What Women Want (23 page)

‘It isn’t the children.’ He sounded terse, angry.

She sat on the edge of the bed, mystified. ‘Well, what, then? The job-hunting?’

‘I wish you wouldn’t go on and on about that. I’ve told you I’m doing my best.’ As he turned to face her, he was flushed with anger. ‘I don’t know what else you want me to do.’

‘Don’t be like this. Please,’ she appealed, patting the duvet beside her. ‘Sit down with me. Let’s talk about it. I know things have been more difficult than we’d envisaged since Em and Matt came back but I’m trying my best to make everything work. That’s what I want more than anything.’

‘Do you?’ She was shocked by the force of his question. ‘Do you, really?’ Instead of sitting by her, he began to pace the room.

‘Of course. You know I do.’ How could he believe anything else after all they’d said to each other? ‘What’s happened to you? I really don’t understand.’

He ignored her last question, stopping to stare at the photo in his hand. ‘Why do you insist on sleeping with this by your bed?’ His voice was low, unloving suddenly.

‘My picture of Simon? He’s always been there. You know that.’ A cold arrow of anxiety found its way to her heart.

‘Have you ever thought about how I feel, with him watching us all the time?’

She couldn’t read his expression – or perhaps she didn’t want to try. ‘You’ve never said anything before.’ She cursed herself for not having moved the photo weeks ago, but whenever she’d thought about it, something had always stopped her.

‘I’m saying it now.’ His mouth twisted as he thrust the frame towards her so she was looking straight at Simon. ‘How can you expect me to make love to you with your husband looking on?’

‘I honestly never thought . . . but it’s only a photo. I can easily move him.’ Ellen didn’t understand how or why things had deteriorated so badly between them. She wanted to defuse the situation, but Oliver’s temper had made him unreachable all day. Now more than ever. She reached for the picture but he raised it above his head, out of her reach.

Then he threw it across the room with as much force as he could muster. Seconds seemed like minutes as she watched the frame spin through the air and smash against the wardrobe. The noise reverberated around the room as the glass shattered, flying from the frame, leaving Simon looking up through the few remaining splinters. For a second, both Ellen and Oliver stood staring at each other, stunned by what had just happened. The noise seemed to have shocked Oliver out of his rage: a hand covered his mouth and his eyes were wide and unreadable. Ellen was the first to move.

‘Have you completely lost your mind? There was absolutely no need for that.’ She snatched up the picture and ran from the room.

‘Ellen! Wait.’

But she had no intention of waiting. Nothing that had happened during the afternoon had justified this. Her only thought was to get as far away from Oliver as possible. She ran downstairs and into the kitchen. She wanted to be alone, to think, but there was nowhere she could escape him. She could hear him moving about upstairs. Then she saw the key to the shed gleaming on the hook by the french windows. Within moments she was padding barefoot across the damp grass and unlocking her studio. She sank onto the sofa bed, her head spinning.

She had no idea how much time passed before she began to notice how cold she was. The house was in darkness. The half-moon was hazy behind cloud. Oliver hadn’t even tried to follow her outside. She replayed that afternoon and evening again. Everything had obviously got on top of him so she should try to understand that. But to break something he knew was so very precious to her? That she couldn’t understand. However, she didn’t want to stay in the shed all night so she steeled herself to return to the house and a confrontation. He couldn’t be allowed to get away with that.

Turning the handle of the kitchen door, she thought she caught a glimpse of movement on the stairs. Then it was gone. She turned the handle again. She was as sure as she could be that she had left the lock unsnibbed. Not now. She shook the door. There was no question: it was locked.

‘Oliver!’ she whispered, as loudly as she dared, not wanting to wake the neighbours. ‘Oliver!’

No answer.

Had he followed her down, watched her let herself into the shed and then shut her out? Surely not. He had snapped out of his temper when the glass smashed. She had seen for herself how shocked he had been by his own action. But how else could the door have locked? Could she have been mistaken about the snib? Perhaps in her haste, she hadn’t secured it properly. She didn’t want to admit to herself what she knew to be the truth.

