‘I’ll miss the Aston,’ Simon said as the car’s new owner drove it away. ‘We had some good times in that car, eh, girl?’
‘Yeah,’ Monty agreed, wishing he had not put his arm around her. She did not want him to touch her. She did not want to think about the good times they had had before. She did not want to consider the possibility that her love for Simon was dying. She decided to go back to the apartment and roll another joint.
Chapter Twelve
With her blissful honeymoon behind her and her pregnancy confirmed, Cathy expected to be as happy as any woman could possibly be. She had pictured herself and Charlie in a new dimension of intimacy, sharing a home, pursuing their social life and fulfilling the expectations of their families. They would have their ups and downs, of course, but nothing would seriously threaten their union.
Instead, Charlie seemed distracted, and shadows of suspicion began to steal across Cathy’s sunny confidence that marriage would put right everything which was wrong with her husband. Soon each day brought some new indication of what Charlie was really doing in the evenings when he had told her he was gambling or taking clients around the clubs.
First the drycleaning came back with a discreet white envelope pinned to the bag in which was a handkerchief, one of Charlie’s gold cufflinks and a love-letter signed April. Cathy burned it and determined to say nothing to Charlie. So what if that old bag was still after him? Men hated women who nagged; if she made a scene he’d be angry.
Then one day she reached down to pull the seat in the car forward and felt something soft against her fingertips. Crumpled under the seat was a pair of red, nylon knickers, trimmed with a black silk fringe.
‘Aren’t they yours?’ Charlie asked blandly as he turned the ignition.
‘Charlie, do they look like mine?’
‘No, not your style at all, now I look at them. Yours are boring old white, aren’t they?’ He snatched them from her fingers, and sniffed them casually. ‘Mmmmmn, Calèche. Must have been before we were married, darling.’ And he tossed the scarlet pants out of the car window in Sloane Square.
None of the society columns would dream of ratting on an errant husband, but one gossip writer who often covered Lady Davina’s charity functions approached the dowager and remarked, ‘I hear Charlie Coseley hasn’t let marriage change his way of life.’
Lady Davina directed a piercing glare of enquiry across the journalist’s greasy black curls without altering the width of her social smile a centimetre. ‘They’re blissfully happy according to Catherine. What on earth do you mean?’
‘We’ve been offered half a dozen pictures of Charlie squiring his old flames around town since the honeymoon. I saw to it they were never printed, of course.’ The elderly woman bestowed a nod of thanks on him, her long diamond earrings swinging against the swagged wrinkles of her neck. ‘But people will talk, of course,’ he added, tucking a cigarette into the corner of his blubbery lips. ‘And I’d be surprised if the shots haven’t been hawked around half Fleet Street by now.’
A few days later, Cathy received a visit of contrived casualness from her grandmother.
‘So how are you finding married life?’ she enquired. ‘Those curtains are simply lovely. Bright, of course, but lovely. The modern style, I suppose, those flowers.’
Cathy passed her a cup of tea. ‘Married life is marvellous, Didi, I love every minute of it.’
‘Not feeling a little off colour – the baby, perhaps.’
‘No, I’m fine.’ Cathy patted the modest bulge under her pink smock.
‘Well, of course, husbands do tend to play up a tiny bit at times like this. Charlie’s pleased, I hope?’
‘Absolutely thrilled.’
‘I suppose men do feel rather left out when women get interested in babies. Just remember, dear, the best thing in your condition is not to worry. Charlie needs you to cosset him, make him feel pampered, let him know he’s the most important person in your life. He’s still your prince, remember. It would be perfectly natural for Charlie to have a little fling – especially towards the end, you know – and your best course is simply to ignore it. Men need that sort of thing much more than women, in my experience.’
What Cathy needed, quite desperately at the time, was not advice but reassurance.
‘Do you love me?’ she asked Charlie in bed one night.
‘Of course I love you,’ he mumbled sleepily. ‘I married you, didn’t I?’
‘But you haven’t made love to me for ages, darling. Don’t you want me any more?’
‘Mmn. Not getting enough? But what about the baby, don’t want to hurt the baby, do we?’
