Difficult Husbands

by Mary de Laszlo

  Gloria said, ‘you see, Clara, we married men far older that we are. They were lovely people but since hitting their sixties, they have all become difficult husbands. Mine drinks, Rosalind’s Ivan would rather help disadvantaged teenagers than give time to his own … oh, not that they are disadvantaged,’ she said quickly, though she might have added, ‘but they could be soon if he doesn’t become a better father to them.’ She went on, ‘… and he seems to be attracted to their social workers and often brings them home for Christmas, and poor Lorna, well, she may have told you about her husband.’

  Clara nodded sympathetically. ‘But you want them to come and stay at Ravenscourt? How would you get them here?’

  ‘I’m afraid we let our imaginations run away with ourselves. We didn’t realise how derelict this house is. We thought, well, not seriously,’ Gloria looked embarrassed now at admitting to such a scheme, ‘that we could get them here, give them some sort of Christmas for themselves and leave them here, out of our and our children’s hair, until it’s over. But of course they’d escape, ring out for help on their mobiles. It’s a mad idea, born out of desperation.’ She laughed rather hollowly, but Clara looked serious.

  ‘Mobiles don’t work just here, you have to go up to the top of the hill. Once we were stuck in here. A huge tree fell down over the drive; we had to walk right round through the woods to the road, quite a way. It would be near impossible to go that way now, as the woods are thick with brambles. They used to be so well kept, but there it is, soon as you turn your back, nature takes over.’

  ‘Still wouldn’t work,’ Lorna said. ‘We’d need someone to look after them, make sure they stayed put.’

  Clara said, ‘I know just the person, Jane Purdy. She lives in the village. Spent her whole working life as a school matron in a boys’ public school. She had to leave when the school closed down and she didn’t feel like starting somewhere new. She’s past seventy, but you wouldn’t know it. I could cook for them.’

  A flicker of excitement shivered through the three women but then as quickly died.

  ‘It’s a tempting thought,’ Gloria said with a sigh, ‘but it would be too complicated and really the house is far too cold and uncomfortable, though how I wish it were possible so that we could, just once, give our children a stress-free Christmas

  11

  The Great Inspection

  ‘So when is Flora’s baby due?’ Rosalind turned towards Lorna, her face a study of horrified compassion. The three of them were in a local pub. The bar was festooned with Christmas streamers and polystyrene robins and reindeers lurking in any spare spaces, filling the three women with panic instead of goodwill.

  ‘About April I think.' Lorna said. ‘Having a grandchild, even years before I envisaged having one, should be a time for rejoicing, but with Stephen gone, Flora so young and the baby’s father married, it’s a mess. A sad story instead of a happy one.’

  ‘You don’t think she did it as a cry for help, hoping to get Stephen back? Or got involved with an older man because she’s missing her father?’ Rosalind laughed awkwardly. ‘You know the sort of psychobabble spewed out today. We are all meant to be crying out for help, aren’t we? Though I bet if we cried out, we’d be shut up in a darkened room, or put on Prozac.’

  ‘I did wonder if subconsciously she got pregnant to shock Stephen into returning, but I think she was careless because Ben said he couldn’t have children.’ Lorna had sieved through every scenario in the loneliness of the night.

  ‘In our day, they used to say they were infertile if they hadn’t got a condom, remember,’ Gloria chipped in.

  ‘Yes, but we didn’t fall for it, we were so terrified we’d get pregnant.’ Lorna said, thinking with a pang of Stephen and his tender lovemaking. ‘I also,’ she went on, firmly pushing that image from her mind, ‘wondered if the man is a control freak and used her to give him the baby his wife couldn’t.’ It was a relief to be able to confess her innermost fears, extreme though they may be, to these friends without experiencing ridicule.

  ‘I did hear once of someone using a surrogate mother, only the husband fell in love with her and left his wife.’ Gloria wondered if this had happened to someone she knew or if she’d seen it on television or read it in a novel.

  Their discussion became intense and occasionally far-fetched, but slowly, soothed by their concern, Lorna began to feel better. Gloria and Rosalind were both trusted friends and she could rely on their support. But even as she felt this, she was seized in a sickening vice of grief. She missed Stephen as he used to be, not the man who’d been struck by this adolescent sex-fest before impotence – at least with her – grounded him.

