Sheer Abandon

by Penny Vincenzi

  And pray for guidance as he might, Peter found himself beginning to resent it.

  “I wish you’d tell me what the matter is,” said Nat. “I can’t help you if you don’t.”

  He had phoned to ask Kate if she wanted to go out; she had said she thought it better not.

  “And I can’t tell you what the matter is, because I don’t really know myself. Except that it’s worse than ever.”

  “What is?”

  “Not knowing about my mum. At least before I’d found her, I could keep hoping.”

  “Hoping for what?”

  “Well, that she’d be the sort of person I’d like. Which she wasn’t.”

  “You don’t know that, though, do you? You only met her once.”

  “Yes, and that was a real success, wasn’t it? And now she’s gone, and I’ll never know anything about her, why she did it—anything. No answers, Nat, just more questions. I’m sick of it!”

  “So you don’t even want to go to the cinema. There’s that Matrix film, you’d like that.”

  “No,” said Kate with a sigh, “I don’t think so, Nat. You go. And I’ve turned that contract down, and all. That’s made me feel bad.”

  “But you didn’t want to do it.”

  “I know that. But you think about turning down three million dollars. It’s well scary.”

  “I’d rather not,” said Nat with a shudder.

  Kate went out into the garden; her mother was watering the roses. “Hi, Mum.”

  “Hello, love. You feeling any better?”

  “Not really. I don’t know what’s the matter with me.”

  “I do,” said Helen, “you’ve had too much to cope with, that’s what’s the matter. What with finding out who your mother was, and then what happened to her, and all this worry about the contract. It’s too much for anyone, let alone someone of your age.”

  “Yeah, I suppose so. I feel bad about Nat, too. He’s been so good and I just can’t be, well, very nice to him. I don’t feel sort of—positive about anything.”

  “I think that’ll get better,” said Helen, “I really do. I hope so.” She smiled at Kate. “I miss him. Him and his dad.”

  Kate smiled and put her arm round her mother’s shoulders. “Thanks, Mum. You’ve been great. Don’t know what—Shit, if that’s Nat again, tell him I’m asleep or something! Why’s he ringing the landline anyway? He’s such a tosser sometimes.”

  “Don’t swear, dear,” said Helen rather feebly.

  Nick was packing; the parliamentary summer recess had begun and he was going home for a couple of weeks to stay with his parents. He did it every year and could never see anything remotely odd about this: his friends went off scuba diving in the Maldives or sailing off the coast of Ireland or trekking in the Himalayas. But Nick was perfectly content to help on the farm, lounge in the garden, hike across the Somerset hills, go on riding picnics with any small nieces and nephews who might be around, chat with his brothers and sisters, and trounce everyone at Monopoly or backgammon after dinner. If that was what he enjoyed, why pretend he wanted to do anything else? In his holidaymaking, as in everything else, it was generally agreed, Nicholas Marshall was an absolute one-off.

  He pulled down the battered old leather Gladstone bag from the shelf in his bedroom and tipped its contents out on the bed. This was always an interesting moment; he could never be bothered to finish unpacking when he got back from the trips the paper sent him on—usually to follow sundry politicians around the globe—and this evening’s yield, following a trip to Washington in the early spring, was no exception. A couple of half-read paperbacks, three American newspapers, several packs of chewing gum—intended for Jocasta, to help her in her biannual struggle to give up smoking. A pair of socks—clean, thank God—and some gold cuff links his father had given him. Thank God for that too—he’d thought he’d lost them.

  And a tape recorder, still in its box; a present from Jocasta for the trip. “It’s a nice modern one, that old clockwork one of yours is going to die on you one of these days, probably interviewing Bill Clinton,” she’d said. Although he’d thanked her, he’d never even used it, preferred his old one, tried and true as it was.

  It was a very nice one about a quarter of the size of his old one, with tiny tapes; one was labelled “Play me.” Curious, he slipped it into the machine and pressed play. Jocasta’s voice came out.

