‘Marcus, how awful! I …don’t remember. I mean – if you say I did, I know you wouldn’t lie, but the thing is, I took three of your sleeping pills that morning by mistake. Then I had a gin and tonic –’
‘At lunchtime?’ he said incredulously. ‘You’ve never had more than a spritzer with me, but out with the boss – oh hell, let’s make it a double!’
‘I – thought it would perk me up.’
‘Oh, it did.’ He paced angrily up and down in front of the window like a prowling animal, hands thrust in his pockets. ‘Perked you up a treat!’
‘Marcus.’ I twisted my hands in my lap, knowing I had to get this right. Knowing this was crucial. ‘I’m so sorry. Really sorry. But I was quite clearly under the influence of drugs, and then the alcohol on top which I’m not used to – well, I know it’s no excuse, but I wasn’t compos mentis. Wasn’t in my right mind.’
He didn’t say anything. Continued his pacing.
‘And – and it was only a kiss, for God’s sake! It wouldn’t have been anything more.’
‘Oh, so that’s all right then, is it?’ He swung around, furious. ‘A kiss?’
‘No, no of course it’s not all right, but –’
‘D’you know, Henny, that many whores stipulate to clients, “anything you like, but no kissing”. Sex is fine, it’s a basic animal instinct. A human need. But kissing – uh huh. Too intimate. Even for prostitutes. I think I know what they mean.’
I hung my head. Then raised it suddenly. ‘So what you’re saying is, you wouldn’t have minded if I’d done it with him, so long as I didn’t kiss him?’
‘I’m saying,’ he hissed through clenched teeth, ‘that it’s a very intimate thing to do, in your flat, after a boozy lunch, with a man you’ve been working with for two days! And what would have happened if I hadn’t arrived, hm? Talk me through that little scenario – or – or if I’d timed my arrival for twenty minutes later? Would that still have been kissing interruptus, or coitus interruptus?’
‘Of course it wouldn’t have been coitus interruptus. Of course not. You know me, Marcus, I –’
‘I do not know you, Henny,’ he said in a strange, strangled voice I didn’t recognize. ‘I thought I did, but let me tell you, it was a very rude awakening to walk into my flat and find my wife clearly having more pleasure with another man than she’s had in a long time with me.’
‘Oh, so that’s what’s really bugging you, isn’t it, Marcus?’ I got up off the bed. ‘That’s your real agenda here, isn’t it? Not the fact that I had a drunken kiss with some man, which I admit,’ I held up my hands to staunch his flow of invective, ‘was a terrible thing to do, a dreadful, shameful thing, and I’d be livid if the tables were turned and I’d caught you at it, but what’s really bugging you is that I might have been enjoying it!’
He took a step towards me. His face was deathly white. ‘You’re my wife, Henny. Of course it bloody bugs me!’
I swallowed. Hung my head again, ashamed. Of course. Of course. I had no moral high ground here whatsoever. Whatever had made me think I had? Whatever had made me come storming in, in high dudgeon, telling him to grow up and be reasonable? I should be on my knees. I’d ruined everything. Everything. We’d been faithful to each other for fifteen years, I knew we had. Knew he had, with a certainty I’d stake my life on, and which would doubtless make other people smile. ‘How can you be so sure?’ they’d say. ‘An attractive, successful man like Marcus? A handy flat in London?’ But I was sure. Knew in my bones he’d never strayed. No, it was me who’d blown it. My first job in fifteen years. My first foray into London life, first taste of another world, one that didn’t involve cooking and dog-walking and school runs – and I’d blown it. I’d tasted heaven and gulped it. I gazed at my hands in my lap.
‘I’m sorry, Marcus. I’m truly, truly sorry.’
At length I lifted my head. His back was to me, and he was staring out of the window. The bedroom overlooked the market square, dimly lit now with old-fashioned street-lamps, their posts hung with hanging baskets, the efforts of some town councillor, no doubt, to evoke some country charm. Rain began to fall steadily in the empty street, spattering on the windowpanes.
‘You asked me, the other day, why I didn’t use the flat more,’ he said quietly, his back still to me, stiff and broad. ‘Why I didn’t, after a late meeting, for instance, stay there more often. I smiled to myself when you said that. Thought, My darling Henny. So sweet. So naive. She doesn’t even know what the slippery slope looks like. Has no idea she could be pushing me down it. Has no idea of the sexual pressure I’m under.’
I looked up. ‘What?’
‘You don’t, do you? Have any idea?’
I stared, uncomprehending.
