Lesley, whether you like it or not. And any court in the land would grant him custodial rights if he chose to make a case of it.’
Lesley trembled. She couldn’t help it. It sounded so coldblooded somehow, and her mother had put her finger on the one thing she had always fought against considering.
‘Carne—Carne doesn’t need Jeremy,’ she said now. ‘I do.’
‘Try convincing a magistrate of that.’
‘Mother!’ Lesley stared with anguished eyes. ‘Mother, what are you trying to do? To make me give Jeremy up?’
Mrs Matthews shrugged. ‘I’m just pointing out that Carne has been very patient, but I shouldn’t push him any further if I were you.’
Lesley pressed her lips together for a moment. ‘You mean—I should have dinner with him?’
‘I mean that if Carne is willing to give the boy a home for the holidays, you should be glad to let him go.’
‘But, Mother, the only time I see Jeremy is in the holidays!’
‘That’s nothing to do with me.’ Mrs Matthews rose painfully to her feet. Her lumbago was troubling her today and so far as she was concerned, the discussion was over. ‘I’m going to my room—–’
‘Wait!’ Lesley took an automatic step forward. ‘You—you still haven’t told me about—about the angina.’
‘There’s nothing to tell.’
‘But what did Dr Forrest say?’
‘He said I should rest more. That I shouldn’t get excited,’ she added, with a returning look of reproof.
‘Oh, Mother!’ Lesley linked and unlinked her fingers. ‘If you’d only told me …’
‘What, and have you speak to me as you spoke to Carne!’
‘That’s not fair …’
Her mother made a dismissing gesture. ‘I’m going to lie down. Don’t bother about making me a meal. I’ll get something later, if I’m hungry.’
Lesley watched her mother’s progress across the room with troubled eyes. Not least among the many things that troubled her was the realisation that her mother could hide a thing like that from her—and for how long? That was another of the questions that still needed answering. With a despairing sigh, she sank down on to a low couch and pushed back the heavy weight of her hair with both hands. Was she really so unfeeling? Was she so wrapped up in her own affairs that she had no time for anyone else? She had never thought so, but now … It seemed incredible that that morning she had had no notion of what plans her mother had been nurturing, or indeed that even as she lunched in the staff canteen at W.L.T.V. Carne was at that moment driving down the M.1. from Yorkshire, intent on keeping an appointment which must have been made days ago. It hurt to think her mother could deceive her, and while she didn’t seriously believe there had been other meetings, nevertheless a little of her trust had been undermined.
Leaving the cluttered paraphernalia of the living room, Lesley went into her bedroom, the room she shared with Jeremy when he was home. She supposed that situation would not be approved by a court of law, but as the flat only had two bedrooms, there was no other alternative. Short of sharing her mother’s bedroom, of course, but naturally Mrs Matthews wanted a room to herself. If Lesley had thought of what might happen in the future, as Jeremy got too old to share her room, it was along the lines of them perhaps acquiring a larger apartment, but she had never really considered what she would do if her mother should object. Carne was right, in one way. Her independence did depend on her mother to a large extent at the moment, but once Jeremy was old enough to be left alone, she supposed there was no reason why they shouldn’t get a flat of their own. But all these things had been hazy, nebulous, distant possibilities that would work themselves out in the natural order of things. Now all that had been changed, and suddenly she was faced with the practicalities of the present, and with the disturbing realisation that her mother had put all their futures into Carne’s hands.
The bathroom was vacant and she turned on the taps to silence the frenzied screaming of her nerves. Sprinkling essence liberally into the bath water, she watched the deep green liquid melt and dissolve, to rise again as balls of foam that made a fluffy white carpet over the surface. What could she say to Carne to make him see that by reappearing in Jeremy’s life now, he could only confuse the boy again? Confuse? Her lips twisted. She was confused. Carne already knew that. By springing her mother’s illness upon her, he had successfully diluted her arguments, just as the bath water had diluted the essence.
It was a marvellous relief to sink down into the heated suds, and allow the softened water to probe every pore of her tense body. She needed to relax, to think coherently. She needed to restore every shred of composure before encountering her husband again.
It didn’t help to realise that seeing him again had upset her more than she had expected. In the early days after their break-up she had seen him on several occasions, but always in the company of her mother and Jeremy, and in the aftermath of that final devastating row which had ended with her bundling Jeremy into her car and leaving, a defensive numbness had coated the more vulnerable areas of her emotions.
Maybe if she had had warning of the meeting, if she had had time to gather herself, so to speak, so that when she faced him she had behaved with coolness and sophistication, and not given in to those entirely schoolgirlish taunts and provocations. Maybe then she would not be feeling so raw now, so exposed to all the pain and misery that had both preceded and followed her separation from Carne.
She lay in the bath too long and had to hurry with her dressing. Somehow she had accepted that she had to have dinner with him, if only to prevent her mother any more distress. That she had brought the distress on herself meant less than Lesley’s guilty neglect of her mother’s health, and after satisfying herself that she looked neither too young nor too sophisticated, she went into Mrs Matthews’ bedroom.
Her mother was lying on the bed reading a magazine, and judging from her appearance, she seemed to have recovered from her earlier upset. Lesley hesitated in the doorway, not quite knowing what to say, and then she casually flicked the skirt of her flared jersey dress.
‘Does this look all right?’
Mrs Matthews regarded her critically for a moment, over the top of the magazine. ‘Shouldn’t you wear a long gown?’ she enquired, and Lesley expelled her breath on a long sigh.
‘I don’t think so,’ she replied. ‘After all, I don’t know where we’re going, do I?’
‘I thought most young people wore long clothes these days,’ averred her mother rather peevishly, and Lesley wondered if she was being deliberately obstructive.
‘How are you feeling now?’ she asked, changing the subject, but Mrs Matthews was still looking at her dress.
‘I suppose it is pretty material,’ she decided grudgingly. ‘You always did suit blue and gold. But don’t you think those sandals are too high? You may have to walk. Carne will probably leave his car at the hotel.’
Lesley examined the slender heels of the leather strapped sandals on her narrow feet. ‘I thought they looked rather nice,’ she murmured doubtfully, then, as the doorbell rang: ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’
‘Don’t start worrying
