‘Yes,’ said Virginia quietly. ‘Yes, you do.’
‘And I think in her own odd way, she was fond of him. Certainly she felt guilty about him. When he was in a good mood he had great charm, he was funny and immensely generous. He would suddenly rush her off to Paris, or Monte Carlo for the weekend, shower her with presents. Then they’d come back and she would make him angry, or I would, and the whole ghastly cycle began again.’
‘I remember reading a paper on this,’ said Virginia slowly, ‘on women as willing victims. Addicted to violence, to pain.’
Alexander looked suddenly cold again, withdrawn into himself, his mood of confidence lost.
‘I do loathe that American psycho-babble,’ he said. ‘Please don’t use it on me, it really offends me.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Virginia. ‘Alexander, did you tell the doctors all this?’
‘Oh, I did. Well one of them. A woman. An analyst. She was very clever, very skilful.’
‘And –’
‘Oh I don’t know. It didn’t do me any good.’ He sighed, and looked at her. ‘Look, I’m finding this very painful. Could we change the subject, please?’
‘Alexander, no, not yet. Did he – do anything else?’
‘Isn’t that enough? Not to me, no. But I would hear them sometimes.’
‘Hear them what?’
‘Oh, he would shout at her, hit her. And then –’
‘And then make love to her?’
‘Yes.’ The answer slid out of him, clearly taking him by surprise. ‘Yes. I knew that was what was happening. I learnt to know – the sounds. At first I thought it was pain, the same cries of pain I’d heard earlier, I hammered on the door once, I was a brave little boy you see, telling him to leave her alone. She came to answer it, dressed in her robe; she looked strange to me, wild, but not unhappy. She told me to go to Nanny. Nanny was always there.’
He looked at Virginia and there were tears in his blue eyes; he tried to smile at her. ‘It’s casebook stuff, I’m afraid. They all say so, the doctors.’
‘Alexander, when did you first try to get help?’
‘I’ve told you. I was eighteen, went to the GP.’
‘On your own?’
‘Yes, of course.’ He looked surprised.
‘You never talked to your mother about it?’
‘Of course not. How could I?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe not.’ She thought of her own inability to communicate with her parents. ‘Did anyone know? Apart from you?’
‘Well,’ he said, ‘as much as she was able to understand it, I think Nanny knew. I broke down one day, in front of her. She said could she help. I said no one could help. She pointed out she’d known me from the moment I was born, that it had been a very close relationship. She has a great sense of humour really, you know.’
‘I know,’ said Virginia. ‘I love her.’
‘Well, I said I had a problem. A physical problem. That I was seeing some doctors. And she said, and I’ll never forget it, she said, “Does that mean you won’t be able to get married, Alexander?” And I said, “It might, Nanny, but let’s hope not.” We never mentioned it again.’
‘I see,’ said Virginia.
She went into Swindon to the public library, spent hours reading up impotence. Growing braver, she went to London, and made an appointment to see a specialist in psycho-sexual medicine. She gave a false name, told him about her husband who was impotent. She asked him if there was any hope. The specialist said it was always difficult, such cases, but it was possible. He would naturally have to see her husband, and treatment was long and often traumatic. He asked her to make an appointment for them to come together.
Virginia screwed up her courage (aided by several glasses of wine at dinner) and told Alexander about the specialist. She asked him if he would go and see him. He said he wouldn’t, that he would never see any doctor again, that he was sick to death of seeing people, that she had no right to go round blabbing about their marriage all over London, that he had told her that nothing could be done. Then he stood up, hurled his glass of wine at her and ran out of the room and up the stairs. Virginia followed him; the door of his bedroom was locked.
‘Alexander, please please let me in!’
‘No.’
‘Alexander, I shall scream if you don’t.’
He opened the door. There were tears streaming down his face; he looked stricken, ashamed, almost afraid. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and held out his arms. ‘I’m sorry about everything. So desperately sorry. Maybe you should go. Maybe you should go home to America.’
Virginia faced him steadily. ‘I won’t go,’ she said, ‘because I do seem, in spite of everything, to be very fond of you. And I want to help you. But you’ve got to promise me to see this doctor. You’ve got to.’
