Wife And Mother Forever

CHAPTER FIVE

LOOKING out of her window next morning, Evie gave thanks that her reckless promise to Mark had been kept. It was a perfect day; the sun was riding high and making the waves glitter almost blindingly.

Mark was leaning out from the next window, beaming and making ecstatic thumbs up signs. She raised her own thumbs in return, laughing and enjoying his happiness.

Downstairs, she put on the kettle and began preparing breakfast. After a few minutes they both joined her. Evie stared at the sight of Justin in shorts and casual shirt.

She stared even more when he gave her a solemn bow, then glanced at his son, as if asking if he’d done it right. But Mark wasn’t satisfied.

‘Oh, mighty one!’ he cried, bowing low.

‘Mark insists that we do this,’ Justin explained. ‘He says you’re magic because you made the rain stop and the sun come out. So we must propitiate you, mighty one.’

To her delight he bowed again.

‘All right,’ she chuckled. ‘That’s enough grovelling-for today, anyway. Come and have breakfast.’

‘Can’t we go to the beach now?’ Mark begged.

‘Later, when the water’s had a chance to warm up a bit,’ she told him. ‘You’ve just recovered from a cold.’

‘And we should go out and buy some food first,’ Justin said.

Going around the local supermarket gave her another glimpse of his many facets. Not only could he cook but he also knew what to buy.

He had good legs too, she thought distractedly.

After filling the trolley Justin stopped by the wine shelves. ‘White or red?’

‘White, please,’ she said.

‘Can we go to the beach now?’ Mark asked plaintively as they drove home. ‘It’s ever so hot.’

‘We could make some sandwiches and take them with us,’ Evie said.

They agreed on that, packing up a picnic basket before setting off.

The road from the cottage to the beach was strewn with large rocks that had to be negotiated on foot. At the far end the sand spread out into an area of pure gold, stretching away to the sea. It was a small area, flanked on two sides by more rocks, which made it almost like a private beach.

Other holiday makers had been known to brave the rocks for a while, but the trouble of having to climb back over them to get an ice cream was a deterrent. Today they had the place to themselves.

Evie had changed, putting on her swimsuit beneath her clothes. She was a little troubled by that swimsuit. It was a bikini, chosen with Andrew in mind, and ideally she would not have worn it now. But she hadn’t thought of it until too late.

Well, it might be worse, she told herself. As bikinis go it’s fairly modest. Even the top is respectable, and I haven’t got much to display anyway. First time I’ve ever been glad of that.

They tucked into sandwiches and orange squash, but Mark ate very little.

‘You need more than that,’ Evie protested.

‘Nope,’ he said, shaking his head firmly. ‘’Cos otherwise you’ll say I mustn’t go swimming after a big meal. So I’ve only eaten a little meal, and I’m going now.’

Before they could stop him he jumped to his feet and shot away across the sands to plunge into the sea.

‘Let’s go,’ Justin said, pulling off his clothes and haring after his son.

Now there was no time to worry about revealing too much. Evie tore off her own clothes and sped after them, rejoicing in the wind whipping past her, the sun on her bare skin, and then the glorious moment of diving in.

She came up, looking around, then saw the two of them preparing to scoop up water and douse her with spray. She screamed and backed away, trying to fend them off. But they splashed her without mercy until she had to sink right under the surface to escape them.

‘I give in, I give in,’ she cried at last as they roared with laughter.

They splashed around together for a while, with Evie keeping in the background so that father and son could be together. At last Mark declared he was hungry.

‘Come and finish your lunch,’ Evie said.

‘OK.’

‘I’ll have a longer swim first,’ Justin said, and turned to head out to sea.

Back at base Evie and Mark dried themselves off and settled down on large towels.

‘I’m ever so glad we came,’ Mark confided. ‘So’s Dad.’

‘Did he tell you that?’

He shook his head, spraying crumbs.

