A Very Public Affair

WHEN Clare walked into the room she felt all the eyes turn on her, heard the sudden lapse in the conversation. Chin high, she resolutely ignored it and walked up to the director of the auction house.

‘Clare. So pleased you were able to come.’ He shook her hand, his manner pleasant enough, but she noticed the speculative look in his eyes. She encountered the same look, or something very near it, on the faces of the other people who were gathered in the large room, people she had previously regarded as friends and colleagues. But now, since that damning piece about her in all the tabloids, their manner towards her had subtly changed—especially that of the men.

It had taken some courage to come tonight. Perhaps it would have been easier if it had just been people she knew, but this evening the auction house was sponsoring a major charity auction in aid of a London hospital for children. As one of their leading experts on art deco and art nouveau, Clare was expected to attend, and it would have been cowardice not to come. So, much as she would have liked to bury herself at home, Clare had put on her newest cocktail dress, stitched a smile on her face and here she was. Let them talk about her. So what? She could take it But she was furious on Toby’s behalf; already he was being teased at school about that damn lawsuit.

She took a glass of champagne and mingled with her fellow experts, trying to keep her manner as calm and natural as she could. But half an hour later the double doors of the salon were thrown open and the first of the guests arrived: the organisers of the occasion, rich society women and their husbands. They were followed by celebrities from all walks of life: the theatre, business, politics—everyone who wanted to see and be seen in this exclusive circle. As one of the hosts, Clare was kept busy, mingling with the guests, thanking those who had made donations to the charity, ignoring the small, knowing smiles when people recognised her. But her cheeks flushed when she saw the heads of two women close together and heard one passing on the gossip. ‘Didn’t you know? That’s the girl Jack Straker had an affair with. And there’s a child involved, evidently. It was in all the papers.’

Quickly Clare moved away, cursing her bad luck. There had been no real reason—except for her terrorstricken reaction—for Jack to suspect about Toby from that one glimpse he’d had of him in the car a couple of months ago. But he had. And it had taken him no time at all to track her down, and then look up Toby’s birth certificate. But when he’d tried to contact her she’d returned none of his phone calls, hadn’t answered his letters and had refused to let him in when he had called at the flat. But then he’d brought the lawsuit, so she’d had to take notice of that.

Clare turned towards the door. She’d done enough; no one would notice if she left now. A newcomer had arrived and she found herself gazing at the one man she didn’t want to see—at Jack Straker. He took a purposeful step towards her but Clare. quickly went to join a small group gathered round the most famous guest, a minor royal. The director good-naturedly presented her, and Clare took good care to stay within the group until the auction started a short time later and everyone went to their seats.

She sat on a spare chair at the end of a row, so that Jack had no chance of coming near her. Already people had noticed that he was there too, and were nudging their friends, whispering the news. Not that they were interested in Clare particularly; she was a comparatively small fish in a big pool. But Jack was famous—a shark who could devour every other fish for breakfast. Glancing out of the corner of her eye, Clare saw him take a seat on the other side of the room. He looked towards her, his expression deeply sardonic, and she hastily shifted her gaze to the front—but her chin came up, set and determined. There was no way she was going to let Jack have a part in Toby’s life. Not after the way he’d treated her, used her.

The auction began and her thoughts drifted, away from that warm room with its bejewelled women and evening-suited men, back to the coldest winter’s night she’d ever known...

CHAPTER THREE

THE car that paused at the road junction was big and sleek, silver-grey in colour beneath the street lights. It made a statement that was easy to read: whoever drove a car like this had to be successful, rich, a winner. Huddled in a shop doorway and shivering with cold, Clare—hopeless, completely broke, a loser—raised tired lids to glance at it, deeply envying the mobile cocoon of warmth and luxury on this freezing winter’s night.

The lights changed to green and the car drove on, but turned into the courtyard of a block of flats just a few yards down the street on the opposite side. Watching, Clare saw the car pull up at the entrance and a man get out. He seemed in a great hurry, almost running through the doorway. He didn’t even bother to shut the car door properly. Such casual disregard held Clare’s attention. She waited for the man to come out again, her eyes fixed on the car, her whole mind consumed with the thought of the warmth inside it.

Slowly she dragged herself to her feet and as if drawn by an invisible but powerful magnet crossed the road towards the flats. Once out of the shelter of the doorway the icy blast of the wind caught her, made her gasp at its fierceness and brought tears that ran like icicles down her cheeks. Reaching the other side, Clare peered through the ornate iron railings that surrounded the block. The man still hadn’t come out and the car door was definitely open a couple of inches. She glanced round to see if anyone was watching, but it was almost one in the morning and the street was empty. Even the London traffic had ceased, everyone eager to get home on such a cold night.

For a moment longer she hesitated, but a gust of freezing wind chilled her to the marrow and sent her hurrying through the entrance, up to the car. A moment later her numb fingers had found the latch of the rear door and she slipped inside, pulling that and the driver’s door closed behind her. Immediately the cold of the wind was gone, making her give a sob of heartfelt relief. The inside of the car was very dark, but the back seat was deep and padded. Clare felt something fabric under her hand and found it was a rug, large and thick and beautifully soft. With a sigh of sheer bliss she lay back on the seat, curled into it and pulled the rug completely over herself.

