His Pretend Wife

CHAPTER FOUR

AT SEVENTEEN Ellie reckoned life should be fun, and romance was part of that fun. You played the field, and if you won the man you’d set your heart on that was wonderful, but there were still other men in the world.

Of course she was crazy about Andrew-for the moment. They would date, and love each other; she would find a job in the same town as his hospital.

But she was startled to discover that his feelings were of a different order. He was a serious, dedicated man in his love as in his work. He offered her total commitment and he demanded the same in return.

Away from him Ellie made firm resolutions about cooling their relationship, refusing to let him make plans for their future. But with him her plans melted in the intensity of his adoration.

‘Darling, darling, Ellie, you do love me, don’t you?’

And as she looked into his glowing eyes the only possible answer was yes.

He never actually asked her to marry him, simply started talking about it as a foregone conclusion. Her mother was thrilled that she’d found ‘a nice, steady young man’ so soon, and she didn’t know how to tell Mum that Andrew’s steadiness was a point against him.

She was flattered, overwhelmed, confused, ecstatic, filled with love, longing and desire. The depth of his feelings touched her heart and made her tender towards him, which increased his love. It was all sweet and wonderful, but down the end of the rose strewn tunnel she saw dirty plates, dirty socks, dirty nappies.

‘What’s wrong with having children while we’re young?’ he asked when she managed to voice some doubts.

‘Because it’s not how I want to spend my youth,’ she flung back. ‘I want a career first.’

‘Darling, one day I’m going to be a top consultant. I don’t want my wife doing shampoos and sets.’

‘Why you-you dinosaur!’ she exploded.

Soon they were in the middle of a blazing row, their first. Ellie was upset, but Andrew was torn apart. His misery shocked her and she flung herself into his arms, longing only to comfort him. Making up was blissful, but afterwards she was more firmly tied to him than ever, and she was beginning to feel like a prisoner.

Yet she couldn’t break away. He filled her with bittersweet emotions that she’d never known before, so intense that it was like living in a new, glowing world. She could only cling on and hope for a miracle to make everything right.

His mother was appalled at the prospect of his early marriage to a girl who could bring him no advantages. ‘You could do a great deal better for yourself,’ she snapped in Ellie’s presence.

But Andrew slipped his arm about his beloved’s shoulder, drawing her close to his tall, strong body, and said gently, ‘She loves me, as much as I love her. Could I do better than that?’ Then his voice rose joyfully. ‘Mum, be happy for me. I’ve got the most wonderful girl in the world.’

She wanted him, ached for him, and raged at the old-fashioned chivalry that made him refuse until they were married. She guessed that her youth preyed on his mind, but she knew too little of the world to respect his strength of will and consideration for her. She only felt that she wanted to be naked with him, make love to him, please him and be pleased by him. Her body was beautiful, but he would do nothing to claim her. It was insulting.

Since they had no money they spent their time together wandering in the park where the funfair had been. One day they took a boat out onto the lake. The weather was hot, and Andrew wore only a pair of shorts. She lay back blissfully and watched the sun turning his skin to gold as he pulled on the oars, making nothing of the task.

She thought of his strength, how she’d sensed it through his kisses, the movements of his hands, both tender and urgent. She knew he desired her and was fighting it. But how long could he hold out against his own feelings?

They pulled into a little island where they could picnic in a secluded spot under the trees. Afterwards she lay in the crook of his arm, listening to his heartbeat.

‘Do you love me?’ she whispered.

He raised himself, pushing her down onto the blanket and looking down on her. ‘How can you ask me that?’ he said in a quiet, serious voice. ‘Don’t you know by now how much I love you? Don’t you know that you fill the world for me?’

She reached up and touched his face with her fingertips, trying to smooth away the frown lines that hard work and study were already etching on his face. Slowly she worked her hands around to the back of his head and drew him down until his lips touched hers. Instantly she was afire, filled with need and longing. She pressed against him, kissing him back eagerly, fiercely, willing him to abandon himself to feeling and sensation.

To her delight she could sense it happening. He touched her like a man on the verge of losing control, caressing her face, her neck, her breasts through the thin cotton of her blouse. Where his fingers touched, his lips followed, burning her with their passion and satisfying her deeply. She gasped at the flickering of fire that went across her skin, making every inch of her newly aware.

She ran her hands over his bare back, feeling lean, hard muscles, sensing his strength. She wanted to kiss him everywhere.

He fumbled at the buttons of her blouse and she helped him, freeing her breasts to his adoring gaze. His lips against them sent shudders of delight through her, and then again when the tip of his tongue caressed one peaked nipple.

