by Anna Jacobs
When Jenny left, Louise accompanied her to the bus stop, calling, ‘I’m going for a walk, Dad,’ as they passed the living room, just to be safe from recriminations when she returned.
But he didn’t answer. He was pouring himself a glass of whisky.
‘He’s drinking a lot,’ Louise said.
‘Guilty conscience.’
Louise snorted. ‘He doesn’t know the meaning of the word. Oh, I do hope she’s going to leave him. I do, I do.’
‘Well, I don’t.’
Louise stared at her. ‘You still don’t? Even knowing about Liz?’
‘No.’
‘Are you into sado-masochism or what? Get real, Jenny! And let Mum get a life.’
Left to herself, Rosalind lay down and tried to rest, but her thoughts were in turmoil. She didn’t want to hurt Jenny, who couldn’t understand the sense of betrayal you felt when you realised you’d been living in a fool’s paradise for nearly twenty-five years. Or the utter humiliation of finding that your husband had been unfaithful with your so-called best friend!
She knew Jonathon wanted her to leave Paul and she’d been secretly hoping he’d ask her to go and live with him. She felt so right with him, as if they’d known one another for ever. And she fancied him, too, loved his long, lean body and his gentle hands. Since she’d started that embroidery, she hadn’t really fancied Paul. And after finding out about him and Liz, she wondered if she ever would again.
But splitting up was such an irrevocable step to take. Jonathon wouldn’t pressure her to leave Paul. She knew that. It would have to be her own choice for it to be right with him. And it would be, if – when she made the break.
But there were other things to consider as well. Did she want to leave Australia and spend the rest of her life in a foreign country, for a start? What about her mum? Then there were Jonathon’s sons to think about. They’d seemed like nice lads at the fête, polite, well-brought-up, but with a certain liveliness. They’d got on well with Jenny, too. But how would they deal with a stepmother? And did she want to bring up stepsons? She hadn’t made a brilliant success of bringing up Tim. At the thought of him she sucked in a long breath that was barbed with anguish too deep for tears, and it was a while before she could continue thinking things through.
She kept coming back to the same old question. Leaving Paul. Could she do it? Should she do it? He’d admitted their marriage was a bit shaky and had brought her here because he wanted to patch it up. She had to suppose the interlude with Liz meant nothing to him. There must have been others over the years. Were they all meaningless?
But his infidelity wasn’t meaningless to her.
Oh, hell, what was she going to say to him tomorrow?
In the end she stopped trying to rest and went to her embroidery, starting on Louise, trying two or three sketches until she got the figure right. Tomboy looks, like Paul physically. Hands in the pockets of her jeans, short dark hair, chin thrown back as she scowled at the world. Yes, that was right.
She heard the front door slam and Paul’s car drive away. He came back a short time later, presumably having found a black tie, but she didn’t go down to him. And even when she heard him come upstairs and stop outside the closed door, she didn’t call out to him as she once would have.
He went away without saying anything and she let a sigh of relief sift slowly out as she bent her head over her work again.
She didn’t go to bed until long after he was asleep.
The smell of whisky made her wrinkle her nose with disgust.
The following day they were all very self-conscious over breakfast. The funeral was to be held at ten o’clock, but no one mentioned it. No one ate much, except Paul, who ploughed through his usual cooked breakfast.
The smell of bacon sickened Rosalind and in the end she just had a piece of toast with a scrape of jam. Even that was too much for her to finish.
‘I’ll go and change,’ she said when she’d finished her coffee.
‘I’ll clear up,’ said Jenny.
‘I’ll help,’ Louise volunteered.
‘I wonder how long this sisterly closeness and co-operation is going to last?’ Paul sneered.
He wandered off into the small office, to sit there and scowl at the fax machine, drumming his fingers on the desk, staring into space, but seeing only his son’s face, shouting defiance at him. That scene kept replaying in his mind. Again he fought for self-control, breathing deeply and clenching his fists.
