Afterwards there was nausea but no pain. It was all over. The hospital was noisy at night. She could hear the cry of newborn babies in the wing opposite. Next morning she was thankful when the doctor said she could go home.
Martin treated her as if she were a delicate invalid. Once they reached the house, he insisted she go straight up to bed. Then he sat beside her, holding her hand.
‘Lucy, will you ever forgive me?’ he asked.
She trembled. ‘Forgive you for what?’
‘Doctor Nim said you told him you had taken native medicine to bring about a miscarriage.’
‘Oh.’ Lucy closed her eyes. ‘I don’t really remember what happened, but if that’s what he said, then that’s what I must have done.’
‘Darling, what a terrible sacrifice. If I had known you were pregnant, I wouldn’t have minded. I know I was negative about the idea when we talked about it, but it’s awful, appalling, that you thought you had to get rid of our child. I’m so dreadfully sorry. I realize now I haven’t talked to you enough. I’ve been preoccupied. I didn’t realize how you felt. Please forgive me. You see, I’m not good at this sort of soul-searching stuff.’ He ran his hands through his hair.
Lucy said nothing.
He went on in a sudden tumult of words, quite unlike his normal measured tones. ‘I never told you about Anne, how she was totally obsessed with the children and how cold she became after they were born and how things were never the same. We never made love, you know. She didn’t seem to want it after the second birth.’
Lucy put her hand on his.
‘The boys,’ he said, sounding more and more wretched, ‘well, they more or less destroyed our marriage; she always stayed in England with them when they got to school age. Then when the marriage was virtually over, I tried to rescue it. I persuaded her to join me in Africa, and she caught hepatitis and died. The boys blamed me, and still do, in a way. They moved in with her sister, who blames me too, and I hardly ever see them. I know I told you some of this originally, but I didn’t tell you the whole story. I know I should have tried to. Then you might have understood. You wouldn’t have had to go through all this agony. I’m so sorry.’
Lucy said nothing. She began to weep quietly. She could not begin to explain that she, not he, was the guilty one.
Martin took her hand. ‘Darling, if you want a child, I know it will be different. We’ll have one, or even two or more, if you like. But Doctor Nim says you must wait a few months. Promise me you won’t take any more native medicine, will you? The doctor advises strongly against it. He says it is not suitable for Westerners. Where did you get hold of it, anyway?’
‘Oh, please, please, don’t ask me any more questions. I just can’t talk about it.’ Lucy wept more tears.
Martin cradled her in his arms, stroking her hair. ‘It’s all right, my darling. Everything will be all right.’
Twenty-Two
For Deborah everything was far from all right. Alex had made Maising bearable, but now he had gone there was nothing left to keep her in the country, except her ailing marriage. Feeling that it was her duty to try to resuscitate it, she had once suggested counselling.
Johnny laughed. ‘Marriage guidance – how bloody stupid you Yanks are! When I need guidance from some half-baked do-gooder, I’ll throw in the towel. Anyway, what the hell is wrong with our marriage?’ He emphasized the words sarcastically, attempting to imitate her American accent. ‘I bring in the bacon. You look after the kids. We don’t fight much. You have your lovers. I have mine. And we even fuck now and then in between – if I can raise the enthusiasm, that is. It all seems fair enough to me.’
‘Just an idea. I suppose, naively, I expected marriage to be sort of different,’ said Deborah in as calm a tone as she could manage.
‘You read too many agony aunts in those daft women’s mags. Christ, marriage guidance!’
‘I hardly ever read magazines.’
‘Slushy novels then. All you women read sentimental trash.’
Johnny was given to sweeping statements of this type. Recently Deborah had decided to ignore them. ‘I think I expected companionship at least and perhaps fatherly attention to your children,’ she said.
‘You’re so damn intense, aren’t you? You have plenty of friends, not to mention boyfriends. As for the kids, you’ve got Pima to help you – most women in the West would give their eye teeth for a maid like her. Paid by me, please note.’ He finished his glass of whisky and then turned to look for the bottle. ‘I pay for everything. Everything.’
Deborah followed him. ‘Hey, wait a minute. I do teach, you know.’
‘Part-time, very part-time. Most women in the UK have a full-time job, but you don’t have to. But when you do a bit of teaching, English or sex or whatever you fancy, you can just dump the kids with Pima. Just bear that in mind. I’ve always given you a very good life. Never stopped you doing what you wanted.’
She was determined to remain calm. ‘Johnny, you—’
‘You’re just a moaner, never satisfied, like all the other white women here.’
Deborah glared at him. ‘At least you should take more notice of the children, especially Sam. He’d like to have his dad around more. It’s important for a boy.’
‘I do take notice of the children – there you go, moaning again. I’m a bloody good father.’
He poured himself some more whisky, added a few cubes of ice. Mutely, Deborah handed him a bottle of soda, but he waved it away.
