Geoffrey had never given much thought to any of this – things were the way they were – and then one evening, just before he went off to university, his father took him to the Lamb and Lion. Geoffrey had made some silly comment about Mum having him all to herself now, but instead of the resigned smile he expected, his father embarked on an uncomfortable account of why his mother sometimes seemed to be on the periphery of the family rather than at its heart. It struck Geoffrey as an odd thing to say, but then his father went on to talk about them being married for ten years before he came along, and how they got used to it being just the two of them. Geoffrey squirmed at references to them having tried for a family and almost giving up hope. The thought of his parents having sex was beyond hideous. His father concluded with a comment about how his mother sometimes felt a bit left out, at which point Geoffrey nodded and steered them towards an entirely different topic of conversation.
He had forgotten all about it until Olivia mentioned something his mother had said after Edward was born. She couldn’t remember it exactly – she likened sleep deprivation to having her head stuffed full of cotton wool – but it was along the lines of Olivia having to share Geoffrey now that he had a son, especially if Edward turned out to be a daddy’s boy like Geoffrey was.
Geoffrey had never thought of himself as a daddy’s boy and was surprised to hear that his mother did. But then these past weeks she had spoiled him in her brisk, vaguely detached way. She missed having someone to look after and cooked his favourite foods, brought him tea and sandwiches on a tray in front of the television, washed, pressed and put away his laundry. He was a bit ashamed of how much he enjoyed being taken care of and intended to play it down if Olivia noticed. So far she hadn’t, but then she was in a strange mood.
The trouble with Olivia was that she bore each of his mother’s perceived slights as though they had happened just yesterday, the wound still fresh and oozing. On one occasion she told Geoffrey that his mother was passive-aggressive. He had no idea what that meant but had taken the line of least resistance and agreed. Then a few weeks ago, when he was slumped in front of the old television set hidden away in the snug like a dirty secret (oh, how he missed Sky Sports), a pretty blonde psychologist appeared on the screen and perked him up a bit. In a voice far too authoritative for one so young and sexy, she described the characteristics of a passive-aggressive personality: sulking, being cryptic, playing the martyr, the silent treatment. Well, what do you know? The hot little blonde had described his mother to a tee.
*
Edward was delighted to get his mountain bike back, so at least Geoffrey could do something right. He hoped they might spend a bit of time together – kick a ball around, maybe go fishing for the afternoon – but Edward had made plans with the Reed twins and cycled off down the lane with a cheery wave.
It was dusk before Olivia got home. She had texted saying she intended to drop in on some book-group friends, but more likely just wanted to stay out for as long as she possibly could. He decided not to take it personally. It was his mother she didn’t want to be around, and the inescapable air of formality.
Supper was a turgid affair, more so because Edward had decided to sleep over at the Reeds’ and it was just the three of them. The steak and kidney pie was mouth-wateringly good, but Olivia hardly touched it. She said Ellie Thornton had offered afternoon tea and she hadn’t wanted to appear rude. Being rude to his mother obviously didn’t count. Sorry, I probably should have called, said not to bother with supper for me. You think? If Geoffrey had been stupid enough to comment, he would have said yes, she should have let his mother know that yet again, her culinary efforts were wasted on an inconsiderate daughter-in-law. Christ. Olivia banged on about his mother but she could be just as bad.
He swallowed his opinion with the last of the Merlot. Mission Marriage was his objective tonight and to that end he insisted on clearing up while Olivia took a nice long bath. When she stood up, leaving her plate on the table but making sure to take her wine, Geoffrey’s mother huffed in a theatrical show of disbelief.
‘Well,’ she said, grabbing Olivia’s plate and noisily scraping its contents into the dogs’ bowls. ‘I fail to see why you have to pander to her, Geoffrey.’
‘I’m not pandering,’ he said. ‘She works hard at St Bede’s – why shouldn’t she have a bit of rest and relaxation?’
