Yesterday's Husband

by Angela Devine

  ‘Oh!’ cried Emma in belated warning. ‘Wait a minute. That one belongs to my husband!’

  The young man flashed her a rueful grin and his brown eyes twinkled disarmingly.

  ‘Oh, hell, does it?’ he demanded. ‘Look, I’m awfully sorry. We had a couple of drinks just like those somewhere along the side. Yes, there they are down by that stone elephant. I’ll tell you what, let me buy your husband another one.’

  He hauled himself out of the water and called to a passing waiter. Richard and the young woman in the water, attracted by the commotion, both swam over to the side to find out what was going on. There was a hasty babble of explanations.

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ urged Richard, emerging from the water and picking up a towel. But by then the waiter had already returned with a fresh glass of juice. ‘Put it on my account,’ insisted Richard, waving away the young man’s protests. ‘Bungalow number five. Fielding.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Thanks very much,’ said the embarrassed young man. ‘I feel a real fool about this.’

  ‘Don’t let it worry you,’ said Richard. ‘Look, why don’t you both come and have a drink with us?’

  Emma averted her eyes as Richard hastily towelled his wet body and pulled on a beach robe. But the newlyweds didn’t bother with such formalities. Still making calf-eyes at each other, they pulled up a couple of bamboo lounges and sat down in their wet swimsuits.

  ‘I’m Steven Castle and this is my wife Julie,’ said the young man, stumbling slightly over the word ‘wife’.

  Julie blushed.

  ‘Richard and Emma Fielding,’ replied Richard, shaking hands.

  ‘We’re on our honeymoon,’ explained Julie rather unnecessarily as she turned a smouldering glance on her brand-new husband.

  ‘So are we,’ replied Richard, turning an equally smouldering glance on Emma. ‘Our second one, that is. We spent the first one here in Bali too.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ sighed Julie. ‘How romantic! And you liked it so much that you came back? That’s great!’

  ‘Yes, great,’ said Emma, giving Julie a small, tight smile and flashing Richard a glare that would have melted a polar ice cap.

  But Julie wasn’t easily discouraged.

  ‘How long ago was the first one?’ she demanded conversationally, simultaneously sipping her drink and sliding one arm through Steven’s.

  ‘Nine years ago,’ said Richard.

  Julie’s face took on a radiant, wistful look.

  ‘So I suppose you have kids back home now?’ she suggested.

  Richard’s blue eyes flicked over Emma with an unreadable expression. Then he smiled urbanely at Julie and raised his glass.

  ‘No, I’m afraid we haven’t been blessed with children yet, much as I’d like to have them. And I’m sure Emma would too.’

  Even the exuberant Julie was a little disconcerted by this but she quickly recovered.

  ‘Well, you’ll just have to keep trying, then, won’t you?’ she said. ‘And what better setting could you have for it than this? I think it’s the most romantic place in the world.’

  ‘Julie,’ muttered her husband, giving her a quiet nudge and jerking his head at Emma’s stony features. ‘I think we ought to go and take a shower before lunch. Excuse us, won’t you? And thanks for the drink.’

  ‘Why on earth did you say a thing like that?’ burst out Emma once the couple were out of earshot and the poolside was deserted again.

  ‘Like what?’

  Richard had stripped off his beach robe and was lying back on the banana lounge with his muscular arms stretched up behind his head as lazily as if he had nothing on his mind but enjoying the sunshine.

  ‘All that rubbish about wanting children,’ retorted Emma.

  He raised one tawny eyebrow reprovingly.

  ‘I do want children,’ he said.

  For a moment Emma was taken aback. A strange thrill of excitement went through her, followed immediately by intense suspicion.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she said sarcastically. ‘With me, I suppose?’

  Richard sighed and shook his head.

  ‘No. When I eventually do have children, I want to feel sure that they’re mine.’

  She flushed scarlet at the implicit insult.

  ‘You swine,’ she said. ‘Are you implying that you wouldn’t feel sure, if I were their mother?’

  ‘If the cap fits…’ murmured Richard provocatively.

  ‘Are you calling me promiscuous?’ demanded Emma.

