by Susan Lewis
‘And I’m saying that I don’t want to be. In fact I don’t want to be there at all. I refuse to sit and watch my best friend make a fool of himself. The whole thing’s a sham, Alexander, as you well know.’
‘A sham! Good God, man – ’
But Henry interrupted me. ‘Look, it’s been ever since Old Anger came to visit. She got under your skin, didn’t she, about Elizabeth? OK, OK, it’s all over, I’ve heard you say it a thousand times. I believe you, all right? You don’t have to marry Jessica to prove it.’
That took the wind clean out of my sails.
‘You see, I’m right,’ he went on. ‘Practically everything you’ve done in the last four years has been because of Elizabeth. Your reputation as a stud and a heart-breaker was such a legend that the biggest feminist in Oxford came gunning for you. The only trouble was, she fell for you too. They all do, Alexander, because you’re a bastard. Because you don’t give a shit about any of them, except to make them pay for the fact that you feel you’ve been “betrayed” by one of their sex – a girl you claim you don’t even love any more. Well, if you don’t love her any more then why not stop behaving like this? Stop now, before you make one of the biggest mistakes of your life.’
‘Impossible,’ I said.
‘It’s not!’
‘I mean, it’s impossible for it to be the biggest mistake of my life. I’ve already made the biggest.’
‘When you were no more than a kid. And you’re still behaving like one.’
‘I’ve already asked her,’ I said.
‘Tell her you’ve changed your mind.’
‘Why should I do that? I haven’t.’
He gave an exasperated sigh. ‘Oh, to hell with it. If you want to ruin your life, then go ahead and do it. I can see that nothing I’ve got to say is going to stop you.’
We sat through a long silence before either of us spoke again. Finally I caught his eye and grinned. Reluctantly, he grinned too. ‘Have you fixed the date?’ he asked.
‘June 19th.’
‘Why does it have to be so soon?’
‘Why not?’
He shrugged. ‘And if Elizabeth were to walk through that door now, what then?’
I jumped up from my chair. ‘For God’s sake, Henry!’ Then I gave a half-hearted grin. ‘If she did, I could invite her to the wedding.’
He laughed. ‘You really are a bastard.’
‘It’s why Jessica’s marrying me, or so you would have me believe.’
‘I can think of no other reason. Apart from the title, I suppose.’
It was my turn to laugh. ‘Let her have her title, what the hell? We understand each other, Jessica and I. She’s just the sort of wife I need. If you didn’t hate her so much, you’d see it too. She’s a perfect barrister’s wife. For one thing she’s great at dinner parties. She’s witty, intelligent, and she’s got her art which gives her something to do besides making my life a misery with the lesbian brigade.’
Henry looked at me aghast. ‘I take it you’ve never said that to her.’
‘Would I be alive to tell the tale? Anyway, shall I go on? She’s got an independent, though I admit, sometimes warped mind. She’s beautiful. Good child-bearing hips with which to produce the Belmayne heirs. What more could a man ask?’
Henry’s look was sardonic as he said: ‘I thought you of all people would know the answer to that.’
– 12 –
‘I just can’t think where they’ve got to.’ Jessica stood back from the mirror, eyeing herself critically. Around her our bedroom was in its almost permanent state of chaos. Damp towels lay where they’d been dropped, shoes spilled from the wardrobe, the contents of Jessica’s handbag were strewn across the bed that only an hour before had been rumpled by our love-making, and the clothes we’d been wearing that day were draped in an untidy heap over the chaise-longue. I kicked a towel out of the way before she tripped on it, then stood behind her, watching her in the mirror. Her fingers hovered around the pearls at her throat, then adjusted the thin halter strap of the dress that had cost me eighty-three guineas the week before because I had turned up over an hour late for an exhibition where two of her paintings were being shown. She was beautiful. Her fine blonde hair was swept up from her neck in a cluster of curls and held in place by a sapphire and diamond hairpin, the family heirloom my mother had given her almost a year ago on our wedding day. It matched her dress perfectly.
‘Probably just delayed in traffic,’ I said, still watching her.
