Yesterday's Husband

When his thanks had died away and the door downstairs had closed quietly, she was finally free to stop keeping up appearances. Kicking off her shoes with a sigh of relief, she delved into the thick chignon at the back of her head, yanked out the hairpins and felt her long hair tumble loose around her shoulders. Then, driven by another of her absurd impulses, she wrestled her suitcase up on to the bed and rummaged inside it. At last she found what she was looking for and laid it out on the bedspread. With shaking fingers she pulled off everything—her expensive French suit with the gold brooch on the lapel, her silk tights, hand-embroidered underwear, pearl necklace and gold pearl drop-earrings. Then she picked up the long, wrap-around batik dress which Richard had bought her on their honeymoon. It was a smoky blue colour with a halter neck, no back whatsoever from the waist up, a long, swirling skirt and a red starburst of colour like the explosion of a supernova on the front. The smell of the sandalwood chest where she had kept it all these years rose faintly to her nostrils as she tied it around her. Picking up a hairbrush, she attacked her hair with long, jerky, tugging strokes, but flung the brush aside before she had finished. A small, stark smile distorted her lips as she walked slowly across to the dressing-table mirror.

‘You haven’t changed much, Em,’ she said to her reflection.

But the cynical narrowing of her eyes and the wry pursing of her mouth told her she was wrong. Oh, in one way it was true. With her wavy, dark hair cascading around her shoulders and her petite, almost adolescent figure, she still looked much like the nineteen-year-old girl Richard had married. Her pale, creamy skin was still fresh and unlined, while her small breasts were little more than a gentle swell beneath the thin fabric of her dress. Yet in other ways she was a woman, and an embittered woman at that. Her eyes, yellow-flecked at the centre and deep green around the outer edge of the irises, stared back at her with their habitual wary expression. And there was an indefinable tension in the whole carriage of her small, neat body.

‘Oh, damn it!’ she exclaimed. ‘Why did I do this? I should have known there was no going back.’

Tearing off the gauzy Balinese dress, she opened the bathroom door and flung it down on the floor. Perhaps a shower would freshen her up and stop her being so ridiculously gloomy. After all, this holiday was supposed to be fun. A last fling, a chance to enjoy herself before the dreary, humiliating task of declaring herself bankrupt.

With a determined gesture, she slammed the door to the bedroom, turned on the taps and stepped under the shower. Deliberately she let it run quite cool, so that when she stepped under it she let out an involuntary squeal of shock. But after five minutes under that cool, invigorating hail, a sense of well-being began to invade her. I won’t think about Richard any more, she told herself forcefully. I’ll just relax, unwind and soak up the sun and the atmosphere. After that, I’ll be in much better shape to tackle my problems.

Closing her eyes, she lifted her face to the downpour of cool water and shuddered luxuriously. Mmm, she was feeling better already. She turned off the taps, groped for a thick, fluffy towel and stepped out of the shower stall. As she wrung the water out of her hair, she thought she heard the distant sound of a door closing downstairs. Probably Room Service with the snack she had ordered. Well, she had better make herself decent in case the maid came upstairs. Rubbing herself briskly, she pulled on the flimsy Balinese dress, gave her hair a final wipe and dropped the towel. Then she opened the door, stepped into the bedroom and suffered a shock so appalling that her heart almost stopped.

‘Richard,’ she moaned.

It was him. Really him. Not some lunatic figment of her imagination like the fantasy on the bus, but a real, solid, breathing human being. As tall and broad as he always had been, with the same sun-streaked, curly blond hair, tanned skin and vivid blue eyes. But different. Oh, God, how different! He was still devastatingly goodlooking, but there was a harshness about him that the younger Richard hadn’t had. A brooding quality of power and authority that radiated out to meet her with devastating force. Like Emma, he was dressed in the sort of casual clothes they had worn on their honeymoonin his case thin beige shorts and a beige and tan batik safari jacket which revealed his muscular legs and forearms. Yet the resemblance to the man she had once loved with all her heart ended with the clothes. In all other ways this was a stranger, who stood grim and unsmiling between the two huge beds, his stance and expression radiating an unmistakable hostility. But what on earth was he doing here?

‘Hello, Emma.’

She clutched at the door-frame to support herself. His deep, throaty voice was unmistakable.

‘What are you doing here?’ she asked in a frozen whisper.

He seemed as unruffled by the question as if he had only left her ten minutes before to step out for a breath of fresh air. With a casual motion of his hand, he waved at the stairs.

‘I’ll explain in a moment,’ he said serenely. ‘In the meantime, why don’t you come down and join me in a snack?’

A feeling of unreality took hold of Emma as she glided down the stairs behind him. Could this really be happening? It was outrageous, impossible! And yet the ornately carved teak banister felt disconcertingly firm under her fingers and the jug of iced juice accompanied by a platter of luscious, tropical fruit looked real enough. Sinking unsteadily into one of the cushioned chairs, she accepted a drink from Richard and carried it to her mouth with nerveless fingers. The sweet, fruity blend of pineapple, coconut, ice and milk flowed refreshingly into her mouth and gave her a little reassurance. No, she wasn’t dreaming! All the same, her feelings were in turmoil at this unexpected sight of her husband after so many years apart. A swirl of questions whirled in her head like a cloud of coloured butterflies. Why, how, when? Without even stopping to think, she spoke.

