Читать книгу Cruel Legacy - Пенни Джордан, PENNY JORDAN - Страница 11

JOEL could feel the tension the moment he walked in through the factory gates; smell it on the air almost like an animal scenting death.

As a child he had often heard his father boast that he was descended from Romany folk; tinkers more like, Joel had heard others sneer behind his back when he made his claim, but there were occasions when he was aware of this inheritance, felt it in the odd prickle of his skin, the unfamiliar intensity of his awareness of the emotions of others, felt it in the certainty of the way he knew odd things, even while he struggled to deny the experience.

He hung back slightly, watching the other men; some of them, the older ones, walked with their shoulders hunched and their heads down, showing their defeat, avoiding looking at anyone else or speaking to them, while the younger ones adopted a much more aggressive and don’t-care swagger, hard, bright eyes challenging anyone who looked their way; but all of them shared the same emotion that was gutting him.

Fear. He could taste it in his mouth, dull, flat and metallic.

As he crossed the visitors’ car park—just one of the many fancy and very expensive changes Andrew had made to the place when he’d taken it over—he paused to study the small group of business-suited men and women huddled together by one of the cars.

They were all that was left of the company’s management team; the ones who had not been able to scramble off the sinking ship in time, he reflected bitterly as he watched them, the ones who had been either too stupid or too scared to recognise what was happening and leave before it was too late.

As he watched them Joel felt all the anger and fear he had been feeling since Andrew’s suicide boiling up inside him.

It was because of them, because of their greed and mismanagement, that he was in the position he was today, but what did they care about what he felt, about his life, his fears, his needs? All they cared about was having a flash office and fancy company car. His face darkened as he recalled the problems his buying a new car had caused.

He clocked on automatically and then went to hang up his jacket. When he came back he saw that instead of working most of the other men were hanging about in small groups talking. The meeting with the management was scheduled for one o’clock.

Only one of the young apprentices was making any attempt to work, and Joel frowned as he heard Jim Gibbons, one of the older men, telling him to stop.

‘What’s the point?’ he challenged Joel when Joel went over to tell him to leave the lad alone. ‘None of us will be in work by the end of the week—not the way things are looking.’

‘We don’t know that,’ Joel told him.

‘Oh, come off it. Why the hell else did Ryecart top himself if it wasn’t because he was going bust? This place is finished and we’ll be lucky if we come out of it with our last week’s wages, never mind our redundancy money. It’s always the same: the bank will get some fancy firm of accountants in to make sure they get their pound of flesh, but when it comes to us getting what’s rightfully ours … who the hell gives a toss about us? Course, it’s all right for you. You’ve got your missus in work. A nurse, isn’t she, down at the hospital? Smart pieces, those nurses, and not behind the door in bed either, if you know what I mean, or so they say … Does she keep her uniform on in bed for you, Joel?’

Joel forced himself to ignore the others’ laughter. It was just their way of letting off steam, of coping with their fear; there was nothing personal or malicious in it.

‘I hate it when Mum isn’t here in the morning,’ Cathy had grumbled earlier as she’d played with her cereal, and Joel had immediately felt both guilty and irritated as he heard the resentment in her voice; guilty because of his inability as a husband, a father and a provider to earn enough to support them all and irritated because of the way his children distanced themselves from him. It was Sally they wanted, not him, Sally they always turned to, her more than him.

Right from being a toddler of no more than two, his son had fiercely rejected any attempt Joel made to touch or hold him.

‘He’s a real mummy’s boy,’ Sally had said then, laughing softly as she’d taken over and held him. And, watching the way his son had clung to her, it hadn’t just been the pain of rejection Joel had felt, but an actual physical jealousy as well.

Sally claimed that he was far harder on Paul than he was on Cathy.

‘He’s a boy,’ he had told her in mitigation of his own behaviour.

Sally had just shaken her head, pursing her mouth in that way she had of showing her disapproval of what he said and did.

Sometimes these days it was hard to remember that that same mouth had once curved with joy and love for him … had softened into helpless passion beneath his, had widened in shared laughter with his.

Yes, things had changed. She hadn’t even cared enough to wake him this morning before she’d left to wish him luck, to tell him that she understood how he felt; to tell him that, in work or out of it, he was still the man she loved; it made no difference to her.