  This time the provocative note in his voice was unmistakable.

  ‘If I am, you only have your own behaviour to blame for it,’ he drawled. ‘You were pretty quick off the mark with good old Nigel, weren’t you? And there have been others since then.’

  Emma gritted her teeth. In fact, there hadn’t been anyone except in the over-fertile mind of journalists. It was also outrageously unfair. Her face took on a haunted look as she remembered how it had happened. If she hadn’t been so agonisingly hurt over the discovery of Richard’s infidelity, she doubted whether she would ever have looked twice at the chief marketing manager of Prero’s. In normal circumstances Nigel’s rather glossy charm and showy lifestyle would have repelled her. But those hadn’t been normal circumstances. Twenty years old and deeply wounded, she had still decided to give Richard another chance. Her face contorted as she remembered that long begging letter she had written to him and entrusted to her father to deliver by hand. There hadn’t been a word of reply from Richard, not a word! Alone on her first wedding anniversary, Emma had been easy prey when Nigel had arrived on the scene with a bottle of wine and a lot of glib sympathy. Yet it hadn’t taken her long to work out that her involvement with him was prompted not by love but by a defiant attempt at revenge on Richard. Horrified at her own behaviour, she had soon broken it off, without having slept with him. But what right did that give Richard to criticise? After all, he was the one who had betrayed her first and she had better grounds than the glossy tabloids for knowing that he had had numerous affairs since then.

  ‘I think you’re being very unfair!’ she burst out. ‘Haven’t you heard of Women’s Lib, Richard? You’ve been involved with other women while you were still married to me, haven’t you?’

  ‘True,’ he admitted blandly.

  ‘Then why shouldn’t I get involved with other men?’

  ‘Nobody’s trying to stop you, sweetheart,’ he replied in a dangerously silky voice. ‘I’m simply making the point that I would like to have children soon and you’re a totally unsuitable candidate to be their mother.’

  Emma took a quick, shuddering breath and clenched her fists. There was no way she wanted to be the mother of Richard’s children, although once the thought would have filled her with unbearable happiness, but his gibe still infuriated her. Her yellow-flecked green eyes flashed sparks.

  ‘So what do you intend to do?’ she demanded.

  He squinted into the sun, and then adjusted a nearby beach umbrella so that it cast a cooling shadow over him.

  ‘I’ll probably get a divorce and marry someone else once this little interlude with you is over,’ he replied.

  Emma stared at him in dismay, remembering his cryptic hint the previous evening that he just might have her successor already picked out.

  ‘Do you have someone special in mind?’ she asked sharply.

  ‘Very special,’ he replied with a secretive smile.

  The hide of it took her breath away. How could he just sit there, as good as telling her that he was in love with some other woman and that he still intended to sleep with her out of some crazy idea of revenge? It was outrageous, unforgivable!

  ‘You—’ She broke off. ‘Then why are you here with

  me?’

  ‘I’ve told you, Emma,’ he replied, his blue eyes glinting. ‘You’ve been a sort of minor obsession of mine lately. In fact, you’re rather like a case of psoriasis. Easy to diagnose, but
hard to get rid of.’

  ‘Thanks! All my life I’ve wanted a man to compare me to a skin disease.’

  ‘You’re welcome. But the comparison is more accurate than you know. I’ve had a lot of trouble with the itch, the flare-ups, the impossibility of putting my mind to anything else while I’m still suffering from it. So I decided the best way to cure it was probably to indulge it.’

  ‘Wonderful,’ retorted Emma. ‘And what choice do I get in the matter?’

  ‘You’ve had your choice. And your payment. Prero’s, in exchange for your body.’

  ‘You really think anything can be bought, don’t you?’ she blazed.

  ‘Certainly. It’s a lesson I learnt from you and your father.’

  With a gasp of indignation, Emma fell to her knees beside him and slapped his face soundly. The red imprint of her fingers appeared on his cheek, but he scarcely seemed to notice it. Seizing her right hand, he held it in a grip that hurt.

  ‘Uh-uh,’ he said softly. ‘No violence. That’s not part of the game.’

