by Penny Jordan
Was it really only such a short time ago that she had taken this much care every evening… that she had spent almost as long getting ready for, anticipating her dates with Marcus as she actually had with him?
That had been in the early days of their relationship, of course. A time of greatly heightened excitement and intensity, which now somehow seemed slightly unreal. She smiled a little wryly to herself, remembering that other Eleanor and Marcus.
At half-past eight, when Marcus had still not come home, she dialled the number of his chambers.
The telephone rang for a long time before he answered it, his voice crisp and slightly impatient. Was it thinking about the past and when she had first known him that caused her heart to lurch with that half-forgotten sensation of pleasure and panic? Eleanor wondered.
‘You’re late,’ she told him. ‘I thought you’d be home by now.’
There was a small, almost sharp pause, alerting her senses, chilling the warm, sensuous anticipation.
‘We’re having a meeting here in chambers,’ Marcus told her tersely. ‘I did tell you, Nell. I shan’t be back until late. We’ve got one or two important things to discuss…’
Eleanor could sense his impatience and irritation. He had said something about a meeting, she remembered guiltily, but she had obviously not registered it properly. She had also, she suspected, interrupted him at a bad moment, to judge from the tone of his voice. She was about to apologise when he continued grimly, ‘Perhaps if you weren’t so wrapped up in other things you might have remembered…’
And then, before she could say a word, he had replaced the receiver.
Slowly Eleanor replaced hers. She was not going to cry, she told herself fiercely. It was a misunderstanding, that was all. They were both adults. They both loved one another. They were both mature and understood that sometimes things were said… things were done… No, she was not going to cry, she repeated tiredly to herself as she lifted her hand to wipe the dampness from her face.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
‘ELEANOR, is that you?’
Eleanor tensed as she heard the pretty, girlish tones of Marcus’s ex-wife’s voice.
‘I’ve been trying to get hold of Marcus for ages but they keep on telling me he isn’t there. Something about him being in conference with a client. You’d think his own daughter would be more important to him than someone he doesn’t even really know…’ Peevishness was spoiling the girlishness now.
‘Logic is a concept Julia simply doesn’t accept,’ Marcus had once told her, and, listening to her now, Eleanor could understand what he meant.
‘Is something wrong with Vanessa?’ she asked. ‘Is she ill?’
‘Not ill, no. It’s just that I’m going to have to fly out to LA earlier than expected—this weekend in fact, which means that Vanessa will have to come to you and I wanted to tell Marcus that he’d have to pick her up on Friday evening because my flight is early on Saturday morning. I can’t bring her down. She can’t come down on the train. If she’s going to be with you for several months she’ll need…’
‘Several months?’ Eleanor could hear the sharpness of her own voice.
‘Well, Marcus had already agreed to have her for the summer, and now that I’m leaving a few weeks early…’
‘But what about her schooling?’ Eleanor protested.
‘Oh, I’ve explained everything to her headmistress and she’s arranging for her teachers to provide her with some coursework she can do at home. She’ll only be missing a few weeks, after all… what with half-term and then the time she’d have off while they’re preparing the upper classes for their exams. Oh, and by the way, she’ll be bringing a friend with her… just for the week of half-term. Look, I must go, Eleanor, I’ve got a thousand and one things to do before I leave. You won’t forget to tell Marcus about picking Vanessa up, will you?’
* * *
‘She can’t do this to us. You can’t let her,’ Eleanor protested bitterly to Marcus later. ‘I know you agreed we would have her for the summer, but this…’
‘Well, at least the boys won’t be here.’
‘No, but can’t you see how this is going to look to them? They’ll think that they’re being pushed out of the way to make room for Vanessa and her friend. It’s too much, Marcus. I’m way behind with my work and then there’s the house… I’ve had to go down there twice this week already. The architect’s worried that there might be problems with the kitchen conversion… something about the danger of removing too many internal walls, and he thinks the septic tank might be leaking as well. Spring’s now become early summer and we don’t seem to be much further on.’
