A Crowded Marriage

by Catherine Alliott

  “You’re not eating?” I said in surprise to Hannah as she waved away Eddie’s offer of a burger. This was a first.

  “No, thanks. In fact,” she staggered to her feet, “I think I’m going to go to the loo.”

  “Good luck,” I grinned up at her, then saw that she really did look very pale. “Are you going to be all right?” I made to get up, concerned.

  “Fine, fine,” she waved me away impatiently as she moved heavily across the terrace, making painful progress.

  “She looks terrible,” I hissed to Mum, who’d sat down beside me with her plate.

  “I know, and personally I agree with Eddie. I think she’s pulled something at the gym. It’s the same one Dawn goes to, you know, and Dawn says they really make you work out. What Hannah’s doing there I simply can’t imagine.”

  I regarded my mother beside me. “You get on well with Dawn, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I do, but not for much longer. She’s moving to Newcastle next week, leaving your father in the lurch.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Apparently that’s where the best beauticians’ course is, and she applied and got in. I think even your father’s mid-life crisis doesn’t extend to living in student digs complete with bean bags and cheese plants, so he’s staying put.”

  “Well, that’ll be the end of that relationship, then. He’s also far too lazy to go up for weekends, and she’ll probably get distracted by the local talent.”

  “Shame,” mused Mum.

  “Let’s see who he comes up with next,” I grinned.

  She grimaced. “That dreadful Tessa Stanley asked him to dinner at the Hurlingham last week. I do hope he doesn’t take up with her.”

  I shot her a sideways look. It was odd. Mum was positively gleeful about the likes of Dawn, yet didn’t want him consorting with any of their old friends in London. That was her territory. Her stamping ground. It seemed she was happy for him to make a fool of himself in the country where no one knew him, but not amongst old muckers.

  “Who’s that terribly attractive Irishman in the blue shirt who was here a moment ago?” she asked in a low voice.

  “That’s the supremely arrogant Pat Flaherty. He’s a hugely expensive vet—don’t let him anywhere near Samba.”

  “Well, you know Samba: she’s the most unfriendly cat imaginable. Totally arrogant herself, so she probably wouldn’t let him anywhere near her. Why, only the other day I tried to take her for an injection and…darling, what’s wrong?”

  I was on my feet. Pink with shock and fury. For there, through the open French windows, in a dark corner of the drawing room, reflected in the mirror above the fireplace, my worst nightmare was unfolding before my eyes. I’ve heard that when faced with trauma, the human psyche deals with it by shattering the evidence; fragmenting it, there being only so much shock it can take in one go. And shatter this image did; it fairly spun too. But even in its disjointed, kaleidoscopic state, a few immutable facts remained. The look on my husband’s face as, presuming himself to be hidden from view behind the door and exquisitely alone, he took Eleanor in his arms; the longing in Eleanor’s eyes as he gathered her towards him; the way their bodies melded seamlessly together. The bald, simple truth.

  Chapter Eighteen

  My hand gave an involuntary jerk and my glass let loose a stream of Pimm’s, which flew through the air, splashing into Mum’s lap.

  “Oh!” She leaped to her feet, shaking her dress.

  I stared at the large dark stain as if I’d never seen anything like it, then back to the drawing room. I couldn’t speak.

  “Don’t worry, darling, it washes beautifully,” Mum was saying as she seized a napkin and began mopping frantically. “I spilled some balsamic vinegar on it the other day and thought—oh well, that’s the end of that, but—oh…”

  I was vaguely aware of her pausing in her mopping to stare, as I hurried away without even an apology, across the terrace to the French windows. I flew into the room and spun around. No canoodling couple sprang apart at my dramatic entrance; no one gasped in horror, no eyes grew wide with fear, no hands flew to mouths. Eleanor was sitting in an armchair talking animatedly on the telephone, and Alex was on the opposite side of the room on his hands and knees, his head in a cupboard full of glasses.

  “Yes, that’s fine,” Eleanor was saying, “and if you could deliver on Tuesday that would be even better.”

  “Can’t find them anywhere,” Alex muttered into the cupboard’s depths. He drew his head out and glanced round. “Oh, hello, love. Eleanor’s tasked me off to find some water tumblers before everyone gets too pissed. Apparently the party needs diluting.” He rested back on his haunches. Frowned up at me. “Are you all right?”

