Cruel Legacy
Penny Jordan

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

EPILOGUE

Copyright

PROLOGUE

‘HEARD the latest?’ the nurse coming on to the ward asked. Sally Bruton paused in her task of checking the charts at the end of the patient’s bed, frowning a little as she saw that the specialist had increased the man’s dosage of antibiotics.

Joseph O’Malley was sixty-eight and not recovering as well from his operation as he should have been doing. When Sally was on duty in Men’s Surgical she tried to find extra time to sit and talk to him. She had noticed that he didn’t appear to have any family, or any friends. She winced tiredly as she straightened up and turned round to answer the other nurse’s question.

‘What latest?’ she asked her.

‘A suicide,’ the woman told her. ‘Some man in a big, posh car. I heard about it on the way in. Wonder what made him do it … What time are you due off?’ she asked Sally, changing the subject.

‘Half an hour ago,’ Sally told her drily. She had had to stay on because the nurse relieving her was late and there had been so many cutbacks recently that there had been no one to cover for her.

Not that, if she was honest with herself, she really minded working that extra couple of hours. It meant that when she got home Joel would have gone to work.

It had been a long week; they had had three emergency admissions and, although she was flattered by Sister’s praise of her competence and ability to cope under pressure, there was no doubt that the work was very tiring.

She had hinted to her that the hospital would like her to consider working more hours … perhaps even full-time, and she already knew how Joel would react to that! It had been bad enough when she had told him that she was coming back to work part-time.

‘We need the money,’ she had told him, ignoring his set expression.

‘No, we don’t. I’ll put in for extra overtime,’ he had told her stubbornly.

But then Kilcoyne’s had gone on short time and he had been forced to concede that she was right. The loan he had taken out for his new car and the garage they had had built to house it had meant that they couldn’t possibly manage on his basic wage; not that he had been too pleased to hear her say it.

Yes, she was glad when she was asked to work some extra hours.

Normally, when she got back, Joel was still in bed. In bed, but awake … Her mind shied abruptly away from her thoughts. She was too tired, had too many other things to worry about to spend time dwelling on the sexual hostility that had developed between her and Joel.

Already she could feel her body tensing in rejection, the familiar despair and resentment sweeping over her.

Why couldn’t Joel understand that … ?

The sound of a patient’s bell from further down the ward interrupted her thoughts and sent her to find out what was wrong.

The ward doors opened and in the corridor she saw a small posse of men, two in police uniform and with them the hospital’s pathologist … no doubt on their way to the morgue and the suicide Pat had mentioned.

Sally gave a small shiver. She was a nurse, trained to preserve and nurture life. The man who had killed himself—had he had a family … children … a wife, a woman who right now was lying alone in bed, wondering where her husband was … missing the warmth and intimacy of his body next to hers, or was she more like her … did she too … ?

Abruptly, Sally switched off her thoughts as she reached out to straighten her patient’s bed and retrieve the glasses he had dropped.

Deborah Franklin stretched out her arm sleepily, moving luxuriously in the bed, a small smile curling her mouth. Last night had been so good. Her body still ached gently from their lovemaking; when she touched her skin, it felt sensually alive and femininely soft. She and Mark had always been good together in bed. Good together in every way. She was so lucky … she had worked hard to achieve her luck, though.

‘And Ryan said that he was very pleased with what I’d done. He hinted that there could be more in it for me than just an extra bonus, Mark … He didn’t say so outright, but I’m almost sure I’m going to get a promotion out of it.’

‘Good for you,’ Mark had grunted.

She had laughed good-naturedly. Men never really wanted to talk after sex and she couldn’t really blame Mark for being tired.

She’d been on a real high, buoyed up by her boss’s praise and the tantalising hints he’d thrown about the possible consequences of her hard work. She’d never been coy about expressing her sexual needs; why should she be? Mark and she were equals in all respects. Admittedly, he was that little bit ahead of her up the career ladder, but then he had joined the partnership before her. In fact, he had been the one to suggest that she leave her previous firm and apply for her present post.

‘Why don’t you put in for it if it’s so good?’ she had asked him then. He had shaken his head.

‘Receivership and insolvency work isn’t in my field. I prefer creation, not destruction …’

‘A good receiver can keep a company going …’ she had protested.

‘A receiver, yes … a liquidator, no.’

Deborah had smiled. They had met at university, both of them headed for the fast track. Even then she had set her sights ultimately on a partnership within a large firm of accountants while Mark had wanted a life out of London, finance director on the board of some prosperous Midlands company, perhaps.

As he walked back into the bedroom, she smiled invitingly up at him, patting the empty space next to her in bed.

‘Oh, no … not again,’ he protested.

Deborah laughed, but Mark wasn’t laughing with her, she recognised. He was frowning, turning away from the bed and opening a drawer, extracting clean underwear.

‘Mark …’

‘I’m sorry, Deborah, but I promised Peter I’d be in early this morning …’

‘Are you sure I can’t persuade you to change your mind?’ she teased him, flirting her fingertips against his stomach and then withdrawing slightly as she felt his body tense.

‘What is it, what’s wrong?’ she asked him quietly.

‘Nothing … Look, I’m sorry I have to go but …’

‘I know, you promised Peter, but since when has your department been so busy that you need to go in early?’ she asked him wryly. ‘As I understand it, that side of the business has been hit pretty badly by the recession. You said yourself——’

‘Look, Deborah, I know you’re feeling pretty pleased with yourself, and I’m pleased for you, but just give the gloating a break for a little while, will you?’

Open-mouthed, Deborah stared after his retreating back.

What did he mean, gloating? She hadn’t been gloating … she had simply wanted him to share her excitement, her pleasure … her pride in what she had achieved. Gloating … That was the kind of language men used to put women down, but Mark had never been like that. That was one of the reasons she loved him so much. He had always accepted her equality. He had always praised and encouraged her.

He came back into the bedroom, his thick fair hair neatly brushed into shape, and removed a clean shirt from the wardrobe. He then bent to switch on the radio, turning the sound up so that she would have had to raise her voice to speak to him above it.

What was wrong with him this morning?

As she watched him, the newsreader was announcing a suicide, a man found dead in his car. Deborah heard the item without paying it too much attention. It was a depressingly common event these days, and besides, she was much more concerned about Mark’s comment to her than she was about the death of an unknown man.

‘Bad night?’ Elizabeth Humphries asked her husband sympathetically as he let himself into the kitchen. He had been called out on an emergency at two o’clock, a bad accident on the bypass, a young boy on a motorbike with serious injuries.

‘With luck he’ll make it … just, although for a time it was touch and go … His left arm was severed and some ribs were broken, causing internal injuries. Luckily someone had had the forethought to pack the arm in ice. Twenty years ago, ten years ago even, it would have been impossible for us to reattach it. Surgery’s come a hell of a long way since I first started practising. Not that there’s any way I could have done an intricate operation like that.’

‘Micro-surgery is not your speciality,’ she reminded him. ‘But without all the hard work you put in fund-raising, the hospital wouldn’t have a micro-surgery unit.’

‘I know, I know, but sometimes it makes me feel old, watching these youngsters.’

‘You’re not old,’ she protested. He was three months away from his fifty-fifth birthday. She was five years younger.

They had been married for twenty-eight years and she still loved him as much now as she had done then, albeit in a different way.

‘You should be in bed,’ he told her. ‘Isn’t today one of your days at the Citizens Advice Bureau … ?’

‘Yes.’

No matter how busy he was, how overworked, he always seemed to find time to remember what she was doing. He had been the one who’d encouraged her to do voluntary work when their daughter had first left home.

She had been afraid then, convinced that her services wouldn’t be wanted. Now, with the problems caused by the recession, they were busier than they had ever been, so busy, in fact …

She frowned as she heard him saying tiredly, ‘We had another emergency tonight … not one we were able to do anything about, unfortunately. A suicide.’

‘Oh, poor man!’ she exclaimed, putting down the teapot.

‘You spoil me, you know,’ he told her as she poured him a second cup of tea.

She laughed at him. ‘I enjoy doing it. Sara rang. She thinks Katie has chickenpox.’

‘Oh, lord. Well, a few spots won’t hurt her.’

‘No, but Ian is already panicking. You know what doctors are like about their own families.’

‘I should do … after all, I am one.’

They both laughed.

‘Do you remember the time Sara fell off the swing and broke her arm? You were in a worse state than she was. “It’s broken, Daddy,” she said. “You’ll have to set it."’

‘Yes, I remember … I was shaking so much I didn’t dare touch her and you had to splint it in the end. Some surgeon. Some father.’

‘The best,’ she told him lovingly, rubbing her face against his head.

‘I hope that young lad survives,’ he told her more seriously. ‘It’s always such a damn waste when we lose a young life like that. Sometimes I think I’m getting too old for this job, too emotional. A surgeon shouldn’t have emotions.’

‘If you didn’t care so much you wouldn’t be such a good surgeon,’ she told him fiercely. ‘People trust you, Richard. And with good reason.’

‘I wonder what made him do it?’

‘What? Oh—speeding … the usual thing …’

‘No, not him, the man who killed himself. Such a dreadful thing to do, to end one’s life …’

‘Mmm, it’s ended for him, but for those closest to him … for his family it’s just beginning, poor devils.’

Philippa opened her eyes warily. Andrew’s side of the bed was empty and cold. She shivered slightly, although not because she missed his presence beside her; that side of their marriage had soured into dull habit ages ago, after Daniel was born.

No, it wasn’t his sexual presence in their bed that she missed.

He had been acting so oddly lately. He had never been easy to talk to at the best of times, hating any hint that she might be questioning his decisions … his dictates, as Rory had rebelliously begun to call them. She had hated it when he had insisted on the boys going to boarding-school, but perhaps it had been for the best. When they were at home it was obvious that they were aware of the atmosphere in the house … the tension … Andrew’s irritation.

At half-term he had really lost his temper with Rory. What the hell did he do with his clothes? he had demanded. Didn’t he realise how much things cost? And what about her … ? Why didn’t she see to it that the boys had a more responsible attitude towards their possessions, and why the hell couldn’t she stop them from making so much damned noise? Wasn’t it enough that he provided her and them with every luxury they could want, breaking his back, working damn near twenty-four hours a day? All he wanted when he came home, all he asked in return was a bit of peace and quiet, a home where he could bring his colleagues and clients without feeling ashamed.

Other wives, he had told her bitterly, managed far better than she did. She had stopped herself from pointing out that other wives probably also knew exactly when their husbands were due home … but over the years she had learned the uselessness of trying to argue with him when he lost his temper.

Wasn’t it enough, he had raged, that he worked his bollocks off to provide her with one of the most expensive and impressive houses in the area, a new car every year, and a lifestyle that all their friends envied?

‘He doesn’t provide them for us … he does it for himself,’ Rory had said bitterly when Andrew had slammed out of the house.

Philippa knew it was true, but she had shushed her elder son all the same. Their friends … what friends? she had wondered later. They had no real friends, only people he thought were useful … people he either wanted to impress or who impressed him. Her one and only real local friend he dismissed contemptuously, claiming that she and her husband were simply not their financial equals.

Status was something that was very important to Andrew. It was, for instance, no secret to her that, despite the fact that he never lost an opportunity to criticise her brother Robert and his wife, Lydia, secretly he was eaten up with jealousy of Robert; eaten up with jealousy and bitterly resentful of the fact that Robert’s marriage to Lydia had allowed him to enter a world which remained closed to him.

Robert had married Lydia because of who she was, because of her family connections and their money, he had declared.

Philippa had said nothing. How could she? After all, hadn’t Andrew married her for exactly the same reasons? And hadn’t she, deep down inside herself, known it … known it and refused to listen to the small, desperate inner voice which had begged her to reconsider what she was doing?

She had been too angry to do so … too angry … too proud and too hurt. Since it was obvious that she had no worth, no value as herself, as the person she knew herself to be, since it seemed she was not even to be allowed to define the kind of person she was, then she might as well be the daughter her parents, and most especially her father, wished her to be. That person was the kind of person who would automatically marry someone like Andrew … the other Philippa. Her Philippa … her Philippa no longer existed, had been destroyed a long time ago; she had not been strong enough to fight for survival … not without love to sustain her.

Love. There was certainly no love in the relationship between her and Andrew.

Andrew and Robert had been at school together, Robert the son of the area’s most successful and respected businessman, Andrew the son of elderly parents who had produced him late in life. Both of them, Philippa suspected—Andrew’s elderly, scholarly father whose main interests were his books and his fossil collection, and Andrew’s mother, a timid, quiet woman who had been much in awe of her own mother—had never quite got over the shock of producing a child who was so different in outlook and ambition from themselves.

It was typical of Andrew that when Robert had been appointed chairman of the family company Lydia’s uncle owned Andrew had immediately started lobbying for promotion to the board of his own employers.

When that had proved unsuccessful, the last thing Philippa had expected was that he would suddenly decide to resign from his job and buy his own company, his own chairmanship.

She could still remember her feeling of dismay when he had told her what he was doing. His mouth had started to twist with bitterness and, recognising what was coming, her heart had dropped even further.

‘Of course if that stupid old bag hadn’t gone and left what should have been mine to someone else, I wouldn’t need to work at all.’

Philippa had said nothing. There was no point in reminding him that his great-aunt Maud had had every right to leave her money to whomever she chose, even if that someone had turned out to be a six-foot-odd itinerant, a New Zealander who had knocked on her door one summer asking for casual work and who had stayed on over the winter to nurse her when she fell ill and broke her hip—facts of which they had known nothing until after her death, until Andrew, in his rage and disbelief, had virtually accused Tom Forster, twenty-nine to Maud Knighton’s eighty-odd, of being his great-aunt’s lover and of having seduced his, Andrew’s, inheritance away from him.

‘How could she do this to me … to our sons?’ Andrew had demanded, after he and Philippa had left the solicitor’s office.

‘Perhaps if we had visited her more …’ Philippa had suggested hesitantly.

‘What, go traipsing up to Northumberland? How the hell could we have done? You know how impossible it is for me to take time off work.’

Andrew had, of course, typically, threatened to take the matter to court, to have his aunt declared insane and the New Zealander guilty of forcing or threatening her into dispossessing him, but to Philippa’s surprise and relief Tom Forster had quietly and calmly offered to share his inheritance with Andrew on a fifty-fifty basis.

Andrew hadn’t wanted to accept. He had insisted that the very fact that he had made the offer proved that he knew Andrew would win any court case, but Philippa’s father and Robert had put pressure on Andrew to accept.

Robert’s emerging political ambitions made it imperative that his background, his family and their histories were all squeaky-clean; the last thing he wanted was the full distasteful story of Andrew’s quarrel with Tom Forster splashed all over the less savoury tabloids.

Philippa, sensitive to her father’s reactions, had been aware of the way he had distanced himself from Andrew afterwards, but Andrew, she suspected, had not. He was not that sort of man; other people’s feelings and reactions had always been things outside his understanding.

The last thing Philippa had expected, after all his complaints about how difficult life was going to be for them now that his expectations of what he would inherit had been so drastically diminished, was that he would actually part with some of the money. Not some of it, she reminded herself now, but all of it and more beside: money he had borrowed from the bank, boasting to her about the size of the loan the bank had given him, saying that showed how highly they regarded him and his business ability. She on the other hand had felt sick at the thought of their owing so much money.

‘How on earth will you ever be able to repay it?’ she had asked him.

He had laughed at her, telling her she knew nothing whatsoever about business, reminding her scornfully that she had no aptitude for it. ‘Your father was right; all the brains in the family went to your brothers.’

Philippa had winced. She had borne the burden of knowing she was a disappointment to her parents all her life. Ideally, they would have preferred another boy, not a girl, and then, when they had discovered that their third child could in no way compete intellectually with their elder two, they had turned away from her, concentrating instead on her brothers. She felt that they had been relieved when Andrew had asked her to marry him. She had only been nineteen, inexperienced and confused about what to make of her life.

‘I don’t want my wife working,’ Andrew had told her importantly once they were married, and she had resigned herself to giving up ideas of a career.

All he wanted her to do was to be a good wife and mother, Andrew had told her. He was the breadwinner, the wage earner. He didn’t like these strident modern women who seemed so out of touch with their femininity.

On their first wedding anniversary he had given her a diamond bracelet.

‘For my good, pretty girl,’ he had told her and then he had made love to her with the thing glittering on her arm. He had spent himself quickly and fiercely, leaving her slightly sore inside and unsatisfied. She remembered that when she had opened her eyes he had not been looking at her but at the bracelet.

She had worn it for the birthday meal he had insisted she invite her parents to. She had felt sick and headachy; she had just been pregnant with Rory, although she hadn’t known it at the time.

Andrew had lost his temper with her because the soufflé he had told her to make hadn’t risen, his mouth thinning into an angry, tight line.

He had never been a violent husband, but he had always resented anything that challenged his authority in even the smallest way. Her inability to make a perfect soufflé had been a challenge to that authority. His authority over her. His desire that she at all times reflect his success … his power … his massive ego.

When the children had been born it was just the same. They had to be a credit to him … always.

No, he had never been an easy man to live with, although no one else seemed to be aware of it. She was lucky to be married to him, other people told her. He was a good husband, her family said … adding approvingly that he had done well.

Just lately, though, he had seemed increasingly on edge, his temper flaring over the smallest thing. One moment he would be complaining about the amount she had spent on housekeeping, or protesting furiously about money she had spent on plants for the garden, the next he was announcing that he was buying a new car … that they were going on an expensive holiday.

When she had protested bewilderedly at his attitude, he had told her harshly that it was important to keep up appearances.

Appearances … Appearances were all-important to Andrew. She might not have much intelligence but at least she was pretty, her father had once said disparagingly.

Pretty …

‘Why do I want to marry you? Because I love you, pretty little thing,’ Andrew had told her when he proposed, then, ‘I can’t wait to show you off to everyone,’ he had told her when they got engaged, and, looking back, it seemed to her now that he had enjoyed her company in public far more than he had ever done in private.

Pretty … How she had grown to dislike that word.

She could hear a car coming up the drive. She got up, sliding out of bed and pulling on her housecoat. It was silk … a Christmas present from Andrew, ‘To wear when we stay with the Ronaldsons,’ he had told her with a smile.

‘I feel so sorry for him. That wife of his isn’t just plain, she’s downright ugly.’

‘He loves her,’ she had told him quietly.

‘Don’t be a fool. No man would love a woman who looks like that. He married her for her money; everyone knows that.’

The car had stopped. She frowned as she opened the bedroom door. The engine had sounded different from Andrew’s new Jaguar.

At first when he had started coming home later and later, she had assumed he was having an affair, and she had been surprised at how little she had minded, but then she had discovered that what he had actually been doing was working.

She had begun to worry then, but when she had tried to talk to him he had told her not to pester him.

‘For God’s sake, I’ve got enough on my mind without you nagging me,’ he had told her. ‘Just leave me alone, will you? This damned recession …’

‘If things are that bad, perhaps we should sell the house,’ she had suggested, ‘take the boys out of private school.’

‘Do what … ? You stupid fool, we might as well take out an advertisement in The Times to announce that we’re going bust as do that … have you no sense? The last thing I need right now is to have people losing confidence in us, and that’s exactly what will happen if we sell this place.’

Last weekend they had gone to see her brother and Robert and Andrew had played golf, leaving Philippa and Lydia to a rather disjointed afternoon of talk. When the men had got back there was a strained atmosphere between them and Andrew had announced that they had to leave.

Philippa hadn’t been sorry to go. She and Robert had never been close. She had always been much closer to her other brother, Michael, and Lydia she had never liked at all. Andrew still hadn’t come in. She went downstairs, thinking he must have forgotten his keys. When she opened the door and saw the police car outside, she tensed.

‘Mrs Ryecart?’

The policeman came towards her. There was a policewoman with him. Both of them had grave faces.

‘If we might just come in …’

She knew, of course … had known straight away that Andrew was dead, but she had thought it must be an accident … not this … not a deliberate taking of his own life. They had tried to break it to her gently. Found in his car … the engine running … unfortunately reached the hospital too late.

Suicide.

WPC Lewis would stay with her, the policeman was saying quietly. ‘Is there anyone else you’d like us to inform … your husband’s parents … ?’

Philippa shook her head.

‘I’ll make you a cup of tea,’ the WPC was saying. ‘You’ve had a shock.’

Suicide …

She started to tremble violently.

CHAPTER ONE

‘MUM, Paul’s still in the bathroom and he won’t let me in.’

Sally paused on the landing, grimacing as she stooped down to pick up the sock she had dropped on her last trip downstairs with the dirty washing. Her back still ached from working yesterday.

‘Paul, hurry up,’ she commanded as she rapped on the bathroom door.

‘He knows I’m going to Jane’s and I’m going to be late now,’ Cathy wailed.

‘No, you won’t,’ Sally soothed her daughter. ‘He’ll be out in a minute.’

‘He’s doing it deliberately. I hate him,’ Cathy announced passionately.

Sally had just finished loading the washing machine when Paul came into the kitchen. Was he never going to stop growing? she wondered. Those new jeans she had bought for him last month were already too short.

‘Where’s Dad?’ he demanded.

‘He’s not back yet,’ she told him.

Joel had been irritable and difficult to live with ever since they had heard the news that Andrew Ryecart had committed suicide. Sally knew that he was worried about his job, but there was no need to take it out on them—it wasn’t their fault!

‘He said he was going to come home early,’ Paul grumbled. ‘He was going to take me fishing.’

Sally’s face tightened. This wouldn’t be the first time recently that Joel had done something like this. Only last week they’d had a row about the fact that he’d forgotten that she’d arranged for them to go round to her sister’s and had arranged to play snooker instead.

‘You were the one who arranged to see them,’ he had countered when she had complained.

‘Well, someone had to,’ she had told him. ‘If it was left to you we’d never see anyone from one blue moon to another.’

‘I forgot,’ he’d told her, shrugging the matter aside as though it weren’t important. Unwilling to continue arguing with him in front of the children, Sally had gritted her teeth and said nothing, but inwardly she had been seething.

She had still been angry with him about it later that night when he had come in from his snooker match, walking away from him when he started telling her about it and later turning her back on him in bed, freezing her body into rejecting immobility when he had reached out and touched her breast.

They had argued about that as well. In hushed, angry whispers so as not to wake the children. They were getting older now and Cathy in particular was becoming sharply aware. Only a couple of months ago she had come home from school asking if Sally and Joel still had sex.

‘Well, you shouldn’t have had much problem answering that one,’ Joel had grunted when she’d told him.

She frowned again, remembering the conversation which had followed.

‘I suppose that’s going to be another excuse, is it?’ Joel had demanded aggressively. ‘You don’t want the kids overhearing us. Not that there is very much to overhear these days.’

‘Sex—you’re obsessed with it,’ she had countered. ‘We can’t discuss anything these days without your turning it into an argument about sex.’

‘Perhaps that’s because arguing about it is just about all we do,’ he had told her angrily.

It hadn’t always been like this between them—far from it. When they had first married … when they had first met …

She had been a shy, awkward girl of fourteen, her shyness made worse by the fact that she and her parents had only recently moved into the area. At school she had felt isolated and friendless. Her sister, seven years her senior, was already adult, and it was probably inevitable that the others should have picked up on her loneliness and started bullying her.

