by Penny Jordan
Cressy had told her during their earlier conversation that, in addition to the old rectory and the farmland they had bought with it, the Institute for whom they both worked was in the process of buying a small acreage of one of the few remaining remote Fens with a view to Cressy and Graham taking charge of the protection and development of this land in its natural state.
‘When you see the house, you’ll wonder what on earth possessed us to buy it,’ Cressy had laughed. ‘It’s a huge old barn of a place, built early on in the nineteenth century and owned by the church ever since, although no one has actually lived in it for several years. It’s far too big for us, but it’s ideally situated for our work, and, as Graham says, once we’ve got the project properly under way at least it means we’ll be able to house any students wanting to do fieldwork. It will be a wonderful opportunity to recreate a very special natural habitat, and one that was in danger of becoming completely lost to us.
‘Of course, Graham keeps on joking that we could always fill the empty rooms with our children, but I’ve told him he can forget that. One, or possibly two, is my limit.’
As Fern drove through the final small village on her route, she glanced at her watch. Nick would be arriving home about now and reading her note. It was too late for her to change her mind and go back, and as she turned on to the long, straight road that disappeared in the misty distance of the low horizon she acknowledged that a part of her was actually glad, almost savouring the strange sensation which against all logic was lifting her spirits.
It took her several seconds to work out what it was and, once she had, she said the word aloud, experimentally.
‘Freedom…’
Ahead of her she could see the house, a gaunt, almost gothically structured building, thrown up incongruously against the flat pale skyline, a building which was almost ugly in many ways and yet, because of its obvious strength, its tenacity in clinging to existence here in this fey, half-solid, half-watery environment, it only appeared as an object of admiration rather than contempt.
As she drove in through the open gateway, Fern recognised the almost typical rectory-style garden, with its balding lawns and neglected tennis courts. It was a far cry indeed from Broughton House and its environment.
And yet, for all its almost theatrical air of brooding heaviness, the startling contrast between its heavy stone bulk and the almost ethereal, misty weightlessness of a landscape which seemed more sky and water than land, the house possessed an unexpected and endearing aura of warmth and welcome.
Fern was halfway towards it when the front door was suddenly flung open and Cressy appeared, running down the steps, whooping triumphantly as she did so and then hugging Fern fiercely before exclaiming, ‘You’re here! I was half expecting that you might get cold feet and change your mind. Wow!’ she added, releasing her and standing back from her a little bit, openly studying her appearance. ‘Things have changed. I’ll bet Nick didn’t sanction that outfit,’ she added wryly.
Fern could feel herself flushing defensively.
‘It’s too young for me, isn’t it? I shouldn’t have—’
‘Too young for you? Don’t be such an idiot,’ Cressy interrupted her. ‘It looks great on you. Much better than that dowdy middle-aged stuff you usually wear. Sorry,’ she added. ‘But you know me, Fern. I always speak my mind. I know your mother brought you up to believe that “nice girls” wear tweed skirts, twinsets and pearls, but you’re a woman now and it’s good to see you taking charge of your own life and dressing like one…’ She grinned as she saw Fern’s expression.
‘OK, OK, I know what you’re thinking. I’m a fine one to talk…’ She glanced wryly at her dungarees and bush shirt and then said gently, ‘But these are my choice, Fern, and no one else’s, and if Graham, much as I love him, started to dictate to me what he thought I should wear…’
She shook her head. ‘Listen to me! You’ve only just arrived and I’m lecturing you already. Come on inside…’
Cressy hadn’t changed, Fern reflected as she followed her into the lofty stone-flagged hallway, dim and cool after the translucent clarity of the light outside. Beams of sunlight picked out the dust spinning lazily in the air; a couple of brilliantly coloured woven rugs had been thrown casually over the battered leather chesterfield in front of the huge stone fireplace. Above it, on the wall, the mounted heads of what looked like a small herd of deer gazed glassy-eyed and moulting into space.
