The Director's Wife

by Lindsay Armstrong

  To her surprise, Cathy came to a sudden decision. ‘I can do that,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s the rest of our life I don’t know about, but I suppose,’ she frowned, then went on with an effort and barely audibly, ‘it’s not your fault I love you more than you love me. It never was——’

  ‘One day you might find that’s no longer true,’ he said gently. ‘You were so young, Cathy. You still are.’

  She smiled sadly. ‘Do you think I’m still in the grip of an adolescent crush or something like that? After two years?’

  Tom’s eyes narrowed. ‘It happens,’ he said sombrely.

  ‘So you’re prepared to keep me until I grow out of it?’

  ‘If you think that, you haven’t understood what I’ve been trying to say.’

  ‘No. I have—that you love me in a limited sort of way, you feel guilty about me and you want us to try to build something better out of it. I just— perhaps I need some time to think it all out,’ Cathy said helplessly.

  ‘We don’t have a lot of time,’ he said quietly. ‘Not if we’re going to do this movie together. And there’s no way we can separate and do it. By the way, about last night…’

  Cathy put her hands to her face. ‘I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t know what got into me,’ she whispered.

  Tom lifted an eyebrow. ‘You don’t think you hated me for the things I’d told you and that was the only way you could express it?’

  ‘No…’ She stopped. ‘Well, a little, but I also wanted to try to erase the memories of her, and that’s why I knew you didn’t like it.’

  ‘It wasn’t that. What I didn’t like was dragging you down into the mire of my tortured relations with myself, the way I am, and it was myself I was hating. Cat, will you let me try to make amends?’ He put his hand over hers.

  She trembled and lifted her tear-streaked face to his. ‘Are you saying I should make a decision now?’

  ‘I’m saying… oh, hell,’ he muttered beneath his breath, and went as if to take her in his arms, but she stiffened.

  ‘No! No, Tom—that’s what you did last night, but I think I have to come to grips with this and really stop being a Cinderella. If you do want us to go on, then for the time being I’ll try, mainly because I can’t think of what else to do, but there’ll probably be times when I’m going to be offended and resentful and there might be times when I’ll wish I hadn’t. All the same, I do understand I have to be professional about the film, but I can’t… I just can’t let you make love to me at the moment.’

  ‘I see.’ He studied her earnest, painful expression for an age, then touched his fingers to her lips in a brief caress. ‘And very proper too!’

  ‘If you’re laughing at me—I didn’t mean it to sound juvenile and prissy,’ she said in an agony of frustration.

  ‘It didn’t sound like that at all, nor did I have in mind making love to you, but I did want to comfort you—I thought it might help just to be ordinary together for a while.’

  ‘Is that what you love about me, Tom?’ she said on a suddenly indrawn breath. ‘Being ordinary with me, no heights, no depths…’

  This time he brooked no refusal and gathered her on to his lap, and it seemed to her supremely ironic again that, as she wept out her sadness and disillusionment, it was his arms that did comfort her, his hand on her hair, the beating of his heart beneath her cheek, the wiry golden roughness of his chest as she slid her fingers beneath the old plaid that she touched with love.

  ‘I’m all right now,’ she said shakily at last. Which wasn’t true, of course, and she could tell from Tom’s eyes and the lines beside his mouth that he knew it wasn’t true, but there was no more he could do. And for some reason that gave her some strength. ‘Should we be practical as well as ordinary?’ she said, and tried to smile. ‘I don’t know any of the details of this trip to Queensland and you probably have a million things to do—I might, as well.’ She sat up with a frown.

  But he pulled her back and kissed her lips gently before lifting her back on to the bed. ‘You might,’ he agreed. ‘We’ll be away for eight weeks approximately. We’re flying up, but I’m sending the car up by rail and you can send whatever you like that way too—any special things that will make you feel more at home. And the costume designer is coming up to do a rush job on you this morning—but not for a couple of hours, so relax for a while.’

