Читать книгу Single Dads Collection - Lynne Marshall - Страница 28

‘I GUESS that’s something we all learn as we get older,’ said Will. ‘You can’t always have what you want.’

His voice was quite neutral, but Alice found her head turning to look at him, and as their eyes met in the dim light she was suddenly very sure that he was thinking about Roger’s wedding when he had told her what he wanted and she had said no.

She kept her own voice as light as possible. ‘That’s true, but perhaps we get what we need instead.’

‘Do you think you’ve got what you need?’

Alice looked out into the darkness to where the Indian Ocean boomed beyond the reef.

‘I’ve got a career,’ she said, ignoring the little voice that said it wasn’t much of one at the moment. ‘I’ve got a flat and the means to pay my mortgage and earn my own living. I’ve got security. Yes, I’d say I’ve got everything I need.’

‘Everything?’ She didn’t need to be looking at Will to know that his brows had lifted sardonically.

‘What else would I need?’

‘Let’s say love, just for the sake of argument,’ he said dryly. ‘Someone you love and who loves you. Someone to hold you and help you and make you laugh when you’re down. Someone who can light up your world, and close it out when you’re too tired to cope.’

Someone like he had been, Alice thought involuntarily, and swallowed the sudden lump in her throat.

‘Why, Will, you’ve turned into a poet!’ she said, deliberately flippant. ‘Have they started doing an agony column in Nature and Science Now?’

‘I read books too,’ he said, unmoved by her facetiousness. ‘So, do you?’

‘Need love?’ Alice leant down to put her coffee mug on the table between them. ‘No, I don’t. I used to think I did, but I’ve discovered I can manage quite well without it.’

‘That’s sad,’ said Will quietly.

‘Love would be great if you could rely on it, but you can’t,’ she said, wrapping her arms around herself as if she were cold. ‘You can’t control it. You think it’s going to be wonderful and you trust it, and then you end up hurt and humiliated.’ Her jaw set, remembering. ‘If you want to be safe, you need to look after yourself, not put your whole happiness in someone else’s hands.’

She glanced at Will. ‘You asked me what I need. Well, I need to feel safe, and that’s why I’m not looking for love any more.’

‘You’ve been hurt,’ he said, and she gave a short, bitter laugh.

‘You can tell you’ve got a Ph.D., the speed you worked that one out!’

Will ignored her sarcasm. ‘What happened?’

He thought at first that she wasn’t going to answer, but suddenly Alice needed to tell him. It was too late to pretend that her life was perfect now. Will’s clearly wasn’t, so he might as well know the truth.

‘I met Tony four years ago,’ she began slowly. ‘I’d had a few boyfriends, but there hadn’t been anyone serious.’

There hadn’t been anyone like Will. Alice pushed that thought aside and carried on. ‘I hadn’t exactly given up on meeting someone special, but I’d decided it probably wasn’t going to happen. And then Tony came to work in my office.’

She paused, remembering that day. ‘He was everything I’d ever wanted,’ she said, oblivious to the wry look that passed over Will’s face. ‘We clicked immediately. We had so much in common. We liked doing the same things, and we wanted the same things out of life. I really thought he was The One,’ she said, with an effort at self-mockery.

‘Tony’s careful,’ she went on, even though she knew Will wouldn’t understand. ‘I felt safe with him. He’s committed to his career, and he makes sure he invests his money sensibly. He thinks before he acts. He doesn’t take stupid risks. That’s why…’

She stopped, hearing her voice beginning to crack like a baby. Swallowing hard, she forced herself to continue. ‘That’s why I found it hard to believe that he would do something so out of character.’

‘What did he do?’ asked Will, part of him still grappling with disbelief at the idea that his lovely, vibrant Alice had decided after all to settle for safe, sensible and boring. He wouldn’t have minded so much if she had fallen in love with someone wild, passionate and unsuitable, but how could she choose a man whose main attribute seemed to be a sensible approach to financial investments?

Alice drew a breath. ‘He went out one day and fell in love at first sight.’

For a moment, Will was nonplussed. ‘It happens,’ he said, remembering that dizzy, dropping feeling he’d had the first time he’d laid eyes on Alice.

