Levelling The Score. PENNY JORDAN
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it drop the other weekend when I went to see them. I told her that Peter and I were planning to go away on holiday together this year, and Ma said that she thought I would have been going to Canada with John … She got all flustered and het up about it, so I guessed there was something going on, and I got her to admit to me that Simon thinks I should marry John …’
‘I still can’t see why you need my help.’
‘You know me, I’m hopeless at confrontation scenes. You know how weak I am.’
Visions of the many disappointed young men she had had to send away from their front door in the days when they had shared university digs together came to Jenna’s mind …
‘Please, Jen! All I’m asking you to do is to cover for me while Peter and I go away … We need time to be alone … time together without Simon interfering. We’re going down to Cornwall. The folks still have the house down there … Remember it?’
Jenna did. Many years ago when she and Susie had both been in their early teens, she, and her grandmother who had brought her up after her parents’ death in an avalanche while they were on a skiing holiday, had spent several happy summer holidays with Susie and her parents at their holiday home in Cornwall, holidays made all the more pleasant because Simon had not shared them—he had been away at university, and then later undertaking his training for the bar.
It was a long time since she and Susie had holidayed together; the last time had been the summer they had left university, when they had travelled all through Europe together. On that occasion, too, she remembered Simon raising objections about their plans. Her mouth compressed slightly as she remembered this and other things …
Simon Townsend could sometimes be too sure of himself and the rightness of his own judgement for his own good. She had few fears that scatty, pretty Susie could ever be inveigled into marriage with anyone—she liked to play the field—but Susie was right about one thing. Simon was a very effective verbal opponent, and Susie, who disliked any kind of conversation that did not focus around fashion, was all too likely to give in to him, simply to keep him quiet.
‘What exactly is it you want me to do?’ she asked, disentangling herself from Susie’s fiercely jubilant hug.
‘I’m going to tell Simon that I’m staying here with you … He’s bound to ring you to check up on me. All I want you to do is to confirm that I’m here!’
‘And if my verbal confirmation isn’t enough?’ Jenna pressed.
It took Susie several seconds to work it out. ‘Oh, you mean if he wants to speak to me?’ A grin curled her mouth. ‘I’ve thought of the most delicious plan. It will completely fool him … I’ve made a tape.’
She delved into her huge shoulder-bag and fished out a small recorder complete with tape. ‘Look, I’ll play it for you. You pretend to be Simon, and then listen …’
Dutifully, Jenna did as she was instructed. When the tape ended she surveyed her friend with mixed feelings and a certain amount of wry resignation.
The tape was an ingenious idea, and Susie knew her brother well enough to be able to anticipate what line his conversation would take. The answers she had dictated on to the tape were vague and Susie-ish enough to be quite convincing.
‘See, you’ll have no problems,’ Susie told her proudly, pressing a button to rewind the machine. ‘I’ve thought of everything!’
‘Including Simon descending on me in person?’ Jenna asked drily.
‘Oh, he won’t do that, he’ll be on circuit. You know, travelling with the judges and things … how they do. He won’t be back in London for simply ages, and I’ll be back myself then …’
‘You’re sure this is only a holiday you and Peter are going on? You’re not running away to get married or anything like that, are you?’ Jenna demanded ominously.
‘Of course not! You know me, I don’t want to get married for ages yet.’
Jenna knew when Susie was telling the truth.
‘No, I just want time to get to know him properly, Jenna, without Simon popping up all the time and spoiling things. You wouldn’t believe what he’s been like these last few weeks … I think he must be watching my flat, because the moment Peter comes round, Simon arrives. I’m twenty-four years old, and I’ve got big brother watching over me as though I was a child. It’s ridiculous,’ Susie fumed, ‘especially when you think of the girlfriends Simon’s had. He hasn’t exactly lived like a monk,’ she finished darkly.
Jenna didn’t try to argue with her. Only the other day, there had been a rather spectacular exposé of the latest bright star on the legal world’s horizon’s involvement with the ex-wife of a government minister.
For intensely personal and private reasons Jenna had studied the article closely and the photographs that went with it.
She hadn’t needed her friend’s rambling description of the lack of changes in her brother’s appearance to know what Simon looked like. Susie had been right, the dark hair was untouched by grey, the firm mouth with its curving, full underlip still curled in the same mocking smile, and his eyes … those chameleon, challenging green eyes that should have belonged to her, still carried their same message of chilly warning.
The woman photographed with him had been like all the other women who had passed through Simon’s life; blonde, soignée, sophisticated and very, very beautiful.
Would he marry this one? The gossip press seemed to think so. It wasn’t like the high and mighty Simon to marry someone else’s cast-off, she thought acidly. If she pictured him with a wife at all, it was with someone young and malleable, someone he could mould to his own desired pattern of what a wife should be.
‘What’s wrong?’ Susie demanded, adding succinctly, ‘Your eyes have gone almost black, they only do that when you’re fuming with someone. Anyone I know?’
When Jenna shook her head, Susie heaved a faint sigh.
‘There must be something wrong with you, Jen,’ she accused. ‘Look at you, you’re the most gorgeous-looking creature,’ she said generously. ‘Men buzz round you like bees round honey, and yet you ignore them all. When we were kids, I always thought you’d be the one who grew up and got married young …’
‘When exactly is it that you’re supposed to be going off on this holiday of yours?’ Jenna asked, ruthlessly cutting through her friend’s reminiscences.
‘Today! This afternoon … God, I wish I could see Simon’s face if he discovers the bird’s flown,’ she said with a chuckle.
‘Don’t laugh too soon,’ Jenna advised her darkly. ‘It can always be arranged …’
‘You won’t betray me, Jen. I know that … Once Simon—’
‘I can’t see why you simply don’t tell Simon what you’re doing.’
‘Because if I do, he’ll try to dissuade me. You know what he’s like.’ Susie gave a heartfelt groan. ‘The problem is, I’m so used to doing what he tells me that I’m frightened I’ll go on doing it, even when it isn’t what I want … Simon can be so—so compelling at times.’
‘Hero-worship,’ Jenna scoffed. ‘You should have grown out of that years ago.’
‘You don’t know how lucky you are not to have any brothers or sisters. Just you and your grandmother, and she’d never force you into doing anything you don’t want to do.’
Jenna could have pointed out to her that there were methods of enforcing one’s wishes other than those adopted by Susie’s elder brother, but she refrained, sensing that Susie would never understand the gentle, tender pressure one old lady with a longing to see her one grandchild ‘settled down’, as she called it, could bring to bear on that same grandchild.
Long after Susie had gone, blowing