He kept his word, although with much protest, and arrived at their first class in a furtive manner that made her chuckle. But when he looked around and saw other, similarly uneasy characters hiding behind their pregnant woman, he seemed to relax. After that his journalist’s mind took over, and by the time they left he’d taken in everything, and was able to discuss it sensibly as they went home.
‘I knew I’d find it easy,’ he said as they opened the front door. ‘I can’t think why you didn’t want me to go.’
‘Get inside and put the kettle on before I thump you,’ she said sternly.
He grinned and scuttled inside, rubbing his hands with wicked glee. She smiled after him tenderly. Jake was wonderful when he was like this.
To prove it he made her put her feet up and brought her a bowl of bananas in milk. ‘Peace offering.’
‘Thanks. Yummy! This is just what I need before I go to bed. Nice and light, doesn’t weigh heavily on the stomach. Glad you learned something from that class. I thought the whole thing was going over your head.’
‘Yeah, sure!’ he jeered, grinning.
She finished the bananas and leaned back, stretching out while he massaged her feet. ‘That’s good, that’s good,’ she sighed. ‘Keep doing it.’
‘Yes, dear.’
‘Gotcha,’ she shouted triumphantly.
‘What?’ He rubbed his ear.
‘You used to swear that the one thing you’d never say was “Yes, dear.”’
‘I never.’
‘You did, when we were first going out. You had this uncle who was henpecked. According to you, all he ever said to his wife was, “Yes, dear,” and, “No, dear.” You said you’d starve in the streets before saying it. In fact, you said it was the perfect reason for never marrying.’
And she’d cried herself to sleep that night.
‘When did I say that?’
‘About a month before we got married.’
‘Well, that shows you. And if you’re suggesting that I married you under duress, you’re wrong. Now go to bed. You need your rest.’
He was right, but sometimes these days she found it hard to get to sleep. Now the sickness stage of pregnancy had passed and she was brimming with health and vigour. She understood just how much one morning when she surprised Jake coming out of the bathroom wearing only a towel around his middle.
He was too thin, and his glowing tan had gone, but it was still the body she remembered, and that excited her. Without warning she was swept by a physical desire so intense that it took her breath away. If she had imagined that pregnancy would save her from such feelings she knew now that she was wrong.
It was as though time had turned back to the night of the party, that hot, velvet night when she and Jake had cast aside restraint, becoming two vibrant, healthy animals, intent on pleasure. And he knew how to give a woman pleasure. The memories were still there in her flesh, sensitising her, so that the mere sight of him made her ache with need.
When he noticed her looking at him his eyebrows went up in a quizzical question, and she was suddenly conscious of the gap between her desire and the way she looked. How could he possibly respond by wanting this thickening figure? She mumbled something and got out fast. But that night she didn’t sleep. Nor the next night.
She found that she could pace the floor for just so long. Then she had to think of something else, equally useless. She tried making sandwiches. She tried reading. Nothing worked because every time she closed her eyes he was there, touching her face, kissing her softly as a preliminary to making love. And when she opened her eyes again she was alone and desolate.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked one night, finding her in the living room, sipping tea. ‘It’s three in the morning. What are you doing up?’
‘Just wanted a drink.’
‘But you do this every night.’ His voice changed, became gentle. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing,’ she said firmly.
‘Come on, tell your brother.’
She almost laughed aloud.
When she didn’t reply he changed tack and began to tell her funny stories. They were about nothing in particular, anecdotes from his colourful career with the intensity stripped out and only the humour left in. For the first time he admitted what she’d always suspected, that he hated flying.
‘Sometimes I wonder how I landed up in a job where I fly all the time.’
‘And of course Jake Lindley can’t tell anyone,’ she said gently.
‘Jake Lindley laughs at danger. If he let on that his stomach was five miles behind nobody would ever take him seriously again.’
‘And being taken seriously mattered to you, didn’t it?’
‘A lot. I wanted-hell, I can’t remember what I wanted. It all seems so far away now. Doesn’t the past seem that way to you?’
‘Yes,’ she said at once. ‘Everything is shifting, and I’ve no idea where it’s going to end up.’
He looked at her wryly, ‘You still don’t want to tell me what’s on your mind, do you?’
‘I can’t. Honestly I can’t.’
‘Would you tell Carl?’
‘No.’
‘Then I guess it must be serious if you can’t even tell Carl. Who could you tell?’
‘Nobody.’
‘Nobody. I guess that’s the story of your life, isn’t it? Nobody around to listen to what you want to say. You never really had anyone, not a father, not a real mother-’
‘She did her best.’
‘Then it was a rotten best. Why wasn’t she around more to protect you from me? Any mother could have seen that I was a bad lot, and you were eighteen. She made it easy for me.’
‘Be fair. She never tried to pressure me into giving the baby up. She let me marry you.’
‘She was thrilled to see you marry me. It left her free. But it wasn’t exactly the wedding a young girl dreams of, was it?’
‘You don’t know what I dreamed about,’ she said lightly.
‘Maybe I wasn’t totally the blind clod I sometimes seemed. I remember we went to the wedding of one of your friends. It was in church, she had a white dress, bridesmaids, all the extras. I watched you. You were loving it. You’d have liked the same, wouldn’t you?’
‘Well-’
‘But what you got,’ he said, steamrollering over her, ‘was a hurried little ceremony in a backstreet register office, wearing an ordinary day dress. And you never complained.’
‘I didn’t want to. I’d have liked to be married in church, but I didn’t care about the trimmings.’
‘You wanted a career, and you didn’t get it,’ he went on. ‘You wanted a baby and didn’t get one.’
‘But-’
‘Kelly tell me this-has anyone, in your entire life, taken care of you? I mean
‘But of course. You-’
‘Come on!’ he almost shouted. ‘You know better than that. I put myself first, from start to finish.’
‘I don’t believe that.’
‘Well, you should. You know as well as I do that I never-’
‘Jake, stop it,’ she said urgently. ‘This can’t do any good now.’
‘I thought you’d want to hear that I share your low opinion of me.’
‘Maybe I did once, but that’s all over. We have a good arrangement here, but we mustn’t spoil it by raking over the past.’