A light drizzle had set in. Wrapping her arms round herself in a useless attempt to keep warm and thanking God she’d had the presence of mind to grab an old cardigan from the back of a kitchen chair, she retreated to the shed to consider her options. The bedroom was at the front of the house so he wouldn’t hear a stone against the back windows. The safety glass she’d installed to protect the children meant she couldn’t break in. The overgrown trellis around the garden wall prevented her climbing over. In any case, there was only a faint landing light glowing from one of the neighbours’ houses. They had obviously all gone to bed. She would have to spend the night wrapped up in the two blankets she remembered were trussed in the base of the sofa-bed and hope she didn’t freeze to death. Furious, she put Simon’s photo on the table where she could see it and began to organise herself.

*

Ellen woke, rigid with cold, as dawn cast a flat grey light through the shed windows. For a second she didn’t remember where she was but then, as the events of the previous night came back to her, she sat up, confused. What had happened had taken on the insubstantiality of the dreams that had possessed her during her few hours of sleep. Something had made Oliver snap. How responsible was she for that? She couldn’t help him with a job but she should have been able to deal better with Emma than she had. Perhaps then this might have been avoided. She found it almost impossible to credit what had happened but the broken photo frame was proof. She got up and started moving about in an effort to reboot her circulation.

She made herself a cup of coffee and decided that as soon as she was safely indoors she would have it out with him. However badly the children provoked him, his behaviour was totally unacceptable. It was then that she noticed the blood that had flowed onto her nightdress from a cut on her finger.

Eventually she saw the light go on in the kitchen. Moments afterwards Oliver was running across the grass to the shed. He flung open the door. ‘Ellen! My love! What happened?’

‘You locked me out. Why?’ She was determined not to give an inch.

‘But I thought you’d gone into Em’s room to get away from me. I didn’t blame you after what I’d done. I had no idea you were out here.’

She was almost convinced but couldn’t stop herself stiffening as he put his arms round her. If he noticed, he ignored it.

‘You must have been freezing. I’m so, so sorry. I can’t apologise enough. I don’t know what came over me.’ He stroked the hair from her forehead as if she was a child. ‘Everything got on top of me. I know that’s not an excuse but I promise, absolutely promise, nothing like that will ever happen again.’

Her resolve to maintain her distance dissolved as she felt the warmth of his body, his touch. She let him lead her back to the house where he ran her a bath, fetched a clean towel and then her clothes. Nothing was too much trouble. At last, won over by his repeated apologies for his unwar-ranted display of temper, his assurances that there would be no repeat performance, his explanation of his frustration with the children, which he had tried to control, and his anxiety about finding a job, she forgave him.

She wanted their relationship to work. She wanted a step-father for Emma and Matt, however reluctant they were to have one. After so long, she wanted someone to look after her as well. She didn’t want to entertain any doubts that would spoil what they had. Her certainty that he was the man for her would surely pull them through. This episode had been a hiccup that in time they would forget.

Between the thin cotton curtains, Bea could just make out the skeletal outlines of trees through a blurring of mist. Drops of condensation trailed down the panes of glass, pooling on the window ledge above the woefully ineffective night storage heater. The throbbing above her right eye intensified as she tried to roll back up the slope of the mattress away from Mark, gathering the blankets round her as she did so. How she longed for the easy warmth of her multi-togged duvet and her pocket-sprung mattress at home. She tried to ease the grip on her memory of last night’s events but they refused to let go.

