HOME | DD

Description
At finish, it did not seem so out of place that Gerry spent the entire service and interment with her nose in a handkerchief. Dominic kept his arm around her as they followed the casket up the stone-flagged path into the small, Norman church. The vicar, who was younger than either of them, with wide, sympathetic, blue eyes, welcomed them in hushed tones. At the head of the central aisle, a solitary couple waited by the rose-strewn coffin. Both were quite short, the woman dark-haired and solemn-faced with a distinctly curvaceous figure under her dark blue dress-suit; her partner more of a stocky build, squeezed into a black two-piece that no longer fit him as well as it might once have done. From his dark blond curls and narrowed, silver grey eyes, Dominic deduced that this was Gerry’s brother even before she put a name to him. She introduced Dominic as her ‘friend’. Politely Alastair and his wife, Madeleine did not pry for more details. A few other people crept in before the service began; distant cousins and friends of the deceased. They shook hands and murmured commiseration to Gerry and Alastair before finding their own places. Alastair and his taciturn wife sat up at the front of the church with them. From time to time he took his sister’s hand as the vicar recited the sermon and said a few words about the deceased. Dominic rested a gentle hand on Gerry’s knee as the reading came to a close and she looked at him with a small, grateful smile.
At last the cortege moved outside and the coffin was lowered into the grave that had been prepared for it, marked by a small, plain, white stone engraved with the name of Gerry’s late mother and the details of her own interment highlighted in gold. Dominic held on to her throughout the ceremony, whispering an inaudible; “Blessed Be,” at the end of the prayer. Geraldine said nothing. Her face was unreadable.

The wake was a small, private affair in a back room of one of the public houses in town. People Dominic did not know came and commiserated on their loss and he thanked them politely. Gerry had stopped crying but barely acknowledged the words with anything more than a nod.
“Do you want a drink?” he asked practically and she nodded again. At once he left her to compose herself and went to the bar.
“Is she okay?” Alastair asked him amenably as he ordered a whisky and a stiff gin and tonic and asked the bartender to make sure the latter was a double.
“Upset, obviously,” Dominic answered with a wan smile.” She never talked about him much. It’s hard to say.”
“They didn’t get on,” said the brother Gerry affectionately called ‘Stairs, rather unnecessarily.
“No, I gathered. Do you know why?” he enquired lightly, sipping his scotch.
Alastair Cowell shrugged his rounded shoulders with a gusty sigh. “Beats me. They were fine before I went off to Uni, but by the time I graduated, she couldn’t wait to get away. I know they’d had a falling out. Dad reckoned she’d gotten herself pregnant, I think that was what it was about. Deens got rid of the baby and took herself off to some arty college just as soon as she was out of school. I reckon she missed having mum about. I mean, it’s a difficult time for young girls isn’t it, puberty and all?”
“I suppose so,” mused Dominic, trying not to look too surprised. He had memories of his own sisters going through awkward phases in their teens, although neither of them had suffered unwanted pregnancies. (Papa would have skinned them alive for it!) He managed to keep his expression perfectly schooled, although he was inwardly rather stunned by this revelation. He wondered if this was what Geraldine had confided to Sheila last night. In the light of Sheila’s own conversation with him later that evening, it made some sense. “I didn’t know she’d had an abortion.”
Alastair shook his head quickly. “She didn’t. Too far gone… She had the kiddie; a little girl. It was adopted. Deens was only a kid herself.”
“I’m sorry,” Dominic took another swallow of his whisky, both astonished and hurt that Gerry could keep something like this a secret for so long. “I didn’t mean to pry. I was just curious, that’s all.”
“She told you she was married, did she?” ‘Stairs ventured speculatively.
He nodded, conscious that Gerry’s brother was digging for information himself. His enquiring expression told the older man right away that he was keen to find out just how close Dominic and Geraldine had become. “And that it didn’t last.”
“No,” Stairs conceded ruefully. “Did she ever tell you why?”
Dominic shook his head, then indicated the pumps by way of changing the subject as the bartender returned with his change. He was not ready for further revelations just yet. “Can I get you anything?”
