For Better for Worse

by Penny Jordan

  Her body tensed. Where had that thought come from? Surely she didn’t really think that Vanessa had that kind of influence over Marcus? To do so was an insult both to him and to their relationship, and yet the thought… the fear must have come from somewhere…

  A relic from the days of always coming second best… of always feeling that she was not important enough in her own right to be unconditionally loved… of feeling that she must always work hard to deserve love.

  Surely she had thrown off those old shackles years ago?

  If so, what were those old doubts and fears doing resurfacing now?

  She looked at Marcus, searching his face for some sign that he understood what she was going through, that he could see past the mayhem Vanessa had caused to her own pain and confusion, but the only thing she could see in his eyes was her own reflection, its defensive, drooping posture and his irritation with the scene around him—and her!

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  FERN heard the post dropping through the letterbox on her way downstairs. She picked up the letters and took them with her into the kitchen. Most of them were for Nick and, of the three addressed to her, two were from charities asking for money.

  The third one, though, was a fat, bulky envelope, and the sight of her oldest friend’s handwriting made her mouth curl into an anticipatory smile as she methodically placed Nick’s post on one side, quickly making herself a cup of coffee before sitting down to open and read Cressy’s letter.

  She and Cressy had met while they were still at school and their friendship had survived not only their very different temperaments and upbringings, but also their university days and the widely diverging lives they had had since.

  Admittedly, since she had married Nick, their friendship had been conducted more through letters and telephone calls than in person.

  Cressy, a committed environmentalist, had opted for a career which involved her in projects which took her to some of the most remote parts of the world. This letter, though, was postmarked Lincolnshire. Normally, when she was in England, Cressy stayed in Cambridge, where she had done her post-degree studies and where she had several friends among the university fraternity.

  Nick had never really taken to Cressy, considering her to be too outspoken and objective for a woman; too inclined to challenge him on issues on which he considered that he as a man held a much more valid and well balanced view than any woman.

  Fern had tried to protest that he was being unfair to her friend, who was not only highly qualified and knowledgeable in her field, but who was also genuinely concerned about the effect the modern industrialised nations were having on the earth’s environment, but Nick had turned on her, claiming that she didn’t know what she was talking about; he had, she remembered, even tried to suggest that Cressy’s affection for her had some kind of lesbian undertones to it.

  It had been one of the few times when Fern had actually been angry enough to want to argue with him. She suspected that, had she known Cressy less well, his insinuations would have undermined their friendship completely. As it was, Fern, who had grown up alongside Cressy, knew quite well that his innuendoes were unfounded: Cressy, although not promiscuous, was enthusiastically heterosexual.

  The letter was so typical of Cressy’s breezy, no-nonsense manner that, as she read the opening line, Fern felt almost as though she was there in the room with her.

  Guess what! I’m getting married! Graham and I met last year when we were both with a team working in Russia studying the effects that Chernobyl has had on the environment. He’s a Scot—Presbyterian ancestory and hugely conventional and moral—and he’s said that it’s to be marriage or nothing. Since the nothing was impossible to live with, I’ve given in, less than gracefully, I must tell you. However, having given in, we’ve bought a rectory here in the Fens, with enough land for us to try some experimental crops. The wedding isn’t until October—I did say he was conventional, didn’t I?—and since Graham is away at the moment with a team studying the effects of sea pollution on plankton I was wondering if you could spare the time to come and spend a few days with me here.

  It’s been too long since we last had any time together, and it would give us an opportunity to catch up on one another’s news. I’m sorry I missed your mother’s funeral, by the way.

  I know how devoted to one another your parents were, but I know it still must have been a shock to lose her so soon after your father’s death.

  Thoughtfully Fern put the letter down. What Cressy was suggesting was impossible, of course. Nick would never agree.

  She remembered how difficult he had been in the weeks before her mother’s death, when the pneumonia which had finally killed her had meant that she was confined to bed and Fern had had to go and stay with her to take care of her.

  She sighed, closing her eyes. Cressy’s letter had brought back all the pain and unhappiness she had felt when her mother died.

  She had badly needed Nick’s support then, his support and understanding… his mature acceptance of the fact that her mother needed her. Instead he had behaved like a spoiled, possessive child.

  Adam would never…

  Abruptly she got up and walked over to the window, staring blindly out of it.

  She had worked hard in the long, narrow garden, transforming it into a series of separate, almost secret gardens. A betrayal of her own need sometimes to seek sanctuary… to conceal herself not just from Nick but from her own fears and doubts?

  ‘I’m sorry if you think I’m being over-possessive,’ Nick had told her bitterly after her mother’s death. ‘But whose fault is that, Fern?’

  No, he would never agree to her going to visit Cressy.

  She glanced at the top of the letter. There was a telephone number there as well as the address.

  She walked over to the phone, carefully pressing the numbers. She would have to lie, of course, to tell Cressy that unfortunately she just couldn’t spare the time to visit her.

  She could feel her stomach muscles tensing at the thought, as she heard the phone ring, her tension increasing slightly as she heard the receiver being picked up at the other end and then her friend’s voice.