It had been Joel who had come to her rescue; two years older than her, a tall, dark-haired, broad-shouldered boy with an air of solid self-confidence about him on which she had instinctively and gratefully leaned.

He was the middle child in a family of five, with two older sisters and a pair of younger, twin brothers. The chaotic and unruly household absent-mindedly presided over by his mother had been in such direct contrast to her own orderly home lifestyle that it had fascinated her. Joel’s father was a loud, boisterous bear of a man who made his living in a variety of different ways, from running a market stall to working in a friend’s pub.

He had something of the gypsy in him, both in his looks and his way of life. Joel’s mother had, so local gossip went, married down when she’d married him. Vague and fragile, and completely unworldly, she treated her children as though she was still not quite convinced that she had actually produced them.

Her elder daughter was more a mother to her siblings than a sister, and Joel at sixteen, already mature beyond his years, had been someone for Sally’s fourteen-year-old self to look up to with shy adoration.

They had grown apart after they left school, Joel to begin his apprenticeship and she to begin nursing, and had only met again later through a mutual friend.

There had been sexual attraction enough between them then and more than enough to spare, although Joel had not rushed her into bed.

She had liked that in him. It showed restraint—and respect.

Initially, her parents hadn’t been too keen on their marrying. Her mother had cherished hopes of her marrying a doctor, and Sally had had to suffer listening to her mother’s praises of her sister Daphne’s marriage to a teacher, a white-collar worker.

Both her parents and Joel’s were dead now, and Joel’s brothers and sisters had moved right away from the Lincolnshire town where they had been born and raised. The only family close by now was Sally’s sister Daphne, and Daphne always managed to make Sally feel inferior, second-rate. She and Joel had never liked one another and she knew that Joel disliked her visiting her sister.

‘What’s wrong with you now?’ Joel had demanded after Daphne had summoned her so that she could show off her new kitchen.

‘Nothing,’ she had retorted, but later that night, looking round her own kitchen, she had suddenly started to contrast it and the rest of her home with Daphne’s much larger house. When Joel had seen the kitchen brochures she had brought home, his mouth had compressed immediately.

‘A new kitchen?’ he had stormed. ‘Are you crazy, Sal—have you seen the price of this stuff?’

The quarrel that had followed had been one of the worst they had ever had.

‘We could take out a loan for it,’ Sally had told Joel stubbornly. ‘That’s what Daphne and Clifford did. I could work extra hours to pay for it and——’

‘No,’ Joel had interrupted her. ‘We can’t afford it and I don’t want——’

‘We couldn’t afford for you to have a new car or a garage to keep it in,’ Sally had pointed out bitterly. ‘But you still got them.’

She had known from the white look round his lips that she had gone too far, but stubbornly she had refused to take the words back. Instead she had continued recklessly, ‘If I’m going to have to work to pay for your car, Joel, I might as well do a bit extra and pay for something I want as well.’

Joel hadn’t made any response, but the look on his face, in his eyes, had made her catch her bottom lip between her teeth.

Joel was a very proud man—too proud, she sometimes thought—but then her guilt had changed to irritation. Why should she be the one to feel bad just because she wanted a new kitchen? Was it really so much to ask? The trouble with Joel was that his precious pride was more important to him than she was, or so she was beginning to think.

In the end, Joel had given way and she had got her kitchen. The units weren’t the same as her sister’s expensive hand-painted ones, of course. Joel had installed theirs himself, working in the evenings and at weekends, and the day he had finished them she had come home from night duty to find that he had worked all through the night to get them finished.

He had grinned at her like a boy as he’d invited her to admire his handiwork, sweeping her up into his arms and kissing her.

He had smelled of wood and paint and sweat, his exuberance reminding her of the boy he had been when they first met.

The kitchen had been perfect … just what she had wanted, and she hadn’t resisted when he had whispered suggestively to her that they play out a certain sexy scene from the film Fatal Attraction to celebrate its completion …

Paul had put on his coat and was opening the back door.

‘Where are you going?’ Sally asked him sharply.

‘Round to Jack’s,’ he told her. ‘Dad still isn’t back and it’s going to be too late now.’

She let him go, feeling her irritation against Joel grow. It wasn’t fair, the way he always put himself first and refused to pull his weight, leaving her to do everything.

It had been all right, expecting her to run the house and take care of all the kids’ needs when she was at home, but now that she was working …

‘So stop working,’ he had told her last week when she had come home to find the house in a mess and him sitting in front of the television.

‘You know I can’t,’ she had protested. ‘We need the money.’

‘I’m ready, Mum …’

She forced herself to smile at Cathy as she came into the kitchen.

‘OK, love, I’ll take you now. Don’t forget, your dad’s picking you up.’

‘Huh … if he remembers. Mum, can we go to Florida next year? Nearly everyone in the class has been except for me.’

‘Florida’s very expensive, Cathy …’

Sally hadn’t told Joel, but she had already decided that she was going to try and put something aside from her wages into a special holiday account. She’d love to take the kids to Disneyland. Another few years or so and they would be too old to really enjoy it. It would be worth making a few sacrifices, and if she and Joel both put the same amount away each month …

‘Don’t forget,’ she reminded Cathy as she dropped her off outside her friend’s home, ‘you’re not to leave until your dad comes to pick you up.’

‘All right, all right. I’m not a baby, you know,’ Cathy told her as she rolled her eyes and tossed her hair.

Physically, Cathy took after Joel’s mother, being small, blonde and far too pretty. She had none of Sally’s thick dark hair and, thankfully, seldom revealed any of the tension that often clouded Sally’s deep’brown eyes.

Temperamentally Cathy was far stronger than Joel’s mother and, if neither of their children had shown any signs of the superior intelligence Daphne claimed for her son, Edward, they were both doing well enough at school for Sally to feel secretly very proud of them.

It was nice to have the house to herself, she acknowledged when she got back; not that she was likely to have any time to appreciate her solitude. Unlike Joel, she could not sit down in front of the television set oblivious to the chaos around her.

Upstairs the bathroom floor was covered in wet towels and someone had left the shower gel open on the shower floor, so that its contents was oozing wastefully away.

‘You should make the children contribute more to the household work,’ Daphne had remonstrated with her when she had called round unexpectedly one day and found her sister up to her eyes in domestic chores.

‘The way you do with Edward?’ Sally had commented wryly.

‘Edward is a very special child. With his level of intelligence he needs a constant input of intellectual stimuli to prevent him getting bored. Besides, he’s naturally a very tidy boy. Your two need the discipline of taking responsibility for certain domestic chores. But then, of course, I suppose it is difficult for you. If Joel were a different kind of man … Clifford is marvellous in the house. He wouldn’t dream of sitting down and expecting me to do everything … but then of course it’s all down to background, isn’t it?’ she had added. ‘And with Joel’s family background …’

Daphne hadn’t meant to be unkind. It was just that, as the older sister, she had always seemed to think it her role to have the freedom to comment on and criticise Sally’s family and way of life.

‘She’s a snob,’ Joel had once commented blatantly, and a part of Sally agreed with him, but naturally, since Daphne was her sister, she had felt duty-bound to defend her. She looked at her watch.

She had another half hour before she needed to leave for work.

She finished cleaning the bathroom, emptied the washing machine and refilled it. Both Cathy’s and Paul’s bedrooms were fearsomely untidy, but she hardened her heart. They both knew that they were supposed to tidy their own rooms.

Where was Joel? Irritably she scribbled him a note, reminding him that he had to pick Cathy up and that he had forgotten his promise to Paul.

It must be nice to be a man, and not have to worry about domestic routine and arrangements, safe in the knowledge that there was someone else there to cope. Well, she reflected, she didn’t have that luxury, and if she didn’t leave in five minutes flat Sister was going to be reminding her that every minute she was late meant that either someone else had to cover for her or the ward went unstaffed … Sister was a stickler for punctuality, and who could blame her? If only she could impose the same awareness of responsibility on Joel that Sister imposed on her ward nurses.

As she finally locked the back door behind her, she breathed a small sigh of relief.

Wearily Joel opened the back door. The kitchen smelled cold and empty, unlike the kitchen of his childhood where his brothers and sisters had always played. But his mother hadn’t always been there, too caught up in doing other things, just like …

He dismissed the thought irritably. No one could ever accuse Sally of not being a good mother—far from it. She doted on Paul and Cathy. Spoiled them, made it obvious that their needs came first in her life—well before his.

He frowned as he caught sight of the note on the kitchen table.

Pick up Cathy. All he wanted to do was to sit down and unwind, to think about what was happening at work.

They had all known that Andrew’s suicide had to be bad news for the company. It had been obvious for months that things weren’t going well. No one seemed to know exactly what was going to happen, but everyone was afraid that it would mean more job losses, more redundancies.

The other men had turned to him, as foreman, for reassurance and explanations, but he hadn’t been able to give them, and on top of his own feelings of anxiety and uncertainty he had felt as though he was somehow failing them, letting them down in not being able to supply the answers to their questions.

He had tried to see the works manager, but the pale, thin girl who was his secretary had simply shaken her head. The last thing he needed was to come home to an empty house and a terse note from Sally complaining because he had forgotten he had promised to take Paul fishing. Didn’t she realise how serious the situation was?

He had tried to ring to explain that he was going to be late, but the phone had been engaged.

He hadn’t eaten anything all day and his stomach felt empty, but the last thing he wanted was food. He looked at the note again and then checked his watch. He might as well go straight round for Cathy.

Jane’s mother gave him an amused look as she opened the door.

‘I’ve come to collect Cathy,’ he told her.

She was a plump, slightly over-made-up blonde, the smile she gave him just a little bit too suggestive as she told him, ‘Lucky Cathy,’ and added, ‘Look, why don’t you come in and have a drink? And I dare say we could find you something to eat,’ she added as they both heard his empty stomach growl protestingly.

‘Thanks but I’d better not. Sally’s got supper on,’ he lied.

‘Oh … I thought she was working tonight.’ The blonde was pouting slightly now, the pale blue eyes narrowing.

He’d never been a man who enjoyed the dangers of flirting, but her obvious availability and sexuality were making him sharply aware of the contrast between her attitude towards him and Sally’s.

His body hungered for the comfort of sexual contact with Sally, but these days she just didn’t want to know. Sometimes he felt the only reason she stayed with him was out of habit and because he provided a home for her and the children plus a steady income to support them all. It certainly wasn’t because she wanted to be with him.

The children were more important to her than he was. Much more important.

Cathy chattered excitedly all the way home.

‘Lindsay Roberts went to Disneyland for her summer holiday,’ she told him. ‘She was telling everyone about it. When can we go, Dad? Everyone else in my class has been.’

‘Stop exaggerating, Cathy,’ he told her sharply. Too sharply, he realised when she suddenly fell silent and he saw the sullen pout of her mouth and the tears shining in her eyes.

‘Why are you so mean?’ she demanded angrily. ‘Mum wants us to go.’

‘I’m not being mean, Cathy … I …’

He stopped. How did you tell a fifteen-year-old that the way things were right now you were lucky to be able to pay the mortgage, never mind pay for expensive American holidays?

‘You’re mean,’ Cathy told him. ‘And you forgot that you promised to take Paul fishing.

‘I wish I lived in a big house like Lindsay’s with a garden all the way round it.’

Joel’s mouth tightened. It wasn’t Cathy’s fault, he told himself. Kids were more materialistic these days; the whole world was more materialistic.

‘Aunt Daphne’s having an extension built on to her house, with a new bathroom. I heard her telling Mum.’

Paul was in the kitchen when they got back. Tiredly, Joel apologised to him and started to explain, but Paul wasn’t listening.

‘It’s OK … I didn’t want to go fishing anyway,’ he told him curtly.

Joel had never found it easy to get on with his son. He had always felt that Sally over-indulged him, much more so than he had ever been indulged as a boy. He could scarcely even remember his mother spending much time with him. She had not been the maternal type, despite giving birth to five children. Sally, on the other hand, had cosseted and protected Paul to the point where Joel had sometimes felt when he was a baby that he wasn’t even allowed to touch him.

‘You’re too hard on him. He’s a child, that’s all,’ Sally would protest whenever he attempted to discipline him.

‘Mum said to tell you that there’s cottage pie in the fridge for supper,’ Cathy informed him. ‘But I don’t want any.’

‘Neither do I,’ Paul announced.

Joel paused in the act of opening the fridge door and then closed it again. The phone rang and he went to answer it. It was the foreman in charge of one of the other production lines at the factory.

‘Fancy a pint?’ he asked.

Joel sighed under his breath.

‘I can’t,’ he told him flatly. ‘Sally’s at work and I’ve got to stay in with the kids.’

‘When I grow up I’m never going to get married,’ Cathy announced when he had replaced the receiver. ‘And I’m going to have lots and lots of money and go to America as often as I like.’

‘Cathy …’ Joel began, and then stopped. What was the point? How could he explain to her?

Later, when both children had gone to bed, he prowled restlessly round the living-room, too on edge to sit down and watch the television. No one knew yet exactly what was going to happen with the factory, but, whatever it was, he already had a gut feeling that it wasn’t going to be good.

As a boy he had felt the effects of his father’s careless attitude towards a settled existence and regular, reliable work; his mother hadn’t seemed to care that some weeks there wasn’t any food in the house.

‘Make sure you ask for seconds at dinnertime,’ Beth, one of his older sisters, had instructed him when he first started school.

He had promised himself even before he and Sally married that his kids would never know the indignity of that kind of poverty; that they would never suffer the effects of that kind of parental irresponsibility.

Three years ago, when Sally had tentatively suggested trying for another baby, he had shaken his head and tried to explain to her how he felt.

Six months later, he had had a vasectomy. Was he imagining it, or was it after that that she had started to lose interest in him sexually, as though she no longer wanted him now that he could not provide her with a child … now that he could no longer fulfil his biological role in her life?

And if he lost his job and he could no longer fulfil his role as breadwinner either, would she reject him even more?

He went into the kitchen and made himself a cup of tea, absent-mindedly leaving the empty unrinsed milk bottle on the worktop.

One of the other men had said to him this afternoon, ‘What the hell are we going to do if this place does close down? There’s nowhere else for us to go. Not in this town.’

‘No,’ he had agreed. ‘Nor anywhere else locally either. The engineering industry’s been hit badly by the recession.’

What he really wanted was to have Sally here at home listening to him while he told her how worried he was, he admitted as he switched on the television and then switched it off again.

She never seemed to have time to listen to him any more, and then she complained that he never talked to her.

Increasingly recently at Kilcoyne’s he had worked hard in his role as foreman to mediate between the men and the management, and as overtime had stopped and the men had felt the effects in their wage packets he had had them coming to him complaining that they were finding it difficult to manage.

He was in exactly the same boat, but because he was their foreman he had felt unable to point this out to them and tell them that he had his own problems.

He had never really wanted Sally to go out to work, and she wouldn’t have had to either if he hadn’t been fool enough to take out that extra loan to buy a new car, and then she had wanted a new kitchen—like her sister.

None of them had known then just how high interest rates were going to rise, and, even though now the payments were easier, they were still heavily in debt to the bank. At the time it had seemed worth taking the risk, he had told himself it had been worth it, and that night when Sally had walked in just as he was finishing the kitchen … It had been a long time since they had made love like that, since he had felt her body clench with excitement and need when he touched her. He had felt really good that night. Happy … secure … a king in command of his own small personal world. And then six weeks later the company had gone on to short time, and Sally had announced that, since he was making such a fuss about the cost of the kitchen, she’d pay off the loan herself.

It had been too late then to take back the angry words he had uttered in the panic of realising just what the drop in his weekly wage was going to be.

And besides, Sally had been proved right. They couldn’t have managed without the money she was bringing in.

Knowing that hurt him more than he wanted to admit. He had tried to tell Sally that, to explain, but she just didn’t seem to want to listen.

She had changed since she’d started working, even though she herself refused to admit it, grown away from him, made him feel he was no longer important to her.

‘You’re lucky,’ one of the men had said to him today. ‘At least your wife’s in work.’

Lucky. If only they knew.

Sally hummed to herself as she walked down the ward. She always enjoyed her work on Men’s Surgical. She paused by Kenneth Drummond’s bedside, responding to his warm smile. The forty-five-year-old university lecturer had been very badly injured in a serious road accident several months earlier, and she had got to know him quite well during his lengthy stay in hospital.

She had been on night duty during his first critical weeks under special care and a deep rapport invariably developed between such patients and the staff who nursed them. At times she had felt as though she had almost been willing him to live, reluctant to go off duty in case without her there he might give up and let go of his precarious hold on life.

It was a feeling no one outside the nursing profession could really be expected to understand. Joel certainly hadn’t done so.

‘You’ll have heard my news, I expect,’ Kenneth commented as she smiled back at him.

‘Yes, Wednesday, isn’t it? You’ll be glad to get away from here, I expect.’

‘Not really.’ His smile disappeared. ‘To be honest with you, I’m feeling rather apprehensive about it. Not because of any lack of faith in your surgeon’s hard work,’ he told her. ‘He’s assured me that he’s put enough pins and bolts in me to hold up the Eiffel Tower. No, it’s not that.’

‘Still, you are bound to feel a bit anxious,’ Sally comforted him. ‘It’s only natural.’

‘Mmm. But it’s not so much that. To be honest with you, it’s the loneliness I’m dreading.’ He pulled a wry face. ‘I don’t suppose I should admit to that, should I? Very unmacho of me. We men are supposed to be tough guys who don’t admit to any kind of emotional vulnerability … until we’re somewhere like this. I don’t know how you nurses manage to put up with us. You can’t be left with a very high opinion of the male sex after you’ve heard us crying into our pillows.’

‘It isn’t always easy,’ Sally admitted. ‘It hurts seeing that someone’s in pain and that you know you can’t always do anything about it. Mind you, it’s nothing to what you hear down on the labour ward,’ she told him, trying to lighten his mood. ‘Of course it’s the men who get the worst of it down there. Woe betide any male nurse who tries to tell a woman in the middle of her contractions just to remember how to breathe and everything will be all right …’

‘Yes. I’ve always thought that, when it comes to bearing pain, women are far braver than men and far more stoical.’

‘Not necessarily,’ Sally told him with a grin. ‘I cursed Joel, my husband, to hell and back when I was having Cathy. I swore afterwards that nothing would ever make me go through anything like that again.’ She smiled reminiscently.

‘You’ve got two children, haven’t you?’ Kenneth asked her.

‘Yes. I would have liked another, but …’

She stopped, frowning. It wasn’t like her to confide so easily in anyone, especially a patient.

‘Have you any children?’ she asked him directly.

Although he had talked to her a lot during the months he had been in hospital, he had never mentioned any family.

‘Yes and no. My wife and I are divorced. She remarried and lives in Australia now.’ His expression changed. ‘I’m afraid I wasn’t either a good husband or a good father. We married very young, straight out of university. Rebecca was pregnant at the time and she blamed me, quite rightly, I suppose, for the fact that her career was over before it had even started. A termination wasn’t an option in those days and neither really was single motherhood. James, our second son, was born following an ill-timed attempt at marital reconciliation. We separated before he was born. They—my sons—are adults now, and anyway they look on their stepfather as their father, and quite rightly, so it’s ridiculous of me to lie here feeling sorry for myself because I’m going home to an empty house when, in truth, it is empty through my own choice.’

‘Have you no one … no family or friend … who could come in and help you out for a few days?’ Sally asked him, concerned. He was making a good recovery from his injuries, much better in fact than anyone had believed when he had first been brought in, but it would still be several months before he was able to move about easily on his repaired leg, despite what the surgeon might have to say about his handiwork.

‘Not really …’ He shrugged his shoulders, powerfully muscled from the exercises the physio had been giving him. ‘My colleagues at the university have done more than enough already. I can hardly expect them to do any more. I suppose I’m lucky that I’m in a profession where this——’ he touched his injured leg ‘—hasn’t meant that I’ve lost my job. Lucky in fact still to have the leg,’ he added, his face suddenly grave.

‘Yes,’ Sally agreed simply.

When he had first been brought in there had been a danger that his left leg might have to be amputated, his injuries had been so severe.

‘You know, lying here these last few weeks has proved something of a double-edged sword. Once the immediate danger is over and you know you’re going to live, you find that you have time on your hands to think about all those things you’ve pushed into the deepest cupboards of your mind, all hidden safely out of sight and then avoided on the grounds that there simply isn’t time to deal with them,’ he told her sombrely. ‘Having a busy life is a wonderful excuse for not dealing with one’s deeper emotional problems, as I’ve discovered.

‘When my wife used to accuse me of being selfish, of living in my own world, I always felt she was being unfair. After all, I had stood by her, hadn’t I? I married her, provided a home for her and the family. It’s only while I’ve been lying here that I’ve come to realise what she meant … I was selfish.’ He paused, watching the effect his words were having on Sally, but her expression reassured him, the sympathy in her eyes encouraging him to go on.

‘I’m a very orderly man,’ he told her. ‘I like neatness and tidiness. It comes, I suspect, of being an only child. She was just the opposite, and when I complained about coming home to the disorder of a household containing a small child she would point out, quite rightly, that she simply didn’t have the time to do everything.

‘I suspect that part of my irritation stemmed from resentment of the fact that she put the baby’s needs before mine. I’ve always believed that she was the one who abandoned our marriage, who broke faith with it by having an affair with another man.’ He paused and gave Sally a painful look. ‘Oh, yes, she managed to find time for that. No doubt the appeal of spending time in bed with her lover was far greater than that of doing the housework …

‘I shouldn’t be criticising her though,’ he added, shaking his head. ‘I realise now that in many ways I had never properly committed myself to our marriage. The family was a duty, a responsibility I shouldered because it was the right thing to do and then, having been seen to do the right thing in the eyes of the world and publicly, I privately turned my back on them by giving to my work, and consequently to myself, my self-esteem, my ego, the time and attention I should have given them.

‘Will you think very badly of me if I tell you that there were many many nights when I deliberately made extra work for myself rather than go home; that I preferred the quiet calm of my work to the noisy, untidy chaos of our home?’

‘No,’ Sally told him honestly, shaking her head. How could she say anything else, when she too knew what it was like to dread returning home, even if it was for different reasons?

‘We should never have married, of course. We weren’t suited; we didn’t even really like one another. I was never the kind of man she wanted, as she proved when she left me. Her lover was all the things I wasn’t and am not …’

Sally made a soft, sympathetic sound that made him stop and smile ruefully at her.

‘Oh, I don’t envy him … in any way. His type of competitive macho sexuality has never been something I’ve wanted to emulate. There, now I really have revealed my inner self to you,’ he told her.

Sally flushed a little as she looked away from him. He was so very different from Joel—in every way. Joel would never talk to her as openly as Kenneth was doing, never discuss his innermost feelings with anyone, never reveal any aspect of himself which might show him in a bad light. Like the man Kenneth’s wife had left him for, Joel too possessed a competitive male sexuality.

Kenneth’s nature was kinder … warmer. A small shadow touched her face, and, seeing it, Kenneth told her gently, ‘You are all the things a woman should be, Sally. All the things any man could possibly want in a woman …’

Sally made a small protesting sound beneath her breath, but he heard it and shook his head.

‘No, it’s true. And so is something else.’ He turned his head and looked at her. ‘I’m going to miss you and our conversations very, very much indeed …’

‘All patients miss their nurses when they first go home,’ Sally told him huskily.

