Kitabı oxu: «Yesterday's Husband»

CHAPTER ONE

AS THE hotel bus bowled along through the lush green Balinese countryside, Emma Prero felt a wave of nostalgia so powerful that she caught her breath. The Indonesian island was every bit as magical and exotic as her memories of her honeymoon had told her. Graceful palm trees waved their feathery green foliage overhead, monkeys scuttled in alarm up the mossy green walls of stone temples, girls in colourful tie-dyed skirts and blouses strolled along the roadside verges with baskets of fruit balanced on their heads. Once the driver was forced to come to a complete halt when a flock of noisy, squabbling ducks spread right across the road. As he opened the door to shout a protest at their owner, a warm rush of tropical air filled the vehicle’s air-conditioned interior. It brought with it the unmistakable scent of the island, a dense, intoxicating compound of moist sea breezes, frangipani blooms and Eastern spices. Breathing in that distinctive fragrance, Emma was hit by a sharp, painful longing for Richard. The sensation was so vivid that she shut her eyes briefly, almost expecting to find him sitting beside her just as he had done nine long years before. But there was no warm, muscular thigh next to hers, no large, calloused hand brushing her fingers, no rumble of masculine laughter beside her. When she opened her eyes again, the seat was empty and the door of the bus was closing with a soft hiss. Emma gripped her Gucci handbag and took a deep, shuddering breath, trying to control the wild beating of her heart. Why did I come? she wondered in panic. I must have been crazy! Do I really want to inflict this kind of pain on myself? It was a stupid idea. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

Turning her head away from the window, she glanced at the other occupants of the bus. But that only made her feel worse. In front of her were two elderly couples with silvery hair and cheerful, smiling faces, who looked as if they were still on their honeymoons forty years after the wedding. Behind her she could hear a large assortment of excited young people, already striking up friendships. And directly opposite her was the most painful sight of all. A genuine honeymoon couple. The woman still had scraps of confetti in her long, curly auburn hair and she was gazing with luminous happiness at her new husband. As for him, he seemed to he oblivious of everything except his bride’s liquid brown eyes. The sight sent a pain like a knife twisting through Emma’s heart. She couldn’t be much older than them in years—after all, she was only twenty-eight—but she felt centuries beyond them in bitter experience. Sighing, she unscrewed the crumpled colour travel brochure which she had been thoughtlessly mangling, and tried to read it. It was no use complaining. She had made her own bed and now she must lie on it.

There was another bad moment as the bus pulled up in the leafy courtyard of the hotel. Following the luggage porter into the dim, cool interior, she heard the sound of a gamelan orchestra. The strange, percussive music with its drums and cymbals and bronze pots held a thrilling dissonance that was instantly and hauntingly familiar. Yes, there had been an orchestra just like that when she and Richard had signed in at this very desk nine years ago. It was the first time she had used her married name and her fingers had shaken as she’d taken the pen in her hand. They were shaking again now and her writing came out spidery and illegible.

‘Emma Fielding.’

The name looked strange to her, for she had barely used it in the eight years since she and Richard parted. Yet some foolish impulse had made her leave it on her passport, so that when she travelled she still had the illusion of being genuinely married. The same foolish impulse had prevented her from ever asking Richard for a divorce. Although she told herself that she despised him, it gave her a hollow, aching kind of comfort to pretend that one day they might get back together. Pigs might fly! she told herself savagely, setting down the pen. Richard would go to the moon sooner than have anything further to do with me. Her lips twisted at the thought.

‘You do not look happy, madam,’ said the desk clerk, his almond-shaped eyes narrowing in concern. ‘Is something wrong?’

‘No, no,’ Emma assured him in a stifled voice. Just that my husband bates me, I’m on the verge of going bankrupt to the tune of twenty million dollars and I’m so miserable I wish I’d never been born. ‘Nothing important.’

The man smiled warmly at her, displaying perfect white teeth.

‘Ah, you travel alone. Perhaps you are lonely, yes? Allow me to make a suggestion. Every night we have a cabaret in the Arjuna Room, very friendly, very informal. Lots of Balinese dancing, very happy for our guests. There will be many young people there. Perhaps you like me to put you at a table with some other tourists so you can make friends?’

