You Owe Me

They were dining out with a business associate of Danny’s. He wanted to show her off like a child with a new and status-symbol toy, it was an attitude she had grown accustomed to.

They were to go to a chic, “in” restaurant, which would be full of New York glitterati, and Chris’s spirits sank as she got into the taxi. Natalie dead! Even now she could not take it in. What had happened? She wished now she had read the letter more fully, but she had been simply too stunned. She supposed it was natural that the solicitors should write to her as Natalie’s closest blood relative after her daughter. She knew that Natalie had had a girl, her aunt had told her, wistfully, longing for an opportunity to see her only grandchild, but knowing it would be denied her.

If it hadn’t been for Ray Thornton, she herself would have had to stay in Little Martin, enduring the sight of Natalie living with Slater as his wife. She had a lot to thank Ray for. Slater had never liked him. “Flash” he had called him, and in a way it was true. Ray had made his money promoting pop stars. He had been thirty-one to Slater’s twenty-five then, fresh from the London “scene” and defiantly brash. She had liked him despite it, although then she had turned down the job he had offered her in the new club he was opening in London. She had then only known him a matter of months and yet he had been the one she had turned to that night, when she had discovered Natalie in Slater’s arms. He had comforted her bracingly then, just as he had done when Natalie announced her pregnancy. It was Ray who had told her she ought to become a model. It was Ray who had introduced her to the principal of the very select London modelling school were she had trained. “A little too old for a beginner” was how Madame had described her, but she had more than repaid Ray’s faith in her. For a while he had pursued her, but only half-heartedly, recognising that she was still far too bruised to contemplate putting anyone else in Slater’s place. They had kept in touch. Ray was married now and lived in California. Chris liked his wife and he had the most adorable two-year-old son.

The evening dragged on interminably. Chris was aware of the sharp, almost disapproving looks Danny was giving her, and made an effort to join in the conversation. The other two men and their wives were obviously impressed both by Danny and the restaurant. Two out of the three wasn’t bad averaging, Chris thought cynically, wondering what sort of deal Danny was hoping to arrange with these two very proper Mid-Western Americans and their wives. Danny was a wheeler-dealer in the best sense of the word; he thrived on challenge and crises.

Chris could tell he was still annoyed with her when he took her home. He wanted to come in with her, but she told him firmly in the taxi that he could not. His brief infatuation with her was nearly over, she recognised when he let her get out of the cab, but then what had she expected? It was hardly Danny’s fault that she didn’t live up to her image. She had grown used to seeing her photograph plastered over the gossip press, generally with that of a casual date, nearly always referred to as her latest “conquest”. What would those editors say if they knew that in actual fact she was still a virgin?

The thought made her wince. That she was, was only by virtue of the fact that Natalie had interrupted Slater’s lovemaking. He had cursed her cousin that day. They had thought themselves alone at his house. He had rung Chris at home just before lunch, and the sound of his voice had sent shivers running down her spine. She had known him a long time. His father had been friendly with her uncle, but he had been away at University and then he had worked in Australia for a couple of years preparing himself for his eventual take-over of his father’s farm machinery company. His father had died of a heart attack very unexpectedly and he had come home; tanned, dark-haired, hardened by physical work, Chris had felt an immediate attraction to him.

She had been nineteen, and falling in love with him was the most exhilarating, frightening thing she had ever experienced. She had thought he loved her too. He had told her he did; he had spoken about the future as though it was his intention that they shared it, but in the end it had all meant nothing.

She ought to have guessed that day when Natalie suddenly appeared unexpectedly, but she had simply thought of it as another example of her cousin’s bitter jealousy of her.

She had been on holiday from her job in a local travel agents. Slater had rung her at home, suggesting they met for lunch, but when he picked her up, he had told her throatily that the only thing he was hungry for was her. She could remember her excitement even now, she could almost taste the exhilarating fizz of sexual desire and intense adoration. They had gone back to his house—he had inherited it from his father along with the family business; a gracious late Georgian atmosphere that Chris loved. She hadn’t considered then how wealthy Slater was; she had simply been a girl deeply in love for the first time in her life. If Slater had taken her to the tiniest of terraced houses she would have felt the same.

They hadn’t even waited to go upstairs, she remembered painfully. Slater had opened the door to the comfortable living room, and she had been in his arms before it closed behind them, eagerly responding to his kisses, trembling with the desire surging through her body.

