It was suddenly very quiet as the two men remained in an awkward silence, listening to her high heels resounding angrily on the stairs. The noise of the mantelpiece clock seemed intrusively loud.
Harrison said: ‘I need a drink.’
The brigadier studied him carefully from the sofa as the whisky was poured. ‘You know she’s having an affair, don’t you?’
Harrison looked at Pippa’s father sharply, not sure he’d heard the words correctly.
,‘It’s true, Tom. She’s having an affair with Jonathan Beazley, our managing director ‘
‘I know who Beazley is,’ Harrison snapped.
Maddox appeared to be mesmerised by his brandy, swilling it slowly around the glass. ‘It’s been goin’ on about three months now. Don’t approve, of course. Beazley was in my regiment once, you know, a subaltern. Long time ago, though. But you can’t blame Pippa, not with you away all the time, not knowing when you’re going to get yourself blown up. Terrific strain on a marriage. A big city can be a lonely place, you know.’
Obviously not lonely enough, Harrison thought silently and savagely. He didn’t doubt her father’s words; the brigadier may have been warning him in order to save the marriage, but somehow Harrison doubted it. He suspected the old bastard was subtly, smugly gloating.
The brigadier was saying: ‘Can’t blame Jonathan either really, although it’s damn bad form. His marriage has been on the rocks for years.’ Then, as though it explained everything:
“‘And Pippa is a damn handsome woman, even if I say so myself.’
That’s rich. Pippa not to blame. Beazley not to blame. Obviously there was only one person left to carry the can. Him.
Harrison swallowed his drink in one gulp, the harsh burning at the back of his throat helping to revive him. He felt exhausted and drained, his mind fully occupied with the AID AN campaign. This in addition he could do without.
Before he was able to marshal his thoughts or come back with some suitably cutting reply, the telephone rang. He snatched up the receiver.
‘Harrison household? Bill Rivers of the Mirror here. Wonder if I could speak to the major?’
The receiver crashed down. Harrison turned as Pippa struggled on the stairs, her cases thudding against the banisters.
‘Don’t say I told you,’ Maddox breathed anxiously, as he raised himself from the sofa. ‘She’d never forgive me.’
As Harrison stepped into the hall, Pippa looked him directly in the eyes. He could see only anger and fear in her expression, nothing else. Certainly not what he was hoping to see. ‘Dad’s going to take me now, Tom. I take it you’ll follow over?’
Harrison shook his head. ‘I’m not staying with him.’
For a moment anxiety clouded her eyes and she glanced over his shoulder as her father walked towards the hall. ‘What has he been saying?’
Wearily Harrison shook his head. ‘Only what you should have told me yourself. About you and Beazley.’
‘Oh.’ She was visibly shaken, stopped dead in her tracks.
‘“Oh”? Is that the best you can do? Is that “Oh, I’m sorry, it was just one of those things, but now it’s finished, please forgive me?” Or “Oh, God, I’ve been caught with my knickers round my ankles?’”
Anger flashed in her eyes. ‘There’s no need to be bloody vulgar, Tom.’ Attack always had been Pippa’s method of defence.
‘Adultery’s a pretty vulgar business,’ he snapped back, ‘as you must be all too aware.’
Now she was looking flustered. ‘This really isn’t the time or place, not with the press outside…’
‘Sod the press, Pippa! This is our lives we’re talking about. Ours and Archie’s. What do you want me to do, make an appointment to discuss it?’
She saw her opening and went for it. ‘Why not? That seems to be how we’ve been running our marriage for the past year or more. Everything deferred until you’re home on leave. How the hell d’you think it feels being a pan-time wife? Sometimes I think a prostitute knows her clients better than I know you.’
‘Now who’s being vulgar?’
‘I mean it, Tom. You’ve become like a stranger to me, and to Archie.’
That bit hurt. ‘And what about Beazley? He’s certainly no stranger, is he?’
Suddenly she seemed to calm down. With a look of resignation on her face, she said: ‘You’re right, it did just happen. Jonathan and I were working hard on a series of presentations to new clients. Late nights at the office and then a few drinks after. We got to know each other better. We found we had a lot in common.’
‘Like both being married.’
She ignored the jibe. ‘We liked the same things, spoke the same language. He can be very funny, you know.’
‘I hadn’t noticed.’ ‘
‘And like me, he is very unhappy.’
‘Meaning?’
‘He’s going to divorce Vanessa.’
Harrison’s laugh was bitter. ‘And don’t tell me, you want a divorce too?’
Pippa took a deep breath. ‘Yes.’
Of course he had half anticipated her reply, yet still didn’t really expect it. Not like that. Its effect was shocking, leaving his mind in a spin, unable to grasp the full implication of her words — that his life and marriage had just crashed around him.
She was saying ‘…I was going to tell you, obviously. When Jonathan and I had sorted everything out.’
‘So you already knew?’ ‘ ‘What?’
‘When we made love the other night. You already knew.’
Her features hardened. ‘When we screwed, Tom, not made love. I don’t think we’ve made love for years.’
‘But you knew?’ Insistent.
There was a momentary flicker of warmth in her eyes. ‘You’re a very hard man to hate, Tom. And you can still stir something in me. But the love has gone.’
He felt sick, a nauseous churning deep within him. Not so much anger as an aching emptiness. A stunning sense of sadness and loss.
The brigadier gave an embarrassed cough. Harrison turned towards the living-room door. ‘It’s all right. It’s safe for you to come out now.’
Pippa said: ‘You can still come with us tonight, Tom.’
‘I don’t think so.’
She gave him the look she reserved for Archie when he was behaving at his most childishly obtuse. ‘What will you do then?’
‘I don’t know. Hotel room or something.’
She’d put on her favourite Hermes headscarf to which she now added designer sunglasses to complete her disguise. ‘Call me at the office tomorrow, tell me where you are.’ Her lips brushed against his cheek. He thought how cold they felt.
The front door swung open to a bewildering array of popping flashguns and a babble of excited voices. ‘Mrs Harrison! Mrs Harrison, look this way please!’ ‘When will your husband be home?’ ‘Mrs Harrison, what does it feel like to be married to a bomb-disposal man?’ ‘Aren’t you afraid of being a target of the IRA, Mrs Harrison?’ ‘Mrs Harrison…?’
She was swallowed up in the melee, huddling close to her father as he struggled towards his parked BMW. As Harrison began to ease the door closed, the figure in trench coat and fedora hat slipped easily round behind the crowd and up the steps.
Don Trenchard grinned. ‘Under siege, eh? Looks like you could do with some moral support.’
The door slammed, shutting out the noisy hubbub on the pavement. ‘You can say that again. I’ve got that rabble outside and Pippa’s off to stay with her father.’
‘Not you?’
Harrison hesitated for a moment. ‘Hell, Don, you may as well know. Pippa’s just walked out on me.’