Life Class (45 page)

‘On Monday, when Malcolm and Gabriella told me …’ Dory tried to return his smile, with a baffled head shake. ‘Stupidly, it was the one thing I never foresaw, never prepared myself for. What could be more natural than to have a child together? But …’ Her voice nearly failed. ‘It really shook me.’

‘Ah.’ He squeezed her hands. ‘I half guessed.’

‘But Malcolm had definitely ruled it out. Why now? Why her?’

‘So, not just a shock? An insult? And not the best time for
me
to make my big confession and unload my guilt onto you. No wonder you broke down.’

‘But I couldn’t rationalise why I felt like that. It wasn’t as if I’ve ever regretted the decision. Perhaps it was just timing? A sudden hormonal surge. Something to do with my body clock.’

‘Objectivity and logic is all very well, but we’re not robots. We’re allowed emotions. Allowed to let our hearts rule our heads now and again. Even men.’

‘Now you know the worst. And maybe …’ Again, she felt the wobble to her composure. ‘Maybe Chrissie was a better woman than me. Maybe she brought up your child, and he’s a happy, healthy, well-adjusted teenager with a mother who loves him.’

‘And maybe she put him up for adoption, or he grew up in care and is now just another lost soul on the streets?’ His expression tightened. ‘It’s useless to speculate.’

‘You have to forgive yourself.’ They were both leaning slightly forward. Dory laid her free hand over his.

‘Perhaps you do too?’ He added his other hand to the knot where their knees met. Dory leant even further towards him. Stefan matched the movement, his head tilting. They stayed like this, a few centimetres apart, for several moments, before Stefan raised his hand to her cheek. She saw his gaze move over her face in an intense, almost unbearable scrutiny. Relieved that he’d accepted her admission without needing reasons and excuses, Dory closed her eyes. They were quits.

Now she only felt his examination of her face. His thumb smoothed over her closed eyelid, his fingers touched her nose, her mouth, the hollow between her bottom lip and chin, tracing and discovering the contours. She heard his long, sustained intake of breath before the touch of his mouth on hers. This time, they were both stone cold sober. And this time, the kiss was a simple meeting of mouths, a gentle exploration of the velvety texture of the other’s lips. Their faces parted. Stefan frowned, giving his head an almost imperceptible shake, as if clearing his thoughts.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘I’m new to all of this. Well, not new exactly, but definitely out of practice.’ His unguarded openness humbled her.

‘So am I.’ Surprised by a sudden flare of almost hysterical frivolity, she bit back the urge to suggest,
Let’s practise together.
Was this what she really wanted, an affair with a sculptor with issues? Not least of which was his apparent determination to remain a free agent. He’d implied that she should sometimes give in to her irrational urges. If he’d had a premonition about where the conversation was leading, this could be discounted as special pleading. Except it was a view she tended to agree with, and anyway, was he that calculating?

She told herself to stop worrying what
his
agenda might or might not be. She had to think of herself. Why not allow her heart to rule her head for once? After all, she was a grown-up. It was childish to expect or even to yearn for ‘happy ever afters’. She had needs, ones which had been depressed for too long, but which now were firing off urgent nerve-tingling salvos. Their faces moved closer.

Like their first kiss, it began gently, but the tender quality was soon overwhelmed by a more demanding hunger. Stefan’s chair legs squealed across the floor as he pushed up into a standing position, trying to draw her up with him. Overbalancing, she fell against him, clumsily struggling to disentangle her feet from the cross strut of her chair. He held her upright as she kicked free and the chair fell over. Neither of them laughed.

‘If we carry on like that …’

‘What?’

‘We’ll get backache.’

‘So, what do you suggest?’

‘So, we either stop doing it. Continue standing up, or …?’

‘Move to a more comfortable location?’ They looked at one another.

He didn’t answer, just pulled her back into an embrace, his mouth fastening on hers. Their open-mouthed kisses were now damp and yielding. The urge to taste, to suck in the other’s essence, overwhelmed all else. Tongues touched and probed. They twisted together, plunging deep in hungry exploration. Dory’s body cleaved to his, hips thrusting forward, arms clutching. His response matched hers, making her well aware of his arousal. At length, they released one another and stepped back, stunned and short of breath.