‘Henny, I run a successful film production company. I used to run a successful creative department in an advertizing agency. I have always been the boss. I have always had a young team, because that is the nature of my business. And unless you’re at the top of the tree, forget it, it’s a young man’s game or, more pertinent to this conversation, a young girl’s game.’ He turned. ‘Henny, I am surrounded by beautiful young women. Girls who would gladly sleep their way to the top. Would happily sleep with the boss.’
I blanched, taken aback. Then I laughed nervously. ‘Well, Marcus, you say that, but I’ve seen the girls in your office. Susie, Pippa – they’re twenty years younger than you. I mean, you’re nearly forty-two and I hardly think – oh!’
I jumped as he slammed the flat of his hand down hard on the desk beside him. His eyes were narrow and flinty.
‘I say it because it’s true. You have no idea of the sexual tension in offices, no idea what pressure some men are under!’
I gaped at him, astonished. ‘Men? Oh come on,’ I scoffed. ‘Do me a favour. It’s the men who always do the harassing. The bottom-pinching in lifts, the –’
‘NO!’ His hand came down again. ‘Not true! It’s the other way around, Henny. I spend my day surrounded by leggy blondes in mini-skirts offering me coffee, breezing through my office, desperate to become a production assistant or a producer if they’re already an assistant, pandering to my every whim. “Would you like to look at my portfolio, Marcus? Can I show you my show-reel, Marcus? Can I please sit on your face, Marcus?” I’m up to HERE in fanny!’ he roared.
I blinked. Shifted nervously on the bed. ‘Well. Not literally, I hope.’
‘No, not literally, because I turn it down. And you’ve no idea how gorgeous these girls are, Henny, with their flowing locks and their gleaming mouths, and their pert little bosoms, flicking their long hair over their shoulders and tugging down their tiny skirts – God, I can practically see their pants as they put the latte and Danish pastry in front of me! And I turn it down time after time. Not on a daily basis, I grant you, but often enough to think – bloody hell!’
‘Oh, so that’s what’s pissing you off,’ I flared. ‘All those missed opportunities.’ Stupid. A stupid mistake. But I hadn’t been able to resist it. I’d felt cornered, small and had lashed out childishly.
He advanced towards me. ‘No. What’s pissing me off is that I resisted because of you. Because I love you. Because I thought that fifteen years of marriage and two lovely children were worth more than a quick roll in the sack, and that actually, I’d rather roll in the sack with you. I didn’t want the aggro of an office affair and all the lies that go with it. Oh, I’m quite sure it would have turned me on, I’m as red-blooded as the next man, but the deceit and the duplicity wouldn’t. Tell me, what were you planning on saying when you came home tonight, Henny? Me – “Good day at the office, darling?” You – “Yes, but all that typing. My poor little fingers are worn to the –” bullshit!’ He broke off furiously. His eyes were hard and black, like two pieces of coal. ‘All my working life,’ he breathed. ‘All my working life, Henny, I’ve been in the sweetie shop. And you go in for two seconds, and your hand’s in one of the jars.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Just like that.’
&nbs
p; His eyes glittered at me across the room. In the silence, the rain tapped a tattoo on the window behind him.
‘And I notice it was our flat you repaired to, incidentally, not his,’ he breathed bitterly. ‘You didn’t even wait to be propositioned. You turned into one of those predatory, manipulative women overnight. It was your hand tugging his neck down, your mouth finding his, your hands in his hair …’ He broke off, in difficulties now. Tears of rage and emotion swam in his eyes as he swallowed.
‘You disgust me, Henny,’ he quavered. ‘I thought I could rely on you. Trust you. I encouraged you to take that job. I knew you were working for an attractive man but it never, ever occurred to me that you might be planning on getting into his trousers.’
‘I wasn’t,’ I whispered, appalled. ‘That’s the God’s honest truth, Marcus.’ I struggled, suddenly, with what was the truth. ‘I – I mean yes,’ I faltered. ‘I was relieved to find I wasn’t working for a stuffy old professor, just as I’m sure you prefer your Danish delivered by a pouting blonde and not a wizened old crow in carpet slippers, and if I’m honest, a little light flirtation was on my mind, since the only man I talk to all day is the postman and his repartee isn’t up to much, and don’t tell me you don’t laugh and share a joke with Susie and Pippa and notice their pretty eyes and lovely legs even if you don’t touch?’
‘But that’s the difference. You did touch.’
‘I – I know.’ I swallowed. ‘I did. And I’m sorry.’
