The Director's Wife

by Lindsay Armstrong

  ‘Could I come and sit next to you on the bed?’

  ‘Tom,’ she said on a breath, her eyes flying to his, then skidding away.

  ‘Not to touch or to offer any panacea you find intolerable,’ he murmured.

  She lifted her shoulders in a helpless little gesture which he took as assent, and strolled over to sit down beside her.

  And he said, not looking at her, ‘I’ve never in our life together, thought of you as a lapdog. If I’ve given you that impression, I’m sorry, and if I’ve given other people that impression I’ll do what I can to rectify it. But,’ he paused, ‘you——’

  ‘I know what you’re going to say—it’s what I tried to explain yesterday—what Charlie doesn’t understand is that I’m not a very outgoing person. I——’ she hesitated ‘—perhaps I’ve just never had the opportunity to be different.’

  He was silent so long that she looked across at him at last. ‘You mean,’ he said slowly to his hands, ‘you might be capable of letting your hair down and spreading your wings given the right conditions?’ And at last his eyes met hers, soberly, even a shade bleakly.

  A tremor ran through Cathy. ‘I don’t know,’ she said painfully. ‘To be honest, I’ve never even given it much thought.’

  ‘But now you have to.’ It was a quiet statement, but she felt as if he was looking right into her soul.

  She licked her lips and for a brief, mad moment felt like throwing herself into his arms and begging him to love her, to end this awful confusion, to take her back to the days when the one simple fact of her life had been her love for him, and it had overridden all else. ‘Do you think that’s silly?’

  Tom picked up her hand and threaded his fingers through hers. ‘No,’ he said evenly. ‘Although I don’t know if Charlie Westfield is the one to do it.’

  Cathy tensed. ‘I didn’t mean that!’

  ‘What did you mean, then?’

  She looked down at his long, strong fingers around her own. ‘I’m not sure,’ she said at last, and freed her hand. ‘How are we going to go on now?’

  ‘Cathy——’ he took her hand back, then sighed harshly ‘—do you mean us or the movie?’

  ‘Both, I guess,’ she said tonelessly, and wondered if he would bring up the subject which was really the heart of it all—Bronwen. And she shivered suddenly, thinking of her callous suggestion downstairs that had been torn out of her in the heat of the moment—and came to a sudden decision. ‘What I said earlier about Bronwen,’ she clenched his hand suddenly and went on awkwardly, ‘was also said out of pique, and I’m sorry for it. And I can go on—we have to go on, don’t we?’

  ‘Like real troopers,’ he agreed drily. ‘How will you handle Charlie?’

  ‘Very firmly,’ she said in a firm voice, ‘but you’ll have to help me. It won’t do any good to be cutting and unkind to him. We’ll just have to pretend it never happened and present a united front.’

  ‘Your wisdom amazes me,’ he said, and stopped rather abruptly.

  ‘I know,’ Cathy conceded with a very faint, wry smile. ‘It amazes me a bit too, so it’s not surprising you—well, people have this lapdog view of me——’

  ‘Cathy,’ Tom gripped her hand so tightly she winced. ‘I’m sure I deserve to suffer for my sins, but could you do one thing for me? Don’t ever call yourself that again. I hate the very thought of it, and it’s not true—Charlie wasn’t accusing you of it, he was accusing me of treating you that way-’

  ‘I know that,’ Cathy interrupted, ‘but I suppose… anyway, it doesn’t matter. We do have to forget about all this for the time being. That’s what really matters.’

  ‘There’s still us,’ he said.

  She stirred and said with a little sigh, ‘I guess we have to go on as before, otherwise…’ She broke off uncertainly.

  He tilted her chin and stared into her eyes. ‘Just now you didn’t want me to touch you.’

  Her mouth trembled and her eyes were troubled. ‘Can you not——’ her voice was husky with emotion and it faltered ‘—understand why, Tom?’

  ‘I understand,’ he said slowly, ‘that…’ He stopped, raised his head and stared out of the window at the wide, cloudless blue sky and the sun streaming in. Then he said, ‘Why the hell not?’ and reached for the phone beside the bed.