  “Hello, darling Nick. This is your devoted—well, fairly devoted—girlfriend, wishing you bon voyage and bonne chance and all that sort of thing. Have fun, but not too much and don’t forget the Hershey bars.” (Of course he had.) “Love you loads and loads and thank you for the best time last night. Lovely dinner, lovely everything. Kiss kiss.”

  Nick played it again, and then again. Thinking about her, about how that tape was just like her, sweet and funny and loving. And thinking how much he had loved her. Still loved her. And that he really hadn’t been very nice to her last time they had met. Still less so when he’d sent her stuff back. It was terrible to think of all that love, evaporated into coldness and distance. Forever.

  He picked up the phone and rang her.

  Jocasta was lying in bed, feeling extremely sorry for herself. She’d had a long and lonely weekend, and had sent out for a curry on Saturday evening; it had been the first meal she had eaten for days, and she gorged herself on it, washed it down with an entire bottle of rather rough red wine, and finished off with some ice cream, over which she had poured a melted Mars bar, one of her favourite puddings. Whether it was the curry, the gorging, or the wine, she had been extremely ill much of Saturday night and most of Sunday. She was only just beginning to feel better. And still terribly lonely.

  Nick’s voice was, therefore, even more irresistible than she might have expected.

  “Hi,” she said carefully, “it’s lovely to hear from you.”

  “Hello, Jocasta. I just thought I’d phone. Make sure you were all right.”

  “I’m fine, yes. Thank you. That’s very sweet of you.”

  “You sound a bit…tired.”

  “I had some bad curry on Saturday night.”

  “I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have thought curry of any kind would be on the menu for Mrs. Gideon Keeble.”

  “No, well, obviously it wouldn’t normally. But he was—he was out, and I just fancied it. You know.”

  “Oh I do. In the old days you’d have had ice cream and melted Mars bar to follow.”

  “I did,” she said without thinking.

  “Jocasta! The staff must have had the night off.”

  “What? Oh, yes. Yes, they did. Um—where are you, Nick?”

  “Just packing. To go down to Somerset for a couple of weeks. And I found the tape recorder you gave me. In my bag.”

  “Oh yes. I hoped it’d be useful. Obviously it hasn’t, if it’s still in your bag.”

  “Oh, it has. Of course it has. And I played the tape you put in for me. Again, I mean. It was very sweet, and I just wanted to thank you.”

  She could remember the tape. She had wanted him to have it, to have something of her. She could remember the whole thing, making the tape and sending it to him, because it had been his last trip abroad, just before the whole drama had begun: Centre Forward, Gideon, Kate, Martha. God, it had been a year. Less than a year. It felt like five. Anyway, she’d intended to give the recorder to him, and they’d gone out to dinner but she’d had too much wine, as usual, and got very emotional about him going away. Then they’d gone home and had the most mind-blowing sex, and she’d completely forgotten until next day, when she’d found it in her bag and sent it over to his office. First making her little recording.

  “That’s OK,” she said, smiling at the memory.

  “So where are you?”

  “Oh, at home,” she said without thinking.

  “What, at the Big House?”

  “Of—of course.”

  “And you’re really all right?”

  “Of course I’m all right, Nick. Why shou
ldn’t I be? I took your words to heart—it was the best thing anyone ever said to me, and I’m a reformed character, learning to be a good wife and—”

  “I’m pleased to have had such an excellent effect on you,” he said. “And you’re happy?”

  “Terribly happy,” she said. “Yes, thank you. Oh—hang on, Nick, there’s someone at the door. Won’t be a minute.”

  Nick sat there waiting; he could hear the roar of traffic in the background, a police siren, hear her saying, “Yes, that’s for me, thank you, do I need to sign, fine, there you are,” heard the door slamming, heard her walking back across the wooden floor—the wooden floor? Roar of traffic? Answering the door herself?

  “Jocasta, where are you?”

