Wife And Mother Forever

CHAPTER THREE

AS THE meal ended Lily came to say that Justin was wanted on the phone. Guessing that he would now be gone for some time, Evie agreed to Mark’s suggestion that they go to his room and, with a sudden burst of inspiration, she signalled a question to Lily. Receiving a nod in return, she scooped up a couple of puppies and followed Mark upstairs.

Now he was more relaxed, chatting about the dogs and what fun he had taking photographs of them.

‘Can I see?’ Evie asked at once.

Of course he owned the very latest state-of-the-art digital camera, and handled it like an expert.

‘I’m green with envy.’ She sighed. ‘I can’t work mine and it’s much simpler than yours.’

‘It’s easy,’ he said innocently.

‘Yeah, for some people!’

He giggled. ‘Dad can’t understand this one either. He gets so mad.’

Mark switched on the computer and called up pictures of the dogs. He had, apparently, taken dozens every day, almost obsessively, reinforcing Evie’s feeling that this child lived inside himself far too much.

‘Don’t you have any pics of your friends?’ she asked.

He shrugged uneasily. ‘I haven’t lived here long. I don’t know many people.’

‘But you had a house nearby.’

‘We moved when Mum left. Dad bought this place. He said he never wanted to see that house again. And I changed schools.’

‘Your mother left?’

‘Yes, she went away and didn’t come back. I’ve got some more pictures here-’

He opened another file of pictures of the puppies and she let the matter go, guessing this was his way of describing his mother’s death.

There were so many pictures that it was hard to take in details of any one, but suddenly a collection of them caught her eye. Mark seemed to have taken them at the rate of one per second, so that it was like looking at a film strip.

He had caught his father at the moment when one of the pups had approached him and was ordered off. Undeterred, the little creature had scrambled up on to a sofa and made his way determinedly on to the desk.

Almost as though it was happening now, Evie found herself holding her breath against the moment when Justin angrily swept him off. But it hadn’t happened. Instead he’d picked the puppy up in one hand, holding him before his face with a look of gentle resignation. It was the gentleness that particularly struck her.

Then he’d turned his head, seeming to become aware of his son and the camera. He’d held his captive out, clearly ordering that he be removed, and he’d almost been smiling.

She took a moment to study Justin’s face. It wasn’t handsome. The features were too irregular for that, the nose too large. Even in a milder mood he still gave the impression of power, and his dark eyes radiated an intensity that, she guessed, would put other men in the shade.

And women would be attracted to him, she knew. Not herself, because he wasn’t the kind of man that had ever appealed to her. Too impatient, too sure of himself, too unwilling to listen. She could imagine having some interesting fights with him, but not warming to him.

‘Hey!’ Mark said suddenly.

Startled, she glanced his way with a smile, and heard the click of the camera.

‘Gotcha!’ he said.

‘Oi, cheeky!’ she said, laughing outright, and he promptly snapped her again.

‘Now look,’ he said, opening the back of the camera and extracting a tiny card. He plugged this directly into the computer and the two pictures of Evie came up side by side on the screen.

‘That’s brilliant,’ she breathed. ‘Why doesn’t it happen like that when I do it?’

Mark just grinned.

‘Yes, I know,’ she said ruefully. ‘Some of us can, and some of us can’t. They’re beautiful, Mark.’

He took a small memory stick from a drawer, connected it to the back, copied the pictures on to it, and gave it to her.

‘Just plug it into your machine when you get home,’ he said.

‘Thank you. I’ll give you this back at school.’

This wasn’t how she’d meant the conversation to go. She should be asking him why he kept vanishing and trying to understand him. But she felt that the key to understanding lay elsewhere. The friendly feeling they’d achieved would do him more good than all the talk in the world.

‘Will your father cut up rough about tonight?’ she asked gently. ‘I imagine he’s not easy to live with.’

‘He’s not so bad,’ Mark said unexpectedly. ‘He gets angry, but he’s always sorry afterwards.’

This was the last thing she had expected to hear.

‘He shouldn’t get mad at all,’ she said. ‘Why can’t he see that you’re unhappy?’

He considered this with an oddly adult expression.

‘He’s unhappy too,’ he said at last.

‘About your mother?’

‘I think so, but-there’s lots of other stuff that he can’t talk about. I used to hear him and Mum rowing-terrible things-she said he had something dark inside him, and why couldn’t he talk about it? But he said talking wouldn’t change anything, and walked out. I was watching from the stairs and I saw his face. I thought it would look angry, but it didn’t. Just terribly sad.’

‘Did he know you saw him?’

