By Marriage Divided

by Lindsay Armstrong

  They moved into their new apartment but spent most weekends at Lidcombe Peace. She hired her extra staff member and she travelled with him a lot and loved it, at first. Then they came to a laughing agreement that on purely business trips, when she would be spending a lot of the time on her own, she’d be better off at home.

  But as the next couple of months went by, she began to feel as if she were swimming against an unseen tide. She began to really understand for the first time how hard he worked, and how hard it was for him to switch off at times. She saw him roaming around the apartment talking on his mobile phone, sometimes in the middle of the night, then come to bed but be uninterested in discussing anything with her.

  Only by accident she discovered that he’d fended off a takeover bid for one of his companies. She read about it in the paper and asked him about it. He shrugged and said it was one of the hazards of going public, that was all.

  They did a lot of entertaining, mostly for business and far more than she’d guessed he ever did, so that even with the invaluable Mrs Bush she began to find it quite tiring.

  But the other reason that saw her often tired was the fact that her business was literally burgeoning. Even with more new staff hired, she herself was often flat out. It was like a dream come true, or would have been before she’d met and married Angus Keir.

  And, without quite knowing how it came about as well as not seeing the danger signs, she began to stay home more and more often when he travelled, and be as preoccupied by work as he was. Although there hadn’t appeared to be any danger signs, she was to think sadly after it all blew up in her face. They still ignited each other, they still had so many things in common, they still were more than happy to be in each other’s company, they still loved and laughed together. But the fact was, they lived their lives almost exactly as they had before they’d married—in compartments.

  And, yes, there had been danger signs, she realized too late, she just hadn’t seen them as such. The very first had been what had happened the night she’d told him she would like to keep control of Primrose and Aquarius. Or, no, she found herself musing painfully, had the real damage begun with that shadow at the back of her mind, that uncertainty as to why he had finally married her, and had it led her to be as much at fault as he was?

  But the way it all blew up, as so often happened, was over nothing.

  ‘Angus, could you take these people out to dinner tomorrow night? I just don’t feel up to putting on a bright face for a bunch of strangers, let alone catering for them. Sorry, darling,’ she said whimsically.

  They’d just finished their own dinner, which they’d eaten outside in the roof garden of their new apartment where she’d created a leafy wonderland with shrubs, potted lemon and orange trees, soft lighting and some lovely statues, and they’d come inside as a light drizzle had started to fall.

  ‘Let Mrs Bush do it all,’ he suggested, looking up from the sheaf of papers he was paging through. ‘She always used to do it.’

  ‘I know but…’ Domenica hesitated ‘…I just can’t seem to divorce myself from at least helping her.’

  ‘Why don’t you take the day off tomorrow, then?’

  She stretched. She was curled up in an armchair wearing jeans and a pink blouse and she reached for her coffee-cup. ‘I would love to.’ She sipped some coffee, then stifled a yawn. ‘But I have one—’ she counted off her fingers ‘—two—at least three meetings tomorrow to do with the launch of Aquarius’s little sister, Pisces,’ she said humorously. Pisces was the name she’d chosen for the range of children’s sportswear she’d branched out into after the outstanding success of Aquarius.

  ‘Domenica.’

  She stopped in the act of sipping some more coffee, to look across at him at the unusual tone of his voice. ‘Yes?’

  ‘This “bunch of people” happen to be important to me. I don’t want to take them to a restaurant, I want to entertain them here. So however you do it doesn’t much matter, but that’s what we’ll be doing.’

  She put her cup down carefully and stood up slowly. Then, with tears streaming down her cheeks and a sense of horror and disbelief in her heart, she heard herself shouting at him like a fishwife. The salient points of her tirade were that she refused to be ordered around, she was not some employee of his, she was tired of entertaining strangers—in fact, at least before they’d been married, she’d been able to come and go as she’d pleased and it had suited her much better.

