They had supper in stony silence, Briony getting up the moment the meal was over to stack the dishes in the dishwasher and tidy up the kitchen. When she went back to the living room Kieron was fast asleep, his features oddly vulnerable and more like Nicky’s than ever. Telling herself that it was merely that resemblance that tugged so insidiously at her heart, she hardened it against him and went upstairs. Let him sleep down there if he liked! She wasn’t going to wake him.
She heard the phone ringing through a fog of sleep, dimly, without actually waking up, and in the morning there was a note propped up against a milk bottle telling her that Kieron had been called out by the paper.
‘Thanks for the TLC,’ he had scribbled sarcastically on the bottom of it, and she crumpled it up angrily, and flung it in a wastepaper basket.
What was the point of Kieron insisting on marrying her so that he could be a father to Nicky, when even at weekends he went to work, she thought savagely, refusing to acknowledge that it wasn’t merely the little boy who suffered during his father’s absence.
As much to work off her bad temper as anything else she dressed in old jeans and a tee-shirt, spending most of the morning weeding one of the large flower beds, while Nicky toddled about close by chattering happily to himself. He was an imaginative child, and listening to his mysterious monologue Briony felt a renewal of all her love for him.
By lunchtime her back and legs were aching from bending over, and after tidying up the weeds she took Nicky in for a rest, while she showered.
The sound of a car in the lane brought her rushing to the window, her hair still damp as she pulled on a thin silk robe, but it was Matt who was walking up the garden path, not Kieron.
She ran downstairs to let him in, too suprised by his unexpected arrival to question what he was doing there. If anything he looked more dejected than ever.
‘It’s Mary,’ he told her unhappily when Briony had made him a cup of tea. ‘She’s threatening to leave me again. She complains that I’m boring and that I never take her anywhere. But how can I? Kieron works us like galley slaves. Our circulation has shot up these last few weeks, but he says he won’t rest until he’s made the Globe the best selling paper in the country. I’m so tired out when I get home that all I want to do is fall asleep, but Mary just can’t seem to understand.’
He looked almost ready to burst into tears, and Briony had to suppress a wave of irritation. No wonder Mary was able to bully him so easily—his apathetic lack of self-confidence was enough to drive a saint mad.
‘Look, you must explain to her how busy you are,’ Briony told him. ‘Either that or find yourself a job that will be less taxing.’
‘You think like she does, don’t you?’ he accused bitterly. ‘You’ve changed, Briony. You used to understand, but now you’re just like all the others. Perhaps I ought to act more like Kieron,’ he said wildly, grabbing hold of her before she could stop him. ‘Perhaps I ought to just take what I want.’
‘Matt, let me go at once!’ Briony demanded, more cross than frightened. ‘Don’t be silly. I haven’t changed at all. I just think that now you and Mary are back together you ought to try and make the best of it.’
She sensed that the anger had gone out of him, but instead of releasing her, he bowed his head on her shoulder, his voice thick with tears. ‘Oh God, Briony, I’m sorry.’
‘You will be, if you don’t get out of here right now,’ Kieron said icily from the door. As Matt stepped awkwardly back Kieron’s eyes moved slowly over Briony’s thinly clad body, missing nothing, his face rigid with an anger that made her stomach churn in protesting fear.
Matt stumbled towards the door after one look at Kieron’s set face, his eyes sliding uncomfortably away from Briony’s as she willed him to explain what had happened.
‘And if you so much as set one foot here again, I’ll personally tear you limb from limb!’ Kieron warned him harshly opening the door.
When Matt had gone, the silence in the kitchen seemed to stretch like taut wire, and only when they heard his car engine fire did Kieron look contemptuously at the empty tea-cups and drawl sardonically:
‘I’ve heard of people enjoying a cigarette afterwards, but tea? Typical of Matt, though. Is that really what you like, or is it just that with Matt you feel safe because you’re the boss?’
When Briony didn’t speak he gritted at her, ‘My God, what are you trying to do? Prove to me that I’m not the only man who can father a child on you? Well, if that’s the case, I’d better make sure that we’ll never know who is responsible for the second one!’