Tomorrow's Bride(4)

'Eventually, that's on the cards.' Some of her feelings were clearly  reaching him, for his arms slackened. 'Only this is what I'm going to do  first.' Later she recalled how implacable he had sounded.                       
       
           



       

'Go to Bangladesh?' At the time-inexplicably, she confessed in  retrospect-it had seemed incredible and even slightly ludicrous. 'Am I  to understand, then, that highly trained western lawyers are in demand  there? For heaven's sake!' she added scathingly, aware of little but the  desperate need to change his mind.

'It's not as a lawyer I'm going, though I doubt if the training will be a  handicap. I'll be going as administrator for the aid agency and to do  whatever is needed. I'm as capable of digging ditches and building huts  as the next man, if that's what I 'find is needed when I get there.'

'But why, Patrick?' She pulled herself away from him. 'That's what I can't understand.'

'Why?' His eyes narrowed as he watched her walk across the room, return  with her arms wrapped about her body in a despairing, hopeless kind of  way. 'Because I feel I want to put something back, for God's sake.  Surely that's easy enough to understand...?' 'No, I'm sorry, but I just  can't see it.' 'So all those times when you've reminded me how  privileged I've been all my life, when you've enjoyed all those little  digs at my expense-----'

'Those were-----' Aware of handling things badly, she still found it  impossible to adapt. "Those were quite simply jokes-you know they were.'

'Jokes,' he agreed grimly. 'But none the less true. I know how  incredibly lucky I've been, and now I think it's my turn to try to help  other people, if that doesn't sound too incredibly pompous.'

'You said it.' The words were out before she could stop them, and at  once she was overcome with a shame which made her long to deny them.  'Oh, I'm sorry.' She raked a distracted hand through her hah-. 'Of  course I didn't mean it.'

'No?' His expression was impassive, detached in a way that struck terror  into her heart, brought her back to the core of her need: the  determination to change his mind.

'But there's so much to be done in this country if you have a social conscience.'

'We're not talking about a social conscience. We're talking about a part  of the world where there is real, desperate need, Leigh. Don't forget  I've seen a fan: amount of that in South America, and Bangladesh is one  of the poorest countries in the world.'

'But-----' her voice was thick with unshed tears ' -but what about me?' This was the bottom line. 'What about me?'

'Oh, you silly little fool.' Quite miraculously his face cleared. With  two steps he had crossed to her, his arms were about her again, swinging  her above the ground, and his voice held relief. 'Surely you didn't  imagine...? Or maybe you did, because stupidly I didn't explain  properly. You don't imagine I'm going to leave you here, do you? You're  coming with me, of course. We're both going to Bangladesh.'

For just a few minutes it was possible to rest there, head above his  heart, dreaming, pretending, however briefly, that what he was  suggesting was possible. But then, wearily, she had to pull herself  away, distance herself from his power. 'But what makes you think,  Patrick- what possible grounds do you have for thinking- that I have the  slightest intention of going to Bangladesh?'

For a long time he stood there, arms at his sides, simply challenging  her, while she could hardly bear to look into his face. 'Because I want  you?' he suggested quietly in the end. Then, since she showed no sign of  answering, he went on, 'Can't you see, Leigh, what a worthwhile thing  it would be for us to do this together? After all, I'm not the only one  who has had advantages- every one of us here has privileges most people  can only dream of... I'm asking you to come with me, Leigh.'

At that moment there was something authoritarian about him, almost  paternal, as if he had little doubt that in the end he would compel her  to concede. She turned away before her judgement could be swayed, walked  into their bedroom and began to hang away some blouses she had ironed  earlier, very aware that he had followed, was lounging in the doorway,  intent and determined.

'I'm not coming, Patrick.' She spoke before glancing across at him,  knowing how much more difficult it would be to refuse if he wore a  certain very persuasive expression, then made a great play of adjusting a  silk blouse on its hanger. 'And even if I wanted to it would be  impossible for me to go so far with my mother's health as it is.' As she  had known it would, this remark caused him to sigh heavily and,  possibly because it was such a predictable response, she chose to see it  as a deliberate slight against her mother, ignoring the reality of the  problem which they had discussed many times and from every angle. 'Oh,  yes.' Did her voice perhaps sound the least bit querulous? 'It's all  right for you. It must be wonderful never to have known-----'                       
       
           



       

'You know what I think about that.' Which was undeniable, as was the  fact that for much of the time they had been in total agreement that  many of her mother's illnesses were, if not entirely imaginary,  certainly less serious than she liked to pretend, and likely to  evaporate completely if something came along to tempt her from them.

'Yes. I do know what you think.'

'Your mother has your father with her. It would be quite different if she were on her own.'

'You don't understand.' The unfairness of it all struck at her. 'How  could you have any idea what it's like to be an only child? But anyway,  this is all beside the point because I'm not going to Bangladesh-in the  first case because I'm convinced I'd be nothing but an encumbrance, and  in the second...' Her voice wobbled as the spectre of a future without  him wavered in front of her eyes; white teeth caught at her lower lip as  she forced herself to go on. 'I... notice you aren't showing a great  deal of interest in my piece of news.'

'No, I'm sorry. I was about to ask you about that.'

'I told you, didn't I, that Dr Acheson said he'd heard of something  which might suit me? Well, it's a post for a researcher at Westminster,  and if I want it the job's mine. I just met him and he told me.  Naturally I assured him it's exactly what I want. It's as simple as  that.'

'Is it?' All at once his nerves, his patience were beginning to show  signs of wear and tear. 'And what if I beg you to come with me? If I  tell you it won't be at all the same without you, that it's an  experience we ought to share together, something as worthwhile, as  tremendous as this? It's something we'll remember for the rest of our  lives, light-years away from a dogsbody doing tinpot research in the  House of Commons.'

The silence as they stared at each other seemed endless. Each of them  was angry, desperate with misery, disappointed that the other could be  so wrong, determined not to be the one to give way. When at last Leigh  spoke she made no effort to hide her weariness. 'I think that just about  says it all, don't you? What to me is a wonderful opportunity is  nothing at all to you. You couldn't have been more dismissive if I'd  said I was going to work on a supermarket check-out.' Her hurt and  mortification grew. 'All right, you go off to Bangladesh if you must,  ease your social conscience in any way that seems appropriate to you,  only, don't expect me to stand quietly on the sidelines while you  satisfy your burning ambitions.'

Recollection of those precise words caused more than a touch of shame  and embarrassment when she had cooled down. She hadn't meant them, and  taken purely at face value they could have indicated, to anyone who  didn't know her, that was, that her own ego was in dominant mood...

And Patrick, too, had an opinion about that. It was obvious in the  narrowing of his dark eyes as well as in his stony expression, in the  tightness of his jaw and lips. 'You're not hinting, are you, Leigh, that  I'm off on some kind of self-serving jaunt? If that is in your mind,  then...' His shrug was a mark of contempt which made her shrink. 'And as  for the idea that you might stand quietly on the sidelines... I have  far too much respect for you to think along those lines. You're not the  kind of woman I would ever see simply as an adjunct.' In spite of all  the contrary indications his voice was light, just a tiny undertow of  steel recognisable to someone who knew him as she did. 'So in that  respect you could hardly have got it more wrong. Not that it matters  now. Not in the very least.'

He turned away just then; she heard his quick footsteps in the adjoining  room, and a moment's silence. Silence, that was, except for the  agitated hammering of her heart against her ribcage, then the slamming  of the outside door. For a long time she just stood there, enduring her  misery, then she slumped into a chair and wept.