He put down the mug of coffee the apprentice had brought him, its contents untasted.

The boy was only sixteen, red-haired and pale-skinned, tall and gangly with a prominent Adam’s apple and a voice which had still not broken properly.

He had attached himself to Joel, following him about everywhere, reminding Joel of the crossbred whippet pups his father had bred and sold. This boy had the same ungainliness and clumsiness. His parents were divorced, his father remarried with a second family, and Joel was aware of a responsiveness to the boy’s unexpressed need within himself that he had never been able to express with Paul.

Duncan needed his approval, shyly semi-hero-worshipping him in a way that Paul had never done.

‘I put sugar in it,’ Duncan told him now, watching him put down his untouched coffee.

‘Yeah, it’s fine,’ Joel assured him as he looked at his watch. Ten to one.

‘Joel, what’s going to happen … to us … ?’ Duncan blurted out, his pale skin flushing as not just Joel but several of the other men turned to look at him.

Before Joel could say anything, the door opened and the works manager walked in. He had aged years in the last few weeks, and no wonder, Joel reflected. He was in his fifties with one son at university and a daughter injured at birth who needed constant care.

‘The council offered them a place for her at a special home,’ Sally had told him. ‘But Peggy Hatcher wouldn’t hear of it.’

Joel watched as Keith Hatcher held open the door for the rest of the management team and the woman left to walk in.

She was a girl really still, not a woman, Joel reflected as Keith introduced her, her skin glowiqg with health and youth and good food. She looked glossy and polished as shiny and bright as a newly minted coin, so plainly untouched by any of the disillusion and pain that life could hold that Joel felt a surge of anger against her.

What did she know of the lives of people like him … their problems, their hopes?

She had started to speak, her voice clear and firm. She was talking about the large amount of money Andrew had borrowed from the bank, explaining that it was because of his inability to repay this debt that the bank were now forced to put the company into liquidation in order to sell off its assets in an attempt to recoup what they could of their money.

The bank regretted the necessity of having to do this but they must understand that they really had no alternative; the company had been operating at a loss for some considerable time. They would all be issued with formal redundancy notices, she told them, making it sound as though in doing so the bank was doing them some sort of favour, Joel reflected mirthlessly as he watched her eyelids flutter betrayingly while she made this last statement.

So she wasn’t totally unaware of what she was doing, then. He saw the way she suddenly found it impossible to look directly at them, dipping her head instead.

‘What about our redundancy payments, and our pensions?’ Joel asked her as she finished speaking, raising his voice so that she couldn’t avoid hearing him.

‘Ay … what about them?’ someone else echoed, others taking up the cry, while she shuffled her papers and tried to look calm.

‘Your normal statutory rights will naturally be honoured,’ she informed them. ‘You will be put on a list of preferred creditors and paid out once the liquidation is complete.’

When? Joel reflected bitterly. Their normal statutory rights fell a long way short of what they might have expected to receive had those of them with long service records been made redundant in the normal way of things.

‘When does this redundancy take effect?’ Joel asked her.

‘Immediately,’ she told him steadily.

‘Immediately.’ Joel stared at her. He had expected her to say that it would be a few weeks … a month or so. He knew his shock must be registered on his face, just as it was on the faces of the men around him; he knew it because he could see the pity in the woman’s eyes as she dipped her head again and looked away from him.

Some of the men were turning to the union rep., demanding that he do something, but the man was just as helpless as they were themselves.

‘The factory will be closed as from tonight,’ the woman was saying in that cool, elegant, distant voice which belonged more surely to some posh dinner party than here on the factory floor. ‘The accountants’ office will remain open as there will be certain formalities to be completed.’

The company accountant didn’t look too pleased at that prospect, Joel noticed. Personally he wouldn’t have put it past Ryecart to have been up to all sorts of financial tricks.

No doubt he had feathered his nest warmly and safely enough. His wife wouldn’t need to go out to work full-time to pay the mortgage and put food on the table, he reflected savagely.

‘What will we do now, Joel?’ Duncan asked him timidly an hour later.

‘Do? Why, we get ourselves down to the social services and get ourselves on the dole just like the three million or so other poor sods who can’t find themselves a job,’ Joel told him savagely.

