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Sometimes he thought he had almost forgotten what real man-to-woman emotion was, questioning even if he had ever experienced it at all, and then something would remind him, some trick of his memory, a woman’s scent, a voice… a laugh… the unexpected glimpse of a half-familiar face, bringing it all back to him again.
In the early days he had often wondered what might have happened if things had been different, if he had been different, but even then his priorities had been set; they had had to be—his mother—and he had been younger too, his principles and beliefs far less flexible, his judgement of others arrogantly harsh. He had learned better since.
Why hadn’t that blasted woman rung? Time was running short. The Social Services were already nipping at his heels, issuing warnings and ultimatums.
Why the hell was he bothering anyway, disrupting his life for the sake of one small unknown eleven-year-old? Out of a sense of moral duty? Out of guilt because for the last ten years he had almost forgotten her existence apart from the obligatory Christmas cheque?
If the woman really wasn’t interested in the job then he would have to start going through agencies again.
He reached into his jacket and removed his wallet, flicking out the business card Elizabeth had given him on which she had written her home number. He would give her a ring… find out what was happening.
‘She hasn’t been in touch with you. Oh, that’s odd. I spoke to her today and she said she was going to ring you straight away,’ Elizabeth told him.
‘Look, why don’t you give me her number,’ Blake suggested, ‘or better still her address…? I’ll go round and see her…’
Elizabeth hesitated about disclosing Philippa’s details, but she knew enough about Blake to be able to trust him. ‘Yes, of course,’ she agreed. ‘Her name is Philippa Ryecart and her address is Green Lawn, Larchmount Avenue.’
Philippa Ryecart… Philippa.
As he thanked Elizabeth, Blake’s glance flicked back to the name he had just written down, noting the betrayingly heavy strokes he had used, as heavy as the hammer-strikes of his heartbeat.
A widow, Elizabeth had said. His mouth tightened as he remembered the careful way she had sketched in the story: the husband a failed businessman who had committed suicide, leaving his wife virtually destitute and alone.
Philippa, alone—and common sense warned him to be cautious, to wait, to think. This was something he had not been prepared for—had not anticipated.
‘No matter what happens, Pip will stay with him, she’s fiercely loyal to him. Too loyal in my view,’ Michael had told him during that long-ago Californian summer. He had told him other things as well—made him see himself in a completely new light… a very unflattering light—the same light that Philippa would see him in?
He reached for the phone and then put it down.
Perhaps it would save time, circumvent unnecessary delays if he went round to see her instead, he decided, ignoring the inner voice that mocked and taunted him.
He went upstairs to shower and change. He had bought the house already furnished; the previous owners had gone to live in Spain where they had no need or room for the heavy old furniture that clothed the house.
Its empty silence was faintly depressing. He wondered how easy it would be for Anya to adjust to it after the cramped smallness of the council flat. Easier, no doubt, than adjusting to her parents’ death.
He had dealt with many traumatised children, children who had suffered far, far more in their short, tragic lives than Anya would ever know, and yet something about her had reached out to him, not as a psychiatrist, but as a man.
Perhaps it had been something in her expression, some likeness to her mother, or perhaps it had been the look of resignation and hopelessness in her eyes, her unchildlike awareness of the decision he had almost made that her best interests would be served by allowing the state to take charge of her. Her best interests, or his?
In the future, would she bless him or curse him for making the choice he had? That, he already knew, depended very much on the woman he chose to look after her.
Elizabeth Humphries had assured him that Philippa was the right woman.
For Anya’s sake he could not afford to ignore that advice.
And that fierce unexpected upsurge in his heartbeat had of course nothing to do with the thoughts going through his mind and the memories they had stirred, but were simply the natural physical after-effects of a man of thirt
y-odd going up a flight of stairs too fast.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
‘MUM, what will happen during the summer holidays?’
Philippa tensed as she heard the anxiety in her elder son’s voice. As her fingers tightened around the telephone receiver she could picture him so clearly, that small frown he had when anything worried him crinkling his forehead, his eyes watching, waiting for her to say the magic words that would put his world to rights again.
Only he wasn’t a little boy any more, he was almost an adolescent, too old to deceive with ambiguities and well intentioned lies, no matter how much she might want to protect him.
‘Stuart Drayton says that when his uncle was made bankrupt his aunt and cousins didn’t have anywhere to live any more…’
