The Consequence of Love

by Sandra Howard

‘That you, love?’ she called, as he closed the front door. Who did she bloody think it was? ‘I’d come down, but I’m giving Tubsy his bottle. Lily’s in her pyjams, all ready for bed. Are you up to reading to her? She’d love it.’

  Lily was at the top of the stairs, jumping up and down in her bare feet, calling, ‘Daddy, Daddy, come upstairs!’ Hugo’s legs felt heavy going up. He was shattered, poleaxed, but as he swung her up high for a restoring kiss, the love he felt formed a tight knot in his chest. He set her down again and she tugged at his hand. ‘You’ve got to come and see, Daddy, I’ve done my very own story and it’s got pictures too! It’s about a guinea pig called Just William, like Grampsy’s called, only it’s after a naughty boy in a book! Dan said there’s lots of books about him and he’s going to get me one. He helped with my story, but I did some myself.’

  ‘I’ll come in a minute, Lily love, let me first say hello to Mummy and Thomas. And I’ve got pressies for you both. I’ll get them then you can show me your story.’

  He went into Thomas’s room, avoiding looking at Nattie, focusing entirely on his son whose chubby little hand was resting loosely on the bottle. He was completely absorbed, toes clenching and unclenching in unalloyed pleasure. It was his last sop to babyhood, the bedtime bottle in his mother’s arms.

  Hugo bent to kiss the top of his blond head. The smell of warm milk brought a new wave of queasiness and straightening up he brushed against Nattie’s gossamer hair, which brought an acute stab of need. He felt dizzy with it. She was wearing an unfamiliar scent; faint, she never put much on, but it wasn’t one he’d ever given her, he was sure. ‘I’ll just go down for the children’s presents,’ he muttered, and hurried out of the door.

  Lily was waiting for him to come back up, sliding her hand along the banister rail with great impatience. He’d bought her a doll in Turkish national dress, which seemed to go down well. ‘That’s what little girls there wear on special occasions,’ he said. ‘Lots of faraway countries have that sort of old-fashioned dress.’

  ‘What do you say, Lily?’ Nattie prompted, coming out onto the landing holding Thomas. ‘And it’s high time you were in bed if Daddy’s going to read to you. You’re getting far too overexcited.’

  Lily said thank you in an automatic sort of way. ‘She’s a very pretty doll. I like the dangly things on her head and her red skirt with all the braid. Now will you come and see my story?’

  Hugo had brought Thomas a hand-painted wooden cart that he could pull along on a string. ‘We’ll play with it in the morning,’ he said, giving him a goodnight kiss.

  ‘Say thank you, Tubsy,’ Nattie said, jigging him on her hip. ‘You know how, you know you do. Say thank you and blow Daddy a kiss! One for Lily too.’

  ‘Sank,’ Thomas mumbled, which wasn’t a bad approximation. He wasn’t up for blowing kisses, he was a sleepyhead ready for his bed.

  Lily kept tugging on her father’s arm. ‘Let’s see this story then,’ he said tiredly, cursing his throbbing head.

  She glowed with pride, showing it off. It was much fingered and too professional by half. ‘I’m going to do another one,’ she said happily, ‘next time we see Dan. P’raps about a naughty giraffe who eats leaves from next door’s garden.’

  ‘Is Dan one of your teachers at school?’ Hugo queried, as lightly as he could manage. ‘Don’t you usually have Miss Stubbs?’

  ‘Course, Daddy, we have her always, she’s our form teacher. Dan is Mummy’s friend who we had lunch with today.’ Lily hesitated. ‘He’s very nice,’ she added a bit awkwardly, not meeting Hugo’s eyes.

  He felt quivery looking at the story laid out on her child’s table and needed to get to a chair. ‘What book do you want, Lily?’ he asked, his throat feeling closed over. He pressed on his thighs, trying to steady them.

  ‘Can we have Amos and Boris, about the mouse and the whale? It’s my best story.’ She pulled it out of an untidy pile, handed it to him and climbed into bed.

  Hugo moved his very small chair closer and began to read. The hairs at the nape of his neck pricked and the words seemed to elongate and recede like the wavy characters in a website box. Lily hitched up to look at the pictures and follow the story. She reached over him to jab at a page. ‘You missed out that whole bit, Daddy. You have to concentrate! Miss Stubbs says we mustn’t let our thoughts wander.’

