Difficult Husbands

by Mary de Laszlo

  Poor Lorna, it had been one blow after another since Stephen went peculiar and left them. Now she was faced with this dreadful anxiety of a baby born too soon and the pain of having to face up to the fact that even that had not seemed to knock some sense into Stephen, or brought him home to be a support for them all.

  Gloria thought of her own babies; four little ones she’d lost in the first three months of their existence. Then they’d had Justin and she’d been so close to losing him over Adrian’s shaming behaviour. It had been so hard but she’d been right to ditch him to keep Justin close. She spoke to him occasionally and he’d seemed quite rational … far away in Scotland, not slumped about at home.

  She missed him even more now that Justin had gone back to Uni. The house seemed so quiet and the bed so cold and empty without Adrian’s warm body snuffling there beside her at night. She must stop this nonsense; she’d done the right thing – thanks to Ravenscourt and their mad idea. She smiled as she thought of it; Ravenscourt had changed their lives.

  Rosalind and Ivan seemed to have sorted out their differences, Ivan was trying to give more time to his family and as far as she knew, he hadn’t bought any social workers home recently. Adrian, with the support of his sister was still in rehab, at least for the moment and Lorna … Nathan loved Lorna.

  She was stabbed with a pang of sorrow, envy even, but did she really want him? He was attractive, kind and fun but she’d sensed that pain in him and now she knew the cause of it; the loss of a child, the hardest pain to bear.

  She was exhausted … drained with the years of caring for Adrian. And what good had it done her? She was free now, independent, anyway for the moment, and she must savour it; use her freedom while it was here.

  She wanted love; she wanted a loving sex life again but she wasn’t ready for it yet. She’d married young, given so much and there were so many exciting things left to do without a man; travel, for example. Some of her friends lived abroad and she could visit them. They’d begged her to come and see them, but without Adrian, as they couldn’t cope with his drinking. Now she could go while Justin was at Uni; flights were cheap if you shopped around. And she was going to learn how to make beauty products. She’d always been interested in the benefits of herbs and plants but coping with Adrian had curbed her time and energy to explore it. Now she would study them, see if it were possible to make some beauty creams and lotions and sell them at the fairs, or even further afield if they caught on, many people were now interested in using more natural products.

  There was no shame in being a single woman today; in fact a lot of married women might envy them their freedom if they were grounded by the demands of increasingly difficult husbands. She laughed, joy rising in her, she’d enjoy this new independence. Perhaps she’d find love again one day, but she would not hang about waiting for it. She cleared up the breakfast things with a light heart. Having come to this conclusion, it really was quite a relief.

  35

  The End Of The Affair

  Their lives were taken over by baby Daisy; she was such a small person but she loomed so large in their lives and in their thoughts. Flora was soon discharged from hospital but stayed in Oxford to be near her, spending most of the day with her baby, feeding and caring for her as best she could. Lorna was amazed at the change in her, the drama queen, who exaggerated the smallest of life’s trials; the petulant child who wanted things her own way. Flora had accepted and taken on this serious trial of motherhood with a courage and an energy that surprised her.

  Lorna spent those first anxious days supporting Flora; Ben had to work, and visited each evening. Daisy was still in hospital. There had been a few setbacks; a flare of fever, and difficulties with her breathing, but she’d overcome them all, was getting stronger every day and would soon be allowed home. But where was home to be? In this tense time when no one dared ask if Daisy would survive and not be snatched away by some emergency, they’d not got round to thinking about that.

  ‘She can’t just tuck into Flora’s bedroom like a hamster,’ Gloria said, when she rang her. ‘Remember babies need so much paraphernalia.’

  ‘I’ll talk to her.’ Lorna found that she was too besotted and concerned about her tiny granddaughter to give her full attention to anything that did not feature her. She was also afraid to tempt fate by buying cots and prams and everything else a baby needed.

  They spent a riotous day with Marcus. ‘Let’s hope she remains small and dainty with such a name,’ he teased Flora. ‘I’d have thought it better to have called her ‘Cabbage’ in case she grows to be round and fat.’

