by Angela Huth
Anger flamed through Catherine’s spine. She sat bolt upright, knew she was going to answer.
‘No! It did not occur to me things weren’t quite tickety-boo, I’m afraid.’ Ammunition fired, she slumped back, weak again. ‘Does anyone else know?’
‘I’ve not told anyone.’
‘Thank God for that.’
‘Do you want to know anything about it?’
‘I suppose I’d better know the briefest outline. You could spare me the details.’
Oliver got up to fetch the bottle of whisky. As Catherine watched the man whom she had loved without reserve for fifteen years, memories of things innocent at the time began to bite. Last summer in Brittany, he had gone every day to the hotel to make ‘business’ calls, saying there was a crisis. There was an unexplained tie in his cupboard: he did not usually buy himself clothes of any kind. The trappings of infidelity, discovered in retrospect, are infinite in their cruelty. She accepted more whisky.
‘We might have gone on for another thirty years, you and me,’ Oliver was saying. ‘That would have been perfectly possible. We could have carried on in our minor key of compatibility, if that’s what it was, ignoring the constraints, the general lack of – ’
‘Constraints?’
‘Yes, constraints. Is that a surprise to you? Had you no idea there were constraints between us? We could have ridden them, perhaps, had it not been for Jennifer – ’
‘Jennifer? God, what a name.’ Catherine’s voice rose: Oliver’s fell.
‘Jennifer made me realise that for the first time in my life there need be no constraints between two people, however difficult circumstances may be. She made me realise something I’d been trying not to observe since the early days of our marriage.’ He paused to drink.
‘What was that?’ Catherine was relieved to find actual words could still be formulated, albeit shakily.
‘She made me realise that though you and I were always very companionable, we were never at one in heart and spirit, never loved in a way that I now know – ’
‘Stop, Oliver. Such justifications are rubbish. I don’t want to hear them.’
Companionable, merely? What could he mean? All the years of laughter, the marvellous spartan holiday in their Scottish croft, the daily, mutual pleasure of Timothy, the wild enchanting nights, often better now, even, than in the beginning? Only last week …
‘I would describe our marriage as more than just companionable,’ she said at last.
‘That’s the difficulty, when two people see the same situation in completely different lights. It’s a hard fact, but what you may have seen as a loving, satisfying marriage, I’ve known for years, for me, was just … as I said. Ultimately unsatisfying, not what I wanted.’
This is laceration, thought Catherine.
‘You bastard,’ she said. And instantly regretted it. There was no point in returning insults. ‘You can’t just ditch me with no explanation,’ she added. ‘I want to know – ’
‘I’ve been trying to tell you. But I don’t think this is the time to go over it all again.’
He glanced at his watch like an impatient doctor who had to deal with a tiresome patient. Catherine recognised his voice as the mildly firm one he employed if she suggested they should ask some of her old school friends, with whom he had nothing in common, to dinner.
‘But perhaps you’d be interested to know that Jennifer is over, now. Over. Four or five months ago.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘So there’s currently no one else. I’m not leaving you for anyone else, understand?’
‘So much for unconstrained love,’ said Catherine, unable to resist. ‘Is that meant to be better or worse, leaving me for no one?’
‘I don’t know,’ Oliver sighed. ‘I’ve put it all in my solicitor’s hands,’ he went on quietly. ‘I promise arrangements will be amicable, fair. You and Timothy can stay here, of course. You won’t be short of money.’
The rich divorcee, Catherine thought.
‘What a funny time to tell me all this,’ she said.
‘I spent a lot of time trying to work out the right moment.’ Oliver sounded almost boastful. ‘It seemed to me – I mean, I imagined that with so much to do tomorrow it would take your mind off it… It was as good a time as any, I reckoned.’
Catherine tried to laugh. The result was more like a howl. Oliver, ignoring the savage noise, shut the window and switched off the lights.
‘Bed,’ he said.
Catherine stood up. ‘I’ve a right to fight for you,’ she said.
‘Fight all you like. Nothing will change my mind. I’ve been weighing it all up for months.’
‘You might have shared your calculations.’