  ‘It isn’t a game!’ she choked.

  ‘Oh, yes, it is.’

  ‘Then get it over with!’ she exclaimed, her breath coming in unsteady gulps. ‘Come to bed with me now and then release me from this ridiculous, humiliating situation.’

  He was holding both her hands now and his grip had become soft and caressing. His thumbs stroked lightly over the backs of her hands, sending a tingling feeling of need coursing through her entire body.

  ‘It’s gratifying to hear you beg, Emma,’ he murmured. ‘And I can assure you that eventually I will come to bed with you. But it will be when and as I choose. In the meantime, I think we should do a little sightseeing, don’t you? What do you say to a look round the stone-carvers’ workshops at Batubulan today?’

  Emma said only one thing.

  ‘Go to hell!’

  Emma stared sightlessly out of the car window as it bowled along the Klungkung road towards Batubulan. Normally she would have been fascinated by the unfamiliar sights skimming past outside. Lush, tropical forest and vivid green farmland interspersed by housing compounds with thatched pagodas rising towards the sky slowly gave way to Denpasar, the capital, with its pungent drains, noisy market-place and brightly coloured horsedrawn carriages decorated with bells. All the misery of the East, she thought bitterly, and I simply can’t enjoy it because I’m far too preoccupied with a much bigger mystery—namely, what on earth am I doing here with Richard? She stole a swift, furtive glance at her husband and felt herself blush hotly as his gaze met hers. He frowned and immediately turned back to the road, while Emma dug her nails into her palms and wished she could emigrate to Mars.

  It was a ridiculous, impossible situation in which to find herself. Married and yet not married. On a honeymoon and not on a honeymoon. Closer together than they had ever been in the past eight years and yet so far apart that you could fire a machine gun between them and not hit anyone. The worst of it was that, while Richard seemed physically unchanged from the twentysix-year-old man she had married, emotionally he was a total stranger to her now. Oh, he had always been ambitious. From the moment she had first met him, when he was only a sunburnt, hardworking builder of very few words, she had sensed immediately that he had hidden depths. It had come as no surprise to her to learn that he was studying law part-time and, when he’d confided in her that he intended to make Fielding Constructions the biggest building firm in Sydney, shehad never doubted his ability to do it. He had always been so dynamic, so certain of his own abilities, so committed to throwing himself heart and soul into anything he did. It was no wonder that he had succeeded so spectacularly. The degree in law, the huge real-estate holdings, the mansion in Vaucluse. Emma felt a hollow sense of regret that she hadn’t been able to share those triumphs with him. And she felt an even worse sense of regret at the savage and total destruction of the love that had once existed between them. For today Richard was no longer the passionate, explosive-tempered, generous, warmhearted man she had married. Instead he had become a cold, cynical, vindictive stranger who was prepared to use her and discard her like a bought woman because she had once dared to look at another man.

  A dry, painful sob rose in her throat, but she turned it hastily into a cough and stared out of the car window. Yet it was impossible to turn her back on her own mounting sense of agitation. What Richard was demanding from her was cruel and inhuman. And the fact that she was still legally married to him, still loved him, made it worse, not better. Still love him? her brain echoed in horror. Of course you don’t still love him! But, even as her mind leapt into a dazzling, gymnastic sequence of denials, her uneven heartbeat and the aching sense of nostalgia deep inside her were giving her a different message. She glanced sideways at that stern, disapproving profile and a painful, searing insight blazed through her so that she caught her breath. No, it was better to be honest with herself. She did love Richard and probably always would. In spite of the fact that he had betrayed her with another woman. In spite of the way he was taking such cruel revenge for her own frailties.

  The realisation appalled her. If she could have hardened her heart and smiled cynically at Richard’s demands, she might have come out of this situation quite unscathed. As it was, she was completely at his mercy and bound to be very badly hurt. She winced at the thought.

  ‘Will you stop it?’ he snarled.

  ‘Stop what?’

  ‘Sighing and moaning, and pulling faces as if somebody has just died!’

