Loe raamatut: «Temporary Parents»

CHAPTER ONE

THE trilling of the phone ripped into Laura’s unconsciousness. Her hand fumbled about, knocking over the bedside lamp, two paperbacks, a china hedgehog and a mug with its dregs of hot chocolate before connecting with the receiver.

“Lo?’ she mumbled, drowsily trying to right everything and getting a chocolatey hand for her pains.

‘Laura?’

She sat bolt-upright in bed, suddenly startled and alert. ‘Yes, Max?’ she squeaked.

It was an unmistakable, honey-on-steel version of her name. L-a-u-r-a. Shivers went down her back. Her hand pressed against her chest, as if that would stop the acrobatics of her heart. Max. The years rolled back...

‘I’m coming to see you.’

She blinked. It was pitch-dark in her small bedsit. She pushed back the flopping mass of unruly black hair which could have been obscuring her view—but it was still dark. When she checked the luminous dial of her clock, her huge, summer-sky-coloured eyes rounded in complete amazement.

‘At four in the morning? Oh, for heaven’s sake!’

She slammed the phone down and hauled the duvet over her head. She had to get up in an hour! Angrily she listened to the muted, persistent ringing, wishing that she’d yanked the whole thing from its socket.

And then as she lay there, hating Max, wishing he’d give up, she finally put two and two together. There could be only one reason Max wanted to see her: the secret she and her older sister Fay had kept to themselves for the past five years.

Laura sat up again in horror. Perhaps he knew the truth now. What would he do? Tell Daniel, Fay’s husband? Then what?

She shuddered, suddenly icy cold. Flinging back the duvet, she launched herself in panic at the phone. Both of them landed on the floor, and her African Grey parrot woke up and started screeching in alarm.

‘Shut up, Fred...! Oh, this wretched thing...!’ she wailed in frustration, trying to untangle the cord from her ankle.

She could hear Max shouting somewhere in the depths of the receiver and felt vindictively sorry that the crash hadn’t burst his eardrums.

‘Yes? What?’ she demanded, cross and out of breath.

‘What the hell’s going on? Who’s there with you?’ Max yelled, sounding agitated. Fred screamed on relentlessly.

‘It’s all right, darling!’ she crooned, anxious for her beloved, neurotic pet’s state of mind. ‘Coo-coo-coo—’

‘What?’

‘I was speaking to my parrot!’ she snapped, feeling hysterical.

Fred’s screeching was drilling through her head. She fumbled for the light switch on the fallen lamp and switched it on.

‘A parrot.’

Stung by Max’s slicing tone, she clenched her teeth and tried to ignore the implication that he was dealing with a fool. Max could sneer for England.

‘Hang on!’ she cried, wincing as Fred’s screeches scythed through her. ‘I’ve got to calm him down. He’s emotionally disturbed.’

‘For pity’s sake—!’

Cutting him off in mid-curse, she scrambled unsteadily to her feet, thinking that now she was emotionally disturbed too. Dammit, why had Max crawled out of the woodwork?

Gently she removed the cover on Fred’s night cage, murmuring to him a few soothing words. How nice, she thought wistfully, if someone could do that for her.

The mollified Fred tucked his denuded head under his wing and she stroked him fondly. She’d rescued him from an animal shelter where she worked on weekends, smitten by the ugly, bald, mangy looking bird...and wanting something to love.

Her heart contracted. With her dark, Celtic brows zapped together in a fierce scowl, she stared miserably at the phone, unwilling to make contact with Max. She’d got over him. But not the consequences of their affair.

Max had got her pregnant five years ago, when she had been eighteen and he had been twenty-four. Then he’d moved back to a fiancée he’d had stashed away in Surrey. Then, in a matter of weeks, on to Laura’s sister. Then, who knows? One, two, three. Bunny-hopping through women with a staggering nonchalance.

To Laura’s fury, her eyes filled with tears. She’d thought she’d put all that pain behind her. And now Max was dragging unwanted memories back to the forefront of her mind.

Her small, dainty hands fluttered in a bewildered gesture at her stupidity. She knew how and why she’d got pregnant, why she’d taken that mad and fatal risk. They had held back for a long time and he had been leaving for France... And she’d loved him so utterly that when he’d started touching her she hadn’t ever wanted him to stop and had driven him beyond the point of return.

