“You mean that his leaving was nothing to do with you?”
“That you would have to ask your father.”
“I wouldn’t dare!”
At that precise moment his father came and joined them. “You’ve met properly I see. Glad you could come, Rupert. How is Melanie?”
“Fine.”
“Good. Good. Well, you must bring her down sometime.”
“Emma’s already promised me a proper invitation.” Rupert cast a friendly glance at Emma who responded with a nod.
“Has she? Well, that’s nice.” Alex seemed a little hesitant in his speech as if he were not quite sure what tone to adopt. “We’ll look forward to it then,” he added awkwardly.
Any further discussion was prevented by Mary, who banged a teaspoon against the side of a bottle of champagne in order to gain their attention. When all eyes had turned to her she said,
“Well, then; we must have at least one toast. Has everyone got a full glass? Oh, Emma...” Brian came over and refilled her glass and topped up Alex’s. “Well,” continued Mary, “To Alex and Emma!” They all muttered their names and Emma took the opportunity to tuck her arm through Alex’s. He remained stiff and unresponsive. Mary was still speaking. “Now, my brother instructed us not to bother with silly things – like wedding presents. As always we were obedient: we got him nothing. Instead we got something for Emma.” She held out a small present. “Here you are, dear – from all of us.”
Emma, whose colour had deepened a couple of shades, allowed Mary to place the little box into her hand, which she had withdrawn from Alex’s arm. Mary indicated that she should open it and she did so, lifting out a string of seed pearls. She was touched by the gesture. It was a matter of great sorrow to her that her mother could not be there. Alex too, in his own way, was absent. At least there was Mary to acknowledge the importance of the occasion and to make her feel as if she belonged.
After the last few drops of champagne had been drained and everyone had kissed everyone else – except Alex and Rupert – Emma stepped back into the Bristol, which Mary had decorated discretely with a few white ribbons, and Alex drove them to the cottage. It did not offer a very warm welcome. All they had done in preparation was to bring in some bundles of blankets and bedding, a couple of bags, a box of logs and some food. These things had been left in a pile in the hall. The cottage itself smelt of damp and mould and the overgrown plants outside the windows cut out much of the weak daylight so that it was also gloomy inside.
“Thank goodness we drank all that champagne,” said Emma, shivering in her white dress despite the fact that she still wore Alex’s coat.
“Once I’ve got the fire going it won’t be so bad.” Alex lifted up the box of logs and went into the small lounge. Emma looked into the bedroom and switched on the rather antiquated electric heater that she found in there. The room smelt as if it would benefit from some fresh air, but Emma was not keen on the idea of opening a window. She gave an involuntary shudder and then went to take the food into the kitchen. She plugged in the fridge and then unplugged it again with a wry smile. It was superfluous in the circumstance. In a way all this appealed to Emma. She felt that there was nothing like adverse surroundings to stir a bit of comradeship. Nonetheless, she wondered what Alex would think about this place if he happened to compare it to the comfort of the home he had known for so many years. Would it occur to him to speculate on exactly what had possessed him to leave his job and home and risk general censure – or at least the occasional raised eyebrow – by running off with one of his pupils? Emma drifted back into the lounge as she thought and then glanced down at Alex’s broad, hunched shoulders as he crouched down in his attempt to light the fire. She concluded that if these ideas had occurred to him, he had probably swept them briskly out of his mind so that they left only the persistent taint of doubt. It was simply not in his nature to think things through and come to terms with them.
“Damn stuff’s damp!” he was muttering.
“Would some petrol help? Or some brandy?”
“Almost certainly.” Alex struck another match which burnt for a few moments until he dropped it in the hearth, shaking his fingers and cursing. In the end they padded around the damp wood with old newspapers and at last the fire smouldered into life.
Alex looked pleased. “There we are! Now, what about something to drink, Emma?”
Emma realised that Alex was also enjoying the distraction created by the cottage’s idiosyncrasies. This proved fortunate as the next thing she discovered was that the electric cooker did not work. Alex fiddled with it a bit and confirmed her diagnosis. In the meantime Emma had dug out an automatic kettle and they were soon sitting by the fire and drinking tea and feeling quite like boy scouts on a camping expedition.
“Was it as bad as you expected?” questioned Emma.
“What?”
“The wedding.”
“Not too bad.”
And there the conversation stopped and Alex fell to rearranging the logs with a poker. Emma watched him and wondered how she could set about bridging the gap that existed between them. She knew that Alex was actively, if perhaps unconsciously, maintaining this division. Yet he had, miraculously it seemed, accepted that they were bound together and had even seen fit to give their union the sanction of marriage. Yet, paradoxically, he had at the same time retained his reservations about the propriety of the relationship.
