by Jane Asher
Oh, don’t be ridiculous! she shouted silently at herself. Have you seen the woman, for God’s sake? She cooks frozen dinners and fried sausages. She wears curlers and flowery pinnies. She sleeps in a long nylon nightdress. I hope. Oh God, let her sleep in a long nylon nightdress; let the days when he touched her be over.
She tipped the remainder of the gin and tonic down her throat, moved to the stove and lit the gas under a pan of sprouts. She stood there a moment, then felt suddenly, desperately in need of another gin. But the gin was in the drawing room. For her to help herself to a second gin would be so extraordinary as to risk setting alarm bells ringing in John’s so far happily innocent head. And there was no way she could be certain of getting in there and pouring one without his noticing; it was far too risky to rely on his apparently dedicated interest in the day’s news lasting long enough to act as cover. She would just have to do without.
But she couldn’t. She watched the bubbles begin to appear round the edges of the saucepan and thought about the fridge, mentally scanning its contents for signs of alcohol. The red wine waiting on the table would have to be left untouched; it was part of the regular Friday-night ritual that John opened the wine as Eleanor brought the food to the table; to open it early and take a glassful from it would be asking for trouble. But the fridge trawl was worth pursuing: she had a feeling there was some sort of bottle at the back of the middle shelf that had been in there for some time.
She opened the fridge and quickly found it. It was a Sauternes. A bottle of Sauternes that a friend had brought over last year just before Christmas for them to drink with the Christmas pudding. But they never had, and it had sat in the fridge ever since. Perfect. John would never miss it, and she could have a good glassful while the sprouts cooked and she made the gravy. She had a small moment of panic while trying to find the corkscrew, worried that it might be sitting on the drinks’ table in the drawing room, but then found it in the cutlery drawer and quickly opened the bottle. It made an uncomfortably loud plop as the cork came out, but after a second’s breathless pause to wait for quizzical remarks from next door, she relaxed and poured a large glass of the cool, golden liquid. It was heavy and sweet, and Eleanor could feel the makings of a headache arranging themselves in the back of her neck as she took a large swig, but she simply muttered a ‘What the hell!’ to herself and took another one.
By the time the sprouts were cooked the glass was finished. The warmth and slight dizziness that was making its way in waves up from her belly into her head was relaxing her, and she calmly poured out another large glass as she let the water bubble on, and took generous gulps from it as she half-heartedly took the chicken out of the oven. She watched the steam rising from it in fascination as she poured a third glass, then speared the chicken with two forks and transferred it a little clumsily to a serving dish. The bird wobbled and slithered and threatened to slide off the edge of the plate, but she prodded it back as she giggled a little and began at last to make the gravy.
Oh hell! she said to herself. I forgot to pour off the fat. Never mind. Bugger it. She giggled again at her own language, and stirred the flour into the fatty juices, marvelling again as she admired the beauty of the globules of shiny grease as they floated among the lumps of half-mixed flour.
‘Ready darling!’ she called out in what she hoped was a suitably normal and wifely sort of voice. Trilled, she thought. That’s what I did. That’s what the perfect wife does from the kitchen when the meal’s ready. She trills out to her husband. Perhaps even a ‘Coo-ee, darling! Supper’s on the table. Come and get it, honey!’ No, no, she frowned, I’m getting confused. That’s America. Honey is America. That’s Mary Tyler Moore in The Dick Van – Dick Van … Thingummy Show. Dick Van Dyke. Dick Van Dyke. That’s good, she went on, giggling again at her own silliness. Dick and Dyke in one name. I must remember to use that at a dinner party. Why hasn’t anyone spotted that before? That’s brilliant. Really funny and – and modern. A good modern joke. I think that’d go down really well. Surprise them. That Eleanor’s got a marvellous sense of humour, you know. So up to date. All Dick jokes are good. Very funny. And Dick is good. Of course dick is good, it’s lovely. Particularly when it belongs to someone else. I must ring Barbara and chat to her about it. Must ask her if she’s happy with his dick or if she’d like it changed in some way. Does she get enough of it? Should I make him rest more at weekends so he’s got a bit more energy in the week? Well, how’s a girl to know these things if she doesn’t ask? It’s very important that we girls get together and talk about these things. Very important. A dick’s a dick for a’ that. What do you mean, you batty woman? Barbara, we need to talk about John’s dick …
‘What are you smiling at?’
John had paused in the doorway and was watching her, the folded newspaper clutched in one hand and his glasses in the other. ‘Is it ready or not? I thought I heard you call?’
‘Yes, yes, dear, it’s ready,’ smiled Eleanor, humming a little as she drained the sprouts into a colander over the sink. ‘Whoops!’ she laughed as several of them bounced and jumped over the edge and fell on the floor. ‘Never mind. S’prising sprouts! An uprising of sprouts! Do you want to open the wine? It’s all ready. And start carving. Please, dear.’
John put the paper and his glasses down on the hardtop and moved over to the table, where the chicken stood steaming on its serving dish.
‘Where’s the corkscrew?’ he asked.
