He put his suitcase down again, tried to blink away his headache, shut out all the noises – the endless drone of evidence and counter-evidence in the tense and stifling court room; the buzz of flies round the stinking hotel dustbins; Frances’ tears crackling down the phone; and now Laura, shrill and gloating.
‘Well, you’ll have to be quick. I’m on my way to the office, and I’ve got a hell of a lot to catch up with.’
Laura picked up the suitcase herself, and headed for the buffet. ‘Oh, it won’t take a second, darling. It’s just a little something about your precious Frances. I thought it might amuse you.’
Charles didn’t go to the office – headed home instead. The house was untidy. There were dead flowers in the drawing-room, dirty cups and saucers in the kitchen, and his wife was wearing a crumpled skirt which looked as if she’d slept in it. He didn’t kiss her. She was fussing with the tea things.
‘Like a cup of tea, darling?’
‘No thanks.’
‘Coffee?’
‘No.’
‘What’s wrong, Charles?’
‘Nothing.’
‘I’m sorry about your court case.’
‘Yes.’
‘Was it a good trip otherwise?’
‘No.’
‘Didn’t you manage to fit in any sightseeing?’
‘There wasn’t time. Did you?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Fit in any sightseeing?’
‘Sightseeing? Why should I do sightseeing?’
‘No reason.’
She was wearing a pendant round her neck, some gimcrack thing he’d never seen before. The collar of her blouse was grubby. In all the fifteen years he’d lived with her, she’d never been anything but immaculate.
‘Well, what did you do?’
‘Nothing much.’
‘No trips out?’
‘Not really.’
What was that supposed to mean? He stared at her small face. Her eyes were so audaciously blue, he felt almost angry with them. They should have paled or faded. He tried again.
‘It must have been lonely for you, Frances, stuck in the house all day.’
‘Not too bad. I’ve got my friends, and golf …’
‘Oh, you played golf, did you?’
‘Well, no, but …’
‘Friends, then. Who did you see?’
She had her hair done in a different way – a foolish wispy fringe, which made her look much younger.
‘Well, Evelyn. And … um … Jane. Oh – and Laura came round for a gin.’
‘Really? How was she?’
‘Fine. She wanted to know when you’d be back, said Clive had some business crisis and needed your advice. I promised her you’d phone.’
‘Right. Who else?’
‘What do you mean ‘‘who else’’?’
Repeating his questions – a bad sign. She was stalling, playing for time. And did she normally leave her stockings off? It was a stifling day, but …
‘Who else did you see?’
‘Charles, this is like the Spanish Inquisition. What’s the matter with you?’
‘Nothing. You always complain that I don’t take enough interest in your life, and when I do, you call it an inquisition. I’m merely concerned to know what you’ve been doing.’
‘I told you, nothing much. A little cooking for the freezer, a bit of gardening, some freelance work for Fab Furs. And I finished the book on the pre-Raphaelites.’
‘You finished that before I left.’
‘Oh, did I? Look, why don’t we have some tea?’
‘I’ve told you, twice, I don’t want tea.’
‘You needn’t be so touchy, Charles. In fact, considering the circumstances, I think you’ve got a cheek. The least you could do was say you’re sorry, rather than keep badgering me.’
‘Sorry? I wasn’t under the impression that I was the one who had anything to be sorry for.’
‘And what about the Clomid and missing ovulation? I suppose that doesn’t count.’
Charles swooped on the radio, switched off Woman’s Hour. ‘I’m sure you found compensations.’ He wrenched the dials, scorching through every station from AFN to Luxemburg. Brief, mindless syllables congealed in one squeal of sound. ‘Stupid of me never to have guessed. I leave you alone at least a dozen times a year, trusting you implicitly, assuming you’re the innocent you always play at being, the virtuous child-bride.’
‘Charles, I don’t know what you’re …’
Flutes and violins swooped into the kitchen and almost swamped her voice. He had picked up a J.C. Bach recital on a German transmission.
‘And anyway, I’m not a child. It’s you that’s always tried to keep me one – a hundred-year-old child, dead before she’s even tasted life.’