The dole … the scrap heap more like, because that was what it amounted to and that was all they were to the likes of Ryecart and his kind … so much human scrap … and not worth a single damn.

He could feel the anger and despair pounding through him like an inferno, a volcano of panic and fear which he couldn’t allow to spill over and betray him.

He had known that this was likely to happen and he had thought he had prepared himself for it, but now that it had happened it was like being caught up in one of the frightening nightmares of his childhood when he was suddenly left alone and afraid in an alien landscape with no one to turn to.

He had prided himself always on being in control, on managing his life so that he never fell into the same trap as his father, so that he never had to live from day to day, dependent on the whim of others; but now all that was gone and along with his anger he felt a choking, killing sense of fear and aloneness.

All he wanted was to go home to Sally, to hold her and be held by her, to take comfort in her body and the security of her love, to know that she still saw him as a man … still valued him and his maleness and did not, as he did, feel that it was diminished by what had happened.

But these were feelings that he sensed rather than understood and analysed, knowing more that he needed the comfort of her body and warmth, her reassurance and her love than understanding why he needed them.

‘I don’t know how Mum’s going to manage now. She relies on me and my wages,’ Duncan was saying miserably.

‘You’ll soon get another job, son,’ Joel told him automatically, reaching out to reassure him even though he knew his reassurance was as worthless as the promises that Ryecart had made them about the success of the company and the security of their jobs.

‘Have you thought any more about what I said about working full-time?’

Sally paused, shifting her weight from one foot to the other.

‘I’m sorry, Sister, but I haven’t had the time to talk it over properly with Joel yet.’

‘Well, don’t leave it too long; there are quite a few others here who would jump at the chance of the extra money. You’re a good nurse, Sally, and it’s a pity you never went on to specialise further. Still, it’s not too late.’

Sally stared at her. Sister O’Reilly was one of the old-fashioned sort, in her fifties, single and possessed of a lofty disdain for all members of the male sex above the age of twelve, excepting the Pope but including every male member of the medical profession.

‘She ought to have been a nun,’ one of the younger nurses had commented crossly when Sister had ticked her off for flirting with one of the interns on the ward, but Sally, who had shared night duty with her and knew a little more about her background than most, had told the girl not to be dismissive.

‘She’s forgotten more about nursing than you’ll ever learn; and she started learning by nursing her mother and taking charge of her family when she was ten years old.’

That family were all scattered over the world now, some married with their own children, others in the church, and it had been Sister O’Reilly who had taken unpaid leave from her job to go home and nurse the father she had never loved—who could love a man who gave a woman a child every year, even though he could see it was slowly killing her?—through his last illness.

She was one of the old-school nurses and any kind of praise or sign of approval from her was so rare that Sally could only stare at her.

Her, take specialised training, even expect to become a Sister? Just wait until she told Joel that. Joel … today was the day he would learn what was happening at the factory.

She knew that he was expecting the worst, but at least they wouldn’t be as badly off as some others. Why couldn’t Joel see that and be glad about it instead of … ?

When they had first been married he had wanted to help her with the chores, sliding his arms round her waist while they were washing up, kissing the side of her throat, insisting when she was pregnant with Cathy on carrying the vacuum upstairs for her, refusing to let her do any heavy lifting or moving.

And then, when she had first brought Paul home from the hospital and discovered how difficult it was to cope with an energetic toddler and a new baby, he had taken charge of not just the washing-up and the vacuuming but the washing and ironing as well.

She remembered how it had reduced her to silly emotional tears to see his big hands gently trying to smooth out Cathy’s little dresses and Paul’s tiny baby clothes as he’d struggled to iron them, the frustration and helplessness in his eyes as the fiddliness of the task had threatened to defeat him. But he hadn’t given up, and if his ironing had not been up to the standard of her own it had still moved her unbearably to witness his love and care for her and their children.

It had been after that that the first threads of tension had started to pull and then snarl up their relationship.

Paul had been a difficult baby, colicky and demanding, clinging to her and refusing to go to anyone else. He had even gone through a stage when he was two when he had actually screamed every time Joel went near him.

He had grown out of it, of course, but Joel had never been as relaxed or loving towards him as he was with Cathy, and that had hurt her.