Bloody hard, this. The worst. The pits. Bloody children! Were they worth it? He didn’t know. He didn’t know anything today.
Rosalind was relieved when the big black funeral limousine turned up. As it swallowed them up, it muted the colours of the landscape with its tinted windows. The black upholstery heightened the sense of gloom.
In front of them, driving with agonising slowness, the hearse carried Tim’s body. Alone. Covered by flowers whose colours ran and bled together as tears welled in Rosalind’s eyes. She didn’t look at Paul, didn’t even want to turn to him for comfort, and he made no attempt to touch her. But she saw that opposite them, the girls were holding one another’s hands. She was glad of that.
Jonathon and Harry were parked at the end of the street and their car joined the funeral cortège.
‘Who invited them?’ snapped Paul, peering over his shoulder.
‘I did,’ said Rosalind struggling to keep her voice quiet and even. ‘They’re good friends of mine.’
Behind them drove Ned, who’d also lingered outside rather than go into the house and face his future father-in-law’s nasty remarks. Paul had refused point-blank to let Ned ride with the family, so Rosalind had suggested he come in his own car. That way he’d be able to take the girls out for an hour or two afterwards while she spoke to Paul.
The cemetery was small and Paul’s voice seemed twice as loud as usual as he grumbled about the time it took the men to get the coffin out of the hearse.
‘What do we do now?’ he asked Rosalind in an undertone, scowling round. ‘I hate this sort of mumbo-jumbo.’
‘We follow the coffin into the chapel.’ As they began to inch forward at a slow pace, she found Louise on her left side, holding her arm, but Paul made no attempt to touch her or to keep pace with anyone.
‘The chairman offered to send someone to represent the company,’ he said, too loudly, as they walked along, ‘but I told him it wasn’t worth it. They didn’t know Tim, after all. But it was a nice gesture, don’t you think?’
Rosalind didn’t attempt to answer. She was watching her son’s coffin, saying a mental farewell to his body, hoping his soul was now at peace.
It was Louise who surprised herself and everyone else by bursting into tears and sobbing so loudly that the last part of the ceremony came to a halt for a moment.
Rosalind sat with her arm round Louise’s shaking shoulders, relieved when the service was over and the coffin had vanished behind the curtains. What it contained wasn’t really Tim any more. Her son was inside her now – in her heart, in her memories – there for ever.
From a short distance away Jonathon watched Rosalind whisper to the girl and hug her. He watched Paul lean over to say something in a low, angry voice and saw Louise wince. He wished – oh, how he wished he were able to share Rosalind’s burdens on this terrible day.
Why do we do all this? he wondered, as he had wondered at his own parents’ funerals. Why the hell do we put ourselves through the agony of a public performance at a time when we’re still trying to come to terms with our grief in private?
He saw tears trickle down Harry’s face. Funerals reminded her too much of her own husband, but she’d made the effort to come today. He fumbled for her hand. She gripped his tightly and whispered, ‘Damned shame!’
After the coffin had gone the small group of mourners gathered at the front of the chapel.
‘So sorry,’ said Harry. ‘So very sorry, Rosalind.’
‘Ros,’ corrected Paul.
‘Ro
salind,’ the owner of the name said firmly. ‘You know I prefer my full name.’
‘I’ve called you Ros all our married life,’ he said, affronted that she would correct him in front of strangers.
‘And I’ve preferred Rosalind all our married life, too.’
Jonathon had to content himself with holding her hand in his for a moment, meeting her eyes and hoping she would feel his love. As he stepped back, he murmured, ‘If we can help in any way …?’
‘Very kind of you,’ said Paul, seeing Ros neglecting her social duties, ‘but we’re going back to Australia soon.’
Every member of his family gaped at him.
‘You never said anything about that before!’ Louise blurted out.
‘Why should I? It’s my company who’s paying for this jaunt of yours. I’ve decided it’s a waste of time and money, so we’re going back.’