  Flora swiped at him, but she was laughing, teasing Marcus back. He’d been afraid of his first sight of his niece, as if bits of her would snap off in his hands if he touched her.

  Stephen had been to see the baby … with the girl, though she’d remained outside. Lorna was relieved he’d come at a time when she wasn’t there. Apparently he’d been overcome with tears at the baby’s vulnerability. Lorna could not bear to question Flora about the meeting, tormented by the fact that they both worshipped and worried about this small girl alone. Instead of her, he would talk to the Pekinese woman about their grandchild, a girl who probably would not care, might even be jealous and demand a baby of her own. Perhaps as time went on, things would become easier between them, the two grandparents, but not yet, it was still too soon.

  Back home for a few days, when all seemed calm, Lorna went out to supper with Gloria and Rosalind. She was longing to see them, to catch up on their lives and tell them about Daisy. She guessed they would want to talk about Ravenscourt. With the drama of Daisy’s birth she had not even put it on the market. Now she must deal with it, swallow her pain, and indeed her guilt at having to sell Fergus’s gift, as it was the only way to save it. Ravenscourt was a dream, just as Nathan had been.

  ‘I’ll contact an estate agent, one of my choice, for Ravenscourt at once, no point in prolonging it.’ Lorna said, before Gloria and Rosalind could start on it. To keep her sanity, she did not allow herself to think about Nathan, or dream up various scenarios over the treasure she’d so foolishly thrown away. She must remain strong for Flora and for Daisy, who seemed to be thriving, and would soon be discharged into the care of her parents.

  ‘Let’s go down to the house once more.’ Gloria said. ‘I feel we owe it a debt, using it to get the men out of our hair over Christmas and changing our lives. Justin and Ellie are so in love, it’s wonderful and it would never have happened if Adrian had been drunk all over the place. I feel like putting up a blue plaque,’ she giggled, forming her fingers into a square. ‘Ravenscourt, Depository for Difficult Husbands.’

  Rosalind giggled. ‘I can’t believe the change in Ivan and the girls now he’s realised his responsibilities as a father and husband. It helps that Polly’s away too, he’s so much more relaxed, and it’s all thanks to Ravenscourt.’

  ‘It’s helped us all in its way,’ Gloria said. ‘Adrian seems to still be drying out and Justin and I – and possibly Ellie – are going to France to stay with my cousins in their chalet for Easter. We’ll have given up the shop by then.’

  ‘Let’s drink to Ravenscourt, to Granny Lorna and Daisy.’ Rosalind suggested, lifting her glass, her face glowing with the joy of living.

  The highlight of Lorna’s life was visiting Flora and Daisy, often staying a night or two at a pleasant B & B she’d found. At first, all attention had been on the progress of this tiny girl and Flora’s recovery. Ben flitted in and out. When he arrived, Lorna always made an excuse and left them together. Once his mother came, a thin, whisper of a woman, who ignored everyone but the baby, cooing over her in a way that obviously irritated Flora, but, as she reminded her, she was Daisy’s grandmother too and had as much right to love her as they did. This strange little family must make their own decisions, but now that Daisy was doing so well, Lorna thought she should be practical and offer to buy some baby equipment.

  ‘I’ve been told of a good second hand baby shop, so
I can buy her a cot and all that, or go to Peter Jones or Mothercare,’ Lorna said. ‘It’s a granny thing to help out at the beginning, but of course you must choose,’ she said quickly, before Flora told her not to fuss and that Daisy could happily sleep in a drawer or something. She bit back the real question she wanted to ask, which was ‘where will you both live?’ Flora had a couple of years more studying to do yet, and the flat she was in now was hardly a place to bring up a baby, especially one that needed extra care. It was like all student flats, a doss house with a succession of young people trooping through it, and would she live with Ben or on her own?

  Flora looked at her, her clear eyes homing in on Lorna’s face. ‘We can come home for a little while, can’t we? I don’t want to go to Ben’s mother,’ she scowled.