Sometimes it was almost as though he actually resented Paul and his demands on her time and attention, seeming not to understand that Paul was a child and that there were times when his needs had to come first.

She knew Joel was worrying about his job and what was going to happen to them if he was made redundant, but why take it out on her and the kids? It wasn’t their fault.

At two o’clock, when her shift ended, her feet and back ached. The last thing she felt like doing was going home to tackle the housework and the ironing. No doubt Joel and the kids would have left the kitchen in its usual mess this morning. Wistfully she imagined how wonderful it would be to go home and find the kitchen spotless, not a dirty plate or cup in sight, the sink cleaned, the floor swept and washed, everywhere smelling fresh and looking polished.

Like her sister’s home? Only Daphne had a cleaner three mornings a week, a small, nervous woman whom Daphne bullied unmercifully and whom Sally privately felt sorry for.

‘I don’t know why I have her; she never does anything properly,’ Daphne had once complained within the woman’s hearing. ‘I’m constantly having to check up on her.’

Sally remembered that she had been as embarrassed for her sister and her lack of good manners and consideration as she had been for poor Mrs Irving, her cleaner.

Not that Daphne would have understood how she felt. It amazed Sally sometimes that her sister wanted to remain in such close contact with her; after all, they had little in common these days other than the fact that they were sisters, and Daphne made such a thing of their upmarket lifestyle and their posh friends that Sally was surprised that she didn’t drop her and Joel completely.

‘What, and lose out on having someone to show off to?’ had been Joel’s acid comment when she had remarked on this to him. ‘Don’t be daft. I’ll bet not many of her posh friends would let her get away with putting them down the way she does you.’

‘She doesn’t put me down,’ Sally had defended her sister. ‘And it’s only natural that she should be proud of their success and …’

‘And what?’ Joel had demanded bitterly. ‘Get a real kick out of rubbing your nose in it and making it plain that she doesn’t think you’ve got much to be proud of? Oh, I’ve seen the way you look round this place when you come home from there.’

‘Joel, it isn’t true. I love our home,’ Sally had protested, but it was true that sometimes she did feel slightly envious of Daphne. She only had to think of the benefits Daphne could give Edward that she and Joel could never give their two, especially not now.

Tiredly she pulled on her coat. Joel had bought it for her last winter, just before the company had cut all overtime. She had protested at the time that it was far too expensive, but she had loved it so much she hadn’t been able to resist it.

They had seen it in the window of a small exclusive shop in the city, marked down in price to make way for the early spring stock. It was a clear, soft red that suited Sally’s dark colouring, three-quarter-length, in a style that would never be outdated.

She didn’t normally wear it for work, but she had forgotten to collect her mac from the cleaners, and because it had been a cold morning she had decided to wear it.

Her six-year-old basic-model car had gone in for a service and it was cold standing at the bus stop so early in the morning.

She was on her way out through Casualty when someone called her name. She stopped automatically, her face breaking into a smile as she saw Kenneth Drummond coming towards her on his crutches.

‘Kenneth … Mr Drummond,’ she corrected herself. ‘What are you doing here? I thought Wednesday was your day for seeing Mr Scott.’

‘It was, but there was some emergency and so they asked me to attend Mr Meadows’ clinic this week instead, lucky for me. Oh, and by the way,’ he added as he smiled down at her, ‘you got it right the first time.’

When Sally looked puzzled, he said softly, ‘Kenneth, not Mr Drummond.’

Oh, heavens, she wasn’t really going to start blushing, was she? Sally wondered shakily. She hadn’t missed, either, the significance of that deliberate ‘lucky for me’, nor the way he had looked at her when he’d asked her to call him Kenneth.

She had always liked him, of course, laughing with him and teasing him, listening to him and talking to him, but somehow it was different now that he was no longer one of her patients and instead of her looking down at him he was the one now looking down at her. He was a big man, nearly as tall as Joel but not quite as broad across the chest. As he touched her arm lightly she noticed that his hand felt smooth, not like Joel’s, whose skin was rough.

‘Are you just off?’ he asked her now.

Sally nodded. ‘Yes,’ she agreed ruefully. ‘I’m on my way home to the housework and the ironing.’