‘Dad doesn’t say things like that,’ he said, when he could speak again. ‘But he’s cheerful. ’Spect it’s ’cos of you.’

‘No, it’s ’cos of you,’ she said. ‘He likes being with you. But I’m glad he’s cheerful. He’s much nicer to be around when you can get a smile out of him.’

‘Yes,’ Mark said with feeling.

She looked out to sea. ‘Where’s he gone?’

Mark produced binoculars from his bag. ‘There,’ he said, handing them to her. ‘He’s a long way out.’

After a moment she saw Justin’s dark head and the movements of his muscular arms, pounding through the waves. As she watched, he turned back towards the rocks where they stretched out into the sea. Reaching them, he hauled himself up and stood for a moment, his wet body gleaming in the sun. Then he dived back in, swam in a wide circle and climbed back on to the rocks.

He stood there long enough for Evie to study him and realise how conventional clothes failed to do him justice. She had known that he was tall, broad-shouldered and long-limbed, but, seeing him almost naked, she suddenly understood many things. His air of walking through the world like a prince was not based on his wealth, but on the proud angle at which he carried his head.

There was the shape of his body, lean and taut, not an ounce of fat, despite his muscular build. He might have been an athlete, or a man doing heavy manual labour. But a silk-suited tycoon flying the world and making deals-that wouldn’t have occurred to her.

‘Evie!’ Mark touched her arm.

With a start she came back to reality, lowering the binoculars.

‘Sorry-what?’

‘I kept calling and calling you, and you didn’t hear.’

‘I got distracted by the scenery,’ she said vaguely.

‘I’ve poured you some more orange juice.’

She tried to concentrate on the snack, but the sun had dazzled her and she couldn’t blot it out, even with her eyes closed. He was there behind her eyelids, diving in and out of the glare, his body shining in the spray.

When she opened her eyes again she saw him walking up the beach.

‘That’s better,’ he said, dropping down beside them. ‘I’ve been too long without exercise.’

‘Somehow I pictured you working out in the gym,’ she said.

‘In theory I do, but the work piles up and it’s always tomorrow.’

‘Domani, domani, sempre domani!’ she declaimed, with a knowing look at Mark.

Justin stared from one to the other.

‘Tomorrow, tomorrow, always tomorrow,’ Mark translated.

‘There, I told you he was one of my best pupils,’ Evie said triumphantly.

Mark got to his feet. ‘I’m going to explore.’

‘Don’t go too far,’ Justin said quickly.

‘Promise.’ Mark sped off before he could be asked for any further promises.

‘I’ve never seen him have such a good time,’ Justin said, watching the slight figure scampering away. ‘Thank you.’

‘Didn’t you two ever go on seaside holidays before?’

‘We went away while his mother was alive, but it was always somewhere like Disneyland. That’s what kids seem to want these days, but this-’ He made a gesture indicating their surroundings. ‘He’s happy.’

‘Did your family ever take you to the seaside when you were a child?’

She wondered if he had heard her, because he stared straight ahead without answering. At last she realised that he had simply blanked out the question.

If she knew the reason for that, she mused, she might understand more about Mark’s inner turmoil.

‘Whatever is he doing now?’ Justin asked, his eyes on his son.

They could see Mark on the rocks, staring down into a pool, evidently fascinated by something he saw there.

‘It’s probably a crab, or a starfish,’ Evie said. ‘I used to look at them in that same pool when I was a kid.’

‘Did your family own this place?’

‘My Great-Uncle Joe. He was a wonderful old boy, and he virtually brought me up after my parents died, when I was twelve. But it was more than giving me a home. I loved my parents, but they were very conventional people. They reckoned there was only one right way to do everything. It was stifling.

‘Joe was just the opposite. He thought there was no right way to do anything, you just had to choose the wrong one that suited you. His motto was “To blazes with the lot of ’em!”’

He grinned and rolled over on his back, propping himself up on one elbow to look up at her.

