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He didn’t say anything else, but Lissa was conscious of an icy ache of depression that stayed with her all evening. When they eventually went to bed she deliberately turned her back to Joel, keeping well to her own
side of the mattress. She thought she felt him touch her hair but she refused to turn round, and eventually the mattress shift as he turned out his lamp. It was hours before she managed to fall asleep her mind churning sickly. Perhaps she was making a mountain out of a molehill … after all just because Joel had once dated this Marisa, it didn’t mean she was the love of his life. Try to keep a sense of proportion, she told herself, but the fear would not go away and neither would the feeling that Joel had cooled towards her. He was still pleasant, but there was no warmth, no hint of teasing intimacy in the occasional duty kisses he gave her when he went out, and by Friday, Lissa was dreading the coming ordeal of Saturday’s dinner party.
On impulse on Friday afternoon she asked Mrs Fuller if she would keep an eye on the girls, explaining that she wanted to buy a new dress. The housekeeper had already promised to look after them on the Saturday evening and Lissa had no qualms about leaving her with them. They enjoyed her company as much as she enjoyed theirs.
She had already been through her wardrobe and had found nothing there that would give her the confidence she felt she so badly needed, and so she decided she would go up to London. She arrived just after two and headed straight for Knightsbridge, determined to find herself a dress that would show the as yet unknown Marisa Andrews that she was no insignificant dreary little mouse. Joel had left the house that morning after breakfast saying that he had some business to conduct and not to expect him back until early evening. He hadn’t said exactly where he was going and Lissa had found his unusual reticence chilling.
Trying to concentrate on the task in hand she hurried into Harvey Nicholls. Two hours later she emerged feeling light-headed with success and slightly guilty over the amount of money she had spent.
Her dress was very plain, long sleeved and high necked in fine wool crepe, fitting snugly over her waist and hips and then flaring out into a slightly bias cut skirt, but the simplicity of the design was more than compensated for in the rich dense blue colour of the fabric. It was a dress cut by a master hand for a woman who enjoyed being a woman and in it Lissa felt confidently sure of her femininity and appeal.
She had been lucky enough to get shoes to go with it, black suede with blue heels and satin ribbons, a touch of frivolity to offset the plainness of the dress.
She had just emerged into the street when she felt someone touch her shoulder. Swinging round, she saw Simon Greaves.
‘Good heavens … what a coincidence!’
‘I’ve just been to see a potential client,’ he told her. ‘I couldn’t believe it when I saw you. I thought you were immured in the depths of the country.’
‘I came up to do some shopping.’ It was hard to believe that she once thought herself attracted to him. Compared with Joel he seemed lacklustre somehow.
‘Enjoying marriage, are you?’ There was a nasty little bite to the words, and Lissa was faintly surprised by it, but when he suggested they chat over a cup of coffee, she could think of no reason for refusing without being impolite and so she allowed him to guide her towards a small coffee house.
They were given a table in the window and once they had been served Simon started to ask her again how she had settled down in the country. He looked disbelieving when she said she was enjoying it, telling her, ‘I got the distinct impression that you were being rather railroaded into this marriage. You know, Lissa, I miss you,’ he added, covering her hand with his own. Since she could not snatch it away without causing a fuss, Lissa let it lie there, feeling her irritation towards him growing. ‘Come back to my place this afternoon,’ he cajoled. ‘We can talk there.’ The way he looked at her warned Lissa that talk wasn’t all he had in mind and she felt instantly angry. Did he really think she was the sort of person who would contemplate breaking her marriage vows for something as shallow as a brief sexual fling? As she fought down her anger, she felt a prickle of awareness run down her spine. Someone was staring at her. She lifted her head and looked through the window. There was no one there. Shaking it, she told herself that she would have to stop being so over-imaginative and then turned to tell Simon in no uncertain terms that she was not interested in what he was proposing. They parted less than amicably. A cold, frigid bitch, he had called her. Once she would have believed him, but now, thanks to Joel she knew better. Joel! Her heartbeat quickened as she thought about him, and suddenly she couldn’t wait to get home. If only she knew what was making him so cool towards her. She froze almost in her tracks, other shoppers bumping into her. Dear God, what if Joel had guessed the truth. What if he suspected that she loved him and he was keeping her at a distance because he did not want any deep emotional involvement with her? She bit her lip in sudden anguish. Was that it? Had she stumbled on the truth? If so, what was she to do? She could only play the game by Joel’s rules, she decided as she made her way home. She would have to be as cool to him as he was to her so that he would not be burdened with an emotional commitment he obviously did not want. Unwanted love could be a burden and an embarrassment she acknowledged. Perhaps Joel feared that she would demand more of him than he could give and so had decided to hold himself aloof from her as a warning. She thought about the dress she had just bought with the express intention of showing herself off to her best advantage, and swallowed hard. She would have to pretend it was one she had had for some time. Pride stiffened her determination. From now on she would do nothing … nothing that would betray how she felt. She would be as cool and distant as Joel.
Luckily he was not in when she got back and she was able to take her purchases upstairs and put them away. He came in while she was watching the news on television, looking sombrely formal and almost chillingly forbidding. The expression on his face was close to the one of her nightmares, and her heart quailed as she looked at him.
‘Busy day?’
‘Yes … And you?’
Were they really reduced to this … to these banalities, she wondered miserably, contrasting them with the discussions and conversations they had shared with such enthusiasm not so very long ago.
‘No … not really.’ She wasn’t going to tell him about her trip to London. He would want to know why she had gone, and that was something she wasn’t going to tell him now.
She looked across at him, dismayed by the coldness in his eyes, conscious of a leashed tension about his movements. Was it purely because of her, or was it something to do with the fact that tomorrow they were dining with his old girl friend?
‘I’m going out.’
The harsh anger in his voice cut coldly through her frail defences, chilling her, and she shivered.
‘When will you be back?’
‘I don’t know.’ The curt dismissal in his voice hurt.
‘What about dinner?’
‘If I’m not here then start without me,’ he told her derisively, striding towards the door, slamming it on his way out. She listened to his footsteps dying away and then the sound of his car engine firing, standing tensely where he had left her until that too faded. She then went into the kitchen pinning a bright smile to her face as she greeted the girls and Mrs Fuller.
Louise wanted to know where Joel had gone.
‘He had to go and see someone about business,’ she told the little girl, wondering as she did so, rather bleakly, how many times in the months and years to come she was going to repeat that phrase.
The physical consummation of their marriage, the tenderness Joel had shown her then, which should have boded so well for their marriage, seemed only to have widened the gap between them.
Feeling thoroughly depressed, Lissa went upstairs into her bedroom and opened her wardrobe door, staring miserably at the blue dress she had bought with such fervent determination to draw Joel’s attention to her.
Joel did return in time for dinner but he was withdrawn, curt to the point of aggressiveness whenever she talked to him so that gradually her questions ceased and a tense silence filled the room.
