A Close Connection (19 page)

‘Yes, we have a dishwasher,’ she said with a smile. ‘In fact Alan says I have more gadgets now in my kitchen than the shuttle control room at Houston.’

Eleanor waited to resume the conversation once they were settled in front of the newly banked-up fire. ‘I thought I didn’t mind,’ she went on as, opposite her, Paula sat quietly, her turn now to listen and sympathize. ‘But it was when I was talking to Nicola a while ago, that I realized that I did mind. And I mind particularly that she knew about it as she grew older. I should have had the courage to leave him a long time ago, but it was difficult to make that decision. It’s always much easier to stay put and I thought it might get better, but it never did. He just can’t keep his hands to himself and it is too late now for him to change.’

‘Then leave him. Why don’t you?’

‘We run the business together so it’s not as simple as that and it’s up to me to try to keep him on the straight and narrow. And there’s that “better the devil you know” thing as well. I’m used to it by now. I shouldn’t let it upset me. Tell me, Paula, what it was he did to you on holiday? I must know.’

Her face pink with embarrassment, Paula told her and Eleanor listened, her face growing grim.

‘I’m so sorry. I can’t believe he did that. Well, I can believe it but to do it there in that café is almost beyond belief. He is so arrogant. He’s having a fling with somebody at this very moment. She’s divorced, a rich widow, in her forties, no children, very smart.’

‘You know her, then?’

‘I don’t know her but I know what she looks like. I don’t
know where they meet or how often but I just know when he’s been with her. And the laugh is, he still thinks I haven’t a clue. How arrogant is that?’

‘I’m so sorry. What are you going to do?’

‘As usual, nothing. I haven’t got the fight in me just now, not with the way things are.’

‘There’s something else, then?’

‘Yes.’ She hesitated because once it was said it made it real. ‘I’m not well. I have an appointment sometime next week at the hospital and I want you to come with me, Paula. Please say you will. I don’t want to worry Nicola and there’s nobody else I can ask.’

‘What about Henry?’

Eleanor gave her a look. ‘After what we’ve just talked about, he is the last person I want with me. You will come, won’t you?’

‘Of course I will.’

E
LEANOR DID NOT
allow her standards to slip even for the hospital appointment.

She was wearing the grey coat with black high-heeled boots and a black furry hat under which her hair managed to remain unruffled.

December had arrived and with it the first snow flurries. They did not often get snow, not in this part of the world, but as they hurried into the hospital from the car park, it was starting to stick to the pavement, the flakes heavier by the minute.

‘I’m afraid there’s a bit of a wait,’ the receptionist told them when they had made their way to the required department. ‘Dr Gibson has been delayed but she will get to you as soon as possible.’

‘It’s a woman doctor, then,’ Paula muttered as they took a seat amongst other worried-looking ladies. ‘That’s good, isn’t it?’

‘It doesn’t matter to me. I have no preferences. It could be a monkey as far as I’m concerned so long as it knows its job. I could have gone private, Paula, but somehow I felt on this occasion that—’

‘You don’t have to explain,’ Paula said, nervous herself now as she caught a pleading look in the eye of a nearby woman.
She sensed the whole room was bristling with anxiety, women screaming inside but trying, as women do, to stay focused by leafing through the many cheap and cheerful magazines lying around. Today though, she did not feel she would be cheered up in any way by reading about the antics of minor celebrities and she was not a patient. ‘It’s just the waiting that’s going to be hard, but you will know the result by lunchtime. We can have a lovely lunch somewhere afterwards. My treat.’

‘I’ll take you up on it but only if I don’t have cancer,’ Eleanor said in a matter-of-fact tone. ‘If I have, then the last thing I will want is a slap-up lunch. In fact, I’m not sure how I will cope with it. I’m not a woman who can cope, never have been. I need to be fit and well. I always have been and I don’t do illness.’

‘If the worst happens, it won’t be the end of the world, but let’s be positive. I know loads of women who’ve found a lump and it’s been just a cyst. Alice next door to me used to get them regularly. She used to have to go and have them drained. She said it used to be such a relief when they stuck a needle in and the liquid drained out. And didn’t the doctor tell you it was probably just a cyst because it was moving around and that you weren’t to worry?’

‘For God’s sake, Paula, shut up.’ To soften the words, Eleanor reached over and took her hand, and Paula gave it a little squeeze. She understood something of what she was going through but she was working on the theory that keeping talking, however much nonsense, would take her mind off it a bit.