Ben had gone to spend the weekend with his father amid many complaints. She had managed to guilt-trip him into agreeing to go by pointing out how long it had been since he’d seen his half-sisters, how much his father missed him, then slipped in the added temptation of Carrie’s excellent (damn her) cooking. After he’d left, she dipped into an unpromising manuscript until Mark had eventually picked her up to drive to Norfolk. He was running too late for them to find somewhere open for supper on the way. Instead, having failed to spot even a chippie, they’d stopped at a Spar garage on the A11 to stock up with a few emergency rations before finally arriving at the cottage close to midnight. Nervous of what the rest of the night had in store, they both rushed to open the first of the two Cabernet Sauvignon wine-boxes. Even the almost teetotal Mark glugged back the large glass he poured himself with obvious relief.

Then he had given Bea the two-minute tour, drawing the curtains and turning up the storage heaters as they went. The front door opened straight into the dining room where three chairs circled a round table with a dusty dried-flower arrangement. To the right, a tiny whitewashed kitchen held an old-style gas cooker with eye-level gas grill, a butler’s sink with wooden draining board, a fifties yellow metal cabinet and a large chopping-board sitting on an ancient fridge. So, cooking would be basic to non-existent, she registered with some relief. At least he wouldn’t be expecting her to knock up a three-course gourmet meal. Back through the dining room to the sitting room, where some tired armchairs and a sofa focused on a gaping inglenook fireplace with an aged TV to one side. At the far end there was a door to the garden with a nine-mile-an-hour draught racing in over the tiled floor, until Bea replaced the jolly snake draught excluder that had been kicked to one side. On the right was the bathroom with a single-bar electric fire that Mark switched on with a pull of its cord. O Health and Safety, where art thou? Bea cast her eyes heaven wards and saw dark patches of damp bubbling the plaster on the pale blue walls.

Upstairs in the eaves there were three bedrooms, one leading through to the next. All Bea noticed was the sub-zero temperature, the dead flies on the windowsills and the extremely uncomfortable-looking double brass bedstead (the only one) that they’d presumably be sharing later. Cue another drink. Swiftly followed by another when she spotted mouse droppings back in the kitchen.

As he showed her around, Mark continually apologised for the lack of a decent heating system, the mice (‘Sweet little field mice – you’ll see’), the long drive, the lack of shops. Bea countered with repeated reassurances that everything was just as she’d imagined. However, not for a moment had she imagined that when he’d said ‘basic’ he’d meant it. She hadn’t realised how basic things could get in the wilds of Norfolk. As he set about lighting a fire, Bea busied herself making cheese on toast with the plastic Cheddar and cotton-wool bread they’d picked up on the way, and took it through.

The strains of James Taylor came from the record player at the back of the room. Bea could see several LPs that she recognised at a glance, strewn on the rag rug beneath the listing standard lamp: Dory Previn, Fleetwood Mac, Nick Drake, Leonard Cohen, the Lovin’ Spoonful, Country Joe, the Byrds and, of course, the daddy of them all, Dylan. A record collection speaks volumes about a man, she thought.

Fortified by yet another glass of wine, they sat huddled together on the sagging sofa in front of the fire, plates on their knees. The flames roared up the chimney, taking most of the heat with them. Bea and Mark kicked off their shoes and stretched their feet into the fireplace as near as they dared.

‘It’s always like this to start with at this time of year. I should have warned you,’ said Mark. ‘By tomorrow it should feel much warmer, now I’ve turned the heating up. Here, have my sister’s gloves.’

Bea could feel that he was beginning to relax a little now, just as her initial misgivings were surrendering to the influence of the wine. As she slipped on the knitted fingerless gloves, she realised her feet were suddenly burning hot and pulled them back with a yelp, almost knocking her plate to the floor. Within seconds, they were freezing again and she gingerly moved them nearer to the fire. He laughed and took her hand. ‘What would you like to do tomorrow?’

They were on safe territory here. ‘Whatever you recommend.’ She extricated her hand so that she could pick up her last bit of toast.

