Chapter 25
It wasn't until they were back in London and driving through the rainy city that David asked in a low voice pitch so that the driver could not hear him, 'When is it due?'
She didn't want to answer but after some time she muttered, 'June'.
David was silent for sometime, she could almost hear him thinking. Then he said, 'Have you made any plans yet? Will you marry the father?'
She shook her head, looking out the window, her pale profile rigid.
She hoped Davi d would stop asking questions but he quietly went on. 'Wasn't it serious Sharon? Just a brief affair, was that it?'
She laughed suddenly bitterly angry. 'Brief is the understatement of the year. It was one night. Only one night and this had to happen! Life is unfair'.
David looked stunned. No doubt he was shocked.He himself was not a man given to promiscuity and she sensed that he hadn't imagined that she would be either. Useless now to protest that it had been wildly out of character. That she had never intended for it to happen, that she bitterly regretted it.
'Dies the father know?' Sharon shook her head.
'Will you tell him?' and she shook her head again.
Another long silence, then, 'Do I know him?', David asked and she hesitated a fraction of a second too long. 'I do'. David said before she could answer, then too fast for her to see it coming, 'Is it Bryan?'
Her head swung and she looked at him in white face disbelief. How had he leapt to that conclusion? She hadn't given him any clues that she could remember. First Gerhard had guessed, now David, was she really so obvious?
David's mouth indented and he frowned. 'You were always a little too extreme in your reactions to him', he explained his guesswork on a sigh.'I wondered what you felt
Then when you both came back from Rome, there was something different between you two. I knew something had happened there. The air turned glacial anytime you were in the same room'.
She leaned back in the car, turning away to hide the gleam of tears in her eyes.
David was so sensitive, so perceptive. We by couldn't Bryan be more like him?
When they reached her flat,Davibd said, 'I'll see you safely upstairs', and murmured something to his driverin an aside too low for her to hear. As they entered the building, she heard the limousine drive off a d looked around, looking up at David frowning.
'Why have you sent your driver away?'
'I want to talk to you. I'll take a taxi home'.
Weariness in her voice, she said, 'Davibd please, I don't feel like talking about this tonight. I'll sort my problems out and let you know what I plan to do later this week's.
Davibd ignored her protests, followed her into the flat.
'Let me make you a hot drink- how about cocoa and hot milk?'
She put a hand to her mouth, nauseated by the mention of the drinks, ran to the bathroom.
When she came back, she apologised. 'At the moment, anything seems to make me throw up'.
'You poor girl. Sit down, I've made some tea', David said. He had explored her kitchen and found some crackers too and made her eat one. They sat and sipped their tea together in silence It was very weak. A straw coloured liquid.
'Have you decided yet whether you are going to have the baby or not?' asked David and she shook her head.
I've been trying to make up my mind for weeks ever since I found out'.
'Fo you want to keep it? Will your family help you?'
She laughed grimly. 'I have no intention of telling them even if I do keep it. My father would never speak to me again. He isn't broad minded. He would be ashamed of me. He would think that everyone he knew would find out and gossip about me. He's lived in an isolated country area all his life. They don't even have a TV. I offered to give them one for Christmas one year and he refused, didn't like the idea. It was too new fangled for him. He hasn't had any new ideas in his head since he was in his teens, I suspect'.
David was fascinated. 'What about your mother?'
'She would neverargue with my father. Whatever he says goes in our house. He isn't a violent man. He never raised his hands to me but he won't stand for being contradicted, especially by a woman'.
'He sounds monstrous ', David said looking appalled.
She gave a little groan of bleak amusement. 'No, he's just a narrow minded man who has never adjusted to changing morality. I shan't be asking my parents for any help or support'.
There was a long silence, then David said quietly, 'I've got news of my own for you Sharon. I'm under sentence of death'.
She almost dropped the cup she held. Her hands shaking, she carefully put the cup down, staring at him. 'What are you talking about?'
'I have brain tumour', he said in a casual, down - to - earth tone which made it harder to take in what he was telling her. 'They say it's inoperable and growing worse'.
Numbly, she kept her eyes trained on his face, unable to believe it and yet reading the truth of it in every detail of the way that he looked.
David d was so heartbreakingly thin now, his hair had no life in it. There were more silver strands in it everyday and his skin looked waxen, drawn too tightly against his fine bone structure. He was begining to look as skeletal as one of the leaves blowing through the London street in the winter rain.
'Oh, David!' she said her lips quivering.
'I've got only six months', he said calmly. 'I could have six days. They could not give me any accurate answers. 'Now you see why I suddenly sent for Bryan and gave him a top position at the bank? I have no children. My wife and I never managed to have any before....' his voice wavered at that. 'Before she died'.
Hearing the pain in his voice for his wife which was not there for himself, Sharon felt years well up in her eyes. 'David, darling David', she said and knelt beside him and put her head on his lap, her arms around his waist, feeling as she held him, how painfully thin he was, how frail and fleshless. She broke out angrily, 'Why is Life so unfair? Why does these things happen?'
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