Donna had tried not to think that Don was going to spend the next couple of years drifting around western Europe, using up money they did not have, going aimlessly from one thing to another, not really living any sort of life at all…Leaving her on her own in the beautiful flat on which she had lavished so much love and care, never mind money she could not really afford, and where she had spent endless lonely nights counting the days until the next school holiday…
But she let him go, of course. She trusted him to come back to her. She smiled and hugged him when he left, and said he was to be sure to write and tell her what he was doing, and to remember that there was always a home for him here. If he was in trouble–if he needed money–he must not hesitate to let her know.
‘And you’ll come to my rescue, will you?’ For a moment there had been a glimmer of the beloved boy who used to smile with come-to-bed eyes, and there had been a stirring of shared memories–of how they had laughed together, and of how they had lain in the tangled bed in Charity Cottage on that enchanted afternoon…
Donna had hardly been able to bear it. She said, quite briskly, ‘Of course I’d come to your rescue. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men.’
‘I believe you would.’
‘I always will,’ said Donna, and let him go.
The terrible thing was that when he finally came home for good, it was not as Donna had hoped. He was not the same: he was moody, sometimes sullen, occasionally he was very nearly violent. If she put her arms round him, he hunched his shoulders and shrugged her off, saying, ‘Oh for heaven’s sake!’ or, ‘Leave me alone!’ Once he said she was not living in the real world at all: she was living in some absurd dream existence.
And then had come the night of the quarrel.
It came out of nowhere, and predictably it was about money.
Don had come back to England because the bank had refused to cash any more of his cheques. He had no money sense–Donna knew that and she accepted it. He had thought he was going to be well off–they had both thought so–and he could not understand that there was not enough money for him to do the things he wanted to do: go to wine bars and clubs with his friends, travel, go to concerts, have a good time. Why should he not do those things? He was good-looking and charming, and he had masses of friends. Donna understood that, as well.
When he was first home from the French grape-picking jaunt, taking up the threads of his English life again, she thought he would ask her to go with him to the clubs and the parties he attended. She had bought new clothes, wanting to look good for him, planning how his friends would admire her, and how they would give little dinner parties in their flat. People would tell one another how enjoyable it was to be invited to the flat.
Don would be proud of her. ‘You outshine all the rest,’ he would say when they gave a party or went to one, and the old intimacy would be there between them again, and perhaps one night…
But Don did not take her with him and the old intimacy was not there. If she asked where he was going he gave a vague answer. He would be clubbing, he said or there was a bit of an evening at somebody’s house. ‘No one you know. You wouldn’t like it.’
He bought expensive designer clothes and expensive drinks–Donna did not even dare wonder if he was taking drugs. Yes, he would get a job, he said vaguely, when she questioned him. He was only waiting for the right one to come along.