That one occasion had been enough for her to conceive.

Carefully she replaced Fred’s cover. Like it or not, she had to see Max. She must know his intentions.

Trembling, and afraid of facing the past, she resumed her position on the floor, needing something good and solid beneath her shaking body. She took a deep breath, and spoke before she could chicken out.

‘I’m listening now.’

‘Good. I’ll be arriving at one o’clock lunchtime. Be there. It’s important.’

‘Be where?’ she asked guardedly, hating his curtness and the way her voice quaked.

‘The baker’s shop. Where you work—’

‘How do you know this?’ she cried in alarm.

‘I’ve been talking to Daniel.’

Laura’s right hand wobbled so much that she had to support it with her left. ‘Oh.’

Dimly she heard him trying to get her attention. She couldn’t speak. Her whole body felt completely paralysed. He could already have told Daniel! Fay’s marriage and the future of Fay’s two children could be in real danger with Max around. He could ruin Fay’s life. Laura closed her eyes. As he’d mined hers.

When she’d learnt of Max’s affair with her own sister, she’d been in the fifth month of her pregnancy. The news had shocked her so deeply that she hadn’t been able to eat. Some time—she didn’t know when—her baby had stopped moving.

She felt the scream building up inside her, fighting for release. Her baby. Dead.

Of course she’d willed it to live. Refused to believe that Max’s child—her only link with him—had been lost.

She’d waited, day after day, sure that her baby would wake, punch her with its little fists, kick her with its tiny feet...

She blanched. Her stomach cramped. All those hope-ridden days of carrying her dead baby. Then the high fever, the hours of lonely agony until her aunt had found her, crying with pain in the bathroom.

In her head she could still hear the sound of her racking sobs when she’d known for sure that Max had brought about the death of his own child—even though he hadn’t even known of its existence.

For days she’d lain in her hospital bed, weak and numb, with a nurse in constant attendance. And then...a sympathetic doctor had appeared. He’d told her that the infection had meant the removal of her womb and she could never have children. But it would never show, he’d said cheerfully, as if that would somehow console her.

She hunched up in misery. Max’s philandering had taken away from her the one thing she’d longed for, ever since she could remember.

A happy marriage. Children. A whole row of them in ascending sizes. Oh, God! It was tearing her heart to shreds...

‘Laura!’

But she was weeping too much now to speak—and was too proud to let him know that. Loathing the very sound of him, she dropped the receiver onto its cradle. And then disconnected the phone completely before flinging herself back into bed.

In the shop below her bedsit, there had been an epidemic of babies that morning. One set of blonde twins in matching red rompers and cosy hats to combat the October weather. A huge bruiser with the sweetest marmalade curls. And the endearing Rufus with his lopsided, windy smile.

Laura gripped the order book tightly. One deep breath. Another. Slow, steady. Rufus was now safely outside in his buggy on fashionable Sloane Street, softening up unwary strangers with every waft of his incredible lashes.

‘Wait till you have one of your own!’ his mother had said happily. ‘Stretchmarks, sleepless nights, nappies...!’

Sounded wonderful.

But what had Laura done after that innocently tactless remark? Produced a thin smile and hustled for a decision on the Christening cake design. Refused to look at the child again despite the urge to reach out and stroke his peachy cheek...

‘That’s the second baby you’ve cut dead!’ scolded Luke, emerging from the office.

With a face like stone, she dived under the counter and replaced the order book, hoping against hope that would be the last bundle of joy she saw that day.

Laura made much of checking the ribbons and flat-packed cake boxes. She thought of little Rufus with his mass of black hair, saucer eyes and tiny, screwed-up, dear little face that could have melted steel girders, let alone Laura’s susceptible heart.

As she pretended to root about under the counter, she caught herself responding belatedly to him, the gentle curves of her mouth lifting wistfully.

Rot in bell, Max! she thought, and the sweet-sad smile was sharply erased out. This situation would never alter, so she might as well get used to it.

‘Will you come out of there?’