  ‘Sounds like you’re being a cheeky girl,’ Nattie laughed, coming into the room. Hugo kept his eyes trained on the book. ‘Don’t make Daddy read for long, he’s been in an aeroplane, he must be very tired.’ She leaned over from the far side of the bed to give Lily a goodnight kiss. ‘Sleep tight, angel, sweet dreams – see you in the morning when the sun comes up on your clock.’

  Hugo stared after her as she left. She looked back from the door, smiling nervously. Dropping his eyes down he began to read again.

  Nattie waited in the kitchen. She felt numb with tension. Having listened to every word of Lily’s excitable chatter, she knew there was no putting it off till tomorrow. The decision of when to tell Hugo was out of her hands. Lily had dictated the timing.

  The tension was unbearable, the sense of numbness gone, vanished, replaced with tingling shivery adrenalin. What would he say when he came downstairs? How would he react? She went to the glass doors at the far end of the kitchen and stared out; there was no moon, the garden was ink black.

  She felt at a terrible loss as to what to do. Did she offer Hugo food? Suggest trying to explain over a meal? Plunge right in and say she was leaving? Her nerve-ends were twitching and waving like so many antennae. She tried to be braced for when they sparked and touched.

  ‘So are you going to tell me what’s going on?’ Hugo said dully, giving her a startled jolt. She hadn’t heard him come in. Seeing him in the brightly lit kitchen jolted her further. He looked shocking, terrible. His eyes were ringed with purple shadow, his hair flattened and dishevelled; his skin was a sickly green.

  Her heart pounded. Had he been up all night? ‘Hugo, darling, you don’t look well. Did you get sick out there? You need to sit down, you really should be in bed by the look of you.’

  ‘I’m not ill. I don’t want your sympathy. I’d just like to know what’s going on. You owe me some explanation. Where you’ve been taking my children, who you’ve brought into their lives. Did it not occur to you that it was something to be discussed? Don’t I have a right to be consulted where they’re concerned?’

  Nattie sat down where she was, at the far end of the kitchen; her legs felt shaky. Somehow she hadn’t expected a direct attack, yet what else could he have said? He had hold of the whisky bottle by its neck, he must have been into the sitting room for it, and got a glass out of the cupboard there, which he’d filled almost full. He pulled out a chair at the kitchen table. The whisky gleamed topaz in the chaos of the children’s tea; stray peas, streaks of ketchup on plastic plates. She hadn’t yet cleared up.

  She rose and went over, moving the dirty plates and wiping down the table. ‘I suppose you were late back,’ Hugo said coldly, alluding to the un-seen-to mess.

  ‘No, we’d been out to lunch, as I think Lily said, but we were home quite early. We weren’t sure when to expect you and Lily was hoping you’d be back in time for tea. I wish you’d called, darling. I’d love to have heard how things were going and you could have said hi to Lily, though to be honest I’d probably have waited till you were home before explaining about our lunch today – not something for the phone. I’ll give you answers, of course, to everything you ask, and say what I feel would be for the best in the short term, but right now, love, you look really done in. Wouldn’t it make sense to have a quick bite and crash out for tonight? We have to talk, but it will be a struggle for both of us, difficult enough without being exhausted and overwrought.’

  Nattie felt agonised, watching Hugo for any reaction. He was sipping his Scotch steadily, refusing to look at her. She imagined his thoughts must be mirroring the black anger and desolation written all over his face. It was the
wrong time. She’d expected him to be exhausted and hung-over, since there was sure to have been some heavy drinking on the trip, but he looked cadaverous, really unwell. She kept her eyes on him, heart bleeding, aching for a chance to connect.

  ‘No! I want to know now, fuck it – right now, this minute!’ he yelled, draining his glass and slamming it down. It was a miracle it didn’t smash. ‘You’re my wife, damn it, though you seem not to have chosen to be for the last six weeks. And it may surprise you, but I happen to care what you’ve been doing with my children actually, quite a lot.’

  He was staring at her savagely now, looking deranged in his rage. ‘Where did you take them today? Who have you been seeing? You owe me a few truthful answers for a change.’ Hugo gripped the table edge, his eyes glittering, before his body went limp and he slumped back in his chair. He reached for the bottle and refilled his glass with a shaking hand.

  Once she said it, once it was done, out in the open . . . Would he be just as viciously angry? Fatalistic? Defeated and crushed? He’d feel bitterly let down whatever. He must know who it was by now, he’d always dreaded Ahmed’s return.

