A Passionate Affair. Anne Mather
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was seven o’clock before she left the office. Chris departed around six, and after he had gone, Cassandra abandoned her ideas for an office complex they had been invited to tender for, and gave herself up to the troublesome study of their accounts. Really, she thought, they would soon have to employ an accountant to keep the books in order. What with income tax returns and V.A.T. there seemed an inordinate amount of book-keeping to be done, and although the business was still in its embryo stages, someone had to ensure that they did not overreach themselves. At the moment, they had a good working relationship with a firm of interior decorators, who performed the function of translating hers and Chris’s designs into a tangible reality. But eventually Cassandra hoped to employ their own painters and plumbers and carpenters, and accomplish every project themselves, thus ruling out the necessity to rely on contracted labour.
When she finally put down her pen and switched off the pocket calculator, Cassandra’s head was buzzing with figures. She supposed that sooner or later she would get used to owing money that she herself was owed, but right now it seemed a terrifying deficit, and she massaged her temples wearily as she got up from her desk.
The studio-cum-office was situated over a pair of garages, which had once provided stabling for the horses of a bygone carriage era. Their entrance was via an iron staircase that ran up the side of the building, and after locking the door, Cassandra descended the stairs with a feeling of intense relief. It had been a long day, and she was tired, and she looked forward eagerly to putting her feet up on the couch and enjoying a T.V. dinner.
Her small Alfasud was parked in the mews, and she crossed the cobbled forecourt quickly and inserted her key in the lock. Chandler Mews was only dimly lit, and it had crossed her mind on several occasions that it was an ideal spot for muggers. But so far she had encountered no one but a stray cat, that even so had given her a nasty scare.
It was cold inside the car, but the engine fired without a hiccough, and she drove it smoothly out into Great Portland Street. At this hour of the evening, the traffic was not hectic, and she turned right towards Tottenham Court Road, and her flat near Russell Square.
She was lucky to have a flat so near to the office, and she never failed to feel grateful for Mike’s insurance, which had afforded her enough money to lease the flat and the studio, and provided the capital necessary to start the business. She had not wanted to take the money in the beginning. She had not felt she deserved it. But Mike’s mother had been adamant, and with her encouragement she had learned to appreciate her independence. She sometimes wondered whether Mrs Roland’s insistence that the money was hers and that she should take it without obligation stemmed from her own experiences with Mike’s father. Certainly, the elder Mr Roland had had little consideration for his wife, spending most of his time at the racetrack or on the golf course, and latterly, after his son’s involvement in racing, at the Formula One meetings. Unfortuately, he had died before Mike achieved any real success, and his winning of the French Grand Prix was overshadowed by his father’s death.
They were both widowed now, and it was through Mrs Roland that Cassandra had found her flat. Mike’s mother lived in an apartment in the same building, and while some of her friends had advised her not to live so closely with her in-laws, Cassandra had had no hesitation about accepting. She had never known her own mother and father. They had died when she was only a child, and she had been brought up by her mother’s cousin, a spinster lady with no aspirations to motherhood. Still, Aunt Esme, as she had preferred to be called, had done her best to give the girl a good home, and if it had been lacking in affection, it had at least given Cassandra her interest in art and design. Aunt Esme taught history at a girls’ school in Richmond, but in her spare time she devoured the art galleries, spending hours at the National Gallery or the Tate, reading avidly about painters and sculptors, their lives and their masterpieces, and the influences that coloured their work. It was during the course of these expeditions that Cassandra began to take notice of colour and texture, began to distinguish between the brush-strokes of a master and the amateurish offerings she produced. She learned that there was more to being an artist than the desire to set down on paper or canvas some face full of character, or a colourful London street scene. Her talent lay not in reproducing fine detail but in creating it, in blending together the imaginative with the functional to effect a design, both pleasing and practical. She was not an artist, she was a designer, using other people’s art to good advantage, and without Mike’s intervention in her life she might well have become a teacher, like Aunt Esme. As it was, she had given up her studies to marry Mike, and Aunt Esme had died before she achieved her ambition to have a studio of her own.
But Mike’s mother had nurtured that ambition. From the beginning she had encouraged Cassandra to think for herself, and since Mike’s death they had grown so much closer. It was strange, when there was no blood relationship between them, but Mrs Roland came much closer to being the mother she had never had than did Aunt Esme, and Cassandra had never regretted taking the flat which kept them in such close proximity.
Leaving her car in the basement garage, Cassandra took the lift up to the fourth floor with a sense of weariness out of all proportion to the day she had spent. It had seemed such an exhausting day somehow, and at the back of her mind was the suspicion that Jay Ravek had something to do with it. But that was ridiculous, she thought impatiently. She hardly knew the man. They had only exchanged the briefest of words. And yet she knew a nagging sense of disappointment that she would not be seeing him again. That was what was depressing her. He was the first man since Mike she might seriously consider having an affair with, and Liz had made that practically impossible by her vitriolic attitude. If she had not known better, she would have suspected Liz’s behaviour to be that of a jealous female, but that could not be so. Liz was a beautiful woman. She was never short of escorts. And if Jay Ravek was as dissolute as Liz said he was, he would obviously have been unable to resist the temptation.
Her flat was not large, consisting simply of a bedroom, a bathroom, a living-room and a kitchen. But it was the first real home of her own she had had, and Cassandra coveted the independence it proclaimed. It was not opulently furnished, but the choice of colours was hers, and the bright banners of green and orange revealed a character searching for its own identity.
Soft lamplight lit on a velvety orange sofa, splashing the rather austere stereo unit with warmth. Cassandra dropped her bag on to the couch, kicked off her shoes, and removed her coat before padding through to the small but stylish kitchen. She depressed the switch on the stereo unit as she passed, releasing the strains of John Lennon’s music into the apartment, and determinedly hummed to herself as she extracted her frozen dinner from the fridge. It would be foolish if she allowed thoughts of Jay Ravek to ruin what was left of the evening, she thought, putting the meal into the microwave oven to defrost before cooking. After all, her abstraction over him should warn her that he could be dangerous to her new-found peace of mind, and perhaps her first affair should be with someone who did not stir her emotions so deeply.
The telephone rang as she was making coffee, and leaving the pot percolating, she went to answer it. It was her mother-in-law, and Cassandra relaxed, perching on the arm of the sofa, and cradling the receiver against her ear.
‘You’re late, darling.’ Mrs Roland’s voice was warm with affection. ‘I called about half an hour ago, but you were still not home.’
‘I’ve been doing accounts,’ remarked Cassandra drily, and heard her mother-in-law’s sigh of understanding. ‘We really will have to employ an accountant soon. Even with a calculator, my arithmetic isn’t up to all the book-keeping we have to do.’
‘How about Paul Ludlum?’ suggested Mrs Roland at once. ‘His father was Henry’s accountant for years, and from what I hear, Paul has an excellent reputation. I could speak to him, if you like. Explain the situation. I’m sure he’s just the man you need.’
‘It sounds interesting,’ agreed Cassandra cautiously. ‘And it would take a load off my shoulders.’ She paused. ‘If we can afford it.’
‘Of course you can afford it, Cass.’ Mrs Roland was adamant. ‘You know how well the business is doing. I have every confidence in you.’
‘Well—thanks.’ Cassandra felt a glow of warmth inside. ‘You know, I’d