“Old-fashioned word, that, and not very practical. You’ve got a kid to think of. Pretty soon he’s going to be asking more questions and learning to enjoy his luxury stays with your ex more than he likes coming home.”
“Leave it,” she begged, looking away. “I’m sorry, I’ve got a lot on my mind.”
At that point, Willard’s hired Mercedes drew up outside. Steven took off, leaving Kerry to deal with him. A small, bespectacled man, he strolled silently through the showroom as usual before making his selections and negotiating prices with her. He never stayed long. He was taciturn for an antiques dealer. He had been coming to them for more than two years, and she didn’t believe they had ever exchanged a word of anything that could be deemed personal conversation. It was one of the reasons Steven disliked him.
“There’s just something phoney about the guy,” he had said once. “He never talks. It’s just in, out and off for another month.”
“He’s very businesslike,” she had argued. “He doesn’t need to make it a social call.”
Today she was grateful for the dealer’s undemanding brevity. As soon as he had gone she went out to the rear courtyard and got into Steven’s vintage MG. During the drive to her parents’ home, she looked back ruefully over the past four years.
She had come home to the vicarage from Florence. She had been shellshocked. Until Alex had walked out of that hospital she had still nurtured desperate hopes of a last-ditch reconciliation. Her parents had been appalled by the news that she was getting a divorce for, over the six months of their separation in Florence, Kerry had continued to write home as if there was nothing wrong. When she did arrive back there had been enough trouble without a confession of infidelity. She had not had the courage to tell them in the state she was in then.
And four months later her father had had a heart attack. Nobody had blamed her, but the shock of her divorce had certainly played its part. It was inconceivable that she now dredge up the murky truth. It was too late and too dangerous. It should have been done four years ago. But would her parents ever have spoken to her again?
Had they turned on her too, she really couldn’t have coped at all. As it was, she had been under severe strain. For everybody’s sake she had decided to move out and embrace independence. An enormous amount of money had accumulated in her bank account. Alex’s money, paid monthly. She could have turned herself into a very merry divorcee. Instead she had withdrawn a comparatively small part of it and bought into a partnership with Steven. She had withdrawn the rest and returned it to Alex’s lawyers with the information that she required no further payments. Several letters had followed, trying to persuade her into accepting the allowance. She had stood firm. Living as Alex’s dependent was something she could not do, as the guilty partner. Thinking back, she realised that her obstinacy had probably antagonised Alex more, but that had not been her motivation.
The cottage was rented and furnished mostly from the contents of the vicarage attic. Despite her hard work and her appeals to Steven to be more professional, her income had never reached the level she had expected. Steven had needed a partner to stay solvent. He had happily handed over the reins of decision-making to her within the first months. Unfortunately the leopard had not changed his own spots. He still took what money he liked from the takings and lived rent-free in the flat above the shop. In short, Steven quietly went his own way much more comfortably than Kerry ever did.
Her mother was baking when she arrived. The spacious kitchen was full of the aromatic scent of fresh bread. Ellen Taylor had her daughter’s build, but her hair was pure white. As Kerry came through the back door, she turned to study her anxiously. “How are you?”
“I’ve a slight headache still…that’s all.” Aware that she sounded stilted, Kerry went on to say, “Where’s Nicky?”
“Out in the greenhouse with your father. Did Alex visit you last night?” Ellen prompted in a tone of eager expectancy.
Kerry nodded and turned away to remove her coat. Here, in this quiet house, her morning confrontation with Alex seemed unreal. She suppressed a shiver. She couldn’t tell them the truth. It might kill her father. His rigid moral principles would come into direct opposition with his love for his youngest child. But she had no hope that Alex would withdraw his threat.
Alex was fighting for a worthwhile prize. Possession of his son. And Alex was very bitter. Nicky was more important to him than his ex-father-in-law’s health. In any case, he blamed Kerry for the whole situation. The original sin had not been his but hers. As far as Alex was concerned, she had got herself into this.
“He came here straight from the hospital. I’ve never seen Alex so shaken,” her mother confided. “Of course, you could both have been killed and he realised that. He loves Nicky very much, Kerry.”
Her face set. “I accept that.”
