Deception and Desire Read online

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ Dinah would say, and Mary had let things ride, not wanting to upset her more by pressing her further. But a week had gone by and Mary did not feel she could wait any longer. Bob was beginning to ask questions – and in any case Dinah, for her own good, had to be made to face up to the fact that she was pregnant.

  ‘Din, we have to talk,’ Mary repeated, but Dinah continued to stare out of the window. It was the pram with little Patrick in it that she had focused on, Mary realised. She sighed.

  ‘I’m going to put the kettle on and make us a cup of tea,’ she said firmly. ‘ Then, whether you like it or not, we are going to talk.’

  ‘Oh Mary, I don’t want to! Not in the way you mean. Let’s talk about the old days …’

  ‘Dinah, in case it had escaped your notice, you are expecting a baby. Ignoring the fact won’t make it go away. Have you seen a doctor?’

  Dinah shook her head.

  ‘Well you must see a doctor. You could be endangering your health and the baby’s too.’

  Dinah was staring unseeingly into the middle distance.

  ‘Do you think it’s too late for me to have an abortion?’

  ‘Dinah!’ Mary was shocked. ‘You mustn’t even think of such a thing! It’s illegal, immoral and probably dangerous. And any fool can see it’s far too late for that now. How far gone are you?’

  ‘Five months.’

  ‘Far too late.’

  ‘I wish I’d thought of it earlier.’

  ‘Dinah Marshall, will you stop talking about abortion! It’s a wicked thing even to think of taking human life. That’s what you would be doing. Killing a baby, your baby – a baby just like little Patrick.’

  ‘All right, all right, don’t go on about it! It’s too late, like you said. I’ve just got to go on and have it.’

  ‘Dinah.’ Mary took the tea towel from her hands and steered her to a chair, sitting her down. ‘I’m your friend. We’ve always been friends, haven’t we? Won’t you tell me about it?’

  Dinah shrugged. ‘There’s nothing to tell. I got drunk and let things happen. That’s all there is to it.’

  ‘What about the father? Does he know you are pregnant?’

  ‘No, and I don’t want him to know.’

  ‘What about your grandparents?’

  Dinah laughed hollowly. ‘I certainly don’t want them to know!

  You can just imagine what they would say, can’t you? Anyway, I never want to see Grandfather again as long as I live.’

  ‘Which won’t be very long, the way you’re going,’ Mary said flatly. ‘You must have at least thought about the future.’

  ‘Not really. I left college before anyone guessed and I got a job to tide me over while I worked out what I was going to do. But then …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I suppose I just stopped thinking about it.’

  ‘Why? Why, Dinah?’

  There was a long silence. Then Dinah said: ‘ Because I met someone else.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘His name is Van. Van Kendrick. He owns the factory where I worked – or at least, his father does. He’s really special. I love him, Mary. I tried to forget what was happening to me, pretended it was all a bad dream. It was such a relief to put it all to the back of my mind and pretend I was just ordinary, like everyone else, and that maybe … we could …’ Her eyes began to fill with tears.

  Mary put the cups down on the kitchen table and sat down opposite Dinah.

  ‘But he didn’t notice you, I suppose.’

  Dinah looked up. ‘Oh yes, he did. He really liked me. That was just it. It was wonderful. He asked me to work on some designs with him, for new things for the factory to make. It was easy to forget about the baby then. I was so busy. We made these walking boots, just him and me, when the factory was closed for the holiday. And then we went away together.’

  ‘Holy Mother of God!’ Mary exploded. ‘You don’t mean you let him, too!’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Dinah Marshall, you have been kicking over the traces and no mistake! And to think I thought you were the prim and proper one!’

  ‘Oh Mary – don’t you start on me!’

  Mary sighed. ‘All right. Tell me. Now he’s had his wicked way with you he doesn’t want to know any more.’

  Dinah’s eyes widened. She looked almost startled.

  ‘Oh no, you’re wrong. He asked me to marry him.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘He asked me to marry him.’

