Almost Love (18 page)

Chapter Twenty-Three

The following evening Alex was sitting across the table from Edmund at dinner wearing a black knitted, sequin-spangled, silk jumper with a low neck and a long black velvet skirt. Tom’s choice of clothes, though hardly sexy, was at least not frumpy. In fact, she felt quite elegant compared to the other guests. Aside from the other delegates at the conference – about thirty of them and almost all, as Tom had predicted, men of ‘a certain age’ – the guests at the hotel were mostly rich elderly golfers with heavily made-up wives in tow, some of them wearing floaty chiffon creations that were rather too uncomfortably like parodies of her red dress.

They were having dinner quite late by Scottish standards. Contrary to what she had assumed, no formal conference dinner had been arranged. Instead, the conference delegates had been invited to join the other guests at a time of their own choosing and, consequently, most of them had opted to eat earlier and were now propping up one of the several residents’ bars in the hotel.

Edmund placed his hand over hers.

“You’re looking very lovely,” he said. She allowed it to rest there for a while, before gently drawing her own hand away.

“What’s the matter?” he said. “Don’t you like me to do that?”

“It’s not that I don’t like it; it’s just that I don’t want anyone to see us. There are too many people here that we know for us to be able to make displays of affection in public.”

Edmund nodded and withdrew his hand altogether.

“Did you ring home?” he asked.

“Yes, but Tom was out. He’s working on a complicated case at the moment. I doubt if he’ll even notice that I’m not there.”

“Then he doesn’t deserve you,” said Edmund. He was obviously trying to sound gallant, but the words came out a little unctuously.

“What about you? Did you call your wife?” Alex could not bring herself to say ‘Krystyna’. It would sound impertinent, somehow.

“Yes, but she wasn’t there either. Visiting her mother, probably. As I think I’ve told you, she and her sister suffer from an unhealthy preoccupation with the minutiae of their mother’s life. In reality, the old girl’s as tough as old boots. They should just leave her to get on with it. I think that Krystyna needs her more than the other way round. She usually goes there when she’s becoming depressed.”

“Does she suffer from depression?”

“Yes, unfortunately. They all do: the sister and brother as well. I think it may have something to do with that sense of rootlessness that I told you about. They don’t quite fit in here – despite all their charm. Anyway, let’s change the subject. If you decide what you’re going to eat, I can choose some wine.”

Alex had been determined not to drink too much on this occasion, but, as they started their second bottle of wine, she reflected that alcohol seemed to have become an indispensable prop to their relationship. She was enjoying Edmund’s company, though; and its illicitness, which had worried her so much at the end of the evening that they had spent in Peterborough, was not disturbing her unduly. “Thou shalt not be found out,” she thought ruefully. The devil’s commandment. She could hardly doubt that her more relaxed attitude stemmed less from her having been engulfed by an overwhelming passion for Edmund than from the feeling of security that she had gained from being almost 400 miles from home. As she also knew, once they had sunk the second bottle of wine, the caution that compelled her to reject his caresses in public would have evaporated completely. They would have to retire to avoid scandal. That she was not booked into a suite, as she had been at the Society’s conference, caused her a small tremor of apprehension. It looked so much more blatant to invite a man to her bedroom, even though she knew it was what they were both anticipating.

Edmund was drinking more slowly than usual and she felt that he was taking extra care to make the conversation interesting. He had put aside his habitual combativeness and was talking to her earnestly about the best ways to label artefacts that had not been properly classified upon discovery. As this was at the heart of the ‘big project’ which they had now agreed to take on together, she felt touched, because she knew that he was trying to tell her that some of the logistical difficulties that worried her most could be overcome. She sipped the wine and smiled, catching his eye.

He halted in mid-sentence.

“What’s the matter? Am I boring you?”

She laughed, a silvery, tinkling laugh that she hardly recognised as her own, and patted his sleeve.

“No, of course not. I’m just touched by how seriously you’re taking the project.”

“Of course I’m taking it seriously,” he said. “Everything depends on it!”

