Marrying the Mistress

by Joanna Trollope

  There was a pause. Rachel pictured Carrie perched on a stool, her elbows on the counter, and her hair swinging forward over the hand that held the receiver.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Carrie said, ‘that that is any of your business, is it, Laura? If Simon and his son choose to go out together, they aren’t really obliged, are they, to account to you for their reasons? Yes, Jack has been upset this week, but that’s a family matter, a family affair—’

  She stopped. Rachel raised her head a little. Emma’s bedroom door opened a few inches and revealed Emma, in her pink trackpant pyjama bottoms and a white T-shirt with a diamanté heart on the front.

  ‘Granny?’ Emma mouthed.

  Rachel nodded.

  ‘No!’ Carrie said with vehemence from the kitchen.

  Emma opened her door a little wider and sat down in the doorway. She had the headphones from her personal stereo slung round her neck.

  ‘Is she—?’ Emma whispered.

  ‘Shhh!’ Rachel said.

  ‘Yes, you did hear me,’ Carrie said. ‘You heard me perfectly clearly. I said no. I said – or I meant – no, I will not get Simon to ring you when he comes in. I may not even tell him you rang.’

  The stool scraped on the kitchen floor. Carrie must be gesturing.

  ‘Because he has had enough!’ Carrie shouted. ‘Because I have had enough! We have all had enough of your demands and your complaints and your absolute refusal to blame yourself for anything! You are making our life intolerable, you are putting so much pressure on Simon and then he takes it out on us and we all suffer!’

  She stopped again, abruptly. Emma crept forward until she was leaning against the opposite banister to Rachel.

  ‘I don’t care!’ Carrie yelled. ‘I don’t bloody care any more! You can cry your eyes out but I’ve utterly run out of any sympathy I’ve ever had for you. And I’ll tell you something else. I’ll tell you something else, Laura, something I should have told you months ago, years probably. If you fight me for Simon, Laura, I’ll not only fight you back, tooth and nail, but I’ll win. Do you hear me? I’ll win!’

  Then the telephone was crashed down. Rachel and Emma sat up.

  ‘Wow,’ Emma whispered. Rachel didn’t answer. She crawled to the top of the staircase and crouched there, as if she were wondering whether to go down. They heard Carrie get off the stool and pad across the kitchen and then they heard the soft rip of paper being torn off the roll of kitchen towel that hung by the cooker on a wooden bracket. Then they heard something else, a small, jerky, piteous sound, like a little animal in pain.

  ‘Oh God,’ Emma whispered. ‘Rach, she’s crying.’

  Guy was possessed by a huge restlessness. He’d tried to sleep; he’d even thought he would be able to sleep, but the illuminated green numbers on Merrion’s clock radio said it was ten-past two and then five to three and then a quarter to four. Guy got up, gingerly, and went out to the kitchen, not turning any lights on in case Merrion woke up and asked him if he was all right. ‘Absolutely fine,’ he’d say, and she’d say, ‘No you’re not,’ and it would all start again.

  He slid the kitchen door shut and turned on the lamp that stood in the angle of the tiny kitchen counter and threw such interesting angles of light and shadow. Guy had never considered light as an aesthetic form in a house before: he’d only, at Hill Cottage, regarded light as being sufficiently dim to watch television properly or sufficiently bright to see to read or shave. But Merrion thought about light. Her blinds and lamps and spotlights let light fall in certain pools and patterns and degrees so that moods and atmospheres were altered. Like so much about Merrion, her way of looking at things had made such a difference to him, such an intriguing, illuminating difference.

  He filled the kettle and plugged it in. He wasn’t sure he really wanted anything to drink but he had a feeling that to go through the ritual of making a drink would be reassuring. His mother had been a habitual insomniac and had constructed a series of rituals around the problem, as if to assert that she was in no way defeated, re-making her bed a dozen times a night, opening and closing the curtains, walking briskly up and down the stairs. Guy pictured her still at it, in her eighties, dressed in his father’s old pyjamas, going up and down the stairs at Hill Cottage whenever she came to stay, counting as she went.

