‘No, really, Jennifer. It’s sweet of you, but I must get up to the office. Thank you for the trip. I enjoyed it thoroughly.’
‘Thank you.’
Twin smiles. They had spent hours and hours together in the last few weeks, but never got beneath the smiles. Jonathan was her chaperon, yet did he even guess she’d been screwing with a stranger half the night? Were there teeth-marks on her neck, pock-marks on her soul?
Her own smile faded as she turned to face the house, walked through the unlocked door—moving from sunshine into gloom, smelling the faint musty odour of the pot-pourri which Anne bought from Liberty’s every Christmas.
‘Lyn?’ she called. Must find him first, reassure him, reassure herself. She could bury last night, then, make it just a fantasy. And yet she was almost scared to see her husband, scared of his suspicion which for the first time had some grounds, impatient of his moods and his demands. For the last few months, the media world had knelt to her. It wasn’t easy to return to a man who, instead of homage, laid grudges at her feet.
‘Lyn!’ she called again.
No answer. Couldn’t he at least come down to greet her, help her with her luggage? And where were the boys—and Susie? They must have heard the car. Susie should have rocketed in by now, crushed her in a bear-hug. Unless she was hugging Lyn, instead—cocooned on a couch with him, making up their quarrel.
‘Lyn? Susie? I’m back. Is no one in?’
No one. She picked up a handful of pot-pourri and let it trickle through her fingers—dry and faded dust which had once been full-blown roses, glowing gold and scarlet among glossy leaves and thorns. She could hardly be jealous of Susie, when she had traces of Oz still clinging to her body like dirty underwear.
She was jealous. And resentful. On her publicity tours, people mobbed and feted her as soon as she opened a door. She had longed for peace and privacy, yet somehow, now she had it, she missed the roar of approbation. Jennifer Winterton was used to welcoming committees, not silent empty halls. She walked upstairs, to try the upper floors. Three boys’ bedrooms ownerless, her and Lyn’s room chillingly bare and tidy, the bed unslept in, Lyn’s shoes gaping like two slack and empty mouths. She went on up to the tiny attic room where Susie slept, the only part of the house which shared Susie’s bright and wild disorder.
‘Susie?’ She could hear a muffled noise.
‘Go away.’
‘Susie, it’s Jen.’
No answer. Jennifer opened the door an inch or two. Susie was lying sobbing on her tangled bed—still not dressed—dishevelled head pillowed in the duvet.
‘What is it, Susie? What’s the matter?’
A sniff. A mumble. ‘Nothing.’
‘Are the boys all right? Where are they?’
‘Out.’
‘Nothing’s happened to them?’
‘Bloody hell!’ More sobbing. ‘That’s all you think about.’
‘I’m sorry, I was just a bit … worried when the house seemed so deserted.’
‘They’re at the … b … baths.’ Susie rolled over, rubbed her sore and swollen eyes. Her face was puffed and blotchy, all her bounce and sparkle drained away.
Jennifer knelt and put her arms around her, tried to dry her tears. She had cried like that herself and Oz had kissed her better. Must erase those kisses, rip them off with her luggage labels, discard them like the disposable plastic titbits they had served up on the plane. It wasn’t safe to bring Oz back with her.
She stroked back Susie’s hair—a new punk style which was sticking up in front, but still long and wild and tangled at the back.
‘Look, let me get you something—a cup of tea or …’
‘No.’
‘Aren’t you going to tell me what’s the matter?’
‘It’s … nothing really. I’m just a bit … Oh—forget it. I’m glad you’re back.’ Susie sat up and scrubbed her face with a tissue. Last night’s mascara had run and streaked beneath her eyes, leaving panda circles. Her breasts were half-escaping from her nightdress. She had tied it round the middle with a long black shoelace from one of Oliver’s rugger boots.
Jennifer was shredding a Kleenex into tiny mangled wisps. She had misjudged her husband. He wasn’t wooing Susie, but had been out all night, cramped and camping in his car or pacing the streets in gloom. She ought to go and find him, make things right between them. She squeezed Susie’s hand.
‘Well, I’m not going away any more, I promise you. I’ll be here all summer. We can have some fun.’
