Pagan Adversary

It was inevitable that when she sat down with the newspaper and a cup of coffee while Nicky played on the carpet at her feet, Alex’s picture should be the first to leap out at her. And, again, inevitably, it was the gossip column, and he wasn’t alone. He was sitting at a table in a restaurant or a night club—Harriet didn’t recognise the name anyway—and the girl beside him, smiling radiantly at the camera had her arm through his and her head on his shoulder.

Her red head on his shoulder, Harriet discovered as she read through the piece that accompanied the photograph. Alex, it said, was in London on business and lovely model Vicky Hanlon was just the girl to help him unwind from his busy schedule.

After an unctuous dwelling on Vicky Hanlon’s physical attributes which would have had even the mildest Women’s Libber spitting carpet tacks and reaching for the telephone, the columnist quoted her as saying, ‘Poor Alex leads such a hectic life. I just want to help him relax as much as possible.’

‘Yuck!’ said Harriet violently, dropping the paper as if it had bitten her. She marched down the passage to the bathroom and washed her face and cleaned her teeth thoroughly which, while a relatively futile gesture, nevertheless made her feel better.

She was increasingly on edge as three o’clock approached. Nicky had grown tired of his toys and demanded a story, and she was just following The Little Gingerbread Man with the Three Billy Goats Gruff when she heard the sound of a car door slam in the street below.

Her voice hesitated and died away right in the middle of the troll’s threat, and her whole body tensed. Nicky bounced plaintively and said, ‘Troll.’

She hugged him fiercely. ‘Another time, darling. Your—your uncle’s come to fetch you, and you’re going to have a wonderful time.’

She remembered what Alex had said the previous day about her sheltering arms and was careful to let Nicky walk beside her to the door as the buzzer sounded imperatively.

Her palms were damp, and her mouth was dry. She had brushed her hair until it shone, and the dress she was wearing, although simple and sleeveless, was the most becoming in her wardrobe, its cool blues and greens accentuating her fairness, and the very fact that she had chosen to wear it was evidence enough that she was on the verge of making a complete and utter fool of herself.

She made herself reach out and release the Yale knob and turn the handle.

There was a man outside, stockily built and swarthy in a chauffeur’s uniform, his cap under one arm, and accompanied by a middle-aged woman with greying black hair who looked nervous.

It was the woman who spoke. ‘Thespinis Masters—I am Yannina. I have come from Kyrios Marcos to fetch his nephew, the little Nicos.’ Her anxious expression splintered into a broad smile as she spied Nicky, who had relapsed into instant shyness at the sight of strangers and who was peering at them from behind Harriet’s skirt.

She crouched down, holding out her arms and murmuring encouragingly in Greek, and slowly Nicky edged towards her.

Harriet picked up his case and handed it to the chauffeur, who nodded respectfully to her.

‘Kyrios Marcos wishes to assure you that the boy will be returned to you on Sunday evening, not later than six o’clock,’ he said in careful heavily accented English.

‘Thank you.’ Harriet hesitated. ‘I—I thought he would be coming to fetch Nicky himself.’

The chauffeur looked surprised. ‘He is waiting below in the car, thespinis. If you have a message for him, I would be glad to convey it.’

Not, Harriet thought, the sort of message I have in mind. She forced a smile and shook her head, and stepped backward as Yannina took Nicky’s hand and began to lead him away. He looked back once and grinned and waved, and Harriet felt a lump rise in her throat as she shut the door between them.

This time, wild horses weren’t going to drag her to the window to watch them go.

So he’d decided to stay downstairs in the car, which was a delicate way of telling her not to read too much into a kiss. Had he sensed something in her untutored, unguarded response to what he would regard as quite a casual caress that had warned him it might be kinder to keep his distance?

The thought shamed her to the core. She felt sick and empty, and although she tried to blame this on Nicky’s carefree departure, she knew she was fooling herself.

The unpalatable truth she had to face was that every nerve, every pulse beat in her body had been counting away the hours, the minutes, the seconds before she saw Alex Marcos again. She knew too that the ache beginning inside her now was deeper and more wounding than mere disappointment or injured pride, and she remembered Manda’s warning, and was frightened.

CHAPTER THREE (#ud9536143-a3ea-5e4d-99c3-ed754e340c77)

HARRIET felt pleasantly tired as she walked back towards the house late on Saturday evening. She had done all the things she had promised herself to do, and had managed to fill her day too full for thought, even treating herself to the pure luxury of afternoon tea at a hotel.