‘Gruesome, aren’t they?’ Cressy commented, following her gaze. ‘Not my choice, needless to say. They came with the house. Graham said they reminded him of a particularly awful holiday he once spent in the Scottish Highlands with his grandparents. We’re going to take the poor things down and give them a decent burial.
‘It’s hard, isn’t it, imagining the kind of society where that kind of wanton killing was not just sanctioned but actively praised? Look at them: a tribute to man’s dexterity with a gun; and an indictment against his heart and soul.’
No, she hadn’t changed, Fern reflected, listening to the passion in her old friend’s voice. The wild mane of strawberry-blonde hair, the high-cheekboned face with its tanned skin, the intelligent hazel eyes, the lean, athletic body and the sharp, trained mind—they were all the same.
And so was the warmth, the humanity, the generosity of spirit and the affection, she recognised as Cressy looked at her and said vehemently, ‘Fern, I’m so glad you’re here. I still can’t believe I’m actually doing it… actually getting married. You know how I’ve always felt about that kind of commitment… how afraid I’ve always been of repeating my mother’s pattern of broken promises and broken marriages.’
‘But you do love Graham…’
‘Oh, yes.’
She said it so quietly, so simply, but with such a look of such softness and warmth on her face, that Fern felt her own heart move achingly inside her.
It wasn’t that she envied her friend her happiness… nor even her capacity to recognise it and to cherish it; it was just that looking at Cressy, listening to her, brought so sharply into focus the emptiness of her own life.
The delicate protective tissue of self-deceit and self-denial with which she had cloaked the paucity of her marriage could not withstand the force of Cressy’s almost brutal honesty.
What was Nick doing now? she wondered later as Cressy gave her a brief tour of the house coupled with an excited and enthusiastic description of the plans she and Graham had for its and their own future.
Was he pacing the house, raging against her defection, her deceit, her cowardice, or was he taking advantage of her absence to be with Venice?
She hadn’t realised how closely Cressy was watching her until she heard her friend asking quietly, ‘Fern, what is it? What’s wrong?’
‘It’s… it’s nothing. I was just thinking about Nick.’
‘But not very happily, if your expression is anything to go by,’ Cressy commented gently. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’
Fern shook her head. She was here to listen to Cressy, to support her, not the other way round; but to her dismay she could feel her eyes beginning to fill with tears and she knew that Cressy had seen them as well.
‘Come on,’ Cressy insisted. ‘I want to know what’s going on.’
Unresistingly Fern let her take hold of her arm and guide her back to the spacious kitchen, a large, cluttered but very comfortable room on which Cressy had already managed to stamp her indefinable mark.
It was a room Nick would have hated, Fern acknowledged as Cressy unceremoniously swept a large pile of books off the kitchen table and pulled out one of the chairs, firmly but very kindly pushing Fern into it.
‘Now,’ she insisted, pulling out another chair for herself, ‘I want to hear all about it.’
‘There isn’t anything to tell…’ Fern began, and then, to her own shock, because it was the last thing she had intended to do, she heard herself adding quietly, ‘Nick’s having an affair.’
There was a small silenc
e, and when she looked uncertainly at her friend Fern realised that her announcement had not come as any surprise to her.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ she said despairingly. ‘It probably isn’t that important. These things do happen… men do have affairs… It probably doesn’t mean anything, and if I keep quiet it will probably all blow over… It’s probably all my fault anyway. I—’
‘Your fault!’ Cressy exploded, standing up and looking at her. ‘Your fault? For God’s sake, Fern, what the hell have you let him do to you? I always knew that he was a manipulative bastard, but if he’s having an affair there’s only one person responsible for him making the decision and it certainly isn’t you. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who takes her marriage more seriously than you do, or who puts more into it…’
Fern winced, but Cressy obviously didn’t notice; she was pacing the kitchen now, her eyes stormily angry as she turned round and announced grimly, ‘I know I shouldn’t say it, and I’ve always promised myself that I wouldn’t, but that husband of yours is one of, if not the most selfish and manipulative people I have ever met. Right from the moment the two of you met, he’s blinded you to reality, Fern; he’s used you and manipulated you, playing on your vulnerabilities… hurting you. Oh, yes, he has hurt you, Fern. I watched the way he deliberately took over your life, took over you, and I wanted to tell you then… to warn you… but you were so blindly in love with him…’
Fern made a small choking sound of distress and guilt.
