Thicker Than Water (3 page)

‘Oh good, darling, you
are
back,’ came his mother’s voice. ‘Could I come up for a minute? I’ve something rather exciting to tell you.’

Abigail, watching him, saw him stiffen, and her apprehension increased. He glanced back at her and said carefully into the phone, ‘It’s not – terribly convenient just at the moment.’

‘I shan’t keep you, if you’re on your way out. Admittedly it could wait till tomorrow, but you mightn’t want everyone to know.’

‘Tomorrow?’ he repeated blankly.

‘Oh, darling, you’re coming to lunch, with Tina, Ben and the children. Don’t say you’d forgotten? Look, can you buzz me? My shopping basket’s getting heavier by the minute.’

‘Of course,’ he said dully. ‘Sorry.’

He pressed the entry button, and turned to Abigail. ‘I’m very sorry about this,’ he said rapidly. ‘It’s my mother, and I haven’t had a chance to tell her.’

‘Your mother?’ Abigail gazed at him in horror. ‘She lives nearby?’

‘The whole family does. Didn’t you realize?’

Panic fluttered in her throat, all her old doubts and fears resurfacing. She’d not even known he
had
a mother! she thought hysterically; she’d pictured them living just for each other, cocooned from the world. There was his fiancée, of course, but she was now past tense and, despite Abigail’s initial fear, unlikely to put in an appearance. But a complete family, comprising God knew how many—

A voice reached them from the stairs. ‘It was pure chance that I bumped into Chloë Bainbridge in Waitrose. She was telling me—’

Rosemary Markham, having rounded the stairhead, broke off, her eyes going past James to Abigail’s motionless figure, champagne flute in hand.

James, moistening his lips, said carefully, ‘Ma, this is Abigail. We met in London. Abigail, my mother.’

His mother – not safely buried in some country churchyard, as she’d subconsciously assumed, but very much alive, and, still more unbelievably,
here
: slim, attractive, and staring at her in growing bewilderment.

‘How do you do?’ Abigail said numbly.

The older woman nodded acknowledgment. She glanced at the champagne bottle on the table. ‘You’re celebrating something?’

James looked helplessly from one blank face to the other. He cleared his throat.

‘Ma, I’d meant to give you some warning – in fact, I thought Tina – but you’ve – taken us by surprise.’

‘So it seems.’

‘In which case,’ James continued miserably, ‘I’d better come straight out with it. Abigail and I are going to be married.’

Two

Andrew Markham was sitting in a canvas chair on his front veranda, a glass of beer at his side. From here, he had a grandstand view of the cricket match, nearing its close on the green opposite. The village team had earlier declared for two hundred, and the visitors were now on a hundred and seventy-five, with their last man in.

Impinging on the shout of the umpire came the sound of a car rapidly approaching, followed by a crunch of gravel as it turned into the drive. His wife had returned home. Across the road, the batsman began an ill-considered run, reaching the safety of the crease a breath ahead of the incoming ball. The car door slammed, but instead of garaging it, as she invariably did, Rosemary came hurrying round the corner of the house towards him.

‘Andrew! You won’t believe what’s happened!’

‘Then you’d better tell me,’ he answered mildly, his eyes still on the match.

She ran up the veranda steps, her face flushed and her voice breathless. ‘It’s James. He’s dumped Sylvie and become engaged to someone else!’

A loud shout went up from the green as the batsman was caught out, and Andrew, retuning his attention to his wife, belatedly took in what she had said. He stared at her as she dropped into the vacant chair beside him.

‘He’s
what
?’

‘We’ve not received any phone messages, have we? Apparently Tina knows, and I can’t believe she wouldn’t have told us.’

‘I didn’t get in till gone three, and came straight out here.’

‘Without checking the answerphone?’ It didn’t surprise her; Andrew never checked, believing that if the message was important, the caller would ring back.

‘Anyway,’ he continued, ‘never mind Tina, what’s this about James? Has he taken leave of his senses?’

‘I think he must have, and it was pure chance I found out. After the exhibition and lunch, I popped into Waitrose, and Chloë Bainbridge was there. She was asking if we’d fixed a date for the wedding, then she very kindly said they’d be welcome to have her villa in the Maldives for their honeymoon. So I thought I’d tell James straight away. He was most reluctant to let me in, and I soon discovered why: there was this girl, standing in the middle of the living room with a glass of champagne in her hand, and the pair of them looking as guilty as sin.

