Crowded Marriage

by Catherine Alliott

  “Have you got a hacksaw?” she’d blurted urgently.

  “A hacksaw?” I blinked.

  “Yes, only Orlando’s got his head stuck in the banisters, and I remember seeing you sawing up some boards in your front garden.”

  “Oh!”

  My painting boards. Cheaper than canvas, but sometimes too big and unwieldy to fit in my easel, so requiring surgery.

  “Oh, yes, I have. Hang on!”

  I ran up two flights of stairs and seized it from my studio, then together, we’d dashed across the road.

  The Barringtons’ hall was about the size of a hockey pitch and had a grand sweeping staircase, up which marched hundreds of very expensive-looking balusters. Orlando’s face was going a nasty shade of purple between the top two so I hastened up with my saw, but as I hacked away close to his left ear with Kate shouting, “It’s either that or his neck!” I rather hoped Dr. Barrington didn’t decide to leave his operating theatre early and come home to see me sawing his son out like some flaky magician. Orlando emerged unscathed, but causing wilful damage to a listed house left me in serious need of a sharpener. Since it was only ten in the morning Kate had hastened to her Present Cupboard and produced—oh splendid—we’d bonded over a box of Lindor chocolates.

  Yes, everyone liked Kate, and it seemed my young gallery owner was no exception. He’d long been an admirer, meeting her first at St. Martin’s where she’d designed shirts and he’d painted landscapes and…oh, he still painted landscapes, did he?…Really?…still dabbled in oils, and—oh Lord, we were back to him again.

  “Even now,” he confided over clasped hands, sotto voce, “when people come in to buy a Hodgson, or a Parnell, but find them too expensive, I say—hold on a minute,” he raised a finger expressively, “you might be interested in a little-known artist I have out the back here, and then I take them out and show them one of mine, and do you know, they very often buy.”

  “How fascinating! Without knowing it’s you?” I asked breathlessly but without the slightest interest. I really did have to collect Rufus soon.

  “Oh, no, I never let on.”

  He winked and I looked suitably impressed and little womanish, but—oh, please, perhaps over a coffee, could we look at my work? Find out when this wretched exhibition was?

  “So…coffee?”

  I beamed. Finally. “Please!”

  “And shall we take it upstairs? Where it’s more comfortable?”

  Oh, even better. Clearly there was some sit-soft area, a lounge or something, where we could spread the pictures out, stand up and view them around us.

  “Good idea.” I was on my feet.

  In retrospect I suppose I did notice a flicker of surprise pass over his eyes; a faint startle, perhaps, at my alacrity, but he soon recovered. His face was naturally pink from all that champagne—either that or a rush of excitement at the prospect of seeing my work—and I let him guide me, his hand perhaps a touch too solicitous on my back, through the restaurant and back to the front desk.

  He was talking nineteen to the dozen now, rather nervously in fact, about the new Turner Whistler exhibition, and it occurred to me this might be quite a big moment for him. A young star in the making? The new Tracey Emin perhaps, with him as my mentor? My Svengali? I smiled and nodded indulgently at his prattle, although I did pause to wonder why we were getting in a lift. That struck me as odd. Up it glided and on he chattered, smoothing back his waves and laughing too loudly and then, as the doors slid open, he ushered me out into a long corridor. A long, wallpapered corridor, with pink carpet at our feet, and lots of oak-panelled doors on either side. He walked me down it, rummaging in his trouser pocket, jingling loose change, but it was only when we passed a girl with a mop and bucket that it struck me…that this was a hotel. And that the jingling in his pocket was not coins, but keys, which he was bringing out even now, and fitting into a door with the number fifteen on it.

  I gave a jolt of horror. Blood surged up my neck and face and to other extremities I didn’t even know could flush. I stood there, aghast. Casper gently pushed open the door to reveal an enormous double bed with a bright red quilt in the middle of a dimly lit room. The curtains were drawn, and there was another bottle of champagne in the corner in an ice bucket. I half expected soft music to drift from the speakers, petals to float down from the ceiling. The bed seemed to be getting bigger, flashing alarmingly at me like the pack shot in an early TV commercial. As I gazed in disbelief, the saliva dried in my mouth.

