A Crowded Marriage

by Catherine Alliott

  “As to the cottage,” he went on, “of course you can stay. I’d like you to. Theo would like it. And it might be good for the two little chaps in view of their rather similar circumstances.”

  “Yes, you’re right, it might. Thank you, Piers. But I’m not sure when I’ll be able to pay you. Alex and I haven’t worked out finances yet—haven’t worked out anything yet—so I don’t know…”

  “Oh, don’t worry about the rent.” He waved his hand. “Pay me whenever. You need somewhere to live, and if it suits you, it suits me. We’ll sort out the finer nuances in due course.”

  I got up suddenly and crossed the room. Reached up to kiss his cheek impulsively. “Thank you. Thank you so much. You’ve been very kind.”

  He looked taken aback, but not too displeased. As we moved as one towards the door, the interview seeming to be at a natural close, I thought, yes. Yes, that’s what he is, a kind man. A good man. And what, after all, is a little dullness, set against that?

  As we got to the front door, his ancient black Labrador lumbered up from the Persian rug in the middle of the hallway to say good-bye. I patted her.

  “She’s huge,” I observed.

  “She is. About to pop. This house is full of pregnant females.”

  “Oh!” I looked at him, but his face gave nothing away.

  “And she’s far too old to be giving birth—like someone else I know—but she slipped away while she was on heat. No doubt found some rough trade in the village.” This too delivered deadpan. “Can I interest you in a puppy?”

  “No, thanks. I’ve got enough animals.”

  “Well, quite, me too. I’ll have to keep one, though, to placate Theo. But Pat will deal with the rest.”

  “Oh—you mean…?”

  “Better than a sack at the side of the M25.” He saw my face. “It’s kinder, Imogen,” he went on more gently. “A humane injection. They won’t know about it. I suggested the same to Eleanor, but she wouldn’t hear of it.”

  He had a way of delivering these black lines that made me keep glancing up at him.

  “Sorry,” he said softly. “It’s my way of dealing with the situation. Got to get through it somehow.”

  I gave him a hug and, to my surprise, he held on tight. There were tears in his eyes too. I patted his tweedy shoulder.

  “We’ll get through this, Piers, you and I. We could even form a club for abandoned spouses,” I grinned.

  He chuckled. “Well, we’d better find some more members, or we’ll be the talk of the village. They’ll think we’re Finding Solace in Each Other.”

  I laughed, only a trifle nervously. Drew back. “Thank you for the cottage, Piers.”

  “Ah, yes. Back to the landlord-tenant relationship. My pleasure, wench. That’ll be two guineas and a spot of deflowering on the first of every month.”

  I giggled and turned to go, tripping lightly down the steps, crossing the gravel to the car. Gracious. He’d come out of his shell, hadn’t he? Positively sparky.

  Yes, it was odd, I reflected as I drove off towards Rufus’s school. Once the barriers had been broken down—or crashed down, by circumstances—you saw people for what they really were. The same as oneself. Insecure, fallible, but not without humour, if one bothered to look for it.

  On the road to the village, I flew past the turning to Winslow, where Dad lived. It was a good eight miles away, but…I glanced at my watch. I still had an hour to kill before I picked up Rufus. I hesitated, then on an impulse, performed an emergency stop and reversed dangerously up the lane, swinging the car left and driving off towards the bypass. Twenty minutes later I was threading through some backstreets to the middle of Dad’s little market town, coming to a halt outside the wisteria-clad exterior of his pale blue terraced house. I turned the engine off and gazed up at it. I’d dreaded telling my family, but now that I’d told one person, actually, it wasn’t so terrible. And maybe if I told Dad, who was the least likely to fall apart at the news, well, then maybe he could tell Mum and Hannah, and I wouldn’t have to?

  He came down the passage to the glass front door wearing a broad grin and a blue towelling dressing gown. Tom Jones was crooning away in the background and Dad was why-why-why Delilah-ing along with him in his broadest Welsh accent. Something in his swagger and the way he slid his hand seductively up the doorframe as he swung back the door with a flourish, told me he had company.