  It was Duncan he rang and Duncan he said casually to, ‘I’m taking a day off, mate. Can you give everyone a holiday? And if you’d also schedule a conference for nine o’clock tomorrow morning, please. You, Pete, Charlie and Bronwen, and reschedule everything we had planned for today to tomorrow afternoon.’

  He listened for a moment, then grinned wickedly. ‘That’s what producers are for, Duncan! The ultimate authority. As to what I’m doing today—I’m going fishing.’ He put the phone down gently.

  ‘Fishing?’ Cathy stared at him, mystified. ‘I didn’t know you liked fishing.’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Then…?’

  ‘It’s a well-known synonym for playing hookey,’ Tom said gravely. ‘Have you never played hookey, Cat?’

  ‘Not really, but——’

  ‘Then your education is sadly lacking, and we’d better start to rectify it. What you’ll need is a swimming costume, sand shoes, a hat and towel, shorts and a shirt and a jumper. I’ll organise the rest. Be on the jetty in an hour.’

  ‘Tom——’

  ‘Cat,’ he said softly, ‘this is freedom, letting your hair down, doing things just for the hell of them when you should be doing something else. I know I’m not Charlie Westfield, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know what it’s all about.’

  Each villa had its own jetty, and an hour later a sleek cruiser nosed into theirs and Tom appeared on the back deck and threw Cathy a rope. ‘Welcome aboard, Mrs West.’

  ‘Tom,’ Cathy scrambled on, ‘whose boat is it, and——?’

  ‘It belongs to a very good friend of mine who lives on the coast and keeps it moored here. I’ve been out on it a few times on previous trips and he told me I could use it any time I liked.’

  ‘But I didn’t know you knew anything about boats!’

  He said, ‘I probably know about lots of things you don’t know I know about—I know, for example, that I could teach you to handle this boat.’ ‘Me?’ Cathy stared around. They were in the spacious main cabin by this time with a seat running along one side towards the spoked wooden wheel and cupboards and a compact galley on the other. Down two steps forward, she could see two berths forming a V. And on the galley counter she noticed several bags of food and one with some long-necked bottles protruding. ‘I think I’d better be head cook and bottle-washer, I think I’d be better at that— Tom, you’ve got an awful lot to eat. How long…?’ She stopped, frowning.

  ‘Overnight.’

  ‘Tom!’

  ‘Cathy,’ he said firmly but with a little glint in his eyes, ‘trust me. And no, you’re not going to be head cook and bottle-washer, you’re going to have your first lesson at being a mariner right now.’ He put his hands round her waist and lifted her into the chair in front of the wheel. The engine was ticking over slowly and she looked at the dials with panic in her eyes. ‘But don’t you have to have a licence to drive boats?’

  ‘Only those that go over ten knots. This doesn’t. Now listen carefully and I’ll be right beside you.’

  A couple of hours later, Cathy said wonderingly, ‘I had no idea it was so simple.’

  ‘Once you understand the buoys and channel markers and know which side of the channels to keep on, it’s easier than driving a car,’ Tom told her. ‘Of course, there is a bit more to it, but for the Broadwater, which is very well signposted and on a weekday when there’s hardly anyone else out, you’ll do.’

  ‘Of course,’ she agreed gravely, then laughed up at him. ‘I’m starving! Show me how to anchor this boat now so we can have some lunch.’

  They anchored off South Stradbroke Island, opposite a tree-lined beach where the cottonwoods and casuarinas were suddenly f
amiliar to Cathy.

  ‘Isn’t this where——?’

  ‘Yes. Where Robert supposedly got himself stranded on an uninhabited island.’

  Cathy giggled, remembering some of the hazards of that day’s shooting, such as the surprised coupfe and their particularly persistent dog who had wandered into the shooting area, ruining a sequence that had been going particularly well. ‘Today would have been a better day,’ she murmured, gazing around. There were no other boats at anchor, no sign of life on the beach and the glittering, sun-metalled water stretched about them undisturbed. ‘It is lovely, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. After lunch we could go ashore in the dinghy and walk over the island to the surf, if you like.’

  ‘Yes, please,’ she said simply, and began to help him peel the succulent pink prawns he had bought for their lunch.

  But they didn’t go for their hike straight after lunch, because Tom opened a bottle of wine of which Cathy had two glasses, and after the excitement of the morning it seemed quite natural to curl up on one of the bunks and go to sleep.