‘I’ll bet a twelve-year-old loved it.’

‘It was great,’ she said, sighing in happy remembrance, ‘like having a light come on in the world. Joe reckoned the only crime was to do what other people expected. And he thought it was a virtue to offend at least one person every day.’

‘Oh, that’s where you-’

‘No, I never quite went that far,’ she told him repressively.

‘Just me, huh?’ he asked with a raised eyebrow.

‘Just people who deserve it. Shall I continue?’

‘Please do.’

‘I was really sad when I had to leave here to go to college. I even thought of not going, but Joe lost his temper and nearly threw me out. He said if I didn’t seize my chance, I needn’t show my face here again. So I went, but I always came back in summer. To me it was the most wonderful place in the world.’

She sighed happily, looking around her at the beauty. But then her face grew sad.

‘He died recently and left it to me, but then I found he had huge debts. I’d had no idea. I used to send him money to help out, but apparently it all went into betting shops.

‘I never knew about his problem, and I have a horrid feeling it only developed after I left, because he was lonely. Now the cottage has to be sold to pay the debts. I’m just here to clear out my stuff and take a last look.’

‘You’re going to lose this place?’ he asked, sitting up and speaking sharply.

‘Just as soon as there’s a decent offer. I thought of trying to keep it by paying off the debts-I just can’t afford it. I even thought-’

She was interrupted by the sound of her cellphone. Justin didn’t miss her sudden alertness, or the eager way she scrabbled in her bag for the phone. He saw the sudden sagging of her shoulders as she said, ‘Oh, hi, Sally.’

There followed a conversation about proofs, galleys and corrections, and it was no surprise when she hung up and said, ‘That was my editor, about a book I have coming out next month.’

‘Not Andrew, then? Has he called you at all?’

‘I’ve only been here two days.’

‘And in those two days,’ Justin said relentlessly, ‘has he called you?’

‘Please don’t interrogate me, Mr Dane.’

‘I’ll take that as a no. If I were in love with a woman I wouldn’t forget to call her.’

‘Well, maybe he doesn’t want to seem too anxious. We’ve been having a few problems. That’s why he’s coming here.’

‘But is he coming here?’

She ignored this. ‘We’ll spend some time together sorting things out.’

‘It’s a bit early in the relationship for that, isn’t it?’

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said, wishing he’d drop the subject. But he wouldn’t, almost as if he knew how uneasy it made her.

‘Sorting things out is what happens when people have been together a while,’ he said, ‘and things have turned sour, but they want to recapture the magic. If you’re “sorting out” in the courtship stage, he’s the wrong guy.’

‘I’ll decide about that, thank you.’

‘You can decide what you like, but he’s the wrong guy. Why pick on him? Unless you’re afraid of being an old maid.’

‘Get lost!’ she said amiably.

‘Well, it has to be said. You’re no spring chicken. You must be pushing-what? Forty?’

‘Thirty!’

He roared with laughter. ‘I had a bet with myself that you’d tell me your age by the end of the day.’

She made a face at him and he laughed again. ‘So, thirty, and he’s your last chance. Life has passed you by. Men have passed you by. You’re pretty enough in a dim light, but nobody’s offered you lifetime commitment.’

His eyes were wicked and she smiled back, disconcerted by the sudden reappearance of his charm.

‘So, my guess is that you put up with any amount of awkward behaviour on his part, for fear of losing him.’

‘No way,’ she said. ‘It’s my awkward behaviour that’s caused the problems.’

‘Just because you stood him up that night, he’s throwing a wobbly?’

‘Don’t you throw a wobbly if you get stood up?’

‘I don’t get stood up,’ he said with an assurance that was so complete she almost admired it.

‘You are the most arrogant, conceited man I’ve ever met.’

‘I’m just recording facts. He can’t take it that you put him second that night.’

‘It’s not the only time-other things happen, and get in the way. But that’s over now.’