  I stared down at him, flummoxed.

  “Good.” Eleanor put the phone down with a decisive click. “That was the silk flower company, they’re coming with some samples on Tuesday.” She grinned at me. “Your mother’s really enthused me, Imogen. I’ve got the bit between my teeth about having a pastiche garden. Can’t you just see Louisa’s face when she fingers a lily and gets the shock of her life!” She laughed. Then her face clouded over. “Are you OK? You look a bit pale.”

  “Yes…no. I’m…fine.”

  “D’you mean these?” Alex took some tall tumblers from the cupboard.

  “Perfect. Grab a few of those, would you, and make sure Louisa gets one. She’s flying already. I’ve put a few bottles of Perrier on the table.” She got to her feet. “Are you sure you’re OK, Imogen?”

  “Yes, I—I’m fine,” I stammered. I tried to regulate my breathing. It was coming in sharp, heavy bursts.

  “It is terribly hot,” Eleanor peered at me, worried.

  “Yes. I—I think I’ll have a glass of water too.”

  “Do. Help yourself. Oh, and if you wouldn’t mind taking a few glasses out, that’d be great.”

  I picked up some glasses and went back outside in a daze. I felt a bit faint. I went over to the drinks table. Held on to the edge. Then I poured myself some water. Suddenly I glanced sharply back over my shoulder at Alex. He’d followed me outside, dropped off the glasses, and was talking to Eddie now, over by the terrace steps; hands in his pockets, leaning back and roaring with laughter at something Eddie said. Eleanor was crouched down in front of Rufus and Theo with a tub of ice cream, letting them scoop it out inexpertly themselves into cones. No furtive looks were being exchanged, neither of them looked unsettled, rattled. I put the water to my lips and realised my hand was shaking. I put the glass down and raised a hand to my forehead. It was damp. I was going mad. I was actually going mad, seeing things that weren’t there, that weren’t really happening. Not just imagining the worst, but seeing the worst. Going insane.

  I walked shakily back to Mum and sat down mutely beside her. She was dipping her napkin in water now, still dabbing at her lap. She glanced up as I sat down.

  “Are you all right, darling? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “I’m fine,” I muttered. “Sorry about your dress.”

  “Couldn’t matter less. I told you, it’ll come out in the wash.”

  I picked up my plate of food wordlessly from the York stone, but couldn’t touch it. I was aware of someone watching me. Pat, over by the drinks table, was ostensibly talking to my father and Piers, but looking at me. Had he seen me stand up, spill my drink and dash inside like a lunatic? Well, I’d embarrassed myself in front of that man so many times, one more wasn’t going to make any difference, I thought bitterly. And I’d been so sure, I thought, staring blankly back into the drawing room. So sure I’d seen them there together, but—well, that was classic, wasn’t it? Classic jealous imaginings, the mind playing tricks, the green-eyed monster feeding on whom it preys. Of course. Truth or illusion. Illusion or truth. In this case, very much illusion. And it was very hot. Too hot, for May. I glanced ar
ound at Dad, fanning himself with his napkin; Mum, beside me, reaching for her straw hat. Yes, that must be it. The sun had got to me. And the Pimm’s.

  Behind me, Piers was bellowing with laughter as he teased Pat.

  “…don’t give me that, Pat. Your place is a complete totty magnet! You’ve got no end of fillies trotting in and out of there. I saw one myself going in only the other day!”

  “Nonsense,” drawled Pat, “that was my Great-aunt Phyllis.”

  “What, with long blond hair, dark glasses and pink jeans?”

  “Ah, you must mean Cousin Dorothy.”

  “Don’t believe you for one moment, old boy. My money’s on that being some poor, unsuspecting bastard’s wife!”

  Everyone’s at it, I thought feverishly, scrunching my napkin tight in my fist. This man for starters. And God knows who else, at every conceivable opportunity. You only had to look over the balustrade into the fields beyond to see squirrels chasing each other into thickets, bunnies fornicating in bushes, sparrows doing it in mid-air. Was my husband at it too?