  “I told you—”

  “I know what you told me,” he said, “but I don’t recall traffic roaring up and down Kensington Palace Gardens. I would have thought staff would take in parcels. And I seem to remember a lot of carpeting everywhere, and quite a distance from the front door to anywhere.”

  There was a silence; then she said, “I’m in Clapham, Nick. I’ve just—come to collect a few things.”

  “So why lie to me about it?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. It seemed simpler.”

  “Jocasta, what’s happened? Please tell me.”

  She wouldn’t let him come to Clapham; it was too dangerous. She said she’d meet him in Queen Mary’s Rose Garden in Regent’s Park. It had been a favourite place of theirs, in the early days, halfway between both their houses. She looked at him sitting there on a bench, his long rangy body stretched out in the sunshine, his untidy brown hair flopping into his eyes, and thought how she missed him more every single day, and that even this was not exactly sensible. She sat down beside him; he gave her a kiss.

  “That allowed?”

  “Of course.” She smiled at him, and told him some of what had happened: very unemotionally.

  “I’m really not complaining, Nick,” she said carefully. “I can see a lot of it was—is my fault. Most of it. But it just isn’t working at the moment. It might still. I hope so.”

  It was a lie: of course. She didn’t think so at all. She just couldn’t let him think it was over, that she was throwing herself at him, expecting to be taken back.

  He was very sweet, unreproachful. He said if that was the case then he certainly wouldn’t want to be the cause of it not working out; he said he would like always to be her friend, her best friend; he said he missed her terribly.

  “I miss you too,” she said, brightly, “so yes, let’s be friends. Best friends.”

  She stood up, smiled down at him, and had just managed to say, “Well, I must be getting back then,” when she felt suddenly terribly dizzy and faint. She supposed it was the emotion, the tearing, mixed-up emotion, and also because she hadn’t really eaten since she had left Gideon, apart from the thrown-up curry. She swayed visibly and was unable to walk calmly and steadily towards the entrance of the garden, as she had planned, but had to sit down again, her head between her knees.

  And after that, it was only a very short—and logical—progress to his car and thence to his flat. He bought some food on the way, good, bland, binding food, he said firmly, eggs and bread and Vichy water—“full of minerals.” And then he cooked her an omelet, made her some toast, and—well, somehow after that, there they were, alone, in his flat, and try as she might, she couldn’t remain unemotional and said she thought she should go. To which he suddenly said, quite sweetly, that she should never have left him, and that reminded her exactly why she had, and she got angry and told him.

  “I loved you,” he said. “So much.”

  “And how was I to know that?”

  “I kept telling you.”

  “But you didn’t show me,” she said. “You never showed me.”

  “Oh, this is ridiculous!” he said. “I couldn’t show you then, not how you wanted. I didn’t know—” He stopped.

  “Didn’t know what?” she asked, but he wouldn’t answer her, just turned away and looked out of the window, and then suddenly it was the old situation starting again, and she couldn’t bear it and she said, wearily, “I must go.”

  “Yes, I think you should. I’ll call you a cab. I’m very sorry, Jocasta. For all of it. I hope it works out for you, I really do.”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “Can I kiss you goodbye? Old times’ sake?”

  “Old times’ sake…”

  He bent to kiss her on the cheek; only somehow she moved and his mouth met hers instead. And—that was that, really.

  How she did it, she afterwards never knew; one moment she was feeling frail, dizzy again, wretchedly confused, the next full of a powerful, surging energy and certainty. Nick was there in front of her, and she wanted him, and she had to have him; and he felt it—she saw him feel it, saw him smile, saw him acknowledge it, saw him certain too.

