LITMIR.BIZ

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kicked in: ‘She’s the ghastly woman on the PTA. Haven’t I mentioned her? Only been at the school a year and already making waves. She wants to overturn some ideas the committee have sanctioned. I had a message from Chairman Bob on my phone earlier and it’s been on my mind.’

      Pru turned back to her pillow, bored with anything to do with her son’s school and her husband’s dealings with it. ‘Oh. Poor you. Continue with the massage.’

      Francis closed his eyes in a prayer of silent thanks, and tried to get some control back into his shaking hands. He reached for the massage oil. It slipped from his grasp and fell on to the cream-and-beige patterned carpet, leaking a new pattern of its own.

      ‘Oh crikey, Dorothy’s carpet!’ He bent to pick it up, overstretched and slid off the bed himself, knocking the bottle over again.

      Pru peered at him. ‘What are you doing?’

      Francis was panicking. ‘The bottle. The oil. Dorothy’s carpet.’

      Pru was unperturbed. ‘Oh, for God’s sake. Forget about the carpet. It’s hideous anyway. Put it on the list of jobs that need doing.’

      He got to his knees with the oil bottle now safely in his hand. ‘Right.’ Standing, he found the lid and carefully screwed it on to the bottle. He walked to the bedroom door and opened it.

      Pru watched him as if he were mad. ‘Where are you going?’

      ‘I’m going to add this job to the list.’

      ‘Not now, you fool,’ she said, irritated. ‘It’ll wait till tomorrow. Carry on with the massage and then we can all get some sleep.’

      ‘Oh, I see. Right. Silly me. Massage it is.’

      He resumed his position and carefully added more oil to his palms.

      ‘Hmmm,’ murmured Pru. ‘You are very good to do this for me, Francis. I’m lucky to have you.’

      He continued in relieved silence until she started laughing, her body shaking under his hands.

      ‘Sorry, Pru. Is that tickling?’

      ‘No, no,’ she giggled. ‘For a moment there, I thought you might be having an affair.’

      *

      And now it was morning and he felt sick with guilt about the lie he’d told his wife, the first ever, and the affair he hadn’t even started yet. Would never start! What was he thinking? He got out of bed and observed the sleeping form of his wife. The woman who needed him. Trusted him. Relied on him. Eighteen years ago he had left his job and a good career for her. He was a well-qualified social worker. It was his true vocation. His calling. Francis had known he could make a difference to people’s lives. Then he met Pru.

      He had been in a case meeting at the local council offices when she had stalked in, slammed her briefcase on the table and demanded, ‘Which one of you is the head of planning?’

      She was tall, dark and handsome, and Francis had immediately fallen under her powerful spell.

      His colleague told her, ‘None of us are, madam. You’re in the wrong place.’

      ‘You won’t get rid of me that easily. This is the planning office.’

      ‘No, this is Social Services. The planning department is in the building next door.’

      ‘I was directed up here by the idiot girl on reception.’

      ‘You need to leave this building and go next door.’

      It took a while, but eventually she was persuaded that she had gatecrashed the wrong meeting. Picking up her briefcase, she had pointed at Francis: ‘You. Show me where the right bloody room is.’

      On their way to the building next door, she’d asked, ‘What’s your name?’

      ‘Meake – Francis Meake,’ he stammered.

      ‘Well, Francis, I’m indebted to you for helping me when I made a complete fool of myself. Let me take you for a drink by way of thanks. I hope you drink Scotch?’ She didn’t give him time to answer. ‘I’ll collect you from the car park at five thirty.’

      Within three weeks, to the astonishment of their respective friends and family, she had proposed and he had accepted. He loved the fact that, under her confident exterior, lay a woman who needed him. In return she loved him for his loyalty and gentleness. Here was a man who would never hurt her already wounded heart.

      A month later, he had worked out his notice and set about finding a home for the pair of them. His final pay cheque was just enough to pay the deposit on the engagement ring Pru had chosen for herself. She paid the balance.

      Her work as a commercial property surveyor was arduous and sounded very complicated. She had a good business brain, like her father and grandfather before her, but had no desire to get into the toy market: ‘I had enough of board games when I was growing up,’ she once told him. ‘I prefer to work in the real world.’

      She was a partner in her firm and very well respected. She worked long hours all over the country, but her goal was to open a New York office and grab some of the big bucks. It had taken her only five years to achieve that dream. Five years after that, she opened a Hong Kong office.

      Their wedding was plain and simple. The bride wore trousers. Her parents were happy for her but concerned for Francis’s welfare.

      ‘She’ll eat him alive,’ whispered Dorothy in the registrar’s office.

      Henry patted her knee and whispered, ‘She’s got what every working woman dreams of: a wife! Besides, I think he will be good for her. Pru needs someone steady.’

      They married early on a Monday morning in order to be sure of catching the afternoon flight to New York. Pru had several meetings lined up and rather than rearrange them, she’d decided to combine business with pleasure. When they returned on Thursday morning, it was to their four-bedroom, faux Georgian townhouse in Greenwich. Well, Francis returned to it. Pru went straight to the office to report on the business she’d secured in America.

      Francis revelled in his new role.

      Every night he would cook something healthy and delicious for his wonderful, powerful wife. Sometimes she’d come home late, but always with flowers or a scented candle, and always he forgave her. Sexually, he was inexperienced, but Pru enjoyed taking the lead in bed. They were both thrilled when Jeremy was conceived.

      Pregnancy didn’t suit Pru. She worked till her waters broke and was back at her desk within five days of the birth. Francis adored being a father. He was a natural. Night feeds, nappies, projectile vomiting – all were constant sources of fascination for him.

      He set up his own daily timetable. Up before Pru to prepare her breakfast and wave her off. The mornings were devoted to Jem and housework. The afternoons walking the pram to the shops. He loved taking Jem out in his pram. All the young mums cooed over the baby and marvelled at Francis’s maternal skills.

      ‘Your wife’s so lucky. My husband has never so much as changed a nappy,’ was a constant refrain.

      It was around this time that their sex life started to dwindle, though. Francis would be too tired after a long day with the baby and Pru felt she had done her bit in providing a healthy son. Nothing was ever discussed; with the passage of time the subject was simply forgotten.

      Francis had put all of this aside and barely acknowledged any sense of frustration – until Belinda came along.

      Belinda touched something in him, there was no denying it. Francis could not admit even to himself that it was his loneliness that made him susceptible to her charms. He wasn’t naturally gregarious or outgoing; all he’d ever craved was a family of his own. His mother had died when he was young, and his father, a GP, had employed a series of nannies and housekeepers to look after him. Though he hadn’t been neglected, he had missed out on a truly happy childhood. Much as he liked the Carew family gathering

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