‘All right,’ he said. She closed the door behind her, and went into his arms. ‘I love you, Virginia,’ he said, ‘I love you so much. I don’t know what I would do without you now. I really don’t.’
He started to kiss her. Virginia, overwrought, sexually starved, her loneliness and misery rising up in a great wave, returned his kiss, her body pressed frantically, desperately against him. She stroked his hair, caressed his neck, moved her hands slowly down his body. She still, in those days, hoped for miracles.
‘Alexander.’
‘Yes darling.’
‘Alexander, when I was in New York I saw a most marvellous man. Well I didn’t exactly like him, he wasn’t marvellous in that way, but he was breathtakingly clever.’
‘Really, darling? In which field? Interior design? Banking?’
Virginia took a deep breath. ‘Psychiatry,’ she said.
Alexander’s face froze. His eyes shot ice at her. ‘Please don’t go on,’ he said. ‘Alexander, I promise I will never ever talk to anyone else about this for as long as I live, but –’
‘Indeed, Virginia? I think I would utter a heartfelt amen to that. How dare you go talking to some quack about me and my problems? How dare you?’
‘Our problems, Alexander. Ours. Please listen.’
‘Virginia, I’m going out now. When I get back, can we recommence today, in a more pleasant way.’
Virginia got up. She stood in the doorway, barring it with her hands. ‘Alexander, listen to me, God dammit. Listen.’
‘I will not listen.’
‘You will or so help me I’ll kill you.’
‘Indeed? By what means?’
‘Alexander, please. Please.’
‘No. Get out of my way.’
He pushed her gently. A black mist rose in front of Virginia’s eyes, a black, swirling hot mist. She raised her hand physically as if to push it away; Alexander caught the wrist.
‘Just stop it,’ he said, and his face was contorted with rage. ‘Just stop it. Leave me alone.’
‘Oh yes,’ she said, and her voice rose higher and higher into a scream, ‘yes I’ll leave you alone. I’ll leave you, to rot here, rot away, without love, without me, without children to inherit this lousy beautiful prison you’re so in love with. I’ll leave you and you can just try and seduce some other poor wretched woman into thinking you’re normal and she might want to marry you. I’ll leave you right away, Alexander, in fact I’m going to pack now, at once. And you needn’t worry, I won’t tell anyone your lousy rotten secret; I would be ashamed, do you hear me, ashamed.’
‘Be quiet,’ he said, ‘shut up, shut up, the servants will hear you.’
Virginia looked at him and suddenly she laughed, out loud, an ugly, harsh laugh.
‘I’m so sorry, Alexander,’ she said, ‘how thoughtless of me. That would never do, would it? Not the servants.’
She was in her room, dragging things out of her drawers, when he came in. He was pale and looked very shaken; he sat down on her bed.
‘Virginia,’ he said, ‘please try to understand. Please listen to me.’
‘I’ve listened to you too much, Alexander. I don’t want to hear any more
. I’m going.’
‘Listen. Please. Just once more. Then you can go. I’ll drive you to the airport myself.’
‘There’s no need. I have a car.’
‘I know you do. Listen. Please. Oh Christ…’
His voice was so strained, so desperate, Virginia stopped and looked at him. Then she sat down on the bed, her arms full of clothes, and said, ‘All right. I’m listening.’
‘I don’t think you can possibly understand how terrible for me this is.’
‘For you! My God!’
‘Virginia, please. You said you’d listen. The awful dreadful humiliation. Knowing that I have to live with it for ever. Wanting you so much, loving you so much, knowing – well. The pain is unimaginable to you, I do assure you.’
She was silent.
‘At first I was willing to try. Willing to undergo the treatments, the analysis, telling the story over and over again. It was like poking at a gangrenous wound. I told myself it would be worth it, but it wasn’t. It never was. It never began to be worth it. Don’t you see? And every time, the hope and then the despair. I can’t get onto that spiral again, Virginia, I can’t. I’m too afraid.’
‘Not even for me?’