‘No point. As I said, my decision was nothing to do with you, fundamentally. Now, come on. Finish your drink.’
Catherine obeyed. She asked if she should make up the bed in Oliver’s dressing-room?
‘I’d rather you didn’t. Unless you feel …’ He seemed surprised she should suggest such a thing.
‘I don’t feel anything,’ said Catherine. ‘Except a little drunk.’
By the light from the hall, they made their way across the darkened room, kicking at the impeding balloons – some globular, some giant sausages, others decapitated heads with painted grins and pointed ears.
‘Damn these things,’ grunted Oliver, kicking. One burst with a squawk.
‘Oh no,’ groaned Catherine. She envisaged them all bursting, firing their irregular bangs like the guns of battle. How could she face Timothy tomorrow, balloonless?
But there were no more bangs. Oliver was careful. And in bed he held his wife in his arms as usual. She quivered, tearless.
‘Whatever does it mean, this sudden hardening of your heart?’ she whispered. It was easier to ask such a question in bed.
‘I don’t know,’ he answered, and she could feel him, strangely, wanting her. ‘But I’m sorry. You must be brave. You’re always brave.’
Oliver forgot to sign the card on Timothy’s present, but Timothy did not notice, as Catherine had predicted. He was delighted by the train set, and other presents, spreading them all over the breakfast table. As for Oliver, except for a firmer set of his face, perhaps, a slight tightening of the handsome mouth (both changes so slight that none but a wife would notice them) he appeared completely normal, quite cheerful. Admiration of the presents delayed them. There was a sudden hurry to get ready, all the scatty urgency of late departure … Barely time for Catherine to straighten Timothy’s tie, kiss her husband on the cheek.
‘Back soon as I can for the party,’ he promised.
Alone in the house, Catherine decided to take Oliver’s advice and be brave. She set about her preparations with exhilaration surprising after the sleepless night. In the kitchen she cut sandwiches, mashed bananas, made biscuits into patterns on plates, mixed jugs of fruit cup and stuck seven infirm candles into the chocolate engine. In the sitting-room she pushed back the sofas to clear a space for Zsa, the charming post-graduate conjuror, who supplemented his days of research by entertaining children with his off-beat magic and childlike jokes. It would probably be the last such party, Catherine thought. Next year, at eight, Timothy would want some sort of sophisticated outing to McDonald’s or a theatre.
The balloons seemed to follow her everywhere. In the dining-room they clustered round her legs as she carefully laid the table. She put cat masks at twelve places, piled up crackers, laid folded paper napkins printed with tigers on paper plates bright with matching tigers, and stuck striped straws into scarlet paper cups. Companionable, companionable? Very companionable, she and Oliver. The words rattled about like spilled marbles among the decorations, but they did not hurt.
Last job was to tie strings on the dozens of balloons. Catherine hung them in great clumps on the bannisters, over pictures, on the hatstand in the hall, remembering to reserve three for the front gate – universal signal of a party. Who on earth chooses the colours of balloons, she wondered? The sour reds
, scorched oranges, raw yellows and chemical greens hurt her eyes. There were so many ugly colours in the commercial world. She had once asked Oliver if he was offended by these millions of hideous colours, in shops and towns, that confront us every day. He said no, of course not, and thank goodness he did not suffer from her over-sensitivity.
Companionable, companionable. The balloons all in place at last, never quite still, Catherine returned to the chair in which last night she had received the news of her husband’s departure. The scene, so mad, so painful, so bleak, swirled like minuscule grains in her head. The far past she always saw in much reduced size (last night now felt like the far past) thus making its reality hard to vouch for. As for the present, this silence before the revelries, normality only blotched by balloons -what now? Should Oliver really go, sweeping familiar companionableness from her – what then?
Then, of course, life would go on. Different life with different possibilities. New challenges, new emptiness. But perhaps new rewards, too. Possibly even some kind of new love – the kind Oliver had found with Jennifer, and imagined he might find again. Perhaps it wouldn’t be too bad, once she had grown accustomed to unmarried life. – It would also be inconceivable.
