Deception and Desire (44 page)

‘You'll have to persuade them to open a branch in Corfu.'

Maggie laughed. Almost without realising it she had relaxed, the tensions draining away with every sip of wine. Mike had been right – today had been exactly what she'd needed, an oasis of normality in which to recharge exhausted batteries.

‘I can't see them doing that somehow. But it would save me a fortune in postage – or Ros, anyway. She buys underwear and tights and things for me and sends them out. At least she did …' She bit her lip as the mention of Ros brought it all flooding back.

‘Tell me about Corfu,' Mike said hastily, pouring coffee from a cafetiere. ‘I've never been there.'

She followed his lead, determinedly turning the conversation away from Ros, though the hollow ache of anxiety was back inside her.

‘I thought everyone had been to Corfu. In the summer the island seems to be overrun by the English – and, of course, Germans and Italians too.'

‘Living there is a very different thing to being on holiday, though. You must have found it very strange at first.'

‘I guess I still do in some ways – attitudes mainly. I enjoyed getting used to the food and the sunshine and the boutari and siesta. But I don't like the fact that Ari won't let me get a job and I find the closeness of the family claustrophobic. They tend to live in one another's pockets far more than we do.'

‘But you get on well with them?'

‘Well enough, I suppose. Though to be honest, they weren't exactly over the moon that Ari wanted to marry a foreigner, and of course I had no prika – dowry. A good daughter-in-law should bring a few olive groves with her at least. Having nothing was rather a black mark against me. Just the first of many, I'm afraid.'

He raised an eyebrow and she went on, slightly embarrassed: ‘No, I'm afraid I'm something of a disappointment to them. But what really gets me is the fact that although family solidarity is considered so important it's only his family that count. Ros is
my
family but there was the most ridiculous fuss when I wanted to come to England. Ari couldn't – or wouldn't – understand that I simply had to come over and try to find out what had happened to her. He was really quite unreasonable about it.'

Mike spooned sugar into his coffee. ‘ I don't know that I blame him for that. If you were my wife I don't think I'd be too keen on you running all over the world without me.'

There was something in the way he said it that brought the quick colour to her cheeks – and not just because of the implied criticism. But before she could reply the telephone began to shrill. Mike got up and went into the hall to answer it, and she sat toying with her cup of coffee, telling herself she was mad to read anything at all into his words; that she was overwrought, emotional, imagining things …

She heard Mike come back into the room and did not look round, afraid he might somehow be able to read her thoughts.

‘Well,' he said, returning to his place, ‘that was odd.'

‘Who was it?'

‘Nobody. Just a lot of crackles and whines. Then the line went dead.'

‘Wrong number perhaps.'

‘Perhaps. But it sounded distant, almost, the way international lines sound when they're not working properly. You didn't give your husband this number did you?'

‘Of course not.'

‘Oh well, if it was something important I guess whoever it was will ring again. Shall we clear this up and sit back?'

They carried the dirty dishes to the kitchen and Maggie drew a bowl of water and washed up while Mike dried and put away. But he was still thoughtful and for the moment the ease of communication between them had gone.

‘You're very quiet,' Maggie said, emptying the water away and wiping down the sink with a slightly tatty dishcloth.

‘Just thinking.'

‘What about?'

‘Oh … wondering if it might have been Ros on the phone. Perhaps I have blown this whole thing up. Perhaps she's just gone off with someone else and she was trying to ring and tell me so. After all, Brendan did say he had seen her with another man.'

‘You can't believe what Brendan says. He's a pathological liar and he is also insanely jealous. When he and Ros were married he was forever accusing her of having affairs with everyone she met.'

‘Perhaps she gave him cause.' He was leaning against the cooker, arms folded, body language studiedly casual. But his eyes were narrowed, his expression suddenly hard.

‘Not Ros!' Maggie flew to her sister's defence. ‘She wouldn't!'

‘She did.' There was something vaguely shocking about the flatness of his tone, a certainty that brooked no denial.