‘Ooops, my mistake,’ giggled Eleanor as she quickly thumped the colander, full of sprouts, down into the sink and grabbed the corkscrew off the draining board.
‘Just a tick,’ she said as she turned her back and surreptitiously unwound the cork from the metal spiral, then took it over to the table and handed it to John with an enthusiastic grin.
‘That was lucky!’ she said.
‘What was?’
‘That I … that I found the corkscrew so quickly.’
John pushed the metal tip into the red foil covering the wine and turned it vigorously. Eleanor went on watching him, then suddenly laughed.
‘Corkscrew,’ she said out loud.
‘What?’
‘Sorry, just thinking what a funny word it is, that’s all. Hasn’t it ever struck you?’
John gave a sort of noncommittal grunt and Eleanor sighed as she walked back over to the stove to decant the gravy. He picked up the carving knife and fork and began to attack the chicken, then stopped and looked across at her.
‘No plates.’
‘What, John?’
‘There are no plates.’
‘Well, fiddle-de-dee, nor there are!’
He watched her as she took two plates from the cupboard beneath the dresser and carried them over to the table.
‘Cold?’ he said.
‘No, I’m fine. I’m rather hot. Unusually hot, I—’
‘No, the plates. Aren’t you going to warm them?’
‘Oh, I see. I thought you meant me.’
‘I know. No, I meant the plates.’
‘I thought you meant you thought I was cold. That’s really funny. Don’t you think? Poor plates, did you think they were cold?’
‘Eleanor, what are you on about? For heaven’ sake, do you want to heat the plates or not? Why are you being so silly tonight? What is the matter with you?’
‘No, I don’t want to heat the plates. I can’t think of anything as boring as having to heat the plates. What the hell, John, let’s go mad. Let’s eat off cold plates. Let’s be really bold and different.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake! Very well, let’s eat congealing gravy and cold food. I’m really too tired to cope with your mood tonight, Eleanor. Let’s just eat and be done with it.’
Chapter Twelve
Saturday morning brought a splitting headache and a terrifying moment of panic at the thought of what might have been given away over the soggy sprouts and fatty gravy of the night before. Eleanor sat up in bed to reach for the glass of water on the bedside table, b
ut had to stop in mid-movement to tip her head forward into her hands as sickly waves of pain hit hard behind her forehead. She belched a little, smelling the remains of greasy chicken and rotting vegetables in her stomach as the breath hit her nostrils, then kept her eyes closed within the cool safety of her palms as she picked over the slowly surfacing memories of what had taken place. She was relieved to find she could remember everything, and was soon able to reassure herself that, apart from a memory of John’s irritation increasing as the evening wore on, nothing irrevocable or dangerous had taken place during or after the meal.
She had gone up to bed first, aware, even in her unusually tipsy state, that if she didn’t force herself to leave John’s presence and shut up, she would soon say or do something she would regret. Her jokes had become wilder and more peculiar, and although John seemed relatively unfazed by her odd behaviour, she sensed that the moment when she leant suddenly over the table and asked forcefully if he would have preferred coq au vin was coming perilously close to initiating some sort of crisis.
She lifted her head from her hands and gingerly opened her eyes. Next to her the bed was empty, and she let herself flop down across it sideways, sighing as she released her weight onto the crumpled sheets and snuggling down a little under the blankets. She lifted one hand to her head, rubbing the temple in small circles very gently and carefully, as if too strong a pressure would break through the skin and leave her fingers buried deep in her skull, muddling around in the thoughts and emotions swirling inside. Her eyes were very close to the white landscape of the sheets; her nose could pick up faint traces of sweat left on their surface, and as she studied the hills and valleys created by the now departed weight of John’s body a new and peculiar thought floated into her mind.
What if she had known all along? It suddenly seemed perfectly possible that she could have retrospectively kidded herself that she had lived in ignorance of John’s double life. Whenever she had heard of people carrying on affairs for years behind their partners’ backs she had scoffed in disbelief. No one, she had always insisted, could live for more than a few months with someone without being immediately aware if the other was being unfaithful. The idea that someone could maintain two separate families and keep them so independent as to preserve one of the cheatees in a state of innocence was so implausible that she had always refused to believe it could happen. When she had read of such things she had assumed that the cheated wife – for it never seemed to be the husband – had in effect known all along, and was either protecting her own embarrassment by pretending that she hadn’t, or was managing to fool herself that she had never known. So how could she know if she herself was burying the prior knowledge of John’s other life? She felt suddenly filled with despair at her own lack of certainty about anything: even about her own mind.
She moved the hand from the side of her head and stroked it across the sheets, aware of her breast moving a little beneath her nightdress as she did so.
‘John,’ she whispered, letting her nipple rub against her upper arm as she continued to move her hand backwards and forwards, ‘did I know what you were up to? Am I mad? Do I not even know myself what I know?’
The full horror of the implications of this thought began to crowd in on her as she went on stroking the sheets, moving her hand faster and letting her nails scratch irritatingly over the cloth.