  Cathy lay back and watched him shrug off his dressing-gown and head for the shower. But as she heard the water thrumming in the bathroom, her mind was curiously blank when she was sure it should be otherwise.

  It was still blank when Tom walked back into the bedroom, rubbing his hair with a towel which he dropped on the carpet, and strode over to his dresser. She stared at his naked back, at his tall, lean body which she knew so well, his compact hips and wide shoulders, at the little crescent scar at the top of his left thigh which was the relic of a schoolboy rugby game and which she’d often touched gently. Then her gaze sharpened and her eyes widened and she made a husky little sound.

  He swung round and saw her dilated stare. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Your back,’ she whispered.

  ‘Oh, that,’ he said with a faint grin. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

  ‘But——’

  ‘All little cats liken to sharpen their claws occasionally,’ he said gravely but with a wicked glint in his eyes. ‘Why should mine be any different?’

  ‘Tom——’

  ‘Cathy,’ he overruled her, still gravely but still secretly laughing at her, ‘it’s nothing. And I’ve run you a bath—which will help your battle scars!’ And he turned away and got dressed with the minimum of fuss.

  It crossed her mind then that she really was in an impossible situation, she had to be when he could make her feel weak with love just by teasing her. How unfair was that?

  It was something she found herself dwelling on during the busy days before their departure for Queensland. Busy days that helped promote the image that they were going on in unity and harmony when in fact she was consumed by an unresolvable mental turmoil; she wondered how she was managing to fool Tom, why she was trying to, why she’d been so foolish as to give him the undertaking she had. And the core of her turmoil seemed to be that, while he had tried to brush Bronwen Bishop aside as a symptom, and blame himself mostly for the way he was, she found she couldn’t believe you could do that to a living, breathing woman you’d lived with, slept with, wanted to marry… In other words, I’m already plain jealous of this woman, she acknowledged to herself, and I haven’t even met her. Was I mad to think I could work with her, with them?

  To make matters worse, although they slept together, Tom hadn’t tried to make love to her since she’d told him she couldn’t, and every night she trembled inwardly in terror in case he did, because she didn’t know if it would be a sign of weakness and spineless acceptance of the situation to let him, and trembled with a desolate little sense of loss when he didn’t.

  Then, when it all boiled up one day, she discovered that she hadn’t fooled him at all, about anything.

  She was studying the script at the kitchen table at the same time as she was keeping an eye on their evening meal when Tom walked into the kitchen and raised his eyebrows at her rapt expression.

  Cathy coloured faintly but said with dignity, ‘I know it’s not a big part, but I don’t see why I shouldn’t prepare myself properly—anyway, I always thought the best directors spent as much time as possible with their actors before they began shooting.’

  ‘It’s a flexible thing. I do and I don’t, and you’re one of the ones I’m just going to let run, Cathy.’ He opened the fridge and took out a can of beer. ‘Would you care to share this with me?’

  ‘No, thanks—you might have told me.’

  ‘Well, now you know. Dinner smells good, by the way.’

  Cathy compressed her lips. ‘What about Bronwen Bishop?’

  He was standing with his back to her and he took a long draught from the can before he tu
rned and put it down on the table. ‘I haven’t been having long coaching sessions with her, if that’s what you’re suggesting, Cathy. She too will do her own thing, more or less,’ he said drily. ‘Besides which, there hasn’t been time.’

  Cathy looked at him sceptically.

  ‘That expression doesn’t quite become you,’ he said softly. ‘In fact I haven’t laid eyes on Bronwen. She’s only due back from overseas tomorrow.’

  ‘But…?’ Surprise overcame Cathy’s irritation at being told what did not become her.

  ‘If you recall, Bronwen was not our first choice for Portia. Julia Whitefield was under contract, but she broke her leg, and to Pete’s joy—he wanted her right from the beginning—Bronwen was available, and I was outmanoeuvred. But she’s been working overseas.’ Tom met her gaze levelly. ‘And it’s over two years since I’ve seen her except fleetingly, and never to talk.’