  He woke her about four o’clock by tickling her cheek with a lock of her hair.

  She yawned and sat up, looking rueful. ‘You shouldn’t have let me sleep so long,’ she told him.

  ‘Why not?’ he said idly, but watching her pull down her blouse and tuck it into her shorts. ‘I had a kip too. If you’re going to have a surf, you’ll need your togs on.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Here.’ He handed her her sapphire blue one-piece costume, then, as she hesitated, turned away, saying, ‘I’ll put the towels and sand shoes in the dinghy.’

  It was only about a twenty-minute tramp through the hot, still bush and across the burning sand to the unprotected side of the island with its high, rolling dunes, wide, long beach and pounding surf, and again, there was not a living soul in sight. And it was hot enough for Cathy to be grateful to throw her shorts and blouse off and plunge into the water. Tom did the same, his lean golden body slicing a wave. They both surfaced with their hair plastered to their heads and water streaming from them.

  ‘Nice?’ he asked.

  ‘Wonderful!’ she called, and flipped on to her back with her arms outstretched, her face tilted to the sky.

  They frolicked in the water, then came out, but Cathy discovered as she dried herself down that she felt full of pent-up energy. ‘Let’s walk up to the horizon,’ she suggested with a grin, shaking out her hair so that sparkling droplets of water flew in all directions.

  ‘Why not?’ Tom returned wryly.

  And as they strolled up the beach he told her that North and South Stradbroke had once been one island joined by a narrow neck, but weather and a cargo of sunken dynamite had breached the neck and formed Jumpinpin Bar, which separated the islands now. Cathy shaded her eyes as they walked north, trying to see the bar, but the sand just went on and on. And eventually Tom said they had better turn back, otherwise they’d be caught trying to find the path over the island in the dark. In fact, the sun was just slipping behind the mainland as they reached the Broadwater side and stepped on to the beach.

  She caught her breath and put out a hand to stop Tom, pointing delightedly at a family of wallabies at the water’s edge.

  They watched them for a few minutes.

  ‘What are they doing?’ she whispered.

  He shrugged. ‘There must be something nutritious in the seaweed the tide brings in.’

  Back on the boat, Tom switched on some lights but left the afterdeck in darkness—for a reason, Cathy discovered.

  ‘There’s a cold water shower out there,’ he said, not quite smiling. ‘It’s cold but fresh water, so it’ll get all the salt off, and the sand.’

  ‘I see,’ Cathy said gravely. ‘That deck is also very public.’

  ‘There’s not a soul for miles. It’s also quite dark,’ he replied innocently but with a little glint she knew well in the greeny depths of his eyes. ‘Look,’ he added, stripping off his trunks, ‘I’ll go first.’

  Cathy sighed, for several reasons. Because only this morning she had been so angry with him, angrier than she’d ever been with anyone, and determined not to succumb to any physical blackmail, yet now, taking a naked shower on the open deck of a boat seemed only a right and fitting thing to do. Strange, but then only today I learnt to drive this boat, she mused, which is something I never visualised myself doing, and there’s no one about and it is dark, so it’s not so very daring, but Tom…

  Her thoughts centred on Tom, standing straight and tall on the deck with his back to her, dousing himself with cold, fresh water from the hand-held shower, and she found herself wondering if he might appreciate her more if she did let her hair down and spread her wings, did do things just for the hell of it…

  ‘Is it very cold?’

  He turned and blinked as she stood in the spill over of soft light from the cabin, and switched the water off.

  ‘Pretty cold,’ he said after a moment, his gaze roaming her body. ‘Shall… I?’

  ‘Yes, please.’ Cathy braced herself and closed her eyes.

  But he didn’t begin immediately. Instead he said with an oddly restrained beat in his voice, ‘I wonder if you have any idea how beautiful you are, Cathy?’

  Her lashes fluttered up and she stared at him for an age until he said, ‘Tell me what you’re thinking.’ She cleared her throat. ‘If you must know, I’m asking myself why I can’t stay angry with you, Tom. Why I’m doing this——’

  ‘It’s not such a desperate thing to do—for a husband and wife,’ he broke in, but rather gently.