  They were naked before they reached the bedroom; she flung herself back onto the bed, holding out her arms to him, saying his name over and over again, hearing him saying hers, both of them talking fast, feverishly, “Want you, missed you, love you,” and then his mouth was everywhere on her: her throat, her breasts, her stomach, her thighs, and hers on him, moving over him, frantic for him, a great tangle of desire growing and growing in her, pushing at her. She lowered herself onto him, feeling him, moving on him, round him, melting, softening, sweetening for him, crying out as the sensations grew, sitting on him now, riding him, twisting, turning, journeying through some dark, wonderfully difficult place, reaching for the light at the end of it, feeling herself growing, clenching, climbing, struggling, and then yes, yes, that was it, the height, the peak and she was there, shouting, yelling with triumph and then she felt him come too and she came again, in great warm, easy, spreading circles, until finally she fell into a deep, sweet peace.

  “Now what?” he said, and his brown eyes, smiling into hers, were very sweet, very tender.

  “God knows,” she said, and went suddenly and happily to sleep.

  Clio had finally told Fergus about Josh. About Josh and Kate, that was. When she had finished he said, “Of course. How clever of you. It was all so obvious, wasn’t it? Staring in our faces all the time.”

  “So obvious. But Fergus, I don’t know what to do. I just don’t. Whatever I do, I shall upset Josh—”

  “I shouldn’t worry too much about him, spoilt brat of a man that he is.”

  “Fergus, that’s not true! He may be spoilt, but he’s very sweet really. But think what it would do to poor Beatrice. And their rather strained marriage.”

  “Think indeed.”

  “But then Kate needs to know. I really think it would help her now. She’s so—bewildered, still. Martha dying has just made her worse. You said yourself she was very down. So what do I do? I feel as if I’m holding a time bomb. And Jocasta about to—well, I don’t know what she’s about to do. She’s in the most extraordinary state. Not miserable anymore. Excited, almost, but incredibly emotional. Saying one minute she wants a divorce, the next she doesn’t, not yet anyway.”

  “There’s nothing any of us can do about that,” he said, “and you must just wait with this Josh business. It’s been a secret for many years and it will keep a few more weeks. Although I agree, it would probably help Kate. But the moment will arrive. It always does.”

  “I hope so,” said Clio miserably. “I can’t stand much more of this.”

  Jocasta had said goodbye to Nick and gone home. He had not argued, had not tried to detain her. It was all rather unnerving.

  The afternoon in his flat had acquired a dreamlike quality—there were even times when she thought she must have imagined it. Nick was being as evasive, as enraging as ever: if she had been looking for some great expression of commitment, she would have been sadly disappointed.

  He simply told her he would always love her, that he would always be there for her, her very best friend as he had said—and then agreed that the best thing
for both of them was for him to go home as planned and for her to go back to Gideon.

  “Back to the Big House?”

  “Of course. I’ll send you a postcard,” he said. “I know how much you like getting postcards.”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “And I certainly don’t see any need for foolhardy confessions, or anything like that.”

  “Of course not,” she said, bravely bright. “It was just a bit of lovely, naughty fun.”

  But when she got home to Clapham, digested what had happened, thought over what he had said, she felt a disappointment so crushing she could hardly bear it.

  She would have been comforted and totally astonished over the next few days, had she heard him talking endlessly to his favourite brother, telling him how much he still adored Jocasta, loved her more than ever, indeed, but that she had made it very plain she was still hoping to salvage her marriage and it would be dreadfully wrong of him to do anything to scupper that.

  “Grace, dear, you must eat.” Peter Hartley looked at yet another untouched breakfast tray. He had to leave her that morning, to do some parish visits, but he had prepared a tempting breakfast: muesli, yogurt, fruit—all the things she liked—in very small portions.

  “I can’t eat. It was very nice, but I just don’t want it. Please, take it away.” She pushed it aside fretfully, and lay down again, pulled the covers over her head.

  Peter took it away.

  Janet Frean wasn’t eating very much either, but it was enough, as her doctor reported to Bob that morning. “She doesn’t need a lot of food, and don’t worry, we’re keeping a careful eye on it.” She was doing very well really, he said; she’d had several sessions now with the resident psychiatrist, who had prescribed drug therapy, one-to-one sessions with him or one of the other psychiatrists, and possibly, as she began to feel better, group therapy.