‘James introduced her, said they’d met in London, and were going to be married!’

‘Met when?’ Andrew interrupted. ‘He’s never mentioned her before, has he?’

‘Met
last week
, would you believe, while he was on the course. That’s the point! They can’t know each other at all! I can’t imagine what he’s thinking of!’

‘What did you say?’

‘When I got my breath back, I asked what he proposed to do about Sylvie. It was most embarrassing, I can tell you, with the girl standing there. And he calmly told me he’d already been to see her, and broken off their engagement.’

‘Ye gods.’ Andrew reached for his glass and drank. ‘Sounds as though he’s serious, then.’

‘Oh, he’s serious all right. For now. But Andrew, it’s infatuation! It has to be! One day he’ll wake up and realize what he’s done. He can’t just switch his affections like that, in the batting of an eye!’

Andrew rotated his glass in his fingers. ‘In my opinion,’ he said slowly, ‘they were never very heavily engaged with Sylvie.’

Rosemary stared at him. ‘But they’ve always been together! We always thought—’

‘And that’s just the point: everyone expected them to get married. He held off as long as he could, didn’t he? If he’d loved her, he wouldn’t have gone off to the States for two years, and risk losing her to someone else. Oh, I don’t doubt he’s fond of her, and they’d probably have been happy enough, if he’d not suddenly come face to face with the real thing. If, of course, it
is
the real thing with this girl. What’s her name, by the way?’

‘Abigail something.’

‘What’s she like?’

‘Lovely to look at: almost as tall as James, with flawless skin, green eyes, dark hair. As to personality, I’ve no idea. I don’t think I actually spoke to her, or she to me, except for the initial introduction.’ She paused, gazing across the road to where the cricketers were drawing stumps and collecting their belongings. ‘He wanted to bring her to lunch tomorrow.’

Andrew stiffened. ‘You didn’t agree?’

‘No, I did not. We need time to assimilate this, make sure it really is going ahead. Anyway, it would seem like a betrayal of Sylvie. The only reason
she’s
not coming is because it’s her sister’s birthday.’ She put a hand to her head. ‘Oh God, Andrew, what are we going to do?’

‘There’s not much we
can
do,’ he said with a sigh. ‘I agree we’re not ready to socialize with this girl, but I think we should see James. How long is she here for?’

‘I didn’t ask, but she’ll probably need to be back by Monday.’

Behind them in the sitting room, the phone started ringing. Rosemary went to answer it, and her daughter’s voice immediately exclaimed, ‘At last! Why do you never have your mobile switched on?’

‘Because it’s the height of bad manners to receive calls when being shown round an exhibition and attending a formal lunch. I presume this is about James?’

‘Ah.’ An exhalation of breath. ‘You’ve heard, then.’

‘More than heard. I walked in on them.’

‘God, Ma, what happened?’

‘Embarrassment all round.’

‘What’s she like?’

‘Beautiful. That’s all I know. When did you hear about it?’

‘He came for supper last night, and sprang it on us at the end of the meal. By the time we’d finished talking it was too late to phone, and when I tried this morning, you’d already left.’ She paused. ‘Sylvie came round.’

Rosemary caught her breath. ‘How is she?’

‘Shattered. It was – awful. God, he’s my brother, but I could willingly strangle him! He’s no right to hurt her like that. She’ll have to face all our friends – and for that matter, so will we. Everyone will be on her side, and who can blame them?’

‘Who indeed?’ said Rosemary dully.

James returned from showing his mother out to find Abigail tense and white-faced.

He hurried to put his arms round her. ‘Oh, darling, I’m so sorry. What a way to meet your future mother-in-law!’

Her fingers gripped his lapels, and he felt her trembling. ‘It’s not only that,’ she said shakily, ‘it’s the whole family thing. James, I don’t
do
families! I thought there’d be just us, not a whole host of relatives clustering round and dropping in on us all the time!’

He stroked her hair soothingly. ‘That was a bad first impression, I know, but normally we get along fine. We’re really a very close family—’

He broke off as she shook her head violently. ‘I don’t
want
a close family – I want you to myself!’

He frowned in bewilderment. ‘What about your own people? You must—’

She straightened, moving away from him. ‘Both my parents are dead. I suppose that’s why I assumed yours were.’

