She smiled at Eleanor reassuringly.
So Marcus had been right, Eleanor reflected bleakly as she saw her to the door, and she had panicked unnecessarily. A panic increased by guilt because she had not been there… because Marcus had had to disrupt his working day to go and collect Tom, because she had been too busy this morning to notice that Tom was feeling off colour and because she had been too busy last night to notice that he had eaten the ice-cream.
What was happening to her? Where was the pleasure in a life that left her with so little time for her children, for her husband… for herself?
‘You were right,’ she told Marcus wryly later. ‘It is just an upset tummy.’ He looked up from his desk and smiled at her.
‘I’m sorry I snapped at you earlier.’
‘That’s OK,’ Marcus told her easily, adding, ‘I should have remembered that mothers don’t like having their judgement questioned.’
For some reason his comment jarred. What did he mean? Was he referring to mothers in general or one mother in particular, the mother of his own child, perhaps?
Eleanor had been pleased when Marcus had once commented on how different she was from his first wife; she didn’t want to be a second Julia, a copy of another woman who had once been important in her husband’s life. She had been fiercely glad that he loved her as an individual… as herself. Unlike Allan, who, after the initial enthusiasm of being married, had ceased to see her as a woman—a person—and had seen her only as a mother. Sexually he had found it hard to relate to her once she had had the children, and besides, he had accused her, they meant more to her than he did.
‘By the way, the Lassiters want us there for eight. What time is the babysitter due?’ Marcus asked her.
Eleanor froze.
The Lassiters’ dinner party. She had forgotten all about it… forgotten to make any arrangements for someone to sit with the boys. How could she have forgotten? Harold Lassiter was the most senior barrister in Marcus’s chambers. There was a strong rumour that he was about to be called to the bench as a senior judge.
Marcus might not have the sharklike instinct and drive, the personal and professional ambition that her first husband had possessed, but as a product of the British public school system, reinforced by the discipline of an army father, he was meticulous about observing a code of good manners which to many people was now hopelessly old-fashioned.
In fact, that had been one of the first things about him which had appealed to her.
Typically, Jade had laughed in disbelief when she had told her this, rolling her eyes and demanding, ‘What? My God, trust you! You manage to find one of the most charismatic and sexy men I have ever set eyes on, and all you notice about him is that he held open the door for you. You realise that he probably only did that so that he could check out the view,’ Jade had teased her, explaining when she had frowned, ‘Your rear view, idiot. Men like a nice, well-shaped female behind, didn’t you know?’
Now, Eleanor’s expression gave her away.
‘You’d forgotten?’ Marcus exclaimed sharply.
‘Marcus, I’m so sorry. I meant to organise a babysitter last weekend and then Julia telephoned and asked if we could have Vanessa and somehow or other…’
‘Damn!’
‘I could ring Jade,’ Eleanor suggested. ‘She might be free.’
She had just picked up the receiver and started to dial Jade’s number when she heard Tom calling, ‘Mum… Mum… I don’t feel well.’
Anxiously she replaced the receiver and hurried upstairs, just in time to hear him being violently sick.
It might only be ice-cream-induced and perhaps a fitting punishment for his greed, but there was no doubt that he was feeling extremely sorry for himself, Eleanor acknowledged as she tucked him back into bed.
At thirteen he was already beginning to consider himself too old and grown-up for maternal cuddles and fussing, but now he clung to her.
‘Stay with me,’ he begged her as she started to get up.
‘I can’t, darling. I’ve got to go and telephone Aunt Jade to ask her if she can come round to sit with you tonight.’
Immediately his face flushed and he sat bolt upright in bed, clinging fiercely to her.
‘I don’t want her. I want you,’ he told her.
Dismayed, Eleanor put her arms round him. He normally never clung to her like this… perhaps the doctor had been wrong… perhaps he was more ill than any of them had recognised.
‘Tom, darling, I have to go…’
‘No, you don’t,’ he argued stubbornly. ‘You don’t want to be with us any more. You just want to be with him.’
Appalled, Eleanor hugged him tightly. ‘Tom, that isn’t true!’
There was no way she was going to be able to go to the Lassiters’ dinner party, she recognised. Not with Tom so upset and unlike himself.
Marcus wouldn’t be pleased. She could feel her heart growing heavy with despair mingled with anxiety and panic, a sense of somehow feeling as though her life was out of her own control…
What was happening to her? It shouldn’t be like this… after all, she had everything a woman could possibly want. Yes, everything…
And some things that no sane woman would want. Like an accountant who was beginning to issue warnings about dropping profits and rising costs; a partner who had problems which seemed to be putting a strain on their business relationship. A stepdaughter who was growing increasingly hostile to her and who seemed to see her as some sort of rival for her father’s affections; a son who had just destroyed her belief that she had finally slain her inner dragon of guilt about the effect her divorce from their father might have had on her children.
A house filled with antique furniture and carpets which might be the envy of her single friends, but which was no real home for two growing boys.
A growing feeling that there were too many things in her life over which she seemed not to have full control.
And a husband whom she loved and who loved her, and surely knowing that made up for everything else, didn’t it? Didn’t it?
TENSELY Fern checked her appearance in the bedroom mirror, already anticipating Nick’s criticism. She smoothed the matt black fabric of her evening dress over her hips, anxiously aware of how much weight she had lost since she had last worn it for the round of Christmas parties.
Her mother’s death had been partly responsible for that. It had been a strain taking care of her for those last weeks of her life, especially with Nick being so resentful of her absence.
She
