‘This time I’m going to get it right,’ he said, bending over the crib, studying Jack’s small, fierce profile, so like his own. And studying the larger one, thinking how wrong he had got it before, his fatherhood, how bad and how ongoing an effect it had on her life, Francesca hoped most fervently that he would.
Liam had been the greatest of the shadows over the new brightness of her life: Liam who had lost first his mother when he had been just a little boy of seven, and then his father who had rejected him, hated him almost, for being alive when his mother was dead; Liam who had been sent first to stay with his grandmother and then away to school; who had hated the stepmother who had arrived quickly, far too quickly, after his mother had died; hated the new small siblings who had seemed to have so much more of their father’s love; Liam who had grown to regard that father with a hard, unforgiving hatred.
He had many gifts, had Liam, a brilliant mind, romantically dark, brooding looks, and a most mellifluously beautiful voice, all infinitely suited to his chosen career at the Bar, but success had eluded him, for which he blamed fate, difficult clients, hostile judges, ruthless rivals and above all his father; ‘He sponges off his wife,’ Bard had said briefly, ‘farts about waiting for his big break. She’d throw him out if she had any sense.’ The hostility between the two of them was ferocious, and in that first year of her marriage Francesca met him only twice, once at the family party Bard had given to introduce her to the rest of his family, and once after Jack’s birth when he had come, tautly polite, to the hospital with his wife to visit her. They had not come to the wedding; had made an excuse that they had to be away, and it was perfectly clear to Francesca that they had only come to the hospital because Naomi Channing (who clearly knew on which side her bread was buttered and who was doing the spreading) had seen it was in both of their interests to do so. Naomi was a high-flier, a banker, already in her own world famously successful; she seemed, Francesca thought, to regard Liam with a kind of proprietory distaste.
‘Sweet,’ she had said, looking briefly into the crib, ‘a bit like Jasper, don’t you think, Liam?’
Liam had said shortly he didn’t think the baby looked in the least like Jasper, their own small boy, and excused himself, saying he wanted to have a cigarette; afterwards Francesca couldn’t remember his addressing a single word to her directly.
The other children had come to visit her too: Barnaby charmingly pleased, little Victoria hugely excited, Kirsten with her already daunting beauty sullenly, silently hostile. Francesca had looked at her, tried and failed to make her smile, to respond, tried and failed not to mind, and wondered how long it would be before she managed to win Kirsten round. It seemed almost as impossible a task as befriending Liam.
The second year of her marriage was very different from her first. The changes, the dramas were accomplished; it only remained for her to adjust to them. Unlike her mother, Francesca found adjustment hard.
The first change was her own status, as Bard Channing’s wife. Nothing could have prepared her for it, for what she had become. Rachel had tried to warn her of that too, of the quite extraordinary transition from equal partner to trophy wife, and had failed entirely. Her function before had been to run her house, do her job, earn her salary, see to her husband’s well-being. Of those, only the last still properly remained to her: and even that she was forced to share with a battery of staff, efficient, competent, familiar with the task as she was not, both at home and at Channing House. She had, to assist her in the running of the house in Hamilton Terrace, a housekeeper, a daily woman, a gardener, a nanny, and Bard’s driver Horton who, whenever Bard was away, was available to drive her or Nanny about as well. There were, in permanent residence at Stylings, the house in Sussex, another housekeeeper, another daily woman, two gardeners, one of whom doubled as groom for Bard’s and the children’s horses. All these people were in theory there to help and support her, to do what she asked them, to make her life easy; all of them in practice, troubled her, worried her, made her life more difficult. Nanny Crossman was a particularly unwelcome presence: middle-aged, uniformed, rigid in her views, she had looked after all Pattie’s children and Bard had insisted she came back after Jack’s birth, to take over where she had left off, as Nanny herself put it. Francesca had protested she didn’t want a nanny, Jack was her baby and she was going to look after him herself and if she did have any help, she would prefer it not to come in a form like Nanny Crossman’s, rather something younger, more fun, less daunting. But Bard had told her (correctly) that she had no idea how much she was going to have to do and how tired and disorientated she was going to feel, that Nanny could at least see her through the first few weeks and then they could review the whole thing. At the end of the first few weeks, she was still tired, still feeling disorientated, and caught in a Catch-22 situation, in which Nanny’s competence emphasised her own lack of it and her ability to handle Jack grew horribly slowly. She continued to tell herself that it was a temporary situation, that as soon as she felt just a little more in command she would get rid of Nanny, hire some cheerful mother’s help, and continued to feel not in command at all. This feeling was increased by Bard’s making it very clear that from his point of view Nanny’s departure would not only be unwelcome but highly unwise; and despite a few spirited exchanges on the subject, Francesca finally settled into an uneasy truce with him, the terms being that she would set the rest of her life in order and then they would review this particular aspect again. They never had.
