State We're In (44 page)

‘Fine,' I lie. I don't give her any details. In the past, I've been far too garrulous about my problems, especially those of a romantic nature, but this time I can't find the words that will cover it. It's too big. It's too raw.

Lisa must hear despondency in my voice, because she makes an effort to almost hide her reluctance as she adds, ‘So the couch is still here; if you want it, it's yours.'

The thought of living in such close proximity to my mother right now is too much for me. I don't want to have to explain. ‘I think I'll go and stay with Dad. He's probably lonely. I'll go straight there from here.'

‘Good idea,' agrees Lisa, with a little too much enthusiasm. ‘There are plenty of spare beds at the parental home.'

I can't wait to get out of the airport. I decide I hate airports. I resent other people's excitement as they speed off to wonderful holidays or to invigorating business meetings, and now that I am at the centre of my own very real drama, I can't see the allure of other people calling out welcomes or phrasing difficult goodbyes. The shops are beneath my notice as I gaze around the terminal, no longer curious as to how many momentous events are occurring at this very second. The sound of my own heart breaking drowns out all the other declarations of love.

I'm going to close my eyes now. Enough.

D
ean decided to hire a car. It was quite a journey to Islington and it would no doubt have been quicker and certainly cheaper if he'd caught the tube, but he didn't feel he could dredge up the effort required to negotiate the tube and then find Jo's sister's home on foot. He wasn't familiar with that part of London and he was shattered; three transatlantic flights in six days was insane. He'd told work that he had to deal with urgent family business; it wasn't quite a lie. He did not know what time zone he was functioning in, nor was he sure if the uncomfortable ache in his body was the result of tiredness, hunger or loss. He feared it was loss.

It was a loss tinged with anger, as so many of Dean's losses were. He was nipped by bouts of irritation and disappointment with Jo for being such an idiot. She should have had more faith, or at least sense. If only she'd woken him up. How could she have thought he was married? After all they'd talked about, after all they'd done. A flashback as to exactly what they had done seared his brain. Thoughts of her perfect smile and her fingernails, her peachy arse and her optimism mingled and clashed about his head. Hot images of him kissing and licking her, stroking and entering her cut through his anger. She should have trusted him, but he'd sort it out. He'd explain and reassure, and eventually they'd laugh about this, wouldn't they? Dean was buoyed up by an inner confidence; despite the vanishing act, he did not think it was likely that Jo had simply fallen out of love with him. Women didn't do that to him; Jo wouldn't do that to anyone.

The house was, as Dean might have imagined it to be if he'd taken the time to imagine, a three-storey early Victorian family home in Islington. It was built in an attractive grey stone; imposing in its day, but now shabby enough to appear comfortable and inviting. He climbed up three steps and rapped on the door with the enormous silver knocker; it thudded against the shiny navy paint.

He'd expected Jo to be home alone. He'd thought that her sister and brother-in-law would be at work and the kids would be at school or nursery. So he was surprised when a woman in her late fifties flung open the door. Her face was initially hopeful, then momentarily disappointed; finally she efficiently rearranged her expression into a picture of polite serenity. It was the show face that allowed Dean to guess that this woman must be Jo's mother. He knew enough about her life to deduce that she was used to and capable of putting on a best face when needed. He grinned, and for the first time in his life his grin did not have the effect he was hoping for. Rather than succumb to his evident charm, Mrs Russell suddenly turned pale; she looked bewildered and nervous.

‘Hello, can I help you?' she asked cautiously.

‘I'm looking for Jo Russell.'

‘Joanna Russell doesn't live here,' Mrs Russell stuttered.

‘Yes, I know that. I realise this is her sister's home. It's Lisa, isn't it? But I thought she was staying here.' Jo's mother remained rigid and wary. Dean got it; people who lived in big cities generally gave little away to surprise visitors. He took on the responsibility of putting them both at their ease, pulling out his best Sunday manners. ‘You must be Mrs Russell. How do you do?' He stretched out his hand. ‘I'm Jo's friend from Chicago.' He smiled, and this time he took care to flash his most appealing and winning one. ‘I'm Dean Taylor.'

