Victor, all mine, beautiful in his white jacket. A fat man, holding a fat cigar, circling the lawn, stopping in front of us, mouth open with surprise.
‘Victor!’
Fat eyes upon mine; appraising.
‘How’s Molly?’ Insolently. As if he were telling me something I didn’t know.
I wished it hadn’t happened on our last night, to destroy the illusion; shatter the dream. It was shattered soon enough when we got home. By an epidemic of whooping cough – Bob was going up the wall – by Rowland, Sophie’s radical boyfriend holding forth about Jamaica and the disgraceful, exploitive nature of our visit in our capitalist blinkers.
Politically naïve, I did not care. Only that I had had Victor to myself for fifteen days.
All around me my friends were getting married. It was still in fashion. I looked on while troths were plighted, unions blessed, new homes and families established. I will not deny that there were moments when I was jealous, but I would not have exchanged Victor for any of it.
Sometimes I’d spend the evening with married friends. They’d stand together in the doorway as I left, parading, for my benefit, brief glimpses of intimacies to follow. Behind locked doors, when I had gone, there would be exchanged confidences or accusations – of rejection and parsimony, aggression and betrayal – which were the shuttlecocks of marriage, part of the game. The night would be spent in each other’s arms where the morning would find them.
Back in my flat, enveloped in the emptiness, I’d wish I could phone Victor just to hear his voice and imagine him with Molly, making preparations for the night. Did they talk of William and Tristan and Gavin and their exploits, take apart the nuts and bolts of their respective days? Often I wondered if he ever thought of me when he was with Molly, or if he was able to live only one life at a time. It took about half an hour for reason to prevail, restoring my confidence in the path I had chosen. I could clean the flat at midnight, catch up with the journals, put out my light at two. There was no battle over whether the curtains or the windows should be opened or closed or how many blankets on the bed. I could sleep spread-eagled in an attitude of crucifixion, hurl the pillows to the floor, roll myself tightly into a ball, get up when I wished – there was no one to disturb. Life as a couple implied decisions – what shall we do, what shall we eat? Alone, things happened, without premeditation and the bathroom was always free.
I slept alone and for the privilege paid the price of having no voice whisper ‘are you asleep’ in the small hours, no one with whom to share the werewolves of the night; no arm to raise me up when I was down; no shoulder to lean on in adversity.
Some married traits I did acquire, over the years, with Victor; a joint memory bank, a shared language, a signalling system of grunt and touch. But I kept my independence. And Victor.
Our relationship was not idyllic. We had our fights. I was jealous of Molly and in my bad moments demonstrated my resentment about her claims on Victor, often by devious and childish means. Victor’s reaction was to withdraw into a silence into which I had always to extend the first olive branch. Our disputes, like those of any married couple, waxed and waned with my mood. There were days when Victor could say anything he chose to me and I would keep my cool and others when the smallest criticism, overt or implied, would awaken demons for the most part peaceably asleep. Victor was more predictable. His main bone of contention with me concerned my friends. He did not want to know about them; to be reminded that I was anything but his. The first time he walked out I was stunned and frightened; not completely sure he would return.
‘We’re going to Tannhäuser on Thursday,’ Victor said. ‘Ceretti is here from Milan. He’s brought his wife this time.’
It was the night of Bob’s housewarming, a week before I was due to leave the hospital, taking him with me. For as long as I could remember in the department we had lived with ring mains, copper pipes, bulging walls and an ongoing battle with the rising damp. We had followed the progress of the Victorian villa from the excavations in the basement, through joists and plaster work, to the wallpaper in the sitting-room, an end of range bargain, small squares of which in shades of unpopular green were propped up by his microscope. We had suffered Bob through months of despair, moments of exhilaration, dust-filled hair and paint-spattered hands to the fruition of his dream. We were all looking forward to the party for which I had bought him a giant casserole which I had given him ahead so that he could make the jugged hare he had been planning for weeks. I hadn’t told Victor. About the party. He was not interested in what went on at the hospital and would certainly not have been concerned about the conversion of the single Victorian villa which meant so much to Bob.