Perhaps we’ve discussed it all; come to an arrangement; decided we can make it work, she thought. Perhaps I’ve forgotten and blocked it out in some moment of psychological crisis. Buried it inside and covered it with illusions of a traditionally happy – or fairly happy – marriage. Oh God – now how will I confront you? ‘Well, of course, Eleanor,’ you’ll say, ‘don’t you remember, dear? We went through all that a couple of months ago. Nothing new there, old girl. Pull yourself together and think back.’
She turned her head down into the bedclothes and closed her eyes, shutting out all other sensations as she concentrated on breathing in the faint smell of male body that still clung to the sheets. She was dismayed to feel her body’s urgent desire for him rekindling itself.
‘John, I need you. I’ll forgive you. I’ll forgive all of it if you’ll love me again.’
‘Eleanor?’ The shout came as if in answer to her thoughts, and she had to stop herself calling out too eagerly in reply.
‘Yes?’
‘Cup of tea?’
She pressed her lips together tightly and winced as the shock of the innocent, familiar offer brought her in a split second near to tears. She knew she would gulp and judder if she attempted any reply, so kept silent and concentrated instead on preventing herself from crying.
‘Eleanor? Tea?’
She took a deep breath, opened her eyes and rubbed her face hard with her hand, then sat up quickly and called back at the same time, attempting to surprise her body into sounding normal before it had time to allow her true feelings to break through into her voice.
‘Yes, lovely.’
And as she said it she was suddenly aware that, quite for certain and without any possibility of doubt, she had not, ever, in any way, known anything prior to the previous week about her husband’s extraordinary secret.
This realisation gave her strength, and armed with the knowledge that she was not after all as crazy as she had begun to fear, she controlled the rest of Saturday with a calmness and apparent normality that gave her quiet satisfaction. By the time Sunday lunchtime was approaching she was beginning to congratulate herself on another terrifying milestone having been passed uneventfully, when something happened that she later kicked herself for having failed to foresee, and which threatened to bring the situation to a head far earlier than she had planned.
After lunch they strolled in the garden a little. It was cloudy, and the occasional gusts of wind that blew across the lawn carried a crisp chill that made a sharp reminder of winter to come, but every now and then the sun flickered weakly through a tiny break in the woolly greyness and touched the reddening leaves of the large oak tree with dots of shivering yellow-gold. Eleanor crossed her arms in front of her chest and hunched her shoulders, bending her head down as she walked, aware out of the corner of her eye of John’s brown-brogued feet striding perfectly in step with her a yard or so to the side.
‘The leaves are turning,’ she said, thinking how trite it sounded, and wondering if she was irritating him.
‘Mmm.’
‘Still, it’s been a marvellous summer. Really can’t complain,’ she went on, wondering if he would be leaving later that day, or early in the morning.
John didn’t answer, and they carried on walking, Eleanor trying to curb the desire to say something, anything, to fill the silence. It was not unusual for their post-Sunday-lunch walk to be taken without either of them talking at all for the entire half-hour or so, and she knew it was only because of her changed circumstances that she felt the compulsion to speak. A horrible feeling that John might be about to say something revelatory was making her very nervous, and although each time she glanced up into his face she could see no sign at all of anything unusual or strained in his expression, she surprised herself by knowing how desperately she wanted to preserve the status quo, at least for the time being. She realised now that over the years she had always felt a small stab of loneliness as John had made to leave for London at the end of every weekend, and the thought of that loneliness being suddenly multiplied a thousandfold by a departure that would be not just for four or five nights, but for ever, was chilling. Her future so far was still bounded by the regular calendar of John’s comings and goings. Her reaction to him might be totally different – her emotions for him shredded and skewed by her terrible knowledge – but there was no question that he was the central force in her life, and at any point in the wild swings of her feelings for him, from ravaging desire to burning hatred, it was impossible to imagine it without him. It was ironic that she had thought the only danger of the weekend was that she might be tempted into revealing her discove
ry: now she felt the tables turned, and dreaded that John might be considering telling all and forcing a realistic appraisal of the marriage and of the future.
The telephone rang and John looked up. She was relieved to see that, even raised fully into the light and turned towards her, he seemed as vague and bored as he normally did during their walks together. The large, strong nose was still as powerful as ever profiled against the sky, but the sagging contours of his neck beneath the line of his chin, and the patches of pink revealed on his scalp where the grey strands of hair had blown out of place made his face look soft and pulpy; almost old-womanish.
‘I’ll go,’ she said, and made to walk towards the house.
‘No, don’t worry,’ he said, putting a hand on her arm, ‘I’ll go. I’ve had enough of a stroll, anyway. Getting quite chilly. The leaves are turning, I see.’
‘Yes, I just—Oh, never mind. OK, I’ll just walk once more round the pergola and I’ll come in too. Give a shout if it’s for me, or tell them I’ll call back.’
But when, after a couple of minutes, she walked into the drawing room through the French windows, quiet on her rubber-soled shoes, she wished she had gone back earlier. The sight of John’s back, hunched over the receiver, and the sound of his quiet whispering, filled her with terror. It can’t be, she thought, it just can’t be. The bitch promised. She wouldn’t dare – surely.