  “Ah. Bad moment.”

  “Not the best.” He grinned.

  “I’ll come back later.”

  “Could you, darling? Marvellous.”

  I smiled. “Helena Parker?” He inspected the paintwork on the architrave and attempted to look demure and sheepish, but actually, more like the cat who’d got an entire pint of cream. If he’d had a moustache he’d have stroked it. “Well…” his bare chest swelled under his dressing gown, “you know how it is.”

  I did. You had to hand it to Dad, didn’t you? I’d only seen him motoring off to London to wine and dine her a few days ago, and now, here she was, flat on her back in his king size.

  “You all right, luv?” He gave me a quizzical look as I turned to go.

  “Yes. Fine.”

  “Sure?”

  I took a deep breath. Actually, this would be ideal. Dad only had a few moments before he’d want to get back to prancing round the bedroom, shrugging his dressing gown off theatrically and twanging his thong to Delilah, prior to launching himself headlong at the bed and ravishing Helena. Why not?

  I turned. “Not great, actually. Alex and I have split up.”

  “Ah.” He nodded.

  I blinked. “‘Ah’? Is that it—‘ah’?”

  “Well, I had an idea it was coming. Can’t say I’m surprised. Rufus told me.”

  “Rufus! But when have you seen Rufus?”

  “Oh, not recently. But he told me when it happened. Alex and Kate.”

  I breathed in sharply. “Did he?”

  “Yes. About two years ago.”

  “Two years!” I had to clutch the drainpipe. Dad had tried to screen it with pyracantha, so it was horribly prickly. “Ouch!” I sucked my finger as it bled. Looked at him aghast. “I had no idea! Why did he tell you?”

  “Well, I suppose it was a big thing for a little chap to be carrying around. He had to tell someone. Couldn’t tell you, obviously, and I suppose he thought I’d had some experience in the field.”

  “What…did you tell him?” I gazed, horrified.

  “I told him that in all probability it was a one-off. That drunken adults did things like that at parties, and that it didn’t mean anything. That’s what I hoped too.”

  “It wasn’t that sort of party. It was a seven-year-old’s birthday.”

  “I know, luv,” he said softly. “Anyway, I told him to forget it, but when he saw them use tongues one night, he said he couldn’t forget it.”

  “Use what!”

  “Rufus said Kate returned some eggs she’d borrowed. You weren’t there, and he was in his room, but he saw them over the banisters. Alex closed the front door for a second and kissed her with his tongue.”

  I had a sudden mental image of Alex, daringly pressing Kate up behind the door, pushing himself against her, kissing her again and again, running his hands over her body; Kate, the eggs in her hand, aroused, murmuring for him to stop, loving it.

  “Right,” I muttered. “Well. You obviously know. No groundbreaking news here, then. It seems the wife, as ever, is the last to find out.”

  “I couldn’t tell you, luv. It seemed to me you wouldn’t want to be informed. Wouldn’t want the truth.”

  I thought about this.

  “You were wrong, actually, Dad. I wouldn’t have wanted to know about Eleanor, who I thought it was, but Kate…oh, yes. I’d have liked to have known. We all have our breaking point. Our saturation level. And that would ha
ve been mine. Has been mine. He’s gone, Dad. For ever, as far as I’m concerned.”

  He nodded. “And I applaud your decision. There are rakes and there are bounders, but Alex…well, I hate to say it about one of my own, but he was a bit of a…”

  “Shit.”

  “Hmm.” He looked uncomfortable.

  I straightened up. Collected myself. “Anyway, I’ll let you go. I’ve got to go and get Rufus.”

  “Give him my love.”

  “I will.”

  “He’s all right?”

  “He’s fine. He…what are those doing there?”

  “What?”

  He turned as I pointed to the hall table behind him.

  “Mum’s reading glasses. I recognise the case. I bought it for her in Bath when I…oh my God.”

  I’d seen his face. He was blushing. My father, who never blushed, who had so much neck he could challenge an emu, was turning the colour of the geraniums in the pot on the step.

