Night Over Water - Ken Follett [97]
Diana did not know how to answer him. “There’s no need for a row,” she said softly.
“No need for a row? When is there need for one, then, if not now? You run off with this little pillock, without saying goodbye, leaving me a silly bloody note....” He took a piece of paper out of his jacket pocket and Diana recognized her letter. She blushed scarlet, feeling humiliated. She had shed tears over that note: how could he wave it about in a bar? She moved back from him, feeling resentful.
The tea came and Mark picked up the pot. He looked at Mervyn and said: “Would you like a cup of tea poured by a little pillock?” The two Irishmen in the comer burst out laughing, but Mervyn glared stonily and said nothing.
Diana began to feel angry with him. “I may be bloody daft, Mervyn, but I’ve got a right to be happy.”
He pointed an accusing finger at her. “You made a vow when you married me and you’ve no right to leave.”
She felt mad with frustration. He was so completely unyielding. It was like explaining something to a block of wood. Why couldn’t he be reasonable? Why did he have to be so damn certain he was always right and everyone else was wrong?
Suddenly she realized this feeling was very familiar. She had had it about once a week for five years. During the last few hours, in her panic on the plane, she had forgotten how awful he could be, and how unhappy he could make her. Now it all came back like the horror of a remembered nightmare.
Mark said: “She can do what she likes, Mervyn. You can’t make her do a single thing. She’s a grown-up. If she wants to go home with you, she will. And if she wants to come to America and marry me, she’ll do that.”
Mervyn banged his fist on the table. “She can’t marry you. She’s already married to me!”
“She can divorce you.”
“On what grounds?”
“You don’t need grounds in Nevada.”
Mervyn turned his angry eyes on Diana. “You’re not going to Nevada. You’re coming back to Manchester with me.”
She looked at Mark. He smiled gently at her. “You don’t have to obey anyone,” he said. “Do what you want.”
Mervyn said: “Get your coat on.”
In his blundering way, Mervyn had given Diana back her sense of proportion. She now saw her fear of the flight and her anxieties about living in America as minor worries by comparison with the all-important question: Who did she want to live with? She loved Mark, and Mark loved her, and all other considerations were marginal. A tremendous sense of relief came over her as she made her decision and announced it to the two men who loved her. She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Mervyn,” she said. “I’m going with Mark.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Nancy Lenehan enjoyed a minute of jubilation as she looked down from Mervyn Lovesey’s Tiger Moth and saw the Pan American Clipper floating majestically on the calm water of the Shannon estuary.
The odds had been against her, but she had caught up with her brother and foiled at least part of his plan. You’ve got to get up very early in the morning to outsmart Nancy Lenehan, she thought, in a rare moment of self-congratulation.
Peter was going to have the shock of his life when he saw her.
As the little yellow plane circled, and Mervyn searched for a place to land, Nancy began to feel tense about the forthcoming confrontation with her brother. She still found it hard to believe that he had deceived and betrayed her with such complete ruthlessness. How could he? As children they had been bathed together. She had put Band-Aids on his knees, told him how babies were made, and always given him a chew of her gum. She had kept his secrets and told him her own. After they grew up she had nursed his ego, never letting him be embarrassed because she was so much smarter even though she was a girl.
All their lives she had taken care of him. And when Pa died she had allowed Peter to become chairman of the company. That had cost