The Older Man (21 page)

“Mr Morrison said not to bother with dinner, he’ll bring something in and run you home afterwards,” Mrs Beddoe said.

Rennie crushed a pang of jealousy that the message had been given to the other woman, not to her. Out with the old, and in with the new, she told herself. She toyed with the idea of going home by bus before Grant arrived. But it would be impolite, and perhaps cowardly. And the children would want to know why.

He brought Chinese food with him, much more than they could eat, and while Mrs Beddoe put the children to bed, he said, “I’ll take you home.”

She fetched her small bag, which he took from her and swung into the back seat before opening the passenger door for her.

She was doing up her safety belt when he got in beside her. She thought he hesitated an instant before he started the car, but she was still adjusting her belt, not looking at him.

He drove in silence, seemingly concentrating on the traffic, and she could think of nothing to say. A small, cold wad of misery was lodged somewhere in the region of her heart.

When he drew up outside her house, he said, “You’ll be glad to be home again.”

“I’ll miss … the children.”

He glanced at her, then looked away, fishing in the breast pocket of the suit he wore. “Your wages,” he said, handing her an envelope. “And a bonus.”

“Thank you. I didn’t expect any bonus.”

“You’ve earned it.”

She sat fiddling with the envelope. He reached across her and flipped open the glove-box. “And this is — well, something extra. I hope you’ll like it.”

It was much more expertly wrapped than the children’s presents. She removed the silver paper with its looped bow, and opened the box inside, to lift out a crystal suspended from a gold hoop that curved round to form a circular stand. It was simple and beautiful. She held it on the palm of her hand, and he touched the crystal with a finger, making it dance and glint, even in the gathering dusk.

“You didn’t have to give me anything,” she said, blinking away tears.

“I wanted to. I didn’t buy you a birthday present. Chocolates don’t count.” He paused. “You don’t like it?”

“Yes, of course I do. I love it.”

She replaced the lovely thing carefully in its box, trying to put off the moment when she had to say goodbye.

He watched her hands, and when she looked up again, he gave her faint smile, and touched her cheek with the back of his index finger. She turned her head against his hand, and somehow his fingers were tangled in her hair. His face was very close. He was holding himself still.

She said, “You could at least kiss me goodbye.”

His smile was crooked. “Not a good idea, Rennie.”

She moistened her lips with her tongue. “Well, Mahomet — ” She curled her hand behind his neck, and lifted her face until her mouth found his. She felt him go rigid, and slid her hand down his neck inside the collar of his shirt, and dug her nails into his skin, at the same time opening her mouth with a desperate, angry passion, her teeth closing momentarily on his lower lip.

Grant made a low noise in his throat, and the hand in her hair convulsed and tugged painfully, pulling her head back.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded hoarsely, his eyes ablaze with furious desire. “Have you any idea what you’re asking for?”

“Yes. I’m not a child, Grant.”

“The hell you’re not!” he groaned. And then his mouth was on hers, his hand in her hair, their breath mingling. He trailed a finger down her throat and a moment later firmly cupped her breast in his palm, making her heart treble its beat. She arched toward him with her arms about his neck, and felt his hand sweep down to her hip, her thigh, then up to her waist under the edge of her loose T-shirt, stroking the heated skin. A finger traced the line of her backbone from waist to nape and back again, and his palm found her breast once more, this time with only a thin layer of nylon and lace between them. Her head was pressed against the back of the seat, his tongue mercilessly exploring her mouth. She freed one hand and burrowed under his jacket, trying to hold him closer to her. His hand was inside her bra now, touching her, reminding her how it had been lying almost naked with him on his bed, and she made a long guttural sound of pleasure and satisfaction.

And yet it wasn’t enough. Even as she moved against his hand, abandoned to that sweet caress, she knew that it wasn’t going to be enough.

Then the pleasure unexpectedly spilled over and she cried out against his open mouth so that he lifted it from hers, and she shuddered in his arms, hearing his shaking voice in her ear saying, “Rennie? Rennie! I don’t believe this. Darling…” The last with a kind of stunned amusement.

