The Mistress of Alderley

by Robert Barnard

  “Go on, ask the question you want to ask,” said Marius.

  “No. You know I tr—”

  “Go on—ask it.”

  The understanding between them was too total for Caroline to hold back any longer, though she was still reluctant.

  “Are you the father?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know who is?”

  “No.” Marius’s face screwed up into an expression of puzzlement. “As you know, Sheila and I are just friends, though perfectly good ones, and with a long history behind our friendship. It’s because it works so well, our friendship, that we’ve never opted for divorce. Why change something that, by and large, works well.”

  “So you’ve discussed it?” Caroline asked.

  “Oh yes.”

  “I thought it might be the children.”

  “That was the other thing. I’m afraid I’m rather traditional. I believe children need stability. I can become the heavy father if necessary. You can’t do that coming from a position of weakness.”

  “So you’ve stayed together, but both gone your own way.”

  “Sheila has had a lot of—let’s say pals, something more casual. She goes around with them to charity dos, arts events. I thought she’d gone off sex, though I did suggest it might be that she’d just gone off sex with me.”

  “Difficult to imagine. And you think it’s one of these culture-vulture friends, or one of her charity junkies, who’s the father of this baby-to-be?”

  Marius shrugged.

  “Maybe. I just don’t know. If I was a betting man—”

  “Yes?”

  “I’d bet on one of her arty friends, maybe one a lot younger than her.”

  “I see….”

  “One that she wouldn’t think of having a long-term relationship with.”

  “But I take it she told you about the pregnancy. Didn’t you ask about the father?”

  “Of course. She just said it wasn’t important.”

  Caroline’s eyebrows shot up.

  “Well, that really is downgrading the male role. Is she some kind of extreme feminist?”

  “You know she’s not.”

  “So what she meant by it, I presume,” said Caroline slowly, “is that this doesn’t change anything.”

  “I assume so. When I’d had time to think through what she might have meant, that’s what I thought it must be.”

  “That you go on as you have been doing, and the child when it comes is treated as yours.”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s a decision only the two of you together can make.”

  “Of course.”

  “And are you willing to go along with it?”

  Marius chewed for a few moments, thoughtful.

  “I don’t know…. Why don’t you eat up?”

  Caroline looked down at her lamb chops as if she didn’t know how they had got there, and then up at Marius, who had continued attacking his swordfish. How could things suddenly be so ordinary again? She put her knife into the bright pink flesh and conveyed a piece to her mouth.

  “To get back to your question,” Marius said, “it occurred to me that if I went along with this, I’d only be doing what some man has probably done with an offspring of mine. That thought seems to give it a bit of perspective.”

  “You have a lot of such offspring?”

  “One or two. On the other side, Sheila is asking me to wink at the sort of activity that she has had to wink at from time to time with me.”

  “Rather more than that, surely. She’s never had to be a pretend mother.”

  “True. The really crucial question, I think, is what sort of a father I’d likely be to the child. If I know myself, I feel I’d be pretty unlikely to give it the sort of love and attention that I give my own children. Sad—bad, perhaps—but true.”

  “Honest, anyway.”

  “It’s a situation that calls for honesty. On your side too. I need to know whether you’re really being straight with me when you say you’re not interested in getting married.”

  Caroline didn’t need to consider.

  “Of course. I shall never be married again. I’m quite happy for the situation to continue as it is.”

  Marius scraped the last fragments of fish and sauce from his plate and then laid down his fork.

  “There is a possible halfway-house situation.”

  Caroline frowned.

  “I’m not sure I like the sound of that. I’ve never been one for messy compromises.”

  “I don’t know that this one is messy. I more or less move in with you, and keep the marriage up merely as a facade. I couldn’t run the businesses from the wilds of South Yorkshire, so it would mean your moving to London.”

  “Oh God—Maida Vale.”

  “I think we could manage Islington.”

  “I lived in Islington before it became fashionable. I’ve done Islington. Oh dear, I had hoped to have seen the last of London. I do so enjoy being at Alderley.”

  “Being the mistress of Alderley. I know you do. I see you enjoying the role. And it suits you down to the ground. The house was made for you, and you for it.”

  “And then again, perhaps living with you would be too much like being in a marriage. Perhaps it’s not marriage as such that doesn’t work for me. Perhaps it’s living with someone all the time.”

  “Sounds like heaven to me, but if it’s not that for you…”

  “Oh darling, you’re making me sound ungrateful and halfhearted. I’m not. But I have to be clear-eyed about myself, and about us.”

  “That’s exactly what I want both of us to be. Now—have another glass of wine, think things through, and then tell me how the situation appears to you after proper reflection. And then perhaps we can think about what we should do.”

  Caroline had had periods between the men in her life, and was used to eating quietly by herself and using the time to think things through. So she went back to her lamb, finished the plate almost greedily, then wiped her mouth while she considered what next.

  “We take it as read, I suppose,” she said finally, “that Sheila is not only not considering marriage to this child’s father, but is not considering entering into a relationship of any sort with him. Beyond casual and no-strings-attached sex.”

  “Yes, I think we can take that as read.”

