Torn (55 page)

There was no question she had to get back and collect her son, pick up the threads of her life, and decide what her next step would be, and yet she was torn.

‘Of course. I'm already later than I meant to be.' And everyone in this kitchen knows why, she reflected.

Chapter Thirty-two

Very little in the way of conversation passed between Jessica and James as they collected their things together and loaded the car. The only minor contention arose when he suggested he drive. Typical. Jessica instantly bristled.

‘No! Of course I'll drive,' she responded tartly.

‘I just thought –'

‘What? That I'll be too distracted? Unable to concentrate? Put you at risk?'

‘Possibly. But I was going to say, I don't have many opportunities to drive performance cars these days. If I get the chance I always enjoy it.'

The idea of trying to make conversation on the journey home was daunting. And once she'd thought about it, she rather welcomed the prospect of relaxing, even better, sleeping. She handed over the car keys.

So public a leave-taking was necessarily constrained. But just as she belted herself into the passenger seat, and despite the rain beginning again, Danny seemed to change his mind and ran over to the car. Even before she could get the window open he had splayed his hand against it. She mirrored the gesture, palm to palm against the cold, hard glass. He was right of course, why pretend? The electric window whirred down and their faces came together in a final kiss. The engine started and the car moved away faster than was strictly necessary.

‘Phone me!' she heard him call after her. There was utter silence for ten minutes of the journey. She closed her eyes, desperate to retreat into sleep, to escape the disapproval emanating from James like a censorious cloud. Whatever his previous opinion, he was now a first-hand witness to the laxity of her morals. All his worst assumptions confirmed. She was, undoubtedly, a slut
and
a slapper! But even though she was tired, sleep was impossible; images of how she'd spent the first hours of the morning kept re-running through her mind, then echoed through her body in a series of heavy, languorous pulses. Her eyes opened.

James said: ‘Do you want the radio on? Or music?

‘Why? Would you?

‘Not particularly. I just thought the silence was growing a tad oppressive.'

Defensive and irritable, she perceived everything he said as a reproach. ‘Oh! You want to chat? What do you want to chat about?'

‘I confess I am at a loss for a topic just now.'

As the car travelled up and down the roller-coaster of hills and valleys, Jessica watched the passing hedgerows spangled now with the fiery red of haws and hips. In places brown stone walls flanked the road, dividing it from the fields of sheep, horses, then cows. Electricity pylons stalked the landscape and the mahogany red earth sang out against emerald green meadows, followed by miles of dense woodland – its tired, dusty green canopy just beginning to tarnish to the spice colours of autumn. Each changing vista was smudged by the everlasting rain. The wipers whined back and forth.

Even if she could bring Danny up to a reasonable reading standard, which was by no means a certainty, she knew it would not be an answer to his fears. Although many dyslexics went on to have successful careers, even to attain the highest academic qualifications, this was usually where it had been identified early. Before Danny was properly assessed it was impossible to know for sure the degree of his dyslexia, but she suspected it was severe. Dyslexia was not curable. If she was right he would always have difficulty and there was probably no way he would be able to run his own farm without continued support. Danny's biological father, Eddie Earl, apparently had similar problems. Not surprising. There was a genetic component to the condition which made it all the more likely she'd identified it correctly. Yet Eddie had managed to run his own farm. But how much of that was due to the support of his sister, Jane? Jessica sighed a little too audibly.

‘What's the matter?' James asked.

‘Just thinking.' She glanced across at him. He was frowning, teeth crunched into his bottom lip. The situation was not easy for either of them. ‘The weather is awful, isn't it? When is this endless rain going to stop?'

‘I think,' James said deliberately, ‘That you and I are way beyond discussions of the weather.'

‘In the sense …?'

‘In the sense that I'm bloody sure it wasn't the weather which inspired that deep and soulful sigh. Jess.' He wasn't going to be satisfied with mere chit chat.

‘Sean turned up out of the blue a week or so ago. You know? My ex?'

‘I know who Sean is. And …?'