  “Shall we?” Casper murmured, indicating we should move on in.

  “Oh—I…”

  “We can spread your paintings out on the bed.”

  I panicked. And for one awful moment, was tempted. Tempted to believe the fiction: to go right on in—perhaps wedging the door open with my foot, I thought wildly—that’s my foot on the end of my elastic cartoon leg—whilst my elastic cartoon arm flung open the curtains or dragged that passing maid in for moral support—but in the very next moment it came to me with absolute clarity that if I set foot in that room, I had also to be sure I could survive a leap from a third-floor window. Either that or be prepared—when I emerged via a more conventional exit, shouting rape—for critics to suggest that by entering such an obvious seduction suite, I had Willing Accomplice writ large on my forehead. I turned. Took a deep breath.

  “There’s…been a misunderstanding.”

  His smile wavered for a second. “I’m sorry?”

  “Yes, you see, I had no idea this was a hotel. I was in such a terrible rush to get here I didn’t pause to look. I thought it was just a restaurant, and when you said coffee upstairs, I assumed you meant in a bar or something. I had no idea you meant…” I trailed off, gesturing helplessly at the bed.

  “Oh! Right,” he said shortly.

  I saw his expression change from one of incredulity that I could have misunderstood him, to one of anger that I could have embarrassed us both so. For a moment, I thought he was going to hit me. Then he did something far worse. His face buckled and he ran a despairing hand through his hair.

  “This isn’t me,” he said softly. “This is so not the sort of thing I do.”

  Oh Lord. I swallowed.

  “Look,” I began, “it’s fine, honestly. You don’t have to explain.”

  “My wife and I—well, we’ve split up. Recently, if you must know.”

  Must I? I hadn’t asked, had I?

  “We—we’re having a trial separation.”

  “Right,” I whispered. I looked longingly down the corridor, to the lift, to freedom.

  “But it’s not permanent,” he said defiantly, as if perhaps I’d suggested otherwise.

  “No, no,” I assured him quickly. “I’m sure it’s not.”

  “And God knows I loathe it, loathe it. Seeing the kids only at weekends, not living at home, all that crap. But—well, I’ve got to get on with it, you see, and I get so lonely, and I’m staying here, at this hotel, while we sort things out, and I thought—well, we were getting on so well downstairs, so I thought—”

  “It’s an easy mistake to make,” I said quickly. “And my fault too. I expect I missed the signs. The signals. Forget it. And now I really must be—”

  “And when you said, ‘Let’s go and look at my etchings,’” he looked at me accusingly, “I thought—well, I assumed…”

  Did I? God, stupid Imo. “Yes, yes, I do see.” I blushed hotly.

  “And the thing is, she’s seeing someone else, I think. In fact I know she is.”

  His eyes, to my horror, filled with tears. I had a terrific urge to be in the Scilly Isles. On a little boat, perhaps, bobbing around the bay. I glanced around wildly. Where was that passing maid? Surely her shoulder to cry on would be more appropriate? More absorbent?

  “Someone younger than me,” he blurted out, “her personal trainer, such a cliché!”

  Younger? Younger than Casper? How young could they get?

  “He’s Spanish, called Jesus, would you believe it, proba
bly performs miracles, probably takes her to heaven and back,” he said bitterly. “He’s certainly been spreading more than the word. I expect he’s hung like a stallion too—probably has to sling it over his shoulder when he gets out of bed.”

  I gazed around. H-e-l-p.

  He pinched the bridge of his nose with thumb and forefinger to quell the tears. “He’s twenty-four,” he gasped, “with the body of an eighteen-year-old! The children call him Jeez. They ride on his back at the local swimming pool, he can do handstands on the bottom. Apparently he can make his ears waggle without touching them. Heaven knows what else he can waggle. With my wife! My Charlotte!” At this his voice broke and his shoulders gave a mighty shudder.

