‘You weren’t there, Sorrel,’ said Simon, ‘you didn’t hear the way he spoke to me, or see the expression on his face. It was as if he was a stranger. No not a stranger, a robot being controlled by that … by that bloody woman!’
Sorrel closed her eyes.Dear God, let it be over. Make him shut up.
But Simon didn’t and to her surprise, she was suddenly filled with a deep longing for a time many years ago when she and Simon had been very different people. When they had been happy. With perfect recall, she remembered the day she had told Simon that she was pregnant with their first child – Callum. He had been over the moon, had picked her up and swung her round. He lavished care and attention on her throughout the pregnancy, buying her flowers every week and pandering to her every whim, particularly her craving for cheese and onion crisps in the middle of the night. He once drove to the nearest all-night petrol station to buy her a packet. Nothing had been too much trouble for him. And when Callum was born, he was loving and patient and did more than his share of nappy changes and night-time feeds. He was the same when she was expecting Rachel.
Where had that man gone? For that matter, where had the woman she had once been disappeared to?
They were almost back at Linston, when Sorrel reached out to Simon and rested her hand on his forearm. ‘Darling, you will behave this evening, won’t you?’
He gave her a quick glance. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Try not to drink as much as you did last night. Especially as Valentina’s children will be joining us.’
‘Stepchildren,’ he corrected her. ‘Don’t you remember how she put you right on that score?’
Sorrel remembered all too well the sting she had felt. But then she never forgot anyone who ever slighted her.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Back from the station, and following a relaxing day of being alone on the river with Valentina and sharing his love of the Broads with her, Alastair left her to show Nikolai and Irina upstairs to their rooms.
It was strange hearing Valentina conversing with her stepchildren in their native tongue. The challenge of learning Russian, as well as brushing up on his rusty schoolboy French, was another of the many new things Alastair planned to do. He saw his future as being as diametrically opposite to his past as was possible.
But for now he had a more pressing and potentially more difficult challenge on his hands, that of bringing about a truce with Simon. To make that happen, he was determined to do his utmost to keep things fun and light-hearted this evening. With Nikolai and Irina here, along with Laura and her son from the Mill, he hoped for a livelier and more diverse atmosphere, and less opportunity for Simon, or anyone else for that matter, to hark back with nostalgic longing to days gone by, and in the process exclude Valentina.
He’d anticipated a few hurdles to cross when introducing Valentina to his friends, but he hadn’t expected the level of hostility Simon was displaying. He also hadn’t expected to feel that, to a degree, they had all been living in the past, wanting to relive it at the slightest chance. Even the children had a tendency to dwell on the past. At their age shouldn’t they be looking forwards to the future, not looking back? Or was he judging his friends unfairly; was there nothing wrong with a fondness for nostalgia? Surely that was one of the pleasures of their gathering here at Linston End?
Alone in the kitchen while everybody else was upstairs changing, Alastair savoured the appetising smell of lasagne cooking on a low heat in the oven, along with some kind of Moroccan vegetable bake, which Sylvia had suggested she make in case any of the guests were vegetarian. A large covered bowl of salad was on the worktop, along with some garlic bread and a selection of canapés, which he’d been instructed to put in the oven once the guests were all present. Sylvia’s written instructions were Sellotaped to the fridge. It wasn’t that she went out of her way to treat him as a child, or a hopeless man who didn’t know his way round his own kitchen, it was just her way of being thorough. She had treated Orla in exactly the same manner and it had infuriated her, driving her to disregard any directive with deliberate wilfulness. Alastair suspected that Valentina might react similarly.
Was it overly simplistic to say that in general, women didn’t like being told what to do by another woman? Or was it only a certain type of woman? Orla and Sorrel could never take an instruction from each other; they’d always had to assert themselves to get one over the other. And Sorrel had done a fair bit of asserting herself since arriving, taking charge in the kitchen and bossing everybody about, as if deliberately stepping into Orla’s shoes – something which would have enraged his wife. He had to admit that it grated on him too. Especially when he’d noticed she had rearranged the cutlery drawer.
In the last few days, Alastair had quietly observed Sorrel’s not so subtle manoeuvring and, concerned that she might overplay her hand with Valentina, he had enlisted Sylvia’s help for this evening’s dinner, thereby reducing the need for Sorrel to take charge.
Until now he’d never really considered the importance of managing one’s friends, but now he could see how seamlessly Orla had somehow controlled the dynamics, ensuring that nobody could exert more power over the group than she did. She would never have allowed Simon to get out of control the way he had. But then if she were alive, Simon wouldn’t be so angry with Alastair.
Orla, Orla,Orla!It always came back to Orla. He banged his hand down hard on the worktop.Would she never leave him? Would he never be free of her hold on him? Would he never have a thought process that didn’t lead back to her?
From the fridge he opened a bottle of Cloudy Bay, poured himself a glass and took it outside. He stood on the terrace brooding, his body tense, his jaw clenched. Reminding himself that he wanted to create an evening that everybody would enjoy, himself included, he forced Orla from his thoughts and swallowed a large mouthful of wine. Then watching the boats passing at the end of the garden, he wandered down to the pavilion where Sylvia had already set the table for supper. From there he continued to watch the boats. In all the years he’d spent doing exactly this, he had never tired of the view. He would miss it without question, but he was determined to prove to Valentina that nothing mattered more to him than she did, and the life they planned together. Selling Linston End was his way of proving that to her. It was to ensure also that he would finally be free of Orla.
While out on the river today he and Valentina had settled on where they hoped to live and tonight, during dinner, Alastair planned to share the news. It was what Valentina had kept to herself since arriving, teasing him that she was waiting for the right moment before letting on what she had up her sleeve. When putting forward her proposal he had sensed that she had been anxious in case he hated the idea, but he hadn’t; in fact it had put the biggest smile on his face, making him impatient to take the next step.
On the other side of the river, he spotted a young man standing on the wooden balcony of the Mill. Presumably that was his neighbour’s son. He glanced at his watch. Thirty minutes and they’d be arriving. Time to get changed into something more appropriate for dinner.
Upstairs he found Valentina fresh out of the shower, a towel wrapped around her body. She was staring into the wardrobe where the clothes she’d brought with her were hanging.
‘Would it be very wrong of me to suggest you wear that towel and nothing else this evening?’ he remarked.
‘Only if you want to shock everybody.’
‘You mean more than I have already?’
‘We could really shock them if you wanted to?’ She dropped the towel to the floor.
He smiled and crossed the room. He took her in his arms and kissed her, then edged her towards the bed and laid her down. The warm, yielding softness of her body still surprised him. In contrast Orla’s body had been hard-edged and muscular, a testament to a metabolism that had a scorched earth policy when it came to burning up energy. But then she could never sit still for long, always had to be doing something. Neurotically restless, was how he used to describe her when she would jiggle her knee, or tap her foot for no apparent reason. Sex had been one of the few things to have a calming effect on her, when afterwards she would lie completely still.
As Valentina shifted beneath him and put her hands to his face, forcing him to look into her eyes, he groaned, realising once again Orla had occupied his thoughts to the point of distraction. He rolled onto his back, staring bleakly up at the ceiling. ‘I’m sorry,’ he muttered.
‘It’s all right,’ she murmured. ‘I understand.’
