GHOST LOVE

CHAPTER THREE

"My tummy hurts," he grumbled to himself. I told my mother that I didn't want to go to school. Why is it that I can't just hang out at home with you?

Tara gave him a firm explanation, "Because I have to go to work," while secretly checking his pulse and temperature. "Because I have to go to work," she said. Both appeared to be typical. She had a sneaking suspicion that Frank's pain was more imagined than it was real, but she still felt compassion for him because she could recall the many times she had experienced symptoms very similar to Frank's.

"Are we going to stay with that lady for the weekend?" was the question that was asked. As Joan hurried them outside to the Mini Cooper, Vanessa demanded an answer. "Where does she make her home?"

"I don't know," Joan finally admitted when she was cornered. "Out in the countryside, I believe."

"The country?" ('The country?') Instantaneously, Frank perked up and smiled. "On a farm?" he asked with a hopeful breath.

Frank's very obvious love of the countryside and its inhabitants led Joan to believe that he would be happiest in some kind of outdoor life connected with farming. Despite the fact that it was ridiculously early to be worrying about careers for the twins, Frank's love of the countryside and its inhabitants led Joan to this conclusion.

‘Not a farm, I don’t think,’ Joan told him.

‘But we can go, can’t we?’ Vanessa pleaded. ‘We never go anywhere. Everyone else in our class is always going away.’

Allowing for childish exaggeration, Joan knew the criticism was well founded. The twins’ school fees meant that there was very little money left over for luxuries such as holidays, although they did spend weekends with her mother and aunt and uncle occasionally. These visits were not always a great success; her mother had never been able to fully conceal her disapproval of the twins’ birth, and all the time they were in her company Joan was on tenterhooks in case her mother made some unguarded reference to Alex.

As disapproving as she had been of Joan herself, it was for Alex that she had reserved a bitter, intense hatred which had not waned with the years.

And yet in many ways she was more to blame than Alex, Joan reflected tiredly. By the time she had realised the true nature of her feelings for him it had been too late for her to turn back. Lisa’s mother was rarely at home; she had a partnership in a business in Canada and spent much of her time there, and Joan with adolescent logic, fathoms deep in love, had somehow managed to dismiss her almost entirely from her mind, not attempting to hide her love for Alex.

With the added wisdom the intervening years had brought Tara could see things more objectively from Alex's point of view; married to a woman several years his elder, a woman who spent most of her time away from home leaving him alone, a taxing, struggle business to run—was it so very surprising that he had given in to the impulse to take the solace she had so innocently offered?

Perhaps not, but surely he must have known so much better than she had that there was no future for them? Surely he should have had the sophistication and worldly wisdom to call a halt before matters finally got out of hand? That was what she could not forgive him—that he had carelessly disregarded the consequences of allowing a mixture of boredom and s****l desire to overcome the barriers which should have existed between them.

She had been seventeen to his twenty-six—not a vast difference in terms of years, but in terms of experience…

‘Mummy, we’re here!’ Vanessa announced shrilly, drawing her attention to the fact that she had been about to drive past the school.

After leaving the twins Joan drove straight to the studio. The moment she walked in she sensed that Smith was in one of his difficult moods. He grunted without looking up from the camera he was engrossed in. A model Joan recognised from previous sessions was sitting tensely on a bentwood chair, the atmosphere in the hot studio thick with tension.

Summing up the situation at a glance, Joan shrugged out of her coat and filled the kettle in the small kitchen attached to the studio. Without saying a word she placed a mug of coffee in front of Smith and went across to chat to the model. She was nineteen, with several successful ad campaigns behind her, and Joan knew from the schedules that she had come in to sit for some practice shots for a Vogue feature.

‘Is he always like this?’ she asked Tara in an agonised whisper. ‘I remember last time I came here…’

‘It’s just his way,’ Joan soothed her. ‘He’s an artist with the camera and a perfectionist.’

The other girl grimaced. ‘It’s at times like these that I wish I’d done as my parents wanted me to and gone on to university!’

Smith ’s brusque, ‘If you two have quite finished on the girl talk, perhaps we can get some work done,’ put an end to their conversation.

It was lunchtime before Joan even had time to draw breath. Smith was in the kind of mood where he seemed almost driven, and it was both mentally and physically exhausting trying to keep pace with him.

At two o’clock Smith finally announced irritably that he supposed they ought to break for lunch, and Joan went thankfully to buy them some sandwiches before he changed his mind. It wasn’t unusual for him to insist on working right through the day without stopping, and the hungry grumbling of her stomach had been distracting her attention for almost an hour.

When she got back to the studio the model had gone and the phone was ringing. The ‘Do not disturb’ sign on the darkroom door meant exactly what it said, as she knew from experience, and reaching for the phone she dumped her sandwiches on the table.

The crisp, cool tones of the twins’ headmistress sent tremors of fear jangling along her nerves.

"The twins," she began urgently, but Mrs. Faith was obviously used to dealing with anxious parents, because she said to Mrs. Cara in a reassuring manner, "Nothing to worry about, Mrs. Cara, it's just that Frank has been complaining of stomach ache all morning." After a thorough examination by our Matron, we have been unable to identify any issues with him. Most likely, all he needs is a little bit of mollycoddling.

As Joan laboriously examined the reassuring words in an effort to determine whether or not they contained a covert reprimand, a delicate flush of color rose beneath her delicate skin. The fact that she couldn't be at home with the twins was one of the most difficult challenges she faced as a single parent raising her children. She had never made another attempt to get in touch with Alex after the first time when Lisa's mother had laughed in her face at her naiveté. Since there was no one else who could support the twins besides herself, she had no choice but to find work. But that didn't make the guilt go away, she thought as she hung up the phone after assuring Mrs. Faith that she would be on her way to the school as soon as she finished the call.

Did every working mother go through this excruciating agony each and every time her child cried for her and she was unable to be there for them? It seemed as though nature had programmed women to feel and carry the burden of guilt.

She did not dare to risk upsetting Smith, so instead she quickly penned a note, placed it in a prominent location on his desk, and dashed out the door to her Mini Cooper.

Frank was waiting for her in the sick bay of the school, and he possessed a wan and listless appearance. Vanessa was there with him at the time, and she jumped up from her chair and rushed over to Joan while sobbing loudly and saying, "Frank has been sick, and he was crying, but I've been looking after him." Vanessa was with him at the time.