Phantom Marriage

Susan was instantly sympathetic.

‘Oh, you poor thing!’ she exclaimed, glancing significantly at the twins as she added, ‘No problems there, I hope? I can still remember what the lack of a father did to me, although it wasn’t the same thing. Mother divorced my real father when I was four. I don’t suppose I ever mentioned that to you before—I hated people knowing. She’s remarried again, you know,’ she added conversationally, patently unaware of the sudden tensing of Tara’s body. ‘The older she gets the younger her husbands get. She’s living in the States now. I think of all the fathers she provided me with James was my favourite. In the old days I never used to admit he wasn’t my father. He was wonderful fun, do you remember…?’

Did she? Tara forced a smile from a face that felt as though it would crack apart and expose her anguish to the world and managed to croak, ‘Yes…’

‘Look, we must get together,’ Susan announced enthusiastically. ‘We’ve so much to catch up on. We’ve just bought a house in the country—for Piers mainly. At the moment we can only use it at weekends, although his father is hoping to transfer his business down there eventually. We’re going down this weekend, why not come with us? The twins would love it, I’m sure.’

‘I…’

‘Don’t refuse,’ Susan begged. ‘Think about it. Here’s my phone number.’ She scribbled it down on a piece of paper and handed it to Tara. ‘I couldn’t believe it when you left Hillingdon like that, although I suppose at fourteen I was really too young for you to take me into your confidence. But you’d been so marvellous to me at school; like the sister I’d never had. Do you remember? You seemed to know instinctively how I felt about the problems I was having with Mother. I suppose that was something we shared, although for different reasons. Do you, like me, want to give your two all the love and affection we never had?’ She broke off as she realised that her car was blocking an exit, hurrying Piers towards it, calling over her shoulder to Tara, ‘Now don’t forget—you’re spending next weekend with us!’

All the way back to the house Tara felt completely numb. Susan of all people! She had spoken the truth when she said that they had had much in common. Susan had been one of the juniors at school when Tara was a prefect. She was always in trouble; stubborn, rebellious, undisciplined, but beneath her outward brashness, her seeming precocity, Tara had recognised the same inner despair and vulnerability she felt herself. It hadn’t been an easy task breaking down the barriers of years to discover the real Susan. The supposed sexual exploits which had so shocked one of her form teachers had, as Tara had suspected, been no more than fabrication; but there had been a great danger that Susan would fall into the trap of promiscuity in the intensity of her search for someone to give her the love and security she craved. To nullify the effect of a mother who was too distant and wrapped up in her own needs and desires to see what was happening to her child.

They had grown very close; as close as sisters, as Susan had claimed. When she had discovered that Susan was often left completely alone in the huge barn of a house which was only one of Mrs Harvey’s homes, Tara had taken to spending the occasional weekend with her. She herself had been studying for A-levels then, and following her example Susan had started to take a much keener interest in her own work. ‘A miniature do-gooder,’ had been one of the less cruel tags Susan’s mother had applied to her, because despite her lack of interest in her child, Mrs Harvey had been bitterly resentful of Susan’s friendship with her.

In those days she had known very little about Susan’s background. Her mother and father were seldom at home; in fact the first time she had met Susan’s father she hadn’t realised who he was. It had been during one of the weekends she had spent at Susan’s home. She had woken in the night and wanted a drink. Downstairs in the kitchen she had been on the point of opening the fridge when she realised she wasn’t alone. Fear had been quickly followed by curiosity when she had realised that the tired, gaunt- looking man slumped over the kitchen table was the fabled father Susan adored, and an oddly maternal wave had swamped her when he raised his head and looked at her with exhausted eyes.

She had cooked him a meal; she recalled it vividly. He had eaten without appetite, and it was only years later, suffering from jet lag herself, that she had realised just how unwelcome her ministrations and cooking had probably been, but he had been too kind to let her see it. James had a weakness for children and lame dogs, but the trouble had been that she hadn’t been a child, although neither of them had realised it until too late.

‘Mummy, I’m hungry!’

