Grace. Nobody will connect me.’
‘They will in the end. Jack, you’re taking such risks for me.’
‘You’ve taken a few risks yourself, haven’t you?’
‘But not for you. You don’t owe me anything.’
‘Yes I do. Selina married Derek. I guess that’s down to you.’
‘I saw it in the papers. Big society do. Has Grace tried to pair you off with anyone else?’
‘No. I think she’s understood now that my stubbornness is greater than her cunning.’
‘You’re not too bad in the cunning stakes yourself,’ I observed wryly.
‘Thanks to you. I’m in your debt.’
‘Is that what you’re doing now? Paying a debt you think you owe me?’
He shrugged. ‘I guess. Why not? Paying debts in full and on time is good business practice.’ He said the last words with slow emphasis.
‘And you believe in good business practice?’ I hazarded.
‘It’s what makes the world go round.’
‘Isn’t it supposed to be love that does that?’
‘Supposed to be. But that’s an old wives’ tale. Business is more reliable. But you have to do it right. When I’ve finished we’ll be even. All debts paid, loose ends tied up. And then,’ he added in an almost inaudible voice, ‘then maybe I can sleep.’
He was still stretched out on the sofa. I dropped down beside him and he took hold of my shoulders. He was looking straight up at me, but I had a strange feeling he couldn’t see me.
‘Sleep,’ he whispered again. ‘But then I’d wake and hear you crying, like that last morning. I was never sure whether I imagined it or not.’
‘You didn’t imagine it,’ I said. ‘I was crying at leaving you.’
‘I never stopped hearing that sound, night after night.’ He closed his eyes tight, as if in pain. ‘You shouldn’t have left me with that in my ears.’
‘I shouldn’t have done anything the way I did,’ I whispered. ‘I got everything wrong. I thought I was doing the right thing. I didn’t mean to hurt you, Jack. I thought I was just a holiday romance.’
‘Was that what I was to you?’
‘Oh, no, no!’
He stroked a wisp of hair away from my forehead. ‘Why couldn’t you have trusted me?’ he said. ‘When I found you’d gone I nearly went crazy. It was like coming to an oasis in the desert and then finding it was only a mirage. And then the desert is all around you and there’s no way out.’
‘You’re asking me to use hindsight,’ I pleaded. ‘At the time it felt like the right thing to do. Maybe if I’d told you everything from the start it might have been different, but I felt as if I’d tricked you into loving me by hiding the truth.’
There was a silence before he said in an odd voice, ‘Meaning that if I’d known the truth I wouldn’t have loved you?’
‘Meaning that you’d have been warned in time and you could have been cautious before it was too late.’
He stared at me for a moment, then rose so sharply that I slid to the floor.
‘Thanks,’ he said harshly. ‘That’s all I needed.’
‘What?’
‘That’s what you think of me? Cold-blooded, calculating, willing and able to be cautious once I’ve assessed the conditions and found them unsuitable? You call that love? Damn you, that’s an insult to everything I ever felt for you.’
‘Jack, I didn’t mean—’
‘I know what you meant, and I call it arrogance. You made the decision for both of us. You thought you were the only one who could decide. Did it ever occur to you that I was a thinking human being who liked to make his own decisions? Maybe I could have coped. Maybe I could have found a way around it.’
I no longer tried to stop him. What was coming out was a stream of rage that had been building up for a long time.
‘Della, did it ever occur to you that your family of small-time con artists is no big deal? You think you’re the only one who’s got friends in jail? Last year I nearly did some business with a fellow whose company I really enjoyed. He was funny, bright, well-mannered, and an expert in his field. But the negotiations got nowhere because he was arrested for massive fraud. He’s currently doing ten years in a New York jail for filching thirty million.’
That silenced me.
‘There are probably more crimes committed in my world than yours,’ Jack went on. ‘Only they’re mostly dressed up so that they don’t look like crimes. Bribery, corruption—you name it. I don’t go in for it myself, but I know people who do. I can’t help that. It’s a fact of life. So maybe your folks buy stuff that fell off the back of a lorry? Big deal!’
I’d picked myself up off the floor and sat down on the sofa again. He gave an exasperated sigh and sat down beside me.
‘I know my way around the big jungle, Della. I can cope with it. And I could sure as hell have coped with your little jungle.’
I felt winded. Had I been arrogant? Denying him the right to make his own decisions? Had I thrown everything away for nothing?
And it had been totally thrown away, because I’d heard him speaking in the past tense. He’d said, I could have coped, not I can cope.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I never thought of it that way.’
His anger had passed, and he took my hand. It wasn’t the start of anything, just a friend comforting a friend.
‘How have you been?’ he asked quietly.
‘Sad,’ I said. ‘You?’
He nodded. After a while he said heavily, ‘I found the jewellery where you said it was. There was no need for that. It was rightfully yours. I gave it to you.’
‘I could never really feel it was mine,’ I said. ‘Except Charlie.’
He rose and went to a small chest of drawers, returning after a moment and holding something out to me. It was Charlie.
‘Take him,’ he said. ‘He’s always been yours.’
‘Thank you.’
I took him gratefully. As everything else had been taken away I had clung to Charlie, sitting up at night and holding him in my hand like a talisman. Losing him had been like losing Jack again. Now the sight of him made me smile.
‘I haven’t seen you smile since we met again,’ he said.
‘I’m