‘Eleanor Nightingale!’ A nurse with a clipboard appeared and Eleanor nearly fell over the chair as she stood up, discarding the coat and going across. Trying to stop the beautiful material from sliding onto the floor, Paula just had time to say ‘Good luck’.

She was back shortly.

‘I’ve had another mammogram,’ she said, resuming her
seat. ‘And then I’ll be called for an ultrasound. Isn’t that when they put the jelly on you?’

‘I think so. And then what?’

‘Then the doctor will see me to discuss the results. Will you come in with me?’

‘Of course I will. If that’s what you want.’

‘Thanks, Paula.’ She was not far away from tears and it was so unlike Eleanor that it left Paula struggling to come up with a positive. Poor Eleanor, not only was she having to cope with Henry but here she was in danger of having to cope with a serious illness. If it was her who had found the lump in her breast then she knew who would be beside her at this moment.

Alan.

She was left on her own again when Eleanor went for the scan a little later and then they were left waiting once more. A few people came and went; one lady having to be helped away by her friend, so presumably it wasn’t good news for her.

‘Oh, God,’ Eleanor had murmured at that point. ‘That might be me, Paula. I’m hopeless with bad news. I shall be a wreck.’

‘No you won’t. You might be surprised at your reaction. You forget that I’ve been through the worst thing that can ever happen to a mother.’ She was sorry to bring it up but she needed Eleanor to stop being so pathetic and tough talking was the answer. ‘You deal with it. You have to. There’s no alternative and if it is bad news then you have to take what you can from it. Be positive. There is treatment to be had,’ she said, scratching round for good facts. ‘It’s no longer the death sentence it might have been once upon a time. Women live for years with it. They get on with their lives and you can do the same. And remember, you are not on your own. You have Nicola and you have me and before long we’ll have a grandchild to spoil.’

That was quite a speech and she had surprised even herself. If Eleanor heard it she made no comment, simply picking up a
magazine and turning the pages. On the wall, the clock ticked steadily round. People still came and went. This was like waiting for an execution and they had started to run out of things to say. Talking trivia was not going to work, not now, for even an attempt to talk about possible names for their expected grandchild had met with a muted response. Apparently Nicola had decided on them. Clementine if it was a girl and Daniel if it was a boy.

‘Do you want a drink?’ Paula looked round, spotting a cabinet nearby. ‘There are some drinks and bars of chocolate. Shall I get us something?’

Eleanor, past words now, simply shrugged and Paula, rifling in her bag for loose change, set off. It was something to do even though she did not particularly want a drink, but it was better than staring at the walls and at the reception desk. And then, after waiting what seemed hours – what
was
hours – just as she was putting the coins in the slot, Eleanor’s name was called. A young female doctor wearing a white coat over a dark suit was standing there with a smile on her face.

Was there significance in the smile?

Jolting to her feet, Eleanor looked round for her and Paula, giving up on the drinks at once, hurried to her side.

‘L
ET ME GET
this straight. Are you telling me we’re destitute, Henry?’

‘No. Hell, no. I’ve just lost a fair bit of money, that’s all. I’ve had to pay everybody back with interest just to keep them quiet. I honestly believed those paintings were genuine. Derek’s been leading me up the garden path for years. I’ve never trusted him.’

‘
I
never trusted him, you mean.’ Eleanor said. ‘And if you hadn’t been so greedy it wouldn’t be so bad. You shouldn’t have taken on so many of them expecting a huge return and now they are worth almost nothing. It was a close thing, Henry, this time. You could have ended up in jail. They are forgeries, aren’t they?’

‘Not to my knowledge,’ he said, looking shifty as hell.

‘You’re not being questioned under oath,’ she told him. ‘So you might as well be honest with me.’

‘I am being honest. How on earth was I supposed to know they were a bit iffy? As far as I was concerned they were the genuine article attributed to that bloody awful Scottish artist. How delighted were we to find a load more pictures after he topped himself, especially when there were people falling over themselves to own one? I bought them off Derek, sold them on
and as far as I was concerned it was all strictly above board. Anyway, I don’t trust half of these so-called art experts. Who are they to say that they aren’t the genuine article?’

‘Don’t push it, Henry, or you will make things worse. You were more than happy to put your trust in Derek and it’s backfired.’

‘That’s right. Make me out to be some sort of crook. You’ve turned a blind eye to it for years, darling, so don’t come the angel with me, not now. Anyway, it’s sorted, the panic is over and we’re only a few thousand adrift.’

‘Nearly fifty thousand,’ she reminded him.

