Dark Obsession

by Valerie Marsh

  'True, but it won't affect me.' He saw the unspoken question in the quick glance she sent him and his lips twisted. 'I don't subscribe to the theory of third time lucky. I don't think I've got the stomach for another attempt.'

  He stood up and turned away from her, and she frowned, at a loss to know why he wanted this empty marriage to continue. Eventually, she said, 'In effect, you are saying you want me to stay.'

  'That's the substance of it, yes.'

  'Why?'

  'Perhaps I want what you promised me and put your name to in the presence of witnesses.'

  'You didn't feel bound by the promises you made before,' she pointed out acidly. 'Why should I be bound by them now?'

  He swung back swiftly, his face tight with rage, and she found she was pressing herself back against the chair. The leaping anger gradually died, and he said silkily, 'Perhaps I want a reasonable return on my outlay—or just my pound of flesh.'

  'Or perhaps you merely want to keep me here to avoid another admission of failure!'

  'Why not? No man likes exposing himself to ridicule and our separation wouldn't be just a local affair. I don't feel like advertising to the world at large that I was fool enough to be infatuated by a lovely face.'

  'You astonish me,' Fran retorted bitterly. 'I thought it was my body. You told me once that desire wasn't everything, but in your case it seems that it was. Once it was dead there was nothing left!'

  With a return of the swift anger, he said harshly, 'Remember it was you who killed it!' He stared down at her, his expression brooding. 'And you knew how to do it, didn't you, my lovely wife? How to give a hint of hope then smash it! Sometimes you would respond when I kissed you and I'd think that this time it was going to be different—that we were going to get back what we had in the beginning, then suddenly—nothing. You'd switched off and I was trying to make love to a lifeless body. No reaction, no response, no feeling— nothing. You never actually refused me because you knew you didn't need to. What you were doing was mental castration—a little slower, perhaps, but in the end it works as well as any knife!'

  'It wasn't deliberate, Grant,' she protested despairingly. 'It wasn't anything I could help.' She checked, wondering why it should still seem important even now to try to convince him, then shrugged helplessly as she met his open disbelief. 'I would have thought that by thirty-eight you'd have learned that some women need more than mere expertise to rouse them. They're affected by surroundings and atmosphere and all sorts of other things that men don't consider important.'

  'If I didn't know before you'd certainly have taught me!' he returned savagely. 'Oh, you can be turned on by atmosphere all right! Give you parties and theatres and more expensive clothes than you can wear and you're instantly every man's dream!'

  'That isn't true!' she flared. Clenching her hands, she heard the quiver of impotent fury in her own voice. 'I'm not going to bother to deny it again because nothing I say will ever alter what you choose to think. Carry on being blameless if it makes you feel better, but believe it or not there are some women who need to feel they are more than just an object of desire. It works for a while, but on its own it isn't enough. They need the other kind of love as well.'

  'So?'

  She looked up to find him studying her impatiently. 'You've lost me somewhere. How does all this apply to us? You're surely not trying to make out I only married you for your body?' When she was silent he added with deliberate brutality, 'If you remember, you offered it to me without!'

  A tide of colour rose up her face, but she kept her voice level. 'No, that was only part of it. I'm saying that you married me not for what I am but for what you thought I was.'

  'At least we're agreed on one thing! But if that little speech a moment ago was meant to tell me something, I'm afraid I don't get it. Just what did you want or expect that I failed to give you? What do you want, Fran?'

  'Nothing,' she said dully. 'Or nothing you can give me anyway.'

  She wrenched her gaze away to stare at the clothes and cases on the bed, blinking to disperse a rush of tears. With a sudden desire to inflict some of her own pain on Grant, she said viciously, 'Go back to your precious Julia and beg her to forgive you! God knows you're paying her enough to keep her sweet!'

  She got up to walk away but his hand shot out and grabbed her wrist, dragging her back. Icily, he demanded, 'And how would you know that?'

