Conveniently His Omnibus (12 page)

‘I’m not sure.’ She responded to Alex’s question as calmly as she could. She had been awake since seven o’clock, her ears straining for the sound of the telephone, but so far there had been no call.

Almost as though she had conjured the sound up by wishful thinking, the kitchen phone suddenly shrilled.

‘I’ll get it.’ Alex was out of her chair first, running to pick up the receiver.

‘Uncle Jon...when are you coming back?’ She paused and then held out the receiver to Sophy. ‘He’s leaving now but he wants to speak to you.’

Her hand was shaking slightly as she took the receiver from Alex.

‘Hello, Jon.’ She hoped her voice sounded calmer to him than it did to her.

‘Sorry I couldn’t make it back earlier.’

Was she imagining the constraint she thought she heard?

‘That’s okay. Was the problem more difficult to solve than you expected?’

There was an odd pause and then when Jon did speak his voice was slightly muffled. ‘Yes...yes, you could say that. I should be back by midafternoon.’

After asking her if there had been any urgent telephone calls he hung up. Now that he had rung she felt worse than she had done before. She felt as though a wall had suddenly sprung up between them, as though for some reason Jon was deliberately setting a distance between them.

The preparatory work for the dinner party kept her fingers busy but left her with not enough to occupy her mind, and by the time the mousse was chilling in the fridge and the ice cream was in the freezer, she had managed to convince herself that Jon was bitterly regretting ever having touched her. Everything that Chris had said to her was true. Jon found her just as undesirable as Chris had...

She kept herself busy, polishing the old-fashioned silver cutlery she found in one of the sideboard drawers, carefully washing china and crystal that she had also discovered tucked away in the sideboard cupboards.

She had bought an expensive white-linen tablecloth, deeply trimmed with lace, and Alex who had volunteered to help her with the silver polishing and then with the table, stopped to admire the rich gleam of the green and gold banded dinner service and the sparkle of the heavily cut crystal.

Fresh flowers brightened up the heaviness of the room and decorated the centre of the table. All she really had to do now was to prepare the salads and the chicken.

Alex watched round-eyed while she made the mayonnaise, leaving Sophy to reflect that she had after all gained something from her mother, for it was she who had taught Sophy to cook. She recognised now that she had absorbed a good deal of her mother’s housewifely skill almost without being aware of it.

At three o’clock Sophy heard a car stop outside. Instantly an explosive mixture of fear and excitement gripped her stomach. Watching Alex’s exuberant and totally natural pleasure, she wished for a moment that she too was free to welcome Jon back the way she wanted to but she had to be more circumspect, so she deliberately held back a little washing and then drying her hands, timing her arrival at the front door to coincide with Jon’s.

Her first thought was that he looked tired—far more tired than she had seen him looking before, and instinctively she reached out to touch him, withdrawing her hand as though it had been stung as she realised what she was doing.

‘You look tired.’ The words left her lips before she could stop them.

‘I could do with a shower...it’s no pleasure travelling at the moment—especially in a taxi without air conditioning.’ He bent down and picked up the overnight case he had put on the floor. ‘I’ll go up and get changed.’

‘Would you like a drink or something to eat?’

Jon paused at the foot of the stairs and shook his head. ‘No...I ate before I left.’ He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. Something he normally only did either when he was tired or when something was bothering him. Her love for him tugged at Sophy’s heart. She wanted to go up to him and wrap her arms round him but instinctively she was frightened of being rebuffed.

On Saturday afternoon Sophy made her weekly telephone call to her mother, something which was more a duty than a pleasure, especially when her mother still continued to make slightly disparaging references to Jon. For once though, she seemed uninterested in the subject of her son-in-law, rushing to tell Sophy the moment they had exchanged ‘hellos’.

‘The most shocking thing has happened—I can hardly believe it. Felicity has left Chris. Poor boy, he is absolutely devastated. He adored her, you know...spoilt her really. Of course I’ve done my best to comfort him. Girls do funny things when they’re in her condition but even so...’

Sophy listened while her mother poured out a good deal more in the same vein, inwardly thoroughly bored with the whole subject of Chris.