They had kissed before, and he had caressed her, but they had never actually made love. Slater knew that she was a virgin. He had asked her, and she had answered him honestly. She had imagined then there had been tenderness as well as anticipation in his eyes but of course, imagination was all it had been. They had been lying on the settee when they were interrupted by Natalie. Chris’s blouse had been unfastened, her breasts tender and aroused by Slater’s kisses. Natalie had burst in on them completely unexpectedly, half hysterical as she accused Chris of deliberately misleading her about her plans for the day. The only way Chris had been able to calm her down was to go home with her. Slater, she remembered had been tautly angry, and she had thought then it was because he resented her concern for Natalie. Had he even then been making love to her cousin as well? What would have happened if Natalie had not interrupted when she did? What would he have done if he made both of them pregnant? Hysterical tension bubbled painfully in her throat. Perhaps they could have tossed a coin for him?

The pain grew sharper and she suppressed it from force of habit. Dear God, even now after seven years, the thought of him still made her ache, both emotionally and physically. She had never truly got over him—or more truthfully, she had never truly recovered from the blow of discovering he was not the man she had believed. Not only had she suffered a gruelling sense of rejection, she had also to endure the knowledge that her judgment was grossly at fault.

She would never forget the day Natalie came to her and told her the truth. It was just a week after she had seen her cousin in Slater’s arms.

She had been working all day, and normally Slater picked her up after work. On this occasion though, the girl she worked with told her that Slater’s secretary had rung and left a message asking her to go straight round to his house.

She had no car of her own, and it was a two mile walk, but Chris had been too much in love to consider that much of an obstacle. At Slater’s house they would be alone. Something he had seemed to avoid since Natalie interrupted them. She knew he was having problems with the company; a matter of securing a very important order which was vital to its continued existence and had put his behaviour down to this.

His car had been parked in the drive when she arrived, and for some reason, which even now she could not really understand, instead of ringing the front door bell she had decide to surprise him by walking in through the sitting room and gave her an uninterrupted view of the settee and its occupants. Her whole body had gone cold as she recognised her cousin’s dark head nestled against Slater’s shoulder, her arms were round his neck, his head bent over hers. Chris hadn’t waited to see any more. On shaky legs she had walked away, dizzy with sickness and pain, unable to come to terms with what she had just witnessed.

She went home and rang Slater from there to tell him that she wasn’t feeling well, hoping against hope he would mention Natalie’s presence; that there was some explanation for what she had seen, other than the obvious, but he hadn’t.

Natalie had returned many hours later, her face pale, and her eyes smudged, her whole bearing one of vindictive triumph and Chris knew that somehow Natalie knew what she had witnessed. It was never mentioned by either of them, at least not then, and Chris had determinedly refused to accept any of Slater’s calls in the week that followed, too hurt to even confide in her aunt. Later she was glad she had not done so.

Never in a thousand years would she forget her shock and pain when Natalie came home and announced that she was expecting Slater’s child. She had only told Chris at that stage, gloating over her pain, violently triumphant, almost hysterical with pleasure. Her cousin had always been volatile, Chris remembered, always subject to emotional “highs” and “lows”; dangerously so, perhaps.

She had not got in touch with Slater. The only thing left for her now was her pride and her profound thankfulness that she would not share Natalie’s fate; at least she had told herself it was thankfulness. Even now pain speared her when she thought of Slater’s child, but she dismissed it, forcing herself to remember the events of that traumatic day.

Just as soon as she could escape from Natalie she had gone out, simply walking herself into a state of numb exhaustion, and that was how Ray had found her. She hadn’t even realised how far she had walked or that it was getting dark. He had taken her home with him, and although he had questioned her closely, all she would tell him was that she wanted to get away from Little Martin. That was when he had made his suggestion that she should take up modelling as a career. Previously she had only known him casually, but now she found him a warm and helpful friend. When Chris mentioned Natalie’s name briefly, not wanting to tell him the truth, Ray had looked angry, and she had gained the impression that he did not like her. That alone had been sufficient to underwrite her trust in him, and it was a trust that had never been misplaced, unlike that she had had for Slater.

She had left that night for London with Ray, and had written to her aunt the next day, explaining that she had worried that her aunt might dissuade her from leaving, giving this as an explanation for her unplanned departure.

A month later Natalie and Slater were married. Her aunt was both stunned and concerned. “She’s so young, Chris,” she had sighed, “far too young for marriage, but perhaps Slater…” she had broken off to frown and say quietly. “My dear I know that you and Slater…”

“We’re friends, nothing more,” Chris had quickly assured her, hastily changing the subject, telling her aunt about her new life and making it sound far more exciting than it actually was.

She had worked hard for two years, before suddenly becoming noticed, and was now glad that she had not accepted any of the more dubious assignments that had come her way in those early days. No magazine was ever going to be able to print “girly” photographs of her simply because none had ever been taken.

She had heard from Natalie once, that was all. A taunting letter, describing in detail her happiness with Slater, and his with her.

“It was very wise of you to leave when you did,” Natalie had written. “You saved Slater the necessity of telling you he didn’t want you any more.”

Chris hadn’t bothered replying and she had never heard from either of them since. Now Natalie was dead.

