by Rosie Harris
He was always willing to take her anywhere she particularly wanted to go. At her request they had gone to Hampton Court and the Chelsea Flower Show and numerous times to the theatre in Windsor.
As she’d suspected right from the start their relationship deepened. Yet even after the inevitable happened and they became lovers, she refused to let him share her bedroom.
He respected her wishes over this. Even when they did sleep together he returned to his own room before morning. Since they never met at breakfast time any misgivings she might be feeling had time to clear from her conscience before he arrived home in the evening.
She knew she was living a lie by keeping quiet about their relationship but it was the only way she could bring herself to look Charles and Alison, in the eye. Not that she had seen very much of either of them since Jason had become her lodger.
They had both vociferously disapproved of him moving in so they kept away. On the rare occasion when they invited her over to their homes Jason was not included. On the few occasions when Charles was forced to bring over documents concerning Reginald’s will for her signature he always came around mid-morning, knowing that he was bound to find her at home on her own.
Qualms about her life with Jason didn’t worry her when it came to facing Steven. She didn’t discuss the matter with him, but she was quite sure he knew how things stood between her and Jason and accepted it without question or comment. Unlike his elder brother and sister, Steven never had criticized her actions. Even as a teenager he’d respected her judgement.
As summer gave way to autumn and the golden days became shorter, the chill winds of winter reminded Margaret that time was passing. Although her social life was hectic and every other aspect of her life had changed she’d still not undertaken any of the special things she’d been looking forward to so much.
Jason had taken over her life so completely that it was as if she’d been reprogrammed. Temporarily, or at least she hoped it wasn’t permanent, she seemed to have lost her sense of direction.
It was as if she was suspended in a kind of limbo, watching herself experimenting with a lifestyle so completely different from anything she’d previously experienced. It was almost as if she was behaving like a puppet.
Her first sexual encounter with Jason had tapped a well of passion deep within her, bringing to the surface such an intensity of feelings that she had felt overawed.
Reginald’s love-making had centred on his own gratification; selfish in the extreme. It had been legalized rape bordering on brutality!
Jason, by comparison, was tender and considerate. He was always fervently concerned about her enjoyment. His exciting foreplay aroused her so intently that her whole being cried out for a release of the passion pent up inside her.
His touch set every fibre in her body trembling. As they clung to each other, his breath caressed her face as shivers of desire engulfed her. If she closed her eyes, and lay very still, the fire spread deeper. As he held her close, his flesh burning against hers, her need of him had a desperate urgency. She was unable to control the eagerness of her body as she felt the muscles of his back rippling beneath her hands. Then the strange, wondrous rhythm took over.
As he possessed her body and the last delicious, shuddering moments came over them simultaneously, she was both excited and appalled by the intensity of her emotions.
During the first few weeks after they became lovers, overwhelmed by her own needs and eager for even greater revelations, she had been avid for their daily encounters.
She hungered for Jason’s arms. Their love-making was so important to her that it blinded her to the many minor irritations that living with him imposed on her. It was only later that she became aware that her addiction to his love-making had become bitter-sweet torture. Too late she realized that gratification for him lay in tantalizing and teasing her to a point almost beyond endurance.
Gradually, she began to despise herself for letting him use her in such a manner, for her lack of control over her own feelings. She felt ashamed of her need of him. Time and time again she tried to curtail their sessions of pleasure.
One touch and she became inflamed by his closeness. It was as if both of them had found some wonderful treasure trove into which they must constantly dip, gorging on the delights it afforded them. It was as if they were on a constant diet of exotic food or rich chocolate and eventually they were surfeited – or at least Margaret was – by such extremes.
Thirty-Four
As she slowly came to her senses, Margaret began to resent Jason’s persistent demands. It was as though they were engaged in some sexual marathon, aiming at an excess of gratification. As Jason became more and more possessive Margaret felt as trapped as she had been in the days when Reginald had been alive.
Jason insisted on doing the cooking when they ate at home so she couldn’t even indulge in the foods she preferred. She had grown used to Reginald’s preference for plain English cooking. Now she had to re-educate her palate to accept pasta and rice, Greek and Italian foods as well as exotic Indian and Chinese dishes.
Part of her dissatisfaction with life, she suspected, was because she was putting on weight.
Jan had been the first to openly mention the subject.
‘You’re getting quite plump, you know, Margaret. You want to watch your diet,’ Jan observed, frowning in a disapproving way when at one of their midweek coffee mornings Margaret had accepted a second wedge of chocolate gateau.
‘I put on a lot of weight after Jack died,’ sighed Brenda. ‘I was eating for comfort, using food to try and compensate for my loneliness because I was missing him so much.’
‘Well, Margaret doesn’t need to do that! She certainly can’t be lonely, not with Jason living at Willow House with her,’ snapped Jan.
‘I saw him the other morning when I was out shopping and I noticed he’s putting on weight, too,’ observed Thelma. ‘In fact, he looked so plump and smug that he reminded me of a marmalade cat who’d found a ready source of cream.’
‘He’s probably enjoying Margaret’s company. It must be so nice for him to have someone mothering him after leading a bachelor existence all these years,’ mused Brenda.
