A Good Woman

by Lisa Appignanesi

  ‘Not always,’ Mr Carter is truculent. ‘Sometimes we went to the Freemason’s.’

  ‘Another pub, is that correct?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And did Mr Moore ever stand you a round.’

  ‘Oh yes, he was a generous one, he was.’

  ‘So that, we would have to conclude that not every scrap of his wages went to his family. Is that right?’

  ‘I guess so,’ Mr. Carter is not pleased to agree.

  ‘How many pints might you have of an evening, Mr Carter. Four, five, six, maybe more? You’re a large man.’ I am certain Jennifer has given him an admiring glance. And it has its effect.

  ‘Thereabouts.’

  ‘And Mr Roberts kept up with you.’

  ‘More than kept up. Tom was even bigger than I am.’

  ‘Six or seven then?’

  ‘Depending on the night.’

  ‘And on the night he complained to you about his wife and told you she was having a “little fling with someone”, can you remember how much he had had to drink?’

  Mr Carter shrugs, ‘Too long ago now. Don’t remember.’

  ‘Of course.’ Jennifer pauses. ‘Mr Carter, did you often see Mr and Mrs Roberts together, go to their home?’

  ‘Not often.’

  ‘How often? Three times a month? Twice? Less?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Would it be correct to say that in the last year or so of Mr Roberts life you rarely went beyond the front door?’

  Mr Carter emits a grudging, ‘Yes’.

  ‘So that your knowledge of the Roberts’ home life is largely based on what Tom Roberts told you of it?’

  ‘Tom wasn’t a liar, if that’s what you’re saying.’

  ‘No, of course not. Nonetheless, your picture of that family life comes largely from Tom Roberts.’ Jennifer looks significantly at the jury, then down at her notes. She pauses for a moment, then fixes her gaze at the witness. ‘Except perhaps for one instance. Mr Carter, I want to ask you about a night in January two years back, a night when Mr Roberts did invite you home. Do you remember the night I mean?’

  Mr. Carter shuffles about in the witness stand. He seems visibly to be squirming. ‘I’m not sure I do.’

  ‘Let me refresh your memory then, Mr Carter. It must have been quite late, after closing hours, and Mr. Roberts invited you not only into the family home, but into the bedroom where his wife lay asleep.’

  Mr Carter starts to splutter. ‘I didn’t mean anything by it. I didn’t. Tom said his old lady liked a bit of fun, bit of a tussle and it might as well be with me as with a stranger. And we’d had a bit to drink. And…’ He suddenly clams up. He realises he has said too much.

  There is an audible gasp in the courtroom, a creaking of seats as people shift uncomfortably.

  Jennifer’s voice is very cool. ‘On that evening, Mr Carter, did you see Mr. Roberts hit his wife?’

  ‘He said she liked it that way, liked being knocked about. It was just a bit of fun, wasn’t it. Sex is different.’

  ‘Did Mrs Roberts look as if she liked it, Mr Carter?’

  He doesn’t answer straight away. Something at his feet has taken on an inordinate interest.

  ‘Did she?’ Jennifer insists.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You don’t know. If you had changed places with her would you have known? Would you have liked it?’

  Mr Carter looks up abruptly. His face has turned a sickly colour. The red stands out in splotches.

  ‘Would you, Mr Carter?’

  ‘No.’

  The monosyllable is mumbled but it falls into the silence of the room with the heavy thud of a boxer’s fist.

  ‘So you can’t be altogether surprised that Mrs Roberts might not open the door to you and embrace you warmly when you came to ask after her husband?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Carter.’

  ‘And that was intended to be a witness for the prosecution!’ Paul whispers to me full of enthusiasm for Jennifer’s performance.

  ‘He may still be,’ I say warily, for the prosecutor has now risen to his feet.

  Nora Stott nudges me, ‘I’m worried for Martha. She’s gone all funny. Shouldn’t they do something?’

  Martha who has sat through this last witness with the fixed rigidity of a plaster cast now seems to have crumbled. I can no longer see her face, only the policewoman bending over her.

  But the prosecutor has begun to speak and I start scribbling notes again.

  ‘Mr Carter, after this unfortunate January evening, did Mr Roberts ever mention that his wife might be threatening him with revenge?’

