could think of nothing else to say, other than to acknowledge the truth of it.
Marcelle’s hand wavered towards him, as if to offer meaningless comfort, but he made no move and she let it fall to her side. Then she turned sharply and ran to the door.
Gordon watched the door close behind her. He stood and stared at it, his eyes retaining the blue-green swirl of her skirt. He felt a leaden pity for Vicky and Nina, for himself, even for Jimmy and Marcelle, which he knew would shortly flower into pain.
The party was coming to an end. Couples were filtering into the hallway to stand in their coats under the pine garlands and exchange the last words of the evening. The music had turned smoochy and it was punctuated by the slamming of car doors outside and by headlamp beams raking over the conservatory glass. The smashed door had been hastily patched up with a flattened cardboard box.
Darcy had stationed himself near the front door to say good night to his guests.
Gordon and Vicky came down the stairs together, Gordon carrying the baby basket. Darcy kissed Vicky on the cheek and she leaned against him for an instant, looking up at him, her fingers closing on his arm. Gordon was stiff and dark beside her.
‘Good night. Merry Christmas.’
The Wickhams followed the Ransomes out into the cold darkness, with the Frosts and Star not far behind them. They called out, wishing each other a happy Christmas, separating into the old pairs for the drive home into Christmas Day.
Marcelle stared ahead, watching the way the car’s headlights sliced at angles over the flat-topped hedges. She wanted to build a bridge to Michael now, before they reached home, where Michael’s visiting parents might not yet be in bed.
‘Was the boy all right?’
‘Yes, more or less. He was quite lucky.’ Michael glanced at her. ‘Did you enjoy the party? I didn’t see much of you.’
He was aware of all the evenings of their years together meshed behind them. He thought of the parties they had been to following the one at which they had first met, the clothes and places and friendships that had been discarded, temporary attractions to other people flaring and fading, leaving just the two of them. The weight of so much history pulled at his shoulders as if he was wearing a heavy train.
Marcelle thought of Jimmy with his head bent to kiss her lined skin, and Gordon’s rebuke, and his cold face. She also remembered the furtive delight that she had glimpsed in the red Mercedes.
‘Yes,’ she lied. ‘Yes, I did.’
Michael took one hand off the wheel to touch her arm. ‘Let’s try to have a happy Christmas, shall we?’
‘Of course,’ Marcelle answered.
Vicky rested her head against the cool glass of the passenger window. She was smiling. There had been a guilelessness in Darcy’s advance, a childish directness that she found deeply appealing. She was also pleased that he had so plainly wanted her; after what seemed like years of feeling huge and milky and bovine it was good to be reminded that she was alive and interesting. She could feel the stirred-up blood now, singing inside her.
Vicky had no idea what would happen next, or if anything would happen, but she contemplated whatever it would be with sleepy equanimity.
Gordon negotiated the familiar twists of the country road with frozen concentration. He could see the lights of another car, probably the Frosts’, winding ahead of him. He thought Vicky must have dropped into a doze and he tried to drive smoothly in order not to wake her or the baby. He needed this interval to think.
He was certain that he would have to tell Vicky the truth, before she heard someone else whispering the story.
He would have to tell her as gently and as honestly as he could manage, although he could not imagine what words he would use. Nor did he have any idea of what might happen once Vicky did know. But even in the midst of his dread he knew that he couldn’t bear to give Nina up, even though that was what he must certainly do.
His whole head was alive with images of her this evening, in her black dress, with her head held up and her long hands painted with blood. It had been hard enough not to run to her then, to have to leave her to Barney Clegg.
How could he tell Vicky what he barely understood himself, only clung to with all the selfish and vivid need that had woken up in him?
And when could he tell her? He must warn Nina first, somehow, and that would be a second betrayal. A wild impulse to leave Vicky at home and then to turn round and drive straight to Dean’s Row fuelled him for a second and then shrivelled away.
There was nothing to be done today.
There would be the enactment of a family Christmas with his children and their grandparents, and he would have to live through that with his knowledge of what was waiting for them. The next day, or the day after that, he would somehow find a way to tell the truth before Jimmy Rose did it for him.
Then, at the end of it, he would be left without Nina. As he considered this Gordon noticed, as dispassionately as if he were registering it in a third person, the first sharp twist of pain.
Darcy sat down on the edge of the bed and took off his shoes. Hannah was already in bed, lying curled up with her back to him.
‘What’s the matter?’ he asked her. ‘It was a good party. Good enough, anyway.’ When she said nothing he undid his tie and shirt and then took off his trousers, dropping each item on to Vicky’s chair. He could see the print of her body in the cushions.
‘Is this to do with Vicky Ransome?’ he asked. Hannah muttered something he could not hear. He told her irritably, ‘Don’t sulk, darling, it doesn’t suit you.’
Darcy padded naked into the bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror as he stood at the lavatory. There was a thick roll of flesh around his midriff and the hair on his chest was grey, but the muscles of his belly remained satisfyingly taut. He was not, he told himself, in bad shape for his age.
When he slid into bed beside her, Hannah still had not moved. Darcy eased across and pressed himself against her bulky warmth. He loved the generosity of flesh; it was Jimmy Rose’s mistake to imagine that he could have been drawn to Nina’s dry bones.
‘Hannah?’
He reached an arm over her shoulder and found her breasts. The looseness of them connected him to Vicky again and he felt himself harden.
‘Stop it, Darcy. The kids will be awake in three hours’ time.’
‘Let Mandy see to them, or the twins.’
‘It’s Christmas.’
‘All the more reason to spread a little cheer.’
Her only response was to push his hand away and hunch her shoulders in self-protection. Darcy was too sleepy to make more than a token protest; he knew this was Hannah’s revenge for his interlude with Vicky, and he also knew that by tomorrow it would be forgotten.
When he reached to turn out the light Darcy was smiling. He had remembered his earlier absolute conviction that he loved Vicky Ransome. He wanted to fuck her, that was true; he still did. But there was no need for love to be a factor in
