The Brimstone Wedding

by Barbara Vine

  No more parts came after that, not in films that is. Gilda said she wasn't surprised after what had been done to her appearance by the actress and the director, who she knew for a fact were having an affair. Not much radio work had ever come her way and when she was offered a part in a serial she turned it down. Gilda never said much about this. She implied that she'd had to say no because she and Alan were going to the north of England where he'd been commissioned to paint some murals in an old chapel. Alan told Stella what really happened.

  ‘The part was a woman who was supposed to have been injured in an accident that left her with one leg shorter than the other. You couldn't see that, of course. This is radio we're talking about. That only made it worse for Gilda. She said it would damage her reputation because people would imagine her as a freak with one of her legs only half there. If you're waiting for the pay-off here it is. The serial was Mrs Dale's Diary. We'd have been set up for life.’

  As it was, they weren't set up at all. Alan had bought St Michael's Farm and for some reason put it in his wife's name. Stella didn't know why and she felt she could never ask but she guessed it was a fear that he might have to go bankrupt. A woman, then as now, can't be held responsible for her husband's debts, though he can for hers.

  ‘That was to make trouble for us,’ Stella said. ‘If it had been his house or even half his house, things would have been easier. You see, he had nothing except the royalties from Figaro. And the books went out of fashion. He always said they couldn't stand competition from Orlando the Marmalade Cat. I suppose there's a limit to how many children's books about cats the market can stand. He went on painting, of course he did, and he was reduced to doing some rather – well, humble jobs for money.’

  That was later, though. Alan showed few signs of money worries in 1961. One day, having returned to the farm with Gilda, Stella witnessed a terrible row between them. She had no idea how they felt about children, to have them or not to have them, for Gilda had never mentioned it. But a few days before Marianne had been with them, Gilda talking to her as she often did about becoming an actress – she always said Marianne had the potential to be an actress, and Stella didn't much like this, the child was only eight – and that evening at the farm Gilda suddenly said to Alan in her presence that she wanted a child like Stella's daughter.

  Alan said, ‘Why should it be like Stella's daughter? Or are you planning to make up to old Rex?’

  Gilda told him not to be so disgusting. ‘It's your child I want.’

  ‘This is a new departure. You've always been scared of having a baby.’

  ‘I never said that!’

  In Stella's world married couples didn't talk about such things in public or even in front of one friend. She said she must leave, it was time she went home. Alan offered to drive her. This had never happened before. If she was without her own car it was always Gilda who took her home, and the thought of being alone with Alan for half an hour filled her with joy. She jumped up.

  ‘No, sit down, Stella,’ Gilda said. ‘I want a witness to this. Did you or did you not say that we couldn't afford children and that they were enemies – to something or other?’

  ‘Any great enterprise,’ said Alan. ‘Yes, and hostages to fortune and all that jazz. But only because you said you have a low pain threshold and having babies hurt. Come on, Stella, let's go. This is no fit subject for your ears.’

  ‘I said no.’ Gilda's voice was rising by octaves, Stella said. ‘It's a crime to deny a woman a child. There are some religions in which a man can be divorced for that.’

  ‘What religions? The Zoroastrians?’

  ‘You make a joke of everything.’ Gilda had begun to shout. ‘Suppose I stop using my cap? What then? I can have a baby and you can't stop me.’

  Alan shrugged. ‘I can think of a way.’

  The mention of the cap had started the blood rushing to Stella's face. Gilda began to act the part of a furious woman. It was The Wife's Story, even to the dialogue.

  ‘Look at her blushing. You always upset my friends, that's why I never keep any friends. She won't come here again. I shall die friendless and childless. It's so unfair. Doesn't it ever occur to you how lucky you are to be married to someone like me? I mean, look at you, you're just an ordinary man with a baby face. People turn round in the street to look at me. Any man would want me. Stella, don't you think it's outrageous he won't give me a child?’

  Stella didn't answer. Through all this she still felt that Gilda was acting. This was just another part she was playing. She didn't want a child, she was the last woman on earth to be a mother, she wanted to act a scene, that was all.

