Encounters. Barbara Erskine

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СКАЧАТЬ stood up and came round the table. ‘Annette …’

      ‘No, please. Don’t say anything. Make my apologies to Paula. Perhaps I’ll come back after …’

      After what? Christmas? His marriage? His birthday? After it stopped hurting?

      In the afternoon she packed slowly not waiting to read the Sunday papers with him by the fire, taking from the kitchen a couple of carrier bags to put all the extras in. The things which she had grown used to leaving behind week after week. Her records, her boots, a couple of books, the heavy Aran sweater she never wore in town. She piled them by the front door and took the old duffle coat off the hook. That, too, must go back. When she looked round he was standing in the doorway watching her.

      ‘My mother did this.’

      ‘No, Duncan. I always knew it wouldn’t last. I just didn’t know how long I’d got.’

      He put his hands on her shoulders and drew her to him. ‘Supposing I told you I’d change. I’ve grown so fond of you, Annette. I don’t know that I can live without you. Not now.’

      She felt her throat constrict. ‘You must,’ she whispered.

      He took her to the train at last and found her a corner seat with her bags, then he jumped off as the train was already moving – no time for any goodbyes. But there was no one sitting opposite her to shame her into holding back her tears and she felt them run scalding down her cheeks as she turned her face to the window and saw the countryside gathering speed until it blurred and faded behind the dirty glass.

      On Friday, in case he came, she rang the office and told them she had a migraine. The following week she went in as usual, thinking she felt more able to cope, but she did not have to. He did not appear.

      She did not know whether he came up to see Kevin Spiggs again. She suspected he had never really needed to anyway, after that first time. He had come only to see her.

      It was three months before she heard from him again. He phoned her at the office. ‘How are you, Annette?’

      Her heart, cured, distracted, no longer his, turned upside down at the sound of his voice.

      ‘I’m fine. How are you?’

      She thought she managed to sound casual. She fixed her mind determinedly on Robert, the new man in her life, who would be taking her out later that evening; Robert who had three times asked her to marry him.

      ‘Can I take you out to lunch tomorrow?’ Duncan sounded uncomfortable and quite suddenly she forgot her own unhappiness in a wave of sympathy for him.

      ‘That would be nice. But it will have to be fairly brief I’m afraid. We’re very busy at the office at the moment.’

      ‘Fine. I’ll pick you up around 12.30.’

      She got up an hour early the next day to dress with special care and put on some make up, and one look at his face told her that there had been no point. His love for her, if that was what it had been, had gone. Rising from her desk she picked up her bag and followed him out into the street.

      ‘I wanted to tell you myself that I’m getting married.’ He said it at once, before they had even ordered.

      ‘I’m glad for you.’

      She realized as she said it that she meant it. For herself she was desolate, but the shining happiness she had seen on his face was so special she could not grudge him. Not that. That was what love did to a man, or a woman. ‘To Celia, I take it?’

      He nodded and grinned. ‘So you did know. Afterwards I was so angry with myself. I thought perhaps I’d misled you. I couldn’t have borne it if I’d hurt you, Annette.’ His hand was on hers on the table. ‘You’re very special to me, you know. You always will be.’

      ‘And you to me, Duncan.’ She drew her hand away gently. Had he really never guessed how much she loved him? Had he really believed they were both just passing the time? She looked up at his face and then sadly she looked away.

      They saw each other twice more after that. Once by accident in the foyer of the office building and once for coffee in the lunch hour two weeks before his wedding. He had a brown paper parcel under his arm.

      ‘This is for you. From Celia and me. A wedding present for you.’

      It was an exquisite sweater in soft chocolate-coloured wool.

      She did not tell him she had given Robert back his ring. If you did not love someone with the all-consuming joy with which Duncan loved his Celia, there could be no future. She was sure of that.

      She had not heard from Duncan again for two years. Then had come the letter asking her to be godmother to his first child.

      At first she was angry; then she cried. Then she laughed, and after writing two indignant letters of refusal tore them up and rang the farm. Duncan answered.

      ‘Are you serious?’ she asked.

      ‘Perfectly. I want my daughter to grow up with humour and understanding. Who better to teach it to her than you?’

      Was that really the way she had reacted?

      ‘What happened to Robert?’ he asked after a pause.

      ‘No sense of humour and no understanding!’

      ‘I’m sorry.’

      ‘So am I.’

      Behind the half drawn curtains the christening party was in full swing. But in the garden it was very quiet. Rick was watching her.

      ‘You’re telling the story against yourself,’ he said gently. ‘I think Duncan was a bastard.’

      She shook her head. ‘When you think about it, he displayed all the virtues. It just happens they were not directed at me.’ She shivered suddenly. ‘Shall we go back inside. I expect they’re going to cut the cake or whatever they do at christenings. Did you go to their wedding?’

      He shook his head, ‘Did you?’

      ‘I wasn’t asked.’

      Suddenly Rick laughed. ‘Do you know who I am?’

      ‘No. Should I?’

      ‘I’m the man who asked Celia to marry him in Switzerland. And she nearly said yes. The only reason she didn’t was this mysterious man she’d left in England who, she said, would wait for her no matter what. I told her she was mad.’ He took Annette’s hand and she found herself enjoying his warm grasp. ‘So we’re in the same boat, you and I. Rejected lovers.’

      He grinned, looking anything but sad about it and suddenly she found herself laughing with him. ‘You mean if I’d stayed with Duncan and fought, you’d have married Celia? She wouldn’t have been left alone to fade away after all?’

      That’s right.’

      Annette was speechless for a moment. ‘But she does love Duncan?’ she asked hesitantly, after a long pause.

      ‘Oh СКАЧАТЬ