I explained about the housewarming.
‘You’ll have to make an excuse,’ Victor said. ‘Somebody has to entertain the Cerettis.’
I stared at him. He was sitting in the armchair, his armchair. He was utterly uncomprehending. He picked up the evening paper.
‘Didn’t you hear what I said?’
‘About what? There’s an article here on Paramount Properties…’
‘About Bob’s party.’
‘Cancel it. Have a headache or something.’
‘Victor,’ I said. ‘I am going to Bob’s party. I wouldn’t dream of not going.’
‘Well you can’t be in two places at once,’ he said. ‘It says here they have a three million pound deficit…’
I tore down the screen of newspaper revealing his startled face.
‘Put down that bloody paper…’
‘I was reading it.’
‘And I was discussing Thursday.’
‘There’s nothing to discuss. Buy him something decent for the house and make your excuses. He won’t even notice you’re not there.’
I felt my gorge rising and knew that I was as incapable of stopping what was to come as King Canute the advancing sea, and that our honeymoon was over. I checked my armoury and struck the first blow.
‘I know you think that people can just be bought off. Bob wants me to come to the party. He wants me to see his house.’
‘I want you at Tannhäuser.’
‘I do have a life of my own.’
‘You’ve got Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday to live it. Thursday we go to Tannhäuser.’
‘I am not your concubine,’ I said, wondering where I had got such an old-fashioned word. ‘You may be able to buy Paramount Properties but you can’t buy me!’
I should not have said it. I should not. I could see that he was shaken. He folded the newspaper. I knew that he didn’t like scenes; that he walked out if Molly made them.
‘I’d better go.’
‘You know very well I’ve prepared dinner.’
I’d bought a steak pie and it was in the oven.
He was standing up. ‘Well let’s make up our minds,’ he said, ‘about Thursday.’
There is a moment in every quarrel when it is possible to defuse it. Seen in the cool light of day, that is, with hindsight. In practice, when the moment arrives, it does so on a wave of adrenalin and heightened senses geared up for a battle. It is no more than a cobweb of commonsense and is as instantly dismissed.
Victor was prepared to eat his steak pie and pursue a rational argument in which he would be the victor (Victor!).
I was angrier than I had been for a long time, than I had ever been with Victor. It was not a row about Bob’s party and Tannhäuser with the Cerettis, but a battle touching fundamental issues not much then publicly aired, concerning the rights of women as individuals and the refusal to submit to the arbitrary jackboot of male domination. The moment when we might have reached an amicable solution came and went. I was high on the righteous indignation which consumed me at Victor’s cavalier behaviour and was determined to defend my rights.
We stood facing each other like two stags at bay and I let fly about his egotism, his total inability to understand any life which did not revolve about him.
He was a sitting, or rather standi
ng, target, the straw dummy to which I ran again and again, thrusting and turning the bayonet of my anger.
It was not like fighting with Richard who gave as good as he got.
Victor grew more and more tight-lipped under the onslaught, his pupils more contracted, his eyes steely bright. He waited until I had run out of steam then walked out of the flat. At the door he turned, neither an Olivier nor a Gielgud could have done it better.
‘I thought you loved me, Jean,’ he said.
I was tempted to get the steak pie out of the oven and throw it after him.
Bob’s party was like any other of that ilk, although of course to Bob it was special. He took me personally on a tour of the house and I had to admire every knob and handle, every arch and architrave. He had made a splendid job of it; cupboards which he had constructed himself and cornices lovingly fashioned on his lathe. His face, usually pale from concentration in the lab, or work in his little villa, was flushed with achievement. I wondered if there was any labour as satisfying as that done with one’s own hands: it came second only to owning a bit of ground, scratching it with a hoe, planting seeds and watching for the renewal of life. My approval was important to him.