‘I was just going to have a spot of lunch; I had hoped I might be able to persuade you to join me. I still haven’t totally got full control of these things,’ he told her wryly, gesturing towards his crutches.

Sally frowned hesitantly. ‘Dressed like this?’ Sally gestured to the uniform she was wearing beneath her coat. ‘We aren’t supposed …’

‘We’ll ask them to find us a quiet corner and you can keep your coat on. Please …’ he wheedled.

Sally laughed, she couldn’t help it.

‘You don’t fool me,’ she told him, laughing. ‘I know exactly what you’re up to.’

His face sharpened, his voice deepening slightly as he gave her a look that for no reason at all caused her heart suddenly to beat a little faster.

‘You do?’

‘Yes, you just want me with you because of these,’ she told him, gesturing towards his crutches.

She really shouldn’t be doing this. She had a pile of ironing waiting for her at home, a hundred and one small jobs she needed to do, but why should she always be the one to do them? she decided rebelliously.

‘Come on,’ Kenneth instructed her, taking charge so easily and adeptly that they were out in the car park and heading towards his car almost before she knew what was happening. When he stopped next to a huge BMW saloon car and unlocked it Sally stared at him in consternation.

‘Is this yours? How on earth do you drive it?’

‘It’s automatic and I’ve still got one good leg,’ Kenneth told her, laughing. ‘Come on, get in. I promise you I’m perfectly safe … as a driver …’

He couldn’t really be flirting with her, could he? Sally wondered feverishly as she got into the front passenger seat. No, he was just being polite, friendly. The trouble with her was that she was so out of touch, so unused to being in the company of an attractive, communicative man that she didn’t know how to respond any more, or how to read the subtle messages her senses were picking up from him.

She was being ridiculous, he just wanted someone to talk to, she told herself quickly as he started the car and then turned to smile at her.

‘I know a pub where the bar meals are reasonably good and with a bit of luck midweek it should be fairly empty.’

As he watched her, Kenneth wondered how long it would be before she guessed how deliberately contrived this meeting had actually been. He had missed her like hell since he’d returned home, and it had only taken a chance discovery that there was an alternative clinic he could attend, plus a bit of time spent working out her shift pattern, to have him altering his appointment and then hanging about in Outpatients trying to make himself as unnoticeable as possible until she came off duty.

He had earned himself one or two sharp looks from a couple of nurses and one of the porters, but it had paid off.

Kenneth had no illusions about his situation. His feelings for Sally were far stronger than hers for him, if indeed she had any, but she was not totally unaware of him; that pretty little flush and sideways look had told him that.

For a man who claimed to need help with them he was remarkably adept at managing his crutches, Sally reflected as Kenneth parked his car and ushered her into the pub.

He had been right about its being quiet, and its setting out in the country, away from the town, meant that she was unlikely to bump into anyone who knew her.

She frowned. What had put that thought into her head? Why should it matter if anyone saw her? She wasn’t doing anything wrong. She was just having lunch with an ex-patient, that was all.

Kenneth found them a table tucked away in a small natural alcove and then gestured to the menu blackboard behind the bar, asking her what she would like to eat.

When Sally saw the prices she hesitated, force of habit making her run down the list for the cheapest item.

‘What’s wrong … don’t tell me you’re dieting?’ Kenneth teased her.

She laughed. ‘No, it’s just …’

‘Just what? Nothing there that you fancy?’

‘No, it’s not that.’ She could feel herself starting to flush slightly. ‘It’s all so expensive,’ she whispered to him, watching as he frowned as he too studied the board, his voice gentle as he told her,

‘Order whatever you want, Sally, and let me enjoy spoiling you a little bit … you deserve it.’

Sally had to look away from him. She could feel her face burning again, but this time not because she was embarrassed.

How long had it been since Joel had said anything to her like that … had made her feel valued and precious … had made her feel that it was a privilege and a pleasure to be with her?

In the end she ordered a lasagne and Kenneth did the same.

‘Now,’ he commanded when they had both been served, ‘tell me what’s wrong.’