  “Dad! I don’t believe it. Have you got Mum in there?”

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Dad’s bravado staged a dramatic comeback and he began to whistle softly as he pretended to dead-head a rambling rose around the door.

  “Mum?” I shoved him bodily aside and poked my head round. “Mum, are you in there?”

  My father cleared his throat. “Um, Celia, my dear, we appear to have been rumbled. I hope you’re decent.”

  “Perfectly decent, thank you. I was just throwing away these ghastly coasters—oh, hello, darling.”

  By now I’d pushed past Dad and made it down the hallway into the sitting room, where Mum, looking elegant in a buttermilk silk robe, her hair pinned up but falling down attractively à la Napoleon’s mistress, was disdainfully dropping Carlsberg beer mats into the waste-paper bin. I planted both feet apart, more for balance than stance.

  “Mum! What the hell are you doing here?”

  She tried to maintain her composure but I saw her neck redden. “Well, aside from ridding your father of some ghastly mementoes he’s picked up over the last ten years, what does it look like?”

  I sat down, stunned, on the arm of a chair. My legs simply wouldn’t support me any longer.

  “But I thought…” I turned to Dad, who, whilst pretending studiously to realign a raft of silver photo frames on a table, was also trying—not terribly hard—to suppress a smile. “I thought you were seeing Helena Parker! Thought it was all going swimmingly!”

  “Oh, it was. It worked a treat.”

  “Worked a…what d’you mean?”

  “I wasn’t really seeing Helena Parker, Imo, but when I met her the other week at Tessa Stanley’s dinner party, it occurred to me she was just the sort of woman to drive your mother crazy. As, of course, the others haven’t.”

  “The others haven’t? You mean…”

  “Imogen, your mother and I split up ten years ago, when, due to a mid-life male wobble, I had an affair with another woman. A stupid, silly mistake, but these things happen, or so I thought. Unfortunately, your mother saw it differently and chucked me out—quite rightly—and then put the seal on things by moving lock, stock and barrel to the South of France. So that was the end of everything. The end of our marriage. Finito.”

  “You never questioned it,” said Mum softly, perching on the piano stool and crossing her legs, arranging her dressing gown around them.

  “Because you never gave me a chance! You made it very clear from the outset that I would not be forgiven, and that you were starting a new life without me.”

  I glanced at her. It was true, she had. She’d never left the door ajar; was far too proud. But then, no one had thought Dad wanted to come back in.

  “You were firmly ensconced with Marjorie, or so I thought,” pointed out Mum.

  “Marjorie was a pain in the tubes,” he said irritably, “as you well know. She doesn’t draw breath and she nagged me the whole time.”

  “Well, I could have told you that. She nearly pecked poor Derek to death.”

  “And anyway, she went back to him—after a fairly hefty push from me—and I came out to see you in France.”

  “Yes, but you brought that magician’s assistant with you! Mandy something-or-other.”

  “Only to make you jealous. I thought if I went younger and prettier it would do the trick!”

  I put my head in my hands and rocked from side to side, groaning. “I don’t believe this,” I whispered to the carpet.

  “Younger and prettier?” Mum gazed at him incredulously. “But she lasted two years!”

  “Well, what was I supposed to do? I was on my own, spurned, deserted!”

  “And then came Audrey, and then Marissa—”

  “And all the time,” I jerked my head out of my hands, turned to her, “you found it more and more amusing, as each new model appeared.”

  “Well, it was! Seeing your father making an absolute fool of himself is, without doubt, hilarious.”

  “And as long as he was doing that, you could cope with it. But when he presented you with Helena Parker…”

  “Inspired,” murmured my father, drawing himself up and retying his dressing-gown cord. “An inspired choice. Elegant, sophisticated—”

  “Well, I wouldn’t be too pleased with yourself,” I snapped. “It took you ten years to think of it. I can’t believe you’ve wasted so much time!”

  My parents looked down at their feet like a couple of chastened, naughty children. “And all because you were too proud and stupid to talk to each other, to communicate. I’ve always wondered why pride was one of the seven deadly sins; well, now we know!”

