Jennifer returned to the house, and now she had ceased weeping, though her face was still puffy and tear-stained. She stood uncertainly at her front door for a moment, as though Charlie might come back and tell her that it had all been a bad joke. But the Volvo was the only car in the driveway. She took a deep breath, and fought to regain control of herself. She ought really to be pleased, because she was now free, and she had the house. She would have to give up going to France for a week or two, if she was to organise the chandeliers spread out on the extension floor. But money should start flowing in virtually straight away.
But she would be alone. The thought brought her close to weeping again. Charlie had been a pain of late, and she might have liked to be shot of him. But she never counted on him walking out, and walking out for a woman he had only known for a matter of days. For a moment she savoured again the humiliation of standing in front of her own house and watching her husband driving away with another woman, and her tears began to run freely. She thought for a moment of taking the Volvo, finding out where the woman lived, and dragging Charlie back. But she pictured the woman smirking on her home ground and turning her away.
She turned, and went back into the house, heading for the kitchen, took a glass and half filled it with whisky. She knew that alcohol would solve nothing, but it might dull her pain. She drained the whisky, coughing at its burning. But the dull ache of defeat and despair refused to leave her. She poured a little more, and then sat down at her kitchen table to rest her head in her hands. All she could think was that an unknown woman had stolen her man, seemingly just by crooking her finger, and it was something she could not bear to think about. Finally she got up and walked to the telephone. She needed help, and she needed a friend.
Leticia answered, and it was almost as much as Jennifer could do to speak.
‘Can I talk to Freddie?’ Her voice broke as she stammered out her words. Perhaps Freddie had gone out, and she would have to weep on her own.
Freddie sounded jovial. He had eaten a good lunch with an estate agent, and learned some interesting news about an upcoming house sale in the Seer Green area. Christies were coming down from London to sell off the furniture, and there were reportedly some trophy pieces. Freddie had no intention of competing with London dealers, but there might well be some tasty pickings around the edges, and he might also make some useful contacts.
Jennifer tried to speak in a matter of fact tone, but her voice broke again. ‘Freddie, Charlie has left me.’
Freddie stared at the the telephone. ‘Left?’
‘He came with a woman in a Mercedes, to collect his passport and driving licence. He didn’t take anything else.’
Freddie felt shocked, but he was also a good man in an emergency. ‘Are you at home?’
Jennifer looked around her drawingroom. It was her home, but it was also now a place of desolation. ‘I’m sitting here with a half-empty glass in my hand.’
‘Don’t drink any more. I’ll be with you in five minutes.’
He paused to tell Leticia what had happened, and rushed out to his car. Jennifer needed him, and Leticia could hold the fort for the rest of the day.
Leticia sat down ruefully. So much for her dreams.
Five minutes later Freddie crunched to a halt on the gravel in front of the Tindals’ house. Jennifer stood waiting at the door. She was very pale and drawn and crumpled, and Freddie felt touched to his heart. He smiled comfortingly as tears began to well in Jennifer’s eyes, and folded her in his arms.
‘There, there, don’t cry.’ He reached into his jacket pocket for his handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes. ‘It isn’t the end of the world.’
‘The woman came here with him.’ Jennifer’s sobs mingled pain and rage. ‘She came to my house and took him away.’
‘Perhaps he’s better gone.’
Jennifer’s anger rose. ‘But I’ve got all those damn chandeliers. I was counting on him to help me with them.’
Freddie sighed. ‘Let’s sit down and have a cup of tea.’
He watched her make tea, and helped her set cups and saucers and a plate of little cakes on a low coffeetable. Jennifer calmed a little as she poured.
‘I’m going to be in a hell of a mess.’
Freddie waved his hand. ‘I’ll get Leticia to give you a hand.’
Jennifer sipped at her cup, and stared at him. ‘It’s not just that, Freddie. I can handle the work. But I can’t face being here on my own.’ She hesitated, and then spoke uncertainly. ‘You couldn’t come and stay with me, just for a few days, until I can handle things a bit better?’
Freddie smiled. It was something for which he had been hoping, and very possibly waiting. He nodded, and got to his feet. ‘I’ll go and fetch some things.’
‘Can I come with you?’
He looked at Jennifer in surprise.
‘I don’t think I could face being here alone, not today.’
He held out his hands. ‘We’ll go together. Mother will be pleased.’ He paused. ‘She’s been hinting for months that I should take a closer interest in you.’
Agatha Hoskins was pottering in her garden when Freddie arrived, and looked up in surprise. She sometimes felt she was growing too stiff and old for gardening, and Freddie showed little interest, though he dutifully mowed her lawns.
‘You’re back early.’ Then she saw Jennifer, following a few steps behind Freddie. Agatha’s sight was not as good as it had once been, but she could see that Jennifer had been crying. ‘You two haven’t been fighting, have you?’
Freddie shook his head wryly. He was used to his mother still treating him as a kind of elderly teenager. ‘No, mother. Charlie has left Jennifer.’
‘What?’ Agatha’s voice was a bark.
‘Yes, he’s gone off with another woman.’ Jennifer tried to look brave. ‘She brought him to the house to collect his driving licence and passport.’
‘That wasn’t very nice.’
‘It wasn’t.’