He bought Alastair a pint of Black Sheep, and a brandy and babycham for Madeleine, who was talking to Gerry when he got back to the table with the drinks.
“How’s Alice?” his High Priestess was asking, sounding a little more composed than when he had left her.
“Oh fine. She’s with my mother,” Madeleine answered, accepting the glass Dominic offered with a brief, nervous smile. “We didn’t think it was appropriate for a child. She’ll want to remember her Grandad alive, not in some hole in the ground.”
Alastair chatted about cricket and Dominic nodded from time to time, not particularly interested but too polite to say so. The women discussed little Alice, Gerry’s goddaughter, and how fast she was growing. Photographs were passed around and they cooed over the stocky, solemn-faced child with her straight, white-blonde pigtails and plastic-framed spectacles. Madeleine asked if they would come back for lunch and Gerry cast a quick look at Dominic before saying that they had to make an early start in the morning and perhaps they could do it some other time.

“They seem nice enough,” Dom murmured once they had made their farewells and were walking back to the car. “Not inbred or anything. I was expecting the Addams Family!”
“They’re very… repressed,” Gerry said rather scathingly. “They seemed to like you, mind.”
“That’s because they thought I was your boyfriend,” Dominic chuckled.
“And they suspected you were rather well off,” she added with a little shake of her head. “What was all that nonsense about you running a market-garden?”
“I do!” Dominic protested. “I didn’t think you’d approve of me telling them I was unemployed.”
She put her arm through his, although she shook her head again.
“You are unbelievable.”
“So are you,” he replied gravely. “You never told me that you’d had a baby.”
Gerry stopped in her tracks, pulling free and staring at him incredulously.
“Who told you that?”
“Your brother.” Dominic put his hands on his hips and looked back at her seriously. “Is it true?”
She looked away first, her composure dented. At last, in a small voice she said; “Yes.”
He reached out to her at once, cupping her face in his hands. “I’m not disgusted,” he assured her. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“It never seemed appropriate,” she muttered, still keeping her face determinedly downcast.
“I thought we didn’t have any secrets,” Dom protested softly. “Was that what you told Sheila last night? Is that why she was so wound up about the idea of having a baby?”
Gerry shook her head.
“While we’re on the subject of secrets,” she said a little huskily. “What did she say to you that got you so steamed up, if it wasn’t about me?”
Dominic took a long breath and released her. She looked up into his quiet, handsome face at once, curious and concerned.
“Sheila wants to have a child,” he murmured, without looking at her.
“I know, she told me as much. She said that her husband was infertile and they’d tried all sorts.”
Now his eyes returned to hers. “She wants me to father her baby,” he said with a grimace.
Gerry’s eyes went wide. “Bright Lady! What did you say?”
“I said I’d think about it,” Dominic turned back towards the car and carried on walking, slowly.
“Is that a good idea?” Gerry demanded, hurrying after him.
“What else could I tell her. I couldn’t say no, not to her face, like that. It would have been unspeakable of me. Especially since they’ve put us up at such short notice,” her friend argued. He wore a distinctly speculative expression as he unlocked the Saab and opened her door for her.
Once they were both in the car, Gerry said; “It would still be your baby, when everything’s said and done. What if you couldn’t walk away? How would you feel knowing that another man was bringing up your child? What if something happened to them?”
“I’d have a son and heir, my own flesh and blood.” He looked at her with a glitter of delighted anticipation in his pale green eyes.
“You have an heir, your nephew; he’s called Danny,” she reminded him. “And who says it’s going to be a boy, anyway?”
“Killjoy,” he accused her, turning over the engine.
“How does Charlie feel about this?” she persisted. “It’s going to be his kid, after all.”
“We haven’t really discussed it properly,” Dom murmured evasively. “Sheila only put the proposition to me last night.”
“Without speaking to her husband?” Gerry asked incredulously.
“I don’t know.” He flicked on the indicator and pulled out smoothly onto the quiet street.
“She must have mentioned it to him.”
“Actually,” Dominic told her, without looking at her. “It came as a bolt out of the blue. The first I knew about them wanting children so badly was when I woke up to find her getting into my bed, naked, in the small hours.”