‘Not even for you.’
She looked at him very steadily. ‘Then I do have to go.’
‘Very well. Of course.’
He went downstairs. Virginia continued to pack. When she had finished she called the airport, made a reservation; it would be easy to go home now, to face everyone, she had frequently thought this over the past months, she could just say that she and Alexander were miserable together and had decided to part. No humiliation, no horror; it would be fine. She was about to ring for Tallow when she looked out of the window. Alexander was sitting on the wall of the back terrace, facing the house. His shoulders were stooped, his arms were wrapped around his body as if trying to shield himself from some pain. As she looked, she realized he was crying, quite quietly, great tears rolling down his face and dropping onto his arms. Every so often he would raise his hand and wipe them away. He looked oddly colourless, all the life in him washed away.
Suddenly she saw him vividly, as he had been that first day, in the restaurant in New York, so smiling, so golden, so handsome, rising to greet her, holding out his hand, and she felt again her heart lurch and the lurch in her body simultaneously. She remembered how fast and how violently she had fallen in love with him; and she remembered too the growing doubts about him and her life with him, and how she had stifled them, wanting so much, longing, to be his wife, to be a success, to have admiration, respect, recognition as a person, to be, in fact, the Countess of Caterham.
And as she looked and as she remembered, her heart began to ache for him, not just with pity, but with love; she did love him, she realized, she loved him very much, perhaps more now than she had when they were first married. It was an odd, strange love, and it was not going to bring her great happiness; but love it was, and it was mingled with guilt, and the knowledge that she was not without fault, and she knew that she could not leave him, it would be too savagely, horribly cruel and she would never forgive herself.
She went slowly downstairs and walked out onto the terrace.
‘I suppose,’ he said, ‘you’ve come to say goodbye.’
‘No, I haven’t actually,’ she said, ‘I’ve come to see if we could ride together after lunch. I’m just a little frightened of my new mare still, and I need your help with her.’
Later, of course, the reaction had set in. She had stopped feeling noble and tender and had felt angry and wretched instead. Alexander had gone to see the estate manager, and she wandered up to the nurseries, Alexander’s old nurseries, and walked round, touching things, the crib, the high chair, the rocking horse, crying quietly. And Nanny had come in, from her room opposite, and had taken her hand and said, ‘Madam, please forgive me, but I couldn’t help overhearing some of your – conversation this morning, saying you were leaving. I thought perhaps I should tell you that I had – well, suspected there was something wrong. With Alexander that is. He did – tell me once. Not exactly of course. But I can understand why you’re going. No one could blame you. I shall miss you, madam.’
And finally confronted by someone who would not judge, would not exclaim or be horrified, someone who loved Alexander and who she knew was coming to love her, Virginia said, ‘No, Nanny, I’m not going. I’m staying. Not just for a while, as I had planned, but for good. But I will need your help and your support.’
And then she had begun to talk and to try to explain why she was staying, and what she was going to have to do, and Nanny sat in complete silence, listening to her, just holding her hand, and when she had finished, she said, as if Virginia had been discussing the arrangements for the weekend, ‘I would suggest you change the drawing room curtains, your ladyship. Blue is such a cold colour, and especially with the stone fireplace.’
Chapter 47
Max, 1986
It was Thursday; one of Tommy’s days for visiting Baby. Max decided to go and pick him up on the way home. Poor old Baby. It was ghastly the way he’d deteriorated so fast. He sat in his wheelchair, his legs limp and useless, his arms in splints. On bad days he sometimes had trouble supporting his head, and his speech was becoming increasingly impaired. The worst thing, as Tommy had remarked to Max, was that inside this frail shambles of a shell was a mind that was robust and impatient, condemned to a helpless loneliness. ‘I don’t know how he stands it.’
‘I’d shoot myself,’ said Max.
‘You couldn’t,’ said Tommy sadly, ‘you couldn’t do anything as constructive as that.’
Angie answered the door herself; she looked tired and depressed. ‘Hallo, Max. Come in. Drink?’
‘That’d be nice. Can I see Baby?’
