The Open Marriage

by Flora Kidd

  She wanted to tell him what she had remembered, but she daren't. If he knew she was remembering Wales and all that had happened there he might think he didn't have to stay with her. He might change his mind about having a holiday with her in a tropical paradise.

  So she stayed silent, keeping to herself all that she had remembered about her visit to Wales because she didn't want to know how he had answered her request for a divorce. She didn't want to be divorced from him. She wanted to live with him for the rest of her life because she knew now that she loved him and had always loved him and for as long as she lived there would never be any other man for her. He was her first and only love.

  CHAPTER SIX

  THE sky was an arch of brilliant blue and above the distant horizon tiny cumulus clouds, like newly risen mushrooms, rolled lazily. The air was warm but not humid, scented with the perfumes of exotic plants and the faint salty tang of the sea. On a beach far below and unseen, surf whispered lazily to the hot sun-kissed sand.

  Lying on a lounger on a stone terrace that seemed to hang between sky and sea, halfway down a craggy cliff, Jessica was sunbathing, her fair lightly tanned skin smothered in lotion, her head covered by a woven straw hat. She was lying on her stomach and was trying to read a book that she had propped up against a cushion.

  But the book wasn't holding her attention. The antics of the espionage agents in the highly-touted best-seller were too violent, too far-fetched to interest her, and with a sigh born of boredom she flicked the book closed and turning on to her back, sat up to face the sea. It was bright blue, flecked with the crests of waves, and although she was wearing sunglasses she had to shade her eyes with one hand against the dazzle of the westering sun on the water. Against the dazzle she could just make out the shape of a small sail, a dark triangle above the gleaming shape of a sailboard.

  While she watched the sail grew bigger as it came closer to the land and she was able to make out its colours, orange with a double yellow stripe. She could also see the dark figure of the person who was sailing the windsurfer as he bent his knees and pulled on the boom of the sail, balancing the board at the same time as bringing the sail as close to the wind as .possible. She knew he was Alun, enjoying one of the outdoor activities at which he excelled.

  The small sail craft passed from her view, hidden by the spur of rock jutting out a few feet below the terrace where a kidney-shaped swimming pool glittered, like a turquoise jewel caught between rough crags of yellow sandstone. She leaned back and closed her eyes with a sigh. Soon Alun would come to the terrace to find her, to ask her how she was feeling. He would probe gently and with consideration, and after she had answered him he would sit for a while with her and the tension would build up between them, slowly and inevitably, until one of them decided to move, finding an excuse to leave the other and go into the house or down to the beach.

  With a little exclamation of distress Jessica sat up again and stared out at the blue, sun-glinting Caribbean Sea. She and Alun had been at King's Fancy, as the villa was so fancifully called, for nearly two weeks now. Another week to go and then they would have to return to England. The holiday that had been planned to restore her to complete health would be over. She would go back to work for Lithgow's Ltd as a furniture designer and Alun would ... go where? Back to Wales?

  Back to Whitewalls to start an adventure school with Mavis Owen? She didn't know because he hadn't mentioned his plans to her. She didn't know because she hadn't asked him what he was going to do. She hadn't asked because she hadn't told him that she could remember everything that had happened in Wales and during the two years of their separation. She was afraid to tell him because she guessed that once he knew her memory had returned, he would leave her. While he believed she was still incapacitated he would stay with her, playing the part of the considerate and attentive husband.

  She groaned and hid her face in her hands. This stay in a tropical paradise, this holiday from which she had hoped to gain so much, had turned out to be a sort of hell for her. And all of her own creation, because she couldn't bring herself to tell Alun the truth.

  Two weeks of being together and yet not being together, because he had given her the kid-glove treatment, never once showing a desire to make love to her. The kisses they had exchanged had been brief tokens of affection exchanged at meetings and partings, in the morning at the breakfast table, at night when they went to their separate bedrooms.