‘Not to someone like Tony,’ she said almost fiercely. ‘We were together three and a half years, and I thought I knew him through and through. He was never impetuous. He never did anything without thinking it through.’

God, Tony sounded dull, thought Will. He wasn’t a particularly reckless man himself, but he got the feeling that he would seem a positive daredevil next to Tony. What on earth had been his appeal for Alice?

‘I couldn’t believe it when he told me,’ she was saying. ‘He was very honest with me. He said that he’d thought that he did love me, but he realised when he met Sandi that he hadn’t known what love was. It had taken us three years to decide that we would get married,’ she added bitterly. ‘It took him three minutes to know that he wanted to marry Sandi.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Will, not knowing what else to say.

‘Sandi’s sweet and good and kind and pretty,’ Alice went on. ‘She really is,’ she insisted, seeing Will’s sceptical look. ‘It’s really hard to dislike her, and, believe me, I’ve tried. No one who meets her is at all surprised that Tony fell for her. The only surprising thing is that he thought he loved me for so long. Sandi’s about as different from me as she could be.’

‘She doesn’t sound very interesting,’ Will said, but Alice wasn’t to be consoled.

‘Tony doesn’t want interesting. Interesting is too much like hard work,’ she said. ‘I thought I was making an effort for him, but it turned out I was “challenging” him,’ she remembered, bitterness creeping back into her voice. ‘I don’t know how. I didn’t think I had particularly high expectations, but there you go. Apparently I’m very demanding.’

‘You’re not easy,’ Will agreed. ‘But you’re worth the effort. If Tony couldn’t be bothered to make that effort, you’re better off without him.’

‘It didn’t feel that way,’ said Alice bleakly. ‘We have lots of friends in common, so I see Tony with Sandi quite often. I don’t think he’s regretted his decision for a minute. In fact, I think he wakes up in a cold sweat sometimes, realising what a narrow escape he had!’

She tried to sound as if she didn’t mind, but Will could hear the thread of hurt in her voice.

‘They’re still together, then?’

‘They got married last week,’ said Alice, her eyes on the dull gleam of the sea through the darkness. ‘The day I met you at Roger and Beth’s party.’

Will remembered how tense she had been that day. Alice had always been too proud to show how much she hurt inside. He should have guessed that something more than the passage of time was wrong, but he had been too shaken by his own reaction to give any thought to hers.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said again. ‘It must have been difficult for you.’

Alice lifted her chin. She had always hated any suspicion of pity. ‘I survived,’ she said curtly. ‘But that’s why I’m doing without love at the moment.’

‘You know, we all get hurt sometimes,’ said Will mildly. ‘Some of us more than once.’

‘Once is enough for me,’ said Alice.

Silence fell. They sat together in the hot, still night, each wrapped in their own thoughts, while the insects shrilled frantically in the darkness and the lagoon whispered onto the sand.

Alice was very aware of Will beside her. It was strange, being with him again, feeling that she knew him intimately, and yet hardly at all. He wasn’t the same man he had been, she reminded herself for the umpteenth time. He was harder, more contained than he had been, and he had grown out of his lankiness to a lean, solid strength.

Her eyes slid sideways under her lashes to rest on the austere profile. She couldn’t see them in the darkness but she knew there were new lines creasing his eyes, a tougher set to his jaw, a sterner line to his mouth.

That capacity for stillness was the same, though. She had often watched him sitting like that, his body relaxed but alert, and envied his ability to withdraw from the chaos and just be calm. She had loved his competence, his intelligence, the ironic gleam in the humorous grey eyes. Even as a young man, he had had an assurance that was understated, like everything else about Will, but quite unmistakeable.

There was something insensibly reassuring about his quiet presence. Whatever happened, you felt that Will could deal with it and everything would be all right. Even now, after everything that had happened, he made her feel safe.

If only that was all he had made her feel! The initial attraction she had felt for the ordinary-looking student had deepened into a dangerous passion that made Alice uneasy. She didn’t like feeling out of control, and the strength of her emotions scared her.