The three of them stood for a moment considering Charlie’s treachery. Then Agatha Hoskins stabbed at the ground with her stick. ‘You’d better come in and have a cup of tea, dear, and tell me all about it.’ She paused. ‘Do you want to come and stay for a day or two? We’ve got plenty of room.’
Freddie was masterful. ‘I’m going to stay with Jennifer for a few days.’
Jennifer moved to stand at his side. ‘I couldn’t face being in the house on my own.’
Agatha was silent for a moment, and then nodded approvingly. ‘Yes, that would be better, wouldn’t it?’ It was a benison.
Later, after Freddie had collected his toothbrush and a razor and a selection from his wardrobe – including a clean pair of pyjamas – he drove Jennifer back to the Tindals’ house. Jennifer unlocked the front door with bravado, half expecting, hope against hope, to find Charlie back again. But the moment she stepped into the house she knew that she would never see him again. It was a silent house, a cold house, an empty house.
Freddie followed her cautiously. He had lunched and dined with the Tindals on many occasions. But thiswas the first time he had moved in.
Jennifer stopped, and turned to face him. She had a fierce look in her eyes, a look that Freddie had never seen in her before. ‘You won’t go off and leave me, will you?’
He placed his hands on her shoulders. Now he stood at a crossroads, with one road leading forward, and one leading back. He had never been much attracted to women. Grant Standing had taught him all he knew about sex, and Freddie had despised his mother for letting Grant ride roughshod over her. But Jennifer was his partner, and much more of a friend to him than any of the young men that had come after Grant. He knew that Jennifer both wanted and needed him. He kissed her.
Jennifer pulled back a little. ‘Come with me.’ She took him by the hand and led him towards the stairs, and a few moments later they were in her bedroom. She smiled a little shyly. ‘I’ve never seduced anybody before.’
Freddie ran his hands acrossed her shoulders and down the line of her arms, but she pushed them away. ‘No, let me do everything.’ Her hands unfastened his tie and unbuttoned his shirt, and she kisses him gently in a succession of small kisses. Then she unfastened his belt, and knelt in front of him, pushing his trousers down around his ankles, and closed her lips gently on his penis, and looked up at him, and released him.
‘Do men do that?’
Freddie lifted her to her feet, but she pushed him away gently. ‘Can you made love to a woman?’
He blushed. He had never been seduced, not like this.
‘Come and made love to me.’ Jennifer undressed deftly, peeling off her dress and bra and panties, and led him to the bed, climbing onto it to kneel, and rest her weight on her hands, so that her back was arched and towards him, and she was waiting.
Freddie knelt behind her, bending forward over her, and probed until he felt himself enter her. He moved slowly, cupping Jennifer’s bosoms with his hands and gently massaging her nipples, rocking himself against her until she began to rock with him, and his rocking became increasingly insistent, until suddenly they were both moving through a barrier of lust, and they were spent.
They disengaged, and Jennifer let herself fall on the bed and turned to look up at him. ‘You’re pretty good for somebody who hasn’t practised.’
Freddie rested on top of her, looking down into her eyes. ‘Can I practise some more?’
‘Oh, Freddie.’ Jennifer began to cry again. ‘Will you still want to have boyfriends?’
Freddie thought of Henry, the tall, willowy young man lured away from him by wealth and power. Jennifer would be steadiness, and stability, and respectability, and they would prosper together. He shook his head. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘I’ll let you make love to me like they did.’
Freddie smiled faintly. ‘Men are built a different way.’
‘I could buy a vibrator.’
‘For me?’ He looked a little shocked. ‘I think you’d have to teach me.’
Jennifer reached up and pulled him down on top of her. ‘I’ll get some butter, and let you do it like in the film.’
Freddie kissed her. ‘I’m not Marlon Brando.’
She closed her arms around his neck. ‘Then let me give your second lesson.’
Charlie and Bella were also celebrating not five miles away. They sat in Bella’s drawingroom, with an open bottle of champagne between them, and they were toasting the future. Bella sips at her glass and eye Charlie across the rim.
‘Do you like playing games?’
Charlie beamed. He had drunk a little too much, and he was about to took Bella to France. He would spend the rest of his life playing games.
Suddenly she was on her feet, and was gone. A moment later she was back, but now she wore nothing but her green plastic raincoat, and her panties. She swirled, making the raincoat flare out around her, swaying in front of him, as though in time to hidden music.
‘Alan liked me to dress up for him. He liked things he could see through.’
Charlie also stood, and reached out to her pushing the raincoat off her shoulders, so that it fell in a small green heap on the floor. ‘I want you, I don’t want to see through you.’ He unfastened his belt, and stripped off his shirt, and Bella watched him, motionless but intent. He pushed his slacks down to the ground, and took off his socks, one at a time, reaching down to tug them from his feet, and straightened up again to place his hands on her shoulders. ‘This is the only game I want to play with you.’
They embraced, and sank to the carpet on their knees, and Charlie held Bella in his arms, lying on her, and moving on her with great gentleness, until passion began to mount in them both, and they made love on a damp summer afternoon, and were lovers, and each filled the other with joy.
But dark forces began to mass as two pairs of lovers sought satisfaction. Gay Manion had evil in her mind, and was now ready to seek vengeance.