  She tried to twist free but his grip on her only tightened, his fingers biting in until the flesh underneath went numb. In quick fear, she said, 'The postman got our statements crossed. I opened yours without realising and I saw the standing order.' The fear faded and she met his eyes, her own hard. 'Don't you think it's perhaps unwise to give her so much? She's not likely to marry again if it means losing a steady income for life.'

  Softly and contemptuously, he said, 'You little bitch.'

  'I was only being practical. The way things are you could hardly afford much in the way of maintenance so it would be pointless to ask for it.'

  She snatched her wrist free and thought for a second that he was going to strike her. He was pale round the mouth with anger, but then with a visible effort he controlled himself. In a flat voice, he said, 'I suppose it was stupid of me not to guess when I opened your statement that you must have had mine. It answers a lot of questions.'

  Despairingly, Fran wished she had held her tongue. Grant said with savage scorn, 'So that's what has been eating away at your avaricious little soul. I wasn't quite the meal ticket you thought, so you want to go out in search of a better one.'

  She didn't reply and his eyes swept over her derisively. Reaching into his pocket he drew out her car keys and tossed them to her as though her touch might contaminate him. 'Then I won't stand in your way, darling—you can have your divorce. And you can keep the car.'

  Through stiff lips, she retorted, 'How magnanimous of you. Since it's registered in my name there isn't a great deal you could do about it, but thank you, I will keep it. In spite of your rather nauseating self-righteousness it wasn't all as one-sided as it suits you to believe, and I think I deserve that much out of the wreck.'

  'What's that supposed to mean?'

  Sick and unutterably weary, she said, 'Oh, why bother to pretend at this stage? We both know you only married me because I reminded you of Julia.'

  For the space of a few seconds he seemed stunned. He stared at her, his expression blank with disbelief, then, his voice rising, he demanded, 'Are you insane?'

  Shocked by his tone, suddenly uncertain, she said, 'Why should I be insane? What do you mean?' and with an incredulous glitter in his eyes he began to laugh, harshly, but with genuine amusement. 'Is that what you believed? Christ Almighty, do you mean you didn't know?'

  His violent words seemed to ring round the room, confusing her. Bewildered, she repeated, 'What do you mean? What should I have known?'

  His laughter mocking now, he told her with ironic bitterness, 'I only married Julia because she reminded me of you!'

  For a moment the world seemed to spin backwards, half-formed thoughts whirling in her brain, then settling into a meaningless disorder of which she could make no sense. She whispered finally, 'I don't understand. Why…?'

  His voice searing, he broke in, 'Because I had to do something! You were fourteen, for God's sake, and you were driving me out of my mind! I was obsessed with you!—a man of twenty-eight! Can you imagine what the men in the village would have done if they'd known the thoughts I was harbouring about you? If I'd acted them out I wouldn't even have been safe in prison!'

  He flung away from her and went to stand by the window. His tone flat with self-contempt, he said, 'I despised myself, but there was nothing I could do about it. I kept telling myself how old you were—repeating it like a litany whenever I was near you—but I couldn't think of you as a child—you didn't look like one or seem like one.'

  He paused for a moment, then went on, 'I almost convinced myself that as long as I never touched you or let you see what I
felt, then it was all right, I wasn't doing any harm, but I knew I was wrong. I should have slapped you down, told you to go and practise your lures on one of the village lads instead—I realised you were sexually aware of me and it was dangerous—but I couldn't make myself. I kept thinking, I'll do it tomorrow—I'll just see her one more time, then tomorrow I'll do it.'

  Turning his head, he stared sightlessly over the valley. 'I used to stand by this window to watch for you coming over the bridge. It was playing with dynamite and I knew I was a fool. One or two people had already dropped hints that I might find myself in trouble if I wasn't careful, but I managed to laugh it off and say you were just a kid. I thought I was still able to keep the situation in control. Then up on the hill that day I frightened myself sick because I so nearly wasn't in control, and I knew I had to get away from you.'

  He was still staring through the window, and Fran watched him with a wild, leaping joy beginning to sing in her veins. Carefully masking all traces of emotion, she asked, 'Where did you meet Julia?'