Will had started out a good friend, a good companion, and he had become a good lover, but soon it went beyond even that. Alice was out of her depth. She didn’t like the feeling of needing him, of not feeling quite complete without him. All her experience had taught her to rely on herself, and she had forced herself to resist the lure of binding herself to him for ever.

Because she had been so in love she hadn’t seen that they wanted very different things out of life. The future Will enthused about hadn’t been the one Alice had dreamed of. She had yearned all her life for security, and that had been the one thing Will couldn’t offer. He’d wanted to continue his research, to work wherever he could find a coral reef, to do what he could to protect them. She’d wanted a wardrobe, somewhere she could hang up her clothes and never have to unpack them. She’d wanted a place she could call her own. She’d been sick of scrimping and saving to put herself through university. She’d been sick of window shopping. If she saw a pair of wonderful shoes in a window, she wanted to be able to go in and buy them.

There were no shoe shops on coral reefs. If she’d married Will, as he had asked her to, she’d have had to give up all her dreams to live his. Alice had decided that she couldn’t, wouldn’t, do that.

She had made the right decision, she told herself, but there was no denying that the physical attraction was still there. It was very hard to explain. There was nothing special about the way Will looked. He had a lean, intelligent face that could under no circumstances be called handsome, but the contrast between the severe mouth and the humorous grey eyes made him seem more attractive than he actually was.

The first time Alice had seen Will, she hadn’t been conscious of any instant physical attraction. Later, that seemed strange. She’d thought he was nice, but it was only as she’d got to know him that she’d begun to notice those things that made him uniquely Will: the firmness of his chin, the texture of his skin, the angle of his jaw. The way the edges of his eyes creased when he smiled.

Once she had start noticing, of course, it had been impossible to stop. It hadn’t been long before Alice had found her body utterly in thrall to his, and she’d only had to look at his mouth for her breath to shorten and for her entrails to be flooded with a warmth that spread through her until it lodged, tingling and quivering with excitement, just beneath her skin.

The way it was doing now.

Alice tucked her feet beneath her once more and drew herself in, willing the jangling awareness to fade. ‘It’s not enough,’ she had told Will at Roger’s wedding, and she knew that she had been right. If she let herself be sucked back into those dark, swirling depths of sexual attraction, she would lose control of her life and her self completely, and the last ten years would have been for nothing.

She swallowed, hard. ‘So, what about you?’ she asked to break the lengthening silence. ‘Do you know what you want?’

For years Will would have been able to say instantly that he wanted her. And then he would have said that he wanted to forget her. Now…

‘Not really,’ he said slowly. ‘I’ve learnt not to want anything too specific. I don’t want a Porsche or a knighthood or to win a million pounds. But I want other things, I suppose,’ he went on, thinking about it.

‘I want to keep Lily safe. I want her to grow up with a sense of joy and wonder at the world around her. I don’t want her to be afraid of it.’ he turned his head to look at Alice. ‘I don’t want her to end up frightened of love or too proud to admit that she needs other people.’

‘Oh, so you don’t want her to end up like me?’ Alice asked flippantly, but there was no answering smile on Will’s face as he met her gaze steadily.

‘No,’ he agreed. ‘I want her to be happy.’

Was that really how he saw her—unhappy and afraid? Alice lay in bed that night, scowling into the darkness, hating the memory of the pity she had seen in Will’s face. She didn’t need him to be sorry for her. She was fine. She could look after herself. She didn’t need anybody.

She had thought that she needed Tony, and look where that had got her. She had placed him at the centre of her life and told herself that she was safe at last. Tony hadn’t made her head whirl with excitement, it was true, but it wasn’t passion that Alice was looking for. She had had that with Will, and the power of those unmanageable emotions had left her uneasy and out of control. With Tony, she had felt settled and as if her future was safe at last. It had been a wonderful feeling.

Until Sandi had come along, and her carefully constructed world had fallen apart.

All those years she had dreamed of feeling secure, and with one meeting it had been shattered. Was it the loss of that dream that hurt more than losing Tony himself? Alice wondered for the first time. And did that mean that she had never really loved Tony at all?