Reluctantly she emerged and straightened, realising as she did so that Luke was warming to his theme.

‘Look, Laura, in the two weeks you’ve been here you’ve not exactly been Mary Poppins as far as kiddies are concerned.’ He looked at her curiously and she immediately turned her back and began fiddling with the cakes on the shelf behind. ‘What’s the matter with you?’ he asked in exasperation.

Remain calm. Pretend his imagination has run away with him.

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she managed, with a fair stab at surprise.

Now take the cake from the shelf. Read the lettering. ‘Happy 30th Birthday, Jasper’. Admire your skill in creating a BMW convertible with only Victoria sponge, icing and your talent to play with. Place it in its box for collection and mind the wing mirrors...

‘You ignored that baby! I don’t know what he ever did to you!’

Luke, the owner of Sinful Cakes and Indecent Puddings, was clearly not going to let the matter rest. Blindly she feigned an interest in the shelf again.

‘Don’t you realise it’s part of your job to coo and sigh and make those noises women make whenever they see babies?’

‘Yes. Shall I restack the shelves with sugar mice?’ she asked, her strained voice squeaky enough to belong to a terrified mouse itself.

‘No!’ Luke grabbed her small, rigid shoulders and determinedly turned her around.

She avoided his eyes, too wound up for a confrontation. Two hours, eight minutes to go before Max turned up. The clock had been counting down in her head all morning, with an unbearable tension increasing every second, just as if she were sitting in a command centre and waiting for a missile launch.

Already her mouth was dry, her hands shaking. Something was happening to her lips. They were beginning to tremble—

‘Laura...’ came Luke’s softly spoken concern.

‘Oh, please!’ she whimpered.

Gentleness was unfair! She could have borne anything but that! She made a half-hearted attempt to twist from beneath his hands but he was too much of a vast and friendly bear to be evaded by a five-foot-two slip of a female on teetering heels.

‘Don’t,’ she pleaded, hopelessly scared of losing control.

He set her free. But she couldn’t move. A sense of hopelessness held her in place just as he’d left her, head drooping, body taut.

The door was being bolted. The bell disabled. There was the sound of the ‘Open/Closed’ notice being turned around. Luke’s footsteps coming closer. His hand supporting her elbow.

‘Coffee and a chat, I think.’

He had such a warm brown, tender voice, as if he knew something of the trauma she contained so silently. He would make a willing listener, and she liked him enormously.

They cooked together in the bakery, shared the deliveries to swanky parties in Knightsbridge where the shop outlet was based and worked behind the counter as a happy and friendly team.

But she didn’t want to tell anyone. If she did, she might break up. That was the last thing she wanted, with Max on his way. She knew Luke would want some kind of explanation, though.

He shut the door which led into the office. There was the delicious smell of baking from the ovens beyond. He moved her bakery sneakers aside and pushed her into an armchair with the obvious intention of settling her down for a confidential heart-to-heart.

‘I know something’s wrong. You’re terrific with customers. You care. People respond to you. But kids are another matter. You clam up. So...what do you have against them?’

‘Nothing.’ She adored them. That was the trouble.

Her face crumpled and the first sob rushed up from her chest. Then Luke was kneeling beside her, holding her, patting her back, murmuring soothingly into her thick bob of black hair.

‘Oh, curses!’ She’d wanted to look wonderful when Max turned up. A kind of ‘look what you turned down’ defiance. To appear independent, successful, content and strong. Instead, she’d be bag-eyed and ready to cry at his first scathing remark. He’d be bound to condemn her and Fay for being push-overs. She’d be pathetic—too feeble to stand up to him.

‘Hush, hush,’ Luke said, consolingly.

It was a long time later before the unstoppable flood of tears dried up. Luke made her a strong, sweet coffee and then she plucked up courage and gave him a shortened version of her story.

‘I—I can’t have children, Luke—’ There was a considerable pause while she drank long and deep, forcing the coffee past the mass of whatever was trying to block her throat. ‘I adore them,’ she said in a small, unhappy voice. ‘It’s as simple as that. And my ex-boyfriend’s coming here lunchtime with some dreadful news about my sister.’