  I stared at him aghast. He was struggling for composure but seemed to be losing the battle. I hesitated, but only for a moment, then plunged my hand into my bag for my mobile. I quickly punched out a number.

  Casper leaped back in fear, his eyes wide with terror. “What are you doing?” he squeaked. “Are you ringing the police?”

  “No,” I sighed resignedly, “I’m ringing my son’s school. I’m going to ask them to put him into after-school club and then I’m going to ask my neighbour to collect him for me.”

  “Oh!”

  I put a hand on Casper’s shoulder and swivelled him around in the direction of the lift.

  “You, meanwhile, will come with me and together we’ll find that sit-soft bar I’ve been fantasising about all lunch time. You will have a brandy and I will have a coffee, and whilst we sup our respective beverages you can tell me all about your wife and her scheming, faithless ways, and all about the dastardly Jesus too. On second thoughts,” I muttered as I marched him off down the corridor, hobbling a bit now in my heels, mobile clamped to my ear, “I think I’ll have a brandy too.”

  Chapter Two

  “Oh God, I’m so sorry!” Kate wailed, hurrying through from the kitchen to put a mug of tea on the coffee table in front of me.

  “Why should you be sorry?”

  “Because it’s all my fault! I thought he was going to sign you up for the Cork Street equivalent of the Summer Exhibition, not try to molest you, then weep all over you.”

  “I suppose I should be flattered,” I mused, sitting up a bit in the squashy pink sofa in her conservatory and sipping my tea in a dazed fashion. “I can’t remember the last time a man other than my husband even tried to hold my hand, let alone have sex with me. Unless you count the deputy head at the school carol concert last year.”

  “The deputy head tried to have sex with you?”

  “No, tried to hold my hand. I was miles away and hadn’t realised we’d been urged to greet our neighbours with the sign of peace. Nearly slapped him.”

  Kate snorted. “Very Christian. But I’m surprised at young Casper,” she said thoughtfully, sinking into the sofa beside me. “He’s always had an eye for the girls, but I wouldn’t have thought he’d try it on with you as blatantly as that. I shall ring him later. Have words with him.”

  “No, don’t,” I said quickly. “It was a complete misunderstanding and, actually, probably my fault too. And anyway, he’s miserable and lonely.”

  “I suppose,” she said doubtfully, sipping her tea.

  “Although hopefully after two brandies and a thorough character assassination of Jesus of Barcelona, he’s feeling a bit better now.”

  “Jesus of who?”

  “Barcelona. The personal trainer. The Latin Lothario who’s taking his wife to the Promised Land on a regular basis.”

  “Oh God,” she groaned. “You really got the works.”

  I laughed hollowly. “Oh, I’ve sat through more photos of Barnaby and Archie, aged eighteen months and three years respectively, than I have of my own child.”

  Kate made a face. “Sad.”

  “Very.”

  We were quiet a moment. Kate narrowed her eyes thoughtfully at the Welsh dresser opposite. “Does Alex carry around pictures like that in his wallet?”

  “What, of me and Rufus? No, does Sebastian?”

  “No!”

  We regarded each other in silent outrage.

  “Actually,” I conceded, “I think I’ve always found it a bit cheesy. Those men with pictures of the wife and kids on the desk—what’s that all about? In case they forget what they look like by the time they get to work? Or to announce to the office they’ve got a happy marriage?”

  “The latter probably, and you’re right, it’s an insecurity. I mean, look what happened to Casper. He had the pictures and his wife went out shagging.”

  “Yes, and then he tried to redress the balance, although I must say, I think his current strategy of picking up middle-aged women in hotel restaurants is deeply flawed. I’m not convinced that’s going to make her drop her square-jawed hunk and come running back.”

  “I agree. I mean,” she added quickly, “about him picking up women, not the middle-aged bit.”

  “Thanks,” I said gratefully.

  She cradled her mug and shifted round in her seat to eye me wickedly over it. “And you weren’t in the least bit tempted? Casper’s rather attractive in a loose-limbed, puppyish sort of way.”

