Semi-Detached Marriage

by Sally Wentworth

  Cassie looked up at him mutely, her mouth set into an obstinate line. Her head ached and she felt deathly tired suddenly. Far too tired to try and put her feelings into words. Not that she even knew that she wanted to; somehow it just wasn't the time for words. Her head drooped and she shrugged her shoulders. 'I don't know. I don't know anything any more.' She pulled away from him and said heavily, 'I'm going to bed.'

  For a moment it looked as if Simon was going to insist, but then he saw the dark shadows round her eyes and said, 'Maybe we could both do with some rest,' and moved out of the way so that she could go to the bathroom.

  Usually Cassie took good care of her clothes, but that morning she just pulled them off and dropped them on the floor, uncaring. She creamed off her make- up and stood gazing unseeingly at her face in the mirror of the bathroom cabinet, wishing that the party last night had never happened, wishing that they could go back in time to before Simon had been offered the directorship. Not that it would have made any difference, she thought dully. If it hadn't been Scotland it would have been somewhere else. Sooner or later Simon would have been offered promotion and he would have taken it, regardless of her wishes.

  She put on her nightdress and went into the bedroom. The curtains were open and she pulled them closed, shutting out the mid-morning sunlight. It seemed strange to be going to bed in daylight. Simon came through the bedroom to the bathroom and she pulled the duvet up around her neck and turned on her side.

  She was so tired that she expected to fall asleep the moment her head touched the pillow, but her mind was still alert, defying her fatigue, and kept going back to the party, to Julia deceiving John with Chris and what the possible outcome would be. She wondered if Sue knew, whether she'd guessed last night.

  Restlessly Cassie turned over, trying to get more comfortable, trying to will herself to go to sleep. She tried counting, but had only got to seventeen when her thoughts wandered off as she remembered that electric moment with Tom. Would he have kissed her, kissed her properly? Almost from the beginning he had kissed her on the cheek in greeting and when saying goodnight, but there was a world of difference in that sort of friendly peck and the look that had been in his eyes at that moment. And if he had tried to kiss her would she have let him? Cassie couldn't even pretend to herself that she would have been capable of any resistance. The sexual impact of the moment had been too great for that. And it had made her afraid.

  For the first time since she'd known Simon she had become attracted to another man, and it had happened at a time when she was vulnerable and alone. She desperately needed some kind of reassurance-wanted, really, to be taken in hand and have her life firmly put back in order again. And perhaps the way she had behaved towards Simon had been an instinctive urge to rouse his anger and make him do just that. She heard the door of the bathroom opening and immediately closed her eyes and pretended to be asleep.

  Simon didn't come to bed straightaway, she could hear him moving about the room in the half light, going to the wardrobe and putting things inside, opening the drawers in the dresser and closing them again. All thoughts of sleep had fled now, she was too tense, too busy wondering what he would do. She heard him come over to the bed and tried to keep her breathing even as he pulled back the. duvet and climbed gently into the bed beside her. He lay on his back, quite still. 'T'heir bodies weren't touching, but even so Cassie was tinglingly aware of his nearness, of his lean, strong body so close to her own. And it had been so long since they had made love-nearly three months. A white heat of desire tore through her and she yearned to turn to him, to make him hold her and love her, feel his skin against hers, feel the hardness of his body joining with hers and washing away all doubts, all fear, all frustration. The desire was so fierce that she almost moaned aloud, but bit her lip in time, pride and obstinacy refusing to allow her to be the one to make the first move.

  But the steady rhythm of her breathing must have changed because Simon said shortly, 'There's really no point in pretending to he asleep, Cassie; I know you're awake.'

  For a couple of seconds she toyed with going on with the pretence, but realised it was futile. 'Well, I am now,' she retorted in a hostile tone.

  Putting out a hand, he pulled her over on to her back. His arm was bare.

  `Why aren't you wearing pyjamas?' she demanded accusingly.

  `Why do you always get prudish whenever we have a row?' Simon countered.

  'I am not being prudish.'

  `Then take this thing off.' Simon's tone had altered now, become soft, suggestive as he touched her night-dress.

