Invitation to the Married Life

by Angela Huth

  Lines from Keats, learned in childhood, often came back to Toby Farthingoe as he made his dark journeys through the house.

  He continued on his way, slowly, for once he opened the door of the bedroom the sweet, melancholic dusk of the stairs and landing would be shattered. He disliked the artificial peach, the pale blues, the plush carpets and satin lampshades that were Frances’s choice in the one place she had been allowed to indulge her decorating talents. He tried never to go into the bedroom in daylight. But this evening there was the matter of wine to be discussed. A visit could not be avoided.

  Toby did not much mind that Ralph Cotterman was coming to dinner. He was a very frequent guest, as he had been for years. And these days Toby was impervious to Ralph. He could at last trust him – indeed, he had been wrong, in the past, ever to have had his suspicions. Ralph was an honourable man. What Toby felt for him now was, primarily, pity. It was rotten luck on a man to love another man’s wife. Frances had confessed to Toby long ago, before their marriage, to her affair with Ralph, and the concern she felt about the enduring love – unrequited, of course – Ralph felt for her. ‘He’ll grow out of it,’ she often said. Toby had no idea whether Ralph had grown out of it or not; it was not a subject he cared to discuss – particularly since the drama, the disaster, eleven years ago. (Eleven years ago this month, he remembered.) It was odd, Toby sometimes thought, that Ralph still had not married – but that must be some reflection on the type of women available to a man in his early forties. Presumably he had recovered from Frances, for ever since that terrible evening he had behaved impeccably. Perhaps, even that night, Ralph had not actually done anything . . . this suspicion did not dull with time. Certainly, these days, there was no gesture for which Toby could reproach Ralph. Whatever the man currently felt for Frances, he was a magician in disguising it. Sometimes, in fact, he was so distant as to be almost rude. Frances, curiously, was the one who constantly conveyed warmth, affection, the kind of love made easy by old habit. Occasionally Toby would catch her smiling at Ralph, teasing him, putting her arms round him, all to no avail – signs, surely, that Ralph’s passion was dead and that Frances’s gestures were permissible because they ceased to affect him. Toby was not an analyser of human relations (computers and badgers being his greater interests). The only thing he could be sure of was that, these days, he shared his wife’s affection for Ralph, thought of him as a friend.

  Toby crossed the shadowed landing, swung open the heavy wooden door of the bedroom. A peached light instantly confused his eyes. It rose in dull haloes from many fringed lamps, unnecessarily on, considering the luminous evening sky outside. More Keatsian adjectives flamed in his mind: ‘silken, hush’d, chaste’. This was more a bedchamber, than a room, Toby often thought. As his eyes grew calmer, he approached his wife. She was sitting at the dressing-table, wearing a carelessly wrapped white dressing gown. Her crossed legs were swung to one side of the stool – an uncomfortable position, it appeared, but a habitual one. The skirt of her dressing gown parted over fragile knees.

  ‘Hello, darling,’ Frances said. Very briefly her eyes shimmied away from her own reflection in the looking glass, to Toby’s. ‘Have you been shut up with the computers since lunch?’

  Toby ignored the small undertone of accusation.

  ‘I have,’ he said.

  Frances’s mouth, still only visible to him in reflection, widened as she pulled on the shining brown lipstick. Or maybe it was a smile.

  ‘People have been ringing up all day saying their invitations have arrived, and they’re coming.’

  ‘That’s good,’ said Toby, who had been living with party news, party ideas, party speculation, for many weeks now. Were he not to keep his (not very great) interest in reserve, The Party would dominate all their conversations. ‘I just wondered what we’re eating tonight so that I can think about the wine.’ (Wine was another thing he had little natural interest in thinking about.)

  ‘Lamb fillet with ginger and spring onions,’ said Frances. ‘And – guess what?’

  ‘Chocolate soufflé?’

  ‘Right.’