  ‘Say something,’ Gilda said in a ringing, stagey way. She went up to Stella and stood over her. ‘Say something, little thing. Haven't you got an opinion? Have you lost your voice?’

  It was this unprovoked attack which made Alan say what he did. ‘Face it, Gilda, why don't you? You've missed the boat. Forty-one's too old to have a first child.’

  He must have known what effect this would have on her. She never told her true age. She let it be thought she had made her first film at sixteen. Stella thought she was younger than herself, no more than thirty-five, she'd given no real thought to it and didn't care, but it broke through the veneer. It destroyed the pose and the real person came out. Gilda began to scream at Alan. She picked up an ashtray and threw it at him. He ducked and it struck a mirror, breaking the glass.

  ‘About the unluckiest thing that could happen,’ I said.

  ‘What, breaking a mirror? Maybe. It made a fearful mess. She threw some more, the book they wrote phone numbers in and a vase. He was laughing by then. I thought Alan could laugh at anything, though I was wrong there. He threw a cushion back, it hit her in the face, of course it was soft and it didn't hurt, but she fell over and lay on her back kicking and screaming. I'd never seen anything like it. I didn't understand then that she could only sustain the acting and the façade by sometimes having an explosion like this one. She was like a volcano that's a quiet mountain but has to erupt every so often. Her eruptions were a safety valve that opened up when some sort of pressure of frustration and unhappiness got too much for her.’

  ‘What had she got to be unhappy about?’ I said.

  ‘Oh, Genevieve, you must never ask that about anyone. A lot of people would say that to be in this world is to be unhappy.’

  I didn't say anything. I thought I knew, you see, and my conclusions weren't Stella's.

  ‘Everything was behind her,’ Stella said. ‘Her career was over and she couldn't do anything else. She'd no children. Every day made her a little less beautiful, it must have been so in the nature of things. I expect money would have been a compensation to someone like Gilda but she had no money. She was bored, she had no interests. She never cooked or did housework, the farm was filthy. Isn't it strange how a woman can emerge immaculate, exquisite, from a dirty hole like that? But she could. It's no wonder she was unhappy and oh, she was, she was.’

  Alan picked Gilda up off the floor. He gave her some brandy. She didn't speak another word but buried her face in the sofa cushions. Then Alan drove Stella home.

  It was about twenty miles. Neither of them spoke. Stella thought of how she had longed and longed to be alone with him for half an hour, just to be with him, and now she was she had nothing to say.

  ‘But I had this awful thought, Genevieve. Of course it was impossible but I thought, why don't I just come out with it and tell him? Why don't I just say, “I love you. I just want you to know. Not to do anything about it, but just for you to know I love you.”

  ‘Did you say it?’ I said.

  ‘No, I couldn't. But while I was thinking like that he asked me.’

  ‘Asked you what?’

  She looked down at the hands in her lap. ‘Richard's coming in a minute, you know.’ It was one of her abrupt changes of subject. She put up her hands and held them out to me.

  ‘You've stopped using nail varnish, Stella,’ I said. �
�Would you like me to do your nails for you?’

  ‘No, thank you. I don't like it on my old hands any more. Do you know what Rex once told me? He said wearing red nail varnish came from the harem. The women painted their nails red to show the sultan, their lord and master, you know, that they were having a period and weren't available. I don't know if it's true but it stopped me varnishing my nails for ages.’ She reverted to Alan as if there had been no break in the story. ‘Alan said, “Are you in love with me, Stella?” It was a funny way of putting it, wasn't it? I blushed, I was horrified. I started to ask him whatever gave him that idea and then I didn't see the point. It was too late for pretending. So I just said, “Yes, I am.”

  Alan said, ‘What a relief. I thought you must be.’

  He didn't behave like anyone she had ever known, yet he was still the boy she'd known. The more she was with him the more she saw how little his nature had changed. He said, ‘I'm very much in love with you and have been for ages. I suppose I was when we were at school but people aren't supposed to be able to be in love at fourteen.’