  At first she had understood why he hadn't shared her bedroom. She had still been recovering her strength and she had appreciated his restraint. But now it seemed to her that he didn't want to make love to her. Why? The answer came to her clearly. Because he didn't love her any more. He didn't want her to be his wife any more, and once this was over, once he was sure she was fully recovered, he would start talking about a divorce.

  He was kind, kinder than she had ever believed he could be, but there were times when she found his kindness cruel and she longed for him to behave normally, to torment her with words, to laugh at her, but most of all she wanted him to make love to her again. She ached for his touch, for the feel of him inside her. Oh, she was healthy again, with every part of her body functioning as it should and every emotion clamouring to be expressed.

  He came, stepping out from the house behind the terrace. Barefooted, and wearing only brief white shorts, his compact torso tanned to a teak colour, he was carrying two tall glasses in which ice-cubes clinked. Both were filled to the brim almost with yellow-orange fruit juice spiked with rum. He handed one of the glasses to Jessica and dragging one of the deck chairs closer to her lounger with one foot he sat down in it. He raised his glass to her and then took a long sip of the drink.

  'So what have you been doing this afternoon?' he asked.

  'Reading.'

  'No swimming?'

  'No.'

  'You should do it every day.'

  'I'm tired of swimming, especially by myself,' Jessica retorted.

  'You could have come windsurfing with me.'

  'I don't know how to sail.'

  'You could learn.'

  There was a short tense silence. They were on the verge of quarrelling. She could sense Alun's irritation with her. In other circumstances, if he had been behaving normally it would have boiled over by now and he would have treated her to a show of his wild Welsh temper. Inaction was something he couldn't understand and never had. Always he had to be doing something; climbing, riding, swimming, sailing, writing, exploring. The past two weeks staying with her, helping her to recuperate, must have been hell for him too.

  'Alun?'

  'Mmm?' He was sipping through the straw in his glass and didn't look up at her, seemingly more interested in watching the liquid in the glass go down as he sipped. The thick black fringes of his lashes concealed his eyes. His golden-brown skin gleamed in the sunlight. His shapely sinewy legs were stretched before him. Jessica felt a sharp stab of desire somewhere in the lower regions of her body. She swallowed hard and her hands clenched on her knees.

  'Supposing . . . supposing,' she muttered, 'my memory doesn't come back completely. Supposing I never remember what happened since . . . since you returned from South America, what ... What will you do?'

  Alun took his time about answering. He finished his drink, slowly drawing the liquid up through the straw, savouring it and all the time watching the level go lower in the glass, then blowing bubbles in it rather boyishly when there was only a little left. Jessica found she was clenching her hands even more tightly. His behaviour was subtly annoying. She longed to reach across, snatch the glass from him and force him to look at her, insist that he answer her question. At last he sat up, put the empty glass on the small glass-topped table that was between them and with his elbows in his knees, hands cupping his chin, he looked at her, his golden eyes clear and wide open as they searched her face.

  'Are you sure you haven't remembered anything else about that period of time?' he queried coolly. 'Seems to me you were remembering quite a lot a
bout Wales when we were on the plane flying here. Haven't you had any more flashbacks?'

  Confronted by such direct questions, she withdrew hastily, leaning back, looking down at her own drink, only half-consumed.

  'Wouldn't I have told you if I had?' she countered shakily.

  'I don't know. Would you?' he replied dryly, and she flashed an uneasy glance in his direction.

  'You haven't answered my question,' she retorted. 'Would you mind if I never remember the past two years?'

  'Don't you mean would I mind if you decided you'd preferred not to remember?' he asked, his voice even drier. 'I'm not sure. I'll have to think about it,' he added, getting to his feet. 'Like another drink?'

  'No, thanks.'

  'I would,' he said, and left her, striding up the wide shallow steps and disappearing in behind the oleander bushes that screened the entrance to the lounge, a long wide room without walls or windows, open on two sides to the trade winds that provided natural air-conditioning; a beautiful room furnished with simple bamboo and teak furniture, its floor covered with cool tiles.