Emma winced inwardly. The last thing she wanted was to sit with a group of total strangers in a holiday mood. But the clerk was so earnest, so genuinely anxious to help that she felt she owed him some kind of explanation.

‘Er…that’s very kind of you,’ she said, inventing wildly, ‘but I’m rather tired from the plane trip and in any case I probably won’t be alone for long. My husband may be arriving later in the evening, so I’d rather stay in my room and wait for him.’

‘Of course, of course, madam. I understand. I will look out for him.’

Well, you’ll be looking for a long time, thought Emma as she took the key with a wry smile. But when a bellboy in a black sarong, vividly printed scarlet shirt and batik headscarf came forward to take her bag, she felt her spirits lift unexpectedly. As she followed him along the highly polished teak floors through a maze of corridors, the depression of the last few months began to ebb away from her. Perhaps it had been a good idea to come on this trip, after all. With a shock she realised that it was the first holiday she had taken since she left Richard.

The bellboy opened a glass door leading to the outside of the building and ushered her on to a shady veranda. Once again she experienced that heady waft of warm, moist, tropical air. Her companion’s sandals scuffed softly on the crazy paving of the path as he led her between low, clipped hedges that bordered a garden filled with ginger lilies, hibiscus and frangipani bushes.

“There, madam,’ he said, pointing to a building directly in front of them. ‘That is your bungalow. And the closest swimming-pool is just through the stone gateway on the right.’

In spite of being called a bungalow, the building in front of Emma was actually two storeys high and built in the traditional native style. It had a high gabled roof covered in orange pantiles, the walls were covered in orange rendering with inset panels of carved grey stone and the shady verandas both upstairs and downstairs were scattered with invitingly deep, cushioned bamboo chairs. She found her thoughts turning immediately to long, cool, fruity drinks clinking with ice.

‘Come in, come in,’ urged the bellboy, smiling. ‘Nice and cool inside.’

It was nice and cool. The air-conditioning purred softly and the room that met her gaze was tastefully furnished and welcoming. Against the neutral cream walls hung vividly coloured Balinese paintings of landscapes and mythological scenes. A Barong mask with intricately decorated gold ears, bulging eyes and monstrous teem grinned wickedly above an ornately carved teak drinks cabinet. The actual furniture was minimal—a comfortable lounge suite covered in green batik, a couple of bamboo coffee-tables and a bamboo dining suite. But behind a magnificently carved wooden screen the bellboy pointed out a tiny, fully equipped kitchen. Then he led her up the stairs to the bedroom.

Here the memories were so sharp that they were almost a physical pain. As she looked around every detail seemed to be etched vividly in her memory. The two vast beds with their exuberant bedspreads writhing with brilliant tropical flowers, the paintings of courting egrets on the walls, the carved dressing-tables and wardrobes were all unbearably familiar. Even the bathroom with its gold taps and green marble fittings was a poignant reminder of the past. All the same, as the bellboy deposited her suitcase and pointed out the various features of the room to her she tried to smile. Yet the only thing she wanted now was to be left in peace, alone with her memories.

‘Thank you very much,’ she said at last, gently cutting him off by handing him a five thousand rupiah note. ‘If you could have some iced juice and fruit sent over to me soon, I’d be grateful.’

When his thanks had died away and the door downstairs had closed quietly, she was finally free to stop keeping up appearances. Kicking off her shoes with a sigh of relief, she delved into the thick chignon at the back of her head, yanked out the hairpins and felt her long hair tumble loose around her shoulders. Then, driven by another of her absurd impulses, she wrestled her suitcase up on to the bed and rummaged inside it. At last she found what she was looking for and laid it out on the bedspread. With shaking fingers she pulled off everything—her expensive French suit with the gold brooch on the lapel, her silk tights, hand-embroidered underwear, pearl necklace and gold pearl drop-earrings. Then she picked up the long, wrap-around batik dress which Richard had bought her on their honeymoon. It was a smoky blue colour with a halter neck, no back whatsoever from the waist up, a long, swirling skirt and a red starburst of colour like the explosion of a supernova on the front. The smell of the sandalwood chest where she had kept it all these years rose faintly to her nostrils as she tied it around her. Picking up a hairbrush, she attacked her hair with long, jerky, tugging strokes, but flung the brush aside before she had finished. A small, stark smile distorted her lips as she walked slowly across to the dressing-table mirror.