  Carter gives the prosecutor a blank look and shuffles his feet. Then he blurts out, ‘Well she took it, didn’t she?’

  The prosecutor isn’t happy. His witness hasn’t given him evidence of any forethought on Martha’s part, a long intricate plan, coldly nurtured.

  But now there is a commotion at the front of the court. Jennifer has approached the judge and after a brief whispered exchange, he announces that the accused has unfortunately been taken unwell and since it is so late in the day, rather than call a recess, there will be an adjournment until Monday.

  Paul and I walk. The sky is a deep milky blue, fleeced with clouds, the light so dazzling after the gloom of the Bailey that I feel I have escaped from a place of confinement.

  At first its shadows trail us. Paul’s talk is all about the trial. He wants to discuss what he might have missed. He is fascinated by what he calls the unpredictability of British procedure. In France, he reiterates, if the investigating magistrate has done her work properly, everything is preordained. But in Britain there are surprises round every corner. It keeps one on one’s toes. And it means the presumption of innocence is at least something of a reality not an empty formality.

  I counter him, I don’t quite know why. I tell him it seems to me that justice is a bit chancy if the accused’s case rests solely on the merits of a single defending counsel. Not every barrister is as brilliant and well-prepared as Jennifer Walters.

  He laughs at this and soon we shake off the fetters of the Bailey. The light demands play and we play tourist. We stroll down Ludgate Hill to St. Paul’s, admit as we circle its flanks that we have never seen the interior and walk in to gaze up at the vast and striking dome, opening just where it should close onto another empyrean. We meander through city streets, brash in their newness, get lost in narrow cobbled lanes dotted with the stately remains of an older London, as well as with spindly acacias amongst tubs of spring flowers and the occasional dustbin. We stop in a pub, laugh our way down to the embankment and round again, up to the Savoy. We change for dinner. It is warm and on a whim, I put on a sleeveless creamy linen frock with a matching jacket and when I meet Paul down in the lobby his suit is the exact colour of my dress. We exchange a smile which is all pleasure. At Orso’s, we sit in the corner of the room and laugh some more over a good bottle of Meursault, delicately grilled vegetables, herb fragrant bass, a tangy concoction of raspberry and lemon. And then we wander again, through the warmly crowded streets of an evening Covent Garden.

  It is on one of these streets in front of an art bookshop displaying a reproduction of Manet’s bright-eyed reclining Olympia that Paul first puts his arm around me, delicately at first, his fingers just resting on my shoulder, but when I don’t edge away, more firmly, pulling me closer to him so that I can feel the outline of his body. We fit. There is always something of a miracle about that fit, perhaps because it can never be altogether predicted. Visual cues are not enough. It takes touch, a disposition of limbs, a texture of skin, a scent, the sound of a breath, a time, a place. Too many variables make it rare. I recognize it’s rarity.

  Paul and I stand there for a few moments, fitting.

  ‘I would like to love you, Maria,’ he whispers in my ear. ‘You know that. Would like to, very much. Please say yes.’

  His breath is warm on my neck, his hand taut where it has
slipped down to my waist. Olympia gazes out at me, her eyes and nudity a challenge. Laughter ripples into my throat. I don’t want to think. Not now. Not tonight. Despite everything. Just this once. As if life hadn’t changed. Once more.

  ‘Once,’ I say.

  He turns me toward him, lifts my chin so that I have to look into his eyes. His face is shadowy in the lamplight, hard with something I don’t recognize. ‘Once may not be enough.’

  ‘One night. Here. Away from everything.’ I sound as if I am driving a bargain, like a whore. I don’t want to bargain.

  He kisses me. His lips are firm, sweet with the fragrance of the Meursault. Perhaps it is the seal. We walk back to the hotel in silence, our steps quicker now, but not too quick: we need to savour our linked arms, taste this new urgency.

  As the door of my room closes behind us, we stop to look at each other. We are standing about three feet apart, but there is something in the darkness of his gaze, the tension of his features, which makes me shiver with excitement or fear, I don’t know which. I take a step towards him and he meets me half-way. We pause, our eyes locked. He stretches out his hand. I take it and he pulls me towards him. We kiss - lightly, a little timidly, hardly touching. And then he buries his hand in my hair and groans. With that sound, desire seems to fill the room. It is hot, fierce, winging through us and carrying us away.

