Difficult Husbands

by Mary de Laszlo

  ‘I hope you find Sonia’s watch, and… safe journey home,’ she said, hoping he’d leave before someone found them together and saw her in this unflattering garb.

  ‘Clara said she’d search for it in the morning and with luck you could bring it with you to the party.’

  ‘I won’t be coming, I’m leaving at dawn, I want to get home to the children.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ he looked disappointed, ‘but now I know you weren’t all staying here, I understand. We must keep in touch, have dinner or something.’

  ‘Yes, that would be fun.’ She wanted him gone before they were seen together.

  He smiled and left the room. Now she had thought of Gloria and her urge to be kind, she could not help wondering if it was her or Ravenscourt which held the most interest for him.

  She listened to his footsteps crossing the hall and fading away before she left the room. Going into the empty hall and up the stairs, her body was singing after their kiss and yet she was close to tears.

  23

  Foot Loose And Fancy Free

  The extreme cold woke Lorna at dawn. She curled up tight under the bedclothes trying to get warm. She had not slept well; the memory of Nathan’s kiss inflamed her, and yet what did it mean? Was it just a passing thing, a sudden urge that had come upon him as they’d stood so close together? Possibly he was a little drunk after his party? In his right mind he would hardly have been turned on by her voluminous nightie and boots. She cringed with embarrassment, imagining him teasing her about it in front of the others, if they saw each other again. People were always suggesting meeting up with each other again and perhaps they meant it at the time, but so often events took over and they never got round to it, but he had asked her out to dinner, her heart lifted and who’s to say he wasn’t the kind of person who meant what he said? She must stop feeling that every man would let her down like Stephen had.

  She got out of bed, afraid to wake anyone, especially Stephen. Last night he’d made it clear he preferred his life with the Pekinese woman to one with her, so she must accept once and for all that that chapter of her life was over and move on. That kiss – the first passionate kiss she’d given anyone other than Stephen since her marriage – may mean nothing to Nathan, just a sort of reflex action, but to her, it meant that she was free of her marriage, free to perhaps find another love one day in the distant future.

  She opened her door carefully. It creaked in protest and she froze, listening. But all was silent. She tiptoed to the other side of the house, where she remembered there was another bathroom. Having removed two huge spiders who lodged in the bath, she filled it with hot water and sank down into it.

  Lying in the bath, the steam rising from her into the icy air, she wondered whether to wake Gloria, and see whether she wanted to leave for London at once with her, or would rather stay here until she knew how Adrian was.

  She was filled with a sort of fear of seeing Stephen again, afraid of his mood and his reaction to her in the cold light of day. As for their coming grandchild… anxiety gripped her as she remembered that scene with her sister. How would Stephen react to being a grandfather, would it add to his terror of getting old? She pushed that thought to the back of her mind to take out and worry about later, while she allowed herself one more moment to savour the memory of Nathan’s kiss.

  She crept back to her room and dressed. The early morning light cut through the dusty windows; showing up the damp-stained walls, pinpointing the cracks and chipped paint, the dried out lino on the narrow back stairs. Poor house, it needed so much love and care, she couldn’t bear to think of someone else pulling out the guts of it, perhaps transforming it into a series of modern box-like rooms devoid of soul. If only there was a way she could save it, but it needed far more money spent on it that she would ever have. Perhaps she should take up her sister’s offer. Jonathan made good money and Felicity’s job was quite well paid, perhaps if they restored it little by little and somehow made it pay for itself by hiring it out …. Nathan’s murder weekends came to mind. It seemed such a huge undertaking, she wouldn’t think of it now, until she’d had a survey, but she’d have to make a decision soon.

  She went down the back stairs to the kitchen in search of coffee and found Jane and Clara having breakfast together at the kitchen table.

  ‘We’re both early risers and like this quiet time to have a meal together before the day starts,’ Jane greeted her. ‘The men are never down before ten, so we have plenty of time to have our breakfast and then get theirs.’

  ‘Am I disturbing you? I just got so cold.’ She hadn’t expected to see them so early. She blushed, did they somehow know of the passionate kiss? She went on quickly, to cover her embarrassment, ‘The windows in my room are full of gaps and the draught blows straight through.’

