Swansea Summer Page 17

  ‘No, Mr Griffiths.’ She followed him into his office and stood before his desk. ‘I’d like to leave at three o’clock this afternoon.’

  He heard the outer office door opening and closing, and assumed Ann was carrying another load of files to the cupboard in the corridor. ‘You took some time off last week.’

  ‘I made up the time then, as I will now.’

  ‘I am not concerned about the time. May I ask where you’re going?’

  ‘A personal matter.’

  ‘If it’s anything I can help with …’

  ‘It isn’t, but thank you for asking, Mr Griffiths.’

  ‘Katie …’

  ‘Yes.’ She leaned expectantly towards him and he retreated to the window.

  ‘Have you checked Ann’s progress with the filing cabinets?’ He didn’t want to know. He simply wanted to keep her in his office for as long as possible. Being close to her, inhaling her perfume, being able to look in her eyes, brought the strangest mix of emotions including pain, yet it was still preferable to not being with her.

  ‘She’s slow but thorough.’

  They both started at a knock on the door.

  ‘Come in,’ he shouted impatiently.

  ‘A Mr Davies is downstairs, Mr Griffiths. He’s asking to see you on urgent personal business. I did enquire, but he wouldn’t tell me what it was.’ Ann tried to imitate Katie’s professional manner but she only succeeded in sounding faintly absurd, like a child play-acting at being an adult.

  Katie went to the door. ‘Shall I show Mr Davies in, Mr Griffiths?’

  ‘Please.’

  She left, closing the door softly behind her.

  Wishing his solicitor had chosen any other time to call, John sat at his desk and lifted the pile of letters Katie had typed in front of him. Unscrewing the top from his fountain pen he scanned the top one and signed it. Then the next and the next, dropping them one by one into the out-tray, all the while conscious of Katie’s perfume lingering in the room. He hadn’t even liked essence of violets until she had begun to wear it.

  He only had to close his eyes to conjure every line of her slender figure, to see her eyes lighting her face when she smiled, the graceful walk that sent his heart rate soaring every time she stepped near him. A personal matter! He had been the one to exclude her from his life. He had no right to pry, yet the only personal matters he wanted Katie Clay to have were ones that related to him. He reminded himself of all the reasons why he shouldn’t see her privately; his age; his ugly, crippled body; Esme and her vicious, vindictive nature. It might be painful to see and work with Katie every day but he simply couldn’t bear the thought of the alternative – not to see her at all.

  ‘And how did the last exam go?’ Sam asked as Martin stepped down into their kitchen and closed the door behind him.

  ‘It went.’ Exhausted as much by tormenting thoughts of Joe and Lily as the exams, Martin sank down in an easy chair.

  ‘Put your feet up; I’ll make you a cup of tea.’

  ‘Why are you being nice?’ Martin questioned suspiciously as Sam filled the kettle.

  ‘Because I thought you might want to include me and Katie in your plans to celebrate with Lily tomorrow night.’

  ‘And who says I’m celebrating with Lily tomorrow night?’

  ‘You’re not taking her down the Pier?’

  ‘There’s a class booze-up to mark the end of the exams.’

  ‘You prefer to go out with the boys than Lily?’

  ‘I haven’t thought about what I’m doing yet,’ Martin muttered. If he joined the boys on their night out he wouldn’t have to face Lily and that meant postponing a decision on the jealousy that had gnawed destructively at him ever since he had seen her with Joe.

  ‘We could take Judy, You never know, she might be able to appease Adam,’ Sam coaxed.

  ‘I doubt she’s forgotten Brian that quickly.’

  ‘Has he mentioned her in his letters to you?’

  ‘No.’ Martin had the feeling that Brian had only written to him in the hope that he would mention Judy. He had told him about the salon Joy had opened, because he had heard about it from Katie when she had come down to collect his washing in the week, but he had said nothing else, simply because since he had started his examinations he hadn’t seen anything at all of Judy and very little of Lily or his sister.

  ‘So what do you say?’