His mother stood waiting for the sink to fill with hot water, her foot tapping impatiently on the quarry tiles. That Olivia earned a living and Geoffrey didn’t was something it was impossible to argue with. He wondered if it contributed to his alarming lack of libido – emasculated him on a subconscious level? He blamed the sexless debacle of her first night home on the stress and strangeness of it all. The second night it was he who had succumbed – crushed by the sight of Johnny driving away, proof that his friend held him responsible for his loss of livelihood. Tonight would be different. Tonight he and Olivia would hold each other, kiss and make love. Afterwards he would confide how derelict the factory looked, how he couldn’t keep away from Manor Farm, how he hated drinking alone.
Once the dishes had been washed and dried, the work surfaces wiped down and the tablecloth and napkins folded, Geoffrey’s mother said she wanted to turn in early and could he please check that the bathroom was free. Ridiculous that such a large house had only one bathroom. Geoffrey’s parents had never felt the need to convert one of the five bedrooms to a second bathroom for the comfort of guests. When he checked on Olivia, she was already in bed, reading.
‘Back in a minute,’ he said, before rushing downstairs to tell his mother the bathroom was all hers.
She made a fuss of locking doors and turning off lights, reminding Geoffrey to lock the back door again after he had put the dogs out. He nodded patiently, gave it fifteen minutes and then went up.
Olivia, still in her dressing gown, put her book on the bedside table. She never wore her dressing gown in bed at home. If she wore anything at all it was something slinky with lace and thin little straps.
‘I’m sorry about all this,’ said Geoffrey, glancing round the unappealing room.
She rolled on her side. ‘I’m tired, you’re tired. Let’s hope to God your mother is tired, not lying awake listening for the bounce of bedsprings.’
The thought repulsed him. ‘I drugged her cocoa.’
‘Tomorrow, will you drug mine too?’
Sense of humour intact: an encouraging sign. He stripped down to his boxers, male pride telling him to keep them on until he warmed up a bit.
‘No pyjamas?’ said Olivia as he climbed in next to her.
He lay on his side facing her. ‘Thought I’d sleep naked tonight.’
He pulled her towards him until their bodies pressed together.
‘Not quite.’ She pinged the waistband of his boxers.
‘I’ve missed you,’ he whispered, slipping his hand inside her dressing gown. Her firm little breast fitted perfectly in his palm. He kissed her for a long time, only mildly concerned that the message didn’t seem to be getting from brain to groin. Even when Olivia reached for him – boxers now discarded – nothing much happened. She peeled off her dressing gown with all the tease of a stripper, and kissed her way down his body. It wasn’t until she took him in her mouth that he sprang to life at last. He gasped as she worked her magic, but when she moved to straddle him, he shrivelled. Olivia sat back and looked at him, her expression a mix of hurt and surprise.
‘Sorry,’ mumbled Geoffrey. ‘Don’t know what’s wrong with me.’
‘I thought you’d be raring to go after all these weeks of celibacy.’
He glanced down at his flaccid penis. ‘Despite evidence to the contrary, I am.’
She flopped on to her back and studied the ceiling. ‘Not the most conducive of surroundings,’ she said, her voice flat.
They lay in silence, Geoffrey consumed by failure and frustration. It was a while before he stopped thinking about himself and turned towards Olivia.
�
��Sorry,’ he said.
‘You have to stop saying that.’
‘I’ll stop saying it when I stop feeling it.’
Olivia made no comment. She looked beautiful lying there naked: lean, taut, the only blemish on her skin a faded Caesarean scar. When he ran his fingers over her belly, her hips rose to his touch. He nuzzled her neck as she guided his hand to the soft, warm flesh between her thighs. He kissed her deeply, his fingers mirroring the same rhythm, until her breath quickened and he knew she was about to come. She arched her back, lips parted, eyes closed, and then the toilet flushed. They froze – barely dared to breathe until his mother’s bedroom door shut with a judgemental click. Olivia covered her face with her hands.
‘Did you?’
She shook her head.
*
The male ego was a fragile thing. This was the conclusion Geoffrey came to after hours of obsessive rumination as to why, night after night, he was unable to make love to his wife. So fragile in fact, that an isolated failure was enough to derail a healthy libido and place an otherwise virile thirty-five-year-old among the sad ranks of those who suffered from erectile dysfunction, performance anxiety, impotence – all male problems, he noted sourly.
