White Ice

by Celia Brayfield

  ‘If you’ll excuse me, everyone, I’ll be off to bed now.’ She noticed that these important business associates for whom she had so laboriously picked currants that morning were barely moved by the loss of her company. ‘My mother seems to have stolen my husband, but you’ll say goodnight for me, won’t you, Hugh?’

  As she walked across to her father, feeling as if she were walking on thin ice, she took care to look at him directly. Perhaps if there was some truth in the awful random suspicion now trapped in her mind his face would show it. And he turned towards her sharply, looking almost frightened.

  ‘Certainly, my dear. You’ve had a long day, let me take care of everything now.’ He had left the fireplace and was walking towards her. ‘Is there anything to be done in the kitchen for tomorrow? Has Mrs Harris left?’ With a graceful ‘Excuse me one moment’to the Llewellyns and the Bainbridges he left the room with his daughter.

  ‘You look very tired,’ he told her as they crossed the softly lit hall. She stumbled over the corner of a rug and he caught her arm. Because Lovat believed that fitted carpets would never be found in a gentleman’s home, the floors were of oak boards or stone, uneven and highly polished, covered with oriental rugs of even more irregular plane.

  ‘I am very tired.’

  ‘You are all right, Bianca? I worry about you being stuck down here in the country by yourself all week.’

  ‘I’m with the boys, that’s hardly by myself.’

  ‘They’re children …’

  ‘I like children. You know I’m having another one, don’t you?’ In the pell-mell routine of her own family she had grown careless of details and could not remember whether she had broken the news to her parents or not.

  He halted and suddenly put an arm around her shoulders. Nobody could make an embrace seem as threatening as her father.

  ‘My dear, no I didn’t. Lovat hasn’t mentioned it. But it’s early yet, surely, you’re as thin as a stick …’

  ‘Don’t you start telling me to get rid of it. God, why do all men hate children?’

  ‘Bianca, I would never dream of intruding on your personal affairs in such a way. You know I believe that every woman has the right to control her own biology to the limits of what science …’

  ‘Hugh, I know what you believe, and I know what you say you believe and what you do are quite different things. Now please let me go, I’m tired. Goodnight.’ She reached up to give him a dry kiss on the cheek and climbed the stairs rapidly without looking back.

  She pretended sleep when Lovat came to bed, then lay beside him thinking back through the years of their marriage. In time she recalled the day Lovat announced that he was going into Berrisford’s, a decision she had felt ever since to be in some way a betrayal, of her and of his own ambition. She had wanted him to rescue her from her family, and instead he had merged them both into it. Maybe it had been because he wanted to be near her mother. Admiration, compliments, laughter, Olivia’s coldness, the way Lovat never seemed to be on her side in anything – Bianca could find evidence in everything to prove her suspicions.

  In the morning Lovat rolled over and reached for her. It was a habit of his to climb on top of her for a short, utilitarian fuck before the day began. The sheer calculation of the move disgusted her – he was never late for anything because of it. He seemed to know to the second how long it would take him to come. Would he even notice if she did not respond?

  His hand was stroking her thighs, moving her on to her back, pushing her legs apart. When he felt for her clitoris a nick from his fingernail caught the head and a stab of shrivelling pain dispelled the last shred of sleepiness in her mind. She shut her eyes, leaving her hands lying inert on the pillow. Now he was probing inside her. It was not a caress, just an exploration to see if she was lubricated enough to penetrate. Her opinion, if anyone had asked it, was that she was merely damp, but also cold and unexcited. Heat and juiciness would take a few minutes of attention she did not expect to receive.

  The weight of his body was lifted, the fingers withdrew, there were some urgent, blind movements and then she felt the head of his penis stab inaccurately once or twice around her lips before pressing inside. The weight returned. His unshaven chin scraped her cheek. The friction became more uncomfortable as he pumped. Bianca made no movement, wondering if, with a variation of the exercises physiotherapists gave new mothers to recondition their pelvic muscles, her vagina could become capable of vomiting him out.

  His average – for she had counted – was twenty-two thrusts. After the nineteenth he paused, raised himself off her a little way, and felt again for her clitoris.

  ‘That’s OK,’ she muttered immediately.