Jess glanced sideways at his stony profile. It grew even stonier. What was the matter with him? Did he think she was about to confess jumping into bed with Sean?

‘I was going to tell you about it on our trip to London, but …' James nodded. It was unnecessary to explain further. ‘It was a huge shock, finding him on my doorstep. But he was reasonable and friendly. He came to tell me he's moving out. Not contesting the sale. I'm really glad now that he came, rather than just phoning or doing it through the solicitors. It's clarified things for me.'

‘What things?'

‘He seems to have faced up to his problems: drink and gambling, and he's moving on in his life.'

‘I see. So was that it?'

‘Was that what?'

‘Sean's re-entry in your life. The reason for that deep and soulful sigh, just now?'

‘No! And Sean hasn't re-entered my life! But I suppose I still felt some responsibility for the breakdown in our relationship. Still felt some guilt for the way I ran out on him. Seeing him, hearing how he's changed, how he's tried to change, has freed me. It's helped to draw a firmer line under that part of my life.'

‘And now that you're pals again, will you be seeing more of him?'

‘Seeing more of him? What part of “drawing a line” don't you understand? He's thinking of going to Canada. I'm pleased for him and pleased for myself. The further away the better as far as I'm concerned.'

‘So … what
was
the reason for the deep and soulful sigh?'

‘Oh, for God's sake, James! Will you stop interrogating me!'

‘Isn't it what you need? If I thought you were interrogating yourself then perhaps I wouldn't have to?'

She turned her head and stared. ‘You think I'm a self-deluded tart, don't you?'

‘Your words, Jess, not mine.'

‘And this is an offer of counselling, is it?'

‘Not exactly. I know you have good reason to think that I'm not entirely objective where you're concerned but, I hope you believe I'm your friend. It's what I want to be. You can say anything to me and I will, if it's what you want, try my damnedest to be a disinterested counsellor.'

Jessica drooped, her hands over her face. She remained like this for a while. The instinct to bristle and knock him back with a sharp rejoinder was still there, but she knew she was being unfair. He meant what he said, and inexplicably, it made her want to cry. He was a kind man, an appealing man in many ways. She also knew, to her own cost, that he was an attractive man and possessed – if she cared to tune into it – of a hypnotic physicality. Everything would have been so much simpler if she'd never become involved with Danny. But no – his problems would not have ceased to exist just because she didn't know about them. The only difference was that now she knew, they became her problems too.

James began to speak again. ‘I'm going to tell you something. Perhaps you suspected it already. I don't know if the knowledge will be useful to you in the present situation but it will make me feel a bit better.'

She lifted her head and looked across at him. What on earth was coming?

‘When Ted Bowman was taken ill, conflicting with my desire to whisk you off to London, I did have something else on my mind that day, apart, that is, from the prospect of financial ruin!'

‘I thought you were a pig!'

‘I know you did. Hurt my feelings a bit. But, I was so focused on what I was planning, I realised later I must have seemed cold-hearted. You see, once I'd established that the repayment of my debts could be postponed, I was intending to propose.'

Stunned into silence, Jess gulped. ‘What! Propose? You're not serious? What marriage?'

‘Yes, marriage. And absolutely serious. Of course I know … knew that you weren't thinking along the same lines. But I hoped asking the question, in the right circumstances, might help to concentrate your mind.'

‘Like the prospect of being hanged in the morning?'

‘This made him smile ruefully. ‘You really are a Scorpio! Just as well I've never had any illusions.'

‘I'm sorry! I didn't mean to equate the two things!'

‘Well, the offer is still on the table, but –'

‘But what?'

‘I think I'm mad.'

‘Thank you.'

‘Don't get me wrong, Jess, I would be honoured if you would accept me. It doesn't even have to be marriage. I don't care. I just want you. But I notice you haven't jumped at the chance?'

‘Oh, Jay! I'm not … I don't … I'm confused.'

