‘I can’t stay young and innocent for ever,’ Federica protested meekly.
‘Oh, yes you can.’ Lucia nodded and winked. The more ‘snow white’ Federica was the more Torquil would crave the dark sophistication of his Italian lover. ‘You can be anything you want to be.’
Federica shrugged and pulled a thin smile. Lucia had left her feeling uncomfortable. She was becoming sick of being told how angelic and perfect she was. No one could live up to that.
‘I’d love to be married to a man like Torquil,’ Lucia sighed, pushing the salad around her plate dreamily. ‘He’s so totally in control. I love that. Unbelievably romantic. And so unusual for an Englishman. Italian men take control and it makes women feel very feminine.’
‘Yes, although, sometimes, it’s nice to be independent,’ Federica argued, remembering their discussion about work and inwardly cringing.
‘Don’t be a little fool, Fede, you have a gem there, enjoy it,’ said Lucia seriously. ‘Millions of women would kill to leave their jobs, have their chaotic lives organized by a loving man. You don’t know how lucky you are.’
‘Oh, I do,’ she replied quickly. ‘It’s just a bit overwhelming.’
‘It’s his way of showing you he loves you. You’ll get used to it and then it will be second nature. Remember he has your interests at heart, always. Every choice he makes for you is for your own good. Goodness, he’s, what, twenty years older than you?’ Federica nodded. ‘Twenty years more experience than you. If I were you I’d put my feet up and enjoy the ride.’
Federica took her advice. She stopped seeing Harriet and avoided going into St John & Smithe in case she bumped into her. She studied literature once a week with an old Cambridge don called Dr Lionel Swanborough, who always wore a three-piece suit with a fedora placed crookedly above his thin face. He was at once impressed with Torquil’s library but unimpressed by Federica’s lack of knowledge.
‘I’ve barely read anything,’ she told him. He gave her Anna Karenina and insisted she read the entire book in a week. ‘Don’t worry, my dear girl, once you’ve turned the first page the other eight hundred and fifty-two will turn by themselves.’ He was right. Once she had analyzed Anna Karenina she moved on to Vanity Fair, Emma and King Lear. Her eagerness for learning was bred in the boredom of her daily life as Torquil’s wife, where she immersed herself in her studies so that she wouldn’t notice the world outside her gilded prison and yearn for it.
One grey evening Torquil returned home yet again to his wife’s light chatter echoing gaily through the rooms of the house as she attempted to fill the empty hours with long telephone conversations to her mother and Toby. He felt the
irritation crawl up his neck in the form of an uncomfortable prickly heat that was becoming as familiar to him as the nagging sense of inadequacy he felt when faced with his wife’s natural grace and virtue. His mouth twitched with impatience as he stalked into the sitting room, leaving his briefcase and coat thrown onto a chair in the hall. When Federica saw him standing crossly in the doorway she hastily put down the receiver and swallowed hard as her stomach turned over with anxiety.
‘What’s wrong?' she asked, hoping it had nothing to do with her. In the brief moment that passed while Torquil chewed on his jealousy Federica frantically cast her mind back to the previous evening in an attempt to remember anything she might have said to anyone that could have roused his anger.
‘I’m fed up with coming home to find you on the telephone,’ he snapped finally.
Federica breathed out with relief. ‘I’m sorry,’ she muttered.
But Torquil wasn’t satisfied. He walked over to the fire and stood in front of it with his hands on his hips. He shook his head. ‘I’m out at work all day, when I come home I want your undivided attention. You have hours to amuse yourself when I’m not here, why do you have to insist on calling your family at the
exact moment I walk through the door?’
‘I don’t do it on purpose,’ she protested weakly.
‘Perhaps not,’ he conceded. Federica stiffened. He often appeared to back down before delivering a harsher blow. ‘Sweetness,’ he continued carefully, ‘I really think you’re too old to still be so attached to your mother and uncle. It’s about time you devoted your energies to me.’
‘What do you mean?’ she asked in bewilderment. He sat beside her on the sofa and ran a hand down her hair with tenderness. When she looked into his face his expression had softened and he was smiling at her with affection.