‘Andrew,’ she whispered, ‘darling, yes-please…’

He was fumbling at the waistband of her shorts, opening the button, drawing down the zipper, slipping his hand lovingly inside to where she was eager for him. In another few moments, she thought blissfully, she would know what love was really all about, and then-

She opened her eyes to find him staring at her with shock. There was no desire on his face, only horror, like a man who’d awakened from a nightmare.

‘What is it?’ she whispered.

‘Dear God, what am I doing?’ he said hoarsely. ‘I promised myself-’

He drew away and jumped to his feet. The next moment he’d taken to his heels and fled.

‘Andrew!’ she screamed.

But he kept on running as though the devil were after him. She buried her face in her hands, racked by sobs of frustration and rejection.

She was still weeping when he returned a few minutes later. The sight made him fling himself down beside her, taking her in his arms and murmuring words of love and tenderness.

‘Ellie, darling, forgive me. I never meant to make you cry, but I couldn’t go on,’ he said desperately.

‘But why?’ she cried in a shaking voice.

‘Because I want you too much, can’t you understand that?’

‘No! How can you want me too much if you say you love me? It’s all a lie, isn’t it? You don’t really love me at all.’

He became angry. ‘Is that how love looks to you? A man has to grab you selfishly, take what he wants and to hell with you, before you can believe he loves you?’

‘But it wouldn’t be to hell with me because I want it too.’

‘What are you telling me? That I wouldn’t be the first?’ This was a new Andrew, his face dark with possessiveness. What was his was his.

‘No, I’m not saying that,’ she cried, losing her temper. ‘How dare you?’

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it. Ellie, please let’s not quarrel.’

‘If you loved me you’d want to make love to me,’ she wept.

‘And I do want to make love to you. Hell, if you knew how badly I want that! But not like this, out in the open where someone might come along. A quickie after lunch, as though you were some cheap floozie. I think better of you than that and you should think better of yourself.’

‘Stop preaching at me,’ she cried. ‘Everything I want is wrong according to you. You want to make me old before my time.’

‘I want to make you happy,’ he said miserably. ‘But I’m making a rotten job of it. Forgive me for hurting you.’

That was how it was between them. He was a hard, stubborn man, unshakeable in his resolve to do what he saw was right. She could break herself to bits against that rock. Yet the depth and intensity of his love were such that of the two it was he who was her slave, not the other way around. He wouldn’t yield, but he would be the first to apologise.

They made it up, after a fashion. But this time the reconciliation was different, tinged with caution. They had learned how they could hurt each other.

Jack Smith was still hanging around, ignoring Ellie’s engagement.

‘You won’t marry him,’ he told her once. ‘You want a bloke who knows how to enjoy life, like me.’

She was feeling especially sore with Andrew just then, for his stick-in-the-mud attitudes, and she smiled brilliantly at Jack, and didn’t deny.

After that he was often around, always available to escort her when Andrew was away working. One day Andrew turned up unexpectedly and found them having a drink together.

‘Don’t be stuffy,’ she cried, when he complained later.

‘Either you’re my girl or you’re not!’

‘Maybe I’m not if you’re going to put me on a ball and chain.’

‘He’s a bad lot, Ellie. Even you should be able to see that.’

‘What do you mean, even me?’

‘You know what I mean.’

‘No, tell me.’

‘Someone without two thoughts to rub together,’ he snapped in one of his rare flares of temper.

‘Then I’m surprised you want to marry me.’

His face had softened. ‘Because I love you more than I can say. Sometimes I wish I didn’t, but I can’t help it.’

She too melted. ‘You don’t need to be jealous of Jack, honest.’

‘Jealous of that beefy idiot!’ he exploded. ‘Don’t make me laugh.’

Perhaps they should have quarrelled properly and left it there. But a week later he arrived with plans.

‘I can get two weeks off in August, darling. It can be our honeymoon.’

‘But that’s next month,’ she gasped. Suddenly the socks and nappies had come awfully close, and she could almost see the prison bars.

Was that why she did it? How consciously did she decide to go out in the boat with Jack, to land on the same little island that she’d been with Andrew? Did she secretly know that Jack’s idea of a joke would be to push the boat out into the water, so that they were stranded?

Andrew arrived the day before their wedding to find her missing. How accusing his eyes were when she and Jack were finally rescued, after being on the island all night! She faced him in her mother’s house, defiant.

‘It was an accident, that’s all.’

‘Was it an accident that you went out there? What did you mean by going with him just before our wedding, anyway?’

‘I wanted to enjoy myself. No crime in that.’