  ‘I’ll let you know what I decide tomorrow.’ Taking his notebook, Martin left the kitchen for his bedroom and closed the door.

  ‘Smart secretary you have there, John,’ Mark Davies observed as Katie deposited a tea tray on John’s desk and closed the door on them.

  ‘I know, but I doubt you came here to compliment me on my staff. Take a seat.’ John pulled out a chair.

  ‘I had a telephone call from Richard Thomas half an hour ago. Esme is withdrawing her petition for divorce.’

  John stared at him in disbelief. ‘She can’t do that! I’ve admitted adultery.’

  ‘She can do it because she’s the petitioner.’ Mark lifted one of the cups of tea from the tray. ‘Richard also mentioned that Esme asked you to consider a reconciliation.’

  ‘She asked, I considered, I refused.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘After Helen’s wedding.’

  ‘And you didn’t think to tell me?’

  Stung by the reproach in Mark’s voice, John explained, ‘As I had no intention of doing anything of the kind, I didn’t think it was important.’

  ‘Your wife suggests a reconciliation when you’re in the middle of divorce proceedings and you don’t think it’s important enough to mention to your solicitor!’

  ‘It’s not as if she’s had a change of heart,’ John said impatiently. ‘It’s simply that her friends in the Little Theatre don’t regard divorcees as socially acceptable. Could my refusal affect the divorce?’

  ‘What divorce?’ Mark asked flatly.

  ‘You can’t be serious.’ John frowned. ‘Esme has agreed to a settlement. Everything’s sorted.’

  ‘Was being sorted. We had your wife’s verbal agreement but she has signed nothing and according to Richard Thomas, she is not going to.’

  ‘What can I do?’ John pleaded.

  ‘Tread very carefully. If she comes to see you make sure you’re never alone long enough for her to state that a reconciliation has taken place between you. And if she insists on moving back into the matrimonial home …’

  ‘I’ll change the locks.’

  ‘If you fail to keep her out, move somewhere else.’

  ‘And in the meantime, you’ll try to speed things along.’

  ‘Frankly, John, I don’t hold out any hope.’

  ‘Esme has had affairs …’

  ‘Anything you can prove?’ Mark interrupted.

  ‘No,’ John conceded grimly.

  ‘We’d need proof to bring a counter petition, and even if we had we’d be placed right at the bottom of the queue again. You could be stuck in the courts for at least another two years.’

  ‘There has to be something we can do.’ John felt sick at the thought of remaining tied to a woman he neither loved nor respected and who had nothing but contempt for him.

  ‘I could try asking for a formal meeting with Esme and Richard Thomas. If they agree, it will be up to you to try to persuade her to change her mind.’

  ‘If it’s a question of money …’

  ‘In my opinion you’ve already made her a far too generous offer.’

  ‘Money means nothing to me.’

  Mark pushed his half-drunk cup of tea aside and left his seat. ‘As long as you remember there’s no guarantee she’ll agree to a meeting. You’ll be careful with Esme until you hear from me, won’t you.’

  ‘That’s one piece of advice I don’t need,’ John assured him, as he showed him to the door.

  ‘I can’t believe we’ve been here for fourteen days.’ Helen flung back the sheets and rolled naked to the edge of the bed as Jack
returned to their hotel bedroom from the bathroom.

  ‘Not even when you consider everything we’ve done?’

  ‘Like visit the Tower, Westminster Abbey, Harrods … and’ – she smiled beguilingly – ‘the huge advances we’ve made in getting to know one another.’

  He looked down at her. ‘Stop teasing, you know what it does to me to see you like that.’

  ‘Yes.’ She held out her arms to him.

  ‘We have to pack if we’re going to be out of here by eleven.’

  ‘All done.’ She slipped her hand between his thighs.

  ‘I’ll need another bath.’

  ‘We can have one together.’ She glanced at the clock. ‘We’ve plenty of time before breakfast.’

  ‘If you carry on like this when we get home, I’m never going to want to leave you to go to work.’

  ‘Then it’s just as well I’m the boss’s daughter.’