‘You don't say!' He sighed. ‘Let's face it, even if you did accept me, I know I'd be second best. So, I've stepped back, admitted defeat. But perhaps, in the absence of achieving my own desires, I can help you sort out your confusion.' He was talking in riddles. She'd had enough to deal with over the last few days without James Warwick playing mind games with her. She rolled her head back against the rest and closed her eyes again.

‘I don't understand what you're talking about, Jay, and I'm too tired just now to try to work it out.'

He reached across and briefly laid his hand over hers. ‘I know you don't understand, Jess. I don't fucking understand either!' he added, with feeling. ‘But you need someone outside the situation to state the bleeding obvious! It's why I initiated this conversation. It brings me no joy! I'm a bloody saint, not that you realise it! My fate in life, it seems, is to receive scant recognition for my saintly qualities!'

‘You're rambling.'

‘Perhaps. But just listen! I have to tell you something!'

‘Then, get on with it!'

‘You once told me you'd never been in love.'

‘Yes.'

‘Well … I have to tell you, Jessica Avery, you're in love now.' An electric silence fell in the car. James pulled up at some traffic lights controlling road-works. Jessica straightened and looked across at him, eyes wide. He met her look, then changed gear and accelerated away as the lights changed. ‘But, unfortunately, not with me,' he qualified, coolly.

‘Who?'

‘Jess, you don't expect me to take that question seriously? Unless you've a cast of potential lovers you've been keeping secret, there is only one other in this little drama of ours. Let me ask you something, and I want you to be honest with yourself. If you were in trouble who would you turn to? I don't mean your car's broken down and you want the name of a good mechanic, or you've been arrested drunk and disorderly and need a solicitor … I hope and expect you'd turn to me, right?'

‘Right.'

‘What I mean is something more profound. If you were hurting, upset, shocked … whose arms would you run into?'

Jessica didn't answer. She stared straight ahead.

‘It might not be obvious to others, Jess, but I have been observing you closely for some time. You are in love with Daniel, and he, poor sod, is, of course, head over heels in love with you. The question is – what are you going to do about it?'

Something strange was happening to her. Her throat clamped. Convulsive spasms were running up from her gut in a series of hiccupping jolts. Her chest heaved painfully. Belatedly she realised she was crying, a gush of tears spilling out, nose running, gasping for breath. James pulled into the side of the road and awkwardly embraced her, thrusting a slightly grubby handkerchief into her hands.

‘I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you. Hush. It's all right. You'll be all right. It's OK.'

Between ragged attempts to drag in air through a throat unaccountably clogged with stones, and keening cries of distress which emerged entirely of their own volition, she managed to utter brokenly, ‘Not all right … it's not!'

James continued to hold her and to kiss the top of her bent head. He patted and rubbed at her back and murmured the sort of comforting noises one would to a child. The shuddering spasms began to quieten, but long after he released her she continued to gulp and sniff.

‘I don't know what to do,' she whispered, when she'd at last gathered together a fragile composure. ‘You see … you see … he can't take on the farm unless he has a huge amount of support, and there are no guarantees that he'll manage even then … and I'm so anxious about him, because he … because he …'

‘Can't read? You know he's illiterate?'

‘Dyslexic.'

‘But he's still …' James paused, and nodded. ‘OK. But you
do
love him?'

‘I don't know! I'm not sure. It's so complicated, and … and … he's so much younger than me.'

‘No reason for not loving someone, Jess. You love Rory. He's younger than you! He can't read!'

‘It's not a joke! We're talking about a different kind of kind of love!'

‘I'm sorry, Jess. Believe me, I am not trying to trivialise the subject. This
is
a different kind of love, isn't it? Or are you telling me you were upstairs most of the morning singing Dan nursery rhymes?'

She managed a tremulous smile. ‘Lust on its own is not enough.'

‘Jess, throughout the millennia people have embarked on their lives together with little more than that. And you're looking at one of them. I'm not advocating it. But are you honestly claiming that's all there is between you? If I'm mistaken and you don't love the lad, then there's an end to it. I'm sorry. Forget I said anything. Believe me, it's not in my interest to push you into something.'