Dark Paradise. Sara Craven
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gift to women a bit strong too,’ Kate retorted. ‘Men like that are an abomination. One smile, an invitation to dance—and they expect you to—to roll over and beg!’
‘Well—roll over anyway,’ said Simon with a mock leer. ‘I didn’t know you were such a feminist, Kate.’
‘I’m not,’ she said shortly. ‘But he—his whole approach—reminded me of—of someone I used to know.’
‘Did you give him a hard time too?’ Kate wondered if the alarm she heard in Simon’s voice was altogether feigned.
She gave him a placatory smile. ‘No.’ She glanced round. ‘I think Alison’s ready to go up and change. I’d better help her.’
‘Fine,’ Simon agreed, and she realised ruefully as she left the room in Alison’s wake that he was probably regretting that he had to spend the evening with her. And she wasn’t altogether sure she could blame him.
By the time they came downstairs again, Matt Lincoln had left, to Alison’s momentary pouting disappointment. Kate could only feel relief. She had almost been tempted to remain upstairs packing away the discarded wedding dress and tidying up generally rather than face him again.
She had imagined he had passed out of her life for ever. Now, it seemed, he was back with a vengeance.
Her steps began to slow. She had been walking aimlessly in no particular direction, or so she had thought. Now, as the glass and concrete block of the National Television building reared up in front of her, she wasn’t so sure.
Was this what they called a Freudian slip? she asked herself wryly.
She stood staring up at the building, hating the way all those windows seemed to stare back like so many blank eyes, then gave herself a swift mental shake. She was doing no earthly good drifting round London, worrying about something for which there might be a perfectly innocent explanation.
The best thing she could do was go back to the studio and get on with her own work, her own life.
In other words, mind her own business.
The studio was one large attic room of a tall Edwardian house. It had windows on two sides and a skylight, and Kate loved it. There was another attic across the narrow passage, and this she used as a bedsitter, sharing the bathroom on the floor below with the family who owned the house, Felix who was a newspaper photographer, his wife Maria and their two children. It was an arrangement that suited them all.
As Kate unlocked the front door and went in, Maria’s voice called from the kitchen, ‘How was the drunken lunch?’
Kate put her head round the kitchen door. ‘Remarkably sober,’ she said. ‘Something smells wonderful.’
Maria grimaced. ‘Not really.’ She waved a spoon. ‘Just an ordinary little meat sauce to go with spaghetti—it being the end of the month and all—but I think you’ll be amused by its precocity. Want to join us, or are you too full of caviare and champagne?’
‘I’d love to,’ Kate said regretfully, and meant it, because Maria was generally an inspired cook even with the most average ingredients. ‘But I thought I would go home this evening. It’s been some time since I saw them all.’
‘Fine,’ Maria said amiably. She gave Kate a narrow look. ‘There’s nothing wrong, is there?’
‘Of course not.’ Kate achieved a laugh. ‘I do go home occasionally, you know!’
‘I didn’t mean that. I just thought you looked a bit fraught, that’s all,’ said Maria, stirring her sauce, and lowering the flame beneath the pan.
‘Oh,’ Kate pulled a face, cursing her landlady’s perspicacity. ‘It’s just this new book—there could be problems. Nothing that I can’t handle, of course.’
‘Of course,’ Maria agreed. ‘Well, enjoy yourself this evening.’
Kate’s mother was delighted to get her phone call. ‘Darling, how marvellous! Jon and Alison are coming over too. It’ll be a real family party.’
‘Yes, won’t it?’ Kate agreed. She replaced her receiver slowly. She had intended to do some subtle probing, now it seemed she was going to be able to see them together and judge the state of their relationship for herself.
And probably Alison would be bubbling over with the story of her wonderful lunch, she told herself forcefully.
Her stepfather greeted her at the door with a warm hug.
‘You’ve lost weight, my girl.’ He held her at arms’ length and stared at her critically.
Kate wrinkled her nose at him. ‘That’s what you always say. I only wish it was true.’
‘Well, at least you’ll get a decent meal inside you tonight,’ he said triumphantly. ‘Steak and kidney pie and all the trimmings. How’s work going? Any interesting commissions?’
He poured sherry, and they took it into the kitchen and talked to Kate’s mother as she bustled around, putting the last touches to the meal. She was a woman who had always found her fulfilment in caring for her family, and they’d often teased her about it, calling her ‘an endangered species’, which she accepted with unruffled calm.
Watching her, seeing her pleasure in the preparations she was making, Kate found herself thinking, ‘Oh, let everything be all right! She and Dad love Jon. They’re so proud of him. If anything went wrong in his marriage, they’d be so hurt, so bewildered.’
They heard his car pull on to the drive at the side of the house, and presently he came in. He was smiling and carrying a bunch of flowers for his stepmother, but Kate thought he looked tired.
He said ruefully, ‘I’m on my own, I’m afraid. Ally sends love and apologies, but she’s going to have an early night. She’s got a splitting headache.’
‘Oh.’ Mrs Herbert looked downcast. ‘I wonder what’s caused that?’
Hangover? Kate supplied silently. Guilty conscience? Or had they had a blazing row, perhaps?
‘Hi, love,’ Jon bent and kissed her cheek. ‘Anything exciting in your life?’
She shrugged. ‘Depends on your view of excitement.’ Keeping her voice casual, she added, ‘I had lunch at Père Nicolas today.’
Jon whistled appreciatively. ‘Very impressive! I hope you weren’t paying.’
‘Oh, Kate!’ her mother wailed. ‘Then you won’t want another big meal. What am I going to do with all this pie?’
‘I’m starving,’ Kate assured her. ‘No restaurant food could ever compare with yours, you know that.’
She would eat the dinner in front of her if it killed her, she promised herself. And it probably would, because she’d been counting on Jon saying something on the lines of ‘Now there’s a coincidence. Alison was lunching there too.’ Whereas it was evident that he knew nothing at all about Alison’s midday activities. Oh hell, she thought. Hell and damnation!
She finished everything on her plate with a struggle, and it was no consolation to note that Jon didn’t have much of an appetite either. He talked cheerfully about the office, making them laugh with his story of a client who was always house-hunting, then finding some fatal flaw with the property of his dreams just before the contracts were due to be signed.
‘And his own house is sold, so if he doesn’t make up his mind soon, he could end up in a tent on the common,’ he added with a gesture of mock despair.
‘Talking of dream houses,’ his father said. ‘How’s the decorating at your place coming along?’
Jon helped himself to cheese. ‘It’s rather ground to a halt at the moment,’ he said, after a pause.
Mrs Herbert was piling used dishes on to a tray. ‘But Alison was so keen, so full of plans