‘Ros … had affairs? How do you know?'

‘Oh, let's just say I know. One was her boss at Vandina – the big white chief Van Kendrick himself.'

‘They had an affair?' Maggie asked, but already she was remembering how her mother had hinted at something of the kind.

‘They certainly did. Hot and holy while it lasted.'

‘Did Dinah know?'

‘Van was a womaniser by all accounts. If Dinah did know she turned a blind eye to it. Anyway, that was all over a long time ago. Van was killed in a plane crash, or died of a heart attack at the controls and then crashed – they never knew which for certain. The plane burst into flames and Van was too badly burned for the autopsy to have any real meaning. But the fact remains, have an affair they did.'

‘I see. And you think …'

‘I don't know what I think any more.' Mike moved suddenly, throwing the tea towel down on a work surface. ‘ Let's go and sit down.'

‘I ought to be going …' But she didn't want to. She had enjoyed today and she did not want it to end. Even this unwelcome conversation was better than no conversation at all, alone in Ros's cottage with her thoughts, with the branch slapping against the window and the wind sounding for all the world like someone creeping around in the garden.

‘You don't need to go yet, do you?' Mike said.

‘No, I guess not.' It had been easy to be persuaded.

They went back into the living room. Mike put the coffee pot on again and Maggie noticed an ancient record deck tucked away under the heavy oak sideboard.

‘Can we have some music on?'

‘Yes, if you like. I should have suggested it before but I didn't think. I tend to go for peace and quiet.'

‘What have you got?' Maggie asked, investigating the untidy pile of LPs and a few tapes.

‘Not a lot. I'm not the world's greatest music freak.' He joined her, squatting on the floor. ‘The 1812 Overture and Ravel's
Bolero
– not exactly late-night coffee-drinking music.'

‘What about this – Chris de Burgh?'

‘That's Ros's.' Again there was something very final in his voice, and Maggie picked up the vibes. Ros's tape held too many memories of Ros. ‘Lady in Red' might even describe her – Ros wore a lot of red. In his present mood Mike did not want reminding.

‘Here we are – this will do.' It was Simon and Garfunkel. She passed it to him and he put it on. The strains of ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water' filled the room.

‘I'm by your side … When darkness comes …'

Maggie experienced a sudden wave of bittersweetness. She bent over the tapes to tidy them but succeeded only in knocking the pile across the floor.

‘Oh no, I'm sorry …'

‘Don't worry about it' He dropped back to his knees and together they retrieved the tapes, restacking them. ‘I really should organise them better … Oh my God, the Bay City Rollers – shades of my youth! Red tartan tarn o'shanters – remember? No, I don't suppose you do. You'd be too young.'

‘I used to see them on children's TV on Saturday mornings …'

They were laughing, relaxed again. Then suddenly their eyes met, laughter dying away. Mike reached for her, a hasty, instinctive movement, yet somehow it seemed to Maggie to happen in slow motion. One moment they were looking at one another, the next his mouth was on hers and she was kissing him back with a hunger she had not known was in her, drowning in a rush of desire which had crept up on her unnoticed and which seemed to obliterate all thought, all feeling, beyond her sudden aching need for him. His arms felt good about her, the smell of his skin was sweetly sensuous, the taste of his lips aroused responses in her, the compelling power of which she had forgotten. It was so long, so long since she had wanted someone so much that it hurt. The world around her seemed to stand still whilst all the electric energy of the universe was locked within her, so explosively concentrated that she felt she would burst wide open from the wonderful singing, pulsating pressure of it. She remained motionless in the circle of his arms and felt as if her very soul was being drawn into her lips, then, slowly, the rest of her began to be drawn to him as if his body was magnetising hers, the core of him drawing her own core with a power so intense the reverberations of it echoed through every vein and not only her arms and legs pricked and tingled but her fingers and toes also. She moved then, just a tiny wriggle that brought her hips against his, and felt the sweet sharp tug of an invisible cord in the depths of her as her most sensitive nerves registered the contact. Her breath caught in her throat, she wriggled closer still, relishing the moment but wanting more, still more.