On one of his and Olivia’s long dog walks he listed the litany of horrors that had beset him in recent months – the factory going bust, his father’s heart attack, losing their home to the bank, losing her to St Bede’s – pointing out that none had rendered him impotent. Sure, their sex life had waned but at least he could still do it. I don’t understand what’s happening, was his pathetic and frequent lament. Olivia suggested that perhaps the accumulation of events had finally taken their toll. Not helpful. She warned that fixating would only make things worse, but how could he not? He was in unchartered waters and struggling to stay afloat. She blamed the atmosphere at the Rectory, their very presence there a reminder (as if they needed one) of everything they had lost. You just need to relax. Dinner, candles, nice bottle of wine. Geoffrey had gone along with it – Edward happy to be packed off to the Reeds’ again – hopeful his mother would take the hint and make herself scarce too. She hadn’t. Her comment on the provenance of the wine was the finishing blow: 2008 Burgundy?
Olivia had become more creative after that. They drove to a quiet spot outside the village and pulled off the road. Things had started well, Geoffrey aroused by teenage memories of fumbling in the back seat of parents’ borrowed cars, when a curious dog walker appeared and put him off his stride. Olivia tried to turn it into a positive – something about voyeurism and exhibitionism being quite a turn-on – but the damage had been done.
The following afternoon, during a dog walk of their own, she suggested a bit of al fresco fun and had playfully pulled Geoffrey to the ground. It was wetter than it looked – too wet, in fact, for any sort of fun – and they struggled to their feet, clothes smeared with mud. Back at the Rectory, his mother had taken one look at them and wanted to know what on earth had happened.
‘Nothing,’ said Olivia tersely. ‘Nothing at all.’
*
It started innocently enough, or at least that’s what Geoffrey told himself. True, innocent wasn’t a word usually associated with pornography, but his motives were pure. It was as much for Olivia’s benefit as for his. He needed to break this cycle of failure and God knows nothing else had worked.
His mother had gone to bed early and Edward, dressed as a zombie, was at a Halloween sleepover. Olivia had read for a while before drifting off, at which point Geoffrey crept out of bed and downstairs to the study, where his laptop was charged and ready for him.
Before he touched the keyboard he closed his eyes and tried to empty his head of every impediment to sexual satisfaction: his father sitting at that very desk, writing his sermons in longhand, the cold war between his mother and his wife, the son he had disappointed but who was too kind to complain. Christ, was it any wonder he couldn’t get it up. The combined efforts of his family had fucking neutered him.
He went to the sideboard and poured a small whisky from his father’s heavily depleted decanter, and downed it in one. The sour heat made him grimace. He sat down again and took another approach – slow deep breaths like he’d seen Olivia practise on her yoga mat. It took a few minutes but between the breathing and the whisky his head was now light and blissfully clear.
OK, he was ready.
Even googling the words brought a frisson of excitement: girls, sex, sluts. He had given a lot of thought to ‘sluts’. He didn’t want the girls too young or too wholesome and ‘sluts’ seemed to strike the right balance. The sheer variety available at the mere touch of a button made him reel. His first hit was too graphic – spread legs and gaping mouths from the outset. He wanted to be teased, his excitement building slowly.
The second hit was even more graphic – filthy might be a better word – and he wondered if he deleted ‘sluts’, would the material be more to his taste? It was. A new search brought tamer options – attractive young women undressing for him, shyly touching themselves and inviting him to touch himself too. They weren’t caked in make-up – he loathed false eyelashes and slippery wet-look lips – with pumped-up breasts. They looked real, the sort of girl you might see shopping in Bath or Bristol.
The intensity of his orgasm took him by surprise. All that frustration released in one soaring gush of ecstasy. He basked in the aftermath for a while before going back upstairs and sliding into bed. Olivia didn’t stir. For the first time since she had arrived, Geoffrey fell into a deep and unbroken sleep.
Three
Going back to school a day early was Olivia’s idea – her escape plan. She told Geoffrey that Martin Rutherford liked houseparents to arrive a day before the pupils and it wasn’t an outright lie. Martin preferred houseparents to arrive early but it wasn’t compulsory. Truth was, Olivia couldn’t endure another day of Rowena, or, more worryingly, of Geoffrey.