  ‘It has to be fifty. Fifty steps. Forty-nine doesn’t work and nor does fifty-one.’

  She had been possessed, right to the end, with formidable energy, helping Laura barrow loads of manure for the vegetable garden only two months before her death. The garden was the one thing that united Laura and his mother, the one space of territory where Laura didn’t feel inadequate and Guy’s mother understood at least something of her daughter-in-law’s nature.

  ‘Glad she’s got the garden,’ Guy’s mother had said, and then after a pause, almost reflectively, ‘Bloodless girl, your Laura.’

  If only, Guy thought, opening cupboards in search of a tea bag, his mother could see Laura now. Or Merrion, for that matter. What on earth would she make of it all? Whatever would she think of a son who had found love – true love – in his fifties when already a grandfather? What would she think of Laura’s reaction and her insistence upon Simon’s succour? She had been a teacher, Guy’s mother, a biologist, but for her the heart had been chiefly a vital and ingenious organ and not the seat of all joy and all anguish. Guy and his brothers had assumed, without ever looking at it too closely, that their parents’ marriage had not only been one of the meeting of two extremely competent professional minds, but also one of mutual devotion. But then, of course, they never really knew, did they? It was the custom of their parents’ generation neither to explain nor to complain and if the steady beat of that marriage had faltered – which it surely must have done, sometimes, mustn’t it? – nobody would ever know. Poor old Mum, Guy thought, pouring boiling water on to the tea bag in one of Merrion’s white mugs, but then lucky old Mum, too. Rules made a cage but they also made a structure.

  Guy turned off the lamp and slid the door to the sitting room back again. It was a clear night and the glow from the sky and the street filled the room with itself, and with big, soft shadows. Guy sat down on the sofa – the cushions were still crushed from where they’d both been earlier, half sitting, half lying – and put his mug down on the table. He leaned back and looked at the ceiling, at the narrow track of minute, brilliant spotlights that ran across it and which, when switched on, created such extraordinary effects. It was, he thought, like being with Merrion or being without her, like bumbling along in the half-light or suddenly seeing things with freshness and novelty. If only – he shut his eyes and grimaced to himself in the dimness – if only it were possible to keep that novelty from turning itself into strangeness, to prevent it from colliding with other things, refusing to co-exist.

  ‘I could not bear,’ he’d said at dinner, ‘to feel I was in any way limiting you.’

  She was eating a complicated salad with a fork. She didn’t look up at him, instead endeavouring to fold a long leaf of rocket in two.

  ‘We’ve had this conversation.’

  ‘That doesn’t deal with it,’ Guy said. ‘Looking at Jack the other night brought home to me how young you are. You’re far closer in age to him than to me. Far.’

  She put the rocket into her mouth, pushing the stalk in after the leaf, with her fork.

  ‘Are we talking about babies again?’

  ‘I suppose it’s part of it — ‘

  ‘Maybe I don’t want a baby.’

  Guy said gently, ‘Don’t be childish.’

  ‘I’m so tired,’ Merrion said, ‘of you bringing up difficulties. You never used to.’

  ‘And you always said they’d be there.’

  ‘They are. But they don’t need talking up a storm all the time.’

  ‘Or ignoring.’

  She speared a piece of red pepper, inspected it, and put it on the side of her plate.

  ‘I’m not ignoring anything,’ she said. ‘I’m ju
st finding it very difficult to cope with your preoccupations. It’s very hard, Guy, to see you mentally miles away from me. I know you’re having a hard time, I know Laura is being impossible and the flat is horrible and dealing with your children is at best difficult but it seems to me – I have to say this – that you are drawn towards all that, almost that you’re returning to something you knew long before me, that you’ve gone somewhere I can’t follow you.’

  He turned his wineglass round and round, twisting it by the stem.

  ‘I have never loved anyone as I love you.’

  ‘I know,’ she said. She put her fork down. ‘But that isn’t really the point, is it?’

  He stared at his plate.

  ‘You’ve found something,’ Merrion said, ‘haven’t you? You’ve found your family again.’

