Women and War (62 page)

Tara Kelly had arrived.

On the day before the opening she stood on the pavement outside the theatre unnoticed by the crowds of passersby gazing with something like wonder at her own picture, her own name, up there, where so many famous names had gone before. Yet her triumph was tinged with sadness.

She had made it. Not a doubt of it. But, oh Holy Mary, what had it cost her? For a moment success tasted bitter on her tongue and she buried her face in the soft dark hair of the child in her arms.

‘See Margaret? Look – that's your Mammy up there. What do you think of that now?'

The child, unimpressed, took hold of a handful of Tara's hair and tugged. Her eyes, blue as Tara's, were wide behind their fringing of lashes, her mouth a pursed up rose-pink button. Tara's heart filled with love. Whatever else it had cost her she still had Margaret. Richard and his mother could do what they liked, they would never take Margaret away from her. Never.

Almost a month she had had her now and in spite of all the problems she felt it had been the happiest month of her life. Why had she waited so long to take Margaret? She should have done it long ago, when Margaret was still a baby. She had always intended to. But in the struggle to reach the top of her profession it had seemed better for Margaret to leave her for a while in the stable surroundings she knew. She had her own room and her nanny and Richard, whatever his failings as a husband, was without doubt a doting father. So Tara had delayed the moment of decision.

Then, a month ago, events had forced the decision on her.

She was playing the Tivoli in Melbourne and at the first opportunity had rushed eagerly out to the Allingham house to see Margaret. The reception had been cool as it always was and she had been annoyed to find Alys Peterson – or Alys Hicks as she now was – there. But it was not that alone which had made up her mind. It was realizing with a shock that Margaret was no longer a baby who simply needed love and care. She was growing up into a little girl who knew and took notice of those around her, responding to them with affection. And the person she seemed most eager to respond to was Alys.

‘Does Alys spend much time here?' she asked Richard coolly when they were alone. ‘I would have thought now she is married to John she would have better things to do.'

He held her look. Alys and John had been married six months earlier and Tara never missed an opportunity to needle him about it.

‘Not a great deal of time, no.'

‘Strange. She always seems to be here when I come. And Margaret seems to know her well.'

A shadow of discomfort passed over his face.

‘We sometimes go out to Buchlyvie. It's good for Margaret to get some fresh air into her lungs and she loves the animals too.'

‘And Alys.'

‘Why keep on about Alys?' he asked a trifle impatiently.

She did not answer. She did not want to remember the way Margaret had held her arms out to Alys to be picked up, any more than she wanted to remember the things she had overheard that night over a year ago. The small gesture had hurt her disproportionately, more even than the fact that the wretched woman still came here on friendly visits in spite of what had happened. She had longed to snatch Margaret up into her arms and say: I'm your mother, not her! – but she had known it would simply sound childish.

Well, perhaps it was time to
show
Margaret – and the rest of them – just who her mother really was.

‘I've been thinking for some while I'd like to have Margaret with me now,' Tara said. She saw Richard's face change and felt pleasure. ‘She is old enough to miss me and not old enough to be at school. And you are forever accusing me of neglecting her. This will prove I don't.'

‘You can't take her away, Tara!' he said harshly.

‘Why not?'

‘How would you look after her?'

‘I'd take Nanny along too.'

‘I'm not at all sure she would go. And besides she is my employee, not yours.'

‘In that case I'll hire a nanny of my own.'

Their voices were raised; whenever they saw one another nowadays they were quarrelling it seemed. Richard deliberately cooled his tone.

‘I won't let you do it, Tara. If you insist on attempting such madness I shall divorce you.'

‘Big deal!' she snorted.

‘I mean it. And I should warn you I have enough evidence to do it.'

‘Then why haven't you already?'

‘I haven't wanted to drag your name through the courts. Adultery is a dirty word. And you are Margaret's mother. But if you try to take her from this house I'll do whatever I have to in order to keep her.'

