Starting Over (39 page)

The radio came on with the ignition. He grunted, turned the truck, and they pulled away towards
Peterborough
, past piebald ponies grazing a scrappy paddock of yellow weeds, thistles and rusty sorrel and a farmhouse huddled behind a tree windbreak.

She gave him ten minutes to get used to being put upon. ‘How are things?’ she began tentatively.

‘OK.’

‘Plenty of work?’

‘Yep.’

He didn’t ask, but she told him about her latest commission. He nodded in between checking mirrors and waving faster vehicles past, changing gear, watching the traffic.

They were safely on the A1(M) before he asked roughly, as if he couldn’t hold the question back, ‘Where did you go?’

No point in pretending she didn’t know what he meant. Fresh sweat sprang into her palms. She cleared her throat. ‘
Northampton
. Hotel then a rented terrace.’

His fingers tapped thoughtfully. ‘Why
Northampton
?’

‘It was handy.’

He nodded as if at a perfectly sensible reply and began singing along with the radio under his breath. A new silence lengthened. Her breathing caught at the thought of how she must break it. But break it she must, or be condemned forever to this distant excuse for a relationship.

‘Ratty ... I’m very sorry. I’m sorry I left the way I did, and I’m just, just
slaughtered
there was no – baby. Really.’ Her voice wobbled and she coughed twice. Stole a glance, was unnerved when their gazes coincided. ‘You’re right. I shouldn’t have leapt to the moral high ground. And I shouldn’t have left without telling you. Or at all.’

If her soul baring had softened him at all, he hid it well. He listened and nodded, and when she’d finished, responded surprisingly gently. ‘It’s all water under the bridge now.’

That wasn’t right! Her imagination had obligingly supplied her with pictures of him reacting with joy to such repentance, letting his emotions spill, admitting he still loved her. But, no, he just kept his hands on the wheel, watching the traffic, checking his mirrors.

Her stomach sank. For the millionth time, why hadn’t she found some other way of coping with his paternity of the little boy? Jason. And what was Jason like? Did he have dark curly hair and blue eyes? Would he grow to be his own man with his own ways? What was his mother like, was Ratty in contact?

But when courage was the currency, she’d soon overspent. She couldn’t ask.

Early evening. White headlights, red tail lights, blue dusk. Tess stretched, glad Ratty had finally swung the wrecker into a motel car park. She could kill for a cup of tea and a plate of chips. ‘Where on earth is the car you’re fetching?’

Ratty pulled the leather holdall out from behind her seat and locked the doors. ‘
Brighton
.’

‘
Brighton
?
’ She scurried to catch up with him as he strolled to Reception. ‘That’s miles!’

‘Yes, it’s an overnighter. There’s a foyer shop here, I think, you’ll be able to buy a toothbrush.’

‘Godsake! You didn’t say we were going to
Brighton
!’

‘You should’ve asked, if you were fussy. But your options looked pretty limited to me.’

She stumped off to the shop while he booked them separate rooms.

He handed her the punched card bearing her room number. ‘I’m going to crash out for an hour or two. I’ll knock on your door eightish, we’ll eat.’ He walked her to the door by his, pointed out, ironically, ‘Next door neighbours!’

It was OK, the room, for a separate room. A little shower, a double bed with the bedspread tucked under and around the pillows, as only ever seen in motels, two armchairs, a kettle with coffee sachets, a TV. After all the practice, she shouldn’t even notice when she was by herself, let alone feel lonely.

The usual free shampoos and gels made her spend a long time in the shower. She untangled her hair as best she could with the inadequate brush from the shop’s travel pack, blew it dry with the wall dryer, brushed it again and dressed. Oh, for terrific clothes and brilliant make-up and mind-blowing perfume so that she could knock Ratty’s eyes out! But, she supposed, dejectedly, she might just as well be in khakis and a shirt, rather ordinary, for all the reaction she had been getting.

Still only 6.47 p.m. She watched some television. 7.14. Hopped channels. Played with the satellite stations and got lost in the radio channels. 7.37.

Checking her reflection, she smoothed her eyebrows. Then studied her hands and tried all her rings on different fingers. 7.55 – nearly ‘eightish’!

Except that Ratty didn’t knock on the door until 8.29, by which time she’d stuck her head out to look about six times and brushed her hair another twice.

In a clean shirt, hair still damp, he looked fresh and self-possessed. ‘Let’s get off the motorway and find a pub.’

He found one ten minutes away with a very brightly coloured carpet and a jukebox. They ate pizza and drank beer, made stilted conversation about Angel and Pete and the kids and how Jos seemed to have moved Miranda in but was too shy to say so.

Ratty was pleasant, but not friendly. There were no sexy grins to make her feel like the only woman in the room. On the contrary, she caught him twice noticing the talent and noticed three women noticing him.

To gain his attention, she told him that Lester and Elisabeth had been to see her. He knew. And she’d seen her own parents who were relieved and furious and exasperated. He could imagine. Olly had told her she pissed him off. How outrageous. Even Guy had said she ought to get a hold of herself and grow up. That was rich. And Guy and Lynette wanted to start a family. An unlikely plan.

By the time they returned to the motel, she’d talked herself out and he was just as polite and impassive as he had been since finding her at the roadside.

She hesitated outside her room.

He walked straight past. ‘Goodnight.’

Here she was again. Firmly escorted to her separate room, and dumped.

Bedtime. Bathroom, hairbrush, she sat up in bed, brushing absently. He was right behind that wall, doing his own well-remembered bedtime stuff. Watch off, shoes kicked under the bed, teeth brushed with rapid efficiency.

He didn’t want her back.

Reality slapped her. He didn’t want her back. Here they were with all the ingredients for joyous reconciliation and he was treating her with courteous reserve. God, he really didn’t want her or he would’ve engineered it: a nightcap in her room, a late film in his.

