Part 15 (1/2)

'Well, that's very understandable; it's been an emotional time for her. Give her my love, won't you, tell her I'll be thinking of her tomorrow and that just as soon as she wants to, she's to come for tea.' Ruby had then gone on to discuss more practical matters. 'Presumably, when she feels ready, she'll be returning to university. Has she missed much already?'

'Just the first week. I'm sure she'll be able to catch up.'

'Of course she will; she's a bright girl with everything ahead of her.'

That was what was so great about his mother: nothing fazed her. She was a full-on optimist.

He was just considering having another go at the car magazine when the door opened and Suzie came in. One of the nurses he'd seen earlier was with her. He leapt to his feet, nearly knocking the table over. Surely it couldn't have been done already?

The next thing he knew, Suzie was in his arms, sobbing. 'I'm sorry, Dad, but I couldn't do it. I just couldn't get rid of it. I'm so sorry.'

Catching Will's eye, the nurse quietly shut the door and left them alone. 'It's okay, Suzie,' he said, his voice cracking. 'If this is what you want, it'll all be fine. Don't you worry about a thing.'

Chapter Twenty-Seven.

Some things never change. Dominic had only been back in Maple Drive a matter of hours, but within no time at all he'd made himself the centre of attention. Harriet's drink with Miles had been postponed because Freda was in the mood for playing happy families and had insisted on both her sons sitting round the dinner table that evening. 'Sorry about this,' Miles had apologised on the phone, 'I'll make it up as soon as he's gone. He won't be here for long; he never is.'

But strangely Dominic was in no hurry to return to the rarefied atmosphere of his Cambridge college. Five days after his surprise arrival, he was still around, casting the shadow of his ferocious presence on their lives.

Harriet's parents had taken her to task over the sharpness of her greeting to Dominic. 'There was no need to be so rude,' her mother had said. 'Especially as he'd gone to the trouble to call in and apologise to us about missing the funeral.' They might have succeeded in making her feel churlish had it not been for the fact that she knew Dominic better than they did. He revelled in making people eat their words. One minute he'd make people hate him, the next he'd be so contrite that he'd be instantly forgiven, somehow instilling a sense of guilt in those who had been so quick to misjudge him. 'I'm a cruel man,' he once declared, 'but who will save me from myself?'

Plenty had tried. Or rather, he had allowed plenty to think they could do it. It was another of his games: send out the bait - his twisted, cruel-mannered charm - then reel in the poor, hapless fool.

Harriet had observed this since childhood, hating it when she had been reeled in. Humiliating people was what he did best. Harriet had often told him what she thought of him, and on one occasion she said to his face that he was a narcissistic b.a.s.t.a.r.d who didn't care who he hurt. All he'd done was laugh at her and say that if you were old enough to play the game, you were old enough to pay the emotional cost of getting hurt. 'People aren't as fragile as you think,' he'd told her, 'and anyway, as Byron put it so succinctly, ”The heart will live on brokenly.”'

It turned out that even children weren't immune to his charm; Carrie and Joel were fascinated by him. With his tall, lean frame, his Prince of Denmark attire - black polo-neck sweater and black leather trousers - and his formidably short dark hair (as a student he'd worn it long and tied it back with a black silk ribbon; now it was short like his temper) and his propensity to swear at random, he was irresistibly charismatic. The children had met him several times before, but they'd been too young and had no memory of him - something that probably pierced Dominic's ego more than they would ever know. But once Carrie realised he was Miles's brother and had been a friend of her mother's, she wanted to know everything they had ever done together. Any of the stories Harriet and her parents had told the children were now forgotten, redundant in the face of this golden-tongued storyteller in their midst. Harriet couldn't blame them, after all; when was the last time they'd been exposed to someone who exuded so much glamour and excitement? Many years ago Dora had said that Dominic had the smile of an angel, but the mind of a devil. It was one of the most apt descriptions Harriet had heard.

'Did Mummy really get caught for shoplifting?' Carrie was now asking Dominic, her face more radiant than Harriet had ever seen it. Joel was listening too, his eyes rapt with wonder.

'You bet to b.u.g.g.e.ry she did! We all did; Harriet, my brother Miles, and me.'

It was Sat.u.r.day morning, and they were in the kitchen.

Shortly after Mum and Dad had gone to the supermarket, leaving Harriet to supervise Carrie's homework, an autumn montage of leaves and twigs, Dominic had called round. 'I'm bored to death,' he'd said. 'Let me in and talk to me. If you don't I shall have to shoot myself. Here, these are for you.' He thrust an extravagantly large box of champagne truffles at her. 'I thought you deserved something expensive and frivolous. And these are for the children.' From his coat pocket he produced a box of Maltesers. His thoughtfulness brought to mind equally unexpected gestures of kindness he'd made in the past - the large bouquet of flowers he'd arranged to be sent to her mother when he'd heard about her being diagnosed with ME; the amusing card he'd posted to Dad on his retirement; the housewarming gift of a luxury food hamper that had turned up for Harriet when she'd moved into her flat in Oxford. She smiled her thanks and took his coat.