They were in the study at home. Henry was just back from a trip to London, ostensibly to check on some new items in their stock, but she knew better than that for his clothes reeked of her perfume. It did not matter much any more. The fact that they – or rather Henry – had lost such a lot of money did not matter either. Nothing mattered in life except your health because if you were fit and well you could cope with whatever life threw at you. Whereas once upon a time she would have been devastated by such a huge loss, she now found herself coldly detached from it.

And from her husband.

That day, at the hospital, when the results were through – and it was indeed just a cyst and nothing to worry about – Paula had taken her out for lunch and, with both of them in high spirits, what a jolly occasion that had been. It was as if their friendship had slipped into a different sphere; the superficial things no longer mattered. They got a little tipsy, the two of them, Paula deciding she had a liking for white wine and ordering them a bottle, which they consumed. Afterwards, going back to Paula’s where they had left the car, she was in no fit state to drive and she stayed overnight. If Alan was surprised to see her when he got home he did not show it, although she heard whispered voices in the kitchen and
guessed that Paula was telling him the reason why she was here.

She never intended to be alone with him that evening but Paula was called urgently next door to Alice’s, so the two of them found themselves cosily sitting by the fire.

‘Thanks for letting me stay.’

‘No problem. I can’t have you driving when you’ve had a few drinks.’ He smiled. ‘How many did Paula have? I haven’t seen her looking like that for a long time. She doesn’t usually let herself go.’

‘I suppose she’s told you about today?’ she said.

He nodded. ‘I’m glad for you. Thank God you’re all right. Henry should have gone with you.’

‘Henry doesn’t know.’

‘Why not? If it was Paula she would have told me.’

‘We’re different from you two,’ she said, irritated suddenly. ‘Surely you know that by now.’

‘I do. I know it’s not my business to interfere. …’

‘It isn’t.’

‘What’s he playing at? You know, Eleanor, if you were married to me I wouldn’t be looking at other women.’

She absorbed that comment, tucking it away, but not drawing attention to it. ‘Has Paula been talking to you? Because she has no right to do that. What we talked about was confidential. I didn’t mean for her to tell you.’

‘Paula hasn’t said a word. Henry has, though.’

Of course. He would brag about it, man to man, brag about all the women he had had, brag because he thought he had got away with it and that his poor wife knew nothing. It was so humiliating and so like him.

‘Eleanor …’ Alan did not move from his chair, made no move towards her at all even though she so wanted him to. She wanted to be held close, to snuggle into him, to be told that he loved her. Henry had told her he loved her a million times
but he did not mean it and although this man was never going to say it, he had no need to, for she saw in his eyes what he was not saying. ‘I wouldn’t hurt Paula for the world,’ he went on, emphasizing it as if it needed to be emphasized.

‘Don’t say another word.’

The door opened and closed and Paula came through, shaking her head.

‘It’s over,’ she said with a smile. ‘We’ve found it. It was hiding in the shed under a pile of stuff. Alice was at her wits’ end. The number of times I’ve had to help her look for that cat.’ She looked at them, from one to the other, and Eleanor imagined the guilt in the room was palpable, but, if she knew, Paula did not acknowledge it as Alan got up to put more coal on the fire.

Henry was away at the time of her hospital visit so he had no idea what she had done. She had not told him about finding the lump in her breast. She did not tell him that she had a hospital appointment and she did not bother to tell him when it was all over.

She was done with Henry.

Looking at him as he sat at the desk trying to worm his way out of this situation, she was disgusted that he thought she knew so little about the inner workings of the business that he could pull the wool over her eyes. She knew exactly what he had done and she was almost annoyed that he had, as usual, got away with it.

She had been doing a lot of thinking lately and in spite of all the advice given to her, it was her decision alone as to what was going to happen next. She could carry on as usual, as she had been doing for years and years, or she could finally draw a line under all this.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Henry said, trying what she supposed he imagined was his winning smile. ‘A minor hiccup,
that’s all and we’ll soon put it behind us. We need to replenish the stock, though, so I think we ought to think about another Continental trip. I’ve had a request for some pretty specific items from the designer for a celebrity client.’ He paused. ‘Aren’t you going to ask who it is?’

‘I don’t care.’

‘Suit yourself, but we’re talking megabucks here for his London pad. How about we get across to France next weekend?’

‘Next week is no good. I’ve been talking to Paula and she has invited me for a spa weekend at a hotel near Bristol. It will be just the two of us and it’s her treat. She insists.’