He sighed heavily. ‘I’m a jealous old man, my darling,’ he explained meekly. ‘I’m guilty of loving you too much.’
Federica was disarmed by the sudden change in his tone and felt the colour rise in her cheeks. ‘It’s okay, Torquil, I understand,’ she replied sympathetically.
‘I miss you all day, when I come home to find you on the telephone to your mother this anger wells up inside me. I can’t control it. I want you all to myself.’ Then he chuckled sheepishly. ‘Is that so terrible?’
Federica nestled her face against his hand that now stroked her cheek. ‘Of
course not,’ she said and smiled, once more defeated by his charm. ‘I won’t do it again, I promise.’
He pulled her into his arms and kissed her on her mouth with an intensity that demonstrated his gratitude. ‘You’re too good to me, little one. No other woman would understand me like you do.’
She laughed and caressed his face with the gentle eyes of an adoring mother. ‘No man would understand me like you do, either.’
‘We’re made for each other,’ he breathed. ‘You’re happy, aren’t you, sweetness? I want you to be happy.’
‘Of course I am.’
‘You enjoy your course?’
‘I love it,’ she enthused dutifully.
‘You see,’ he laughed. ‘I know what’s good for you better than you do.’
Even though Federica did as her husband had asked and made the calls when he was at work, he seemed to know exactly when they were made and for how long they lasted. In his silky manner he managed to persuade her to limit them to once a week. Molly and Hester went the way of Harriet. Although they put
up a fiercer fight, Federica let them go in the end. She had to.
‘You’re too sophisticated now for these provincial people, sweetness,’ Torquil said. ‘You’ll thank me one day.’
At first they journeyed down to Polperro regularly, but little by little their visits became less frequent until they barely went at all.
Federica felt powerless to complain for every time she made plans, Torquil flew her off to Paris or Madrid or Rome.
‘Sweetheart, we never see you these days,’ Toby lamented one day when Federica managed to call him from the telephone box in Harrods.
‘I know, I’m longing to come down to Polperro, and so is Torquil,’ she lied, ‘he’s just travelling so much at the moment, opening new offices abroad, so we spend most weekends out of the country.’
‘I know we shouldn’t worry, they always say newly-weds disappear into themselves for a while. It obviously means you’re happy. You don’t need your home like you used to.’
Federica’s heart yearned for Polperro. She needed it more than ever, but she was barely able to admit it, even to herself.
‘I am happy,’ she insisted.
Then we’re happy you’re happy. If you missed home all the time that would surely mean there was something wrong with your marriage.’
There’s nothing wrong with that, I can assure you. He’s so wonderful; I wake up every day hardly able to believe that I am so blessed to be married to someone so gorgeous. I don’t deserve him.’ Federica laughed.
‘Yes you do, sweetheart.’
‘I don’t. He does everything for me. I don’t have a care in the world. Mrs Hughes looks after the house, in fact she gets cross if I so much as move a photo frame. She’s a little too territorial, but then I suppose she’s looked after him for so long it’s hardly surprising. She knows what h
e likes better than I do.’
‘I doubt that. She’s not married to him.’
That’s not what she thinks!’ she joked. ‘But I shouldn’t complain. I live in the most beautiful house. Most men don’t buy their wives expensive clothes and jewellery. Torquil indulges my every desire, I’m in great danger of turning into a spoilt princess.’
‘Fede, nothing could ever turn you into that. You’re a sweet girl and he’s
bloody lucky to have you. It all sounds so perfect!’
‘It is. I do miss you all though,’ she said softly and Toby noticed the strain in her voice, as if she were suppressing a cry for help. ‘I miss Polperro and the sea, walks along the stormy cliffs with Rasta. Oh, I miss Rasta too, how is he?’ she asked, attempting to sound cheerful.
‘Missing you. We cuddle him a lot to compensate but he still looks at me with those big sad eyes inquiring where you are.’