  'In London soon after I got there. I could hardly believe it at first, she was so like you it was uncanny. She'd even got some of your mannerisms—the trick you've got of turning your eyes as you look up. She seemed like you all over again, but she wasn't forbidden to me. She was a woman and I was allowed to touch her, allowed to love her.'

  He leaned his head back and closed his eyes, exhaling on a long sigh. 'God, you've no idea of the relief there was in that. I felt normal again—I didn't have to bottle everything inside me or feel ashamed. I thought she was the answer to all those prayers I'd sent up—a reward for not giving in to temptation. I married her as soon as I could.'

  Holding her breath, praying he wouldn't close up, Fran asked quietly, 'Why did it go wrong?'

  He swung round with an abrupt movement and regarded her narrowly, then said with weary indifference, 'Oh, what does it matter now?' Half-turning away, he leaned his shoulder against the wall in the embrasure, and said at last, 'She knew about you. Don't ask me how—I can't tell you. Perhaps I talk in my sleep or perhaps it's something a woman can sense. In the beginning I thought I did love her, but I was always looking for something that wasn't there. I tried to hide it from her and we both pretended there was nothing wrong. We stayed in London for more than a year because I was afraid to bring her home, but she wanted to come back so eventually we did. We'd been here about a week when she came back from the village one day and I knew she'd seen you. She didn't tell me and I didn't ask—I don't think either of us ever mentioned your name until that night I saw you in the theatre.'

  There was a long silence, and his voice raw, he said, 'She told me then that she couldn't go on with the marriage. She loved me and it was crucifying her. I persuaded her to carry on for a while and see if we could work anything out, but it was no use—you were always there between us, however much I tried to conceal it. In a way I did love her, but she knew it was only a fraction of what I felt for you.' He drew in a deep, harsh breath. 'The day she left she told me that every time I made love to her she knew I was imagining it was you I was holding in my arms. There wasn't anything I could say,' he finished bleakly. 'God help me, it was true.'

  Fran made a small, involuntary movement, and his eyes slid over her without interest. In level tones, devoid of all expression, he said, 'She wrote to me and said she hoped I'd find you again. I don't think anyone has ever felt such a swine in the history of the world as I did when I read that. She'll be on my conscience until I die, and it was all for what? An illusion. Something I'd built up in my mind—an image I'd created for myself from the bright, charming little girl I'd watched growing up. I thought the woman would be the adult of the child I had known. Self-delusion doesn't take into account the fact that people change.'

  Feeling the tears gather behind her eyes, Fran said huskily, 'Not always, Grant.'

  He turned his head slowly towards her, and she hesitated, gathering her courage in case he repulsed her. 'Grant, why do you think I threw myself at you all those years ago?'

  'Experimentation, I suppose,' he said indifferently. 'It's the usual reason at that age. You were too young to really know what you were doing, or how you affected me.'

  Distinctly, she said, 'But I did know.'

  He looked across at her with a quick frown, and the tears she could no longer hold back spilled over and ran down her cheeks. She met his suddenly alert stare with a slow, glimmering smile. 'You were right to go away, but oh God, Grant, you should have waited for me— you should have waited for me!'

  Her voice broke on the last words and she cried openly now, but he made no move towards her. Eyes narrowed, he was tensed into an unnatural stillness.

  'What are you saying?'

  'That I love you, of course. I always have done, for as long as I can remember. There's never been anyone but you—I've never wanted anyone but you.'

  'Then what the hell have these last months been all about?' he demanded roughly.

  'It doesn't matter now.' Sobbing helplessly she reached out to him. 'Hold me, Grant—put your arms round me and hold me.'

  She felt them enclose her and clung to him, her fingers pressing convulsively into his back. For a long while neither of them moved, then he began to smooth his hand up and down her shoulder in a gesture of comfort and she lifted her head and gave a choked laugh.

  'I'm soaking your shirt.'

  'And I suppose you've only got those useless little paper tissues.' Twisting, he reached into his pocket and proffered his handkerchief. 'Here.'

  She took it from him with a muttered word of thanks and he watched while she dried her face and eyes, then said steadily, 'Now what was it all about, Fran?'