  “That being the case, she will certainly need someone around at the time of the birth. OK, it’s not her first, but the others are nearly grown-up, and at her age there could be problems.”

  “So you think I should stay with her until the birth?”

  “Yes. Unless she has someone else lined up to be with her and play that role—mother, sister, whatever.”

  “She hasn’t. Hasn’t got either, for a start, and no best friend who fits the bill. There’s Helena, of course—they are great mates, Sheila and her—more mates than mother and daughter. But she is only fifteen. She just doesn’t measure up to the responsibility, I’m afraid. It would be unfair to put it on her.”

  “Then it comes down to you, doesn’t it?”

  “I suppose so. There’s not really a problem in my staying on until the birth. The question is what to do after the birth. Me there in the house with a small kid I have no particular feeling for, and a wife who is that only in name.”

  “You care for Sheila. That counts a lot. And we would still have our weekends.” The waiter was hovering, and she turned to him with an instant decision to get rid of him. “I’ll have the lemon sorbet.”

  “And I’ll have the apricot flan,” said Marius. “So…what you’re saying is: keep the arrangement as it now is, because it suits us, and see how things develop—circumstances, relationships—after the birth. Is that it?”

  “Yes, I think it is.”

  “Maybe it’s the least-worst solution.”

  “Oh dear—you do keep putting me off. I hate least-worst solutions. They often result, in fact, in the worst of both worlds. But in this case…to put it shortly, I
feel so happy that I don’t want this new situation to stop me being happy in this wonderful way.”

  “It won’t, my darling. It won’t.”

  He was looking at her with such love, but also with such a little-boy air, that suddenly what she had been waiting to say to him for almost two weeks came out without premeditation.

  “We had a hitchhiker drop by the other week, and do you know he had the look of a young you?”

  It was not at all how Caroline had intended bringing it up, if she brought it up at all. She had decided to discuss it seriously, look at ramifications such as the family’s poverty, the boy’s future. But it had just come out as a Funny Thing Happened to Me on the Way to the Forum type of remark—as if she were narrating an incidental oddity.

  “Oh? What was he called?”

  “Pete Bagshaw.”

  “Not one of my offspring. Where was he from?”

  “Here in Leeds. Armley.”

  “I was based in Manchester in my early years. Could be some kind of throwback…. Or, come to think of it, it could be one of my brother Phil’s youthful sins.”

  “I didn’t know you had a brother.”

  “I don’t. He died in a motorcycle accident when he was twenty-two. But he was living in Leeds then—back, oh, twenty-two or twenty-three years ago. How old was this boy?”

  “I don’t think he said. But early twenties, anyway. He’s at university, doing computer science.”

  “Good, God. It seems to run in the blood. Guy and him, and probably Alexander in a few years’ time.”

  “Alexander’s not your blood.”

  “But he begins to feel like it. I hope these young chaps don’t get disappointed: what seems like a smart career move now could mean they’re sent out into an industry overpopulated already with computer experts.”

  “Tell that to Alex, and try to persuade him to take something else.”

  “People should never be persuaded in matters of education or career. In the end they have to make their own mistakes, otherwise they blame you for life.”

  “So what sort of man was your brother?”

  Marius’s eyes went distant. He seemed hardly able to remember.

  “A real tearaway. The motorbike was sort of symbolic. Phil was a rebel, he slept around as if there was no tomorrow, had a succession of jobs and often no job at all, and was into petty crime. Maybe he would have come through that phase, maybe not. To tell you the truth I didn’t know him well enough to say. He was six years younger than me, and when he grew up and started going off the rails, I kept my distance. I was launching myself into the big world of commerce on my own account. One thing I could do without was a black sheep in my family.”

  “Well, maybe this boy Pete was his, maybe he is some kind of throwback, with both of you having a common ancestor—”

  “Or maybe it was just coincidence. I assure you I never kept a mistress in glamorous Armley, or had a son by anyone in Leeds.”

  And there they left it. Though the conversation was so different from the way she had planned it, Caroline felt perfectly happy with it. In fact, it had cleared the air, and left her for the rest of the weekend with a feeling of blissful contentment. Pete Bagshaw as the son of Marius’s scapegrace brother was a satisfactory explanation, though she did wonder whether he had somehow got it wrong and took Marius to be his father. That was the only way she could explain his final remark to her. That could be embarrassing or dangerous. As to the other matter, the solution they had come to began to seem to her close to the ideal: if, after the birth, Marius should find living with Sheila and the baby intolerable, he could get a flat in London, and she would visit him from time to time—something she would enjoy, and which she could not do so long as he remained with his wife. It could turn out to be a situation even better than the present one, she decided.

  Stella touched on that question on the Saturday, while Marius was away discussing business matters in Middlesborough, where he was thinking of opening a supermarket, precursor of a possible expansion in the North. Stella always came out with what she was thinking, apparently artlessly, though, in fact, she had found by trial and error that it was the best way to get her mother to talk.

  “So did you and Marius talk through what was bothering you over dinner?”

  “Nothing was bothering me,” said Caroline, temporizing. “It was Marius who had the problem. Yes, thank you: we talked it through, and came to a decision.”

