She hears Brenda’s tone change again as Brenda falls into the sympathy trap set for her. The woman’s tone suddenly has a steel about it that Susan has not heard before.
“You know, for the first time in our marriage, Dave is the one who is vulnerable, vulnerable to how I will react. I rather like the feeling. He needs to stay with me – the church wants it that way. He needs me to agree to that.”
Susan can see that Dave may only have been home for just a few days but in that time the nature of his relationship with Brenda has changed. Later, it might dawn even on Brenda that for the first time she holds some power. Then Brenda confides something else. Dave had sex with her, without asking her, on the night before his confession to her. He did it, wordless, and then lay quiet in darkness. It did not occur to her to resist.
Susan uses this information to say that Dave must still be in a very labile state. Brenda will need to be more assertive about what her conditions are for living with him as well as being tolerant of his confusion. What can she do to support Brenda, she enquires, her voice full of concern?
Brenda says that Susan has already done the one thing that mattered. She helped her to get Dave’s confession into perspective. She has the energy to go on from here. And she is very grateful to Susan.
Later that evening, Susan lets herself fold back into the relationship with her now bronzed Bill, listening as he tells her about his solitary trip and about how he missed her. Will she please consent to marrying him? They have waited long enough.
She accepts, almost to her surprise, and with no doubt as to her motives in her mind. But she sets down one condition. He will be fully open with her from now on. He is not to go off and do things like engaging private detectives or anything else that affects them both, for that matter, without them being both in full accord. He agrees. She drifts off to sleep much later with a sense of security that she has not had since her father and mother were alive. In their absence, she wants Linda to be the first to know about her wedding to come. Her only niggle is about that shortened TV contract.
CHAPTER 22
Just four days after her encounter with Ken, Linda left Llanes and flew to London, saying to him that she needed time to think. She explained to Angela and Kenny that something had come up at work and that she needed to be in London for a day or two. She did not ring Jane. Instead, she booked into a hotel room just off Oxford Street and spent two days wandering the city, lost in her own thoughts. She spoke to no one, ate in a small restaurant near the hotel and decided on her future. Only when she had sorted out her thoughts and emotions did she get on a flight back to the city.
Now she is met when she rings the outer doorbell by the voice of Jane, anxiety and relief in her young lover’s voice both at once. Jane is already in the corridor when Linda comes out of the lift and in Linda’s arms without any thought for outward appearances.
“Where have you been? I’ve been frantic. You didn’t ring and then I eventually called Llanes. Ken answered but he hung up.”
Linda holds her, arms around her and easing her into the flat. They stand behind the closing door, kisses blocking out their words.
“He knows.”
That is all she needs to say and it is obvious from Jane’s nod of the head that she suspected as much. She sits with Jane on one of the sofas, the collage above them, as she tells her lover about the ultimatum that Ken delivered and his threat to take the children. She tells Jane how he wanted the affair, as he described it, to end and Jane to be removed from the University.
Jane listens, silent and shocked.
“Jane, I can’t risk the children. There’s no question of you losing your job. That’s not even in my power. Even if it were, I wouldn’t do anything like that. But I can’t ruin the children’s lives.”
Linda watches Jane’s expression of grief overwhelm her. But she pushes on with what she is determined to say, what she feels is her only real option.
“I hate Ken now and I don’t think that will change. But I only have one way out of
this and that is to finish it between you and me, at least for now. We’ll see each other at work – that is, if you agree to stay around. Jane, I ask too much of you and I have no right to expect you to agree. But would you stay around? And wait for me? This is years we are talking about and I know it. But one day the children will be grown and will leave home. But nothing and no-one has mattered to me like this.”
“Except the children.” Jane hears and obviously regrets her own bitterness.
“It’s different, Darling. I have a duty to those two. They will grow up and leave.
What I feel for you will continue.”
They cry – Jane especially. Linda has had more time to deal with the shock of Ken’s ultimatum and is more resolved in her decision. She can only see Ken’s behaviour as vicious and not yet as the act of a hurt man, desperately trying to protect his family and himself. In coming back to the city via London and ahead of Ken and the children, Linda has taken time to make her decision on her own.
This is how they spend what is now their last evening together, weeping and recounting their relationship to each other in order to cement it in a shared memory and to create the only blanket of comfort they will have in the weeks and months ahead. Jane has no option; she knows that Linda is beyond persuasion.
At first, she says she will think about what Linda is asking of her but she lies in
the dark, Linda in her arms, and she takes her decision. In reality, she sighs, she chose as soon as Linda told her the situation. She holds her naked partner and tells her she will wait. She will be lonely and she will grieve. She will watch Linda from afar at the University. She will decline any social engagements that could bring them together and she will watch, as Linda’s two young teenagers became young adults.
And if they make it, Linda and she, it will be worth the wait. If time and events are such that they do not make it, Jane will have the peace of mind of knowing that she tried for the best. Nothing else will do in these circumstances.