  He put his papers aside and stood up himself with his mouth compressed into a hard line. ‘You know what the problem is?’ he said harshly. ‘You are tired—you’re exhausted because you’re doing too bloody much, but what really fails me is why you feel you have to do it. It’s not as if you need the money or as if the world will be poorer without your efforts.’

  She went white beneath the taunt and her mouth worked. ‘So what would you have me do instead? Become some sort of sleep-in catering manageress for you?’

  ‘Not at all,’ he said grimly. ‘As I pointed out, you could leave it all to Mrs Bush—’

  ‘If I’m going to do it I don’t want to leave it all to Mrs Bush, I want to imprint some part of myself on what we do here so that at least it feels like a home.’ She looked around wildly. ‘But when I don’t feel like it, why should I have to?’

  ‘This—doesn’t feel like a home?’ he asked dangerously.

  ‘No! And I feel like an unpaid mistress a lot of the time!’ Tears were still pouring down her cheeks. ‘We never did get to Tibooburra, we never did put a tennis court in at Lidcombe Peace, we have never once discussed having children and, I don’t care what you say about surprising one’s nearest and dearest, I no more know what your inner thoughts are most of the time than I ever did and I hate it!’

  ‘Because you don’t have the time,’ he shot back, ‘and you won’t make the time. How the hell are you going to cope with children if you’re so tied up you can’t even know what I’m thinking?’

  ‘It’s not that!’ she cried ‘You don’t want me to know what you’re thinking. There’s still a Lone Ranger in you, Angus, I always knew it and don’t think I couldn’t work out that’s why you didn’t ask me to marry you before I walked away from you.’

  ‘Well,’ he drawled, ‘since you have such wisdom, why did you marry me, Domenica?’

  ‘You know why I married you, Angus. The real question is—why did you marry me? When you work out an answer to that, we may be able to decide whether to go on or not. But in the meantime, I’m taking unpaid leave!’

  And she walked out, taking only her purse and car keys with her.

  He didn’t attempt to stop her.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  DOMENICA let herself into her old apartment with a sense of unreality and despair.

  Christy and Ian, who were due to be married within a month, had asked if they might lease it from her until they could afford to buy it and she’d been more than happy to accommodate them. So it had lain idle in a manner of speaking—Christy was still living with their mother and the leasing wasn’t to commence until after the wedding.

  It was still basically furnished although all her treasures had either gone back to Lidcombe Peace or the new apartment. The bed was still made up, there were still some clothes in her wardrobe, there were still some groceries in the pantry, although no milk, but she made herself a cup of black tea. And sat down in the lounge to ponder the future.

  But all she could think of was that Angus hadn’t stopped her from walking out. He’d let her go. Which was what he’d basically done before—made no effort to track her down or get in touch when she’d got home from Europe.

  She went to bed eventually and cried her heart out before falling asleep with nothing resolved. But as dawn stole over the park below her windows she sat up and suddenly saw the key to the problem or what she devoutly hoped was the solution.

  It took a week to put her plan into action, and she heard nothing from Angus. But she made no attempt to contact him e
ither. Then she went down to Lidcombe Peace and prepared to wait for him for as long as it took for him to come.

  He came four days later and it couldn’t have been more inauspicious, she was to marvel to herself.

  She’d spent the previous three days in a cocoon; she’d gardened, taken long walks with Buddy, she’d tidied out cupboards and done all sorts of housewifely chores with a sense of inner peace that was amazing. Then, on the morning of the fourth day, she decided to mow the lawn—the couple who maintained the place were on holiday and Luke was away for the day.

  She had driven the ride-on mower before; Angus had shown her how and it was really very simple. She even knew how to check the petrol and she found the tank full. And it started at the touch of a button. Ten minutes later, she got one front wheel jammed at right angles to its normal direction as she misjudged a ditch between the lawn and a flower bed. No amount of revving or reversing the motor or trying to swing the steering wheel made any impression; in fact the motor died on her, leaving the mower irrevocably stuck at a precarious angle.