  ‘Of course you can come home while you get settled, there will always be a place here for you, Daisy and Marcus, but what about the future? Where will Ben fit in?’ Despite her determination not to interfere, Lorna had to ask.

  ‘He wants to be part of it,’ Flora said. ‘Of course he does. He’s besotted with her, we all are. His mother lives miles away and fortunately his sister has just announced that she is pregnant and she’s almost fifty,’ she exaggerated.

  ‘And Tess?’ Lorna asked, wondering how this poor woman was coping.

  Flora looked uncomfortable. ‘She and Ben are still together and I suppose that when Daisy is bigger she’ll visit their house, I don’t know, but I think Ben’s better with her than with me.’

  ‘I expect you’re right, darling,’ Lorna said, thinking they would have to work it out for themselves; relationships came in all sorts of shapes and sizes.

  ‘I’ll find a flat or something until I’ve finished Uni and I can put Daisy in a crèche while I’m studying, we’ll take it a step at a time, see what happens,’ Flora said.

  Life at home was busy when Flora and Daisy came, the nights often disturbed, and she felt exhausted. Gloria begged her to take them to Ravenscourt one more time before it was sold. She agreed she would, but always gave some vague date sometime in the future; when it was warmer, when Flora and Daisy had moved into the flat they’d found, until Gloria said if they didn’t do it soon Ravenscourt would either be sold or have fallen down.

  But events took over. To her surprise, a couple of weeks after it was put on the market (with a different estate agent to the ones sent by the Harwoods) the agent rang her to say that an offer, just over the asking price, had been made. There were quite a few large and better cared-for houses on the market, and though Ravenscourt had been viewed by a sizable amount of people, not much interest had been shown in it, and it was a good offer. She agreed it was, far more than she thought she would get for it, and yet she felt sad that she had to let it go. But it was to save it, she reminded herself, the only way to preserve it. So, after questioning the agent, she reluctantly accepted the offer.

  The name of the buyer meant nothing to her. The agent thought it was a developer, which didn’t surprise her, but he said that they loved the house and would restore it and not pull it down and fill the space with smaller houses, which clinched the deal for her. She put it all into the hands of a conveyancing lawyer to deal with. She would take the girls down before it went, but first she would go alone and say goodbye to Ravenscourt on her own.

  It was ridiculous that she didn’t have a key to the house. Each time Clara had been there to let her in, so she hadn’t bothered to get one. She was wary about telling her she was coming in case she told the Harwoods and Nathan got to hear of it. She had not heard from him since the day of Daisy’s birth and as time passed she’d convinced herself it was for the best that she’d had a lucky escape from being hurt again. But it would be madness to drive all that way and find that Clara was out or away with her daughter, and she could not get in. No doubt she could get a key from the estate agent, but they were ten miles further on and then she’d have to drop it back, it was too much of a hassle.

  She rang Clara and said firmly, ‘Will you be there tomorrow, Clara? If not, there must be somewhere you could leave the key for me. But please, you are to tell no one I am coming. I’ve lots to do here so I don’t know exactly what time I will be there.’ She hoped that sounding vague about when she’d arrive would deter Clara from telling anyone.

  ‘I’ll be here tomorrow,’ Clara said.

  The day was bright, hard brittle sunlight on the winter land. Ravenscourt looked better now in the sunlight, as though it held hope of a new life instead of one ending in decay. The sight of it tugged at her heart, but she had no choice but to let it go.

  Clara welcomed her with the usual coffee and homemade biscuits, though she was quite subdued, no doubt chastened at the thought of Ravenscourt changing hands. She asked about Flora and the baby, and told her about the progress of her grandson. When they had exhausted that topic, she tentatively asked if Lorna knew who had bought the house.

  ‘I saw quite a few of the people coming round and I wonder which one made the offer. I didn’t know their names, so I won’t be able to put a face to them,’ she said.

  ‘It’s a company, some complicated name, I’ll check later with the agent. He said he’d meet me here later this afternoon, we’ll know more then. He promised they’d be sympathetic to the house, restore it rather than pull it down, and leave you in peace in your cottage.’