  Is it because it has been so long that everything feels new? His lips on my mouth, on my bosom, mine on his, the shimmying out of clothes, the arch and sweep of the male body against the palm of my hand, the rough and soft of skin, the indentation of his chin between my breasts, the curl and press of limbs and those waves of sensation too high, covering me, bringing tears to my eyes. I can taste their salt. I am crying. This is not the well-known game of pleasure. He is not playing with me or I with him. This has the mark of the real. Passion. I do not remember it. Perhaps it cannot be remembered.

  We are lying side by side, our heads on separate pillows, our hair and skin moist. Except for our joined fingers, we do not touch. We are looking into each other’s eyes. The tears have dried on my cheeks. We should speak now. In the glow of the soft bedside light we should speak soft words. But the words don’t come. They are the habitual matter of our daily exchanges and they won’t come. Instead he takes my hand to his lips and kisses my fingers one by one. Each kiss is like a word, each subsequent caress, a phrase, slow, savoured, which this new skin of mine understands and answers, until we are wrapped together again and I forget to decipher meanings.

  Afterwards something akin to awe takes hold of me and I search his face hoping to find its source. There is a beauty about it now which I have never seen before. A dreaming stillness where I had once only seen the drama of mobility. The hair falls over his brow above eyes which are so darkly liquid that they threaten to swallow me if I don’t turn away. But I can’t seem to.

  His mouth curves softly.

  ‘Found what you’re looking for?’ he asks as if he has read my mind.

  ‘Perhaps.’ I return his smile. ‘Though I was hoping for a drink as well.’ An imp of the perverse makes me want to break the magic, perhaps to test if it is only a figment of my own hungry flesh.

  ‘How inconsiderate of me.’ He laughs, leaps to his feet, reaches for the phone.

  I watch him. It is odd how without his clothes, he still looks dressed, clothed in a greater ruggedness, his shoulders and legs muscled like a swimmer’s, his stomach taut. While he pulls his trousers on, I go in search of my robe, sorry for a second that I have only have this old striped burgundy silk with me, a man’s gown, bought for comfort and colour. As I brush out my hair I chastise myself for that ancient reflex which makes me want to appear attractive. There is no need. There will be only this time. Only once. I swallow hard. I have promised myself.

  He is sprawled in the armchair by the window when I come back. He is watching me, a little warily. Perhaps he too has remembered the bargain.

  ‘Room service should be here in a moment.’

  ‘Good. I’m thirsty.’

  Our voices sound raw, untried, as if we have forgotten how to use them. He stretches his hand out to me and draws me into his lap, strokes my hair, my back. I curl into him, have a sense that if room service doesn’t come quickly, we will never hear them. But he is in no hurry. He speaks.

  ‘Am I allowed to tell you how beautiful you are, or would that be too repetitive?’

  ‘You can tell me,’ I tease him, pull away a little.

  ‘You’re beautiful, almost more beautiful than Olympia,’ he catches my tone.

  I laugh. ‘Did you imagine we’d end up like this?’

  ‘I hoped. But I didn’t imagine. Not this.’ He touches my bare skin beneath the robe and I shiver. ‘Not this,’ he repeats, meeting my eyes.

  The waiter fractures the moment. There is a silver tray; long-stemmed goblets and glasses. There is a bottle of champagne in a vast bucket and a bottle of Vichy. There is a bowlful of strawberries and crisply starched white napkins atop of white plates.

  We lean back against pillows and drink a series of comic toasts - to the Savoy, to London, to the Thames, to spindly acacias and overflowing dustbins. Then, with a hint of solemnity, Paul raises his glass once more. ‘To the Herald Tribune,’ he intones, ‘which brought you to me.’ He drains his glass and draws me towards him, so that I feel at once shielded and intoxicated, both little girl and desiring woman.

  Sometime in that long night, he looks at me steadily and says, ‘You know Maria, this isn’t just a sudden aberration. A piece of opportunism. I’ve wanted you ever since that first time. In my office. You were looking up at Lombroso’s women. Looking up guiltily. Whether in hope or fear of finding yourself, I couldn’t quite tell.’ He chuckles but there is no mirth in it and a tremor comes into his voice. ‘I thought to myself, she’s so beautiful. Some man hasn’t been able to resist the desire to defile her. I could help put her back together again.’