‘Because he’s your hero? The one and only whose voice makes your heart beat? The man who-?’

‘All right!’ she said, trying not to laugh. ‘It’s a bit more prosaic than that, but, like you said, old age is creeping up on me.’

‘Yeah, sure,’ he said in a tone of disbelief. Added to the way he looked her figure up and down, it amounted to a definite compliment.

It was the first time he’d even hinted that he admired her as a woman, and it threw her off balance. Suddenly the ‘modest’ bikini wasn’t modest any more. Her bosom was more generous than she’d realised, and the bra was cut low enough to display the fact.

It was like discovering that she’d been naked under his gaze all the time, and had never known it. She could feel herself beginning to blush.

But, just in time, she saw what he was really up to. He wanted her to think only of Mark, and if that meant fighting off other interests, then he’d do just that.

Well, forewarned was forearmed she thought, amused. It wouldn’t hurt to torment him a little.

‘The truth is that I’m at a crossroads in my life.’ She sighed. ‘Freedom’s all very well up to a point, but sooner or later a woman wants to settle down with a good man. And then there’s security. When I’ve paid off Joe’s debts there won’t be much left and I should be looking to the future.’

‘You mean you’d marry him for money?’

‘Not just that. You said it yourself, he’s my hero. His voice makes my heart beat with anticipation-’

She stopped. He was looking at her.

‘Well, something like that, anyway.’ She laughed.

‘You’re playing a very cool game. Why aren’t you in London, knocking on his door, making sure of him?’

‘Because that would send him running in the opposite direction. How would you feel about a woman who threw herself at you? Silly me, I suppose they already do.’

He regarded her satirically. ‘Think so?’

‘With your money?’ she asked airily. ‘Of course they do.’

It was a gross slander, she thought, looking at him stretched out on the sand in negligent ease. She had seen him from a distance, but close up he was even more impressive.

She considered this matter entirely dispassionately. Her own preference was for a man like Andrew, built on less spectacular lines, but with a mind that met hers.

And a man’s mind was important, she mused. Andrew was intelligent, literary, with fine, sensitive fibres. Justin Dane was undoubtedly intelligent. Or rather, where his own interests were concerned he was shrewd and cunning. He certainly wasn’t literary, and she suspected that his fibres resembled thick canvas.

It was just annoying that he had a body designed to send an easily provoked female into a frenzy. Luckily for her, she wasn’t easily provoked.

Mark came running up the beach with a little crab which he displayed proudly.

‘Look what I’ve got.’

‘Very nice,’ Justin said, regarding the object askance.

‘Isn’t he beautiful?’ Evie said, taking the little crab in her hand. ‘I used to look for these on this beach when I was a child.’

‘What did you do with them?’ Mark wanted to know.

‘I used to look for someone whose shirt I could drop it down.’

‘Really!’ Justin said in a voice heavy with significance. ‘Let me advise both of you to forget any such idea.’

Then Mark delighted her by asking, ‘Not scared, are you, Dad?’

And Justin pleased her even more by grinning and saying, ‘Terrified. So remember that, and beware!’

They all laughed. It was the happiest and most relaxed moment that the three of them had shared.

Her phone rang again. Her heart leapt at the thought that it might be Andrew, yet she knew a brief flash of regret that the moment was over.

But it wasn’t Andrew. An unfamiliar female voice asked if that was Miss Wharton, then went on to explain that a couple would like to look over the cottage.

‘This afternoon, if possible.’

‘Yes-yes, of course,’ Evie said. ‘Do you need directions?’

As she described the way, Justin began to pack up their things, quietly explaining to Mark what was happening. When Evie hung up they were ready to go.

‘That was the estate agent,’ she said. ‘A Mr and Mrs Nicholson will be here to view the cottage in a couple of hours.’

Then she turned away quickly so that her face shouldn’t betray how wretched she suddenly felt.