She found that she’d been squeezing Luke’s hand tightly, and eased her grip, leaving a red mark and the impression of her short nails in his palm.

So much passion in her! Who would ever guess? Laura Tremaine, dull and plain! Pint-sized, snub-nosed, with a skewed, enormous mouth. Overlooked because of her bubbly, beautiful and sexy sister but with a cauldron of emotion simmering beneath an apparently docile surface.

‘I think there’s much more to that story, but I won’t pry,’ Luke said shrewdly. ‘Go upstairs. Gather yourself together. When Max comes, I’ll send him up. I’ll be glued to the intercom in case you need me. Go on!’ he urged, when she hesitated.

‘You’re very kind.’

‘Selfish,’ he corrected. ‘You’re a damn good cook, Laura. I don’t want to lose you. We’ll come to some arrangement about the baby side of things—’

‘No. It won’t be a problem.’ She stood up, feeling a little better for her outburst. ‘I’m OK now. Honestly. And...thanks again. You’ve been very understanding.’

Luke opened the door to the shop and then paused. ‘Not surprising. I knew the signs. My wife can’t have kids either, you see.’

Laura went quite cold. Slowly her gaze swivelled to meet his and she recognised his sense of loss with immediate empathy. Only people who were denied children could ever know that desperate, almost frantic feeling of need. It was so fierce and uncontrollable that it could ruin the whole of your life and every relationship that ever came your way.

Max had changed her life totally. She was different—who she was, what she did, her friends, everything. Boyfriends had complained she didn’t give of herself. True. How could she, when she’d nothing to give ultimately?

She felt that her status as a woman had become flawed and inferior, like faulty goods. A hopeless sensation of inadequacy had grown inside her, swelling up and occupying every thought and action as if she had a phantom pregnancy. She knew she’d never get over it, however deep she tried to bury it. The sadness would stay with her for the rest of her life.

Thanks, Max.

And here was Luke, telling her his most personal secret. She held out her arms in silent sympathy, and Luke walked into them. There was nothing sexual about the gesture for either of them. Just two unhappy people linked by a poignant tragedy.

‘Glad I told you,’ she said, Luke’s soft jacket muffling her words.

‘Yup.’ He hugged her harder.

At some stage, someone began to bang on the street door. Although Luke’s bulk obscured her vision of the impatient customer, Laura realised they must be in full view.

‘Bang goes your reputation,’ she said, stepping back and producing a wry smile.

It wasn’t funny, but Luke laughed, releasing some of the emotional tension between them.

‘Sounds like Jasper’s come for his BMW! Upstairs now,’ he urged. ‘Put the slap on. Don’t let Max get under your skin. Stick it out. Some time...you might like to meet my wife. You’ll like her.’

He gave a sentimental, dreamy smile and Laura wondered if she would ever find a man who loved her unconditionally.

‘Thanks.’

Laura touched his chest in an affectionate gesture, and ran up the narrow stairs to her bedsit, wishing her legs weren’t shaking so much. She was dreading this meeting.

Her arrival was greeted noisily by Fred. Her face softened and she went over to the free-standing perch by the window.

‘Hi, Fred, darling!’ she murmured, affectionately tickling his stubbly head. He nuzzled up and made ecstatic clicks with his beak. ‘Got to dash,’ she told him reluctantly, and glanced at her watch.

Laura groaned. A thousand butterflies took off in her stomach and began a pitched battle. It was nearly her lunch hour already! Max would be here at one. He was brutally punctual. Where had the time gone?

She whirled and inspected herself in the dressing-table mirror. She looked awful. Rumpled and crumpled with red-rimmed eyes and a blotchy face—and her hair flicking out in all directions and looking as if she’d spent the morning having it whipped up by the dough mixer.

As for her dress... It wasn’t flattering at all. Wondering exactly what was suitable for meeting an ex-lover with a confession to make, she quickly slipped the simple grey jersey down to the floor and stepped out of it, mentally running through the limited choice in her wardrobe.

Something smart. Severe. That would help to keep her nerves together. She was a firm believer that clothes could alter moods.

The shoes were fine. High, as she always liked them, giving her a feeling of authority and efficiency. And altitude. And they bolstered her confidence when dealing with the well-off, well-bred clientele.

