The Question

by Jane Asher

  ‘Huh!’ she said out loud, and smiled grimly at the irony. Now she knew that the marriage had been preserved, not because of the bond between them and the lack of children at all, but in spite of – or even because of – the existence of a mistress and her – what? Love child? No, she couldn’t countenance the idea of ‘love’ in any way connected with John and that dreary, grey old woman. Bastard? It sounded too old-fashioned even to be insulting, and even as she spoke the word in her head she pictured the face of the confused young girl in the bedroom, and knew that wasn’t at all how she felt. The child was an innocent; there was no doubt about that. The child could not, must not, be blamed.

  Then, as Eleanor took the car smoothly round the winding bends of the lane, enjoying the way the empty road and the silent darkness echoed her mood, a thought suddenly occurred to her, and made her brake quickly and slow the car to a crawl so she could examine it.

  ‘I’m a stepmother,’ she whispered to the night ahead of her behind the fly-spotted glass of the windscreen. ‘How extraordinary: I’m a stepmother. I have a stepdaughter.’

  Chapter Seven

  The horrors didn’t begin until much later in the night – or morning, as it was by then. Eleanor woke suddenly, at the sound of an unnerving gasping, and it took a few moments to realise that she had made it herself. The room was light, in spite of the heavy old-fashioned brocade curtains, and as she opened her eyes she could clearly see the worn pattern of chrysanthemums embossed on them and the large, tasselled pelmet drooping at their head. The way they hung in deep, straight folds filled her with foreboding, and she looked away from them and down to the surface of the bed. The eiderdown had slipped sideways and was hanging halfway to the floor, revealing an unevenly hand-crocheted patchwork blanket underneath. She pulled the eiderdown back into place and took a quick look round the large, high-ceilinged room, examining her own fear and trying to find out what it was that had woken her into such uneasiness.

  The furniture was heavy and dark: a dressing table, topped by a swivel mirror; a large double-doored wardrobe; a chest of drawers with a cream, lace-trimmed mat on its top and a couple of upright chairs tucked against the wall. There was a mustiness in the air, which Eleanor knew was emanating partly from the eiderdown now tucked beneath her chin.

  It wasn’t that she had woken without being immediately aware of the new situation in which she found herself. The few hours of sleep she had had since arriving at two fifteen in the morning had been spent in dreams of intense clarity; she had known the moment that her own disquieting sounds had disturbed her exactly where she was and what had taken place the previous day. But there was something more that stirred in her unconscious; something that she knew she hadn’t until then allowed herself to be aware of or think about, and, whatever this unpleasant knowledge was, it was creeping up into her head and scratching at her consciousness, demanding to be acknowledged.

  She lay her head back into the lumpy feather pillow and stared at the ceiling, reluctantly allowing the thought to push its way into her mind and form itself slowly into a picture that she would be forced to look at. And there it was. She could see it, clearly and in detail. She could avoid it no longer, and she cringed into the bedclothes and screwed up her face at the terrible truth of what she saw. John and – that woman. John and that old woman: that dumpy, unattractive, frumpy old woman. He was touching her, he was kissing her, fondling a sagging breast, pushing down wrinkled, cheap, nylon underwear and moving on top of her. Eleanor could see a withered thigh and a mottled, puffy belly.

  ‘No!’ she cried out loud and turned her head to the side and away from the terrible picture, the smell of mothballs and damp nylon sickening in her face as it fitted so well the images that still forced their way into her consciousness. ‘No!’ she said again, more quietly, ‘I can’t bear it. He doesn’t do it now. They don’t do it now. It must have happened—’ She stopped, counting back nineteen years and trying to remember how life had been then; where she was; what she was doing. She felt that if, by some impossible process of elimination, she could pinpoint the exact moment of Susan’s conception, then she might be able to understand it, and possibly even to accept it, as something less horrifying than it appeared at this moment. Nineteen – no, twenty years ago. There must be a reason; an excuse: something that could provide an explanation. Where had he met the woman? Had Eleanor been ill, perhaps, or away for an unusually long time?

  But even as she tried to think back over the years, she realised she was beginning to make excuses for him. Supposing she had been ill, or away, or they had been going through a bad patch in the marriage – so what? She had remained faithful all through the thirty years; why should she try to find an excuse for John’s having failed to live up to her own standards? She knew why, of course. For her own sake. Because she wanted to find a reason: needed to, desperately. Because if she couldn’t, the only possible explanation was far, far worse to contemplate. This was no one-night stand: he had stuck by this woman and her child; provided them with a flat; visited them regularly. But that was good, wasn’t it? He had made a terrible mistake and he had done the right thing.

  But the image of him and her. Making love. Making love. Eleanor knew now what it was that had woken her. Not the humiliation, not the fury at having been deceived. It was jealousy. A raging, unbearable jealousy that tore at her guts and tunnelled into her groin. She could see now that, without being aware of it at the time, she had at first felt an enormous sense of relief to discover that her rival wasn’t the beautiful, clever Ruth, or even the young, innocent girl on the bed, but the unremarkable, dowdy, middle-aged creature peering out from the door of Flat 2. But now she could see how stupid she had been: it was much worse that her husband’s lover was so ordinary. There must have been something far more than physical passion to bring John together with someone so plain, so unstylish and so … so … she searched for the right word, and hated herself for knowing what it was even as she tried to avoid it – so common. A seductive figure, or a heavy-lipped mouth and thick blonde hair, might have gone some way towards explaining the initial affair, but even allowing for the passage of twenty years Eleanor couldn’t imagine that there had ever been an irresistible physical attraction.