Mrs Russell's hand had been reaching forwards to shake the one Dean proffered, but on hearing his name she pulled her hand to her heart as though she'd been shot. Dean thought that Jo must have told her mother all about him and that she too thought he was a married scumbag.

‘I'm not married, Mrs Russell, please let me explain.'

‘Did you just say your name is Dean Taylor?'

‘Yes. But I can explain about the ring.' Dean put his foot on the threshold so that she couldn't close the door on him and lock him out; she looked as though she wanted to. ‘It's not my ring, it's my father's.' Mrs Russell looked more confused, not less. ‘I know Jo thinks I'm married, which is why she left in a hurry, but I'm not. Please let me explain. I've come all the way from America to explain.'

Mrs Russell had now turned so pale she was almost transparent. He was sure that she was going to slam the door in his face, but she didn't; she held it wide open and with a sigh muttered, ‘You'd better come in.'

C
lara made tea. She was British and clearly slap bang in the middle of a crisis, and so, of course, she made tea. She needed time to think, to process and understand, so she left the handsome man alone in Lisa's sitting room. He perched keenly on the edge of a chair, desperate to offer his explanation. Clara knew that she'd be the one delivering explanations, and she was considerably less keen to offer up hers.

She hovered in the kitchen while the kettle boiled, occasionally sneaking into the hallway to peek through the open sitting room door and steal a look at him. Dean Taylor was so especially beautiful. She saw more of her Eddie in him than she had seen in the dying grey man whom she had visited for these past few days. He had the same eyes; eyes that could raze and expose a woman's soul in an instant. Deep, endlessly deep eyes that sparkled with possibility. He had the same dark, brooding looks that Eddie had once possessed. He was big, broad, muscular and athletic. Yet he was not exactly like Eddie. Dean Taylor exuded a confidence but not an arrogance; he had a fragility and wariness about him, the like of which had never touched the older Taylor. She didn't see any irresponsibility or lust in Dean's gaze; he was more about hope and nervous excitement. She hadn't thought it possible, but here was a man who was more attractive than Eddie Taylor. She fully understood why her daughter had fallen in love with him.

Clara wished that Lisa had cups and saucers rather than just mugs; mugs were more intimate than Clara felt ready to be with this young man. She did her best to bring some protective formality to the situation, although she feared it would only be a matter of minutes before the whole thing collapsed into a swamp of emotions and retributions: she made the tea in a pot, with leaves, rather than in the mugs using mathematically shaped tea bags, and she put a jug of milk and a bowl of sugar on the tray, along with spare spoons (people seemed to forget that one spoon was required for tipping, another for stirring). She hunted around and unearthed a packet of chocolate chip biscuits; she put half a dozen on a plate, wondered if that looked stingy and then added another two. She wished she'd baked this morning. Lisa never baked, but Clara didn't like offering shop-bought produce.

As she carried the tea tray into the sitting room, she was aware that she was shaking, because the tray rattled tellingly. Dean Taylor must have assumed she was struggling under the weight; he jumped to his feet and offered to take it from her. ‘I'm quite all right, I can manage,' she said firmly, her tone harsher than she'd intended; it was her nerves making her sound officious when really she simply didn't want to trouble him.

They sat opposite one another but not looking at one another.

‘Tea?'

‘That would be lovely.'

‘Milk?'

‘Yes please.'

‘Sugar?'

‘No thank you.' Neither one felt it was the moment to throw out the usual quip that he was sweet enough. Clara glanced at him from under her lashes. He was, though, there was no doubt about it.

‘Biscuit?'

‘No thank you.' Then, ‘Actually, yes please. Thinking about it, I am hungry.'

He took a biscuit but Clara noticed he didn't bite into it. She wondered whether he'd accepted it to be polite or because he was tense too and having a biscuit in his hand meant he'd have something to play with. Clara never snacked between meals, but she found herself taking one as well.

She didn't know where to start. ‘So you're the young man my daughter met in Chicago?' It seemed as good a place as any.

‘Yes, we met on her flight over there.'

‘And became lovers?'