Downstairs, the entire department, together with Bob’s rugby friends, and the neighbours who had watched the progress of the conversion with interest, were crammed into the knocked-through sitting-room, into the conservatory which Bob had filled with aspidistras, and into the kitchen. Shoulder to shoulder we drank mulled wine and nibbled bits of things which Bob had impaled on sticks. I drank more than I should normally have done because I was trying to banish the sound of the Venusberg music from Covent Garden, from my ears, and because a rugby player with splendid shoulders and bedroom eyes kept refilling my glass.
I had neither seen nor heard from Victor since Monday. I was determined that I was not going to make the first move; my demonstration of autonomy was fundamental to our relationship. There were moments when I wondered if he had walked out of my life altogether. It was one of the times when the freedom implicit in not being married did not seem, after all, such a splendid idea. I did not want Victor to walk away yet my pride prevented me from making any move towards him. I expected that having got Tannhäuser over, and seeing that the evening with the Cerettis was not such a disaster after all, he would call.
By the time Bob got round to the jugged hare, my stomach was awash with wine I was certain he had spiked with something stronger, and it was not the only thing which was mulled. I sat on the floor with the rugby player who ate my jugged hare and became increasingly drunk. The evening passed in a haze and I think I was entertaining, witty and flirtatious while inside I was crying for Victor. I wanted to ‘show him’ and to my shame I followed my intentions to the letter by taking the rugby player home to bed. It just seemed to happen through a mist of mulled wine and a tangle of limbs. The experience was intensely pleasurable and involved little of the emotions, less of finesse; afterwards I was appalled. I booted him out, hurt and uncomprehending – he thought he had been such a clever boy – and changed the sheets on the bed before flopping into it. In the morning I was prostrate with remorse, thoroughly ashamed of myself, and at a loss to understand my unprecedented behaviour. I blamed it on the wine and the primitive urges it had unleashed and was never again unfaithful to Victor.
If in the department they guessed, or knew, what had happened, they didn’t let on. On Friday morning ‘Ice-Bank’, suitably buttoned in mind and body, was at her desk. The Times gave Tannhäuser a rave review.
It was one of the longest weekends; ever. I had thought Victor would ring on Friday, or that when I got home he would be there, sitting in his chair with a bouquet of white flowers, as if nothing had happened. The flat was empty. Not just with a deficit of human occupancy, but with a deserted feeling, as if Victor would never come again. I realized suddenly how used I had become to him; how much I loved and needed him, and that perhaps I should have gone to Tannhäuser. Then no. If the relationship was to persist it must do so on the right footing. If he really loved me he would not desert on so slight a pretext. I sat, still in my coat, on the sofa, opposite his chair, with the room around me. I could see him sitting in it, feet, in their tidy socks which he bought in Jermyn Street, up on the footstool. When he was there his presence filled the room as well as my being yet I doubt if I could describe him. You could not say this nose, this mouth, these eyes, which were none of them in themselves unusual. Compact and dynamic, ready for action, he was more a presence than a picture, his face opening up only for those he loved. For me and Molly and probably the boys.
I suspect they saw him as a stern father, which he was. Like the prickly pear he kept his soft interior closely guarded. Sometimes it came out in unexpected places, leaving me amazed. Victor was full of surprises.
Once we were having dinner and Victor had ordered strawberries. The waiter put them in front of him with one hand and with the other deluged them with sugar.
‘Who asked for sugar?’ Victor said. ‘Take them away.’
It was said in the tone of one who did not suffer fools gladly. I felt sorry for the man but when he came with the fresh plate of strawberries, he seemed not at all put out but apologized profusely.
‘My son’s the same,’ he said, arranging Victor’s spoon with a dextrous flick of the wrist.
Victor looked at him.
‘Diabetic.’
I thought that Victor, who was of course only watching his figure, would dismissively apply himself to his strawberries but he said:
‘How old is he?’
‘Eight,’ the man said, ‘nine next birthday.’
‘Do you belong to the Association?’ Victor said. ‘They offer advice – free – on diet, education and general care of diabetic children. They also run special holiday camps.’ He took out his notepad. ‘Write your name and address here and someone will contact you.’
I knew that he would follow it up. He was concerned with a great many charities. Nothing written on the notepad was forgotten.