Tiredly she pushed her hand into her hair, her face tense. ‘I was looking forward to us having this week on our own.’
‘Were you?’ His voice sounded dry. ‘It doesn’t sound as though there would have been much time. Have you heard anything from Louise recently about the winding up of the business?’
‘Only an acknowledgement of my letter setting out the details of my meeting with the agent. I need Louise’s signature on some cheques. At least she’s now given me an address and phone number for the times when she’s away setting things up in France. I’ll have to try and ring her…’ She chewed anxiously on her bottom Up.
‘I’ve got a better idea. Why don’t you get the agent and everyone else to get in touch with Louise direct, instead of shouldering her responsibilities for her? You can’t do everything, Nell, you’re not omnipotent,’ Marcus told her tersely. ‘That way perhaps you and I can have a bit more time for other things.’
Other things? Like looking after his daughter? ‘No,’ she agreed lightly, suppressing her thoughts. ‘If I were omnipotent, the boys wouldn’t end up with so many pairs of odd socks.’
Why was it she felt that his comment was more a criticism than an expression of concern?
‘That’s something else I’ve got to do… pack their stuff for half-term. It’s going to be chaos here on Friday night with four of them.’
‘If you didn’t want Vanessa here you should have told Julia so,’ Marcus interrupted her, coldly.
Eleanor stared at him. ‘Marcus! How could I…?’
‘Quite easily. All you had to do was to tell Julia that it wasn’t possible for us to have Vanessa and that she would have to delay her departure until it was. As it is, you’ve agreed now and it’s too late.’
‘There wasn’t anything else I could do,’ Eleanor protested, adding sharply, ‘Perhaps if she’d been able to speak to you…’ She stopped abruptly.
What were they doing? What was happening to them lately? There seemed to be so much tension in their relationship, so much irritation. And it wasn’t just caused by Vanessa’s unexpected and unwanted visit.
There had been a growing distance between them recently, a growing feeling on her part of having to cope with things on her own, of Marcus somehow detaching himself from the myriad irritating problems that continued to spring up over their house move, so that she felt increasingly isolated from him and increasingly resentful about his lack of awareness of the pressure she was under.
She had been looking forward to a few days on their own; looking forward to having time to discuss then-plans for the house, to even perhaps persuading him to take some time off and go down there with her.
It irked her that Marcus seemed to think that she was at fault for agreeing to have Vanessa. What else could she have done, faced with the relentless pressure from Julia?
In the end she had to ring her ex-in-laws and ask if it was possible for them to pick up the boys on Friday. Luckily it was. She then had to work until gone midnight on Thursday evening—the only evening of the week when Marcus managed to get home early—in order to finish a translation she had promised a client for Friday, so that on Friday she could spend the day getting the boys’ things ready, and then preparing their room for Vanessa and her friend.
When the architect rang halfway through Friday afternoon to announce that he n
eeded to meet her at the house the following week to discuss several things with her she did some mental calculations with her schedule, acknowledging to herself that the only way she could do so would be if she were to take Vanessa and her friend with her.
Which might not be a bad idea, she told herself when she replaced the receiver. It would give Vanessa a chance to see the house for herself and Eleanor was convinced that once she had seen it she would stop being so difficult about the move.
Vanessa, the boys, and even it sometimes seemed Marcus himself to some extent… why couldn’t they see and appreciate what she was trying to do?
That evening, as she waved the boys off, she told herself that it was ridiculous to feel hurt by the excited eagerness with which they had greeted their grandparents.
She had told them about Vanessa’s visit but Tom had simply shrugged and said that he didn’t care.
‘Grandad is going to build a new garden shed and we’re going to help him,’ he had added excitedly. ‘He wrote to me and told me.’
It was later than she had expected when Marcus returned with the two girls, and as the three of them walked into the hall and Eleanor saw Vanessa’s friend her heart sank.