“Not everything, surely?” Her flirtatiousness evaporated. Was he implying that he expected her to leave Tom? If so, she must be careful not to fall into the trap. She knew that she was not ready to change her life so irrevocably.

Edmund’s voice was taut.

“Well, everything eventually. We’re both proposing to give up our jobs, aren’t we? A great deal hangs on our success. For me more than for you, perhaps.”

“I’m not sure that I follow you.”

Edmund flushed and bit his lip. He took a long swig from his water glass.

“I . . . just meant that I have to support two people, that’s all. Krystyna no longer works, as I told you; and, even when she did, she was only a part-time teaching assistant at a primary school. Stupidly, she has never paid into a pension scheme – despite good advice from me on the subject, I might add.”

He was blustering, thought Alex: changing the subject.

“I’ve been thinking that we might not have to hand in our respective notices until we’re pretty sure that the business idea is going to work,” said Alex smoothly.

Edmund steepled his fingers and regarded her over the crown that he had made.

“How do you propose to do that, without cheating on your employer – and requiring me to cheat on mine?” he enquired severely.

“I’ll ask the board of the Archaeological Society to approve our taking a sample of uncategorised artefacts. We can try to attribute them to the correct period by working after hours. I’ll say that you are willing to help. We can present it as a pilot study, to see if a full classification project is achievable and then suggest that the work is put out to tender after the pilot is successful – which it will be, if what you’re telling me is correct.” She shot him a challenging smile.

“Not a bad idea,” he said, his words belying the eagerness with which he spoke, “but what if the tender process produces a better offer than ours?”

Alex let out a peal of laughter, entirely genuine this time.

“You don’t know them as well as I do! There’s no way that they’ll want to go out to tender if a viable proposal is put on the table in front of them – especially if I’m the person who is suggesting a way of getting the classification work done. I can just envisage the board meeting at which it will be discussed. It will be a time for courteous speeches and fulsome compliments – and probably a suggestion that I continue to work part-time as the secretary. They hate change so much that I’m convinced that this is how they’ll react.”

“But that isn’t what you want, is it? To work part-time, I mean. I thought that you wanted to concentrate on building the business and especially on making this project successful so that we can offer our services to other societies and museums.”

“That
is
what I want, in the long run; but you’re absolutely right to suggest that we should minimise the risks if we can. This means steering a middle course until we are sure that the business can be made to work. That would be the time to consider resigning altogether.”

Edmund nodded slowly. He still seemed to be testing what she had said in his mind; yet she also sensed that he was relieved to hear her words.

“Alex?” he said, taking her hand again.

“Yes?”

“Do you think that they will allow us to remove some of the boxes from Broad Street? To work on them, I mean?”

“Gosh, you are good at jumping from the general to the particular! I don’t see why not. We should have to ask them, of course, and we may have to guarantee the safety of the boxes by taking out insurance. But none of the items has much intrinsic value, especially in their unclassified state. Their value is bound up with the Society’s own reputation as an able curator of the region’s prehistory. So I’m guessing that the answer will be ‘yes’.”

“That’s wonderful!” said Edmund, his expression suddenly his hallmark beatific. He picked up the half-bottle of wine that remained, and waved it.

“Shall we adjourn?”

Alex nodded . . . and lowered her eyes.

“Your room or mine?” she asked quietly.

“Oh, yours, I think,” said Edmund. “It wouldn’t be very gentlemanly to let a lady go creeping around the corridors in the middle of the night, would it?”

Alex did not reflect at the time that this was a very Edwardian way of conducting a love affair, but when she awoke the next morning to find herself alone, she realised that it had its advantages, especially as her mobile phone began to ring almost as soon as she had opened her eyes. She hauled herself out of bed and retrieved it from her handbag, which was lying on the floor among her discarded clothes. She pressed the green button with some trepidation, but it wasn’t Tom: just someone from the garage calling about her car.

She looked at her watch. It was almost 7.30 a.m. The conference didn’t start for another two hours, but now that she was awake she didn’t feel like going back to bed. She decided to take a quick shower and go for a brisk walk. She had a lot to think about.