‘That depends how you wanted to enjoy yourself.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘You know what I mean. We went there once ourselves, and I remember your idea of enjoying yourself. But I wouldn’t oblige, would I? I was thinking of you, but I don’t think that ever got through to you. Was he any more co-operative?’

How cold and dead his face was, as she’d never seen it before. He’d adored her, worshipped her. Now he was close to hating her.

She could have handled it differently, told him that she’d boxed Jack’s ears and forced him to keep his distance, which was the truth. And they would have made it up, and married next day.

Instead she’d defied him. ‘Believe what you like. If you don’t trust me, that’s your problem.’

‘Ellie, darling-’ he was still hers if she wanted ‘-I want to trust you, but you were there all night with him. Just tell me nothing happened.’

‘What do you think happened?’

‘Tell me!’

‘Leave me alone,’ she screamed. ‘Stop pressurising me. Stop trying to control my life, and telling me what to do. You’ve got it all planned, we marry this week, we have a baby next year, and I sit at home alone with a screaming kid while you work all hours trying to become the great doctor.’

‘But we agreed-’

‘You agreed. You decided, you told me and I was supposed to fall in line. I don’t like being bullied-’

‘I bullied you?’ Suddenly he was a sick man, his face the colour of death. ‘Is that all my love meant to you? Bullying?’

‘You don’t let me breathe. You’ve got my life planned out for me, but I want something more.’

‘Oh, yes, shampoos and make-up,’ he snapped.

‘You can sneer, but it’s my choice. I don’t want to live in a backwater. I want to go to London and work in a big store, and be someone.’

‘And you think you’re going to be someone with a pig like Jack Smith?’

‘He may be a pig to you but he believes in me-’

‘He’s probably hoping that you’ll support him.’

‘And he knows how to give a girl a good time.’

‘Tell me about that good time,’ he said dangerously.

‘What do you want to know?’ said a voice from the doorway. It was Jack, who’d forced his way past her mother and heard the last words.

‘Nothing from you,’ Andrew snapped. ‘Get out of here.’

‘No way. I’m part of this. I didn’t have to force Ellie to come with me. She needed a rest from you preaching at her. I just provided the light entertainment, didn’t I, darling? Very appreciative she was, too.’

The next moment he was on the floor, knocked down by a punch like a hammer. Ellie screamed, not for Jack but for Andrew, who yearned to be a surgeon but had risked his valuable right hand.

‘Don’t,’ she begged him.

‘Protecting him, Ellie?’

‘No, your hand.’

‘Do you think I care about that now?’

Jack had climbed to his feet, an ugly look in his eyes. She thought he was going to punch Andrew back, but he did something much worse.

‘C’mon, sweetie, let’s go. You won your bet, you don’t have to take it to the line.’

‘Bet? What bet?’ Andrew asked.

‘Nothing,’ she said hurriedly. A pit was opening at her feet.

‘Tell me about this bet,’ Andrew said quietly.

‘Ellie bet a whole gang of us that she could make you fall in love with her. Boy, was that a laugh! It’s been an even bigger laugh watching her at work.’

Andrew looked at her. ‘You-did that?’

‘No-’ she said desperately.

‘Are you saying it’s not true?’

‘No-that is-not like that-’

‘You mean the answer’s yes?’

‘It wasn’t like that. Just a silly joke-’

‘Don’t tell me any more,’ he said in a quiet voice that was worse to her than shouting. ‘I really only have myself to blame for loving you too much. I should never have lost my sense of proportion. Always a mistake, that.’

‘Andrew, please listen to me,’ she screamed. ‘Let me explain-’

‘Explain what? You never really wanted to marry me, did you, Ellie? Now I understand. After you’d made a fool of me there was nowhere else to take it. The trouble is I never had much sense of humour, although with you-’ He checked, and a spasm of pain went over his face. ‘Well, a lot of things were different with you.’

She’d flinched to see hate in his eyes, but now there was something far more terrible than hate. Disillusion.

‘I apologise for wasting so much of your time,’ he said politely, ‘and also for boring you. I won’t do so any longer. I wish you every happiness for the future. Good day to you.’

He walked out with a face of stone.

The following month she ran away to London with Jack Smith. They had a hurried marriage in a shabby register office and after that, as Andrew had foretold, she found herself supporting him. From then on nothing went right for her.

Elinor had awaited the call for so long that when it came one evening she didn’t, at first, take it in.

‘What-what did you say?’

‘This is the Burdell Hospital. We have a heart which would seem to be suitable for your daughter.’

‘You’ve got-?’