‘You haven’t changed much, Em,’ she said to her reflection.

But the cynical narrowing of her eyes and the wry pursing of her mouth told her she was wrong. Oh, in one way it was true. With her wavy, dark hair cascading around her shoulders and her petite, almost adolescent figure, she still looked much like the nineteen-year-old girl Richard had married. Her pale, creamy skin was still fresh and unlined, while her small breasts were little more than a gentle swell beneath the thin fabric of her dress. Yet in other ways she was a woman, and an embittered woman at that. Her eyes, yellow-flecked at the centre and deep green around the outer edge of the irises, stared back at her with their habitual wary expression. And there was an indefinable tension in the whole carriage of her small, neat body.

‘Oh, damn it!’ she exclaimed. ‘Why did I do this? I should have known there was no going back.’

Tearing off the gauzy Balinese dress, she opened the bathroom door and flung it down on the floor. Perhaps a shower would freshen her up and stop her being so ridiculously gloomy. After all, this holiday was supposed to be fun. A last fling, a chance to enjoy herself before the dreary, humiliating task of declaring herself bankrupt.

With a determined gesture, she slammed the door to the bedroom, turned on the taps and stepped under the shower. Deliberately she let it run quite cool, so that when she stepped under it she let out an involuntary squeal of shock. But after five minutes under that cool, invigorating hail, a sense of well-being began to invade her. I won’t think about Richard any more, she told herself forcefully. I’ll just relax, unwind and soak up the sun and the atmosphere. After that, I’ll be in much better shape to tackle my problems.

Closing her eyes, she lifted her face to the downpour of cool water and shuddered luxuriously. Mmm, she was feeling better already. She turned off the taps, groped for a thick, fluffy towel and stepped out of the shower stall. As she wrung the water out of her hair, she thought she heard the distant sound of a door closing downstairs. Probably Room Service with the snack she had ordered. Well, she had better make herself decent in case the maid came upstairs. Rubbing herself briskly, she pulled on the flimsy Balinese dress, gave her hair a final wipe and dropped the towel. Then she opened the door, stepped into the bedroom and suffered a shock so appalling that her heart almost stopped.

‘Richard,’ she moaned.

It was him. Really him. Not some lunatic figment of her imagination like the fantasy on the bus, but a real, solid, breathing human being. As tall and broad as he always had been, with the same sun-streaked, curly blond hair, tanned skin and vivid blue eyes. But different. Oh, God, how different! He was still devastatingly goodlooking, but there was a harshness about him that the younger Richard hadn’t had. A brooding quality of power and authority that radiated out to meet her with devastating force. Like Emma, he was dressed in the sort of casual clothes they had worn on their honeymoonin his case thin beige shorts and a beige and tan batik safari jacket which revealed his muscular legs and forearms. Yet the resemblance to the man she had once loved with all her heart ended with the clothes. In all other ways this was a stranger, who stood grim and unsmiling between the two huge beds, his stance and expression radiating an unmistakable hostility. But what on earth was he doing here?

‘Hello, Emma.’

She clutched at the door-frame to support herself. His deep, throaty voice was unmistakable.

‘What are you doing here?’ she asked in a frozen whisper.

He seemed as unruffled by the question as if he had only left her ten minutes before to step out for a breath of fresh air. With a casual motion of his hand, he waved at the stairs.

‘I’ll explain in a moment,’ he said serenely. ‘In the meantime, why don’t you come down and join me in a snack?’

A feeling of unreality took hold of Emma as she glided down the stairs behind him. Could this really be happening? It was outrageous, impossible! And yet the ornately carved teak banister felt disconcertingly firm under her fingers and the jug of iced juice accompanied by a platter of luscious, tropical fruit looked real enough. Sinking unsteadily into one of the cushioned chairs, she accepted a drink from Richard and carried it to her mouth with nerveless fingers. The sweet, fruity blend of pineapple, coconut, ice and milk flowed refreshingly into her mouth and gave her a little reassurance. No, she wasn’t dreaming! All the same, her feelings were in turmoil at this unexpected sight of her husband after so many years apart. A swirl of questions whirled in her head like a cloud of coloured butterflies. Why, how, when? Without even stopping to think, she spoke.