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Yes.’ She tried to sound merely sleepy, hoping not to be asked for another explanation.

  In four more thrusts it was over. He kissed her closed lips, lay still for a polite thirty seconds, then got up and went into his bathroom.

  A little later Bianca went into her bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror.

  ‘I don’t think I can do that again,’ she said to her reflection. There was a catch of nausea in her throat.

  ‘Mummy, why are you talking to yourself?’

  Their eldest son had presented himself in the doorway, fully dressed in his school sports kit and apparently washed, a cricket ball in one hand. She realized that she ought to feel worried about the boys; if she left Lovat, or he left her, they might be expected to suffer. Here was Tom, self-possessed as ever but only a child, and yet she felt numb. Love had become impossible. The only sensation her son aroused at that moment was a weary curiosity about the purpose of his visit so early in the morning.

  ‘I felt like talking to myself. What is it, darling?’

  ‘There’s net practice this morning. I forgot to tell you.’

  ‘And you have to go?’ He nodded. ‘Go and ask your father to take you.’

  ‘He says he can’t.’

  She suppressed a flash of rage. ‘He means he won’t. Can you ask Mrs Harris for me? Say I’ll do breakfast.’

  ‘OK.’ He ran away, and she embarked upon the routine of the day, grateful for any trivial chore which could distract her from the bleakness of her heart.

  As the day progressed, the longer she was silent the more Olivia seemed to shine. Never the kind of woman who enjoyed the company of homosexuals, she was now making much of Kusminsky and his young companion, drawing forth more memories of his boyhood during the Russian Revolution. The party drove to Newmarket for the races and she remained in their box with the old man the whole afternoon while Hugh and the younger adults scattered over the course.

  Bianca drifted in the wake of Shona, who invariably found a score of cheeks to kiss at any upper-class resort within two hours of London. Joe had opened his own design consultancy five years earlier and now, at the cost of half his hair and two stone around his waist, was so successful that the company was about to go public.

  ‘I feel absolutely cheated, darling,’ Shona told everyone she met with beaming satisfaction. ‘I tried to run off with a penniless artist and now he’s being floated for millions. Isn’t it a swizz?’

  ‘Have I any reason to feel cheated?’ Bianca asked her in a quiet moment when they were alone by the paddock rail.

  ‘What do you mean? This is something serious, isn’t it?’

  ‘Lovat, I mean. You’re in London, Shona, you hear things. I think he’s having an affair.’

  ‘My goodness, I thought you were looking a bit flat. I never hear anything about Lovat except how well he’s doing. He and Joe hardly see each other nowadays, although my husband still worships the ground your husband walks on. Do you want me to ask around – I mean discreetly, of course.’

  ‘Yes, if you can.’

  ‘No trouble, consider it done. Girls must stick together.’

  It was all too light, too frivolous, too far from the degree of pain she felt. A shadow had crossed Shona’s open, foolish face, confirming to Bianca
that there was at least a secret about her husband which others knew and she did not.

  The evening was almost a replica of the last, except that Saturday’s dinner was formal and old Kusminsky told tales of Paris during the Occupation. He retired with Etienne at the same time. Bianca returned to the music room, hoping to find her mother and husband still there and decorously seated far apart, but once more they were together and making their way to the terrace outside.

  ‘Lovat Stop.’ She felt like a schoolgirl reciting melodramatic lines from a bad play. But he stopped and turned, and Olivia at his side did the same.

  ‘What is it, Bianca? Has something happened?’ Yes, there could be no doubt, there was a veil over his eyes now and he was struggling to get a note of superiority into his voice.

  ‘Yes, I think something has happened. What exactly is going on between you and my mother?’ From the corner of her eye she saw Charlotte’s hand fly to her mouth.

  ‘Nothing, love. We’re just going outside for some air, that’s all.’

  ‘There’s more to it than that.’ The feeling of nausea which had persisted all day had vanished and Bianca felt strength flowing back into her body. She looked at Olivia and saw her mother step back, tangle her high heels in her long draped skirt of grey silk crepe, and become suddenly ugly and awkward as she struggled not to fall. Her eyes were narrowed to triangles and her whole face had taken on a set, pinched look.

