Part 14 (1/2)

'That's me; Jack of all trades.'

'I heard you used to be a lawyer. Why did you give it up?'

A question from the Hedgehog? This was a new phenomenon. 'I had to,' he said. 'I was beginning to imagine myself running amok in the office with a machete and ma.s.sacring anything with a pulse.'

She raised an eyebrow. 'So much for not being the crazy psycho on the lookout for a fresh victim.'

'Ah, but I'm all cured now. I put my unstable past behind me when I became a convert to the school of thought that believes tomorrow is but a dream and yesterday no longer exists. What matters is today and seizing the opportunities that come one's way. As a lawyer you can't live like that; the two aren't mutually compatible. Would you like to sit down?'

She shook her head. 'Carpe diem is a bit pa.s.se, don't you think?'

'Tell me that when you're all grown up. Meanwhile, I'll give you my personal philosophy on life; I've discovered it's nothing but a very tricky egg and spoon race.'

'You're very patronising, you know.'

'I'm sorry, I don't mean to be. It's just that you look so young.'

'I'm thirty-two.'

He smiled. 'Okay, so you're older than I thought you were by a few years, but I guarantee one day you'll remember this conversation and think what a wise sage I was.'

'I think you're living in a fantasy world. One simply can't live without planning tomorrow.'

'Ah, but as Jung said, ”What great thing ever came into existence that was not at first fantasy?” You sure I can't persuade you to let me keep you company on your walk?'

'Thanks, but I need to think.'

'Tell me about it. That's what I was doing before you showed up.' Torn between wanting to respect Suzie's privacy and suddenly feeling the need to talk about his rotten evening, he chose his next words carefully. 'Someone very close to me has got herself pregnant and, well, the thing is she's very young and has decided to have an abortion. And for reasons I'm almost ashamed to confess, I hate the thought of her doing that. I know it's selfish, that the decision is hers, but I can't help it.'

'You're right, it is selfish of you. You can't dictate her life.'

'But what if she regrets the abortion?'

'That's the price of choice. Her choice.'

'Do you always see things so dispa.s.sionately?'

'If you mean do I always view things rationally and with an objective eye, then yes, I do.'

He folded his arms across his chest, beginning to feel the cold. 'You'd have made an excellent lawyer.'

'And you'd probably have hacked me to death.'

He smiled. 'There's still time. Anyway, I'm going in now; the cold's getting to me.' He stood up. 'It was nice chatting with you. We must do this again, but maybe in the warm and at a more sociable time of day. Take care.'

Closing the gate after him, Will thought that if there were any psychos out there on the towpath, they were the ones who might need to take care. She was one formidable girl.

Chapter Twenty-Five.

At last Harriet had a job interview. It had come her way not through an agency, but by word of mouth. Adrian, her old boss down in Oxford, called to say that he knew of a company in south Manchester that was desperate for someone with her level of expertise and in particular, her specific knowledge of AVLS - automatic vehicle location systems. 'Howard Beningfield, who runs the company, is one of the brashest, most straight-talking men I know,' Adrian had said. 'Get on the right side of him and he'll be your friend for life.'

'And the wrong side of him?'

'You'll be out on your ear.'

'He sounds a regular charmer.'

'That's the funny thing; he is. What do you think? Shall I give him a ring and put in a good word for you?'

'Absolutely.'

Adrian had one final piece of advice for her. 'Whatever you do, Harriet, don't underestimate Howard. It's his favourite trick, fooling people into thinking he's an idiot.'

So here she was, looking for the road that would lead her to a small business-park on the outskirts of Crantsford. This way lies my sanity, she told herself. Once she had a job, she would soon be back on track. It wouldn't solve everything, but she'd have her self-respect up and running again and she'd be able to start making plans for the future. She was desperate to get a place of her own. Or rather, a place for her and the children. The thought of taking on the full weight of responsibility for Carrie and Joel still terrified her, but biting bullets was what she did best. Dodging had never been an option. Wasn't that why Felicity had entrusted her with the task in the first place?

A week had pa.s.sed since Harriet had read the first of her sister's secret emails and she was still shocked at what she'd discovered. Felicity's had been no lightweight affair, the kind of fling that quickly runs out of pa.s.sion and burns itself to dust. It was obvious that Felicity had been involved with whoever it was for some time.

