Secret Obsession

They ate in the farm kitchen, the biggest room in the house, with white-washed deep stone walls, small windows, an old range which gave out great warmth on cold days and cheerful red and white checked curtains. The table was old and wellscrubbed, the wood deeply bitten with knife-cuts and scratches and carved initials. Along the high windowsills stood rows of pink geraniums, all grown by Grace Thornton, who often won prizes for them at local flower shows.

The casserole was lamb, with seasonal vegetables—potatoes and carrots, late green beans and leeks and onion. It was all grown there, on the farm, and the smell was mouthwatering and the taste delicious.

They washed up and put everything away, leaving some of the casserole in the oven for Grace when she got back. John Thornton went out to his yard to feed some of his animals, and Nerissa switched on the radio to listen to some music.

She curled up in a chair, her mind occupied with Philip, worrying, remembering his white face and the carved, blind look of his closed eyes.

Was he ever going to wake up? And, if he did, would he be some sort of human vegetable? She knew that that was what was terrifying his parents. They hadn’t said anything, but she knew them. She had caught looks they gave each other, words they began and cut off.

She put her hands over her face. It wasn’t fair! Why had this happened to Philip? Hadn’t he borne enough grief already?

The phone rang beside her, making her jump. She had a sudden presentiment that it was news of Philip, that it was her aunt ringing from the hospital to say…what? That he had come out of his coma? Or…was dying?

Her hand shaking, she reached for it, whispered, ‘Yes, hello?’

There was a silence at the other end.

‘Hello? Lantcrn Farm,’ Nerissa said urgently. ‘Aunt Grace…is that you?’

The phone cut off suddenly. She held it, listening to the dead tone. Whoever had rung had hung up without speaking.

The silence was eloquent. Nerissa felt ice trickle down her nape. It could be a wrong number, of course. But she was afraid that it wasn’t.

She was afraid it was Ben. He would have rung their home, only got the answering machine, then perhaps tried ringing friends, her boss. She had known that sooner or later Ben would realise she was not at home. She had hoped it would take him longer to work it out, but she had known it would happen, and that he would not forgive her for going to Philip without telling him what she meant to do.

Her heart beat with terror. If that had been him, what would he do now?

For the moment, nothing, she quickly told herself. He was in The Hague representing a client at the Court of Human Rights. He couldn’t leave; this was an important case. Ben had been working on it for a long time; he wouldn’t walk out on it now. He had said he estimated that it would take at least a week, maybe longer, for him to present his case. He wouldn’t have to stay there to wait for the court’s decision—that might take weeks, even months—but he certainly couldn’t leave yet.

She had a breathing space. Days. Maybe a week, maybe longer. But sooner or later he would arrive and demand that she leave with him, and when she refused—as she knew she must—their marriage would be over.

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_131a918f-0a85-5a51-a4e9-76e951820ea6)

NERISSA didn’t sleep much that night, and when her aunt saw her next morning she gave her a frowning, anxious stare.

‘You look terrible. Didn’t you sleep? Your eyes look like holes in a white paper bag. I can’t let you go to the hospital looking like that. They’ll take one look at you and send you home in case you’re coming down with something contagious.’

‘I’m fine,’ she said, sitting down at the table and looking without much interest at the fruit, the cereal, the coffee waiting for her.

‘Fine? Nonsense!’ snorted Grace Thornton. ‘I know what you’re like—if you’re upset you don’t sleep or eat and the next thing we’ll find is that you’re ill, too. Look what happened when you were competing in the county swimming competition—you couldn’t stop throwing up for hours beforehand. And what about the year you took your final exams at school? You ended up with pneumonia that time. You’re one of those people who can’t take any sort of strain for long.’

Nerissa gave her a wounded look, her huge eyes darkened. ‘I’ll be OK. Don’t stop me going to see Philip; I can sleep later, when I get back. That’s all that’s wrong with me—I had something on my mind and couldn’t get to sleep for hours, that’s all.’

Grace Thornton frowned, face intent. ‘Something on your mind? What? Philip?’

‘Of course. I can’t help worrying about him, can I?’

‘You mustn’t let yourself worry; you have to be fit to sit by his bed all day. You must train yourself not to think too much.’

Nerissa laughed bitterly. ‘That would be a good trick. Tell me how I do that!’

She poured herself some coffee, took one of the apples grown in the farm orchard—an oldfashioned, crunchy, brown-skinned russet—and bit into it, very aware of her aunt watching her.

‘It isn’t just Philip you’ve got on your mind, is it? What else is bothering you?’ A pause, then Grace shrewdly said, ‘Your husband?’