‘How did you know I was here?’ she blurted out.

Richard shrugged, smiled and looked as if it had been the easiest thing in the world to find out Emma’s whereabouts, even though they were supposed to be strictly secret. Picking up his own drink, he settled into the depths of one of the cushioned chairs.

‘Miss Matty told me,’ he said.

‘Matty?’ echoed Emma indignantly. ‘You wormed the information out of Matty? I can’t believe it! She’s always been the perfect secretary, totally discreet. And I told her nobody was to know where I was.’

Richard gave a faint, mirthless laugh and raised his glass to her in a taunting salute.

‘Well, perhaps she thought your husband was entitled to special treatment,’ he said in a steely voice. ‘Besides, I told her I had an important proposition which needed to be put to you immediately.’

‘Proposition?’ cried Emma in alarm. ‘What kind of proposition? What do you mean?’

‘Now don’t be so hasty, Emma,’ drawled Richard lazily. ‘We’ve got a lot of catching up to do before we talk about that. It’s a long time since we’ve seen each other.’

It certainly is, thought Emma, and her hand shook as she set down her glass. For one crazy moment she had felt an exhilarating uplift of joy at the sight of Richard, but now she saw how mistaken that reaction had been. There was nothing friendly in the brooding face that confronted her across the table and she felt absolutely no urge to catch up on what he had been doing in the time since she’d seen him last. In any case, she was all too bitterly aware of it. The glossy magazines and the financial journals had kept her informed of every detail of his meteoric rise to wealth and of the glamorous, sexy women who helped him to enjoy it. With a brief, aching sense of regret, she wished that she had never driven him away from her. Then she would never have had to endure the anguish of watching him find love and success without her. With a wry twist of her lips, Emma wondered whether Richard had followed her career and her supposed love life in the Press as thoroughly as she had followed his. His next words showed that he had.

‘I’m not hypocrite enough to pretend that I was sorry to hear of your father’s death,’ he said bluntly. ‘But I hope it wasn’t painful.’

A shadow crossed her face as she thought of the agonising weeks she had spent in the private hospital at her father’s bedside. Weeks when she would have given anything for the friendly touch of Richard’s hand on her shoulder.

‘It was,’ she said hoarsely.

‘I’m sorry. Liver cancer is a dreadful disease. But I’ve got to hand it to you, Emma. You showed a lot of guts in tackling it the way you did. I know you were close to your father and it must have been hell to see him die by inches. I also think you did an amazing job of taking over Prero’s when you were only twenty-one.’

Emma felt surprised and grateful at this unexpected praise. Her pale cheeks flushed with colour and her eyes brightened.

‘Th-thank you,’ she stammered.

‘Of course, the recession must have dealt you some pretty heavy blows since then,’ continued Richard, scrutinising her shrewdly. ‘Times haven’t been easy to property developers, especially those with large office holdings in the central business district. Tell me, how is the company performing now in your view, Emma?’

The question shot out like a bullet from a gun and wounded Emma to the heart. For a moment she contemplated telling him the truth, but her pride wouldn’t allow her to make such a humiliating confession of failure. Instead she forced a strained smile to her lips.

‘Times haven’t been easy,’ she said glibly, ‘but on the whole I think the company is doing very well indeed.’

With lazy, unhurried movements, Richard set down his glass and rose to his feet. Then, moving around the table, he leaned forward and caressed Emma’s cheek with an enigmatic smile on his face.

‘You’re a barefaced liar, sweetheart,’ he said softly.

Her senses reeled as if he had assaulted her. The double shock of his words and his touch were too much for her to deal with. The colour drained away from her cheeks and her heart began to pound violently. She tried twice to speak and failed. Then her words came out in a hoarse croak.

‘You know?’

‘Yes.’