  Gloria seeing her distress squeezed her arm saying, ‘It will all work out; no one cares today if you have a baby without a husband. We’ll all love it, be its surrogate grannies.’

  ‘But what if Stephen has a baby with that girl? If she had his child she could stay in this country, couldn’t she?’ Lorna blurted, pinioned in the grip of the fear of it. Would Stephen, though he had two children already, feel he must prove his potency again?

  Rosalind poured a drop of milk into her coffee, watching the colour change and then adding a tiny bit more as if she was choosing paint and it had to be an exact shade of beige. ‘That would be a bloody nightmare, but I’m sure he won’t – can’t, by the sound of him. Ivan could do the same,’ her face tightened, ‘come home with a baby under his arm, or a pregnant social worker he expects me to look after.’ She shivered with the horror of it. ‘But I’m sure this latent sex craze is a front, a last fly of the flag, because they are virtually impotent anyway,’ she added hopefully.

  ‘If you’ve already had children you know what hard work they are. All those sleepless nights at the beginning. Surely an old man wouldn’t want to go through that again.’ Gloria said.

  ‘Ivan certainly wouldn’t, he wasn’t too bad when the girls were born but now they’ve reached their teens he loses patience very quickly.’ Rosalind said. ‘I don’t think he was very good with Polly either, he felt guilty about his marriage not working and spoilt her, giving her presents instead of time and discipline, and as you know, she’s still desperate to get her own way.’

  ‘Stephen might have forgotten, or pay for a nanny.’ Lorna fought to curb her rising panic. She could hear her mother saying in that singsong way she had when handing out advice – as though by putting on a jokey voice it did not sound judgemental – ‘Don’t worry, it may never happen’. How that voice had irritated her then, but how she longed for it now.

  This fearful thought brought more frantic discussion until they suddenly realised that Nathan, if he hadn’t changed his mind, would be arriving at Ravenscourt any moment.

  He arrived just before they did, in an ancient sports car that looked as if it could have been made from a kit. Sonia was with him. They were both standing outside staring at the house. The day was closing in, the dying sun touching the old house with one last burst of gold. There was a hint of melancholy in the air that seemed to add to the desolation of a past life, a house now forgotten.

  ‘In a few feet of snow it will look very romantic,’ Sonia greeted them.

  Surreptitiously Lorna studied Nathan’s reaction. She wanted him to like Ravenscourt; it was Beth she couldn’t take. But if Nathan liked it, Beth would take over, bossing about, making her feel ashamed for having such a house and letting it get in such a state even though it was not her fault at all. She would criticise Fergus’s taste, and then hers if she made any suggestions.

  She was sick of criticism. In low moments she imagined Stephen chanting all sorts of personal insults to justify him leaving a perfectly good marriage, perhaps telling his Pekinese woman that his ex-wife could castrate a man just by her expression. Her sister Felicity, safe in her own marriage, had advised her to pray more, do the Christian thing of turning the other cheek. ‘Which cheek?’ she’d retorted, ‘Both, all four if you count my bottom, have been metaphorically slapped hard.’ No, the whol
e episode of letting strangers into the house would be fraught with drama she hadn’t the strength to cope with, added to the ones she was going through already.

  Clara appeared flushed and star struck at this invasion and ushered them into the kitchen, saying apologetically that it was the only warm room in the house. Gloria started gushing to Nathan about the old cupboards and the ancient stove, pointing them out as if he could not see them for himself, opening the door to the larder with its brick floor and scrubbed, pine shelves holding a few empty jars and extra cooking pots, exclaiming how she wished she had a larder to fill with homemade jams and bottled fruit, igniting Nathan’s interest as if he could picture it filled with his tempting produce.

  Feeling tired and dejected, Lorna could not see anything good about the place. She wondered how much its on-going deterioration was costing her every moment as more damp seeped in somewhere, window sills rotted and the winter wind pierced through the loose windows to ice up the water pipes and crack more of the plasterwork. She must sell it and fast, finding someone with the resources to bring it back to its former glory. She ought to go to the nearest estate agent and ask them to take it off her hands as soon as possible.

