Reluctant Wife

by Lindsay Armstrong

  Her hopes were dashed the next evening.

  Nicky appeared to enjoy her day at the races and she looked stunning in a rose pink tunic outfit of Roz’s. Roz herself wore pale ice blue, and at one stage Nicky even said to her, with her dark eyes sparkling wickedly, ‘You and I are creating a lot of interest, Mrs Milroy!‘ Male interest. Isn‘t it lucky we contrast so well?’

  Roz agreed, and immediately thought that perhaps Nicky’s problems weren’t so serious after all.

  But when they got home, Nicky seemed not to be able to sit still after dinner, and she finally dragged Roz out for a set of tennis under the floodlights. ‘We can have a swim afterwards,’ she said energetically, and added teasingly, ‘What’s the point of having all these! Floodlit facilities if you don’t use them?’

  ‘Adam and Roz use them frequently,’ said Milly,

  ‘Good,’ Nicky said. briskly, although she knew. this as well as Milly. And Roz and Milly exchanged rueful glances.

  They didn’t complete as game, however, before Nicky threw her racquet away and sat down suddenly on the court with her head in her hands. Roz came round the net, picked up Nicky’s racquet, found herself wondering if Milly was still home to help her with this crisis, but Milly had gone to visit friends in Nerang…

  ‘Nicky,’ she said quietly, ‘come inside. We can talk more comfortably there.’

  Nicky’s shoulders shook and for a time she ignored Roz, then she stumbled up, and Roz took her hand.

  In the den, Roz dimmed the lights and said, ‘Now tell me. It’s Richard, isn’t it‘?’

  ‘Yes,’ Nicky wept. ‘But how did you know?’

  ‘I saw you the night before last. I wasn’t spying on you, but I couldn’t sleep and l was standing at the window, that’s all.’

  ‘And you never said a word!’ Nicky marvelled bitterly, looking up and displaying a tear-streaked, dirty, woebegone face.

  ‘I thought … if you wanted to tell me you would. Nicky, does everyone else know‘?

  ‘Of course they know,’ Nicky said even more bitterly. ‘If you know a way of keeping a secret from this damn family of ours, I wish you’d tell me what it is!’

  ‘But—does, that mean, you haven’t confided in anyone?’

  ‘I haven’t had to. And nobody’s come out and admitted they know, but I keep getting these well-meaning remarks from everyone on the dangers of marrying young, the dangers of marrying cousins—although he’s not really a cousin—how I should get my degree first and sample life a bit more—that really riled me, Roz, because if I did go out and sample life they’d be the first to be filled with horror, I bet you! I even had a lecture from Mum about how notoriously unreliable one’s first love generally turned out to be. And yet when I was little she used to boast about Dad being the first and only love of her live, and she got married when she was eighteen!’

  Roz grimaced inwardly, ‘Is Richard your first love, Nicky?’

  ‘Yes. Oh, I’ve had some boyfriends, but I never got serious with any of them. You know how it is, you go out with a boy and then when he tries anything, you just know it’s not on. But with Richard it’s different, it’s as simple as that.’

  ‘Nicky, you asked me the other day whether Adam was my first love and I told you …’

  ‘l know,’ Nicky interrupted. ‘But one shouldn’t generalise! I mean, there are no hard and fast rules, are there?’

  ‘No,’ Roz admitted, ‘but l think there’s probably a … a sort of dangerous age when you feel competent to make these decisions and only realise later that you weren’t—Nicky…’

  ‘Roz, although it wasn’t the first time for you, you weren’t any older than I am when you fell in love with Adam.’

  ‘But Adam was a lot older than Richard,’ Roz reminded her, yet she thought, oh hell, I’m trying to give advice from a horribly false position.

  ‘Perhaps, but how long did it take you to make up your mind about Adam?’ queried Nicky.

  Five minutes—no, at least half an hour, Roz reflected, and was silent for a time. ‘I suppose,’ she said at last, ‘what I’m trying to say is that in the end you have to make up your own mind but it’s not wise to rush into it, Nicky, and I think that probably applies to any age.’

  Nicky glanced at her miserably. ‘Would you …could I ask you a favour, Roz? Would you sort of bring the subject up with Adam? I know it’s a lot to ask, but at least if I knew he wasn’t worried about us being second cousins—well, then I wouldn’t care what the rest of them thought.’