Gerry gasped audibly. “She didn’t! You didn’t..?”
Her friend remained silent for a moment, then he indicated again and pulled the car over to the side of the road.
“Don’t say a word about this to anyone,” he insisted, very gravely, turning in his seat to face her.
“Did you have sex with her?” Gerry demanded, still not quite sure how his admission made her feel. She was very conscious of a burgeoning jealousy that was centred almost entirely upon Sheila Brooker. It disturbed her profoundly. Suddenly all the other woman’s questions about her relationship with Dom made sense. Had she just been calculating how easy it would be to seduce him?
He shook his head at once, but this hardly altered her feelings.
“Don’t be silly. If I could get an erection for every woman that wanted it, I wouldn’t still be a confirmed bachelor at fifty four, would I?”
“She didn’t turn you on at all?” Gerry queried, still not sure how much to believe.
“Sheila’s got balls, Geraldine. But not the kind I’m interested in!” He smiled helplessly.
“That night… after your fortieth birthday party, you didn’t seem to have any problems with me,” she reminded him with a sceptical frown.
“Yes, well…” he responded uncomfortably. “That was rather different.”
“Why?” She looked expectantly at him.
“Because… well… because I like you,” he protested, getting about as flustered as she had ever seen him.
“I thought you liked Sheila.”
“I do… as a friend!”
“I’m a friend,” Gerry reminded him.
He met her eyes again, seriously. “You’re far more than that, sweetheart.”
Geraldine blushed at once and looked away. When she did not say anything else, he reached out to her, cupping her chin in his hand and turning her face back towards him. In a soft, husky, breathless voice he whispered; “I love you, Gerry. I’d do anything for you, you know that.”
Her lips moved but no words came out. For a helpless moment she thought she might do something indescribably stupid, like crying again. Then he leaned towards her and kissed her, very gently. She heard the engine stop and then he put his arms around her and his lips moved against hers more intensely. For a long, quiet time that was all she knew, the sensation of being embraced and kissed by him; so alien and yet so desirable that she wondered if she was not actually dreaming all of this.
She curled around him and held him close, aware of his hands moving gently over her body, of his mouth on hers and his tongue, flickering hungrily between her lips. When he finally drew away, but not so far away that he could not still touch her, there was lipstick smudged around his mouth and she reached impulsively for a tissue to wipe it off him. He smiled, almost bashfully at that.
“Sorry,” he whispered.
“Don’t be.” She said it before she even thought about the words.
Dominic leaned back then, shaking his head, as if he could not quite believe the reality either. “This is rather bizarre,” he murmured.
“I won’t tell anyone if you don’t,” she volunteered, adjusting the vanity mirror to check her makeup, suddenly as awkward as a teenager once more.
“What in the world are we to do, you and I?” he breathed, gazing ahead through the windshield of his car as if he saw the future stretching out ahead of him there.
“What do you want to do?” Gerry asked, wondering if she would like the answer, but needing to ask anyway.
He turned his head and smiled at her; a fond, knowing, appreciative smile that warmed her heart and made her even more unsure. “I want to make you happy,” he said sincerely.

They drove for a while in silence, motoring out of Attleborough and into the countryside. Dominic put the radio on and for a little while Rachmaninov’s second piano concerto accompanied them through the Norfolk scenery. Gerry could feel her heart racing as the verges flashed by and Dom hummed softly under his breath to the score.
“We should find a railway station,” he joked, at one point. “You can be Trevor Howard and I’ll be Celia Johnson!”
“Fool,” she rebuked him, but not seriously. Then, a little while later as they turned onto yet another winding road. “Where are we going?”
“I don’t know,” he said quietly.
“You don’t want to go back, do you?”
“I don’t know,” he said again, with the same lack of inflection.
“If you want to be a father there are better ways,” she suggested cautiously.
“With you?” He looked sidelong at her, a question in his eyes.
“I didn’t say that.”
“No.” Dominic turned his head, watching the road again. He seemed less certain though.