‘Perhaps we should wait and see what the weather’s like. The forecast isn’t great but we should be able to get out for a bit.’ He put his plate on the floor, then straightened up and made a sudden lunge for her. She swiftly swallowed her toast, then gave herself up to him, wanting to enjoy whatever he had to offer. This was, after all, one of the reasons they had come. His tentative kisses grew more insistent as she lay back, trying to ignore the spring that threatened to work its way through to her spine. He smelt of lemons and cedar and his skin was soft against hers. She felt his tongue against her lips, promising and not too pushy, but when she opened her mouth in response she was appalled to find herself locked into the fast cycle of a washing-machine, his tongue everywhere, their teeth clashing. She pulled back for a moment, wiped her mouth as subtly as she could and took a sip of her wine. ‘Let’s take it slowly.’

‘Is something wrong?’ He looked so anxious that her heart went out to him.

‘Of course not. I’m just a bit rusty, that’s all. Just need a bit of Dutch courage.’ She leaned forward and decided to take back the initiative with one or two gentle hints as to what might float her boat.

Next morning, the veil that Bea would have preferred to draw over the rest of the evening kept snagging on incidents that refused to be forgotten. For a start, just as things were hotting up, techniques improving with use, they’d had to call a halt because Mark remembered he’d forgotten to make the bed. He sprinted down the path to the car where the laundered sheets were chilling on the back seat. By the time they’d turned the corners and replaced the blankets in the glacial atmosphere of the bedroom, all desire had frozen. Undressing each other would take too long so they hurled their clothes onto the floor and leaped between the icy sheets, grabbing each other for warmth. Minutes later, Bea was out of bed searching in her bag for socks before her feet got frostbite. Later again, Mark remembered he’d forgotten to put up the fireguard and was worried they’d burn the place down. Then he couldn’t find the condoms in his wallet and, with a flailing arm, Bea knocked her glass of wine over the bedside table. Eventually came the crowning memory of her consoling him when he had, as he put it, ‘severe hydraulic failure’.

‘Plenty of men can’t get it up the first time,’ she soothed, uncertain that there was even a grain of truth in what she’d said.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Absolutely. I’ve known several.’

‘Really?’

Even in the dim glow of the bedside light, she could see he was somewhat taken aback.

‘Well, not
all
of them with me, of course. I just read it somewhere.’ She didn’t want him to think he’d ended up, after all, with a complete ball-breaker. She was only making it up to reassure him. ‘I’m happy just lying here with you. Honestly.’

So that was what they’d done, talking and sipping wine until they could talk and sip no more. And now she was paying the price.

After such an inauspicious start, her heart sank at the thought of the weekend ahead. The weather was clearly going to be grim and they would be imprisoned in this basic cottage, trying to have sex or not trying at all. Oh, God. She groaned.

‘What is it?’ As he turned towards her, drowsy, shifting the balance of the mattress, she slid back down into the middle of the bed and his arms. She felt too fragile to resist, despite her desire to avoid a repeat performance. Sleepily, slowly, they embraced as she came to realise that the malfunction of the previous night had quite definitely been rectified. Relaxed by sleep, the cautious fumblings she’d rather not remember had been transformed into something approaching a technique. Despite her nagging headache, she let herself go with the flow only to be pleasantly surprised. Quick maybe, but spontaneous, sexy and definitely with the promise of greater things to come. As the weekend took a turn for the better, the veil that she’d been trying to draw over the last evening slipped into place.

He ran her a bath and, while she tried to find the courage to abandon the warmth of the water, he knocked up breakfast: bacon and eggs, toast and cafetière coffee. Dressed in leggings, trousers, thermal vest, a T-shirt, two jumpers and the fingerless gloves, Bea began to feel she was getting to grips with this living-in-the-country lark. ‘It’s not the weather that’s the problem, it’s the clothes you wear’: that was what Adele used to say in the days before they’d got central heating.

With the curtains open, she could see that they had arrived at a pretty brick-and-flint cottage surrounded by a rudimentary garden with a couple of flowerbeds on either side of the path between the front door and the gate. Beyond the garden there were fields to right and left with not another house in sight.