  ‘Of course you are not disturbing us.’ Clara got up. ‘Coffee or tea? I can do a cooked breakfast if you like, the men enjoy that,’ she said cheerfully.

  ‘No thank you, just coffee and toast, please.’ Lorna sat down at the table with her back to the stove; the warmth from it enclosing her like a comforting blanket.

  After a few remarks about the weather and the difficulty of heating such a house as Ravenscourt the conversation came round to their difficult husbands.

  ‘I’m glad I never married,’ Jane put some fresh toast on the breakfast table. ‘I’ve had some heartbreaks in my time but there seem to be many couples about who struggle on miserably together when there is no love, or even respect left for each other.’

  ‘I do know of some very happy marriages still going strong,’ Lorna spoke up for some of her friends. She envied them. They may be criticised for not having an exciting relationship, but they appeared to be content, comfortable with each other.

  ‘Then they are blessed,’ Clara said. ‘My marriage came unstuck early on, but I can’t say I’ve missed having a husband. My daughter was enough for me, we lived all over the place together … and then …’ She fumbled for her handkerchief in her sleeve and blew her nose. ‘I came here to work for Fergus and it was the happiest time in my life.’

  ‘We may look like a couple of old spinnies, but I’d say we’ve had a good life. I must say,’ Jane regarded Lorna with sympathy. ‘I don’t envy any of you three ladies with those husbands of yours. Don’t get me wrong,’ she held up her hand as if Lorna was going to protest, or apologise for their behaviour. ‘We got on with them perfectly well, sometimes even glimpsing the men they must have been. Once they realised that...’ Jane paused, then went on, ‘they were ‘dumped here’, as they put it, they were very angry, hurt too, I’d say but then… we did tell them that they were here because their behaviour upset their families and you three women were frightened it would chase away your children.’

  ‘We’ve all told them that, and they didn’t seem to take it on board. I hope they took notice of you,’ Lorna said.

  ‘Being a school matron all those years taught me to say it straight,’ Jane said. ‘Adrian and Ivan looked rather sheepish and Stephen said the children were old enough to make their own minds up, but they accepted it in the end. After a while I think they just couldn’t be bothered to do anything about it. They’re old friends and the food and drink were plentiful and the weather filthy.’

  ‘So do you think it might have shocked them into behaving better, giving more time to their families?’ Lorna asked.

  ‘It did shock them,’ Clara said, ‘but none of them wanted to admit it, so they just had another drink and made jokes about it.’ She threw a cautious look at Lorna. ‘The house became an interest, too. Ivan and Adrian seemed to think Stephen should have a share in it, I don’t know the law but…’

  ‘That’s just what I was afraid of,’ Lorna said desperately. ‘Do you think he wants something to do with it? Will he contact his lawyer and see what rights he has? If Fergus had died a few months earlier, before the divorce, I’m sure I’d have had to add it to my assets and share it out.’

  ‘I don’t know
how the law works in such cases. His mind kept wandering, and Adrian was drunk most of the time. Only Ivan seemed to make sense. I talked to him about his voluntary work and said that it must help him with his own young daughters and that made him go quite quiet.’ Jane said, ‘And I wondered, as I’d often seen fathers of boys… and sometimes mothers, at the school where I worked, too busy making money to have proper time for their own families. I did ask him about it and it made him quite thoughtful.’

  ‘Rosalind finds it hard that he never seems to be there for their daughters. He has an older daughter, Polly, from his first marriage and she’s always been very difficult, especially when he married Rosalind. Perhaps feeling discarded, Polly went all out to make her life hell, so perhaps he can’t face going through adolescence again with his own children, and finds it easier to cope with other people’s,’ Lorna said, not going into the fact he also seemed to have developed a penchant for social workers.

  ‘I’m sure these men were charming once but they’re quite a handful now. Well, Adrian and Stephen are. I think that being here has given Ivan time to think things over. I don’t mind saying that I’m afraid if Gloria takes Adrian back again in the state he’s in, she’s is in for a very difficult time indeed.’