  Stripping off his dressing gown he lay beside her. As his lips travelled over her throat and down to her breasts she fought a sudden and unexpected twinge of pain but their lovemaking was far too important to interrupt for yet another bout of morning sickness. Pulling him close, she kissed him back with a ferocity that drove all thoughts of trains and timetables from both their minds.

  ‘Sure you don’t mind?’ Martin asked Lily, willing her to tell him what was going on between her and Joe.

  ‘Of course not,’ She hid her disappointment behind a smile. ‘Judy and Katie were saying only yesterday they wanted to go to the pictures. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers is on in the Albert Hall.’

  ‘That’s all right, then.’

  ‘What about Sunday? You did say you wanted to go down the Gower.’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ he hedged. ‘Jack will be back tonight …’

  ‘I understand.’ She didn’t understand at all. He was pushing her away just as he had the last time they had gone to the Pier and that was the last thing she had been prepared for after their discussion on the beach.

  ‘See you.’

  ‘Yes, Martin.’ She closed her front door as he went to the basement steps. ‘See you,’ she echoed dismally …

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Jack watched, alarmed, as Helen grimaced. ‘And don’t say morning sickness. It’s five o’clock in the afternoon.’

  ‘I have a pain.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In my stomach, but I’m sure it’s nothing. It comes and goes …’ She blanched as a stronger stabbing pain took hold.

  ‘You taken anything?’

  She shook her head. ‘I didn’t like to, not with the baby.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought an aspirin could hurt him.’ He looked out of the window. They’d just left Cardiff. There wasn’t another station until Bridgend, at least half an hour away. ‘If you’d said something earlier we could have got off the train.’

  ‘Not when we’re returning home from our honeymoon,’ she protested tearfully as another pain shot through her. ‘I want tonight to be perfect. Our first meal together in our first home …’

  ‘I’m going to ask the guard if there’s a doctor or nurse on board.’

  ‘Don’t leave me,’ she begged.

  ‘I can’t sit and watch you go through agony.’ He went to the door and opened it. A man was standing in the corridor looking out through the window. ‘Please, could you find the guard for us.’ Jack looked back at Helen. ‘My wife is ill.’

  Lily sat between Katie and Helen in the back row of the Albert Hall and tried to concentrate on the film. Howard Keel was singing really well, the colour was wonderful, the dancing terrific, and the film must have had its amusing moments because the people around them laughed from time to time but all she could think about was Martin. Why had he cooled towards her again? Was it something she’d said or done – should she ask him or hope he’d come round and tell her himself?

  Carefully unfolding a bag of sweets she’d bought so as not to rattle the paper, she turned to offer Judy a peppermint cream. Even in the gloom she could see tears trickling down her cheeks.

  Deciding against disturbing her, she looked at Katie. If anything her cheeks were even wetter. Perhaps it was just as well they’d decided to see a musical, not the melodrama The Night My Number Came Up at the Castle. None of them would have survived the experience.

  ‘There’s no doctor or nurse on the train.’ The guard peered apprehensively at Helen who was crouched double with her eyes closed. ‘We’ll be in Bridgend in five minutes. I could call an ambulance as soon as we get there.’

  ‘No,’ Helen gasped in pain. ‘I want to go home.’

  ‘Swansea’s another half-hour away, sweetheart,’ Jack pleaded, ‘and the pain is getting worse.’

  ‘No, it’s not.’ As a spasm subsided, she smiled weakly with relief. ‘And I’m sure it’s nothing serious, probably just something I’ve eaten.’

  ‘If you don’t mind me saying so, miss, I think your young man is right. I’d go for that ambulance if I were you. Better safe than sorry.’

  ‘I’m her husband,’ Jack corrected.

  ‘Sorry, sir. Do you want me to call an ambulance when we get to Bridgend?’

  Helen shook her head. ‘No, I want to go home to my own doctor.’

  ‘I’ll look in again in five minutes. If you change your mind, let me know.’