Emma shuddered and flung back her head, feeling a terrible pain jolt through her entire body as if she really had been wounded. Shaking her head in a dazed fashion, she gave Richard a haunted look as he resumed his seat.

‘Then I suppose the whole Sydney business community knows?’ she demanded. Her throat felt so tight she could hardly force the words out.

‘No,’ replied Richard in measured tones. ‘You’ve concealed matters well and, to your credit, I must say you ran a damned hard race to save the company. If the Sawford merchant bank hadn’t failed, you might even have made it. As it is, you’re at the end of your rope, aren’t you?’

Emma shuddered again.

‘Yes.’

Richard caressed his glass with a long brown finger, as sensually as if he were stroking a beautiful woman’s neck.

‘Just as a matter of interest,’ he said, ‘what are you doing on an expensive holiday when you’re about to go bankrupt? Is there some good reason for it or is it just another one of your spoilt-little-rich-girl tricks?’

This lazy innuendo, delivered hot on the heels of the shock he had just dealt her, made Emma’s over-strained temper snap. Leaping to her feet, she stared at him with flashing eyes and gritted teeth.

‘Damn you!’ she cried. ‘Did you just come here to insult me?’

Awkwardly she sidled between the chair and the table, intent on putting as much distance as possible between herself and Richard. But as she emerged from the cluster of furniture his voice cracked through the air like a whiplash.

‘Don’t leave yet, Emma; we haven’t finished.’

‘Well, I’m finished with you,’ she flared. ‘You never could watch me spending money without carping about it, could you? And I don’t suppose it makes a blind bit of difference to you that I could have a perfectly good reason for being here!’

‘Such as?’ he taunted, raising one eyebrow indolently.

Her body was shaking so much that she had to clutch the back of a chair for support. How could she tell him the truth? That the real reason she wanted to come here was because it was the one place on earth where she had once been perfectly happy. A happiness based on being with him. That was the last thing she wanted to admit to him now.

‘I don’t see that it’s really any of your business,’ she said. ‘But if it’s any comfort to you, I did feel guilty and worried about the thought of spending money on a holiday, although the few thousand dollars it cost for this would just be a drop in the ocean compared to the debts I’m going to owe very soon. But as a matter of fact I didn’t pay for this holiday. It wasn’t even my idea that I should take it. It was my mother’s and she put up the money for it, not me.’

‘Your mother?’ echoed Richard in surprise. ‘Do you mean you’re seeing her these days? I thought good old Daddy had forbidden it.’

‘Don’t speak about my father in that hateful, sneering voice,’ blazed Emma. ‘I was twenty-one when he died, a grown woman. I know he and my mother were on bad terms after the divorce, but I felt I had to make my own choice about what I did.’

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ said Richard bitterly. ‘It’s a pity you didn’t stand up to him on a few other issues, or maybe you wouldn’t have stuffed up your life the way you did. You were certainly well and truly under his thumb when I knew you.’

‘I wasn’t!’ cried Emma.

‘Really? I beg to differ. In fact, I’ve always thought that if it hadn’t been for good old Daddy maybe you wouldn’t have jumped into bed with Nigel Wellings while you were still married to me.’

Emma’s skin went cold and clammy with horror at this cruel reminder of the past.

‘You bastard!’ she hissed. ‘You know damned well it didn’t happen like that. Look, if you’ve just come here to insult me, it’s a total waste of time. Now do me a favour, will you, and leave?’

‘No,’ said Richard softly.

‘I’ll have you thrown out!’ threatened Emma.

He gave an unpleasant laugh.

‘Really?’ he taunted. ‘Now that will be interesting. What will you tell the hotel staff when you ask them to come and throw me out? After all, darling, I’m your husband. You told the man at the desk you were expecting me tonight. He made a point of mentioning it to me when I asked about you. Won’t it all be rather embarrassing for you?’

Emma shuddered and fell silent. The scene would not merely be embarrassing, it would be utterly unthinkable. But before she could say another word, Richard continued in a dangerously silky voice, ‘So you’ve got a lover, have you? Well, I can’t say that really surprises me, knowing you as I do. But I rather object to having him smuggled in under my name. Who is the lucky man anyway?’

