On Tuesday evening it rained and they spent the evening going through some old photograph albums David had found in a bureau drawer.
Once she and Jon were married she would ask him if she was to be allowed a free hand with the house, Sophy mused, glancing round the shabby sitting room, and mentally transforming it with new furnishings. At the present moment in time it wasn’t even particularly comfortable. Both the sofa and the chairs had loose springs which dug into vulnerable flesh if sat upon.
‘Look, Sophy, there’s Daddy and Uncle Jon when they were little.’
Sophy glanced down at the open page of the album, her eyes widening fractionally as she studied the photograph Alex was pointing out.
Two lanky adolescent boys stood side by side, one topping the other by a couple of inches. Both of them had identical shocks of near black hair—both of them had the same regular features, hinting at formidably good looks in adulthood.
‘Uncle Jon looks really like Daddy there, doesn’t he?’ Alex commented, wrinkling her nose. ‘He doesn’t look anything like Daddy did now though, does he, David?’
Thus applied to, her brother studied the photograph briefly and then said gruffly. ‘Yes he does...underneath.’
It was an odd remark for the little boy to make and one, Sophy sensed, made in defence of his uncle against his sister’s comment.
‘Uncle Jon would look much better without his glasses,’ Alex continued cheerfully. ‘He should wear contact lenses like our teacher at school.’
‘He can’t,’ David told her loftily. ‘They don’t suit his eyes, and besides, he doesn’t need to wear his glasses all the time anyway.’
This was news to Sophy. She had never seen him without them, apart from one occasion she recalled, remembering watching him remove them here in this very room. Then she had been struck by the very male attractiveness of his profile, she remembered and then shrugged mentally. What did it matter what Jon looked like? It was the kind of man he was that was important. She already knew all about the pitfalls encountered in getting involved with handsome men. Chris was good looking.
On the Wednesday morning after she had dropped the children off at school she got back just in time to hear the phone ringing noisily.
Thinking it might be Jon, she rushed inside and picked up the receiver, speaking slightly breathlessly into it, barely registering her sudden spearing disappointment at discovering it wasn’t him as she listened to the crisp American tones of the man on the other end of the line.
She explained to him that Jon was due back that day, and slowly read back to him the message he had given her, frowning slightly as she did so.
She knew, of course, that Jon often did work for various governments, but that call had been from the Space Center in Nassau, where apparently they were urgently in need of Jon’s expertise.
Would that mean he had to fly straight out to Nassau, before they could get married? She shrugged slightly. It didn’t really matter when the ceremony took place, surely?
The next time the phone rang it was Jon, ringing her from the airport in Brussels, to tell her the time of his flight.
‘I managed to get through a little earlier than planned,’ he told her, adding, ‘any messages?’
Quickly Sophy told him about the call from Nassau, giving him the number and asking hesitantly, ‘Will that mean that you’ll have to fly straight out there?’
There was a pause so long that she thought at one point their connection had been cut and then Jon said slowly, ‘I’m not sure.’ Having rechecked with him the number of his flight, Sophy said goodbye and replaced the receiver.
She would have to ring Heathrow now and check what time it was due to arrive...her mind ran on, mentally ticking off all that would have to be done. The children would have to be collected from school, fed... Yet all the time at the back of her mind was that same ridiculous sense of apprehension.
Suppose Jon had changed his mind about wanting to marry her? How long would he need to be in Nassau? What if he...?
Stop it! she urged herself firmly, reminding herself that less than a week ago there had been no thought in her mind of marriage to anyone, let alone her boss and now here she was in a mild flurry of panic in case they did not marry.