Carole Mortimer - Living Together

Jenny held the receiver away from her ear, her hand over the mouthpiece. ‘He wants to talk to you,’ she whispered.

‘Tell him we have nothing to talk about,’ and Helen walked out of the room.

Seconds later Jenny followed her into the bedroom. ‘He says it’s important.’

‘We have nothing to say to each other,’ Helen said firmly. ‘Tell him I’m not interested.’

‘I can’t tell him that!’ Jenny exclaimed, scandalised.

Helen shrugged. ‘Okay, tell him what you please, but I want nothing more to do with him. And, Jenny,’ she stopped her cousin in the process of leaving, ‘please don’t tell him anything about my private life.’

Jenny sighed. ‘I can hardly do that—even I don’t know all of it.’

‘Well, don’t tell him what you do know.’

‘As if I would!’

‘You may not mean to. I was with him long enough to know he could charm anything out of you if he really set his mind to it.’

‘Anything?’ Jenny teased.

‘Anything,’ Helen returned lightly. As usual Jenny’s bubbly good humour was having a calming effect on her.

But she lay awake a long time that night after she knew Jenny to be asleep. She might resent and despise Leon Masters’ unwelcome intrusion into her life, might hate him for kissing her, but there was one thing she had to acknowledge. In the two years since the accident, since Michael’s death, she hadn’t cried once, not over anything, and yet half an hour after meeting Leon Masters she had been crying almost hysterically. And she didn’t like the fact that he had been the one to take the first brick off the wall she had built around her emotions; she didn’t like it one bit.

‘ARE you sure you won’t come?’ Jenny cajoled. ‘It’s sure to be fun.’

‘I’m not in the mood for a boating trip,’ Helen refused, her nose buried in a particularly good murder story.

Jenny laughed. ‘It isn’t a “boating trip”! Cruising over to France for the day can hardly be called that,’ she said disgustedly.

Helen rested her chin on her drawn-up knees, the denims she wore old and worn, her blouse casually unbuttoned at her throat for coolness. ‘It is to me. And I don’t want to go to France, I’m perfectly comfortable where I am.’

‘But you can read that book any old time.’

‘And I can go to France any old time too. I do work in a travel agency, you know. I get discount.’

‘But this trip would be for free.’

‘I don’t want to go,’ Helen told her firmly. ‘I haven’t forgotten the last time you persuaded me to go out when I didn’t want to.’ She touched her bottom lip, which after a week still showed some signs of bruising. ‘Everyone at work thought someone had slugged me one.’

‘It wasn’t my fault Leon Masters took a fancy to you.’

Helen grimaced. ‘Thank goodness he’s stopped telephoning now.’ He had telephoned every day for five days, but for the last two she had heard nothing from him.

‘Why?’ Jenny teased. ‘Were you beginning to weaken?’

’Certainly not!’ But Helen was aware her denial didn’t carry conviction. ‘I’m glad he’s stopped trying.’

‘Maybe he hasn’t,’ Jenny remarked casually. ‘Maybe he’s just trying a different approach.’

‘Absence making the heart grow fonder?’ Helen queried wryly.

‘Something like that.’

‘It hasn’t,’ she told her firmly.

‘Sure?’

‘Very sure.’

‘And you won’t come today?’ Jenny persisted. ‘You just have time to get ready if you’ve changed your mind, Matt won’t be here for another ten minutes.’

‘I haven’t changed my mind.’ Helen stretched, yawning tiredly. ‘I’ve had a hard week, I’m going to lie back and relax.’

‘You could relax on the boat.’

‘No, thanks. 1 know that crowd, you have to fight off lecherous men all the time. And talking of lecherous men,’ Helen smiled mischievously, ‘you’ve seen rather a lot of Matt this week.’

Jenny blushed prettily. ‘He isn’t lecherous.’

Helen quirked an eyebrow. ‘You mean he’s changed?’

Her cousin laughed. ‘No, silly! He’s just never been that way with me. He even told me off for wearing that dress last Saturday.’

‘Mm—well, I wish you hadn’t persuaded me to wear one of yours. It gave Leon Masters the wrong impression. It may look good on you, but with my—well, my fuller figure up top it was too revealing to be thought anything other than a come-on.’

Jenny grinned. ‘And he came on strong!’

‘Too strong,’ Helen agreed ruefully. ‘He frightens me. He’s so—so assured, so arrogant.’

‘As long as he makes you feel something. That has to be an improvement.’

‘What do you mean?’ Helen asked sharply.

’You’ve been a bit—well, a bit emotionless since Michael,’ Jenny explained gently.

Helen bit her lip. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve been hard to live with. It’s just that after Michael I find it hard to live with anyone.’

‘I know, love.’ Jenny squeezed her hand. ‘And you aren’t difficult to live with, completely the opposite, in fact. You seem to have lost all your zest for life, shut yourself in from people. I wish you could put it all behind you, be like you were before it all happened.’

‘You can never go back, Jenny. What’s happened happened, you can never change it, and I can never be that person again.’

‘I still wish—–’ Jenny broke off as the doorbell rang. ’That will be Matt, and I’m still not quite ready. Be a pet and answer the door for me while I brush my hair.’

‘Okay.’ Helen climbed reluctantly off the sofa, her denims emphasising her slenderness.

‘And don’t seduce my boy-friend on the doorstep,’ Jenny warned teasingly.

‘He should be so lucky!’ Helen called after her.

She let Matt in, taking him into the lounge. He was very attractive in casual white trousers and shirt, looking healthy and attractive.

He quirked an eyebrow at her. ‘You aren’t ready.’

‘No,’ she sat cross-legged on the sofa, ‘I’m not going.’

‘Not going! But—–’ he turned to Jenny as she came through from the bedroom. ‘Helen’s just told me she isn’t going.’

‘That’s right, she isn’t.’

Was it Helen’s imagination or did she see that look pass between them? She shrugged. ‘Is it that important? I’m sure you two would rather be without an unwanted third person.’

‘You aren’t unwanted,’ Matt said smoothly. ‘We would love you to come along.’

‘I’ve already been through all that,’ Jenny told him, as she picked up her bag from a chair. ‘She can be very stubborn, can our Helen.’

‘But—–’

‘She doesn’t want to go, Matt,’ Jenny said firmly. ‘And nothing will persuade her.’

This time Helen was sure she could sense an undercurrent, a feeling they knew something she didn’t. Jenny hadn’t emphasised the word ‘nothing’, and yet the inflection had been there all the same.

‘Is there something you aren’t telling me?’ she asked them.

Jenny frowned. ‘Why should you think that?’

She shrugged. ‘Just your manner. Is there something?’

‘Well, actually—–’

‘No,’ again Jenny cut in on Matt, ‘there’s nothing. Shall we go, Matt?’ she said pointedly.

‘But—–’

‘Shall we go?’ she repeated firmly.

He sighed. ‘Oh, all right. But he isn’t going to like it.’

‘ He ?’ Helen picked up sharply. ‘And who might “he” be?’ she asked suspiciously.

Jenny gave Matt an angry glare. ‘Now look what you’ve done! I had no intention of mentioning that he was behind the invitation.’