Sam rang at seven, jubilant because he’d been pronounced fit to play again. She wanted to ask him if he’d heard anything about the Stoke deal but held her tongue, simply congratulating him and saying she was glad that he was playing again.
She left Agnetha and Sukey watching High School Musical - yet again – and drove into the town.
There was little traffic around because of the inclement weather. People were staying indoors. She drove gingerly over roads with their treacherous black icy sheen and headed towards Drapers’ Hall.
It was one of her favourite places to eat and that wasn’t just because of the food. It was the ambience of the place, the interior of the sixteenth-century hall, one of the oldest if not the oldest building in a town that was predominantly medieval. Inside was no disappointment. It was panelled, furnished with genuine antiques and ancient portraits on the walls.
Simon was there before her. She saw his Lexus LS already parked and manoeuvred her Audi behind it. Even with the fur wrap she shivered crossing the road. He was waiting for her in the vestibule, a tall, dark-haired man, slim and very elegant in a dark suit. Martin and Simon had been flatmates briefly when they had been students together which was how she had known him and his wife, Evelyn. She and Martin had had many discussions about Simon’s strong and devious personality, but they had never worked out how he could have made so much money in a few short years. Evelyn herself, when she had been alive, had never made any comment about their finances. She had kept dumb about their lovely house with acres of woodland and trout fishing pool, their succession of top-of-the-range cars and school fees amounting to tens of thousands of pounds for their two daughters. In fact, Martha had sensed that even Evelyn did not quite trust her husband who was blessed with a sort of roguish confidence as well as a dark secrecy. During the drive into town she had tried guessing at what was causing Simon Pendlebury such tensions and had finally decided on some subversive financial problem. Though why he would want to speak to her on such matters she couldn’t even guess. She was in for a surprise. As he bent to kiss her cheek she sensed something very different about him. He’d lost some weight and a little of his confidence. In fact he was slightly nervous, his top lip beaded with moisture. She studied him. This was most unlike the Simon Pendlebury she had known for years. Curious, she sat down and watched him as he fetched her a gin from the bar. As he set it down on the table, next to his glass of white wine, she noticed his hand was shaking.
‘Simon,’ she said, covering it with her own, leaning forward, concerned. ‘Something’s wrong, isn’t it? Whatever is it?’
He sat opposite her, hardly meeting her eyes but looking downwards. ‘You’re going to think me such a fool, Martha,’ he said. ‘Such a bloody idiot. I’m so angry with myself. Evie would have been…’
‘What on earth have you done?’
He ran his fingers through his hair. ‘Let’s order first,’ he said.
‘Fine.’
She could hardly concentrate on the menu, good though it was. The truth was she was seriously worried. Evelyn Pendlebury and she had been very good friends for a long time, right up until Evie’s death. Evie had been kind to her after Martin’s death, inviting her round over the long weekends that seemed to stretch so far into the distance. When Evie had known she was dying she had more or less asked Martha to keep an eye on her husband.
Martha waited.
They ate their first course hardly speaking, which again was unusual for Simon. He was a natural talker with a wide variety of topics to keep the conversation flowing but tonight he made no effort. He didn’t even comment on her new dress – a first for him. He was polite but distracted.
He waited until they were eating their main course before speaking.
His eyes shifted around the room then landed on Martha. ‘I’ve fallen in love,’ he said simply.
She was tempted to laugh. ‘Is that all?’ she said. ‘That’s good. A happy thing.’ Her eyes found his and she wondered. ‘Isn’t it?’
‘Yes and no,’ he said. ‘Martha, I’m in my late forties. Christabel is twenty-three years old. She works for me. She’s a secretary for the firm.’
‘That is quite an age gap,’ she agreed. ‘But doesn’t love conquer all?’
For the first time that night Simon gave her one of his rare smiles. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not all. Armenia and Jocasta are absolutely furious. They’re calling her a gold-digger and all sorts of names. It’s tearing me apart.’
She was watching his face. ‘There’s something more to this than simply a man falling for a woman young enough to be his daughter, isn’t there?’
He nodded. ‘I’m frightened that they’re right,’ he admitted.
Martha waited.
‘It’s hard to say this without sounding a snob but she doesn’t come from the best of backgrounds. Her father’s in prison for a violent robbery. Her mother – well it’s hard to know, but just let’s say that Chrissie has never had any money and I think possibly she is a bit dazzled by the trappings of wealth.’
Martha was watching him carefully.
‘The thing is,’ he said, ‘I don’t care. I think it’s that that terrifies me. I don’t care if she’s just professing love for me out of greed or avarice and I don’t care that my beloved daughters loathe her. Nothing seems to matter any more except the time I spend with her.’
Now she was worried. ‘You have got it bad, haven’t you?’
‘Yes. I wasn’t like this with Evie.’ His eyes held mute appeal. ‘What’s happening to me, Martha?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I don’t have a whole lot of experience with stuff like this. I suppose most people would call it infatuation.’ She reached out and touched his hand again to soften her words. ‘Forgive me but it sounds like a middle-aged man having a crisis. Have the girls actually met her?’
He shook his head.
‘You’ve set up a meeting?’
‘Yes, though goodness knows what I expect to achieve through it. The girls have quite made up their minds. I don’t even know if it’s fair to expose Chrissie to their spite.’
Martha was shocked to hear Simon reject his daughters in this way. They’d lost their mother. He was their only living parent. She didn’t know how to tackle this without alienating Simon herself.
‘Simon,’ she said slowly, ‘it’s very early days yet. I mean…’ She searched for something to say. ‘Evie’s only been dead for a year.’
‘And ill for three years before that.’
She nodded, unhappy to cross this boundary into her friends’ personal lives.
Simon’s dark eyes met hers, appealing for her to understand this. ‘It isn’t just sex, Martha. It’s having someone young, someone light, happy, cheerful, healthy, beautiful to do things with. So alive. As you say poor Evie was ill. I can hardly remember her well any more. Only the shell of the woman she was.’
‘Simon,’ Martha said tentatively, sensing something else now, ‘what do you want from me?’
‘I want to marry Chrissie,’ he said, ‘and I want the girls to accept her. They’ll listen to you. Talk to them – please?’
‘Why rush into marriage, Simon?’
‘Because I want to,’ he said simply. ‘I love her and I want to be married to her. Please speak to the girls or they will lose me.’ She caught the set of his jaw and knew he spoke no more or less than the truth. At the same time she felt a traitor to her once best friend. Evie would have been desperately unhappy at this turn of events but she must help – do what she could.
‘I will,’ she said, ‘if you really want me to but it won’t do any good. I know your daughters, Simon. They take after you. They’re determined and stubborn. They’re very strong characters.’