Perfect Marriage Material

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Don’t start that, he warned himself. You’ve got enough problems without going looking for any more.

‘It’s amazing to think Louise and Katie’s first year at college will be over soon,’ Jenny reflected to Jon as they drove home from seeing Ruth and Grant off.

‘I know,’ Jon replied.

‘I was hoping that now Louise is at university she’d start to grow out of this crush she’s got on Saul. He’s been so good about it. She worries me sometimes, Jon. She’s so headstrong and so single-minded.’

‘Tell me about it,’ Jon returned dryly. ‘She’s a Crighton all right, through and through.’

‘I’m afraid she’s going to have a hard life ahead of her if she doesn’t learn to bend a little,’ Jenny sighed. ‘It’s hard to believe that she and Katie are twins. At times they’re so different temperamentally.’

‘Not so hard, surely,’ Jon commented. ‘Look at David and me.’

Jenny glanced at her husband. After all these years and all that David had done, Jon still put his twin ahead of himself even when he spoke about him.

‘Do you think we’ll ever hear from him again?’ she asked, referring to the fact that while recovering from a severe heart attack Jon’s brother and Olivia’s father had simply walked out of their lives without any explanation. That was over three years ago now and they still hadn’t heard anything definite from him.

‘Who knows? For Dad’s sake, I wish and hope we do. He won’t admit it, you know how stubborn the old man is, but I think he suspects that it wasn’t just the pressure of Tiggy’s illness that made David leave. We can’t risk telling him the whole truth, of course, but he’s changed since David left. He’s still as stubborn as he always was, but now it’s as though he’s clinging to that stubbornness like a crutch he needs to support himself with instead of using it like a stick to beat the rest of us.’

Jenny laughed.

‘Ben is getting older,’ she reminded her husband.

‘Aren’t we all,’ Jon retorted feelingly.

‘What are we going to do about Louise?’ Jenny prodded him. ‘The last time she was home she made a positive nuisance of herself with Saul, inviting herself to go and stay with Hugh and Ann like that and then... And now with Saul living so close, it’s going to be even worse.’

‘She’s your daughter,’ Jon told her tongue-in-cheek, adding mock-virtuously, ‘and it’s a mother’s duty.’

‘She’s your daughter, as well,’ Jenny lost no time in retaliating, concluding triumphantly, ‘and as you’ve just said yourself, she is quite definitely a Crighton. All joking aside, Jon, we’re going to have to do something...say something. If it was Katie, for instance, she’d be mortified at the thought of anyone knowing how she felt, but on the other hand she would never pursue anyone the way Louise is pursuing Saul.’

Jon nodded his agreement. ‘It’s a pity Ruth’s going to be away while she’s home. She’s very good at that sort of thing. Of course, the best thing would be for Saul to find himself someone else...get married again.’

‘Saul marry again?’ Jenny frowned. ‘Do you think he would? It hit him very hard when he and Hillary broke up. I remember him telling me at the time that he felt as though he had failed. Not just failed Hillary and himself and the children, but his parents, the family, his upbringing and his beliefs... everything. He as good as said that even knowing he didn’t love Hillary any more he’d have been prepared to continue with the marriage for the sake of the children.

‘What did you think of Olivia’s weekend guest, by the way,’ Jenny asked her husband in amusement. ‘She was very anti Saul, wasn’t she?’

‘Was she?’ Jon asked, a fatuous semi-glazed expression enveloping his face. ‘I didn’t pay much attention to what she said,’ he admitted, grinning at Jenny.

‘It’s just as well you’re the one driving this car,’ Jenny warned him, ‘otherwise I’d be tempted to push you out. Why is it that when a man sees a more than averagely pretty girl he immediately forgets that she’s also a fully functioning, intelligent and equal human being?’

‘I didn’t forget,’ Jon protested in a mock-injured tone. ‘Obviously she’s intelligent...and very highly qualified, but you’ve got to admit that she’s...well, she’s...’

‘Sexy,’ Jenny suggested with dangerous sweetness.

‘Sexy.’ Jon rolled his eyes. ‘That’s like describing the Grand Canyon as a valley. She’s—’

‘Stop drooling, Jon,’ Jenny advised. ‘It makes you look senile. Mind you,’ she added fair-mindedly, ‘I have to say that she came across very much to me as a woman’s woman. Hardly the type to flirt or make use of her, er, assets.’

‘No, she was a bit on the serious side. Still, living in Haslewich will probably help her to ease down a gear or two. By the way, when are Max and Madeleine next due to visit?’ he asked.

Jenny gave him a shrewd look.