  Toby smiled. Frances, equipped with a talented Italian cook, took a great deal of trouble to choose all the food she knew her husband liked best. It was one of the things he loved her for. She turned a little: Toby could see her profile. She pushed a long strand of hair behind her ear, the side Toby was standing. His eyes were drawn magnetically to the small, pearly lobe. A tiny vertical scar, silvery as a snail’s trail, shone on the white skin. Frances picked up a gold earring, tilted her head the better to find the pierced hole. It was a ritual, repeated innumerable times in the years of their marriage, that Toby dreaded witnessing and tried to avoid. He cursed himself for his mistiming this evening.

  ‘Damn this thing,’ said Frances, jabbing the point of the earring about the lobe. ‘You going back up till dinner?’

  ‘Think I will.’

  ‘Ralphie’s coming about eight.’

  ‘Give me a shout when he arrives.’

  ‘Right.’

  The earring was in place. Frances was now securing it with its small gold butterfly. Toby turned away, went swiftly to the door. He felt quite sick. Some guilts, he had discovered, do not diminish. Frances’s scar – reminding, reminding – would it never fade? – fed his regret, haunted his life in a way that was increasingly frightening. It may have been for this reason he spent so many hours designing complex computer programmes (brilliance in this field had made his fortune). It was possibly for this reason, too, that he agreed to Frances’s extravagant plans for parties: thus there was always something to be talked about, worked upon with her, a project in hand. Deflection of the mind was essential to Toby Farthingoe. If he allowed himself time in which to reflect upon the darkness of his soul, he dreaded to think what might happen.

  The May evening that had caused Toby eleven years of remorse had been very similar to today: all the brightness of young leaves washed by a light shower of rain, rough parts of the garden hazy with forget-me-nots and bluebells. They had gone to a supper party given by Martin and Ursula Knox in North Oxford. The Knoxes lived in a smaller house in those days, and had paid little attention to its shabby aspects, knowing it would be a temporary measure before finding somewhere larger. A previous owner had invested only in an elaborate conservatory attached to the kitchen which led to a long, narrow back garden.

  As the evening was unusually warm for early summer, guests took their food and drink out into the garden. They sat on coats and rugs and terminable cane chairs. Ralph Cotterman was the only one who would not allow himself to relax. He chivvied about helping Ursula, collecting plates or refilling drinks, acting in a more host-like manner than Martin himself. As the sky darkened, someone lit a garden candle. Coats were gathered round shoulders. There seemed to be a mutual, unspoken reluctance to go inside. But by ten o’clock, the illusion of summer had evaporated. The air had become sharp. Toby, who drank very little himself, noticed that others emptied their glasses faster, at Ralph’s insistence, to keep out the cold. He also noticed that Ralph paid no more attention to Frances than he did to any of the other guests. His only concern seemed to be to help Ursula. This disguise, for the love Frances had claimed Ralph felt for her, was indeed impeccable.

  Toby had sat on a bench at the far end of the garden, happy that no-one felt obliged to seek him out and make conversation. It was his habit, on occasions he was forced to join such a gathering, to detach himself at the earliest possible moment: to observe rather than join in. His own feeling was that parties of any kind were not the places for proper communication. He was bored by small talk and idle chatter, though entertained by his observations from afar. His wife, for instance, assumed a special way of standing at parties: hips thrust slightly forward, head tilted to one side in the traditional guise of a good listener, long hair tumbling over one shoulder, sparkling with blond lights. Was she conscious of what the professional observers of such things now called body language? At this very mom
ent she was making herself agreeable to an elderly professor. Frances was indiscriminate in her attentions. It mattered to her very much that she should be liked and, if possible, remembered, by everyone.

  Someone – Ralph, at Ursula’s request, Toby supposed – turned on some music. The melancholy voice of Ruth Etting singing Harvest Moon trailed down the garden. Through the conservatory windows, Toby could just make out two people, partly obscured by pots of geraniums and summer jasmine, move in a preoccupied dance: Ralph and Ursula. Then Ursula shouted to the others to join them. One or two couples rose obediently from the grass.

  The music deflected Frances’s concentration from the professor. Toby saw her look wildly round in anticipation of a partner. She was a passionate dancer, scathing of many inadequate men who fell short of her waltzing standards. Her gaze swivelled to the far end of the garden. She saw her husband, smiled. Then she bunched up the gauzy red stuff of her skirt in one hand – quite unnecessary, considering its shortness – and pranced towards him. As she approached, Toby recognised the almost imperceptible glitter that always came to her eyes after several glasses of wine. She stopped a yard short of him, tilted her head to one side.

