Semi-Detached Marriage

by Sally Wentworth

  At the beginning of April she went to Paris again for a big fashion fair showing all the new French and Italian ready-to-wear collections. It was exciting, it was fun, and Cassie came back full of ideas and plans that she was eager to work on and develop at home while they were fresh in her mind. But when she got back from the airport and went up to the flat, Simon opened the door for her before she even got her key out of her bag.

  'Oh, it's you!' For a moment she was so taken aback at seeing him that she could only stare foolishly.

  He laughed and bent down to pick up her case, then drew her inside and shut the door. 'Stop looking at me as if I were a ghost. I'm real.'

  'Are you?' she asked huskily. 'I was beginning to wonder.'

  'Well, in that case I'd better prove it to you.' He set down her case and moved purposefully forward, taking her in his arms to kiss her, slowly at first, his lips exploring hers gently, as if he was kissing her for the very first time, but then they grew harder, awakening a response so that she opened her mouth in surrender, giving herself wholly to his embrace.

  When at last he lifted his head, Cassie looked up at him, her green eyes misty and languorous. Breathlessly she said, 'Now I know it's you. Only you could kiss like that.'

  His eyebrows rose. 'Oh? And just who have you been comparing me with?' he demanded.

  Cassie laughed. `Wouldn't you like to know?' Then she began to fire questions at him as she unbuttoned her coat and he helped her off with it. 'When did you get home? How long can you stay? Have you worked out the new pay policy? Have all the unions agreed? Have you eaten yet? I'm starving,' she added as she made for the kitchen and pulled open the door of the fridge. 'Did Mrs. Payne get the groceries I asked her to? Let's cook some…'

  She broke off as Simon caught hold of her shoulders and turned her round to face him.

  'Yesterday, till Monday, no, no, no, yes.'

  Cassie looked at him in bewilderment. 'What did you say?'

  'I merely answered your questions. I got home yesterday; I can stay till Monday; no, the unions haven't yet agreed to a pay policy; no, I haven't eaten, and yes, Mrs. Payne did get the groceries. Now, will you just simmer down a minute and let me tell you something.'

  'What? Is it important?' Cassie asked on a note of alarm.

  'Very important,' he agreed gravely, but then he smiled as he put a hand on either side of her face and said softly, 'I wanted to tell you that I've missed you, I need you, and I love you so very much.' Then he kissed her again, long and lingeringly.

  'Oh, Simon!' Cassie put her arms round his neck and let him hold her close. 'It's been such a long time.' She smiled at him. 'I was beginning to forget what it was like to be married.'

  Simon laughed with her as he let her go, but a faint shadow came into his eyes as he watched her busy herself with the preparation of a meal. After a moment he put out it hand to stop her. `Tell you what, why don't I go out and get a Chinese meal?'

  `Would you? That would be lovely; I didn't really feel like cooking.'

  'Be back in about twenty minutes,' he promised as he kissed her on the nose before going to put on his overcoat.

  But it was nearer half an hour before Simon returned, and then he was rather annoyed to find that Cassie was sitting at the table writing in a notebook and had made no attempt to set the table or put any plates to warm.

  She looked up in some surprise as he walked in.

  'Good heavens, are you back already? Sorry, I just sat down to make a note of some ideas I had on the way back from Paris and forgot the time.' She jumped up and began to get out the cutlery and mats. 'It won't take a minute.'

  'How did you get on in Paris?' Simon called from the kitchen where he was plunging a couple of dinner plates in hot water to warm them.

  'Oh, it was super. I think this was one of the most successful fashion fairs they've held.' She went on telling him about the trip as they ate, describing the new styles in detail, and enthusiastically outlining her own plans for displaying the goods in the various fashion departments at Marriott & Brown's.

  Simon listened and asked several questions, but the warm, interested look in his eyes gradually faded and was replaced by a slight frown as he detected a harder note in Cassie's voice as she talked about a deal she'd pulled off, a slightly ruthless edge that had never been there before.

