The Three-Year Itch

‘Grey! How on earth did you manage to get hold of them?’ she demanded, eagerly reaching for them so that she could see for herself. ‘They’re like golddust.’

He smiled at her reaction. ‘You’ll have to retract the “idiot” first,’ he warned her, holding them tantalisingly out of her reach.

‘Unreservedly. Heavens, all this attention will go to my head,’ she said happily, leaning her head against his chest.

‘Oh? And who else has been spoiling you?’

‘Only Steve Morley. He took me out to lunch,’ she added, lifting her head to look into his eyes. Was she hoping for some immediate confession about his own lunch date? If so, she was disappointed.

‘Lucky Steve,’ he said, with just a touch of acid in his voice. It was not lost on Abbie. Grey had never said anything, but Abbie sensed a certain reserve in his enthusiasm for that particular journalist and his newspaper. But then, since they took particular relish in hounding his brother, Robert Lockwood, a politician and the most glamorous member of the government front benches—including the women—that was hardly surprising.

‘Did he take you somewhere nice?’ She told him and his brows rose to a satisfactory height. ‘Spoilt indeed,’ he said, releasing her and crossing to the fridge to extract a carton of juice. ‘He must have been very pleased with your feature.’

‘Very—in fact he immediately offered me a month in America.’

‘I’m impressed,’ he said, without much enthusiasm, as he tipped the juice into the glass.

‘And so you should be,’ she declared, and, just a little peeved by the lack of congratulations, didn’t bother to tell him that she had turned it down. ‘You’re apparently married to one hot property. Steve was talking about awards for the tug-of-love story.’

‘Just as well I didn’t leap at the chance of fatherhood, then.’ He sipped the juice. ‘So when will you be going?’

‘You wouldn’t mind?’ she asked, heart sinking just a little. ‘I’ve never been away that long before.’

‘We made a deal, Abbie. I’m not going to start coming the heavy husband now you’re on the brink of something special. You have to be available if you’re going to be a star.’

Being a star was becoming less attractive by the day. ‘I thought being good meant that you were able to pick and choose your assignments,’ she said. ‘Besides, what about our holiday? I’m looking forward to having you to myself for a couple of weeks.’

‘You’d trade two weeks at an isolated cottage in Wales for a month in the States?’ She would trade anything for two weeks alone with him, and it didn’t matter where, but he didn’t wait for her answer. ‘Anyway, there’s been a bit of a hitch about the cottage.’

‘Oh? I thought it was all arranged.’ Before she had gone away he had been full of plans. Most of them involving lying on the beach and doing absolutely nothing except making love for two weeks. He must have seen her disappointment, because he put down the glass and crossed to her.

‘I’m sorry, but Robert wants to use the cottage this summer, Abbie. It’s the one place the Press don’t know about; even if they found out, it’s hardly the easiest place to find, and the locals have a way of forgetting how to speak English when anybody starts getting nosy. He needs to spend some time with his family.’

Abbie felt a little stab of guilt. She had a very soft spot for her brother-in-law. Grey’s older brother was good-looking, brilliant—the youngest minister in the government. He should have been the happiest man alive. But he had a wife who kept him glued to her side with the threat of a scandal that would wipe out his career should he take one step to end their disastrous marriage. So he continued to play happy families for the benefit of the media, although he spent as much time as possible at his London flat and Jonathan, their son, was now at boarding-school.

‘How is Robert? I saw his photograph in the newspaper when I was on the plane. I thought he looked more at ease than I’ve seen him for a long time. Has there been some kind of reconciliation?’ she asked. ‘Is Susan going to the cottage with them?’

Grey didn’t answer, although his mouth hardened into a straight line. ‘Come on, let’s go out and enjoy ourselves.’ And it was only later, as she drifted off into sleep, that she remembered about the painting.

It was three days later that Abbie saw Grey with his ‘pretty piece’. She had been shopping and had decided to drop in and see if he could join her for lunch in a local wine bar they occasionally went to.