‘She’s treating you? What’s up with you two? The tables have turned,’ he sneered. ‘Who does she think she is? Just because she’s got money now she thinks she’s something she isn’t. Bloody spa hotel? She’ll never have class no matter how hard she tries. And what’s this I hear about amateur dramatics? Does she seriously think she can act, a woman like her?’

‘I think she can act rather well. For instance I had absolutely no idea when we had lunch at that restaurant in Venice that you were groping her under the table. She never gave that away because she did not want to make a scene. She acted perfectly normally. You bastard, Henry.’

‘Groping?’ His face took on a puce colour. ‘What’s she on about?’

‘Don’t bother to deny it.’ She was weary of him and his excuses. ‘You were groping her, stroking her leg, and that’s that. I believe her.’

‘She was flirting.’ He sounded defensive now. ‘She was showing off her boobs in that frock.’

‘It was nearly 90 degrees, for heaven’s sake. And it was a very pretty frock if I recall. You shouldn’t have been looking, but then you can’t help that, can you? You just can’t help it.’ Her voice shook and she stopped as she caught the quick glance
he shot at her. She was not going to cry. She was not going to cry at this late stage. Henry would love that. He would be all over her in seconds. ‘She wouldn’t play your game, would she, Henry?’ Eleanor smiled a little. ‘And that really rattles you, doesn’t it? You think you can have any woman who takes your fancy and you can’t. You can’t have Paula for one.’

‘Talk sense. Who wants her? If she was any shorter she’d be—’

‘Shut up, Henry. I shall be going away on Friday with Paula and when I get back I expect you to be gone.’

‘Gone where? What the hell are you talking about?’

‘I’m leaving you,’ she said. ‘I’ve made up my mind so there’s no point in arguing about it. I shall stay here and you can go and live with your current lady. After all I’m sure you have been comfortable recently when you stayed in her rather splendid apartment in London. She did well, didn’t she? If you are going to marry a millionaire, marrying an elderly one with a heart problem seems ideal. Does the grieving widow think you’re an adequate substitute? Perhaps she will change her mind when she finds out you have just lost fifty thousand pounds.’

‘How do you know all this?’ He had quietened, unable to hide his surprise. She could almost see his mind ticking over as he considered whether or not to deny it and then, having decided, she saw him smile. ‘She’s a hell of a lot warmer than you, my darling. You were a cold fish at the beginning and you’ve never warmed up. Making love to you is like making love to a mermaid. You’ve got the top half, I’ll grant you that, but below …’

‘Don’t be disgusting.’ She spat out the words. ‘If I had been with a man who loved me, who truly loved me, it would have been different, believe me.’ She thought about the look Alan had given her, thought about him holding her hand, knew that, in another world, at another time, if he had never met
Paula, things might have been different.

‘You fancy old Al, don’t you?’ he said with a laugh, reading her mind. ‘Good God, I don’t believe it. I caught the two of you holding hands and looking like lovesick teenagers when we were on holiday. If I were to mention that to Paula, it wouldn’t half cause a few problems, wouldn’t it?’

She had turned away with her back to him, and at those words she closed her eyes a moment as her heart pounded. And then, drawing on all her resources, she spun to face him and looked him straight in the eye. ‘I don’t know where you get that ridiculous idea from. Why on earth would I ever consider a man like Alan? It’s preposterous, darling, but I suppose at the moment you can be forgiven for coming out with daft statements. I’ve caught you on the hop, haven’t I? Can you imagine for one moment that I would give a man like Alan a second glance?’

She caught the hesitation and held his gaze and he was the first to look away.

‘No, of course not,’ he muttered gracelessly. ‘Bloody stupid idea.’

‘I’ve packed your things,’ she told him. ‘Your cases are up in the bedroom. You can return at any point if there’s something you have forgotten but I shall be seeing my solicitor before long. I’m not in a terrible rush because I need to make sure I’m doing the right thing, but I take it you will not be contesting it when I do get round to it? To a divorce, that is.’

‘What about the house and the business?’ he asked at last, not quite looking at her. His voice was terse but calm. ‘We have things to tie up. You can’t just cut me loose like this. I’m entitled to things.’

‘And so am I. I am sure we will come to an amicable arrangement. And now, if you’ll excuse me, Henry, I need to get on with my packing for the weekend.’

Not only did she need to get on with the packing, she
reflected as she left him sitting there at his desk, stunned into silence, she needed now to get on with the rest of her life.

Time was precious and you had to make the most of every single minute.