For some reason, it was that thought that made Alice cry in a way she hadn’t been able to cry since Tony had left. Trapped in a straitjacket of hurt and humiliation, she had taken refuge in a stony pride, but all at once she could feel the careful barriers she had erected around herself crumbling, and she lay under the mosquito net and wept and wept until at last she fell asleep.

Her eyes were still puffy when she woke the next morning, but she felt curiously released at the same time. Having spent her childhood trying not to let her parents guess how unhappy she was, Alice felt uncomfortable with crying. Until now, it had just seemed another way of admitting that everything was out of control, and she’d been afraid that, once she started, she might never be able to stop.

But this morning it felt as if a heavy hand had been lifted from her heart.

Perhaps she should try tears more often, Alice thought wryly.

Will had gone by the time she got up. She found Lily in the kitchen with the cook, a severe-looking woman called Sara. Alice was quite intimidated by her, but Lily seemed to accept her and was already picking up some words of the local language, a form of French Creole.

Alice was relieved not to have to face Will just yet. She might feel better for a good cry, but she had told him more than she wanted about herself last night, and now she felt exposed. At least she hadn’t cried in front of him—that was something—but he had still been sorry for her, and that wasn’t a feeling Alice liked at all.

She spent the morning exploring the garden with Lily, and together they crossed the track to the beach. In the daylight, the lagoon was a translucent, minty green, its surface ruffled occasionally by a cat’s paw of breeze from the deep blue ocean that swelled and broke against the protecting reef. The leaning coconut palms splashed the white sand with shade, but it was still very hot and Alice was glad to keep on the shoes she had put on to pick her way through the coarse husks and roots that littered the ground beneath the trees.

She had bought the sandals on impulse at a market the previous summer, and Lily was frankly envious. They were cheap but fun, their garish plastic flowers achingly bright in the dazzling sunshine.

‘I wish I could have some shoes like that,’ said Lily wistfully.

‘Let’s see if we can find you some in town,’ Alice said without thinking, and Lily’s face lit up.

‘Could we?’ She sounded dazzled by the prospect.

‘We’ll go this afternoon,’ said Alice.

‘Look what I’ve got,’ Lily said to Will when he got home that evening, and she lifted one foot so that he could admire her new shoes.

There hadn’t been a great deal of choice in town—St Bonaventure would have to give some thought to modernising its shops if it wanted to attract large numbers of tourists and relieve them of their money, Alice thought—but they had found a pair of transparent pink sandals in Lily’s size, and she could hardly have been more delighted if they were Manolo Blahniks.

Will shot a glance at Alice before studying the shoe Lily was showing him so proudly. ‘They’re very…pink,’ he said after a moment.

‘I know,’ said Lily, deeply pleased.

‘Lily and I thought we’d do a spot of shopping,’ said Alice, who could tell that Will was considerably less delighted with the shoes but was trying hard not to show it.

‘So I see.’

Lily looked earnestly up at her father. ‘Alice is good at shopping,’ she said, and Will’s jaw tightened.

‘There are more important things to be good at in life than shopping,’ he said.

‘Did you have to be quite so crushing?’ Alice demanded crossly much later, when Lily was in bed. ‘She was so thrilled with her shoes. It wouldn’t have killed you to have shown some interest.’

‘How can you be interested in a pair of shoes?’ snarled Will, who was in a thoroughly bad mood, exacerbated by guilt at so comprehensively pricking his daughter’s balloon earlier.

It had been the first time Lily had volunteered any information when he’d come home. Part of him had been ridiculously moved that she had come to show him her new shoes without prompting. She had been chattier than usual, too, but he had had to go and spoil things by his thoughtless comment.

Will sighed. He was very tired. It had been a long day, dealing with the fall-out from yesterday’s accident, and it hadn’t helped that he had slept badly the night before. His mind had been churning with what Alice had told him about her broken engagement. In the small hours, Will had had to acknowledge that he didn’t like the fact that Tony had obviously been so important to her.

It was Tony who had given her what she wanted, Tony she was missing now. Alice could say all she wanted about not needing anybody; it was clear that she had loved Tony, and that he was the one she was always going to regret. Will knew exactly what that felt like.