‘He may come over and see you,’ she told Sophy just as she was hanging up. ‘I told him you’d be delighted to see him. After all it’s a time like this that he needs his friends.’

‘Mother, I wish you hadn’t.’ Sophy was really angry but there was nothing she could do other than hope that Chris would have the sense to know that her mother was wrong and that Sophy was not likely to welcome him. She had sensed the last time she saw him that he resented the thought that she had found happiness with someone else and she had no wish to play the sympathetic listener to him. Shrugging in mild irritation she went back to her preparations for the meal.

Jon was outside with the children. Soon it would be time to call them in for their tea. She had got them a Walt Disney video to watch while they were having dinner and both of them had promised to be on their best behaviour. Not that they were ever particularly naughty, she thought fondly. Once everything was done she could go upstairs and get ready. Nervous butterflies fluttered in her stomach. She was dreading meeting Jon’s friends and being the object of their curiosity.

* * *

A
FTER
ALL
HER
apprehension about meeting Jon’s friends, Sophy discovered that they were a very pleasant, down to earth couple with whom she instantly felt quite at home. Mary-Beth confided to her over the salmon and cucumber mousse that she sometimes felt she must be the world’s worst cook and that even her ten-year-old daughter could make a better sponge cake than she did herself. ‘And doesn’t she just let me know it,’ she groaned with a smile.

Their two children, she explained to Sophy, were staying with her parents in North Carolina.

‘Harry has so many meetings organised for this trip that it just wasn’t worth bringing the kids with us. I can quite happily waste a few days shopping in London but the kids would hate that.’

She followed Sophy out to the kitchen when she went to get the main course, commenting as she walked in, ‘Jon says you haven’t had much chance to get to grips with the house yet. Of course, you haven’t been married very long.’

‘No,’ Sophy agreed with a grin. ‘And if it hadn’t been for the fact that the fault on the Nassau computer was relatively non-urgent, we’d have had to put the ceremony off completely.’

Mary-Beth’s eyes widened and she protested. ‘Oh, didn’t Jon tell you—and I thought it was so romantic too, but poor Harry was practically foaming at the mouth at the time—Jon refused to come out until after the wedding. He told Harry there was simply no question of him postponing it. Not even if it meant that Nassau would have to look for someone else. I must tell you that I was stunned. Jon’s a devoted computer man and always has been as long as I’ve known him. I was, however, delighted to discover that his work means far less to him than you. Fancy him not telling you.’

‘I suppose he didn’t want to at the time because he knew it would upset me,’ Sophy offered, trying to slow down the hurried racing of her heartbeat. Jon had done that. But why? Their wedding could have been put off...and why hadn’t he told her?

‘He’s obviously crazy in love with you,’ Mary-Beth continued. ‘We could tell that from the way he talked about you when he came to Nassau. Mind you there are some people who can never see a thing.’ She lowered her voice slightly. ‘One of the women who works on the Nassau project was really smitten with Jon. I told her he was married but she’s one of those super-intelligent females who always goes all out for what she wants. You’re lucky Jon is the faithful type, I wouldn’t be telling you any of this if he weren’t,’ Mary-Beth assured her frankly. ‘To be honest, sometimes Lillian worries me. I don’t know what it is...a sort of obsessiveness about her somehow, a facility to blot out everything but what’s important to her.’

‘Lillian.’ Sophy repeated the name lightly. ‘Jon mentioned her to me. He used her pool during his rest periods.’

‘Yes...I know.’ Mary-Beth pulled a wry grimace when she saw Sophy’s expression. ‘Look, you’ve got nothing to worry about...Jon’s crazy about you. He couldn’t wait to rush back home.’

Sophy smiled, sensing that the other woman was regretting ever bringing up the subject of Lillian. It was silly to be jealous of the other woman. After all Jon had married
her;
had told her that he desired her. But not that he loved her, she thought achingly...and that was what she wanted. She wanted Jon to love her in the same total and complete way she loved him. But despite everything that Mary-Beth had said to the contrary Sophy knew that he did not.