  She pushed the covers back and sat up, flinging her head forwards onto her chest as a wave of dizziness hit her. She took some deep breaths before slowly shifting herself to the edge of the bed and swivelling her legs sideways so that they hung down from the old-fashioned, high bedstead towards the floor. She leant onto her right arm and lifted her left wrist to her face to squint at her watch: the watch John had bought her for an anniversary present six – seven? – years ago. Did he give her presents? Did they celebrate anniversaries? There was so much she needed – not just wanted: needed – to know.

  She made to reach for her handbag to find her reading glasses, but stopped as her brain made sense of the fuzzy figures she had seen on the dial. Six twenty. Where would he be? And what was he doing? With her, or without her? Would he have tried to ring Eleanor at home last night, and been surprised to get no answer? Although she felt utterly unsure about so many things, there was one thing of which she was certain: she still wasn’t ready for a confrontation. It was important that John was kept unaware of the discovery for just a little longer, while she found out everything she could, and thought out what she wanted to do.

  ‘How stupid,’ she said out loud, realising she had left the woman’s flat without getting the telephone number from the girl, not knowing, even if she had had it, whether she would have risked ringing it, and perhaps being confronted by John’s voice at the other end. But, although as a rule Eleanor had waited for John to ring her in the evenings from London during the week so that she hadn’t risked disturbing him in the middle of some work, there had also been many, many times over the years when she had had to contact him late at night or in the early hours to discuss a domestic crisis or pass on an urgent message. And she’d always found him in the flat when she had
rung unexpectedly. So maybe he didn’t ever stay with the woman and her child? What had the girl said? Maybe, after all, he had simply done the right thing by them, had set them up in a flat and continued to visit the girl over the years to fulfil his fatherly obligations, too ashamed of what he had done to tell Eleanor, but never again touching the woman or feeling anything for her other than guilt, obligation and pity.

  Drunk. That was it. He must have been drunk, and the woman, desperate for affection, had seduced him. It was hard to imagine such a thing: the word ‘seduce’ didn’t match her in any way at all, but yet again Eleanor tried to picture the enormous change that twenty years might have wrought. She could see the woman as a little secretary – a temp, probably – when the fat had been a pretty plumpness, and the grey, wispy hair had been thick and brown. He had felt sorry for her: a rather pathetic little thing who hadn’t known anyone in the office. He’d had too much of that ghastly cheap wine they always had at the Christmas parties and she had got him on his own on some pretext in his office and pushed herself against him by his desk, forcing him to look down at her cleavage and—

  ‘Stop it!’ Eleanor spoke out loud again and stood up, knowing she had to move, do something physical or she would go mad. She looked for a telephone on the bedside table, but then remembered the only extensions on this floor were in Andrew and Catherine’s bedroom and out on the landing. Andrew and Catherine’s bedroom – how cosy that sounded. Familiar, domestic, loving. She knew she was in danger of veering off into another bout of self-pity, so she grabbed her cardigan quickly off one of the upright chairs and quietly opened the door and crept out onto the landing.

  She dialled the London flat, certain she would get no answer, but ready to leave a simple message on the machine to tell him she was at her brother’s, but was astonished to hear John’s voice after only a couple of rings.

  ‘Yes?’

  There was a pause, while she held her breath, unprepared for this direct confrontation.

  ‘Yes? Eleanor, is that you? Are you all right, darling? What on earth are you doing up at this hour?’

  ‘Yes, it’s me.’ She was astonished to hear his voice so calm and so – unguilty. But of course, he’d been talking like this for twenty years. For twenty years he had been speaking to her with the knowledge of his other life clearly in his head; this telephone conversation was for him no different than any of the other many thousands they had had with each other since the – what could she call it? How could she label it? – the affair? Too simple a word. Too innocuous-sounding for the event that had overshadowed her life for so long without her knowing it.

  There was another pause, longer this time. Then she went on, in a whisper that she hoped didn’t sound hesitant but which was essential if she were to avoid waking the others in the bedroom just along the landing, ‘I’m at Andrew’s. I’m going to stay here for a bit.’

  ‘But when did you—Why are you there? Are you all right?’ John sounded serious, as he always did on the phone, but there was a hint of something different in his voice, which, if she hadn’t known him better, she might almost have fancied could be fear. Could he know that she knew? Had that woman, after all, told him of their encounter?

  As another silence threatened, Eleanor felt her usual compunction to fill it, to make things easy, to lessen the awkwardness of the moment, but she sucked her lips in over her teeth and pressed them tightly together, determined not to speak. She didn’t trust herself not to give something away. In all likelihood he knew nothing, and all her efforts must be directed to keeping it that way as long as possible.