  She took a breath. ‘I heard from Ahmed out of the blue, you see – the day after we were back from Portugal. It seemed astounding after so long, after giving up hope. It was a miracle to know he was alive.’

  ‘But you kept this earth-shattering news to yourself. You chose not to tell me.’ Hugo was looking straight at her again, looking coldly into her soul. ‘You fell into his arms, told lies. Didn’t being married count for one jot? Suppose I’d done that to you? Have you given the slightest thought to what it’s like for me, being on the receiving end?’

  His eyes were pained and accusing, his forehead clammy and damp. Had he been drinking all night, had no sleep, no food? How had he got himself into this state? When he’d leaned to kiss Tubsy she’d sensed a faint odour of vomit; hardly there, but vomit was like spilt milk on a carpet, a smell that refused to go away.

  She held his eyes. ‘You can’t really believe any of that. It was because of how much I cared and worried for you that I didn’t tell you. I’d hoped if I saw Ahmed once and heard what had happened, I could explain I was married and that would be that. I wanted to save you from ever knowing he was back. I was sure you’d feel deeply upset and be convinced I was seeing him anyway.’

  Nattie kneaded her hands, feeling worried stiff about Hugo and the state he was in. ‘I tried, you must believe me, but seeing him again, the emotions it caused . . . I’d explain more, tell you what I think would be best – just for now – but you’re really not well. Let’s talk about it tomorrow, darling, better then.’

  ‘No, we talk tonight. What’s with this Dan business anyway? Is that a name you chose just for the children’s benefit?’ Hugo sneered. ‘It’s a joke. Hardly suitable for someone of his background, after all.’

  Nattie glared. ‘His background? Born here? Doing his country a great service?’

  ‘Sorry,’ Hugo said decently, looking contrite. ‘I’m overwrought.’

  She reached out to touch his arm, feeling it was a sign, a softening, but he jerked away with as violent a start as if she’d given him an electric shock. He was trembling badly and his hand round the glass was white-knuckled.

  ‘It was what people called him where he was living,’ Nattie said, trying to be conciliatory while giving minimum information. She worried constantly about Ahmed’s identity becoming known. ‘I’m sure you should eat something,’ she urged. ‘I’ll heat up some soup. I don’t believe you’ve had a thing all day.’

  Hugo didn’t reject the suggestion. He stared mutely down at the table while she got a tin out of the cupboard and put the contents to heat on the stove. She saw him reach for the whisky bottle and got to it first. ‘I’ll put some in the soup,’ she said, lifting it away. ‘It’ll be more comforting that way.’

  He drank the soup, had a bite or two of a slice of wholemeal bread. She made poached eggs on toast for them both, and sat down with him. They didn’t, either of them, make much headway with the eggs, but Hugo looked marginally better, less green.

  They didn’t speak apart from Nattie urging him to drink water. She wanted him to ask questions. It would help to gauge his mood, how hard he was going to take it, how great the emotional torment. He must have picked up on her talking of what would be for the best, just for now. She was obsessively anxious not to have to say it cold – especially that night – that she was taking Lily, Tubsy and Moppet to live in Lambeth, whatever the obstacles he raised.

  ‘I’ll make you a cup of tea,’ she said. ‘It’s the best thing when you’re feeling sick.’

  He jerked his head up; he’d been lost to his thoughts in the silence. ‘I don’t want tea,’ he snapped. ‘What have you done with the whisky bottle?’ He looked round half-heartedly, too far gone to focus on trying to find it.

  She brought over the bottle. Hugo gave her a look as if to say if he wanted neat whisky she wasn’t going to stop him. He poured himself another large glassful and took a swig. ‘I suppose he’s been here, the last couple of nights, fucking you in this house,’ he taunted, the alcohol giving him some fight, ‘and in the daytime for weeks.’

  ‘He’s never stepped foot in the door. This is your house, our house – I stayed in with the children while you were away. Mum came over on Wednesday. I told her about Ahmed, how desperate I felt, and that we couldn’t go on as we were.’

  ‘Are you trying to say you want me to move out and leave you here with the children?’ Hugo looked ashen, defeated and broken.