  'No. I told you I want to go to sleep.'

  'Are you sure, Cassie? Are you really sure that's what you want?' His hand touched her neck, slid inside the opening of her nightdress and moved slowly down to caress her breast.

  His touch roused her at once, sending a flame of sexuality coursing through her body. She wanted to say, yes, yes, that's what I want, but her stubborn pride wouldn't let her forgive him so easily, so quickly. Using all her will-power, she pulled away from him and snapped out, 'Take your hand off me! Just what right do you think you've got to walk in here after three whole months and expect to just have sex on demand?'

  'What the hell have rights got to do with it?' Simon retorted exasperatedly. 'All right, so we've been apart for three months, isn't that all the more reason to make love now we're together?'

  'Having sex isn't going to solve anything,' Cassie told him vehemently, so vehemently that she almost believed it. 'The same problems will still be there afterwards. It won't make any difference.'

  Simon listened to her grimly, and then, his voice harsh, demanded, 'Since when did it become having sex instead of making love? What the hell's got into you, Cassie?' He propped himself up on one elbow and looked at her angrily.

  `There's nothing the matter with me,' she returned hotly. 'I'm just pointing out that you can't come home and expect everything to be the way it was. I don't like being alone for months on end. Why, we might just as well not be married at all, for God's sake! And going to bed together isn't going to put things right, although men always think that it will, of course,' she added sardonically. 'They think that they've only got to exert a bit of masculinity and make a woman have sex and everything will be sweetness and light again. Well, it doesn't work!'

  'Are you talking about men in general or me in particular?' Simon enquired, his voice cold.

  'About all men, of course.'

  'And I wonder just how you've suddenly come to know how men's minds work?' Simon remarked, his mouth set into a grim line. He wasn't touching her any more, not his hands nor any part of his long lean body. His grey eyes were ice-cold and there was a shut in look about his face as if he had withdrawn into himself.

  'But I'm afraid you won't be able to prove the truth of that statement, with me at any rate, because you've killed any desire I had for you stone dead. So go to sleep, Cassie, I won't disturb you.' His eyes glinted down at her, hard and enigmatic, then he added caustically, 'Sweet dreams, darling,' before rolling over with his back to her.

  Cassie bit her lip and closed her eyes, trying to go to sleep, telling herself that she was glad she'd put him off. But her whole body ached with need, her hands balling into tight fists at her side to stop her from trembling. She risked a look at him in the dim light, but his back was still towards her, as hard and rigid as his uncompromising attitude.

  A rush of frustrated anger surged through her. Damn him! Damn him! Couldn't he see? Couldn't he understand that she wanted him to make her, to force her to do what he wanted? She wanted, needed, to fight him physically, to have him overpower her. Desperately she needed him to prove his mastery over her, so that she would once again know where and who she was. A primitive Deed, maybe, but her feelings now were raw and basic. She didn't want to make the first move towards a tentative reconciliation; she wanted to have it proved to her, without any shadow of a doubt, that Simon was the boss.

  But he lay completely still, so still that
she guessed he'd gone to sleep, and anger turned to a wave of pure hatred, so violent that it shocked her. She'd been angry with him many times before in the past, but never, never had she hated him. She lay still, gazing up at the ceiling, feeling bleak and miserable until at last she drifted into an exhausted sleep.

  When she awoke, late in the afternoon, she yawned, still half asleep, and reached across the bed for Simon. But the bed was empty and she heard his muted voice in the sitting-room. Quickly she got up, showered and dressed, wondering who he had with him, but when she went into the room she found that he was talking on the telephone to someone who had been at the party, the pile of now unwrapped gifts on the low table in front of him. There was coffee, hot in the percolator.

  Cassie poured a large mug and carried it into the sitting-room, curled up on the settee and picked up the Sunday paper. Her head throbbed, but the coffee at least got rid of the dry, parched feeling in her mouth. She shouldn't have had any champagne with breakfast this morning; mixing her drinks always gave her a hangover. The thought of the Savoy made her remember her discovery of Julia's lover. Should she tell her she knew? Cassie wondered. But perhaps better not, better to keep out of it altogether.

