or even contemplating doing anything wrong. All right, so Sondra had made it plain how she felt about him, but that didn’t mean that he was going to respond.

He frowned as he remembered Eleanor’s earlier reaction to Sondra and the argument they had had.

Arguments were all they did seem to have these days, and he was beginning to feel almost as though he hardly knew Nell at all. At times he felt almost as though she was deliberately distancing herself from him, withholding herself… rejecting him. As his mother had done?

Angrily he made a small, sharp sound.

‘Hey, what’s that for?’

Sondra smiled at him as she touched him on the arm. She was a stunningly attractive young woman, Marcus admitted, and one who quite obviously knew how to use that attractiveness.

‘I’ve been doing some reading up,’ she told him. ‘The Hague has some wonderful museums and galleries…’

‘Yes, you’ll enjoy seeing them,’ Marcus agreed.