was hardly titillating,’ she answered icily, gesturing to her casual clothes with an angry, jerking motion. ‘Just getting changed out of a dress which Tim had liberally smeared with chocolate.’
‘Lisi, he was alone in the room with a fire—for heaven’s sake! Do you really think that’s safe for a three-year-old?’
The injustice of it stung her. ‘I’ll go and put the kettle on,’ she said, between gritted teeth, and marched out to the kitchen.
He followed her, as she had known he would, but remained standing in the doorway so that he could keep an eye on the toddler who was still engrossed in his new train-set.
He saw the fury in the stiff set of her shoulders. ‘Listen, I wasn’t meaning to be judgemental,’ he said softly.
She clicked the kettle on and turned round, her eyes spitting pale blue fire. ‘Like hell you weren’t!’
‘I was only just pointing out—’
‘Well, don’t!’ she said, in a low, shaking voice. ‘Do you think I’ve brought him up in a house which has a fire and not taught him that he is never to go near it?’
‘Listen—’
‘No, you listen! What do you think it’s like as a single parent living with a little boy? Have you ever stopped to think about it?’
‘Actually, no—but then it wasn’t number one on my list of priorities. Until now.’
She met the quizzical green stare fearlessly. ‘Even taking a bath has to be planned with all the attention you would give to a military campaign!’ she declared. ‘As for going to the bathroom—well, you don’t want to know!’
He glanced back towards Tim and then at her again. It had never occurred to him. Why should it? People rarely considered the practical problems of child-rearing unless they were contemplating taking the plunge themselves. He sighed. ‘You’re right. I had no right—’
‘No, you didn’t!’ she agreed furiously. ‘You have only to take a look at him to realise that he is a happy, contented little boy. The world is full of dangers, Philip—and I have had to teach him about them all. Never to talk to strangers. Never to approach a dog that might bite him. The fact that the roads aren’t safe—’ She saw him flinch, and wished she hadn’t chosen an example which would remind him of Carla. ‘I’m sorry.’
He shook his head. ‘The cotton-wool remark still holds true. I shouldn’t have said what I did.’
‘No, you shouldn’t!’ She pointed to the kitchen cupboards with an air of frustration. ‘I’ve had all these cupboards child-proofed so that he can’t get into them. I don’t leave bottles of bleach lying around the place for him to find—and there’s a stair-gate at the foot of the stairs! Please credit me with a little more sense and caring, Philip! He has had it drummed into him from the word go that fires are dangerous and must be treated with respect and caution—and that Mummy is the only person who touches the fire.’
He watched her warm the pot and then make the tea. He had been lucky in a way, he guessed. She could have been the kind of mother who didn’t care—who saw Tim as a mistake who had taken away her youth and her freedom. But she had created a home for him, a warm and loving home, he realised.
She was right. You had only to look at the child to see that he was happy and contented and well cared for. Stimulated, too—to judge from his conversation.
‘Can I do anything?’ he asked.
She couldn’t resist it. ‘Better go back in and keep your eye on Tim,’ she said sweetly. ‘I can manage here.’
He nodded, and his gaze swept over her, beguiling her and capturing her in its intense green light. ‘And we’ll tell him?’
Lisi swallowed. She couldn’t keep putting it off. They couldn’t keep putting it off. ‘I have no choice, do I?’ she asked quietly, but noticed that he didn’t bother answering that—he didn’t need to—just turned away and walked back into the sitting room.
She carried the tea-tray through and brought in Christmas cake and mince pies and slices of Stollen.
Philip looked up as she began to unload it all onto the table and gave a rueful smile. ‘Not sure if I can eat again—at least until the New Year.’
She forced herself to be conversational. They were shortly to drop the biggest bombshell into Tim’s life—let him see that his mother and his father didn’t actually hate one another.
‘Did your mother feed you up?’
He nodded. ‘It’s my first Christmas here for years—in Maraban they don’t celebrate it.’
Tim looked up. ‘Where’s Malaban?’ he chirped.
‘Maraban,’ corrected Philip, and his eyes softened as he looked down at the interested face of his son. ‘It’s a country in the Middle East. A beautiful land with a great big desert—do you know what a desert is, Tim?’
He shook his dark head, mesmerised.
‘It’s made of sand—lots of sand—and only the very toughest of plants can grow there.’
‘What telse?’ asked Tim. ‘In Malaban?’
Philip smiled. ‘Oh, there are fig trees and wild walnut trees, and the mountain slopes are covered in forests of juniper and pistachio trees—’
‘What’s st-stachio tree?’ piped up Tim. ‘Like an apple tree?’
Philip shook his head. ‘Not really. A pistachio is a nut,’ he explained. ‘A delicious pale green nut in a little shell—’
‘He’s too young for nuts!’ put in Lisi immediately.
He guessed that he deserved that, and nodded. ‘Oh, and there are lots of animals there, too,’ he said. ‘Jackals and wild boar and rare, pink deer.’
Tim’s eyes were like saucers, thought Lisi. He probably thought that Philip was concocting a wonderful fairy-tale land, and, come to think of it, that was exactly what it sounded like.
‘Do you live there?’ asked Tim.
‘I did. But not any more.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it was time for me to come back to England.’
‘Why?’
‘Tim—’ began Lisi, but Philip shook his head.
‘I used to work for a prince.’
Lisi looked at Tim—now he really did think that this was a story!
‘A real prince?’
‘Uh-huh. Prince Khalim. Only the prince got married and so it was time for me to move on.’
Tim nodded solemnly. ‘Will you play trains with me?’
He met her eyes across the room. Now, they urged her, and Lisi knew that she must begin this particular story. She took time pouring tea, and gave Tim a beaker of juice, and then she went to sit down on the floor next to both of them and cleared her throat.
‘Tim, darling?’
A train was chugged along the track by a small, chubby finger.
‘Tim? Look at Mummy, darling.’
His long-lashed eyes locked on hers and she felt the almost painfully overwhelming love of motherhood. She steadied her breathing. ‘Do you remember that once you asked me why you hadn’t got a daddy?’
Philip stilled as Tim nodded.
‘And I told you that he had gone away a long time ago and that I wasn’t sure if he was ever coming back?’
Again Tim nodded,