Once before he’d held her in an unbreakable grip, but this was different. Instead of arrogance, she felt only his need and desperation and everything in her went forward to meet it, embrace and console it.
‘It’s all right,’ she murmured, just as she had done with the child. ‘I’m here. Hold on to me.’
He kept his eyes fixed on her. He was still trembling like a man caught in a nightmare from which there was no escape.
‘Justin, what’s the matter? It’s not just about Mark’s mother, is it?’
‘No,’ he said hoarsely.
‘Tell me about it.’
‘I can’t—so many things—there’s no help for it now.’
‘There’s help for everything, if you’ve got someone who really wants to help you,’ she said. ‘But how can I, if I don’t understand?’
‘How can you understand, when I don’t understand it myself?’ he whispered. ‘I want to ask why—I’ve always wanted that—but there’s nobody to ask.’
She couldn’t bear his agony. Without thinking about it, she leaned down and laid her lips tenderly over his.
‘It’s going to be all right,’ she whispered. ‘I’m going to make it all right.’
She had no idea what she meant, or what she could do to help him. But the details didn’t matter. What mattered was easing his pain in any way she could. So she kissed him again and again until she felt him begin to relax in her arms.
It was unlike the other kiss in every way but one, and that was the slow burning inside her. But whereas that first excitement had been entwined with anger, this one was a part of pity and sorrow. She wanted him to find oblivion in her, lose himself in her completely, if that could give him a respite from suffering.
So she offered herself to him without reservation, waiting for the moment when his own desire rose and he reached out, taking over the kiss, turning her so that he was above her on the bed.
He checked himself for a moment, as though the earlier memory had come back to him. Seeing his doubt, she began to unbutton his shirt while her smile told him enough to ease the dread in his face. Then he was opening her pyjama top and laying his face against her warm skin.
He stayed like that for so long that she wondered if this was all he wanted, but then she felt his hands move on her with increasing urgency and she knew that they both wanted the same thing. And they wanted it now.
They made love quickly, as if trying to discover something they badly needed to know. And when they’d found the answer they made love again, but slowly this time, relishing the newly discovered treasure.
Afterwards there was peace, clinging to each other for safety in this new world, while the moonlight limned their nakedness.
She kissed him. ‘Can you talk about it now?’ she whispered.
‘I’m not sure. I’ve never tried before.’
‘Maybe that’s the trouble. Talk to me, Justin, for both our sakes.’
‘I don’t know where to begin.’
‘Start with your mother.’
‘Which one?’
The answer startled her. She rose up on one elbow and looked down on him. After a moment he started to speak, hesitantly.
‘For the first seven years of my life, I was like any other child. I had a home, two parents who loved me, or seemed to. Then the woman I thought of as my mother became pregnant.
‘Almost overnight she lost interest in me. I found out why almost by chance. I overheard her talking to her sister, saying, ‘It’ll be wonderful to have a child of my own’. That was how I learned that she wasn’t really my mother.’
‘Dear God!’ Evie said softly. ‘Did you tell her what you’d heard?’
‘No, I kept it to myself for months, pretending it wasn’t true. But the pretence wore thin, especially when the baby was born, a boy.
‘I was jealous. I started to have tantrums. So they called social services and said that I was “out of control” and I must go into care. After that I couldn’t pretend any longer. I’d been adopted as second best, because they thought they couldn’t have children. Now they didn’t need me.’
She stared at him, too shocked to speak.
‘I don’t remember much about that day,’ he said. ‘I know I screamed at my parents not to send me away. I begged and pleaded but it was no use. They didn’t want me.’
‘Wait, stop,’ she begged, covering her eyes as though, by this means, she could blot out the terrible story. ‘I can’t take this in. Surely they must have had some love for you?’
‘You don’t understand. I was a substitute. If they’d never had one of their own I suppose they’d have made do with me, but now I was surplus to requirements. It took me years to see that, of course. All I knew at the time was that it was my own fault for being wicked.’
‘How could anyone be so cruel as to put that burden on a child?’ she burst out furiously. ‘It’s unspeakable. I suppose that’s what they wanted to believe so that they didn’t have to feel guilty about what they were really doing.’
‘Yes, I worked that out in the end, too. But at the time I believed what I was told.’
‘Where did they take you?’
‘To what is laughingly known as a “home”, which means an institution. At first I thought my mother would come and visit me. I used to stand at the window, watching the entrance. I knew she’d come. But weeks went by and there was no sign of them. Even then I didn’t face it, not until one of the other boys jeered, “You’re wasting yer time. Yer Mum dumped yer”.
‘Of course, then I knew, because in my heart I’d always known. The only way I could cope was to fight him. He was bigger than me, but I won because I hated him, not only because of what he’d said, but because his mother was taking him home the next day.
‘The home wasn’t a bad place. They meant well and they did their best. There was no affection because the staff turnover was so high, but I couldn’t have dealt with that anyway. I’d learned enough not to want to get close to people, so I don’t know what I’d have done if anyone had tried to get close to me. Something violent, probably.’
She shook her head in instinctive denial. At one time she might have mistaken him for a violent man, but now she sensed differently.
‘I left when I was sixteen,’ he resumed, ‘and on the last day—’
He stopped, and a shudder went through him.
‘What happened?’ she asked softly.
He didn’t answer at first. Then he said, ‘Give me a minute.’
He rose and walked to the window. She stared at his broad back, wondering how she could ever have thought his size and strength alarming. All she could see now was that he was racked with misery. She went to stand beside him, turning him towards her, and had to fight back tears at what she saw.
He was actually shaking. Something was devastating him, and for a moment she thought he would be unable to speak of it.
At last he said, ‘When I left they had to tell me the whole truth about myself. That was when I learned that my birth mother had given me away almost as soon as I was born.’
Evie stared at him, slowly shaking her head in speechless horror.
His laugh was harsh and bitter.
‘You’ll