She shrugged. ‘I can’t leave the boys.’
‘The boys are huge. They’ll be leaving you pretty soon. And they can certainly manage to make a sandwich and put the kettle on. You’d be happier, Inge, believe me.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘You mean you’d be happier. You’d have more money to spend on the cow.’
‘Come on,’ he said, forced now to make a stand. ‘Time to go home.’
‘Will you drive me?’
‘No.’
‘Then I won’t go.’
He tried to stay calm. If she knew how much she was annoying him, she would go on playing. ‘Well, you can’t stay here.’
‘Are you going to throw me out? How exciting. I didn’t know you were so violent. Isn’t it nice you can still surprise me after all these years?’ She leaned back in her chair, smiling again, daring him to do something. ‘What will your colleagues think when I start to scream?’
In the car she was silent at first, stretching luxuriously, reminding him of a cat. Then she started to talk.
‘Oh, Richard, this is such fun. I can have a fantasy we’re still married and we’re going home to supper and bed.’ There was something about her strength that frightened him. If she could cling so tenaciously to one idea for eight years, perhaps she had a valid point of view.
‘If you know it’s a fantasy, why d’you want to have it?’
‘Oh, Richard, don’t you understand anything?’ Now she sounded like an indulgent mother: the little girl was gone. ‘Sometimes I wonder why I still love you when you have so little imagination.’
He put on the radio to discourage her from talking and she looked out of the window and hummed to herself. Occasionally she stroked his arm. It fascinated him that nothing he said or did over the years had affected her belief that she had the right to touch him whenever she felt like it. He wasn’t sure if it showed confidence or desperation, but it earned his grudging respect.
As they drew nearer to their destination, he became convinced that he had to tell her his decision. It was fate: he had tried to postpone it but she had come to his office. It was meant to be done today, a clean break, no matter how shocking, and then they could both begin to heal. By the time they reached the house he was shaking inside. They sat in silence for a moment; then she said, ‘Aren’t you going to come in for a drink?’
‘No, I don’t think so.’ He felt like a murderer about to strike, while his victim smiled up at him.
‘The boys may be there,’ she said, trying to tempt him.
It had to be done and he would never be ready to do it. ‘Inge, there’s no easy way to say this, but I’m not going to see you any more.’
He heard her gasp and then there was a terrible shocked silence. He couldn’t look at her. He said gently, ‘I’m sorry, love.’
Presently she said, ‘You don’t mean it. It’s a horrible English joke.’
He shook his head. Now all he wanted was for her to get out of the car so he could drive away with his guilt, hoping it might eventually turn into relief.
‘I can’t believe it,’ she said. ‘Is she making you do this?’
‘No. She doesn’t make me do things.’ He felt he owed her reasons, and just saying he was too tired to go on, which felt like the truth, didn’t seem enough, even seemed insulting. ‘I can’t take any more. It’s no good for either of us. We’ve tried our best and it doesn’t work. I feel guilty and you feel miserable.’
‘Richard, please tell me you’re joking, oh Richard, please.’ Now she grabbed hold of him, talking very fast. ‘Why now? What have I done? I’m sorry, I’ll take it back, I’ll do anything. I can’t live without you, Richard, I mean that. I’ll die without you, I really will.’
It was predictable that she would say all these things, yet he still felt shocked to be the object of so much naked emotion. ‘No, you won’t,’ he said, trying to be rational. ‘I’ve spent eight years believing you, but it’s simply not true. You’ll be depressed for a while but you will get over it. I’m sorry to hurt you but I’m making it worse by seeing you. We should have had a clean break years ago. Truly, Inge. It’s no good like this. I can’t go on being blackmailed.’
Too many words, he thought, even as he said them, remembering Felix teasing him that he protested too much. If he could just tell her he didn’t love her any more, he hated her, or better still was indifferent to her, that might finish it. Ten years ago Helen had told him he would find there was no nice way of breaking with Inge and here he was, still trying to find one. He felt sick at the pain he was inflicting from the best of motives.
