Marriage and Other Games

by Veronica Henry

  Sebastian stared at the screen.

  Why the hell hadn’t he thought about it before?

  It was the perfect answer.

  And it rather appealed to his artistic nature.

  With one eye on the number on the screen, he picked up the phone and dialled.

  It didn’t take much for Sebastian to fob his way onto the show. He knew exactly the sort of personality and back story the researchers were looking for when people phoned in. After all, he’d lived with Catkin’s job for years; he knew all the tricks of her trade. He called himself Steven Tate, rather pleased with the artistic reference. He affected a slight East London accent, harking back to his art college days, where to talk as if you’d been within fifty miles of a public school was death. And he laid his tale of woe on with a trowel. Not that any of it was insincere. He genuinely didn’t know where else to turn.

  The researchers had lapped it up.

  ‘We’re putting you through to Catkin in the studio now, Steven,’ the producer told him. ‘Just be yourself. She’s very sympathetic.’

  Moments later, he was outlining his problem to the nation at large. Well, those of them who were sad enough to watch Hello, England. Which was a good couple of million.

  ‘I made a terrible mistake, and my wife won’t forgive me,’ he informed the studio audience and the viewers. ‘She thought I was having a fling with someone I work with, and I wasn’t. It was all a misunderstanding. But now, she won’t talk to me or have anything to do with me. She refuses to listen to my side of the story, or accept my apology. And the thing is, I never meant to hurt her. I just want the chance to explain.’

  Catkin’s face was filled with compassion. She looked into the camera, her gaze sincere.

  ‘Steven, we all do things we shouldn’t sometimes. And we can’t always expect our partners to understand when we make a mistake. What your wife probably needs is time to come to terms with what you did and work out how she feels. But in the meantime, perhaps you should try a romantic gesture. Women love to feel pampered. Maybe a large bunch of flowers with a message attached?’

  ‘I’ve tried that,’ Sebastian replied gloomily. ‘Six bunches to be precise. ’

  Catkin exchanged glances and raised eyebrows with her co-presenters, who shook their heads sorrowfully to show what a sad case this was. Catkin clasped her hands between her knees and leaned forward, adopting a concerned expression.

  ‘Steven, how long have you been married?’

  ‘Over five years.’

  ‘Well, that’s quite a long time. I think your wife owes you at least the chance to explain, so that you can decide together if your marriage really is over. Or maybe try some counselling.’

  ‘I know,’ said Sebastian. ‘But she won’t talk. This is my last resort. My only chance to communicate with her. You’re my last hope, Catkin.’ He couldn’t help the pleading tone that came into his voice. And he’d dropped the accent. A slight frown appeared on Catkin’s brow. ‘I just want to tell her that without her I’m nothing. I can’t work. I can’t sleep. I don’t eat. I just lie here waiting for the phone to ring. Or the door to open. I just want to take her in my arms, and kiss her. Never let her go.’

  This was the real him speaking now. A heartfelt plea.

  You could have heard a pin drop in the studio. Catkin sat bolt upright, her eyes wide. She seemed unable to speak for a moment.

  ‘Catkin?’ prompted the presenter. ‘Can you offer any advice on Steven’s plight.’

  When she spoke, her voice was trembling slightly.

  ‘I think,’ she said, ‘that you’ll find that your wife will listen. I think she’s probably been hurting, trying to prove to herself that she can live without you, and that you don’t matter. But it sounds to me as if you’re meant to be together. Try phoning her again, just one more time. My gut instinct tells me that this time she’ll answer.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Sebastian. ‘I’ll do that. And I’ll let you know what happens. Thank you, Catkin.’

  ‘You’re welcome,’ she replied. ‘Steven . . .’

  She looked straight into the camera and smiled, then wiped away a tear. The studio audience broke into applause.

  The camera homed in on one of the presenters.

  ‘Coming up after the next break . . .’

  Sebastian gave Catkin three minutes to leave the studio and get back into her dressing room before he called her.

  ‘Catkin?’

  ‘Sebastian?’ She sounded breathless. ‘You’re a madman! You could have got me sacked.’

  But she didn’t sound cross, not at all.

  ‘Shall I come up to you?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Don’t move an inch. I’ll get a driver. I’m coming down.’

  Sebastian hung up the phone and threw it in the air with glee. Then he jumped off the bed and looked round at the chaos. He lunged back onto the bed, picking up the phone and dialling hastily.

  ‘Stacey? It’s Sebastian. Tell me you’re not busy. I need you. Now!’

  Today had been a perfect nightmare from start to finish. If Penny could have chosen to eradicate one day from her memory, this would be it.

  The surgery had finally been forced into making a decision about Daisy. After the Christmas Fayre, Penny had felt obliged to call her state to their attention, and they had been monitoring her closely. Since New Year, her condition had deteriorated even further, to the point where she was quite unable to look after herself. The real tragedy was that there was no family to care or bother or make the decisions that needed to be made. Penny had tried to contact the daughter, but she was abroad in Germany, and merely sounded distant, both literally and metaphorically.