  ‘Cressy, it’s me… Fern.’

  ‘Fern! Wonderful… When can you come? You are coming, aren’t you?’ Fern heard her pleading when she made no response.

  Cressy had always had a distinctively husky, almost vibrant voice and now, listening to it, it was almost as though she were in the kitchen with her, her intelligent eyes brimming with the enthusiasm for life which made her so compellingly attractive.

  Cressy was one of those people whom others instinctively warmed to, a vibrant, decisive personality that could be sharp and impatient at times and yet which was so essentially and obviously compassionate that she drew others to her.

  ‘I… I don’t think I can make it, Cressy,’ Fern apologised. ‘You see—’

  ‘No, dammit, Fern, I don’t. I need you. I’ve never been married before, remember… I’m feeling a bit jittery and… oh, all right, if you want the truth, I’m downright terrified and I desperately need someone to come and hold my hand. There’s no one better than you at doing that, Fern. Please… please come!’ she coaxed… and, as she listened to her, Fern could almost see her smiling that wide-mouthed smile of hers, her lips curling back from her teeth, her hand lifting to rake impatiently through her hair.

  Fern laughed in spite of herself. If ever there was anyone who needed her hand holding less than Cressy, she had yet to meet her, but then, as though she had read her mind, Cressy’s tone suddenly became serious and she said quietly, ‘I do need you, Fern. You’re my oldest friend. You know me better than anyone else. I can be honest with you in a way that I can’t with others. I love Graham more than I ever imagined I could love anyone and yet I’m terrified at the thought of committing myself to marriage. Crazy, isn’t it?’

  Not when you knew Cressy’s family history, it wasn’t, Fern reflected inwardly.

  Her mother ha
d left Cressy’s father when Cressy was eight years old, and precociously intelligent enough to understand the shocked gossip that spread through the village.

  Cressy’s mother had aristocratic connections; very distant connections as it happened, but none the less the gossips had remembered this fact and embroidered on it, remembering also that Cressy’s mother had a very, very distant and long-dead family relative who had been notorious for her affairs and for the very mixed percentage of the large brood of children she produced, while her husband turned a blind eye to what she was doing.

  There had been much talk of ‘blood coming out’ and Fern could vividly remember Cressy solemnly announcing that she would never marry in case she turned out like her mother.

  That had been when Cressy was eight, but childhood traumas could cast long shadows even over the lives of mature and intelligent adults.

  ‘I’d love to come, Cressy,’ she said regretfully, ‘but I can’t. Nick has only just returned from a business trip to London and things are rather hectic…’

  ‘You mean he wouldn’t approve of you coming to stay with me,’ Cressy contradicted her, the flat, crisp tone of her voice making Fern wince slightly. ‘Oh, it’s all right, Fern. I know that Nick doesn’t approve of me. I suppose he’s afraid that my bad influence on you might encourage you to break out of that prison he keeps you in. I only wish it could.’

  ‘Cressy…’ Fern objected uncomfortably.

  ‘Oh, all right. I’m sorry, Fern, but…’ She broke off and then said quietly, ‘Please try to come. I meant what I said about being terrified. I do need you.’

  ‘I’ll try,’ Fern agreed, but as she replaced the receiver she suspected that Cressy knew as well as she did herself that she would not be going.

  Half an hour later, she was just about to start the ironing when someone rang the doorbell.

  When she went to open the door, the sight of Venice standing there took her completely by surprise.

  It was a pleasantly warm day, warm enough for Fern to feel slightly uncomfortable in the jumper and skirt she was wearing.

  Venice, in contrast, was wearing a tight-fitting scoop-necked short-sleeved cerise top, patterned with bright yellow coin-sized spots, with matching equally clinging leggings, and, seeing her standing there, her hair and make-up immaculate as always, her skin prettily tanned, her hands and nails looking as though any form of domestic activity was completely unknown to them, Fern felt a momentary and totally alien thrill of envy and resentment.

  It didn’t need the amused contempt which narrowed Venice’s cat-shaped eyes nor the pleased smile that curled her mouth to highlight the contrast in their appearances to make Fern suddenly feel not merely dowdy, but somehow old and tired as well.

  As she stepped back to allow Venice to walk into the hall, she pushed her hand into her hair, a defensive reflex action which betrayed her feelings.

  ‘Oh, dear, have I called at a bad time?’ Venice cooed, flashing Fern an openly insincere smile. ‘Goodness, how wonderfully clean everywhere looks. Almost antiseptic. You must give me the name of your cleaner. My woman is good enough in her way, but…’ She wrinkled her nose, her sharp glance everywhere, assessing, judging… analysing…

  ‘I don’t have a cleaner,’ Fern told her flatly. She could feel her colour rising as Venice looked at her. She was pretty sure that the older woman knew that quite well, and she had not missed the acid abrasiveness of the word ‘antiseptic’.