  She shook her head. 'For an intelligent man you're a fool. Couldn't you see the same thing was happening all over again? I thought you still loved Julia—that I was a substitute, and for me it was even worse. When we came here she was all around me. I lived with all the curtains and carpets she had chosen, sat in the chairs where she had sat, slept with you in the same bed you'd slept in with her. I couldn't get rid of her, however I tried. I bought a new mattress and those curtains for the bed, but nothing made any difference—she was here! Sometimes I could almost see her!' She took a deep breath. 'And I just—froze—inside.'

  Groaning, he pulled her back into his arms and cradled her. 'Fran, Fran—couldn't you have told me? Did we have to go through all that bloody misery for the sake of a few words?'

  'I daren't tell you. I was afraid even to mention her name. Your face changed and you seemed to close up and shut me out every time you talked about her. It was as though she was sacred. When there was that fuss in the papers about us being alike, it was Julia you were bothered about.'

  'It was conscience. I should never have married her but I did, and I was trying to protect her from being hurt any more. I felt she had a right to expect that at least.'

  Fran nodded, aware of the small, hot flare of jealousy which still burned in her, and Grant said, 'What is it?'

  'Nothing really.' She pulled away from him slightly. 'Time will cure it, I expect, but I've never in my life heard one single word of criticism about her and I always feel people compare us and regard me as second best. Was she so perfect, Grant?'

  There was a long pause, and he said slowly, 'If you want the truth, the answer has got to be yes.' He looked down at her, his expression wry. 'She was always good tempered, always considerate, thoughtful and kind with everyone, not just me. And it was genuine—it wasn't just a front she put on for other people, it was her nature, just as she was always naturally neat and well groomed, whether we were going out or not.'

  His voice altered, becoming distant with remembered thoughts. 'And I used to long for her to lose her temper with me one day, or start an argument, or leave her clothes scattered about the bedroom floor. Even to see her with a smut on her nose would have been a blessed relief. I don't think I ever swore in front of her or had a drink too many in the whole of those six years, though she
wouldn't have said anything if I had, and to knowingly and deliberately do anything that might hurt her would have been like slapping an innocent, trusting child. There's nothing quite so restraining as pure goodness—it robs you of all the weapons you would normally use. You can't pick a fight and have a slanging match because you couldn't be such a bastard. It binds you, cages you, forces you to conform when you want to break out because you're irritable or angry and you need to relieve your feelings. It's bland and smothering…'

  He paused for a moment, staring into the distance. 'God, at times it's so bloody boring that I wanted to get up and smash something!'

  He ran his hands slowly down her back and said reflectively, 'I used to sit there and think of you with your scratched arms and legs and your hair flying all over the place, but it only made things worse.'

  She stirred in his arms and he laughed suddenly and looked down at her again. 'You'll never be perfect, Fran, but I don't want perfection. It's too hard to live with.'

  She was silent while her brain absorbed his words and broke up the image of Julia which had been created in her mind. Finally she asked on a tentative note, 'Why didn't you have children?'

  'I don't think she really wanted them. Strangely enough, she wasn't very maternal, and she wasn't close to her own parents, possibly because of the way she was brought up. She was an only child and she had the usual upper middle-class background of nanny, then boarding school. She liked everything ordered, and according to my mother, children are noisy, messy little beasts. They tend to be sick on your shoulder and develop spotty complaints at the most inconvenient moments.'

  Fran said, 'Yes, but…' then her voice trailed away as she realised it was impossible to imagine Julia with sticky fingers entwined in that smooth, elegant chignon. Her heart suddenly lightened, and she said curiously, 'Didn't you mind?'

  Grant shook his head, and after another small hesitation, she said, 'Would you ever have left her?'

  'No,' he said honestly. 'She loved me and that was the most binding thing of all. She believed I felt the same way in the beginning and she let me see how much. When I realised I had made a mistake I swore I would never expose myself to anyone as she had done to me. It's humiliating enough when it merely evokes pity, and it's too powerful a weapon to risk giving in to the wrong hands.'