  Further contemplation of the carpet ensued.

  “So—then what happened? You broke up with Dawn,” I turned accusingly to my father, “and while Mum was eagerly awaiting Trixie, or Jordan, rubbing her hands with anticipatory glee, you had a rush of blood to the head and realised—and what kept you—that you were on the wrong tack, and pretended you were seeing Helena. I seem to remember you even got the dress code right, the choice of restaurant.”

  “And then your mother rang her up!” roared Dad, eyes huge, voice full of awe. “Gave her an earful about honouring old friendships and ties, and about divided loyalties, and how she should keep her hands to herself, until Helena finally managed to get a word in edgeways and told her to get her tanks off her lawn, because aside from sitting opposite me at a dinner party the other night, she hadn’t seen me for four years!”

  “Yes, that was slightly embarrassing,” admitted Mum, inspecting her nails ruefully. “Had to do quite a bit of backpedalling and apologising, but Helena was very sympathetic. She’s always been a good friend, and in fact, she gave me a lecture. A slightly lengthier version of what you’ve just said.”

  “What, about never leaving the door open?”

  “Exactly. And that if your father could go to the lengths of thinking up such a ridiculous ruse he must care very deeply about me, and wasn’t it time we stopped behaving like children and sat down and talked. So we did.”

  “Bit more than talked,” grinned my father, unable to suppress himself.

  “Thank you, Dad.” I shut my eyes. “Please. It’s enough of a shock to find my parents canoodling in their dressing gowns without getting the gory details.”

  “But you’re pleased?” said Mum, anxiously. “I mean, you’re not too shocked?”

  “Oh, I’m delighted. Oh God, haven’t I said?” I jumped up and went across to hug her. Hugged Dad, too, who, when I let go, leaped up in the air scissoring his legs together sideways, always his party trick.

  “I’m thrilled to bits for you both, I’m just so cross you wasted so much time!” I looked at them despairingly. “Does Hannah know?”

  “No!” They both gasped in unison, eyes full of fear.

  “Well, you must tell her.” />
  “Oh no, we can’t tell her the whole story. She’ll be furious!” Mum quaked.

  “Have to make something up,” agreed Dad. “Say—you know—we just coincidentally, and rather bizarrely, started fancying each other again.”

  “Oh, she’ll really fall for that,” I said drily.

  “Yes, she might think it’s a bit odd,” agreed Mum. “After ten years of hating each other.”

  “But you never did hate each other.” I turned to her, exasperated. “That was what was so unusual. Most divorced couples do, most are at each other’s throats, but you’ve always been good friends, always got on. I feel so stupid that I didn’t think of it, didn’t sit each of you down and say—now look, Mum, you still like him, and—come on, Dad, you certainly can’t want to spend the rest of your life with bimbos.” Dad blanched but I swept on. “But I was too tied up with my own life, I expect, to notice.”

  “You had a lot to be tied up with,” said Mum, putting a hand on my arm.

  I looked up at her sharply. “Dad told you?” I said alarmed.

  “About what Rufus saw? Yes. And I think he should have told you sooner. I would have done, there and then, but I take the point that he thought Alex might not be serious about her.”

  “Well, I never was about Marjorie, or Mandy, or Dawn, so I thought perhaps he wasn’t. I’ve only ever really loved your mother,” Dad said sadly. As he did, he looked across the room at her and his eyes filled. That didn’t surprise me—Dad was an emotional being—but I was overcome when Mum gazed back and hers filled up too. Mum wasn’t tough, but she certainly wasn’t a soft touch either. She pretty much kept a lid on things.

  I stood up. Time to go.

  “Well, I’m delighted. And so will Hannah be. And now you can both go and tell her.”

  “Oh, no!” they chorused again, looking horrified.

  “Oh, yes,” I insisted. “You can do it. But make sure Eddie’s there,” I added as an afterthought as they followed me down the hallway. I could already hear Hannah’s horrified tones: “How could you be so stupid? Ten years. Ten years!”