  “I’m worried about Hannah,” Mum muttered in my ear. “She’s been gone an awfully long time.”

  “I’ll go and look,” I said, getting up again, glad of the excuse to go inside; to get out of the sun, splash my face with water. My head was throbbing now.

  “Oh, would you? Thank you, my sweet.”

  I went, with careful, measured steps, back across the terrace, and in through the French windows to the drawing room. As I crossed the threshold I stood for a moment, my eyes darting around; taking in the mirror that had so recently played tricks on me, presenting me with a false image, and which even now was shocking me again with my own reflection. I raised a hand to my cheek, astonished by my pallor. How pale I looked; how huge and troubled my eyes. I hurried away, and was about to leave the room when my eyes fell on the telephone. It was an integral part of a fax machine, on a table near the chair Eleanor had been sitting in. Glancing quickly over my shoulder to check I wasn’t being observed, I lifted the receiver and quickly pressed redial. After a couple of rings, a clear, fluty voice rang out.

  “Good afternoon, Marlborough College?”

  Marlborough College. Where Eleanor’s elder children were at boarding school. Not the silk flower company she was ordering her pastiche garden from.

  “Hello?” the voice said impatiently.

  “I—I’m sorry. Wrong number.”

  I put the phone down, my heart pounding. Well—perhaps they’d rung her, the flower company, to say they could deliver on Tuesday. I punched out 1471 then pressed 3, but it was the local butcher in Little Harrington, not a silk florist. I swallowed. My mouth was very dry. I barely had any saliva. I could hear my heart hammering in my throat. Was I…not going mad, but being sent mad? By the pair of them? I paused for a moment, steadying myself on the arm of the chair. No, I thought suddenly. No, you’re wrong, Imogen, because of course, she’d been using a mobile, hadn’t she. Had she? I racked my brains feverishly, tried to think back, but my memory was confused. I could visualise her sitting in this chair, talking animatedly, pushing back her brown curls…Had she been on her mobile? Yes, I decided slowly. Yes, I think she had. Was fairly sure, anyway. Because apart from anything else, this phone was attached by a cord to the apparatus. It wasn’t a hands-free, so…would it even stretch? To the chair? I lifted the receiver and tried to sit down with it. Only just. I held it to my ear. And not comfortably. The coiled cord was taut—wouldn’t I have noticed that? If the cord had been—

  “Press nine for an outside line, Imogen.” Piers had stuck his head through the open French windows. “That one doesn’t have a direct line.”

  “Oh!” I threw the receiver down, but missed the apparatus. On the carpet, the receiver thrashed about, like a snake. I flushed as I retrieved it. “N-no, it’s OK.”

  “No, go ahead, it’s just you need to press nine.”

  “I will. Later. It was engaged, you see.”

  “Yes, but you would have dialled the wrong number,” he said coming through the doors. “If you didn’t press nine you—look, try again but this time—”

  “I will. In a minute,” I said through clenched teeth, wanting to bite him. He stopped, astonished. I flashed him a nervous smile, and left the room.

  So stupid, Imogen, I thought as I hastened away, to be caught sniffing around suspiciously, reenacting the scene of the crime, when there wasn’t even a crime. You saw for yourself how entirely innocent it all was—Eleanor on the phone, husband in a cupboard—your eyes had been deceiving you. Yes, my eyes had been deceiving me, I thought with a jolt. That was a well-known expression, wasn’t it? A cliché. And cliché’s wouldn’t exist if they hadn’t been borne out hundreds of times, if countless pairs of eyes hadn’t been deceived over the years, would they?

  After the bright buzz of the terrace, the big empty house seemed cool and still. Its heavy dark boards and oak-panelled passages soothed me as I padded down them. This wasn’t my world, or even the real one, but it was a much more comfortable one than the one outside, with its searching flashlights; its many pairs of eyes, the sun. I made my way to the main hall with its wide, heavily carved staircase, the gallery above running around three sides of it, and for a moment, couldn’t remember what I was doing there. I stopped. Put a hand to my forehead. Oh, yes, Hannah. I went on quickly and tried the loo by the front door. It was more like a study than a lavatory, with its framed prints, humorous cartoons and bookcase stuffed full of paperbacks, an ancient cistern in the corner—but no Hannah.