Like lovers in a French farce, they might have had a bit of fun avoiding Rowena – a quick and quiet exit on hearing the squeak of her sensible shoes, stifling their giggles as they hid from her, their clothes dishevelled – but such behaviour would have been wildly inappropriate. Ronald’s absence bore down on them all. Olivia half expected to see him behind his desk, peering at her over his half-moon glasses. He had always been so happy to see her, so interested in what she had to say. She overheard Rowena tell Edward how proud of him his grandfather had been, before she suddenly became tearful and apologised. Instead of being embarrassed – Olivia was sure that would have been the reaction of most twelve-year-old boys – Edward had given Rowena a hug and then handed her a wodge of tissues.
At moments like that Olivia’s heart did go out to her, but then she would see the cloying way she doted on Geoffrey and feel something akin to contempt. If Rowena had any tact at all she would have understood they needed time alone and absented herself for the occasional afternoon, like Edward had. Instead, she always seemed to be lurking.
Their bedroom should have been their sanctuary, the one place where Rowena couldn’t intrude, but just knowing his mother was asleep in the next room (or not – Geoffrey was convinced she would be awake, listening) was enough to render him impotent. Olivia was understanding at first, coaxing him, teasing him, stroking his ego and his unresponsive manhood, all to no avail.
A lack of sex quickly translated into a lack of intimacy – no handholding, no kissing, no snuggling up in bed. Physical contact entailed the threat of sexual failure, so was diligently avoided. They slept back to back, doing their best to limit movement. A stray foot might find its way on to an unwilling calf, an innocent hand on to a tense thigh. Bed, their natural habitat, had become unnatural.
Olivia wasn’t sure which scenario was more disturbing – that she was unable to arouse her husband or that her husband was so cripplingly cowed by his mother. There were other factors too, of course, although Geoffrey was convinced that his mother and the Rectory were at the root of the problem. But what did it say abo
ut the fabric of their marriage that it so easily unravelled under Rowena’s critical gaze? And what did it say about Olivia that a small, vengeful part of her relished Geoffrey’s suffering?
‘Good break, Olivia?’
She spun round, startled. For such a tall man, Martin Rutherford moved quietly, as if apologising for occupying more than his fair share of physical space. When he had learned that his nickname was the BFG, he said he was touched to be viewed as a much-loved figure from children’s literature.
‘Martin – sorry, didn’t see you there.’
‘I would have knocked but the door was open.’
‘Of course. Yes, very good break. You?’
‘The girls kept us busy – day trips, cinema, that sort of thing. Edward not with you?’
‘Geoffrey’s bringing him tomorrow.’
Martin nodded and struck his signature pose: bent index finger on his top lip, chin resting on his thumb. It afforded him a pensive air – complimented his measured, rather deliberate way of speaking.
‘Look, why don’t you join us for supper this evening – get to know Ruth a bit better? Nothing special. Spag bol, I expect. The girls’ favourite, but I’m sure we can rustle up a decent bottle of red.’
Olivia had been looking forward to an evening on her own: time to decompress after the suffocating atmosphere of the Rectory. And once the boarders were back, she wouldn’t have a moment to herself. But Martin seemed keen for her to accept and she hated to disappoint.
‘If you’re sure it’s no trouble.’
‘No trouble at all.’
*
The path between the main school building and the Rutherfords’ house was poorly lit. No light pollution in rural Somerset, just an ink-velvet sky and a showy dazzle of stars. A thin wet fog hung stubbornly in the cold night air, the only sound gravel crunching under Olivia’s boots. She had no idea what sort of evening she was walking towards. Martin had only been appointed head towards the end of the previous school year, when Teddy Clarke-Bowen was taken ill. Teddy had been head when Geoffrey was at St Bede’s. Olivia thought it sweet that even as a parent himself, Geoffrey had still called him ‘sir’. Olivia was fond of Teddy too, the way he encouraged a shy Edward to shine: praised his achievements, however small, knowing this was the way to nurture greater achievements. The school choir sang so beautifully at Teddy’s funeral, even a few of the male teachers had shed a tear.
An Unsuitable Marriage Page 4
