‘No.’ She thought again of Gloria’s idea. ‘It wouldn’t work; it’s damp and cold for a start. We’ll have Christmas here as usual.’ If Stephen asked to come she’d tell him he couldn’t, but then she was probably panicking over nothing, he’d want to be with that girl, he wouldn’t want to be with her. Unless, and the thought was like a stab wound, he asked the children to go over to him, or took them skiing, or out somewhere glamorous and exciting, leaving her without them.
As they cleared the table and she made some coffee, the idea of putting the three men in Ravenscourt gripped her like a rabid dog. There must be a way to get them there; she’d ring Gloria this evening.
The meal and a beer had relaxed Ben a little, but she could see that Flora was the dominant one in the relationship. The more Lorna covetously watched them, the more she realised that her ‘little girl’ had obviously not been seduced by an experienced older man. In fact Lorna was very much afraid it was Flora who had done the seducing. Dull though Ben appeared to be, there was a cosiness about him reminiscent of a comfortable teddy bear, which had probably appealed to Flora in her present state of mind, feeling lost with the painful departure of her beloved father.
Lorna felt a lecture on the dishonesty of sleeping with a married man come upon her. She could not say anything about that now, though she hated to think that Flora had broken up another woman’s marriage, just as Stephen’s Pekinese woman had broken hers.
Ben spoke slowly as if he was unwrapping and inspecting each word before he uttered it. ‘We’ve been going through a difficult time, Tess …. that’s my wife, and me. I met Flora and we got talking, she was unhappy and so was I.’ He stopped speaking, looked round at them with anxious confusion as if that was all there was to it – and perhaps it was, two unhappy people going to bed together for solace, but ending up with a baby.
Lorna wondered if Ben knew that Flora had told her that he and his wife could not have children together. She wondered if it was true at all or whether he had just fabricated the story to gain her sympathy. But if it were true, this seemed like the worst betrayal of all.
13
It Must Be Made To Work
Lorna felt as if the whole country in its build up for Christmas was conspiring against her. Catalogues offering festive cards, decorations and lavish presents, not to mention Christmas food littered her house. The shops now glittered with magic and glamour, adding to the pain of those not able to have the perfect family celebration. ‘The empty chair,’ a friend of her mother’s had remarked sorrowfully, at their first Christmas after her father had died. But it was Stephen’s fault that his chair was empty this Christmas, as it was he who had chosen to leave them for the Pekinese woman, and she was damned if he would try and sneak back into it, probably towing her behind.
Ben and Flora left after tea to go back to Oxford, leaving Lorna feeling that the situation was far worse that she’d imagined. Flora had not helped matters by flouncing upstairs ‘for a rest’ leaving the three of them together. Lorna, Marcus and Ben had sat there over yet more cups of coffee in a state of awkwardness. She’d offered her cakes, hoping to sweeten the atmosphere, but only Marcus took one, eating it quickly, saying it was ‘all right’, which didn’t help her decide if they were a good idea or not. She’d take the rest to Martha tomorrow, and see what she thought.
At last, Ben shyly announced that he needed some fresh air and would like to walk along the towpath by the Thames, as he knew the area. Neither Marcus nor Lorna offered to accompany him, so he sloped off alone, returning barely an hour later announcing his presence with a timid ring on the doorbell.
Marcus, apart from raising his eyes heavenwards and emitting an exaggerated sigh, did not want to discuss the affair and besides, they were both afraid that Flora would overhear something that would induce one of her tantrums. He watched sport on television while Lorna cleared the lunch, refusing his half-hearted offer to help. She wanted to be alone, struggling to find something positive about the situation and failing miserably.
When they left, Flora was still sulky and off-hand with them, leaving Lorna tormented with guilt that she had not handled the meeting well. Neither Ben nor Flora seemed to her to have grasped the enormity of their predicament. They hadn’t even discussed how it would affect Ben’s infertile wife. She realised that she was almost more anxious about this unfortunate woman than she was about Flora.