‘No, we can’t. We can’t.’ Susie was crying again, tears running into her mouth, stabbing on the sheets.
‘Why not?’
‘You d … don’t understand.’
‘How can I understand if you won’t tell me anything?’ Jennifer stared at the plump body, the almost naked breasts. ‘It’s not … Lyn, is it? I mean, you’re not upset about that … row you had?’
‘No fear!’
‘What happened, Susie? You still haven’t explained yet.’ She’d have to know. If Susie didn’t tell her, Lyn would.
‘Oh, leave it, Jen. It’ll only make me mad again. I don’t know how you stick that man.’ Susie snatched up her packet of Woodbines, lit a match with an angry trembling hand.
‘He is my husband.’
‘Worse luck! You’d be better off without him.’
‘Where is he, Susie? Look, I want to know.’ Jennifer tried to keep the impatience from her voice. She had missed Susie, longed for her, yet now she felt annoyed with her. It was Susie’s fault she was back at Putney at all. If she hadn’t locked Lyn out, she might be safe with him at Hernhope now, instead of paying for adultery with terror and remorse. Susie might be moping, but at least her life was her own. She could sob or screw or slop around in nighties without the entire media world pouncing on her crimes. She wasn’t married, with vows and rules and loyalties like a fence around her freedom.
‘I dunno where he is.’ Susie was sniffing and smoking at the same time, dropping ash on to the duvet. ‘I unbolted the doors at eight o’ clock this morning. If he wants to go on sulking, that’s his hard cheese.’
‘But why did he go in the first place? You must have upset him, Susie. He wouldn’t leave for nothing.’
‘Oh, it’s my fault, is it? He wasn’t a moody neurotic pig until I came on the scene. God! You told me yourself he was a crackpot and a cry-baby and more or less a bloody nun.’
‘I didn’t, Susie. I’ve never used words like that.’
‘Fuck the words! It’s what you meant that counts. If a guy hasn’t screwed his wife for over a year, there must be something wrong with him.’
‘I wish I’d never mentioned it. It was disloyal of me to …’
‘I don’t blame you. You’re right—he is a nun. Frankly, I didn’t believe it when you told me. I’ve never met a bloke who’s gone that long without it. So I thought I’d try him out. I wanted to see if he’d … change his mind—you know, with a different bird.’
‘Wh … What d’you mean?’
‘Oh, it was only a giggle, really. I … took all my clothes off and walked into his room. Just to see what he’d do.’
‘Susie! You …’ Jennifer sprang towards her, almost hitting out. Was this the girl she loved, for heaven’s sake?
She stared at the dishevelled bed, the creased and grubby sheet. Had Lyn been lying there, helping to make those creases? She could see Oz’s bed again, semen stains accusing on his fuzzy dark blue blankets, pillows humped beneath her as they tried some new position.
‘Don’t look so huffy, Jen.’ Susie was fiddling with the match-box. ‘Nothing bloody happened—well, almost nothing.’
‘How could you, Susie? Lyn’s married. You can’t just … go for him like one of your casual … pick-ups.’
‘I told you, Jen, it was stalemate.’
‘Well, you shouldn’t have even tried. Supposing he hadn’t refused you? Then what?’
‘Look, I don’t want your bloody husband—not if he came beg
ging. He’s worse than useless—in bed and out of it.’
‘That’s a lie!’
‘Is it? So why did you tell me all that sob stuff? How every day he refused you made it worse, and you were getting so frustrated, you were beginning to understand how people had affairs and you’d even started …’
‘I … didn’t.’ Jennifer turned away. She was lying now herself. She had always avoided lies before, not simply on principle, but because lying was a skill she hadn’t mastered. She was doing a crash-course in it now, cutting up truth into little bits like patchwork and making patterns with them, hemming all the edges, so nothing would fray or fall apart. Since the book her whole life had been a lie—false face, false words, false …
‘In fact, you even said it would serve Lyn right if you did have someone on the side. I remember it distinctly. You were sitting on my bed and you …’
‘Look, get out, Susie, before I …’
‘You get out,’ Susie’s voice was splintering into sobs again. ‘I never asked you up here. I felt bad enough already without you barging in and …’
‘And what d’you think I feel? I’ve been up all night and travelling half the morning and …’
‘Big deal! Flying first class with everybody fawning on you and lolling about in swanky hotels with half a dozen bell-boys at your …’
‘It’s not like that. You know it’s not. I’m sick of the whole thing, anyway—careering around the country, smarming and smiling all the time, when …’
‘That’s hardly my fault, is it?’
