For the Sake of Elena (Inspector Lynley, #5)(89)

Unlike the previous evening, there was no shouting of children’s voices. Only a few moments of quiet in which he listened to the traffic passing on the Madingley Road and smelled the acrid odour of leaves being burnt somewhere in the neighbourhood close by. Then the deadbolt was drawn and the door was opened.

“Tommy.”

It was curious, he thought. For how many years had she greeted him in this identical fashion, just saying his name and nothing more? Why had he never before stopped to realise how much it had come to mean to him—such simplistic idiocy this all was, really—just to hear the cadence of her voice as she said it?

He handed her the toy. Along with a missing wheel, he noticed that the lorry’s bonnet bore a considerable dent, as if it had been smashed with a rock or a hammer. “This was in the drive.”

She took it from him. “Christian. He’s not making a great deal of progress in the taking-care-of-possessions department, I’m afraid.” She stepped back from the door. “Come in.”

He took off his overcoat without invitation this time, hanging it on a rattan rack just to the left of the front door. He turned to her. She wore a teal pullover with an ash-coloured blouse beneath it, and the sweater was smeared in three separate places with what appeared to be spaghetti sauce. She saw his glance take in the stains.

“Christian again. He’s also not making progress in the table manners area.” She smiled wearily. “At least he doesn’t offer false compliments to the cook. And God knows that I’ve never been much in the kitchen.”

He said, “You’re exhausted, Helen.” He felt his hand go up as if of its own volition and for a moment the backs of his fingers brushed against her cheek. Her skin was cool and smooth, like the untroubled surface of fresh, sweet water. Her dark eyes were on his. A pulse beat rapidly in the vein on her neck. He said, “Helen,” and felt the quick current of perennial longing that always accompanied the simple, mindless act of saying her name.

She moved away from him, walked into the sitting room, saying, “They’re in bed now, so the worst is over. Have you eaten, Tommy?”

He found that he still had his hand lifted as if to touch her, and he dropped it to his side, feeling ever the lovesick fool. He said, “No. Dinner got past me somehow.”

“Shall I make you something?” She glanced down at her pullover. “Other than spaghetti, of course. Although I don’t recall your ever throwing food at the cook.”

“Not lately, at least.”

“We’ve some chicken salad. There’s a bit of ham left. Some tinned salmon if you like.”

“Nothing. I’m not hungry.”

She stood near the fireplace where a pile of children’s toys leaned against the wall. A wooden puzzle of the United States was balanced on the top. Someone, it appeared, had bitten off the southern end of Florida. He looked from the puzzle to her, saw the lines of weariness beneath her eyes.

He wanted to say, Come with me, Helen, be with me, stay with me. Instead he said merely, “I need to talk to Pen.”

Lady Helen’s eyes widened. “Pen?”

“It’s important. Is she awake?”

“I think so, yes. But”—she glanced warily towards the doorway and the stairs beyond it—“I don’t know, Tommy. It’s been a bad day. The children. A row with Harry.”

“He’s not home?”

“No. Again.” She picked up the small Florida and examined the damage, then chucked the puzzle piece back with the others. “It’s a mess. They’re a mess. I don’t know how to help her. I can’t think what to tell her. She’s had a baby she doesn’t want. She has a life she can’t bear. She has children who need her and a husband who’s set on punishing her for punishing him. And my life is so easy, so smooth compared to hers. What can I say that isn’t base and blind and entirely useless?”

“Just that you love her.”

“Love isn’t enough. It isn’t. You know that.”

“It’s the only thing there is, when you cut to the bone. It’s the only real thing.”

“You’re being simplistic.”

“I don’t think so. If love were simple in and of itself, we wouldn’t be in this mess, would we? We wouldn’t bother to want to entrust our lives and our dreams into the safekeeping of another human being. We wouldn’t bother with vulnerability. We wouldn’t expose weakness. We wouldn’t risk emotion. And God knows we’d never make a leap of blind faith. We’d never surrender. We’d cling to control. Because if we lose control, Helen, if we lose it for an instant, God knows what the void beyond it is like.”

“When Pen and Harry married—”

Frustration seared through him. “This isn’t about them. You know that damn well.”

They stared at each other. The width of the room separated them. It might have been a chasm. Still, he spoke to her across it, even though he felt the uselessness of saying words that he knew had no power to effect any action, yet saying them anyway, always needing to say them, casting aside caution, dignity, and pride.

“I love you,” he said. “And it feels like dying.”

Although her eyes looked bright with tears, her body was tense. He knew she wouldn’t cry.

“Stop being afraid,” he said. “Please. Just that.”