  ‘Juliet was,’ Stella said.

  ‘That proves it then,’ he said. ‘I thought it might go away but it won't. The time seemed to have come for a declaration.’

  He hadn't stopped the car, he hadn't pulled into the side, he just kept on driving and, necessarily of course, not even looking at her.

  ‘We have two alternatives,’ he said. ‘We can never see each other again and somehow fix that with Gilda and Rex, not too difficult probably, I don't think they like each other much, or we can be lovers. Personally, I'd much prefer the latter. How about you?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Stella.

  ‘Yes to the second alternative?’

  Stella said yes again, very much more firmly this time.

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘I'm sorry to sound so businesslike. It's because we've only got ten minutes left. As soon as I have more time I'll say to you some things from the fullness of my heart.’

  Stella was silent for a moment or two. She was looking at the door and seemed to be listening. Then she said, ‘I was very happy that evening. I was happy for a long time. I trusted Alan, you see, and I was right to trust him. We met soon after that and he did tell me those things. But we had nowhere to go where we could be alone. He sometimes managed to come to me in the afternoons, but very seldom. Still, I was happy. Of course I was guilty and ashamed about Gilda and because I arranged it that I saw her less and less, I saw Alan less and less too.’

  Someone tried the door handle and Stella looked up. ‘Is that Richard?’ I went to the door but there was no one there, just Lena at the other end of the corridor. ‘Rex had had some sort of disagreement with Charmian. I don't know what it was but if I had to guess I'd say she'd been pressing him to leave me now that Marianne was older and he'd refused. Anyway, he came back to me. It had happened before, those times when he'd come back to me. They never lasted.’

  ‘But you let him come back?’ I said.

  She sighed. ‘I was his wife, Genevieve. It's different for you. It's different these days. Rex kept me, he'd given me a home, I don't like talking about these things, but it was he who earned the money, everything was his. I couldn't say no to him, it wouldn't have been right. He came back to me and that was when he gave me this ring I wear, my eternity ring.’

  She held out her right hand. I was a bit embarrassed. It sounded like a financial transaction to me: sleep with me again and here's two thousand quid's worth of jewellery.

  ‘The following year,’ she said, ‘Richard was born.’

  The door opened and Richard came in. ‘My ears are burning,’ he said. He went up to Stella and kissed her. ‘You said I was born. What else have you been saying?’

  He was smiling, he hadn't heard, but Stella had gone white. ‘Oh, darling, nothing, nothing. Do you know you're exactly the same age as Genevieve?’

  ‘Exactly?’

  ‘Well, your birthday's April the 12th and Genevieve's is April the 24th.’

  ‘I knew I must be older.’

  Stella has this amazing memory for people's birthdays. If she forgets everything else she remembers your birthday. I bet she knows Maud's and Arthur's and Lena's as well as mine. I got up to go but Stella kept tight hold of my hand for a moment.

  ‘Rex had longed for a son,’ she said. ‘He was so proud of Richard.’

  ‘Mother,’ said Richard, but a lot more kindly than when I say ‘Mother’ to Mum.

  PART THREE

  12

  The whistling shocked me, the unknown tune, its clarity, but above all because darkness had come. I'd seen no lights, I'd been on the stairs. I opened the front door and Ned was there, a yard from me, suddenly in my arms. He'd been whistling, he said, because he was happy. Go three times clockwise round the house to undo the ill-luck, I said, but he only laughed and wouldn't do it.

  The fear of what he'd done or what he might have brought about stayed with me. While we were in bed, the only warm place in the house, I forgot about the whistling, I forgot everything, but I remembered later. Sometimes I tell myself that all these precautions of Mum's and my nan's are nonsense and not for somebody like me, young and living at the end of the twentieth century. And then I see how death follows a ringing in the ears, and the dangers that come to a person who's broken a branch from an ash tree or helped another to salt. I haven't the courage to give up these things in this world that's such a hard place. Something can go wrong and I'd look back and think how it could have been avoided by touching wood or keeping a crooked coin under your pillow.