“Did you mean that? That you loved me?” she wanted to know.
“Does it make a difference?” he asked in turn.
“I don’t know.”
“Very wise,” he said with a little nod. “Everyone knows what a fool I am when it comes to giving my heart away.”
She grimaced slightly. It was not as if she had never told him so herself.
“Is it because you know I can’t…” The words strangled her and she took a quick breath.
“You can’t, what?”
“I can’t… make demands on you,” Gerry said in a rush. “Sexual demands. Is that why?”
Dominic looked at her again, a quick, perplexed glance that said this was the least of his concerns.
“You’re a very dear friend to me, Geraldine. I’ve told you before that this isn’t about sex. At least… it’s not entirely about sex. And you never did tell me exactly why you won’t…” He did not finish the sentence but she knew what he meant. “Is it to do with the baby? With your juvenile pregnancy?”
Gerry looked out of her window distractedly. She could feel her cheeks heating up.
“You know I’m not a virgin. I told you, that night after the party, when you tried to make love to me on the sofa.”
“So you did,” he murmured rather bashfully, but his smile told her that he had forgotten about it until this evening.
“Well, then…” she stated defensively.
“Lots of young girls get pregnant. It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Dom told her reassuringly. “I don’t think any the worse of you because of it.”
“Can we stop the car for a moment?” she asked, suddenly feeling too warm and too confined.
“Of course,” he answered, without a moment’s hesitation.

He caught up with her quickly as she stalked off along the roadside, breathing deeply; forcing herself to be calm and rational. Drawing alongside, he took her hand in his almost possessively.
“What’s wrong?”
“Does something have to be wrong?” she wanted to know.
“You’re upset. But I know it’s not just the funeral. I know that you fell out with your father. I know you were pregnant. Why can’t you just tell me what the matter is and then we can relax and be friendly with one another again?” He smiled helplessly.
Gerry stopped and he moved around to take her other hand, looking into her eyes imploringly. She felt sick but could not move away. After a while she leaned against him and he put his arms around her.
“Just hold me,” she murmured and he did.

To be continued...

Description
At finish, it did not seem so out of place that Gerry spent the entire service and interment with her nose in a handkerchief. Dominic kept his arm around her as they followed the casket up the stone-flagged path into the small, Norman church. The vicar, who was younger than either of them, with wide, sympathetic, blue eyes, welcomed them in hushed tones. At the head of the central aisle, a solitary couple waited by the rose-strewn coffin. Both were quite short, the woman dark-haired and solemn-faced with a distinctly curvaceous figure under her dark blue dress-suit; her partner more of a stocky build, squeezed into a black two-piece that no longer fit him as well as it might once have done. From his dark blond curls and narrowed, silver grey eyes, Dominic deduced that this was Gerry’s brother even before she put a name to him. She introduced Dominic as her ‘friend’. Politely Alastair and his wife, Madeleine did not pry for more details. A few other people crept in before the service began; distant cousins and friends of the deceased. They shook hands and murmured commiseration to Gerry and Alastair before finding their own places. Alastair and his taciturn wife sat up at the front of the church with them. From time to time he took his sister’s hand as the vicar recited the sermon and said a few words about the deceased. Dominic rested a gentle hand on Gerry’s knee as the reading came to a close and she looked at him with a small, grateful smile.
At last the cortege moved outside and the coffin was lowered into the grave that had been prepared for it, marked by a small, plain, white stone engraved with the name of Gerry’s late mother and the details of her own interment highlighted in gold. Dominic held on to her throughout the ceremony, whispering an inaudible; “Blessed Be,” at the end of the prayer. Geraldine said nothing. Her face was unreadable.

The wake was a small, private affair in a back room of one of the public houses in town. People Dominic did not know came and commiserated on their loss and he thanked them politely. Gerry had stopped crying but barely acknowledged the words with anything more than a nod.
“Do you want a drink?” he asked practically and she nodded again. At once he left her to compose herself and went to the bar.
“Is she okay?” Alastair asked him amenably as he ordered a whisky and a stiff gin and tonic and asked the bartender to make sure the latter was a double.