  Back across the hall I went, turning into a corridor, and pushing through the green baize door to the back passage. This was a different world again, and my footsteps clattered noisily as I swapped soft oak boards and Persian rugs for shiny terracotta tiles. It smelled of dogs and steam irons: a radio played loudly. As I passed the open kitchen door I saw Vera with her back to me, humming away as she washed up at the sink. There was another loo down here, the one I’d tried to use during the dinner party, but that too was empty. I popped back to the kitchen and stuck my head around.

  “Vera.” My voice didn’t sound like my own. Too husky. I cleared my throat as she turned. “Vera, you haven’t seen my sister, Hannah, anywhere, have you?”

  “Would that be the rather large—I mean…” she stopped, embarrassed.

  “That’s it, in a blue dress.”

  “She went upstairs, luv. Someone was in the downstairs one, so I sent her up there.”

  “Thanks.”

  I retraced my steps and mounted the main staircase, my hand brushing the oak rail as I went. Piers’s ancestors gazed sourly down at me through layers of blackened varnish, all with that same cold, disdainful look of his mother. Not for the first time I decided I didn’t envy Eleanor the bed she’d made for herself. My heart gave a sudden lurch. But that doesn’t mean she envies yours, I told myself quickly. What, swap all this for Shepherd’s Cottage, with its tiny mildewed rooms and a view of the muckheap at the back? Don’t be soft.

  Upstairs was vast, creamy and sprawling, and the first few rooms I encountered looked distinctly pristine and spare. No Hannah. I began to get rather irritated. How far into the bowels of this house had she gone? Exactly how nosy was she being, here? I pressed on further down the corridor and reached another staircase where the rooms were more colourful: a couple had rock stars and models on their walls, another had ponies, and all three were clearly awaiting their occupants back from school. Only Theo’s room had the look of full residency, with soldiers and cars all over the floor and a splodge of red paint on the carpet. And Theo was off next year, I remembered, shutting his door again, so this room would be empty too. I wondered if I could ever send Rufus away, and knew immediately, with thumping great certainty, that I couldn’t. God, I wasn’t even sure I’d let him go to university. Everyone said when they were six foot two and lay horizontal on your sofa all day with the
ir size ten trainers, I’d feel differently, but Rufus I knew, would never be like that. He’d always be nine years old, with dimpled cheeks and russet-red curls.

  As I passed the landing window, I spotted him down in the garden, on the swings with Theo. I paused to look fondly as he soared high into the air, laughing into the wind. Immediately below me, on the terrace, Dad was talking to Mum. I saw her finger his Hawaiian shirt, roll her eyes expressively and then do a quick hula-hula movement with her hands. Dad laughed, taking it in good heart, as Dawn did too, and then Dawn really did do a hula-hula dance, whilst Eddie grabbed the barbecue tongs and pretended to bang bongo drums. Dad then felt compelled to do a spot of limbo dancing, and Mum threw back her head and roared. I smiled. Whatever anyone thought, they were really rather jolly, my family. And anyway, who cared what anyone thought? I did, I thought nervously, craning my neck to see if Piers had spotted the cabaret, but he seemed oblivious, and was helping himself, rather furtively, I felt, to a gin and tonic from the drinks table. Eleanor was talking to Lady Latimer and Alex was there too, looking bored and picking his nose. I jolted with relief. Would he look bored and pick his nose if he were in love with her? Of course he bloody wouldn’t! You are a fool, Imogen Cameron, I decided, moving on. A silly, neurotic fool.

  The next landing looked very plush and private, and I guessed I was entering Piers and Eleanor’s own quarters, judging by the family photos dotted around the walls. I was just wondering which of the four white-panelled doors around me would yield a bathroom and my shameless sister, when I heard a shout of pain coming from one of them.

  “Hannah?” I tried the handle. It was locked. I rattled it. “Are you in there?”

  “Yes!” she gasped back.

  I went cold.

  “Hannah, are you OK?”

  “No, I’m bloody not! Hang on.”

  I heard movement within, and then she unlocked the door, hanging heavily on to the handle, before collapsing in a heap on the cream carpet. I flew to her side.