every other kind of villain.'
'I never said that, Garth. It was just that I couldn't live with you any more.'
'So you claimed. I never quite understood why.'
'I tried to explain-'
'I gather that my crime was to work day and night to give you a comfortable life, with every luxury you could want. For this I was punished by the loss of my wife and both my children.' A touch of iron in his voice made it clear that he was as unyielding as ever.
'Perhaps I'd better go away and return another time…'
'No! You must have come here for some reason. You've kept well clear of me, Faye. Even when the children visit me, you never come with them. When I collect them from your house, you speak to me as little as possible.'
'I don't want to upset them with fighting.'
'How are they? It seems a long time since I saw them.'
'You could have seen them last week if you'd come to Cindy's school play, as you promised. She had the lead. She was longing for you to be there and be proud of her.'
'I meant to, but at the last minute something came up.'
Faye sighed. 'Something always did come up, Garth. A business deal was always more important than your children.'
'That's not true. I was there for Adrian's birthday.'
'Only for two hours. And you didn't come to see him playing football, did you? He really minded about that. And Cindy was heartbroken when you missed her birthday last year. She loves you so much, and you let her down all the time. It's her birthday again next week. She'll be eight. Oh please, Garth, try to be there, just this once.'
'Saturday? Hell, I don't think I can make it. I've got a client-' He saw her looking at him with resignation and said, 'Was this what you came for?'
'No, I came to say I want a divorce.'
He took a sharp breath. 'That's a bit sudden, isn't it?'
'We've been separated for two years. You've always known I wanted a divorce.'
'I thought you'd have seen sense by now.'
'You mean, return to you?' She gave a brief, wry laugh. 'I remember that your version of seeing sense was always people doing what suited you.'
'Because I was the reasonable one! Look at how you behaved after you left. It was always crazy for you to live in that poky little house while I was alone in this huge place. You could have a beautiful home but you prefer a rabbit hutch. You wouldn't even let me give you enough money for a decent place.'
'You pay to support the children-'
'But you won't accept a penny for yourself,' he said bitterly. 'Do you know how that makes me feel?'
'I'm sorry, Garth, but I don't want to depend on you. That puzzles you, doesn't it? Your life is dedicated to squeezing the last penny out of every deal. You don't understand someone who doesn't want money from you, but I don't. I never did. I wanted-' She checked herself.
'What, Faye? What did you want? Because I swear I never found out what it was.'
'Didn't you? And yet at one time you gave it to me,' she said with a touch of wistfulness. 'When we were first married, everything I needed came from you. On our wedding day I was the happiest woman on earth. I had your love; I was expecting our baby-'
'We rented a two-roomed flat with no hot water,' he recalled.
'I didn't care. All I cared about was loving you, and having you love me.'
'Did I ever stop?' he demanded. 'Was there one day of our marriage when I wasn't trying to give you the best of everything? I did it all to please you, and you tossed it back at me like so much garbage.'
'I already had the best of everything. But you took it away.'
'I didn't stop loving you,' he said almost angrily.
'But you stopped having time for me.'
He would have answered, but the phone began to ring. He snatched up the receiver. 'I'll get rid of whoever it is. Hello- Look, I can't talk now, I'm tied up- Oh, hell! Can't he call back later?- I know I've been trying to get him, but- All right! Put him through.'
'I see your technique for getting rid of people hasn't improved,' Faye said lightly.
He scowled. 'Five minutes. That's all. I'll take it in the study.'
'Can I make myself some tea?'
'This is your home. Go where you like!' He vanished into the study.
The big, glamorous kitchen had all the latest gadgetry cunningly concealed beneath oak and copper pots. That and the dark red tiles on the floor gave it an air of warmth, but Faye had never found it warm. Garth had told her to select whatever decor she liked, but then promoted his own preference so insistently that she'd yielded. It seemed to have been chosen not for herself, but for someone called Garth Clayton's wife. Was it then she'd started to feel that she didn't fit the role? No, much earlier.
How eagerly he'd first shown her the house! It was set in its own grounds on a slight incline, surrounded by elm trees. 'Here you are, darling,' he'd said. 'Welcome to Elm Ridge. Your new home, like you always wanted.' His pride had been touching, and she'd lacked the heart to say that it wasn't the home she'd wanted. Nothing like it.
Her dream home had been 'a little place all our own', as he'd once promised. And two years after their marriage they'd had a small house, for Garth was a man born to succeed. She'd been completely happy. But four years later he'd swept her away into this big, unfriendly mansion. She'd even had a housekeeper, a bustling, kindly soul called Nancy. Faye made friends with her and enjoyed many a chat in the kitchen, for she felt more at home with Nancy than with any of her husband's new, moneyed friends.
When the tea was made she wandered back to the study door, behind which she could hear him arguing with someone. Long experience made her murmur, 'Half an hour at the least.'
Wherever she looked she could see few changes. The pictures on the stair walls were the ones she'd chosen. She'd taken one of them with her, and its place was still blank.
Here she'd once been unhappy and stifled. Garth had been generous, giving her everything that money could buy, but he'd also arranged her life and their children's lives, from on high. The little builder's yard he'd managed to scrape together had nearly gone under in the first year. He'd saved it by the skin of his teeth, but Faye had known nothing about this until she'd learned by accident three years later. The discovery that she'd been excluded from his inner counsels had been like a blow over the heart.
He'd failed to see that she was no longer the blindly adoring girl he'd married. She'd matured into a woman with a mind of her own, who still loved him, but now knew that he wasn't perfect.
They argued about the children. Garth was pleased with his son yet hardly seemed to notice his daughter. But Cindy adored her father and Faye often saw a wistful look in the child's eyes at his neglect.
Adrian, too, suffered a kind of neglect. Garth would buy him anything, but he wouldn't take time off to watch Adrian play in the school football team. He was determined to rear the boy to be 'successful' as he understood the word, but Adrian wanted to be a footballer. Garth dismissed this with a shrug. 'He'll grow out of it,' he told Faye. 'Just don't encourage him.'
She yielded in their disputes, telling herself that to be with him was enough. But her children were another matter. She stood up for them with a strength that surprised Garth. Arguments became quarrels. When she could stand it no longer, she left him, taking the children.
The last thing he said to her was 'Don't fool yourself that it's over, Faye. It never will be.'
She continued upstairs, to what had been Adrian's room, but the door was locked. So was Cindy's, and the one that led into the bedroom she'd shared with Garth. Frowning, she returned downstairs.
Here the doors were open and next to the study Faye found Garth's new bedroom, little more than a monkish cupboard, with a plain bed and a set of mahogany furniture. The walls were white; the carpet biscuit-coloured. Everything was of excellent quality but the total effect was bleak, as though the man who owned it carried bleakness within himself.
The sole ornament was a photograph beside the bed, showing a young boy of about nine, with a bright, eager face. Faye smiled, recognizing Adrian, but her smile changed to a frown as she saw there was no picture of