Her cab had just dropped her off outside the office when she saw his tall figure heading purposefully along the road and then turning into the small park in the square around the corner from his office. She set off after him. If he’d bought sandwiches to eat in the park she would happily share them.

The good weather had brought out the office workers in droves, and they were sitting on benches and lying on the grass, soaking up the sun. Abbie lifted her hand to shade her eyes and swept the area for Grey. For a moment she didn’t see him. Then she did. And in that moment she wished, more than anything in the world, that she hadn’t seen him. That she hadn’t followed him. That she had decided to stay at home and do some dusting. That she was anywhere but this small green City oasis.

A ‘pretty piece’ Steve had called her. Steve was right. But then he had a well-tuned eye when it came to a woman. She was small, with a delicate bone structure and the translucent complexion that so often went with very dark hair—hair that hung down her back, straight and shiny as a blackbird’s wing. Abbie felt a sharp stab of jealousy as she recognised that special kind of fragility that made men feel protective—the kind of fragility that she had never possessed as a self-consciously gawky teenager, a tall young woman.

Grey was the only man she had ever known who had to bend to kiss her, but never in the way he bent now to tenderly kiss the cheek of his dark beauty. Then he put his arm about her shoulder as he leaned forward over the padded baby buggy she was wheeling, reaching out to touch the tiny starfish fingers of the infant lying there. It was a scene of such touching domesticity that if he had been some unknown man she would have glanced at the pair of them and thought what a perfectly charming picture they made.

Abbie shrank back into the darker shade of the trees, her heart beating painfully, her throat aching with the urgent desire to scream, her hand clamped over her mouth to make sure she didn’t. She wanted to leave. Walk away. Run away from that place. The idea of spying on her own husband was so alien, so disgusting that she felt sick. But she remained rooted to the spot, unable to make her feet move, to tear her eyes from the two figures, or the baby lying gazing up at its mother, as they walked almost within touching distance of her on their slow circumnavigation of the path that rimmed the little park.

‘If there’s anything else you need, Emma, just ring me,’ Grey said as they passed, blithely unaware of Abbie standing motionless in the shadow of the trees. The girl murmured something that Abbie couldn’t hear and he shook his head. ‘At the office unless it’s an emergency.’ Then the girl looked up at Grey, her dark eyes anxious. ‘Yes, she came back a couple of days ago.’ There was apparently no need for further explanation. ‘I’ll take you down to the cottage as soon as …’

As they moved on, turned the corner, his voice no longer reached her. The cottage. He had arranged to take this girl called Emma to Ty Bach. All that talk about Robert had been lies … lies …

No wonder he had wanted her to go to America. He had other plans for his summer vacation. And it was hardly surprising that he didn’t want her to have a child. He hadn’t wasted much time in arranging for a job-share wife, it seemed. But obviously one family at a time was enough.

No, Abbie. A small voice inside her head issued an urgent warning. You’re leaping to conclusions. There might be a rational explanation. Must be. This was some girl from the office who had become pregnant, needed help. Or someone from the law centre. A client. No, not a client. He had kissed her, and kissing clients—even on the cheek—was asking for trouble. But something. Please God, something—anything. Think! But her brain was as responsive as cotton wool.

When the pair reached an unoccupied bench on the far side of the park, Emma sat down and Grey joined her, his arm stretched protectively along the back of the seat. They chatted easily for a while, laughed at some shared joke. Then Grey, glancing at his watch, produced an envelope from inside his jacket pocket. Emma took it, stowed it carefully in her bag without opening it and then, when Grey stood up, got quickly to her feet and hugged him. He held her for a moment, then, disengaging himself, he looked once more at the sleeping child and touched the baby’s dark curls before turning to walk briskly back towards the gate.

