For Better for Worse

Yes, almost to the point where he was almost deliberately excluding Louise herself from the macho male world he was building around his sons, Eleanor reflected.

Marcus got on well enough with Tom and even better with Gavin, but he simply wasn’t the kind of man who enjoyed exclusively male pursuits, and of course he was not after all their father. As Louise herself had rather unnecessarily remarked the other day when she had been contrasting Paul’s almost excessive involvement in his sons’ lives to Marcus’s attitude towards Tom and Gavin.

Unnecessarily and tactlessly… Eleanor frowned, nibbling the nail of her index finger. As a child she had bitten her nails, and as a young adult… a young wife and mother. After her divorce she had told herself that she was going to stop biting her nails, and once she had done so she had told herself that if she could do that she could do anything; and yet here she was, happier and more fulfilled than she had ever been at any other time in her life, reverting to this destructive childhood habit.

What was the matter with her? In a month’s time she and Marcus would have been married for exactly one year. On the day of their wedding she had been filled with such happiness, such optimism… such confidence.

But then she hadn’t realised how difficult it was going to be to integrate their lives together fully, and not just their lives but those of their children as well.

Her phone rang and she reached out to pick up the receiver, her mouth curling into a delighted smile as she heard Marcus’s voice on the other end of the line.

‘Darling, what a lovely surprise.’

‘Eleanor, can you come home? The school’s been on the phone. Apparently Tom isn’t very well. I’m going to collect him now, but I suspect that it’s you he’s going to want.’

‘Tom? What’s wrong with him? Did they say?’

‘Don’t panic. I doubt that it can be anything very serious, otherwise they’d have rung the hospital, not me. They did try to get in touch with you, apparently, but they were told you were in conference…’

In conference. They must have telephoned while she was with Pierre Colbert, Eleanor recognised. Guilt overwhelmed her. Was she imagining it or had that been irritation she had heard in Marcus’s voice? She knew how much he hated being disturbed when he was working, and she was Tom’s mother, after all.

She got up, grabbing her coat and bag and hurrying into the outer office. Claire wasn’t there so she knocked briefly on Louise’s door and walked in.

Louise was on the telephone.

‘No, I haven’t told her yet. I haven’t—’ When she looked up and saw her, Louise stared at her for a moment, her face flushing, and then she said quickly into the receiver, ‘Look, I must go.’

‘I’m sorry to disturb you,’ Eleanor apologised. ‘I’ve got to go home. Tom isn’t well. He’s been sent home from school. Luckily I don’t have any appointments…’

Louise wasn’t really listening to her, Eleanor realised. Her face was still flushed, and she seemed to be avoiding looking at her. She was uncomfortable with her, Eleanor recognised with a small stab of shock. At any other time she would have instantly queried that recognition, but her concern for Tom and her guilt over not being there, over perhaps even not having recognised earlier that he wasn’t well, overrode everything else.

As she drove home, she cursed the traffic, heavy and congested even at this time of day, the smell of petrol and stale air rising chokingly inside her car. The tension which never seemed to totally leave her these days became an insistent demanding tattoo of impatience inside her head.

Although the house possessed a garage it was only large enough for Marcus’s car, and irritatingly someone else was already parked outside their house, so that she had to drive halfway down the street before she could find anywhere to stop.

Her hand trembled as she unlocked the door. She hurried in, calling out to Marcus in a low voice.

‘In here,’ he told her, emerging from his study,

‘Tom—?’ she demanded quickly, glancing towards the stairs.

‘He’s in the kitchen,’ Marcus told her.

‘The kitchen!’ Eleanor stared at him, tension and guilt exploding into a sudden surge of anger. Would he be taking this casual, laid-back attitude if it were his child who was sick?

Instantly she suppressed the thought, knowing it to be unfair and shaken that she could even have given birth to it.

Dropping her briefcase in the hall, she hurried into the kitchen. Tom was curled up in a chair in the living area, his attention focused on the flickering images on the television set.

‘Tom?’

When he made no response, Eleanor called his name a little louder.

Reluctantly he turned to look at her.

He did look pale, she acknowledged, her heart thumping sickeningly. Why hadn’t she noticed that this morning? She was his mother, after all.

‘How are you feeling, darling?’ she asked him as she hurried over to him and placed her hand against his forehead. He didn’t feel particularly hot.