The other girl looked at least two years older than Vanessa and far more sophisticated, her face covered in thick pale make-up, her eyes outlined in dark kohl and her lips a vivid pouting scarlet. The eyes between the thickly mascaraed lashes were surely far too knowing and cynical for a girl of her age, and the short skirt and tight-fitting skimpy top, like the body they barely covered, so blatantly sexual that Eleanor felt not so much shocked by them as somehow slightly intimidated and embarrassed.
And the girl seemed to know it too. The look she gave Eleanor was both challenging and hostile, causing Eleanor’s heart to sink even further. Did Julia honestly believe that this girl was a suitable friend for someone as impressionable as Vanessa?
Marcus, who had walked into the hall behind the girls, looked irritable and tense. As he put down their cases Vanessa’s friend turned and sidled up to him, smiling archly at him as she thanked him.
‘Come on, Sasha. My room’s this way,’ Vanessa announced, totally ignoring Eleanor as she headed for the stairs. After another lingeringly sexual look at Marcus the other girl followed.
‘Don’t say a word,’ Marcus warned her as the bedroom door closed behind them. ‘Just remember this was your idea, not mine.’
She was too tired to argue with him and point out to him that all she had done was take his ex-wife’s phone call. Eleanor still felt both angry and hurt.
The weekend was a nightmare, culminating in Vanessa’s locking herself in her bedroom, playing music so loudly that Eleanor felt as though the whole fabric of the house was shaking with it, when she was forbidden to accompany her friend to a nightclub the other girl apparently knew.
In the end Sasha announced that since Vanessa had to stay in she might as well stay with her. She seemed more condescendingly amused by them than anything else, Eleanor recognised. From odd comments she made it became clear that she had only recently moved to Vanessa’s school and that she was living in a foster home.
‘It was Mum’s new fella. She didn’t like the fact that he fancied me so she got the council to take me. Said I was getting out of control.’ She had shrugged, apparently unconcerned, leaving Eleanor to question just how much Julia knew about her daughter’s new friend.
By Monday morning, Eleanor didn’t know how on earth she was going to get through the week.
The combination of Vanessa’s sullen defiance and Sasha’s aggressive sexuality were beginning to wear her nerves as raw as sandpaper on fine skin.
On Monday, when Eleanor announced that she had to meet the architect at the house and that she intended taking them with her, Vanessa immediately objected.
‘We’re not children, you know,’ she told Eleanor bitterly. ‘We don’t need you standing over us all day long like a guard dog.’
Sasha leaned across the table and made some whispered comment to Vanessa that made her both flush and laugh. Eleanor could feel her own skin start to burn. Marcus had left early before the girls had come down.
‘You’re not my mother,’ Vanessa added challengingly. ‘I don’t have to do what you say.’ For a moment Eleanor was tempted to retaliate by pointing out that neither was she obliged to put up with her rudeness… or even her presence, but somehow she managed to stop herself.
Instead Eleanor forced herself to ignore Vanessa’s unpleasantness and aggressiveness and say calmly instead, ‘I’d really like you to come with me, Vanessa. I thought you’d like to see the house and we could stop somewhere nice for lunch if you like.’
‘I don’t know. What do you think, Sasha?’
Eleanor tried not to let her real feelings show as the other girl shifted her chewing gum from one side of her mouth to the other and then shrugged.
‘Might as well, I suppose. Where is it, then, this house?’
‘It’s in Wiltshire,’ Eleanor told her as pleasantly as she could. ‘Just outside a very pretty country town.’
‘Country…’ The thin shoulders moved again. ‘You wouldn’t catch me moving from a place like this to the country. Wicked, this is,’ she added admiringly, ‘right in the middle of London. The country’s gross.’
* * *
‘Oh, is this it?’
Eleanor could hear the contempt in Vanessa’s voice as she stared round the town square.
‘This is Avondale, yes,’ Eleanor responded as evenly
as she could. ‘I thought we’d have lunch in the pub here. It dates back to the fifteenth century and—’
‘Just like the people who live here,’ Sasha interrupted before she could finish, sniggering as she pointed out a couple of young girls standing on the opposite side of the square to Vanessa.
