‘Tom?’
When he made no response, Eleanor called his name a little louder.
Reluctantly he turned to look at her.
He did look pale, she acknowledged, her heart thumping sickeningly. Why hadn’t she noticed that this morning? She was his mother, after all.
‘How are you feeling, darling?’ she asked him as she hurried over to him and placed her hand against his forehead. He didn’t feel particularly hot.
‘Sick. I feel sick,’ he told her plaintively. ‘I told you that this morning…’
Eleanor winced as she heard the accusation in his voice. He had said something about not wanting to go to school but she had put that down to the fact that it was Monday morning and that he was grumpy because he had overslept.
‘I was sick after assembly,’ he told her. ‘In Mr Pringle’s class.’
Her heart sank even further.
‘I feel funny, Mum. My head hurts and my neck.’
Her stomach muscles tensed. The papers had recently been carrying details of several cases of meningitis.
‘What about your eyes?’ she asked him anxiously. ‘Do they hurt?’
‘Yes… a bit…’
Half an hour later, after she had got him into bed and telephoned the doctor, she asked Marcus anxiously, ‘Do you think it could be meningitis?’
‘I doubt it,’ Marcus told her wryly. ‘I suspect it’s much more likely to be Mondayitis, plus the illicit carton of ice-cream he had for supper last night.’
Eleanor stared at him. ‘What illicit carton of ice-cream?’
‘The one I found this morning.’
Eleanor shook her head. ‘I don’t know. He says his eyes are hurting him.’
‘He says, or you suggested?’ Marcus asked her.
‘I’m your wife, Marcus,’ she snapped at him. ‘Not an opposition witness.’ She saw him frowning, but before she could apologise the doorbell rang.
‘That will be the doctor. I’d better go and let her in.’
‘There’s no need to apologise,’ the doctor soothed her fifteen minutes later. ‘I’m a mother myself and I know what it’s like. Besides, it’s always better to be safe than sorry. Luckily this time it’s nothing more serious than an upset tummy and a bit of attention-seeking.’
She smiled at Eleanor reassuringly.
So Marcus had been right, Eleanor reflected bleakly as she saw her to the door, and she had panicked unnecessarily. A panic increased by guilt because she had not been there… because Marcus had had to disrupt his working day to go and collect Tom, because she had been too busy this morning to notice that Tom was feeling off colour and because she had been too busy last night to notice that he had eaten the ice-cream.
What was happening to her? Where was the pleasure in a life that left her with so little time for her children, for her husband… for herself?
‘You were right,’ she told Marcus wryly later. ‘It is just an upset tummy.’ He looked up from his desk and smiled at her.
‘I’m sorry I snapped at you earlier.’
‘That’s OK,’ Marcus told her easily, adding, ‘I should have remembered that mothers don’t like having their judgement questioned.’
For some reason his comment jarred. What did he mean? Was he referring to mothers in general or one mother in particular, the mother of his own child, perhaps?
Eleanor had been pleased when Marcus had once commented on how different she was from his first wife; she didn’t want to be a second Julia, a copy of another woman who had once been important in her husband’s life. She had been fiercely glad that he loved her as an individual… as herself. Unlike Allan, who, after the initial enthusiasm of being married, had ceased to see her as a woman—a person—and had seen her only as a mother. Sexually he had found it hard to relate to her once she had had the children, and besides, he had accused her, they meant more to her than he did.
‘By the way, the Lassiters want us there for eight. What time is the babysitter due?’ Marcus asked her.
Eleanor froze.
The Lassiters’ dinner party. She had forgotten all about it… forgotten to make any arrangements for someone to sit with the boys. How could she have forgotten? Harold Lassiter was the most senior barrister in Marcus’s chambers. There was a strong rumour that he was about to be called to the bench as a senior judge.
Marcus might not have the sharklike instinct and drive, the personal and professional ambition that her first husband had possessed, but as a product of the British public school system, reinforced by the discipline of an army father, he was meticulous about observing a code of good manners which to many people was now hopelessly old-fashioned.
In fact, that had been one of the first things about him which had appealed to her.
Typically, Jade had laughed in disbelief when she had told her this, rolling her eyes and demanding, ‘What? My God, trust you! You manage to find one of the most charismatic and sexy men I have ever set eyes on, and all you notice about him is that he held open the door for you. You realise that he probably only did that so that he could check out the view,’ Jade had teased her, explaining when she had frowned, ‘Your rear view, idiot. Men like a nice, well-shaped female behind, didn’t you know?’
Now, Eleanor’s expression gave her away.
‘You’d forgotten?’ Marcus exclaimed sharply.
‘Marcus, I’m so sorry. I meant to organise a babysitter last weekend and then Julia telephoned and asked if we could have Vanessa and somehow or other…’
‘Damn!’
‘I could ring Jade,’ Eleanor suggested. ‘She might be free.’
She had just picked up the receiver and started to dial Jade’s number when she heard Tom calling, ‘Mum… Mum… I don’t feel well.’
Anxiously she replaced the receiver and hurried upstairs, just in time to hear him being violently sick.
It might only be ice-cream-induced and perhaps a fitting punishment for his greed, but there was no doubt that he was feeling extremely sorry for himself, Eleanor acknowledged as she tucked him back into bed.
At thirteen he was already beginning to consider himself too old and grown-up for maternal cuddles and fussing, but now he clung to her.
‘Stay with me,’ he begged her as she started to get up.
‘I can’t, darling. I’ve got to go and telephone Aunt Jade to ask her if she can come round to sit with you tonight.’
Immediately his face flushed and he sat bolt upright in bed, clinging fiercely to her.
‘I don’t want her. I want you,’ he told her.
Dismayed, Eleanor put her arms round him. He normally never clung to her like this… perhaps the doctor had been wrong… perhaps he was more ill than any of them had recognised.
‘Tom, darling, I have to go…’
‘No, you don’t,’ he argued stubbornly. ‘You don’t want to be with us any more. You just want to be with him.’
Appalled, Eleanor hugged him tightly. ‘Tom, that isn’t true!’
There was no way she was going to be able to go to the Lassiters’ dinner party, she recognised. Not with Tom so upset and unlike himself.
Marcus wouldn’t be pleased. She could feel her heart growing