Her mouth went dry. She had not felt this intense desire for so long she almost didn’t know what was happening to her. Heat began to burn deep inside her; she could scarcely breathe.
‘Did I wake you up? Sorry, I tried to be very quiet,’ Mark said curtly, looking away with that frown of irritation, and slid between the sheets, pulling them up to his neck as if to hide his nakedness from her, as if he disliked having her look at him.
She swallowed, fighting a longing to go over and touch him, run her hand down over that strong male body; she would have given anything to get into bed with him and caress him but she didn’t dare risk a rejection. ‘Why are you sleeping in here?’
‘So I shouldn’t wake you, obviously,’ he said, sardonic and offhand. He wasn’t even looking at her now. He had his eyes fixed on a space beside her. She realised he did not want to see her; her presence in the room was an embarrassment to him. There was a trace of dark red along his cheekbones and his jawline was tightly clenched.
‘I am awake now,’ she said fiercely, the pain of his indifference stabbing at her. ‘Why were you so late? Where were you tonight, Mark?’
He snapped, ‘I told you. Having dinner with my boss.’ Then he carefully yawned, not a very convincing performance. His face and body were too tense to be relaxed enough for sleep. ‘Look, I’m tired—we’ll talk in the morning. I might as well sleep here tonight, now I’m in bed.’ He leaned over and switched off his bedside lamp. ‘Goodnight, Sancha.’
Angry words seethed inside Sancha’s head, almost came out of her in a hot gush, but the habit of years took over. Since the birth of her first child she had learned to take second place, to accept the way things were, not to fight the inevitable. Mothers had to; the self had to step back for a while, let the child take precedence over any personal needs or desires. She wanted to scream at Mark, but she forced her rage down, drew breath, very quietly closed the door—although she wanted to slam it, she mustn’t wake the children—and walked back along the landing somehow. She wasn’t sure how she kept one foot moving in front of the other.
In the bedroom she sank down on her bed, shaking so much she felt as if she were falling to bits. The scream was trapped in her throat; she felt it trying to come out, put her balled fist into her mouth to silence it and bit down on her knuckles. Bit until she felt the saltness of her own blood seep into her mouth.
How dared he? How dared he talk to her in that brusque voice, look at her with such cold, remote eyes? When he was lying to her, betraying her with another woman? Well, he needn’t think he was getting away with it. She knew what he was up to—it was some sort of male power game. Typical of them, utterly typical—shifting the blame, trying to make it look as if it was she who was in the wrong, she who was behaving badly, not him, never him.
Their sons did it all the time—played the same game, put up the same instinctive defence. ‘Me? Mum, you don’t think I’d do that. I didn’t—not me—it wasn’t me. It must have been Flora who spilt the milk, tore the comic, broke the cup, ate the chocolate...’ Or any of the hundred tiny crimes committed in this house every day while Sancha was cast in the role of detective, judge and jury all in one, trying hopelessly to pin the blame on one of her children while suspecting all of them. The boys always tried to accuse Flora, but if she was asleep in her cot and couldn’t be proved guilty they turned on each other, both equally full of righteous indignation and wide-eyed innocence.
But they were children. Mark was a grown man. He needn’t think he was getting away with anything. She would talk to him tomorrow morning, before the children woke up.
She set her alarm for half an hour before she needed to get up, but when she went along to wake Mark the spare room was empty. He must already be up. Sancha ran downstairs, but he wasn’t there, either. He had left the house while she was asleep.
There was a note on the kitchen table. She snatched it up and read it hurriedly. ‘Had to get to work early. Mark.’
She screwed the paper up and threw it across the room, sobbing with pain and anger.
He was lying; she knew it. He had left to avoid facing her. He had sensed she was going to ask awkward questions and didn’t want to answer them.
But he was going to. Sooner or later he was going to have to talk to her.
Later in the morning she and Flora set off to the small neighbourhood shopping centre and were heavily laden by the time they ran into Martha Adams, the only neighbour who was really friendly with Sancha.
She stared, grinned. ‘You’ve had your hair done! Marvellous! You look years younger—suits you shorter.’
‘Thanks. I feel lighter, too.’
Martha contemplated Sancha’s three shopping bags. ‘Been on a buying spree?’
‘It’s just food,’ Sancha groaned. ‘The boys eat an incredible amount every day. Between them and Flora we went through half a box of cornflakes this morning alone. I can only just keep up with them.’
‘Come and have a coffee,’ invited Martha, and they walked across the street to the Victorian Coffee House, which had been built a year earlier to look around a hundred years old.
The waitresses were all young and pretty, and wore Victorian black and red print dresses with starched caps and aprons. The menu was couched in Victorian language, too. Sancha and Martha didn’t need to read it; they had been there before and knew the menu by heart.
Martha ordered what they always had. ‘Two coffees, two hot buttered muffins and hot chocolate with a marshmallow on top for the little girl.’
‘You got it,’ said the waitress, and vanished with a swish of long skirts.
Flora had spotted the Victorian rocking-horse which was one of the major attractions of the place for her. For once there was no other child riding it.
‘Want a ride, want a ride,’ she began to chant, trying to climb down out of the highchair Sancha had popped her into.
Martha lifted her out and carried her over to the rocking-horse. Flora at once began to gallop, crowing with delight.
Sancha watched her with fierce love; Flora was demanding, exhausting, but above all adorable, and Sancha would die to protect her. Yet by one of fate’s strange ironies it had been Flora’s birth that had driven Sancha and Mark apart.
It wasn’t that Mark didn’t love the child or hadn’t wanted her—more that by needing her mother’s full-time attention Flora had driven a wedge between her parents, had soaked up so much of Sancha’s time and care that there had been nothing left for Mark.
While Sancha watched her child Martha had been watching Sancha, her forehead creased.
‘Is something wrong?’
The question made Sancha start. Only then did she realise she was on the point of tears again. It kept happening since she’d got the anonymous letter. Turning her head away, she brushed a hand across her eyes.
‘No, of course not,’ she lied, forcing a smile as she turned back to face Martha’s intent gaze.
Just five feet tall, and built on a diminutive scale to match, with a slender body and short legs, Martha had a mobile, heart-shaped face and bobbed black hair without a trace of grey yet—although she was forty years old. She lived alone in the house across the street from Mark and Sancha and her home was a magnet for all Sancha’s children because Martha kept a cat and two dogs—sleek red setters, with gleaming manes and liquid dark eyes.
Her eyes shrewd, she refused to accept Sancha’s lie. ‘Come on, you know you can talk to me. I won’t repeat anything you tell me,’ she murmured, with one eye on Flora. ‘Having problems? Not Flora?’
Sancha laughed. ‘Flora’s always a problem!’
‘That’s true,’ Martha said,