‘Mothering?’ Jan’s carefully pencilled eyebrows rose questioningly.
Margaret felt as if the chocolate fudge topping on the chocolate cake she was eating was turning sour in her mouth. They were laughing at her. Obviously Jan had guessed the truth and despised her for having a relationship with Jason.
She tried to tell herself that Jan was only reacting in this way because she was jealous. She and Jan were virtually the same age, and since Jan had known Jason first she was probably still piqued because he had not shown a similar interest in her.
Or had he? Had Jan been having an affair with Jason, and was that why she was now regretting having introduced him to me, Margaret pondered.
Far from improving matters that only seemed to make the situation worse. Having been a one-man woman all her life the realization that she might be taking on someone else’s cast-off was disturbing. It was like buying clothes from a charity shop knowing that someone had discarded them because they were tired of them.
If Jan had been having an affair with Jason then why had she let him go? She was so strong willed, so very dominant, that Margaret was sure she would have fought tooth and nail to hold him and that she would have succeeded.
Unless, of course it was because Jan had grown tired of him? That was quite possible. She could well understand Jan breaking off their close relationship because she found Jason’s domination or even some of his habits intolerable.
The thought niggled away at the back of her mind. She found herself mentally listing the numerous ways in which Jason annoyed her. Giving him the complete run of the house had been a mistake, she decided. Now it was too late to do anything about it. He even wandered into the bathroom of her en-suite while she was in the bath, as though he had a perfect right to do so.
The first time h
e had done it she had screamed and grabbed at the flannel to try and cover herself.
‘I didn’t mean to startle you,’ he chuckled, sitting down on the side of the bath.
When she had said, ‘Please go away! I’m not used to people walking in on me while I’m taking a bath!’ he had merely laughed.
‘Now I’m here I may as well stay and wash your back,’ he teased. ‘Sit up!’
Taking the flannel from her trembling hands he had begun sponging her shoulders, letting a stream of warm soapy water cascade down over her breasts
His insistence angered her. Who did he think he was! If she’d been dressed and sitting in a chair she would have got up and walked out of the room. Naked and half immersed in water, she not only felt humiliated but powerless to do anything other than try and placate him.
She breathed a sigh of relief when he stood up and dried his hands on one of the fluffy pink bath towels. If she kept perfectly calm he would leave now, she told herself as she slid down lower into the cooling water.
But he didn’t. Instead, he picked up the bottle of scented oil from the ledge over the bath, and unscrewing the top poured out a liberal amount into the palm of one hand. Replacing the bottle he rubbed his hands together, and then bending over began massaging the upper half of her body with his oil-drenched hands.
Inflamed by his touch she tried to wriggle free. His hands grabbed at her shoulders, but they were so slippery with oil that he was unable to hold her. He upset her balance, though, and she slithered down into the water, gasping as she inhaled the bubbles floating on the surface.
Choking, and struggling to get her breath back, she grabbed at the side of the bath and pulled herself up out of the water. She was so furious that she made no attempt to keep her anger in check. He had invaded her privacy, intimidated her and almost made her drown and she rounded on him vehemently.
Jason rocked with laughter as she tried to snatch hold of the towel he was holding.
From that moment on, Margaret’s dissatisfaction with her new lifestyle grew apace. She knew she should have considered herself unbelievably fortunate over the way things had turned out yet she was far from happy. She might have everything most women dreamed about. A lovely home, plenty of friends, a fulfilling sex life with a handsome man and yet she still felt edgy.
There were days when she even went as far as to admit to herself that she longed for the quiet uneventful life she had known when Reginald was alive. She wished there was someone she could confide in. It was impossible to speak to Jan about it. By mutual consent Jason’s name was avoided whenever possible.
Charles was the obvious choice but she couldn’t talk to him because she knew he would be so censorious. He even disapproved of the fact that she had taken Jason as a lodger without having any legal contract between the two of them.
‘How can you be sure that he is trustworthy, Mother?’ he had asked on more than one occasion.
‘He pays more than his share of the overheads,’ she assured him.
Charles was by no means content with this argument, and she was almost tempted to say, ‘because we’re lovers’ in order to see the shocked expression on his face.
‘I still think you would have done better to have sold Willow House and found something more compact and less expensive to run,’ he grumbled.
‘I’m happy where I am and as long as I can afford to stay here I shall.’
He immediately made it clear that the present arrangement would only be valid as long as the bank was happy with the arrangement. He made it quite clear that under no circumstances would he be prepared to subsidize her.
Alison should have been her natural choice of confidante and yet Margaret felt she was less able to talk to her daughter about such matters than almost anyone.
Alison had the same cold, clinical approach to personal problems as Reginald had shown. In Margaret’s opinion she would have made a highly successful businesswoman. She had never understood why Alison had gone in for nursing. Compassion and patience weren’t her strong points. She wondered if she derived some masochistic pleasure out of making herself do something that must surely be anathema to her.
If she talked to anyone about what was bothering her then Margaret knew it would have to be Steven. He understood her so well. Yet how could she bring herself to confide in him about her sexual relationship with Jason? It seemed improper to discuss such matters with your youngest son!