Chapter Forty-six - Fran

Fran had begun to collect together the makings of the evening meal. It had been a beautiful day – perhaps it would remain warm enough to eat outdoors? Maybe even a barbecue? Less than an hour ago it was an idea she would have rejected as unthinkable. Barbecues required a lightness of spirit, relaxation. All had been notable by their absence from family life recently. Yet suddenly anything seemed possible.

The sun was lower in the sky and was casting diagonal patches of bright light across her table. Fran noted the artistic tumble of salad vegetables illuminated on the chopping board, their different colours, shapes, and textures. Creamy salad onions nestled against purple chicory, the romaine lettuce a fresh green backdrop to the dark pitted avocado and the polished scarlet of the tomatoes. ‘These aren’t any old salad ingredients …’ she intoned to herself with a smile. If they were going to do this, it was worth doing properly, she thought, and searched the freezer for fillet steaks.

Though only a matter of weeks, it felt like months since she’d been cast as the villain in a melodrama, the one the audience hissed at as soon as she made an entrance. But everything had changed and shifted. It was a subtle change. She
had
cried, but there’d been no big reconciliation. Just an admission on both sides that they’d taken the other for granted. It was a start. She wasn’t going to jeopardise this chance. But there was something else that had come out of the conversation with Peter – other than the sense that he was beginning to forgive her – which fuelled her optimism. It was an idea she needed to mull over. For one thing it would be expensive, but it was an idea that was infusing her with a growing excitement.

The back door opened. Expecting to see Peter coming in from the garden, Fran turned. A nervous jolt twisted her stomach. It was Melanie, the Chihuahuas at her heels.

These days, every time she saw her daughter, Fran felt the same sick lurch of relief and shame. She recalled herself at the same age – full of unshakeable confidence that she was right and the older generation invariably wrong. Since the previous summer, Mel had grown taller, but she’d also lost weight. Her tan, though still a flattering golden glow against her long, white-blonde hair, had faded drastically. ‘Because of being held prisoner,’ Mel kept reminding her.

‘Hello, darling,’ Fran said. ‘How was Jacky?’

‘All right.’ Melanie lingered by the scrubbed pine table, picking at off-cuts of the salad her mother had begun to prepare. Nelson and Jimbo were following up the scraps that dropped to the floor. They soon lost interest when they discovered it was all vegetable and, to add insult to injury, raw.

‘Wouldn’t it be easier to buy it in bags? Jax’s mum always buys bagged salad.’

‘It starts to brown too quickly. It’s no trouble putting a few leaves together. Though annoyingly, since the bagged salad boom, it’s harder to find the ingredients I want, like endive and radicchio.’ Fran heard her own voice maundering on about nothing. There had been no histrionic outbursts from Melanie for a while now, but they still didn’t talk about anything important. A conversation about salad was about as deep as it got.

‘I wouldn’t know endive and radicchio if they jumped up and bit me.’

Fran smiled. ‘You might not know the names, but you would recognise them. Has your dad finished mowing?’

‘He’s clearing up now,’ Melanie said. ‘It’s amazing how much he can find to do out there.’

As the whirlwind of house clearing had gradually subsided, the garden had taken over; he seemed to spend virtually every waking minute out there. Peter was a gentle, non-combative man. In their relationship
she
was the temperamental one, he was the negotiator and diplomat. But suddenly, he’d had to deal with his own anger and maybe with some guilt too. Every task he’d thrown himself into since bringing Mel home had been a diversion and a retreat, his way of coping, she thought. If he avoided coming face to face with his wife, he avoided the conflict.

Except it wasn’t a conflict, Fran thought. Her husband’s reproach was well deserved. There’d been no way of fighting him, of finding excuses or wriggling out of the blame. She simply had to bow her head and accept it. No argument. And though Mel didn’t know the full extent of her mother’s lapse,
her
reproach was equally well-deserved. But had the lowest ebb already been reached? Was she at last coming out of the black hole she’d found herself in? Fran crossed her fingers beneath the table.

‘When I’ve my own place I’m having a paved garden, with patio pots,’ Mel said. ‘Much less trouble. There’s no way I’ll be doing all that weeding and clipping and mowing.
So
boring!’

Fran smiled. She’d felt the same when she was a teenager. Gardening was for old farts.