When Becca had been carrying Nicky, she had once laughingly remarked that when you were pregnant, every second person you met seemed to be in the same condition. Paradoxically, Harriet thought, when you were alone, everyone else seemed to be in couples. But then London had always been a bad place in which to be solitary.

But she didn’t have to be alone, she told herself. If and when Nicky went to Greece, she would find a flat to share with girls of her own age. There were plenty advertised.

She opened the front door and walked into the hall, to be pounced on by one of the downstairs tenants, looking severe. ‘Three times!’ she announced with a kind of annoyed triumph. ‘That’s how many times the phone has rung for you in the past hour and a half, Miss Masters, and you not here!’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Harriet in bewilderment. ‘Was there a message?’

Mrs Robertson produced a slip of paper. ‘You’re to ring this number and ask for this extension. And now if I might get back to my television programme,’ she added aggressively as if she suspected Harriet of being in league with the unknown caller to keep her from the last few minutes of ‘Dynasty’.

Harriet dialled, and was answered from the switchboard of a famous London hotel. Faintly she gave the extension number, thinking frantically, ‘Nicky—my God, something’s happened to Nicky!’

Alex Marcos answered so promptly that he might have been waiting by the phone. Her heart gave the oddest bound when she heard his voice, and then she was aware of something else—background noises which were quite unmistakably Nicky screaming with temper.

She asked in swift alarm, ‘Is he ill?’

‘His health is perfect,’ Alex Marcos said grimly. ‘I wish I could say the same for his disposition. He seems to have been thoroughly spoilt. Last night, Yannina managed to get him to sleep with difficulty. This evening it has been quite impossible. Everything she has tried with him has failed. He merely screams all the louder and cries for you.’

‘He’s not at all spoilt,’ Harriet said indignantly. ‘I really don’t know what else you expected. He’s far too young to take such a complete change in his environment in his stride. He’s in a strange room with strange faces round him, and he’s frightened.’

‘You have missed your vocation, Miss Masters. You should clearly have been a child psychologist,’ he drawled. ‘Did it occur to you to warn Yannina that he might react in this way?’

Harriet sighed. ‘I honestly didn’t know. He—he went with her willingly enough. And I tried to explain that it was a little holiday….’

He said tightly, ‘Very well, Miss Masters, you are absolved. He is, as you say, a very young child, and he is deeply distressed. If I send my car for you, will you come to him?’

Harriet swallowed. ‘Of course.’

She heard his phone go down, and replaced her own receiver.

She went upstairs to the flat and stood looking round rather helplessly, wondering what she should do. She didn’t know whether or not she should pack a bag with some overnight essentials. Nothing had been said about her staying the night with Nicky, and perhaps she would just be expected to get him calm and off to sleep before she was chauffeured back here again.

In the end, she compromised by tucking some clean undies and her toothbrush into the bottom of her biggest shoulder bag.

The car was at the door almost before it seemed possible. She would have preferred to sit in the front with the driver, but she was gravely ushered into the back, and even offered a rug to put round her, which she declined.

It had all happened so fast that she hadn’t time to be nervous or consider the implications of what she was doing, or not until now. Sitting alone in the car’s unaccustomed luxury, she tried to compose her thoughts and emotions, reminding herself over and over again that she was only seeing Alex Marcos again because Nicky needed her, and that her concern must be for him.

She even began to wonder whether Alex might be having second thoughts about taking Nicky to Greece, with the prospect of nightly scenes to contend with.

The suite Alex occupied was on the second floor of the hotel, and as soon as Harriet left the lift, she could hear Nicky roaring.

The chauffeur led her along the corridor and knocked deferentially. Alex opened the door himself. He was casually dressed in close-fitting dark slacks and a loose sweatshirt, and in spite of his ill-temper, he looked more attractive than ever, Harriet thought, her stomach tying itself in knots.

She said insanely, ‘We should have called him Macbeth!’

He stared at her. ‘What in the name of God are you talking about?’

‘It’s the play,’ she said quickly. ‘By Shakespeare. Macbeth murdered sleep in it, when he murdered Duncan.’

His mouth twisted. ‘I imagine my unfortunate neighbours in the adjoining suites may well be contemplating the same solution. There have already been discreet enquiries from the management, you understand.’ He shook her head. ‘I never knew a child’s lungs could have such power!’