He was sorry, of course, that she had been hurt so badly. But his pity was mixed with resentment at the years he had spent believing that he would never find anyone who could make him feel the way she did, the years spent hoping that somehow, somewhere, she was missing him too, and was sorry that she had ended things when she had.

And all the time she had been in love with Tony, dull, safe, sensible Tony who had broken her heart! Will was furious with her for making it so clear how ridiculous his fantasy had been all along, and more furious with himself for caring.

As if that wasn’t enough of a slap in the face, now she was the one who was getting through to Lily. It was Alice who was making the bond with his daughter that should really be his, and he resented that too. Will knew that he was being unreasonable and unfair, and he was ashamed of himself, but there it was, something else to add to the mix of his already confused feelings about her.

The next few weeks were going to be even harder than he had feared. Lily went to bed early, which meant that there would just be the two of them alone together every evening like this. Alice still stirred him like no other woman he had ever met. She made him feel angry, and resentful and regretful and grateful and irritated and amused and sympathetic and muddled and disappointed and exhilarated and aroused, often all at the same time. And all it took was for her to turn her head and he was pierced by such joy at her presence that it drove the breath from his lungs.

‘Look,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t more enthusiastic about the shoes. I know she likes them. I just don’t think it’s a good idea for you to encourage her to think that happiness lies in shopping.’

Alice was exasperated. ‘I bought her a pair of cheap shoes,’ she said tightly, and was aware, deeply buried, of relief that Will was being so objectionable. It was much easier to be cross than to be aware of him and his mouth, his hands and the way he made her feel again. ‘It wasn’t a philosophical statement, and it won’t turn her into a raging materialist. It was just a present, and not a particularly expensive one at that.’

‘It’s not about the money,’ said Will irritably. ‘It’s about giving her false expectations of the kind of life she’s going to have now. Nikki used to buy her things the whole time—toys, clothes, the latest brands, whatever made her feel better for being away at work so much—but that’s not going to happen now. I’m not going to try and buy Lily’s love, even if I had the time to do it. Little shopping trips like today’s will just remind Lily of a life that’s gone, and I’m afraid it will just make it harder for her to settle down here.’

‘There’s a difference between buying affection and giving your child some security,’ snapped Alice. ‘Lily’s been wrenched out of the only life she’s ever known. Where are all these toys and clothes that her mother bought for her? Did it not occur to you that she might like a few familiar things around her? Or would that have been making things too easy for her? I suppose you thought what she really needed was a clean break and the equivalent of an emotional boot camp to help her settle!’

‘Of course not,’ said Will stiffly. ‘It’s true I only brought what I could carry this time, but all her other things are being shipped out. They should arrive in a couple of weeks.’

‘Oh,’ said Alice, wrong-footed. She had been ready to whip herself into a fury at his stupidity and intransigence. ‘Well…good,’ she finished lamely.

‘Is there anything else she needs—apart from pink shoes, that is—until the shipment arrives?’

‘She could do with more to keep her occupied during the day.’ Alice was glad that Will had given her the opening. She had intended to raise it, but was afraid she might have pushed him a bit too far to suggest it herself. ‘If I didn’t think you’d throw a fit at the idea of going to the shops again, I’d suggest getting her some books and maybe some paper and crayons.’

‘If I give you some money, will you take her and let her choose whatever she wants?’

‘What?’ She clapped a hand to her chest and opened her eyes wide. ‘You mean we’re going to be allowed to go shopping?’

Will clamped down on his temper, not without some difficulty. ‘For things Lily really needs,’ he said repressively. ‘I don’t want it spent on rubbish.’

‘Heavens, no! We don’t want to risk Lily having something silly that would give her pleasure, do we?’ Alice got up in a swish of skirt. ‘That would be spoiling her, and we can’t have that!’

He had handled that all wrong, thought Will glumly as she swept off saying that she was going to read in her room. He had to stop letting her get to him like this. He needed to forget that she was Alice and treat her the way he would any other nanny. Dee hadn’t wound him up this way, and she hadn’t done nearly as good a job as Alice. Somehow he would have to find a way to start again.

Alice was decidedly frosty the next morning, and Will’s nerve failed at the thought of a tricky discussion before breakfast, but he was determined to make amends when he came home. He left work as early as he could, and found Alice and Lily on the back verandah playing cards.

