insistent, filled with yearning. He saw for an instant the dark face of depression that had looked out at him with increasing frequency in recent years. An only child, born to the astonishment of his parents in their middle age, doted on from the day of his birth, he had been the object of all his mother’s obsessive love after the death of his father. His mother also had been dead now these five years or more. It was since her passing that he had begun to be afflicted by this terrible sense of aloneness. It would come on him sometimes at strange moments, in a train, walking along a gleaming corridor at work, waiting for a drink in a crowded bar. He had to stiffen himself to resist the compulsion to reach out and touch a hand, any hand. And when the irrational moment passed he would be left with a black surge of depression that might take hours to fade.
He took a long drink from his glass. Above the sound of the music he heard a cupboard door close sharply upstairs. He tilted back his head and glanced up, thinking of Fiona moving about the bedroom. With Fiona he was able to forget depression. In her company he felt himself years younger than the set-faced husband of Marion; gayer, livelier, farther distanced from the arid shores of middle age.
He drained his glass and set it down. Our emotional needs are programmed in the cradle, he thought with resignation, we are stuck with them for the rest of our days. For me it is a deeply loving woman currently wearing the face of Fiona Brooke. And whatever it is for Fiona, he added with a wry smile, I can only hope it continues to be moulded in the image of Stephen Lockwood.
He picked up the heavy table lighter and idly studied it. Silver, good quality, graceful design, set in a base of onyx. Fiona had expensive tastes. He ran a finger over the chilly smoothness of the stone. In a divorce settlement Marion would certainly get the house. And a substantial slice of his salary. He would very probably have to take out a large insurance policy for her benefit. He wouldn’t be left with an income of very impressive proportions. Hardly sufficient to create – let alone maintain – the elegant dream world he was to share with Fiona. He let out a long sigh . . . Love might begin with I will give you the moon and the stars, but it not infrequently ended in front of a judge with a vicious wrangle about ten pounds a week.
He clicked the lighter switch, he frowned at the yellow flame. What would the fading, suburban Marion do with her share of the spoils, with that house, far too large for a woman on her own? He extinguished the lighter and set it down with a little bang. Why should an able-bodied, childless woman of thirty-six have to be supported in idleness till the end of her life?
A bedroom door opened and Fiona’s steps sounded on the landing. He jumped to his feet, smiling, eager; he switched off the radio and went out into the hall.
‘By the way,’ he said a few minutes later as they came out into the bright evening, ‘I may be taking a little leave shortly. A few days or a week perhaps. I’ll let you know when it’s definite.’ Under no circumstances whatever did he allow the name of his wife to pass his lips when he was with Fiona. She knew, and accepted, that there was no question – as yet – of their going off together for a holiday.
He walked beside her to the car. She turned her head and gave him a brief cool glance but she said nothing. Again he had a strong sensation of time pressing relentlessly on behind him, hurrying him forward to an objective that seemed to glitter with the promise of joy but sometimes, disconcertingly, fleetingly, impelled towards him a sense of some obscurely chilling presence waiting for him at the end of the road.
Twenty-five minutes to nine and no sign of Lockwood yet. Bob Jourdan tilted back his chair and stared out of the window, biting his lip in annoyance. The Alpha staff were supposed to start work by eight-thirty sharp; he had been here himself since ten past, never saw the point of trailing in at the last moment. And on a Monday morning too, with the new week straining at the leash.
He let the legs of his chair slap down on the floor and snatched up a folder of papers from his desk. But it was no good, he couldn’t take a decision on his own about the Manchester job – or rather, he wasn’t permitted to take a decision on his own, he was perfectly capable of doing so. He had to have old Lockwood’s say-so. And he knew exactly what attitude Lockwood would take. The safe, conservative attitude of a man with his eye on a director’s seat.
A light rap on his door and Fiona Brooke came in with some files. ‘You look pretty grim,’ she observed, laying the folders in front of him. ‘Let me have these back as soon as you can.’
‘Old Lockwood’s late again.’ But some of Jourdan’s grimness began to fade. With his left hand he picked up the top file, running his eye over the cover which was stamped in red with the word Welfare; he suddenly shot out his right hand and without looking at her seized Fiona by the wrist. He dropped the file on the desk and idly flicked its pages. ‘Have dinner with me this evening,’ he said in a challenging voice tinged with amusement. His face seemed about to dissolve into laughter. Still keeping his gaze fixed on the folder he began to draw her towards him with easy strength.
‘I’m busy this evening,’ she said pleasantly, looking down at him with unruffled calm.
‘Tomorrow evening.’ He continued to pull her inexorably towards him.
‘Even more busy tomorrow.’ Her mouth trembled on the edge of a smile.
‘Wednesday. Thursday. Friday.’ She was right beside him now. In a swift movement he released her wrist and slipped his hand round her waist, holding her in a tight grip.
‘Absolutely frantically busy on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.’ She couldn’t help smiling broadly, it was as much as she could do not to laugh aloud.
He dropped his hand, looked up at her, his eyes suddenly intent and serious. ‘I’ll keep on asking.’
‘No harm in asking,’ she said lightly. ‘I must get back to Welfare.’
When the door closed behind her he abandoned all show of interest in the files and sat with his elbows on the desk and his chin propped on his clenched fists. Why do I do it? he asked himself yet again. He not only wanted to get on to a more intimate footing with Fiona, he wanted to marry her. Actually marry her! Why? He was thirty years old, had always looked on himself as an astute bachelor, had never wanted to marry anyone before. He’d never even kissed Fiona and yet he had this overpowering desire to put a ring on her finger, to hear her addressed as Mrs Jourdan. Is this what they mean by real love? he wondered with a sense of incredulity. It didn’t feel like anything he had previously identified as love. Could it possibly be – he frowned fiercely, trying to pin down the disturbing notion – that I want her simply because she belongs to Lockwood? He’d been transferred to Barbridge on promotion from another branch of Alpha only two or three months before; the liaison between Lockwood and Fiona was supposed to be a deadly secret but it hadn’t taken Jourdan half a day to spot how matters stood. It wasn’t the way two people looked at each other that was revealing but the way in which they carefully did not look at each other.
He passed a hand across his forehead, pressed his fingers into his scalp. Was it that, wanting Lockwood’s job, he was snatching symbolically at his mistress? If he somehow managed to step into Lockwood’s shoes at Alpha, would he instantly lose all interest in Fiona? Or was it after all simply that she was herself a tall, composed, elegant, intelligent woman?
Suppose by some chance that she was willing to marry him. And suppose also that by some other chance he took Lockwood’s place as Home Sales Manager. Was that a blueprint for happiness? Or would he in a month, six months, a year, find himself a prey to consuming retrospective jealousy? He had observed this ugly phenomenon once or twice in the marriages of contemporaries who had previously fancied themselves tolerant, broad-minded men of the world. The end result had never been anything but disastrous. Could it happen to him? He shook his head slowly. He simply didn’t know. He was almost totally ignorant of the depths of jealousy but it seemed to him that very strange fish might swim in those midnight waters.
A few yards away, in the corridor, he suddenly heard the crisp tones of Lockwood’s voice. At once he sat up and straightened the papers on his desk.