Every day brought some new revelation of Jason’s character that disconcerted her. He consulted her over the most trivial details. After years of being virtually dictated to by Reginald, of having to fit her lifestyle around whatever he chose to do, it unnerved her. Furthermore she worried endlessly about whether she was giving Jason the answers he wanted, or did he agree with her decisions in order to please her.
She became confused and depressed. While Jason was at work she spent hours wandering in the garden, mulling over the situation, seeking a solution. More and more she regretted that she had deviated from her initial resolve to treat him strictly as a lodger.
At night, long after Jason had sunk into a deep sex-induced sleep, she lay there at his side, exhausted but sleepless, knowing this was not really the sort of life she wanted. It was the other side of the coin. After years of celibacy she now was being offered such a surfeit of sex that she felt satiated.
Above all it troubled her that she was distanced from her family. It would soon be Christmas, and she couldn’t bear the thought of spending it alone with Jason. She wanted to be with her own family, to share in their celebrations, to enjoy the company of her own children and her grandchildren. It would be a difficult situation because they wouldn’t invite Jason and how could she leave him at home to fend for himself during the season of goodwill.
The end of the year was also a time for reflection. She thought again of all the things she had planned to do once she was free to do them and so far, apart from refurbishing Willow House she had done none of them.
She had planned to travel, to see places in England, Wales and Scotland that she had never seen, yet she still had not done so.
Thirty-Five
The moment Margaret finished her breakfast the next morning she found a biro pen and a pad of lined paper and began to write down all the things she wanted to do and places she would like to visit.
She started by listing all the National Trust houses. She gave each of them a separate line so that it would be easier to tick them off when she had visited them. So far she had only been to Cliveden, which was virtually on the doorstep, but she also wanted to see Waddesdon Manor, Stourhead with its wonderful gardens and lakes, Hidcote, the Fox Museum at Laock Abbey, The Vine, Harwich Hall and a dozen other properties.
Next she listed the seaside places: Brighton, Bournemouth, Hastings, Llandudno, Rhyl, Scarborough, Robin Hood’s Bay, Swansea, Torquay and Whitby. The list went on and on until she’d filled an entire page. There were also the towns: Cardiff, Leeds, Chester, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Worcester, Truro, Penzance, Exeter and Chester; the list seemed endless. Then she added castles: Rhuddlan, Harlech, Kidwelly, Chepstow, Conway and Caerphilly. On the next page she listed all the beauty spots that she had heard about and wanted to visit. Finally came all the other things she wanted to do including joining the Women’s Institute or Townswomen’s Guild and becoming a member of an amateur dramatic society. She would also like to take a computer course, learn to play chess, try her hand at painting and join a walking group.
When she’d finished, she put the pages aside knowing that the list was far too long and that she would have to edit it down because there simply weren’t enough days left in her life even if she lived to be ninety to do everything she wanted to include.
She’d committed all her thoughts to paper so now she would leave it for a day or so and then go through it and highlight the ones she thought most important.
She hadn’t intended letting Jason see it but she had left the pad on top of the bureau and it caught his eye when
he came in that evening.
‘What’s all this?’ he asked as he looked through the pages and studied the long list of items. ‘Is this a New Year’s resolution or simply a hundred and one things I want to do before I die?’
‘Something like that,’ Margaret murmured wishing she’d had time to whittle it down to reasonable proportions before telling him about it.
He studied the list again, commenting out loud about those that drew his attention or interest.
‘I can teach you to play chess,’ he told her, ‘and I can certainly tell you which of the seaside places you’ve listed are worth seeing and take you there whenever you wish. We can also visit the National Trust places together and I can make sure that you understand about the antique furniture and the importance of the pictures that they may have hanging there. I’m not all that interested in the castles though. Most of them are mere shells; ruins that are on the point of falling down.’
He went through the list again. ‘You haven’t included any churches. Aren’t you interested in cathedrals, old churches or even monuments? Surely they are important?’
‘The list is not complete, simply a hotchpotch of things that came into my mind,’ she mumbled.
‘Hotchpotch yes, I agree with that!’
Margaret frowned as he picked up a pen and began scoring through some of the places on her list.
‘What do you think you are doing, Jason?’
‘Sorting it out and deleting some of the ones that are unimportant.’
‘They are all important as far as I am concerned,’ Margaret retorted, trying to keep the anger out of her voice.
‘Rubbish! I’ll draw up a proper list and then I’ll start making plans to take you to all the places I think you would enjoy.’
Margaret bit down on her lower lip trying to quell the anger inside her. How dare he alter her list; how dare he take over. She wanted to do these things and visit these places on her own.
‘We probably should allocate one day a week for sightseeing. Mind you, if we want to visit places like Aberdeen and Torquay then we will have to spend at least one night there because they are so far away. Perhaps we should do these over a weekend. Anyway, don’t worry about it, I’ll plan it all out,’ he told her, confidently. ‘It may take a while though because at the moment I’m very busy and so I’ll have to hire some additional staff to be on hand at my studio when I’m taking you out.’