‘I’ll kill myself,’ she said flatly.
‘I hope not,’ he said, thinking with terror how appalling it would be if she did just that, how he would never recover, how the boys would be scarred for life. But sooner or later it was a risk he’d have to take. ‘That’s your choice but it would be an awful waste. Come on. I’ll take you into the house.’
Her nails dug into him as he helped her up the path. She moved slowly and awkwardly, like an invalid, and he had a sudden vision of how things would be when they were old.
* * *
By the time they got into the house Inge felt quite ill with pain. She couldn’t believe what was happening: there must be some way to make sense of it, to make it stop hurting. It was worse than anything she had experienced in childbirth, worse than a dentist drilling on an exposed nerve, worse than torture she had imagined in a dream. She hadn’t known such pain existed. It affected her breathing and she thought she might actually die.
Richard helped her into a chair and got her a glass of whisky. She could feel him straining to leave.
‘There. You’ll be all right, Inge, believe me. I must go now. We can always talk on the phone. And the boys know where to reach me.’
Through the fog of pain, an explanation crept into her mind. ‘It’s Felix, isn’t it?’
‘What?’
‘Why you’re leaving me.’
He said, ‘I left you a long time ago, love,’ and she thought he sounded compassionate.
‘Did he tell you we had an affair?’ It would be like Felix to do such a shitty thing. First he deserted her, then he betrayed her to Richard. ‘It was only to feel closer to you. I never cared for him, you must understand that. It was only an itch and it’s gone.’ She wondered if Felix had known that and been upset, or if he was too conceited to believe it.
‘I don’t mind at all,’ Richard said. ‘I thought he might cheer you up.’
‘You knew?’
‘He’s a friend. He had to tell me the truth.’
Now she felt like a parcel, passed from man to man by agreement. And the irony of Felix as a truthful person made her angry. Perhaps anger would act as an anaesthetic.
‘And you’re not even slightly jealous? That’s not why you’re leaving me?’
He said, ‘Inge, I’m leaving you because I can’t stand the strain and I owe it to Helen to make a clean break. She’s been very patient.’
‘You owe it to Helen,’ she repeated. All her demons were coming together. She began to see a way out. Then maybe the pain would stop and Richard would understand who really loved him.
‘Yes, to Helen and Sally. To put them first for a change.’ He was moving to the door, so eager to leave. ‘I really am going now. You’ll be better off without me. You’re always better off without someone who loves someone else.’
He had never sounded so determined before. Perhaps he actually meant it this time. And the word love wounded her. ‘Before you go, will you just open that drawer?’ She didn’t want to hurt him, but she wanted to make him stop hurting her.
‘No, I’m not playing any more games.’
‘Don’t you want to know what you really owe Helen?’
‘Inge, what is all this nonsense?’ He looked very tired and she found herself wanting to comfort him, if only he would let her. She had to remind herself that he had pushed her to this point, that this crisis was not of her making. She had
kept the letter because it made her feel powerful, but like an ultimate deterrent, she had never intended to use it.
‘I want you to know the sort of woman you’re leaving me for. Go on, open that drawer. There’s a letter from Sally to Felix all about the abortion that Helen arranged.’
She saw him look stricken and disbelieving, like someone in a film, suddenly stabbed to the heart. She said, ‘Oh Richard, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’
* * *
Helen was in the kitchen when Richard came home. His face looked drained, as if he had been dealing with a particularly difficult client. She said, ‘Have you had a bad day? You look exhausted.’
‘I went to see Inge.’ He spoke slowly, as if speech were a great effort.
‘Oh well, enough said.’ She put down the knife she was using to chop the salad. ‘Come and have a drink.’