  She lifted her slim shoulders and spread her fingers. ‘Tonight I’d rather be someone else, a fascinating stranger—I suppose that sounds ridiculous——’ she paused and wondered what had made her say it, what had made her wish it ‘—but I don’t want to be made love to because I’m here and because I’m your wife, because you think it might placate me. I’d rather…no,’ she said beneath her breath, and half turned away.

  ‘Tell me, Cat.’ He caught her wrist and swung her back.

  ‘It’s very difficult,’ she said with a frown. ‘You want me because you think I have a beautiful body, and it’s not that I don’t want to be wanted, but…’ She stopped and bit her lip.

  ‘You want to be courted again?’

  She winced. ‘That sounds awfully coy—no, I’d rather you wanted to talk to me and be mentally attuned,’ she whispered as his fingers tightened round her wrist, but her blue eyes were dark and curiously brave.

  ‘This,’ he said after a long time and fingering her inner wrist as he sometimes did, ‘is an odd conversation for a naked couple, however married, to be having, but,’ his lips twisted into a faint smile, ‘I concede your point. Unfortunately I’m going to have to take another cold shower—just to be on the safe side.’ And he switched on the water and held the nozzle in a strategic position.

  Cathy started to blush, then she began to laugh and received a spray of water which made her gasp and then laugh again at the sheer, tingling invig-oration of it, the freedom of being alone like this beneath the stars and surrounded by dark water with the sheen of a rising moon silvering it, of being able to be so uninhibited—and something else: the sudden primitive sensual awareness of the wet lines and angles and strength of Tom’s body and the paler, softer curves of her own. The white glint of his teeth as he drenched them both from head to toe and the way the water ran down her breasts and dripped off her nipples which the chill had made full and sensitive.

  In fact she was looking down, observing this phenomenon, when a faint hum in the darkness made her look up, and immediately forget it as she realised Tom was staring at her dripping breasts and unfurled nipples, and that a moment before he’d turned the shower off and laid it down.

  ‘Tom…?’ It was more a husky little sound.

  He lifted his eyes to hers, but said nothing.

  ‘I…’ But she could formulate no words, because not only her breasts but her whole body was
suddenly aching with a desire to be touched, aching with the remembered, familiar feel of his hands and lips, aching for him. ‘I feel so humiliated,’ she said in a sudden rush of words.

  ‘Why?’ His lips barely moved.

  ‘Do you——’ she stared at him with a painful enquiry in her eyes ‘—did you feel like this just now?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I mean—as if you’d die of desire if I didn’t… if I didn’t…’ But the words stuck in her throat.

  His smile was only a brief chiselled movement of his lips. ‘It doesn’t last—it’s only a small death.’

  She closed her eyes briefly. ‘What can I say?’

  ‘Nothing—welcome to the ranks, Cat,’ he said softly.

  ‘Ranks?’ Her blue eyes were bewildered.

  ‘Of us mere, often muddled adults.’

  ‘I don’t understand…’

  ‘You thought you didn’t want to be wanted, with reason, but reason doesn’t altogether govern these things. You——’

  He stopped abruptly, and with a start, Cathy realised the hum she’d heard had become the loud throbbing noise of an outboard motor, and as they both turned their heads, a powerful spotlight was turned on from the approaching boat, and it bathed them unerringly in stark relief.

  Tom swore, stepped between her and the light, picked her up by the waist and lifted her into the cabin, slamming the door behind them with his heel.

  ‘Oh, God!’ Cathy gasped as he released her and swiftly pulled all the blinds down.

  He turned to her and grinned at her expression of utter horror, but it was an oddly taut grin. ‘Exciting times we’re having, aren’t we? I’d say they’re fishermen who caught an unexpected thrill, but it’s probably just as well they came along. We could have caught a chill if we’d stayed out there much longer like this.’ He knotted a towel around his waist and handed her one.

  CHAPTER SIX

  CATHY took it, but with a dazed look on her face.

  ‘Use it,’ Tom said briefly. ‘You’re getting goose-bumps—here, I’ll do it.’

  ‘I can,’ she mumbled as with sudden impatience he put his hands on her wet, satiny buttocks and pulled her towards him.