Since Max was just on six feet and towered over her, she’d need both confidence and height or he’d be constantly looking down his nose at her. She’d keep them on.

Help! A quarter to one! She felt weak with apprehension. Better hurry. Get the face sorted. The more barriers, the better.

She sped into the bathroom as fast as her smart shoes would allow, feeling chilly in just her chainstore bra, briefs, suspender belt and stockings. Frantically she turned on the cold tap and gasped aloud with shock as she splashed water over her swollen face—and accidentally flung some at her chest, too.

Somewhere in the background, Fred squawked. Probably worried she was being attacked, she thought, absently applying soap to her face. He’d be brilliant if Max became aggressive. That squawk could break the sound barrier.

It must be ten to one now, she hazarded, though she couldn’t see because her eyes were tightly scrunched up against the smarting soap. Still bent double over the basin, with her stockinged legs apart and her three-inch heels dug firmly into the cheap lino, she reached out and flapped a hand in the air, searching for the towel.

It was put into her hand.

Everything froze except her brain. Max! She knew it!

Shivers went down her spine. The sinews in her legs became taut. She felt the clenching of the muscles in her buttocks. The stiffening of her naked back.

And then came the stomach-churning thought that Max was probably noticing the tell-tale changes of panic in her body with huge amusement. The women he knew would have given a little wiggle and invited his touch, while she was going pink with embarrassment and ruining any chance she’d had of presenting herself as a city-wise sophisticate.

‘Don’t get cold, now,’ he admonished with a chuckle.

Cold! She was consumed by hell fire in embarrassment!

It seemed safer to stay where she was than to straighten and offer him a full-frontal view. Her hand curled into a claw, snatching the towel away and flinging it over her near nudity.

Max’s well-remembered, elegant fingers straightened out the folds with a lingering precision which made her want to scream. He was recreating those days when he hadn’t been able to keep his hands off her and had devoted himself to cherishing her. Or so he’d pretended. Max was a master at giving women what they wanted. He found it the quickest route to their beds, so she’d been told.

His distressed parents had explained his tactics. He fitted his behaviour to whichever woman he wanted. For her, he’d been protective, thoughtful, dedicated. He had, apparently, found it perfectly possible to be in the same room as Fay and not be dazzled because he’d found, so he’d said, Laura’s button nose and higgledy-piggledy mouth absolutely adorable.

Liar.

Laura was struggling for words and sounded almost incoherent when a few managed to crawl out. ‘What the hell—?’

‘I did knock,’ came Max’s classy drawl, smooth with phoney innocence.

‘But didn’t wait!’ she accused, beside herself with anger at the invasion of her privacy.

‘I never do,’ he agreed cheerfully.

No. Not for anyone or anything. What Max wanted, he wanted now—or he walked away and found the next most pleasing substitute.

‘Well, you can this time. Go back and sit down and wait—or keep walking out of my flat door and don’t come back!’ she cried, rubbing her face hard in temper with a riskily released corner of the towel.

‘You’ve got five minutes,’ he drawled. ‘I’m in a hurry.’

‘Go and feed the parrot,’ she suggested maliciously, knowing Fred would bite off Max’s finger if he tried.

‘No, thanks.’ There was a lazy amusement in his voice. ‘It looks diseased.’

Laura pummelled her wet breasts with the towel as if she were kneading bread, furious on her pet’s behalf. Somewhere in the background she was aware of the sound of Max’s retreating steps.

‘By the way,’ he called back as an afterthought. ‘There’s a ladder exploring your left thigh.’

Laura clapped a hand to the back of her leg. He was right. Red-faced and breathing hard, she clutched the towel securely around her and turned in a violent movement to find that he’d vanished.

She loathed him. He made her want to lash out, to slap that arrogant, smoothie face. To knock him off-balance with a step-by-step explanation of what he’d done to her, with all the gory details.

It beggared belief that he was here to make a shameful admission—and yet was strolling around casually, quite unperturbed by the fact that he ought to be ashamed of his actions.