‘You must have someone, though?’

‘No one who counts.’

‘But – they’ll come to the wedding, surely?’

‘I shouldn’t think so; I’ve not seen them for years.’

He said gently, ‘That sounds a very lonely existence.’

‘I’ve had my work, and my friends.’

‘Well, I’ll make sure my lot don’t crowd us, at least in the early days, though I hope you’ll soon think of Tina and Ben as friends, too.’

‘But you told me – Sylvie, is it? – is your sister’s friend. She’s not likely to welcome me, is she?’

‘Nonsense; Tina’s never one to hold a grudge. Still, it’s a pity you can’t meet them all tomorrow, and – get it over with.’

He remembered his mother’s cool reply when he’d suggested just that: ‘I don’t think so, do you?’

‘In a week or two,’ he added resolutely, ‘we’ll be wondering what all the fuss was about. In the meantime, we mustn’t let this cast a blight over your visit. I’ve booked a table at a super little restaurant, and since it’s within walking distance, we needn’t worry about drinking. OK?’ He looked anxiously into her face.

She nodded, summoning up a smile. ‘OK. Sorry if I overreacted. Of course it was a shock for your mother, especially when she’d no forewarning.’

‘They’ll soon come round, just you see.’

He reached for her hand and drew her to him. The length of her was still a novelty, thighs, breast and mouth almost on a level with his own, in marked contrast to petite Sylvie, kissing whom had frequently resulted in a crick in the neck.

But this was no time to think of Sylvie. Abigail’s caresses were becoming more insistent, and dinner was a while off. Still clinging to each other, they moved towards the bedroom.

Monday morning, and James’s mobile sounded as he was running up the stairs to his office.

‘James Markham.’

‘Good morning, James.’ A voice he didn’t immediately recognize. ‘Robert Warren here.’

Sylvie’s father! James came to a sudden halt, moving to one side as people continued to clatter past him up the stairs. ‘Good morning, Robert.’

‘I’m wondering if you’d be good enough to meet me for a drink after work?’

James groaned inwardly. Shotguns to the fore! ‘Well, I—’

‘The bar at the Queen’s Hotel, about six?’

His mind fumbled for excuses – previous engagements, dental appointments – but could come up with none that sounded plausible. ‘I’ll be there,’ he said.

The prospect of the meeting clouded his entire day, even diluting memories of his weekend with Abigail. After she left, late yesterday afternoon, he’d succumbed to a welter of conflicting emotions, miserable and elated in turn, and quite unable to settle. Meeting his friends was not an option, since he couldn’t face telling them his news; and Tina and Ben, his usual port in a storm, were for the moment barred to him. He was persona non grata at his parents’, and now, to cap it all, he’d have to account for himself to the father of his ex-fiancée.

While he was not looking forward to the prospect, it was only as he was eating a snatched lunch in a sandwich bar that a truly awful possibility occurred to him:
suppose Sylvie was pregnant?
Vague memories of breach of promise suits blundered round his head. Were they still in effect? He thought not but couldn’t be sure, and the uncertainty added to his apprehension. He wished, passionately and uselessly, that he and Abigail could fly away to some tropic isle, and let the rest of them go hang.

Robert Warren was there before him, seated at a table against the wall. Mentally crossing his fingers, James walked across to join him. Warren rose to shake his hand. Good sign, or bad?

‘What are you drinking?’ he asked.

‘Oh, let me—’

‘Not at all; you’re here at my request.’

‘Then a pint of best, please.’

He watched his host go up to the bar. Warren was of medium height, broad-shouldered and balding. James had always considered him fairly laid-back, but then, he’d never jilted his daughter before.

He returned with two brimming glasses, set them down on the table, and seated himself. Each of his actions seemed to James unduly protracted. Get on with it! his nerves were screaming.

Warren raised his glass and James responded, though no toast was given. Then he wiped a hand across his face and said, ‘This is a bit of a turn-up, isn’t it?’

‘I know. I’m – sorry.’

‘What happened, exactly?’

‘I was on a course in London, and I met this girl.’ How lame it sounded.

‘It does happen,’ Warren said drily. ‘However, you happened to be engaged to my daughter.’

‘I know. I’ve no excuse, and I can’t explain it. All I can say is I’d be no use to Sylvie, having met Abigail. The kindest thing seemed to be to end it straight away.’