Lecturer and professor, they will return to work the following month, joined by their love, separated by Linda’s circumstances.
Lying with Linda in the dark, she whispers that she knows that she should perhaps move on to a new job in a different university, perhaps in a different European country. But she decides on this, their last night, that this is the relationship that will be the most significant of her life. She will give herself another few academic years, see the next summer excavation through and the research written up and then decide how she feels then. Provided she can bear the pain of separation, she will wait. Meanwhile, Jacky and Nicola will help her to live some sort of social existence.
The sad thing is, she reflects to Linda, that when you are attracted to someone like this you cannot want to not feel like this – no matter how unattainable the person is. It is, she said, a true contradiction in terms.
They make love in the quiet of the dawn, their shapes silhouetted in the early light. Neither has much sleep and they doze for just a few hours after that, waking simultaneously to the knowledge that they now have to separate. Linda’s only comfort as she stands for the final time in the arms of her true partner is that she will at least see her in the University. There is nothing that Ken can do about that. Her last words as the door of the elevator closes are “Wait for me, Jane”. The last sight she has is Jane’s nod of assent.
Linda drives back to the house, tears making the journey unsafe but she composes herself as best she can before she enters the family drive. The children are due back today with Ken and she wants to have a brave face for them; a stolid face for him. Tina is at the house when she arrives; just back from her own holiday in France and seeing right away that all is not well with Linda. But Linda makes it clear without saying anything that she should not ask and Tina respects that. Instead, they busy themselves with preparations for the days ahead, bringing the rooms up to temperature, making shopping lists and deciding what needs to
be done by whom for the children’s return to school.
They hear the front door open somewhere towards three o’clock. And the children are there, Angela running to find them both with a huge hug for her mother and a grin and a hug for Tina. It is clear from Angela and Kenny’s demeanours that they are oblivious to the problem between their parents. Amid the bustle there is only time for Linda to simply acknowledge Ken. He heads off to their bedroom and she helps Angela unpack, and listens to her account of the flights home. Enjoying the buzz in the house and seeing Kenny make straight for his computer, she knows her decision to stay with the children is the right one. She finally goes to find Ken. He is piling dirty washing into the hamper in the dressing room.
“Well? Have you decided what you are going to do?” he growls as he straightens to look at her.
“I stay with my children, Ken. And we make the best of it that we can. But I warn you – I will not tolerate you doing anything to harm Jane. She will be continuing at the University. I shall see her in the context of work – but that is all.”
Ken looks at her, about to say something but checking himself. Instead, he turns and walks out of the room. A war of silence is about to start – Linda can see that. This is not new. It is something that has happened about smaller issues over the years. If the pattern follows true to form, it will be a week or so till the atmosphere thaws. How much the children pick up on these occasions she never knows, as husband and wife both keep up a front for their sakes.
Sure enough, by the next morning the marital bed has been an icy place but everything looks normal to all outward appearances. Linda is low and she needs to see Susan. Well, she needs to see Jane but she knows that if she does not now resist the temptation to just get in the car and go round, she will never make the break. And that could cost her the children. So she rings Susan instead.
Susan is surprised to hear that she is at home, thinking that Linda was not due back from Spain for several days yet. Linda tells her that things have changed and that she needs to see her. They agree on the One-to-One, a fashionable new restaurant that has just been written up in the weekend broadsheet. Neither of them has visited it before.
Linda barely listens as Susan talks animatedly about how she is getting back into the swing of preparations for the new series. The first studio debate will be fierce, Susan says. But she has more personal news for Linda but she will keep it till they meet for dinner.
Linda spends the day seeing to the purchase of new school gear for Angela and Kenny, both of who trail behind her with such disinterest that she is almost exasperated. She knows, though, that what she really is suffering is the frustration of not being with Jane. She finds herself scanning the shoppers for a sighting of her, knowing full well that Jane loathes the crowds and is probably miles away.
The One-to-One proves to be a small restaurant on a steep side street near the station. A taxi rank stands at the top of the road and the road itself is narrow and dimly lit. The cobbles make Linda’s decent from her taxi and into the restaurant rather slippery. Linda looks at the smart exterior, thinking that for all the style of the eating-house itself, she would not like to walk this street in the dark on her own. The taxi drops her near to the door and she makes her way into the dimly lit, wooden floored room where only a couple of tables are already taken.
She is there by seven thirty and it is just a couple of minutes later that Susan enters. She is smiling and obviously not the worried Susan of just a few weeks ago. Linda wonders how she will find the energy to be with her friend. Then she puts the thought aside, recognising that she is being more than selfish.
“Linda. Hello. What on earth is the matter?” Susan hugs her friend, seeing at once that all is not well. She waits for them both to sit down. Linda sits to her left, takes some wine that is brought for them and struggles for composure. There is a quiver in her voice as she speaks.
Slowly, painfully, she tells Susan about her time in Spain with Jane, about Ken’s ultimatum to her and her decision to stop seeing Jane in order to protect the children. Susan listens quietly and sympathetically, the hurt for her friend showing on her face. But she is obviously not surprised at the turn of events.
