“Tommy.”
It was curious, he thought. For how many years had she greeted him in this identical fashion, just saying his name and nothing more? Why had he never before stopped to realise how much it had come to mean to him-such simplistic idiocy this all was, really-just to hear the cadence of her voice as she said it?
He handed her the toy. Along with a missing wheel, he noticed that the lorry’s bonnet bore a considerable dent, as if it had been smashed with a rock or a hammer. “This was in the drive.”
She took it from him. “Christian. He’s not making a great deal of progress in the taking-care-of-possessions department, I’m afraid.” She stepped back from the door. “Come in.”
He took off his overcoat without invitation this time, hanging it on a rattan rack just to the left of the front door. He turned to her. She wore a teal pullover with an ash-coloured blouse beneath it, and the sweater was smeared in three separate places with what appeared to be spaghetti sauce. She saw his glance take in the stains.
“Christian again. He’s also not making progress in the table manners area.” She smiled wearily. “At least he doesn’t offer false compliments to the cook. And God knows that I’ve never been much in the kitchen.”
He said, “You’re exhausted, Helen.” He felt his hand go up as if of its own volition and for a moment the backs of his fingers brushed against her cheek. Her skin was cool and smooth, like the untroubled surface of fresh, sweet water. Her dark eyes were on his. A pulse beat rapidly in the vein on her neck. He said, “Helen,” and felt the quick current of perennial longing that always accompanied the simple, mindless act of saying her name.
She moved away from him, walked into the sitting room, saying, “They’re in bed now, so the worst is over. Have you eaten, Tommy?”
He found that he still had his hand lifted as if to touch her, and he dropped it to his side, feeling ever the lovesick fool. He said, “No. Dinner got past me somehow.”
“Shall I make you something?” She glanced down at her pullover. “Other than spaghetti, of course. Although I don’t recall your ever throwing food at the cook.”
“Not lately, at least.”
“We’ve some chicken salad. There’s a bit of ham left. Some tinned salmon if you like.”
“Nothing. I’m not hungry.”
She stood near the fireplace where a pile of children’s toys leaned against the wall. A wooden puzzle of the United States was balanced on the top. Someone, it appeared, had bitten off the southern end of Florida. He looked from the puzzle to her, saw the lines of weariness beneath her eyes.
He wanted to say, Come with me, Helen, be with me, stay with me. Instead he said merely, “I need to talk to Pen.”
Lady Helen’s eyes widened. “Pen?”
“It’s important. Is she awake?”
“I think so, yes. But”-she glanced warily towards the doorway and the stairs beyond it-“I don’t know, Tommy. It’s been a bad day. The children. A row with Harry.”
“He’s not home?”
“No. Again.” She picked up the small Florida and examined the damage, then chucked the puzzle piece back with the others. “It’s a mess. They’re a mess. I don’t know how to help her. I can’t think what to tell her. She’s had a baby she doesn’t want. She has a life she can’t bear. She has children who need her and a husband who’s set on punishing her for punishing him. And my life is so easy, so smooth compared to hers. What can I say that isn’t base and blind and entirely useless?”
“Just that you love her.”
“Love isn’t enough. It isn’t. You know that.”
“It’s the only thing there is, when you cut to the bone. It’s the only real thing.”
“You’re being simplistic.”
“I don’t think so. If love were simple in and of itself, we wouldn’t be in this mess, would we? We wouldn’t bother to want to entrust our lives and our dreams into the safekeeping of another human being. We wouldn’t bother with vulnerability. We wouldn’t expose weakness. We wouldn’t risk emotion. And God knows we’d never make a leap of blind faith. We’d never surrender. We’d cling to control. Because if we lose control, Helen, if we lose it for an instant, God knows what the void beyond it is like.”
“When Pen and Harry married-”
Frustration seared through him. “This isn’t about them. You know that damn well.”
They stared at each other. The width of the room separated them. It might have been a chasm. Still, he spoke to her across it, even though he felt the uselessness of saying words that he knew had no power to effect any action, yet saying them anyway, always needing to say them, casting aside caution, dignity, and pride.
“I love you,” he said. “And it feels like dying.”
Although her eyes looked bright with tears, her body was tense. He knew she wouldn’t cry.
“Stop being afraid,” he said. “Please. Just that.”
She made no reply. But she didn’t look away from him, nor did she try to leave the room. He took hope from that.
“Why?” he said. “Won’t you tell me that much?”
“We’re fine where we are, as we are.” Her voice was low. “Why can’t that be enough for you?”
“Because it can’t, Helen. This isn’t about friendship. We aren’t chums. We aren’t mates.”
“We were once.”
“We were. But we can’t go back to that. At least I can’t do it. And God knows I’ve tried. I love you. I want you.”
She swallowed. A single tear slid from her eye, but she brushed it away quickly. He felt torn at the sight of her.
“I always believed it should be jubilation. But whatever it is, it shouldn’t be this.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“No more than I.” He looked away from her. On the overmantel behind her stood a photograph of her sister and her family. Husband, wife, two children, life’s purpose defined. He said, “I still need to see Pen.”
She nodded. “Let me get her.”
As she left the room, he walked to the window. The curtains were drawn. There was nothing to see. He stared at the rapidly blurring floral pattern on the chintz.
Walk away from it, he told himself fi ercely. Make the cut, make it surgical, make it permanent, walk away.
But he couldn’t do it. It was, he knew, the great irony of love. That it came out of nowhere, that it had no logic, that it could always be denied and ignored, but that one ultimately paid the price for fleeing it in coin that came from the spirit, from the soul. He’d been witness to the cycle of love and denial in other lives before, generally in womanisers and in men hot after the pursuit of their careers. Hearts were never touched in their cases, so pain was never felt. And why should it be otherwise? The womaniser sought only the conquest of the moment. The career man sought only the glories from his job. Neither was affected by love or sorrow. Either walked off without a backward glance.
His misfortune-if it could be called that- lay in not being of that ilk. Instead of sexual conquest or professional success, he knew only the desire for connection. For Helen.
He heard them on the stairway-quiet voices, slow footsteps-and turned back to the sitting room door. He had known from Helen’s words that her sister was not well, but still he was jarred by the sight of her. His face, he knew, was well enough controlled when she walked into the room. But his eyes apparently betrayed him, for Penelope smiled wanly as if in recognition of an unspoken fact and ran ringless fingers through her limp, dull hair.
“You aren’t exactly catching me at my best,” she said.
“Thank you for seeing me.”
Again, the wan smile. She shuffl ed across the room, Lady Helen at her side. She eased herself into a wicker rocker and drew her dusky pink dressing gown closed at the throat.