  ‘I feel as if somebody has just died.’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry that the prospect of going to bed with me fills you with such unmitigated rapture, sweetheart! But a deal is a deal. Sobbing into your sarong is not going to let you off the hook.’

  ‘I didn’t suppose it was, with your charming self in control of the situation!’ she replied sweetly.

  ‘God Almighty!’ roared Richard. ‘Sometimes I could wring your neck, Emma!’

  ‘The feeling’s mutual,’ she snapped.

  Exhilaration sang in her veins. For one crazy moment she felt almost as if they were in one of those shouting matches that had been so frequent in their brief married life. Crackling quarrels that had flared into action like bush fires and eventually been extinguished in bed, smothered beneath a torment of kisses, sighs, passionate embraces and creaking bed-springs. A wave of nostalgia swept over her, then her face suddenly looked cold and shuttered. Their present problems would never be as easy to solve as those meaningless tiffs…

  Richard glanced at her sharply, then looked back at the road with stormy blue eyes and jutting jaw.

  ‘I’m not planning on raping you, you know,’ he growled. ‘Anything that happens between us will happen only with your consent.’

  ‘Really?’ said Emma, although her throat was aching so badly she could hardly force out the words. ‘Then what are you planning?’

  His hand came over on to her knee, deftly twitching away at the thin folds of the sarong she was wearing. Then his warm fingers trickled teasingly up the smooth inner flesh of her thigh. She shuddered, consciously willing herself not to shift sensually, inviting his caresses. Only the tell-tale muscle in his cheek made her suspect that he was as hotly and powerfully aroused as she was herself by the gesture. But he covered her legs again and withdrew his hand lazily to the steering-wheel.

  ‘I’m planning to enjoy you fully whenever I choose to do so,’ he replied brutally. ‘Provided of course that I can trust you to keep the terms of the agreement.’

  She gave a raw croak of laughter.

  ‘Oh, you can trust me. You’ve bought my co-operation by giving me Prero’s. Haven’t you?’

  ‘Exactly,’ he agreed in a steely voice. ‘But there’s no need for either of us to be ungracious about it, Emma. Why shouldn’t we enjoy ourselves touring around Bali?’

  ‘Enjoy ourselves?’ she said incredulously. ‘You might just as well ask me why we shouldn’t enjoy ourselves walki
ng on hot coals!’

  ‘Some people do, I believe,’ he remarked. ‘In Fiji, at any rate.’

  ‘Well, I’m not Fijian!’

  ‘A pity. I’d like to see you walk across fire for me, Emma.’

  ‘I’ll bet you would. But it’s not going to happen.’

  He didn’t pursue the matter, but drove on in silence until they reached the leafy village of Batubulan, which was the centre of the island’s stone-carving. Parking the car in a shady, off-road patch of lush grass, Richard came round and opened the door for her. Frostily she ignored his helping hand as she climbed out, but her antagonism failed to provoke him.

  ‘I need some garden statues for my new home in Vaucluse,’ he remarked. ‘I thought you might like to help me choose them and perhaps a few stone benches as well. Are you still fond of gardening, Emma?’

  ‘Not really. I haven’t time,’ she replied.

  ‘A pity. You really made our little balcony in Woolloomooloo into something special.’

  She winced at the reminder. Haphazard cook, pyromaniac ironer and relentless producer of pink underwear, she had at least had one home-making skill, however useless: green fingers. It touched her that Richard even remembered after all this time but it also hurt her to the quick. Wasn’t it absurd for them still to be legally married and yet to know so little about each other’s lives? She didn’t even know the name of this mysterious girlfriend whom Richard might or might not be planning to marry. Wouldn’t it be better if Emma gave up the pretence that things were ever going to come right between them and filed for a divorce, as soon as possible? But a feeling of desolation swept over her at the thought and her face shadowed.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ asked Richard.

  ‘I was just thinking that we should get a divorce,’ she replied heavily.

  Once inside the building she was conscious of his eyes following her as she roamed about looking at the halffinished statues. The air was stiflingly hot, choking with dust and ringing with the noise of the workmen’s hammers, so she was rather relieved when a small man in a brown sarong, beige shirt and yellow headscarf approached them.