“Upset, obviously,” Dominic answered with a wan smile.” She never talked about him much. It’s hard to say.”
“They didn’t get on,” said the brother Gerry affectionately called ‘Stairs, rather unnecessarily.
“No, I gathered. Do you know why?” he enquired lightly, sipping his scotch.
Alastair Cowell shrugged his rounded shoulders with a gusty sigh. “Beats me. They were fine before I went off to Uni, but by the time I graduated, she couldn’t wait to get away. I know they’d had a falling out. Dad reckoned she’d gotten herself pregnant, I think that was what it was about. Deens got rid of the baby and took herself off to some arty college just as soon as she was out of school. I reckon she missed having mum about. I mean, it’s a difficult time for young girls isn’t it, puberty and all?”
“I suppose so,” mused Dominic, trying not to look too surprised. He had memories of his own sisters going through awkward phases in their teens, although neither of them had suffered unwanted pregnancies. (Papa would have skinned them alive for it!) He managed to keep his expression perfectly schooled, although he was inwardly rather stunned by this revelation. He wondered if this was what Geraldine had confided to Sheila last night. In the light of Sheila’s own conversation with him later that evening, it made some sense. “I didn’t know she’d had an abortion.”
Alastair shook his head quickly. “She didn’t. Too far gone… She had the kiddie; a little girl. It was adopted. Deens was only a kid herself.”
“I’m sorry,” Dominic took another swallow of his whisky, both astonished and hurt that Gerry could keep something like this a secret for so long. “I didn’t mean to pry. I was just curious, that’s all.”
“She told you she was married, did she?” ‘Stairs ventured speculatively.
He nodded, conscious that Gerry’s brother was digging for information himself. His enquiring expression told the older man right away that he was keen to find out just how close Dominic and Geraldine had become. “And that it didn’t last.”
“No,” Stairs conceded ruefully. “Did she ever tell you why?”
Dominic shook his head, then indicated the pumps by way of changing the subject as the bartender returned with his change. He was not ready for further revelations just yet. “Can I get you anything?”
He bought Alastair a pint of Black Sheep, and a brandy and babycham for Madeleine, who was talking to Gerry when he got back to the table with the drinks.
“How’s Alice?” his High Priestess was asking, sounding a little more composed than when he had left her.
“Oh fine. She’s with my mother,” Madeleine answered, accepting the glass Dominic offered with a brief, nervous smile. “We didn’t think it was appropriate for a child. She’ll want to remember her Grandad alive, not in some hole in the ground.”
Alastair chatted about cricket and Dominic nodded from time to time, not particularly interested but too polite to say so. The women discussed little Alice, Gerry’s goddaughter, and how fast she was growing. Photographs were passed around and they cooed over the stocky, solemn-faced child with her straight, white-blonde pigtails and plastic-framed spectacles. Madeleine asked if they would come back for lunch and Gerry cast a quick look at Dominic before saying that they had to make an early start in the morning and perhaps they could do it some other time.

“They seem nice enough,” Dom murmured once they had made their farewells and were walking back to the car. “Not inbred or anything. I was expecting the Addams Family!”
“They’re very… repressed,” Gerry said rather scathingly. “They seemed to like you, mind.”
“That’s because they thought I was your boyfriend,” Dominic chuckled.
“And they suspected you were rather well off,” she added with a little shake of her head. “What was all that nonsense about you running a market-garden?”
“I do!” Dominic protested. “I didn’t think you’d approve of me telling them I was unemployed.”
She put her arm through his, although she shook her head again.
“You are unbelievable.”
“So are you,” he replied gravely. “You never told me that you’d had a baby.”
Gerry stopped in her tracks, pulling free and staring at him incredulously.
“Who told you that?”
“Your brother.” Dominic put his hands on his hips and looked back at her seriously. “Is it true?”
She looked away first, her composure dented. At last, in a small voice she said; “Yes.”
He reached out to her at once, cupping her face in his hands. “I’m not disgusted,” he assured her. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“It never seemed appropriate,” she muttered, still keeping her face determinedly downcast.
