Hand On Heart: Sequel to Head Over Heels by Sara Downing Read Free Book Online Page B

do?’ Mark asked.  ‘You’re welcome to stay with us, of course.’  The significance of Margaret’s suitcase on the hall floor had only just dawned on him.  There was a silent ‘for now’ implicit in his offer, and Mark knew, much as he loved his mother, he wouldn’t want her to outstay her welcome, and nor would he expect Alex to have to home her for any longer than necessary. 
    In his furious state, Mark had ideas of heading off to London, sorting his father out, and making him take Margaret back – if she’d have him.  Ludicrous as that plan was, the idea of his parents not being together just couldn’t really enter his line of vision.  They had to be together, they were his parents, plural, not singular, and with one another was where they belonged.
    ‘Thank you, dear, you’re very kind.  I would like to stay for a few days if that’s alright.  I need to clear my head, you see.  Decide what I’m going to do.  He says this affair thing is all over now, and if it really is, then I just wish to God he’d never told me.  I mean, men are men, aren’t they, they all have their little indiscretions, and what you don’t know can’t hurt you, can it?  Why would he feel the need to confess, if it’s all done and dusted?’ 
    Alex almost fell off her chair with disbelief.  Surely no woman in her right mind could condone that sort of behaviour in a marriage?  Not in this day and age?  Acceptance of an affair and that level of resignation to the fact that ‘men were men’ belonged to another era as far as she was concerned, an era even before Margaret and Bruce’s time, although she had to concede that the older generation was still much more prepared to sort out a marriage than hers was, even a marriage like this with some fairly hefty cracks in it.  Margaret, like so many women over the years, seemed prepared – at least once she had come to terms with the affair – to turn a blind eye to her husband’s dalliance, to forgive and forget.  Once her anger had died down, of course, which could be a while yet. 
    There was a certain stoicism to his mother’s anger, Mark thought, and although he might not agree with the ‘what you don’t know can’t hurt you’ philosophy, he knew his mother would come through this, most likely with the upper hand over Bruce, even though she was in bits at the moment.
    Mark left his mother in Alex’s care and went into the study to phone his father in private.  He came back half an hour later looking exhausted.
    ‘Mum,’ he said, sitting down at the table and taking Margaret’s hand.  ‘Dad’s very upset.  I know you think he deserves to be, and yes, he does, but he’s adamant he’s not seeing this woman anymore.  He’s wracked with guilt about the whole thing.  He said that when she decided to go back to her husband to try and make their marriage right again, he realised just how silly he’d been.  He wants you back, Mum, if you’ll have him.’
    Margaret burst into loud, painful sobs again.
    ‘I’m just not sure I want him,’ she moaned.  ‘Not yet, anyway.’
    Alex and Mark exchanged a glance.  Both seemed resigned to having a house guest for a while.  It wasn’t quite the start to the summer holidays they had hoped for.
     
     
     
     

Four - Alex
June 2015
     
    ‘Hugo, hi, how are you?  It’s so lovely to see you.  Been way too long.’  Alex greeted her friend warmly; it had been a long time since they had met up and she genuinely regretted the lack of contact during recent years.  She calculated that the last time she had seen Hugo would have been at Peter’s funeral.  Most of that awful day was still a blur to her, and her priority had been survival, both her own and the children’s, not catching up and making small talk with old friends.
    Hugo had been out of the country when she and Mark married, and so had been unable to come to their wedding, which Alex also regretted.  It was crazy really, London wasn’t that