‘Ah … I suppose that’s a tactful way of telling me that all male patients fall a little in love with their nurses,’ he retaliated. ‘Very true. Although in my case I suspect it’s rather more than a little. You must be very glad that you’re happily married, and that you’ve got a wisely protective husband to stand between you and the endless stream of smitten male patients who would probably make your life a misery with their protests of undying love.’

He was smiling at her with his mouth, but his eyes were unsmiling. His eyes … She caught her breath.

It was just as well he was going home, she told herself severely half an hour later when she went for her break.

Sally grimaced disgustedly as she walked into the kitchen and caught sight of the empty, unwashed milk bottle. Joel had left three used teabags in the sink and they had made a dirty brown stain on the surface she had left clean and shining when she went to work. His mug was on the worktop, unwashed. She scooped up the teabags with one hand and turned on the hot tap with the other, her mouth compressing. She could hear Joel coming downstairs, but she didn’t turn round.

‘Do you have to leave the place in such a mess, Joel?’ she demanded as he came into the kitchen.

She could tell from the sound of his feet that he was wearing his slippers, which meant that he wasn’t dressed … which meant … She could feel her stomach muscles tightening protestingly, resentfully, her whole body tensing when he came up behind her and slid his arms round her, trying to nuzzle his face into her neck as he told her, ‘It’s Saturday morning. Leave all that and come to bed. You must be worn out.’

‘Too worn out for what you’ve got in mind,’ she told him shortly, edging away from him, relieved when he abruptly let go of her.

‘For goodness’ sake, aren’t I allowed even to touch you now? What’s the matter with you?’

‘Nothing’s the matter with me,’ she denied, turning round. ‘And as for touching me … all you ever want these days is sex, sex, sex. Why don’t you think about what I might want for a change? Like not coming home to find the place looking like a tip …’

‘It’s an empty milk bottle, Sal, that’s all,’ Joel told her wearily. ‘OK, so I should have rinsed it out, but to be honest with you I had other things on my mind——’

‘Just as you had other things on your mind when you were supposed to come home early and take Paul fishing, I suppose,’ she interrupted him angrily. ‘You’re always accusing me of spending too much time with the kids, Joel, but whose fault is that? If you spent a bit more time with them yourself …’

‘They don’t want me … they …’

He stopped when he saw the stubborn look on her face.

‘I tried to ring, but the phone was engaged. Probably that sister of yours boasting about her new extension …’

Sally stared at him. ‘How do you know about that?’

‘Cathy told me. It seems this house isn’t good enough for her any more. She wants to live somewhere with a garden all the way round it. When you’re complaining to her, perhaps you ought to try explaining to her that if you’d got yourself a husband like your sister’s she might have been in with a chance,’ he added bitterly.

‘Oh for goodness’ sake, Joel, stop feeling so sorry for yourself,’ Sally protested. ‘If you could see some of the patients from the wards …’ She stopped abruptly, tensing inwardly as she recognised what she was doing. It was unfair of her to compare Joel to Kenneth Drummond. Unfair and unwise? ‘Look, it’s been a long night and I’m tired. If you go up and get dressed now you could do the supermarket shopping while it’s still quiet and then——’

‘Yeah … and pushing the trolley will give me something else to think about instead of sex, sex, sex—is that it?’

Sally flinched as she saw the bitterness in his eyes, but she was not going to give way and be bullied into making love with him. If he wanted to sulk like a spoiled child, well, then, let him.

‘Sally …’

Gritting her teeth, she ignored him, keeping her back turned until she heard him leave the kitchen. Upstairs in the bathroom, Joel showered angrily, turning the water to its fullest force, welcoming the savage pounding on his skin as a release of his tension. He hadn’t wanted to have sex with Sally, he had simply wanted to touch her … to hold her, to make her focus her attention on him and listen to him while he tried to explain. To explain what? That he was afraid … Oh, she would love that. The last thing she had time to do these days was to listen to his problems.

She ought not to have been so uptight with Joel, Sally admitted tiredly as she pulled the duvet over herself. She’d make it up to him later … cook him a special supper, bribe the kids to stay out of the way, try to get him to listen while she tried to explain what she wanted from him, needed from him now that she was working.

Yes, they could talk later.

CHAPTER TWO

‘GOODNESS, I’d forgotten how bad London traffic is, hadn’t you?’ Deborah exclaimed. ‘Emma said it was eight for dinner at eight-thirty. Will we make it in time, do you think?’

Without waiting for Mark to reply, she added, ‘I can’t believe it’s over eighteen months since we last saw them. Their moving down to London has made the distance too great between us for frequent visits.’

She gave Mark a quick, amused look as he stamped hard on the brakes and cursed as someone cut in front of him.

‘I told you you should have let me drive the London stretch of the journey,’ she reminded him cheerfully. ‘You know I’m a much better driver than you.’

‘You mean a much more aggressive one,’ he retorted.

‘My driving is not aggressive, it’s simply self-assured,’ Deborah corrected him. ‘I think we have to take a left here, Mark … Oh, no, you missed it. Now we’ll have to go all the way round again. You really should …’ She saw the muscle starting to twitch in his jaw and bit back the comment she had been about to make, saying instead, ‘Ryan told us on Friday that we’re going to be appointed as liquidators for Kilcoyne’s. No official announcement has been made as yet. They’re going to wait until after the funeral for that. Apart from the bank there are quite a lot of trade creditors outstanding. Not that they’re likely to recover very much. The bank seems to have all the security pretty well tied up——’

‘Where did you say we had to turn?’ he interrupted her tersely. Mark had never enjoyed city driving or heavy traffic. Unlike her. She positively revelled in the cut and thrust of it, the tussle of wills with other drivers, the challenge of outwitting them.

‘Wow … do you think we’ve got the right place?’ Deborah asked when they finally reached the address Emma had given her. It was a quiet, elegant square, and, while it might not compare in size or grandeur with some of London’s more famous squares, it was nevertheless very obviously an exclusive and expensive address.

‘Toby must be doing well if they can afford somewhere like this,’ she added as they left the car. ‘Emma said he’d recently bought into an accountancy practice. Quite an upmarket one too, apparently.’

‘Well, that should please her,’ Mark commented sourly. ‘She always was a bit of a social climber.’

Deborah eyed him in surprise. ‘She’s ambitious, that’s all—she wants Toby to succeed.’

‘Of course she does, she wants him to succeed so that she can boast about how well he’s done to her friends. What happened to her career, by the way? As I remember it, she’d got it all planned that she was going to make a big name for herself in the media.’

‘Well, she was doing very well until the TV station she was with lost its franchise. It was a case of last in first out. Since then she’s been doing some part-time PR work for a friend.’

‘Part-time PR work—well, they certainly haven’t bought this place with what she’s earning from that,’ Mark announced as he eyed the elegant façade of the building in front of them.

Deborah watched him thoughtfully as she pressed the intercom buzzer. He had been so scratchy and grouchy lately, so unlike his normal placid, calm self.

Emma came down herself to let them in. Small and vivacious, her tiny frame and delicate features hid a personality that was extremely strong-willed and tenacious. She was not a woman’s woman, and unlike Deborah she had made few friends at university. Deborah had found her competitiveness more amusing than threatening and had often teased her about the streak of conventionality which had made her insist almost as soon as they had left university that she and Toby marry instead of opting to live together as Deborah and Mark had chosen to do.

She and Mark had been invited to the wedding. A lavish affair held at a small, carefully chosen village where Emma just happened to have an ancient relative living. It had been a fairy-tale occasion, and a tribute to Emma’s talents as a master tactician and planner.

‘Mmm … this is really something,’ Deborah enthused generously as Emma ushered them into the apartment. ‘You could virtually fit the whole of our place into your living-room and have space to spare, couldn’t you, Mark?’ she commented as she admired the expensive silk curtains and the specially woven off-white carpet that covered the floor. ‘You must be doing very well, Toby,’ she added when Emma’s husband brought her her drink.

‘Oh, it’s nothing to do with me,’ he told her without smiling. ‘Emma bought this place herself—with her own money.’

Deborah felt her scalp prickle slightly as she picked up on the highly charged atmosphere which had suddenly developed. She looked helplessly at Mark, who was standing looking out of one of the long Georgian sash windows.

‘Don’t pay any attention to Toby,’ Emma advised brittly as she flashed her husband a quelling look. ‘I’ve already told him, if he wants to make a fool of himself by behaving like a spoilt child then that’s his choice.’

Despite the elegant comfort of the antique-furnished traditional dining-room and the excellence of the meal Emma served, Deborah was relieved when it was finally over. Emma and Toby had barely talked to one another all evening other than to make sniping remarks at one another. Toby made constant references to Emma’s money, in between sneeringly putting her down and being irritatingly sorry for himself.

After dinner, while Toby took Mark off to his study to show him his new state-of-the-art computerised set-up, Deborah helped Emma to clear the table and wash the expensive antique dinner service she had used for the meal.

‘This is lovely,’ she commented appreciatively as she carefully dried one of the plates.

‘It’s Sèvres,’ Emma told her. ‘I only bought it a month ago and Toby’s already broken one of the plates—deliberately, of course. I never imagined he would ever behave like this, Deborah—he’s so childish, so resentful; but, after all, why shouldn’t I enjoy the money and spend it on what I want? My grandmother left it to me, not to me and Toby. He seems to think that just because we’re a couple … just because he’s the man, he should be the one to make the financial decisions within our relationship and to have the financial power. That’s what it’s all about, of course. He was quite happy when he was the one earning more than me, making me feel I should be grateful to him when he insisted on buying me something, paying when we went out—not that that happened very often,’ she added darkly. ‘That’s another thing I’ve discovered about him recently: he can be unbearably mean. Take this dinner service, for instance … he wouldn’t speak to me for three days after I’d bought it and I don’t know what he’s complaining about really; after all, I did give him the money to buy into the partnership, and, all right, so I haven’t had this place put in joint names, but after all that’s only common sense, isn’t it, with the divorce rate as high as it is?

‘He seems to think I’m deliberately trying to humiliate him by letting people know that I’m the one with the money. You wouldn’t believe how unpleasant he’s being … mind you, you could see for yourself the way he is tonight, couldn’t you, embarrassing us all with his childishness? I’ve told him he must either accept things the way they are and live with them or——’ She gave a small shrug.

‘You mean you’d leave him, end your marriage?’ Deborah asked her, shocked.

‘Why shouldn’t I? No woman needs to stay in a relationship that isn’t working for her any more, does she, especially not one with the financial assets that I’ve got? I’ve warned him, if he doesn’t like what’s on offer there are plenty more men who would.’

‘You’re not wearing your engagement ring,’ Deborah commented as she dried the last plate.

‘No …’ Emma gave a small shrug. ‘I was never very keen on it in the first place. My grandmother left me a lovely antique ring which I’m having cleaned and re-sized. I’ll probably wear that instead.’

Deborah frowned, remembering the excitement and triumph with which Emma had flaunted the small diamond Toby had given her the day they got engaged, but she had to agree with her that Toby did seem to be behaving unreasonably and unfairly. He had made it more than plain over dinner how much he resented Emma’s inheritance.

‘Take it from me, Deborah,’ Emma warned her as she dried her hands and smoothed on hand cream, ‘when a man tells you that he sees you as an equal, don’t believe him. What he means is that he’s perfectly prepared to pretend that he does, just so long as he remains more equal than you.’

Some men might be like that, Deborah reflected as she rejoined Toby and Mark, but Mark certainly wasn’t one of them. One of the reasons she had been drawn to him in the first place was his quiet air of calmness, his lack of the kind of keen competitive edge that sometimes drove her; she was wise enough to recognise that, no matter how challenging a relationship with a kindred spirit might be, in the end its sheer intensity and ferocity would burn itself out.

She loved Mark and she admired him for all the qualities he possessed which she did not. She applauded his intelligence and diligence, and the very lack of the ruthless drive to gather and hold power, which the others had teased him for at university, was among the qualities she admired most in him. Mark, with his steadfast, quiet strength, counterbalanced her own impetuosity and impatience. She valued his judgement and, although she would never have admitted it to anyone, least of all him, for fear of ridicule, a small, secret part of her was still semi-inclined to set him apart from the other men she knew, to place him, if not on a pedestal, then certainly far above men such as Ryan Bridges, her immediate boss, whose Machiavellian nature and love of intrigue and power had taken him in ten years with the practice from a newly qualified lackey to a partnership and control over the receivership and liquidation section of the business—via, it had to be admitted, an astute marriage to the daughter of one of the most senior partners who had died only a couple of years after his retirement.

It was a well-known fact within the company that Ryan was not above breaking his marriage vows when it suited him, but his affairs were invariably brief and always ended should the recipient of his attentions begin to interpret them as anything other than the brief satisfaction of his sexual needs and ego.

Even while a part of her unwillingly admired him for his sheer drive and determination, Deborah knew that she could never be happy with a man like that. He might pay lip-service to the ideas of female equality, but lip service was all it was, even if his department did have a far larger proportion of qualified female staff than any of the others. There was a reason for that, and it had nothing to do with the superiority of the girls’ accountancy qualifications.

No one spending any length of time in the department could miss the fact that Ryan had a taste for tall, long-legged young women, nor that he enjoyed overwhelming their intelligence and common sense with his sexuality.

He had tried it on with her when she’d first joined the firm, but she had made it more than plain that she just wasn’t interested. Since then he had treated her with amusement and knowingness. He was a very sexually overpowering man, in every sense of the word. At six feet two, he had the physique and the handsomely battered face of an ex-rugby player, and at thirty-five he possessed such strong sexuality that sometimes Deborah felt as though you could almost smell it on the air after he had left the room.

She was constantly torn between admiration and loathing of him. As an accountant, a fellow professional, she admired him and all that he had achieved; as a woman … She gave a small shiver, redirecting her thoughts to the couple they had just left as Mark unlocked the car.

‘What a dreadful evening,’ she commented as he started the engine. ‘Poor Emma, I felt so sorry for her. I never imagined that Toby could ever behave so badly …’

Mark was frowning.

‘What exactly do you mean, Toby is behaving badly? Quite frankly I thought he showed remarkable restraint. If I’d been him I think I’d have throttled her well before we reached the main course, and smashed every bit of her damned dinner service into the bargain. God, I don’t know how he stands it. It must be like selling your soul to the devil. She’s certainly got the whiphand in that relationship, and you can see that she intends to use it.’

‘What do you mean?’ Deborah asked him, frowning. ‘It is her money; it’s only natural that she should feel she has a right to decide how it’s spent …’

‘Oh, yeah, it’s her money all right; she made sure we all knew that, didn’t she? I’ve never seen a man so humiliated and emasculated. Poor sod, he told me that when they go to bed now he feels like a stud being paid for sex. He says it’s totally changed her, and that——’

‘A stud—Toby?’ Deborah started to laugh.

‘What’s so funny?’ Mark asked her curtly.

‘Well, it’s just that Toby … and you … well, you’re just not the stud type, are you … not like … ?’

She winced as Mark crashed through the gears, realising too late that she had offended him. ‘Mark, I didn’t mean that as a complaint … I like you the way you are,’ she told him gently, reaching out and touching his knee lightly. ‘As far as I’m concerned, over-sexed, pushy men are a complete turn-off. All they can think about is their own satisfaction. They never see past their own egos or even think about what a woman might want.’

‘Whereas poor unsexy sods like me have to make sure we know all about how to make our partners happy if we’re ever going to be lucky enough to get a decent lay … is that what you’re saying?’

Deborah gave him a surprised look. What on earth had got into him? He was reacting as though she had been criticising him personally and not merely passing comment on the evening and the relationship between Emma and Toby.

‘Well, at least having too much money is never likely to be a problem we’ll have to face,’ she told him with a grin. ‘I don’t have any rich old grandmother wanting to leave me her all …’

‘It isn’t the money, it’s the way Emma’s using it as a weapon to bludgeon the life out of Toby that’s the problem,’ Mark told her. ‘And the way she’s enjoying doing it. That’s what really sickens me …’

‘Mark, that isn’t true!’

‘Isn’t it?’ he asked her grimly. ‘Would you admit it, even if you thought it was, or would you just close ranks in female solidarity?’

‘That’s unfair,’ Deborah protested. ‘I’d never support another woman simply because she was a woman. You know me better than that, surely.’

‘Yes, I’m sorry,’ he agreed. ‘It’s just that I’m feeling a bit edgy at the moment. Peter said there were comments made at last week’s partnership meeting about the fact that the income from our section is down—again—and guess who got a real kick out of pointing it out?’

‘Ryan?’ Deborah hazarded. ‘Well, you can’t blame him for feeling pleased that we’re doing so well. Splitting the receivership and liquidation side of things off into a separate department was his idea. I know he can be a bit over the top at times.’

‘He’s a clever bastard, I’ll give him that.’

‘Yes, you have to admire him for what he’s achieved,’ Deborah agreed.

‘But not for the way he’s achieved it.’ Mark pointed out.

‘No,’ she agreed, stifling a yawn. ‘I still can’t believe how much Emma and Toby have changed. She always seemed to lean on him so much …’

‘A real clinging vine, and now that she’s outgrown his support she’s threatening to strangle him. She’s one of the most manipulative women I’ve ever met. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’d staged the whole thing tonight, just to give her grounds to divorce him.’

‘Oh, Mark, that’s not fair.’

‘Isn’t it? You know you can be very naïve when it comes to human motivations.’

‘Mmm … perhaps, but not naïve enough not to know how lucky I am to have you,’ she told him lovingly as he stopped for some traffic lights and she leaned across to kiss him lightly. ‘Seeing Toby with Emma tonight made me realise all over again how lucky I am to have you. He was so obviously jealous of her, Mark, it was horrible, so demeaning for both of them. I could never imagine you behaving like that. You’ve always encouraged me to stretch myself and grow … you were the one who talked me into applying for this job and persuaded me I could do it … You’ve always been so generous both personally and professionally.’

‘Ah, perhaps that’s because I enjoy the superior role of mentor,’ he told her teasingly.

‘Superior … we’ll see about that,’ Deborah challenged back, laughing at him as he bent his head to kiss her and then cursed as the lights changed to green and the car behind made a noisy protest at his slowness.

‘Mmm … that was lovely,’ Deborah commented drowsily as she smoothed her fingertip lovingly down Mark’s back. It was still slightly damp with perspiration from their lovemaking and she bent her head to breathe in the scent of him and kiss the indentation of his spine.

‘Hey, I thought you said you wanted to leave early in the morning …’

‘Mmm … so I did, but it isn’t morning yet, is it?’ she teased him as she stroked her hand over his hipbone and the vulnerable flesh of his stomach.

Mark had a lovely body, wholesomely, perfectly male in a way that never failed to delight her senses. Unlike Ryan, who was so obviously and overpoweringly sexual that the fastidious side of her nature automatically retreated from such potency.

Mark’s sexuality was far more subtle than that, and, to her, far, far more erotic. He was a generous lover, experienced enough to know how to please her but not so arrogant as to resent her showing him how he could increase that pleasure.

She herself was an uninhibited lover, her sexuality both voluptuous and yet at the same time unexpectedly refined, so that she always carried with her an air of somehow being slightly set apart from the rest of her sex.

Some men … men like Ryan … seemed to find that a challenge that irked and irritated them. Mark was not like that, though. He accepted that, no matter how sensually voluptuous she might be in bed, when they were not in bed the other side of her nature was repulsed by the kind of man who had to make constant sexual comments and innuendo.

She laughed herself at the odd marriage within her of sensualist and prude, but no one else other than Mark was allowed to laugh about it with her. While she was quite happy not to be married, she believed totally in a monogamous relationship and in fidelity within that relationship. She would never dream of being unfaithful to Mark, and if she ever did it would mean that their relationship was over. And if he was unfaithful to her? Her fingers ceased their erotic journey as she stared into the darkness.

Mark would never do that to her; he knew how much he meant to her. He knew how much she needed and depended on him, even if others did not. It wasn’t just love and desire that kept them together, it was trust as well, trust and respect; shared goals and ambitions and a shared belief in one another; a shared support for one another.

As a child she had been teased for being too much of an idealist, and so she had learned to conceal that vulnerability within her, but Mark knew it was there.

‘How do I look?’ she asked him a short while later when they had torn themselves out of bed.

‘Fine,’ Mark replied absently without turning round.

‘Oh, Mark,’ she protested.

‘What is it?’ He put down his razor and turned round.

‘You can’t have forgotten,’ Deborah protested.

‘Forgotten what?’

‘That Ryan’s taking me out to lunch.’

Mark grunted. ‘Oh, that—probably wants to proposition you—again.’

‘No, it isn’t that … he’s been dropping hints all week about how pleased he’s been with my work and how much the department is expanding. I think this is it, Mark … I think he’s actually going to put me in charge of my own section … give me something to really get my teeth into …’

‘Some poor bankrupt to savage, you mean … wow, won’t that be great?’

Deborah gave him a startled look. There was a thread of acid bitterness in his voice that she had never heard before. ‘Look, I know you don’t like that side of things …’

‘Save it until tonight, will you, Deborah? I’ve got a hell of a lot on my mind right now. Somehow I don’t think your department’s the only one in for a reshuffle, only we’re on the down side of the seesaw.’

Deborah frowned. ‘What do you mean, Mark—what’s … ?’

‘Forget it,’ he told her. ‘I’m just a bit on edge, that’s all. Good luck at lunchtime, and a fiver on it that he will proposition you.’

Deborah laughed. ‘The way you did the first time we went to bed. Remember?’

‘As I remember it, you were the one who did the propositioning on that occasion.’

‘I was drunk … It was Dutch courage …’

‘Not the next day when you rang up to ask me if it was still on for dinner, it wasn’t,’ he reminded her with a grin.

‘All right, so I finally got tired of waiting for you to do the asking, but I don’t recall ever hearing you say no.’

They were both laughing as he leaned over to kiss her. Last night had been good between them, Deborah reflected happily as she finished getting dressed. Very good! She loved it that their sexual relationship was so harmonious; it made her feel complete, wholly, fully alive and fully a woman. She would hate to have the kind of lover who bullied or domineered her … the kind of lover that a man like Ryan would be, or the kind Emma complained that Toby had become.

‘So … you’re looking very pleased with yourself today … good night last night?’

Deborah smiled vaguely, tucking a strand of her sleekly bobbed chestnut hair behind her ear. ‘Yes, as a matter of fact it was; we had dinner with some old friends.’

She knew what Ryan was trying to do, but she wasn’t going to be tricked into playing that game.

He had brought her to one of the area’s most exclusive and expensive restaurants for lunch and it hadn’t escaped her notice that the majority of the other lunchers there were very obviously couples.

‘Nice place, this, isn’t it?’ he asked her. ‘You should see the bedrooms, all four-poster beds and the fabrics all silk and velvet … very sensual … very tactile … very romantic.’

Deborah refused to respond. She knew from experience that sooner rather than later he would lose interest and stop baiting her. And halfway through their main course he did.

‘I like you, Deborah,’ he told her, ‘and I like the way you work. You’re intelligent and ambitious and you know how to get the best out of people … how to handle them, and that’s something that’s very important in our line of work. We’re dealing with people at their most vulnerable and volatile and therefore at their most dangerous … It’s just as well Andrew Ryecart committed suicide before we were appointed and not after. It wouldn’t do the firm’s reputation a lot of good to have that kind of thing splashed all over the papers. You’ll know that we’ve been appointed to handle the liquidation?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s going to be a tricky one; there are no assets to speak of, and there is some suggestion of misuse of company funds before he killed himself. The bank are reasonably securely covered; there’s a fairly large equity in the house, plus the value of the site—we’ll never be able to find a buyer for the business as a going concern, of course, and the trade creditors won’t get much.’