She leaned towards the mirror and peered at herself through narrowed eyes. ‘What do you think of this eyeshadow? Do you think it’s too heavy? I’ve got a lighter one.’
I shrugged, and carried on tying my tie. ‘Personally speaking, I think you look ravishing in anything.’ I looked at my watch.
‘Now you’re trying to rush me,’ she complained. ‘Well, I shan’t be moved until you express a preference.’
‘I like the one you’re wearing,’ I said, and she laughed. ‘Come here.’ And taking me by the arm, she turned me round for inspection. ‘Mmm, yes, you’ll do,’ she decided, flicking invisible specks from my DJ. ‘Have you got the tickets?’
I patted my pocket to make sure they were there, then caught her by the hand before she sailed back to the mirror again. She turned in my arms and I brushed my lips against her bare shoulders. She smelt good.
‘One kiss?’ I said, my mouth very nearly on hers.
‘No, you’ll smudge my lip . . . Oh Alexander, now look what you’ve done,’ she grumbled as I let her go, but her eyes were bright and I kissed her again.
‘I wish someone had warned me what a trial it would be to have a husband around when one is trying to get ready for a ball,’ she laughed, picking up her lipstick. ‘Oh God, where can they have got to? Why aren’t they here yet?’
‘Maybe Lizzie’s flight was delayed,’ I suggested. ‘Shall I ring the airport?’
‘Yes, yes. Good idea.’
But British Airways confirmed that the flight from Melbourne, due in at six-thirty, had arrived on schedule.
‘Well, what do we do now?’ I noticed the warning blotches of colour rising on her cheeks, as they always did when things weren’t going according to plan.
‘We go without them,’ I said. ‘Henry’s got their tickets. Anyway, it’s a long flight, Jess, maybe she’s tired.’
‘You don’t know Lizzie.’
‘Then maybe they’ve gone straight there.’
‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Lizzie has to get ready first. No, they must be on their way. Let’s wait another five minutes. Did you pour me a gin and tonic?’
We went downstairs to the drawing-room where we waited for five minutes, and then a further five, while Jessica paced up and down the room, her heavy skirts swishing around her ankles. My earlier surge of affection had by now diminished, and I was watching her with increasing irritation. Sometimes her behaviour so resembled that of a spoilt brat that I was tempted to put her over my knee and spank her, hard. In fact I had done it once, but predictably, Jessica had become so aroused by my aggression that we ended up writhing madly on the kitchen floor. Ever since I wondered if she misbehaved purposely in order to get me to do it again. But, watching her face become almost ugly with ill humour, I doubted if sex was on her mind just at this moment.
Marriage to Jessica was everything I might have expected, had I only stopped to think. We never stopped competing with each other. Jessica feigned disinterest in almost everything I did, and declaring she wasn’t some bovine creature content to sit at home and chew the cud of her husband’s success, forced her artistic triumphs down my throat – along with her resentments, her jealousies and her feminism. I was repeatedly unfaithful, but the strange thing was that even though my feelings for her were so ambivalent, I was always sorry for what I’d done when I saw how hurt she was.
But as time went on, and despite all my efforts, our incompatibility out of bed became more and more destructtive. I couldn’t help imaginin
g how my life could have been, should have been, if only . . . Elizabeth . . . In the end everything came back to her. I couldn’t understand it. It was more than five years ago.
Jessica tutted, and I looked up as she began to pace the room again. I sighed. How different it would all be if I were married to Elizabeth. There would have been none of the rage that had almost crippled me at Oxford. None of the resentment that made me want to hurt any and every woman, even now, who crossed my path. Dear God, I’d been only a boy then, why hadn’t she understood? I hadn’t meant to be cruel, to turn my back on her the way I did. I knew she’d loved me – what was it that had made her stay away?
Damn! I jerked myself to my feet. Why was I still suffering like this? And even if she did come back into my life, what the hell could I do? I was married now. Just think about that, Alexander Belmayne. Married – when you swore to her that you would always love her. Married to Jessica, and why? To prove that you didn’t love her any more, when all the time, if you’d been man enough to face the truth . . .