After a while, Catherine roused herself from her brief reflections, stood. It was time to brush her hair, pin on a brooch and a smile, be ready to welcome Timothy home shortly. She must check he had a clean shirt. She must plan how to approach Oliver tonight. She must continue to be brave, whichever way things went. Catherine smiled to herself. The trouble with good mothers, she thought, was that no matter the traumas in their own lives, there was simply no time to collapse.
It was an uproarious success, as always, Timothy’s party. Twelve boys jerked shrieking through the rooms caught in a sleet of wrapping paper and ribbon, bursting balloons and upsetting books, ashtrays, lamps – but you couldn’t put everything away, Catherine decided, every year.
Oliver arrived halfway through tea, which was devoured in a very few minutes. (Catherine had wrongly allowed fifteen.) The cake cutting was a ceremony made deafening with witches’ screeches. The out-of-tune rendering of Happy Birthday made Timothy blush. Oliver smiled, helped his son cut the chocolate engine. Tea over, Timothy gave Catherine a sudden hug for no apparent reason. Her eyes stung. She felt the letters of the word companionable, sharp as beads, fetter her limbs, strangling. But at least for these two hilarious hours, as for the rest of the day, there had been little time for thought. Oliver had been right, as usual.
During the conjuror’s masterful performance of cracking eggs and mixing them to a disgusting mess in a bowler hat while the children screamed their appreciation, Oliver, Catherine saw, eyed her with something like respect. Well, she had remembered to cover the carpet where Zsa performed with newspaper. Oliver always admired such forethought, expected it of his wife.
They were gone – parents with impatient eyes, minds on the rush hour: boys with their single balloon and plastic party-bags of sweets and water pistols. Timothy was finally in bed, the relics of his seventh birthday scattered on stairs, floors, chairs and tables. Catherine found a tray, went to the dining-room to clear the demolished tea that had taken so long to arrange. Crossing the hall, she found Oliver contemplating the bunch of unburst balloons still tied to the bannister. He held a pointed kitchen knife.
‘Tim’ll be glad there are so many over,’ said Catherine.
She wanted to clear up fast, concentrate on the chicken Kiev for dinner, think about the proper discussion which must take place.
‘I hate the things,’ said Oliver.
Catherine continued on her way to the dining-room. As she scraped chocolate cake from plates, she heard a succession of quick bangs. She counted. Ten. Perhaps Oliver was going through a mid-life crisis, she thought, gripping the table to stop herself shouting. That must be the explanation for his curious behaviour of the last twenty-four hours. The male menopause, of course. Must be dealt with gently. She’d read enough articles about it. Catherine picked up a forgotten cat mask, licked jam from its nose, and put it on. Then a purple paper crown. Male menopause being the explanation, the first thing to do would be to make Oliver laugh. She’d always been able to do that, at least.
There was a final bang. Louder. The front door.
Masked, purple crown askew, Catherine carried the tea-tray to the front hall. The bunch of balloons was now a bunch of rubber ribbons hanging limply from their strings. Life, tension, air, gone from them. Unable to chase her any more. Next year, she would get one of those pumps to blow them up … no need for the chicken Kiev, now, was there?
Catherine moved automatically to the kitchen, set down the tray, vision impaired by the cat mask. Perhaps, though, she should still cook it. It was more than likely Oliver had just gone down the road for more cigarettes. Scraping the parsnips would give her time to think. Calmly, rationally. The party over – and, heavens, it had been a good party, Timothy had loved it – her mind uncluttered at last, she could work out whether this little fracas was serious, and Oliver meant all he had said last night. Or whether it was merely one of those moods of no importance that sometimes come to ruffle even the most companionable of marriages.
A Matter of Diplomacy
Frederick, who by now was quite inured to Lizzie’s looks of hopeful anticipation, decided to take matters into his own hands and surprise her when she least expected it.