‘Do you still love him?’ Cressy asked her fiercely.
Fern shook her head, unable even now to vocally admit the truth, the teachings of her parents and her own guilt still holding her too tightly to allow her to do so.
‘Well, thank God for that.’
As she watched, Cressy marched over to the fridge and opened it, removing a bottle of wine, which she uncorked and poured into two large glasses.
‘It may not be champagne, but…’ As she raised her own glass, she paused and stated rather than asked, ‘You are going to leave him, I hope.’
Leave him! Fern stared at her.
‘We’re married, Cressy. I made vows… gave a commitment. I…’
Cressy put down her glass. ‘Fern, for God’s sake, how much more of yourself do you have to give him? What the hell has he ever given you? You say he’s having an affair; well, I’ll bet it isn’t his first. He’s the kind of man who needs the constant ego-boost of entrapping another victim… Not for the sex. No, definitely not for that. You know, when you first knew him, I used to look at him and wonder exactly what it was you saw in him. He always struck me as being so sexually and emotionally cold… Although I must admit you had to admire the way he pushed Adam out of your life. Whatever did you see in him, Fern? And when you had Adam, who was so plainly the complete opposite, so very much everything that Nick wasn’t… I have to confess there were moments, more of them than I wanted to admit, when I actually found myself fantasising about what it would be like to go to bed with your Adam.’
‘He was never “my” Adam,’ Fern protested, ‘and you’re wrong about Nick’s pushing him out of my life. Adam was never anything more than a friend.’
‘A friend? I saw the way he used to look at you. Adam wanted you, Fern. Make no mistake about that.’
‘You’re wrong,’ Fern insisted. ‘He already had a girlfriend… Someone much older and far more experienced than me. Nick—’
‘Nick wanted you the way he’s wanted everything else in his life,’ Cressy interrupted her ruthlessly, refilling their glasses, but Fern knew it wasn’t just the wine that was making her so loquacious, so almost brutally honest. She sensed as she listened to her friend that Cressy was giving voice to things she had suppressed for a very long time, and she sensed as well that her motivation was purely that of friendship and concern for her.
‘He wanted you because he wanted to take you away from Adam.’
Fern felt her fingers curling protestingly round the stem of her wine glass. She could feel the blood draining out of her face, and the dizzying, disorientating shock of disbelief that filled the chasm which had opened up within her.
‘That’s not true. He wanted me… needed me…’
But even as she said it she knew that Cressy was right. In a sickening jolt of perception, the barriers of delusion she had used to protect both herself and her marriage suddenly came down and for the first time she saw her relationship with Nick for what it really was.
‘I’m sorry, Fern… I’m so sorry,’ she heard Cressy saying roughly. ‘I didn’t mean… I thought you must know… that you must have seen how bitterly jealous and resentful of Adam Nick has always been.’
Nick, jealous of Adam? The room, which had briefly slipped out of focus, spun round her dizzily. She blinked and forced herself to concentrate on the dresser against the wall, fixing her gaze on the primitive design of the unglazed jug in the middle of one of the shelves. Were the tribesmen on it hunters; were… those raised spears raised to kill their prey; were…?
She shivered tensely and turned her face towards Cressy.
‘All these years and I never knew… never realised. I thought Nick wanted me… needed me… but all the time he was just using me because he thought Adam wanted me. Is that really what you’re trying to say?’ she asked Cressy in revulsion.
‘Basically, yes,’ Cressy admitted huskily. ‘But there’s more to it than that. People like Nick are like… like plants such as ivy; like bindweed. They need a host plant to cling to, to draw their life-force from, to use and draw the strength from while they slowly smother and destroy it. And the stronger the host plant is, the greater the appeal.’