  ‘Let me get this straight – are you making some sort of accusation about me and Olivia?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right, that’s what I’m doing.’

  ‘Well, you’re being ridiculous.’ He was glancing uneasily at the remaining guests, and they were edging forward in their seats, preparing for a tactful retreat. Hugh, in his accustomed position in front of the hearth, was holding his glass of brandy tightly in both hands and looking at his feet.

  ‘No I’m not. You can’t tell me that this time, Lovat. You always tell me whatever I think is wrong but not this time.’

  ‘Love, you are …’ He swiftly crossed the room, preparing to embrace and reassure her, and above all take her away before she made this embarrassing scene any worse.

  ‘Tell her the truth,’ Hugh almost shouted.

  Lovat stopped with his arm around Bianca’s shoulders, looking from Hugh to Olivia and back again.

  ‘Tell her now. You ought to have done it in the beginning. Now get it over with.’

  ‘Hugh, thank you.’ For an instant Bianca was warmed by the first filial affection she could remember feeling, but then she saw that this was not a move made out of loyalty to her, much less from care or love, but of the desire to protect the clan. Another unfamiliar emotion was dawning, a feeling of power so radiant that the dim pinpricks of hurt or care were healed.

  Lovat tightened his grip around her, and she angrily broke away. ‘I think some of our guests might be more comfortable in the drawing room – the fire’s still good, I’m sure,’ she said. Shona rose and led the four strangers away, rolling her eyes at Bianca as she went. ‘Lovat, I’m waiting.’

  ‘I can’t …’ he stammered, his face breaking up into a random mass of distorted features. His mouth, always so stern and so arrogantly furled, was soft and gaping, out of control.

  ‘I’m sure you can. Why should the words be worse than the deed?’

  He let out a furious snarl and Olivia, now visibly frightened, stumbled forward. ‘No, Lovat, don’t be angry. Let me do this. Bianca, I’m really the guilty one. Why don’t you leave us two together …’

  ‘Oh no. You’ll just say I made the whole thing up, I know you all, you are my family, let’s not forget that, let’s never forget it. Everyone stay where they are.’ Bianca folded her arms, the better not to feel pity for her mother who was now, so unskilfully, so out of practice, trying to be kind.

  ‘It was years ago, Bianca. Before you were married, before you’d even met. We had a party, someone brought him to the house, he’d had too much to drink, so had I, I expect … you know what my life has been like. It was only once …’

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ she said immediately, guided by her instinct alone. Lovat sat on the piano stool, his face turned away to the wall. ‘Of course I know what your life was like. I always thought you must have rather enjoyed it.’

  Olivia refused to be provoked. ‘Maybe he did come round again, but there was nothing in it, nothing. He really wasn’t right for me …’

  ‘You mean you thought he was a bit of rough from the North and beneath you, that’s what you mean, isn’t it?’

  Lovat suddenly turned around. ‘This isn’t easy for her,’ he announced in his old superior voice.

  Bianca opened her mouth and felt a breath like the wind of heaven under her ribs. An aria of rage poured from her lips. Olivia collapsed weeping into a chair and she stood over her, raining her anger at the unspeakable crime around her mother’s ears, and when that was spent she followed with the fossil-hard furies of her childhood, so long silted down in secret while she had kept a compliant look on her face and behind it placated and manoeuvred and planned her escape.

  Her father she lanced with contempt and he took it well, accepting blame for his damaged marriage and his part in conspiring to keep the secret, but Hugh could sidestep real responsibility and lay the burden of guilt on outsiders. Charlotte retreated into silence. She could not find words. Emotion overwhelmed her and muddled her mind. She took on a pinched, aged appearance all at once. Joe, who sat as if deflated in a corner, admitted he had known all along. She passed over him, knowing he would plead loyalty to Lovat.

  At last she came to her husband, the father of their three – no, four children, the man who had married her with so much sweetness, care and style, knowing all along that he had already committed a terrible betrayal, and would compound it every day of their marriage. As she let loose her feelings she discovered that they were close to hatred, but she began to choose her words, seeing him now calmer, still looking to her father for support, anxious no doubt that his precious career, the venal, compromising, dark-suited role he had claimed he never wanted, might be in danger. That, of course, was his real concern. It did not really worry him that she was angry, that he had hurt her, that he had lied and cheated, brought children into the world to find their very lives founded on deception. She cast about for a weapon to penetrate the armour of his selfishness.