A lot of the emails they'd written to each other had been near-p.o.r.nographic in content and Harriet had baulked at reading some of them, but curiosity had won out. Wanting to discover the ident.i.ty of Felicity's lover, she had forced herself to go on, hopelessly trying not to imagine her sister's voracious appet.i.te for this man. And all the while, she kept thinking of Jeff. Had he been such a terrible husband that he had driven his wife to these lengths? Harriet didn't think so; she'd always liked him. Perhaps he'd been a little staid - steady was what Mum and Dad had called him - but he'd been devoted to Felicity in his quiet, measured way. Felicity had always claimed that she fell in love with him the moment she set eyes on him, when they were at university. 'That's the man I'm going to marry,' she had said in a loud voice when they were standing in the dinner queue during a ball up in Durham. 'His name's Jeff Knight and he's my knight in s.h.i.+ning armour. He doesn't know it yet, but he's going to sweep me off my feet.' It was nearly the end of the summer term and Felicity was drunk, as they all were - Miles and Dominic were spending the weekend with them - and they'd laughed at her, thinking her quite mad.

'But darling,' Dominic had said, his voice overtly camp and booming through the stratosphere so that the student in question, further up the queue, turned round, 'he looks like one of those frighteningly hale and hearty types. Not our sort at all. Where's the aesthetic content? I ask myself.'

As soon as Dominic had made the transition from boarding school to university, he'd come out as gay and delighted in shocking those who were uneasy about such matters. Including his parents. Particularly his parents. Had Harriet not heard his lurid tales about the gay bars and clubs he frequented in London, or seen for herself a set of moody black-and-white photographs of him lying naked in the arms of a man a good deal older than him, she would have said it was another of his affectations.

'He's exceptionally hearty,' Felicity had said proudly. 'He's a rower and has the most wondrous legs. He has muscles you McKendrick boys can only dream of.'

'I can't speak for my brother,' Dominic had drawled, 'but for myself, I'm rather partial to something with a brain.'

'He has one of those too,' Felicity crowed. 'He's a third-year maths scholar.'

Dominic shuddered. 'Another maths bore, just like Harriet. How extraordinarily dull.'

'I don't care what you think of him. He's the man I'm going to marry. What's more, I'm going to ask him right now if he'll dance with me when dinner is over.'

True to her word, Felicity sidled up to him and introduced herself. Her reward was a smile of such tender embarra.s.sment that Harriet had felt sorry for him. You don't know what you're getting into, she thought.

This was during their first year at Durham. Felicity had suffered a prolonged bout of glandular fever during her A-level year and had to repeat the upper sixth, which meant that she and Harriet started university together. Everyone had thought they were mad both opting to go to Durham, but to them it seemed perfect. Dominic was still at Cambridge and thinking of extending his stay by doing a doctorate; Miles had taken a gap year before taking his place at Bristol. No way in the world would he have contemplated going to Cambridge. 'Not even to rub Dominic's nose in it?' Harriet had asked him. 'To prove the point that you made it without all the advantages he'd been given?'

'Tempting, I agree,' Miles had said, 'but the thought of following in his footsteps holds little appeal.'

The night of the ball, when Felicity had declared her intention to marry Jeff Knight, Miles had slept on the floor of Harriet's college room, while across town Dominic had slept alone in Felicity's bed. The last they'd seen of her had been as she'd disappeared down to the river, hand in hand with her shy husband-to-be, her dress trailing in the damp gra.s.s.

So where had it gone wrong? thought Harriet. The only clue was that Felicity's new life as a wife and mother lacked the excitement of the life she'd led before. Whoever the lover was, he filled that gap. If Felicity was to be believed from the way she wrote to him, he made her feel whole again. But this conclusion didn't make Harriet feel sympathetic towards her sister. She was furious with Felicity for being so deceitful and for jeopardising so much. What about the children? Where had they fitted in? Where were they when she was secretly meeting her lover? And had she really planned to leave Jeff? That last email certainly implied that she wanted to: ' ... you have to be patient. Trust me, please, it won't be long now. Just give me a little more time.'

But it wasn't only Jeff who had been cheated on. Harriet felt betrayed, too. She hated knowing that despite the closeness between them, Felicity hadn't confided in her. It was a hurtful blow, and it left her wondering if she had ever really known her sister. It seemed as if Felicity had been even more reckless than Harriet had thought. By having an affair, she'd deliberately sought out a knife-edge on which to balance herself precariously. Why on earth had she done that?