  Mary waved her hands in an expressive gesture.

  ‘So what went wrong? Why are you here?’

  ‘Well, I could hardly marry him, could I? Not the way I am. And I couldn’t tell him either.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I couldn’t bear to. He thinks … thought … I was a virgin. I couldn’t tell him I was pregnant.’

  ‘He made love to you. He must know!’

  ‘I made sure the lights were out. I don’t want him to know, Mary. It would spoil everything.’

  ‘It seems to me everything is spoiled now!’

  ‘Not everything. Not what we had together. At least this way he’ll remember me the way he thought I was. If he knew … oh Mary, don’t you see? He’d hate me, and I couldn’t bear that.’

  ‘He’d be shocked, I suppose, but if he loves you …’

  ‘No. I couldn’t inflict it on him. Not someone else’s child.’

  ‘I suppose you know what you are doing. You seem to have made up your mind.’

  ‘Yes,’ Dinah said, ‘I have. I knew, as soon as he asked me to marry him, that I couldn’t let it go on any longer. I either had to tell him or get away. And I couldn’t tell him.’

  ‘So you ran away. What point is there in that?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t know!’

  ‘Dinah, let me write to him. Let me tell him.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘If he loves you … if you love him …’

  ‘No! If you write to him, Mary, I’ll never forgive you!’

  ‘All right,’ Mary said wearily. ‘But we have to make plans of some sort, Dinah. You can’t stay here indefinitely.’

  ‘But you said …’

  ‘I know what I said, but I was thinking about a holiday, not you moving in for good. You’ve got to see a doctor, you’ve got to see a social worker, you’ve got to make arrangements for what you’ll do when the baby is born. Are you going to keep it?’

  ‘I suppose so …’

  ‘There are places, I think, where you could stay for a while when the baby is very young. Mother and baby homes. Dinah! Are you listening to me?’

  But Dinah had gone far away again.

  Mary sighed. She was very fond of Dinah and wanted to help her. But this was all more than she had bargained for.

  ‘I’ll get in touch with social services for you, but then you have got to help yourself,’ she said firmly.

  But secretly she was wondering if she could find out exactly where Dinah had been working, and if perhaps she would go against Dinah’s wishes and get in touch with this Van Kendrick.

  After all, something had to be done.

  Two days later Mary was washing nappies when there was a knock at the front door. Bob was at work – as usual – and Dinah had gone down to the shopping arcade to buy vegetables and bread. At least having her here meant another pair of hands to help with the chores; Mary, in spite of her contentedly domestic nature, was constantly amazed at how much work a baby made, and wondered, as she struggled with the round of feeding, bathing, and washing nappies and Babygros, for which there never seemed to be enough hours in the day, how on earth Dinah would manage all alone.

  Now she sighed at the interruption, wiped her hands on a kitchen towel and headed for the door. If it was Jehovah’s Witnesses she’d soon send them away with a flea in their ear, she thought crossly.

  But the man standing on the doorstep did not look like a Jehovah’s Witness. He was tall and good-looking, impe
ccably dressed. Mary looked at him questioningly.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Mary Colbourne?’

  She nodded, puzzled.

  ‘Good. I do have the right house then. I wonder if you can help me? I’m looking for Dinah Marshall. You are a friend of hers, I understand. Would you have any idea where I might find her? My name is Van Kendrick, by the way.’

  Mary was amazed – on reflection she had taken Dinah’s story with a pinch of salt. The idea that her employer, a well-to-do man of the world, had asked her to marry him seemed altogether too far-fetched, and Mary was well acquainted with Dinah’s capacity for dreaming and the way she used her fertile imagination to help her through when reality became too much for her. It wasn’t that she lied exactly, either to herself or to anyone else, but she did have a way of embellishing the truth, twisting it to make it more acceptable, that stemmed partly from her almost pathological desire to please. It was Mary’s opinion that Dinah’s grandparents had a lot to answer for, but with her own two feet firmly on the ground she could not understand how retreating into a dream world could ever really help when it was obvious that sooner or later one would have to emerge to find reality waiting, all the more daunting for having been ignored.

