Barry corrected briefly. Then he scuffed his toe against the leg of the coffee table. ‘Oh, what the hell! There’s nothing I can do about it.’
Helen sighed. ‘There’s nothing to do!’ she said imploringly, fiddling with the coffee pot. ‘Would you like another cup?’
‘No, thanks.’
Barry shook his head, but Helen was relieved when his mother came to join them and conversation became general. Naturally the wedding came under discussion, and those final arrangements that were still left to make. Talking about the white Mercedes he had hired for the occasion, Barry came out of his black mood, and Helen relaxed as her fiancé extolled the virtues of foreign cars. It was a favourite topic with him, and she allowed her head to rest against the back of the sofa and her thoughts to drift.
Almost compulsively, her gaze moved round the circle to rest on Morgan Fox’s unusually light hair. It was thick and straight, with a side parting that left several heavy strands to fall across his forehead. From time to time he pushed them back, his long brown fingers combing through his hair and occasionally resting in a curiously weary gesture at the back of his neck. His hair was shorter than Barry’s, barely brushing his collar at the back, and he didn’t wear the long sideburns Barry effected and which gave her fiancé’s face a rather artistic appearance. She thought he looked rather tired, and this knowledge brought a wave of unwilling anxiety sweeping over her. Yet what did it matter to her if Barry’s stepbrother needed some sleep? Why should she be concerned? Anyone who had just flown five thousand miles would be tired, particularly bearing in mind the time change.
Realising she was staring at him again, she quickly looked away, relieved to see that no one else had observed her betraying appraisal. But even though she concentrated on the delicate pattern of the coffee cups, she could still see his face and the sensual fullness of his bottom lip.
He moved, giving her a reason to look his way, and her eyes ran over the long muscular legs outlined beneath the dark blue lounge suit he was wearing. She wondered if he was more at home in shorts or safari suits, and guessed he found an excess of clothing uncomfortable after so long in the tropics. This time his eyes flickered over hers, but their appraisal was cool and detached, and she pretended there was a speck of dust on her skirt in an effort to avoid detection of her interest.
The conversation had shifted to Morgan now and Helen listened as he answered his father’s questions about the politics of Osweba. Then, inevitably, his daughter was brought into the conversation and it was with obvious reluctance he produced his wallet and the photograph of the bespectacled teenager everyone called Andy.
Barry barely glanced at his niece, but Helen studied the portrait with avid curiosity, trying to gauge something of the girl’s personality from that small likeness.
‘She doesn’t look much like you,’ remarked Susan, with her usual lack of tact, but Morgan merely smiled.
‘Oh, she is, I assure you,’ he said, pushing the picture back into his wallet. ‘There are more ways than one of resembling someone.’
‘Do you mean she’s brainy?’ demanded Susan, rolling her eyes in mock derision, but her mother reproved her, saying:
‘I expect Morgan means that she likes the same things he does,’ which aroused a contemptuous snort from Barry.
‘What are we supposed to infer from that?’ he enquired unpleasantly. ‘When she can’t even be bothered to turn up for the wedding?’
‘Barry!’ Mr Fox halted the conversation there, and Helen felt as embarrassed as if she had been a party to her fiancé’s outburst. ‘I think we’re all suffering from a bout of pre-wedding nerves, and as I’m sure Morgan will be glad to get to bed, I suggest you take Helen home now, hmm?’
Barry looked as if he would have liked to have said more, but his mother’s disapproval, added to that of his stepfather, kept him silent. Morgan said nothing and it was left to Susan to break the ominous silence that had fallen.
‘Can I come round tomorrow and try on those sandals you said I could borrow?’ she asked lightly, as if nothing untoward had occurred, and Helen rose to her feet, nodding her relief.
‘Of course,’ she said, as Morgan and his father rose, too. ‘It’s Sunday, so come whenever you like.’
‘All right.’ Susan grinned cheekily up at her older brother. ‘You can take me, if you like. You’d like to meet Helen’s parents, wouldn’t you?’
Barry’s face was reddening again, and Helen urged him towards the door. But outside, with her goodnights said and the irritation of Morgan’s polite farewell colouring her tones, she exclaimed:
‘What on earth did you think you were doing? Speaking to your stepbrother like that! Embarrassing everybody!’
‘Embarrassing you, you mean, don’t you?’ retorted Barry moodily, leaving her to close the passenger side door herself and striding angrily around the bonnet. ‘I don’t know what’s got into you!’
‘What’s got into me?’ she echoed, as he pulled away. ‘Don’t be ridiculous! You’ve been spoiling for an argument ever since we got into the car to come here.’
‘Oh, have I?’
‘Yes, you have. And it’s purely jealousy, that’s all. You’re jealous because your stepfather is making a fuss of his own son. His own son! Don’t you think you owe it to him to be polite, whatever your private feelings might be?’
Barry did not answer and they covered the test of the distance between Banklands and her parents’ house in silence. But after he had brought the car to a halt and Helen made to get out, Barry’s hand on her arm stopped her, and in the light from the street lamps she saw his scowl of contrition.
‘I’m sorry,’ he muttered grudgingly, and she knew it was up to her to make the next move.
‘So am I,’ she murmured, and his lips brushed lightly across her cheek and found hers.
For several minutes there again was silence in the car, but this time of a much more satisfying sort. Nevertheless, when Barry’s hand probed beneath the fastening of her jacket, she gently pushed him away and thrust open the car door.
‘We’ve waited this long,’ she reminded him lightly, and he bowed his head in reluctant assent.
‘Okay,’ he said, leaning across to close the door again. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow night? You haven’t forgotten we’re going to Peter and Liz’s, have you?’
‘Tomorrow evening?’ She shook her head. ‘Of course not. What time will you pick me up? About seven?’
‘About then,’ he agreed, and with a smile he left her, the Triumph reversing away noisily into the quiet road.
If Helen’s parents had expected a long discussion about Morgan Fox’s arrival, they were disappointed. After the briefest of explanations about the dinner party and why she should be home by half past ten, which was early for her, Helen excused herself and went to bed, glad that Jennifer was not around to add her voice to the proceedings.
But in her room she found that sleep was very far from her thoughts. For the first time, she really began to contemplate the implications of the step she was taking, and to wonder whether Barry would have recovered his good humour so willingly if they