He followed her into the sitting-room, moving slowly too, so that she began to wonder if he might be ill. She said, ‘Darling, are you all right? Was she worse than ever?’ She poured him a drink but when she held it out to him he didn’t move to take it and she had to put it down on the table beside him.
‘I’ve been saying goodbye to her.’
There was a curious note in his voice: sorrow, anger, shock. Helen wished he hadn’t done it if it cost him so much; it was not as if she had insisted on it. She had not in fact ever believed he would do it. Perhaps in a way he still loved Inge and he always would; perhaps she would have to accept that. Inge was family, like one of his children, and he could never be truly divorced from her.
‘My God, no wonder you look shattered.’ She noticed then that he had picked up the kitchen knife. ‘Is that why you’ve got a knife your hand? Did you want to finish her off?’ She hoped he might laugh, relax, have his drink.
He said very calmly, ‘No, it’s you I’d like to kill, but I don’t have the guts.’ He picked up the glass and drained it in one go, then with enormous sudden ferocity turned on one of her paintings, an early one that she was particularly fond of, and attacked it with the knife, making a jagged tear. Helen was so shocked she couldn’t speak. She felt she was looking at a stranger with Richard’s face, a stranger with a knife who had broken into the house and attacked her. At the same time part of her mind was wondering if she could repair the painting. It was one she had done shortly after Sally was born, and had always been special: she wondered if he remembered that.
‘Yes,’ he said in the same calm voice, ‘that’s what I’d like to do to you.’
She couldn’t believe he had found out; surely Felix had not been so stupid as to tell Inge. And yet what else could it be to make him behave like this? Suddenly she was very afraid.
‘She had a parting gift for me,’ he said. ‘I think that’s the German for poison. See what you think. She went through his desk in an idle moment and this is what she found.’
He held out a photocopied letter. Helen barely glanced at it: she could see it was in Sally’s handwriting. So it was as bad as she feared.
He said savagely, ‘Christ, Helen, why didn’t you tell me? I’m only your husband. I’m only her step-father. I’ve only been around for the last ten years. Don’t I count for anything?’
Now that they were actually facing it, the whole thing seemed unreal. It was six months ago. She could see the terrible pain in his face and knew she had caused it, but all she could remember was Sally’s pain and her own, and how she had not been able to turn to him for help when she needed it most.
She said, ‘I’m sorry,’ knowing it was inadequate, feeling an edge of anger underneath the sorrow.
He looked at her incredulously. ‘Sorry? Sorry?’
‘It was a very painful decision.’ She found she actually resented having to explain it to him. ‘I wanted to talk to you but I couldn’t. I knew you wouldn’t agree. It was something I had to do on my own. It was very hard, very lonely.’ And you should have been on my side, she wanted to shout, no matter what I did.
‘You and Sally and Felix,’ he said, ‘all being lonely together.’
‘They didn’t want you to know either.’
‘How very convenient.’
‘Well, you’d have been hurt and angry. As you are now. What was the point?’
‘Oh, quite,’ he said in a sneering tone, not like himself. ‘When you and Felix had already made up your minds what to do. It would have been really awkward if I’d agreed with Sally.’
Helen was almost pleased to be angry: it made her feel less vulnerable. ‘I assumed you’d be against abortion, you usually are. And you’d just had that client who killed herself when her baby was adopted. How could I tell you? Sally didn’t know what she wanted. You’d have made her more mixed up than ever.’
‘You mean I might have stopped you forcing her to have an abortion.’
In a way that was true, but it was only a partial truth. ‘If she’d really wanted that baby she could have told you any time. But she didn’t. She came to me and I had to do what I thought was best.’
‘God, no wonder she didn’t come home for Christmas.’
‘She was depressed for a while, of course, but she’s got over it. She looked happy at the show, didn’t she? She’s had time to think and she knows I was right.’
He said slowly, ‘You’re unbelievable. Did you ever think of the alternatives?’
‘Yes, I did. They were worse.’
‘And it didn’t matter what I might have felt.’