‘The doctor says it won’t hurt the baby.’ Cathy was not very good at recognizing her physical needs, but at present there was no mistaking her body’s craving. She was tingling with heightened sensuality because of her pregnancy, and yearned for Charlie’s caresses more than ever, even though his brief attentions were seldom very satisfying.
He sighed with resignation, rolled over and twisted her right nipple as if it would unscrew.
‘Give me a hand, there’s a love.’ He pulled her hand towards his crotch and she awkwardly kneaded life into his shrivelled penis. The instant he was inside her, however, his reluctant erection failed completely.
‘Sorry, darling,’ he said, rolling over away from her again. ‘What goes up must come down, you know. Try again in the morning, eh?’
But in the morning, he slept late, then ran off to the bank with his tie and a piece of toast and marmalade clutched in one hand, calling over his shoulder, ‘Client dinner tonight, darling, don’t wait up.’
As she and the baby grew, the physical yearnings of the first months subsided and mental cravings took over. She waited every night in a fever of anxiety until she heard her husband’s key jabbing inaccurately at the front door lock; then she closed her eyes and faked sleep.
‘Is everything all right with you and Charlie?’ Monty asked her sister with a transparent pretence of innocence.
‘Perfectly. I’ve never been happier,’ Cathy rejoined in a doubting tone that belied every word. She eyed her sister with envy. They telephoned each other almost every day, but now that Simon and Charlie needed so much of the sisters’attention, they met less often than formerly. Monty was wearing a richly-embroidered Indian blouse and velvet jeans. Her hair was long and curling, her eyes, with their drug-dilated pupils, wide and soft. She looked like some kind of gypsy princess, more exotic than ever.
‘You are sure? I mean, he’s taking care of you and everything?’
‘Well, of course he is, he’s my husband isn’t he?’
‘Husband or not, Swallow says he’s always at her gambling parties now, and not on his own, either.’
‘He has to entertain the bank’s clients, and their wives. Just like Daddy, remember? Of course he’s always out, and if they want a bit of a thrill at some chemmy party, he knows where to find it.’
‘Swallow says they don’t look much like banking types to her.’
Cathy sighed and looked down at her hands, noticing that her fingers were becoming puffy and her wide gold wedding ring was beginning to cut into her flesh uncomfortably. She stole a glance in the mirror, approving of the fresh pink flush which pregnancy had added to her cheeks, set off by her vivid turquoise smock. She looked the picture of happy motherhood, so why was Charlie neglecting her? She knew Monty’s anxiety was well founded, but she didn’t want to continue the conversation in case her own fears were confirmed. ‘Let’s talk about something else,’ she suggested in a tired voice.
After that, Monty suddenly stopped calling her, and was vague and short if Cathy telephoned her. She doesn’t want to talk to me because she knows what Charlie’s up to, Cathy surmised, feeling a pang of abandonment, and never guessing that her sister was struggling with her own share of misery.
Charlie was uninterested in the progress of her pregnancy, but Cathy found it exciting and rather frightening.
‘I fe
lt the baby move today,’ she announced with pride, while they dressed for dinner at Coseley one Saturday. ‘It was wonderful, like a little butterfly inside me.’
‘Spare me the details,’ he joked, opening the closet doors one after another. ‘Did you see where the maid put my studs?’
Their sex life evaporated completely as soon as her belly was an appreciable size, and to her horror she began to retain water and bloat around her face, feet and ankles. Their housekeeper timidly suggested she should take off her rings, but the idea was put to her almost too late because she had to rub her fingers with soap, chafing them painfully, to do it. She left her wedding ring on. It sat tightly in the crease of her finger with an unsightly bulge of flesh on either side, but she felt that to take it off would be a bad omen.
Charlie made a number of business trips abroad, seldom bothering to telephone and often staying away over weekends. With Monty mysteriously avoiding her, Cathy felt more and more lonely. Every Friday afternoon she was driven down to Coseley, where she occupied her vacant mind listening to the conversation of Lord Shrewton and his business guests. Should she quit their company, she was instantly prey to the Marchioness’s advice about baby clothes, nursery furniture and feeding the infant.