‘And the workforce?’

‘Preferred creditors.’ He gave a small shrug. ‘That will be the first thing you’ll have to do, of course: issue them all with redundancy notices. Then it will be a matter of going through the books and …’

Deborah’s heart had started to thump heavily with excitement but she fought to control it, asking carefully, ‘Does that mean that you’re putting me in charge of the liquidation?’

Ryan put down his cutlery. ‘Is that what you want?’ he asked her quizzically. Deborah laughed. Even now he still could not resist flirting with her.

‘It’s certainly a step in the right direction,’ she agreed demurely.

‘Mmm …’ he agreed softly. ‘I thought it might be.’

Careful, Deb, Deborah warned herself as she caught the undertone in his voice, but before she could make any comment he had started outlining what he planned to do, the staff he intended to put under her authority.

‘This one might seem easy, but that doesn’t mean it will be,’ he warned her. ‘There’s going to be a lot of bad feeling stirred up locally; the widow doesn’t have a clue about what’s going on or the fact that she’s virtually going to be out on the street. Luckily there’s family money there.’

They discussed the procedures involved over the rest of their lunch and when they finally got up to leave Deborah’s heart was singing with excitement. She couldn’t wait to get home and tell Mark her good news. They had made a rule not to have any contact with one another at work of a personal nature, and she knew what he would say if she broke it, even for something as important as this. Unlike Ryan’s, Mark’s ethics were fixed and wholly reliable.

‘There will be an increase in salary, of course,’ Ryan told her as they left the restaurant. ‘Oh, and a new company car. What’s Mark got?’ he asked casually. Absently Deborah told him, cars were not something that interested her very much.

‘Ah, well, yours will be the more upmarket model, but I’m sure you’ll be able to find a way of soothing any hurt male pride.’

Deborah looked at him. What on earth was he talking about? Mark simply wasn’t that kind of man. No, Mark would be as thrilled for her as she would have been for him if their positions had been reversed. She and Mark had a totally equal and loving relationship in which neither of them competed with the other, but supported and protected one another instead.

Mark … Mark. Oh, she couldn’t wait for tonight … They would really celebrate … not at some expensive restaurant, but at home, together … in bed. She hugged the anticipatory pleasure of what she was thinking to herself as Ryan drove them back into town.

CHAPTER THREE

‘IF DAD’S really dead does that mean that we can come home and live with you and go to school there?’ Daniel said to her.

Philippa closed her eyes as she felt the weakening rush of relief surge inside her. All the way on the drive up here to their school she had been worrying about the boys’ reaction to Andrew’s death, but now as she stood with her arms around both of them, her face resting protectively against Daniel’s head, she was forced to recognise that the distance and uninterest with which Andrew had always treated his sons was reciprocated in their calm acceptance of his death.

She had gently urged Andrew repeatedly to spend more time with them, to involve himself more in their lives, but he had dismissed her fears about the gulf she could see between them as typical feminine over-reaction.

‘Boarding-school will be good for them,’ he had insisted. ‘It will teach them how to be men. You’re too soft with them. Always kissing and cuddling them.’ The rest of the family had supported his decision.

‘Boys need discipline,’ her elder brother had told her, adding disapprovingly, ‘You’re far too over-indulgent with your two, Philippa. If you’re not careful you’re going to turn them into a pair of——’

‘Of what?’ she had challenged him quietly. ‘A pair of caring, compassionate human beings?’

She had regretted her outburst later, especially when she had walked past the open study door and heard Robert telling her husband, ‘That’s the trouble with Philippa; she’s always been inclined to be over-emotional; but then that’s women for you, bless ‘em.’

The condescension in her brother’s voice had made her grit her teeth, but years of being told as a child that girls did not argue or lose their tempers, and that pretty girls like her should be grateful for the fact that they were pretty and not go spoiling themselves by being aggressive and argumentative, had had their effect.

She often wondered what her parents would have said if she had ever turned round and told them that she would cheerfully have traded in her prettiness for the opportunity to be allowed all the privileges of self-expression and self-determination that her brothers possessed. That her blonde hair and blue eyes, her small heart-shaped face with its full-lipped soft mouth, her slender feminine figure and the fact that by some alchemic fusing and mixing of genes she had been given a set of features that combined to make her look both youthful and yet at the same time alluring were not in fact assets which she prized but a burden to her. People reacted to the way she looked, not the person she was, and she found this just as distressing; it made her feel just as vulnerable and undervalued as it would have done a girl who was her complete physical opposite. People only saw her prettiness; they did not see her; they did not, she suspected, want to see her. It had been her father who had been the strictest at forcing on her the role model of pretty, compliant daughter, praising her when friends and family commented on the way she looked and curtly reprimanding her when her behaviour did not conform to that visual image of sweet docility.

‘Oxford … are they out of their minds?’ her father had demanded when the head of the small all-girls’ school she had attended had written to him suggesting that she felt that it might be worth while, that with a little extra coaching she believed that Philippa could win a place there.

And after that Philippa had found that the precious time she had needed for that extra study was somehow whittled away with family duties she wasn’t allowed to evade.

There were other limitations imposed on her as well. Her father did not approve of girls or women who were self-confident and noisy, women who held opinions and freely voiced them, women who took charge of their own lives.

Philippa had felt very angry sometimes when she was growing up, not just with her father but with her mother as well, who stood by her husband and agreed with everything he said.

Philippa had realised even before her younger son’s birth that her marriage had been a mistake, an escape from her family which inevitably had been no escape at all, but simply a deeper entrenchment in the role her father had already cast for her. But by then it had been too late to do anything about it. She had her sons to consider and she was determined that somehow she would provide them with the happy, secure, enriching childhood she herself had been denied. And for boys especially a father was an important, an essential part of that childhood.

Now, as she realised how little emotional effect the news of their father’s death was actually having on them, she wondered if perhaps after all she might have been wrong, and that maybe if she had been strong enough to brave the avalanche of family disapproval a separation from Andrew would have caused she might have found that not just she, but the boys as well would have had easier, happier lives.

Because there was no getting away from it: life with Andrew had not been easy. Materially comfortable, yes; easy, no, and happy—never.

And yet she had married him willingly enough.

Yes, willingly, but lovingly … She flinched a little. She had believed she loved him at the time … had wanted to love him, had looked upon marriage to him as a secure haven after the pain, the agonising misery of …

‘Can we come home with you now, today, Mum?’

Philippa pushed aside her own painful thoughts and smiled at her elder son. ‘No, I’m afraid not, Rory.’

Much as she would have loved to have the comfort of them at home with her, she did not want them exposed to all the gossip and speculation that Andrew’s suicide had caused locally. Their fees were paid until the end of the current year and she had already decided that it would be best if they remain here until then. That would give her time to sort things out at home.

She had rung Robert almost immediately after the police had left that fateful morning. He had been in a meeting, his secretary had informed her, but she had rung back later to say that Robert would ring her that evening.

He was going to the factory today, but had already complained to her that he was a very busy man, with his own business to run and that he could ill afford to take time off to sort out the mess his brother-in-law had made of his life.

‘You realise, of course, that the company’s virtually bankrupt,’ he had told her angrily when he had called round after the visit to Kilcoyne’s.

She hadn’t, although she had wondered, worried especially about the money Andrew had borrowed, but years of conditioning, of being subservient to the men in her life, had programmed her into not exposing emotions they did not want to handle, and so she had simply sat silently while Robert told her.

‘This whole mess really is most inconvenient. It couldn’t have happened at a worse time for me—you do know that, don’t you? I’m putting myself forward for selection as our local parliamentary candidate and this whole unsavoury business is bound to reflect badly on me.

‘Of course it’s typical of Andrew; he always was a trifle melodramatic for my taste. He should never have bought Kilcoyne’s in the first place. I did try to warn him. You might have told me he was likely to do something like this.’

Philippa had stared at her brother, willing back the angry tears she could feel prickling her eyes as she swallowed down the huge swell of anger threatening to overwhelm her.

‘I didn’t know,’ she told him quietly.

‘Don’t be ridiculous. You must have had some inkling. You were his wife. An intelligent woman, or so you’ve always claimed. You must have guessed …’

‘I knew he was having financial problems, but he wouldn’t discuss them with me,’ she had told him woodenly.

‘The whole world and his wife knew he was having financial problems. I told him months ago that there was no point in panicking the way he was doing, letting everyone know that he couldn’t hold the business together. I warned you at the time against marrying him, Philippa,’ he had added critically, while Philippa had gritted her teeth and then said as slowly and quietly as she could,

‘No, you didn’t, Robert. You wanted me to marry him. You said he would be a good husband for me.’

‘Rubbish … I never said any such thing.’ He’d given her an angry look. ‘Not that it matters now. What’s past is past, and what we have to do now is to get this whole mess cleaned up as quickly and quietly as possible.’

‘How?’ she had asked him.

He had shrugged impatiently and turned his back on her, walking over to look out of the French windows. ‘Well, the bank will have to be informed, of course, if they don’t know already, and after that it’s their problem …’

‘Their problem …’

He had swung round then, eyeing her irritably. ‘Oh, come on—you must have realised for yourself that the reason he killed himself was because of the business. I don’t know what the exact financial situation is, of course, and in my position I obviously can’t afford to get involved—not now. No, your best bet is to leave everything in the hands of the bank. They’ll do everything that’s necessary. Look, Philippa, there’s nothing I can do …’

Nothing you can do, or nothing you will do? she had asked herself after he had gone and she was mentally reviewing her brother’s assets: the huge house he and Lydia owned, the château in France they had bought three years ago which he constantly boasted had now practically trebled its value, not to mention the rental money it brought in from carefully vetted holidaymakers.

What would he have said if she had told him that it wasn’t his financial help she had actually wanted, but the help, the support, the sturdy male shoulder to lean femininely and weakly on as she had been conditioned to do since birth?

She had grimaced at herself as she passed the hall mirror.

What good were a pretty face and even prettier manners going to do her now?

And from the past, an echo of a pain she had long ago told herself she had never, ever felt, never mind forgotten, had come the taunting words to haunt her.

‘Yes, you’re pretty, Philippa, as pretty and prettily packaged as a little doll and just as insipid and lifeless. What I want is a real woman, a woman who laughs and cries, who sweats and screams when she makes love, who is a woman who thinks and feels … a woman who isn’t afraid to be a woman, who cares more about what goes on inside her head than on her face, a woman who thinks it’s more important to nourish her intellect than her skin—in plain fact, a woman full stop, and not a pretty cut-out cardboard doll.’

A woman who didn’t need a man to lean on and turn to … A woman who could stand alone … A woman such as she could never be … Had never been allowed to be.

‘So you’ll stay here at school until the end of term and then we’ll decide what we’re going to do,’ she told the boys now. She had already made up her mind that they would not attend the funeral. It was a farce to dress them up in black as her family would expect her to do, and to grieve for a father they had never really known, never mind loved.

They were her sons, she decided fiercely, her responsibility, and she would bring them up as she thought best; if that was not the way in which her family approved …

She saw the headmaster before she left, pleased to discover that he supported her decisions.

She was a very pretty woman, Henry Carter reflected as he watched her go. The first time he had met her she had been with her husband and the older man had completely overshadowed her. He had thought her pretty then, but docile and slightly boring. Today she had looked different—sharper, more alert, the substance of the woman she obviously was rather than merely a shadow of her husband.

He had never particularly liked the man and had wondered wryly if he had ever realised how much of his real personality and insecurity he betrayed to others with his hectoring manner and his need to ensure that others knew of and envied his material success.

Small wonder that he had felt unable to face life without the support and protection of that success. Henry Carter sighed slightly to himself, he might not have particularly liked him but he would nevertheless not have wished such a fate on him.

The recession was biting deeply into the lives of the boys and the school, with fees unpaid and pupils leaving at the end of one term and not returning at the beginning of another without any explanation. So far Andrew had been their only suicide, but there were other tragedies that went just as deep even if they were far less public.

It occurred to him as he ushered Philippa to the door that almost as strong as his pity for her was his contempt for her late husband.

When she reached home Philippa parked the car and climbed out tiredly. Her body ached almost as though she had flu. It was probably delayed shock, she decided distantly; the doctor had warned her to expect it, even offering to prescribe medication to help her overcome it.

She had felt a fraud then, seeing herself through his eyes, a shocked, distraught wife abruptly made a widow by her husband’s own hand, her grief too heavy a burden for her to bear.

She had been shocked, yes, but her grief … where was that?

So far her emotions had been a mixture of disbelief and confusion, the woolliness with which they had clouded her brain occasionally splintered by lightning flashes of an anger so intense that she instinctively suppressed it.

The house felt cold. She had turned off the heating this morning when she’d left, economising. She had very little idea what personal financial assets Andrew had had.

Robert had seemed to think that she would be reasonably well provided for, but that did not allay her guilt and concern about what might happen to Andrew’s employees. According to Robert the company was virtually bankrupt.

That was something else she would have to do: see the bank. Robert had offered to go with her but after his refusal to help her with the far more worrying problems of the company she had curtly refused his offer.

In the kitchen she filled the kettle and plugged it in.

The hand-built waxed and limed wooden units and the gleaming scarlet Aga had cost the earth; the large square room with its sunny aspect and solid square table should have been the perfect family environment, the heart of their home, but in reality it was simply a showpiece for Andrew’s wealth. The only time the kitchen, the house, really felt like a home was when the boys were back from school.

She frowned as she made herself a mug of coffee. She had given up trying to change Andrew years ago, accepting that she would never have with him the kind of emotionally close and loving relationship she had dreamed of as a girl; she had in fact come to realise that such relationships were extremely rare.

And when she looked around her it seemed that very few of her female acquaintances had fared much better. Love, even the strongest and most passionate love, it seemed, eventually became tainted with familiarity and its accompanying disillusions.

She knew women who complained that their husbands bullied them, and women who complained that theirs were guilty of neglect. Women whose men wanted too much sex and those whose men wanted too little. Women whose men were unfaithful, sometimes with another woman, sometimes with a hobby or sport far more dearly loved than their marriage partner.

She had her sons and the life she had built up for herself and for them; the tepid sexual relationship she had had with Andrew had been infrequent and unexciting enough to cause her neither resentment nor pleasure—and besides she had not married him for sex.

Sex … No, she certainly hadn’t married him for that. Nor he her.

She had married him because …

Edgily she put down her coffee-cup and walked over to the answering machine, running back the tape and then playing it. There was a message from the funeral parlour and as she listened to it she wondered idly how long it had taken the speaker to develop that deeply sepulchral note to his voice. Which had come first, the voice or the job?

As she allowed her thoughts to wander she acknowledged that she was using them as a means of evading pursuing what she had been thinking earlier.

The second message was from the bank manager asking her to make an appointment to call and see him, to discuss her own private affairs and those of the company. She frowned as she listened to it. Why would he want to see her about the company’s financial affairs? She knew nothing about them.

Perhaps it was just a formality.

The tape came to an end. She switched it off and almost immediately the phone rang. She picked up the receiver.

‘Philippa … it’s Mummy …’

Mummy. How falsely affectionate that small word was, making it sound as though the bond between them was close and loving. In reality Philippa doubted that her mother had ever allowed herself to love her. Like her father, her mother’s attitude had been that love was something which had to be earned. Love and approval had not been things which had been given freely or from the heart in her childhood home, and Philippa was bitterly conscious of this now as she caught the thread of disapproval running beneath the soft sweetness of her mother’s voice.

When Philippa had been growing up she had never been punished by smacks or harsh words as other children had been; that was not her parents’ way. An icy look, the quelling words, ‘Philippa, Daddy is very disappointed in you,’ and the withdrawal of her mother which accompanied the criticism had always been enough … More than enough to a child as sensitive as she had been, Philippa recognised, and her reactions to them were so deeply entrenched within her that just hearing that cold disapproval in her mother’s voice now was enough to make her clench her stomach muscles and grip the receiver as she fought to control the answering anger and pain churning resentfully inside her.

‘Robert has been telling us how foolish Andrew was. Your father and I had no idea he was behaving so recklessly. Your father’s very upset about it. No one here seems to have heard anything about it yet, but it’s bound to get out, and you know that he’s captain this year of the golf club——’

Philippa was trembling again. ‘I doubt that any of his golfing cronies are likely to hear about Andrew,’ she interrupted, trying to keep her voice as level and light as she could, but unable to resist the irony of adding, ‘And of course Andrew wasn’t Daddy’s son …’

‘No, of course there is that,’ her mother allowed patiently, oblivious to Philippa’s sarcasm; so oblivious in fact that she made Philippa feel both childishly petty and furiously angry. ‘But he was your husband and in the circumstances Daddy feels that it might be a good idea if you didn’t come over to see us for a while. Poor, dear Robert is terribly upset about the whole thing, you know. I mean, you do live almost on his doorstep and he’s held in such high esteem … Have you made any arrangements yet for the …?’ Delicately her mother let the sentence hang in the air.

‘For the cremation, you mean?’ Philippa asked her grimly. ‘Yes. It will be on Friday, but don’t worry, Mother; I shall quite understand if you don’t feel you want to be there.’

‘It isn’t a question of wanting …’ her mother told her, obviously shocked. ‘One has a duty, and Andrew was after all our son-in-law, although I must say, Philippa, I could never really understand why you married him, nor could Daddy. We did try to warn you …’

Did you … did you really, Mother? Philippa wanted to demand. And when was that … when did you warn me? Was it after you told me what a good husband Andrew would make me, or before you pointed out that I would be lucky to find another man so suited to me … or rather so suited to the kind of wife you had raised me to be? If you really didn’t want me to marry him, why wouldn’t you allow me to go on to university; why did you insist on keeping me at home, as dependent on you as a pet dog and just as carefully leashed?

‘But then you always were such a very impetuous and stubborn girl,’ her mother sighed. ‘Robert was saying only this morning how much both Daddy and I spoiled you and I’m afraid he was right.

‘Have you made any plans yet for after … ?’

‘Not yet,’ Philippa told her brusquely. ‘But don’t worry, Mummy; whatever plans I do make I shall make sure that they don’t cause either you or Daddy any problems.’

Philippa replaced the receiver before her mother could make any response.

Her palms felt damp and sticky, her body perspiring with the heat of her suppressed anger, but what, after all, was the point in blaming her parents for what they were, or what they had tried to make her? Hadn’t they, after all, been victims of their upbringing just as much as she was of hers? This was the way she had taught herself to think over the years. It was a panacea, an anaesthetic to all the pain she could not allow herself to feel.

CHAPTER FOUR

‘THE trouble with long weekends is that they just don’t last long enough,’ Richard grumbled as he drained his teacup and reached for the pot to refill it. Elizabeth laughed.

‘Fraud,’ she teased him affectionately. ‘You know as well as I do that you can’t wait to get back to your patients. I heard you on the phone to Jenny earlier.’

Jenny Wisden was Richard’s junior registrar and as dedicated to her work as Richard was to his. She had married the previous year, a fellow medic working in a busy local practice.

‘Poor Jenny,’ Elizabeth had commented at the time.

Richard had raised his eyebrows as he’d asked her, ‘Why poor? The girl’s deliriously in love; anyone can see that.’

‘Yes, she is, and so is he. She’s also a young woman on the bottom rungs of a notoriously demanding career ladder. What’s going to happen when she and Tony decide they want children?’

‘She’ll take maternity leave,’ Richard had informed her, plainly not following the drift of her argument.

‘Yes, and then what? Spend the next eighteen years constantly torn between conflicting demands and loyalties, knowing that she’s got to sacrifice either her feelings as a mother or her desire to reach the top of her profession.’

Richard had frowned then.

‘What are you trying to say? I thought you were all for female equality … women fulfilling their professional potential. You’ve lectured me about it often enough …’

‘I am all for it, but, once a woman has children, biologically and materially the scales are weighted against her. You know it’s true, Rick: once Jenny has children she won’t be able to go as far in her career as she would if she were a man. She’ll be the one who has to take time off to attend the school concert and the children’s sports day. She’ll be the one who takes them to the dentist and who worries about them when they’re ill, feeling guilty because she can’t be with them.

‘No amount of paid substitute care, no matter how professional or good it is, can ever assuage a woman’s in-built biological guilt on that score.’

‘Mmm—damn waste it will be too. Jenny is one of the best, if not the best junior registrar I’ve ever had.’

‘Well, perhaps in future you should remember that and when you’re lecturing your students you should remind them all, but especially the male students, what sexual equality really should mean—and I’m not referring to a token filling up and emptying of the dishwasher now and then.

‘Do you realise, Rick, that, despite all this media hoo-ha about the “New Man”, women are still responsible for the major part of all domestic chores? Sorry,’ she’d apologised, with a wry smile. ‘I didn’t mean to start lecturing you, but …’

‘I know.’ Richard had smiled, standing up and leaning towards her to kiss her.

‘I saw Sir Arthur yesterday,’ Elizabeth told him now.

Sir Arthur Lawrence was the chairman of the hospital board, an ex-army major, rigidly old-fashioned in his views and outlook, with whom Richard had had so many clashes over the years.

‘Oh, did you? What did he have to say for himself? More complaints about overspending on budgets, I suppose,’ Richard grunted.

Elizabeth laughed. ‘No, as a matter of fact he was very complimentary, praising you for all the work you’ve done to help raise money for the new Fast Response Accident Unit.’

Richard grunted again. ‘You should have told him not to count his chickens. We need government funding if we’re to go ahead with it, and we haven’t heard that we’re going to get it yet. The Northern is putting up a pretty good counter-claim to ours. They maintain that they’re closer to a wider range of motorway systems than we are …’

‘And we’re closer to the centre of the region and we have better access to the motorway,’ Elizabeth reminded him. ‘And you’ve got a much better recovery record.’

‘Mmm … well, that’s no thanks to Sir Arthur; you should have heard the objections he raised when we opened our recovery ward …’

‘Admit it, you enjoy fighting with him.’ Elizabeth laughed.

Richard pulled a face. ‘He’s twenty years behind the times … more … Hell, is that the time? I’ve got to go. You’re at home today, aren’t you?’

‘Yes. I thought I might drive over and see Sara. She sounded a bit down when I spoke to her yesterday.’

‘Yes, it’s no picnic being a GP’s wife—nor being a GP, either.’ Richard kissed her, smiling at her as he suggested, ‘Why don’t we go out for dinner together tonight … Mario’s? Just the two of us,’ he added.

‘Just the two of us,’ Elizabeth responded, emphasising the ‘just’. ‘Mmm … that would be lovely.’

‘I’ll get Kelly to book us a table,’ he promised her as he picked up his briefcase and headed for the door.

After he had gone, Elizabeth made herself a fresh cup of coffee and picked up a buff folder from the dresser. The dresser had been an antiques fair find, which she and Richard had stripped of its old paint, a long and laborious job which she suspected had cost far more in terms of their time and paint-stripper than had she bought the ready-stripped, polished version from an antique shop.