  ‘Oh.’ Cathy flushed, but her eyes were mutinous.

  ‘Anything else you’d like to know?’ he asked with a trace of mockery.

  ‘Yes—how you can imagine I can’t help wondering about her and… oh!’ she exclaimed again, and gritted her teeth.

  ‘I don’t imagine it’s easy,’ he said abruptly, ‘but we’re not going to get anywhere unless you can tell yourself it’s over, which it is, and put it away from you.’

  ‘Perhaps if I recite it to myself a hundred times or write a hundred lines—do you think that would do the trick?’ she taunted.

  ‘Cathy, you told me you wanted to do this movie, and you assured me you could be professional about it——’

  She got up and slammed the script shut. ‘We’re not on your precious film set yet,’ she said tightly, and she strode over to the window and stared angrily at Mount Macedon.

  Tom watched the taut, slim lines of her back beneath a simple green sun-dress, then silently crossed the room to her.

  ‘Cat.’ He said it barely audibly, and she flinched.

  He waited a moment, then put his hands on her shoulders. Cathy held herself rigidly, then they slumped beneath his hands and he drew her back against him and slid his arms about her waist, and for a long time they stood like that without moving. Until he turned her to face him and smudged the tears on her lashes, but that precipitated more, and he pulled her into his arms and she buried her face in his shoulder. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ she whispered at last.

  ‘I think I might.’ He picked her up and started to carry her to the bedroom.

  ‘Dinner…’ she said faintly.

  ‘It can wait—this can’t.’ He shouldered open the bedroom door and laid her carefully down on the bed, then sat down beside her, stared down at her for a long time and said, ‘Cathy, I have memories of you, of us, that I’ll have for the rest of my life. Lovely memories. That must mean something to you.’

  Her lips parted.

  ‘Memories of this.’ He lifted his hand and cupped her cheek and his long fingers wandered down her throat and twined in her hair lying on her shoulder. ‘I’d also give anything not to have hurt you the way I have, but I was hurting you anyway without realising it, so..He lifted his shoulders wearily. ‘But there’s the possibility that I can also heal you. Will you let me start to try?’

  ‘Like… this?’ Her eyes were wide and very blue.

  ‘Yes.’

  She said after a long time, ‘All right.’

  She lay passively beneath his hands as he unbuttoned the sun-dress down her body, with her eyes closed and her cheek on her hand against the pillow.

  All she wore underneath was a pair of bikini briefs, and Tom laid the dress aside, untying the halter neck without disturbing her position, then lay down beside her.

  Cathy didn’t move for a long time as his hand wandered over her body, then she sighed softly and opened her eyes and began to unbutton his shirt.

  She had long ago learned that the feel of him gave her as much pleasure as the way he touched her gave her. And that to touch, stroke and slide her lips and her arms and her breasts against his body both excited and softened her body and pleased him, and that sometimes she too could deliberately prolong this sensuous pleasure until he gave way with a groan and a glint in his eyes, and claimed her because he could no longer help himself. But this time she did what she loved doing, not with the raw intensity of their last lovemaking, not with a naughty but nice desire to tease, as he’d once called it, but a profound feeling of destiny in her heart because she couldn’t change the fact that she loved him and because he was the centre of her life.

  Perhaps he guessed what was going through her mind and what was in her heart, because he returned her lost, gentle rapture for a long time until she was arching her body and her hands fell idle and her head fell back, and only then did he part her legs, and this time his first contact with her inner flesh was all that was needed to tip her over the edge of rippling pleasure, and to take him with her. And this time it was pure pleasure, and it held them united for an age, breathing as one, locked together until the last echoes faded slowly.

  There were two consequences to this lovemaking.

  Cathy’s dinner was burnt beyond redemption, so Tom took her out to the pub. And over the last days left to them at Mount Macedon, there seemed to be a closer, unspoken closeness between them.