‘By this evening, the old place should be quite snug,’ Mark said, a trifle on the optimistic side, Bea felt. ‘Why don’t we go for a walk, find a pub for lunch and then see where we go from there? The mist’ll probably lift by lunchtime.’

Parking in Queen Anne’s Drive by Holkham Hall, they passed several optimistic birders armed with high-powered binoculars. Mark pointed out to her some black-headed gulls, Brent geese and a sparrow hawk but nothing more exotic. They took the sandy path at Holkham Bay through the silent pinewoods, eerie in the mist, emerging onto the dunes towards Burnham Overy Staithe. Clambering through the marram grass down to the beach, they walked along the wet sand, kicking at stones and knots of seaweed, picking up pieces of sculpted driftwood, puzzling over the mysterious presence of a large red fire extinguisher, talking all the while. When Mark took her hand, Bea didn’t object. From Gun Hill, they crossed back over the dunes and turned down beside the creek, taking the raised path across the wide expanse of marsh. As Mark had predicted, the mist had begun to lift so they could just make out the windmill, its black body capped white, its sails still, beyond the neat brick and clapboard buildings of the village. As they approached, the faint jingling of halyards carried across the mud flats towards them. A short walk took them to the coast road and the Hero, a gastropub where they ate a good lunch, Bea surprised by how comfortable she felt.

Afterwards they set off again, walking quickly, aware that they hadn’t long before dark. Their path took them inland towards Holkham Hall, through its landscaped estate, past the lake and the Hall itself, then following the drive through a herd of deer back to where they’d parked.

‘God, I’m exhausted.’ Bea collapsed into the car, feeling as if her legs and back were fused in a long line of pain.

‘Was that too far for you?’ Mark looked concerned. ‘I’m sorry. I love that walk because it packs in so much that’s great about this part of Norfolk – beach, woods, marshes, countryside and the formal grounds of the Hall. I wanted you to see it all.’

‘It was just a tiny bit longer than I’m used to, that’s all.’ Only about five miles longer, she thought, as she unlaced her shoes, rejoicing in the overwhelming feeling of release that spread through her feet and up her legs. She might never be able to move again.

‘Come here.’ Sitting in the encroaching darkness, Mark pulled her towards him.

Then again, perhaps she would.

*

Back at the cottage, now warmed through as he’d promised, Bea realised how much she wanted the weekend to go on. The promise of dinner in Wells, a bed stuffed with hot-water bottles and a jigsaw if the weather didn’t improve the next day was all she needed. Stuck in the middle of nowhere with a man she was beginning to like rather more than she’d expected, she felt that London was part of some other life. When Mark went out to get more logs, she settled herself by the fire only to discover that she couldn’t concentrate on the proof of an over-hyped American novel she hadn’t been able to stop herself packing just in case she had a free moment.

The previous week at Coldharbour had whizzed by. Not for months, even years, could she remember feeling so positive about her work. She’d rediscovered some of the enthusiasm she’d thought she’d lost for ever. Adam’s way of working was a refreshing change from the way things had been run in the past. He had brought a new energy into the office, not that she trusted him. Once the initial shake-up was over, he’d gone out of his way to encourage and refocus everyone who’d stayed. Not a man who managed from behind a closed door, he spent a good amount of time walking around, getting to know everyone and talking to them about what they were doing.

After an initial flurry of resentment at what was seen as distrust of their working methods and concern that he was just looking for a way to get rid of them, most people had settled down to appreciate his direct involvement and the trouble he was taking. Despite his alarming reputation, he was a dynamic leader who, for all the market problems, still believed in editorial integrity and leadership. He liked people who played their hunches and gave them the scope they needed. He wanted the back-up of sales projections but would support his staff when he saw belief and commitment, just as he had when Bea had bought
Bare Bones
. By the same token, she didn’t doubt for a moment that he’d show no mercy at the first slip-up.