  ‘I remember that make of stove; we had one when I first married. Very simple and it works beautifully, just fill it up with fuel and the room is as warm as toast.’ Sonia said admiringly.

  ‘We also have a modern stove,’ Clara gestured towards an alcove near the pantry door that housed something that could have been called modern in the sixties.

  Nathan turned to Lorna, his face impassive. ‘Mind if I just walk around on my own, just the downstairs rooms?’

  ‘Go ahead, Fergus only lived in a couple of rooms in the last years of his life,’ she repeated, feeling she had to stand up for him. It was important to her that Nathan would not think badly of Fergus for allowing the place to fall into such ruin.

  ‘That’s OK,’ he said quietly, as if he understood. He went down the passage that led from the kitchen to the hall.

  Sonia sat down on a chair and undid her coat. ‘I’ll leave him to it.’ She smiled round at them. ‘He’s like his father, quite incapable of making up his mind if he’s disturbed by other people. He hates people coming at him with their views and ideas until he’s sure of his own.’

  Lorna wondered if Sonia’s eyes slightly strayed in Gloria’s direction, but she may have been mistaken. But if this trait in him was true, how on earth did he get on with Beth?

  ‘It so sad that it needs so much doing to it and I haven’t the sort of mega bucks such an operation would need. I suppose the best idea is to put it on the market, or at least get it surveyed. Do you know of a reliable estate agent locally, who could be left to get on with it?’ she asked Sonia.

  ‘Yes, Carson’s, Sonia said. ‘Henry Carson, old boyfriend of mine. It’s his firm and his son runs it now, though Henry still works some days.’ She rummaged in her large handbag, pulling out a pink, leather diary. ‘If I can borrow your phone I’ll ring him for you. I don’t have a mobile – they give you cancer.’

  ‘It hasn’t been proved.’ Rosalind, who got withdrawal symptoms if she didn’t have hers on her, and could not be in constant touch with her daughters, broke in.

  Sonia shrugged and took the walkabout phone Clara bought to her.

  ‘You are surely not going to put the house on the market before Christmas, are you?’ Gloria asked her pointedly.

  ‘I don’t know, I hadn’t realised how bad it really was. I’d like to get an estate agent to see it, just to hear what they say,’ Lorna said. She didn’t want to sell it but what other option had she? ‘I know I can’t afford to live here, or do it up, even superficially.’ Nor would I want to be somewhere so isolated, she said to herself, smiling at Clara, hoping she hadn’t hurt her feelings. ‘It was darling of Fergus to leave it to me but he couldn’t have known how much attention it needed. Far better it goes soon before any more bits drop off and I get too attached to it.’

  ‘But our plan,’ Gloria reminded her. Lorna pretended not to hear.

  Sonia dialled a number. ‘Ah, Henry darling, you are working. I hoped you were, I’ve got this marvellous house for you to sell. So much atmosphere, so grand, needs a lot of TLC but people like that, don’t they? Would make a lovely bijoux hotel, or a Russian or one of those footballers might like it as a country house. It’s certainly secluded enough.’

  She prattled on, outlining her ideas to improve the house, leaving Lorna feeling superfluous; furious that the Harwood family seemed to assume they could take charge of everyone and everything. She left the room before she lost her temper. When they’d gone she would ask Clara for the name of a different estate agent and not allow Sonia’s ‘admirer’ anywhere near Ravenscourt. She had momentarily forgotten Nathan and almost fell over him in a dark corner in the hall.

  ‘This is wonderful,’ he said. ‘With a roaring fire in that grate and garlands of greenery and a table laid up with silver and glass, and lots of food, it will be perfect. If you agree, Lorna, I’d like to use the drawing room as well, with its spectacular moulding, get in lots of people as if there is a party. Photograph the side that isn’t damp.’

  ‘I’m selling it,’ Lorna said irritably. ‘In fact your mother has probably sold it already. I expect the builders to arrive almost as we speak.’ She was trembling with fury. Was she so insignificant that people – namely Stephen, now joined by the Harwoods – could just walk over her and snatch what they wanted without a care for her feelings?