There was a silence. Marcus turned around and contemplated the wet street again. A lorry rumbled past laden with rattling beer barrels, drove around the square, and then on into the distance. After a moment, he reached for his whisky glass on the desk beside him. He drained it in one quick movement, his head jerking back sharply. His voice, when it came, was thick and low.
‘Go on,’ he said addressing his empty glass. ‘Get out. Leave me now.’
I stared at his broad back, at the resolute set of his shoulders, at his familiar, usually comforting solidity. I opened my mouth. Shut it again. After a moment, I shakily picked up my keys from the bedspread beside me, and got to my feet. I took one last look at him, framed there in the dark window, and then I left the room.
Chapter Ten
I didn’t go down the hotel stairs in quite the same forthright way as I’d come up them. In fact, I was shaking. I noticed the receptionist look up from her novel as I reappeared, but I didn’t return her interested, pale-blue stare. Instead, I kept my eyes firmly down as I went out to the car. I sat in it for a moment, staring blankly at the darkness through the rain-spattered windscreen. This isn’t happening to me, I thought dumbly. Marcus and I are not one of those couples. Marcus and I do not split up. After a while, a car drew up beside me, and out got a couple of about my age. They didn’t have an umbrella, and there was a lot of squealing from the wife about her hair getting soaked. Eventually her husband threw his coat over her head and they ran into the hotel laughing, dodging the puddles. Just a normal Thursday night out in the pub. Everyone else is having a normal Thursday, I thought. No one knows what is happening to me.
I drove home and immediately went upstairs to see what he’d taken. Several workshirts had gone, a suit, his cords and a couple of jumpers, but he hadn’t cleared out his entire wardrobe, I thought with relief. But then, it was me who was going, wasn’t it, I realized with a jolt. Me who was going to the London flat. Banished. Sent to Coventry. I sat down unsteadily on the edge of the bed and reached for the phone. It was too late to ring Penny, but I rang her anyway.
‘Sorry,’ I gulped, when she came on, drowsily. ‘Were you in bed?’
‘No, just watching the news. What’s wrong?’
I burst into tears, and of course, once I’d started crying, couldn’t stop. Poor Penny had to hang on at the other end for quite a few moments listening to great shoulder-heaving sobs before I could finally control my voice. When I could, I revealed all, in little staccato sentences punctuated by broken gasps. ‘I can’t believe it, Penny, can’t believe he’s done this. Can’t believe he means it. What the hell am I going to do!’
She was silent for a while. ‘Oh God,’ she muttered eventually. ‘What a nightmare.’
‘I know!’ I wailed, wiping my sopping wet face with the back of my hand. It was shaking visibly. ‘I know, Penny, so what am I going to do?’
‘Well, nothing, for the moment,’ she said firmly. ‘He’s at boiling point and you need to let him cool down. And he will, in time.’
‘D’you think?’
‘Well eventually, but –’
‘But what?’
‘Well, he’s a proud man, Henny. I know that, and I’m not married to him. You surely know that.’
‘I do,’ I cried. ‘Of course I do, a very proud man, but – but so’s Tommy. So are most men, surely?’
‘Yes, but it’s different for Marcus.’
‘Is it?’ I said appalled. ‘Why?’
‘Well, that incredibly humble background. All that clogs and shawls bit. And his father and everything.’
‘What’s Joseph got to do with anything?’
‘Well nothing, directly,’ she said uneasily. ‘It’s just … well I adore Marcus, you know I do, but I wouldn’t want to cross him.’
‘Wouldn’t you?’ I yelped.
‘No. He has a vision. A life-plan. Has done since he was about three, I should imagine, and he’s not about to compromise. Marcus doesn’t do compromise.’
‘No,’ I agreed humbly. ‘He doesn’t.’ Then I rallied. ‘But he’s not a cruel man, Penny. Not unkind.’
‘Oh God no, quite the reverse. But he has very firm views, doesn’t he? Very strong principles. And he’s principled, I think, because he knows the alternative.’
‘Well yes, he knows poverty, knows hardship. But what’s that got to do with it?’
‘So he knows the value of things. Knows how hard it is to build something up, how long it takes, how many years, and how quickly it can be knocked down.’
‘Like a business,’ I said. ‘Or a marriage.’
‘Exactly.’
We were quiet for a moment.
‘But I still think he’s being utterly ridiculous,’ she said staunchly.
‘You do?’
‘Oh God, yes! Christ – I spoke to you in that restaurant, Henny, I know how out of it you were, and I shall tell him so.’
‘Will you?’ I said eagerly. ‘Oh, thank you, Pen. He’ll listen to you, he respects you!’