  ‘I’m sure you could talk to Adam about it yourself, Nicky.’

  ‘I don’t know why, but l just can’t seem to pluck up the courage,’ Nicky admitted. ‘And I’ve thought he’s been rather—I don’t know—preoccupied lately, which is probably why he hasn’t found out. He and Lucia are the only two who don’t know now, but I think everyone’s been working hard to keep it from her, because she’d have a fit. Nothing short of a title would satisfy her social climbing aspirations these days, although where on earth she expects me to find that, I can’t imagine.’

  Roz smiled mechanically because she was thinking how odd it was that Nicky should have noticed that Adam was preoccupied when she hadn’t. How wrapped up in myself I must have been, she thought.

  ‘Also,’ Nicky went on earnestly, ‘you’d have the advantage of being able to point to yourself and say—well, I was only nineteen.’

  Roz sighed inwardly. But a look at Nicky’s unhappy but stubborn young face reminded her of Margaret’s prediction. ‘All right,’ she said abruptly. ‘Just don’t do anything rash in the meantime.’

  ‘There’s not much chance of that,’ Nicky said gloomily. ‘Even Richard …’ She stopped.

  ‘What about Richard?’

  ‘Well, he says he’d rather wait until we get everyone’s approval. But that’s impossible, because I’ve never known them all to agree on anything.’

  ‘What about Angelo and Amy?’ asked Roz. ‘What do they think?’

  ‘They can’t see anything wrong with it. They know how well suited Richard and I are.’

  The next morning Roz went down to ride Nimmitabel, but found that Les was giving her the day off.

  ‘Anything wrong, Les?’ she asked anxiously.

  He rolled his eyes. ‘No, Roz, she’s just a shade off her tucker, but that’s because we wormed her yesterday. I’m not taking any chances, though. Incidentally, she’s decided to take exception to being wormed, she played up something shocking.’

  Roz laughed. ‘There are some horses who just object to having a tube stuck down their nostrils into their stomach, Les,’ she said teasingly.

  ‘I know it,’ he conceded, ‘but she never has before. I got the feeling she was just being capricious, if not to say downright pigheaded. Still, now we know it, we’ll either tranquillise her the next time or resort to paste. And in the meantime a day off isn’t going to hurt her, she’s coming along real well, Roz.’

  Roz went back happily to the house and encountered Milly, who reminded her that she had an appointment with her obstetrician.

  ‘Oh,’ said Roz, disconcerted, ‘I’d forgotten—I seem to be awfully forgetful at the moment, and anyway, there doesn’t seem any point. Could you cancel it for me, Milly?’

  Milly removed her glasses, a sure sign of disapproval. She was also the only person other than Adam who knew that Roz was seeing an obstetrician. ‘What do you mean, there doesn’t seem to be any point, ‘Roz?’

  ‘I …nothing,’ Roz said hastily.

  ‘He did tell you it was necessary for him to see you regularly for a time, didn’t he, Roz? And Adam …’

  ‘I’ll go, I’ll go,’ Roz broke in wryly. ‘Just don’t tell Nicky why I’m going to the doctor or what kind’

  ‘Who’s going to the doctor?’ asked Nicky, wandering into the kitchen. She looked a little pale, Roz thought, but calm.

  ‘I am. Just for a check-up,’ she said brightly. ‘Want to come into town with me? You could do some window-shopping a
nd we could have lunch.’

  But Nicky decided to stay at home and improve her suntan round the pool. For a moment Roz was tempted to take Milly into her confidence in case anything came up while she was away, but mainly because she had to hurry to get ready and because she couldn’t imagine what could come up, she didn’t.

  *

  Mr Mason was grey-haired and fatherly, and he went out of his way to cause her the minimum of discomfort and distress.

  Afterwards he said to her, ‘Well, Roz, l think I can say now that there appears to is be no physical problem, There’s a slightly irregular pattern to your ovulation, but many women suffer that, and indeed, many. women over-estimate their fertility. Which brings us back to what might be affecting you—tension and anxiety. Are you still having the nightmares?’

  ‘No … at least not for a while,’ she answered, and it struck her ironically that she might have too much else to worry about at the moment.

