‘Why—why should we have to talk about—about your half-brother?’ she persisted, circling her dry lips with her tongue, and with a sigh Mark relaxed back in his seat.
‘I’ve been trying to think of a way to explain him to you,’ he confessed, unknowingly supplying the reason why Tobie had thought he had been unusually silent during the flight. ‘Rob—well, Rob can be a law unto himself, and it isn’t always enough just to put it down to his artistic temperament.’
Tobie’s palms smoothed the arms of her seat. ‘No?’
‘No.’
She hesitated. ‘You’re—you’re saying—he’s conceited?’
‘Hell, no!’ Mark was swift to deny this. ‘No one could call my brother conceited. But he can be rude—ignorant—bloody-minded, if you like. He—well, he doesn’t always mince his words.’ He sighed. ‘He used not to be like that. I mean,’ he hastened on quickly, ‘he never suffered fools gladly, if you know what I mean, but since the accident—’
Tobie drew in an unsteady breath. ‘I thought he got over that.’
‘He did.’ Mark sighed again. ‘At least, as well as anyone could who was left in a wheelchair—’
‘A wheelchair!’ Tobie was all attention now, turning to stare at him with wide disbelieving eyes. ‘Robert’s disabled!’
‘Don’t use that word to him, honey, will you?’ Mark advised her gently. ‘It’s not the sort of term you use where my brother is concerned. He’s not an invalid, or so he says, he’s only—somewhat incapacitated.’
Tobie could feel all the colour draining out of her face, and it was all she could do not to turn to Mark and beg him to take back his words. But she could say nothing. So far as Mark was concerned, she had not even met his brother, and although his revelation was both terrible and shocking, she must somehow sustain it without giving in to the shaking disbelief that gripped her. Yet she could hardly think straight as images of the man he had been flashed before her eyes. Robert—in a wheelchair! Robert—without the use of his legs! Robert, who had loved walking and driving, swimming and dancing …
‘I know it’s not generally known, that’s why I wanted to warn you.’ Fortunately Mark had warmed to his subject, and was paying her scant attention at the moment. ‘That was Rob’s idea, of course. If there’s one thing he can’t stand, it’s sympathy, and you can imagine the worldwide reaction if it was discovered that Robert Lang had been crippled in a car crash. That was why he bought Emerald Cay, why he’s dropped his public image. Not because he wanted to devote more time to his painting.’
Tobie felt totally drained of energy. Her whole body had slumped in her seat, and even her ankles felt weak. She couldn’t believe it; she simply couldn’t believe it. It explained so many things, and yet left so many others unexplained.
‘Anyway, it’s not so bad now,’ Mark added thoughtfully. ‘I mean, he still has the wheelchair around, but it’s not his only means of getting about. He manages pretty well on sticks these days. Not that he advertises that fact either. It’s a bit of a struggle, if you know what I mean, and like I said, Rob hates sympathy.’
Then, as if just realising that after her first horrified reaction Tobie had said nothing, he half turned towards her, grimacing when he saw her white face.
‘Hey,’ he exclaimed generously, ‘there’s no need for you to feel so badly, honey. I know you’re a fan of his and all, but really, it hasn’t affected his work, and that’s the important thing, isn’t it? You’ve seen his latest exhibition. His talent’s still as great as it ever was.’
Tobie knew she had to say something, but the words were so hard to articulate. ‘It—I—you should have told me sooner, Mark,’ she got out at last. ‘I—I don’t know what to say.’
‘Does it matter?’ Mark made a sound of impatience. ‘Come on! It’s nothing to do with us, is it? I just didn’t want you to—well, say something you might regret.’
‘Regret?’ Tobie echoed weakly, wishing suddenly that she had listened to Laura.
‘Seeing him in a wheelchair for the first time,’ Mark explained softly. ‘I don’t want you to be hurt. And Rob can be so damned sarcastic to people who show any sign of compassion!’
‘Can he?’
Tobie felt totally incapable of handling the situation. She only knew that if she had known about this before leaving London, she would never have agreed to come. She didn’t know why exactly. It didn’t change anything, so far as she and Mark were concerned. But somehow her presence seemed ghoulish now, an unwanted and unwarranted reminder of the past; and while she admitted that her feelings for Robert had died on the operating table more than three years ago, she was loath to arouse emotions that could only cause him bitterness.
‘You knew about the accident,’ Mark probed now, and she managed to nod. It would have been foolish to state otherwise. It had been in all the papers, and as Mark had said, she was a fan. ‘Anyway, it all happened a long time ago,’ he reassured her, and she guessed his patience was wearing a little thin. ‘There’s no reason for you to get upset about it. It was his own fault. He was driving too fast as usual. That damned car of his—’ He shook his head. ‘Who needs a car that can do nearly two hundred miles an hour on roads where the speed limit is seventy?’
Tobie swallowed convulsively. ‘Some—some people like fast cars,’ she offered feebly, remembering the Porsche only too well. She remembered, too, the reason he had been driving fast, and that last terrible row before he left her …
‘If you had to patch them up afterwards, perhaps you wouldn’t speak so carelessly,’ Mark remarked now, his tone full of indignation. ‘We see them all at the hospital. Young men, girls, kids, most of them, with too much power under the bonnet and too little grey matter in their skulls. Losing a leg or an arm, or their sight. And they’re the lucky ones. Paralysis is the most likely result, and believe me, it’s not a pretty sight.’
Tobie shook her head. ‘I—I didn’t mean—’
‘I know you didn’t.’ Mark’s smile suddenly illuminated his fair handsome face. ‘I guess Rob’s accident happened around the time we first met, didn’t it? And at that time you were in no fit state to be aware of anyone’s troubles but your own.’
No fit state …
Hysteria swelled inside her. If he only knew, she thought sickly. If he ever found out …
‘Not that I was involved with his recovery,’ Mark continued. ‘He wasn’t a patient of mine.’ He shrugged. ‘There was one consolation, though. It did bring him and my mother together again. You don’t know this, but before the accident they were a little less than close!’
Tobie bent her head. She wondered how Mark would react if she told him that she had known that. That in fact she had been staggered when she learned that after all that Robert had told her about his mother, he had actually forgiven her at last. He had always maintained that would never happen. But circumstances alter cases, she thought unsteadily, the weight of what she had learned bearing heavily on her.
‘So …’ Mark’s smile appeared again, ‘I’ve told you. I knew I’d have to, but—well, it’s not easy, destroying an ideal.’
An ideal! Tobie turned to stare out of the window, and as she did so, the stewardess advised the passengers to fasten their safety belts and put out their cigarettes ready for landing at Hewanorra airport. Was that how Mark imagined she thought of his brother? How differently he would have felt if he had known the truth. And how differently might she have reacted if she had suspected that Robert had not made a complete recovery?
The hotel in Castries was air-conditioned