  “Not remotely. Too wet behind the ears for my tastes and, as you know, I go for the older man. I don’t want a puppy.”

  “Which is not just for Christmas.”

  “Well, quite. I’d have to throw sticks and get house-training. Anyway,” I added, “I hadn’t shaved my legs.”

  “Ah. Now we get to the nub of it.”

  We giggled.

  “Quite nice to say no, though,” I reflected, resting my head back in the soft, damask cushions and gazing up at the ceiling. “I’d forgotten what it was like to be sexually propositioned and turn a man down.”

  Kate shot me a quizzical look but I didn’t elaborate. There was a time and a place for such confidences and six o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon with four small children running about, some with bigger ears than others, was not one of them.

  “Thank you for collecting Rufus for me,” I said, watching my son on his hands and knees in his grey school uniform on the conservatory floor, as he assembled a Playmobil fort with Orlando, whilst Tabitha and Laura, Kate’s daughters, who were enjoying an exeat from boarding school, painted each other’s toenails with rapt absorption. Not for the first time I reflected that daughters would have been nice. Would still be nice.

  “Oh, it was no trouble. Orlando was in after-school club anyway because I suddenly realised we’re at the opera tonight and I wouldn’t have time to wash my hair, so I quickly shot to the hairdresser’s.”

  I smiled into my tea, marvelling at the disparity of our lives. My son was in after-school club because I was desperately trying to earn a few pennies by flogging my pictures whilst Kate’s was there because she’d been indulging in a luxury I’d never experienced and probably never would. Not whilst I could stick my head under a shower for free.

  I gazed out of the sunny conservatory, a natural extension of her enormous vaulted kitchen beautifully furnished with free-standing oak cupboards and hand-painted Swedish linen presses, to the billowing garden beyond; well over half an acre and possibly the largest London garden I’d ever seen. When I’d first stood at these windows and gaped at the view, I’d been staggered. I couldn’t even see the bottom of it. An initial sweep of lawn complete with croquet hoops gave way to an apple orchard and longer grass, then beyond that, in the middle distance, something that looked remarkably like a bluebell wood. It was like being in Wiltshire, rather than West London, and I’d said as much.

  “Ah, but you see, that’s where my heart is,” Kate had confided with a smile as she’d joined me that day at the window, arms folded. “In the depths of the country, preferably on a horse. But I have to make do with pretending I’m there in this rus in urbe extravaganza.”

  “I wouldn’t mind making do with this,” I’d gawped.

  “I know, neither would most people. I’m spoiled. But it’s a sad fact of life, my
friend, that however much you have, you want more. Or something different, at least.”

  When I knew her better I realised she seriously minded about living in London. But Sebastian was a cardiovascular surgeon at the Wellington and needed to live within a certain radius of his hospital in case they needed him, so that was that. They’d tried owning a country cottage in Norfolk, but Sebastian found it almost impossible to get there on a Friday night and Kate hadn’t wanted to be there without him. “I’m rather like the Queen Mother in the Blitz,” she’d quipped. “If the King isn’t leaving neither am I, and if I’m not leaving, neither are the children.” So they’d sold the Norfolk cottage, and sold their Knightsbridge house too, moving from Montpelier Square to leafy Putney as a sort of compromise. And actually, once inside, you’d be forgiven for thinking you really were in a country house. Faded chintzes on the sofas, heavy oil paintings of dead ducks and partridges on the walls, and antique furniture on the polished wooden boards all contrived to preserve the illusion. There were even rabbits in a hutch in the garden and Kate was threatening a Shetland pony.

  “There’s plenty of space,” she’d said excitedly, dragging me down to the orchard one day, “and if I scooped the poop to keep the pong at bay, Sebastian would be none the wiser. He never comes down here, anyway.”

  “He might see it from the bedroom window,” I said doubtfully. “I’ll tell him it’s a big dog.”

  “What, the Hound of Putney Common?”