  Nathan sighed. ‘Oh damn, she can get out of hand. I suppose she’s rung one of her admirers. If you want something, a good doctor, plumber, whatever, ask my mother. She has an admirer in almost every profession, useful if you want one.’

  ‘She’s on to an estate agent now but I did say I wanted to sell it as soon as possible.’

  ‘But you’ll let me borrow it first? Please, Lorna.’ His voice was soft, melting her ill humour.

  It was dusk now and the strange green light that had struggled through the creepers had been replaced by a muddy yellow glow coming from a few still live, but dusty bulbs in the chandelier. She imagined she could feel his charm oozing into her. It was warm and comforting and she wanted to bask in it, like a cat stretching out to be stroked. She took a step towards him. Gloria, striding through from the kitchen and calling for her, saved her from any foolishness. She did not see Nathan in the shadows and she said in a frantic whisper.

  ‘You can’t sell it before Christmas, remember our plan. I’m sure we could pull it off if we set our minds to it.’ Gloria stood, feet firmly planted, one hand on the curve of the banister like a general disciplining her troops.

  ‘What plan?’ Nathan stepped out into the light. ‘Are you going to stay here for Christmas? It would be lovely and if you get the fires going it won’t be too cold.’

  ‘No, not really,’ Gloria backtracked, looking embarrassed. ‘But how do you like it Nathan, will it do?’

  ‘Absolutely. Fires, masses of greenery, people,’ he laughed. ‘We’ll bring in all our friends, provide food and wine and have a party, take some pictures and we’ve done it.’

  Sonia came through to join them. ‘There you are,’ she said smugly. ‘Henry is coming over almost at once. He has a client already, one of those city types who’ve come from nowhere and made millions and now want a lifestyle to match.’

  ‘But you never asked me first,’ Lorna burst out, quite forgetting that moments before she’d wanted to put the house on the market before it bankrupted her.

  Nathan scowled at Sonia. ‘Ring him back and put him off. Lorna will decide when she wants to put it on the market.’ He turned to her. ‘Ravenscourt would be perfect for our brochure if you’d allow it. If we make it nice, even though it will just be cosmetic, you may get a better price for it when it does go on the market. What do you say?’ He looked so eager, his smile lighting up his face, that she had to turn away. She was tempted to say, ‘No. You, your mother and your wife in the
pink jersey that I wanted, must get out of my life, you disturb me too much.’ But true to form, Gloria burst in.

  ‘That will be perfect. If you make it look Christmassy, warm and inviting, everyone will want it.’ She threw a meaningful glance at Lorna. ‘If you think you can transform the place, Nathan, then do it.’

  Rosalind joined them, appraising the place, mentally designing her own transformation. ‘It could be made wonderful. There’s so much scope here.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Nathan said. ‘Thank you so much, Lorna. I’ll ring Beth.’ He snatched out his mobile.

  Clara was the most excited of them all. With everyone chattering away about creating a Christmas scene, she had got confused and appeared to think that Nathan was a film director and that Ravenscourt would soon be occupied by such lovelies as Colin Firth and Kate Winslet, or even some of the older heartthrobs she used to lust over in her youth.

  ‘It’s so exciting, how I wish Fergus were here to see it all.’

  ‘It will only be Nathan and his friends dressed up in their party clothes, no one exciting. It’s for his brochure on Christmas food.’ Lorna felt mean as she saw Clara’s face fall, but it was only fair to tell her the truth. ‘It’s not a film, Clara, and anyway I don’t know if I can agree to it. There are bound to be dozens of health and safety regulations in case the house falls down on top of everyone – which it looks like doing imminently, and I’m sued for millions.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ Clara drooped with disappointment, before shaking herself out of her despondency. She added, ‘but it would be exciting all the same, wouldn’t it? Bring some life to the old house again.’

  Nathan came over to her, smiling. ‘We can make this marvellous, thank you so much. I’ll leave you enough food for an amazing Christmas. A whole ham,’ he laughed, ‘then you won’t need to eat all my samples.’ He grabbed her hands. His face was flushed with enthusiasm; his eyes glowed warmly at her. ‘We’ll take such care of it, I promise.’ He dropped her hands and went back into the icy dining room.