‘Don’t, you’ll make me miserable,’ she wailed. ‘Torquil won’t let me have a dog in London because he doesn’t want dog hair all over the house. Seeing as he’s barely here I’m surprised he’d notice. But he’s very proud of his house. He’s meticulous about everything.’
‘I noticed that. He dresses like a duke,’ Toby said enthusiastically but he felt a tingling sensation of discomfort creep up his neck.
‘Don’t talk to me about his clothes.’ She sighed melodramatically. ‘He gets enraged if Mrs Hughes leaves creases in his shirts or presses his trousers incorrectly. Thank God he doesn’t lose his temper like that with his wife. Well, he does when he’s jealous but Lucia tells me that’s his way of showing me that he loves me, imagine if he wasn’t jealous at all, I’d feel very neglected.’
‘Don’t you cook any more?’ Toby asked, remembering how much pleasure she took from looking after him and Julian during the years they all lived together.
‘No, I haven’t cooked since I got married. Mrs Hughes cooks or we go out. You see, I’m very spoilt.’
Toby didn’t dare ask whether she still put flowers in vases, scented the sheets with lavender and filled the house with music because he knew the answer and he couldn’t bear to hear it.
‘As long as he makes you happy,’ he conceded finally. But when he put the telephone down he was besieged by new anxieties, unable to reconcile the Torquil they met before the wedding with the Torquil Federica had just described. Something didn’t gel.
But Federica was happy - or at least she believed herself to be happy. She loved her husband to distraction and modified her tastes and her desires to suit him without even realizing it. Torquil denied her nothing but her freedom, which, during the occasional moments when his possessiveness threatened to suffocate her, she justified as an expression of his devotion and forgave him.
She rarely questioned his motives or his actions. He was her husband, she had chosen him, so she worked through any feelings of frustration because she didn’t know any other way. She was determined to make the marriage work. Above all she needed him. He gave her security and love and she willingly sacrificed her freedom for that. Unable to make the house into a real home, for Mrs Hughes saw to all the domestic needs, Federica began to eat away her boredom. A biscuit here, and piece of cake there, until she was rarely without something in her fingers, making regular trips up to her mouth. Lucia, who believed it impossible to be too rich or too thin, delighted in the swell of her rival’s figure and encouraged her with cunning. Torquil, who loathed fat women, watched his wife’s changing body with delight; it reflected the gradual surrendering of her independence. Unable to understand it as an outward expression of her inner discontent he felt empowered by it. The ivory goddess was toppling from her pedestal. As her confidence was subtly undermined she grew more needy. Torquil relished his control. She belonged to him. Without intending to be malicious he began to call her ‘my Venus’ and ‘Voluptuosa’ while at the same time encouraging her to eat. ‘You’re not fat, sweetness, you’re sensual and I love you like that,’ he would say. She believed him because he
seemed to desire her more. After all, sex was his way of telling her he loved her.
Within two years Federica had tuned herself to Torquil’s pitch without even noticing the gradual relinquishing of her liberty. It was such a steady shift she didn’t even realize she was unhappy. In her limited understanding Torquil was the same, sensitive man she had married - just a little harder to please. She didn’t buy her own clothes because she knew he liked choosing them for her. She didn’t buy him presents because she learned that if he wanted something he would go out and get it himself. She met Lucia for lunch and was soon included in a small circle of women, who, like herself, had nothing else to do all day except lunch, gossip and shop with each other. Yet, Torquil’s controlling nature had taught her how to deceive. She learned to splash the soap with water when she was in a hurry after using the bathroom, because she knew Torquil would check it after to make sure she had washed her hands. She learned to ask the chauffeur to wait for her outside Harrods while she sneaked out the other side and wandered up Walton Street just for the sheer pleasure of doing something without being watched. She called her family from public
telephones in shops and met Hester once or twice in the ladies’ powder room in Harvey Nichols. She managed to justify Torquil’s behaviour to her family, using his arguments without realizing like a well-trained parrot.
Then Sam rang her up, out of the blue.
‘Hi, Fede, it’s Sam.'
