The owls were hooting in the garden. Mrs Bottomley’s thermos of cocoa was waiting for them in the kitchen. Cory unscrewed it and poured it down the sink.
‘Don’t want to upset the old girl,’ he said.
Harriet fled upstairs, put on more scent and cleaned her teeth. Then, thinking Cory might smell the toothpaste and think she was trying too hard, rinsed her mouth out again. Then she turned off her electric blanket.
‘Careful, Harriet, careful,’ said her reflection in the mirror. ‘This kind of behaviour got you into trouble before.’
Down in the drawing room Cory had taken off his coat and tie and stood in front of a dying fire nursing a glass of whisky.
Harriet curled up on the sofa, watching the light from one lamp fall on the bowed heads of a pot of white cyclamen.
The telephone rang. Cory picked it up.
‘No, it’s very kind, Elizabeth, but I’m absolutely knackered. Thank you for a tremendous evening.’ There was a pause. ‘As to that, I don’t think it’s any of your bloody business. Goodnight.’ And he dropped the receiver back on the hook.
‘Interfering bitch,’ he said.
Harriet giggled. ‘I bet she said, “That child’s been hurt enough”.’
Cory looked startled, then he laughed. ‘That’s exactly what she did say.’
For a minute he looked out over the silent valley, then he drew the curtains, stubbed out his cigarette and came towards her. Then he held out his arms, and she went into them like a bird out of the storm. As he kissed her she could feel the current of excitement coursing over her. God, this is absolute dynamite, she thought, as her hands crept around his neck, her fingers twining into the thick black hair.
Suddenly the telephone rang.
‘Leave it,’ said Cory, his hold tightening.
‘It might be important,’ murmured Harriet.
‘Can’t be.’
‘I’ll get it. It might wake Mrs Bottomley and we don’t want that,’ said Harriet, giggling. ‘I’ll say you’re in a meeting.’
She picked up the receiver. She could hear the pips.
‘It’s long distance for you from America.’
‘I expect it’s MGM about the treatment,’ he said, taking the receiver from her.
Suddenly the colour drained from his face. Someone must have died. She could see the knuckles white where his hand clutched the receiver. The conversation was very brief. Harriet collapsed onto the sofa. She had a premonition that something very terrible was about to happen to her. She looked at Cory and suddenly had a vision of pulling a wounded man up to the edge of a cliff, then finally letting him go so his body circled round and round as he splattered on the rocks below. Cory put down the receiver and reached automatically for a cigarette.
‘That was Noel,’ he said. ‘She’s finished filming and she’s flying back to England tomorrow. She and Ronnie Acland are coming North next week. She wants to see the children so they’re coming over for lunch on Wednesday.’
‘But she can’t,’ gasped Harriet. ‘It’ll crucify you. She can’t go round playing fast and loose with other people’s lives.’
Cory glared at her, his face grey. He seemed to have aged ten years. The last hour might never have happened.
‘They’re her children as much as mine,’ he snapped.
Harriet stepped back as though he’d hit her, giving a whimper of anguish.
‘And don’t stare at me with those great eyes of yours,’ he said brutally. ‘If Noel and I choose to behave in a civilized manner, it’s nothing to do with you. You’d better go to bed.’
Harriet heard the cocks crowing. She looked at the photograph by the bed. She couldn’t even be loyal to Simon’s memory. Cory was a different generation; his world was in ruins; he merely regarded her as a diversion, because he was a bit tight and she was available.
Her mind raced round seeking comfort, but she found none. She saw her dishevelled clothes in the bedroom, the unstoppered make-up, the cellophane pack which had contained her new tights. She remembered the excitement with which she’d dressed. She’d been so sure, she’d even turned off her electric blanket. She crept between the sheets and shivered until dawn.
Chapter Eighteen
As Wednesday approached Cory grew more and more impossible, snapping at Mrs Bottomley, the children and, most of all, at Harriet.
On Tuesday night he was going to a dinner in Leeds and asked Harriet to iron a white dress shirt for him. She took considerable pains over it but, unfortunately, Ambrose, who had been looking for mice in the coal hole, walked all over it when she wasn’t looking.
Cory hit the roof. ‘Can’t you ever concentrate on one thing for more than five minutes?’
Harriet lost her temper. She had been cooking all day for tomorrow’s lunch and she had a headache.
‘If you didn’t make people so nervous, they might stop making a hash of things.’
‘Go on!’ he said glaring at her.
‘I don’t mind you shouting at me. But I don’t see why you should take it out on Mrs Bottomley and the children. It’s not their fault your rotten wife’s turning up tomorrow.’
Oh, God, she thought, as his face twisted with rage. I’ve really put my foot in it now.
‘It would be as well if you remembered whose house this is, and who pays your salary!’ he said, stalking out of the room.
Half-an-hour later she heard the front door bang and his car drive off with a whirring sound of gravel.
Gibbering with rage, Harriet ate a large piece of walnut cake, and then another piece, and was just embarking on a third, when she heard a step and nearly jumped out of her skin as two hands grabbed her round the waist and a familiar voice said, ‘Guess who?’
Leaping away, choking over the walnut cake, she swung round and looked up through streaming eyes into a handsome, decadent face. There was something familiar about the dark eyes, which were now narrowed to slits with laughter.
‘Hullo, darling,’ he said. ‘I’m Kit Erskine.’
‘Goodness, you surprised me.’
‘Oh, I’m full of surprises. Where’s Cory?’
‘Out, gone to Leeds.’
‘That’s good. We’re alone at last.’
‘Mrs Bottomley’s upstairs,’ said Harriet hastily, backing away.
‘How is old Botters?’
‘On the scurry — sweeping under carpets. Mrs Erskine and Ronnie Acland are coming to lunch tomorrow, so there’s a lot to do.’
Kit whistled. ‘They are? What a carve-up. That cake looks good.’ He cut himself a large piece. ‘I’m starving. Where shall we have dinner?’
‘I can’t,’ said Harriet. ‘I’ve got to. .’
‘Wash your hair,’ said Kit. ‘Don’t worry. You can give Noel a good ten years.’
At that moment Mrs Bottomley walked in with a feather duster.
‘Master Kit!’ she squeaked. ‘Whatever are you doing here?’
‘Botters! Darling!’ He gathered her up as though she were light as a feather, and carried her round the
