Sighing, Jason kneaded his forehead. ‘Go easy on him, Karla,’ he ventured, as she came back to the kitchen. ‘They’re struggling to understand—’
‘Really?’ Karla grabbed up the kettle and shoved it under the tap. ‘You do surprise me. I mean, why on earth would their worlds be falling apart, I wonder. Oh yes, now I remember. That would be because their father has chosen to take up with atrollop!’
Jesus.Glancing upwards, Jason drew in a sharp breath. ‘Don’t Karla. The kids…’
‘Don’twhat? Tell the truth? Disillusion them? Don’t you think you’ve already disillusioned them enough forlife?’ Karla turned tearfully towards him. She looked worse than he’d realised. Drawn, almost. She was losing weight. She really was beginning to look ill, and Jason had no idea what to do. What he could do. If she asked him to go, he would have to. As things were, though, he was too scared – scared for her, for the kids.
‘I know I have,’ he said quietly. ‘I wish… I’m sorry.’Christ.He ran a hand over his neck in frustration. How pathetic and inadequate did that sound?
‘I bet you are.’ Her eyes, burning with anger and humiliation, searched his.
No idea what to say, Jason looked away. If only she knew how sorry he was. How much he wished he could turn back the clock, only then to be consumed with guilt when he realised he was wishing his children away.
‘Just go, Jason,’ Karla said defeatedly, after a minute’s loaded silence.
Jason nodded tiredly. ‘I’m dropping the kids off on the way,’ he reminded her.
Her gaze focused on the mug she was heaping sugar into, Karla didn’t answer.
‘Will you be all right?’
Wiping the back of her hand across her eyes, Karla sniffed and nodded.
‘Do you need me to pick anything up?’
‘Something for the children’s dinner,’ she said, her voice strained. ‘I’ll be at Mum’s.’
‘Right.’ Jason hesitated. ‘How is she?’
‘How do you think?’ Karla’s tone was flat. ‘I bet you’re enjoying this, aren’t you? Finally seeing my father humiliated?’
Not half as much as I should be, Jason thought. She’d seen the first reports in the newspapers, claims made about a recipient of various UK Business Awards abusing his staff. He guessed she thought it was him who’d leaked information to the media. He hadn’t, though he’d been sorely tempted. After all Fenton had done to him, Jason had desperately wanted some kind of revenge– it wouldn’t have been human not to. Fenton had always aimed to take away what it had taken Jason his whole life to find: the family he’d never had. That had become emphatically clear on the day the man had delivered the news he’d known would bring him to his knees. Jason had wanted the ruthless bastard to know how it felt to lose everything that mattered, the things that money couldn’t buy. Now though, counting the casualties, he dearly wished he’d done what his so-called father-in-law had wanted and walked away years ago.
‘I have no feelings one way or the other, Karla,’ he said, heading to the hall for his car keys. He didn’t, he realised with surprise. It was only a matter of time before Robert was named by the press. When he was, Jason would gain no satisfaction from it. He simply couldn’t be bothered wasting any more emotion on the man.
‘No feelings full stop,’ Karla threw after him.
Forty-Two
ROBERT
‘Bastards.’ Dabbing at the nick on his chin with a towel, Robert peered furiously through the curtains at the bay window of their bedroom, to find the press already baying for his blood on the street outside. Did they have nothing better to do than harass upstanding members of the public? To hound a hardworking businessman and valuable contributor to society, solely because a few of his staff had had the temerity, despite the rewards of working for him and the astronomical salaries he paid them, to make ridiculous accusations?
Christ almighty, they’ll be branding us sex fiends if we so much as smile at a woman soon. FuckingMeToocampaign, ruining lives, bringing great men to their knees. Attention-seekers and gold-diggers, the lot of them.
Fuming, Robert dropped the curtain, pulling the white towel, which was now stained crimson, away from his face as he walked back towards the bathroom to continue his shave. The mob out there would probably be ecstatic if he did cut his throat, trampling each other to death in their rush to get a photo opportunity and try him by press after his death. Tossers. Robert would like to see any one of them attempting to do half of what he’d done. He’d bet there wasn’t a single person amongst them who’d ever done a real day’s graft, working his fingers to the bone to set up a business, which providedemploymentto people and shored up the flagging economy.
Did that ever occur to them? That, in putting him out of business, they would be robbing the people they were supposed to be informing of their jobs?
Not a chance. They earned their fat salaries off the backs of people like him, destroying them and their families without compunction before going back to their cosy little homes to tuck into their dinners. God only knew how they slept at night.
‘Bloodsucking parasites.’ Turning to toss the towel into the corner of the bedroom, on top of yesterday’s washing, he caught his wife’s eye as she came through the bedroom door. Diana glanced from him to the pile of dirty laundry and back, with that indifferent expression she wore permanently around him. She’d looked at him like that for years, like she didn’t even see him. It had been bad enough before the appalling circumstances surrounding their loss, and then that had caused her to withdraw from him completely. Up until then, she’d stood by him. She’d never quite forgiven him for the silly affair he’d had prior to their wedding, and he couldn’t blame her for that – he’d been playing far too close to home – but she’d accepted that it was a momentary weakness, that he’d given in to a temptation of the flesh. She’d been aware that her enticing little friend, Julie – who he’d hired out of the kindness of his heart – had her sights set on him. In a close office environment, sadly certain women did develop fixations on their bosses, he’d pointed out. He’d let Julie go, of course, with compensation for her trouble, which he continued to pay out on a regular basis – and which Diana had no knowledge of – but naturally the friendship between the two women had soured. There had been no further questions asked and the episode was consigned to history, which is where Robert considered it should stay.
‘I suppose you think I deserve this?’ He sighed heavily and watched as she bent to scoop up the washing, wishing she would look at him now with a hint of sympathy in her eyes. That she would offer him a small smile of encouragement. It was her smile that had attracted him, lighting up her features and cheering his day as he passed through the bookshop where she worked, before he descended into the bowels of the building beneath the shop to toil and sweat and build up his business. She’d been supportive of him then, typing up his correspondence, listening as he’d told her of his plans, his hopes and his dreams. She’d been beautiful when he first met her, and she was still a fine-looking woman. Always paying attention to her diet, she’d kept her figure well. Robert had to admire that in a mature woman. He’d been tempted to tell her though, on many occasions, that the scowl would only age her prematurely.
‘I don’t think anything, Robert,’ she said, walking past him to the bathroom to put the dirty laundry in the washing basket. ‘At least nothing you would want to hear.’
‘Which means what, exactly?’ Robert eyed her with despair as she came back. ‘That youdothink I’ve done something to warrant this shit descending on me?’