I have seen him cross the road to put a pound in the tray of a crippled match-seller; lecture small boys collecting for the ‘Guy’ on the immorality of hustling. He was a law unto himself.
I could swear that his armchair, even at that time, had moulded itself to his slight shape. I had only to look at it to see Victor.
But he wasn’t there. Was he still angry? Because of my pride I had left it too late to phone and would have to endure the weekend not knowing.
On Saturday I read in my newspaper that he had gone for the day to a conference in Switzerland. There was a photograph of him arriving in Zürich. He wasn’t wearing his overcoat and I wondered if he’d remembered to take it.
I spent the morning wandering round our garden, round our lake, which was frozen, watching the ducks in the pools where they had broken the ice. I sat on our seat, my hands in my pockets, my nose red with cold, and made up my mind that henceforth my loyalties, all of them, would be with Victor. I had struck a blow for independence but it had not made me happy.
On Monday I rang him on his private line. It was engaged for ten minutes. Molly? Had he met another woman on the plane to Zürich? Another ‘Mrs Palmer’ to whom he had given his number? I had no time to ring again. Monday was always busy with the backlog of work from the weekend.
At the end of the day he was there. Outside. In the Rolls. I wondered how long he had been waiting.
‘I tried to ring you,’ I said, wanting him to know. ‘This morning about eleven.’
‘I was ringing you. I thought they’d all died at the switchboard. Then I had a meeting.’
‘How was Switzerland?’
He ignored the chit-chat I produced to camouflage my feelings, my happiness.
‘Jean.’ Said rightly it could be a name to conjure with.
‘Victor.’
It was an affirmation. Not that we would never quarrel again. We did. Quite frequently. The bond we had formed grew strong enough to withsta
nd the minor tests of its endurance.
In the sitting-room, to the right of the fireplace, above the urn table we bought in the Cotswolds, there is a framed fragment from an old Tannhäuser score, Victor’s peace offering. I never looked at it, nor at the Cerettis, as I was to do many times, without remembering that ghastly weekend.
I looked up ‘concubine’ in the dictionary and realized that I was it. Victor’s. ‘A woman who co-habits with a man without being his wife’. ‘A secondary wife’. This made Victor polygamous although given Molly’s predicament surely it was force majeure.
I remember the first time that I saw her. In the flesh. I had of course seen photographs. Molly in the garden, in front of the climbing frame with Tristan; Molly, shielding her eyes from the sun in a boat off Elba, in the days before she had become too phobic to travel; Molly and Victor, arms round each other’s shoulders, looking at each other. Smiling. He did love her. You could see. The look she had for him could only be called adoration but it had about it a subservient quality which I can only compare to the expression in the eyes of a dog, waiting for his master to call. It was almost as if Molly were frightened of Victor.
I left the hospital, taking Bob with me, and started, tentatively, in my private practice. Thanks to Victor I had all the very latest equipment and I hoped that the care and attention I gave to my reports and the good service I offered those who would make use of my laboratory would compensate for my lack of status. I had done quite a bit to prepare the ground and had whispered in ears that I knew in the surrounding area that my services were available. Today, backed by the private insurance schemes, pathology is big business; we had little idea then, Bob and I, gloating over our first coagulation screen, that eventually Victor would buy, and we would convert, the whole house for our use.
I missed the hospital. The feeling that we were working as a team, the camaraderie, the petty quarrels, above all the sharing of the responsibilities I now had to carry on my own shoulders. I probably worked harder, more conscientiously, in order to compensate for what I felt were my deficiencies, than I ever would have done had I stayed on in the Health Service. There was not a journal I did not read, an advance I was not aware of, a conference I did not attend or whose proceedings I did not acquaint myself with. Today, more important than the fact that my laboratories are financially viable and I could well have afforded to reimburse Victor, in part at least, for his outlay, had he ever allowed me to do so, is the knowledge that my judgement is respected and my opinion frequently sought after by my colleagues. As far as Victor was concerned, the arrangement paid dividends. By engaging a locum, and later taking in a partner, I was able to make myself free to travel with him.
A Loving Mistress Page 7