  ‘I’m sure you’ll make the best decision,’ she’d told Penny, who had been incredulous that someone could be so hard-hearted and uncaring. But then, Daisy didn’t have a bean to leave: she lived in a council house, on a meagre pension. Usually if there was property or money involved, the relatives flocked round. So it had been up to Penny to find suitable accommodation, a care home that was willing to take on Daisy in her state of dementia, and the choices had been utterly depressing. In the end she had had no option. There was only one home with an NHS place available that had the facilities to deal with her. It was a grim, forbidding place, housed in a rundown building on the outskirts of Comberton, with no grounds, few facilities, and surly staff. Penny’s heart had sunk as she made the arrangements, feeling as if she had betrayed Daisy’s trust.

  They had moved her this afternoon. Penny would never forget Daisy being ushered into the back of the taxi as long as she lived. She had shuffled out obediently in her sad little squashed-down shoes. She obviously had no idea where she was going, or that she would never be coming back to her house. A nurse from the home carried out her suitcase. The rest of her life was being left behind. The house would be emptied, and then the council would send someone round to decorate it from top to bottom and a new tenant would be installed before the paint was dry. As if Daisy had never existed.

  Which she almost didn’t. The Daisy Penny saw now was a shell of her former self. The beautiful twinkling blue eyes were now blank. Her cloud of white hair was straggly and lank. She had a habit of flapping her hands in front of her, as if she wanted everything to go away. How long, wondered Penny, would she be stuck in that hellhole waiting to die? With no one to care whether she did or not? And what was going on in her mind? Did she have snatches of lucidity, where she recognised the full horror of what was happening, but then couldn’t communicate? Or was she blissfully unaware? Did she live in the present, or the past? Or have any concept of the future? Would she be able to look forward to the tea trolley coming round? Because that was about as exciting as it was going to get.

  Penny knew there was no point in her resolving to visit Daisy on a regular basis. It would be a futile, sentimental gesture conceived to salve Penny’s own conscience. And she would never keep it up. The days would slip by, t
here wouldn’t be time, and Daisy would sit there, forgotten. Better not to make the resolution than fail to keep it.

  She sat at her desk, her shoulders slumped in submission. There was a bottle of red wine on the side that one of her patients had given her as a Christmas present. She swilled out her coffee cup in the sink, unscrewed the cap and poured herself a hefty measure, then gulped it down. It made her feel a tiny bit better. Well, not better, just numb at the edges. As she typed up her report on the computer, she kept topping herself up. It seemed to help her keep her objectivity, and reduced the impact of seeing Daisy’s tragic plight in black and white on the screen in front of her.

  By the time she left the surgery, she realised she had drunk the whole bottle. It had slipped down so easily. She rinsed it out guiltily and slipped it into the recycling bin as she sidled out into the car park, hoping no one would notice her. She’d be OK to drive. It was eight o’clock at night - the police wouldn’t be out looking for drunk drivers yet. Anyway, the station in Comberton was notoriously under-staffed.

  She drove incredibly carefully. Statistics drifted through her brain - like the fact that most drink-driving incidents occurred within three miles of departure. Well, she’d gone five, and she was all right, she thought, as she sailed past the sign that indicated Withybrook was another two miles. She was nearly home. Her mobile rang, distracting her momentarily. It was probably Tom or Megan, wondering where she was, why she wasn’t home yet dancing attendance on them. She looked down to see if she could spot the name. In that split second, another car came round the corner. Penny swerved to avoid it, overcompensated, then sailed straight on and crashed into a tree.

  She sat at the wheel, motionless. She didn’t want to get out and see what she had done. The other driver had climbed out and was coming over.

  Shit. It was Charlotte.

  Penny smiled to herself. Well. What would you call that? Poetic justice? Just as she had dobbed Charlotte in, now Charlotte could dob her in. And it would be all over the local papers. GP in drink-driving accident. She’d lose her licence. Her job.

  An eye for an eye.

  She rolled down her window and gazed at Charlotte dully.

  ‘Penny! Are you all right?’

  Penny nodded as Charlotte pulled her door open, anxiously checking for any sign of injury.

  ‘Are you hurt? Can you speak?’

  ‘Just about,’ Penny slurred. ‘Fuck . . .’

  ‘It’s fine. If nobody’s injured, it’s not a problem. It’s just a car. You’re insured . . .’ She frowned, concerned at Penny’s lack of response. ‘Are you sure you’re OK?’

  Penny gave her a lopsided smile. ‘Completely anaesthetised.’

  Charlotte’s eyes widened. ‘You’re drunk. Oh my God . . . Penny . . . !’

  She started looking round her, not sure what to do.

  ‘We better get this off the road before anyone else arrives. You get out. I’ll drive.’

  ‘Aren’t you going to call the police?’

  ‘Of course not. You didn’t hit me, so I’m under no obligation.’

  Penny stared out through the windscreen, which had a large crack in it.