Charles adjusted the sound a fraction. He hated melodrama. If Frances adopted that theatrical tone, he’d never keep his own cool. He listened for a moment to the steady beat of the harpsichord continuo, tried to keep his voice in touch with it, harmonious and even.
‘Well I hope you enjoyed your taste of it, on this occasion.’
‘Charles, what are you …?’
‘Oh, I know you said you hadn’t done any sightseeing. I believe you. I’m sure you had more important things to do in Windsor.’
‘Windsor?’
Still repeating him. She had dropped a teaspoon, and he could hear her fear reflected in the way it clattered to the floor.
‘You’d hardly drive all that way, merely to visit the Castle, or walk in the Great Park …’
‘What are you implying, Charles?’
‘I’m not implying anything, simply reporting facts.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
There was fear everywhere, even in his own throat. He tried to clear it, speak less gruffly. ‘A colleague of mine saw you leaving the Galsworthy Hotel in Windsor six days ago, hand in hand with a … er … young man. That was not, in fact, the term used to describe him, but I won’t insult you.’ He watched her closely, pretending not to. She didn’t flush, or blanch, just fiddled with her pendant, twisting the chain round and round between her fingers, round and round … The suave, almost obsequious voice of the cellos was chasing its own echo through an ingenious web of sound. Round and round …
‘Well?’
‘Well, what?’
‘Was my colleague correct?’ He heard Laura’s words again, bleeding from her wide, scarlet mouth, as it toyed with coffee in the airport lounge. Afterwards, she had blotted her lips with a paper napkin, leaving a perfect outline. A second traitor mouth mocking him on the soft white tissue. Scarlet and white, guilt and innocence. Frances hadn’t answered.
‘I’m asking you, Frances, was my information wrong?’
‘Yes.’ Her face was like a death-mask. Even her fingers were motionless now, the knuckles white and rigid as they gripped the edge of the table.
‘I see. So you didn’t go to the Galsworthy Hotel in Windsor? My colleague was lying.’ The music had changed now from andante to allegretto and there were florid swirls and capers from the flutes, cavorting above the strict measure of the harpsichord.
‘Look, Charles, who was this colleague? At least you could tell me his name. He’s probably just a trouble-maker, some neurotic who got passed over in promotion. Frankly, I don’t think much of a man who spends his free time sneaking round hotels, spying on innocent people.’
‘Don’t change the subject, Frances. All I want is a straight answer to a simple question. Did you, or did you not, go to Windsor with a young man?’
‘Yes. I mean, no. You’re making it sound all wrong, Charles. It wasn’t what you think. I simply … All right, I did go to Windsor, I admit it, but we only had tea there.’
‘We?’
‘Well, me and just a … friend.’
‘A male friend?’
‘Just an odd acquaintance. It’s not important.’ A horn brayed derisively, isolated for a second
above the unison of the strings.
‘Do you normally hold hands with odd acquaintances? Or let them take you to hotels? And anyway, you said a little earlier you’d hardly been out, so what in God’s name were you doing in Windsor?’ He was the inquisitor now, the witness for the prosecution. The court case had moved from Nassau to his own cosy, split-pine kitchen.
‘It was only tea, I told you. We were there less than half an hour, I’ve still got the bill. I’ll show you, if you’re so suspicious.’
‘So, you were paying, were you? Not only do you allow strange men to take you to hotels, but the final irony is using my money to do it.’
‘For Christ’s sake, Charles, it was only a pot of tea and buttered toast. I’ll pay you back, if you’re that grudging.’
The word hit him like a punch in the gut, dislodging all the expensive gifts he had showered on her over the years – real kimonos from Tokyo; silks and snakeskins from Singapore; gold and scent and ivory; damask, diamonds, fur; and, even now, in his suitcase, the graceful necklet of moonstones and amethysts which had cost almost more than his entire fee for the trip. All right, even if some of it was guilt-money, hush-money, he had never, ever, grudged her anything. It was money earned by his own fatigue and endurance, swotting in planes and trains, working through colds and ’flus and holidays, so that she should never go without. If she remarked, sometimes, that she’d rather have his company, that was self-delusion. Frances had come, now, to take her cream-filled, chocolate-coated life for granted, conveniently forgetting that it was he who financed it. She complained because he worked so hard, and yet his punishing hours were the price her queenly life demanded.