It was at that precise moment that Rosalind felt anger begin to take over from the sorrow. ‘This isn’t the place to discuss it,’ she said in a chill voice, turned on her heel and walked over to the waiting limousine.
Paul started to apologise for her, but found himself looking at two tall, thin backs as Harry and Jonathon Destan also moved away.
‘We’re going with Ned. We’ll find our own way home, Father,’ Jenny called.
He shrugged and followed his wife to the limousine.
‘Let’s go to the pub, eh?’ Ned was in the know about leaving Jenny’s parents alone – and the reason for it. He put an arm round Louise’s shoulder as well as Jenny’s as they walked to the car. His future sister-in-law gave him a watery smile of gratitude.
‘I wish I could be there to look after Mum,’ Louise said. ‘Dad’s in a rotten mood. Foul. I hate him.’ That wasn’t an exaggeration. She did hate him.
‘She can look after herself,’ Jenny said. ‘She’s grown very strong, Mum has.’
They both looked at her in surprise.
‘We’ve all relied on her for years,’ Jenny explained. ‘I’ve been thinking about it. And I suddenly realised that she’s always been the strong one where the family is concerned, though she doesn’t brandish her strength at you or try to bully you like Dad does. I wish—’ Her voice faded for a moment.
‘What do you wish?’ Louise prompted.
‘I wish I hadn’t told her yesterday that they should stick together. You’re right, Louise. She should leave him.’ Tears came into her eyes. ‘Did you see how Jonathon Destan looked at her? How she looked at him?’
They nodded.
‘That’s how couples should be. Dad’s done nothing but shout at her since Tim died. What help is that?’
Louise could only shake her head.
As the silence lengthened into awkwardness, Ned said, ‘Let’s decide what we want to do.’
They looked at him in puzzlement.
‘If your family is going back to Australia, Jenny, you and I have to decide about our own future.’
‘Heavens, yes!’ Louise looked at them. ‘Do you want me to leave you two on your own? I could go for a walk.’ Though she didn’t really want to. She needed company just now, needed it badly.
‘No. You’re part of my family, now, as well.’ Ned gave her a hug to prove it. ‘And you feel like family, too. But your bloody father doesn’t.’ And never would, he was sure.
As the funeral limousine pulled away from the house and left them alone there, Paul stared at Rosalind. ‘Why did the kids go out?’
‘I asked them to give us some space. We have to talk.’
‘Oh? That makes a change. You usually go and hide in your little playroom to avoid talking to me.’
She ignored his gibe and walked into the living room, feeling clammy and apprehensive. But as she remembered how insensitive he’d been at the funeral, the anger began to rise again and she encouraged it. She would need its fire to carry her through this.
‘I want to talk about your infidelity,’ she began, as she had planned.
That made him sit very still. ‘How the hell did you find out?’
‘What does that matter?’
He shrugged. ‘Always like to understand the game, that’s all.’
‘Game? It’s not a game! It’s us, our whole life together!’
‘Calling it a game is just a way of looking at things, for heaven’s sake.’
‘You want to understand so that you can play it better next time, I suppose?’
He shrugged.
She waited for an apology for the infidelity, but it didn’t come. He sat there with an assessing look on his face, watching her.
As the silence dragged on, Rosalind suddenly couldn’t stand it any more. She didn’t want to play games. The words exploded out of her mouth. ‘You’re not even going to offer me an apology, are you?’
‘What for? I’m only human. We’ve had long spells away from one another. What happened was partly your fault for not moving around with me, so why should I be the one to apologise? You haven’t apologised to me for your stick-in-the-mud attitude and that’s what drove me to it.’
She ignored his accusation. ‘You’re not sorry at all, are you?’
‘I’m sorry you found out. Sorry you’re hurt.’ He really was. It surprised him how much. He didn’t want to hurt her. ‘And to find out now of all times – well, I deeply regret that, Ros.’
‘And that’s all?’