“Alex?” He was still apparently absorbed by the challenge of kindling the dampest pieces of wood. Emma moved over until she sat directly beside him on the rug. He made no acknowledging move but she felt his body become tense. “Alex, I was prepared for the fact that you would be a difficult person to talk to, but now it seems that I can’t so much as come close to you, let alone touch you, without you flinching away. Why wait until now to start playing the teacher!”
“I’m sorry, Emma, I just don’t feel like anything of that sort.”
“Now’s a fine time to start feeling moral scruples. I thought sex was the one form of expression that came naturally to you. If I was going to be upset by a bit of lust I would have steered clear of you after our first encounter.
Alex clenched his fists until his knuckles became white. “I don’t like it. It’s not how I want to be.”
“Why not? There’s nothing abnormal about you. Anyway, I’m your wife now.”
“But I don’t want you to be my wife just for that: just for sex.” The memory of his first marriage was more vivid in his mind now than it had ever been. He did not want to do to Emma what he had done to Alice: he did not want to use her.
“Do you truly think there is a danger of that being the case?” She took his hand and forced him to look at her. “I can tell you that I don’t. If your only interest in me had been physical you would have forgotten me as soon as you had taken what you wanted. I wouldn’t be surprised if you had done that with other women. I doubt if even the fact that I was one of your pupils would have done more than cause an occasional twinge of conscience in moments when you were off guard.” Emma retained his hand and continued to look into his eyes whilst she spoke. “You know you’ve never once said that you love me or even that you like me. Nor have you addressed me with a single endearment.” She spoke these words softly and without a hint of rancour. “In fact you have never done a single thing that could be interpreted as a gesture of love. You married me of course; but even then your motives could be a mixture of guilt and a sense of obligation.” She watched his face pale at this suggestion. “Well, to be honest, I don’t give a damn if you never say you love me. It’s not something that would sound natural coming from you. I know you care even if you don’t know it yourself.”
“I don’t see how you can possibly know! You were quite correct when you said that I married you because I felt a sense of obligation. I didn’t know how you would cope after your mother died. And I felt guilty about what I’d done.” It didn’t come easily to Alex to admit these things to himself, let alone to Emma.
“But, Alex, why should you have bothered it you didn’t care about me? I said that you had never done anything that suggested that you might love me. Well, that’s not quite true. You did one thing. You came to my mother’s funeral. And I could see then that you were worried about me. Not guilty because you once practically raped me, but worried - upset even- because you could see how lost and unhappy I was. So you decided to look after me yourself. That’s close enough to love for my liking.”
Alex sighed. “Oh, Emma, if only you understood. I couldn’t bear to find that I don’t love you. That’s how it was with Alice. And then I could only make her happy by lying – by telling her I loved her all the time. Every night she would ask me and every morning, always seeking reassurance about something we both knew did not exist. In the end I simply avoided her as much as I could. I hated lying.”
“I’m not asking you to lie.”
“Maybe not; but the point is that I married Alice for the wrong reasons. As a result I hurt her and I hurt Rupert. Then, when I had got myself into such a mess with you, I thought I could put things right a bit. Perhaps that was the worst thing I could have done: marrying for the wrong reason again.”
“Mary told me a bit about you and Alice, about what things were like between the two of you. But history doesn’t necessarily repeat itself. You may be the same person, capable of making the same mistakes, but I’m not Alice. In any case, what on earth are the right reasons for getting married? I don’t suppose anybody’s motives would stand up to too much scrutiny. It is easiest for people to bundle all their funny little reasons together under the all-embracing excuse that they are “in love”. I expect you are just like the rest of us. Some of your reasons are probably selfish, stupid or even downright shameful; but I suspect that, amongst the dross, there are one or two quite acceptable ones. What matters now is that you give us a chance. Don’t let your past mistakes rise up as ghosts that will haunt our future. At least give yourself a chance to make a new set of mistakes – and don’t forget that I’ll have some of my own to contribute!”
Emma gave a wry smile and Alex relaxed into an answering smile. There was something wholesome about Emma’s special brand of realism. He felt that she was aware of the flaws in his character without thinking any less of him and knowing this made him comfortable in her presence. With Emma there was no need for pretence. As Mary had said, she was under no illusions about him. She knew him and loved him unreservedly. At last it dawned on him that there was nothing he could do or say that would shock, hurt or displease her.
As if to confirm his newborn understanding, Emma lifted her hand to his cheek and whispered, “Just let me love you. Just be yourself and let me love you.”
In response Alex ruffled her hair and said, “What we need, Emma, is some toast. We won’t have to use the cooker for that.” He picked up the dusty toasting fork from beside the fire and wiped it on his handkerchief. “And that bottle of port out of my suitcase.”
Laying the Ghosts Page 12