There was a sense of satisfaction in having done the work themselves, though, and she had enjoyed those hours in Richard’s company. They had reminded her of the early days of their marriage, when it hadn’t seemed so unusual to see him wearing old clothes and getting dirty. ‘You’re so lucky, you and Richard,’ her friends often told her enviously. But their marriage had suffered its ups and downs just like any other. Where they had been lucky perhaps had been in that both of them shared the same deep commitment to their relationship, so that, at times when both of them might have viewed their individual roles within it from opposing and conflicting viewpoints, their joint desire to keep their marriage alive and functioning had continued to survive.

She had not always experienced the same contentment in their relationship, the same pleasure in being herself as she did now, Elizabeth admitted. There had been times, when Sara was young, when she had felt Richard growing away from her … when she had felt threatened by and resentful of not just the claims of his work but his evident involvement with it.

It had been an article in the local newspaper absently flicked through in the hairdressers which had initially sparked off her interest in community work. With a twenty-year-old degree and no professional skills whatsoever, she had humbly approached the local community liaison officer, explaining that she would like to give her services and that she had time on her hands with her daughter living away from home, but that she had no skills she could put to use.

‘No skills?’ the other woman had queried. ‘You run a home, you’ve brought up a family, you drive a car. Don’t worry, we’ll soon find something for you to do!’ And so they had.

Elizabeth smiled to herself now, remembering how terrified she had been that first day, manning the reception desk at the Citizens Advice Bureau, and then six months later when she had been asked if she would like to train as a counsellor. She had protested that she was not experienced enough to give advice to others, that her life, her relationships were very far from perfect, and certainly did not justify her handing out advice to others.

‘The more problems our counsellors have faced in their own lives, the better they are at listening compassionately to the problems of others,’ she had been told crisply.

She sat down and opened the folder.

She had recently attended a national conference on the effects of long-term unemployment and redundancy on people. She frowned as she read through the notes she had made. They were certainly getting an increased number of people coming to them for advice on how to cope with their unemployment—women in the main, anxious not just about the loss of income but the effects of their husband’s redundancy and consequent loss of self-esteem on the men emotionally, and on the family as well.

If the gossip going round following Andrew Ryecart’s suicide was correct in suggesting that it had been caused by financial problems with Kilcoyne’s, it seemed likely that the town would soon have more men out of work. The company was one of the town’s main employers, one of the last light engineering companies left in the area. There would be no alternative jobs for people to go to.

Elizabeth nibbled the end of her pen. She had suggested at last week’s general staff meeting that it might be an idea to put together a special package formulated specifically to help such cases. People were individuals, of course, with individual problems, but …

‘It’s a good idea,’ her boss had agreed. ‘But we simply can’t spare anyone to work on it at the moment, unless …’

‘Unless I do it at home in my spare time,’ Elizabeth had offered wryly.

‘I’m sorry, Elizabeth,’ her boss had apologised. ‘But you know how things are: we’re all suffering cutbacks and underfunding, just like everyone else.’

That was true enough. Richard had been complaining that the hospital now seemed to employ more accountants to watch over its budgets than they did nurses to watch over its patients.

‘Richard, have you got a minute?’

Richard paused, frowning as he glanced at his watch.

‘Barely,’ he told the hospital’s chief executive. ‘My clinic starts in half an hour and I’ve got a couple of phone calls I need to make first.’

‘I really do need to talk to you, Richard,’ the other man insisted. ‘We’ve got a committee meeting coming up soon and we still have to go through your budgets.’

Richard grimaced, suppressing his instinctive response, which was to say that he was a surgeon, not an accountant. It was pointless losing his temper with Brian; he was just as much a victim of the financial cuts being imposed on them as he himself was.

‘Look, let’s go into my office,’ Brian suggested, taking advantage of his silence.

Irritably Richard followed him, shaking his head when Brian offered him coffee. ‘No, I forgot for a moment—you’re a tea man, aren’t you?’

‘I drank too much coffee when I was a student and a young intern,’ Richard told him. ‘They talk about working long hours now, but when I first qualified … Still, we didn’t have the same pressures on us then that they do now, nor the huge diversity of skills and facts to learn. These days there seems to be a new drug on the market every day and a new set of complications to go with it, never mind all the new operating techniques, and then of course there’s the paperwork …’

Brian Simmonds watched him sympathetically. He had remarked at last month’s meeting to the new area health chief administrator that it was perhaps unfair to expect some of their senior and older medical staff to be able to absorb the intricacies of the new technology and the tighter control of finances as speedily as the younger ones.

‘If that’s the case, then perhaps you ought to be thinking about pensioning a few of them off,’ had been David Howarth’s cold response. ‘It appals me to see how much money we’re wasting paying top salaries to people who could quite easily be replaced by someone younger—and cheaper.

‘The whole area health system needs reorganising and rationalising. We’ve got far too many small specialist units competing with one another. It would make much more sense to nominate specific hospitals to deal with specific areas of expertise. Out of the eighteen hospitals in this area, a good number of them have specialist heart units, and both your hospital and the Northern have specialised microsurgery units. Older surgeons like Richard Humphries …’

‘Richard Humphries was the first local surgeon to specialise in his field,’ Brian had protested defensively. ‘He really pioneered the treatment in his area …’

‘But Richard Humphries is a man not far off sixty who, no matter how excellent a surgeon he might be, has made it plain that he just isn’t equipped to deal with the financial implications of working in an independent hospital. Christopher Jeffries at the Northern, in contrast, has already shown that he has an excellent grasp of the way we’re going to need to operate in future to make sure we’re financially viable, and he’s twenty years younger than Richard.’

Brian hadn’t repeated their conversation to Richard. Richard and David had taken a dislike to one another virtually at first sight, and Brian already knew from past experience that Richard was simply not a man to compromise on what he believed were the best interests of his patients for any mere financial reasons.

Richard epitomised all that was best in the Health Service, its principles and its goals, while David on the other hand represented the new financial cutting edge that was being imposed on it to try to counteract the burden of a growing population and the rapid advances made in medical technology.

He sighed to himself, knowing that the problem was one thing, but finding the answers to it was something else again, and while David and his like believed that the answer was a far more hard-nosed response to the provision of health services, and while publicly Brian might feel it was politic to agree with him, privately he couldn’t help but sympathise with Richard’s totally opposite point of view.

Sympathising with him was one thing, failing to get across to him the message that if financial restraints were not self imposed then they would be imposed from outside was another matter, and one that could potentially prejudice the whole hospital’s future.

‘Our accountant was on the phone yesterday,’ he told Richard now. ‘It seems that she still hasn’t received your budget forecasts for the next quarter …’

‘What exactly is the hospital paying me for?’ Richard countered irritably. ‘Filling in forms or operating on patients?’

Brian sighed again. ‘Richard, I know how you feel, but try not to make too much of an enemy of people like David.’ He moved uncomfortably in his seat. ‘There are areas where savings can be made. The Northern——’

‘The Northern has a far lower post-operation recovery-rate than we do here,’ Richard interrupted, and added bluntly, ‘And you already know my opinion on the reasons for that …’

‘You’re getting too old and too idealistic, Richard,’ his GP son-in-law had told him drily the last time they had met. ‘And if you think you’ve got problems you should sit at my desk for a couple of days.’ Too idealistic he might be, but too old … Richard frowned, wondering why the thought should make him feel so edgy and defensive. He wasn’t even sixty yet. No age for a surgeon. Heavens, he could remember when he’d got his first internship: the senior surgeon had been close to seventy and everyone apart from the matron had gone in awe of him. It hadn’t mattered that you had to shout to make yourself heard because he was going deaf; watching him operate had been a privilege. In those days age and experience had been things to honour and respect—not like today, when the moment you got past forty-five you were considered to be past your best.

Back in his office, he found that his secretary, Kelly, had already sorted his mail into urgent and non-urgent piles. On the top of the urgent pile was a GP’s report on one of her female patients. As he studied it he pushed aside his conversation with Brian, frowning as he read the doctor’s findings.

A lump had been detected in the patient’s breast and an immediate operation would be necessary to perform a biopsy and removal if the lump was found to be malignant. She was a relatively young woman, only in her mid-thirties, and he knew from experience the trauma she would experience over the potential loss of a breast, but given the choice between that and losing her life …

His frown deepened as he reached into his jacket pocket for his diary, flicking it open until he found what he was looking for.

‘Kelly, how much emergency space have I got left on Thursday?’ he asked his secretary.

‘Thursday,’ she repeated, studying his lists. ‘None …’

‘Well, then, we’ll have to make some; Mrs Jacobs needs surgical attention straight away.’

‘But Thursday’s just two days away; you could afford to hold on until early next week.’

‘No, it has to be Thursday the tenth; the date is crucial,’ he told her. ‘Let me see the list, will you?’

When she handed it to him he studied it thoughtfully.

‘We’ll cancel Sophie Jennings’ non-urgent operation and put that in the beginning of next month,’ he announced.

Kelly pulled a small face. ‘We’ve had to cancel it once already due to another emergency, and you know how much she complained then …’

‘It can’t be helped,’ Richard told her. ‘Get her file out, will you, and I’ll write to her? Oh, and get me Mrs Jacobs’ file as well; I’d better phone her and speak to her personally.’

‘Problems?’ Elizabeth asked later that evening as they sat at their table in Mario’s and she watched Richard pushing his food unenthusiastically round his plate.

‘No more than usual,’ he told her drily. ‘All I ever seem to hear from Brian these days is money and budgets. What the hell is happening to the world today, Liz, that we judge the success of a hospital not on how many lives it saves, or on how much it improves the quality of its patients’ lives, but on how much money it can save?’

Elizabeth shook her head sympathetically. It was a familiar argument and very much a sore point with him at the moment.

‘The Health Service is under a great deal of financial pressure,’ she reminded him gently. ‘Look at the way you’ve had to go to the public to raise money to help fund this new Fast Response Accident Unit. At least that’s one cause that you and Sir Arthur are united on.’ She smiled. ‘He’s every bit as keen and determined to get the unit for the General as you are.’

‘Yes,’ Richard growled. ‘Someone ought to tell him that he’d be doing everyone a better service if he concentrated more on his fund-raising and less on finding fault with everything we do … Everything’s changing, Liz—good men being pensioned off for no better reason than the fact that …’ He paused, shaking his head. ‘I feel so out of step somehow. Am I wrong to believe that we should put our patients first?’

‘No, you’re not wrong,’ Elizabeth assured him. She put down her knife and fork, feeling her way as tactfully as she could. ‘But knowing you’re right isn’t always … you can be very stubborn,’ she told him gently. ‘There are circumstances when it’s sometimes easier to get your point of view across by being a little more flexible.’

She knew what was really bothering him; she and Sara and been discussing it earlier.

‘How’s Dad going to feel if the General amalgamates with the Northern and they offer him early retirement?’

‘Offer him early retirement?’ Elizabeth had queried ruefully. ‘Your father is far more likely to see it as being pensioned off; he won’t like it at all.’

‘No, and it won’t help that your working and your career is just beginning to take off …’

‘Oh, Sara, you’re not being fair,’ she had protested. ‘Your father has always encouraged me in my work …’

‘Mmm … but his career has always taken priority, hasn’t it? Oh, I know how pleased he is for you, how proud he is of you, but if he was sitting at home all day while you——’

‘It won’t come to that,’ Elizabeth had interrupted her firmly.

‘No? Ian was saying the other day that two or three of the older, more senior men at the Northern have already been approached with a view to getting them to go, and Dad is only a few years off sixty …’

Now, as she watched him, Elizabeth’s heart sank a little. She knew how much his work meant to him and she knew what a blow it would be to his pride, his sense of self-worth if he was asked to retire before he was ready.

Perhaps if she subtly tried to underline the advantages of his not having to work as hard, just as a precautionary measure. Her mouth curled into a rueful smile. Burgeoning career woman she might be, but in many ways she was still very much caught up in the traditional role of the supportive wife. That was how her generation had been brought up.

‘Oh, did you manage to get over to see Sara?’ Richard asked her, changing the subject.

‘Yes,’ she told him. ‘She’s feeling a bit frazzled. I offered to have Katie for a few days to give her a break; I’ve still quite a lot of holiday leave to take.’

‘You always were a soft touch,’ Richard told her. ‘For all of us …’

‘I’m glad you’re honest enough to include yourself in that comment,’ she teased him.

‘How do you feel about getting out of here and going home?’ Richard asked her urgently, leaning across the table so that the hovering waiter could not overhear what he was saying.

Elizabeth looked at him quickly to confirm that she hadn’t misunderstood the subtle message he was giving her. In the early days of their marriage, when their passion for one another had still been new and exciting, it had been no strange thing for them to leave early from dinner parties and other social events, Richard claiming quite untruthfully that he was on call, when in fact what he had wanted, what they had both wanted, was to go home and make love.

Laughing together, they had hurried back to their small flat, their urgent eagerness for one another as intoxicating as a heady wine, but these days their lovemaking, although still pleasurable, tended to be a far more leisurely and considered affair, its spontaneity tempered originally by the demands of a growing family and more latterly by their individual career demands and a certain natural lessening of the intensity of their desire.

‘Does that mean what I think it means?’ she asked him in amusement, and then laughed as she saw the way he was looking at her.

‘We are not teenagers any more!’ she told him ten minutes later when he took hold of her in the street, kissing her firmly before hurrying her towards their car.

‘Who says we need to be?’ he whispered as he paused to kiss her a second time. ‘Just because we aren’t under thirty, it doesn’t mean that we automatically stop functioning properly, that we aren’t just as capable as our juniors. There are, after all, times when experience and knowledge count for a lot more than youth and enthusiasm …’

Elizabeth touched his face gently.

‘Oh, Richard.’ There’s no shame in growing older, she wanted to tell him, but how could she, when all around them was the irrefutable evidence that there was? Being old and ill and dependent—these were now the taboo subjects that sex and birth had once been.

Richard wasn’t alone in dreading retirement as an acknowledgement of the beginning of his own old age.

CHAPTER FIVE

PHILIPPA opened her eyes and shut them again quickly as she remembered what day it was.

Outside it was still not properly light, but she knew she would not go back to sleep. She threw back the duvet, shivering as she felt the cool draught from the half-open window.

The cremation was not due to take place until two o’clock—plenty of time for her to do all the things she had to do …

‘You’ll be having everyone back to the house afterwards, of course,’ her mother had announced when she had rung to discuss what arrangements Philippa had made for Andrew’s cremation. ‘It would look so odd if you didn’t.’

‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ Philippa had protested. ‘Especially in the circumstances.’ Death was a difficult reality for people to handle at the best of times, but when it came through suicide …

‘You’ll have to do it, Philippa,’ her mother had insisted. ‘People will expect it.’

What people? Philippa had wanted to ask her. She supposed she ought not to have been surprised by the number of people—their so-called ‘friends’—who had rung ostensibly to commiserate with her and offer their sympathy, but in reality to dissociate themselves from Andrew and the taint of his failure just as quickly as they could.

Oh, they would want to be seen to be doing the right thing: they would send flowers, expensive, sterile displays of wealth and patronage. They would talk in public in low voices about how shocked they had been … how sorry they felt for her, and of course letting it be known how tenuous their acquaintance with Andrew had actually been, but she doubted that many of them would be seen at the crematorium.

And after all, who could blame them? Not Andrew, who would have behaved in exactly the same way had he been in their shoes.

Her black suit hung on the wardrobe door. She eyed it rebelliously. It wasn’t new and certainly had not been bought for an occasion such as this. She liked black, and it suited her fair paleness.

The fine black crepe fabric clung flatteringly to her body, or at least it had done; with the weight she had lost since Andrew’s death she doubted that it would do so any longer. The black velvet reveres of the jacket added a softening richness to its simple classic design.

It was really far too elegant an outfit to wear for such an occasion.

A woman … a widow who wasn’t really grieving for the loss of her husband would not have cared what she wore; there could not be any colour that could truly portray to the world what she was feeling.

A surge of contempt and bitterness swamped her. The contempt she knew was for herself; and the bitterness?

She walked into the bathroom adjacent to the bedroom. The bitterness … That was for Andrew, she admitted as she cleaned her teeth.

As she straightened up, she stared at her reflection in the mirror. Her face, wiped clean of make-up, showed beneath the harsh lighting of the bathroom exactly what effect the last few days had had on her. Pitilessly she stared at it, noting the fine lines touching the skin around her eyes, the pale skin and the tension in the underlying bones and muscles.

There, she was admitting it at last: it was not grief she felt at Andrew’s death, not the sorrow and pain of a woman who had lost the man who was her life’s partner, her lover, her friend, the father of her children.

What she felt was anger, bitterness, resentment.

Andrew had known what lay ahead of him … of them … and, unable to confront the situation he had brought upon himself, he had simply turned his back on it … evaded it, leaving her …

Her body started to shake as she tried to suppress her feelings, her hands gripping the edge of the basin.

Anger, bitterness, resentment; these were not emotions she should be feeling … but the guilt, the guilt that went hand in hand with them, that underlined them and seeped poisonously into her thoughts—yes, that was an emotion she could allow herself to feel.

Andrew had been her husband and, yes, she had married him willingly, caught up in a rebounding tide of pride, determined to prove that she was fully adult, fully a woman … and a woman capable of being loved by a man who would treat her as a woman and not a stupid child.

She closed her eyes. She had tried her best to be the wife Andrew wanted, to keep the bargain she had made with fate; she had tried to do it, to infuse into their relationship, their marriage, the warmth and sharing which Andrew could not or would not put into it; but nothing she had been able to do had ever really been able to disguise the poverty of the emotional bond between them, and in her worst moments since Andrew’s death she had even begun to wonder if this was his way of punishing her, if by leaving her in the manner he had … But then common sense had reasserted itself and she was forced to acknowledge that their marriage had come so far down the list of Andrew’s priorities that it would have been the last thing he would have taken into account in making his decision … that she would have been the last thing he would have taken into account?

Oddly, that knowledge, instead of freeing her from the burden of her guilt, only served to increase it. Yes, she had tried, but had she really tried hard enough?

‘You can’t be serious. You didn’t even know the man; why the hell should you want to see him cremated? It’s ridiculous … disgusting …’

‘Ryan thinks it’s the right thing to do.’ Deborah stared angrily across their bedroom at Mark.

The violence of his objections to the discovery that she intended to attend Andrew Ryecart’s cremation had caught her off guard, and touched a nerve which she herself had not wanted to acknowledge.

She dismissed the thought, reminding herself that she couldn’t afford to damage her professionalism with inappropriate feminine behaviour.

‘It’s a token of respect, that’s all,’ she told Mark, turning away from him so that he couldn’t see her face.

‘What? Don’t give me that … It’s blatant voyeurism and if you really believe anything else … You’ve changed ever since Ryan gave you this commission.’

‘No, I haven’t,’ she denied. ‘If anyone’s changed, it’s you. What’s the matter with you? You’re behaving almost as though you’re jealous.’

‘Jealous … who the hell of?’ he challenged her.

It had been on the tip of her tongue to say, ‘Me’, but suddenly, for no real logical reason, her heart started to beat too fast and she found she could not actually say the word.

‘I suppose you mean Ryan,’ he told her, answering his own question. ‘My God, that only underlines what I was just saying. If you really think I could ever be jealous of a creep like that …’

As he studied her downbent head and the way her dark hair swung over her face, concealing her expression from him, Mark knew that he had over-reacted. The bright morning sunshine highlighted the chestnut shine on her hair and the lissom softness of her body.

His own ached abruptly in a sharp spasm of sexual response. He wanted to pick her up and carry her over to their bed, spread the soft, warm femaleness of her underneath him and make love to her with such passion that she would not be able to suppress her sharp cries of pleasure, her body’s response to him, her need and desire for him. He wanted, he recognised, her recognition of him as a man … as a source of power and strength. That knowledge shook him, disturbing him, making him reject the sexual message his body was giving him.

What he wanted, a cold black corner of his mind told him, was her acknowledgement of his power over her, her subservience to him.

But no, that could not be true. He was not that kind of man; he never had been; that kind of egotistical need was a male trait he despised. Their relationship was one of mutuality and respect.

Or at least it had been. Deborah seemed to have more respect for Ryan these days than she did for him.

Test her, a small inner voice urged him. Let her prove to you that you’re wrong.

‘If you’ll take my advice you won’t go,’ he heard himself saying.

Deborah lifted her head and frowned as she looked at him. ‘I don’t have any option. I have to go,’ she told him. ‘Ryan …’ When she saw the expression on his face, she reminded him quietly, ‘He is my boss, Mark.’

‘Yes,’ Mark agreed equally quietly.

It was only later, when she was actually in her own office, that Deborah asked herself why she had not pushed Mark to explain more rationally why he felt she should not attend the cremation.

Admittedly Philippa Ryecart was not involved with the company in any official capacity and until she had had her first meeting with the bank, who were the company’s main creditors, she would not know to what extent Andrew’s personal assets were involved. It was not unknown in such cases where a man knew his business was failing for him to withdraw as many of its assets as he could, converting them into funds for his private use, and it would be part of her job to discover if this had happened.

Scavenging among the rotting carcasses of the dead, Mark had called it, and she supposed to some extent he was right.

It all depended, though, on what attitude you took. ‘The company’s creditors have every right to try to recover their money,’ she had pointed out to him defensively.

‘Every right,’ Mark had agreed and had then added, ‘How will you feel, Deborah, telling people that they’re going to lose their jobs; that their redundancy money and very probably their pension as well has gone?’

‘I’m not responsible for the company’s failure,’ Deborah had defended.

‘No, but you’re the one who’s going to have to stand there and tell them … you’re the one who’s going to have to look at their faces and see the fear in them.’

‘Stop it,’ she had told him fiercely, asking, ‘Why are you doing this to me, Mark? It’s my job, you know that …’

‘Yes, I’m sorry,’ he had apologised, his face softening as he’d recognised her distress.

They had made it up and she had told herself that it was silly to feel so hurt, but now they were quarrelling again.

It had been tempting this morning to admit to him that she didn’t want to go to the cremation, but Ryan had warned her against letting her emotions get in the way of doing her job properly. He had also let it slip that some of the other partners felt he was taking a risk in allowing her so much responsibility and that they had felt he should have appointed a man to head the team, with her as second in command.

She now felt honour-bound to prove to them that she was up to the job, not just for her own sake but for Ryan’s as well.

She had wanted to explain all this to Mark but his attitude had made it impossible for her to confide in him. It hurt her that he couldn’t be a little more understanding, that he couldn’t seem to see how important it was to her that she prove herself, and how much she needed his support and approval.

Ryan came into her office just as she had finished making arrangements to see the bank. He smiled at her as she replaced the receiver and said softly, ‘I like the suit. Black looks good on you.’

As his glance flickered over her, Deborah suspected that it wasn’t only her smartly cut black business suit that he was envisaging her in. Ryan would definitely be the black underwear, stockings and suspender type, she acknowledged, but she let his slow, sensual appraisal of her pass without comment, saying meekly, ‘I’m due at the crematorium at two; it seemed the right thing to wear.’

‘Ah, yes … pity … I was going to suggest you join me for lunch. I’m seeing Harry Turner, the bank’s regional director, and I thought it would give you an opportunity to do a bit of networking.’

Deborah shook her head with genuine regret, half hoping he would suggest that she give the crematorium a miss, but he didn’t. If he had done, would she have told Mark the truth or would she have let him assume that she had not gone because he had not wanted her to? She frowned. Why should she need to employ such deceit? She and Mark had always been totally honest with one another.