  ‘Shall I ring Gordon?’ he asked at last. She knew that tone of voice; it was the one he used whenever she was unwell, or appeared to be upset or depressed for no apparent reason. It was intended to signal worried concern, but had always seemed to Eleanor to contain a hint of patronising superiority, an implication that only a woman, or, more particularly, only Eleanor, would react in such a way, and that all could be explained in terms of hormones or female oversensitivity.

  ‘No, no, I’m fine. There’s no need to ring Gordon. I just felt like a bit of a change, that’s all. And I didn’t feel tired last night so I decided to drive down here late and avoid the traffic.’ She was amazed at how calm her voice sounded; how plausibly the lies oozed from her mouth. It was simple. No wonder she had been deceived so easily all these years: the process was almost enjoyable. The sense of power in knowing that she now knew more than he did gave her strength. She felt suddenly in control: only she could see that the smug security he must feel in the clever juggling of the double life he had maintained all this time was now a paper-thin film stretched tautly over his nasty little lies, just needing her decision to prick it for it to tear wide open. He thought he was warm, safe, covered: only she could see that in reality he was naked, exposed and shivering.

  ‘I don’t know, Eleanor. It’s very strange of you to drive off like that. You could at least have told me you were thinking about it. And why did you ring so ridiculously early? What do you want?’

  ‘I—’ It took just a split second for her to find an answer. ‘Do you know, I didn’t realise how horribly early it was until I was talking to you. I am sorry, darling – were you asleep?’

  ‘No, it’s OK, I was awake anyway. It’s just unlike you to wake so early, that’s all. What did you want?’

  ‘Just to tell you I was here. In case you wanted me for anything.’

  ‘Oh, right. How long are you staying?’

  Why do you want to know? she thought. Why do you want to know? Oh God, help me.

  ‘A few days.’

  ‘I see. Well, I’ll stay up in town then, if you’re not going to be home. Get a bit of work done.’

  She closed her eyes at the stab of pain his remark had buried in her chest, then bit her lip until she was able to control her voice again.

  ‘Martin is still waiting to see you, don’t forget,’ he went on.

  There was a short pause, while Eleanor considered the other universe that had existed four days ago; the one in which she had been on her way to see Martin Havers.

  ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ John asked again.

  ‘Yes, I’ve told you – I’m feeling fine. Sorry to worry you. I’ll give you a ring tonight, darling. Have a good day.’

  ‘Yes, you too. Give my best to Andrew and Catherine. Speak to you later. ’Bye, darling.’

  ‘’Bye. Darling.’

  She put the phone down and gazed at it for a moment, grappling with a terrible realisation that had crept up on her during the call without her being aware of it. Suddenly she knew exactly how she had been able to call him all these years at times of the day – or night – when he couldn’t possibly have been expecting it and yet always found him at home. Or apparently at home.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, I’m such a fool!’ As she suddenly became aware of her naïvety, Eleanor found herself collapsing into the tears she’d been holding back unconsciously all night, and she gulped out the words as she shouted them at the senseless instrument in front of her. ‘You’ve got an extension down there, you bastard! You’ve got another extension! I’ve been talking to you all these years and you’ve been—You bastard! You – you—’ She couldn’t find the words she needed to berate him with; frustrated in her lack of expletives, she was aware that there were terms that existed that, if she only knew them, she could spit at him to release her misery and anger. What she now saw was that the pathetic prissiness of her limited, middle-class, middle-aged language had no vocabulary for the way she felt, and her inability to express herself only added to her despair.

  A noise on the landing made Eleanor look up from the phone to see Catherine’s frightened face peeping round the edge of the bedroom door opposite. She looked frail and papery without her makeup, and her expression of fascinated nervousness beneath the pink hairnet made Eleanor long to poke out her tongue at her, but instead she covered her contempt with a thin smile and whispered across to her: ‘
Sorry. Sorry to wake you. I’m all right. Sorry – a little bit of marital friction, that’s all. Nothing serious. I’ll talk to you in the morning. Go back to bed.’

  She wiped her face with her hand and stood up as Catherine’s head disappeared again and the door closed.

  Chapter Eight

  ‘I don’t know, Andrew. I just can’t see the point of any of it, somehow. It’s all become completely meaningless. What the hell is the point of it all?’

  ‘Ah, well, yes indeed.’ Andrew tried to cover his discomfort with a suitably concerned and thoughtful expression, but had a feeling his sister was far too canny to be fooled by the flimsy façade of his noncommittal waffle into assuming there was any real insight behind his words. ‘We all tend to get that feeling from time to time, you know. It’s part of the – um – human condition and so on.’

  ‘Yes, Andrew. Well of course I realise that. I don’t for a moment assume I’m the only person who’s ever felt like this. But you see it’s more than that. I don’t just mean that there seems to be no point; I suppose I’m trying to say that there also seems never to have been any point. And that kind of wipes out the whole of my life. I just can’t remember what I’m for. Oh dear, I am talking nonsense, aren’t I? Never mind, Andrew. It’s just a middle-aged crise. Or old-age crise, I should say.’