Her mother cleared her throat awkwardly. “Nor would I say that he was indifferent to you. Vickie said we were being silly, but sometimes a crisis can bring people together again.”
A day earlier, Kerry would have laughed like a hyena at that suggestion. Alex could have come here and wept crocodile tears had she died. She had the sensation that Alex would not feel that she had paid her dues until she slipped this mortal coil. Her eyelids gritted with moisture. The man she had once loved would not have employed blackmail tactics. What was she holding off on the glad tidings for? The minute Alex had laid down his demands she had tasted defeat. Alex could yank her back. Alex could do just about anything he wanted to do, because he had her trapped.
“And,” Ellen hesitated, “he hasn’t remarried. He told your father that he didn’t believe in divorce…”
He believed in the institution fast enough when he had an adulterous wife, she reflected bitterly. But the grim and pointless retort remained unspoken.
“He wants me back.” An edged laugh that was no laugh at all punctuated her abrupt announcement. “He wants Nicky, and he can’t have one of us without the other,” she gibed helplessly.
A pulsating silence had fallen. She glanced up warily. Her mother had stopped listening after the first crucial statement. She looked peculiar, her mouth wide, both brows raised in amazement. “He wants you back?” she echoed, recovering fast, and she was off in an Olympic sprint to the back door to call, “John!” down the garden so that her father could share in this wonderful news.
Evidently Ellen could not even imagine Kerry turning any such offer down. In common with Alex, her parents believed that Nicky came first. They had implied more than once that Kerry had walked out on Alex in na;auive and selfish haste.
“You did say yes…” Ellen had her handkerchief out now and she was fiddling with it nervously, the unmentionable possibility of refusal belatedly occurring to her.
“Could you picture Alex allowing me to say no?” Kerry quipped tautly, weighted down by double duplicity.
A beatific smile spread her mother’s face and the tears came. “It’ll have to be a register office…” she was lamenting as her husband came through the door.
The die was cast from that moment. John Taylor was not a very worldly man. He gazed at his younger daughter much as if the prodigal had finally made it back to the fold, and then settled down in an armchair by the Aga with an air of dazed and quiet pleasure.
“You were too young at eighteen,” he sighed. “I warned Alex at the time, but he wouldn’t listen. It will be different this time.”
On the brink of hysteria, Kerry stood there, undeni[chably the spectre at a long-awaited feast, and alone in the trap of fevered and negative emotions. All she could feel was a mixture of fear and fury and disbelief. If somebody had told her yesterday that she would be marrying Alex again, she would have had them committed to protective care. But it really was happening, and all because of a stupid accident. If he hadn’t seen her, if he hadn’t spoken to her parents, if he hadn’t endured the shocked realisation that Nicky might have died yesterday…none of this would be happening.
As soon
as she could, she escaped. It was very difficult. They wanted her to stay. They wanted details. They seemed to be labouring under the impression that Alex had been so shattered by the sight of her in a hospital bed that he had flung his famed cool to the four winds and demanded that she marry him again because he could not live without her.
“You’re doing the right thing,” Ellen declared as she saw her back out to Steven’s car. “Nicky needs the two of you. Everything else will come all right. You’ll see.”
She drove off with a sickly smile. The tangled web of deceit seemed only to be getting thicker. She had explained about the party and, as Alex had forecast, they were more than happy to oblige. She hadn’t got to take Nicky home at all.
“For goodness’ sake, you’ll have so much to do,” her mother had protested. “Packing, sorting out business matters with Steven, getting ready for the party…you really ought to go to the hairdresser…”
Packing. The word had struck horror into her bones. What was she supposed to do about Steven? He couldn’t afford to buy her out. Furthermore, who could tell what might lie ahead? But her logic advised her that, if she left Alex in the future, he would ensure that she did not take Nicky. In other words, marrying Alex a second time would be a one-way ticket, unless he changed his mind.
Steven laughed like a drain when she told him, and then said, “Fess up, you’re pulling my leg, aren’t you?”
She sighed, “No, I’m not.”
“Come on, Kerry. Look at yourself. You don’t look like an ex about to happily remarry her ex-husband. You loathe him!” he argued in exasperation. “What the heck is going on?”
She could not answer his question. What would be the point in dredging it all up? It wouldn’t change anything. She assured him that she would remain a silent partner.