‘I suppose a potential buyer is good news,’ Justin mused.

‘Yes,’ she said, trying to convince herself. ‘I should go and tidy up.’

They had all left early that morning, not stopping to make beds and do washing-up, in their eagerness to get to the beach. Now they helped her, going around the cottage at speed, shoving things into drawers and hurrying dusters over every spare surface.

The Nicholsons arrived half an hour early and walked in as though they already owned the place. They were rich, middle-aged and insensitive.

‘Isn’t this just wonderful?’ Mrs Nicholson demanded of her husband, standing in the middle of the downstairs room. ‘Look at those flagstones. How romantic! And a real open fire! How beautiful! Of course, it’ll have to come out.’

‘But why, if it’s beautiful?’ Evie couldn’t help asking.

‘Unhygienic. All that smoke.’

‘It goes up the chimney,’ Justin observed.

‘But it’s still unhygienic,’ Mrs Nicholson said firmly. She was plainly a woman who grabbed an idea and hung on to it.

She and her mostly silent husband went through the whole cottage like that, criticising while pronouncing everything beautiful, wonderful, magnificent.

Justin’s brow was getting darker, as though this behaviour upset him too, and at last he came up behind Evie, putting his warm hands firmly on her shoulders and murmuring into her ear, ‘It’s perfect, but it’s all got to be changed. To hell with them!’

She growled agreement. His hands vanished from her shoulders, leaving behind a warm imprint that stayed with her for several minutes.

‘We just love it,’ Mrs Nicholson proclaimed at last. Mr Nicholson nodded without speaking.

‘Of course, it’s very over-priced,’ she charged on. ‘We’d expect you to come down.’

‘I’m afraid that’s not possible.’

For a moment Evie wondered who had spoken. All she knew for certain was that it wasn’t herself. Then she saw Justin’s face. He was giving Mrs Nicholson the kind of resolute look that she imagined he’d used to close profitable deals in the past. Evie stared at him, past speech.

‘You see,’ he went on, ‘Miss Wharton can’t make any agreement. You have to deal with her uncle’s executor, who is obliged, by law, to get the best possible deal. So I’m afraid he won’t be in favour of an “agreement”-’

‘But I’m sure you realise-’

‘And I’m sure that you realise that he would be very displeased with her if she agreed a lower price with you.’

‘But surely a private arrangement first-’

‘Miss Wharton will give you the executor’s number, and he’ll expect your call.’

Sulkily the woman took the number and made a grand exit, her husband trailing meekly in her wake. Through the window, the three of them watched the couple get into a car whose size and luxury left no doubt of their ability to meet the price.

Evie turned awed eyes on Justin, and found him regarding her with less than his usual confidence.

‘Did I go too far?’ he asked.

‘No,’ she said. ‘You were terrific. But how-?’

‘She was trying to steamroller you and I wasn’t going to let it happen. I’m an old hand in the art of not getting steamrollered.’

‘I’ll bet you are. Thank you.’ Then she sighed. ‘But I’ll have to sell in the end.’

‘Yes, but you’ve got a little more time.’

‘Don’t you want to sell?’ Mark asked her. He’d been listening intently.

She could only shake her head.

The call from the lawyer came an hour later. The Nicholsons had made an offer, but it was below the market price.

‘I’ve refused and we’re playing a waiting game,’ he said. ‘I think they’ll go higher if we wait. Or do you think I should make the deal now?’

‘No,’ she said quickly. ‘We should wait.’

‘What happened?’ Justin asked as soon as she hung up.

‘They’ve made an offer below the price. I’m not taking it.’

‘Good for you.’

‘Does that mean we can stay here?’ Mark asked eagerly.

‘Yes, we don’t have to go for a bit,’ she told him, smiling.

‘Yippee!’ he crowed. ‘We’re going to have a wonderful time.’

She hugged him. ‘That’s right. We’re going to have a wonderful time.’