  After the meal they sat together on the settee for a while, listening to some new L.P.s that Simon had bought, his arm round her and Cassie's head on his shoulder. But after a while she began to fidget restlessly and then sat up. `Shan't be a minute; I just want to make a note of an idea I have for the swimwear department.'

  Picking up her notebook, she sat down at the table again and began to write hurriedly, her ideas coming too fast for her to write in anything neater than a hasty scrawl. When the record ended she was still writing and Simon got up and quietly turned it over. His eyes settled on her reflectively as he went back to his seat, realising that she was so immersed in what she was doing that she hadn't even noticed that the music had stopped.

  An hour later he stood up abruptly, turned off the record player and came to take the pen from her hand. Cassie looked up, an indignant frown on her face, her mouth open to make a sharp objection, but then she realised who it was and she flushed guiltily.

  'Oh, lord, I did it again, didn't I?' Contritely she closed the notebook and stood up. `I'm sorry, darling. It's just that I'm so full of ideas after Paris, and I'm afraid that if I don't put them all down I'll forget them.'

  She looked up at him, her green eyes wistful and pleading, and Simon found it impossible to be angry. He reached up to stroke the smooth, pale skin of her cheek and the harsh comment he had been about to make died in his throat. Instead he said thickly, `Let's go to bed.'

  Her face came alive with love and longing. `Oh, yes- let's!'

  They made love with a turbulent passion, each of them satisfying their own needs greedily, but in so doing arousing the other's to new heights of sensuality-new and yet not new-for each of them knew the other's body as intimately as their own and was aware of what pleased and excited them the most. Simon had taught Cassie never to be shy or hold back, to tell him when something he did gave her enjoyment, until there was no longer any need to tell him and she could only moan, 'Yes-oh, Simon, yes!' as he brought her to one ecstatic climax after another.

  They had been apart for a long time and it was late when Simon finally turned her on to her side and lay close beside her, his arm across her possessively, encompassing her with the protection of his body as he fell into a contented sleep.

  Some slight noise woke him a couple of hours later and he stirred, then remembered where he was and reached out to put his arm round Cassie again. But she wasn't there, the bed was empty. He thought she must have gone to the bathroom, but the bathroom opened off the bedroom and there was no light under the door. Getting up, he slipped on a bathrobe and walked quietly down the corridor to the sitting-room. Cassie was sitting on the settee in the pool of light thrown by the standard lamp, her dressing grown wrapped round her and her feet tucked under her. She was busily writing in her notebook again. Simon watched her for a long moment, then turned and went silently back to the bedroom, to lie thoughtfully and smoke a cigarette as he waited for his wife to come back to bed.

  'Cassie? It's John Russell.'

  `Oh, hi, John. How are you?'

  It was a Saturday afternoon, the weekend after Simon had managed to get home, and Cassie had been washing her hair when the phone rang.

  'I'm fine. You?'

  `Yes, great.'

  `Good. I was afraid I wouldn't catch you, that you would already have set out to meet Julia.'

  `Julia?' Cassie queried on a note of surprise.

  `Yes. Look, she's gone out without her cheque book and credit cards I've just found her wallet on the hall table.' He chuckled. `She'll be mad as fire when she goes to buy something and finds she can't'

  'Well, I don't suppose. you're altogether sorry,' Cassie retur
ned, jokingly. `But look, John, you've got it wrong, I haven't…'

  She was going to add that she hadn't made any arrangement to meet Julia that day, but he interrupted her by saying, `Must rush, I've got a golf match this afternoon. But she said she was going out with you, so I thought I'd better let you know in case she started panicking and reported the wallet stolen or something. You know what she's like,' he added with all the husbandly lack of sympathy that comes after a ten-year marriage.

  `But, John…'

  'Must go, love. Sec you.'