They were standing around in Lizzie’s small sitting-room, drinking glasses of sherry in front of the spitting gas fire. Frederick did not like sherry, as Lizzie well knew. But she considered a choice of drinks, at this point in their affair, a luxury she could not afford. Cautious by nature, she could not bring herself to invest in so much as a bottle of whisky until she knew the chances of permanency were high. But a full tray of every drink a man could desire was the promise she held before Frederick: her frequent hints as to her future generosity, should things ‘change’ between them, were not lost on her lover. He pondered upon them sometimes, when there was nothing else to occupy his mind, and wondered if, even accompanied by a galaxy of whiskys and gins, she was the girl for him.
This evening was to be as many other evenings: an argument about parking, a film, another argument about parking, dinner in a cheap Turkish restaurant, and a final argument about in whose flat they should spend the night.
The drinking of the abominable sherry was the lull before the friction, and Frederick took advantage of it to break the news.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said, ‘of sending round my sideboard. How does the idea appeal?’ With a vague wave of his free hand, he indicated the stretch of wall between gas fire and corner, only occupied by a nasty early sixties chair with spindle legs.
Lizzie, stunned by all the implications of the question, could not answer for some while. It was a funny way to approach Matters, she thought, but then Freddie always had his own style of doing things. And if he cared to send his sideboard on ahead, before moving the rest of his effects and himself – that was fine with her.
‘You mean here – there?’ she said at last, following his gaze.
‘There. Precisely.’
‘Would it fit, Freddie? Wouldn’t it be too long?’
‘By my calculations, it would fit very nicely.’
‘And of course it would be useful. I mean, I – we – could put things on it, couldn’t we?’
‘Quite,’ said Frederick. ‘We could put things on it.’
To be honest, he wasn’t at all sure that this characterless North Kensington sitting-room, devoid of sun at all times, was worthy of his handsome sideboard. But that was not the point. The sideboard’s real function, as always, would be to act as a kind of inanimate outrider testing what might lie ahead. If it and Frederick, alike, seemed unhappy in their surroundings, then it and Frederick could leave together. The exit of one, it followed, made the exit of the other so much easier.
‘But wouldn’t you miss it in your room, Freddie?’ Lizzie was asking, feeble with cons
ideration. ‘I mean, you’re so used to it there.’
‘It’s a sideboard that comes and goes, actually,’ answered Frederick mysteriously. ‘Besides, I shan’t miss it much if I’m here … ahem, a little more often, shall I?’
A little more often being but a small step, surely, from for ever. Lizzie’s joy overflowed.
‘Oh, Freddie,’ she cried, already seeing in her mind’s eye the new tone the sideboard would bring to her room – quite apart from the happy relief more of his own presence would bring to her. ‘Have it delivered next week. I can hardly believe it.’
‘Tomorrow,’ said Frederick, thereby inadvertently winding her pleasure to further heights by his impatience. ‘It will be your responsibility to furnish it with spirits
‘Of course, of course, dear Freddie.’ Quite faint with the prospect of so much good fortune, Lizzie dabbed her eyes with a grubby paper handkerchief pulled from a grubby sleeve, and finished her sherry with more of a swig than a sip.
The sideboard was delivered – a fine piece of Victorian mahogany of elaborate design, with carved flanks and wide drawers that smiled across its highly polished façade. In the small room of utility furniture it stood like an ambassador surrounded by common folk of his kingdom – benign, and yet superior. The gleam of its wood outshone the reckless colour of Lizzie’s carpet, its unquestionable solidity emphasised the inferiority of her mean chairs and table of simulated oak.
‘Doesn’t look at all bad, there,’ said Freddie, lying with conviction.
Some days after the arrival of the sideboard he turned up with a trunk of clothes.
‘No point in having empty drawers,’ he explained, and set about filling them with piles of silk shirts, socks and underwear. Lizzie’s delight, at such manifestation of his intentions, once again bubbled. Already she had invested in several bottles of drink (albeit half-bottles). Now, further to show her appreciation, she made no comment when Frederick parked in his usual arrogant fashion on a double yellow line. But despite these measures of compromise – improvements, he grudgingly supposed they were – once Frederick was installed almost permanently in Lizzie’s flat (allowing himself just two nights a week at home) he could not deny that all was not well within him.