‘Sam!’ she exclaimed in surprise. ‘My God, I haven’t seen you since I got married.’
‘I hear you’ve barely seen any of us since you got married,’ he replied. ‘I gather that husband of yours is hiding you away.’
‘No, not at all,’ she replied breezily. ‘I’ve just been so busy. Time has flown.’
‘Two years?’
‘Is it really that long?’ she gasped.
‘So, how are you?’ he asked.
‘Well. Very well. Actually, you’ll be impressed, I’ve been studying literature with an old Cambridge don,’ she said proudly.
‘I am impressed. What’s his name?’
‘Dr Lionel—’
‘Swanborough,’ he interjected in admiration. ‘Lucky you, he’s a very learned
man. What have you read?’
‘Oh, I’ve studied everything from Zola to Garda Marquez.’
‘In Spanish?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. I forgot my Spanish years ago.’ She laughed.
‘Shame.’
‘Isn’t it.’
‘So, he’s treating you well, is he?’ he asked, conjuring up the silky face of Torquil Jensen with distaste.
‘Enough of me, how are you?’ she asked.
‘Hating the City. In fact, I’m going home.’
‘Home?’ she asked in surprise.
‘Back to Polperro.’
‘To do what?’
‘To write.’
‘How lovely,’ she said, suffering a silent pang of nostalgia as she envisaged those windy cliffs and choppy sea. She hadn’t been back since the previous Christmas.
‘Yes, Nuno’s delighted, he says I can use his study to write in.’
‘That’s an honour.' She sighed, recalling Pickthistle Manor and the golden days she had spent there. Sam detected the wistful tone in her voice and longed to know how she really was.
‘Oh yes it is. He never lets anyone into that room.’
‘How is old Nuno?’
‘Old.’
‘That’s sad. He’s a one-off’
‘He certainly is,’ he chuckled. ‘God broke the mould when he’d made Nuno.’ ‘Tell me, why didn’t you ever call him Grandpa?’ she asked curiously.
‘Nonno is grandpa in Italian, Nuno just stuck.’
‘I’ve always wondered about that.’
‘Well, now you know.’
‘I don’t see so much of your sisters.’
‘I know, so they tell me.’
‘Things are hectic.’ Sh
e sighed, glancing around her tidy sitting room and feeling lonelier than ever.
‘I’m ringing up to see if you can make lunch. I’d like to see you before I disappear into the depths of Nuno’s study.’
‘Oh, I’d love to,’ she enthused. ‘I really would. Can you make it this week?’ ‘What about tomorrow?’
‘Tomorrow’s great.’
‘I’ll pick you up at your house,’ he said. ‘Remind me of your address?’
When Sam saw Federica waiting for him on the doorstep he immediately noticed the change in her. She was wearing an elegant summer suit in blue with a short skirt and high heels, revealing a larger body and heavier bust. Her hair, scraped back into a ponytail, betrayed a rounder face cloaked in makeup. To anyone else she would have looked sensual and glamorous, but to Sam she looked like a sad clown smiling bleakly through a thick layer of paint. He felt his heart stagger as she walked towards him. He wanted to wrap her in his arms and take her home to where she belonged. But she kissed him warmly, commented on how wonderful it was to see him again and climbed into the waiting cab.
It wasn’t until coffee was served that he gently tried to break through her facade. ‘You look so different, Fede, I hardly recognized you standing outside your house,’ he said, gazing into her blue eyes that failed to disguise her
melancholy.
‘You haven’t changed,’ she replied, once again diverting the conversation away from herself. ‘You’re still wearing holey shirts and worn-out trousers. Torquil should take you shopping!’ She laughed and dropped two sugar lumps into her cup of coffee.
But Sam didn’t laugh. ‘I’m afraid I have better things to do than worry about the state of my clothes,’ he said, allowing the bitterness he felt towards her husband to seep into his words. He checked himself, aware that if he angered her he would lose her trust. ‘I’m thrilled you decided to do a literature course,’ he said. ‘I hope you’re also continuing your photography, you always had a passion for that.’
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