“I thought we didn’t have any secrets,” Dom protested softly. “Was that what you told Sheila last night? Is that why she was so wound up about the idea of having a baby?”
Gerry shook her head.
“While we’re on the subject of secrets,” she said a little huskily. “What did she say to you that got you so steamed up, if it wasn’t about me?”
Dominic took a long breath and released her. She looked up into his quiet, handsome face at once, curious and concerned.
“Sheila wants to have a child,” he murmured, without looking at her.
“I know, she told me as much. She said that her husband was infertile and they’d tried all sorts.”
Now his eyes returned to hers. “She wants me to father her baby,” he said with a grimace.
Gerry’s eyes went wide. “Bright Lady! What did you say?”
“I said I’d think about it,” Dominic turned back towards the car and carried on walking, slowly.
“Is that a good idea?” Gerry demanded, hurrying after him.
“What else could I tell her. I couldn’t say no, not to her face, like that. It would have been unspeakable of me. Especially since they’ve put us up at such short notice,” her friend argued. He wore a distinctly speculative expression as he unlocked the Saab and opened her door for her.
Once they were both in the car, Gerry said; “It would still be your baby, when everything’s said and done. What if you couldn’t walk away? How would you feel knowing that another man was bringing up your child? What if something happened to them?”
“I’d have a son and heir, my own flesh and blood.” He looked at her with a glitter of delighted anticipation in his pale green eyes.
“You have an heir, your nephew; he’s called Danny,” she reminded him. “And who says it’s going to be a boy, anyway?”
“Killjoy,” he accused her, turning over the engine.
“How does Charlie feel about this?” she persisted. “It’s going to be his kid, after all.”
“We haven’t really discussed it properly,” Dom murmured evasively. “Sheila only put the proposition to me last night.”
“Without speaking to her husband?” Gerry asked incredulously.
“I don’t know.” He flicked on the indicator and pulled out smoothly onto the quiet street.
“She must have mentioned it to him.”
“Actually,” Dominic told her, without looking at her. “It came as a bolt out of the blue. The first I knew about them wanting children so badly was when I woke up to find her getting into my bed, naked, in the small hours.”
Gerry gasped audibly. “She didn’t! You didn’t..?”
Her friend remained silent for a moment, then he indicated again and pulled the car over to the side of the road.
“Don’t say a word about this to anyone,” he insisted, very gravely, turning in his seat to face her.
“Did you have sex with her?” Gerry demanded, still not quite sure how his admission made her feel. She was very conscious of a burgeoning jealousy that was centred almost entirely upon Sheila Brooker. It disturbed her profoundly. Suddenly all the other woman’s questions about her relationship with Dom made sense. Had she just been calculating how easy it would be to seduce him?
He shook his head at once, but this hardly altered her feelings.
“Don’t be silly. If I could get an erection for every woman that wanted it, I wouldn’t still be a confirmed bachelor at fifty four, would I?”
“She didn’t turn you on at all?” Gerry queried, still not sure how much to believe.
“Sheila’s got balls, Geraldine. But not the kind I’m interested in!” He smiled helplessly.
“That night… after your fortieth birthday party, you didn’t seem to have any problems with me,” she reminded him with a sceptical frown.
“Yes, well…” he responded uncomfortably. “That was rather different.”
“Why?” She looked expectantly at him.
“Because… well… because I like you,” he protested, getting about as flustered as she had ever seen him.
“I thought you liked Sheila.”
“I do… as a friend!”
“I’m a friend,” Gerry reminded him.
He met her eyes again, seriously. “You’re far more than that, sweetheart.”
Geraldine blushed at once and looked away. When she did not say anything else, he reached out to her, cupping her chin in his hand and turning her face back towards him. In a soft, husky, breathless voice he whispered; “I love you, Gerry. I’d do anything for you, you know that.”
Her lips moved but no words came out. For a helpless moment she thought she might do something indescribably stupid, like crying again. Then he leaned towards her and kissed her, very gently. She heard the engine stop and then he put his arms around her and his lips moved against hers more intensely. For a long, quiet time that was all she knew, the sensation of being embraced and kissed by him; so alien and yet so desirable that she wondered if she was not actually dreaming all of this.