There had been nothing in their behaviour to excite interest. No passionate kiss, no lingering glances. They had looked for all the world like any happily married couple with a new baby, meeting in the park at lunchtime.

Abbie instinctively took a step further back into the cover of the bushes as Grey approached the gate, but he looked neither to left nor right. Then he crossed the road and stopped at a flower stall to buy a bunch of creamy pink roses, laughing at something the flower-seller said as he paid for them. A moment later he had disappeared from sight, and Abbie finally stepped out into the dazzling sunlight.

For once in her life—her ordered, planned, tidy life—Abbie didn’t know what to do. And then quite suddenly she did. It was perfectly clear. She was a journalist. Not the foot-in-the-door investigative kind, but nevertheless a trained observer, with a mind cued to extract information as painlessly as possible from even the most reluctant of interviewees. If this were a story she would go across to where the girl was still sitting on the shady bench and find some way to strike up a conversation.

It shouldn’t be difficult, for heaven’s sake. Babies and dogs were a gift—guaranteed to make the most reserved people open up. She didn’t want to do it, but she had to. And on legs that felt as if they were made of watery jelly, Abbie forced herself to walk towards the girl her husband had put his arm around and called Emma.

She had nothing in her mind. No plan. No idea of what she was going to say. But it wasn’t necessary. As she approached the bench the girl looked up and smiled. No, not a girl. Close up, Abbie realised that she must be hearer thirty than twenty. A woman.

‘It’s really too hot for shopping, isn’t it?’ she said as she saw Abbie’s bags. Her voice was silvery, light and delicate, like the rest of her.

‘Yes, I suppose it is.’ Was it hot? She felt so terribly cold inside that she couldn’t have said. But it was an opening and she sat down.

‘Did you buy anything nice?’

A simple question. Difficult to answer, but she managed it. ‘A shirt and a sweater. For my husband,’ she added, unable to help herself. No! Put the woman at her ease—talk to her, her subconscious prodded her. Forget that this is personal. Treat it like any other story. ‘And socks,’ she continued. ‘Men never seem to have enough socks, do they?’ Smile. Make yourself smile. ‘I have this theory that there is a conspiracy between the washing machine manufacturers and the sock-makers …’

Apparently the grimace that locked her jaw had been somehow convincing, because Emma laughed. ‘You could be right. But I wouldn’t care if I could only just go out and buy a pair of socks for my man. Unfortunately he has the kind of wife who would notice.’

‘Oh?’ Would she? Would she query strange socks in the laundry? Yes, she rather thought she would.

‘I can’t even keep things for him at my place. It would be so easy to get them muddled up.’

‘I suppose so.’ Abbie felt herself blushing at such unexpected frankness, yet she was well aware of how easily some people would talk about even their most intimate lives to perfect strangers. Especially if there were constraints on talking to family or friends. But the last thing on earth she wanted to discuss with this woman was her ‘man’s’ wife.

She stared at the buggy. ‘A baby is rather more personal than a pair of socks,’ she said, forcing the words from her unwilling lips. But she had to be sure. ‘The greatest gift of all.’

The woman’s smile was full of secrets as she leaned forward and touched the child’s fingers. ‘That’s what he said. And, while he may leave me one day, I’ll always have his child.’

‘How old is he?’ Abbie asked hoarsely, as jealousy, like bile burning in her throat, swept over her.

‘Twelve weeks.’ The woman called Emma brushed back the mop of dark hair that decorated his tiny head. ‘He was born just after Easter.’

When Abbie had been steeping herself in the miseries of an African refugee camp. Had Grey been with this woman, holding her hand, encouraging her as she went through the pangs of giving birth to his son? No! Her heart rebelled. Surely it was impossible. And yet … She leaned over the buggy, letting her hair swing forward to cover her expression, and as she came face to face with the sleepy child she felt the blood drain from her face.

‘He’s beautiful,’ she said, her voice coming from somewhere miles distant. As beautiful as his father had been as a baby.