A Passionate Man by Joanna Trollope Page A

given. He wanted his father’s love in the same way, and he had always had it. He had it now. His father had, today, been demonstrably affectionate. But he had also shown that he was full of another kind of love, full of it. Archie plunged his fork into a mound of garden rubbish and flung it to the top of the bonfire.
    â€˜Jealous bastard,’ he said to himself. ‘Childish, shameful, jealous bastard.’
    Thick, unecologically sound, blue-grey smoke uncurled itself slowly into the air and filled Archie’s eyes with the blessed excuse for tears. Mikey came drifting up through the gauzy air and held out his closed fists.
    â€˜What have you got?’ Archie said, smearing his jersey sleeve across his eyes.
    Mikey opened his fists and revealed a pound coin in each.
    â€˜One for me and one for Imo. I’m holding on to hers because she thought it was chocolate.’
    â€˜From Grandpa?’
    â€˜No,’ Mikey said. ‘From Mrs de Breton.’
    Archie looked unhappily down at the fat golden coins.
    â€˜Did you like her?’
    â€˜Of course,’ Mikey said.
    â€˜Why?’
    Mikey looked away, his face contorted with the impossibility of describing his susceptibility to her charm.
    He said uncertainly, after a while, ‘I liked her earrings.’
    Archie held his arms out.
    â€˜Come and give your old da a hug.’
    He lifted Mikey up so that his rubber-booted toes bumped against his knees. Mikey put his arms out stiffly behind Archie’s head, still gripping the money.
    â€˜I’m going to save up for a guinea-pig. One of the ones with whirly bits in its fur.’ He bent his head back to look into his father’s face. ‘You can share it if you like.’
    â€˜He’s wonderful with the children, isn’t he?’ Clare said, rinsing wine glasses at the kitchen sink and gazing out of the window. ‘Perhaps if I’d had a baby, Robin wouldn’t have left.’
    â€˜He would, you know. He’d have left just the same and it would be worse for you, now, with a baby.’
    â€˜Nothing could be worse,’ Clare said.
    Liza was stretching plastic film over leftover helpings of lunch.
    â€˜Clare, you are not to talk like this—’
    â€˜I swore I wouldn’t,’ Clare said. ‘I absolutely swore. But listening to Marina at lunch made me so depressed and sick of myself. I mean, you simply can’t imagine her letting life get her down, can you? I thought she was amazing. And she looked so wonderful. How old do you think she is?’
    Liza, who was full of the same envious admiration of Marina, said she supposed about her mid-fifties.
    â€˜But she was so sexy. Wasn’t she? I mean, you and I will never be that sexy. We never have been. Have we?’
    Liza was impelled to say that she thought Archie found her sexy, but stopped herself in the nick of time because it struck her that, whatever he felt, she didn’t feel herself to be sexy. She picked up a cloth and began to dry the glasses Clare had washed.
    She said in a very sensible voice, ‘She’s much more exotic than us. And sort of international. And rich. Being rich is supposed to be very sexy.’
    â€˜And all that suede, and gold jewellery. And her wonderful shoes. I bet they were Italian. Liza, did you notice Andrew could hardly keep his hands off her?’
    â€˜Of course I noticed.’
    â€˜Is that what’s the matter with Archie?’
    Liza began to put the polished wine glasses on a tray.
    â€˜Well, it is a bit unhinging—’
    â€˜Telling me,’ Clare said. ‘She filled me with dissatisfaction. You’re so lucky, she might become your mother-in-law and give you lunch at the Connaught and lovely presents. She looks that sort of person. Robin’s mother can’t see anything wrong with Robin. It has to be my fault he left. That’s what she thinks.’
    â€˜Marina understood about Thomas,’ Liza said.