  Alone on the terrace again, Jessica sipped her drink and waited for him to return. She was no nearer to knowing what he would do if she confessed that she remembered what had happened in the past two years; if she told him she knew they had been discussing divorce when they had been in Wales.

  By the time she had finished her drink Alun hadn't come back to the terrace, so she went into the house too. He wasn't in the living room, so she went through the room and along a passage that had windows without glass, open to the air, that could be closed with wooden shutters whenever the weather deteriorated, something that only happened in the summer when the rains came and the hurricanes, she had been told.

  The passage led to the suite of rooms that she and Alun had used since they had arrived, two bedrooms and a bathroom and a small sitting room. None of the rooms had glass windows, only shutters. There were no doors either. Colours were cool, imitating the shades of the sea, palest aquamarine right through to deepest purple. The two bedrooms were separated by the bathroom.

  Passing the entrance to her own bedroom, Jessica walked past the bathroom with its sliding screen door and straight to Alun's room. He wasn't there. Only the pair of white shorts he had been wearing lay on the floor where he had tossed them, evidence that he had been there, had changed his clothes and had gone . . . where?

  Biting her lip, inwardly chiding herself for being upset because he hadn't returned to the terrace to talk to her or just be with her, because he had gone out somewhere without her and hadn't told her where he would be going, Jessica drifted back to her own bedroom and flopped down on the smooth bed that was covered with cool flowered Sea Island cotton. Overhead the fan attached to the ceiling whirred quietly.

  Her spirits plummeting to the lowest point since she had been in hospital in England, she lay there for a long time, too unhappy to move. She was trapped in a situation of her own making. She had been deceiving Alun for nearly two weeks, and he had guessed that she had. Originally her amnesia had been caused, as Dr Mehta had suggested, by a refusal to face up to something that had caused her distress and pain. That something had been her separation from Alun and the knowledge that he would have let her have a divorce so he could go into business with Mavis Owen. That knowledge still gave her acute distress and pain and she was still refusing to face up to its reality by pretending she didn't remember, hoping that Alun would forget too.

  But instead of their relationship returning to the way it had been before they had been separated, it had deteriorated. They weren't any closer to each other. They were like strangers, polite strangers, living under the same roof, living a lie—a lie that was driving them further and further apart.

  The room grew darker as the sun set. Outside among the shrubs frogs began their repetitive refrain. The tropical night, mysteriously exciting, had begun. She rose from the bed and went to the bathroom. She showered and then returned to her room to dress in a plain dress made from red cotton. It was almost seven o'clock, the time when the evening meal was always served. Surely Alun would come back for that?

  But he wasn't in the lounge, nor was he on the terrace beyond, and he hadn't come by the time the maid came to tell Jessica that dinner was ready to be served if she would like to go through to the dining room.

  Like the lounge, the dining room was open on two sides so that air could waft through. Candles in glass bowls glimmered, the flames occasionally flaring when the breeze whispered through. White lace mats made delicate web-like patterns on the dark polished surface of the table and heavy silverware gleamed in the candlelight. There were two places set.

  'Mr Gower, he phone from the airport,' said the maid. 'He say to tell you not to wait dinner for him. He say the plane he gone to meet late. He be here in half an hour.'

  'Oh, good. Thank you,' said Jessica, feeling relief. Alun hadn't gone for good, then. She wondered whom he had gone to meet off a plane.

  'You want me to bring food in now?' asked the maid.

  'Yes, please.' She realised suddenly that she was very hungry and wondered how much her low spirits had been due to hunger.

  She would tell Alun tonight, she decided, as she forked up the delicious prawn cocktail. She would tell him that she remembered everything ... or at least nearly everything that had happened during the past two years. She would say it simply, not telling him exact incidents or conversations. She would just say, 'I remember,' and wait for him to react. Yes, that would be the best way. She couldn't go on the way they were. She had to open the doors of communication between them somehow; the situation would only become more tense if she didn't.