Mark shook his head. ‘He’d have hated that. He doesn’t like people to know how he feels.’

He fell silent. Then he said unexpectedly, ‘I keep wishing I could help him.’

She gave him a quick look of surprise, asking, ‘Shouldn’t he be helping you?’

‘We help each other. Well, that’s what I wish. I want to be-it’s just that-if only-’

His shoulders sagged and she saw the glint of tears on his cheeks. Evie abandoned words and took him in her arms, holding him while his shoulders shook.

‘I’m sorry,’ he sobbed.

‘You’ve nothing to be sorry about. If you’re sad you need to cry, and tell someone.’

‘There isn’t anyone,’ he sobbed. ‘Nobody understands.’

She did the only thing she could-tightened her arms and rocked back and forth, trying to comfort him.

A sound made her look up to see Justin standing in the open door. He stood dead still as though amazement had stopped him in his tracks, and she was reminded of the way he had looked at her on the terrace.

Quietly she shook her head, and he retreated without a word.

Mark seemed unaware. He freed himself and straightened up, wiping his eyes and managing a smile.

‘Sorry,’ he said again.

‘Don’t be,’ she told him.

He was obviously embarrassed, as though feeling he’d given way to an unmanly display.

Sweet heaven! she thought. He’s only twelve years old.

‘It’s getting late,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you go to bed?’

‘Will you come and say goodnight before you go?’

‘Yes, I promise.’

She gave him another hug, then went downstairs, feeling thoughtful.

Through the open door of the front room she could see Justin, and walked in.

‘Is he all right?’ Justin asked gruffly.

‘Not really. But he’s calmed down, and he’s going to bed. I promised to look in and say goodnight before I leave, but I think you should go up to him now.’

‘There’s no point,’ he said wearily. ‘This has happened before. He won’t talk to me. He hates me.’

‘He doesn’t,’ she said at once.

He looked at her sharply. ‘You know that? What did he say?’

‘I can’t tell you what he said. It’s confidential between him and me-’

‘That’s nonsense,’ he said impatiently. ‘I’m his father-’

‘And I’m the person you had to bring in to help you. I’m the one he talks to, although he said very little even to me. I’ll tell you that he doesn’t hate you. Far from it. But I won’t break his confidence. Please understand that that is final.’

‘Like hell it is!’

‘OK, throw me out!’

‘Don’t tempt me.’

For answer she pulled out her cellphone and dialled. ‘Andrew?’

Justin’s hand closed over hers, gripping her so tightly that it hurt. ‘It’s better if you stay.’

‘Really?’ she said, freeing her hand and flexing the fingers. ‘I’m glad you made your mind up about that. I can’t stand a man who dithers.’

He drew a deep breath. ‘Now Andrew will be wondering what happened. You’d better call him back.’

‘No need. I wasn’t really connected.’

‘Playing games?’

‘No, just warning you not to try to push me around. I’ll help all I can, for the sake of that poor child. But it has to be on my terms, because they’re the only ones I can use.’

‘I’m the same way myself,’ he said grimly.

‘Then one of us is going to have to give in.’

She realised then how far she had travelled in a short time. Once she’d feared to antagonise Justin in case it rebounded on Mark. But now her instincts were telling her that he only respected people who stood up to him.

Deference equalled disaster.

Besides, she didn’t do deference. She didn’t know how.

From the thunderous silence she guessed he was assessing his options, realising that they were limited, but not knowing how to admit the fact.

‘Don’t you think you should tell me what’s really happening?’ she said. ‘Why did Mark go to that cemetery? You said his mother was dead, so I thought she must be buried there, but he says not.’

‘No, she’s not. Did he say anything else? Or can’t you tell me?’

‘He said she ought to be there.’

‘Hell!’ he said softly.

‘What did he mean?’

‘My wife left us two years ago.’

‘Us?’

‘She left us both. There was another man. She went to live with him in Switzerland.’

‘She didn’t take her son with her?’ Evie asked, aghast. ‘Or did you stop her?’

‘I wouldn’t have stopped her if she’d wanted him, but I don’t think she even thought of it,’ he said in a soft voice that had a hint of savagery.

Evie rubbed her hand over her eyes.

‘I just don’t understand how any mother can do that,’ she said distractedly. ‘To leave a man-well, it happens if the relationship isn’t working. But to abandon a defenceless child-’

‘It’s the crime of crimes,’ Justin said sombrely. ‘It’s unnatural, unforgivable-’

He stopped. Evie stared at him, alerted by something in his voice that went beyond anger. Hatred.

‘That poor kid,’ Evie breathed. ‘Did she stay in touch?’