Her head had fallen against his shoulder, and she was filled with a delicious lassitude and slowly fading pleasure. He smoothed her hair, his lips on her temple, and whispered, “Rennie? Are you all right?”

She nodded.

“You are quite a girl.”

“That was quite a kiss,” she said drowsily.

His chest shook with silent laughter. “You could say that.”

“That never happened to me before.”

“No?” he enquired tenderly.

She shook her head again. “Never.”

“Well, it’s bound to happen again. Though not necessarily in the same way.”

There was a grim sadness in his tone that made her raise her head from its comfortable resting place. “And not with you?” she asked painfully.

She was ferociously glad at the look of torment in his eyes. “You’re not making this easy for me.”

“No.” she said, cruelly obdurate in her despair. “I don’t want to make it easy.”

He nodded, almost smiling. “That’s my girl.”

“But I’m not,” she said. “Am I? In spite of — everything.”

“You can’t be! For your own sake — “

“You don’t need to dress it up in self-sacrifice. The truth is, you want me, you — love me, but not enough.” She moved away from him. “That’s it in a nutshell, isn’t it?”

He had shifted back, too. His hand was clenched hard on the steering wheel. It was dark now, and she couldn’t see his eyes. “You have a neat ability to cut through to the kernel, Rennie.” He shrugged. “What more can I say?”

She was too proud to cry. It was nothing she hadn’t known all along, and she would probably think herself lucky, some day, that he hadn’t been the sort of man who would have taken what he could get and then discarded her. Because surely that would have been worse. If anything could be worse than what she was feeling now.

He stooped and picked up the box with its torn wrapper that had dropped to the floor of the car. “Here,” he said, and closed her hands over it very gently. “I’ll get your bag.”

It was going to be a long year, Rennie told herself on the first day of the new term. But she would get through it. And at the end of it she would have a law degree. Three months later she’d have professional exams to sit, and at twenty-one she would be eligible to be admitted to the bar, as planned.

Her friends would have said that in her last university year, Rennie had a high old time. On beach trips with friends she swam out to sea the furthest and climbed highest on the cliffs. When a group decided to go to Ruapehu to ski, Rennie was first on the slopes, and the last to give up and return to the ski hut, where she led the singing in front of the stove for hours. At parties Rennie was always there, tossing her impossible hair over her shoulders and talking, laughing, flirting until nearly everyone else had gone home. If there was dancing, Rennie was first on the floor and the most energetic performer, outlasting all her partners.

Her mother looked at her askance a few times, and hinted that if she wanted to talk…

But Rennie just hugged her, gave her a husky, “Thanks. I know.” And kept her own counsel. She was long past the stage where her mother could kiss the hurt better.

She visited Toby and Ellen often, after her daytime lectures and before Grant came home. She was surprised at how much she missed them, at the rush of love that always came over her when they greeted her with hugs and clamoured to tell her what they had been doing since she saw them last. Her heart ached a little at the small changes that she noticed between visits, Toby becoming less solemn, developing a mischievous sense of humour and telling terrible jokes learned from his friends, Ellen losing the last of her baby fat and talking about going to school. They were growing up so fast, and she had a passionate desire to be with them, not to miss any phase of their development.

But she forced herself to make the visits further apart. Just before the May holidays she phoned Grant and asked for his permission to take them out for a day. He gave it coolly, asked how she was, made arrangements for her to collect the children, and said a firmly pleasant goodbye.

When she went to fetch Toby and Ellen, they met her at the door and took her into the lounge. Grant stood up with a glass of something in his hand and said, “Hello, Rennie, how are you? You remember Lorna, don’t you?”

Lorna Fielding was there, smiling and looking very much at home, her blonde hair as sleek as the first time Rennie had met her, but her smart businesslike clothes replaced by equally smart casual slacks and a loose but beautifully styled shirt.

“I’m all right,” Rennie said. She wrenched her eyes away from the strangely intent look Grant was giving her and said hello to the other woman. With some difficulty she managed to conduct a polite if stilted conversation, and, refusing a drink, got the children away as quickly as she could. She deduced that Lorna and Grant were looking forward to a quiet day together.