Mandy’s imperative cry broke through her thoughts. Tiredly she switched off the car and helped them out. The casserole she had prepared that morning before leaving for work smelled appetising as they walked into the kitchen. Sending both twins upstairs to change their clothes and wash, Tara set about preparing their meal. Although five o’clock was rather early for her to eat, she preferred to share her meals with the twins rather than eat alone; vivid memories of lonely meals eaten in solitude at the kitchen table while her mother looked on a strong deterrent against subjecting her own children to the same thing.

Mealtimes were normally the highlight of her day. Over their food the twins normally regaled her with the happenings of their day, and she made a point of listening seriously. Simon normally spoke with wide-eyed solemnity but Mandy, almost too quick for her own good, could easily spot when an adult was simply indulging her.

They came downstairs together dressed in identical dungarees.

‘Simon couldn’t fasten his sneakers,’ Mandy told her, ‘so I had to do it for him.’

Suppressing a sigh, Tara inspected their newly washed hands. It was quite normal for Mandy to be more advanced than her brother at this stage, she knew, but she was concerned that Mandy’s possessively maternal attitude to her brother, although delightful, might prevent Simon from learning to stand on his own two feet.

Both children ate hungrily. Tara was an excellent cook and mainly through firm insistence in their early years, neither twin was faddy about food. Her budget might not stretch to luxury items, Tara reflected, but at least the twins had a well balanced and healthy diet; and as far as she was concerned they were far better off without too many sweets and chocolates.

Mandy promised to have her own slender build, but already Simon was heavier, and she suspected he would grow up to resemble his father.

After dinner she always set aside an hour to play with the twins and read to them. Mandy with quicksilver impatience grew bored with reading, but Simon was always anxious for more. Almost identical in looks, by nature they were vastly different, Tara reflected.

Her mother had started a campaign obviously intended to steer her towards marriage; its benefits to the twins always stressed whenever she went home, but so far Tara had resisted. For, one thing, marriage would mean telling someone about the twins’ paternity, which she had no desire to do; for another it meant exposing herself once more to their rejection.

Other girls, she knew, suffered the same experience she had done without the same results, but then she had always been acutely sensitive; too sensitive, she acknowledged, recognising that some of her fear for Simon sprang from the fact that she feared he had inherited this vulnerability from her.

It seemed almost incredible now that her body had ever experienced the aching pleasure which was now only a dim memory, but which had once driven her to forget all her principles and scruples to the extent that nothing mattered save for James’s possession of her, even though she had known quite well that at the time his actions were blurred and his mind dazed by a lethal combination of exhaustion and jet lag.

Not a pretty memory, and one which had served to help her keep a cool control over her emotions ever since. He loved her, James had said, but his later actions had not borne out those words. What he had felt for her had simply been a momentary desire, and she, fathoms deep in love with him, had encouraged and incited him into making love to her. The twins were the result of that careless lovemaking, and on them Tara had poured out all the love she had been forced to bottle up inside her.

Casual affairs were just not her thing, and while there had been plenty of men who had made it plain that they desired her, Tara had always held them at a distance. So far Chas had been the most determined, but Tara had held her ground, and it gave her no pleasure to know that Chas’s sudden spurts of temper against the models were fuelled by sexual frustration caused by her refusal to sleep with him.

So far she had managed to walk the dangerously fine line of keeping their personal relationship completely separate from work. As a photographer Chas was a professional down to his fingertips, but Tara worried that one day he would break what was obviously a self-imposed rule, and remind her that he had it in his power to make her unemployed. So far he had not used that weapon, and she honoured him for it. However, there was this weekend job coming up involving taking some fashion shots at Leeds Castle. She had racked her brains for a legitimate excuse for not going, but so far none had been forthcoming. The twins could go with them, Chas had said easily when she commented that she could not simply abandon them for an entire weekend.

It came to her that Susan’s invitation would provide a cast-iron excuse for refusing to go; it would also prevent Chas from guessing her fear that if she simply refused the assignment he would press his suit even harder, forcing the confrontation she had so far managed to avoid.

CHAPTER TWO (#ue8248a1c-1b20-5cbe-ba22-61d952be1d58)

THE morning didn’t get off to a good start. For one thing, Tara’s alarm failed to go off on time, and she was eventually woken up by Mandy tugging impatiently at the bedclothes.