  She jumped off and tried to push it out of the ditch—it was only a small depression really, but she found that she might as well have been trying to move the Taj Mahal about.

  Finally, scarlet in the face, puffing and panting and with tears in her eyes, she tore off her hat and yelled curses at it that caused Buddy to lie down and put his paws over his eyes. And she was just about to kick it when Angus said from close behind her, ‘Domenica, that’s liable to hurt you more than the mower.’

  She swung round and nearly fell over, and all the nervous strain of the past week and a half, capsized her new found serenity as effectively as a tidal wave would swamp a ship.

  ‘Don’t you dare laugh at me, Angus Keir,’ she warned hysterically. ‘And don’t think you’re much of a husband either, you’re never damn well around when I need you!’

  ‘I am here at the moment, Domenica,’ he pointed out.

  ‘Yes—’ she put her hands on her hips ‘—here today, gone tomorrow, no doubt. Well, I don’t need you!’ She glared at him.

  He studied her thoughtfully, the yellow T-shirt she wore beneath denim dungarees, her boots, the wayward darkness of her hair and the sweat streaks on her face and neck. In contrast he looked cool and formal in a white business shirt, charcoal trousers and a blue and grey Paisley tie.

  ‘The mower might need me, however,’ he murmured. And with very little effort he righted the wheel, pushed it out of the ditch and pressed the starter button. It sprang to life. ‘I think you probably flooded it earlier.’

  She closed her eyes and ground her teeth, then turned her back on him and strode up to the house. She heard him drive the mower back to the garage and it was a good five minutes before he came to find her, sitting on the veranda. Five minutes during which she’d started to calm down and be appalled at what she’d done.

  He came round the corner of the house and stopped at the table where she was sitting with her feet up on an opposite chair. But neither of them said anything for a long moment. She, because she was drinking in everything about him and being affected by it in a way that made her mouth go dry and her heart pound. He looked as physically impressive as always, but she thought he was paler than his usual tan and wondered whether it was her imagination or if there were new lines beside his mouth.

  Then she looked away and said, ‘Sorry, but you probably know how—excitable some things can make me so perhaps I could start again—hi!’

  ‘Hi.’ He paused. ‘Yes, I do.’

  She shrugged.

  ‘You also look hot.’

  She nodded, lost for words, unable even to move somehow and supremely uncertain of whether she’d lost Angus Keir for good and if this might be their last farewell.

  ‘Can I buy you a cool drink?’

  ‘Yes, please. I’ll wait here.’ She finally found her tongue. ‘I’m a bit grubby.’

  ‘I’ll get it.’

  She fanned herself with her hat and in a few minutes he brought out a tray with two tall frosted glasses of juice and a packet of biscuits.

  ‘Thanks.’ She picked up a glass and took a long swallow. ‘You probably didn’t expect to see me here, Angus, but—’

  ‘I knew you were here.’ He sat down opposite her.

  She looked fleetingly surprised.

  ‘Luke kept me informed, but in fact I’ve known where you were ever since you left.’

  ‘But…’ She stopped confusedly.

  ‘I had a few things to do,’ he said. ‘May I tell you about them?’

  She caught her breath. ‘Angus, there’s something I’d like to tell you first and—please don’t take too much notice of what I said earlier. You know what I’m like.’

  ‘Domenica…’ his grey eyes rested on her sombrely ‘…yes, but I’d like to speak first.’

  A feeling of dread gripped her at that look in his eyes. ‘I would rather—’

  ‘No.’ He slid a hand across the table to cover hers. ‘I need to tell you that, for the first time in my life, I can understand my father.’

  She stared at him wordlessly.

  ‘Because, twice in my life now, I’ve experienced the same sense of loss he did, that seems to freeze your soul over and leave you feeling as hard as shatterproof glass. And about as vulnerable inside as normal glass. But I now know why he was that way. Because, for all their differences and who was right and who was wrong, he loved my mother in a way that wouldn’t let him love anyone else, or forget her. And I could see it at last, because the same thing had happened to me.’