It was a beautiful clear frosty morning. Quickly she walked beyond the perimeter of the park and golf course to the fields beyond. She wanted to get away from the immediate vicinity of the hotel because she suspected that Edmund might also plan an early morning stroll. Despite the cold, the sheep were grazing on the sparse grass in the fields. Out of sight, further down the valley, she could hear a cowman whistling to his herd.

She had been walking at speed. The moment that she paused to take in the view, she realised how fierce the cold was. She had forgotten her hat, so she pulled up the hood of her duffle-coat and curled her hands within her woollen mittens so that her fingers gained warmth from her palms. She didn’t have a hangover, but her head felt woolly with that curious half-absent sensation that drinking too much often causes. She was also shivery and extremely hungry. She removed one of her mittens and fished in her pocket. She found half of a Bounty bar and sucked on it, trying to make it last.

She needed to confront herself before she could face the day – indeed, before she could either face Edmund or speak to Tom. Her mother’s voice rose unbidden in her imagination: “Just what do you think you are doing, young lady?”

What was she doing? Last night had been pleasant – perhaps more pleasant than she had anticipated. Edmund had been a considerate and tender lover, anxious to please and receptive to her demands. He had been neither boisterous nor perfunctory, either of which would have made her feel cheap. He had also not been madly passionate – but neither had she. She knew that neither of them could claim the excuse of having been overtaken by the throes of a passion beyond their control. It had been pleasant – she returned to the word. But more fulfilling or more enjoyable than sleeping with Tom? That depended. Tom, absent-minded and arousing himself from the toils of sleep, could be a trial; but Tom at his best, engaged and focused? No. Tom was the better lover: more sensitive, more imaginative and, most importantly, an infinite extension of herself.

So why the affair with Edmund? It was not as if it had taken her by surprise. On the contrary, she could have nipped it in the bud immediately if she had tried – had indeed done so after the Archaeological Society conference, until, almost perversely, she had allowed it to be resurrected again. No, that was too kind to herself to be truthful: she had
encouraged
its resurrection. She could not deceive herself otherwise. There had been no good reason for spending that evening in Peterborough with Edmund. She could have taken a taxi, as Tom had suggested, or persuaded Edmund to drive her home straight away. She had known, or at least guessed, to what it would lead. So why had she done it?

For the adventure, she decided; and then, more harshly – because she had to be as unforgiving of herself as possible in order to get to the truth – out of vanity. She had been flattered by Edmund’s attentions . . . and by his confidences. And, to be fair, she had enjoyed talking to him – had enjoyed being permitted to glimpse below his verbose, pedestrian exterior to find that the ‘real’ Edmund was someone rather more interesting. The ‘real’ Edmund was not as morally correct as she had supposed, either. Did this shock her? Not on balance. Doubts crept in, though, when she considered this. She was not convinced that she understood Edmund. She was even less convinced that she knew why he had sought her out. What did he hope for beyond the obvious thrill of a transitory affair?

She knew that Edmund was not about to leave Krystyna for her. This made her both sad and dissatisfied – irrationally, because she herself had no intention of leaving Tom. The difference was . . . she held herself in check for a moment while she analysed whether she was about to embark on some specious pleading favourable to herself again . . . the difference was that Edmund had made it abundantly clear to her that his marriage was a shell; a sham, really. He would be prepared to leave Krystyna, of that she was sure, if he fell properly in love. But Alex had no doubt that she was not the special person that had eluded him for his whole life; nor did she try to persuade herself that Edmund had said that he would not ask her to leave Tom out of respect for their marriage. Perhaps he did just want a fleeting affair, after all. Wasn’t that what most men wanted?

She could not believe that that was all. There was the business idea, of course. Edmund had been keen on this – almost obsessed by it – right from the start. Strange that she’d never thought of involving him, but that was because she’d always conceived of it as a venture for her and Tom, something on which they could work together and be happy together. That clearly wasn’t going to happen now. She felt suddenly tearful.