  ‘What are you doing here, Tobes? Come and dance.’

  ‘You know perfectly well I never dance.’

  If Frances had been completely sober she might have been more insistent. She might have taken his hand, pulled him up, forced him on to the improvised dance floor, as she had succeeded in doing on rare occasions in the past. As it was, she merely gave him another small smile, indicating that she had no intention of wasting her allure on a husband who was not interested. Toby’s reaction was further determination not to move. He hated any form of flirtation directed towards him, particularly by his wife.

  ‘Oh, Tobes. . . .’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Very well. I dare say I’ll find someone who won’t mind.’

  She turned and moved away, her back view sprightly with offence. Had Toby conceded to her wishes, he reflected a thousand times since, the rest of the events of the evening might never have occurred.

  He had continued to sit in his dark corner of the garden, watching the flame of the fat candle splay over the wax, and shadow figures of the dancers moving awkwardly through the crowded plants. After a while he looked at his watch and saw that it was past midnight: time to go home. Dreading the argument which would doubtless ensue with Frances, whose stamina for late nights far outreached his own, he made his way to the conservatory.

  He stood at the French windows, looking in. Despite the high-pitched scents of lilies and jasmine, the place smelt as musty as a potting shed. Hot, cloying air from within embalmed his face while his back, exposed to the garden, felt cold. The dancers, their feet gritty on the quarry-tiled floor, were joyless, tired, uncomfortably cramped by the jungle of trailing leaves. Ursula and Martin, dancing together, seemed the only ones to be enjoying themselves. Martin had one hand round his wife’s waist; they swayed, a little apart, talking with animation. Toby peered beyond them. Where was Frances?

  As his eyes grew accustomed to the moon-slatted light, slanting through the glass roof, Toby saw her. She stood at the far end of the conservatory, by the kitchen window. Ralph was her partner, but they made no attempt to dance. Ralph loosely held her waist. Frances’s hands were on his shoulders. They stared at each other. From Ralph’s expression – slight frown – it seemed to Toby he was reflecting on something Frances had just said. Then, without smiling, Ralph took a hand from her waist and pushed a stray lock of hair from her eyes. Frances tossed her head, completing the process. She raised one hand from its position on Ralph’s shoulder, pointed her long-nailed finger at him accusingly. Then she gently brushed it across a few inches of Ralph’s aggressively striped shirt, and whispered.

  Even as Toby scythed towards them, he saw Ralph push Frances back – alarm, guilt, on his face. Toby slashed at Frances’s shoulder, spinning her round to face him. Her eyes, too, were bright with fear.

  ‘Home,’ said Toby.

  They did not say goodbye to their hosts. It was no occasion for the niceties of convention. Frances followed him without protest to the car. Toby slammed the doors, but then drove more slowly than usual, bending over the steering wheel to ease the lacerating pain in his insides.

  They did not speak for some incalculable time. Then Frances embarked on her explanation.

  ‘I don’t know what’s come over you, Tobes. Really. Are you off your head? What on earth did you imagine Ralph and I were up to? We were completely innocent, I swear it. Completely innocent. All right, he pushed a bit of hair out of my eyes, but that’s something any friend would do. I mean, you’d do it to Ursula or someone -’

  ‘I wouldn’t -’

  ‘– and anyhow, you know, feeling as he does about me, Ralph would never make a move. He’s a gentleman, for heaven’s sake. Don’t you trust him? Don’t you trust me?’ Her voice rose. ‘Tobes: answer, for heaven’s sake. I can’t bear your ridiculous silence. If you’re angry, then bloody well shout at me, even though there’s nothing in the world to be angry about. Oh, for heaven’s sake. You silly old thing . . . you can’t be jealous, can you? I’ve never known you jealous. You never warned me that talking to an old friend would make you jealous. I don’t know. . . . But do say something, accuse me so that I can defend myself of whatever crime you think I’ve committed.’ She paused for a while, then sighed. ‘Very well. Keep your silence. If you feel like that. I’d never guessed you could be such a fool.’