Mark saw Ryan leaving Deborah’s office. He had been on his way there himself to apologise for his surliness this morning, but now he abruptly changed his mind.

He had never liked Ryan; he admitted that freely. There was something about the man, about his attitude to life and to other people, that irked him. Ryan, while paying lip-service to the views and opinions of others, nevertheless still managed to betray an arrogance and lack of consideration for any viewpoint but his own which left Mark breathless … and envious?

No, of course not. But he was aware that in the eyes of the world, in the eyes of his peers here at work, according to the ancient code of male approval he would be judged inferior to Ryan.

Ryan was a swaggering, macho buccaneer of a man who, despite the fact that modern conditioning demanded that his male peers disapprove of him for those traits, still, because of those very characteristics, secretly appealed to a part of the male instinct.

And the female? Did Deborah perhaps secretly despise him and wish he were more like Ryan?

Mark frowned. Was it really Deborah’s contempt that he feared, or his own? Was it in her eyes that he feared comparison with Ryan, or his?

His thoughts were too uncomfortable to pursue; they opened up a vein of insecurity and weakness within himself from which he instinctively retreated.

As he walked back into his own office he almost bumped into the girl coming out. He frowned as she dimpled a smile at him, wondering who she was. She had a small, curvy figure and the confidence to show it off, amusement lightening her eyes as she saw him studying her.

‘Sorry,’ he apologised wryly.

‘Don’t be,’ she responded unexpectedly. ‘I was enjoying it.’

She had gone before he could make any further retort, the scent of her perfume lingering behind her.

‘A computer? And just how the hell are we supposed to afford that?’

Sally gave an exasperated sigh as she heard the anger in Joel’s voice, intervening, ‘Don’t bother your dad with that now, love. We’ll talk about it later.’

She waited until Paul had left the kitchen before turning to Joel and asserting, ‘There was no need to be like that with him. He was only asking. Have you heard anything yet about the factory?’

‘If I had, don’t you think I’d have told you?’ he responded irritably.

Sally gritted her teeth. She knew how worried he was, but didn’t he realise how difficult he was making it for her … for all of them … with his moodiness and bad temper? It wasn’t their fault that he might be going to lose his job.

Guiltily she looked away from him. She had tried to be sympathetic, but she had her own problems. Sister was pressuring her to work more hours on a regular basis but she was already overstretched, trying to keep things organised at home and working as well. And Joel didn’t help.

‘Do you have to leave your things all over the place?’ she demanded crossly now as she glared at the jacket he had dropped carelessly on the table.

‘It wouldn’t be there if Paul hadn’t stopped me to pester me about his damned computer,’ Joel growled back. ‘It would be on my back and I’d have been out from under your feet. It’s really good to know how much I’m wanted in my own home.’

‘Well, it’s your own fault,’ Sally responded defensively. ‘If you weren’t so bad-tempered all the time, snapping at the kids for no reason, behaving like …’

‘Like what?’ he challenged her. ‘Like a man who’s about to lose his job and doesn’t know where the hell his next wage packet is coming from or if there’s going to be one?’

‘You don’t know yet that you will be made redundant,’ Sally protested, ‘and besides …’

‘Besides what?’

She took a deep breath. She hadn’t meant to tell him like this; she knew how he felt about her working even part-time.

‘Sister wants me to work full-time … It would mean a lot more money, Joel,’ she told him quickly before he could say anything. ‘Not enough to cover your wages, I know, but if we cut back on things …’

‘Cut back? I’ve got a better idea,’ Joel told her, white-faced. ‘Why don’t I just get myself out of here completely, then you could make a real saving? It isn’t as though you need me any more, is it? Not now that Sister wants you to work full-time. Not if I’m not in work.’

Sally felt irritation explode inside her. She hadn’t got time for this, for listening to Joel felling sorry for himself, she had the washing to do, and the ironing from the last load, and she wanted to do the supermarket shopping before she went to work; the last thing she needed was Joel having a tantrum. She hadn’t got time to quarrel with him about it either. Not the time, nor the inclination, and certainly not the energy.

‘You’re going to be late for work,’ she told him grimly instead.

She turned her back on him as he reached for his jacket, tensing as she felt him move towards her. A part of her wanted to turn round and lift her face for his goodbye kiss, but another part of her, the angry, resentful part, wouldn’t let her. She was tired of being the one to compromise, who always gave way for the sake for peace. She knew he was worried about his job—she was worried too—but taking it out on the kids wasn’t fair on them.

As he saw the rigidity of her back, Joel’s own face hardened. It seemed that no matter what he did these days he was always in the wrong, in the way, his presence not wanted or needed in bed or out of it.

Paul came into the kitchen after Joel had gone.

‘Everyone else at school’s got a computer,’ he began to grumble as he followed Sally round the kitchen. ‘What’s wrong with Dad, anyway?’

Sally put down the plates she was carrying to the sink and walked over to him. At thirteen he considered himself too big for hugs and kisses these days but right now he looked so forlorn, so young and vulnerable that she reacted instinctively, hugging him to her and ruffling the top of his hair.

He no longer had that baby, milky smell which had once been so familiar to her, so loved; now he smelled of trainers and school mingled with other strange, alien, youthful male scents which showed how quickly he was growing up and away from her.

She felt him wriggle protestingly in her arms. ‘Aw, Mum …’

‘Don’t worry about your dad,’ she told him. ‘He’s got a lot on his mind at the moment.’

Joel stopped the car three doors down from his own house and then reversed abruptly. He couldn’t go to work leaving things like that with Sally. Perhaps he had over-reacted, snapping at her like that and then quarrelling with her, but he couldn’t sleep properly for worrying about what would happen if he was made redundant. It was his role, his responsibility, his life function to support and protect his family, and if he couldn’t do that, then …

As he walked past the kitchen window he looked inside and saw Sally hugging Paul. He could see her love for their son in the soft curve of her mouth, its tenderness and warmth. How long was it since she had held him like that … since she had looked at him with love?

As he turned away from the door and headed back to his car he felt the angry pain burning inside him like bile.

Jealous of his own son. Sally had accused him of it often enough in the past. He had denied it, of course—he loved the children—but seeing her holding Paul like that had made him sharply aware of the contrast in the way she treated him and the way she opened to them.

Deborah had timed her arrival at the crematorium to coincide with that of the last of the mourners, so that she could slip inside and sit at the back of the room without attracting any attention.

The first thing she noticed was how few people were actually there.

A small, very pretty blonde woman in black who was presumably the widow, an older couple beside her—her parents perhaps. Another couple, the tall man with a rather imposing and self-important manner, the woman at his side signalling by her body language that she considered herself above the proceedings, as she held herself slightly aloof from the others. She was dressed in a way that proclaimed her county origins; the Hermés scarf was plainly not a copy and neither were the immaculately polished loafers she was wearing. She looked the type to have sons at one of the better boarding schools and daughters who rode in gymkhanas and did a season working in Val d’Isére for a friend of a friend at one of the most exclusive chalets before marrying men who were something in the city with the right kind of county connections.

Without knowing why, Deborah instinctively disliked both of them.

There were a handful of other mourners, their numbers barely filling the front two rows of seats, and suddenly she felt not just out of place but guilty almost of the kind of tactless and distasteful rubbernecking she had always despised. Mark had been right. She should not be here. Quickly she turned round and hurried towards the door, slipping silently outside.

Ryan would laugh at her when he knew what she had done, mock her for her squeamishness, but as she looked at Andrew’s pale, fragile blonde widow she hadn’t been able to stop herself imagining how she would have felt in her shoes … the pain and anguish the woman must be experiencing … Had she known what her husband had intended to do? She could not have done, of course. How much greater then must be her pain and despair, her sense not just of loss, but also of having somehow failed him.

She got into her car, switching on the ignition. Suddenly all she wanted was to be at home with Mark. Just the two of them together, safe in their own private world where no one else, nothing else could intrude.

‘Just the local paper, thanks,’ Joel told the girl behind the counter in the newsagent’s as he handed over his money.

It was all over the factory that there was to be a big meeting with the bank and some firm of accountants on Monday morning. And then what? The spectre of redundancy hung heavily over him as he left the shop. He didn’t really know why he had bought the local rag—he already knew what he would find in the ‘situations vacant’ column, or rather what he would not find. This area, this town which had originally grown prosperous from the profits of the small local engineering firms which had supplied the car industry, now had no jobs for men like himself. The apprenticeship he had been so proud to get, the skills he had worked so hard to learn—what use were they to him now? A piece of machinery programmed by a computer had virtually made his skill obsolete.

As he paused in the street, turning to the ‘situations vacant’ page, the print blurred in front of his eyes. Part-time check-out girls for the local supermarket, newspaper-delivery boys and girls, auxiliary nursing aides at the hospital.

He grimaced as he read this last entry. Sally complained fiercely that he objected to her working, calling him old-fashioned and unfair, but it wasn’t her working that he minded but the fact that it was necessary. It hurt his pride that he no longer earned enough to support his own family, and it hurt him even more sensing that Sally found an enjoyment and pleasure in her work that she no longer seemed to find with him.

He folded the papers, his attention caught by the slow progression of a funeral cortège. His mouth twisted as he watched it.

They were cremating Andrew Ryecart today—that pale, fragile-looking little blonde in the front car must be his wife. She looked younger than he had expected. He felt the anger and bitterness swelling inside him as he stared at the car. It was all right for her. She would be financially secure; that sort always were. She would not be scanning the papers praying desperately for another job … any job just so long as it was a job. He was forty-four years old and the shadow of his father and the way he had lived his life, earning a few pounds here and there through a variety of casual jobs, not seeming to care about the contempt others held him in or how it might affect his family, hovered over him.

Joel had sworn that that would never happen to him; that his kids would always be able to hold their heads up high, that they would never know the humiliation he had known as a child, or the deprivations.

When his teacher had suggested putting him forward for the qualifying examination for a free place at a local independent school, his father had laughed out loud. A son of his, go to some posh private school?

‘You can forget it,’ he’d told Joel. ‘That’s not for the likes of us. Come sixteen you’ll want to be out earning, not wasting your time getting some fancy education.’

Joel seldom thought about that these days. What was the point? And besides, he had been happy … happy and content with his life until they had started having all these money problems, until Sally had started making him feel inferior to that brother-in-law of hers, with his posh job and his detached house.

Well, there was no way he would ever be able to give Sally anything like that. Not now … They’d be lucky to keep their existing roof over their heads if he was made redundant, even with Sally working full-time.

Philippa glanced idly out of the car window. There was a man standing on the side of the road, staring fiercely at her, his black hair ruffled by the sharp breeze. He had a hard, sharp-boned face, his body tall and lean, and just for a moment, although really there was no physical resemblance between them at all apart from the dark hair and the fact that they were both male, there was something so hard and angry in the way he was looking at her that her heart jerked in angry panic and she was momentarily thrown back into the past to another man and his anger.

Quickly she looked away, biting down hard on her bottom lip to stop it from trembling.

Michael, her second brother, lived in Edinburgh and couldn’t make it for the cremation. He had telephoned her the night before to apologise, explaining that he was committed to giving a presentation to the clients of the design company he worked for.

Philippa had reassured him that she understood. She had always been closer to Michael than she had to Robert. Three years younger than Robert and three years older than herself, Michael had been the ideal older brother, offering her comfort and sanctuary when the criticism of her parents and Robert had been too much for her.

She had missed him when he had left home to go to university and now that he was working quite a distance away, but, although they had always kept in touch, he and Andrew had never really hit it off.

Elizabeth saw the funeral cortège on her way back to the office after lunch.

She paused automatically and quietly by the side of the road, noting as she did so how few of the other pedestrians trudging down the street even glanced at the slow procession, never mind paid it the old traditional mark of motionless respect. Those who did were in the main like herself, offspring of a generation to whom strict observance of society’s conventions had been important.

As the cortège passed, leaving her free to cross the road, she gave a small shiver. Such sad things, funerals. Both she and Richard were fit and healthy and not old by any means at all, but not young any more either. She had her daughter and a grandchild, her work and some very good friends, but none of them could ever fill the space, the emptiness in her life that would come if she lost Richard. Physically he looked much closer to fifty than sixty, with a full head of hair and a lean, athletic body.

She smiled a little to herself, recalling just how athletic that body could be and just how much pleasure she still got from touching him and being touched by him in turn, but then he had always been a particularly tactile man, hugging and kissing his daughter and showing her physical affection, which had not been common at the time among their peers.

She remembered once seeing him reach out and fiercely hug one of his young male students when the boy had finally passed his examinations after two daunting failures. The boy had looked surprised and slightly embarrassed at first, but Elizabeth would never forget the look of pride and joy which had quickly followed. It had brought home how severe and hard the pressure was on boys to conform to their sexual stereotyping from a very young age. For a moment that young man had looked again like a small boy, thrilled by the acknowledgement and acclaim, the approval of a male parent.

She had often wondered if it was this side of his nature that made Richard such a skilled and almost intuitive surgeon. Although he was in every single way a very vigorously male man, there was also, she thought, a softening, warming mixture of some feminine instincts and emotions in his genes which in her eyes only served to underline and increase the effect of his masculinity.

Robert was making a speech. His voice was full-bodied and measured, grave, as befitted a person speaking of the dead. He was asking them to ignore Andrew’s weaknesses in the final months of his life and to think instead of the man he had been before he fell victim to the unfortunate circumstances which had led to his taking his own life. To listen to him, one would have thought he felt nothing but sympathy and compassion for Andrew, Philippa reflected as she watched him.

Was this really the same man who had told her that he couldn’t help her, that he couldn’t afford to be tainted by the relationship between them, who had betrayed so conclusively his own weakness of character; his own selfishness and instinct for self-preservation?

It surprised her a little how distant and divorced from the proceedings she actually felt, more as though she was merely a casual observer rather than Andrew’s widow, her feelings, her emotions numb and frozen. Would they, like thawed fingers and toes, start to ache with violent pain when that numbness wore off?

Robert had stopped speaking. People shuffled politely, waiting for her to make the first move. Silently she did so, pausing as she emerged into the cold rawness outside the crematorium, her body stiff as she thanked people for coming and accepted their expressions of sympathy.

There had been few mourners there, few brave enough to admit that they knew the dead man. Was it that they feared that they might be contaminated by the failure which had destroyed him? Philippa smiled bitterly to herself.

‘Come along, my dear,’ her father urged her, taking hold of her arm. ‘We all understand how you must be feeling.’

Did they? She doubted it, Philippa thought savagely as she pulled away from him, ignoring his irritated frown and her mother’s displeased tutting.

Oh, she knew how they expected her to feel, the conventional emotion she was expected to betray. The shock, the tears, the grief.

But it was none of these she felt as she walked back to the car.

If she wept now it would not be for Andrew, it would be for herself, and they would not be tears of grief but tears of anger and resentment. Tears of admission of a helplessness she could not afford to feel—neither for her sons nor for herself.

CHAPTER SIX

PHILIPPA dressed apprehensively for her appointment with the bank manager. What did one wear for such an interview? Her black suit was probably the most appropriate and businesslike thing she had in her wardrobe, but she shrank from putting it on again so soon.

The only other formal outfits she possessed were the pretty silk dresses and matching jackets, the expensive silk and cashmere pastel-coloured separates which Andrew had always insisted on her wearing; the kind of clothes which looked fragile and luxurious. School open days and private garden and house party clothes, Philippa had always privately thought of them. Pretty clothes for a pretty woman; expensive and impractical clothes to show off and underline Andrew’s wealth and achievements.

And totally unsuitable for her to wear now; they would make her feel like a modern Marie Antoinette, flaunting her luxuries while others went without.

Now that she was over the initial shock of Andrew’s death, now that she had forced herself to admit the anger and resentment she felt at what he had done, she had started to broaden the scope of her thoughts and anxieties. She might not be responsible in any way for the fate of the factory, of those who worked in it, but that did not stop her feeling concerned, anxious, guilty almost, mentally comparing their fate with her own.

In the end she wore the black suit, crushing down her feelings of distaste as she put it on.

She had driven up to the school yesterday, Sunday, to see the boys, and her car would now need filling with petrol, she reminded herself as she left the house.

Both Rory and Daniel seemed to be coping well with their father’s death, but she suspected that the reality of it would not really touch them until they returned home for the Easter holidays.

Her appointment at the bank was not until ten o’clock and she had plenty of time, she assured herself as she pulled in at the garage where she always got her petrol. Andrew had an account there; it was one of those domineering male traits which she often resented in him that, while he always insisted on her having the best of everything, he did not like handing actual cash over to her. The bills for all her credit cards were sent to him; her car, her clothes, even their food were all paid for via these cards and the small amount of actual cash he allowed her carefully monitored by him. Not because he didn’t trust her, but, she suspected, because he enjoyed and needed to feel he was in control of her and of her life.

She filled her tank with petrol and then walked into the shop.

The woman behind the till was the wife of the garage manager. Philippa smiled at her as she asked her if she would put the cost of her petrol on their account.

The woman flushed uncomfortably and glanced uncertainly over her shoulder towards an open door that led into what Philippa presumed was an office. Then, even though there was no one else in the shop, she lowered her voice slightly as she leaned towards Philippa and asked awkwardly, ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Ryecart, but could you possibly pay cash?’

Taken aback and flushing slightly herself in response to the woman’s embarrassment, Philippa reached automatically into her handbag, fumbling for her purse.

‘It’s the rules, you see,’ the woman was explaining uncomfortably. ‘The account was in your husband’s name and …’

‘Yes, yes, of course. I understand,’ Philippa assured her. She could feel her face starting to burn with embarrassed heat as she opened her purse. How much money did she have? Please God, let it be enough to pay for her petrol. Why on earth hadn’t she had the sense to realise for herself that this would happen? Andrew had always countersigned the petrol bill at the end of the month when he’d paid it and she ought to have recognised that with him dead problems might arise. The garage obviously had done.

Even as she felt the relief of discovering that she had enough cash with her to cover the bill, she was still furiously angry with herself and dismayingly aware of how dismally lacking in common sense and ordinary everyday awareness she must be not to have anticipated what might happen.

She could sign cheques on the joint account, a concession it had taken her many months to win, but only for amounts of fifty pounds at a time and never more than two hundred pounds in one month.

No doubt this was one of the reasons why the bank manager wanted to see her, she acknowledged as she left the garage and got back into her car.

Neville Wilson was a pleasant enough man, very much the archetypal bank manager type, worthy and perhaps a little on the dull side, addicted to his golf, and the type of man who enjoyed observing the conventions of small-town life and who would, in Philippa’s estimation, feel uneasy and out of his depth without them.

Andrew had often boasted to her that he was the bank’s biggest customer and that because of his flair and initiative, because of the way he had expanded the company, Neville’s stock had been increased with his head office.

‘It’s no wonder they’ve never promoted him,’ Andrew had told her after they had left one of the Wilsons’ dinner parties. Andrew had been in a good mood that night, boasting at the dinner-table about the new contract he expected to win.

‘He’s too cautious … too stuck in his ways. I keep telling him that these days to make money you have to spend it. His own boss agrees with me. In fact I’m beginning to think I should deal with the regional office direct and bypass Neville. I’d get much faster results that way. They understand how important speed is these days.’

Andrew had also been in an unusually expansive mood that night. He had made love to her when they went to bed, a sure sign that he was in good temper.

Made love … Philippa grimaced to herself at how very much her parents’ daughter she was at times. She and Andrew had not ‘made love’ at all—they hadn’t really even had sex; they had simply been physically intimate, physically but not mentally and certainly not emotionally.

She hadn’t seen Neville socially for several months after that, not until they had both been guests at a mutual acquaintance’s dinner party.

‘I’m sorry to hear that Andrew didn’t get that Japanese contract after all,’ he had said quietly to Philippa after dinner. ‘It must have been a disappointment to him. I know how much he was counting on it.’

Philippa hadn’t said anything. How could she have done? She had had no knowledge of the contract he was discussing and so she had simply smiled and changed the subject, asking him if he had managed to take time off to visit Wentworth to watch the golf—a special pro-am match which she knew would have appealed to him.

Now, as she remembered that conversation, her mouth twisted bitterly.

Had Neville perhaps been trying to warn her even then that things were going badly wrong for Andrew? But even if he had, what could she have done? She was the last person Andrew would have listened to or confided in.

Face it, she told herself as she walked into the bank. Andrew would not have listened to anyone who tried to tell him something he might not want to hear. He was simply not that kind of man.

She was several minutes early for her appointment and, bearing in mind the fact that she had used virtually all her spare cash to pay for her petrol, Philippa was just about to draw some cash from their account when she remembered the humiliating situation at the garage and decided to wait until she had spoken to Neville and sorted out whatever paperwork was necessary to enable her to take over their accounts.

At one minute to ten a young woman walked into the banking hall, tall and dressed in a smartly discreet, soft caramel-coloured business suit and a toning cream silk shirt. She gave off an aura which Philippa immediately envied. Although physically she was extremely attractive it was immediately obvious to Philippa as she observed her that it was not her looks that gave her her enviable air of self-confidence and assurance, her unmistakable and enviable professionalism.

This young woman was all that she herself had never been, Philippa acknowledged as she watched her; there were perhaps eight years, maybe even less between them but Philippa felt that they were divided by a gulf not of time but of life’s experience.

She saw Neville coming out of his office, and stood up, but it was the girl whom he greeted first, before turning to Philippa and making an apology that he hadn’t been able to join the other mourners at the crematorium.

As he showed them both into his office, it was the girl again whom he showed to the more prominent of the two chairs, quickly introducing her to Philippa as the representative of the firm of accountants the bank had called in to handle the firm’s liquidation.

Thanks to Robert, she had been semi-prepared for such an announcement, but the gravity of Neville’s voice and the way he was frowning down at the papers on his desk still heightened her anxiety, the shock of hearing what she dreaded sliding coldly through her stomach, her body tensing.

Habit and training cautioned her simply to sit and listen, to retreat into the protection of a semi-frozen silence, but older instincts urged her to accept reality, warned her that it wasn’t just herself she had to protect and defend but her sons as well.

Neville was still frowning. He coughed and cleared his throat.

‘I realise this has come as a shock to you,’ he told her. ‘But it has to be discussed, I’m afraid.’

‘Yes … yes. I appreciate that,’ Philippa told him huskily. ‘It’s just …’ She could feel her throat beginning to close up, weak tears of fear and panic threatening to flood her eyes.

She couldn’t cry … she mustn’t cry … she was not going to cry, she told herself fiercely. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the expression on Deborah’s face and momentarily envied her.

She was young, so obviously self-confident and in control of her life, that faint hint of pity Philippa could see in her eyes making her feel worse rather than better.

Gritting her teeth, she lifted her head and looked directly at Neville.

‘Could you explain the exact situation to me, Neville?’ she asked him quietly. ‘I … Andrew didn’t discuss his business affairs with me. He wasn’t that sort of man and I——’

She broke off, her face hot, aware of how stupid she must sound and aware too of the covert message within her words, the in-built need to apologise for herself and ask forgiveness.

Neville Wilson watched her. She was still in shock, poor woman, and no wonder. This wasn’t the first time he had been in this situation and it wouldn’t be the last. He had warned Andrew about the risk he was taking, but Andrew had refused to listen and it was no surprise to Neville to hear that he had kept Philippa in the dark about his business affairs.