  ‘It’s over.’ She was calm and very clear. ‘I want a divorce. I want you out of this house now, and I want a divorce.’

  ‘We’ll talk about it in the morning,’ was his reply and there was something close to a smile on his lips.

  ‘I’m not joking. I want you out of this house now and I want a divorce. God knows I’ve got enough grounds.’

  ‘Best do what she says now.’ Hugh nodded to him across the room. On the upholstery the blue shepherdesses in panniered gowns tripped after their fleecy sheep. On the table the bowl of white peonies, roses and alchemilla shed pollen in the silence of an abandoned battlefield.

  Joe heaved himself to his feet. ‘Come with us for the night,’ he offered, extending his hand to Lovat.

  ‘Thanks but I’ll stay.’

  Hugh at last left the neutrality of the hearth and came to stand between Bianca and her husband, ignoring his wife as he crossed the room.

  ‘It would be better if you did as Bianca asks.’ He put his hand on Lovat’s shoulder and the younger man looked at him, knitting his heavy brows in anger. He had an instinctive grasp of power dynamics, and understood that Hugh had deserted him.

  ‘Whose side are you on?’

  ‘My daughter’s.’

  ‘You are, aren’t you? I suppose you’ve got a reason.’

  ‘I don’t need a reason.’ His tone was infuriatingly sententious. ‘Bianca is my daughter.’

  ‘Don’t give me that. Blood thicker than water, thicker than liquidity, thicker than capital, thicker than everything I’ve done for you. Right then. Right. I’ll do as she asks. But if I leave th
is house I’ll not come back and you’ll not see me at Berrisford’s again except the day I come in to take your bloody firm over.’

  Now Hugh was pale and tense with anger, but he tried to maintain a calm façade. ‘We’ll talk on Monday. Just go now …’

  ‘Right, I will.’ Lovat leaped to his feet and was out of the door in seconds. The noise of his feet on the stairs died away.

  ‘This is good of you, Joe.’ Hugh felt a need to fill the silence.

  ‘Least I could do. He’ll calm down, you’ll see. I know him, he’s always been like this, the storm blows itself out. He doesn’t mean half what he says when his temper’s up.’

  There was another painful pause, and Bianca sensed that she too might think better of her hasty words in the morning. She reflected with annoyance that a dispute which she had started, and in which she was the wronged and innocent party, had somehow become a fight between the two men, an antler-clashing exercise to which she and her suffering were irrelevant.

  ‘Don’t imagine I’m like that, any of you,’ she said at once. ‘I mean what I said. I want a divorce. We’ve been living a lie for ten years and I can’t stay with that man one more minute.’

  There was another rumble of feet on the stairs and Lovat appeared with a grip stuffed with clothes in one hand.

  ‘We’ll be off then.’ He nodded to Joe. With reluctance, looking from one face to another in the hope of a last appeal, his friend said goodnight to Charlotte and Bianca, to Olivia who seemed not to hear him, and to Hugh, who prepared to walk them to the door.

  ‘We can see ourselves out,’ Lovat told him at once. ‘You’ll have my resignation on your desk in the morning.’ Bianca saw his back disappear and heard the front door open and slam shut. She felt light, as if she could float to the ceiling if she wanted. Satisfaction was a rare sensation and she vowed to have an increase of it.

  9. St Petersburg, 1910

  ‘Dear Nikolai, my only love,’ wrote Lydia, then paused to admire her pen of translucent white agate banded with tiny diamonds. It always gave her pleasure to use it, most particularly so this morning when she was about to play a final hand for double or quits with the man who had bestowed it upon her. ‘I beg you never to doubt that my heart longs with all its passion to grant your request. For the whole of my life I will treasure the memory of our moments together and count myself blessed to have attracted your admiration. I have felt such happiness in your company that I know no other affection can ever diminish my feelings for you. But you must know that I am unable to grant you what you ask of me. The sad circumstances of my origins, the terrible precariousness of an artist’s existence, make it impossible for me to order my life according to my own heart.’