‘Did you really love each other?’ Simon looked pale and uncertain.
‘Very much,’ she assured her son. He might not have the security of legitimacy, of knowing the warmth and love of a real family, but at least she would not rob him of the knowledge that he had been conceived in love. ‘That was why I left him, Simon, because I loved him so much, and that is why he was so angry with me when he came here, because he loved me and he thought I had betrayed him with another man.’
‘But you didn’t, and he didn’t marry that Mary,’ Simon told her, adding, ‘I know he didn’t because Rob Harrison told me that he wasn’t married and that he’d only just come back to live here. He was talking about him you see and when he said his name I recognised it, and I wanted to know more.…’
Philippa’s heart ached. Simon had known who his father was and yet he had never talked to her about him, just as she had never mentioned Scott to him.
‘Do you still love him?’ She saw the hope building up in Simon’s eyes and shook her head, hating herself for what she must do. ‘I don’t think so, Simon. It was all a long time ago.’
‘But he might still love you,’ Simon pressed
. ‘He isn’t married. If you told him about me?’
Poor Simon, how could she explain? ‘He wouldn’t believe me, Simon, he’s changed. He hates me now.’
‘But he wants us to stay here. I heard him say so.’ Simon looked at her stubbornly.
‘Not because he loves me. If anything he hates me. I hurt him very badly when I left, Simon,’ she told him steadily, ‘and when people hurt us we want to hurt them back, you know that.’
‘If he wants to hurt you he couldn’t have loved you all that much in the first place.…’
Unwittingly Simon had put his finger on the small ache that still lived inside her and which had grown to mammoth proportions whilst she listened to Scott’s bitterly vitriolic comments. Had Scott ever really loved her as she had loved him or had he simply convinced himself that he had because she was there and they were both lonely?
What did it matter now? It was all in the past, and the gentle caring man she remembered no longer existed.
‘If you hadn’t ridden that bike illegally we wouldn’t have to stay here,’ Philippa pointed out dryly, ‘What were you doing?’
‘I managed to fix it and Tommy offered me a ride for doing it. He said that no one ever used that road, and that it was perfectly safe. They called me chicken when I refused.’
He shrugged thin boyish shoulders, narrow in depth despite their width, the childish ribs clearly defined beneath his thin t-shirt. He grew so quickly, already out of the jeans and t-shirts she had bought only three months ago. He looked pale, too, compared with the village children, she had noticed, and she remembered what his headmaster had said about him doing better in a small school.
‘I’d like to stay here.’ He looked at her guilelessly, but Philippa wasn’t deceived.
‘We don’t have much option,’ she told him dryly.
’No, I wonder why he wants you to stay?’
So that he can humiliate me and make me suffer as he once did, Philippa could have told him, but she didn’t want to burden Simon with her own dark thoughts. She could tell that he was fascinated by the subject of Scott and could she really blame him. The discovery of his father’s existence was no doubt a heady experience, and she warned dampeningly, ‘Don’t get any silly ideas, Simon, and please promise me that you won’t tell anyone that Scott is your father.’ She saw his face and said gently, ‘It’s for your sake as much as mine.’
‘Because you think he won’t want me?’
‘Something like that.’ How could she explain again that she doubted that Scott would believe him. ‘It’s all in the past now and better forgotten.’
‘But I’m not in the past. I’m here and he’s my father.’
‘Simon.…’
‘Oh, it’s all right, I won’t say anything. I’m going to bed.’
He stamped upstairs, but not before she had seen the quick sheen of tears in his eyes. Dear God, if she stayed here what was it going to do to her son? But what option did she have? If she tried to leave she knew that Scott would have no compunction at all about carrying out his threat. There was no way she could afford to pay for the damage to his car, and she shuddered a little as she remembered Simon telling her how Scott had had to swerve into the tree to avoid hitting him. Simon was lucky that he wasn’t lying in hospital right now, and she only hoped he appreciated that fact.
She was up early, sleep being impossible, and sat down to write some letters. Her flat she could easily sub-let, but for how long? She had no idea how long Scott intended to keep her here. At the back of her mind, only half acknowledged, lay the fact that Simon now knew who his father was and had made it clear to her that if it were possible he would like to form a relationship with him. She didn’t pretend it was going to be easy—the chances were that if Scott did discover the truth and believe it he would still reject Simon, but did she have the right to deprive Simon of that one chance of getting close to his father? And who knew, in discovering the truth Scott might find a release from the burden of bitterness he obviously still carried around with him.
There was a telephone in the cottage, mercifully still connected, and she used it to phone her boss and explain that she wasn’t coming back. As she had expected he was shocked and inclined to protest, but in the end gave way, knowing that she was right when she pointed out that there were at least half-a-dozen other girls in the firm who had the potential to take her place.
‘Best secretary I’ve ever had,’ he grumbled when she explained that she had decided to stay in Yorkshire. ‘But if you’ve made up your mind—–’
‘Simon wants to stay and—I’ve been offered this job.’