Rosie Thomas 4-Book Collection: Other People’s Marriages, Every Woman Knows a Secret, If My Father Loved Me, A Simple Life. Rosie Thomas
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pleased that he had so plainly wanted her; after what seemed like years of feeling huge and milky and bovine it was good to be reminded that she was alive and interesting. She could feel the stirred-up blood now, singing inside her.
Vicky had no idea what would happen next, or if anything would happen, but she contemplated whatever it would be with sleepy equanimity.
Gordon negotiated the familiar twists of the country road with frozen concentration. He could see the lights of another car, probably the Frosts’, winding ahead of him. He thought Vicky must have dropped into a doze and he tried to drive smoothly in order not to wake her or the baby. He needed this interval to think.
He was certain that he would have to tell Vicky the truth, before she heard someone else whispering the story.
He would have to tell her as gently and as honestly as he could manage, although he could not imagine what words he would use. Nor did he have any idea of what might happen once Vicky did know. But even in the midst of his dread he knew that he couldn’t bear to give Nina up, even though that was what he must certainly do.
His whole head was alive with images of her this evening, in her black dress, with her head held up and her long hands painted with blood. It had been hard enough not to run to her then, to have to leave her to Barney Clegg.
How could he tell Vicky what he barely understood himself, only clung to with all the selfish and vivid need that had woken up in him?
And when could he tell her? He must warn Nina first, somehow, and that would be a second betrayal. A wild impulse to leave Vicky at home and then to turn round and drive straight to Dean’s Row fuelled him for a second and then shrivelled away.
There was nothing to be done today.
There would be the enactment of a family Christmas with his children and their grandparents, and he would have to live through that with his knowledge of what was waiting for them. The next day, or the day after that, he would somehow find a way to tell the truth before Jimmy Rose did it for him.
Then, at the end of it, he would be left without Nina. As he considered this Gordon noticed, as dispassionately as if he were registering it in a third person, the first sharp twist of pain.
Darcy sat down on the edge of the bed and took off his shoes. Hannah was already in bed, lying curled up with her back to him.
‘What’s the matter?’ he asked her. ‘It was a good party. Good enough, anyway.’ When she said nothing he undid his tie and shirt and then took off his trousers, dropping each item on to Vicky’s chair. He could see the print of her body in the cushions.
‘Is this to do with Vicky Ransome?’ he asked. Hannah muttered something he could not hear. He told her irritably, ‘Don’t sulk, darling, it doesn’t suit you.’
Darcy padded naked into the bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror as he stood at the lavatory. There was a thick roll of flesh around his midriff and the hair on his chest was grey, but the muscles of his belly remained satisfyingly taut. He was not, he told himself, in bad shape for his age.
When he slid into bed beside her, Hannah still had not moved. Darcy eased across and pressed himself against her bulky warmth. He loved the generosity of flesh; it was Jimmy Rose’s mistake to imagine that he could have been drawn to Nina’s dry bones.
‘Hannah?’
He reached an arm over her shoulder and found her breasts. The looseness of them connected him to Vicky again and he felt himself harden.
‘Stop it, Darcy. The kids will be awake in three hours’ time.’
‘Let Mandy see to them, or the twins.’
‘It’s Christmas.’
‘All the more reason to spread a little cheer.’
Her only response was to push his hand away and hunch her shoulders in self-protection. Darcy was too sleepy to make more than a token protest; he knew this was Hannah’s revenge for his interlude with Vicky, and he also knew that by tomorrow it would be forgotten.
When he reached to turn out the light Darcy was smiling. He had remembered his earlier absolute conviction that he loved Vicky Ransome. He wanted to fuck her, that was true; he still did. But there was no need for love to be a factor in the equation.
Jimmy came out of the church. He shook hands with the priest and nodded a greeting to some of the other worshippers, although he knew none of them well. This was a matter of choice; he preferred to slip out of the currents of the day and come to mass alone.
The Catholic church was a modern brick building in a quiet road. Jimmy walked a little way away from it, down the street, to get away from the people and their cars. It was a cold, clear night. The street lights spread a murky orange canopy overhead, but he could see through it to the sharp brilliance of the stars. When he was alone he stopped, and heard the tiny echo of his own footsteps.
He tilted his head back to look at the stars.
It was Christmas morning, and Jimmy felt entirely at peace.
The door of the house in Dean’s Row was opened by a man Gordon had never seen before. His pale, indoor clothes looked incongruous in the metallic winter light and his feet were bare. It was the afternoon of Boxing Day.
‘Is Nina here?’
Patrick said, ‘Yes, she is.’ He knew at once that this was the man. Reluctantly he held the door open wider. ‘Come in. She’s upstairs.’
Nina and Patrick had been watching a film, the Branagh Henry V. They had spent many afternoons like this together, immersed in a movie, barricaded by sofa cushions. There was a box of Belgian chocolates on the floor, and a comfortable litter of empty coffee cups and wine glasses. The King’s dirty, weary army limped across the television screen in the corner.
‘I much prefer the Olivier version,’ Patrick had sighed, before the knock at the door. ‘Such romantic Plantagenet splendour.’
‘You would.’ Nina laughed at him through a mouthful of chocolate. ‘Don’t you think mud and dead horses are more realistic?’
‘And is realism a real benefit?’
Now Gordon stood in the doorway. Nina was startled, still warm with laughter, sitting in her corner of the sofa with her knees drawn up against the cushions. Gordon saw the evidence of an indulgent, adult afternoon of a kind that he had almost forgotten. His own house today was a dense, humid mass of children and grandparents and festive detritus. Nina’s bare, elegant drawing room and even the unknown languid man formed a tableau that entirely excluded him.
‘I’m sorry. I’m disturbing you.’
Nina jumped to her feet. She was wearing leggings and a loose cashmere tunic that he remembered seeing before. It had felt soft enough to melt under his hands.
‘No, you’re not. Of course you’re not.’
He clearly saw the pleasure and anticipation in her face, and wished that he had come to tell her something different.
‘Only I thought, today …’
She gestured with her long fingers that he wanted to take hold of. She meant that it was Boxing Day, a time of new dolls’ houses and noisy parlour games and family attachments.
‘I said I had a headache and needed some fresh air. The truth, as it happens.’
For a moment he had forgotten the pale-coloured man behind him, but Nina had not.
‘Gordon, this is Patrick Forbes, an old friend of mine. Patrick, this is Gordon Ransome.’
Gordon said stiffly, ‘How do you do?’
Patrick shrugged, smiling a little. ‘Hi.’
They