Max, their elder son, was a fast-track barrister with a prestigious set of London chambers. He was also the epitome of his uncle David with most of his faults and several more of his own thrown in. Add to that the fact that he was a handsome and highly sexed young man married to a very sweet but rather plain young woman whose sole claim on his affections was the fact that she was the daughter of a prominent High Court judge with a Law Lord for a grandfather.

Include in the recipe the highly volatile ingredients of a young baby, whom Max made no secret of not having wanted, and several rich and well-connected female clients whom, if the gossip they had heard was correct, he had been equally open about not only wanting but actually having and it was no wonder that Jenny should feel her heart start to sink at the thought of Max coming into contact with Tullah.

He would lay seige to her, of course, because quite simply he was that kind of man, but thankfully Tullah had not struck her as the kind of woman who would come anywhere near being tempted to respond.

As he heard her sigh, Jon looked at his wife with a twinkle in his eyes. ‘Well, it certainly isn’t from me that your son and your daughter get their high-octane sex drives,’ he told her virtuously.

Jenny’s mouth had started to form a round O of rebuttal before she realised he was teasing her, but once she did she simply smiled at him and said softly, ‘Oh no? What about last night, then?’

‘What about it?’ Jon asked innocently, but he was blushing slightly and Jenny shook her head as she reminded him, ‘I wasn’t the one who had to lie to Joss and Jack that I needed an extra hour in bed because I’d got a headache.’

‘No. But you still came up with me,’ he reminded her.

‘That was my duty as your wife,’ she retaliated firmly. ‘After all, a man of your age...a headache could be...could be...’

‘An excuse to get my wife into bed so that I could make love to her,’ Jon suggested softly, adding, ‘Well, tonight we won’t need an excuse, will we? We’ve got the house to ourselves.’

‘Twice in one week,’ Jenny mock protested.

‘What do you mean, twice in one week,’ Jon growled back. ‘We went past that last night!’

“Well, that’s the last of them.’ Sitting back on her heels, Tullah smiled as she looked across the neatly stacked boxes at her mother. ‘Thanks for coming to help me.’ She shook her head as she added ruefully, ‘I had no idea I owned so much stuff.’

‘Well, you can’t get to nearly thirty without accumulating some possessions,’ her mother responded.

Tullah gave her a wry look. ‘You’re just sorry that I don’t happen to number a husband and a couple of children amongst mine, is that it?’ she teased.

Despite the break-up of her first marriage after Tullah’s father had left her for his secretary, Jean had remained incurably romantic, marrying a second time when Tullah was in her early twenties after a whirlwind courtship with a man she had met whilst on holiday.

Tullah liked her stepfather, who adored and doted on her mother. He was a kind, gentle man whose first wife had died ten years before he and her mother had met, and was nothing like her father.

‘It isn’t that I wish you were married, darling,’ Jean told her now. ‘It’s just...well, I can’t help feeling if your father and I hadn’t divorced and if that dreadful man hadn’t—’

‘The divorce wasn’t your fault,’ Tullah reminded her, ‘and, as for that dreadful man... I should have realised what he really was instead of being so gullible.’

‘Darling, you were sixteen,’ her mother protested. ‘Still, perhaps now you’re moving out of London you might meet someone nice.’

‘I doubt it. Haslewich is Crighton territory and judging by the—’

‘Crighton territory?’ Jean looked puzzled.

Tullah laughed. ‘Sorry,’ she apologised. ‘Just my little joke. Olivia Crighton as she was then, whom I used to work with, lives in Haslewich. Her family come from the area.’

‘Olivia...oh yes, you went to her wedding.’

‘And her daughter’s christening. She invited me to stay with her last month when I went to Haslewich to meet the relocation agent.’

After getting to her feet, Tullah went into the small kitchen of her soon-to-be ex-flat and started to fill the kettle.

‘Oh? You don’t sound as though you enjoyed it. Didn’t the two of you get on?’

‘Oh, we got on. It’s just that Olivia has this cousin...of a sort. There are so many of them, I’m not quite sure how Saul slots into place.’

Her mother came to join her in the kitchen. ‘Decaff for me, darling, if that’s coffee you’re making,’ she instructed. ‘But who is Saul?’

Tullah hid a small smile. Her mother was, if not subtle, certainly disarmingly difficult to sidetrack.

‘Saul is...Saul,’ she told her uninformatively, pouring the boiling water into the coffee mugs. As she handed one to her mother, she added quietly, ‘He’s another Ralph...only worse.’

Tullah paused and frowned before taking a sip of her coffee, then explained the situation.

‘He’s got children of his own, three of them, two girls and a boy,’ Tullah eventually finished by saying. ‘So you’d think as a parent he’d understand at least some of what Jenny and Jon must be feeling.’