The car must be new; she could smell the richness of the leather upholstery, catch the unmistakable hessian and wool smell of new carpet. But most of all she felt the warmth that still lingered. It was so long since she’d been warm. The winter had been so severe and she’d been cold for so long that it was almost impossible to remember what it had been like to be warm all the time, for it to be so commonplace that she hadn’t even thought about it.

Clare’s thoughts drifted, her tired brain unable to concentrate, and she fell asleep.

It was twenty minutes later before Jack Straker came out to the car. He had changed from the evening suit he’d been wearing when the phone call came and now had on jeans and a sweater, clothes more comfortable for the long drive north. He put his suitcase in the boot and threw his camel overcoat into the back, his movements brisk, compelled by the urgency in the voice of his father’s neighbour. Flu, she’d said, but his father hadn’t let her call him. Now pneumonia had set in and he wasn’t getting better, was not responding to treatment. She was worried, but now her own family had gone down with the flu virus, giving her no time to spare for her elderly neighbour, and the old man refused to go into hospital.

He would, Jack thought. Such obstinacy was typical of his father. It was what had made him insist, when he’d retired from business, on going to live in a remote area of the Lake District so that he could devote his life to the fishing that he loved.

The grimness in Jack’s lean face softened as he thought of his father. They didn’t see each other often. They were both men of independent spirit—his father because that was the way he wanted to be, and Jack because that was the way he’d been brought up—but the bond between them still went deep. Jack’s mother was dead, had died many years ago, and his father had shown no inclination to remarry, either out of love or the need for companionship. He was a man who could be perfectly content in his own company, and he had managed very competently until this illness had struck him down.

The unexpectedness of the neighbour’s emergency call had been a shock, especially coming as it had when he’d been at a nightclub after an evening spent at the opera. Reaching the motor way that ringed London, Jack put his foot down and headed north.

Having the coat thrown over her had startled Clare out of her sleep. She’d woken in fright, thinking that she was still in the shop doorway and that she was being attacked. But then the car had started to move and she’d remembered where she was. For a moment she was petrified that she’d been seen, but then realised that she couldn’t have been or the driver would have thrown her out. Clare hazily thought that she ought to let the driver know she was there, or heaven knew where she might end up. But the car was so warm, and the heavy overcoat had made her cosier still. She thought about it, and while she was still thinking fell deeply asleep again.

The big car ate up the miles, its engine the soft purr of a well-bred cat. Jack turned on the radio to a classical music channel but kept it low. The programme was interrupted from time to time by traffic bulletins which spoke of freezing temperatures and the threat of snow as he went ever further north. Two hours out of London he pulled off the motor way into a service area, where he filled the car up with petrol then went into the café where he bought a flask of coffee and a couple of rolls.

Clare didn’t wake then, but she did when Jack stopped again some time later and took a drink from the flask. It was the aroma of the coffee that got to her, filtering through the covers and making her insides ache with hunger. Gently, very slowly, she pulled the cover from around her face. The smell of the coffee was immediately stronger, making her throat tighten with thirst. She thought she’d die for a cup, for just a mouthful, a taste. Then she heard him unwrap a roll and smelt the ham that filled it, had to push her hand in her mouth and bite on it to stop herself crying out, the hunger in her belly a physical pain.

It was a relief when the car started off again and there was just the sound of music and the smell of the leather seats. She saw white wisps hitting the windows and knew that it was snowing. With a great shiver, Clare pulled the car rug close again. Fleetingly she wondered about the driver. She could see it was a man, but that was about all. His head was mostly hidden by the head rest, and all she could see of him was a wide pair of shoulders and the top of his dark head faintly outlined by the lights on the dashboard. Impossible to tell any more of him, but she had the impression that he was young. Was that good or bad? And how would he react when he found her, when they arrived at wherever he was heading?

Clare found she didn’t much care—about any of it. Things could hardly get worse for her than they were already, so what was the point of worrying? At least at the moment she was warm and comfortable, and she decided just to be thankful for that and to hell with the rest. So she slept again as the car continued on through the night—more slowly now in the bad conditions.

It was almost seven in the morning and the sky had lightened, but Jack still needed his headlights; the snow was becoming much heavier as the wipers incessantly cleared it from the windscreen. He had left the main road behind and the snow was worse on these minor roads, piling into drifts so that he had to use all his concentration. Coming to a crossroads, Jack slowed to peer at the signpost but was unable to read it. Pulling into the side, he looked at the map but realised it was no good; he would have to go and clear the damn sign.

Opening the door of the car, he felt the cold hit him. He stretched his shoulders, easing his aching back muscles, then opened the rear door and reached in for his overcoat. He pulled it out. Beneath it the rumpled car rug moved! Jack stared, then reached in and yanked the rug away to reveal the figure lying on the seat.