Marcus stayed on that evening, flopping down in a chair facing the television; the sports pages of the newspaper, beer cans and crumpled bags of crisps around him. This mess that spawned from him usually annoyed her but she let it go, pleased to have him here relieving the loneliness of an evening spent on her own, tormented by her problems. She would have liked to discuss the day’s events with him but he was immersed in Sky Sports and she knew all she’d get from him was a succession of irritated grunts. When at last he’d tired of watching, he called out, ‘What’s for supper, Mum?’
‘Pasta,’ she fell back on that old standby.
‘I always eat pasta,’ he said, getting up and then throwing himself down again beside her on the sofa. ‘I feel like a steak, a great, big juicy steak. Can I go and get one? I’ll cook it.’
‘If you want, but don’t get one for me, I’ve had too much lunch.’ She reached for her bag, handed him twenty pounds and in a sudden burst of generosity, suggested he bought more beer and anything else he wanted to eat.
‘Thanks, Mum.’ He leapt up, hovered a moment as if he’d kiss her, before making for the door. ‘Great to be home again,’ he said, as he disappeared into the hall.
That’s what’s really important, she thought, the love of one’s children; making them a home they are always happy to return to. She leant back on the sofa, savouring the warm feeling his words left in her. A moment later the doorbell went. She smiled indulgently and got up. Marcus must have forgotten something, probably his mobile, his security blanket. No doubt he’d left his key behind, too. She opened the door. Gloria stumbled into the house; her face streaked with tears, her hair in disarray, and collapsed on to the sofa.
Adrian is dead, was Lorna’s first thought. He’d been run over or fallen down somewhere while drunk and smashed his head in, or someone else had done it for him.
Taking a deep, shuddering breath Gloria said, ‘So sorry to barge in like this but I couldn’t bear to be alone. Adrian’s been found in the bed of some girl. He didn’t come home last night and I’ve been worried sick.’
‘Oh, love,’ Lorna sat down beside her and took her in her arms. This was not the first time it had happened but he’d sworn he would never do it again. That Adrian was probably too drunk to know what he was doing or be any sort of a lover was no comfort. Whatever the state of these men’s minds, you could not help but be furious and hurt at their betrayal.
‘I can’t go on like this, I really can’t,’ Gloria gasped; closing her eyes as the tears ran down her face. She’d been like this before and rallied for the next battle, but each episode chipped away at her strength and surely there would come a time when she’d had too much and left him. No one would blame her. Most thought she should have chucked him out ages ago. Everyone liked Adrian, but most had tired of this fatal flaw in him.
Lorna listened to the sad and sordid story, punctuated by tears. It was one she had heard so many times before. Adrian’s brother had gone looking for him and found him in some lap dancer’s bed and he was now sleeping it off at his house. ‘Fortunately Zoë is away, she won’t have him in the house when he’s like that and I don’t blame her.’ Gloria finished, blowing her nose furiously.
They talked around the problem as they always did, getting nowhere, and were interrupted by Marcus coming back, laden with enough food for a dinner party. He knew the sorry tale about Adrian’s alcoholism and Lorna thought she detected a note of irritation in his expression when he saw Gloria, his godmother, rumpled and tear-stained, slumped on the sofa. But he put down his shopping, kissed her and said how good it was to see her.
‘I’m sorry for you to find me here like this, Marcus.’ Gloria moved half-heartedly to get up, ‘I’ll go now. You’ll want to spend time together.’
Lorna was torn between wanting to enjoy being with Marcus and talking through her fears about Flora and Ben with him, while knowing that Gloria needed her too.
Marcus said. ‘Don’t go. I’ve got some work to do. Stay and gossip with Mum.’ He sat down in a chair beside them, obviously in no hurry to go into his room to tackle his work.
Gloria asked him about his life at Uni and Marcus answered her dutifully but Lorna had a feeling that he was keeping something from her. Had he been sent down? Got into some dreadful trouble? Every so often he glanced towards her with anxiety as if afraid she too might collapse into pieces like Gloria. At last he blurted out. ‘Dad rang just now on my mobile.’
Her stomach contracted. Marcus studied his feet in their blue and once white trainers as if they were of immense interest. ‘He says . . .’ he paused, ‘well, Odile …’
‘Odile, is that her name?’ Lorna spat it out as if it were snake venom.