‘But I’m not strong,’ Fern protested.
Cressy came over to her, kneeling beside her chair and wrapping her arms tightly round her.
‘Fern, you’re so wrong. You are one of the strongest, most courageous, most moral people I’ve ever known. Why do you think it’s you I want here with me now, if not because I need your strength?’
‘You need my strength!’
Fern could feel her body starting to shake with the onset of semi-hysterical laughter. ‘But I’m nothing. I’ve done nothing with my life… seen nothing… been nowhere.’
‘You have compassion, love and understanding; people turn to you instinctively for help. You don’t know yourself, Fern. You don’t know your own value. Do you think anyone who was genuinely weak, who genuinely lacked the virtues I’ve just described, would ever have stuck by someone like Nick, never mind been attracted to him in the first place? I’ll bet you anything you like, despite this affair, he still won’t want to let you go. Oh, he’ll make you suffer… make you think it’s your fault… claim some lack in you is responsible for his infidelity, some need you haven’t fulfilled. Oh, yes, he’ll use it to manipulate and control you, but he won’t let you go. He can’t afford to let you go, Fern. He needs you too much to support his ego.’
‘But he’s the one…’ Fern started to protest and then fell silent as her brain observed the truth of what Cressy was saying to her.
‘Do you still love him?’ Cressy repeated.
Fern shook her head, unable to deny the truth any longer. ‘No.’
‘Thank God for that,’ Cressy said again, adding emphatically, ‘Leave him, Fern. You owe it to yourself.’
Leave him! How could she? And yet if Cressy was right how could she not? And Cressy was right, she knew that instinctively, and knew also that she had deliberately blinded herself to the truth.
Why? Out of fear? Out of guilt? Out of loyalty to her parents and the beliefs they had instilled in her?
* * *
They talked until the early hours of the morning, eating the chilli Cressy had made earlier, finishing the bottle of wine she had opened and then another.
Oddly Fern did not feel drunk, just more clear-headed and aware than she could remember ever feeling at any other time in her life.
As well as her marriage, they discussed
Cressy’s relationship with Graham and with her parents; her wariness of the kind of commitment marriage would bring; her fear of not being able to live up to Graham’s expectations of her.
‘I can’t live without him,’ she confessed to Fern, ‘and yet I’m terrified that once we’re married I shan’t be able to live with him.’
‘You will,’ Fern assured her, and, oddly, as she said it, not only did she herself know that it was true, but she could see as well that Cressy believed her.
‘Do you see much of Adam?’ Cressy asked her idly as they finished their last glass of wine.
Fern tensed automatically, her whole body stiff and wary until she remembered that this was Cressy she was talking to and not Nick, and that with Cressy there was no reason for her to feel afraid of what her face might reveal.
‘Not really. He and Nick have never been close and now with this business of Broughton House…’
‘What business with Broughton House?’ Cressy asked her. Briefly Fern explained.
‘But surely Adam would never do anything like that? He’s always been such a keen conservationist.’
‘Yes, I know, but he is involved in several similar projects and I suppose as a businessman… an architect… well, no one is finding it easy these days, are they? Adam has his staff to think of as well as himself.’
‘Even so… Have you discussed it with him, Fern?’
Now Fern did dip her head, avoiding looking directly at Cressy. There were still some things she had not told her, confidences she had not given, could not give anyone, not even the oldest and closest of her friends.
‘No. No, I haven’t. Tell me some more about how you met Graham,’ she encouraged, changing the subject. ‘I know you said you were both working on the same project…’
‘Yes. Well, we were…’
Thankfully Fern listened as Cressy proceeded to describe her first meeting with her husband-to-be, congratulating herself on successfully deflecting her attention.
Out on the dykes, where water met sky, dawn was just beginning to pearl the horizon when they finally went to bed, leaving the detritus of the evening meal, the empty bottles of wine and even the cocoa mugs, so reminiscent of their earlier days together that Fern smiled ruefully over them as Cressy refused to allow her to clean up, announcing that they would have plenty of time for that when they got up.