‘This is the twenty-first century. We’re both grown-ups. No one believes in fairy stories and happy ever afters nowadays.’ Hell, he could do without this. Didn’t she know he was upset, too? At least she had seen Tim. He hadn’t. They hadn’t even bothered to tell him his son was back.
Seeing how bright with tears her eyes were, he tried to explain, to soften the blow. ‘The other women – well, they didn’t make any difference to the way I felt about you, I promise you, Ros. It was just – opportunism. A man’s physical needs are so much more pressing than a woman’s. You know that.’
He was doing it again, Rosalind realised, twisting the argument his way, putting the blame onto someone else. ‘Well, whether the women mattered to you or not, I’m leaving you.’ She had the satisfaction of seeing his jaw drop.
‘You’re bloody not!’
‘You can’t stop me.’
‘I can talk sense into you, though. We’ve lost one member of the family. This is not the time to break up the rest of us. For the girls’ sake, if not for ours. Give yourself a few days, at least. Think things through. You’ll see I’m right. And – and I do apologise for hurting you.’
‘Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue,’ she said scathingly. It was from Hamlet. Another tragedy. Very apt. The rest of the words she had once learnt by heart for homework came back to her suddenly and she hurled them at him, ‘If you mouth it as many of your players do, I had as lief the town crier spoke my lines.’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘I’m quoting the Bard. He was talking about actors and you were just acting out an apology.’ She sucked in oxygen and tossed at him, ‘How could you do it with Liz? Of all people, Liz!’
He stared at her in shock. She even knew about Liz. Oh, hell! After a minute of searching for words to put the best spin on things, he could only think of, ‘She did it with me, too – was eager for it. To get back at Bill, she said.’
‘And you couldn’t resist seizing a freebie – even if it was with my best friend.’ Rosalind’s voice wobbled as she fought for control.
He shrugged. ‘I suppose you’re going to break up a lifelong friendship now just for a few screws?’
‘No. For the betrayal.’
‘Betrayal!’ He threw back his head and roared with laughter. ‘Oh my God, join the twenty-first century, will you, Ros?’
‘Rosalind!’ she screamed at him. ‘I’m called Rosalind and that’s how I think of myself and always have done. Rosalind!’
‘Bit late to tell me that, now.’ He went across to the decanter and pou
red himself a large whisky. ‘Want one?’
‘No, I don’t. But you go ahead and get drunk again. Your only son is dead, your marriage is over and you turn to the bottle. Very helpful, that.’
He could feel himself getting really angry. He’d been very forbearing, but it took two to work out a reconciliation. Suddenly he wanted to wound her. ‘Anyway, Tim might not be my only son. She’s pregnant. Liz is, I mean.’
‘What?’
‘Yeah.’ He patted his crotch. ‘Everything’s still working all right. Shook me when she told me, though.’
‘Pregnant?’ The word was a hiss of sound. ‘Liz – is – pregnant?’
‘Yeah.’ He raised his glass in an unvoiced toast. ‘So I might still have a son.’
She could bear it no longer. He wasn’t sorry for what he’d done, not in the least sorry, only sorry that she’d found out. And for all her good intentions, she’d not handled it as firmly as she had hoped. That upset her, too. She turned and ran from him, not pausing to grab a coat, just snatching her handbag and throwing open the front door.
He set down his glass and followed her, but she had the car door open and the motor running before he could do anything. By the time he started down the porch steps, hands outstretched to tell her to stop, the car was moving. He leapt in front of it.
And she kept moving, not caring whether she knocked him over or not. He had to jump sideways to avoid her.
‘Damn you, you stupid bitch!’ he yelled after her from where he lay sprawled among the dying daffodils.
Their season was over now.
‘Jonathon!’ She hammered on the door of Destan Manor. ‘Jonathon, where are you? Jonathon, I need you.’
No one came to answer and she slid to the floor, sobbing and weeping loudly like a hurt child. The ice inside her was breaking up now in great chunks and pain was running like meltwater through her whole body. Harsh noises kept erupting from her throat and she couldn’t stop them.
