Faith - Lesley Pearse [130]
She felt so positive at that time that she redecorated the flat, bought a new carpet and curtains, had a telephone installed, and no one could force her to claim maintenance from Greg now she wasn’t receiving benefits. She still missed Stuart a great deal, but the pain had become more of a dull ache, and she told herself that their break-up had been inevitable because she was so much older than him.
Because she felt happier, Barney was happier too. At the weekends she could afford to take him to nice places, and she was looking forward to the summer holidays and seeing Meggie and Ivy. She wondered what they would think of her ‘Afro’ perm, and her new daring, way-out clothes. Robbie claimed she looked like a teenager.
Grateful as she was to Robbie for a change in fortune, he puzzled her. He could be so kind and affectionate, taking a great deal of interest in her and Barney, yet there was a part of him which was deep, cold and unfathomable.
She hadn’t wanted to start up a sexual relationship with him again, but she soon found that Robbie was a master at getting what he wanted, while acting as if he was doing it for her.
He telephoned her most evenings, and sometimes came round in the early evening for a meal with her and Barney before going on to the casino. When he came to the flat he was very sensitive towards Barney, playing and chatting with him like a visiting relative, and he never even hugged or kissed her. He remained like this for about a month, until one evening she made some joking comment about how she wouldn’t mind being taken out for a drink or a meal.
The following day he sent her some flowers with a note asking her to come and have lunch with him at the Caledonian Hotel. He stayed there overnight every other Friday, and in view of what had happened the last time, she wasn’t keen to go. But he was employing her, and he’d also been her friend when she most needed one, so she felt unable to refuse.
The lunch led to them spending the afternoon in bed again, and from then on it became a regular fortnightly date.
She liked going out to lunch with him; he was charming and entertaining and it was good to get dressed up and eat nice food and drink good wine in a sophisticated restaurant. Yet at the same time it irritated her that he slotted her into his life like a visit to the barber or the dentist, and that he behaved as if the sex afterwards was some kind of reward for her.
He was without a doubt the worst lover she’d ever had. He was far too fast and frantic, selfishly taking his pleasure without any thought for her. If he’d been any other man she would have pointed this out, and unless there had been a dramatic improvement she would have dumped him. But there was something about Robbie that suggested it would be very unwise to criticize him. She couldn’t afford to lose such well-paid work, and she was also just a little afraid of him.
It was in June, during one of these afternoon stints, that Robbie told her he’d cancelled his contract with the Livingston studio.
Every other man Laura had slept with became softer and more affectionate after sex. It was then that they often talked about their past, their hopes for the future, or even their family. But Robbie always became brusque, almost as if he was steeling himself not to reveal a tender side. He often sat up in bed and opened his briefcase to read reports or totted up rows of figures, and it was at that point that she always had a shower and went home.
But the day he dropped the bombshell about the studio he had been cuddling her, and it was she who sat bolt upright in alarm.
‘What about me?’ she asked.
He lay back on the pillows and lifted one hand to run a finger down her naked breast. ‘Don’t worry, babe,’ he smiled. ‘You can work at the studio in Glasgow.’
He looked almost handsome that day for there had been a heatwave a few days before and his face was suntanned,