‘Nobody!’ cried Emma. ‘I only said that because they were offering to put me at a table with other tourists. I wanted a. bit of privacy!’

Richard’s even white teeth gritted together in a feral smile.

‘I’ve told you once you’re a barefaced liar,’ he murmured. ‘And now I’ll say it again. I don’t believe you.’

‘Well, I can’t care what you believe!’ cried Emma in a voice shaking with rage. ‘Because it’s all over between us, isn’t it? So why don’t you just get out? Go on, get out!’

‘Oh, no,’ said Richard, still with that same dangerous smile. ‘I’m not leaving till you’ve heard my proposition. You see, Emma, I just may be able to save you from bankruptcy.’

Emma’s whole body felt suddenly cold and still.

‘You’d do that?’ she breathed. ‘But why? I always thought you hated me.’

Richard’s blue eyes narrowed shrewdly.

‘Maybe I do, but I have my reasons. I’ll tell you about them over dinner tonight. Of course, there’ll be conditions.’

‘Conditions?’ said Emma in a high, frightened voice. ‘What kind of conditions?’

Richard’s fingers flexed and unflexed slowly as if he thought he was holding her in the palm of his hand.

‘Conditions which I don’t think you’ll like,’ he purred. ‘But then that’s part of being rich enough to call the tune, isn’t it, Emma? You probably remember the pleasure of holding that kind of power, don’t you, sweetheart? Now, what time would you like to eat? I’ll tell you what. You put on your prettiest dress and I’ll call for you at seven…’

After the door had closed quietly behind Richard’s departing back, Emma sank down on one of the chairs in a daze of disbelief. So often in the past she had daydreamed fervently of the day when Richard would seek her out. Somehow all the festering hurts and longstanding bitterness that had sprung from their estrangement would be smoothed away and they would feel the same passionate love for each other that they had felt when they first met. But never in her wildest moments had she dreamt of a reunion like this one. Meeting Richard again so unexpectedly had shocked her beyond measure. And all the old wounds which she had thought healed, or at least numb, seemed to have broken open afresh. A raw, painful sense of humiliation assaulted her as she thought of this recent encounter. There had been no doubt whatsoever that Richard still hated her. Equally, something in the expression in his eyes told her there was no doubt that he still desired her. Just as she desired him. The shameful, humiliating fact was that she only had to look at him to experience a flood of pulsating warmth through her entire body. If only he had come back to her in love, not hatred, she felt certain that they would now be naked together in the big bed upstairs. Covering her face, she let out a low groan. Why had he come? Why? Why? Why? It made no sense. Why should he want to save Prero’s from certain disaster? If he hated her, wouldn’t it make more sense simply to let her sink without throwing her a line? And what sort of proposition did he have in mind?

She couldn’t answer these questions and brooding over them only gave her a headache and a strong urge to burst into hysterics. Pulling herself together with an effort, she rose to her feet. There was no sense in worrying herself sick. It would be more sensible to go out for a swim, change into her best clothes and meet him at dinnertime on her own ground, as the hard-headed, cool businesswoman she had become in the past few years. Setting her lips grimly, she rummaged in her bag and found a large beach towel, a skimpy emerald-green bikini, sandals and a bottle of suntan lotion. Thus equipped, she made her way down to the pool.

The setting was idyllic and, if she had not been so upset by Richard’s unexpected arrival, all her worries would have ebbed away at the sight of it. In fact, it wasn’t just one pool but several winding in a serpentine pattern in and out of the landscaped gardens. Two or three changing-huts, open to the breeze and with orange tiled roofs, offered welcome shade, while carved stone elephants on the tiled surrounds of the pool squirted water from their upraised trunks. In the background a line of palm trees flailed like green windmills in the breeze from the ocean. Emma slipped out of the sarong that she was wearing over her bikini and dropped it on to a bench in one of the changing-huts. Then she slid into the deliciously warm, silky water. It was heavenly to lie back floating and stare up into the cloudless blue sky. If only Richard hadn’t come, this would have been a marvellous vacation. Perhaps it still would be if only she could persuade him to go away and leave her in peace. For somehow she had an ominous sense of certainty that his proposal to save Prero’s was going to come at a price that she wasn’t prepared to pay.