Faith - Lesley Pearse [93]
‘Please don’t go on and on about this,’ he could remember her saying, her face stubborn and cold. ‘I can’t help it that there isn’t much work in Edinburgh for you. I know you don’t like the idea of me working at the casino. But one of us has got to bring some money home or we can’t eat or pay the rent. So you’ll just have to put up with it.’
Back then Stuart had only been able to look at the problems from one viewpoint, his own. He was in fact such a dyed-in-the-wool male chauvinist that he thought men had a God-given right to make all plans and decisions, and that a woman’s role was merely one of support.
Jackie got him out of that way of thinking. She used to laugh at his old-fashioned ideas and challenge them. She once said to him, ‘Hasn’t it ever occurred to you that you drove Laura into another man’s arms? She was doing her best for both of you, but you threw it back in her face because she hurt your ego. Wise up, man, or you’ll end up with some doormat of a woman who will bore you to tears.’
Stuart smiled wryly to himself as he hammered the last tack in the roof and collected up the tools to take back to Meggie. He’d ended up without even a doormat of his own. A life spent avoiding permanent relationships because he equated them all with hurt.
He wasn’t such a tough guy after all.
8
‘Good to see you again, Stuart. I thought you were stuck permanently on the other side of the world.’ Roger Davies beamed welcomingly as he opened the door. ‘Come on in, I’ve got us a few beers in, it will be good to catch up again.’
As Roger led the way into the huge kitchen at the back of Pembroke Villas in Kensington, Stuart was pleased to see everything was still much the same as when Jackie was living here. He had helped with the construction of adding a conservatory to the already large room because Jackie wanted guests to be able to lounge on settees in comfort while she was cooking.
The greenery from the garden had grown considerably and draped itself over the glass roof, the sofas were shabby now, and there was more clutter than in the old days. But it had retained some of Jackie’s artistic flair along with the character and sense of comfort and conviviality she had been so keen on.
Stuart had already explained to Roger on the phone that he hadn’t heard of Jackie’s death until his return to the UK, and that he’d been to see Belle and Lena. Roger appeared to have moved on considerably for he didn’t linger on the sadness of Jackie dying, and hardly mentioned Laura’s trial. He was more interested in talking about sailing, which he’d recently taken up, and said he was considering retiring early and going to live in Spain.
Just as when he visited Belle, Stuart had no intention of revealing his views on Laura, only to get yet another perspective on the events. He was also genuinely anxious to see Roger for his own sake, as they’d always got on well in the past.
It was a bit of a shock to find him so aged. Stuart knew he had to be around fifty-seven, but he looked far older than that. The little hair that remained was white and he had a big paunch and bags under his eyes. He looked nothing like the blond, blue-eyed Adonis he’d been when Stuart met him twenty years ago.
‘It’s nice to be here again,’ Stuart said, sitting down on one of the sofas. ‘We had some good times in this kitchen.’
‘I think that’s why I’m so reluctant to sell,’ Roger said as he got a couple of beers from the fridge. He stood still in the middle of the kitchen, looking around him. ‘It certainly doesn’t make a lot of sense for me to rattle around alone in a house of this size. But I’ve got so much stuff and it’s a daunting prospect to have to sort it all out and get rid of it.’
‘That’s the one and only advantage of keeping on the move,’ Stuart said. ‘You don’t get to hoard anything. But I’m beginning to think it’s time I settled down somewhere. I can’t roam for ever.’
They chatted and laughed for a couple of hours, about mutual friends, old times and the property market and drank a large number of beers. It was only