Hesitating behind the screen door, he looked at the two heads bent close together over the little table, and his chest tightened so sharply that he had to take a deep breath before he pushed open the door.

At the sound of the door banging to behind him, Lily looked up with a shy smile. She didn’t cry ‘Daddy!’ or throw herself into his arms, but it was such a big step for her that Will felt enormously heartened. Alice was looking aloof, but that didn’t bother him. He knew he would have to work harder to win her round, but in the meantime he was content to go over and ruffle Lily’s dark hair.

‘Hello,’ he said with a smile. ‘What are you playing?’

‘Memory.’

‘Who’s winning?’

‘Alice is,’ Lily admitted reluctantly.

That was typical of Alice. She would never patronise a six-year-old by letting her win. When Lily did win, her victory would be the sweeter.

‘It won’t be easy to beat her,’ Will warned Lily. ‘She’s got a good memory.’

Too good a memory, Alice thought, trying not to notice how the smile softened his face. She didn’t want to be able to remember too well at the moment. It would be much easier if she could forget the times she and Will had played cards together. Neither of them had had any money as students, and they hadn’t been able to go out very often, but Alice had been perfectly happy to stay at home with him, to sit on the floor and play cards, while outside the rain beat against the windows.

Once, when she’d got a distinction for an essay, Will had taken her out to dinner to celebrate. He had only been able to afford an old-fashioned brasserie on the outskirts of town with plastic tablecloths and a dubious taste in décor, but it had still been one of the best meals Alice had ever had. She wanted to forget that, the way she wanted to forget the long walks along winter beaches, the lazy Sunday mornings in bed, all those times when they had laughed until it hurt. She wanted to forget the feel of those hands curving over her body, to forget the taste of his mouth, of his skin. The last thing she wanted was to be able to remember the sweet, shivery, swirling and oh-so-seductive pleasure they had found in each other night after night.

She wanted to remember why it had been such a good idea to end it all.

Will was still talking to Lily. ‘That was a good idea to buy cards.’

‘We went shopping again.’ Lily eyed her father with a certain wariness after his unenthusiastic response to her shoes the day before, but he kept his smile firmly in place.

‘Did you buy anything else?’

‘Some books.’

‘Show me what you bought.’

Lily ran off quite willingly to find the books, and Will glanced at Alice, who immediately turned away, mortified to have been caught watching him.

‘Don’t lift your chin at me like that,’ he said. ‘I know I deserve it, but I really am sorry. I was in a bad mood yesterday, and I shouldn’t have taken it out on you and Lily, but I did.’

Alice’s chin lowered a fraction.

‘I’m truly grateful to you, Alice, for what you’ve done. You’ve made a huge difference to Lily already, and I know I’m going to have to try harder to make things work if we’re going to spend the next month together. Say you’ll forgive me,’ he coaxed. ‘It’ll make it much easier for us all if you do!’

The chin went down a bit further.

‘Would you like me to go down on my knees and apologise?’

‘That won’t be necessary,’ said Alice with as much dignity as she could muster. She wished he would go back to being grumpy and disagreeable, but she could hardly sulk for a month. ‘Apology accepted.’

‘I really am sorry, Alice,’ Will said quietly, and, in spite of herself, Alice’s head turned until she met his steady gaze.

That was something else she remembered—how those grey eyes could tip her off balance so that she felt as if she was toppling forward and tumbling down into their depths, falling out of time and into a place where there was nothing but Will and the slow, steady beat of her heart and the boom of her pulse in her ears.

And when she had managed to wrench her eyes away it had almost been a shock to find, like now, that the world had kept turning without her. Alice had once been sitting on a train, waiting for it to depart and watching the train beside them turn into a blur of carriages as they pulled out of the station. She had never forgotten the jarring shock of realising that it was another train that had left, and hers hadn’t moved at all. As the last carriage had disappeared and she’d seen the platform once more, it had felt as if her train had jerked to a sudden, sickening halt. It was the same feeling she had now.

‘Let’s both try harder,’ she muttered.

‘All right,’ said Will. ‘Let’s do that.’