  Clara got up and took her coffee cup to the sink. ‘I’ll leave you to potter around on your own, if you don’t mind. I’m packing to go to Gina’s at the weekend. Ring me if you need anything.’ She left quickly, as if she couldn’t bear to think that Ravenscourt had gone.

  Lorna wandered from room to room. The windows had been cleaned, the greenery cut back and the sunlight poured in, touching each room, somehow softening the bad bits, adding a kind of magic. She peeped into Fergus’s study; it was plain and clean. For a moment she allowed herself to remember that sudden flash of passion. The irony of it was that she’d thought it was just a game, a sudden impulse soon forgotten. How foolish and tragic were such misunderstandings. She shut the door on it. It would become just another secret to grow old with the house.

  Going back into the hall, she saw a wrinkled piece of holly left from the shoot which had transformed the house into a Christmas wonderland. Dear Ravenscourt, it had set them free from their destructive marriages, given them a new life.

  Fergus had loved this house, cared for it until he had become too infirm and too broke to continue; rather like their husbands had become unable to love and cherish their families any more. It was right that the house should be sold to someone who would love it in their turn and restore it again, pity that all their marriages could not be treated in the same way.

  She went outside and wandered up the old lawn, thick with moss, until she reached the clump of trees and the stile. She climbed over and jumped down into the field that still belonged to the property, drinking in the view of the Downs; the sweep of green and the ancient trees. Nathan had found her here, lent her his jersey, taken her hand and led her back to the house. Her heart ached and impatiently she tried to shake off the thought of him. She was moving on, saying goodbye to Ravenscourt and Nathan – by proxy – before starting out again on a new life – a life that included Daisy, which lifted her heart.

  She turned to go back to the house and there was Nathan at the edge of the field, watching her. She blinked; surely she was imagining it, a silly woman seeing things. He pounded across the field to her, too strong and vital to be a ghost. Clara must have disobeyed her and told him she was here. No doubt Sonia and Beth were here too, ready to do battle for Ravenscourt, forbid her to sell it to anyone but them, but it was too late. She scowled, could no one leave her alone; let her get on with her own life?

  ‘You don’t look pleased to see me,’ Nathan reached her. ‘Am I disturbing you?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I wanted to be alone here, drink in this wonderful view for the last time while it is still mine. I told Clara not to tell you I was comin
g, but I suppose she took no notice.’

  ‘I told her, ordered her, to tell me if you came here again. I’m afraid she did what I asked.’

  ‘Are Sonia and Beth here, too?’ She asked, keeping her eyes on the sprawling land.

  ‘No. Why should they be? It’s just me. Me and you.’

  He was so close she could have put out her hand and touched him yet she did not. He’d said that he cared for her, but those words were said at the height of supreme emotion; he must now be relieved that she’d turned him down. He’d wanted Ravenscourt, not her, but now someone else had snapped it up. She wondered if he knew that, she’d only just accepted the offer after all. Once he knew it had gone, he could stop this charade of pretending that he loved her.

  ‘How is Flora? And the baby?’ he asked.

  ‘Fine, Daisy is doing well.’

  ‘I’m so glad.’

  She turned to him then and caught the pain in his eyes. Why do we make each other suffer so, she thought, when fate puts us through enough as it is?

  ‘I came to say goodbye to Ravenscourt,’ she said. ‘I’ll be down again; Gloria and Rosalind want to come for the last time.’ She braced herself for his anger. ‘I accepted an offer on it a couple of days ago. I came alone to say my own goodbye.’

  His expression remained calm. ‘Maybe that’s a bit premature.’

  ‘Oh, I know deals fall through. This one probably will when they have a survey, but I came all the same.’

  ‘This one won’t fall through.’ He watched her but she would not look at him, as if she were afraid he’d see her feelings deep inside her. For a moment he concentrated on the landscape; the gently undulating earth, the ancient trees offering their bare branches to the sun.

  She said quietly, ‘You seem very confident.’

  ‘I am. I made it.’

  She faced him, frowning. ‘Made what?’