  ‘Let me take the guard up on his offer,’ Jack pleaded as he sponged Helen’s face with eau de Cologne and a flannel he’d taken from her toilet bag.

  ‘I want to go home,’ she gasped, fighting pain again as the train pulled into the station.

  ‘You’re insane and I’m just as bad for listening to you.’

  ‘But I love you.’ She tried to hold his hand as the train pulled out, but her fingers wouldn’t respond. Black spots wavered in front of her eyes. The tide of pain was no longer ebbing and flowing within her. She was pain. Nothing existed outside the blinding haze of agony that enveloped her, hot, burning, consuming her entire being. She focused on Jack’s face, white with strain, almost unrecognisably grave. It was too much effort to keep her eyes open. She would close them – just for a moment.

  ‘Helen!’

  Jack’s voice, shrill with anguish, yet muted as though he were on a boat and she at the bottom of the sea, echoed through her pain. She struggled to open her eyelids but they no longer responded.

  ‘Helen!’ His voice grew harsher. She could hear him, feel him tapping her hand but, strangely distanced from the whole proceedings, she could neither respond nor stop herself from sliding effortlessly downwards through thick grey swirling waters to a blissfully pain-free place where she could truly rest and nothing mattered – not even Jack.

  Chapter Ten

  ‘I took the liberty of asking the station master in Neath to call for an ambulance to meet us in Swansea, sir.’

  Jack nodded dumbly, his attention fixed on Helen. As she’d fainted a pinched look had settled around her nose and mouth, reminding him of his mother the last time he had seen her, battered and too weak to fight for life in Swansea Hospital. As a child he’d been convinced that he would never love any woman as much as he loved his mother. She’d cared for him and done everything in her power to protect him from his father, and the fact that she had tried far outweighed his pain on the frequent occasions when she hadn’t succeeded.

  He rubbed Helen’s hand vigorously and stared intently into her face, willing her to open her eyes, but she remained comatose. He loved Helen every bit as much as he had loved his mother but in a different, more intense way and he couldn’t endure the thought of losing her too. It was his fault Helen was ill. It had to be. All the stupid things he’d done: thieving; fighting; hurting people; making love to her – his love was a curse that killed …

  ‘We’ll be in Swansea in five minutes, sir.’

  ‘She’s cold. Very cold.’ Jack continued to rub Helen’s hand. ‘You are sure there’s no doctor or nurse on this train?’

  ‘Quite sure, sir. We’ve asked in all the carri
ages.’ The guard laid a reassuring hand on Jack’s shoulder. ‘I’ll be back in a few minutes. I’m just going to check that all the arrangements to get her off the train run smoothly.’

  Jack didn’t even realise the man had left. All he could think of, all he could repeat in his mind, was, ‘Please God, don’t let her die. Please God, don’t let her die.’ Because if she did, he simply wouldn’t be able to bear it.

  Joe took the glass of punch one of his fellow students had ladled out for him and walked out of the French windows of the Head of the University’s English Department’s bungalow into his small but immaculate garden. It was laid out like a thousand others, a path and washing line stretched from one end to the other, flanked by two squares of lawn edged by daffodils meticulously planted at four-inch intervals. He turned and glanced back through the windows after he had crossed the lawn. The house was packed with students, all, including Robin, on their best behaviour, sipping punch, nibbling twiglets and cheese biscuits, and making polite, meaningless conversation. He invariably felt at his loneliest and most isolated in a crowd and would have been happier indulging in a solitary walk along the beach but when a student was invited to attend one of Mr Edwards’s soirees they refused at their peril. Believing that he was developing the social skills his undergraduates would need when they left the rarefied atmosphere of the college for the wider world, it had never occurred to Huw Edwards that some of his young guests might not think his cider cup and sparse refreshments the height of sophistication.

  ‘Bored, Joseph?’ His tutor, Hilary Llewellyn, joined him.

  ‘Just taking a quiet moment to admire the garden.’

  ‘I didn’t know you were a horticulturist.’ She gazed at the daffodils. ‘Do you think Huw uses a ruler when he sets out his bulbs?’