  And he put the phone down before she could protest any further. Cassie shrugged as she replaced her own receiver; obviously he'd got her mixed up with some other friend that Julia was going shopping with, although he'd seemed pretty definite about it. And, come to think of it, Julia had never mentioned having shopping trips in the West End with anyone else, often saying that she liked to go with Cassie because she had such a good fashion sense. Well, whoever she was with she wouldn't be buying much today without her money.

  It was only later, when Cassie was blow-drying her hair and reading a magazine at the same time, that her eye chanced on a letter to the agony column in which a married woman who was having an affair asked for advice, and it occurred to her to wonder if Julia had been using her as an excuse and that she might be meeting another man. At first she dismissed the idea as ludicrous. Julia just wasn't the type, and besides, she loved her home and family too much. But then Cassie remembered uneasily that Julia hadn't phoned her to go out on a Saturday for several weeks, and that the last time she had seen her she'd been more than a little fed up with John and his incessant golf. The more she thought about it, the more worried she became. One read so often of people having affairs that it had become commonplace, but the thought that it was someone you knew quite well made the whole idea shocking and wrong. Cassie decided in the end to phone Julia as if nothing had happened and suggest they meet and then try to find out if she was right. She didn't want to do it, it was like peeping through bedroom keyholes, but she felt that she had a right to know if Julia was using her as an excuse to meet a lover. And besides, she might easily have given the game away to John, and the last thing she wanted was to be involved in a marital row.

  But as it happened any approach she might make was forestalled, because Julia phoned her at work on the Monday morning and asked her to have lunch with her. Almost as soon as they met, Cassie knew that she had been right. There was a slightly ashamed, obstinate look in her friend's eyes, but apart from that she looked

  oo radiant. She had always been smart and had kept her figure in good shape, despite having had two children close together, but now there was a snap in her walk and she carried herself with a confident air, her head high, and she looked young and happy.

  They sat down at a table in a small French restaurant behind Oxford Street and Cassie looked at Julia in surprise and perturbation. They gave their order and then Julia looked across at her and flushed.

  'I suppose I don't have to tell you. You've already guessed, I can see it in your face.'

  Cassie nodded, unable to speak, then burst out, `Julia, how could you?'

  Julia's flush deepened and she looked down at the table, then shrugged defensively. 'It just happened.'

  `Oh, rubbish!' Cassie returned, angry now. `Don't try and fool me, Julia, things like that don't just happen. There has to be a moment when you either commit yourself or draw back. You've gone into this with your eyes open and it's no use pretending otherwise, even to yourself.'

  `Well, all right. But I don't know what you're getting so upset about,' Julia retorted, the flush on her face giving way to anger.

  `Because I like John, of course. I like you both. For heaven's sake, Julia, you're my friends!'

  For a moment they fell into an awkward silence, prolonged as the waiter brought their first course. They ate without speaking, neither of them knowing quite what to say, until Cassie said impulsively, `I just don't understand how you could do this to John. I thought you loved him.'

  `But I do love him.'

  `Then why, Julia? What has he done to make you cheat on him with another man?'

  Julia's reply was heavy with cynicism. `Nothing that's the whole point.'

  Cassie shook her head. `I'm sorry, I don't understand.'

  Julia pushed her plate away and leant forward. `Cassie, John and I have been married for over ten years. I loved him when we married and I still do, but he's changed. All he seems to think about now is the office and golf. Oh, he loves the kids, of course he does, and he gives them time during the school holidays in fact he has more time for them than he does me,' she added bitterly. `And he never seems to want to go out socially any more, unless it's to a golf club function.' She paused for a moment, her hands gripping each other on the table. 'We still make love, if you can call a quick five minutes once or twice a week making love. But I don't get anything out of it. As a matter of fact I never have; John was never very good at it. But that didn't used to matter, because I loved him and because he was attentive and caring in other watts. But now he isn't, and there's only so much pretending one can do, so much indifference one can take…'

  She broke off, her voice unsteady, while Cassie looked at her in horror. Impulsively she put out a hand to cover her friend's. 'Oh, Julia, I'm sorry. I didn't know, I had no idea. You always seemed so happy together.'

