Free The Courtyard by Marcia Willett Page A

‘Stupid people deserve what they get.’
    â€˜Is it stupid to trust your wife?’ mused Simon, folding his hands behind his head and watching the patterns of evening sunlight on the carpet. ‘An awful lot of men do it.’
    â€˜Which only goes to reinforce my opinion of the average man.’ Gillian giggled suddenly. ‘You have to laugh though, don’t you? He thinks I’m with Lucy. A week with Lucy in the sun was my little present out of the proceeds. He simply couldn’t imagine that I’d want a holiday. To him, Nethercombe is paradise. Do you know he hasn’t had a holiday for years? Since he was a kid.’ She shook her head. ‘Amazing.’

    â€˜I still don’t agree that he’s stupid,’ protested Simon. ‘Gullible, trusting, generous – ’ Gillian snorted – ‘kind …’
    â€˜Oh, for goodness’ sake! You make him sound like an ad in a lonely hearts column. “Kind, gentle, trusting landowner …” ’ She burst out laughing and finished her wine. ‘Anyway, anyone who prefers cold wet windy Devon to all this is definitely stupid.’ She lifted the bottle and tilted it. ‘The wine’s all gone’
    â€˜Too bad,’ said Simon.
    Gillian ran her finger over his bare skin and started to giggle again.
    â€˜Honestly,’ she said. ‘Henry in bed. He hasn’t got a clue …’
    â€˜Oh, shut up, Gillian.’ Simon pushed her hand away and got off the bed. He felt a sudden sense of revulsion at using Henry’s money to cuckold him and he had no intention of adding to it by discussing his prowess – or lack of it – between the sheets. ‘It must be dinner time. I’m going to have a shower.’
    Gillian made a face at his departing back and turned over, burying her head in the pillow. In moments she was fast asleep.
    Â 
    NELL, CURLED UP IN the corner of the sofa, was only pretending to read her book. Her head bent, she was watching John who sat in the chair opposite. He, unconscious of her scrutiny, stared unseeingly at the fire and made no pretence of reading the paper which had fallen on to his lap. He felt himself to be living in a nightmare from which there was no waking and even Martin’s confidence and optimism could no longer buoy up his spirits or disguise the truth.
    It was two years since he had joined Martin and now, with every day that passed, he wished that he’d followed Nell’s advice and stayed in the Navy. A few weeks before, he’d made the terrible mistake of going to a submariners’ reunion dinner and the sight of all the old faces, the jargon, the jokes, had undone him even more than the day-to-day terror of wondering how they were going to survive. Why, oh why hadn’t he listened to Nell? The Navy was his place, where he belonged. What on earth had made him think that he’d
want to be outside where people talked another language and life was played with a different set of rules?
    He’d stopped off to see his mother in Bournemouth on his way back from Gosport and wheedled enough money out of her to pay the rent on the flat and to keep his bank manager quiet for a while. If she had been disappointed it might have been easier to bear but her resignation merely indicated, as it had all down the years, that it was no more than she expected from him. He ground his teeth in humiliation at the memory of it and Nell’s hands clenched involuntarily on her book.
    â€˜You look terribly tired. What about a hot bath and an early night?’ she asked. Anything to break the train of thought that brought him such obvious misery.
    The gentle question was more than he could bear.
    â€˜Don’t speak to me as if I were a child!’ he cried, hearing in her voice the same quality of pity that he’d seen on his mother’s face. ‘I’m not Jack! Don’t patronise me!’
    â€˜John.’ She