  Her appetite spiced by her decision, she ate everything that was put before her—the prawn cocktail, the salad, the grilled grouper fish served with tiny potatoes and broccoli, the strawberries Romanoff, and she drank two glasses of white wine. She felt suddenly lighthearted, as if she were celebrating an occasion. The occasion of the return of her memory. She smiled a little wryly at the thought and then was overwhelmed by a sudden longing for Alun, wishing he were there to celebrate with her.

  She had finished eating and was sitting in the lounge pretending to read when she heard voices, a woman's, low and deep, first and then Alun's even deeper answering. The sound came from the terrace and Jessica looked up, feeling her heart leap as it always did when she knew Alun was near.

  They came up the wide shallow steps together, the tall woman who was wearing a finely woven straw hat over a bandeau that swathed her head, concealing her hair, and Alun, slightly taller than the woman, his deep tan set off by the white shirt and pants he was wearing, the silvery streak in his dark hair catching the light. They were laughing and they seemed to be very friendly, Jessica thought, and felt jealousy uncoil within her.

  The woman, who was very thin, was also very elegant, wearing close-fitting white pants that emphasised the graceful line of her long legs and a shocking pink loose shirt with long full sleeves. Gold chains glinted within the open neck of the shirt and gold bracelets jangled on one of her thin wrists. As she reached the top step she looked across the room and saw Jessica and came straight towards her, walking with a strangely pantherish gliding stride that was vaguely familiar. Jessica got politely to her feet and smiled uncertainly. A long thin hand was stretched out towards her. A thin lined face smiled at her. Tawny eyes glinted between dark lashes. The woman was much older than she had thought, over fifty, possibly near sixty.

  'You must be Jessica,' the woman said. 'I'm so pleased to meet you at last. I'm Ashley King.'

  The last mists that lingered in Jessica's mind swirled violently and were gone, dispersed by a blinding light.

  'How do you do,' she murmured, feeling her hand being squeezed by thin fingers. 'You . . . you're from New York. Alun often goes to see you.' She caught her breath in a gasp as she realised what she had just said. She had remembered something new, something that had been well hidden in the depths of her subconscious. She ha
d remembered that she and Alun had quarrelled about this woman. One hand to her mouth, she glanced straight at Alun, who was standing behind Ashley King. He was looking right at her, his eyes gleaming with mockery.

  Pulling her hand sharply away from Ashley's, she turned and ran down the steps of the terrace, then swerving left hurried down more steps to a wide driveway where two cars were parked in front of garage doors. Out between gateposts built of brown stone she ran into a lane, then turning to the right she went down the lane to the beach.

  The soft sand sank under her feet as she walked beside the glittering surf, trying to deal with the shock she had felt on being introduced to Ashley King. How could Alun have done this to her? How could he have been so cruel as to confront her with the woman whose lover he had been? And now he knew that she was no longer suffering from loss of memory. She had given herself away with her recognition of Ashley King's name and by her remark that Ashley was from New York. He had tricked her into betraying herself. The least he could have done would have been to warn her that afternoon that Ashley was coming to visit him.

  Was Ashley going to stay at the villa? Oh God, she hoped not. She didn't think she could put up with a menage a trois; herself, Alun, and his elderly lover. Sickness surged up in her as her puritan instincts were revolted by even the suggestion of perversion. She would have to leave. She would leave now, pack her bags and get Pierre to drive her into Marigot to stay at a hotel there. Better still, drive into Philipsburg and stay there. It was the bigger town, more cosmopolitan, and it would be easier to hide in, and tomorrow she would make arrangements to fly back to England somehow. She had money of her own, thank God—her mother had seen to that.

  The decision made, she made her way back to the house, approaching the suite of rooms by a path that twisted through the shrubbery so that she wouldn't have to meet Ashley King or Alun again. In her bedroom she quickly began to pack her clothing. She had packed one case and was rapidly filling the other when Alun strolled into the room. He leaned against the wall just inside the doorway, folding his arms across his chest.