The Unmarried Husband

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‘One of your schoolfriends?’ She looked at her daughter over the top of the menu. ‘I didn’t think that there was anyone here under eighteen apart from you.’

‘No one that you know, Mum,’ Lucy mumbled, diving into the menu and frowning savagely.

‘Oh.’

‘He hasn’t seen me.’

‘He…?’

‘Don’t look around. You’ll just make it obvious!’

‘Why don’t you say hello if you know him, whoever he is?’ Jessica asked with studied indifference.

‘He’s wearing a jacket!’ She made that sound like a sin, and Jessica did her best not to smile.

‘How awful!’

‘Very funny, Mum.’ She stared at the menu, still red-faced and frowning. ‘I suppose I’d better say hi.’

Jessica nodded, holding her breath. ‘Good idea, darling.’ She placed the menu to one side, having read precisely nothing on it. ‘Silly to be antisocial.’

CHAPTER THREE

A FLURRY of introductions. Jessica did her best to appear politely interested, but she was keenly aware of Anthony Newman, the casual, masculine elegance of his body, as he half stood to shake her hand, the feel of his fingers briefly against hers.

‘My daughter’s mentioned you,’ she said, turning to face Mark and scrutinising him for signs of corrupt youth. There were none. He was the unformed younger version of his father. No hard edges yet.

‘Is that good or bad?’ he asked, grinning awkwardly, and she forced herself to smile back in return.

‘Horrendous, I should think,’ his father drawled. ‘The last thing this child needs is the presence of boys in her life.’

‘I’m sixteen,’ Lucy said stiffly. ‘And I meet boys every day, Mr Newman. My school’s co-ed.’

‘A mixed blessing, I should think.’ Anthony looked at Jessica and she felt herself flush, even though the glance was polite and cursory. ‘At least from a parent’s point of view.’

‘I’m afraid there was no choice…’

‘Anyway, why don’t you two join us? Unless you’re expecting someone else…?’

‘We couldn’t!’ Lucy said quickly.

‘We’d love to.’ Jessica looked vaguely around her. ‘Would they object…?’

‘Why on earth should they?’ Anthony stood up to pull a chair for her, and at the same time he beckoned to one of the waiters and informed him of the change in seating arrangements.

Even in a matter as small as this there was that authority in his voice that she had noticed a few days ago. A natural air of command which assumed that no arguments would be forthcoming.

Another flurry of sitting down. Poor Lucy looked so dismayed at this change of plan that Jessica almost felt sorry for her.

Was there ever any embarrassment as acute as teenage embarrassment? Jessica looked kindly at her daughter, who was glaring at the empty wineglass in front of her while attempting to mutter a conversation with Mark, and felt suddenly matronly. An ageing, frumpish matron in a flowered dress, gauche in the presence of a man whose interest in her barely rose beyond strictly polite.

She adored Lucy, but where on earth had all that hopeful youth gone?

She felt as though she had been staring at her future one minute, and then the next minute looking over her shoulder at a future long since vanished. In between had been the tricky juggling job of child-rearing and work, hardly time to plan ahead, and no time at all to look behind.

Was that what life was all about? Forgetting what dreams were all about?

She looked under her lashes at Anthony, who was doing his charming best to coax a response out of Lucy, and felt a sudden flare of resentment.

She had been perfectly happy, more or less, until now. For some reason he made her think about her life, and not just her life but the limitations within it. Nothing at all to do with money, more to do with the image she had of herself.

He made her, she realised with annoyance, feel dowdy. Dowdy and mumsy. The sort of woman he might stand and chat to politely at a school gathering, before escaping with a sigh of relief back to his world of glamorous women who had the time and money to pamper themselves.

The conversation had moved on from hobbies—a polite question from Anthony had met with an equally polite answer from Lucy—‘None’. Now he was initiating the familiar school conversation, and getting, Jessica noticed with amusement, much the same lack of response as when she tried to initiate it herself.

‘School’s deadly,’ Lucy was saying now, tucking into her starter with the enthusiasm of someone who hadn’t eaten in several weeks. ‘Same old routine every day. I’m surprised some of the teachers don’t collapse from the sheer boredom of it all.’

‘I remember feeling precisely like that when I was your age,’ Anthony said, struggling not to smile. He glanced at Jessica, and they shared a very brief bond of parental understanding.

‘Really?’ Lucy dragged her attention away from her food for an instant to subject him to a witheringly sceptical stare.

‘It gets better in sixth form,’ Mark told her.

‘If I ever get there,’ Lucy muttered under her breath. ‘I’m thoroughly fed up with school at the moment. Heaven only knows whether I can face another two years of it.’

‘Let’s not discuss this here,’ Jessica said sharply.

‘Why not? Kind of makes a change from discussing it at home all the time. Besides, Mark agrees with me, don’t you, Mark? We happen to think that discipline isn’t necessarily the best way of learning. Doesn’t allow for creativity.’

‘That certainly sounds a familiar line of argument.’ Anthony shot his son a dark, unreadable stare, and was met with a sullen, unresponsive look in return.

Jessica quietly closed her fork and spoon, and wondered what on earth had possessed her to succumb to this madcap idea of joining forces with Anthony Newman.

As far as good ideas went, it left a lot to be desired. After Anthony’s initial lukewarm reception, here they were, seated in one of the more expensive restaurants in London, waging war. They might as well have gone to a fast-food bar—at least the crockery wouldn’t have been breakable.

Lucy, having scraped every morsel of food from her plate, was staring at Mark and Anthony with her face cupped in the palm of her hand, seemingly enjoying the terse exchange of words. Lord knows, Jessica thought, what sort of beneficial effect this evening was supposed to be having on her.

‘You don’t understand, Dad,’ Mark was saying in a laboured voice. ‘You spend all your life cooped up in an office, and you think that that’s the only valid contribution a person can make to society.’

‘You’re talking absolute rot,’ Anthony replied with an edge of anger. ‘As usual.’

‘Anything you don’t agree with, you consider absolute rot.’

Oh, God, Jessica thought, wondering whether she could conceivably excuse herself and spend the next hour in the Ladies. In a minute, they’ll be coming to blows.

‘We’re not here to argue.’ Anthony sat back in his chair, sipped his wine, and smiled cordially at Jessica, who raised her eyebrows in disbelief at this sudden change of attitude. ‘Tell me what you do, Jessica.’ He linked his fingers together, regarded her with bland interest, and waited.

‘Mum works for a bunch of lawyers.’

‘I’m sure your mother is capable of answering for herself,’ Anthony said.

Mark met Lucy’s eyes with sympathy. ‘He’s always like that. Bossy.’ They began chatting in subdued voices while the waiter cleared away the debris, and Jessica smiled rather wildly back at Anthony.