‘Of course. Tommy’s done a great job, as usual. I don’t know what Baby would do without him.’
Mrs Wicks appeared in the hall.
‘Oh, hallo, Sir Max,’ she said, ‘how are you? Angela, those twins need a good spanking, they’re roaring round up there in your bedroom, squirting perfume at each other.’
‘Oh, I don’t care,’ said Angie with a sigh. ‘Go and give them one, Gran, if it’ll make you feel better. Where’s Debbie?’
‘She’s gone out. It’s her night off.’
‘Silly bitch,’ said Angie irrelevantly.
‘She may well be a silly bitch,’ said Mrs Wicks, ‘in fact I’d agree with you there, but she is entitled to her night off. She works hard.’
‘Well so do I and now I’ll have to bath the little buggers and put them to bed. Oh shit.’
She sat down on the bottom of the stairs and put her head in her hands; Max sat down beside her and put his arm round her.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘Tommy and I are going out to dinner. With Gemma. Why don’t you come too? I’m sure Mrs Wicks would babysit, wouldn’t you, Mrs Wicks?’ He turned the smile that had launched a thousand looks on Mrs Wicks.
‘Course I would,’ she said, batting her heavily mascaraed eyelashes at him. ‘And then Baby and I can watch Dynasty together. You go, Angela, it’ll do you good.’
Angie hesitated, then grinned at Max.
‘You talked me into it,’ she said.
They went to the Caprice. They couldn’t really afford it, and it was clearly going to empty the bank account, but Tommy said Angie was worth it, and Max agreed. Angie’s mood lifted swiftly; they had drunk a bottle of champagne before they left the house and she was flirting alternately with Max andTommy, telling funny stories and dirty jokes, and darting across the room whenever anyone she knew came in to greet them extravagantly and ostentatiously.
Gemma grew increasingly sulky and increasingly silent; she was interestingly jealous of Angie; Max looked at her cross little face and, half amused, half irritated by it, perversely turned an increased battery of attention on Angie. Then halfway through the meal he felt remorseful and put his hand over Gemma’s.
‘You OK?�
�� he said.
‘I’m fine,’ said Gemma. ‘Just a little bored. That’s all.’
‘Oh darling, don’t be silly. Join in the conversation a bit more.’
‘I’m finding it a bit hard to get a word in edgeways, actually,’ she said. ‘And I can’t see what’s so interesting about selling flats to Arabs.’
‘You’re not listening,’ said Max, ‘what was interesting was that the Sheikh of whatever turned up with a hundred thousand pounds for Angie in a plastic bag from Ann Summers’ sex shop. Why don’t you try and change the subject if you’re so bored?’
‘Well, when I do say anything nobody seems very interested,’ said Gemma.
‘Nonsense,’ said Max, ‘we’re all interested. Aren’t we?’
‘Aren’t we what?’ said Tommy, turning reluctantly back from a rather bawdy exchange with Angie about the size of his feet.
‘Interested in Gemma,’ said Max. ‘She’s feeling left out.’
‘I’m not,’ said Gemma irritably. ‘Don’t be silly, Max.’
‘Gemma, darling little Gemma, of course we’re interested in you,’ said Tommy. There was a slightly nasty look in his blue eyes. ‘Tell us all about your latest modelling job, darling, or perhaps the last two or three, and we’ll all sit and listen with bated breath.’
Gemma tumbled straight into the trap. ‘Well, it was for Vogue,’ she said, ‘and it was Jasper’s latest collection, and he was there, and Bailey was shooting, and Jasper said I was the only girl who could actually –’
Max, trying to concentrate, and ignore Tommy’s wicked eyes fixed intently on Gemma’s face, found himself disproportionately distracted by the sight of Tommy’s hand creeping up Angie’s slender thigh.
After dinner she said it was her turn and she would take them all to Tramp.
‘I’d like to, and it’d be fun, please let me. Otherwise I’ll get depressed again.’
‘We’ll come,’ said Max and Tommy in unison. Gemma said she was tired and she might go home, but Max told her he would be very upset if she did that, and that he was looking forward to taking her back to her flat already.
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