Was it possible to experience so much delight and still climb higher? To be in someone's arms, two layers of clothes between, and experience such exquisite awareness? Her conscious mind was neither asking nor answering, yet instinctively she knew that it was, though in those few moments she had already reached a peak of sensual joy usually achieved only at the moment of climax. She pressed against him, lost in a world where nothing existed beyond the two of them and the tightness, the inevitability, of their closeness. Then, almost without warning, the perfection shattered. Mike's arms were no longer about her, his lips no longer on hers. She felt him go from her, opened her eyes and saw him moving away.

The sense of loss was unbearable, the absence of touch a physical pain. She wanted to cry out from it. Instead she crumpled to a sitting position, feeling strangely vulnerable as well as cheated.

‘I'm sorry.' Mike's voice was rough. ‘I shouldn't have done that.'

‘I wanted you to.' She said it softly, humbly. The admission only seemed to increase her vulnerability to the emotions that were tearing her apart and to the sense of hurt.

‘Then you shouldn't.' He sounded angry. ‘You're a married woman, for God's sake. I know that and so do you. You have a husband waiting for you in Corfu. No wonder he didn't want you chasing off on your own. You're all as bad as one another.'

The unfairness of it stung; suddenly she was close to tears.

‘You don't understand …'

‘I understand very well. I understand enough to know I'm not going to do what some bastard did to me. Come on, I'll take you home.'

She did not move, only wrapped her arms around herself. She was trembling, the tears welling in her eyes.

‘Mike, don't, please! Ari … well, it isn't quite the way you think.'

‘In what way?'

‘In every way. Oh, I know it would be wrong but …' She broke off, shame at her own emotions and at how close she had come to betraying Ari overcoming her. It wasn't just the physical betrayal that had been so imminent; she had also been on the point of baring her soul, breaking the confidences that are between a man and wife. She was not sure which was worse; both were damning.

‘You're right,' she said in a small voice. ‘I expect I'm overtired and overemotional and I've probably had too much to drink. I'm sorry.'

‘Dammit, Maggie, stop apologising!' He still sounded angry but in a different way, as if he was no longer angry at her but at himself. ‘I was the one to blame. Let's have another cup of coffee and forget it happened.'

But they both knew they would not forget. For the moment the warmth and closeness had gone, the wave of desire which had almost swamped them broken, but the swirling eddies were still there, washing around them. Maggie looked at him and still felt the pull towards him, a pull that was more than the need for comfort and companionship which had at first disguised it, the indefinable attraction that sparks sometimes between one man and one woman. She wanted him, she knew that now. Her body had demonstrated what her senses had refused to acknowledge. She wanted him more than she had ever wanted anyone in her life. No sense of shame, no telling herself it was wrong could stop that.

She remained sitting on the floor, hugging herself with her arms and shivering slightly whilst he went into the kitchen to make more coffee. He brought it back and set it down on the carpet beside her, taking his over to the sofa. Paul Simon was singing ‘Scarborough Fair' now and the wistfulness of the tune seemed to echo Maggie's aching emptiness.

‘What did you mean when you said things between you and Ari weren't quite the way I thought?' Mike asked. He said it conversationally, but the underlying tension told her he had probably been turning it over in his mind whilst he had been making the coffee.

She bit her lip. ‘Just that, really. But I shouldn't have said it at all. It was very disloyal of me.'

‘Disloyal?'

‘To Ari. It's not right to discuss my relationship with him. It's something between the two of us.'

‘I see. Do I take it that means you are not happy?'

‘Mike …' Again she struggled with her conscience; this time the desire to explain won. ‘Not really,' she said. ‘We do have our problems.'

‘Because of the culture divide, you mean?'

‘Partly. But it's not only that. There are … other things.'

‘Such as?'

‘Just … things. I don't want to talk about them.'

‘Another woman, you mean?'