‘How did you know I was here?’ she blurted out.

Richard shrugged, smiled and looked as if it had been the easiest thing in the world to find out Emma’s whereabouts, even though they were supposed to be strictly secret. Picking up his own drink, he settled into the depths of one of the cushioned chairs.

‘Miss Matty told me,’ he said.

‘Matty?’ echoed Emma indignantly. ‘You wormed the information out of Matty? I can’t believe it! She’s always been the perfect secretary, totally discreet. And I told her nobody was to know where I was.’

Richard gave a faint, mirthless laugh and raised his glass to her in a taunting salute.

‘Well, perhaps she thought your husband was entitled to special treatment,’ he said in a steely voice. ‘Besides, I told her I had an important proposition which needed to be put to you immediately.’

‘Proposition?’ cried Emma in alarm. ‘What kind of proposition? What do you mean?’

‘Now don’t be so hasty, Emma,’ drawled Richard lazily. ‘We’ve got a lot of catching up to do before we talk about that. It’s a long time since we’ve seen each other.’

It certainly is, thought Emma, and her hand shook as she set down her glass. For one crazy moment she had felt an exhilarating uplift of joy at the sight of Richard, but now she saw how mistaken that reaction had been. There was nothing friendly in the brooding face that confronted her across the table and she felt absolutely no urge to catch up on what he had been doing in the time since she’d seen him last. In any case, she was all too bitterly aware of it. The glossy magazines and the financial journals had kept her informed of every detail of his meteoric rise to wealth and of the glamorous, sexy women who helped him to enjoy it. With a brief, aching sense of regret, she wished that she had never driven him away from her. Then she would never have had to endure the anguish of watching him find love and success without her. With a wry twist of her lips, Emma wondered whether Richard had followed her career and her supposed love life in the Press as thoroughly as she had followed his. His next words showed that he had.

‘I’m not hypocrite enough to pretend that I was sorry to hear of your father’s death,’ he said bluntly. ‘But I hope it wasn’t painful.’

A shadow crossed her face as she thought of the agonising weeks she had spent in the private hospital at her father’s bedside. Weeks when she would have given anything for the friendly touch of Richard’s hand on her shoulder.

‘It was,’ she said hoarsely.

‘I’m sorry. Liver cancer is a dreadful disease. But I’ve got to hand it to you, Emma. You showed a lot of guts in tackling it the way you did. I know you were close to your father and it must have been hell to see him die by inches. I also think you did an amazing job of taking over Prero’s when you were only twenty-one.’

Emma felt surprised and grateful at this unexpected praise. Her pale cheeks flushed with colour and her eyes brightened.

‘Th-thank you,’ she stammered.

‘Of course, the recession must have dealt you some pretty heavy blows since then,’ continued Richard, scrutinising her shrewdly. ‘Times haven’t been easy to property developers, especially those with large office holdings in the central business district. Tell me, how is the company performing now in your view, Emma?’

The question shot out like a bullet from a gun and wounded Emma to the heart. For a moment she contemplated telling him the truth, but her pride wouldn’t allow her to make such a humiliating confession of failure. Instead she forced a strained smile to her lips.

‘Times haven’t been easy,’ she said glibly, ‘but on the whole I think the company is doing very well indeed.’

With lazy, unhurried movements, Richard set down his glass and rose to his feet. Then, moving around the table, he leaned forward and caressed Emma’s cheek with an enigmatic smile on his face.

‘You’re a barefaced liar, sweetheart,’ he said softly.

Her senses reeled as if he had assaulted her. The double shock of his words and his touch were too much for her to deal with. The colour drained away from her cheeks and her heart began to pound violently. She tried twice to speak and failed. Then her words came out in a hoarse croak.

‘You know?’

‘Yes.’

Emma shuddered and flung back her head, feeling a terrible pain jolt through her entire body as if she really had been wounded. Shaking her head in a dazed fashion, she gave Richard a haunted look as he resumed his seat.

‘Then I suppose the whole Sydney business community knows?’ she demanded. Her throat felt so tight she could hardly force the words out.

‘No,’ replied Richard in measured tones. ‘You’ve concealed matters well and, to your credit, I must say you ran a damned hard race to save the company. If the Sawford merchant bank hadn’t failed, you might even have made it. As it is, you’re at the end of your rope, aren’t you?’

Emma shuddered again.

‘Yes.’

Richard caressed his glass with a long brown finger, as sensually as if he were stroking a beautiful woman’s neck.

‘Just as a matter of interest,’ he said, ‘what are you doing on an expensive holiday when you’re about to go bankrupt? Is there some good reason for it or is it just another one of your spoilt-little-rich-girl tricks?’

This lazy innuendo, delivered hot on the heels of the shock he had just dealt her, made Emma’s over-strained temper snap. Leaping to her feet, she stared at him with flashing eyes and gritted teeth.

‘Damn you!’ she cried. ‘Did you just come here to insult me?’

Awkwardly she sidled between the chair and the table, intent on putting as much distance as possible between herself and Richard. But as she emerged from the cluster of furniture his voice cracked through the air like a whiplash.

‘Don’t leave yet, Emma; we haven’t finished.’

‘Well, I’m finished with you,’ she flared. ‘You never could watch me spending money without carping about it, could you? And I don’t suppose it makes a blind bit of difference to you that I could have a perfectly good reason for being here!’