  ‘I’m terrified it will kill her.’ It was a relief talking to people who seemed so concerned about them, and had seen their husbands first-hand and understood. ‘She works at all sorts of things to pay the bills and though we are all still young and reasonably fit, taking care of an alcoholic husband, especially one that seems determined to destroy himself, is very hard to take.’

  ‘You don’t have to take it.’ Jane said firmly. ‘If the three of them have chosen to live this destructive life, all but abandon their wives and children, perhaps they should be left to get on with it. Tough love, that’s often the only way to deal with it. The more you make excuses and cover up for them, the less favours you do them, and the worse the situation becomes.’

  ‘It is hard though.’ Lorna frowned. Adrian could still seduce Gloria with his charm and contrition, swearing undying love after such events, invoking her sympathy when he was injured.

  ‘I see it as a boat in a storm.’ Jane helped herself to a large dollop of homemade marmalade. ‘Sometimes the only way to save the innocent people – especially children, in all this, is to jettison the destructive ones.’

  ‘If you’ll excuse me saying this, Lorna,’ Clara said, in the tone of voice that implied she would say it anyway, ‘I think your three husbands are very selfish. Their talk was all about the women they’d had sex with – though I did wonder if that wasn’t just wishful thinking – and the times they got drunk, just as if they were adolescents. I suspect,’ she paused while she poured boiling water over fresh coffee, releasing the rich aroma into the room, ‘that they are all going through some sort of life crises.’

  Her words thrust painfully into her. Clara was only enforcing what she already knew. It may not be their fault that the three of them had careered off the rails like that, but they had, and if they refused to get help, or change their behaviour, their wives must let them go. Toss them overboard.

  ‘I know that my marriage is really over and I don’t want to see Stephen again,’ Lorna gulped down her coffee. ‘I want to leave as soon as possible.’

  ‘You’ll have plenty of warning, you can hear the water thudding through the pipes in the bathroom he uses,’ Jane said. ‘It’s probably best if you hurry back to London and your new life, come back here again after they’ve gone.’

  Clara said, ‘Enjoy your lives with your children. After all, this situation is mucking up their lives too, and they don’t want to lose both parents, with their mothers getting ill from the stress of it all.’

  The kitchen door opened with a jerk and Gloria came in. She looked pale and strained but better than she had the night before. Jane and Clara fussed round her and Clara put in an egg to boil for her. Gloria sat down beside Lorna. She seemed quiet, yet somehow stoic. Lorna steeled herself for Gloria insisting that they go to fetch Adrian from hospital before driving him back to London. Gloria took a few fortifying gulps of coffee then, looking firmly at her, said; ‘When are you leaving for London, Lorna? I’d like to come with you.’

  ‘And Adrian?’ Lorna saw the pain in Gloria’s eyes.

  ‘He can stay in hospital. I’ve decided,’ she paused, as if the words wounded her, ‘that I will put Justin first.’

  Lorna looked at Gloria with surprise and admiration. There was a new determination in her eyes and in the set of her jaw. ‘You really mean it this time, don’t you, Glory?’

  ‘I take it then that the men will stay?’ Jane broke in.

  ‘We’ll get Rosalind to pick them up. I’ll ring her now.’ Gloria left her half-eaten egg and went to use the phone hidden behind the bread bin. Even though it was early, Rosalind answered at once and Gloria explained the situation. After listening a moment, she said, ‘Well, they’ll have to stay here then. Lorna and I are leaving almost at once, when we’ve finished breakfast.’

  ‘So she won’t come?’ Lorna asked as Gloria sat down again.

  ‘She says she’s met a man at a party she went to on Christmas Eve and doesn’t want to leave London in case he rings her.’ Gloria giggled. ‘Reminds me of the old days when we were all young together. Heavens, do you think we’ve got to jump through all those dating hoops again?’ she grimaced.

  ‘Talking of which, what about that party over at Mulberry Farm?’ Clara said, before Lorna could comment on this surprising news. ‘Sonia was insistent that you all come. I don’t think she realises that you are not staying here.’

  ‘No, I told Nathan I’m going back to London this morning.’ Lorna said, and then was covered in confusion in case one of them asked her when she’d told him, or Gloria, with her radar eyes, got her to admit he’d found her in the library dressed to kill.