She tapped the hairbrush, thinking, remembering Elisabeth’s contention that Ratty believed in making things happen. If he wasn’t prepared to make
this
happen, then what? She smiled nervously at her reflection.

Then she’d have to!

Maybe bravery, or rather bravado, would win him.

With no choice of clothes, she wriggled into the undies she’d bought in the foyer, boring cotton but clean and her long shirt all crinkled at the bottom. Shivering on her nerves she thrust her arms into her jacket, remembering to stuff her key card in the pocket. One last fluffing of her hair – he loved her hair – and she marched into battle.

He answered the door in only trousers, raised his eyebrows at her shirt-cum-very-mini-dress and let her in, shutting the door behind her. Said nothing.

Smiling felt stiff and peculiar. ‘I, um.’ She looked past him, at his shirt over the chair,
Classic Car
magazine on the bed, darted a glance back to his face.

He shifted impatiently on bare feet. ‘What’s up? Problem with your room?’

‘Sort of, yes.’ Deep breath. ‘I don’t want to sleep there.’ Licking her lips, she stuffed her hands in her pockets, withdrew them, shifting on bare feet. ‘I want to sleep here.’

The sentence rang around her head, echoed as she watched expressions ripple across his face. Surprise, curiosity.

Then – unmistakably – fury, blazing in his eyes.

She flinched. This was why she wasn’t that good at confrontation! Heart thumping, she studied his naked chest and shoulders, his jawline. Oh for the safety and pleasure of being embraced against that torso, revelling in his heat and strength!

Ignoring his murderous expression, she closed her eyes and reached for him.

And Ratty went berserk.

‘
What the fucking hell do you think you’re doing
?’ He thrust her hands away and lowered his voice to a hiss. ‘Barging in and demanding to sleep here? Aren’t you the one who ran away and left me half-demented, not knowing if you were alive, even? And now you just say sorry and expect I’ll forgive the lot?’

She recoiled, wavering, but forced herself to stand firm and meet his eyes. ‘But I love you! I still want ... Don’t you love me any more?’ She couldn’t seem to control her hands; they lifted, supplicating, and fluttered towards him again.

He grabbed her arms hard. ‘Do you think I’ve got no feelings?’ His fingers were inflexible, his eyes frightening as they blazed at her. ‘You tell me you’re pregnant then you abandon me! It was a false alarm – but you don’t tell me. I was merely the father!’ His strong fingers dug into the complaining muscle of her arms. ‘Do women seriously think they can just bring us into play when it suits?
You didn’t
tell
me!’

He let go of her abruptly.

She teetered, as if only his hands had been keeping her upright, tears burning in her eyes. ‘I’m sorry!’

He seemed in no mood for apologies. ‘You came back and let me find out accidentally! You’re hopeless,’ he spat, bitterly. ‘Hopeless, helpless, useless. When are you going to learn to deal with life properly?’

She rubbed her arms, wincing at his contempt as he turned away.

It was her chance to escape, but she doubted her legs would take her. Even if she wanted to. Which she didn’t. Anger was beginning to uncoil in her stomach.

‘Oh, I’m sick of saying how sorry I am,’ she snapped. ‘But you told me you had a son, one you’d never made the least effort to take responsibility for! I freaked out, OK? I’m sorry if the mighty Arnott-Rattenburys deal with crap like that better than I do! I thought I was pregnant and I reacted badly.

‘Yes, if you want, you could say I ran away. But I
did
come back and try and mend fences and I
did
come here tonight and even suggest –’

He swung back, one arm shooting around her, his other hand capturing her head, snatching her to him, the length of her body crushed bruisingly against his. ‘Is that all you came for? Fine!’ His hands became callous and irresistible, pushing her jacket down her arms, wrenching her shirt up, bending her arms to pull the sleeves off, rough, careless.

‘If you’re here to drop your knickers, let’s do it! You always were good value in bed.’ His hands yanked her briefs down, his hard mouth pounced on hers, stifling her protests.

It was awful, it was terrible! Swooped off her feet she crashed to the bed, knocked breathless as he landed half on top of her, pinning her, dragging his jeans off with furious movements. ‘I can oblige, if this is what you want!’

No, it wasn’t right, it wasn’t what she wanted. He was taking, there was no love in it and she didn’t have the strength –!

... Oh, just let him.

Suddenly, she felt powerless, drained.

This wasn’t Ratty, this spiteful, vengeful, punishing stranger. This was some monster she’d created. A monster that was going to have sex with her as a primitive act of reprisal.

‘She asked for it,’
he would be justified in saying. Nobody had ever asked for it more than she just had. Literally, tramped into his room and asked for it.

Let it happen, let it happen. It would soon be over. Afterwards she could retreat to her separate room, make her way back to
Peterborough
by public transport. She’d think again about staying in Middledip. But if she left, she’d do it in her own time, with purpose and dignity. Appoint an estate agent and choose somewhere rather than accept the first place she stumbled across. The
Outer Hebrides
sounded good, a nice long way from this room of smashed dreams and harsh comeuppance.

He was naked before she felt him pause. She could feel his breath on her clenched face. Her heart, which she’d thought had taken all the punishment it could, folded up with one huge, wretched squeeze as his hand lifted and she cringed.

But, when they touched her, the fingers were gentle again, peeling sticky hair back from her face. Smoothing. Soothing.

He sank onto his back, breath grating in his throat, pulled her sad head onto his shoulder. ‘I’m such a terrible shit!’ He pulled a sheet over their bodies.

Tess listened to her own breath slowing, the madness, the crisis, slowly passing. Relief, relief. She was left ridiculous with her shirt around her neck and her knickers at her knees. Cautiously, she tried to wriggle back into her clothing.