‘She wrote to him, telephoned sometimes. There were presents at Christmas and birthdays. But he wasn’t invited to visit her. The new boyfriend didn’t want him, you see, and he was much more important to her than her son.’

Again there was that bitter edge of something that was more than anger. More like pain.

‘It must have devastated him,’ she murmured. ‘How does he cope?’

‘He’s brave and strong,’ Justin said unexpectedly. ‘And he knows what the world is like now.’

‘He’s too young to learn that side of the world,’ Evie said quickly.

He gave a mirthless laugh.

‘Is there a proper age for a boy to learn that his mother doesn’t want him?’

‘No, of course not,’ she agreed.

‘Any age is too young, but it happens when it happens, ten, nine-seven.’

As he said ‘seven’ his voice changed, making her look at him. But he didn’t seem to notice her. He was talking almost to himself.

‘And then the whole world becomes unreal, because it can’t have happened, yet it has happened. All the reference points are gone and there’s only chaos. Disbelief becomes a refuge when there’s nothing else.’

‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘That’s how it must be.’

‘But it isn’t a reliable refuge,’ he said in a low voice. ‘The world blows it apart again and again, and it becomes harder to find excuses to believe the thing that’s least painful.’

‘Mr Dane-what are you telling me?’

‘I’d have done anything to save my son from the knowledge that his mother rejected him. I stalled on the divorce, went out to Switzerland to see her, begged her to return to us. I hated her by then but I’d have taken her back for his sake.

‘I even bought this house for her. It’s bigger, better than the one we had. She liked nice things. I thought-’

‘You thought you could get her back by spending money?’ Evie said, speaking cautiously.

‘She wouldn’t even come home for a while, even to look at it. She was besotted by her lover. She cared about nothing else.’

‘What happened?’

‘She died. They died together when his car crashed. I was over there at the time, and since she was still legally my wife it fell to me to oversee her funeral. I suppose it should have occurred to me to bring her home, but it didn’t. She’s buried in Switzerland.’

‘But-Mark-you were willing to do so much to get her back for him-’

‘When she was alive, yes. But when she was dead, what difference could it make?’

She stared at him, nonplussed by a man who could be so sensitively generous on the one hand, and so dully oblivious on the other.

‘I think it would have made a difference to Mark to have her nearby, even if she was dead,’ she tried to explain. ‘People need a focus for their grief, somewhere where they can feel closer to the person they’ve lost. That’s what graves are really for.

‘And Mark feels it more because you sold the house where she used to be and made him live in a place where she never was. So he can’t go around and remember that this was where they shared a joke, and that was where she used to make his tea.

‘He needs those memories, but where does he go for them now? This great mausoleum, which is empty when he comes home every day?’

‘Not empty. Lily’s here, and he wouldn’t want me. You seem to see everything, surely you’ve seen that?’

‘I’ve seen that the two of you aren’t as close as you ought to be. There has to be something you can do about that. I’m guessing you don’t spend very much time with him.’

‘I have to work all hours. The business doesn’t run itself. I created it and I need to keep my eye on it all the time.’

‘And it’s more important than your son?’

‘I do the best I can for my son,’ he snapped.

‘Then your best is lousy.’

‘I’m trying to make a good life for him-’

‘Yes, I’ve seen that “good life” upstairs. The latest computer, the latest printer, the latest digital camera-’

‘All right, you think I put too much emphasis on money,’ he broke in, ‘but you can rely on money. It doesn’t betray you. And what you’ve bought really belongs to you.’

‘So then you control it?’

‘Right,’ he agreed, not seeing the trap she’d opened up at his feet.

‘And that’s what really matters, isn’t it?’ she challenged him. ‘Control.’

‘Sometimes it’s important to be in control of things. In fact, it’s always important.’

‘Just things? Or people. Why did your wife really leave you?’

He flashed her a look of pure hatred. ‘I guess I didn’t pay enough,’ he snapped.

Before she could answer he walked out of the room and slammed the door.

Evie was left silently cursing herself.

I had no right to say that about his wife. She sighed. Why do I keep losing my temper? Now I’ll have to find him and apologise. Oh, hell! Why don’t I grow up?

Hearing him outside the door, she braced herself for the worst, but his manner, when he entered, was quieter.

‘Shall we start again?’ he asked mildly.

‘That would be a good idea. Please forget that last question. I had no right-’

‘It’s over,’ he said hastily. ‘Besides, all the worst you think of me is probably true, and you’d be the first person to say so if you hadn’t decided it was wiser to be tactful.’