‘Maybe not, but at least your life’s your own.’
‘No, it’s not, it’s not. You don’t understand.’ Susie had sprung off the bed and was blocking the doorway. ‘My life’s not my own—not any more, it isn’t.’ She grabbed Jennifer by the elbow, clung to her, tears streaming down her cheeks. ‘Please don’t go. Don’t leave me. I’m sorry about Lyn. It wasn’t just a grope, honest it wasn’t. I wanted him to h … help me, Jen. You see … Oh God! I don’t know how to tell you this, but …but—I’m going to have a … baby.’
Jennifer stopped, hand on the door knob, words spinning in her ears. Her legs had turned from flesh and bone to pulp. ‘What?’
‘Yeah, I’m bloody pregnant. And I don’t even know who the f … father is.’
‘Susie!’
‘Oh, you’re shocked, I suppose. Like Lyn. Yeah, your precious husband was horrified. That’s why we had the row.’
‘You t … told him?’ Lyn who hated babies, feared them; who tried to pretend they didn’t grow in women, but sprung unmessy and unseeded from some supermarket shelf.
‘There was no one else to tell, Jen. Look, I’ve been trying and trying to pretend it wasn’t happening, that I’ve been missing periods through nerves or chance or something. Yesterday, I went to the doctor. Forced myself. His hands were freezing cold and he had this stupid little laugh. About fourteen weeks, he said.’
‘Fourteen weeks!’
‘Yeah. Five-and-a-half months to go and I’ll be pushing the pram.’
‘But why didn’t you go to someone earlier?’
‘I didn’t dare. Oh, I know it sounds crazy, but I thought if I don’t admit to it, it’ll go away. I just told myself I couldn’t be pregnant, that it simply wasn’t happening—not to me. When I felt sick, I put it down to a hangover, or something I’d eaten which didn’t agree with me. Does that sound mad to you?’
‘N … No.’ Not mad. She had done the same herself, but the other way round. Believed she was pregnant when Lyn hadn’t even slept with her. Revelled in morning sickness when it was a case of simple indigestion. Felt her breasts filling up with milk when they were merely bloated and premenstrual. The only child she had was a big and bouncing bestseller, a press-cuttings folder in place of a baby-book. She sagged down on a chair. Susie’s rag-doll was lying on the floor. She picked it up, stared into its sightless button eyes. ‘You should have told me, Susie—before.’
‘How could I? I know you’re dying for a child yourself. I couldn’t just blurt out that it was me who was expecting, when I don’t even want a fucking kid.’
‘You don’t … want it?’
‘Of course I bloody don’t. Are you mad or something?’
‘You mean you’re going to get rid of …? Have an …?’
‘No, it’s too late for that. I thought about it—course I did—but I was scared of that, as well. It’s not that I’m against abortion. All that stuff about the right to life is only bullshit broadcast by the Pope, but somehow, I …’
Jennifer gagged the rag-doll with her hands. There was a right to life. A right which Lyn denied her. She glanced at Susie’s stomach—it looked flatter than her own. ‘Are you sure you’re pregnant? Absolutely certain? I mean, even doctors are mistaken sometimes.’ She remembered her own GP a year ago. ‘You’ll save it if you rest.’ She’d rested. ‘I mean, you don’t look any different.’
‘Balls! You’re all so blind.’ Susie pulled her nightie up. ‘Look, see that little bulge? And my breasts have blown up like melons. I’ve just been sitting round the place waiting for someone to notice and throw me out. That’s why I told Lyn. I caught him staring at my breasts. I thought he’d guessed.’
Jennifer was staring at them, too—useful fruitful breasts swelling for a baby. Her own had been like that for a few sweet deceitful weeks, and Lyn had refused even to look at them.
‘Lyn went quite berserk, shot away from me as if I had the pox. Accused me of being a slut and a tramp and a whole lot worse. I was trying to get a bit of help and comfort and he reacted like the Pope himself.’
