A Most Suitable Wife. Jessica Steele

to feel better. While she had no intention of offering the flat-share to him, if he had a studio—be it just an attic—then at least he had somewhere he could use as a base if this Nick Knight wanted him to leave sooner rather than later.

      Magnus Ashthorpe had finished his coffee, Taye noticed. She got to her feet. ‘I’m not awfully sure…’ she began, to let him down gently.

      ‘You’ll want to see other applicants, of course,’ he butted in smoothly.

      ‘Well, I have arranged for the flat-share to be advertised all next week and to include next weekend,’ she replied. ‘And—um—there will be a question of references,’ she brought out from an unthought nowhere.

      For answer Magnus Ashthorpe went over to the telephone notepad and in a speedy hand wrote down something and tore the sheet of paper from the pad. ‘My mobile number,’ he said, handing the paper to her. ‘I’ve also noted the name of my previous landlady. Should you want to take up a reference, I’m sure Mrs Sturgess will be pleased to answer any questions you may have about me.’

      Since he was not going to be her co-tenant, Taye did not think she would need the piece of paper, but she took it from him anyhow. ‘I’ll—um—see you out,’ she said, and smiled. It cost nothing and she was unlikely to see him ever again. ‘Goodbye,’ she said. They shook hands.

      She closed the door behind him and went swiftly to the dining room. Standing well back from the window, she saw him emerge from the building. But she need not have worried that he might look up and see her lurking near the dining room window—he was already busy in conversation with someone he had called on his mobile phone. No doubt telling his friend Nick Knight that he had found a place!

      Taye went back to the sitting room, the feel of his hand on hers still there. He had a wonderful handshake. Still the same, she knew she would not be phoning this Mrs Sturgess for a reference.

      Taye purposely stayed in all of that Saturday and the whole of Sunday, and frequently watched from the dining room window for callers. But callers there were none. She had thought there was a huge demand for accommodation to rent, but apparently no one was interested in renting at such a high rent.

      And that was worrying. She had not lived in what was termed the ‘garden flat’ all that long herself, but already she loved it. She had moved to London three years ago after one gigantic fall-out with her mother. But only now was she in any sort of position to pay half of the rent herself. To find all of the rent would be an impossibility.

      Taye had a good job, and was well paid, but she just had to keep something back for those calls from her mother. Despite her mother all but throwing her out, it had not stopped her parent from requiring financial assistance from time to time.

      Worriedly, knowing that she did not want to go back to the bed-sit existence she had known before her promotion and pay rise, and prior to Paula Neale’s invite to move in and share expenses, Taye thought back to how her life had changed—for the better.

      There had always been rows at home—even before her father had decided after one row too many that enough was enough and that they would all be happier, himself included, if he moved out.

      His financial ability had made the move viable only when his father had died and he had come into a fund which he had been able to assign during her lifetime to his money-loving wife. The fact that Taye’s father had no illusions about her mother’s spendthrift ways was borne out by the fact that he had made sure that the fund was paid out to her monthly and not in the lump sum she had demanded.

      Taye had been fourteen, her brother Hadleigh five years younger when, nine years ago now, their father had packed his bags and left. She loved him, she missed him, and she had been unhappy to see him go. But perhaps they would all be free of the daily rows and constant carping. Perhaps with him no longer there, the rows would stop.

      Wrong! Without her father there for her mother to vent her spleen on, Taye had become her mother’s target. Though if being daily harangued by Greta Trafford for some over-exaggerated misdemeanour kept the sharpness of her tongue from Taye’s nine-year-old brother, then Taye had supposed she could put up with it. What would happen to Hadleigh, though, when she eventually went off to university Taye had not wanted to dwell on.

      Then she had discovered that she need not have worried about it, because when she reached the age of sixteen she discovered that her mother had other plans for her.

      ‘University!’ she had exclaimed when Taye had begun talking of staying on at school, and of taking her ‘A’ levels. ‘You can forget that, young lady. You can leave school as soon as you can, get a job and start bringing some money in.’

      ‘But—it’s all planned!’ Taye remembered protesting.

      ‘I’ve just unplanned it!’ Greta Trafford had snapped viperously.

      ‘But Daddy said…’

      ‘Daddy isn’t here! Daddy,’ her mother mocked, ‘was delighted to shelve his responsibilities. Daddy—’

      ‘But—’

      ‘Don’t you interrupt me!’ Greta Trafford threatened. ‘And you can “but” all you want. You’re still not going.’

      And that Taye had had to accept. But while she had struggled to get over her disappointment and upset at the loss of her dream, she’d known she was going to have to hide how she was feeling from her father. He had been so keen for her to go to university that all she could do was to let him think that she had gone off the idea.

      She might have had to accept her mother’s assertion that there was no money to spare, but what Taye would not accept was that her father had shelved his responsibilities. He had maybe given up the occupation that had provided them with a very high standard of living, so that his income was nowhere near what it had been. But now working on a farm and living in a tiny cottage that went with the job, his needs small, she knew that in addition to the fund he had assigned for their upkeep, he still sent money to his former home when he could.

      It was not enough. Nor was it ever going to be enough. Even when he had been a high earner it had not been enough. Money went through her mother’s hands like water. She did not know the meaning of the word thrift. If she saw something she wanted, then nothing would do but that she must have it—regardless of which member of her family ultimately paid.

      As bidden, Taye had left school and, having inherited her father’s head for figures, she had got a job with a firm of accountants. Her mother had insisted that she hand over her salary to her each month. But by then Taye had started to think for herself. There were things Hadleigh needed for his school work, his school trips, and he was growing faster than they could keep up with. Taye held back as much of her salary as she could get away with, and it was she who kept him kitted out in shoes and any other major essential.

      Taye had been ready to leave home years before the actual crunch came. It was only for the sake of Hadleigh that she had stayed, for he had been a shy, gentle boy.

      Taye had reached nineteen and Hadleigh fourteen when Hadleigh, after a row where their mother had gone in for her favourite pastime of deviating from the truth, with the first signs of asserting himself had told Taye, ‘You should leave home, Taye.’ And when she had shaken her head, ‘I’ll be all right,’ he had assured her. ‘And it won’t be for much longer. I shall go to university—and I won’t come back.’

      Perhaps a trace of his words had still been lingering in Taye’s head when she journeyed home from work one Friday a year later. She had anticipated that Hadleigh would be grinning from ear to ear at the brand-new bicycle she had saved hard for and had arranged to be delivered on his fifteenth birthday. But she had arrived home to discover her mother had somehow managed to exchange the bicycle she had chosen for a much inferior second-hand one—and had pocketed the difference.

      ‘How could you?’ Taye had gasped, totally appalled.

      ‘How could I not?’ her mother had replied airily. ‘The bicycle I got him is perfectly adequate.’

      ‘I