  Perhaps, Mary had thought, the employer had made a pass at Dinah, perhaps he had picked her brains for ideas for his merchandise – or perhaps Dinah had imagined the whole thing. Either way she felt sure in her own mind that the proposal of marriage must be simply wishful thinking on Dinah’s part, and the fact that Dinah had refused to allow her to contact him seemed to bear that out. Certainly the last thing she had expected was to have him turn up on the doorstep, looking for Dinah. She wiped the palms of her hands, still damp from the washtub, on her apron, looking at him with the shrewd blue gaze that was part of her Irish heritage.

  ‘Mr Kendrick. Yes, Dinah has mentioned you.’

  She saw a muscle move in his cheek.

  ‘You do know where she is, then?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’ She tipped her head, birdlike, to one side. ‘Why do you want her?’

  A look of astonishment crossed the handsome features, followed almost immediately by one of annoyance.

  ‘What sort of a question is that?’

  Mary stood her ground.

  ‘Quite a straightforward one, I’d have said. Look, Mr Kendrick, Dinah is a very old friend of mine. I care about her. She’s going through a very difficult time at present and I don’t want her worried or upset.’

  ‘The name is Van Kendrick,’ he said slightly pompously. ‘ Christian Van Kendrick. I assure you, the last thing I want is to cause Dinah any distress. Quite the contrary. So if you could just tell me where I could find her …’

  Mary looked hard at him. She wasn’t sure she cared for him. Yes, he was good-looking. Yes, he had an aura of magnetism and power. Yes, he had pots of money, judging by the sleek Jaguar drawn up at the gate. But he was also arrogant, with a sense of his own importance, and she fancied he was not only used to getting his own way but could make things very unpleasant if he was thwarted. But what could she do? She had no intention of lying to him, and besides, whatever she might say, Dinah needed all the help she could get.

  ‘You’d better come in, Mr Van Kendrick,’ she said. He followed her into the tiny parlour. ‘ Sit down.’

  ‘Thank you, but I’ll stand.’

  ‘Very well.’ Mary positioned herself in the doorway, folding her arms and attempting to look straight at him. It was not entirely easy; with her short Irish legs and his impressive physique he was almost a foot taller than her. But she held his gaze anyway, her round face set into the fierce lines that could make Bob, her husband, quail when they were directed at him.

  ‘Are you the father of her baby?’ she asked.

  She saw his face change. If she had been harbouring any suspicions that perhaps he already knew about Dinah’s condition they were dispelled in that moment. She saw his shock, saw his guard drop briefly so that there was vulnerability where a moment ago there had been arrogance, and realised he most certainly had not known.

  ‘Are you telling me Dinah has a baby?’

  ‘Not yet. But she’s expecting one. In early December, I should think, though she hasn’t had her dates confirmed – she hasn’t even seen a doctor. She has spent the last five months trying to pretend it wasn’t happening, as far as I can gather. But she has to see one – and soon. And she has to make plans for the future. Burying her head in the sand won’t make it go away.’ She paused, then continued: ‘I wanted to get in touch with you. Dinah forbade it. She didn’t want you to know. How do you come to be here, by the way?’

  ‘Dinah left without a word to anyone as to where she was going. I’ve been trying to trace her by piecing together what little I know about her. I knew the part of the world she came from, her home town, and I knew your name. She’s talked about you. I thought you were my best bet.’ His face hardened. ‘Who is the father of her baby?’

  ‘A student, I think – someone she knew at art school.’

  ‘She told me she left art school because her mother had died.’

  ‘Oh, that’s perfectly true.’ Mary found herself flying to her friend’s defence. ‘Her mother did die.’

  ‘But obviously it was not the only reason. The young man abandoned her, I imagine.’

  ‘She never told him. It was a very casual affair, I think.’