One day, Max Pendennis...one day! she promised vehemently. Then she felt exasperated with herself. In the back of her mind, she’d wanted to appear cool and collected, the epitome of a woman who couldn’t care less what he did. Yet already he’d got her stamping mad. Her eyes sparked angrily and she tried to haul down her temper from the stratosphere.

All she had to do was listen to him with a superior smile hovering on her face, make sure that he wasn’t going to ruin Fay’s marriage by telling Daniel what had happened, and then show him the door.

She decided not to tell him about her pregnancy. She had no intention of playing the sad victim. Her preference was to appear remote, dignified and unassailable...

And yet, she thought, her sense of humour briefly reasserting itself, she’d opened up the proceedings with a classic girlie-magazine pose, presenting her flimsily clad backside, suspenders and stocking-tops to him!

‘Three minutes, and counting.’

Laura sent a hot-poker glare at the only bit of him she could see, a pair of long, male legs in soft silver-grey suiting crossed at the ankles, and two glassily polished black shoes.

He was sitting in her favourite easy chair, facing the bed and wardrobe, like someone waiting for the next show to begin.

She stalked into the room just as he was reaching down from the chair to pick up the discarded grey jersey dress. Without a word she took it from him, suddenly conscious of the homely untidiness around her.

There were piles of half-read paperbacks near his feet and a stack of various friends’ letters stuffed into the chair beside him. Evidence of her studying lay scattered on every available surface—papers, files, pens, notepads. Max hated mess.

Avoiding contact with his eyes, she stepped over his outstretched legs, toed the daily paper under the small table to join the parrot’s tinkly bell and headed for the wardrobe.

All too late, she realised that she’d been clutching the towel around her so tightly that her figure must have been perfectly outlined for him. She eased her neurotic grip, giving him a few more folds to deal with.

Max inhaled audibly behind her as if exasperated.

‘If you want me to hurry up,’ she said haughtily over her shoulder, ‘then face the other way. I’m not dressing while you look on.’

‘It would save time if you stayed as you are.’ The words slid over her like smooth icing from a spoon. ‘It makes no difference to me what you’re wearing—’

‘Well, it does to me!’ she snapped, and regretted losing control. Again. Giving herself a mental kick for her stupidity, she waited haughtily for him to make a move.

The sigh of irritation was repeated, and then there was a scraping sound as the chair was pushed back. When she checked in the mirror, she saw that he was gazing out of the window and standing a disease-free distance from Fred, who was pacing up and down his perch and measuring his chances of a crafty nip.

Satisfied, she opened the wardrobe door, Max’s reflected image filling her head.

Tall. Hair still a gleaming raven-black like hers. But the thick waves had been tamed and cut to ruthless perfection, as if his barber had painstakingly worked with a ruler, measuring the requisite distance from that razoredged white collar.

Max had wider shoulders than she remembered, poured into a sharply tailored suit which had clearly been built on his hard, sinewy body, inch by perfect inch. His spare frame was not heavy with grossly inflexible muscle, but powerfully shaped nevertheless, like that of an athlete in his prime.

He looked breathtakingly handsome. But then he’d always been that—mooned over by her schoolfriends on the rare occasions he’d come home from his prep and then public schools. Son of the wealthy General William Pendennis. Bright future in the City. Every girl’s dream—hers included.

Except...he wasn’t her Max any more, and hadn’t been for a long time. He belonged in a different sphere. A world of privilege and class, peopled by well-bred, elite movers-and-shakers. A world at large which embraced big business, financial deals and where international flights were far more commonplace than number nine buses.

Perhaps aware that she hadn’t moved for a few moments, he began drumming his fingers on the high windowsill and tapping his foot Max hated being cooped up as much as he hated being kept waiting, she reflected, pushing hangers about aimlessly. He was the most restless and active man she’d ever known.

‘Will you step on it?’ he complained impatiently. ‘I’ve got a flight to catch—and you have one hell of a lot to organise.’

‘I have?’ That didn’t sound as if he was planning a confession about his relationship with Fay—and the consequences. Puzzled, Laura heaved the towel around her top half, grabbed her best suit from the wardrobe and slid the short, straight skirt up over her slender hips. Instantly she felt prim and efficient. ‘You’d better talk while I dress, then,’ she advised edgily.