  ‘Come on,’ urged Charlotte. ‘Let me drive it into that gateway. You can leave it there overnight and get someone to pick it up in the morning. ’

  Penny got out of the car obediently. Charlotte jumped into the driver’s seat.

  ‘Go and sit in my truck,’ she ordered. ‘I’ll move this, then I’ll give you a lift home.’

  Penny sat in the cab of Charlotte’s truck. She felt terrible. She couldn’t believe her stupidity. What if she’d killed someone? They’d bloody lock her up and throw away the key. That would be the end of it. Her career, her life. Tom and Megan would have to go and live with Bill. And by the time she came out of prison they would have left home. She began to shiver. And she felt sick, which was hardly surprising: a whole bottle of cheap red wine down her neck in the space of an hour.

  She opened the door of the truck in the nick of time, spewing onto the verge, just as Charlotte arrived back.

  ‘Sorry,’ she croaked, wiping away drools of spittle. How humiliating. A supposedly respectable GP retching her guts up in the gutter.

  Charlotte reached into her glove compartment and passed her a packet of tissues. Penny dabbed at her face.

  ‘Sorry . . .’ she apologised again, weakly.

  ‘It’s OK,’ said Charlotte. ‘We’ve all been there.’

  Penny couldn’t imagine Charlotte had. She didn’t look like the sort of person who lost control. And lost her dignity. She felt a wave of despair sweep over her. Her life was a disaster.

  She slumped back into the passenger seat and began to weep.

  ‘Hey,’ said Charlotte. ‘It’s OK. There’s no harm done. No one was hurt.’

  ‘It’s not that,’ Penny sobbed. ‘I’m so frightened. I’m afraid I’m going to end up like Daisy. A sad, batty old woman with no one to care about her. Stuffed in a nursing home and forgotten . . .’

  Charlotte put an arm round her.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ she soothed. ‘That’s not going to happen. Your kids love you. You’ve got loads of friends. We’re all your mates.’

  Penny looked at her. She couldn’t bear the burden of her secret any more. She couldn’t live the lie.

  ‘You wouldn’t be,’ she sniffed, ‘if you knew what I’d done.’

  Charlotte looked puzzled.

  ‘It was me,’ Penny admitted. ‘I told the press who you were. At Sebastian’s exhibition.’

  ‘What?’ Charlotte looked flabbergasted. ‘Why? And how . . . how did you know?’

  ‘I saw your married name on your medical records. And I looked you up on the internet. It was all in there . . .’

  She put her heads in her hands.

  ‘But why?’ asked Charlotte. ‘That’s what I don’t understand. Why?’

  ‘I was jealous - sickeningly, horribly jealous that you meant something to Sebastian when I didn’t.’ She looked up defiantly. ‘Have you got any idea what it’s like, to be so totally head over heels in love with somebody that you don’t know what you’re doing? To have it eating away at you until it turns you into a bitter and twisted maniac, full of resentment and spite—’

  Her face was twisted into a terrible grimace as she spat out her words, then came to an abrupt halt. She really did sound like a mad-woman, some crazy demented Mrs Rochester figure.

  Charlotte was gazing at her in horror.

  ‘You poor thing,’ she said finally.

  ‘What?’ Penny looked at her in surprise. This wasn’t the reaction she’d been expecting.

  ‘It must have been awful.’

  Penny shook her head in amazement. ‘How can you not want to punch my lights out?’

  Charlotte shrugged. ‘I know you didn’t mean it,’ she replied. ‘And I know you’re sorry.’

  ‘If I was you, I’d call the cops and grass me up. And laugh while they drove me away.’

  ‘What would be the point of that?’

  ‘It’s what I deserve.’

  ‘No, you don’t,’ replied Charlotte. ‘You’ve had a shit time. And it’s not like you go driving round pissed every day. This was a one-off, and you were unlucky. Yeah, OK, so technically what you did was stupid and dangerous and maybe you should have your licence taken off you. But I’m not going to be responsible for that happening. As far as I’m concerned, you’ve probably learned your lesson.’

  Penny gazed at her in awe. No wonder Sebastian had been besotted. This girl was a walking angel. After everything that had happened to her, she was able to see reason. And good in people.

  ‘You’re amazing,’ she exclaimed. ‘How can you be so accepting? After everything that’s happened to you. If it was me I’d be a basket case—’ She broke off. Charlotte was looking as if she was trying very hard not to cry.

  ‘You don’t know the half of it,’ she said, her voice breaking.

  ‘Charlotte?’
r />   Charlotte shook her head. She put on her seat belt, put her hand on the keys in the ignition, then burst into tears.

  ‘Oh, God,’ said Penny. ‘I’m so sorry. I really am. I didn’t mean to upset you. Shit.’

  ‘It’s not that.’ Charlotte grabbed for the tissues she’d given Penny and wiped her eyes. ‘I’ve had a bit of a shock today, that’s all.’

  ‘Of course you have. You probably thought I was going to plough straight into you. Just take a few deep breaths—’

  Charlotte shook her head. ‘It’s not the accident,’ she gulped. ‘It’s . . . my husband.’