She asks one question.
“Can you stick to this decision? I know what Jane means to you.”
“I don’t have a choice, Susan. I can’t risk losing the children. And I can’t risk destroying their childhoods.”
“Seems to me you are being blackmailed by that husband of yours. How do you settle back into your marriage after this?”
Linda hears the word blackmail for the second time. This is what Jane said.
“I have no idea. It’s all very new and raw just now. I can hardly bear Ken at the moment. There’s a silent war going on between us. We only speak to keep up appearances with the children. I don’t take kindly to being manipulated, especially if I have to give in.”
“Linda, the main thing seems to be that you are assuming you would lose the children. Have you thought about seeking legal advice about a divorce and custody of the children? You are also assuming that they could not cope with you and Jane as a couple. Children are resilient these days and from all accounts, adjust very quickly to same-sex relationships. There seem to be plenty of examples of it.”
Linda listens, thinking about these points as if for the first time. Susan has dealt with these issues before in the TV studio, she recalls, and is well versed in principal, at least, about these sorts of issues. But for now at least, Linda is not ready to contemplate changes that would mean taking the risk that she might lose the children. She spends a while talking about Jane, about her feelings of loss and about how it will be to have her still working at the department. She tells Susan that she and Jane want to be together when the children are grown. Susan thinks such long term planning is dubious and says so. She does not see how any couple can sustain a wait of such a lengthy period. She risks teasing her friend.
“I bet you two see each other secretly. You’ll be tucked up in bed again in a month – you’ll see.”
Linda shakes her head. She couldn’t risk it. That would be a sure way to provoke Ken into action if he ever found out.
“Need he find out?” asks Susan, pragmatic as usual.
Linda sits silent, clearly contemplating a dim future. They eat and talk more but Linda is not ready to change her decision about Jane – it is after all, only a few days old. She says something to that effect.
“I suppose it’s like the first few days of any decision, like going on a diet for example. You are enthusiastic about eating nothing for a while and then you get hungry.” Linda smiles for the first time at this analogy. She laughs and said she will see how the diet goes.
The conversation turns to Susan and her decision to marry Bill. Linda thinks it is an on-balance good decision. She is genuinely pleased for Susan in a quiet way. She has no energy tonight for effusive delight. And she is quieter still when Susan tells her just about everything that happened since they were together. She tells her about Alberto Paccini and her one night stand with him, omitting only the sexual detail of her encounter with Alberto.
All she can do is be as pragmatic in her turn about Alberto as Susan is towards her relationship with Jane. Susan reveals that Alberto has found out where she works because of a TV preview being put out on the air for the new series. He sent her an E-Mail asking to see her again. Susan is not going to do that, though, now that Bill is back in the city. Alberto was angry when Susan left the hotel and she does not want another man in a rage chasing her.
Linda reinforces Susan’s decision not to see Alberto, saying that her friend needs to draw a line under her anonymous sexual encounters if her marriage is to work. That is, of course, if she can draw the line. This gets a doubtful expression from Susan.
“Well at least Alberto sounds a lot safer bet than Ramsey,” Linda observes, as if taking the line of least resistance. But she also has to confess that she cannot imagine having a sexual encounter a
nd then immediately agreeing to marry someone else.
Susan needs to explain to her. Slowly, clearly feeling her own humiliation, she now tries to tell Linda about the kind of person she is. Eventually, she describes the kind of sexual drive that overtakes her and leads her to anonymous encounters. Linda just listens as Susan describes her power lust in these encounters. Curiously, she finds she has no sense of being judgmental.
“This really troubles you, Susan, doesn’t it?” That is all Linda says but it brings Susan near to tears as she faces the pain inside her in front of her sympathetic listener.
“Yes,” is all she manages in reply then, as Linda still sits silent, she says, “I don’t see how I can ever make a good and lasting relationship. I’m at the stage of thinking that this is how my life is going to be.”
“It doesn’t have to be, you know. And marrying Bill is probably the single most sensible thing that you can do. This part of you is probably something quite simple from your past. It has made you feel – whatever it is. Perhaps it is a need to dominate and humiliate. It’s not extreme, you know. Plenty of people have sexual fantasies like your actual experiences. Usually, they just keep them to themselves or act them out behind the marital bedroom door. All that’s different is that you do it with strangers. And that in turn may simply be because you have opportunities that most women don’t. Most women are confined to jobs nine o’clock to five, and confined with children to see to, five o’clock to nine. Remember the old adage about goodness being lack of opportunity. All I’m concerned about is the danger element. Or maybe,” she adds, a new thought occurring to her, “You need the element of danger?”
Susan looks at her as if this is also a new idea to her.
“I rather suspect that your marriage to Bill will change you. And that you will settle down. There is enough between you for real love to grow over time. I’ve seen you together, so I don’t say this idly.”
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