‘Sometimes I think you’re a witch,’ Nerissa said, smiling wryly. ‘How can you always read my mind?’

‘I know you,’ Grace said, and sighed. ‘You should never have told him,’ she added, her voice thickening with remembered pain and angry pride. ‘I can’t understand why you did, talking about family business to an outsider like that!’

Nerissa put down the half-eaten apple, her head bent, the cloudy dark hair falling in a wave over her face, hiding it from Grace.

‘I didn’t tell him. He guessed.’

A snort. ‘How could he?’ Grace rejected. ‘He only spent two weeks up here and folk who’ve known us for years never guessed—how should he? What would he know about folk like us, and him coming from London, where they don’t even know their own neighbour, let alone give them a helping hand when times are bad? Nay, lass, if he guessed you gave it away—you must have said something to give him a clue.’

‘But I didn’t tell him,’ insisted Nerissa. ‘He just picked it up from something I said, or read it in my face, or in yours…or…’ Her voice faltered. ‘Or in Philip’s.’

Grace Thornton flinched, but said gruffly, ‘I don’t believe it. He couldn’t have.’

Nerissa said flatly, ‘Ben is very shrewd, especially with people. He’s a lawyer, remember, trained to read character, to sense when people are telling the truth or lying—whether it’s an out-and-out lie, or just not telling the whole truth. I never lied to him, I just…left out things…but all the same he guessed. It’s as if he has antennae like a radio and can pick up what isn’t being said, right out of the air.’

Grace Thornton’s face had stiffened into a pale mask; she watched Nerissa bleakly. ‘Aye, he doesn’t miss a trick! A hard man—I could tell that from the minute he walked in here with you. I reckon they grow an extra skin in big cities like London, just to get by, like. It can’t be easy living there, but I can’t say I liked him. He’s not our sort. But he is your husband; there’s no getting past that.’ She fell silent for a moment, then said quietly, ‘Are you happy with him, Nerissa?’

She didn’t ask, Do you love him, Nerissa? That was ice too thin for either of them.

Nerissa said, ‘Yes,’ quickly, too quickly.

Grace Thornton wasn’t deceived. ‘I’d feel a lot easier if I knew you were happy, love,’ she said, and sighed.

Nerissa could never fool her. She had never known another mother; the bond of affection between her and Grace Thornton was very strong and sure, based on years of caring and security. There had been a time when it had been shaken, that trust—but its roots had been too deep and in time it had been rebuilt because of that long, deep affection.

Nerissa’s parents had both died when she was very small—too young, in fact, to remember them clearly. Her mother had been Grace’s sister, but they couldn’t have been more different. Ellen had been tiny and delicate—it was from her that Nerissa had inherited her build and colouring. Ellen had died of leukaemia three years after her only child was born. Her husband, Joe, had taken Nerissa up to Northumberland to her aunt, and that was Nerissa’s first memory—of being tired and weepy after a long journey from somewhere she didn’t remember but later discovered to have been London, of wanting her mother, wanting her own home, being frightened and bewildered. Her father had carried her into the comfortable firelit kitchen and her aunt had taken her into her arms, kissed her, brushed back her black curls, murmuring to her, while over her shoulder Nerissa had stared down at Philip, who was almost a year older, but a sturdy little boy, much larger than herself, sitting on a rug playing with toy cars.

‘That’s your cousin; that’s my Philip,’ Grace Thornton had said. ‘Go and play with him, sweetheart.’ And she had set Nerissa down and given her a gentle push towards the other child.

Philip had grinned at her, silently held out one of his cars.

Nerissa had toddled over to take it and sat down on the hearthrug with a bump and had begun to push the car back and forward, making the same noises Philip was making. ‘Brrmm…brrmm…’

She had never forgotten the moment. In a sense, it had been the beginning of her life. She couldn’t remember anything that had happened before that moment, that day.

The first three years of her life had vanished—her mother’s face, where they had lived—every detail. All gone, as if they had never happened.

Except that one moment, at the beginning, when she was carried into the firelit kitchen by her father. That instant was sharp and bright in her memory, beginning her conscious life.

Her father had left the next day and never come back. He had gone to Australia, she was told, and one day he would come back for her—but he never did. When she was seven she was told he had died, in the outback, of blood-poisoning, after neglecting a cut on his arm. There had been no doctor for many miles and it was too late by the time his condition was finally diagnosed.

Nerissa had cried when they’d told her, mostly because she felt she should, and even at the age of seven she’d had a strong sense of what she ought to do, think, feel. Her father’s death had made no real difference to her life because by then she had felt she belonged here, with her uncle and aunt and Philip.