thud.
It hadn’t been her fault. Everyone—the police, her family, the witnesses at the scene—had said the young driver of the flashy sports car had shot out at the junction into the side of her estate car without any warning whatsoever, but the end result had been two grieving parents when he had died in surgery. She had spent weeks in hospital recovering from her own injuries, torturing herself with the terrifying realisation that the three children who had been in the car with her, whom she had been nannying at the time, could so easily have died. As it was, their injuries had been minor, necessitating just an overnight stay, but she could still hear their terror-stricken screams, the moans of the other driver in the tangled wreckage of his vehicle, and the sound of her own voice as she had tried to reassure the children whilst being unable to reach them, trapped as she was within the crumpled car.
She had replayed the incident continuously on the screen of her mind for months afterwards in a desperate effort to reassure herself that she had had no chance to avoid the other car, but still she was left feeling that if she had reacted more quickly, been more observant, a better driver, a young man, eighteen years of age, might not have been wiped out. It had emerged that the sports car had been a present for his eighteenth birthday the day before from over-indulgent and wealthy parents, and that at the time of the accident he hadn’t even been wearing a seat belt...
‘Claire?’ Lorenzo’s indignant voice told her she wasn’t concentrating, and she made an effort to force her mind from the horrors of the past and into the present.
No one would have been able to prevent the tragedy, given the circumstances that had prevailed, had they been a veteran driver of fifty years’ motoring or a young twenty-year-old, as she had been. She knew that, she knew it...in her head. Her heart was a different matter. Her heart still had to cope with the feelings of horror and remorse, even though the latter emotion wasn’t even pertinent to the incident, according to everyone else. But she felt it. She felt it. And her fear and diffidence at being in charge of small precious human beings, who would trust her implicitly the way children do—that was inescapably real too.
The physical scars of the accident might only be faint silvery lines on her stomach, unseen by anyone but herself, but the mental disfiguration was something else, something she knew she had to triumph over, but as yet she was powerless to do so. Would the accident have affected her so adversely if Jeff hadn’t deserted her at a time when she had needed him most? Well, she’d never know, would she...?
The death throes of her Tyrannosaurus and Lorenzo’s exasperated sigh told her she hadn’t been a worthy opponent, and after making her apologies she sat and watched the boy load another game, her mind still worrying at her last thought like a dog with a bone.
Jeff had only visited her in the hospital a handful of times, but, knowing his aversion to illness and disease in general and to hospitals in particular, she hadn’t pressured him to come more often—although she had missed him unbearably, and visiting times had become something of a subtle torture as other patients were engulfed by their husbands or boyfriends. Her parents had visited every day, of course, and her brothers and her wide circle of friends had been marvellous. But somehow it hadn’t been quite the same.
And then, when she had been in hospital eight weeks, and two days before she was due to come home, she had received the letter, every word of which was imprinted on her mind, on her very soul.
‘Dear Claire...’ The formality should have warned her of what was to follow. Before then his letters had always begun ‘Darling’ or ‘My precious Claire’.
I don’t know quite how to write this letter but I know I must. It wouldn’t be fair to either of us if I didn’t. This time apart has made me look at our relationship in a new way, has brought certain issues to the fore, if you know what I mean.
No, she hadn’t, but she had read on anyway, with her heart pounding so violently it had made her feel sick.
I think it would be better if we had a break, Claire, for six months or so, became free agents again with no commitments. I feel I’ve tied you down too early and it’s far better that we part now than at some time in the future, when we’ve got children and so on. Please keep the ring and I hope you can understand why I had to do this.
Goodbye. Jeff.
Oh, the hypocrisy of it But, yes, she had understood then and she did now why he had done it. She was just amazed that she hadn’t clicked on to the way his mind was working that first time he had visited her, when the expression on his face as he had looked at her had been one of horror and revulsion at her injuries compounded by a weird sort of panic and disgust.
She had wept, of course, helplessly, hopelessly, for most of the day, and then her eldest brother, Charlie, had come to visit her in the evening and the full truth had come out. It appeared Jeff had been seeing someone else for the last month, a leggy blonde he worked with who was a keep-fit fanatic like him and attended his gym.
‘I got those sort of details after I’d hit him,’ Charlie had told her, with a measure of satisfaction, ‘and if I’m not mistaken he’ll need to see a dentist to replace a couple of teeth—unless he picked them up off the pub floor, of course. I was just hoping you’d never have to know about her, sis.’
She had sent the ring back the next day.
‘Ready, Claire?’ Lorenzo’s voice was very long suffering, and she grinned at him, thrusting the memories back under lock and key in that closed room in her mind
‘Ready—and I’m going to paste you this time.’
‘You wish!’
She spent just over half an hour with Lorenzo before racing up to the room Anna had shown her to earlier. Her suitcases had been unpacked, her clothes put away in the massive walk-in wardrobe and her toiletries placed neatly in the en suite bathroom. It was a beautiful room—the whole house was beautiful, she reflected appreciatively. But she had no time now to gaze out over the sprawling gardens below from the balcony window. She needed to wash away the grime of the day, change into something suitable for dinner and be back downstairs for eight o’clock.
Grace had called by Lorenzo’s sitting room ten minutes earlier to say that they were changing for dinner as it was something of an occasion—Claire’s first night—that she wanted it to be special and that drinks before dinner would be ready at eight.
At the time it had been a crucial moment in the battle of the planets—she had been defending Earth against Lorenzo’s war probes from Venus—but now she wished she had taken a moment or two to ask Grace how dressy it was going to be. Grace and Donato lived in a massive private wing of the house, which Donato had had built once he and Grace had become engaged, and although access was easy it wasn’t quite the same as popping along the corridor to ask advice.
She eyed her clothes, hanging in somewhat meagre splendour at one end of the huge wardrobe, for some precious minutes before realising she couldn’t hesitate any longer and quickly pulling the traditional life-saver, a little black dress, from one silk-embossed hanger, teaming it with a pair of elegant black satin court shoes.
After a hasty shower she towelled herself dry with the huge fluffy bath-sheet that smelt of flowers and summer days, and then, with the towel wrapped round her torso, walked through to the bedroom and sat down in front of the long, ornate dressing table.
Should she have her hair up or down? And what about earrings? Little crystal studs or the big gold hoops her parents had bought her for Christmas? And eyeshadow—green or blue? Which would look best? She caught herself abruptly, gazing at her flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes with a little grimace of disgust.
Stop it,—stop it, Claire. The words were fierce in her head. He wouldn’t look at you twice and you don’t want him to. You don’t. He was married to one stunningly beautiful woman for some years and it’s clear he hasn’t recovered from her death. If anyone is going to help him forget his pain it isn’t a little nobody from England who on top of everything else is damaged goods.
The phrase bit into her consciousness, but it had been with her for the last four years—ever