  Julia sat up and shrugged. `I suppose we are, really, as far as most marriages go. John's quite happy, at any rate. But for a long time I've felt that I'm missing out on life. That I'm only thirty-one years old but that I've already settled into the pattern that I'll be in for the rest of my life. That was until I met…'

  She hesitated and Cassie said swiftly, 'I don't want to know who it is. Please don't tell me, Julia.'

  'No,' her friend answered slowly, `maybe it's better if you don't know. Anyway, when I met him my life changed completely. I felt young and attractive again. Can you guess what it's like, Cassie, to find yourself wanted again, to have a man find you so desirable that he's crazy to go to bed with you?'

  'But surely other men have found you attractive, too? I've seen you flirt at parties before and…'

  'Oh, harmless suburban party flirtations-just a couple of kisses and a quick grope when you've both had enough drinks not to care what you're doing. That's almost de rigueur,' Julia declared scathingly. 'No, this is real, Cassie. He started chasing me the day after we met and wouldn't take no for an answer until we'd slept together. And it's wonderful, Cassie, it really is. For the first time I'm getting something out of sex, as well as giving. And he's so young and strong.' Her eyes sparkled with remembrance. 'Sometimes we make love all afternoon until it's so late that I just have to go home, and even then he doesn't want to stop.'

  Cassie looked away, embarrassed at hearing such bedroom secrets, and yet no longer able to condemn her friend completely. At length, when Julia fell silent, Cassie said with difficulty, 'Are you going to leave John?'

  'Oh, no! No, of course not.' Julia's answer was swift and certain. 'I know that this can't last, that it's nothing but sex and will eventually burn itself out. And, as I said, I love John and don't want to hurt him. And you know, Cassie, it's the strangest thing, but somehow, having this affair has made me appreciate John more. I know that sounds crazy, but it's true. And when it's over and I have to settle back into my old familiar rut again-well, at least I'll have this to look back on and remember.'

  Seeing the sparkle in her friend's eyes, the glow in her face, Cassie could only look at her in wonder. Could just pure sex, sex without love, have such an effect? And would Julia be content to just return to her old life when the affair ended? Somehow Cassie couldn't believe that it would be that simple. There was always the risk that John would find out, as he almost had yesterday. And perhaps, even if this affair did end amicably, Julia might again become dissatisfied later on and look round for another man. If she could get away with having an affair successfully once, why not twice, or three
times?

  Deliberately Cassie changed the subject, reluctant to pursue her thoughts further, and luckily Julia refrained from saying anything else, although it was clear that she was disappointed, that she would dearly have loved to talk about her new found happiness. So neither of them mentioned it again until they were standing outside the restaurant on the pavement, under a thin April sunshine. Then Julia said, 'It will be all right to tell John I'm going shopping with you again next Saturday afternoon, won't it?'

  With difficulty, Cassie answered, 'I'm sorry, Julia, I'd rather you didn't.'

  'But why? I thought you were my friend.'

  'I hope I am. And if it was just you perhaps then I'd say yes. But John's a friend as well, and I couldn't lie to him I don't want to have to lie to him.'

  'I see.' There was a reproach in Julia's tone that made Cassie almost change her mind, because she was quite sure that their friendship would never be the same again, but she staved silent. `Well, I'll just have to think of some other excuse, won't I? Not that it matters; I find that you can always think of a thousand excuses if you want something badly enough.'

  Cassie looked at her defiant face and said sadly, `A thousand lies, you mean.'

  For a moment the older girl glared at her angrily, then she seemed to crumple, her shoulders sagging. `I can't help it, Cassie. I need him so badly, you see.' Then she hurriedly turned away and walked quickly down the street. Cassie watched her go and, not for the first time in her marriage, thanked her stars that Simon was an ardent, virile lover.