‘Are they gross, or what?’ she demanded. ‘Just look at their clothes.’
‘But why can’t we eat in the bar?’ Vanessa protested as Eleanor ushered them towards the dining-room. ‘It’s so stuffy in here.’
The bar had been crowded with several groups of men and youths, but even if it hadn’t been she would not have chosen to eat there, Eleanor admitted as she compared the noise and discomfort of the busy bar area to the comfort and peace of the dining-room.
She had eaten at the pub before on a previous visit. The waiter remembered her and smiled shyly at her. He was only young and obviously a little nervous, but he was pleasant despite that. Pleasant and well-mannered.
Unlike Vanessa and Sasha, who were having a whispered conversation punctuated with giggles.
She suspected that the boy knew as well as she did that he was the subject of their amusement.
If Vanessa had been her own daughter there was no way she would have tolerated such rude behaviour, but then, if Vanessa had been her daughter, she would not have felt so hampered by her need to constantly remind herself that good and wise stepmothers did not attempt to take over the real mother’s role.
Throughout the meal Vanessa and Sasha continued to giggle and whisper to each other. Something in the main bar seemed to be amusing them but since Eleanor had her back to the open doorway she could not see who or what it was.
It was a relief to Eleanor when the meal was finally over. While the girls went to the cloakroom, Eleanor stayed behind to pay the bill.
Because of some confusion over exactly what they had ordered—hardly surprising really in view of the number of times the girls had changed their minds—it was a good fifteen minutes before the bill was actually settled. More than time enough, surely, for the girls to have rejoined her?
Frowning, Eleanor left the dining-room and headed for the cloakroom, stopping abruptly when she saw Vanessa standing with her back to her, apparently deep in conversation with a leather-clad boy. Sasha was standing next to her talking with two others.
Suppressing her real feelings, Eleanor made her way towards them, forcing herself to smile as she firmly stepped between Vaness
a and the boy and, facing Vanessa, said calmly, ‘Ready? It’s time we were going otherwise we’ll be late for the architect.’
She hadn’t missed the glass in Vanessa’s hand but since she didn’t want to provoke an argument she didn’t ask her what had been in it. Vanessa was under age and so too, for all her aggressive sophistication, was Sasha.
When both girls followed her without comment she was so relieved that she decided to say nothing about their behaviour, although she suspected that Marcus would not have been so reticent.
As she drove towards the house she tried to quieten the conscience that told her that for Vanessa’s own sake she ought to say something to her about the dangers of being picked up by unknown men, to warn her of the risks she could be taking in engaging in what on the surface might appear to be a harmless flirtation.
At fourteen Vanessa was still too young for any kind of emotional or sexual relationship and experimentation. But not too young to be very sexually aware and curious. Vanessa and Sasha probably considered her to be old-fashioned and out of touch, but Eleanor could remember from her own school days the handful of girls who had been sexually active at well below the legally permitted age.
The architect’s car was already parked outside the house when they got there and he was waiting for them.
Within minutes of them going inside, Eleanor recognised that, far from being impressed and excited about the house, Vanessa was doing her best to be as destructive as possible.
‘Do we have to stay in here with you? Can’t we go outside?’ she complained.
Exasperated and embarrassed and sensing the architect’s impatience, Eleanor nodded her head.
When they had gone Eleanor listened to the architect, her heart sinking. It was obvious from what he was saying that he had serious doubts about the viability of the alterations they needed to carry out.
‘Are you saying that we can’t convert this area into one large living kitchen?’ she asked him.
‘I’m afraid not. Too many of the existing walls are load-bearing supports. I know how keen you are on the house,’ he added quietly. ‘And it is a lovely setting, but quite honestly…’ He paused and looked thoughtfully at her. ‘I don’t want to seem a pessimist, but in your shoes I’d seriously consider looking for somewhere else.’