Dean was at that moment sipping his hot tea and so spluttered it over his knee, a little spraying on to the carpet. Clara's directness clearly shocked him. She hadn't been aiming to shock; she simply wanted the facts.

Dean obviously wasn't ready for that level of confidence, and would only confirm, ‘We became close. Very close. But on Monday morning she found a wedding ring in my pocket.' He reached into his pocket and dug out the fat gold band. He held it between his thumb and forefinger, briefly examining it as though it was an object from out of space before throwing it on to the coffee table between them. Clara gasped at the sight of it. The ring spun for a moment, and then clattered to a standstill. The sunlight caught it and winked. Neither of them could tear their eyes away from the damned thing. Clara had always found Eddie's wedding ring horribly compelling. Dean continued. ‘She thought it was mine, but it isn't. It's my father's. He left it to me. He's dying and he left me his wedding ring.'

Clara closed her eyes, but it was too late. She could not shut out what she knew to be unequivocally true. His looks, the familiar-looking ring, his father dying; there was no room for doubt. She'd wanted it all to be a coincidence, even his name, but it wasn't; it was evidence. She could feel tears under her lids. She remembered her call with Jo on Monday, the abrupt way the conversation had ended. Jo had showered the line with expletives just after Clara had mentioned the name of her lover. These tears were for Jo and Dean. What had she done to them? She sniffed robustly, in a manner that was quite unlike her usual ladylike one.

‘I'm so sorry to hear about your father,' she said carefully.

‘Thank you, but we weren't close.' Dean jutted his chin out a fraction. He evidently did not want to labour under the weight of unasked-for sympathy. He put down his mug and thoughtlessly picked up a tiny toy car that had been left on the floor. He played absent-mindedly with the wheels. ‘In fact I hated him until very recently,' he blurted.

‘I see.' The chocolate chips in Clara's cookie had melted as she'd gripped the treat throughout the conversation; she put it down on the tray untouched and carefully, bravely asked, ‘You no longer hate him?'

‘I'm not sure. I think it's impossible to hate someone who is dying. I'm closer to indifference.'

‘Well, that's better.' Clara meant it was better for Dean. She didn't want him to be ripped apart by hate, not on top of everything else. She hoped he didn't think she was simply a priggish old woman morally judging him.

It was clear he had understood her when he admitted mournfully, ‘Not really. I think I've just transferred my hate to another subject.'

Clara hazarded a guess. ‘His mistress?' Dean's head shot up and he stared at her with surprised admiration; he clearly thought she was psychic, or at least especially insightful. How else could she have waded through this quagmire and reached the correct conclusion? ‘I am his mistress,' she declared bluntly.

Dean's look of admiration instantly changed to one of fear and mystification. ‘What?'

‘I'm the woman your father left you for. At least I think I am. Your father was Eddie Taylor, correct?'

‘Yes.'

‘And he left you twenty-nine years ago?' This time Dean could not find words; he simply nodded. All doubt extinguished. Hope with it. ‘I'm so sorry,' finished Clara.

Of course it was not enough; how could it be? Clara hadn't expected it to be. No longer fearful and mystified, Dean looked as though he wanted to slap her, but a man like the one he'd forced himself to become would never do such an uncivilised, ungallant thing. He simply glared at her. Blind fury and – so much harder to bear – undiluted agony flooded out of his eyes and bored into her. His cheek muscles quivered. ‘My guess is that Jo worked out as much and I think that's why she left you. She doesn't believe you're married. I think she simply believed that the two of you could never have a future. So she left.'

‘Because of you.'

‘I suppose.' Clara shrugged. Her gesture wasn't motivated by carelessness or apathy; it was the result of a profound despair. How could it have come to this? She'd spent her entire life trying not to hurt her children, and now there was this. She thought she'd probably made the right assumptions. Oh, her poor daughter. This poor man. What a state they had been left in. Clara was engulfed in a new wave of shame and despair. When would it stop? When would the consequences of her actions cease to have an impact? The ripples seemed to spread endlessly, widening rather than depleting. She'd dropped a pebble, but the tsunami waves still crashed around them, threatening to drown them all.