  Toby, his eyes meticulously on the silver road, still said nothing.

  Home, they entered the house in silence. Frances walked huffily upstairs without switching on lights. Toby heard the slam of the bedroom door. He paced the darkness of the hall for a while. Moonlight, obstructed by the cedars without, splintered through the landing window, silvering the braided wood of the bannisters. The grandfather clock chimed one. Married just three years, Toby thought, and it’s over. He dug his nails into his palms and felt a blade of cold sweat split his spine. He felt murderous, terrified.

  At last, he climbed the stairs, bent as an old man, still trying to ease the pain in his guts. He knew he was about to do something inconceivable, and had no power to control himself. Quietly, he opened the bedroom door.

  Frances’s scarlet dress lay like a pool of rumpled blood on the peach carpet. She herself sat at the dressing-table, in the white satin dressing gown she had bought on their honeymoon, brushing her hair.

  ‘Come on, Tobes,’ she said. So innocent. ‘Don’t be silly.’

  Toby walked to the dressing-table, put out his hand to feel its cold glass top, hoping to steady himself. Frances went on brushing her hair, seductive, pushing it behind her ears. From the ear just inches away from Toby swung one of the dangling pearl and diamond earrings which he had given her last Christmas, and which she loved. Mesmerised by the glinting rhythm of its swinging, Toby heard himself suddenly cry out, fighting for breath. A web of computer-like coloured dots clouded his eyes. The next thing he knew the earring was between his finger and thumb. He was pulling, pulling downwards. Frances’s head was sinking beneath his force. She screamed as the point of the earring tore down through the rubbery skin of her small lobe. Toby stepped back, bloodied earring in his hand. Frances was on the floor. Blood spurted from the split lobe, reddening strands of hair, and splattering her white satin shoulders.

  The physical manifestations of Toby’s mania fled within seconds. It was replaced by a feeling of great strength, great calm. His hands did not shake as he carried Frances to the bed, put towels beneath her head, telephoned the doctor. Timeless moments later, he sat holding her hand while the doctor gave her a local anaesthetic, stitched up the lobe and insisted she take a sedative.

  ‘As for you,’ the doctor said, ‘perhaps you would come round to my surgery in the morning and do some explaining. Your wife will be all right. I think we should sort out what’s the matter with you.’

  ‘Ve
ry well,’ answered Toby.

  Alone with Frances again, he continued to sit on the side of the bed, stroking her arm. She said nothing, just looked at him with bewildered eyes. The other earring still hung from her unharmed ear, at rest against her cheek. Soon she fell asleep.

  In bed beside her, Toby was aware of the lightness of his body, the relief after explosion. But as the hours interminably passed, he sensed the first savage ticking of remorse, a thump as regular as his heartbeat. In the silence of that night he wept internally – the kind of weeping that brings no tears, no sound, and no relief.

  The sun had been up several hours when he moved over to Frances and laid his head on her chest. She woke at once. She said her ear was painful, but nothing too serious. She ruffled her hand through Toby’s hair.

  ‘I understand,’ she said at last, ‘and I’m sorry. You misunderstood, but that’s not the point.’ Toby had never heard her speak so quietly. ‘The important thing, now, is no recriminations on either side. No – please don’t say anything, anything. Except to make me one promise: promise never, ever to speak about last night again, the whole of our married lives. Will you?’

  Toby, who had been expecting her to suggest arrangements for divorce, promised. And they both kept their word.

  Over the ensuing years, Toby often wondered, and indeed marvelled, at the nature of his wife’s extraordinary forgiveness. Frances, for her part, was fractionally subdued for some months, as if seeking a quest, a mission. Then suddenly inspired, she asked Toby if they could give a party. He agreed eagerly, and watched her spirits recover as she made her elaborate plans. For the next nine years there were many Farthingoe parties: their daughter Fiona was born an hour after a dance one New Year’s Eve. Once her torn ear had healed, Frances continued to wear the earrings, saying she would always love them. This seemed to Toby most extraordinary of all, a gesture he had long since given up trying to understand. But the unanswerable questions would not go away. Was it all part of her strategy of forgiveness? Or was she determined he should never forget?