  Domenica licked her lips and felt her heart start to beat differently—not so much like a muffled drum now.

  ‘The other problem I’ve always had,’ he went on, ‘is the inability to place my ultimate trust in anyone else, no doubt compounded by the way my life was. So, yes, up until very recently the “Lone Ranger” was alive and well in me, as you so accurately pointed out.’

  She grimaced and drew a pattern on the side of her glass with a fingertip. ‘I tried to make allowances for all that but—’ she looked at him suddenly ‘—it’s been almost impossible not to think that all you wanted or needed from me was…was…’ She couldn’t go on.

  ‘Your body?’ he said softly.

  ‘Yes.’ She closed her eyes. ‘It has been such a physical thing between us at times. Was that why, in your heart of hearts, you didn’t want to marry me? So that we could keep it like that instead of—wearing it out, perhaps?’

  ‘No. And I did want to marry you in my heart of hearts, I just couldn’t help feeling—’ He paused and sighed. ‘I swore once I’d never put myself in the position my father found himself in.’

  She couldn’t speak and she felt herself starting to tremble.

  ‘But,’ he went on, ‘during these last days, after I couldn’t bring myself to do what I really wanted to do that last night—do anything to stop you from going—and as that awful hardness started to take over again, I knew I had to fight it and fight to keep you. So this is what I did.’

  She listened in growing, stunned silence because what he’d done was virtually reorganize his empire. He’d even appointed a managing director in his place, although he would still hold the position of president of the company. And, although he would still ultimately hold the reins, the business side of his life would be scaled down considerably.

  ‘I have to be honest and say, as I told you once before—’ he smiled faintly ‘—that for quite a time now it’s what I’ve wanted to do. There’s been a siren song in my heart for a better life than being on the end of a phone all the time, getting on and off planes, or brokering business deals. I had the feeling it was the time to move on.’

  He hesitated and looked around. ‘It was why I bought this place, but there was still something missing, although it slowly began to dawn on me around about the same time as I got Lidcombe Peace what that siren song might be—you. Only, I didn’t have the courage to think I could hold you, Domenica.’
r />   She wiped a tear off her cheek with her wrist.

  ‘But, at the same time, would I be wrong in saying you’ve always had your secret reservations about us? Even ones that you didn’t tell me about that last night?’ he asked gently.

  ‘What do you mean?’ she whispered.

  ‘I kept thinking, after we were married, that there was only one reason for you to want to hold onto Primrose, et cetera, and work so hard—you wanted to keep it as an escape hatch?’

  She flinched visibly and looked briefly out across the roses towards Sydney.

  ‘And, I have to confess,’ he said a little grimly, ‘that it activated all my old doubts. Doubts that raised their head with me when you were too independent to accept a car from me.’

  She looked back at him at last. ‘No, you wouldn’t be wrong, Angus,’ she said barely audibly. ‘I did think of it as an escape hatch but only because—can I tell you something? Do you know when I first knew I wanted to marry you? When you gave me that car for my birthday rather than an engagement ring.’

  ‘So that…’ His hand tightened over hers and his grey eyes narrowed.

  ‘That’s why I made such a fuss. Then,’ she said huskily, ‘I knew there was more to Dunk than “island magic”. I could sense—’ she gestured with her free hand ‘—it was as if you were at a crossroad and I thought it might be over me—’

  ‘It was.’ His eyes were bleak now.

  She wiped her nose. ‘But nothing came of it and I couldn’t believe that we could be so close and not be taking that final step. Then I found out that Christy was secretly engaged to Ian and I woke up one morning with a rosebud on my pillow, but alone. Silly little things but they were the straws that broke the camel’s back. And that’s why I left.’

  ‘But you couldn’t tell me these things?’

  ‘No. If you had your fears, Angus, I’ve also had mine.’