‘We’ll send you Nanny Bunting,’ she said, oozing invasive helpfulness. ‘I couldn’t have managed my boys without her. Such a treasure.’
Back in London during the week, Cathy had little to do except buy baby clothes and attend the exclusive childbirth preparation classes of Miss Betty Parsons.
‘It’s as if I’ve become the invisible woman,’ she complained to Rosanna. ‘You’re the only person who ever comes to see me, nobody asks me anywhere. Monty’s simply vanished. Just because I’m pregnant I’ve ceased to exist.’
‘I’m sure it’s nothing to do with your being pregnant,’ Rosanna reassured her. ‘Monty’s having an awful time herself, Simon’s distraught about Daddy being ill. She probably doesn’t want to bother you with her problems, that’s all. She adores you, Cathy, you know she does.’
‘But it isn’t only Monty – I thought that when we were married everyone would ask Charlie and me round just like they did when we were engaged. But now Charlie spends his whole time entertaining clients and I’m left on my own.’
‘It’s just a phase,’ Rosanna told her, looking uncomfortable. She suspected that the reason people didn’t find Cathy ideal company was because she was wrapped in an invisible cloud of unhappiness. There she was with her serene smile and her brave, little bulge while Charlie was all over town with a string of model girls and low-grade junior socialites, acting more promiscuously than he had even before his marriage. ‘Charlie Coseley only got married so he could enjoy committing adultery,’ joked his friends, and laughed uproariously.
Cathy was probably the only person in London who did not know where Charlie went, with whom and to do what. No one told her; the women said nothing because they did not want to upset her, and the men said nothing because they did not want to upset Charlie.
Any evidence of infidelity which Cathy acquired, Charlie explained away with sneering irritation. ‘Of course I took Pat Booth to Annabel’s – she’s looking for finance for a new boutique. Why don’t you do something like that, darling, instead of moping around the house all day?’
Finally the florist’s account arrived in the morning mail, and, unthinkingly, he tossed it over the bedcover to her with the rest of the bills. When she read it, Cathy could not contain her anguish any more.
‘Account 1454, the Earl of Laxford, Miss Annabel Scott, 37 Cheyne Mansions, SW3 Mxd ct fls, £15. Darling Hotpants, see you tonight, all my love, Charlie.’
Cathy’s heart sank as she turned over the florist’s docket and read the next one in the sheaf of half a dozen stapled to the bill. It was the same message. Only the addresses were different. I suppose, she thought to herself, Charlie calls them all Hotpants so he doesn’t have to remember their names.
‘Read those,’ she said, pushing the papers into his hand. ‘Read them and tell me why you’re doing this? Why, Charlie?’
‘Why do you think?’ he snapped back at her, feeling cornered. ‘I can hardly fuck you in your condition, can I? You’re as fat as a cow, it makes me sick to look at you.’
‘But Charlie, I’m having your baby. It’s for you, for us. Why must you hurt me so when I …’ she felt tears start in her eyes, ‘when I love you so much? Don’t you love me any more?’
He finished dressing, lacing his shoes with anger, and stood up. ‘Love you? Did I say that? I must have been pissed, or something.’
‘What do you mean?’ she shouted in disbelief, and grabbed his arm. Angrily he flung her from him.
‘Don’t do that. Don’t touch me or you’ll be sorry.’
‘But Charlie …’
‘You really are the most stupid woman I’ve ever met. Can’t you see what’s in front you? I couldn’t love you if you were the last cunt on earth. Christ, you’re so boring, and prim and straight – it’s like fucking a bloody board. You’re a drag. Grow up, darling. No one’s going to be eternally grateful just because you opened your legs.’
‘But I can change, Charlie, give me a chance.’ Cathy was crying now, tears trickling down her cheeks. She wiped them away. He ignored her, looked in the glass to brush invisible specks from the shoulders of his jacket, then walked to the door.
‘Charlie!’ She thumped the bedcover in desperation. ‘Don’t go!’
‘Goodbye, darling!’ he called sarcastically over his shoulder.
