evening, with the prospect of spending several weeks with her father and his wife uppermost in her mind, she couldn’t help the inevitable comparison.
Laura was carrying a sheaf of papers and waved them in her daughter’s face playfully. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘I’ve got your tickets and travelling arrangements.’
Tamsyn smoothed soap over her arms. ‘When do I leave?’
Laura appeared not to notice the slightly dry note in Tamsyn’s voice and pretended to consult the documents. ‘Early on Sunday morning, darling.’ She looked at her daughter again. ‘Charles thought you would prefer to stay overnight Saturday at the hotel and make a fresh start Sunday morning.’
‘I see.’ Tamsyn played with a handful of bubbles. ‘And you leave Saturday night.’
‘That’s right, darling. On the first stage of our journey. It’s rather exciting, isn’t it?’
‘If you say so.’ Tamsyn couldn’t entirely hide her own feelings then.
Laura frowned. ‘What’s wrong? You’re not still hankering over those plans you made with Gerry, are you?’
Tamsyn sighed. ‘I saw him this afternoon. He was pretty disappointed, and so am I.’
‘But, Tamsyn, even had I not been about to take one of the most serious steps a woman can take, I should still have found the idea of you hitching about the country in the company of that young man rather hard to swallow.’
‘Why?’
‘Oh, Tamsyn, don’t be naïve! You know perfectly well what I mean.’
‘Do you think if Gerry and I wanted to do something wrong we’d need to arrange a holiday first?’ exclaimed Tamsyn scornfully. ‘Honestly, Mummy, it’s ridiculous!’
‘Very well. Perhaps it is. Perhaps I’m doing you both an injustice. And no doubt in other circumstances I would have to agree. But right now I’m just relieved that you’re going to stay with Lance. Besides, it will do you good to travel. And England is a beautiful country, no matter what it’s climate’s like.’
Tamsyn expelled her breath loudly. ‘Okay, Mummy. I won’t make a fuss.’ She forced herself to be interested. ‘Where did you say Charles was lecturing first?’
Laura regarded her intently for a moment as though realising for the first time that Tamsyn had a mind and a will of her own. Then she shrugged, as though to dispel the unease she had suddenly experienced, and began to tell her daughter the details of their schedule.
Charles arrived before Tamsyn went down to dinner, and when she entered the exquisitely appointed lounge he was standing helping himself to a drink from the cabinet. It was strange, she thought with a pang, that when she returned from visiting her father, Charles would be a permanent fixture here, sharing their lives, and sleeping in her mother’s bedroom. She would no longer be able to go into her mother’s room in the early hours of the morning and tell her all about the party she had just been to, or climb into bed with her on Sunday mornings and have Rebecca bring them breakfast together.
Charles turned when he heard her step and regarded her admiringly. He was a man in his early fifties, of medium build with a rather angular face and body. Like her mother he, too, lectured at the university, and it was their mutual interests which had brought them together. Tamsyn neither liked nor disliked him, but she could understand his appeal for her mother. Theirs was a blending of minds rather than spirits, but Tamsyn knew that that kind of a union would never do for her.
‘You’re looking charming, my dear,’ he said now, pouring her some sherry with the familiarity of long use. ‘Here you are.’
‘Thank you.’ Tamsyn took the glass and looked down into its depths without drinking the liquid. ‘Has it stopped raining yet?’
Charles finished his bourbon and poured himself a second. ‘More or less. It’s quite cool for June, don’t you think?’
Tamsyn nodded, and seated herself comfortably in an armchair, smoothing the skirt of her long amber-coloured caftan about her. ‘Mummy tells me you’re visiting Seattle first.’
‘Yes. Then we’ll drive south through California, finishing up at San Diego.’
‘A wonderful trip,’ commented Tamsyn.
‘Indeed.’ Charles looked rather smug. ‘I’m sure your mother will enjoy it.’
‘I’m sure she will,’ agreed Tamsyn amicably.
‘You’re not bitter, are you, Tamsyn?’
‘Bitter?’ Tamsyn was taken aback. ‘No. Why should I be bitter?’
‘About being sent to your father, of course. I mean—well, Laura has cared for you all these years without a break, you know. It’s time he fulfilled his commitment.’
Tamsyn was staggered. Was that what her mother had said? Had she told Charles that Lance Stanford had virtually disregarded his responsibilities? Tamsyn found this possibility vaguely distasteful. After all, her mother had never encouraged her father to keep in touch with his daughter, and Tamsyn recognised the fact that Lance Stanford must have resented this from time to time. But Tamsyn had always allied herself with her mother, never ever imagining that Laura would take it upon herself to get married again.
But just then Laura came into the room, mature and slightly intimidating in a gown of black silk. ‘Oh, good,’ she said, when she saw the glass of bourbon in Charles’s hand. ‘You’ve helped yourself. I hoped you would.’ She allowed him to kiss her cheek. ‘After all, you’ve got to get used to making yourself at home here, hasn’t he, Tamsyn?’
Tamsyn managed a faint smile, and then her mother’s voice changed: ‘Tamsyn, go and find Rebecca, darling. Ask her how long dinner will be. I’m starving.’
Tamsyn got up and went obediently out of the room, closing the door behind her. She understood her mother’s request for what it was, an attempt to get her out of the way for a few minutes, but it was not a pleasing experience being made to feel an intruder in one’s own home. Perhaps it was a good thing they were going away. By the time they came back the newness of their relationship would have been blunted and perhaps then it would not be so hard to take.
The Boeing 747 landed at London Airport in the early evening, London time. It had not been an arduous journey for Tamsyn, but the time change would take some getting used to. Dinner had been served on the flight, but she had been too strung up to eat anything, the events of the past forty-eight hours gradually taking their toll of her.
Her mother and Charles Penman had been married the previous afternoon in a civil ceremony that had lasted only a few minutes. There had been few guests, mainly members of the university fraternity, and it had all seemed rather cold and irreligious to Tamsyn. But her mother was happy, and that was all that mattered. Laura’s happiness was evident in her heightened colour, in the excitement of her voice, and in the way she behaved with an increased confidence.
After the ceremony there had been a private reception before they all left for the airport, Laura and Charles on the first stage of their journey to Seattle, and Tamsyn to stay overnight at the airport hotel to be ready for her flight the next morning.
After her mother had left, Tamsyn had sought