‘Damn! Damn, damn and damn!’ Jessica slammed her glass down on the table and went to look out of the window. I swallowed my irritation and went to pour myself another drink – I knew better than to get into a fight with Jessica before we went out – but I was finding it increasingly difficult to hold my tongue. I hadn’t wanted to go to the Berkeley Square Ball in the first place, but Jessica had found a possible new patron for her paintings in George Mannering, who owned a small gallery in Knightsbridge, and as he was going to the ball Jessica saw it as another opportunity to court him.
It had been my idea to invite Henry, saying he could escort Jessica’s sister Lizzie, who was returning to London ‘for several months, but possibly for ever, who knows?’ Henry had leapt at the idea, and the stirrings of conscience I had felt on behalf of Caroline, whom he’d been seeing a little more regularly than his other girlfriends, were eased. Henry was without a doubt the current Deb’s Delight, and had even been listed in Harpers & Queen as one of the country’s most eligible bachelors – something that had made us both yell with laughter.
We now had four more dinners to go at the Inns of Court, one last batch of exams, and then, hopefully, we would be called to the bar. My determination to practise criminal law had wavered not at all, and my father no longer raised any objections – with hanging now firmly abolished, any anxieties he had about my being involved in a repeat of the Ince affair were laid to rest. So, providing I gained the results required, I would enter chambers at the Inner Temple where Lord Green was one of the benchers. It would be said that my father had put in a word for me, but I could shrug that off. Since my father had become Lord Chancellor, no matter where I went people would accuse me of being ‘the protégé of the woolsack.’
The clock on the mantelshelf began to strike nine. ‘Right, that’s it! We’ve waited long enough,’ Jessica announced. ‘They’ll just have to get themselves there.’
Obediently I put my drink down and walked across the room to fetch her cloak. Suddenly I felt sorry for her. I knew she had been looking forward to seeing her sister, and the Berkeley Square Ball was the perfect opportunity for welcoming her home in style. ‘Cheer up, darling,’ I said, putting her cloak around her shoulders and fastening it at her neck, ‘after all, you’ve still got me to keep you company.’
Immediately her face softened – but I found myself turning away.
Everyone from our set was at the ball, half of them already three sheets to the wind, and the other half struggling to catch up. As Jessica and I walked into the marquee I heard her swear under her breath as her heel sank in the mud, and took her by the elbow to help her along. It proved to be a rocky journey over to the champagne, as her high heels were sucked and plucked from the ground.
‘If you dare to say you told me so,’ she hissed under her breath, ‘I swear I’ll kick you.’
Robert Lyttleton was in the middle of the crowd, wearing an extremely attractive middle-aged woman on his arm. Robert was second only to Henry in the playboy stakes these days, and, if my information was correct, he was poised for a takeover: his rise at the Foreign Office had been meteoric, and he was undoubtedly bound for foreign climes in the very near future – but word had it he needed to acquire a wife first.
He introduced his companion as Rachel, then immediately turned his attention to Jessica. Jessica rose to his flattery as she always did, and I felt a stab of jealousy as I wondered, not for the first time, if they had ever been to bed together at Oxford.
‘So you’re Alexander Belmayne,’ Rachel was saying. ‘I’ve met your mother once or twice. How is she?’
I tore my eyes away from Jessica as she threw back her head and laughed at something Robert had whispered in her ear – and found myself looking into Rachel’s rather bewitching green eyes. They held mine in an openly seductive gaze while her lips, full and smiling, parted to reveal a set of perfect white teeth. Probably because of my sudden surge of jealousy, I was almost overwhelmed by the impulse to lean forward and kiss her, brutally, but I was saved by someone knocking against her and spilling champagne over her hands. She laughed softly, but didn’t take her eyes from mine as she ran her tongue over the tips of her fingers.
‘How is she?’ she repeated, when I didn’t answer.
‘Who? Oh, my mother. She’s very well, thank you.’ I glanced quickly at Jessica, but she had joined a group of friends and looked as though she had all but forgotten me.
