‘I said I don’t care about the clothes!’
From the tone of his voice, Georgie seriously didn’t want to explore what precisely was concerning him, so she looked at him in mute silence. ‘Can I make you a cup of coffee…or something?’ she asked eventually.
‘Coffee?’ Pierre went to the fridge and spoke grimly into it. ‘I think I need something a lot stronger than a cup of coffee!’ Which involved a generous amount of whisky, some soda and ice, which cleverly popped out of a dispenser in the freezer door.
At which point he sat on the sofa next to her and gave her a long look that was only marginally warmer than the ice in his glass.
‘Is a habit of yours to answer other people’s phone calls?’ he opened.#p#分页标题#e##p#分页标题#e#
Georgie felt the jaws of a trap yawn open under her feet, but she greeted this remark with an apologetic smile. ‘I know. It’s awful. An awful habit. It’s because there’s no receptionist at our school. At least there hasn’t been one for ages. The last girl left and since then we’ve spent our budget on more important things, which means that the phone calls come directly through to the staff room and it’s up to whoever’s in there to field the calls. So when I hear a phone ring, I just tend to pick it up without thinking.’
‘Which pretty much describes how you do most things, Georgie. Without thinking. Without thinking you fabricate some ridiculous story about the two of us having a relationship…without thinking you hare up to London to try and suck me into your crazy scheme…without thinking you grab the telephone the minute it rings without any notion whatsoever for respecting someone else’s privacy—’
‘I admit my common sense sometimes lags behind a bit—’
‘Sometimes?’ He swigged a mouthful of his whisky and soda and looked at her acidly. ‘Well, the outcome of your common sense lagging a little bit behind is that my mother is now convinced that that little fairy tale you spun for her is one hundred per cent true. Why else would you be answering my telephone at ten-thirty at night if we weren’t involved in some heady relationship? Seems you told her that we’d been meeting up now and again over time but you didn’t want to say anything to her because, apparently, it was all too new? I’m not sure when these so-called meetings were supposed to take place, but no doubt you have the answer to that mystery!’
‘Some weekends,’ Georgie admitted in a small voice. She stared down into her cup of coffee and prayed that the ground might open and swallow her up, possibly flinging her back in time to before she had recklessly opened her big mouth and dug herself into a hole.
‘Some weekends…’ Pierre repeated flatly and she nodded.
‘I airbrushed over the details,’ she mumbled. ‘Just sort of implied that it had been all very clandestine and exciting. I know I shouldn’t have done it but your mother was crying a bit, saying how much she wished that you and her were closer, that she would die without ever seeing any grandchildren born, that she didn’t understand those women you had brought to see her in the past…’
‘And, finding your tender heartstrings tugged, you decided that the kindest thing you could do would be to concoct a fantasy about us!’ He didn’t much care for the thought of his mother crying. She wasn’t a crier. In fact, he remembered her as being full of life, laughing a lot, drawing people around her because of her exuberant personality. She hadn’t been born in England but she had married his father and however much he had disapproved of their irresponsible lifestyle, he had to admit that she had integrated perfectly into the country life. Had, in fact, become something of a pillar of society.
‘I’m not a monster,’ he told her briefly. ‘I can see you might have been tempted to soothe my mother, but she’s fallen for your story hook, line and sinker.’ He sat back and momentarily closed his eyes.
‘She must have been very upset when you told her the truth,’ Georgie said quietly. ‘You have every right to be annoyed…’
‘Annoyed?’ He opened his eyes and stared at her incredulously. ‘Annoyed? Annoyed is something you feel when you’re waiting for a letter and the postman arrives an hour late! Annoyed is not being able to find where you’ve left your house keys!’
‘Oh, all right,’ Georgie snapped, ‘I get the picture. Enraged, then. Is that a better word?’#p#分页标题#e##p#分页标题#e#
Pierre looked at her narrowly. ‘Why do you imagine I would rescue you from the discomfort of letting Didi down yourself? After all, you’re the one who got us both into this mess in the first place.’