The Marriage Renewal. Maggie Cox
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she was now. All he had to go on was memory—and hope…there was always hope. A dimple appearing at the corner of his attractive mouth, he allowed himself a brief smile before replying. ‘I think the male population of this town would have to be blind not to be interested in Tara. But you haven’t answered my question, Beth. Is she in a serious relationship?’
‘Is that why you’re here, Mac? To try and win her back?’ Cocking her head to one side, Beth considered the silent tussle going on behind those riveting blue eyes.
He laid his hand on the smooth, burnished surface of a ponderous Victorian dining table just to his left, in front of Beth’s desk. ‘You have some nice things here,’ he commented, glancing around. It was amazing to him just how many antiques one could cram into such a relatively small space. Then he thought of Tara working here, in that same small space, day after day—when she should be dancing, maybe teaching in a school of her own. Once upon a time that had been her dream and Mac had vowed to himself he would help manifest it. He frowned as he remembered. ‘We need to talk. That much I do know. What time will she be back?’
Beth flipped open the big red diary on her desk but her gaze was deliberately vague. ‘She won’t be back until this evening. She’s gone out for the day. Said she wasn’t sure what time she’d be home. Perhaps you could come back another day?’
‘No.’ He was unequivocal about that. What he had to say to Tara couldn’t wait. It was already five years overdue. ‘Here’s where I’m staying.’ Retrieving a small business card from his jacket pocket, he laid it on top of the diary. ‘I’ve taken a month’s leave. I’m not in a hurry to go back to London if that’s what you’re wondering. Please tell Tara I called and I’d like to see her. Will you do that for me, Beth?’
He seemed so sincere, in earnest, that the older woman relented. She prayed she was doing the right thing.
‘I’ll tell her, Mac—but I can’t promise she’ll be in touch. You might just have to live with the fact that she might not ever want to speak to you again.’
‘Just give her the message—that’s all I ask. I’ll be seeing you Beth…and thanks.’
With a little jangle of the doorbell, he closed the door behind him and strode away down the street. Beth picked up the gold-embossed business card he’d left on the desk with the name of the best hotel in town on it and for a moment or two clutched it speculatively to her chest. ‘Oh, Tara,’ she sighed.
‘It was a great movie, wasn’t it?’
Hating to burst his bubble, though action movies with buildings and people being blown up at every turn really weren’t her thing, Tara grinned ruefully at the handsome young man who’d taken her to the cinema. Raj Singh was the adored son of Sanjay and Binnie—proprietors of her local newsagents—and from time to time Tara and he would date, although their association was on a unanimous friendship-only footing—which suited them both. After Mac, Tara just didn’t do deep, meaningful relationships any more, and Raj was promised to a girl of his parents’ choosing in an arranged marriage. The wedding would take place in three months’ time at Christmas, when the whole family would decamp to Kerala on the Indian subcontinent for a traditional Indian ceremony. For a young man as westernised as Raj, Tara was enormously impressed that when it came to the question of marriage, he was willing to bow to the more traditional wishes of his family.
‘It wasn’t in the same league as Gone with the Wind,’ she teased, ‘but it was OK.’
‘Gone with the wind?’ Completely bewildered, Raj scratched his head.
“‘Frankly, my dear—I don’t give a damn.”’ Ring any bells?’ Tara’s mouth quirked in a smile. ‘Obviously not. It was my mother’s favourite film. I was named after the house that featured in the story.’
‘Tara was the name of a house?’
‘Forget it. Let’s go and get a pizza, shall we?’
‘Why do you get to choose what we eat? You know I’d prefer a burger!’
‘I let you choose the film, didn’t I?’ she shouted at him over her shoulder.
‘You are one bossy woman, you know that?’ Raj hurried to keep up with the slender blonde spitfire as she pushed her way through the busy throng of humanity spilling into Leicester Square and hoped to God that his promised new wife would have just half as much spark. The last thing he wanted was some submissive little wallflower with no opinions other than her husband’s.
‘Pizza, then home,’ he said firmly, knowing Tara would completely ignore the assumed authority in his voice. ‘I promised your aunt I wouldn’t get you back too late.’
Tara stopped dead in her tracks and swung round to face him, hands on hips. ‘Well, more fool you, Raj Singh, because I want to go dancing!’
‘You do?’
‘I do.’ And, although she was smiling and determined to have a good time, inside Tara’s heart was aching because Mac had never—not even once—taken her to a nightclub to dance.
‘I think that just about covers everything. If you can think of anything else, call me. You’ve got my number.’ His business concluded, Mac replaced the receiver on its rest and swung his long legs onto the bed. Picking up the hardbacked book beside him on the nightstand, he flicked to the page he’d turned down at the corner then, adjusting the stack of pillows behind his head, proceeded to read where he’d left off earlier.
Five minutes later, having read the same two sentences at least ten times, Mac dropped the book beside him on the counterpane and with a harsh sound of exasperation dragged both hands back and forth through his thick blond hair. Unused to having time on his hands, time when he should be relaxing and enjoying himself, he concluded it was a sad state of affairs when a man didn’t even remember how to participate in either of those two very necessary states. He was so used to working twelve-to fourteen-hour days, his body seemed to have lost the ability to relax when he wanted it to. Getting up, he strode over to the old-fashioned sash window, lifted the forest-green drape and glanced out at the deserted street below. The row of Tudor-fronted shops reminded him how historical this little town was. How appealing to the out-of-town visitor or tourist from abroad. But it was mid-afternoon and as quiet as the grave…too quiet. How did Tara stand it? Wasn’t there anything about London she missed? Apart from the Victoria and Albert Museum and Sadler’s Wells, that was? The capital city could be an unforgiving mistress with its noise, traffic jams and pollution, but Mac had to admit he loved it—missed it when he wasn’t there. In the early days of their marriage, Tara had often talked about wanting to move to the country and Mac had put her off, promising to discuss it ‘some time in the future’ when he wasn’t so busy—when the demands of his steadily growing business were perhaps less. He’d get someone in to run the agency for him, he’d told her—then it wouldn’t matter that he didn’t live close by; he could keep in touch by phone or fax, just show up for the important stuff. His ambition had been like a drug, he acknowledged now, shame churning his insides. He’d let it blind him to the fact that his wife had needs too, and more often than not he wasn’t meeting them. He shut his eyes at the memory. On the nightstand, the trill of the telephone mercifully jolted him.
‘Yes?’
‘Mr Simmonsen? I have a Mrs Simmonsen down here in the lobby to see you.’
A vein throbbed in his temple. For a moment he didn’t know what to say. He’d begun to think she wasn’t going to get in touch after all, as Beth had speculated she might not. All day he’d resisted the impulse to make his way back to the shop and see if she was there—find out if she was deliberately avoiding contact. Not that he’d let a little obstacle like that get in his way—there was far too much at stake for that…
‘Tell her I’ll be right down.’
As he descended the thickly carpeted staircase to the floor below, Mac straightened his tie, rubbed a hand round his recently shaven jaw, and mused that it was surely a good sign that Tara was still using his name