She didn’t feel much happier about the housekeeper at Hamilton Terrace; Sandie Jerome had arrived soon after Pattie Channing’s departure, had seen Pattie’s children grow up, regarded them with a proprietory affection, and the house as almost her own. She knew Liam, had worked with Nanny, and admired Bard; she was totally familiar with every aspect of running the house, knew what the children and their father liked to eat and when, organised the rest of the staff, paid the bills, liaised with Bard’s secretary over his arrivals and departures. She was thirty-something, blonde, well dressed, attractive in a hard way; she had been her own boss for years, was extremely well paid (like all Bard’s staff), she had a flat in the basement of the house, a car, generous time off. She was polite, co-operative and helpful to Francesca while making it very clear indeed that Sandie knew precisely how important to her she was.
Francesca didn’t like her, but she needed her; that Sandie knew she needed her, and in the early days could not have managed without her, made her uncomfortable, increased her own lack of self-confidence. The combination of Nanny and Sandie and what she knew to be their joint view of her was formidably unsettling. The actual day-to-day running of her new life was not too difficult; the woman who had run a big department in her advertising agency, who had charmed and entertained clients, manipulated colleagues, administered budgets, hired and organised staff, was scarcely going to be thrown by the organisation of even a couple of households. What did throw her was her new situation in life. She had lost, in the moment she became Mrs Isambard Channing, personal status, independence, and in her darker moments, self-respect. Skills, learnt and developed over years of professional life, were no longer relevant, talents, once recognised and fostered and highly valued, no longer required. Personal ambition had had to be buried along with financial independence; her purpose now, her function in life, was to support Bard, to be what he required, to do what he asked. Initially there was much to enjoy, it was fun: stocking the large wardrobe necessary to her role, redecorating the houses, being photographed and interviewed by the glossy magazines (their editors delighted to have a beautiful and intelligent new recruit to the ranks of page-filling wives), planning and giving parties. And she was genuinely, seriously, passionately in love with Bard, difficult as he was, arrogant, bad tempered, demanding; and even as their relationship moved from novelty to familiarity, from exploration to discovery, from questioning to certainty, she knew, intellectually, physically, emotionally that he was what she wanted, he was what she loved.
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But as time passed, as Jack passed from infant to baby to small child, as the houses were completed, the clothes bought, the practical problems solved, she discovered the darker side to it all. She confronted frustration, boredom even, a sense of wasting herself, a terrible realisation that she was filling time rather than using it; she watched dismayed as people found her interesting only inasmuch as she was Bard’s wife, her views only worth consideration insofar as they concurred with his. She resented being a possession, hated the view that she had won a great prize, was angered by the clear assumption that she had lost nothing. She found Bard’s male colleagues and clients and associates patronising, their wives dispiriting (being quite happy to be trophies, clothes horses, spenders); she missed problems, struggles, challenge, except in relation to Bard; she loathed his dismissal of all she had been, his patent certainty that what she had become must be more than enough for her.
They fought over that, angrily; she would not give in, she said, would not become a lady who lunches, a devotee of the gym, a charity queen. She wanted to work again, she told him, to use her brain, her skills, be useful, independent. She went through all the arguments: that she was bored frequently, frustrated constantly, that she missed using her brain and her wits; that it was a high-powered, successful woman he had fallen in love with and surely he’d like that person kept alive; and then everybody worked these days, it was different from when he had married Pattie, even the most dazzlingly wealthy, well-connected wives had their own lives, sold jewellery, did up houses, ran antique businesses, why not she. And he would appear at times to be listening to her quite carefully, reasonably even, and then suddenly would start shouting at her, his face heavy with rage; would tell her he found it incomprehensible and more than that, insulting, that she should find being his wife, the mother of his children, frustrating and boring; that he had no interest in what other women, other wives did; that her job was to be his wife, that he’d spent too many years without support, without total commitment, that it was his most crucial need to have that. ‘You want to cheat on the deal, is that it?’ he said to her once at the height of a row. ‘It’s got a bit tough, so you’re looking to change the terms. I’m sorry, Francesca, we have an agreement. If you want to renege on it, it’s up to you. But I will not be a party to it.’
‘Bard, what you’re talking about is not a partnership,’ said Francesca, her voice rising in an angry despair, ‘it’s prostitution.’
He had looked at her with what she could only describe as loathing, and then stormed up to his dressing room and slept there, leaving her as angry as he, but also shaken and to an extent ashamed, such was his power to manipulate her emotions and her thinking.
She did not suggest that she should work for anyone else, or even for herself in some freelance capacity again, but she did ask him once if she could not work in some way for him (thinking this would please him), have some role in his company, and was so angry when he found that laughable she left him, moved out with Jack into her mother’s flat.
She did that twice; went back the first time because he came as near to an apology as he was capable of (which was not very near, but she could see what it cost him), and the second because she discovered she was pregnant again. She lost that baby painfully and sadly a few weeks later but his tenderness and sweetness over it made her forgive him.