‘Wrong?’ Sally stared at him, too surprised by his astuteness to question the intimacy of his demand. ‘It’s nothing …’ she started to deny, and then when she saw his face she shook her head and admitted, ‘It’s Joel. He should hear today about his job. The factory he works for could be closed down and all the men made redundant. He’s taking it very badly …’ She bit her bottom lip. ‘Worse than he needs to, really. It won’t be easy but we could manage. I could go back to work full-time … Sister even said to me today that she thought I should take more training to help my career.’ Sally laughed.

‘I’m sure she’s right,’ Kenneth interrupted her. ‘You’re a very bright girl, Sally,’ he told her before she could say anything. ‘And it’s a pity that …’

He stopped speaking abruptly.

‘That what?’ Sally challenged him.

‘Nothing,’ he told her quietly, and then admitted, ‘I was going to say that it’s a pity that your family didn’t see to it that you had the chance to fulfil the potential you’ve so obviously got, but I didn’t want you to think I was being critical of … of anyone.’

He meant of Joel, Sally recognised swiftly.

‘Oh, you mustn’t feel sorry for me,’ she told him lightly. ‘I was quite happy to give up work and stay home with the children.’

‘Yes, but you’re not happy now.’

Sally almost choked on the mouthful of food she had taken. She put down her knife and fork and looked at him.

‘What makes you say that?’ she asked him unsteadily.

‘I can see it in your eyes,’ he told her.

She looked across uncertainly at him, a tiny inner voice of caution warning her that what she was contemplating doing was dangerous, but the temptation to unburden herself to someone, to him, was too strong to resist.

‘Tell me,’ Kenneth insisted softly.

‘I can’t,’ Sally protested. ‘It’s not … you’re not …’

‘Yes, you can. I’m not your patient any more, Sally, and I want to hear … to help.’

She shook her head as though trying to clear her thoughts.

‘It’s things at home,’ she told him helplessly. ‘Joel doesn’t seem to realise how difficult it is for me, trying to work and doing everything there as well. He used to be so different but now it’s almost as though he wants to make things as hard for me as he can … and not just for me. It’s the kids as well. He’s always finding fault with them, snapping at them. I know how worried he is about his job, but that’s all the more reason why he should …’

‘Perhaps he doesn’t like the idea of your working, being independent, meeting new people,’ Kenneth ventured.

Sally looked at him.

‘But he knows we need the money. I can’t believe he’s behaving so childishly. I mean, what would it cost him to clear the table in the morning and rinse a few plates? And if he would just offer to do something to help out instead of me always having to ask, to nag … He went to the supermarket the other day and came back without any washing powder. Can you believe that? When I asked him why he said they hadn’t got the brand I’d put on my list. I mean, he knew I was waiting to do the washing.’ Sally, lost in the relief of being able to unburden herself to someone, didn’t hear the frustration and anger in her voice, but Kenneth did.

He had been attracted to her almost as soon as he was well enough to be aware of her; there was a quietness about her, an orderliness, a neatness that appealed very strongly to the aesthetic streak in his nature.

He liked the simple, natural way she wore her thick, dark hair, her lack of artifice and flirtatiousness. Other men might consider her sexuality to be covert, muted, but he liked that in her. The obvious had never appealed very strongly to him; he found it irritating, offensive almost.

He had seen the look in Sally’s eyes when they talked; had recognised how unused she was to the stimulation of informed discussion, of good conversation, and how, unlike many of those he tutored, she had a humbleness, a modesty, a vulnerability that touched him. She would be a pleasure to teach, to nurture. It was obvious to him that her present way of life and in particular her husband were not truly fulfilling her.

It had shocked him at first to discover how much he missed her now that he was back at home, the strength of his feelings for her catching him a little off guard. Lying in his hospital bed, flirting with her, he had in many ways simply been playing a game, but now it wasn’t a game any longer.

He wanted Sally in his life and he wanted her there badly.

It was obvious to him that her husband did not appreciate her, not as he would have done … not as he would do. He grimaced slightly as he glanced at her coat.

‘You should be wearing cream,’ he told her. ‘That’s what I would have bought you. Cream cashmere; you have the colouring for it. So few women do. Something plain and elegant with a skirt to match and a silk shirt to go with it.’

‘Cream cashmere?’ Sally flushed and laughed at the same time. ‘I could never wear anything like that,’ she denied, shaking her head slightly. ‘Even if we could afford it, it would be far too impractical.’