Extravagantly, she took the children to Kelly Tarlton’s underwater world. She knew Grant had taken them there once or twice, and Toby was keen to go again. Ellen held her hand for a good deal of the time they were in the tunnel via which the aquarium stingrays, sharks and other sealife were viewed. But she didn’t seem frightened.

Afterwards Rennie bought them milkshakes and a snack, and they walked a little way along the waterfront, watching the ferries and sailboats on the harbour, and having a look at a cruise ship that was in port, before boarding a bus to go home.

When they returned there was no sign of Lorna. Grant met them at the door, asking, “Had a good day?”

The children proceeded to tell him exactly why. Rennie said, “Well, I’ll be getting along,” and was in the act of turning when he said abruptly, as though he hadn’t meant to, “Don’t run off just yet. Come in for a few minutes.”

She shook her head, but he reached out and took her arm, and she found herself in the hallway, then being led into the lounge.

“Sit down,” Grant said. “Can I get you some coffee? A drink?”

“I should be getting home,” she said.

“I’ll drive you. The children can come along. You’ve already been on enough buses today. And with two kids in tow.”

“Do I look tired or something?”

“Not particularly. You look remarkably fresh and quite — beautiful.” His voice was suddenly husky.

She hadn’t expected him to say anything like that. “Flattery will get you anywhere,” she responded. “That is, it would if you wanted it to,” she added gloomily.

Grant laughed, and the tension relaxed a little. “You can’t be kept down, can you, Rennie?”

“That makes me sound like some kind of noxious weed.”

He shook his head. “An exotic plant, perhaps. Definitely not a weed.”

“The definition of a weed is a plant that’s growing where it’s not wanted, isn’t it?”

She thought she probably fitted the description rather well, but Grant just shook his head and said, “Sure I can’t get you something?”

“All right,” she said. “Coffee.” He would have to go in the kitchen to make it, and that might give her a chance to gather her defences.

By the time he brought it, the children had disappeared to play outside. “You don’t have to do this,” she said, stirring in sugar.

“I wanted one for myself, anyway. How did you enjoy the outing?”

“Very much. I love being with them. They seem to have got over any problems they might have had about their mother’s death.”

“I think they’re both managing well. I heard Toby once explaining to Ellen exactly what I’d told him.”

“About him and his sister not being responsible?”

“Yes. I think eventually it sank in.”

“It must be awful for a child to feel guilty about something like that.”

“Yes. It’s bad enough for an adult.”

“Do you feel guilty?” Rennie asked. “About Jean?”

“I was guilty of a lot of things. I can’t dodge that. At the same time, it’s no use dwelling on what can’t now be mended. The main thing is not to make the same mistakes over again.”

“You mean you won’t ever marry again.”

His eyes rested on her enigmatically. “It’s unlikely.”

Because, she thought, after one failed marriage, he didn’t want to risk another. He’d been hurt, and seemed to feel worse about the fact that he’d hurt his wife. He’d lost confidence in his ability to sustain a permanent relationship, was still flailing himself for the breakdown of his marriage. Still brooding over his own failure and his part in his wife’s unhappiness. The anger Rennie had felt with him after his rejection of her love shook her again. She tried to despise him for his lack of trust in himself, in her. Instead, she felt a wave of love and pity.

She thought about Lorna Fielding. Did she hope to be the second Mrs Morrison? Or would she settle for something less?

“Did you enjoy your day?” she asked him.

Perhaps he had followed her train of thought. His eyes crinkled at the corners. “Very much,” he said. “It was nicely restful.”

Lorna looked a restful sort of person. Was that what he wanted? Someone composed and self-possessed and mature, as Rennie imagined Lorna to be, rather than volatile and unpredictable and sometimes disastrously impulsive, like herself?

Feeling suddenly depressed, she finished her coffee and said, “I’m ready to go whenever it suits you.”

She and Shane had both been invited to a twenty-first birthday party that night. Shane wanted to borrow their parents’ car for the occasion and as he hadn’t long had his licence their father was a little reluctant to give permission.