‘A lot of men are like Andrew,’ he told Philippa. ‘I sometimes suspect that it’s partly the excitement of the secrecy of keeping everything to themselves, of being totally in control that drives them on and makes them successful. Unfortunately, it’s the same need for secrecy and control that works so dangerously in reverse when things go wrong.

‘I tried to warn Andrew on several occasions about what he was doing but …’

‘But the bank still loaned him money,’ Philippa intervened quietly.

Neville gave a small shrug. ‘Things were different then. It was a time of expansion; head office wanted us to lend and Andrew had the collateral, or at least …’

‘Your husband’s business isn’t the only one to suffer,’ Deborah told Philippa. ‘One of the problems a lot of small businesses have had to face is that the value of their collateral, the means by which they secure the money they borrow, has sharply depreciated. Bankruptcies are very much on the increase at the moment …’

‘And suicide?’ Philippa asked sharply before biting her lip and apologising huskily. ‘I’m sorry … It’s just …’

She was here, after all, to listen to what Neville and this young woman had to say, not to give way to her own emotions or express the anger and resentment she felt at what had happened to her.

Deborah watched her. There was no mistaking the other woman’s shocked distress. Deborah actually felt sorry for her, her plight reaching out to her in a way she hadn’t expected. Would she have felt a similar empathy had Philippa been a man? She didn’t know, but then a man would not have been in such a situation, would he?

In the office and at home reading the bank’s file on the company and its owner, it had been easy to criticise and condemn, to be distanced from the effect that Andrew Ryecart’s financial ineptitude and arrogance had had on other people’s lives, but here, facing one of, if not the prime victim of Andrew’s overweening pride, Deborah suddenly realised exactly what Mark had meant when he had said that it was a side of their work he simply had no stomach for.

But it was her job to find the stomach for it, as Ryan would no doubt point out mockingly to her when she tried to express her present feelings to him.

Silently she listened as Neville Wilson explained the position to Philippa.

‘Andrew fell into the same trap as many other people during the eighties,’ he told her. ‘He bought the company when interest rates were low and then borrowed heavily to re-equip it, bringing in new plants and taking on extra men, secure in the knowledge that there was an increasing market for his goods. Over-trading is the term we bankers use for it,’ Neville told her drily. ‘But, unfortunately, men like Andrew very rarely listen to our words of caution. Additionally, matters were made worse in Andrew’s case by the fact that not only did interest rates rise steeply, but he had also gambled on winning an extremely large new contract and had expanded, borrowing extra money to spend on the plant and new buildings on the assumption that he would get this contract. At that time the value of his assets merited such a loan but, of course, now …’

‘I suspect that your husband’s accountants, like the bank, would have cautioned him to think very carefully about what he was doing,’ Deborah intervened. ‘We always counsel companies not to put too many of their eggs in the one basket, so to speak. Several small contracts are always much wiser and safer than one large one. Several small ones to provide the bread and butter and one large one for the jam are, of course, even better. Even if your husband had obtained this large contract he could still have been facing severe problems. What a lot of these large companies do is use their contracts as bait, and once they have their fish well and truly hooked and dependent on their contracts to stay in the business they use that power to force down the price of the goods or services they’re buying. It’s standard market practice but often, in the euphoria of obtaining a good new contract, even the most sensible of businessmen can forget that fact.

‘In your husband’s case, unfortunately, he was already over-committed financially before he expanded to take on this contract. Once he realised he wasn’t going to get it, the only way the business could have survived would have been via a very large injection of cash. He couldn’t borrow any more money. He had already borrowed up to the full extent of his assets and as it is the bank will be very lucky to recoup all of its money.’

‘So there’s no way the company could be kept going?’ Philippa asked her.

Deborah shook her head. ‘No, I’m sorry, there isn’t. If there were, the bank, or more likely your husband’s accountants, would have recommended appointing receivers; they would have taken over the running of the company and tried to keep it working as a going concern until they could find a buyer …’

‘And there’s no way that still could be done?’ Philippa asked her eagerly. Perhaps if she talked to Robert, stressed to him how many people would be put out of work if the company closed down, played a little upon his pomposity… his public image and the acclaim he would receive locally if he ‘saved’ Kilcoyne’s … ‘If there were someone who could invest …’

Deborah shook her head again. Why was it that she felt so much pity and compassion for this woman? She was the antithesis of everything she was herself, pitifully defenceless and unaware, the kind of woman who probably never worried about anything other than what to serve at her next dinner party, whose knowledge of world affairs was probably limited to the name of Hillary Clinton’s dress designer and who was probably more familiar with the current cost of a Chanel suit than with the current state of the share index.

The kind of woman who almost exactly mirrored the type personified by her own mother.

Deborah frowned abruptly. Where had that thought come from?

‘Not unless this someone could come up with two million pounds,’ she told Philippa briskly.

Philippa could feel the colour leaving her skin, her blood felt as though it was being sucked back through her veins by some giant vacuum pump, leaving her physically shaking … physically nauseous.

‘Two million pounds! B-but that’s impossible …’ she started to stammer. ‘Andrew would never borrow so much money … He couldn’t!’

Deborah said nothing, pausing for a few seconds before removing a sheaf of papers from the file in front of her and saying quietly, ‘It’s our job as liquidators appointed by the bank, who are the main creditors—that is to say your late husband’s biggest debts are with them—to recoup as much of this money as we can, and this process is normally done by liquidating the company’s assets … hence the term liquidation.

‘What I have here is a list of those assets over which the bank has a charge; that is to say that when your husband borrowed this money from the bank he secured it by signing over to the bank those assets.’

Philippa tried to listen but she was still in shock, still stunned by the extent of Andrew’s debt. Two million pounds … how could he have borrowed so much money?

Deborah looked up at Neville Wilson. It was his job to explain to Philippa Ryecart the extent of her husband’s debts and the consequences of them.

Silently she started to replace her papers in the file.

‘And the people who work for the company?’ she heard Philippa asking her urgently as she stood up. ‘What will happen to them?’

‘They’ll be served with redundancy notices,’ Deborah told her. ‘There’ll be a formal meeting this afternoon informing them officially of what’s happened and …’

‘Redundancy!’ Philippa shivered as she looked across at Neville.

‘There isn’t any alternative, I’m afraid,’ he told her. ‘It’s standard procedure in such cases. Every extra day the company is in operation merely adds to its debt. I just wish I’d been able to persuade Andrew to listen to me when I tried to warn him about the risks he was running, but——’

He broke off as Deborah interrupted him to say quietly, ‘I’ll be in touch tomorrow morning as arranged.’ She turned to Philippa. ‘I’m sorry all this has to come as such a shock to you,’ she told her.

As she left the office she was thanking her lucky stars that she was not the sort of woman who could ever fall into the kind of trap that Philippa had been caught in. To be so dependent on a man and so unaware of his financial affairs.

It crossed her mind that Ryan was very much the same kind of man as Andrew Ryecart had been.

In Neville’s office Philippa stood up, preparing to leave, but Neville waved her back into her seat, saying, ‘Not yet, Philippa—we still have one or two things to discuss … about Andrew’s personal affairs.’

Andrew’s personal affairs. Philippa stared numbly at him. She was still in shock. She had gone beyond her own personal anger and bitterness now, totally overwhelmed by her awareness of how many lives Andrew’s egomania had destroyed.

All those people soon to lose their jobs; and in a town where all too probably they would not be able to find new ones.

‘How could he have done it, Neville?’ she asked shakily. ‘How could he have taken such a risk?’

‘He was that kind of man, Philippa,’ Neville told her. ‘He thrived on the excitement of taking that kind of gamble. He enjoyed taking risks.’

‘With other people’s lives … other people’s welfare?’ Philippa asked him bitterly. At the back of her mind was the thought that Andrew had not merely been a gambler addicted to the dangerous thrill of taking a risk, he had also been a coward, happy to gamble recklessly with the futures and livelihoods of others, but totally unable to face up to the consequences of losing that gamble when it affected him personally.

‘You wanted to talk to me about Andrew’s personal affairs,’ she said wearily instead. ‘The house was in Andrew’s name but I suppose it will only be a formality having it transferred into mine as his widow … like the bank accounts.’ She pulled a wry face. ‘To be honest I haven’t given much thought to that side of things and I should have done. It was a bit awkward at the garage this morning when I went to get petrol. They’ve stopped Andrew’s account and I had to use the last of my cash. I’ll need to draw some more from the joint account.’

Neville cleared his throat and looked down at his desk. ‘I’m afraid it’s not quite as simple as that, Philippa.’

As she looked into his face and saw his expression Philippa felt her stomach drop with all the speed and sickening effect of a high-speed lift. She knew even before he spoke that there was something seriously wrong, but her throat had gone so dry she couldn’t even begin to ask what it was.

‘Let’s take the house first, shall we?’ Neville was saying. ‘When Andrew approached the bank for an additional loan we could only grant it against some sort of security. The company’s assets were already tied up to secure the existing loans he had and so the only security Andrew had to offer was the equity in the house, and of course his insurance policies. If the house had been in joint names the bank would, of course, have been obliged to inform you of this and to get your signature to a document agreeing to it; however, as it was in Andrew’s sole name …’

Philippa was shivering and yet it wasn’t cold in the room.

‘What are you trying to tell me, Neville?’ she asked him through chattering teeth.

‘The bank now owns the house, Philippa, along with all of Andrew’s other assets.’

Philippa could see how much he was hating telling her this; she could see it in his eyes, and in the nervous betraying movements of his fingers as he fiddled with the file on his desk.

‘And, like the company’s assets, these will have to be sold and the money utilised to pay off the bank’s borrowing.’

‘And how long … how long will that take?’ Philippa asked him.

What she meant was, how long would it be before she no longer had a roof over her head?

‘I don’t know. That will be head office’s decision, not mine, since they sanctioned the extra borrowing.’

‘And the bank accounts?’ Philippa asked him, dry-mouthed. ‘The money in them?’

Surely there must be something for her … If not, how on earth was she going to manage … how on earth would she live?

Neville shook his head.

‘They’re all well over the overdraft limits, I’m afraid, Philippa.’

The overdraft limits. She swallowed, swamped by shock and despair.

‘I truly am sorry about all this,’ Neville commiserated with her.

It was a far more common situation than many people realised. He could name half a dozen small business sole traders whose partners were living in blissful ignorance of the fact that the bank now owned their homes and that all that stood between them and repossession was the size of the current month’s or in some cases the week’s takings.

Philippa stood up, the room felt so claustrophobic she could hardly breathe.

‘I’ll be in touch with you just as soon as I’ve heard from head office,’ Neville was saying, adding awkwardly, ‘In the meantime, try not to worry too much. At least the boys’ school fees are paid until the end of the year. The local Citizens Advice Bureau run a debt counselling service, Philippa. Why don’t you go along and see them?’

What for? Philippa wanted to ask him. Are they going to give me the two million pounds to repay Andrew’s debts? But she was so close to tears she dared not risk saying anything. It wasn’t Neville’s fault that Andrew had behaved so recklessly … so … so dangerously.

Had Robert known about any of this? she wondered as she stumbled into the fresh air. Was that why he had been so anxious to dissociate himself from things? And her parents? How would they react once they learned that she was going to be homeless?

She could feel the hot, weak tears of panic and self pity buried in the back of her eyes as she hurried towards her car, head bent not so much against the sharp buffeting wind as against the potentially curious and pitying glances of any passers-by.

She had parked her car in the town square, empty on a Monday of its market stalls. The square was dominated by the commanding façade of the town hall, built at the height of the Victorian age and far too large and domineering for its surroundings.

As she unlocked her car and removed her ticket, Philippa suddenly realised that the pound coin she had used to buy parking time had been virtually all the change she had got from paying for her petrol, and those notes with which she had paid for it had been all the money she had had.

The panic that hit her as she stood clinging on to the half-open door of her car was like nothing she had ever experienced in her life. It rolled over her, swamping her, reducing her to such a shocked and humiliated state that she could feel the shame of what had happened as though it were a fire that physically scorched her body.

For how long had they virtually been living on credit … owing money to the bank? For how long had she been spending the bank’s, other people’s money, totally unaware …? Why hadn’t she realised … questioned … guessed … ?

But no matter how hard she tried to lash herself into a self-anger strong enough to obliterate her fear, it just wouldn’t go away.

Somehow she managed to get herself into her car and get the engine started, her body trembling violently as she tried to come to terms with what she had learned.

When she got home and saw her brother Robert’s car parked outside the house and Robert himself standing beside it looking anxiously down the drive, her relief was almost as strong as her earlier panic. Robert would know what she ought to do, she comforted herself as she got out of the car. She was his sister, her sons his nephews; they were a family and he was far more experienced and knowledgeable about financial affairs than she was.

‘What is it?’ he asked her as soon as he saw her face. ‘What’s wrong?’

Philippa shook her head. ‘Let’s go inside,’ she told him, and then she realised that he wasn’t on his own and that his wife was in the car.

She got out and gave Philippa a cool look. ‘Duty’ was a word she was frequently heard to utter and, looking at her, Philippa could see that it was ‘duty’ which had brought her here now.

‘You’ve seen the bank?’ was Robert’s first question once they were inside.

‘Yes,’ Philippa confirmed. She swallowed hard as she told him, ‘The bank has called in a firm of accountants to act as liquidators, and …’

‘Never mind the company—what about Andrew’s personal assets?’ Robert asked her.

Philippa led them both into the sitting-room before turning round and saying quietly, ‘What assets? Apparently this house and all Andrew’s other assets, including his insurance policies, have been signed over to the bank as security for the money Andrew borrowed.’

It shocked her to realise that this did not surprise Robert as much as it had done her, and she could see from the way Lydia’s mouth thinned what she thought of her announcement.

‘Neville is going to let me know what will happen once he has heard from his head office,’ she told Robert numbly, like a child repeating a carefully learned lesson.

Lydia gave a small snort of derision. ‘There is only one thing that can happen. They’ll put the house on the market and sell it. You really should have refused to allow Andrew to take such a risk, Philippa …’

‘Not now, Lydia,’ she heard Robert saying uncomfortably before he turned to her and suggested with false cheerfulness, ‘It’s a cold day, Philippa … How about a cup of tea?’

‘Yes, of course; I’ll go and make one.’

It was only when she was in the kitchen that she realised that she had run out of teabags and that in all the shock of Andrew’s suicide she had forgotten to buy any more.

She went back to the sitting-room, to ask if they would have coffee instead, and stopped outside the door as she heard her sister-in-law’s voice raised in sharp exasperation.

‘Oh, really, Robert,’ she was saying. ‘You must admit that Philippa’s brought this whole thing on herself. She ought to have had a far tighter grip on things. If she’d spent a bit more time watching Andrew and a little less spoiling those wretched boys, she probably wouldn’t be in this mess now. How could she be stupid enough to allow him to sign away the house? I know she isn’t exactly the most intelligent of women … but quite honestly I don’t think we should be here … or getting involved. It won’t do you any good at all to be connected with such an appalling mess. I respect the fact that she’s your sister but really, what can we do?’

‘If she loses the house——’ she heard Robert saying uncomfortably.

‘If she loses it?’ Philippa could hear the derision in Lydia’s voice. ‘Of course she’ll lose it, and as to what she’ll do, then I expect she’ll have to go and live with your parents. We can’t have her living with us. Think of how embarrassing it would be, a constant reminder to people of what’s happened, and that is the last thing you need. And it’s not just her but those two boys as well. We’d probably end up having to pay their school fees as well as Sebastian’s.

‘And that’s another thing. I can’t pretend to approve of the way those boys are being brought up. They’d only be a bad influence on Sebastian and of course there would be other difficulties. Obviously Sebastian will ultimately have a very different adult life, and much better prospects than they will be able to expect. Daddy was saying the other day, by the way, that this year we really must consider letting Sebastian go out with the guns. Daddy first went out with them when he was seven and Sebastian is coming up for ten now.’

‘Where is that tea?’

Shaking with anger, Philippa went back to the kitchen, rebelliously making the coffee in the thickest pottery mugs she could find, knowing how Lydia would react to them.

She wasn’t disappointed. After one look at the tray she was carrying her sister-in-law gave her the briefest of chilly smiles and shook her head.

‘Coffee? Oh, no, I never touch it. Not at this time of the day. Silly of me, but I still think of it as something one only drinks after a dinner party.

‘Robert and I were just saying, Philippa, that perhaps the only fortunate aspect of this whole sorry affair is that at least your parents will be able to offer you a home. Although I must say,’ she added disapprovingly when Philippa remained silent, ‘I still cannot understand how you could have allowed Andrew to behave so foolishly. You must have realised what was happening.’

‘Must I?’ She turned away from her sister-in-law and looked directly at her brother, asking him, ‘When did you realise, Robert?’

He cleared his throat and flushed uncomfortably, but before he could say anything Lydia was answering for him, her voice ice-cold with disdain as she informed Philippa, ‘Well, of course we knew something must be wrong when Andrew came to see us and asked Robert to lend him some money. I mean, one simply doesn’t do that sort of thing. It was all extremely embarrassing. I was very cross with him for putting Robert in such an awkward position. No family member should ever ask to borrow money from another. It always leads to problems.’

‘Yes, I’m sure you’re right,’ Philippa agreed, somehow overcoming her shock to find her voice. Turning her back on Lydia, she looked at her brother and told him frankly, ‘Well, you can rest assured that I shall never ask you to lend me money, Robert—and as for my sons,’ she added, turning back to Lydia and giving her a fierce, betraying bright-eyed look, ‘Sebastian is the one I feel sorry for, not them.’

She barely registered Lydia’s outraged, ‘Well, really!’ as her sister-in-law stood up, her face flushed as she bridled at Philippa’s comment. ‘I think it’s time we left, Robert. Your sister is obviously overwrought,’ she announced.

Philippa went with them to the front door, waiting until Lydia had passed through it before touching Robert lightly on the arm and saying with quiet irony, ‘Thank you for your help and support, Robert.’

She watched him flush without feeling the slightest bit of remorse, still so angry about Lydia’s criticism of her sons that she didn’t care how recklessly she was behaving.

CHAPTER SEVEN

JOEL could feel the tension the moment he walked in through the factory gates; smell it on the air almost like an animal scenting death.

As a child he had often heard his father boast that he was descended from Romany folk; tinkers more like, Joel had heard others sneer behind his back when he made his claim, but there were occasions when he was aware of this inheritance, felt it in the odd prickle of his skin, the unfamiliar intensity of his awareness of the emotions of others, felt it in the certainty of the way he knew odd things, even while he struggled to deny the experience.

He hung back slightly, watching the other men; some of them, the older ones, walked with their shoulders hunched and their heads down, showing their defeat, avoiding looking at anyone else or speaking to them, while the younger ones adopted a much more aggressive and don’t-care swagger, hard, bright eyes challenging anyone who looked their way; but all of them shared the same emotion that was gutting him.

Fear. He could taste it in his mouth, dull, flat and metallic.

As he crossed the visitors’ car park—just one of the many fancy and very expensive changes Andrew had made to the place when he’d taken it over—he paused to study the small group of business-suited men and women huddled together by one of the cars.

They were all that was left of the company’s management team; the ones who had not been able to scramble off the sinking ship in time, he reflected bitterly as he watched them, the ones who had been either too stupid or too scared to recognise what was happening and leave before it was too late.

As he watched them Joel felt all the anger and fear he had been feeling since Andrew’s suicide boiling up inside him.

It was because of them, because of their greed and mismanagement, that he was in the position he was today, but what did they care about what he felt, about his life, his fears, his needs? All they cared about was having a flash office and fancy company car. His face darkened as he recalled the problems his buying a new car had caused.

He clocked on automatically and then went to hang up his jacket. When he came back he saw that instead of working most of the other men were hanging about in small groups talking. The meeting with the management was scheduled for one o’clock.

Only one of the young apprentices was making any attempt to work, and Joel frowned as he heard Jim Gibbons, one of the older men, telling him to stop.

‘What’s the point?’ he challenged Joel when Joel went over to tell him to leave the lad alone. ‘None of us will be in work by the end of the week—not the way things are looking.’

‘We don’t know that,’ Joel told him.

‘Oh, come off it. Why the hell else did Ryecart top himself if it wasn’t because he was going bust? This place is finished and we’ll be lucky if we come out of it with our last week’s wages, never mind our redundancy money. It’s always the same: the bank will get some fancy firm of accountants in to make sure they get their pound of flesh, but when it comes to us getting what’s rightfully ours … who the hell gives a toss about us? Course, it’s all right for you. You’ve got your missus in work. A nurse, isn’t she, down at the hospital? Smart pieces, those nurses, and not behind the door in bed either, if you know what I mean, or so they say … Does she keep her uniform on in bed for you, Joel?’

Joel forced himself to ignore the others’ laughter. It was just their way of letting off steam, of coping with their fear; there was nothing personal or malicious in it.

‘I hate it when Mum isn’t here in the morning,’ Cathy had grumbled earlier as she’d played with her cereal, and Joel had immediately felt both guilty and irritated as he heard the resentment in her voice; guilty because of his inability as a husband, a father and a provider to earn enough to support them all and irritated because of the way his children distanced themselves from him. It was Sally they wanted, not him, Sally they always turned to, her more than him.

Right from being a toddler of no more than two, his son had fiercely rejected any attempt Joel made to touch or hold him.

‘He’s a real mummy’s boy,’ Sally had said then, laughing softly as she’d taken over and held him. And, watching the way his son had clung to her, it hadn’t just been the pain of rejection Joel had felt, but an actual physical jealousy as well.

Sally claimed that he was far harder on Paul than he was on Cathy.

‘He’s a boy,’ he had told her in mitigation of his own behaviour.

Sally had just shaken her head, pursing her mouth in that way she had of showing her disapproval of what he said and did.

Sometimes these days it was hard to remember that that same mouth had once curved with joy and love for him … had softened into helpless passion beneath his, had widened in shared laughter with his.

Yes, things had changed. She hadn’t even cared enough to wake him this morning before she’d left to wish him luck, to tell him that she understood how he felt; to tell him that, in work or out of it, he was still the man she loved; it made no difference to her.

He put down the mug of coffee the apprentice had brought him, its contents untasted.

The boy was only sixteen, red-haired and pale-skinned, tall and gangly with a prominent Adam’s apple and a voice which had still not broken properly.

He had attached himself to Joel, following him about everywhere, reminding Joel of the crossbred whippet pups his father had bred and sold. This boy had the same ungainliness and clumsiness. His parents were divorced, his father remarried with a second family, and Joel was aware of a responsiveness to the boy’s unexpressed need within himself that he had never been able to express with Paul.

Duncan needed his approval, shyly semi-hero-worshipping him in a way that Paul had never done.

‘I put sugar in it,’ Duncan told him now, watching him put down his untouched coffee.

‘Yeah, it’s fine,’ Joel assured him as he looked at his watch. Ten to one.

‘Joel, what’s going to happen … to us … ?’ Duncan blurted out, his pale skin flushing as not just Joel but several of the other men turned to look at him.

Before Joel could say anything, the door opened and the works manager walked in. He had aged years in the last few weeks, and no wonder, Joel reflected. He was in his fifties with one son at university and a daughter injured at birth who needed constant care.

