Even thoughshe wasn’t one hundred per cent sure about their motives, Gemma hadtaken the solicitors’ advice and decided to leave the sharesuntouched for the moment. As it was, after their fees and a fewother expenses, she was left with well over £160,000 plus aguaranteed basic, index-linked income of twelve thousand a yearfrom the family’s investments, without even touching the sharecapital.
Monday 27 September1982
Thecrunching of car wheels on the gravel path at the side of the housefollowed by the opening and slamming of doors jolted Gemma back tolife. She’d had the afternoon to herself and after a desultory bitof tidying up had spent the last hour or so with a glass of wine,which had only been refilled once so far, idly flicking through thelatest edition of Cosmopolitan while waiting forMark to get back from his latest trawl around the antique dealersin town. Maybe the wine was to give a little Dutch courage, butthat, along with the tediously liberal and open-minded responses toreaders’ issues and problems – Gemma was sure they must be made upby the supposed agony aunts – had helped her drift into a pleasant,late afternoon reverie.
To be fair,Mark had worked hard and been pretty successful in getting rid ofvirtually all her mother’s bits and pieces and for very good pricestoo. He had really thrown himself into planning for their futureand she did feel guilty; however, today had really brought it hometo her, she’d spent too long just treading water and potteringaround. It was over nine months since she had given up herprobation work and getting on for a couple of months since thefamily’s money had finally been sorted. Apart from what she had setaside for getting herself somewhere to live when she left Mark, itwas all settled in the joint account they had opened after buyingtheir own house and for the time being had decided to use forGemma’s legacy.
She knew shehad to tell Mark she’d had enough and wanted to move on; eventhough she hated that hackneyed expression it best described justwhat she wanted to do. The fact that she hadn’t actually cheated onhim made Gemma feel better about it all. And it wasn’t as if shehadn’t had the opportunity. Apart from the occasion in London whenshe’d stayed with Victoria and Rebecca, she had seen Roger, hermushroom man, again, even though she was not involved in anyofficial, probation-related, way with him anymore. She’d told Markshe was tying up a few loose ends in Littlehampton and had let himtake her on a couple more foraging missions in the New Forest, thistime to relieve her boredom and purely for pleasure. They’d had areally nice time; autumn in the New Forest was a special time andfor a few hours the stresses of the last few months had faded. Ithad been about a year since their first foraging trip and it feltstrangely comforting to be back. Roger had smelt good too, a niceearthy aroma; and the fact that she knew for sure there was no wayhe would play any part in her future gave her a sort ofexoneration. She’d let him kiss her and explore her a little too;when two of his fingers slipped easily inside her she almost gavein but something had stopped her going any further. Maybe a kind ofloyalty to Mark; even though she knew they had no future she didn’tfeel right doing anything until she’d actually told him that. Ithadn’t helped that Mark seemed absolutely incapable of taking anykind of hint.
Sincegetting back from London a week ago, Gemma had been putting offconfronting Mark with her need to move away and on. Somewhatforlornly she had hoped he might arrive at the same decision butshe needed to stop kidding herself and get on with things. Ithadn’t helped that the last few months had not been too bad, and itwasn’t as if they’d had a particularly bad or awkward week either.In fact the last weekend had been quite pleasant, they’d been tothe cinema in Chichester to catch Richard Gere and Debra Wingerin An Officer and aGentleman on the Friday and had a nicemeal out and a good few drinks on Saturday. Mark had been more thanattentive and as usual there had been plenty of sex, but she knewshe was stringing Mark along and even though she didn’t think hisproposal of marriage was really serious, she knew he was waitingfor an answer; something which she’d promised him would besoon.
Staying withRebecca and Victoria had really just confirmed what Gemma had beenthinking about her life and future. She wanted to live a bit, tomeet different people and London seemed as good a place as any todo it; even from that brief experience she felt she’d fit in and bepart of something. It wasn’t that she had any definite plan, just afeeling, a certainty really, that she deserved a good time and thatshe had the resources to do so, alongside a nagging and growingbelief that Mark was holding her back. It wasn’t necessarily oreven the case that she felt she could do better, but just that Markwas never intended to have been long-term. That provided some sortof rationale if not justification; and even without the London tripshe knew for sure that she wouldn’t be short of offers either.After all, even though she wasn’t particularly interested in him,Simon, who had homed in on her at Annabel’s on her first visit, hadfollowed up his interest and already phoned her a couple of times,luckily when Mark was out and about. Initially he’d invited her tosee Genesis at the Hammersmith Odeon on this coming Thursday;apparently he had some of the best tickets in the place. When shehad said she couldn’t make that he’d asked if she would everconsider letting him take her out and her ‘maybe’ had led to asecond call, the next day, this time asking if she’d like to seeAC/DC with him on the last of three concerts they were doing inmid-October, and again