  ‘That’s good. Now here’s what I’m going to suggest. No more tests, no more visits—I want you to go home and forget about getting pregnant for at least six months.’

  Roz smiled faintly and he looked at her enquiringly. ‘Adam,’ she hesitated, ‘agrees with you.’

  ‘Adam’s been very good about it, Roz. A lot of men find it difficult to accept that they could be the cause of the problem, but he said to me that if you were prepared to go through this the least he could do was participate himself. You do realise you’re more concerned about this than he is?’

  ‘I … yes.’

  ‘And I know I’ve explained to you before about tension and anxiety, which is why I want you to go home now and really try to take my advice.’

  ‘I’ll try—no, I will,’ she promised.

  ‘Because it’s like a vicious circle, you see, Roz. I mean, the news is good—I know two years of trying to conceive probably seems like a lifetime to you, but you could well be prolonging it by worrying so much. You have to break the circle.’

  Why couldn’t I tell him that’s already been done? Roz wondered as she steered her little blue sports car down the Pacific Highway. Only Adam broke it, but in doing so he seems to have started me on another one.

  But while she had been able to confide in Mr Mason about her nightmares, she had not been able to about the true state of her marriage. How could you tell anyone that? Especially when you’d been deluding yourself about it and had not known the stark truth of why you wanted Adam Milroy’s baby so much. Not to pay off a debt, not to keep your half of the bargain, but because you loved him.

  She blinked away some tears and pondered again the awful irony that now she knew there was no physical impediment, and now she’d sorted out her inner torment, she couldn’t put it to the test.

  I could just tell Adam, she mused. I could tell him that the scales just seemed to fall from my eyes, that his proposition jolted me out of all the self-deceptions l was practising. Only I don’t know if it’s what he wants to hear, if it’s not too late, if there isn’t another woman …

  So many ifs, and he’s coming home tonight and don’t know what to do!

  Unfortunately all this made Roz less sensitive to Nicky. Then, Adam didn’t arrive when expected, and when Milly rang the airport it was to discover that his flight from Tokyo had been delayed in Manila.

  That was when Milly decided to take charge. ‘It could be well past midnight by the time he gets home and he might even decide to stay in Brisbane, so we’ll go to bed. You’re looking tired anyway, Roz.’

  ‘I’m certainly feeling tired!’ sighed Nicky with a large yawn. ‘Must be this country air,’ she added almost hastily, and it was only later, much later, that both Milly and Roz were to remember how warmly she had kissed them both goodnight.

  ‘Oh,’ said Milly as the door closed behind Nicky, then, ‘No, it doesn’t matter.’

  ‘What?’ Roz asked.

  ‘Well, I popped over to Pimpama this morning, to the post office, and just as I was about to drive off l heard the phone ring, but Nicky took it. I forgot all about it, but couldn’t have been anything important, Jeanette gets back tomorrow.’

  ‘Yes, and I suppose we’ll get back into full swing.’ Roz grimaced.‘I think I will go to bed, Milly. But what if Adam rings?’

  ‘I’ll switch the phone through to my bedroom. Goodnight, Roz’. I was so pleased to hear your news!’

  But half an hour later, Roz realised to her despair that she wasn’t going to fall asleep.

  Finally she wandered into Adam’s bedroom. It was more austerely furnished than hers, with built-in drawers and cupboards but a more vivid colour scheme, emerald green wallpaper, a matching carpet with an inset rectangular band of a rich yellowy cream that matched the box-fitted bedspread.

  She moved around for a time, touching his things, the silver-framed photo of his father beside the bed, the onyx-backed brush set Nicky and Angelo had saved for years, so they’d claimed,: to buy him for a birthday, the carved wooden box he kept his cuff-links in.

  She fiddled with the cuff-links for a time, then put them back in the box with a sigh and glance at herself in the square mirror above the built-in dressing table. She wore a pair of white, self-patterned silk pyjamas with short cap sleeves, and although they were almost tailored in design the silk was rich and lustrous and sensuous.

  But Adam’s presence was so strong in this room, she could feel her half-formulated impulse, that was definitely associated with her beautiful pyjamas, wavering.