  The day before they left they took William and his grandparents to Hanging Rock for a picnic, which somewhat compensated William for the prospect of the lack of their company over the next weeks. After they had eaten, Cathy lay back on a rug and plucked a feathery stalk of grass to swish away the flies, and stared thoughtfully at the Rock. William and his grandparents were inspecting a stream and Tom was packing up the remains of their lunch.

  Her thoughts drifted idly for a time, then centred on what had been eluding her for days—had she made a subconscious decision about her marriage? Had she decided to accept this state of affairs, and was she even going on in the hope that one day she might supplant Bronwen Bishop in Tom’s heart? If so, she thought, was there a code of behaviour she should adopt? Her mind told there was, and she stopped to think of all the women through time who had found themselves in this position, all the women who had made this decision or had had no choice but to clamp down on their anger and their jealousy. Although, of course, it wasn’t a question of having no choices, for her. Yet the alternative… She sighed and turned over, burying her face in her arms.

  ‘Cathy?’ It was Tom’s voice above her, and she turned back reluctantly. ‘All right?’

  He was kneeling next to her, and he took the crushed stalk of grass from her and smiled down at her so the fine lines beside his eyes and mouth crinkled and the sun shone on the long tanned lines of his throat and his hair.

  Cathy took a breath and smiled back. ‘Fine.’

  ‘The last time we were here,’ he said quietly, ‘we——’

  ‘I remember,’ she broke in.

  ‘It’s a pity we’re not alone.’ His tone was wry, but his eyes held something else.

  Cathy stared into them for a moment, then glanced at Hanging Rock. ‘Perhaps it’s for the best.’

  He raised an eyebrow, but she sat up and kissed him briefly and said gravely, ‘There’ll be other times and places.’

  ‘I’m relieved,’ he remarked. ‘You had me worried there!’

  ‘Well——’ she thought for a moment ‘—there’s tonight, for example. A farewell to our bed and bedroom might be called for—what do you think?’

  ‘I think,’ he said slowly as he searched her eyes right through to her soul, she felt, ‘it might be difficult to wait that long, but also worthwhile.’ He took her chin in his hand and kissed her back, and she knew as he lifted his head that not only had she now consciously made her decision, but in some curious way, had transmitted it to him. She had also managed to keep her equally curious fears and fancies about Hanging Rock to herself.

  Twenty-four hours later they were winging their way north to Queensland.

  Cathy gazed out of the window
at the carpet of woolly white cloud below the wing. They had had their lunch and would be landing at Coolangatta in half an hour—the thought of which was making her nervous.

  But right on cue, Tom put his hand over hers and said, ‘These might be the last few relaxed moments we’ll have for a while—we’re the last to arrive. Everyone else is assembled and, let’s hope, rarin’ to go.’

  Cathy’s hand moved under his. ‘Tell me about them.’ She turned her head on the backrest to him.

  He stretched his long legs out more comfortably. ‘On the technical side, I’ve worked with a lot of them before—the camera crew and the sound engineer were part of the team on Last Friday.’ He’d received an Oscar nomination for Last Friday. ‘I’ve gone out on a bit of a limb with the film editor, Jason White. He’s a crazy kid, but he has sparks of genius and he has the same kind of imagination as Pete—they make a good pair,’ he said wryly. ‘And I suspect Charles Westfield could make it three of a kind.’

  ‘I used to think he was rather a dish when I was about—twelve,’ Cathy said with a grin. Charles Westfield was an American actor who as a boy had starred in a television series and not quite made the major break-through into the big league of movies yet. His signing on for the lead role of Robert in the movie of Peter Partridge’s best-seller Half an Hour Earlier in Adelaide had reactivated some of the long-running controversy about the habit of importing foreign actors to star in Australian productions, but, as she’d heard not only Duncan but Tom point out, the role might have been written for him—a good-looking, rather zany American in Australia grappling not only with his personal problems in the form of Portia and Chloe but also a case of mistaken identity which had several of the world’s leading secret services chasing him.