Marriage Under Fire

by Daphne Clair

  'But it wasn't.'

  'No. I've got a reprieve. You said you don't love him. So I've got another chance to make it me, after all. And, Catherine, I'm trying. I'm trying so hard.'

  'It is you, Jason,' she said softly. 'Don't you know I love you?' She stared at him in the rapidly growing gloom, his hand curved about his glass, his face brooding.

  'You want me to give up working,' she said. 'You want that as proof that I love you.'

  'Is it so hard?'

  'Yes. You said you'd give yours up tomorrow, but that's hypothetical, isn't it? And we both know it. It would be an absurd, ridiculous and pointless gesture. Supposing I asked you to do it, anyway? Would you find it easy?'

  He moved impatiently. 'Do you remember all the times you've made the children your excuse not to attend a business dinner or a conference with me? It compares oddly with your readiness to let my mother or Bridie or even a hired sitter care for them while you go to work. Remember the times you said you were too tired to dress up for some office party? I've seen how you've enjoyed dressing carefully for your television appearances. You accused me of being jealous of your job. Well, I am. Even before I knew about you and Russel Thurston, I was scared that you'd meet someone—

  someone you wouldn't mind dressing up for, someone you'd be proud to go into company with.'

  'I'm sorry,' she stammered. 'I just—came to resent being a sort of buttonhole.'

  'What?'

  'Being taken along as a decorative addition,' she said. 'You know, "and wife"

  as specified on the Invitations. I had no real purpose at those functions, except as some sort of adjunct to you. Looking after the children was just an excuse. I hardly realised it myself.'

  He frowned. 'I never thought of you as a decorative addition. I'm proud of you, and I wanted your company, that's all. But I suppose— you thought I wanted you along for reasons that had nothing to do with what you would like to do. Okay, I can see that.'

  'Can you? And can you see why I'm reluctant to five up my job?' She saw him stiffen, and said swiftly, 'I will, Jason, if you insist. But I wish you wouldn't. Because I know how it will be. I'll resent being made to do it, though I'd try not to. I wouldn't be able to help it. I know you don't want!

  me to change, you want to put me in a little gilded! cage, always the child bride you married. I'm! sorry, but I can't be that any more. I'm a grown!

  woman. I need to feel like one. I do want to change the rules. Adults don't need them.'

  He stood up, first putting his glass down on the step. Then he came over and took hers and put it down, too. He placed his hands on either side of: her face and turned it up to him.

  'You ask a lot,' he said.

  'I know.' She stared back at him, willing him to understand. 'Please trust me, Jason. It isn't the man, it's the job. Just the job.'

  'I'm desperately afraid of losing you,' he told her, his thumbs moving against her skin. 'I probably always will be. But I don't want a good, dutiful little wife being a martyr for my sake. I hate the thought of you seeing him

  —I hate it. But I'm trying to examine my own motives, my feelings.'

  it's all right,' she said, touching his sleeve. 'I'll give it up.' She couldn't stand the pain in his voice, but she couldn't hide the defeat in hers.

  Jason's hands tightened about her face, and he kissed her fiercely. But as his mouth left hers, he said, almost violently, 'No!'

  He stared down at her in the growing darkness, and said, 'No. You said you'd resent it, in time. And you'd be right. I don't have the right to exact sacrifices from y o u . .. I only have the right to love you. And I do. I love you and I have to trust you. I've seen you changing, growing, and it scares me. But I can't stop you, I don't really want to, I want it to happen for you, just the way you would like. I can't cage your heart, and that's what I want, the essential you that stays Catherine, no matter what changes age and experience bring. There will always be something there that is you, Catherine, the woman I love. I'll always love you, old rules or new. That can't change.'

  'You're changing, too, Jason. And surely a marriage that doesn't change can't remain vital, can't last, it can only disintegrate or gradually wither away. Ours won't. We won't let it. Am I making sense?'

  'Marvellous sense, my darling. We'll give it lots of room to grow, and we'll nurture it with tolerance and water it with love. And speaking of love—see that moon over the water?'

  Catherine turned her head and saw the huge orange globe hanging just over the dark shadows of the hilltops.

  'I see it,' she said. 'It's a lovers' moon.'

  'And we're lovers, aren't we?'

  'An old married couple like us?'

  'We're not old. But when we are, we'll still be lovers. I'll see to it.'

  Catherine giggled. 'And here I was just thinking what a liberated male you'd turned out to be! What do you mean ' she went on with mock indignation '—

  you'll see to it?'

  'I'll show you,' Jason said calmly, and picked her up in his arms. She gasped and laughed as he strode up the steps and slammed the door with his foot.

  'Where's the damned bed?' he growled into the darkness, and she smothered her laughter against his throat and said, 'I should think a macho male like you could find it by instinct.'

  A moment later she found herself thrown on to eiderdown softness.

  'How's that for instinct?' he asked in her ear as his hard body came against her. 'And how's this?' His mouth found hers unerringly, and she had only time to murmur against his lips, 'Pretty damn good,' before words became superfluous, and laughter was submerged in a delicious, sweeping tide of passion.

  The moon had paled and was sailing high in the sky by the time the passion had spent itself and they lay twined together with the tumbled eiderdown, their fingers gently exploring again the terrain that had been intimately traversed already.

  When Jason moved the quilt, she said protestingly, 'Hey! You can't have it all!'

  'I don't want it all. I want to see you in the moonlight. You're incredibly beautiful. Are you cold?'

  'No,' she admitted. She put her hands up teasingly to close his eyes with her fingers.

  'Don't you like me looking?' he asked, obediently allowing her to stop him.

  Catherine removed her fingers to slide her hands about his neck, and bring him close to her, his cheek against hers, his body coming back to her side, it's all right,' she said. 'But I'd rather touch. Do you mind?'

  He kissed her cheek. 'Whatever you say, ma'am.'

  She laughed. 'You've changed your tune! Whatever happened to the masterful type who just threw me down here and had his way with me?'

  'Do you miss him?'

  'Mm—I don't know. This one's rather sweet.'

  'Sweet!'

  'Very sweet,' Catherine said firmly.

  'I'd say that's a surefire way to bring your masterful lover back—if you want him?'

  'I want them both,' she said. 'And all the others you have hidden away in there. I've met one or two already. You never told me you were a multiple personality.'

  'Shh! That's a secret between me and my psychiatrist.'

  She laughed. She was still laughing when he kissed her, his own shoulders shaking as their open, laughing mouths met.

  Another one, she thought. There are so many ways. And all of them good.

  And we still have so much to explore together, so much to discover about each other and about ourselves.

  The years stretched ahead gloriously, full of promise, the promise of change and growth, sustained by a changing and growing love.

  Document Outline

  ��

  ��

  ��

  ��

  ��

  ��

  ��

  ��

  ��

  ��

  ��

  ��

  ��

  rriage Under Fire