  Simon finished his conversation and looked across at her, but Cassie pretended to be engrossed in the paper, holding it up so that he couldn't see her face. After a moment he dialed again and spoke to another friend. He made two more calls, then put down the receiver decisively.

  'I trust you slept well?' he enquired blandly.

  'Yes, thank you.' Cassie turned a page, making sure that the paper still hid her from his view.

  'Good. Thank you for the birthday presents, by the way.'

  'I hope you like them,' Cassie returned stiltedly, remembering the care she'd taken on selecting the expensive sweater that she'd bought in Paris, and the cuff-links from the jeweler department in Marriott & Brown's.

  'Very much. Are you feeling okay, quite rested?'

  'I told you,' Cassie answered irritably, 'I'm perfectly well.'

  'I'm glad.' He stood up, came over to her and jerked the paper out of her hands, dropping it on the floor. 'So now let's have that talk.' But as he sat down on the edge of the settee, he said deliberately, 'But first there's this.' And he leant forward and kissed her firmly on the mouth.

  Taken by surprise, at first Cassie's lips were soft and yielding, but then they hardened as she quickly pulled away. For a brief second a bitter, fed-up look showed in Simon's eyes, but it was quickly masked as he said harshly, 'That was for the birthday party And now you've got some explaining to do.' His eyes, cold as water over stone, bored into hers as he bit out. 'And we'll start by you telling me just how long you have been seeing Tom Rydell'

  Cassie stared at him, sensing his anger although he had it under control, and feeling glad that be wss angry, willing to fuel it to enrage him further.

  'What does it matter to you how often I go out with Tom? After all, you should be glad that one of your friends is willing to entertain me while you're up in Scotland playing…'

  `Don't say that again, Cassie,' Simon put in savagely. `Just don't say it!'

  `All right. While you're up in Scotland working, then. Well, shouldn't you?' she demanded, when he didn't answer.

  The comer of his mouth twisted scornfully. 'Be glad that some other man is taking my wife out? I don't think you know me very well, Cassie.'

  'If you're not here to take me out, then why the hell shouldn't I go out with a friend?' she demanded, her voice rising.

  Simon stood up and took an angry step away, turned, his hands shoved into his pockets. 'To go out with a friend from time to time is one thing, but you'd never even met Tom Rydell before he came to England. And don't try telling me that the friendship's platonic, because I won't believe it; no man and woman yet ever had a purely platonic relationship.' He reached forward suddenly and hauled her to her feet. 'And you still haven't told me how often you've been seeing him. How often, Cassie?' he demanded stridently.

  His anger was out in the open now, she could feel it in his hand that held her wrist like a vice, hear it in his voice, although he still had his features under control. And her own blood was running hot in her veins, pumping adrenalin into her heart so that it beat loud and fast, filling her with an intoxicating, bubbling kind of fear and excitement all mixed up together. From somewhere a small voice of sanity told her to play it cool, but it was lost beneath the fascination of seeing how far she could go, how far she could push him. Belligerently she replied, 'As often as possible.'

  His face paled. 'And just how often is that?'

  'Every weekend and almost every night during the week.'

  His jaw tightened and his lips drew into a thin line. 'You said you weren't having an affair with him?'

  'No, I'm not,' Cassie answered coolly, fiercely glad of the punishment she was inflicting.

  'Has he asked you?'

  'No.' His face relaxed a little so she added cruelly, 'But that doesn't mean that I won't say yes when he does.'

  The hand holding hers jerked, and his fingers bit into her wrist and a flame of anger shot through his face. 'You bitch! You cold-hearted little bitch!' Hot, murderous rage shone in his eyes and Cassie, in a purely reflex action, lifted up her left arm as if to ward off a blow.

  It never came. When she dared to look at Simon his face was still very white and there was a grim, bleak look in his grey eyes, but he had himself under control again. He let go of her wrist, pushed his hands in his pockets and moved away from her to stare out of the window. After a while he said curtly, 'I notice you said when he asked you and not if. Is it inevitable that he'll ask you, then?'

