Page 57 of A Good Heart is Hard to Find
Jason was back in a sulk, after all my hard work too, but whether that was because he felt his nose had been put out of joint by Dante’s arrival on the scene, or because he was still jealousof Max’s (putative) visit, I didn’t know.
It was a hot night for the Barbie phone: Orla booked two Marilyn Monroes and a Gorillagram.
On the Friday I arose mid-morning after a hard night’s work and, feeling surprisingly nervous, attired myself in Festive Springtime Black to await the return of the rover.
And waited … and waited … and waited.
I’d eaten a mushroom and black olive pizza, twoapples, and a small bunch of green grapes before Max’s BMW sports car finally pulled up outside the cottage – or as near to it as he could get, seeing Jane’s car was taking up the whole verge in front, and my car and Eddie’s van were occupying the parking space at the end of the garden.
I wasn’t sure where Eddie’d got to, unless Mrs Bridges was measuring him again for the rainbow Rasta hat andmatching jumper she was knitting for him, but he had briefly met Max once and they could not be said to have clicked, so I expected he would keep out of the way.
Eddie didn’t bother me much when he was here, apart from having long hot soaks in my bath, singing Bob Marley songs in a pseudo-Jamaican accent, and depleting my food stores.
When I finally heard the car I opened the front door andwatched Max walk up the path towards me, thinking how déjà vu it felt. Strangely familiar … familiarly strange.
I hadn’t actually stood back and looked objectively at him for years, but suddenly I saw him as a stranger might.
He was above medium height and slender, although he may go stringy in a year or two like Clint Eastwood, and his dark curly hair was now more grey than black. The loose,silky-looking grey suit he was wearing might have been Armani, and was certainly rather formal for the occasion, though he wore an open-necked shirt with it.
A Californian tan made his hazel eyes look a bit startled,but probably not as startled as mine when I spotted the revolting little manicured beard he had grown since I’d last seen him. It looked like it had been razor-cut out of black plasticand stuck on.
I hadn’t had such a shock since I’d followed the advice in one of those alternative women’s health books, the ones that urged you to get familiar with your private parts using mirrors, and discovered something so sea-urchin it would have looked more appropriate attached to a coral reef.
He probably assumed I was numbed with emotion at the sight of him, for while I was still staringat his facial adornment in horrified amazement he swept me into a comprehensive and expensively scented embrace.
The feel of the beard touching my face, the unfamiliar aftershave, and the snaky slither of his suit against me all seemed very peculiar and not quite right: like one of those dreams where everything is suddenly just a bit off, and you can’t quite put your finger on what it is … but– oh my God, yes! Aunt Susie’s turned into a triple-headed Martian!
Somehow I seemed to have got out of the habit of Max. It was embarrassingly like being over-enthusiastically kissed by a stranger, and an unattractive one at that, since I loathe beards.
And it wasn’t only embarrassing: it was downright disconcerting when I realized I was finding his embrace no more exciting than Jason’s.
Less, in fact.
And certainly much,muchless exciting than being crushed against Dante Chase’s hairy, half-naked and admirably broad torso when he yanked me out of that cupboard … although that, of course, was more the excitement of fear. Sort of.
Max did not seem to be sharing my feelings, or even noticing my lack of response.
‘I’d forgotten how beautiful you are!’ he muttered,kicking thefront door shut behind us, and shifting his grip purposefully. ‘Let’s go to bed, Cassy – we can talk later.’
I fended him off by using both elbows (and I have sharp elbows). ‘Later, Max? I understood you could only stay a couple of hours. Didn’t you tell Jane you were flying back to America tomorrow?’
He looked surprised and hurt. ‘Yes, I’ll have to get home tonight because there’s still somuch to arrange. But I thought you’d understand – and there’s still time for me to show you just how I’ve missed you.’
Unfortunately for him I seemed to be having a complete understanding breakdown, even when he smiled in the way that would once have turned me to putty in his hands. But either it had lost its magic, or guilt over Rosemary’s haunting legacy was freezing my heart.
That ridiculousbeard didn’t help either: it gave him the old-goatish look of a satyr.
Still fending him off, I tried to explain how I was feeling: ‘Max, I haven’t seen you for months, so everything seems very strange, somehow, and – and wrong. Especially when you’ve come pretty well straight from Rosemary’s funeral!’
‘Wrong? Isn’t it a bit late in the day to start feeling guilty?’ He let me go abruptly, lookingirritated. ‘This isn’t much of a welcome! It was very difficult for me to get away at all, you know, when there was so much to do before I fly back. Now I’m starting to wish I hadn’t bothered!’
‘You don’t understand, Max: Rosemary left me a letter saying how she’d always really felt about our affair, and the relationship between you, and it’s deeply upset me. I need you to read it, and tell mewhether or not any of it is true.’
‘I don’t need to read it, she left me a copy, too,’ he said impatiently. ‘But I didn’t expect you to take any notice of her spiteful ramblings. I confess, I simply didn’t realize howbitter she felt about things: I always thought she accepted the situation.’
‘But she wasn’t just bitter, she was obsessed! Andyoutold me she didn’t really mind, that you’d cometo an agreement together!’
Max sighed long-sufferingly, and sat down on the sofa. ‘Must we talk about it? Yes, I did think Rosemary and I understood each other very well, but she must have been mad to have had us followed and photographed like that.’