He shrugged. ‘I suppose so. She’s got to go home for Christmas. She booked her ticket ages ago and her parents are very religious and Dad can’t go.’
‘I hate religious people who act as if they are holier than thou, they’re always the ones you have to watch, destroying other people’s marriages.’ Lorna exclaimed.
Marcus frowned, a little fearful at her fury. ‘Anyway Mum, he’s alone for Christmas and thought we could all be together.’ He said it quickly, watching her warily as if she would suddenly explode and maim them all.
‘No,’ Lorna said. ‘He cannot come here. He can be alone. I’m alone. Night after night I’m alone while he’s with this … this religious tart. He’s chosen to be with her instead of me so he can get on with it.’
Marcus’s face creased with anxiety. ‘But it is Christmas, Mum. And you never know, she may not come back and he’ll be sorry and …’
‘No, Marcus, it won’t be like that. It’s too late, our marriage is over. It’s hard to accept, I know. It’s hard for me to accept he was seeing this woman before that shrink destroyed his mind, but it’s happened and I … we, have all been hurt and humiliated far too much to go back to the way it was before.’ There had been too much pain and anger between them. Being left alone together here in this house would be worse than anything she could imagine. There was no going back.
Gloria leant over and laid her hand on Marcus’s shoulder. ‘Look, love,’ she said, ‘I know how hard this is for you and Flora. Justin feels the same over his father’s shameful behaviour. Stephen is your father and a child’s love is stronger for a parent than a wife’s for a husband – at least if their father has been as good a one as yours was before this nonsense. But what he’s done to your mother and to you children is inexcusable. It is far too soon to expect your mother to have him here as though nothing has happened. You must see that.’
‘But it is Christmas,’ Marcus repeated miserably.
‘A family time, which makes it worse if things are so smashed up.’ Gloria said. ‘Your father’s behaved in the most disgraceful, hurtful way. He chose to do this and he must take the consequences. If this woman does not come back and he does not go off with someone else, in time things just might … resolve themselves … though I doubt it,’ she added quickly, seeing Lorna’s face, ‘and not now, not at Christmas.’
‘So where will he go?’ Marcus demanded, and Lorna could see him weighing up which parent needed him most. What would Flora think? She’d always adored her father before he’d turned into this stranger. Stephen would find it easy to manipulate them into doing what he wanted. If she was not careful she might well end up the loser and she would be alone for longer than Christmas.
Lorna and Gloria flashed a glance between them, before Gloria spoke. She seemed hesitant at first, thinking through what she should say. She knew what she wanted to say but she mustn’t forget that Stephen was Marcus’s father, however badly he’d behaved.
‘As I expect you know Marcus, I … and perhaps more so, Justin, have a difficult time with Adrian and his drinking. Rosalind and her girls have troubles with Ivan, too, different ones, but just as difficult, and your father …’ she paused, watching him, curled up on the chair, arms round his knees as if he were holding himself together, and her heart went out to him. How could these men cause such hurt to their children? She went on, curbing her anger, ‘… for whatever reason your father seems to have chosen a different lifestyle, which is very hurtful … We’re so afraid their behaviour will spoil Christmas, we had a mad idea, Rosalind, your mother and I, to have the three men spend a lovely Christmas together in that house your mother has just inherited.’
‘What, Ravenscourt?’ Marcus’s glance spun back to Lorna. ‘I suggested we all go there, but you said it was far too cold and bleak.’
‘It’s a bit different now. You know that a … a friend of ours is using it as a backdrop for his food brochure – he’s shooting it now in readiness for next year. After all, Christmas seems to start in August, with all the festive catalogues and such.’ She knew she was waffling but she must convince him and she felt she was losing him.
‘So there’ll be enough warm rooms for them, but not for all of us as well,’ she ploughed on. ‘Plenty of food too, and we thought if we could get them there they’d have such fun being all men … old friends, together and we all could have a peaceful Christmas on our own. You know…’ she went on more frantically, as he tried to protest, ‘…how these men can ruin Christmas with their embarrassing behaviour… in front of your friends, and we just want to give you all a happy Christmas without them spoiling it. Surely you can understand that, Marcus?’