‘I must caution you not to get your hopes up too high. We need to do some final tests before a decision can be made, but an ambulance is heading for you, so will you-?’

Elinor barely heard the rest. Tears of relief poured down her face. She was shaking so hard that she could hardly move, but she forced herself to be calm as she went to find Hetta, even managing a brilliant smile as she called out, ‘All right, darling, we’re on our way.’

‘Really, Mummy? ’Cos last time-’

‘I know,’ Elinor said quickly. This had happened twice before and their hopes had soared, but in the end the operation hadn’t been possible. ‘Let’s just cross our fingers.’

In no time at all the ambulance was at the door. The news had spread through the boarding house and everyone who was at home came to wave them off. Daisy flapped about like a mother hen, pouring out concern and criticism alike.

‘Call me as soon as you know anything, love. Night or day. Jerry, I hope you went to the Job Centre, today. How are you, my pet? Have you got everything? Where’s Samson?’

‘Here,’ Hetta said, producing a disreputable object that had started life as a bear.

‘That’s fine, then. Elinor, you tell me if there’s anything I can do for you. Anything at all.’

During the short journey to the hospital she and Hetta held hands tightly. There were no words for their shared thoughts, but they didn’t need words. And then they were there, and nurses were coming to meet them, smiling, looking hopeful.

Cling to that hope, she thought. Don’t think about the other chance.

There were questions to answer. A nurse took Hetta’s temperature, which was normal. Her current state of health was good.

Except that she’s dying.

‘I know Sir Elmer hasn’t been well,’ Elinor said. ‘Is he back yet?’

‘No, it’ll be Mr Blake doing this. He’s on his way in now.’

‘Can I be with Hetta?’

‘Just another few minutes while we finish the tests, then I’ll take you in. If you could just wait here-’

That was the worst. Waiting. Walking up and down in the featureless waiting room, trying to look into the future and seeing only a blank. Up and down. Back and forth. Look out of the window into the darkness. Watch her own face shadowed in the window, then the door opening, and another presence in the room. A handsome man in a dinner jacket and black bowtie, who’d obviously been called away from a pleasant evening.

‘Have you got the answer yet?’ she demanded harshly, swinging around to face him. ‘Can you do it?’

‘I’ll be getting the results in a minute,’ Andrew said. ‘But please try not to worry.’

‘Try not to worry,’ she echoed in anguish. ‘Do you know how many doctors have said that to me, and how little it means?’

‘I can imagine.’

‘This has happened before. Twice. The first time they called us and we rushed to the hospital, but when we got there they’d decided to give it to someone else.’

‘That means your daughter was strong enough to stand the wait and the other child wasn’t,’ Andrew said quietly.

‘I know. I rationalised it all the way home. So did Hetta. She’s so grown up, and she shouldn’t have to be. She kept saying, “Never mind, Mummy. There’s next time.” And three months later it happened again. This time there was no other candidate but there was a delay in getting the heart there, and by the time it arrived it was unusable. Has the heart arrived yet?’

‘No.’

Her voice rose. ‘Then it could happen again?’

‘Not a chance. It’s only coming a few miles.’

‘But when it gets here you’ve got to test it and there might be something wrong-’

‘Very unlikely. The other hospital does its own tests and we only hear about the heart when they’re satisfied. Mrs. Landers, I know this is very hard, but I’m sure it was explained to you that these false dawns are, sadly, very common. I have patients who were called in five times before all the conditions were right for them. But it did happen in the end. They had successful transplants and now they’re healthy. Hetta’s chances are still good.’

‘Are they? She’s a child, they’re much harder to match.’ Elinor gave a wan smile. ‘You see how much I’ve had time to learn.’

‘I know,’ he said, speaking gently. ‘I know. But please try not to think the worst. I promise you, things are looking hopeful.’

She searched his face to see if he were merely comforting her, but there was only a kindly professional mask. She swung away to the window, trying to sort out her impressions. He still gave no sign of remembering her, and she was glad of it. Only Hetta mattered. She took a deep breath and turned back. She had her ghosts under control now, and they wouldn’t be allowed to threaten the future.

A nurse looked in and handed Andrew some papers. They must be the test results, Elinor thought, her heart almost stopping with fear. He studied them, gave a grunt, then looked up.

‘Splendid!’ he said. ‘Now we can get on.’

‘You mean-’

‘The heart’s in excellent condition, and all Hetta’s test results are good. We’re cleared for take-off.’

She gave a gasp, pressing her hands over her mouth to fight back the sob of relief, and turned away. Her chest was heaving silently and she kept her back to him until she had herself under control. When she looked around he was gone.