  Guy said, ‘But I want you to be part of that family—’

  She said sharply, more sharply than she meant to, ‘And is that a good thing?’

  He raised his head.

  ‘A good thing?’

  ‘For me,’ Merrion said. ‘Is it a good thing for me to be sort of subsumed into your family? Is that what you and I are about? Is that what we’ve been aiming at, all these years?’

  He shook his head. He said, almost inaudibly, ‘No.’

  And then he said, ‘We didn’t know, did we, we didn’t know what was coming—’

  ‘No,’ she said. She pushed her plate away. ‘I don’t want to talk any more. I don’t want to have to say things. I’m not ready for saying things yet. Not some things, anyhow.’

  He opened his eyes now and reached for his tea. It didn’t taste of anything much: he hadn’t let the tea bag soak long enough. What he had wanted to say at dinner and been unable to bring himself to say had been that he couldn’t, for reasons he couldn’t explain, visualize how their life together was going to be in the future. In the past, he’d always seen it: it hung in his mind, a clear picture in equally clear contrast to the half-life he lived with Laura. He’d seen an urban flat, a big flat, full of his books and her objects. He’d seen a house somewhere, maybe even a townhouse, with doors opening to a small summer garden and music playing. Sometimes, they’d even talked about these pictures, playing the luxurious game of how things could be if they were free to make them so. And now that freedom was, round extraordinary obstacles, slowly coming, and as it advanced towards him, it seemed to be blurring his vision of the future. What was even more disconcerting was that he suspected it was blurring Merrion’s vision, too, that vision that had always been so unclouded, that had always sustained him, reassured him.

  He looked round the sitting room. They couldn’t stay there, that was for certain. It was too small, too feminine, too emphatically the flat of a single life. He tried, as he had tried so often recently, to visualize somewhere else that would be right for them; to conjure up that fantasy flat, that fantasy house where they could amplify that sense of complete belonging that they felt together. He could think of nothing. When he tried to imagine, all he saw was what he already knew: this flat, Hill Cottage, the dreary rooms at Pinns Green.

  He stood up. The light was getting stronger, dawn triumphing over street lamps. He went quietly across the sitting room and opened the door to the bedroom.

  ‘You’ve been ages,’ Merrion said.

  ‘Have I? I thought you were asleep.’

  She turned towards him. He could see the dark mass of her hair on the pillow.

  ‘At least an hour. Are you all right?’

  He sat on the edge of the bed, his back to her. She put a hand out and laid it flat on his back, on his spine below the shoulder blades.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said.

  ‘Get in,’ she said.

  He swung round and pushed his legs back in under the bedclothes.

  ‘Guy,’ she said. ‘What is it?’

  He looked at the ceiling. He said, ‘I can’t seem to see the way ahead. I always could, but at the moment, I can’t.’

  She felt for his hand, under the covers, and held it in both of hers.

  ‘Keep saying at the moment,’ she said. ‘Just keep saying that.’

  Her voice was apprehensive, almost frightened. He put his second hand over hers and they held on to each other, under the covers, hard.

  ‘Just keep on,’ Merrion said.

  The pub Alan had chosen had tables on the pavement. When Guy approached, Alan was already there with all the accessories on the table before him that Guy had come to recognize as urban essentials – a mobile telephone, a newspaper and a drink. Alan was wearing sunglasses and a blue linen shirt. He got up as Guy came towards him and held his arms out.

  ‘Hi, Dad.’

  Guy held him.

  ‘That’s nice—’

  ‘You OK?’ Alan said. He shifted his arms in order to put his hands on his father’s shoulders.

  ‘A bit tired—’

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ Alan said.

  Guy smiled. He looked at Alan’s glass.

  ‘What are you drinking?’

  ‘Campari.’

  Guy made a face.

  ‘I think I’ll get myself a beer.’

  Alan pushed down lightly on Guy’s shoulders.

  ‘You sit down. I’ll get it.’

  Guy sat down on a white plastic chair with his back to the wall of the pub. He felt tired indeed, tired in body and spirit.

  ‘Do I look my age?’ he’d said to Merrion that morning.