Tara normally got up an hour before the twins, using the time to wash her hair and do her make-up. Although far from vain she considered presenting the right image an important part of her job, although sometimes it was hard to strike the narrow dividing line between appearing too glamorous or too staid. Normally she settled for simply keeping her hair clean and glossy, using the minimum amount of make-up and dressing in clothes that didn’t impede her work and yet still looked smart.

This morning there was no time to wash her hair, and she plaited it quickly while she supervised the twins’ breakfasts.

Simon for some reason had decided that he loathed boiled egg and was morosely engaged in pushing his sulkily round his plate.

‘Simon, eat up!’ Exasperation sharpened her voice and she sighed when the little boy’s face crumpled.

‘I’m sorry, darling.’ A swift hug and a kiss banished the threatening tears, although Simon was obviously not going to let her off easily.

‘My tummy hurts,’ he complained. ‘Mummy, I don’t want to go to school. Why can’t I stay at home with you?’

‘Because I have to go out to work,’ Tara told him firmly, surreptitiously checking his pulse and temperature. Both seemed normal. Simon’s pain was more imaginary than real, she suspected, and sympathised with him, remembering how often she had suffered similar afflictions.

‘Are we going to stay with that lady for the weekend?’ Mandy demanded as Tara bustled them outside to the Mini. ‘Where does she live?’

‘I don’t know,’ Tara was forced to admit. ‘In the country somewhere.’

‘The country?’ Simon perked up immediately. ‘On a farm?’ he breathed hopefully.

Although it was ridiculously early to be worrying about careers for the twins, Simon’s very evident love of the countryside and its inhabitants led Tara to believe that he would be happiest in some sort of outdoor life connected with farming.

‘Not a farm, I don’t think,’ Tara told him.

‘But we can go, can’t we?’ Mandy pleaded. ‘We never go anywhere. Everyone else in our class is always going away.’

Allowing for childish exaggeration, Tara knew the criticism was well founded. The twins’ school fees meant that there was very little money left over for luxuries such as holidays, although they did spend weekends with her mother and aunt and uncle occasionally. These visits were not always a great success; her mother had never been able to fully conceal her disapproval of the twins’ birth, and all the time they were in her company Tara was on tenterhooks in case her mother made some unguarded reference to James.

As disapproving as she had been of Tara herself, it was for James that she had reserved a bitter, intense hatred which had not waned with the years.

And yet in many ways she was more to blame than James, Tara reflected tiredly. By the time she had realised the true nature of her feelings for him it had been too late for her to turn back. Susan’s mother was rarely at home; she had a partnership in a business in New York and spent much of her time there, and Tara with adolescent logic, fathoms deep in love, had somehow managed to dismiss her almost entirely from her mind, not attempting to hide her love for James.

With the added wisdom the intervening years had brought Tara could see things more objectively from James’ point of view; married to a woman several years his elder, a woman who spent most of her time away from home leaving him alone, a taxing, struggle business to run—was it so very surprising that he had given in to the impulse to take the solace she had so innocently offered?

Perhaps not, but surely he must have known so much better than she had that there was no future for them? Surely he should have had the sophistication and worldly wisdom to call a halt before matters finally got out of hand? That was what she could not forgive him—that he had carelessly disregarded the consequences of allowing a mixture of boredom and sexual desire to overcome the barriers which should have existed between them.

She had been seventeen to his twenty-six—not a vast difference in terms of years, but in terms of experience…

‘Mummy, we’re here!’ Mandy announced shrilly, drawing her attention to the fact that she had been about to drive past the school.

After leaving the twins Tara drove straight to the studio. The moment she walked in she sensed that Chas was in one of his difficult moods. He grunted without looking up from the camera he was engrossed in. A model Tara recognised from previous sessions was sitting tensely on a bentwood chair, the atmosphere in the hot studio thick with tension.

Summing up the situation at a glance, Tara shrugged out of her coat and filled the kettle in the small kitchen attached to the studio. Without saying a word she placed a mug of coffee in front of Chas and went across to chat to the model. She was nineteen, with several successful ad campaigns behind her, and Tara knew from the schedules that she had come in to sit for some practice shots for a Vogue feature.