I danced with Rachel, remembering to look up occasionally to see if Henry had arrived, but there was no sign of him. So I concentrated on Rachel. I had known, since the moment I’d taken her in my arms to dance, where things were leading. Normally I was bored by women who threw themselves at me, but with Rachel’s soft, mature, slightly overweight body moving seductively against mine, I felt myself responding handsomely to the promise of something new.
She held her glass out for more champagne and I went off to oblige. On my way I looked around for Jessica, but she seemed to have disappeared, and for a fleeting moment I felt wildly free – but the feeling was quickly followed by the fear that Robert Lyttleton might have taken her off somewhere. I’d never felt jealous of any other man, but for some reason it was different with Robert Lyttleton. He was so damned smooth, so damned good at everything. As far as I was concerned Jessica could screw whoever she liked just as long as it wasn’t him – although these days Jessica never seemed to screw anyone except me.
I had several more dances with Rachel; I took her to supper; and after supper I danced with her again. By this time it was almost one in the morning. Still there was no sign of Jessica. And I knew from the way Rachel was looking at me that she was ready to do something about the erection that had been pushing its way between us for the best part of the evening. Taking her somewhat roughly by the arm, I started to steer her towards the nearest exit.
‘Oh darling, there you are!’
I froze. Beside me I heard Rachel mutter an expletive, and several seconds must have elapsed before I was sufficiently in control of myself to turn round. Jessica’s hair had slipped anchor and was cascading about her face. Her lipstick was smudged and there was a bow tie round her neck, its ends dangling between her breasts.
‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere, Alexander. Isn’t it the most perfectly wonderful ball? Aren’t you glad you came now? I told you you’d love it.’
With that she blinked several times, before fixing Rachel with one of her cold stares. Then, taking me by the arm, she said to her: ‘Sorry, I didn’t catch your name, but I’m sure you won’t mind if I take my husband away for a dance, will you?’
I glanced apologetically at Rachel, but she only smiled, and inclining her head vaguely in Jessica’s direction, she disappeared into the crowd.
‘There was no need to be so rude,’ I said, attempting to hold Jessica upright as we bumped our way through a fox-trot.
‘So sorry, darling,’ she hiccoughed. ‘Oh, look at you, you’re angry with me. Maybe
you would have liked my blessing on your little liaison instead. You were about to go and fuck her, weren’t you?’
‘You have a vivid imagination,’ I said, ‘and you’re drunk.’
‘Ah, but not too drunk to catch my husband in the act. Or at least, very nearly in the act. Tell me, out of interest, where were you planning to do it?’
I looked at her for a moment, trying to gauge her mood before I answered. ‘In our bed,’ I said, finally.
‘Oh, very naughty.’ She threw back her head and laughed uproariously. ‘You always get ratty when you’re found out. I suppose she looks like Elizabeth, they usually do, don’t they?’ She screeched with laughter again. ‘It’s about time you learned that I know everything about you, Alexander, everything.’
‘Then you’ll know that I’m tired of this conversation, and I think it’s time I took you home. Get your cloak.’
‘Get it for me.’
‘I said get your cloak.’
She usually knew when she’d gone too far, and more often than not it was a reference to Elizabeth that did it. She walked off, leaving me in the middle of the dance floor as she weaved her way through the crowd. I wasn’t sure whether or not she was intending to come back again, but nevertheless I looked round for Rachel. She was in the midst of a group of people I ‘d never met, and caught my eye before I reached her. It was clear she didn’t want to provoke a scene with Jessica, so she quickly gave me her address and told me to meet her there the following afternoon at five.
Jessica did come back, together with her cloak and naughty-little-girl look. She giggled most of the way home in the taxi, and kept trying to open my trousers, but I wasn’t in the mood. In the end she gave up and started to suck her thumb, knowing it annoyed me.
When we pulled up in front of the house, the lights were on in the drawing-room. ‘It’ll be Lizzie!’ Jessica cried, and I felt a wave of relief. My first thought had been that it was burglars.