The card he had given her was burning a hole in her hand.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Tessa’s parents lived at Green Point, on the outskirts of Gosford. Fortunately Tessa had caught an express train so the journey had only been a little over an hour. She caught a taxi from the railway station. The sense of impatience, almost urgency to get the issue of Grant Durham over and done with had a lot to do with Blaize Callagan’s card in her handbag, but Tessa kept telling herself she would only be jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire if she let herself get involved with him.
No future there.
Nothing but bed and possibly breakfast. Occasionally. When it suited him.
She had to be absolutely off her brain to even hope that there was a chance of a real commitment between them. Just because he made her blood sing and she had got the better of him a few times didn’t mean his interest would stick beyond the gratification he found with her.
It was a pipe dream.
Sheer pie in the sky.
She was brought sharply down to earth when the taxi pulled up outside her parents’ home. It was a well-presented home with neat lawns and gardens, comfortable and solidly middle class.
Tessa was proud of what her parents had achieved, and proud of the independence she herself had achieved. She simply wasn’t a match for a high flyer like Blaize Callagan. That was reality, and there wasn’t any future in indulging fantasies.
She paid off the taxi driver with a heavy heart and walked down the path to the front door with a dirgelike tread, knowing that the music she had to face was going to be unpleasant. She rang the doorbell and waited, resigning herself to the inevitable in more ways than one.
The door was opened by her mother. She was, as always, neatly dressed in conventional clothes, her hair conventionally permed into rigid waves and curls, lipstick in place, a strand of pearls around her throat, and absolutely everything about her appearance just so. She looked at Tessa, looked past her, then asked, “Where’s Grant?”
It had taken Joan Stockton only a few seconds to assess the undeniable fact that Tessa had arrived at her parents’ door alone. Grant’s car was not in the driveway. Grant was not beside Tessa. Hence, Grant was not here. Her expression instantly became disapproving. Joan Stockton never reacted well to anything that didn’t match up to her sense of what was right and proper.
“He won’t be coming,” Tessa said bluntly.
Chagrin mixed with the disapproval. “I cooked that lasagne he likes especially for him.”
Typical, Tessa thought. Her mother’s outlook was that men had to be indulged to keep them firmly caught. Except the indulgence didn’t run to free sex. “I like it, too, Mum,” she said. “It won’t go to waste.” She kissed her mother’s cheek and pushed through the hallway to greet her father.
He wrapped her in his arms with his usual bear hug. He was an affectionate father, and an indulgent one. Tessa hugged him back fiercely, wishing she could find a man like him.
Grant had decided not to come last weekend, supposedly because Tessa was working on the wedding arrangements with her mother. Although it was plain now that he had had an ulterior motive for staying in Sydney. However, there was absolutely no excuse for his absence this weekend, as Tessa knew. And her parents knew that, as well.
Her father drew back, a look of concern on his weatherbeaten face. He was still a strong man at sixty-five, but his face was deeply lined. He looked his age, although Tessa maintained he had worn well. His iron-gray hair was as thick as ever, and his warm sherry-brown eyes always looked young to her.
“Anything wrong, sweetheart?” he asked perceptively.
“A long hard week, Dad. I had to go to a conference,” she said brightly, and proceeded to regale her parents with censored details of the three days she had spent at Peppers.
This lasted her through dinner. After the washing-up was done, her mother cleared off the dining room table and brought out the wedding invitations. Tessa looked at them glumly, knew that prevarication could not be prolonged, sat down at the table and plunged to the heart of the matter.
“Mum... Dad...” She looked at both of them in desperate appeal. “I’ve got something to tell you. I’m sorry, but there isn’t going to be a wedding. I’ve told Grant, and we’ve broken up. I won’t be seeing him any more.”
Her father reached over and squeezed her hand. “I’m sure it’s for the best,” he said softly.
Her mother gaped. Her face coloured. She glared at her husband. “Mortimer, how can you say that? How do you know it’s for the best? How do you know anything?”
Mortimer Stockton had worked as a carpenter all his life, a plain simple man with a very loving heart. From the moment he had set eyes on Joan Stockton he had adored her, and his philosophy was very simple. His wife knew best, and she was always right. He never argued with her, and agreed with all her opinions. Over the years, this had led to a very one-sided relationship. That didn’t save Mortimer from frequently being wrong about things.
He shifted uneasily in his seat. He had been on the receiving end of his wife’s diatribes many times in his life, and now lived by the motto, “Peace at all costs.” But his youngest daughter was very dear to his heart, so he made one very cautious statement in her defence.
“Joan... I never thought Grant Durham was good enough for Tessa. He didn’t treat her right. I’m glad she’s decided not to marry him,” he said quietly.
“Not good enough!” her mother shrieked. “At least he was good enough to want to marry her when he didn’t have to! Who’s going to have her now? She’s ruined herself...”
It went on and on. A torrent of recriminations was heaped onto Tessa’s head; all her past sins, all her shortcomings as a daughter and as a woman. No decent man would want to marry her. She was wilful and wayward and she had made herself cheap. And now she had thrown away her only chance of redemption.
For once, Tessa felt no inclination to fight back. She didn’t try to express a contrary point of view. She sat numbly through it all. She was grateful for her father’s efforts to calm his wife down and mitigate the things she was saying, but it didn’t really help. It only set her mother off on new tangents. As far as Joan Stockton was concerned, this was the final straw, the ultimate letdown. Tessa was a total write-off. Her only saving grace was the fact that she wasn’t pregnant. Or was she?
The negative reply fuelled another barrage on Tessa’s attitudes and loose living habits. She could only come to a bad end. No one would ever care about her or for her. A dark future, Tessa thought, her mother’s words adding their weight to the sense of empty desolation inside her.