‘You should have seen the garden your aunt and I looked at today,’ she said. ‘Even
you
couldn’t think it was boring. There were all these different levels and walled areas with oriental sculptures, a huge ornamental pond with a fountain and … you’d have liked this … a heated swimming pool.’

‘Cool!’

‘
And
a changing room with a loo, and showers, a washer-dryer, an airing cupboard for towels and cossies … everything you could possibly think of. And Michael’s not just rich; he knows loads of fascinating people. Dory and I were celebrity spotting as we went around.’

‘Has he got a son?’ Melanie asked, eyes sparking.

‘He
has
got a family. The eldest boy has one of those Hooray Henry names – Barnaby or Miles, or something. He’s at St Andrews, I think.’

‘Cool,’ Mel repeated. ‘You must get me an introduction.’

‘Anyway, how was Painchester? Was there anywhere open on a Sunday?’

‘It’s a tourist town. Loads of places were open.’

‘Did you buy anything?’

‘We bought tops. But mainly we just hung out.’

Fran thought she knew what hanging out meant. She’d done the same as a girl. You went to places where you thought there’d be young men and you paraded up and down, hoping to be chatted up. It rarely led to anything but, for girls in particular, the need to flaunt was evidently a necessary early stage of the mating ritual.

‘Honestly, Mum, Jax is such a child, I’m not sure I can put up with her much longer … except
she’s
got the car!’

‘If it hadn’t been for Jacky …’

Melanie sighed. ‘I know. I know. She’s got balls. But she’s still kind of immature. And all she, like, thinks about, is men and getting famous!’

‘How does she intend to fulfil
that
ambition?’

‘No idea. She can’t sing! Anyway, I was telling you. We went into Virtual World. It’s a game shop. And Jax got talking to this bloke. He’s a bit Goth, with all this long, black hair. She’s
so
into that kind of thing. We got talking and ended up going for a coffee. When Jax discovered he was younger than her, she went right off him.’ Melanie rolled her eyes. ‘I mean, it’s only by a few months. What’s it got to do with anything, anyway?
I
think he’s sweet. Kind of quiet and shy, but kind of streetwise.’

‘He’s not called Dominic Barnes by any strange coincidence, is he?’

Melanie’s jaw dropped. ‘How …?’

Fran sat down abruptly. Her heart began a rapid patter. ‘I didn’t. It was a wild guess. He’s the only young man of that description I’ve ever known in my life. You mustn’t … he’s not … he’s gay, Mel!’

‘Mu–um!’ Melanie objected. ‘I’m not gagging for a relationship! I met him. I liked him, you know? Gay? Straight? I don’t care! There is such a thing as making friends with people of the opposite sex. I’ve no plans to jump into bed with him. Honestly! Parents are just totally one-track minded!’

‘You can’t blame me for worrying.’

Melanie came around the table and looped her arm round her mother’s neck.

‘Please don’t worry, Mum. I’ve grown up a lot in the past few months. I’m not planning on getting into
that
kind of thing for a very long time. Just the thought makes me shudder. I don’t fancy Dom, he’s
so
not my type. And anyway, he wasn’t … like … coming on to me or anything. But what I
was
going to say was that he really kind of impressed me. He’s dropped out of school, admittedly
not
a very grown-up thing to do, but since then he’s been doing classes … though I didn’t realise he was going to the same class as my mum! What a laugh! He’s joining the Art Access year at Strouley College in September. He hasn’t had his formal offer yet, but he seems confident.’

‘I know.’

‘And there was Jax, twittering on about who she fancied, and whether she could get an audition for
X Factor
, and I just thought … Dom was just so much more sussed about everything. So much more mature and determined, like, to make college work for him. And he’s had such a tough life. He told me in private that he grew up thinking his mother was his sister! Anyway, we gave him a lift home and dropped him at the bottom of Bull’s Hill.’

The back door opened and Peter came in. One of the dogs yipped excitedly and they skittered over to him, jumping up at his legs. ‘Finished the grass,’ he said, turning on the tap and washing his hands at the kitchen sink.

‘Well done,’ Fran said automatically. She stood up again and reached for the bunch of spring onions, taking off the rubber band.

‘If it keeps hot and dry like this I shouldn’t have to do it again for a fortnight. What do you think about me digging out another vegetable bed?’