  ‘Dinah seems unwilling to tell anyone anything. Where is she now?’

  ‘She’s gone to the shops.’

  ‘You mean she is staying here with you?’

  ‘For the time being, yes. If you’d like to wait she’ll be back soon.’

  For a moment he hesitated, then gave an impatient shake of the head.

  ‘No – no, I won’t wait. And perhaps it would be better if you didn’t tell her I’d been here.’

  He was moving towards the door. Mary experienced a flash of protective anger. The swine! Now that he knew the trouble Dinah was in he couldn’t get out fast enough. Dinah had been right in thinking the truth would drive him away.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she said coldly. ‘ I won’t be the one to tell her. I don’t want to see her hurt any more than she already is. Because, God bless her, she has no more sense than to be in love with you. I said she should have told you the truth – I told her that if you loved her too you’d stand by her, whether it was your baby or not. I see now she knew you better than I did. Oh, don’t worry, I won’t break her heart by telling her she was right all along about you, Mr Van Kendrick.’

  She ushered him out, praying that the distinctive Jaguar would be gone before Dinah came back and saw it. Then, burning with outrage and dislike, she returned to the kitchen and vented her anger on the tub of nappies.

  Van was stunned. He got into his car and drove – too fast, and with little regard for other traffic. When he had been hooted at several times he pulled into a lay-by and switched off the engine, folding his arms across the steering wheel and laying his head against them.

  So, he had found Dinah – and he had also discovered her secret. He knew now what the shadow behind her eyes meant – and he wished to hell he did not.

  In ignorance Dinah had been to him all the things he had wanted her to be: pure, sweet, innocent, childlike. Now he knew she was none of these things. She was carrying another man’s child and had been all the time he had known her. She had lied to him, she had deceived him, and he felt as if his world had, quite literally, turned turtle.

  Van took out a cigar and lit it with the dashboard lighter, but the smoke tasted acrid on his tongue.

  Of all things he had not expected this. As he had chased around the country trying to follow up the scanty pieces of information that might lead him to Dinah it had never for one moment occurred to him that the reason she had run away might be because she was pregnant. And yet of course it made perfect sense. He couldn’t believe he could have been so naive as not to have thought of it before, let alone that he could have be
en so unobservant that he had made love to her and not realised. Well now he knew, and the knowledge was a sickness deep inside him. The pain of knowing that his madonna was sullied, the even worse pain of knowing that someone else had not only been there before him but had given her the one thing he never could – a baby.

  Van had been nineteen years old when he had contracted mumps. His friends had thought it a huge joke – they had gathered to mock his swollen face and neck, calling him ‘Hammy Hamster’, and he had joined in the merriment. But not for long. The doctor had warned him of the possibility of serious side-effects, and later tests had proved that his fears were well founded. Van had become sterile. It was virtually impossible for him ever to become a father.

  At nineteen the news had not affected Van very deeply. Once he knew his virility would not be impaired he had shrugged his shoulders and looked on the bright side – what a stud he could become if he did not have to worry about leaving a string of illegitimate progeny in his wake! But as he matured he had found that there was a certain hollowness in knowing he would never father a child. Not for him the chance to pass on a family business as his own father hoped to do. What he achieved must be done in his lifetime and what he did he must do for himself, not for his descendants.

  Because he was strong and single-minded Van adopted this philosophy and made it his own. He had no time or energy to waste on bitterness or regret for something which could not be changed. But there remained within him a small sensitive spot which reacted with illogical violence to any reminder of his own inability to fulfil man’s intended role in the scheme of things and procreate. It made him angry, anger not directed at himself or the illness that had robbed him of his fertility, but an anger that was all the more frustrating and destructive because it lacked a focus. It seethed and boiled in his blood, knotted in his stomach, crawled just beneath his skin. He could not father a child. But Dinah – his Dinah – had found someone who could. She had slept with this unknown man who possessed what he, Van, lacked, and all the time they had been together his seed had been growing inside her.