  'I don't know.' Suddenly Cassie regretted what she'd done, felt ashamed. She put out a tentative hand to touch his sleeve. `Simon, I…'

  He pulled his arm free from her touch and moved away. The physical rejection hit her like a blow. He had no right to do that; she was the one who was supposed to be doing the rejecting!

  Turning to face her, he said forcefully, 'I don't know why you're doing this, Cassie, but if going out with Tom is some kind of moral blackmail to make me jealous so that I'll give up my job, then it won't work. I don't like blackmail and even less do I like the people who perpetrate it. Nor do I go much on your using Tom as a tool.'

  Colour flared in Cassie's cheeks. 'I'm not using him!'

  'No? Then I feel sorry for him.' Simon paused, then went on heavily, 'I love you, Cassie. And I want us to be together. You felt that you couldn't live in Scotland and I could understand that and was willing to compromise. But now it seems that that doesn't satisfy you either; you want an all-out surrender to your wishes. But I'm not that kind of man, Cassie. And if you can't go on as we are, then it looks as if you're going to have to make a choice.

  'What-what choice?' Cassie's voice was little more than a whisper.

  'Between me and your job.' He said it slowly, reluctantly, as if he found it hard to get the words out.

  Cassie couldn't speak, could only stare at him numbly. She felt as if all the world had suddenly stopped and she was acutely aware of little things: of birds quarrelling outside the window, of the smell of stale tobacco that still hung in the room from the party, of the cold feeling that seemed to take her heart in its iron grip.

  When she didn't speak Simon's voice hardened and he said roughly, `And leave Tom out of this. He only complicates matters. It would be better if you didn't see him again.'

  Without bothering to think of the consequences, Cassie let her ungovernable temper and constant need to assert her independence come to the fore and she answered defiantly, 'I shall see him whenever and as often as I like!'

  Simon's lips drew back into a grim, sardonic smile. `That's what I thought you'd say.' He turned on his heel and walked into the bedroom.

  Cassie stared after him for a moment, cursing herself for a fool, then she followed him into the bedroom and saw that he was throwing some clothes into his overnight bag.

  `W
here are you going?' she asked.

  `Back to Scotland.'

  'Do you-have to go now?'

  He gave that grim little smile again, a look that Cassie had never seen on his face before today and which she found frightened her to death.

  'Why stay? There's nothing for me here.' He shut the case, shrugged himself into a jacket and walked past her as she stood in the doorway. At the door to the hall he paused and looked back. His voice polite, impersonal, as if he was speaking to his secretary or someone, he said, 'When you've made up your mind, perhaps you'll let me know.' He waited for a moment, but she could only stare at him dumbly, and so he gave a brief nod and walked out of the flat.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  FOR a couple of days Cassie lived in a kind of vacuum, certain that Simon hadn't meant it, that he'd only issued his ultimatum in the heat of the moment and that he would soon ring and put everything right again.

  Only he didn't phone. The days lengthened into a week, but still he didn't call. Cassie rushed home every evening, firmly refusing all Tom's invitations for a date, just sitting alone and waiting for the phone to ring. When it did she would start up eagerly, her heart beating overtime, trying to compose her voice but still sounding husky and eager when she said the number. But always it was a friend, whom she would cut short in case Simon tried to call her and found the number engaged.

  By the end of the week all certainty and self-confidence had gone. She drooped over her work and was short tempered with her colleagues, who looked at her in surprise, knowing that she didn't suffer fools gladly but never having seen her in this sort of mood before. At the weekend she stayed at home, certain that Simon would phone then, even if it was only to find out if she was defying him, but the empty hours dragged on without interruption. All that did come to the flat that weekend was a letter from Tom saying how much he missed her company, that he would understand if Simon had forbidden her to see him, but that he very much wanted to go on with their friendship in any circumstances. With the letter came a huge bouquet of flowers, but it was the phrase 'if Simon has forbidden you to see me again', plus a growing anger and resentment, that finally made Cassie pick up the phone late on Sunday night and ring Tom. On the surface the call was to thank him for the flowers, but she only put up a half-hearted resistance when he tried to persuade her to see him again and she ended up by agreeing to have lunch with him the following day.