Yet, there she was, scrabbling in her handbag, paying him for tea and buttered toast, hurling all her loose change on the table, pennies and ha’pennies scratching the delicate tulip-wood inlay. Delicate herself, her small hands white against the dirty coins. He couldn’t bear the thought of anyone else mauling and devaluing her, trespassing on his property. She suddenly seemed precious, irreplaceable.
‘Frances …’
Two flutes were bantering with each other, shrill, high-spirited. He took her in his arms. Her head fitted exactly into the hollow of his collar-bone. He hoped to Christ it had only been tea. Why in God’s name couldn’t she have denied the whole sordid story, showed utter incredulity, as he’d expected? Then he could have dismissed it as mere she-bitch jealousy on Laura’s part, the lying tittle-tattle of a woman scorned. She could still deny it. There was still a chance of some simple, harmless explanation. He released her almost roughly. The first Sinfonia had ended and the German announcer’s harsh guttural voice was introducing the second.
‘Frances, listen to me, it was nothing, was it? Just a cup of tea with a friend. That’s what you said. Can you swear that?’ A friend. He didn’t like the word. He knew all his wife’s friends, and there wasn’t one who wore Snoopy T-shirts and tartan laces in his sneakers. And why had she lied to him in the first place, told him she’d done nothing, been nowhere?
‘Oh, Charles …’
She wasn’t answering the question. Evasive. Mr Justice Lambton would have reprimanded her: refusing to face the evidence, confusing the plaintiff.
‘Yes or no, Frances?’
‘Yes.’ The strings burst out again in a sudden, radiant flurry of arpeggios.
‘You mean, there was more to it.’ He was confusing her himself now, deliberately. Lies always surfaced in confusion.
‘No, Charles. I mean yes, it was only tea.’
‘OK, I’m sorry. Look, forgive me, Frances. I’m exhausted. It’s probably jet-lag.’ He tried to isolate the intricate line of the cello from the rapturous strings supporting it. He was home now, returned to her from an alien continent and a different time-scale, yet the space between them seemed even greater than when he’d been away. ‘Only tea’ solved nothing. Why should Frances be in Windsor at all, and least of all hand-in-hand with a layabout in dirty jeans and a bracelet? Amazing what an eye for detail Laura had. He had to admire her, really. The exact time, the precise location, the detailed dimensions of a silver identity bracelet, the colours of the Snoopy. A private detective could hardly have done better. Which made him suspect her, somehow. Laura had been gunning for Frances ever since Magda’s arrival, when Charles had chosen wife and daughter over mistress. What better way to win him back, than cast aspersions on his wife’s fidelity? The whole thing could be an elaborate trap. His own intuition was perhaps a safer guide. You could almost smell it if a woman were unfaithful and he could only catch the scent from Laura. Frances still had that cool, chaste virgin shell around her, something which both excited and provoked him. He wanted, suddenly, to tear her clothes off, to pound into her and repossess her, to establish without any shadow of a doubt that she was his exclusive property.
‘Frances, I … I’ve missed you. Let’s go to bed.’ The music pleaded for him, violins cajoling, woodwind whispering.
‘No.’
She never said no, not directly, anyway. That was almost proof. She didn’t want him any more, because some filthy Charlie Brown, half his age, had been screwing her in Windsor, after or before the buttered toast.
‘Look, Frances, it’s important. We’ve been parted for a fortnight.’
She almost shook him off. ‘Oh, it’s important, is it, suddenly. And why wasn’t it important a week ago? I begged you then, didn’t I? Went on my knees for you to come home and make love to me. But it’s only when you want it, it starts to be important. You can refuse and refuse, and then, the very second you step inside the door, I’m expected to roll over on my back with my legs open. Well, this time I shan’t.’
Where, in Christ’s name, had she learned such language? His bone-china wife had never spoken to him like that in fifteen years. He was wrong – she wasn’t Minton any more, but rough, coarse earthenware which set his teeth on edge. There was something subtly different about her. He couldn’t quite locate it, but she looked shop-soiled and unkempt. Her hair needed washing and she wasn’t wearing any of his jewellery, only that bargain-basement pendant, which he was tempted to rip off. He tried to lower his voice into second gear, but it kept revving up again, slipping out of his control. He never shouted, least of all with J.C. Bach in progress. Yet here he was, an ugly, alien instrument, out of tune, wrecking and confounding the intricate order of a flawless Sinfonia. Yet he dared not turn it off, feared the empty space behind the orchestra, filled only with his own strident voice.