It was gone one o’clock when the Silvers left. Leaving Jon in the drawing room Sophy wandered tiredly into the kitchen and started to attack the washing-up.

‘Leave that. I’ll do it. You’ve done more than enough.’

Jon had walked into the kitchen so quietly that she hadn’t heard him and now he made her jump, almost dropping the plate she was holding.

‘You’re exhausted, Sophy.’ She caught his frown as he reached out and turned her round, taking the plate from her. ‘Go on up...I’m still wide-awake. I’ll get rid of this lot.’

She wanted to protest that she wanted to stay with him, that they could wash up together, go to bed together but she knew she could not. As she hesitated, still standing within the curve of his arm, she found herself wishing that he would at least kiss her, even if it was only one of the lightly affectionate kisses he gave the children. For a moment she even thought he might. His head bent and then lifted again, and then he was releasing her, gently pushing her in the direction of the door.

She wanted to ask him why he had lied to her about the urgency of the work in Nassau, but she knew she could not.

Even though she tried to stay awake until she heard Jon come upstairs, she fell asleep almost immediately the moment she got into bed, not waking until the alarm went off in the morning.

* * *

O
N
THE
FOLLOWING
Tuesday Jon got a phone call whilst they were working together in the office. Never a particularly vociferous talker, the brief, monosyllabic curtness of his responses made her lift her head from the correspondence she was studying. It was unlike Jon to sound curt or to look as frowningly involved as he did now.

When he had hung up, she asked automatically, ‘Problems?’

For a moment he seemed to hesitate and then he said bleakly, ‘Yes...’ He paused, and stared out of the window, and Sophy had the distinct impression that his mind was a long, long way away. They had never had that talk he had promised and in fact since the weekend she had been intensely conscious of a barrier between them.

‘I’m afraid I’ve got to go to London again. I’ll have to leave this afternoon.’

‘Will you be gone long?’

He frowned again, and said curtly, ‘I have no idea, Sophy.’

His tone chilled her, it was almost as though she had angered him in some way by asking. Could he sense how she felt about him. Was he already resenting the thought of the demands her love might lead her to make on him?

After that she was careful to keep all her comments to him strictly related to business matters. As soon as they had gone through the post she excused herself, explaining that she wanted to go upstairs and pack for him.

It was strange how being in love with someone could invest even the most mundane of inanimate objects with a special poignancy because they were part of the beloved, Sophy thought, carefully packing Jon’s shirts. He was normally very neat in his habits but the shirt he had discarded the previous night lay across a chair and she picked it up, instantly tensing. The scent of Jon’s skin clung to the cotton fabric, and she had to fight against a crazy impulse to bury her face in it and absorb that tiny bit of him into herself.

She made them both a light lunch but scarcely touched her own. Jon was not particularly hungry either, she noticed, watching him push his salad round the plate. It struck her then that he had lost weight and even looked faintly gaunt. His expression withdrawn...brooding almost, as though something—or someone—weighed heavily on his mind.

Had he guessed how she felt? Was he, because of that, regretting that he had married her? He wanted her he had said...but that wanting had been a physical need not an emotional one. Perhaps that was what he wanted to talk to her about...to warn her that he could not reciprocate her feelings.

She drove him to the station and waited there until he was on the train. He did not kiss her goodbye, nor did she let him see how much she had wanted him to.

For the children’s sake she tried to behave normally, but she missed him intensely and some sixth sense told her that something was wrong...that there was something he was concealing from her.

It was Thursday morning before she heard from him. A brief telephone call merely to tell her what train he would be returning on.

‘I’ll drive into Cambridge and pick you up,’ she offered, but he vetoed her offer, saying, ‘No, don’t bother. I’ll have no trouble getting a taxi.’

Hurt and rebuffed, Sophy said nothing, letting him say ‘goodbye’ and hoping he wouldn’t catch the misery in her own voice as she responded to him. At least he would soon be back...and they could talk. Or at least she hoped they could.

Neither David nor Alex would be home until early evening, as both of them had been invited to a schoolfriend’s birthday party and another mother had offered to give them a lift home since she had to pass their house on the way to her own, so if Jon did want to talk to her, today would be an ideal opportunity.