‘Indeed. Chivalry stops here.' Tara was beside herself now, the explosive mixture of love and hate which their marriage had become seemed to keep her perpetually on a short fuse. ‘I think you would be hard put to it to find a court to take a child away from her mother,' she went on, ‘and as for the mudslinging you intend to do I defy you to prove it.' She smiled tightly. ‘You won't, Richard. I'll see to that.'

‘You can't take her, Tara!' Richard begged. ‘She belongs here with me and …'

‘Alys?' Tara finished bitterly and knew that the hurt was still as sharp and all-consuming as it had been that night when she had come home to find them together. ‘I'm sorry, Richard, but I am taking her. Stop me if you dare.'

He had not stopped her. Afraid of the ultimate scene, she thought a little scornfully. Oh, she was beginning to know Richard. But for all his distaste for unpleasantness she took seriously the threat he had made. If he could prove that she sometimes shared a bed with Dev he would use it to take Margaret away from her. And he would probably succeed. There was nothing for it. She would have to make quite certain she gave him no grounds upon which to do it.

The first week Margaret was with her there was no problem as Dev was away in Perth on business and Tara was able to concentrate on more immediate worries – the hiring of a new nanny, and the nagging fear that Richard might arrive at the hotel without warning and take the child away again.

But when Dev returned, blowing in as always like a hurricane, she knew that somehow she had to make him understand that for the time being at least she had to be discreet.

He had come to her dressing-room after the show, bringing with him a bottle of champagne and sweeping her off her feet.

‘Tara! It's good to be back. You're looking lovelier than ever. Just wait till I get you alone and I'll show you how good it is.' He felt her stiffen in his arms and held her away, looking down at her. ‘What is it? What's wrong?'

‘Nothing's wrong, Dev. It's just that things have changed a bit while you've been away …'

It was his turn to stiffen. ‘Oh my God. You haven't patched things up with the good doctor, have you?'

‘No. I've got Margaret with me. She and her nanny are sharing my room so you see I don't see how you and I can …'

He laughed, twisting the top of the champagne bottle. ‘Quite a novelty I would have thought!'

‘Be serious!' she snapped.

‘I am being serious. But if it worries you take another room.' The champagne cork popped and froth ran over the neck of the bottle. ‘Where are the glasses, Tara?' he asked. ‘This lovely drink to celebrate our first night together for three bloody long weeks is all going to waste.'

She did not move except to scrub a little of the carmine greasepaint off her lips.

‘You don't understand. Richard has threatened to divorce me. I can't take the risk.'

His mouth tightened slightly. ‘Why not? Your marriage is over anyway. Let him divorce you and be damned. Now, where the hell are those glasses?'

Turning quickly he saw the pain flicker across her face and swore to think that Richard could still hurt her. These last months he had thought, and hoped, that he had shown her a life that was much more to her taste than the closeted role of an upper middle class wife, and opened her eyes to a loving that would make her forget Richard and his restrained passions once and for all.

‘Won't you miss me just a little if you kick me out of the bedroom?' he asked.

‘Yes, but – I can't help it, Dev. If he divorces me for adultery the court will probably let him have Margaret. But maybe we could – you know – here.'

He experienced a moment's triumph. She had more or less admitted she would miss him – in bed at any rate. He concealed the triumph.

‘What do you mean, Tara?' he teased.

‘Well, if Richard puts private detectives onto me a hotel room or an apartment would be the first place they would look. But here …'

‘If you think I am so desperate to make love to you that I will do it in any hole and corner place you can find where your husband's private eye won't see us, you can think again!' he told her, mock sternly. ‘Oh no, Tara, if you kick me out at the front door don't expect me to come creeping in at the back.'

Her chin wobbled.

‘Don't be horrid, Dev, please!'

Quite suddenly, he was angry. ‘I am not being horrid, my lovely – though I confess I am jealous and just a little tired of forever playing second fiddle where your priorities are concerned. No, I'm simply telling you where I stand. And if it is your opinion that your young daughter will be corrupted by me being with you in, shall we say, intimate circumstances then I bow to your judgement.'