  “And what was the problem?”

  Caroline sighed.

  “You are the most persistent…Oh, well, I suppose you’ll find out. Sheila Fleetwood is pregnant.”

  Stella whistled.

  “My God! They’re a bit ancient for that, aren’t they?”

  “She’s forty-three. And there’s no question of ‘they.’ It’s not Marius’s. He thinks it’s by some younger, casual boyfriend.”

  “So why isn’t she getting rid of it?”

  Caroline couldn’t think why she hadn’t asked Marius the same question.

  “I suppose because she doesn’t want to or doesn’t believe in it.”

  “Seems the most sensible solution if your marriage is falling apart and your husband is screwing a gorgeous actress he’s set up in a bijou stately home two hundred miles away.”

  “You put things so sweetly, Stella. Perhaps she thinks a baby will give her an interest, fill a gap in her life.”

  “A man would do it better, and be much less trouble.”

  “Some men,” said Caroline, with deadly emphasis. “A lot of the men I’ve had to do with wouldn’t. Maybe she doesn’t know anybody suitable. You can’t just buy a man over the counter at Harrods.”

  “I bet you could if Mr. al Fayed had the bright idea of stocking them. Anyway, what was the decision you both came to?”

  “To let things go on pretty much as they are, for the moment anyway.”

  “Probably sensible,” said Stella, with all the worldly wisdom of fourteen. “You’re happy as you are, and, if Marius is unhappy, he’s certainly not showing it. You’d probably notice if he was getting itchy.”

  “Itchy? You do use the most awful words, Stella.”

  Stella opened her mouth, but at that moment Marius’s car was heard on the graveled drive, and the weekend resumed its normal course.

  Olivia came as usual on Sunday. This time Caroline spotted Colm Fitzgerald’s car as it came through the gates, and she went out to meet him and invite him in. Olivia, she could tell, was not pleased. Colm had tea and cakes, met Marius, and was given a tour of the house and gardens. It was Caroline who gave him the tour, followed a few feet behind by Stella, who seemed taken by the large yet somehow forlorn tenor. When they got back into the house Olivia was practicing: great arcing phrases, unaccompanied, proceeded from what they now called the Music Room. Colm asked to use the lavatory, and two minutes later, coming back into the hall, Caroline caught Stella watching him from the security of the study while he himself, motionless halfway down the stairs, was watching Olivia—singing great swathes of glorious melody to cloth-eared Marius through the open door of the Music Room.

  “She’s in wonderful voice,” said Caroline, to make him realize she was there.

  “She leaves me for dead,” he said, and he seemed to be summing up their personal rather than their vocal relationship. He reluctantly tore himself away from the sound, and went toward the front door.

  “I’ll drive Olivia to the station tomorrow morning,” said Caroline. Colm seemed about to protest, but then he just nodded miserably and went out to his car.

  As the first night of Forza approached Olivia was getting jumpy. Two minutes after Colm drove away she broke in midphrase and announced: “It’s not right yet.” Two hours later she was practicing again. Stella accompanied her. She was doing rather well out of these sessions, but she looked as if she would rather be doing something else. The next morning when Caroline drove Olivia to Doncaster station she was still in a taciturn mood. Caroline understood. She had been
through it all in a milder way at high points in her stage career. She had the impression that opera singers did what actors did, but in an aggravated form.

  “Another idyllic weekend over,” said Stella to Alexander as they walked toward the bus stop on their way to school that same morning. “And Marius on his way back to his other woman.”

  “His mysteriously pregnant wife,” said Alexander, who had been whispered to on the subject. “If I was Mum I’d be suspicious.”

  “Maybe. But Mum has this instinct for not rocking the apple cart.”

  “Boat,” said Alexander. “If I was the latest in a long line of girlfriends and mistresses, which seems to be the case, my suspicion antennae would be perpetually on the quiver.”

  “So would mine. But Mum’s used to all this in theatrical circles. Let’s face it, Marius acts no worse than most of Mum’s friends.”

  “Or our beloved elder sister, come to that.”

  “The man-eater. The human boa constrictor. She was on tenterhooks yesterday, wasn’t she? I think she’s thrown over that tenor. Pity—I thought he was dishy. I might ask her, ‘Got a spare tenor, lady?’”

  “Very funny. Knowing her she’ll have someone else already.”

  “Maybe we should have said we’d go to Forza. Try and spot which of the cast is her current.”

  “Could be the director, or designer, or lighting man.”

  “Can’t see her stooping to the lighting man. Still, you’re right. It wouldn’t be worth sitting through three or four hours of opera on the off-chance. But she’s really a cat in heat, isn’t she?”

  “Except that she’s in heat the whole time…. She had a letter on Thursday morning.”

  Stella looked at him, puzzled.

  “Why shouldn’t she?”

  “She was supposed to have come on Wednesday night on an impulse, to get away from things operatic.”

  “She used to get letters when she was here for three weeks last summer. Possibly someone’s still got this address for her.”

  “Maybe. She snatched it when I took it in to her while she was practicing, and didn’t look at it while I was there…. Marius said Ghastly Guy might be coming with him in a fortnight’s time.”