‘It’s never me you’ve wanted, Frances, only your blasted baby. You don’t even like sex. For years it was a matrimonial endurance test, and now it’s just a reproductive process. I’m not your husband, or your lover, I’m just your prize bull.’
‘There’s nothing very prize about you, is there? They’d have slaughtered you for beef by now, judging by your record.’
‘Frances, how dare you …’ It couldn’t be happening – these farmyard insults, this harsh discordant conversation. It must only be a recording. His life was measured and melodious. Even Johann Christian was jeering at him now, the smug, self-satisfied violas trifling with some fatuous phrase, soft-centred, out of harmony with the raucous dissonance of Frances’ voice.
‘I do dare. I’ve been thinking about things while you were away – all sorts of things. And I’ve begun to realize …’
‘Where’s Magda?’ he asked suddenly, didn’t want to know what Frances had been thinking.
‘She’ll be back this afternoon. Viv’s bringing her in time for tea.’
‘You should never have left her at Viv’s all week.’ If Magda had been in the house, Frances would have had to act the mother, not the whore. ‘I can’t understand you, Frances. You object when I suggest a perfectly reasonable boarding school, yet have no compunction in getting rid of Magda on every possible occasion. I don’t really know why I bother to consult you. She’s my daughter, so it’s I who should …’
Frances’ voice was suddenly soft, conciliatory. She had picked u
p the silver teaspoon from the floor and was cradling it in her hands. ‘How do you know she is your daughter?’
‘I beg your pardon?’ Charles stopped in his pacing of the kitchen, face to face with a skinny black knight, a framed brass-rubbing from the old church at Stoke d’Abernon.
‘Well, how do you? There’s no evidence, is there? She’s ruined everything between us, and yet you can’t even prove that she’s your child in the first place. You’ve probably never had a child. Why should you have had one by Piroska, if you can’t have one with me? She probably slept with scores of men and told them all they were Magda’s father. Magda doesn’t look like you. She’s dark and foreign and … Her father was probably some swarthy, illiterate Hungarian. She isn’t even fond of you. If she was really your flesh and blood, wouldn’t there be some sign of it, some bond between you?’
Charles groped towards the door. Christ, holy Christ, not that! The tiny crack of doubt he’d been filling in and patching up for fifteen years, now wrenched apart by Frances; all his careful, rational arguments shattered into pieces, nothing but a shrieking hole he’d never fill again. Her voice was like a drill boring into his defences, cracking his foundations, mocking him with the sniggering bassoon.
She was still drilling him away. ‘How does any man know if it’s his child? Babies aren’t born with a label round their necks, saying ‘‘X is my father’’. A woman can sleep with half a dozen men …’
Charles shut his eyes. He could see only blackness, an abyss with half of Windsor filling it. ‘Can she, Frances?’
‘All right, even if I had slept with someone else, whose fault would it be? You’re never here, don’t care a jot about trying to have a baby. Perhaps other men do care – other men who aren’t so busy and unavailable and selfish …’ The music was dark now, limping into largo, wounded, mutilated.
‘So, you do admit it then – you did go to bed with that unkempt ignoramus at Windsor?’
‘He’s not an ignoramus. He’s got a degree and a diploma and he’s teaching himself Icelandic, and writing a play and …’ She was stabbing at the strawberry jam, ramming the teaspoon against the dainty, cut-glass dish, slopping jam on to the table-cloth. ‘Oh, I suppose that makes it better, does it? So long as he’s educated and ‘‘our sort of person’’, he can screw the living daylights out of me. But if he’s a loafer or a layabout, or blue-collar material or E-stream comprehensive, or any of those other condescending terms you throw around, then it’s a sin and a crime and a … Well, what about you, Charles, how many A-levels did your Hungarian whore have? Did you make her sit an intelligence test before you fucked her? Check up on her grades …?’
Cuckoo Page 21