  ‘I would have liked to have gone and seen Nathan, and…’ Gloria caught Lorna’s expression, ‘see the pictures of Ravenscourt for the brochure if they’re ready, but I think it’s better we go back to London as soon as possible. Justin is at home and some of his friends stayed over. I’d like to be with them. I’ll catch up with Nathan later.’

  24

  Easier Said Than Done

  Gloria hurried through her breakfast, frantic to leave Ravenscourt before Ivan and Stephen surfaced. Both of them had given her a bad time last night over leaving Adrian here. ‘He nearly killed himself,’ Stephen had accused her, as if she had purposely set a trap to dispose of him, or any one of them.

  She’d been so exhausted last night she’d fallen into bed and been asleep at once. But she’d woken early and lain there in the cold room in a strange bed away from home, replaying Justin’s expression when Ivan had rung her to tell her of Adrian’s accident. Lying there, with the thin grey light poking through the curtains, she realised that this was crunch time. The choice was stark before her; it was the end or she would lose Justin to Ellie’s family, who sounded so normal and cosy, just the sort of atmosphere that Justin craved.

  Hearing noises above – the flush of a loo, the water banging in the pipes – made the two women squeak like frightened rabbits and head for the car. They crept across the drive, fearful that the crunch of gravel under their feet would alert the men. A glint of sun caught something on the ground and Lorna bent down to examine it. ‘Sonia’s watch,’ she exclaimed, picking it up. ‘So it was true,’ she muttered.

  ‘Do come on, they might see us.’ Gloria was panicky now. Her panic increased when Lorna turned back to the house, a glitter of gold in her hand.

  ‘Sonia lost her watch; I’ll just give it to Clara.’ She was blushing. She dashed back into the kitchen and then came out again making for the car, not looking at Gloria.

  They were so keen to get away before they were caught that Gloria didn’t remark upon it until they were safely out of the drive and well up the lane towards London.

  ‘What do you mean, Sonia’s lo
st her watch?’ she turned to her.

  Lorna became flustered, ‘Oh… she lost her watch, don’t you remember her telling us at the hospital? Or were you still with Adrian? It must have dropped off last time she was here, lucky I saw it glinting on the drive like that.’ Gloria knew her too well. She was trying to make it sound unimportant but was failing, there was more to it and she was keeping it from her.

  ‘Very lucky.’ Gloria watched her, wondering why she was so agitated over such a simple thing. ‘Did Sonia and Nathan come round last night then, to look for it?’ She asked, wondering why Lorna looked so guilty, as if she’d stolen it or something.

  ‘No. It was just luck I found it, though it may not work after being outside in the wet and cold all night.’

  She was about to question her further when Lorna exclaimed cheerfully, ‘We’ve escaped. Clara and Jane seemed to have really enjoyed this adventure and are rather sad it’s coming to an end.’

  ‘But it’s been a turning point for us too hasn’t it?’ Lorna turned to look at her. There was a slight air of suppressed excitement about her, Gloria noticed. Was that because they’d got away before the men appeared… or something else she was determined to keep to herself?

  ‘It has, and I hope for the men too,’ Lorna said. ‘A new year and a new chapter in our lives. She blushed, and said hurriedly, ‘I’ve accepted my marriage is over and a new life beckons.’ She laughed.

  ‘Brave girl,’ Gloria meant it, but why was Lorna blushing? Had she met someone else already? She was about to ask when Lorna said, ‘So, apart from Adrian falling down the stairs, did your day go well? Did you like Justin’s girlfriend?’

  ‘It was a lovely day, and Ellie is perfect. They seem mad about each other, but it’s early days; they’ve only just met.’ Seeing Adrian lying there in pain, with his arm strapped up and needing so much help with everyday things had wrenched her heart and if she hadn’t been tortured by Justin’s face and his misery and fear when he heard about his father’s accident, she’d have taken him home and cared for him …until the next time. Perhaps the doctors would insist he go into rehab. She didn’t know how it worked, she supposed they couldn’t force him, unless he was violent and a danger to the public. But hard though she found it, she would leave him there in hospital and he would have to make his own decisions.