Escape from Desire

The rest of the day passed in a blur of telephone calls, checking on the progress of a jacket cover for a children’s book they had in hand, and soothing the affronted feelings of a writer who had been trying to speak to Nigel for a week without success, and it wasn’t until she was back in her own flat that Tamara could give her mind over to the reality of her pregnancy. She touched her stomach—still flat, showing no sign of the life growing inside her.

Zach’s child. Illogically, she wanted a son. But she must not smother the child, whatever sex it was, she warned herself. She must remember always that it would probably inherit some of Zach’s fierce independence an independence it would surely need. But one-parent families were no longer remarkable.

It never even occurred to her to try to get in touch with Zach. If he knew about the baby it would only be an embarrassment to him. He would probably advise her to obtain an abortion; he might even drawl in that same hatefully mocking voice he had used the last time she had seen him that the paternity was in doubt and that the baby might possibly be Malcolm’s.

No, it was far better that he didn’t know.

The flat had a second small bedroom which she used as a storeroom-cum-study; she could use it for the baby. It was a pity there was no proper garden, but there was a park within walking distance, and perhaps later she could buy a small house … For the first time since she had returned from the Caribbean she felt that she had some purpose in life; something to live for instead of merely existing. Zach could never be hers, but his child …

She was smiling when she went to bed, but while she slept tears slid down her checks. Having Zach’s baby was a bitter-sweet pleasure, knowing that his father would never be there to see him growing up.

CHAPTER EIGHT

A WEEK later Nigel announced that the following day, which was a Friday, they were going to visit their new author.

‘Not that he’s committed himself to us yet,’ Nigel admitted, ‘but I’m hoping to get something concrete out of him this afternoon, so smile your sweetest at him.’

Tamara merely smiled. She knew when she was being teased, and yet she could not help feeling a tiny glow of pride early the next morning when Nigel came to pick her up at her flat, h

is eyes widening as she came towards him.

She had dressed carefully for their visit. When Aunt Lilian had died she had left Tamara her house and the money which had come to her on Tamara’s parents’ death and which she had carefully put aside for her great-niece, and although previously Tamara had not given much thought to the matter she was grateful now to have the quite substantial sum behind her. The only money she had spent since her aunt’s death had been on buying the flat, but since her return from holiday, in the brief weeks before discovering her pregnancy she had surprised herself by almost completely renovating her wardrobe. Today’s outfit was one of the results, and it was the first time it had been warm enough to wear the petrol blue suit with its contrasting white blouse.

The clothes were from a range of separates Tamara had discovered in a small boutique, and the skirt had caught her eye immediately. Basically quite plain, it had been made attractively eyecatching by the addition of self-coloured embroidery just below the neat wasitline, and an insert of tiny fan pleats in the front seam. The blouse was decorated with appliquéd satin flowers on the shoulders and yoke, and Tamara knew that the outfit was both demure and feminine.

‘Very nice,’ Nigel approved. ‘And I like your hair too. It looks much better down. Makes you look more approachable somehow.’

‘Not too approachable, I hope,’ Tamara retaliated teasingly.

By rights she ought to have been feeling terrible. Here she was expecting a child and unmarried Aunt Lilian would have been disgusted and horrified, but all Tamara could feel was intense joy. It was as though knowing she was carrying Zach’s child helped to ease the aching pain of his absence. She wasn’t looking through rose-coloured glasses, though. She knew there would be hard times ahead, times when she regretted intensely committing herself to single parenthood, but there would also be great joy, a new dimension to life.

‘Wake up, dreamer!’ Nigel chided her, opening his car door.

Tamara settled herself composedly. It was by no means unusual for her to visit authors with Nigel. Their firm believed in pampering its authors and frequently, rather than subject them to the harrowing journey to London, they visited them in their own homes. Normally Tamara remained very much in the background, notebook on hand, listening carefully for anything that Nigel might forget.

They took the M4 towards Bristol. The motorway was relatively quiet, ‘Too early for weekend escapers,’ Nigel told her. Outside the car windows the countryside basked in a rare day of June sunshine. Tiny white clouds scudded storybook fashion across a sky the shade of blue which is only found in England, and Tamara leaned back in her seat and enjoyed the intense sensation of wellbeing she was experiencing.

At Bristol they turned on to the M5 to head north, the Bristol Channel to their left and the beginnings of hills to their right.

Gloucester was their first town, and as they travelled down one particularly wide and gracious street Tamara was reminded that it had once been a famous spa to rival Bath and Tunbridge Wells, and her mind mentally populated the curving terrace of Regency houses with dandies tooling dangerously fast carriages, and demure damsels in floating muslin dresses and huge poke bonnets.

The Cotswolds were familiar to her from her visits to see Malcolm’s parents, but she never tired of the enchantment of rounding a corner and coming upon a tiny village, or of the green and gold patchwork of fields.

‘Not far now,’ Nigel told her, mistaking her sigh of pleasure for one of tiredness. ‘We’re looking for a village with the improbable name of Wharton-under-the-Hill. There should be a signpost on your left any moment now.’

They came to it several seconds later, taking a meandering B-road along leafy lanes, heavy with cow-parsley and ragged Robin. Wild roses were blooming in the hedgerows and Tamara wound down her window to breathe in the sweet summer air. Despite Malcolm’s mother’s oft-voiced beliefs to the contrary, Tamara did like the country, and at this particular moment could think of nothing more delightful than settling down in one of the tiny huddle of cottages which comprised the village of Wharton. The ‘under-the-Hill’ addition was easily understandable in view of the gentle rise of the Cotswolds behind the village, and although Tamara was quite familiar with the Cotswolds, this particular village was new to her.

‘Pub looks nice,’ Nigel commented regretfully as they drove through the village and turned left over an ancient hump-backed bridge barely wide enough for the car.

‘Is it much farther?’ Tamara asked him curiously.

‘Three or four miles. Interesting chap, our host,’ he added thoughtfully. ‘I’d never have put him down as the philanthropic type—he’s a damned sight too hard and shrewd. Could have knocked me down with a feather when he told me that he intended to use the royalties from his book to equip and run his home as a rehabilitation centre. Of course he’ll still have the land, and there’s a sizeable dower house, apparently, but even so …’

‘What’s he like?’ Tamara asked, her curiosity stirring. For some reason she pictured a peppery gentleman in his sixties, rather dapper, and charming in a way that deceived no one as to his true character.

‘Wait and see,’ Nigel replied mysteriously. ‘What did you think of the outline?’ He had given it to her to read earlier in the week.

‘Very impressive,’ she agreed. ‘Almost frightening if it wasn’t a blend of fact and fiction.’