It was true, he did. Marcus had always liked Penny. He admired the way she’d waited quietly in the wings for Tommy, hadn’t gone for second-best, and then, on realizing she hadn’t picked the brightest pixie in the forest, had squared her shoulders and got on with making a decent living for the pair of them.
‘And I’ll talk to Laurie too. Find out what really happened. Ask him if he assaulted you,’ she said grimly.
‘Oh no! Oh please don’t, Penn,’ I gasped, horrified. ‘I’m quite sure he didn’t. I’m quite sure it was all my fault,’ I said miserably. ‘And – and what am I going to do about him? I can’t go back, can I?’
‘Why not?’ she said warmly. ‘You can’t just not go back, either.’
‘But surely Marcus would completely disown me if I carried on working there? File divorce proceedings immediately!’
‘But on the other hand, if you don’t go back, you look so guilty. As if there really is something going on between you and Laurie. If you ring Marcus and say, “It’s all right, darling, I’ve resigned,” he’ll say, “Ah ha! Guilty conscience!” ’
‘And if I carry on working, he’ll say “brazen hussy”,’ I said miserably.
‘Oh I agree,’ she said cheerfully. ‘You can’t win. It’s what’s known as a cleft stick. You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t, but on balance, I’d at least go in tomorrow. Just to find out what happened.’
I slid my bottom off the edge of the bed and crouched, cowering on the carpet. ‘And face him as well?�
�� I whispered, appalled. ‘Laurie?’
‘Well, I think some sort of explanation is in order, don’t you? Otherwise he’ll go to his grave wondering what the hell he employed for two days.’
‘That’s where I’d like to go,’ I said darkly. ‘My grave.’
She laughed. ‘Cheer up. In a few weeks’ time Marcus will have forgiven you and we’ll all be laughing like drains at this little episode. Seeing the funny side.’
‘I doubt it,’ I said gloomily, but nevertheless, I put the phone down feeling slightly encouraged. Unless she was a very good actress, Penny clearly thought it was a storm in a teacup and that all would be well if I played along with Marcus for a while. Well, I can do that, I thought as I peeled off my clothes and climbed wretchedly into bed, pulling the covers over me. I can play along, just so long as I know it’s only a game, and that the frivolity will end eventually.
The following morning, at seven o’clock, I sat downstairs having a cup of coffee, my suitcase by my side. I felt like a stranger in my own home. Here I was in my dark city suit, my toes squeezed into hideously uncomfortable high heels, no husband crashing around looking for a clean shirt, no Radio Four blaring, no James Naughtie informing us about Iraqi weapons programmes, no arguments about whose turn it was to feed the ducks or take Dilly for a walk – no husband. My eyes filled with tears. I could, of course, turn Terry Wogan on out of spite, but since Marcus wasn’t here to witness it, it would be a hollow victory.
Taking a quick gulp of coffee, I looked longingly at an invitation on the dresser. It was for a charity lunch at Belinda’s house today, in her beautiful timbered barn. A Save the Children thing, which Laura and Camilla would no doubt be going to, as I normally would too. Camilla would pick us up in her filthy old Discovery, full of saddles and dog hair – Laura and I shrieking at the state of it – and we’d charge off down cowpat-encrusted lanes (the scenic route, Camilla would insist, showing off that she grew up here) to rock up at Belinda’s, late as usual. Into the barn we’d creep, where about a hundred women would be sitting at round tables in hushed silence, the guest speaker already in full flow. We’d slide in amongst them, grimacing as one or two raised their eyebrows and tapped their watches in mock horror. It was that rather quirky vicar’s wife speaking today, I remembered, the one I’d heard at the NSPCC thing, who gave an amusing talk on the history of underwear, holding up huge Edwardian bloomers and ending up with a teeny tiny thong. Everyone would get frightfully giggly as we knocked back the white wine, and then afterwards, we’d sit around having a gossip, before glancing at watches and shrieking that we had to fly – to schools, to appointments – getting in cars with flushed cheeks and calling out a cheery toodle-oo! Camilla would drop us back and then, realizing I hadn’t got a thing for supper, I’d dash to Waitrose – and bang into Laura again at the meat counter. We’d roar with laughter, and agree that it was always bloody pork chops in a crisis, and what did one do with them? Oh really? In a Gruyère sauce? Wasn’t that a bit of a faff? Oh, just grate it on top …and then finish it off under the grill …marvellous. Oh, and don’t forget tennis tomorrow – or ‘Pat and Shriek’ as we called it. Just one set, we’d agree, nothing too strenuous. See you!
Not That Kind of Girl Page 14