The silence in the kitchen seemed to stretch interminably as she searched feverishly for the right response. One that would make it plain to him that she never had, nor ever would have any desire to arouse him, but somehow she could not find the words, and had to content herself with a tightly defensive, ‘You’re quite wrong, but I don’t suppose it matters what I say, you won’t believe me. Anyway,’ she added almost childishly, ‘you told me before you married that you weren’t capable of being aroused.’
‘A bad mistake,’ he agreed cuttingly. ‘I’d forgotten your sex’s unfortunate predilection for anything even remotely resembling a challenge. You must either like making things difficult for yourself or be so sure of your skills that you felt the need to add a handicap if you ever seriously believed it might be possible to arouse a man in the state I was in.’
His insinuations literally took her breath away, or rather the hard knot of anger that was gathering inside her chest was so huge that it all but choked her, making speech totally impossible. Inwardly she was fuming; and for the first time in her life Jessica realised why it was that some women felt the need to resort to acts of childish violence when confronted with an argument with a man. Right now there was nothing she would enjoy more than hurling the baking bowl at the arrogant dark head, but fortunately she managed to retain just enough sanity and self-control to withstand the impulse.
Turning her back on him, she took off her protective apron and said curtly, ‘I’m going to wash up and then I’m going upstairs to get ready. If you prefer to drive to Justine’s on your own, I quite understand.’
She could tell from the sound of his voice that his mouth had hardened, even without turning to look, and she shivered to realise how intimately she must have observed him on a thousand unrealised occasions to know with such certainty what physical expression any certain nuance in his voice represented.
Two hours later they were all ready. Both boys were dressed in clean T-shirts and jeans worn over their bathing trunks, since Lyle had explained that his sister’s garden possessed a small although unheated swimming pool. Lyle himself was wearing close-fitting stone-washed jeans in an indeterminate colour somewhere between olive and stone with a matching shirt, the sleeves rolled up and the buttons unfastened halfway down his chest.
Jessica was the last to appear downstairs, to be greeted by a malely impatient ‘Hooray’ from James.
She now knew exactly why mothers were always the last to be ready, having had her own preparations constantly interrupted by cries of ‘Where are my new jeans/T-shirt/favourite socks?’
Now she was ready however, and her aqua cotton jeans and matching T-shirt drew a totally unexpected and slightly embarrassed compliment from Stuart, which she accepted gravely, hiding a tiny smile at James’s robust and brotherly, ‘It’s soppy telling girls that they look nice.’
She turned automatically to look at Lyle, her smile fading as she saw that he was frowning. For a moment she had almost forgotten their passage of arms in the kitchen. Deriding herself for ever having expected him to share in her covert amusement, as though they were in fact two adults intimately united in amused pride of their offspring, she hurried over to the refrigerator extracting the soufflé and deftly placing it in the coolbag.
‘Why’s it got that paper round it?’ James asked curiously, watching her, listening as she explained the purpose of the grease-proof collar.
Lyle was the last to leave the house, and Jessica fully expected him to walk over to his own car once he had locked the door.
She unlocked her car and waited while James and Stuart put their towels in the boot, and was just about to get in when she realised that Lyle had joined them.
She hesitated, torn between offering to let him drive and the wilful urge not to. Why should she go out of her way to placate him? To do what he as a man no doubt expected her to do? It was her car, she reminded herself sturdily, inwardly acknowledging as she swung her door open that had they not had that quarrel earlier, she would probably never have even thought twice about offering to let him drive.
Pushing down the back of her seat she helped the boys clamber into the back, and then got in closing the door and starting the engine.
Lyle, who had been standing by the boot, got into the passenger seat without any comment. It was impossible to tell from where he had been standing whether he had expected to drive or not, but Jessica suspected that he must have done. In her experience very few men could endure being driven by a woman, especially when that woman was the man’s wife. Even so, he made no comment as she backed out of the drive and turned the car in the right direction.
As she had predicted, having the hood down produced a deliciously cooling breeze, which since she had already taken the precaution of restraining her hair did not cause her any inconvenience.
They had the narrow country roads almost entirely to themselves, the boys keeping up a steady flow of chatter for the first few miles, although Lyle was completely silent. When she had the opportunity to take her eyes off the road and dart a brief glance at him, Jessica was chagrined to discover that he appeared to be fast asleep, his head turned away from her, his body moving easily with the car, his long legs stretched out it in front of him.
‘Dad’s gone to sleep,’ James commented, confirming her own suspicions.
So much for her determination not to let him drive! Almost she was grinding her teeth, resenting the way he seemed to have got the better of her. The childishness of her thoughts almost made her smile. What a ridiculous way to behave! She was supposed to be an adult; mature; her research and qualifications such that she of all people ought to have been able to anticipate and avoid the hazards of emotionally explosive situations, instead of which she appeared to be acting like a text-book case designed to reveal what the male sex commonly held to be the weaknesses of the feminine psyche. Frowning slightly, Jessica remembered how smugly superior she had felt in the past whenever Andrea had indignantly related to her how easily David could upset and irritate her. But Andrea was vulnerable because she loved David, and she, Jessica, had long ago seen how potentially dangerous and threatening loving a man could be to a woman who wished to retain her independence and self-respect. Love involved giving, bending, becoming pliant and responsive to another’s needs and desires. And wasn’t it because of that, and the terrible emotional devastation that could be wrought when one person ceased to love another, that she had turned away from the modern romantic ideal of love and turned instead towards the past and its more prosaic and firmer-founded alliances based on less ephemeral bonds?
She shivered, goosebumps puckering her skin even though she was not really cold.
Lyle woke up just as they were turning into Justine’s drive, stretching slowly and then sitting up. Had he really been asleep, or had he guessed why she had insisted on driving and pretended to be asleep accordingly?
Unless she asked him she was never likely to know, she reflected wryly as she stopped the car and got out.
She was just helping the boys out of the back when Justine appeared, a burly, deeply tanned, fair-haired man at her side.
Watching them together as Oliver greeted Lyle and then hugged both boys, Jessica was struck by the very evident affection that existed between them, something she had not expected from Justine’s offhand manner of mentioning her husband whenever he came into the conversation.
‘And this is Jessica?’
‘Ah ha, saving the best for last?’ Oliver grinned at her and then looked at Lyle asking, ‘Will I be safe if I kiss her?’
‘From me, yes,’ Lyle drawled in response, smiling mockingly at his sister as he added teasingly, ‘from Justine, I’m not so sure.’
For the first time since she and Lyle had married Jessica felt excluded; alien; overwhelmed by a deep sense of melancholy she was at a loss to understand.
She had got what she wanted from their marriage, and more; the boys’ affection for her was an added bonus. So why was she feeling so bereft?