  She’d been in the shower and was making coffee, wrapped in a bath towel.

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ she said, and kissed him.

  Alan came back with a tall glass of lager.

  ‘This sort of beer?’

  ‘Excellent,’ Guy said.

  ‘Dad—’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’ve got something to tell you.’

  Guy looked at him. He was back in his chair and resting his elbows on the table.

  ‘I’ve moved in with someone,’ Alan said.

  ‘Someone—’

  ‘He’s called Charlie Driver. He’s a doctor.’

  Guy raised his beer glass.

  ‘Good.’

  ‘That sounded a bit hearty—’

  ‘It wasn’t meant to.’

  ‘It’s such a relief,’ Alan said. ‘Being in love again.’

  Guy smiled at him.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I want to tell the world—’

  Guy looked down at his beer.

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘Dad. I’m not telling Mum.’

  ‘No—’

  ‘In fact, I’m not sure I’m even speaking to Mum for the moment.’

  Guy said unhappily, ‘Nobody seems to be able to—’

  ‘That was the other thing I wanted to see you about.’

  ‘Besides Charlie.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Guy put a hand out and held Alan’s nearest wrist.

  ‘I am really pleased about Charlie. As long as he’s good to you.’

  ‘None better,’ Alan said. He took a swallow of Campari. ‘But Mum—’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She’s now refusing to take Simon’s advice.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I think,’ Alan said, ‘that I have to have another go at Simon.’

  Guy said with sudden vehemence, ‘Alan, I’ve suddenly got no skins left about it any more. I can hardly think about it, let alone do anything about it. I just seem to dread it all, dread the difficulties and refusals and complications. Dread the decisions. It was such a relief to see Jack the other night. Someone else’s problems, someone else’s life—’ He stopped.

  Alan waited.

  ‘Sorry,’ Guy said.

  ‘Why sorry?’

  ‘I’ve created these complications,’ Guy said, staring past Alan along the pavement, ‘and I feel the least I can do is shoulder the consequences, and not complain.’

  ‘But you didn’t know what the consequences would be—’

/>   ‘I thought I did. I thought I could guess. And that I could deal with them.’

  ‘But you can’t—’

  ‘No,’ Guy said. He pushed his glass away. ‘Once, I seemed to know what I was doing so clearly that I didn’t even have a choice to make. And now it’s all choices.’

  ‘Is it?’ Alan said. He picked up his cigarettes.

  ‘No,’ Guy said. He glanced at Alan. ‘No, it isn’t choice now. It’s dilemma.’

  It was almost nine-thirty before Rachel heard Carrie go downstairs. On Sunday mornings, it used to be Simon who went down first, and he’d put a tracksuit on and go out for the newspapers and then he’d bring them upstairs, with a cup of tea, for Carrie. When they were all little, Rachel remembered, Simon would get cross with them if they tried to get into bed with Carrie on a Sunday. Saturday was OK, but Sunday was forbidden. But the last few months, Sundays had been the other way about. It was Carrie who went downstairs first, and made tea. She didn’t go and get the newspapers until she was properly dressed, and she made the tea wearing the old kimono with blue cranes and flowers printed on it which Rachel could remember all her life. Simon had once bought Carrie a new dressing gown, a white one made of thick waffle woven cotton, but Rachel knew it was still in its plastic bag on top of Carrie’s cupboard, and Carrie was still wearing her kimono.

  Rachel got slowly out of bed. Simon’s grey sweater was on the floor where she had dropped it the previous night, and she picked it up and pulled it over the outsize T-shirt she’d slept in. Then she pulled her hair back, unbrushed, and pushed it through an elasticated towelling band.

  It was silent on the landing. Emma’s door was shut and so was Simon and Carrie’s and there was no sound from the little staircase up to Jack’s room. Rachel padded downstairs. Carrie was standing in the kitchen, dressed in jeans and a checked shirt and a fleece jacket, with her hand on the kettle as if that would help it to boil faster.

  ‘Hi,’ Rachel said.

  Carrie turned round.

  ‘Morning, darling.’