  ‘Of course not, how could you think that?’ Nattie felt stricken, hating herself, aching to ease the pain that she was inflicting. ‘Nothing was further from my mind. I think, though, we need to live separately for a while. A sort of temporary arrangement and see how we go. Ahmed has rented Jake’s house for three months – I’ll go there with the children. You can have them every other weekend. I’d bring them, stay to help with Tubsy if you wanted it. We could do things together with them too.’

  ‘And after three months?’

  ‘I don’t know. Let’s not think that far ahead. Everything here will be just as it is, you’ll have the car, be in your own home . . .’

  ‘Except that you won’t be in it.’ Hugo stared at her with his glittering eyes. He looked, if anything, even more demented. Nattie felt a dart of fear. Was he going to fight her, strike her? His hand curled menacingly round the squat whisky glass and she froze.

  He had the glass in his hand, swung round and hurled it towards the kitchen sink. It hit the swan neck of the mixer tap, shattered and smashed into the basin. The sound of crashing glass was fearsome, fragments flying, fine shards, large pieces; they both stared transfixed. A potent aroma of whisky was released, as pervasive as a whole spilt bottle. Nattie stayed rooted. Had the noise woken the children? She listened out, praying Lily wouldn’t come creeping down, but heard nothing.

  She’d sat down again at the end of the table, at right angles to Hugo, and had followed the arc of the glass. Bringing her eyes back, she faced him. He was shaking, staring at his hands, turning them over and back again in a bemused way as if unsure they belonged to him.

  ‘I’ll clear up,’ she said. ‘You go to bed, you’re white as chalk; you need to lie down or you could pass out. I’ll make some hot lemon and honey and find you one of those sleeping pills we’ve got somewhere. Things will be—’

  ‘Don’t, for Christ’s sake, say that, anything but that.’ He was visibly shaking; he looked about to break down again or keel over. ‘And don’t put on this bloody Florence Nightingale act, trying to absolve yourself. I’m not your bloody patient, I’m your husband.’ He’d lifted his head, raised his voice. ‘However much you’d like to forget it. You just want to get through all this, don’t you, be with Ahmed and ruin my life. You can’t wait to get away.’

  ‘How can I get across to you that it isn’t like that? You know how much I care, how close we’ve always been. That can never cha
nge, never will.’ She couldn’t blame him for his bitter hysteria, the glass, his wounding words that were all too true – and things wouldn’t be better in the morning. She knew that, he knew that. ‘Please can we talk about this reasonably,’ she begged. ‘I can’t expect you not to hate me for what I’m doing, but for the sake of the children, their stability and happiness, can’t we just try to find a way through and stay friends?’

  Hugo got to his feet. He looked unsteady, but made it to the cupboard for another glass and sat down heavily on the nearest seat. He poured himself the dregs of the whisky, downed that, and reached for the bottle of red wine on the table.

  ‘I’ll sleep on the sofa,’ he said, croaking out the words as though they hurt his throat. His shoulders began to heave and he covered his face with both hands. He was sobbing, shaking; he couldn’t stop. Nattie went beside him, put her arm round him, held him tight, forced back her own tears. ‘I feel so lonely,’ he said, taking away his hands and leaning his head on her arm. ‘And ashamed.’

  ‘Why? You can’t be that! You’re wonderful, Hugo, you’ve got so much going for you.’ She didn’t know what to say in her infinite sorrowfulness. If only a crisis could be a turning point. She’d hoped for a tiny moment when Hugo had found some fight that he’d recover, get over it, and be able to stand on his own two feet, but that hope was fading fast.

  ‘I’ll tell you why I’m ashamed,’ he said. ‘I behaved badly in Istanbul, drank myself into a stupor, puked up. I couldn’t even hack it in the presentation. Brady tore a strip off me on the way back.’

  ‘I’m to blame for all that,’ Nattie said, helping him up. She led him to the stairs with her arm around him, feeling indescribable agony and guilt. She had a good idea of what ‘behaved badly’ meant, and shut her mind to it.

  ‘I couldn’t even handle the high moral ground,’ Hugo said, looking rueful as they reached the bedroom and she encouraged him to sit down on the bed. ‘Slipped up a bit there.’

  She helped him undress, taking off his shoes and socks, undoing shirt buttons, peeling off his trousers, persuading him to lie back. She pulled over the duvet, covering him lightly, drew the curtains and crept out. Downstairs she cleared up the chaos of broken glass as quietly as possible and an hour later crept back into the bedroom. Hugo was in a deep, sodden sleep, drugged to oblivion on alcohol, managing at last to blot out the world.