‘It sounds crazy,’ Marcus looked from one to the other as if they were some strange species that was alien to him. His father had gone mad, now it seemed his mother and Gloria had too. Perhaps he’d go back to Uni tonight after all.
Guessing his thoughts, Lorna chipped in, telling him how the three men had been friends for a long time; how they would enjoy themselves together, drinking and smoking cigars without their families to interfere. She got rather carried away, building up a picture of a wonderful country weekend with bracing walks over the countryside, good books to read and visits to the pub, and Marcus began to believe her.
‘Sounds great! Perhaps I’ll join them, better than having Flora puking all over the place and Aunt Felicity preaching to us.’
‘No, it’s better it’s just the three of them.’ Gloria said quickly. ‘The only thing is, and maybe you have some ideas on this, how do we get them there?’ She smiled sweetly at him.
‘I’d have thought it will be easy if it’s going to be such fun,’ Marcus said enviously
‘It is disgusting, shaming too, what Dad has done. I suppose I hoped if he came for Christmas things would resolve themselves, but I see they won’t and it would be difficult after knowing what he has done. But I don’t want him to be alone.’ He appealed to Lorna.
‘He won’t be; he’ll be with two of his oldest friends.’ Gloria said.
‘OK, then,’ Marcus got up and went to his room, exhausted with it all.
‘So it seems it is on,’ Gloria said.
‘Hardly. We still don’t know how to get them there or make them stay when they are there.’
‘I can get hold of Adrian’s mobile, he’s always leaving it about. And we’ll ask Clara and that friend she mentioned to look after them. We’ll pay them to do it, it will be worth it. Somehow we’ll have to immobilize their cars, but if the weather is bad and there’s enough booze and good food … and don’t forget, they’re getting on now, and inclined to be lazy …’ Gloria said with a strangled laugh.
‘But getting them there in the first place is the difficult thing,’ Lorna said, wondering if they would ever pull it off.
‘We’ll have to pretend we are all going to be down there,’ Gloria said. ‘I’m pretty sure Adrian
will do anything for me now after this sordid venture … until the next time.’ Her face sagged with despair. ‘I don’t know about Ivan, but Rosalind must think of something. I’ll ring Nathan; find out when he is doing his shoot. We don’t want the green garlands to be dead when they arrive. They’ll have to think it is a house party all waiting for them.’
‘But even if we sabotage their cars they could walk up the drive to the road or telephone from the house. Maybe Clara could disconnect the phone.’
‘It is feasible,’ Gloria looked much happier than when she had arrived. ‘We simply must pull it off. Let’s ring Rosalind and see what ideas she’s got.’
‘I’ll drug him, dump him and possibly castrate him too, while I’m at it,’ Rosalind almost spat down the phone, clearly furious with Ivan. Chloe, one of their daughters, was in trouble at school and they’d been called in to discuss her behaviour with her headmistress. Ivan hadn’t turned up, despite having promised he would. He still hadn’t come home and she’d been trying his mobile for ages but he’d switched it off, as he was apt to do if he didn’t want to be contacted. ‘I bet he’s cosying up to those social workers, helping out with their teenagers while his own daughter is threatened with expulsion.’ She finished, near tears.
‘Less than four weeks to go until Christmas, we’ve simply got to make it work,’ Gloria said. ‘We’ll tell Nathan to leave up his decorations as we’re having a house party; there’s no need for him to know the guest list. Once he’s taken the photographs for his brochure he won’t go to Ravenscourt again.
14
Difficult Husbands
It was dusk and the cars crawled up the Fulham Road with their headlights glowing like saucer eyes. Lorna and Rosalind were having tea at Maison Blanc and barely noticed, being deep in conversation. Lorna had spent the day in her cake shop. She and Martha had spent the weekend experimenting with ‘non-fattening’ cakes, if there were such things, cutting down on the refined sugar and using sweet vegetables, apples, dried apricots and lots of spices instead. They’d sold quite a few, some people saying they were perfect for a breakfast on the way to work.
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