Now, as Harriet listened to Dominic answering Carrie's question, giving a riveting account of Edna Gannet catching the four of them as they'd tried to sneak out with their pockets bursting with Cadbury's creme eggs and threatening to box their ears, she wondered why he was here in Kings Melford. Why had he come home when it was normally the last place on the planet he wanted to be? He'd said his rooms in college were being decorated before the start of term and the smell of paint was making him ill, but Harriet's suspicious mind doubted this. True, he didn't look that well - his handsome face was thinner and sharper and he looked older than when she'd last seen him, scarcely a year ago - but she was more inclined to think that his protracted visit was to do with something completely different.

'I hear you and Miles are practically inseparable these days,' he'd said after he'd caught up on local gossip at Freda's enforced family get-together.

'We've been out for drinks and the occasional meal, if it's any of your business,' she'd said. 'But I suppose in your world that would signify a deep and meaningful relations.h.i.+p.'

'By that sharp little riposte, I a.s.sume you're referring to my renowned promiscuity. Is it serious, then?'

. 'Is what serious?'

'You and Miles. I always thought you two should get it together. You're perfectly suited.'

'Why? So that you could take pleasure in tearing us apart like you used to pull the legs off spiders?'

He had sighed. 'I'm getting bored with the diva b.i.t.c.h thing. Whatever's happened to you? You never used to be quite so touchy.'

'Losing the person who meant the most to me has changed me more than you'll ever know,' she'd said.

'Ah ... Felicity,' he had said stiffly, sounding like the desiccated academic he was destined to be. 'I miss her too.'

She gritted her teeth. How glib he could be.

Tuning back in to what Dominic was now saying, Harriet did a double-take. To her astonishment, he was helping Joel to pull on his socks and telling Carrie to forget about her homework so they could all go for a walk.

'Keep away from the bank,' she yelled at the children as they scampered on ahead in their Wellington boots, squealing and laughing and throwing sticks for Toby. Honestly, what had got into them? They were as high as kites. They never normally made so much noise. Perhaps it was all those Maltesers they'd scoffed.

The morning was bright and fresh, the sky clear as if washed clean by the heavy rain overnight. The air was damp and earthy, the towpath slippery with leaves that had been shaken from the trees. The sight of Dominic's sartorial elegance wrecked by a pair of her father's old gardening boots brought a smirk to her face.

'What's so sodding funny?' he demanded.

'Nothing.' She rearranged her face. 'When are you going back to Cambridge to pore over all those dusty old books?'

'When I'm ready.'

'What about the start of term and freshers' week? Won't you miss the first pick of budding undergraduates to corrupt?'

'I dare say they can manage a few days without me.'

'But I thought the world revolved around you, Dominic.'

'It does. Which is why I can decide my own comings and goings. A bit like masturbation, you could say.'

Again she smiled to herself. The same old Dominic; buried in amongst all the faults and flaws was his sharp wit and diverting turn of thought. 'What brought you home?' she asked. 'I'd have thought you'd have preferred a few days somewhere more cerebrally challenging than Maple Drive.'

He shrugged. 'I accepted a long time ago that an occasional foray into my home town of Sodom and Gomorrah would be the cross I'd have to bear. Tell me about this job you've been offered.'

Quite used to the speed at which he could change the subject, she complied. 'It's with a software house in Crantsford. I'll be head of a team of four and my main responsibility will be to provide the means to interface between AVLS systems and road haulage systems.'

'My G.o.d! Could you have picked anything more boring?'

'Oh, shut up!'

They walked on in silence, pa.s.sing Will's house. Harriet wondered if his young girlfriend had had her abortion yet. Wondered too what its consequences would be on their relations.h.i.+p. If indeed they really had one in the first place. She thought of Felicity and her secret relations.h.i.+p. What would her sister have done if she'd got pregnant by her lover? Pa.s.sed the baby off as Jeff's? It occurred to Harriet, stealing a quick glance at Dominic, that maybe, because they'd been such close friends, he was the one person in whom Felicity might have confided. She had come to the conclusion that her sister hadn't told Harriet because she was too close and too fond of Jeff. Whereas Dominic had never really liked Jeff and therefore wouldn't have judged Felicity. It was all supposition, but Harriet was tempted to ask Dominic if he knew anything. Before that, though, she had something else she wanted to sort out with him.

'I still think you were a complete s.h.i.+t to miss Felicity's funeral,' she said.

He slowed his step, but didn't speak.

'Why didn't you come?' she pressed. It rankled that he hadn't bothered. That he could have been so cavalier.