Gradually, sorrowfully, she watched herself give in, become the wife he wanted, the one she knew she had to be if she loved him, as she knew she did.
She became involved in charity work, which was half satisfying at least, giving her causes the passionate commitment she had once given her job. She organised balls, auctions, lunches, gave interviews to journalists only if they would mention her causes. Her profile grew; she was, in her own way, her own world, extremely well known. People fought to have her on their committees, to get onto hers; she was ruthless in her pursuit of their names, their reputations, their money. Bard teased her about it in his good moods, complained about it in his bad, but recognised it was important to her, and struggled to make the compromise and at least accept it.
She even started to go, half amused at herself, half shocked, to the gym early every day, finding (reluctantly) in the physical exhaustion further release from her mental frustrations. She hated all the other physical recreations of her new circle, the tennis, the golf, particularly the sailing which Bard so loved; she had always loathed the water, was almost phobic about it. It disappointed him, and he showed it; he had several boats – a motor yacht moored at the villa he owned in Greece, a high-speed power boat in which he raced several times a year, a couple of sailing boats moored at Chichester – and adored them all; Francesca refused to go in any of them. ‘You can’t share much of what’s important to me,’ she said one weekend at Stylings when he was reproaching her for refusing yet again even to try sailing, ‘and I can’t share everything that’s important to you. It’s called marriage, Bard.’
‘I suppose you mean your fucking career,’ he said, and stormed out of the house for twenty-four hours, returning slightly shamefaced with an antique gold watch chain he knew she had wanted and a rare promise to attend her next charity dinner.
They fought a lot in the early years, both of them swiftly angry, awkwardly stubborn; gradually Francesca at least learnt to stay silent, to see a day, an occasion, a happiness in danger and to recognise it was not worth it, that she would not in any case win anything except her own self-respect, and that seemed increasingly unimportant.
He never apologised to her, for anything; he seemed incapable of it, the words physically refusing to emerge. The nearest he came to it was telling her he loved her, and that he could not even consider living without her; in time she came to recognise this for what it was and to find it almost acceptable.
He also had, she discovered with some dismay, an immense capacity for secrecy; it was almost pathological and she hated it. He would tell her he was going away, or that he was working late, or attending some dinner, and that would be the end of it; more information as to his destination, the subject of the meeting, the purpose of the dinner, would not be forthcoming. It seemed to be born not of a desire to conceal, to confuse. His life and affairs were like some vast jigsaw puzzle, and pieces were handed out judiciously to people to put in place as best they could. She complained about it, struggled with it, fought against it, questioned him, demanded to know; only to be met by the blank look she had come to recognise, the crushing phrase ‘you don’t need to know that’.
‘I will decide what I need to know,’ she would cry, and he would look at her in silence and still say nothing; when she pressed him, he would tell her again that she didn’t need to know, and he had no interest in telling her, it was tedious for him to have to go over it all interminably and not relevant for her.
‘But I want to understand your business,’ she would say, ‘I want to share it with you,’ and he would then say she couldn’t possibly, it was too complex and in any case there was no point, he had no interest in her sharing it, and sometimes they would fight over it, and sometimes she would accept it, but either way, the information never came.
But the hardest thing of all was that she felt she was not actually the person he wanted; he had fallen in love with her when she had been someone else, someone competent, independent, successful, and now he wanted someone very different, was struggling to change her into that person. And that was very difficult to bear.
Physically, she found their relationship infinitely, endlessly joyful; Bard was a lover of great tenderness as well as passion, surprisingly and sweetly inventive, thoughtful, responsive. He could arouse her violently, almost painfully, could take her with him to depths and heights that the very memory of, days later, made her body throb and lurch with delight, but he could also draw her into sex, into love, slowly, gently, easing her into new territories, new discoveries of herself. In bed, at least, they were perfectly happy.
Her two great allies in those years were her mother, wh
ose blithe pragmatism saw her through many dark and bloody battles, and her mother-in-law, whom she came to regard with a deep and grateful love. Jess Channing was seventy-eight, and Bard was her only child. She regarded him with a mixture of profound love and severe disapproval, treated him exactly as she had when he was a small boy, and was the only person in the world who could tell him what to do. She was a brilliant woman, self-educated, widely read, ferociously proud of her working-class roots, and ashamed of Bard’s abandonment of them.
She lived alone in a small house in Kennington, wore unrelieved black, and was teetotal apart from Christmas when she sank, unaided, at least two bottles of port; she attributed her iron constitution to this fact, her ability at seventy-eight to walk, as she did, at least two miles a day, to clean her house single-handed from top to bottom every week (including laundering her own sheets, which she had done by hand until finally accepting a washing machine from Bard as a seventieth birthday present, and which she still regarded with some suspicion as second best), and working virtually full time as secretary in her local Labour constituency party in Vauxhall.
The Dilemma Page 3