‘The council offered them a place for her at a special home,’ Sally had told him. ‘But Peggy Hatcher wouldn’t hear of it.’

Joel watched as Keith Hatcher held open the door for the rest of the management team and the woman left to walk in.

She was a girl really still, not a woman, Joel reflected as Keith introduced her, her skin glowiqg with health and youth and good food. She looked glossy and polished as shiny and bright as a newly minted coin, so plainly untouched by any of the disillusion and pain that life could hold that Joel felt a surge of anger against her.

What did she know of the lives of people like him … their problems, their hopes?

She had started to speak, her voice clear and firm. She was talking about the large amount of money Andrew had borrowed from the bank, explaining that it was because of his inability to repay this debt that the bank were now forced to put the company into liquidation in order to sell off its assets in an attempt to recoup what they could of their money.

The bank regretted the necessity of having to do this but they must understand that they really had no alternative; the company had been operating at a loss for some considerable time. They would all be issued with formal redundancy notices, she told them, making it sound as though in doing so the bank was doing them some sort of favour, Joel reflected mirthlessly as he watched her eyelids flutter betrayingly while she made this last statement.

So she wasn’t totally unaware of what she was doing, then. He saw the way she suddenly found it impossible to look directly at them, dipping her head instead.

‘What about our redundancy payments, and our pensions?’ Joel asked her as she finished speaking, raising his voice so that she couldn’t avoid hearing him.

‘Ay … what about them?’ someone else echoed, others taking up the cry, while she shuffled her papers and tried to look calm.

‘Your normal statutory rights will naturally be honoured,’ she informed them. ‘You will be put on a list of preferred creditors and paid out once the liquidation is complete.’

When? Joel reflected bitterly. Their normal statutory rights fell a long way short of what they might have expected to receive had those of them with long service records been made redundant in the normal way of things.

‘When does this redundancy take effect?’ Joel asked her.

‘Immediately,’ she told him steadily.

‘Immediately.’ Joel stared at her. He had expected her to say that it would be a few weeks … a month or so. He knew his shock must be registered on his face, just as it was on the faces of the men around him; he knew it because he could see the pity in the woman’s eyes as she dipped her head again and looked away from him.

Some of the men were turning to the union rep., demanding that he do something, but the man was just as helpless as they were themselves.

‘The factory will be closed as from tonight,’ the woman was saying in that cool, elegant, distant voice which belonged more surely to some posh dinner party than here on the factory floor. ‘The accountants’ office will remain open as there will be certain formalities to be completed.’

The company accountant didn’t look too pleased at that prospect, Joel noticed. Personally he wouldn’t have put it past Ryecart to have been up to all sorts of financial tricks.

No doubt he had feathered his nest warmly and safely enough. His wife wouldn’t need to go out to work full-time to pay the mortgage and put food on the table, he reflected savagely.

‘What will we do now, Joel?’ Duncan asked him timidly an hour later.

‘Do? Why, we get ourselves down to the social services and get ourselves on the dole just like the three million or so other poor sods who can’t find themselves a job,’ Joel told him savagely.

The dole … the scrap heap more like, because that was what it amounted to and that was all they were to the likes of Ryecart and his kind … so much human scrap … and not worth a single damn.

He could feel the anger and despair pounding through him like an inferno, a volcano of panic and fear which he couldn’t allow to spill over and betray him.

He had known that this was likely to happen and he had thought he had prepared himself for it, but now that it had happened it was like being caught up in one of the frightening nightmares of his childhood when he was suddenly left alone and afraid in an alien landscape with no one to turn to.

He had prided himself always on being in control, on managing his life so that he never fell into the same trap as his father, so that he never had to live from day to day, dependent on the whim of others; but now all that was gone and along with his anger he felt a choking, killing sense of fear and aloneness.

All he wanted was to go home to Sally, to hold her and be held by her, to take comfort in her body and the security of her love, to know that she still saw him as a man … still valued him and his maleness and did not, as he did, feel that it was diminished by what had happened.

But these were feelings that he sensed rather than understood and analysed, knowing more that he needed the comfort of her body and warmth, her reassurance and her love than understanding why he needed them.

‘I don’t know how Mum’s going to manage now. She relies on me and my wages,’ Duncan was saying miserably.

‘You’ll soon get another job, son,’ Joel told him automatically, reaching out to reassure him even though he knew his reassurance was as worthless as the promises that Ryecart had made them about the success of the company and the security of their jobs.

‘Have you thought any more about what I said about working full-time?’

Sally paused, shifting her weight from one foot to the other.

‘I’m sorry, Sister, but I haven’t had the time to talk it over properly with Joel yet.’

‘Well, don’t leave it too long; there are quite a few others here who would jump at the chance of the extra money. You’re a good nurse, Sally, and it’s a pity you never went on to specialise further. Still, it’s not too late.’

Sally stared at her. Sister O’Reilly was one of the old-fashioned sort, in her fifties, single and possessed of a lofty disdain for all members of the male sex above the age of twelve, excepting the Pope but including every male member of the medical profession.

‘She ought to have been a nun,’ one of the younger nurses had commented crossly when Sister had ticked her off for flirting with one of the interns on the ward, but Sally, who had shared night duty with her and knew a little more about her background than most, had told the girl not to be dismissive.

‘She’s forgotten more about nursing than you’ll ever learn; and she started learning by nursing her mother and taking charge of her family when she was ten years old.’

That family were all scattered over the world now, some married with their own children, others in the church, and it had been Sister O’Reilly who had taken unpaid leave from her job to go home and nurse the father she had never loved—who could love a man who gave a woman a child every year, even though he could see it was slowly killing her?—through his last illness.

She was one of the old-school nurses and any kind of praise or sign of approval from her was so rare that Sally could only stare at her.

Her, take specialised training, even expect to become a Sister? Just wait until she told Joel that. Joel … today was the day he would learn what was happening at the factory.

She knew that he was expecting the worst, but at least they wouldn’t be as badly off as some others. Why couldn’t Joel see that and be glad about it instead of … ?

When they had first been married he had wanted to help her with the chores, sliding his arms round her waist while they were washing up, kissing the side of her throat, insisting when she was pregnant with Cathy on carrying the vacuum upstairs for her, refusing to let her do any heavy lifting or moving.

And then, when she had first brought Paul home from the hospital and discovered how difficult it was to cope with an energetic toddler and a new baby, he had taken charge of not just the washing-up and the vacuuming but the washing and ironing as well.

She remembered how it had reduced her to silly emotional tears to see his big hands gently trying to smooth out Cathy’s little dresses and Paul’s tiny baby clothes as he’d struggled to iron them, the frustration and helplessness in his eyes as the fiddliness of the task had threatened to defeat him. But he hadn’t given up, and if his ironing had not been up to the standard of her own it had still moved her unbearably to witness his love and care for her and their children.

It had been after that that the first threads of tension had started to pull and then snarl up their relationship.

Paul had been a difficult baby, colicky and demanding, clinging to her and refusing to go to anyone else. He had even gone through a stage when he was two when he had actually screamed every time Joel went near him.

He had grown out of it, of course, but Joel had never been as relaxed or loving towards him as he was with Cathy, and that had hurt her.

Sometimes it was almost as though he actually resented Paul and his demands on her time and attention, seeming not to understand that Paul was a child and that there were times when his needs had to come first.

She knew Joel was worrying about his job and what was going to happen to them if he was made redundant, but why take it out on her and the kids? It wasn’t their fault.

At two o’clock, when her shift ended, her feet and back ached. The last thing she felt like doing was going home to tackle the housework and the ironing. No doubt Joel and the kids would have left the kitchen in its usual mess this morning. Wistfully she imagined how wonderful it would be to go home and find the kitchen spotless, not a dirty plate or cup in sight, the sink cleaned, the floor swept and washed, everywhere smelling fresh and looking polished.

Like her sister’s home? Only Daphne had a cleaner three mornings a week, a small, nervous woman whom Daphne bullied unmercifully and whom Sally privately felt sorry for.

‘I don’t know why I have her; she never does anything properly,’ Daphne had once complained within the woman’s hearing. ‘I’m constantly having to check up on her.’

Sally remembered that she had been as embarrassed for her sister and her lack of good manners and consideration as she had been for poor Mrs Irving, her cleaner.

Not that Daphne would have understood how she felt. It amazed Sally sometimes that her sister wanted to remain in such close contact with her; after all, they had little in common these days other than the fact that they were sisters, and Daphne made such a thing of their upmarket lifestyle and their posh friends that Sally was surprised that she didn’t drop her and Joel completely.

‘What, and lose out on having someone to show off to?’ had been Joel’s acid comment when she had remarked on this to him. ‘Don’t be daft. I’ll bet not many of her posh friends would let her get away with putting them down the way she does you.’

‘She doesn’t put me down,’ Sally had defended her sister. ‘And it’s only natural that she should be proud of their success and …’

‘And what?’ Joel had demanded bitterly. ‘Get a real kick out of rubbing your nose in it and making it plain that she doesn’t think you’ve got much to be proud of? Oh, I’ve seen the way you look round this place when you come home from there.’

‘Joel, it isn’t true. I love our home,’ Sally had protested, but it was true that sometimes she did feel slightly envious of Daphne. She only had to think of the benefits Daphne could give Edward that she and Joel could never give their two, especially not now.

Tiredly she pulled on her coat. Joel had bought it for her last winter, just before the company had cut all overtime. She had protested at the time that it was far too expensive, but she had loved it so much she hadn’t been able to resist it.

They had seen it in the window of a small exclusive shop in the city, marked down in price to make way for the early spring stock. It was a clear, soft red that suited Sally’s dark colouring, three-quarter-length, in a style that would never be outdated.

She didn’t normally wear it for work, but she had forgotten to collect her mac from the cleaners, and because it had been a cold morning she had decided to wear it.

Her six-year-old basic-model car had gone in for a service and it was cold standing at the bus stop so early in the morning.

She was on her way out through Casualty when someone called her name. She stopped automatically, her face breaking into a smile as she saw Kenneth Drummond coming towards her on his crutches.

‘Kenneth … Mr Drummond,’ she corrected herself. ‘What are you doing here? I thought Wednesday was your day for seeing Mr Scott.’

‘It was, but there was some emergency and so they asked me to attend Mr Meadows’ clinic this week instead, lucky for me. Oh, and by the way,’ he added as he smiled down at her, ‘you got it right the first time.’

When Sally looked puzzled, he said softly, ‘Kenneth, not Mr Drummond.’

Oh, heavens, she wasn’t really going to start blushing, was she? Sally wondered shakily. She hadn’t missed, either, the significance of that deliberate ‘lucky for me’, nor the way he had looked at her when he’d asked her to call him Kenneth.

She had always liked him, of course, laughing with him and teasing him, listening to him and talking to him, but somehow it was different now that he was no longer one of her patients and instead of her looking down at him he was the one now looking down at her. He was a big man, nearly as tall as Joel but not quite as broad across the chest. As he touched her arm lightly she noticed that his hand felt smooth, not like Joel’s, whose skin was rough.

‘Are you just off?’ he asked her now.

Sally nodded. ‘Yes,’ she agreed ruefully. ‘I’m on my way home to the housework and the ironing.’

‘I was just going to have a spot of lunch; I had hoped I might be able to persuade you to join me. I still haven’t totally got full control of these things,’ he told her wryly, gesturing towards his crutches.

Sally frowned hesitantly. ‘Dressed like this?’ Sally gestured to the uniform she was wearing beneath her coat. ‘We aren’t supposed …’

‘We’ll ask them to find us a quiet corner and you can keep your coat on. Please …’ he wheedled.

Sally laughed, she couldn’t help it.

‘You don’t fool me,’ she told him, laughing. ‘I know exactly what you’re up to.’

His face sharpened, his voice deepening slightly as he gave her a look that for no reason at all caused her heart suddenly to beat a little faster.

‘You do?’

‘Yes, you just want me with you because of these,’ she told him, gesturing towards his crutches.

She really shouldn’t be doing this. She had a pile of ironing waiting for her at home, a hundred and one small jobs she needed to do, but why should she always be the one to do them? she decided rebelliously.

‘Come on,’ Kenneth instructed her, taking charge so easily and adeptly that they were out in the car park and heading towards his car almost before she knew what was happening. When he stopped next to a huge BMW saloon car and unlocked it Sally stared at him in consternation.

‘Is this yours? How on earth do you drive it?’

‘It’s automatic and I’ve still got one good leg,’ Kenneth told her, laughing. ‘Come on, get in. I promise you I’m perfectly safe … as a driver …’

He couldn’t really be flirting with her, could he? Sally wondered feverishly as she got into the front passenger seat. No, he was just being polite, friendly. The trouble with her was that she was so out of touch, so unused to being in the company of an attractive, communicative man that she didn’t know how to respond any more, or how to read the subtle messages her senses were picking up from him.

She was being ridiculous, he just wanted someone to talk to, she told herself quickly as he started the car and then turned to smile at her.

‘I know a pub where the bar meals are reasonably good and with a bit of luck midweek it should be fairly empty.’

As he watched her, Kenneth wondered how long it would be before she guessed how deliberately contrived this meeting had actually been. He had missed her like hell since he’d returned home, and it had only taken a chance discovery that there was an alternative clinic he could attend, plus a bit of time spent working out her shift pattern, to have him altering his appointment and then hanging about in Outpatients trying to make himself as unnoticeable as possible until she came off duty.

He had earned himself one or two sharp looks from a couple of nurses and one of the porters, but it had paid off.

Kenneth had no illusions about his situation. His feelings for Sally were far stronger than hers for him, if indeed she had any, but she was not totally unaware of him; that pretty little flush and sideways look had told him that.

For a man who claimed to need help with them he was remarkably adept at managing his crutches, Sally reflected as Kenneth parked his car and ushered her into the pub.

He had been right about its being quiet, and its setting out in the country, away from the town, meant that she was unlikely to bump into anyone who knew her.

She frowned. What had put that thought into her head? Why should it matter if anyone saw her? She wasn’t doing anything wrong. She was just having lunch with an ex-patient, that was all.

Kenneth found them a table tucked away in a small natural alcove and then gestured to the menu blackboard behind the bar, asking her what she would like to eat.

When Sally saw the prices she hesitated, force of habit making her run down the list for the cheapest item.

‘What’s wrong … don’t tell me you’re dieting?’ Kenneth teased her.

She laughed. ‘No, it’s just …’

‘Just what? Nothing there that you fancy?’

‘No, it’s not that.’ She could feel herself starting to flush slightly. ‘It’s all so expensive,’ she whispered to him, watching as he frowned as he too studied the board, his voice gentle as he told her,

‘Order whatever you want, Sally, and let me enjoy spoiling you a little bit … you deserve it.’

Sally had to look away from him. She could feel her face burning again, but this time not because she was embarrassed.

How long had it been since Joel had said anything to her like that … had made her feel valued and precious … had made her feel that it was a privilege and a pleasure to be with her?

In the end she ordered a lasagne and Kenneth did the same.

‘Now,’ he commanded when they had both been served, ‘tell me what’s wrong.’

‘Wrong?’ Sally stared at him, too surprised by his astuteness to question the intimacy of his demand. ‘It’s nothing …’ she started to deny, and then when she saw his face she shook her head and admitted, ‘It’s Joel. He should hear today about his job. The factory he works for could be closed down and all the men made redundant. He’s taking it very badly …’ She bit her bottom lip. ‘Worse than he needs to, really. It won’t be easy but we could manage. I could go back to work full-time … Sister even said to me today that she thought I should take more training to help my career.’ Sally laughed.

‘I’m sure she’s right,’ Kenneth interrupted her. ‘You’re a very bright girl, Sally,’ he told her before she could say anything. ‘And it’s a pity that …’

He stopped speaking abruptly.

‘That what?’ Sally challenged him.

‘Nothing,’ he told her quietly, and then admitted, ‘I was going to say that it’s a pity that your family didn’t see to it that you had the chance to fulfil the potential you’ve so obviously got, but I didn’t want you to think I was being critical of … of anyone.’

He meant of Joel, Sally recognised swiftly.

‘Oh, you mustn’t feel sorry for me,’ she told him lightly. ‘I was quite happy to give up work and stay home with the children.’

‘Yes, but you’re not happy now.’

Sally almost choked on the mouthful of food she had taken. She put down her knife and fork and looked at him.

‘What makes you say that?’ she asked him unsteadily.

‘I can see it in your eyes,’ he told her.

She looked across uncertainly at him, a tiny inner voice of caution warning her that what she was contemplating doing was dangerous, but the temptation to unburden herself to someone, to him, was too strong to resist.

‘Tell me,’ Kenneth insisted softly.

‘I can’t,’ Sally protested. ‘It’s not … you’re not …’

‘Yes, you can. I’m not your patient any more, Sally, and I want to hear … to help.’

She shook her head as though trying to clear her thoughts.

‘It’s things at home,’ she told him helplessly. ‘Joel doesn’t seem to realise how difficult it is for me, trying to work and doing everything there as well. He used to be so different but now it’s almost as though he wants to make things as hard for me as he can … and not just for me. It’s the kids as well. He’s always finding fault with them, snapping at them. I know how worried he is about his job, but that’s all the more reason why he should …’

‘Perhaps he doesn’t like the idea of your working, being independent, meeting new people,’ Kenneth ventured.

Sally looked at him.

‘But he knows we need the money. I can’t believe he’s behaving so childishly. I mean, what would it cost him to clear the table in the morning and rinse a few plates? And if he would just offer to do something to help out instead of me always having to ask, to nag … He went to the supermarket the other day and came back without any washing powder. Can you believe that? When I asked him why he said they hadn’t got the brand I’d put on my list. I mean, he knew I was waiting to do the washing.’ Sally, lost in the relief of being able to unburden herself to someone, didn’t hear the frustration and anger in her voice, but Kenneth did.

He had been attracted to her almost as soon as he was well enough to be aware of her; there was a quietness about her, an orderliness, a neatness that appealed very strongly to the aesthetic streak in his nature.

He liked the simple, natural way she wore her thick, dark hair, her lack of artifice and flirtatiousness. Other men might consider her sexuality to be covert, muted, but he liked that in her. The obvious had never appealed very strongly to him; he found it irritating, offensive almost.

He had seen the look in Sally’s eyes when they talked; had recognised how unused she was to the stimulation of informed discussion, of good conversation, and how, unlike many of those he tutored, she had a humbleness, a modesty, a vulnerability that touched him. She would be a pleasure to teach, to nurture. It was obvious to him that her present way of life and in particular her husband were not truly fulfilling her.

It had shocked him at first to discover how much he missed her now that he was back at home, the strength of his feelings for her catching him a little off guard. Lying in his hospital bed, flirting with her, he had in many ways simply been playing a game, but now it wasn’t a game any longer.

He wanted Sally in his life and he wanted her there badly.

It was obvious to him that her husband did not appreciate her, not as he would have done … not as he would do. He grimaced slightly as he glanced at her coat.

‘You should be wearing cream,’ he told her. ‘That’s what I would have bought you. Cream cashmere; you have the colouring for it. So few women do. Something plain and elegant with a skirt to match and a silk shirt to go with it.’

‘Cream cashmere?’ Sally flushed and laughed at the same time. ‘I could never wear anything like that,’ she denied, shaking her head slightly. ‘Even if we could afford it, it would be far too impractical.’

‘It would suit you,’ Kenneth insisted. ‘You deserve it,’ he added. ‘You deserve so much more out of life than you’re getting, Sally. So very, very much more. I just wish that I——’ He broke off and she flushed even harder, guessing what he had been about to say.

It both alarmed and excited her that he should make his feelings for her so obvious; that he should talk to her so intensely and with such emotion. Joel had never been very good at expressing his emotions verbally. Oh, he had told her he loved her, but he had looked so awkward with the words, so uncomfortable … he wasn’t at ease with them in the way that Kenneth was.

Being with Kenneth was the complete opposite of being with Joel. With Kenneth she felt relaxed, happy, warmed by his appreciation of her. With Kenneth there was no tension, no inner dread, no anxiety. And no guilt?

She moved uncomfortably in her seat. Already she had told Kenneth far more about herself, about her personal life than she should, certainly more than she had intended telling him.

Normally she was far more reserved, but Kenneth had a way of drawing her out, making her feel that her thoughts, her feelings were important to him.

Kenneth saw the small betraying movement she made and, correctly reading her thoughts, knew better than to risk pressing her any further. He had sown the seeds; now he would just have to wait patiently for them to grow, for her to realise how much he could give her.

There was one question he could not resist asking her, though.

‘But you do still love him … your husband, despite everything?’

‘Yes, of course I do,’ Sally responded quickly. Too quickly? she wondered uneasily; her heart jumped shakily in her chest as she acknowledged that it was almost as though she dared not allow herself to consider Kenneth’s question just in case …

Just in case what? Of course she loved Joel; of course she did.

‘I must go,’ she told Kenneth. ‘The kids will be back from school soon.’

‘Yes, of course. It won’t take long to run you back,’ Kenneth assured her.

Immediately Sally tensed. ‘No, I’d rather you dropped me at the bus stop, if you don’t mind.’

She could feel herself flushing again as he looked at her. It wasn’t that she felt she had done anything wrong she assured herself defensively, but her neighbours were the sort who wouldn’t waste time in coming round to find out how she had come to arrive home in such state.

It would be easy enough to explain to them, of course, to tell them that an ex-patient had offered her a lift, and, even as she heard Kenneth agreeing pleasantly that if that was what she wanted then that was what he would do, she felt both angry and flustered with herself for the way she had over-reacted. Like someone guilty … someone who had something to hide.

Nevertheless, it was a shock to see Joel’s car in the drive as she walked up to the house, and as her heart started to thump uncomfortably against her ribcage and her stomach tensed with anxiety at the shock of seeing his car there at such an unexpected time of the day her footsteps slowed slightly.

He was in the kitchen when she walked in, his back turned towards her as he filled the kettle. The breakfast things had been removed from the table, she noticed absently as she hurried over to him, but the surface was smeared and there were coffee-mug rings where Joel hadn’t thought to wipe it clean.

‘Why aren’t you at work?’ she asked him anxiously as she took her coat off, but the moment he turned round she knew the answer. She could see it in his face, in the defeated look in his eyes.

‘What work?’ he asked tonelessly. ‘There is no work. No work, no wages, and no damned redundancy either by the looks of it.’

‘Oh, but that’s not possible! You’ve worked there since leaving school.’

‘Yes, well, it seems that doesn’t count for anything. According to what we were told this afternoon, we’re only getting our current week’s wages because the bank didn’t want it all over the newspapers that they weren’t going to pay us. As far as our redundancy money goes, we won’t know if or what we’re going to get until everything’s been sold off.’

Sally could see from his face, hear in his voice just how much this extra blow had affected him. He looked and sounded not frightened exactly … more beaten and vulnerable, stripped of his confidence, his head, his whole body bowed.

‘Oh, Joel.’ She walked up to him, instinctively moving towards him, gripping hold of his upper arms. ‘Don’t look like that, love,’ she begged him. ‘It will be all right; we’ll manage.’ Instinctively she adopted the soothing, reassuring voice she used to her patients and small children; the look in his eyes frightened her. She had never seen him looking so vulnerable and defeated. ‘It isn’t as though we weren’t expecting it.’ She felt him move and then take hold of her, wrapping his arms around her, holding her almost painfully tightly as he buried his head against her.

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