She let out a long breath at his insight. ‘Touché,’ she said at last.

He gave her an ironic look. ‘It’s good for my pride if I win the odd point or two.’

‘I don’t think the worst of you,’ she said. ‘I think you’re just floundering.’

‘That’s true. I don’t know what to say to Mark, what to do for him. We don’t speak the same language. What you say about moving house may be right, but I meant it for the best.’

‘I wish I could help-’ she sighed ‘-but I’m not even going to be here much longer. I leave when term’s over. But I’ll stay in touch with Mark, if you like, from anywhere in the world.’

‘I’d appreciate that.’

‘Now I’ll go up and see him, because I promised.’

‘Thank you. Then I’ll take you home.’

‘There’s no need. I can call a cab.’

‘Miss Wharton, I will take you home,’ he said firmly.

He came upstairs with her and they stopped outside Mark’s door. Evie raised her hand to knock, then thought better of it and opened the door a crack.

‘I’m awake,’ came Mark’s voice at once.

Laughing, she slipped inside and went to sit on the bed, giving him a hug.

‘I’m going now,’ she said. ‘I just came to say goodnight. And thank you for the pictures. I’ll give you back the memory stick at school.’

‘You will be there?’

‘For a bit longer.’ She kissed his cheek. ‘Bye!’

He flung his arms about her neck. ‘Bye!’

Then he saw his father standing in the doorway and removed his arms.

‘Hallo, Dad,’ he said politely.

‘I’m going to drive Miss Wharton home, son.’

‘Goodnight.’

If only he would smile at his father, Evie thought. Or at least stop being so woodenly polite. But Mark didn’t say another word as she and Justin left the room.

Downstairs, Justin stopped for a word with Lily before leading Evie out to his car.

‘Where to?’

She gave him her address and he swung out on to the road. As he drove he said, ‘I’m sorry about your ruined evening with your boyfriend.’

‘I’ll call him when I get in.’

‘What will you tell him?’

‘The truth. What else?’

‘Might he not misunderstand?’

‘He won’t, as long as I stick to the facts.’

‘Are you one of those terrifyingly honest people who always tell the truth about everything?’

She laughed. ‘No, I’m not as bad as that. And honesty really has nothing to do with it. It’s just that lies have a habit of backfiring on you. I learned that when I was ten.’

In the darkness of the car she just sensed him grinning.

‘I learned a lot earlier than that,’ he said.

‘I even think that honesty can sometimes be an over-rated virtue.’

‘Heresy!’

‘No, just that sometimes you have to choose between honesty and kindness, and kindness is usually better. My home is just up ahead, in that apartment block.’

‘How do you manage with the motorbike?’

‘I park it in the basement garage. If you drop me on the kerb here-’

‘Actually, I was hoping to come in and talk to you for a while.’

Before she could answer her mobile phone rang.

‘I guess that’s Andrew,’ Justin said. ‘You might still save your evening with him. OK, I’ll drop you here. Goodnight.’

It wasn’t the moment she would have chosen for Andrew to call, but she had no choice but to get out of the car. Justin closed the door behind her and sped away into the darkness, leaving her to answer the phone call, which turned out to be a wrong number.

Evie looked for Mark at school on the following Monday, but there was no sign of him, and Debra said that his father had called to say he had a cold and would be off for a few days.

She’d brought the memory stick in to return to him, but now she wrote him a little note saying that the pictures were lovely, and including her email address and sent the whole thing off in a package.

The following evening his reply was waiting on her computer, with some attached pictures of the puppies. She thanked him, and they settled into an amiable gossip that lasted for the next few days until she wrote at last:

If I don’t see you before I go, I promise to email you from all over the place. I’m off to my seaside cottage now. I’ll send you some pics of it, taken with my digital camera. If you can work yours I’m sure I can learn to work mine.

She had briefly considered calling at the house to see him, but decided against it. She was leaving soon, and it wasn’t kind to encourage Mark to cling to her.

She wondered if Justin would ask her to visit the child, but there was no word from him. Obviously he reckoned that she had outlived her usefulness.

Grumpy but curious, she looked him up on the Internet and what she found there confirmed what Lily had said. Justin Dane took over-people, firms, the world. Starting with nothing fifteen years earlier, he had created an empire out of hard work, genius and ruthlessness.

Before that fifteen years there were gaps in the information. Reading between the lines, all carefully worded to avoid the libel laws, Evie picked up an impression of a wild man, coldly indifferent to the feelings of others, who might even have done a spell in jail.

‘A nasty piece of work,’ she mused. ‘Perhaps it’s just as well I won’t come into contact with him again.’