Night Over Water - Ken Follett [46]
Carol-Ann looked up from Life magazine and said: “What?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“But you’re going to, aren’t you?”
He grinned. “How did you know?”
“Eddie, you know I can hear when your brain is working. What is it?”
He put his big, blunt hand on her belly and felt the slight swelling there. “I want you to quit your job. ”
“It’s too early—”
“It’s okay. We can afford it. And I want you to take real good care of yourself. ”
“I’ll take care of myself. I’ll quit work when I need to.”
He felt hurt. “I thought you’d be pleased. Why do you want to go on?”
“Because we need the money and I have to have something to do.”
“I told you, we can afford it.”
“I’d get bored.”
“Most wives don’t work. ”
She raised her voice. “Eddie, why are you trying to tie me down?”
He did not want to tie her down, and the suggestion infuriated him. He said: “Why are you so determined to go against me?”
“I’m not going against you! I just don’t want to sit here like a lumper’s helper! ”
“Don’t you have stuff to do?”
“What?”
“Knit baby clothes, make preserves, take naps—”
She was scornful. “Oh, for heaven’s sake—”
“What’s wrong with that, for Christ’s sake?” he said crossly.
“There’ll be plenty of time for all that when the baby comes. I’d like to enjoy my last few weeks of freedom. ”
Eddie felt humiliated, but he was not sure how it had happened. He wanted to get out of there. He looked at his watch. “I’ve got a train to catch.”
Carol-Ann looked sad. “Don’t be angry,” she said in a conciliatory tone.
But he was angry. “I guess I just don’t understand you,” he said with irritation.
“I hate to be fenced in.”
“I was trying to be nice.” He stood up and went into the kitchen, where his uniform jacket hung on a peg. He felt foolish and wrong-footed. He had set out to do something generous and she saw it as an imposition.
She brought his suitcase from the bedroom and handed it to him when he had his jacket on. She turned up her face and he kissed her briefly.
“Don’t go out the door mad at me,” she said.
But he did.
And now he stood in a garden in a foreign country, thousands of miles from her, with a heart as heavy as lead, wondering if he would ever see his Carol-Ann again.
CHAPTER FIVE
For the first time in her life, Nancy Lenehan was putting on weight.
She stood in her suite at the Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool, beside a pile of luggage that was waiting to be taken on board the S.S. Orania, and gazed, horrified, into the mirror.
She was neither beautiful nor plain, but she had regular features—a straight nose, straight dark hair and a neat chin—and she looked attractive when she dressed carefully, which was most of the time. Today she was wearing a featherweight flannel suit by Paquin, in cerise, with a gray silk blouse. The jacket was fashionably tight-waisted, and it was this that had revealed to her that she was gaining weight. When she fastened the buttons of the jacket, a slight but unmistakable crease appeared, and the lower buttons pulled against the buttonholes.
There was only one explanation for this. The waist of the jacket was smaller than the waist of Mrs. Lenehan.
It was probably a result of having lunched and dined at all the best restaurants in Paris throughout August. She sighed. She would go on a diet for the entire transatlantic crossing. When she reached New York, she would have her figure back.
She had never had to go on a diet before. The prospect did not trouble her: although she liked good food, she was not greedy. What really worried her was that she suspected it was a sign of age.
Today was her fortieth birthday.
She had always been slender, and she looked good in expensive tailored clothes. She had hated the draped, low-slung fashions of the twenties and rejoiced when waists came back into fashion. She spent a lot of time and money shopping, and she enjoyed it. Sometimes she used the excuse that she had to look right because she was in the fashion business,