She curled around him and held him close, aware of his hands moving gently over her body, of his mouth on hers and his tongue, flickering hungrily between her lips. When he finally drew away, but not so far away that he could not still touch her, there was lipstick smudged around his mouth and she reached impulsively for a tissue to wipe it off him. He smiled, almost bashfully at that.
“Sorry,” he whispered.
“Don’t be.” She said it before she even thought about the words.
Dominic leaned back then, shaking his head, as if he could not quite believe the reality either. “This is rather bizarre,” he murmured.
“I won’t tell anyone if you don’t,” she volunteered, adjusting the vanity mirror to check her makeup, suddenly as awkward as a teenager once more.
“What in the world are we to do, you and I?” he breathed, gazing ahead through the windshield of his car as if he saw the future stretching out ahead of him there.
“What do you want to do?” Gerry asked, wondering if she would like the answer, but needing to ask anyway.
He turned his head and smiled at her; a fond, knowing, appreciative smile that warmed her heart and made her even more unsure. “I want to make you happy,” he said sincerely.

They drove for a while in silence, motoring out of Attleborough and into the countryside. Dominic put the radio on and for a little while Rachmaninov’s second piano concerto accompanied them through the Norfolk scenery. Gerry could feel her heart racing as the verges flashed by and Dom hummed softly under his breath to the score.
“We should find a railway station,” he joked, at one point. “You can be Trevor Howard and I’ll be Celia Johnson!”
“Fool,” she rebuked him, but not seriously. Then, a little while later as they turned onto yet another winding road. “Where are we going?”
“I don’t know,” he said quietly.
“You don’t want to go back, do you?”
“I don’t know,” he said again, with the same lack of inflection.
“If you want to be a father there are better ways,” she suggested cautiously.
“With you?” He looked sidelong at her, a question in his eyes.
“I didn’t say that.”
“No.” Dominic turned his head, watching the road again. He seemed less certain though.
“Did you mean that? That you loved me?” she wanted to know.
“Does it make a difference?” he asked in turn.
“I don’t know.”
“Very wise,” he said with a little nod. “Everyone knows what a fool I am when it comes to giving my heart away.”
She grimaced slightly. It was not as if she had never told him so herself.
“Is it because you know I can’t…” The words strangled her and she took a quick breath.
“You can’t, what?”
“I can’t… make demands on you,” Gerry said in a rush. “Sexual demands. Is that why?”
Dominic looked at her again, a quick, perplexed glance that said this was the least of his concerns.
“You’re a very dear friend to me, Geraldine. I’ve told you before that this isn’t about sex. At least… it’s not entirely about sex. And you never did tell me exactly why you won’t…” He did not finish the sentence but she knew what he meant. “Is it to do with the baby? With your juvenile pregnancy?”
Gerry looked out of her window distractedly. She could feel her cheeks heating up.
“You know I’m not a virgin. I told you, that night after the party, when you tried to make love to me on the sofa.”
“So you did,” he murmured rather bashfully, but his smile told her that he had forgotten about it until this evening.
“Well, then…” she stated defensively.
“Lots of young girls get pregnant. It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Dom told her reassuringly. “I don’t think any the worse of you because of it.”
“Can we stop the car for a moment?” she asked, suddenly feeling too warm and too confined.
“Of course,” he answered, without a moment’s hesitation.

He caught up with her quickly as she stalked off along the roadside, breathing deeply; forcing herself to be calm and rational. Drawing alongside, he took her hand in his almost possessively.
“What’s wrong?”
“Does something have to be wrong?” she wanted to know.
“You’re upset. But I know it’s not just the funeral. I know that you fell out with your father. I know you were pregnant. Why can’t you just tell me what the matter is and then we can relax and be friendly with one another again?” He smiled helplessly.
Gerry stopped and he moved around to take her other hand, looking into her eyes imploringly. She felt sick but could not move away. After a while she leaned against him and he put his arms around her.
“Just hold me,” she murmured and he did.

To be continued...