‘What the heck? How the hell did you get in there?’ And, grabbing hold of an enveloping anorak, he dragged the person out of the car.

Coming to with a shock, Clare almost fell as he pulled her roughly out into the road. Her legs had gone stiff from being curled up for so long and she could hardly stand, making her stumble and catch hold of him to steady herself. Immediately Jack pushed her away and then gave her a violent shake, his face full of anger and distaste.

‘Who are you? When did you get in the car?’ Clare didn’t answer and he gave her another rough shake. The hood of the anorak fell off and her hair, long and dark, tumbled about her head. ‘Good grief! A girl.’

For a moment they stood in the road, the snow swirling about them as they stared at each other. Clare, looking at him in nervous alarm, saw that Jack was tall and that she’d been right in thinking him young—he looked to be in his late twenties, his hair almost as dark as her own. His eyes full of startled anger, he said again, ‘Who are you? How did you get in the car?’

A snowflake settled on her lashes and Clare lifted her hand to wipe it away, then shivered and said, ‘Please—I’m cold.’

Jack hesitated, then gave a curse and strode over to clear the sign. Taking this as an acceptance of her being there, Clare quickly got back into the car. He joined her a minute later, closing the door to keep out the cold, then looked at her over the back of his seat. ‘Where did you get in—at the petrol station?’

Clare nodded, not seeing any point in telling him she’d been there all the way from London.

‘Damn! I haven’t got time to take you all the way back there. Where do you live?’ She didn’t speak and he said exasperatedly, ‘Haven’t you got a tongue in your head? Where do you live?’

‘I—I don’t live anywhere.’

His eyebrows rose, then he frowned. ‘I suppose you’ve run away from home.’ Again Clare didn’t speak and he thumped his clenched fist against the seat in annoyance. ‘What the hell am I going to do with you?’

Terrified that he might kick her out into the snow, Clare sat very still, her hazel eyes, large with apprehension, fixed on his face.

As if reading her thoughts, Jack said, ‘I ought to throw you out. I would too, if it wasn’t so damn cold.’ Making up his mind, he turned away and put on his safety belt, started the car and began to drive again. ‘Don’t think that I’m letting you get away with this. As soon as I possibly can I’m going to hand you over to the police and let them deal with you.’

With a great inner sigh of relief Clare settled back in the seat, but stayed sitting up, just pulling the rug around her again. Looking out of the windows, she could see no houses anywhere, just expanses of open fields and sometimes a few trees, their branches already white with snow. The man, she could see, was giving all his attention to his driving. Once the car skidded and it looked as if they were headed for a ditch, but he quickly straightened it, then gave a grunt of satisfaction as he saw a farmhouse and turned up the lane that ran along the side of it. The lane was short—about half a mile—then they came to another house, a smaller one, built of grey stone and with a copse of fir trees to the side. There was another car parked outside.

‘Stay here,’ the driver ordered, and didn’t even glance at Clare as he hurried to the house.

The door was unlocked. Jack pushed it open and, seeing the landing light was on, ran upstairs. ‘Mrs Murray?’

She was in his father’s room, and turned with a great look of relief. ‘Thank goodness you’ve come. The doctor’s been and he’s left some medicine.’ Already she was reaching for her coat.

Glancing at the bed, Jack saw his father was sleeping. They went out on the landing before he said, ‘How is he?’

She shook her head. ‘I’m sorry—he’s bad. Here, I’ve written down the doctor’s number. He’ll be able to tell you more than I can, although you might have trouble getting him; everyone around seems to be down with this flu.’

‘You’ll be wanting to get back to your family. How are they?’

‘Oh, they’re young and strong; they’ll recover.’ She stopped short and flushed a little. And Jack, seeing it, suddenly realised with a sick feeling of shock what she was afraid to tell him.

‘Is he so ill?’ he said faintly, hoping against hope that she would deny it. But she gave a brief nod and went ahead of him down the stairs. ‘I’ll drive you home,’ he said mechanically, his brain trying to come to terms with it but refusing to accept such terrible news.

‘No, I have the car.’ Mrs Murray looked out of the window. ‘It’s a good job you got here when you did; the lane soon gets blocked with snow and my husband’s too ill to get the tractor out to clear it.’

She left him, and Jack went back to his father’s room. He sat by the bed and took hold of his father’s limp hand. For the first time he realised how aged the man looked. He was an old man, but Jack had never realised it before. His skin was very white and his breathing was laboured, unnatural. Jack sat beside him, his thoughts full of regret and sadness, and it was a long time before he remembered the girl in the car.

Clare saw the woman hurry out of the house and the car drive away. She waited for the man to come back, peering out through the ever-thickening snow. Now that the engine was turned off the car began to get cold again. And she was hungry, so hungry. Still the man didn’t come back. At last, driven by hunger and by the warmth and shelter that the house promised, Clare got out of the car, gasping as the wind cut into her and the snow covered her shoes. Hurrying to the door, she went to knock, then hesitated and tried the knob. The door opened and she went quickly inside, afraid of making the man angry again but too cold and hungry not to risk it.