It took her a long time to get to sleep, images from the past haunting her, and then when, at last she did, the impatient jangling of the telephone roused her.

Her room was in darkness, and for a few seconds she was too disorientated to do anything but simply listen to the shrill summons of the ’phone.

At last she made a move to answer it. The crisply precise English accent on the other end of the line surprised her by sounding almost unfamiliar, making her remember how long it was since she had visited her own country. “I have Mr Smith for you,” the crisp voice announced, the line going dead, before Chris heard the ponderous tones of her aunt’s solicitor.

“Chris my dear how are you?”

“Half asleep,” she told him drily. “Do you realise what time it is here?”

“And do you realise we’ve been trying to get in touch with you for the last six weeks,” he retaliated. “I’ve practically had to subpoena your agent to get this address out of her. Chris, it isn’t like you to be so dilatory…I’d expected to hear from you before now.”

He must mean about Natalie’s death, Chris realised, suddenly coming awake.

“I only got your letter today,” she told him. “It must have been following me round. What happened? How did Natalie…?”

“The coroner’s verdict was suicide while the balance of her mind was disturbed,” she heard Tom Smith saying, the words reaching her stupefied brain only very slowly. “I did tell you that in my letter, my dear. Your cousin always was a mite unbalanced, I’m afraid. Your aunt recognised that fact and it used to cause her considerable concern. Roger’s mother had a similar temperament.”

Since Tom Smith had known the family for many years Chris did not dispute his comments. Suicide! The word seemed to reverberate painfully inside her skull, resurrecting all her childhood protective instincts towards her cousin. “Why? Natalie had had everything to live for, a husband, a child…”

“It seems that your cousin had been suffering from depression for a long time.” Tom Smith further shocked her by saying. Remorse, hot and sharp, seared through her. Had Natalie needed her, wanted her? Could she have helped her cousin. Pain mingled with guilt; her animosity towards Natalie forgotten, all her bitterness directed towards Slater. Perhaps he had been as unfaithful to Nat as he had her? She should never have blamed her cousin for what had happened; Nat had been an impressionable seventeen, Slater a mature twenty-five. Hatred burned white hot inside her, he had robbed her of everything she thought childishly, all her illusions; her unborn children, and now her only relative. No, not quite her only relative, she realised frowning. There was Nat’s little girl…Sophie.

“How is Sophie taking it?” she asked Tom Smith automatically, voicing the words almost before she realised she was going to. She had deliberately held herself aloof from all knowledge of Sophie, unable to contemplate the pain of knowing she was Slater’s child—the child she had wanted to give him.

“That’s why I’m ringing you,” Tom Smith told her, further stunning her. “She’s always been a very withdrawn, introverted child, but now I’m afraid there’s cause for serious concern. Sophie hasn’t spoken a single word since her mother died.”

Pity for her unknown niece flooded Chris, tears stinging her eyes as she thought of the child’s anguish.

“Natalie wouldn’t have named you as Sophie’s guardian if she hadn’t wanted to do so. I know it’s asking a lot of you, Chris, but I really think you should come home and see the child.”

Guardian! She was Sophie’s guardian? Chris couldn’t take it in. Her hand was slippery where it gripped the receiver, all her old doubts and pain coming back, only to be submerged by a wave of pity for Natalie’s child.

“But surely Slater…” she began huskily, knowing that Slater could never willingly have agreed to Natalie’s decision to appoint her as his child’s guardian.

“Slater is willing to try anything that might help Sophie,” Tom Smith astounded her by saying. “He’s desperate, Chris.”

There was a hint of reproach in his voice, and guiltily Chris remembered the unread pages of his letter, which she had discarded. “Did you write to me about this?” she asked.

“I set everything out in my letter,” he agreed patiently. “I was surprised when Natalie came to see me nine months ago and said that she wanted to appoint you as Sophie’s guardian, but she was so insistent that I agreed. If only I’d looked more deeply into her reasoning I might have realised how ill she was, but she seemed so calm and reasonable. Her own experience of losing her father had made her aware of how insecure a child could feel with only one parent; if anything should happen to her she wanted to be sure that Sophie would always have someone she could turn to.

“I had no idea then of course, that she hadn’t discussed her intentions with Slater, or indeed that you weren’t aware of them. There’s nothing legally binding on you, of course, and naturally Slater will continue to bring up his daughter, but at the moment he seems unable to reach her. She needs help, Chris, and you might be the only person who can help her.”

“But I’m a stranger to her,” Chris protested, realising fully what Tom was asking of her. How could she return to Little Martin? How could she endure the sight of Slater’s child; of Slater himself…but no, she was over that youthful infatuation. She knew him now for what he was, a weak man too vain to resist the opportunity to seduce a trusting seventeen-year-old.