now, Annie? Why have you decided this now?’ His voice was cold with disappointment. Annie thought of the two weeks that had just gone by, and the weeks before that, all the way back to Christmas. It wasn’t a decision made just this morning, arbitrary, as Steve must see it. It was simply, at last, the recognition of the bald truth that had confronted her always.
‘I am a coward,’ she whispered.
Steve snapped round to face her then. His black eyebrows were drawn together in anger with her.
‘You are nothing of the kind. Don’t use that as an excuse.’
She saw his hurt, and it made her own seem trivial.
‘I’ll tell you what happened,’ she said. ‘The hamburger lunch and film that we’d planned, remember? I offered them to my kids this morning. As casually, lightly as I could. And their faces closed up. They knew at once that here was the threat to them. You and me. Do you know what Thomas said?’
Steve listened motionless as she told him.
Annie said, ‘And I knew then that I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t even begin. Whether it’s weakness or cowardice, Steve, I couldn’t contemplate it being like that, for years, perhaps for ever, until they are grown up.’ Her smile twisted. ‘If it hadn’t been now. If it had been in ten years’ time. Or ten years ago.’
Except that it had happened ten years ago, and she had taken the easy option then. I don’t deserve even as much as I have got, Annie thought sadly.
‘Do you think your children will appreciate that so much has been sacrificed for them?’
She smiled again, crookedly. No one with children of his own, no one who understood the everyday sacrifices of parenthood, would have asked that. ‘I don’t suppose so.’
‘And Martin?’
Annie thought. ‘Martin and I were friends. Perhaps we can put some of that back together, for the kids.’
Steve made a last attempt. He put aside all the angry complex of feelings and he told her the truth.
‘I love you, Annie. You haven’t given me a chance.’
She wanted to run to him. She ached to lay her head against his heart, to rest in him and to acknowledge the truth. But Annie held her head up. Now that she had come so far, she couldn’t waver any more.
‘I love you too. There never was a chance for us.’
They looked at one another then, and they were drawn helplessly across the room. Annie put her hands out and he took them in his. She knew the touch of them in every mood now, and he seemed suddenly so physically warm and real that the idea of being without him was impossible. Annie had promised herself that she would leave before she started to cry, but the tears came now and she could do nothing about them.
She looked up at Steve through the heat of them and she said, uselessly, ‘I’m sorry. I would give anything for it to be different.’
With a sudden, fierce gesture Steve rubbed the tears off her cheek with the palm of his hand and kissed the red mark that was left. He kissed her eyelids, and the corners of her eyes and mouth, and then her mouth itself. For a moment, a long moment that threatened to tear her all over again, Annie succumbed. She felt that after all there was a possibility, a possibility within her reach. But then it was gone again, and she was left to confront the same truth.
She felt a sob gathering inside her but she forced it down again.
‘I’ve got to go home now,’ she said. ‘Tom and Benjy are … waiting for me.’
Steve’s arms dropped heavily to his sides. ‘Don’t let me keep you from them.’
She couldn’t blame him for the bitterness, Annie thought. She turned, uncertainly, and went to the door. She held on to the handle for a moment with her head bent, on the point of turning to him again. She felt that he was waiting and she told herself, No. Do it quickly now. She opened the door and closed it again behind her. And then she was alone in the empty corridor.
Steve stood unmoving for a moment, watching the door. He could still see her quite clearly, as clearly as his reason told him that she was really gone. At last he shook his head, painfully, as if he were trying to clear it. He went to the window and leaned his forehead against the glass. It reminded him of the hospital, and the day room windows high above the side street.
‘Annie?’ he said aloud.
He watched until he saw her come out into the street, her shoulders shrugged defensively into her coat. She crossed the busy road, and then she was swallowed up into the crowd.
He didn’t know how long he stood there, watching the oblivious surge of people. The telephone rang on the black table and he picked it up.
‘I’m sorry to bother you at home, Steve. Bob needs a couple of words about Boneys. Can I put him through?’
It was Bob Jefferies’ secretary. Steve frowned, looking at his table. It was littered with story-boards, reports and notes. Dogfood, he thought.
‘Put him on, Sandra. I’m not busy.’
Steve went through the problem about the pet-food film with his partner, his mind working, just like it always did. When Bob had run off Steve held on to the receiver, weighing it, like a weapon. Then he stabbed out another number. His own secretary answered.
‘Jenny? I’m going to be in full-time again from Monday. I’ve had enough time off. Fix up what needs to be done, will you?’
Jenny made a silent face across the office at the word-processor operator. She knew that tone of Steve’s.
‘Yes, of course. There are some messages for you. Do you want them now?’
‘What messages?’
Even though it was impossible, Steve hoped for a brief moment. Jenny recited them, ordinary, routine requests and reminders. Then she added, ‘Vicky Shaw has called once or twice. She rang again this morning, just to see if you were in.’
It took Steve a second to remember, it seemed so long ago. He frowned again, with the sense of something unwelcome, and then he looked around at the grey flat. Through the open bedroom door he could just see the corner of the bed.
He thought of Annie as she had been in bed, laughing, with her mouth close to his. With her eyes closed, crying out. Asleep, with her hair spread out over his arm. He understood, then, that she was gone. With the understanding he hated the empty flat and the silence, and he was afraid of his solitude.
‘Steve?’
‘Yeah.’ He was gathering up the sheaves of paper with his free hand, cramming them into his expensive black briefcase. ‘Listen, Jenny, if Vicky calls again tell her that I’m on my way in to the office now. I’ll be ringing her later this afternoon. See you in thirty minutes.’
Jenny hung up. ‘Here we go,’ she sighed to the word-processor girl.
Steve finished packing up his work. He thought of his car down in the underground car park, the familiar drive, his desk in the urban-chic company office. The
