A Thorn In Paradise. CATHY WILLIAMS
was deliberately antagonising her. It was obvious. But the desire to wipe that cool assessing sneer off his dark face was so strong that she had to clench her fists tightly to overcome it.
‘Is there anything else you want or can I leave?’
‘Which is my father’s bedroom?’
She began telling him but he interrupted her and said, ‘Take me there. I think the time for confrontation has arrived.’
She nodded and spun round, walking briskly into the hall, then up the staircase to the right wing of the house, tensely aware of his presence behind her. Was he nervous? she wondered. He didn’t appear nervous. In fact, he gave the impression of someone who didn’t have a nervous bone in his body, but he could just be a good actor. She tried to imagine him having butterflies in his stomach and failed.
They had reached Benjamin’s bedroom and she knocked on the door, pushing it open and stepping in.
She wasn’t looking at Antonio, so she didn’t see his reaction, but Benjamin’s face mirrored his shock. She had a strange feeling of being superfluous and made to move away, but Benjamin bellowed at her, ‘Where do you think you’re going? I told you that I didn’t want to see him!’
Antonio’s mouth hardened but he didn’t say anything. He walked into the room, round to the side of the bed, and stood there looking down at his father, his face unreadable. It didn’t look as though it had the makings of a touching emotional reunion and Corinna reluctantly entered the room as well, shutting the door behind her.
‘You’re not wanted here,’ Benjamin said breathlessly, beckoning to her to come over, which she did, and then clasping her hand tightly, all of which she could see his son noting, jotting down, no doubt, in that computer mind of his to be recalled and used against her at a later date.
‘My heart,’ Benjamin said, ‘my blood-pressure. I can’t take this. The shock will kill me.’ He lay back looking faint and Antonio shot her a doubtful look.
‘I did write to tell you that I’d be coming,’ he said, reverting his eyes to Benjamin who had his eyes closed and was breathing heavily.
‘Perhaps you’d better leave,’ Corinna interjected worriedly, reaching next to the bed for her bag which contained her instruments. If Benjamin’s blood-pressure was up, then Antonio would have to leave whether he liked it or not.
He ignored her. ‘Didn’t you receive my letter?’
‘I preferred to think that it had been a mistake.’ He opened his blue eyes and peered at his son with defensive hostility on his face. Side by side, she could see the resemblance between them, which had not been so noticeable before. Their features weren’t identical by any means, and Antonio, with his deeply bronzed skin, looked distinctly foreign, but there was a similarity of expression stamped on both their faces, the same strong, stubborn look in their eyes. Two forceful personalities, she thought, destined to clash.
‘I never make mistakes,’ Antonio said, glancing at her, and she returned his look with equanimity.
‘Well, you made a mistake coming over here,’ Benjamin said. ‘You haven’t set foot in this house for years and that’s suited me just fine. As far as I am concerned, I haven’t got a son.’
That brought a dark flush to Antonio’s cheeks, but whether it stemmed from anger or discomfort, Corinna couldn’t say.
‘We both know the reasons that I left here in the first place,’ he answered tautly. ‘Not,’ he continued harshly, ‘that I want to have our dirty linen aired in front of your nurse.’
‘Why not?’ Benjamin threw at him, ‘she’s more a part of my life than you are.’
‘A dangerous situation, wouldn’t you say?’ Antonio said grimly. ‘She’s a nurse, she’s not indispensable.’
‘Will the two of you stop talking as if I weren’t here!’ Corinna burst out. She faced Benjamin and said quietly, ‘Your son’s right, I shouldn’t be here. The two of you should talk your differences out without a third party present.’
‘I have nothing to talk out,’ Benjamin said stubbornly. He looked at his son, one hand clenched. ‘I didn’t invite you here. I don’t know why you’ve come and I don’t want to know. Just seeing you is going to set my blood-pressure soaring.’
‘It’s fine,’ Corinna said. She had taken it unobtrusively a short while ago and was surprised to find that it had been stable.
‘For the moment,’ Benjamin growled, ‘but not if I have to be subjected to this sort of scene for much longer.’
Antonio gave an impatient click of his tongue. ‘Look, I’ve been away a long time,’ he muttered, glancing across to where Corinna was standing. ‘I grant you that all this should have been cleared up a long time ago.’
His face was tight, and she could tell straight away that he was not a man who felt comfortable making concessions of any description.
‘Should have been, but wasn’t,’ Benjamin said, refusing to bend. ‘Now if you don’t mind leaving, I feel very tired. Close the door behind you.’
Antonio shook his head and spun round on his heel, slamming the door behind him.
‘Well?’ Benjamin muttered to Corinna. ‘Don’t just stand there pretending that you have nothing to say. And for God’s sake stop fussing around these damned bedclothes! What are you thinking? You might as well tell me instead of wearing that tight-lipped expression.’
Corinna hesitated, then said, ‘You could have handled that a bit better.’
‘A bit better? A bit better! So he’s got to you, has he? That’s the way the ground lies, is it?’
‘Don’t be foolish. Nobody’s got to me. I just think that you could have accepted his apology.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it might have been the start of some kind of truce between you.’
‘It’s a truce I could do without.’
She shrugged and Benjamin’s eyebrows met in a frown. ‘He’s not wanted and don’t try and be saintly. Didn’t it strike you that he doesn’t approve of you? Dispensable, he called you, I believe.’
She lowered her eyes. ‘It doesn’t bother me.’
‘Well, it bothers me. I don’t want to hear what he’s got to say, and if part of the reason that he’s found his way here is because he’s got to know about you and thinks you might have designs on my bank balance, then he’s wasted his time.’
Corinna looked at him, startled. She had known that Benjamin was shrewd, but his astuteness amazed her.
‘So I’m right, am I?’
‘How did you guess?’
‘I suppose that fool Angus has written to him about you,’ he said, continuing when he saw her bewildered expression. ‘He’s been trying to get us together for years. Keeps in touch with Antonio, you see. Throws me titbits about his life every now and again to whet my appetite, no doubt, as if I’m interested.’ He gave a shout of laughter. ‘Well, I’m not about to forgive and forget as easily as that!’
‘You’re a stubborn old man,’ she said with resigned affection. ‘You know what they say about pride.’
‘And you know what I say about you philosophising,’ he retorted. ‘Now could you go and fuss somewhere else?’
‘You’re not coming down?’
‘Not at the moment.’
‘And what about food?’
‘Get that witch Edna to bring it to me. It’s time she worked for her keep.’ He closed his eyes, his way of dismissing her, and she let herself out of the room quietly.
As