‘It would suit you,’ Kenneth insisted. ‘You deserve it,’ he added. ‘You deserve so much more out of life than you’re getting, Sally. So very, very much more. I just wish that I——’ He broke off and she flushed even harder, guessing what he had been about to say.

It both alarmed and excited her that he should make his feelings for her so obvious; that he should talk to her so intensely and with such emotion. Joel had never been very good at expressing his emotions verbally. Oh, he had told her he loved her, but he had looked so awkward with the words, so uncomfortable … he wasn’t at ease with them in the way that Kenneth was.

Being with Kenneth was the complete opposite of being with Joel. With Kenneth she felt relaxed, happy, warmed by his appreciation of her. With Kenneth there was no tension, no inner dread, no anxiety. And no guilt?

She moved uncomfortably in her seat. Already she had told Kenneth far more about herself, about her personal life than she should, certainly more than she had intended telling him.

Normally she was far more reserved, but Kenneth had a way of drawing her out, making her feel that her thoughts, her feelings were important to him.

Kenneth saw the small betraying movement she made and, correctly reading her thoughts, knew better than to risk pressing her any further. He had sown the seeds; now he would just have to wait patiently for them to grow, for her to realise how much he could give her.

There was one question he could not resist asking her, though.

‘But you do still love him … your husband, despite everything?’

‘Yes, of course I do,’ Sally responded quickly. Too quickly? she wondered uneasily; her heart jumped shakily in her chest as she acknowledged that it was almost as though she dared not allow herself to consider Kenneth’s question just in case …

Just in case what? Of course she loved Joel; of course she did.

‘I must go,’ she told Kenneth. ‘The kids will be back from school soon.’

‘Yes, of course. It won’t take long to run you back,’ Kenneth assured her.

Immediately Sally tensed. ‘No, I’d rather you dropped me at the bus stop, if you don’t mind.’

She could feel herself flushing again as he looked at her. It wasn’t that she felt she had done anything wrong she assured herself defensively, but her neighbours were the sort who wouldn’t waste time in coming round to find out how she had come to arrive home in such state.

It would be easy enough to explain to them, of course, to tell them that an ex-patient had offered her a lift, and, even as she heard Kenneth agreeing pleasantly that if that was what she wanted then that was what he would do, she felt both angry and flustered with herself for the way she had over-reacted. Like someone guilty … someone who had something to hide.

Nevertheless, it was a shock to see Joel’s car in the drive as she walked up to the house, and as her heart started to thump uncomfortably against her ribcage and her stomach tensed with anxiety at the shock of seeing his car there at such an unexpected time of the day her footsteps slowed slightly.

He was in the kitchen when she walked in, his back turned towards her as he filled the kettle. The breakfast things had been removed from the table, she noticed absently as she hurried over to him, but the surface was smeared and there were coffee-mug rings where Joel hadn’t thought to wipe it clean.

‘Why aren’t you at work?’ she asked him anxiously as she took her coat off, but the moment he turned round she knew the answer. She could see it in his face, in the defeated look in his eyes.

‘What work?’ he asked tonelessly. ‘There is no work. No work, no wages, and no damned redundancy either by the looks of it.’

‘Oh, but that’s not possible! You’ve worked there since leaving school.’

‘Yes, well, it seems that doesn’t count for anything. According to what we were told this afternoon, we’re only getting our current week’s wages because the bank didn’t want it all over the newspapers that they weren’t going to pay us. As far as our redundancy money goes, we won’t know if or what we’re going to get until everything’s been sold off.’

Sally could see from his face, hear in his voice just how much this extra blow had affected him. He looked and sounded not frightened exactly … more beaten and vulnerable, stripped of his confidence, his head, his whole body bowed.

‘Oh, Joel.’ She walked up to him, instinctively moving towards him, gripping hold of his upper arms. ‘Don’t look like that, love,’ she begged him. ‘It will be all right; we’ll manage.’ Instinctively she adopted the soothing, reassuring voice she used to her patients and small children; the look in his eyes frightened her. She had never seen him looking so vulnerable and defeated. ‘It isn’t as though we weren’t expecting it.’ She felt him move and then take hold of her, wrapping his arms around her, holding her almost painfully tightly as he buried his head against her.