Shot away from her? What did Susie mean? What had they been doing when she confided in him? She wouldn’t have confided at all unless they were close. How close?
‘What am I going to do, Jen? I mean, I can’t stay here much longer. Anne and Matthew are hardly likely to approve of an unmarried child-minder with her own built-in child.’
Jennifer tried to think straight. Petty and selfish to be jealous when Susie was in trouble. ‘But surely you knew that when you came here? I mean, wouldn’t it have been better to have taken a different job where …’
‘What sort of job? I’m not qualified. No one wants an unmarried teenage mother without a CSE to her name.’
Unmarried teenage mother. Hester. The whole, hopeless, helpless saga all over again. Except this was the 1980s, not 1919.
‘What about your parents? Won’t they help?’
‘You must be joking! They’d have a fit. It’s not that they’re narrow-minded. My ma had lovers all her life, but she’s too bogged down in her own hassles to be any help with mine. I couldn’t even tell them. My Dad would probably beat me and Mum would go hysterical and then slam out and get blotto in the pub, and blame me when she fell downstairs and broke her teeth again.’
‘Oh, Susie …’ Jennifer took her hand a moment, squeezed it. Her own mother’s life had been velveteen and roses—her only lover her pipe-and-slippers husband, her only tipple one small Sunday sherry after church with hat and gloves.
‘Look, I ‘ll keep you, darling, until you’ve had the baby.’
Susie lit a second cigarette. ‘How, for heaven’s sake? You haven’t even got a home yourself.’
‘We’ll find a place—rent a room or something. You can’t stay here, that’s obvious. Matthew would go berserk.’
‘Bugger Matthew!’
‘No, don’t—we need him. He’s got all the cash.’
‘What d’you mean? I thought you were a bloody millionairess.’
‘That’s what everybody thinks. Actually, I’ve hardly seen a penny yet.’
‘But didn’t Matthew pay you for handing over the diaries in the first place?’
‘Well, yes—we did get a small lump sum, but it wasn’t very much, and by the time we’d paid off all our debts and bought the plants for the herb garden, there was nothing left of it.’
‘But surely you get something else as well? I mean, the book’s go
ing like a bomb.’
‘The money’s is rather complicated. Lyn gets what’s called a royalty, but Matthew’s been investing it for us, so we get a bit of interest. It’s decent of him, actually. Lyn knows nothing about money and he’d probably just blue it all if it was handed to him on a plate, whereas Matthew finds the best returns and minimises our tax and … You see, when we’re ready to buy something major like a house, the money will be there.’ Jennifer made a pattern out of hairpins on the dressing-table. Why should they buy a house. Hernhope was already waiting for them. Except she couldn’t go there now. Susie needed her—and Susie’s baby.
‘It sounds nuts to me. What’s the point of cash if you can’t actually splash out with it on something?’
‘Oh, Susie, do be sensible. The money comes in very slowly, in dribs and drabs. And, even then, there’s a lot of other people who have to take their share.’
‘Like Matthew. I suppose?’
‘Not just him—his colleagues. He’s got all the salaries to pay, and rents and rates and things, and a large whack of the profits goes to Hartley Davies, anyway, and then there’s …’
‘And the mug who found the diaries in the first place has to grovel to Uncle Matthew every time she needs a piddling 10p pocket money.’
‘It’s not like that, Susie. It just takes time, that’s all.’
‘I haven’t got time.’
‘Yes, you have. Matthew’s still away for a while. He’s going on to Japan when he’s finished in Australia.’
‘So how do you plan to get the cash from him when he’s whizzing between Tokyo and …’
‘Oh God! I hadn’t thought of that. What about the … er … father?’
Susie grinned. ‘Which one? I told you, I don’t know who he is.’
‘Yes, but surely you …’
‘Well, there’s three possibles. One of them is seventeen and still at school. Actually, it couldn’t be him. He didn’t even come and I had my period, anyway. That was what put him off, I think.’
Jennifer stared into the mirror where Susie sprawled behind her—legs open even now—too slack, too easy-going. Was there any man she hadn’t risked a baby with? Yet who was she to criticise? Oz had been a blur behind a camera before she went grovelling to him on heat.
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