She heaved herself out of bed, wincing as her ligaments strained at the violent movement, and ran after him. ‘Charlie, please, you can’t just go like that.’
‘Just watch me!’
Halfway down the elegant curve of the stairway she caught up with him, pulling at his shoulder. He wrenched out of her grasp, a button from his jacket flying off into the stairwell. In the hallway below, the manservant was waiting with his briefcase and umbrella.
‘Will you get off me?’ Charlie hissed. ‘Keep your filthy, common, moneygrabbing little paws to yourself!’ He twisted her arm, trying to hurt her.
She had a flash of a vision of him throwing her down the staircase and killing the baby, and in the intimacy of their confrontation he guessed her thoughts at once. ‘Oh no! Oh no – that’s just the kind of vulgar, soap-opera stuff you’d like, isn’t it?’ He began pulling her back towards the bedroom, finally dragging her off her feet, picking her up and carrying her. Once inside he hurled her on to the bed, kicked the door shut and dealt her a vicious back-handed slap across the face.
‘Well, this isn’t a soap opera, darling, this is real life, and in real life we don’t pick fights with our husbands when the servants can hear –’ he slapped her again – ‘and we don’t stage vulgar scenes and scream like a fishwife, and snoop into our husbands’ lives. Because if we do …’ he seized a pillow and she flung her arms over her face, fearing that he was going to smother her. ‘If you ever behave like this again, I’ll smash your stupid face to pulp and I’ll go out of that door and I won’t come back, and the next you’ll see of me will be at the divorce court – OK?’
She was crying too much to speak, so he punched her in the stomach. ‘Say, OK, Charlie! Say, I promise I’ll be a good girl. Say it, damn you. And stop fucking crying, I can’t stand the goddamn noise.’ She gasped, trying to control herself enough to say the words, terrified that he would hurt the baby if he punched her again.
‘I promise I’ll be good, Charlie – no!’ His arm drew back for another blow and fear snatched at her guts.
‘Say it properly, cunt. Say, OK, Charlie, I promise I’ll be a good girl.’
‘OK, Charlie, I promise I’ll be a good girl.’
‘That’s better. Now was there anything else, my lady?’ His eyes were shining with excitement.
‘What do you mean?’ He hauled her towards him by one leg, twisted it and turned her over on to her stomach. Kneeling, he held her down with
an arm-lock. Her nightdress was almost around her shoulders. She heard his zip, felt his penis stabbing between her spread legs.
‘I believe you’d like a bit of cock? Can’t disappoint you, can I? Marital duty, and all that?’ And he rammed into her, jerked once or twice more until he came and then withdrew and walked out of the room. In the doorway, he paused. ‘No complaints, I trust? Everything all right now?’
Cathy turned her head away and bit the bedcover to stop herself screaming with rage. As soon as she heard the front door slam behind him she ran for the bathroom, washed, dressed, pulled some dresses into a suitcase and took a taxi to Monty and Simon’s apartment. There was no reply to the bell, and she realized that her sister must already be at work. She told the taxi to take her on to Trevor Square.
‘My dear, you really could have been more subtle,’ Lady Davina spoke with more irritation than sympathy. ‘Of course he hit you. Men always hit out when you leave them no alternative. You must learn to play your cards more carefully. Charlie would be eating out of your hand if you’d only do what I tell you.’
‘But the baby, Didi, he hit the baby.’ Cathy’s eyes felt sore and she could still taste blood in her mouth from the cuts inside her cheek made by her own teeth.
‘Babies are tough little beggars, and I’m sure there’s no harm done. Just take care he doesn’t do it again, Catherine. Now go back to your home and pretend it never happened. You must work at your marriage, dear. Take this as a warning and try.’
‘But it’s not fair. He isn’t trying!’
‘My dear, this is a man’s world, but we can do what we like in our own homes. We may be weak but we’ve got all the advantages in our own territory. A woman should be able to make a man her slave.’
By the time Cathy returned to Royal Avenue, Charlie had once again been swamped with remorse. There was a large bouquet waiting for her and he had even had the sensitivity to send them from a different florist.
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