  ‘I shan’t stay. I only called to bring this back,’ Venice told her, opening the shoulder-bag she was carrying and handing Fern a carelessly folded and very creased tie. ‘Nick left it at my place the other day. He came round to discuss my investments. My central heating has been causing problems recently and the house was so hot he asked if I wouldn’t mind if he took off his tie. My woman found it this morning, and as I was driving past I thought I ought to return it…’

  Fern said nothing. Bleakly she wondered if Venice thought she was actually deceiving her. How much pleasure had the other woman derived from making up that outrageous tissue of lies?

  Fern knew quite well that the tie Venice had just handed her was one of the ones Nick had taken to London with him. She knew it, because it was a new one. Pure silk; it had cost more than her ‘monthly allowance’.

  There was only one possible explanation as to how it had come into Venice’s possession and it certainly wasn’t the one Venice had given her.

  After Venice had gone, Fern stood in the kitchen, her hands icy cold whilst her face burned with humiliation and anguish.

  There was no doubt whatsoever in her mind now. Nick was having an affair with Venice.

  As she reached for the telephone, Fern realised that she was physically shaking. Not with pain but with anger; anger because Nick had so obviously and so callously deceived her, lied to her when he had told her that he valued their marriage and that he valued her.

  And somewhere, as she punched in the numbers and waited to hear the phone ring, not quite smothered beneath her anger was a small still pool of coldness, of inevitability, as though she had always known that this would and must happen.

  No matter how much he might protest otherwise, Nick did not want her. How could he? And, unlike her, Venice would not passively allow him to control their relationship. As she had shown today.

  Venice was no fool—she had known what she was doing when she returned that tie.

  At the other end of the line someone picked up the receiver and it was only when she heard her friend’s voice announcing the number that Fern realised with a small start of shock that instead of dialling Nick’s number as she had intended she had in fact dialled Cressy’s.

  A deliberate subconscious error on her part, or a random act of fate? Whichever way one chose to look at it, there was a definite message somewhere in what had happened.

  Fern took a deep breath.

  ‘Cressy, I’ve changed my mind,’ she announced shakily. ‘When do you want me to come?’

  ‘As soon as possible,’ Cressy responded.

  * * *

  It didn’t take her long to pack; there wasn’t after all much for her to take, and the unwanted visual memory of Venice standing in the sunlight in her pretty, casual clothes sharpened the revulsion she felt for her own shabby, old-fashioned things.

  She left Nick a note explaining where she had gone and after signing her name to it added a footnote to the effect that Venice had returned his tie.

  Let him make of that what he wanted, she decided grimly. It hadn’t escaped her notice that the writing in the footnote was slightly bolder and larger than her normal neat, controlled script.

  Would Nick notice? She smiled mirthlessly.

  She wasn’t running away, she told herself as she packed her small case into her car. She was simply giving herself space to come to terms with things and to decide upon her future.

  A future which would no longer include Nick?

  She took a deep shaky breath as she started her car and released the handbrake.

  * * *

  She stopped for lunch in a small country town. It was market day, the streets busy with people. As she walked back outside Fern noticed a young mother walking past with her baby. She was about Fern’s own age, but, unlike her, she was dressed in a brightly coloured Lycra-based outfit in a similar style to, although nothing like as expensive as, the top and leggings Venice had been wearing earlier.

  They were totally unsuitable for her, of course. Nick would have a fit if… She stopped abruptly, and then, without allowing herself to analyse what she was doing, she turned round and made her way back along the busy street to the branch of an inexpensive nationwide fashion chain she had passed a few minutes earlier.

  Fifteen minutes later, when she emerged from its open doorway, her face flushed and her hands trembling slightly, she was no longer wearing the dowdy skirt and sweater.

  Instead she had on a pair of pretty multi-coloured leggings and a matching ‘body’, as the girl had call
ed the all-in-one she had recommended.

  She had even been able to buy a matching pair of casual canvas shoes to go with them.

  And she had paid for them out of her month’s housekeeping money which Nick had only handed over to her the previous day.

  Hardly the act of a supposedly responsible and mature woman, and one moreover who was actively considering leaving her husband and who morally therefore had no right to be spending his money, especially on something so frivolous… especially when she knew how much he would disapprove of her purchases.

  They were comfortable, too, though. It was remarkable how different they made her feel… how light and unfettered. How free… She paused, entranced by the unexpected sight of her reflection in a shop window, blinked a little as she studied herself surreptitiously.

  The salesgirl had commented enviously on the slimness of her figure, saying that she would need their smallest size, adding ruefully that she was lucky because their Lycra range tended to reveal every unwanted bulge.

  It was only when she glanced at herself again that Fern realised she was grinning almost idiotically. No wonder that man had paused to stare at her. Quickly she hurried back to her parked car, part of her still shocked by her wasteful extravagance.

  * * *

  She was nearly there now, the flat Fenlands stretching out apparently endlessly in front of her.

  Unlike others, Fern did not find this monotony boring; instead, the very regularity and predictability of the landscape seemed to offer a calming, soothing panacea to both her senses and her emotions.

  What must they once have been like, these Fenlands, before they were drained? In her mind’s eye she could see them, a land of mystery and secrecy, cloaked in protective mists, whose safe paths were only known to those who lived there and within whose quiet, silent half-land, half-marshland lurked danger and death for those unwise enough to treat it without caution and respect.