Free The Older Man by Laurey Bright Page B

stay, Daddy?” Toby came into the room, his feet dragging a little with weariness.
    “Because she has to go home sometime, Toby. We mustn’t keep her too long.”
    “Can’t she stay for tea?” Ellen asked.
    Grant looked at her, and she said swiftly, “Yes, of course I can. I’ll help you feed the children and put them to bed.”
    When that was accomplished, and the children had dropped almost immediately off to sleep, Grant and Rennie had coffee in the kitchen.
    “I’ll call you a taxi,” Grant said. “You must let me pay your fare for this morning, too.”
    It wouldn’t be any use arguing, she knew. “There’s no hurry.”
    “Do your people know where you are?” Grant asked her suddenly.
    “Yes, of course. I left a message.”
    “Good. I don’t know what I’d have done without you. The last few days have been a nightmare. On top of everything else, getting those two settled for the night has taken me hours. Making sure they wash behind their ears and clean their teeth, and finding the right pyjamas. And the first night I scoured the house for Ellen’s rabbit while she screamed till she was blue — ” He shook his head wearily. “Jean had a point when she used to tell me I didn’t know what it was like.”
    “I’m glad I could help.”
    He said, looking at her with tired eyes, “Yes. I think you are. There are good people in the world.”
    “You sound as though it surprises you.”
    He shrugged. “Sometimes one forgets.”
    “More coffee?” she asked as he emptied his cup.
    He stared at it for a moment. “No, thanks. It’s been a strange sort of day.”
    “Do you want to talk about it?”
    He shook his head and got up. “I can’t ask you to listen while I unload all my guilts and hang-ups.” He took his cup to the sink and stood with his back to her, staring out the window at the slowly dying sunlight on the garden.
    “You can if you want,” Rennie said, pushing back her own chair and going to stand beside him. “If it would help.”
    Almost as if talking to himself, he said, “Jean had a — relationship with a man. I never knew him, though I’d gathered there was someone. He was there today. No one had told him. He read about it in the paper. That’s a hell of a way to find out.”
    “Yes. But it’s not your fault. Did he — imply that it was?”
    “No, nothing like that. He didn’t even say that they’d been close. Toby recognised him as ‘Mummy’s special friend’. But I’d guessed already. I knew by the look on his face. That’s how I should have felt. She was my wife. Once.”
    “Did you mind?” Rennie asked softly. “That he was there?”
    “No. He had a right. More than I did, perhaps. But he had no — status. It was awkward for him. He didn’t want to come back here. Understandably.”
    “It must have been difficult for both of you.”
    “I wasn’t married to Jean any more. We hadn’t been close since before Ellen was born. But today I felt very close to her. As though I could — talk to her. Tell her — “
    Rennie waited a moment. He was standing with his hands clenched, staring out at the sunset.
    “Tell her what?”
    “How sorry I was,” he said. “That things had gone wrong for us. That I’d failed her, not made the sort of life for her that she pictured when she married me. That all the bright promise had gone to ashes in the end.”
    “I’m sure she knows.”
    He turned to face her. “Do you believe in life after death?”
    “Don’t you?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Did Jean?”
    “I don’t think we ever discussed it. There were a lot of things we never discussed. Maybe that was the trouble.”
    “What did you say to the children about that?”
    “That when people die they can’t be with us any more, that I don’t know where they go, though some people say they go to heaven, which is a very beautiful place where everyone’s happy and there’s no pain and no sickness. And that wherever she is, I’m sure she’s thinking about