  So I watched and waited for the ill effects of Ned's whistling in the dark and I didn't have long to wait. The first thing was Philippa getting a flu bug. There was a lot of it about, Shirley Foster had had it and the whole Baleham family, and Philippa's Katie who brought it home from school. She went down with it on the Thursday evening and the Friday was my day off. The kids were on half-term, so I collected them and brought them back to my place. But first I carried the TV up to her bedroom and when I went back with Katie and Nicola at five Philippa was sitting up in bed watching The End of Edith Thompson, black and white, made in 1954, with Joyce Redman as Edith Thompson and Gilda Brent as the prison officer.

  I gave the girls their tea downstairs, took a casserole out of the freezer for Steve and went back up to Philippa.

  ‘Is it any good?’ I said.

  Philippa wouldn't look round. ‘They're going to hang her in a minute.’

  On the screen Gilda Brent and Joyce Redman were sitting in Edith Thompson's cell and Gilda was holding Joyce Redman's hand. Wearing glasses and with her hair screwed up under a cap, Gilda looked uncannily the way she was supposed to, an ordinary dull woman without much character. She could never be ugly, she could never be anything but good-looking with those regular features in that well-proportioned face, but she could easily be made forgettable. Basically, she was much better-looking than Joyce Redman but it was Redman's face that would stay with you and Gilda's that would fade once you switched the TV off. This was what Philippa did immediately Edith Thompson was taken off to be hanged and the credits started to roll. She put the remote under her pillow.

  ‘I think it's made me feel worse. Would you get me another jug of water, Jenny? I'm supposed to keep drinking. They said Edith and her boyfriend planned to kill her husband but Edith didn't actually do anything. It was the boyfriend stabbed him. Edith wrote a lot of letters about putting powdered glass in her husband's food.’

  ‘I'll just get your water,’ I said.

  When I came back with it she was lying down. ‘They hanged her for that. They wouldn't now, would they? They'd put her on probation or give her a holiday in a theme park. Can you imagine plotting with a man to kill Mike?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘No, I can't.’

  ‘Do you think people do plot with lovers and whatever to kill their husbands or wives?’

  I said I didn't know. It made me uncomfortable talking about it as if I was somehow
guilty myself, as if I was being reminded of events I wanted to forget. I told her I'd be back in the morning and do her shopping if she wanted me to, but she said Steve would be at home as it was Saturday. Mike would be home too.

  He worked on the conservatory all that Friday evening. The planning permission had come through and he was excited about that. It struck me that there wasn't much difference between the excitement he was feeling at being told he was allowed to build a glass room twelve by twelve on the back of his house, and the excitement I felt at meeting Ned. Perhaps it would be more to the point to say that he seemed to me happier at the prospect of building this conservatory than he had ever been on our honeymoon. He whistled while he worked. He sang. He ran out of things to sing and put on Radio One.

  When he'd worked since six on Friday before until six on Saturday with six hours off for sleeping and half an hour for eating, I suggested we go down to the Legion for a drink. He didn't want to, he wanted to work through till eleven, but he agreed, though only to stop me going on my own. Mike is only thirty-three but he doesn't think women ought to go into pubs on their own, not even when their mothers run them. He says it's not ladylike, which is the word his father used and his grandfather before him.

  The first person I saw when we got in there was Jane Saraman, or Beaumont, as I should say. It's one thing for your heart to miss a beat when you see your lover, but when you see his wife? I suppose I thought he must be there too. He wasn't.

  ‘Ned's filming in Cambridge,’ she said, as if I'd asked. ‘I've come down with Hannah and my mother.’

  It may not be ladylike but when I'm in a pub I offer to buy a round of drinks like anyone else. Why not? I earn too. I've got the use of my legs and strength in my arms. Besides, Mike wasn't going to offer her anything, I could see that in his face, the sullen look he'd put on as soon as he saw her.