  She turned away and then, consumed by another impulse, folded back his bedcover and lay down on his bed—wondering what skills beautiful geishas possessed that she might not, and how she could acquire them and make herself so desirable to Adam he wouldn’t be able to resist her. Because if he didn’t want to hear what she had to tell him, she knew she would be no match for him with mere words.

  So here l am, she reflected sadly, a wife of two years, wondering how to seduce her husband, how to take the initiative, which I’ve never done before—feeling like a girl before her first time …

  She fell asleep with all these thoughts on her mind, only to wake up disorientated and drowsy, and with Adam leaning over her.

  CHAPTER SIX

  HER LIPS parted and she stared up into Adam’s dark eyes and wondered for a moment if she was dreaming,

  Then she sighed, a tiny little sound, and without conscious volition her arms slid up around his neck. ‘You came back,’ she whispered.

  ‘Of course—did you doubt it, Roz?’

  ‘Yes. No. I mean, you must be tired. I don’t know if it’s much fun to be stranded in Manila at the moment. Oh, you’re changed already,‘ she said softly and confusedly as she realised he had his towelling bathrobe on.

  ‘I’ve had a shower, and it was no fun being stranded in Manila, but mainly, because it was one of those flights destined to go wrong—my luggage appears to have disappeared and I feel frustrated beyond words with airlines and their bloody silly baggage-handling systems—but I didn’t mean to wake you, You seemed to be sleeping so peacefully I was going to sleep in your bed.’

  Roz considered this and the harsh, tired lines of his face and the clean, tangy smell of him although his jaw was dark, and felt her heart contract. ‘Now … now that I’m awake, won’t you stay with me?’ she whispered, and slid her hands beneath his robe.

  ‘Roz…’ he began tautly.

  ‘I know, I know we have an agreement,’ she said huskily, exploring the supple skin of his wide shoulders beneath his robe, ‘but could always start again tomorrow if you wanted to. I would … it’s just that I would … love to be loved right now, and you might be able to relax and …’

  ‘Loved?’ he echoed.

  She stared up at him and her heart started to beat uncomfortably. She swallowed and thought with fright that she’d blundered unforgivably again and either desperation or the thoughts she’d entertained before she’d fallen asleep had betrayed her. Then as the silence lengthened, fear hardened into certainty and s
he withdrew her hands and sat up as he moved back. ‘It doesn’t matter. Are you hungry? Would you like a snack?’

  ‘No. Roz …’

  But she interrupted him. ‘It’s all right—I understand.’

  He said ‘What do you understand?’

  ‘That it’s,’ she turned her head to look at his bedside clock, ‘three in the morning, that you’ve been flying for hours and hours and then driving on top of it.’ She shrugged. ‘That’s enough, isn’t it? To make you feel like a zombie or something? But seriously, if you’d like something to eat …’

  ‘Milly left something out for me.’

  ‘What would we ever do without Milly?’ Roz said lightly. ‘Well, I’ll get back to my own bed. Sleep well!’ She went to slide off the bed, but he caught. her wrist.

  ‘Considering that’s the first offer I’ve ever had from you, Roz,’ he said, his lips barely moving and his eyes as dark as the night outside the small pool of lamplight that encircled them, ‘I’d be a fool to knock it back.’

  She took a breath as that dark gaze travelled from her loose dishevelled hair to her lips, her eyes which were wide and disconcerted, then down the sleek white silk to her outlined breasts.

  ‘But if you don’t want it,’ she whispered, ‘what are you knocking back‘? Nothing of value; .’ She broke off and winced, realising she’d spoken reproachfully, as if she had any right to be that, and because she’d wanted composure and found instead only a tattered kind of dignity. She looked away awkwardly.

  Adam was examining her meditatively when she looked back at last, still holding her wrist in his long fingers. Then he remarked, ‘I’m afraid you’ve hit the nail on the head, Roz.’

  ‘Oh!’ she gasped, and her eyes were stunned and hurt.

  He smiled grimly. ‘We could make it worthwhile, though,’ he drawled. ‘You could tell me if you have an ulterior motive——is the gilded cage not so bad after all? Or is the prospect of being an unkept woman rather terrifying suddenly? Or did you just wake up feeling sexy and find me on hand? They might none of those be the best reasons to want to make love, but at least they’d be honest.’