  It takes me a moment to take in the full measure of this.

  ‘Do you still think that?’ I ask.

  He is quiet for so long that I suspect he has fallen asleep. Then he says, ‘I’m not sure.’ He pauses, ‘Are you going to tell me?’

  I don’t answer and he doesn’t press me. Instead he murmurs, ‘Why back then, in front of the Manet, an eternity ago, did you say “only once”?’

  I stiffen. My laugh is too shrill. ‘Because I’m a dangerous woman.’

  ‘I can see that. Feel it,’ his hand is on my thigh and he moves it gently upward. ‘I’m not afraid you know. And you can’t still mean it.’

  ‘I mean it,’ I answer and kiss him with more passion than I should be permitted.

  When I wake, sunlight is pouring round the corners of the curtain, cutting the carpet in bright swathes. Paul’s eyes are on me, so warm, that I close mine again and let him wake me properly with lips and limbs. I don’t want it to have all been a dream.

  Our love-making over, we are shy. I lock the door to the bathroom while he orders a breakfast so late it might as well be lunch. While I soak in the tub, I think that I want to memorize every moment of our togetherness, give him all the generosity I can muster, so that our time here will stay with me as a talisman. For once I will have behaved well.

  But when I come out he is not there. A pit opens in the base of my stomach: could he have taken me so literally at my word, a lawyer following the letter of the law I have laid down? The coffee tastes acrid, the toast as dry as desert sand. I choke on it. But this is what I wanted, what I ordered, I console myself. Why does it taste so bitter? I should have imagined better what it would be like with him and evaded the initial temptation. I should have written a good-bye into the contract. ‘Article two, subsection thirty-six of Maria’s general code for lovers, twentieth edition: always say goodbye with a smile before leaving. Wordless abandonment by either party constitutes a felony. (See section three.)’ I try a smile in the mirror which doesn’t return it, so instead I pull on an old pair of
white jeans, a white shirt, and gaze blindly at the newspaper which has come with breakfast.

  I am so lucky I tell myself as I make out the headlines of others’ suffering. So spoiled and lucky. So why does a tear spill out on the page? I will fly out to Sarajevo or Ruanda and share with others the good fortune of my luck and goodness. I will read my unselfishness in their eyes. I will become a doctor without frontiers, a flying nurse, a comrade in misery.

  An image of Beatrice materializes before me and I still my overblown heroics. There is no mockery in Beatrice, of others or herself. No heroics. There is only a quiet selflessness. A hard-working patience. I still have so much to learn. My mother always told me that. I am only beginning. But at least I have begun. Perhaps I shouldn’t have succumbed to Paul. Beatrice would not have gone to bed with another woman’s husband. But I was right to say ‘once’; and only I have been hurt by it.

  A knock at the door startles me from these raving half-thoughts. I go to open it and am even more confused to find Paul standing there. His hair is wet. He is freshly shaven and he is wearing a different shirt, a deep sea blue against the cream of his suit. I stare at him without moving.

  ‘Are you going to invite me in for coffee or am I now contractually barred from entry?’

  I stand back to let him by. He kisses me lightly on the cheek and ruffles my hair.

  ‘I thought you’d gone,’ I say.

  ‘Gone?’ An eyebrow rises in consternation. ‘I went off to wash. And to buy some necessaries. I didn’t presume to hope I was staying over, so I hadn’t come adequately prepared.’ He smiles at me with such a mixture of self-irony and tenderness that I find myself in his arms.

  ‘And I got you something, too,’ he whispers. ‘Something silly, to remember London by.’ He hands me a package which I open with childish eagerness. Inside, amidst the tissue paper, there is a silk scarf, black and white with large dollops of yellow. The colours coalesce into an image of St Paul’s.

  Laughter plays over Paul’s features. ‘I couldn’t resist the thought that you might, just occasionally, don my name.’

  ‘And do I wear this beatified you to the office or to bed?’ It comes out despite the fact that I am trying to be a different person. To hide my confusion, I tie the scarf loosely over my shirt.