‘Dev …'

‘No, quite all right, Tara, quite all right.' He picked up his keys which he had tossed onto her dressing table when he had come in and swept her off her feet. ‘I'll leave you to your daughter and her nanny. And I hope you all enjoy the champagne!'

She felt bereft when he was gone, lonely and empty and a little frightened. But she was certain in her own mind that she had done the right thing. One day, perhaps, she could afford the luxury of thinking about her own personal life. For the moment she must put Margaret first. Nobody, ever again, was going to be more important to her baby than she was – and nobody was going to be more important to her than her baby!

Melbourne became Bendigo and Bendigo Canberra. She missed Dev more than she would have thought possible, missed the comfort and the loving, missed his arms around her and his lips in her hair, missed the drink they had used to share after the show was done, champagne sometimes but usually whisky, old and good, clinking over the ice cubes from some hotel bedroom refrigerator. But she counted it a small price to pay for her peace of mind. As they left Melbourne behind the shadow of Richard's threats hung less darkly, but she knew she dare not take risks with her reputation. A hint of scandal and Richard would have what he needed – evidence that his daughter was exposed to corrupting influences.

And oh, she could not bear to lose Margaret now! Tara, who had never thought of herself as a possessive mother – or scarcely a mother at all – had discovered the joys and torments of parenthood so suddenly it had taken her breath away.

Margaret was adorable. Curled in Tara's arms her body was firm and rounded – plump almost. (How did a child of mine come to be plump? Tara wondered.) Her hair smelled of scented soap, her finger nails were small pearly-pink shell. She was a bright child, too, already able to speak a few words and point out what she wanted and she had taken her first unsteady steps from Nanny's arms to Tara's. But Tara thought it was at night she loved Margaret most of all. She would come home after a show and hang over the rim of the cot watching her baby sleep and filling up with love.

I don't need anything else, Tara told herself. I have a career and I have Margaret. They are all that is important.

The same thought occurred to her as she stood in front of the Capitol Theatre, Sydney looking at her name in two-inch high letters and pointing it out to her daughter.

You couldn't have it all, Tara. Nobody can. You pays your money and takes your choice. But you got more than most …

‘Well, Margaret we had better get you home,' Tara said.

She turned – and stopped abruptly. A large black Cadillac was drawn up at the kerb, carelessly defiant of the hooting traffic. The rear passenger window had been rolled down and a man was sitting forward looking out at her. Hook nose. Piercing eyes. Hair blacker than she remembered it, as if it now came from a bottle. But unmistakable nonetheless. Her heart seemed to stop beating, her arms turned to jelly so that she had consciously to clutch at Margaret so as not to drop her.

Red Maloney. It couldn't be. It couldn't be! Yet she knew without a shadow of a doubt that it was.

The first moment of frozen shock became blind panic and it somehow lent strength to her trembling legs. She turned, clutching Margaret tightly to her with no clear idea in her head but to get away – away! But she had gone only a few steps when he caught her. His hand on her arm was like a vice and she swung round, her eyes full of terror.

‘Well, Tara, so it is you!' He was smiling, but it was not a nice smile. ‘You weren't going to run away, were you?'

Her mouth was dry; she could not speak.

‘I think you and I should have a nice little talk. Such old friends and so long since we saw one another.'

Still holding her arm in that vice-like grip he forced her back towards the car. In her arms Margaret whimpered, frightened by the sudden change of circumstances in her safe world – and the communication of her mother's fear. Mesmerized by it, Tara let him push her into the rear seat then his bulk was filling the doorway as he climbed in behind her and it was too late for escape.

‘So, Tara, I've found you.' His voice was light, amused almost, but she heard the undertones it concealed and trembled again. ‘ Did you really think I wouldn't, my dear?'

She could not answer. Over the top of Margaret's head her eyes were clear blue, transparent with fright.

‘Where have you been all this time?' he asked.