It was useless: they were ranged on opposite sides, alien and hostile, cancelling out all the years together. There was no sympathy or understanding on his face. He was just as implacable as she had feared he would be, but that only proved she was justified. It felt very lonely.
‘She’s my daughter. I had to make the final decision.’
‘Yes, that says it all.’ He turned away. ‘God, I don’t feel I know you at all.’
She said to his retreating back, ‘Aren’t you even a tiny bit angry with your precious friend?’
‘He’s not here, is he? I’ll get around to him later. Right now I’m going to pack.’
That sounded so melodramatic she almost laughed. ‘Don’t be silly.’
He said in the doorway, in quite a reasonable tone, as if she ought to understand, ‘I can’t live with you after this. If you can do something like this on your own, then we don’t have a marriage at all.’
And he went out, leaving her alone in the room. She couldn’t believe that this was the price she must pay for rescuing Sally. She had known he would be angry but she had never thought beyond the anger, thought as far as action. Surely in a little while he would come back and say he was sorry and she would say she was sorry too and they could hug each other and start again. It couldn’t be the end. People simply didn’t end marriages like that.
* * *
It began as an ordinary pleasant evening, like any other. They sat on the floor in Sally’s room and played draughts and Jamal kept winning. Sally pretended to be cross but really she was enjoying the fact that he cared so much about the outcome. She felt grown up and maternal when she watched his excitement.
‘Ugh, you won again,’ she said, trying to sound disgusted. ‘Why d’you always win?’
‘I don’t.’
‘Nearly always then.’
She loved his childish smile of pleasure. ‘Well, I’m quite lucky. And also highly skilled, of course.’
‘I think you cheat.’
‘You can’t cheat at draughts.’
‘Well, if you could, you would. It’s the same thing. It’s the spirit of cheating.’
They both laughed and settled themselves more comfortably on the cushions, their knees casually touching.
‘D’you want your revenge?’ He was resetting the board, eager for more winning, or perhaps more time with her, she wasn’t sure which. She loved the seriousness with which he played, his total enthusiasm for whatever he was doing at the time. It made for a feeling of strength, like a current running through him
that she could tap into, the fact that he could be so concentrated upon any one thing. She never felt as she had with Helen and Richard and Carey and even Felix that part of his mind was elsewhere.
‘Yes, why not? I’m an optimist.’ She watched his brown nimble fingers, slim and delicate like a child’s hand, and wished they would touch her. ‘I love this game,’ she said happily, ‘it’s so utterly pointless.’
‘Aren’t all games? Isn’t that the point of them?’
She giggled and he looked pleased. ‘Maybe I could do a thesis on that.’
‘God, you’re not going to do postgrad, are you?’
‘I don’t know yet. I might. I rather fancy being a student for as long as possible. What shall I call my thesis?’
She considered. ‘“The Utter Pointlessness of Board Games.”’
‘I’d like something a bit more pretentious. How about “The Intrinsic Lack of Meaning in Board Games as a Therapeutic Activity”?’
‘That’s perfect. Sounds a bit American though.’
‘Maybe I’ll do it at Berkeley.’
What fun it all was, how far removed from pain and blood and death. They played again, not talking at all, pretending it was serious, and this time, to her own surprise, she won.
Jamal yawned, ‘I must go, I’m falling asleep.’
She felt panic; she didn’t want him to leave. She was afraid of sleeping and dreaming again. ‘That’s no excuse,’ she said, doing her impression of a boxer. ‘It was a good clean fight and I’m glad to have won.’
He smiled. ‘You distracted my attention.’
‘I wish I could.’ She touched his hand, stroked it, and their fingers interlocked. She looked at their two hands and thought of Othello and Desdemona. The contrasting colours looked good together. It was so long since anyone had touched her. They had all said she would be unchanged, as good as new, but how could she be sure?
A Sense of Guilt Page 29