Taking a large gulp of his drink, he went on. ‘Now have we finished this big talk? Are you having your period or something? You seem in a bad mood. Get yourself another boyfriend, do you good. Anyway, I’m going out in a minute.’
‘Do you think you should drive and drink like you do?’
‘Mind your own bloody business.’
‘In Europe they have strict laws now.’
‘We’re not living in bloody rule-book Europe, are we? God, I never want to go back there. Much better here. Plenty of freedom. No bureaucrats or social engineers breathing down your neck.’ He waved an unsteady arm. ‘Make the most of it, Deb. Turned down a home posting the other day – knew it wouldn’t suit us.’
She stared at him. ‘Run that by me again. You turned down a posting in London without telling me?’
‘Well, I don’t want to leave the East, so there’s no point in discussing it. Our life is here. We’d have a miserable time in London, smaller salary, smaller flat, no maid, ghastly weather.’
‘You should have told me,’ she said slowly. It was weird how she always managed to sound so outwardly composed when she was raging inside.
‘It’s my career, my decision. You just don’t know when you’re well off, do you?’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘I’d just like to be consulted about important decisions.’ Then she took a deep breath. ‘Can we just straighten the record? I don’t have loads of lovers every day of the week.. I had an affair with Alex – just to kind of cheer me up, to redress the balance for all your women. I thought it might make me feel better, restore my morale. And it did, for a while.’
‘So we’re even-steven. Don’t give me that innocent look – won’t wash. Can’t expect me to be faithful to you when you’re not exactly Miss Chastity yourself. Damn lucky I didn’t divorce you really. It’s still a man’s world, you know, my dear Deb. Women are supposed to behave themselves. But I’m a tolerant bloke.’ He took yet another gulp of his drink. ‘Talk about teaching, you must have taught that toy boy of yours a thing or two – valuable lessons, if you passed on to him the benefit of my experience.’ He smirked. ‘I should have charged him really, come to think of it.’
‘My God, you bastard.’
‘I was extremely reasonable about him. I could have smashed his pretty face in, but I didn’t. I felt like it at times when I saw him sniffing around you like a randy little poodle. You were making a bloody fool of yourself, you know, Deb old thing. But I kept quiet and let you get on with it. Soul of patienc
e, really. But it doesn’t look good, a mother of two carrying on with a teenager. Letting the side down a bit. Got to set a good example, you know. Hope you were reasonably discreet about it. Don’t want too much talk in the British community. It’s all right for chaps to have a bit of a fling – a man like me needs a change from time to time, only natural – but their lady wives should appear to be above such things. And I’m very fond of you, you know.’
Deborah finally lost control. ‘A bit of a fling?’ she shouted.
‘Don’t start yelling – doesn’t suit you. You’ll wake the kids. I’ve got to go out now or I’ll be late. Don’t wait up. I might not come back tonight.’
*
During the long evening, she began to understand how brutalized women accepted battering as normal. Not that Johnny attacked her physically. Tonight he had made her furiously angry, but normally it was his neglect that wounded her in a constant irritating hurt, like small, painful grazes. Somehow his neglect was worse than the fight that had just taken place. Most of the time he just acted as if he did not have a wife and family.
In the beginning when they had met and married, she had basked in his total love and attention. His desire for her seemed insatiable and she learned to match him in sensuality. They were utterly happy. The shock of betrayal had made her physically sick when, still in those early days, she’d found out about his extramarital games. After endless bitter rows and bitter tears from her, he promised to reform. But there were more women, more lies and then more rows.
The drinking must have begun around that time. Her fault, he said.
Why hadn’t she left him before the children were born? Perhaps because of some old-fashioned feeling that women should be understanding about that type of masculine behaviour. Perhaps she’d thought he would change, grow up, grow out of his womanizing if she remained steadfast. But he never changed.
Now she was beginning to accept as the norm Johnny’s drinking, Johnny’s women and the way he now talked about them openly. But she did not approve of her own acquiescent behaviour. Except in as much as she was doing the right thing for the children. But was she? Received wisdom was that a bad marriage was bad for the children. But was even Johnny better than no father? Probably she should get out now when the kids were small or stay till they were too old to care. Alex would probably have some child development statistics to prove which was best, or the lesser of two evils.
She began to think harder about making the effort to leave and, if she did leave, where she should go. It was a choice between Washington where she knew no one except her parents, Geneva where she still had school friends, or London, where her sister lived. London was cheaper than Geneva, especially for childcare and medical facilities. And her sister Susan was a gem. Even her British husband was not a bad guy.
As well as their Georgetown house, her parents maintained a flat in Chelsea so that they could visit Susan without having to stay in the cramped Richmond terrace where she and Brian lived in great disorder with their three small destructive sons. If Deborah went to live in London, she could at least have the support of her relations. She wondered if she could face living in her parents’ tiny flat on a temporary basis and if indeed they would agree to her doing so. She knew they would not approve of a divorce.
She had been thinking of how she was going to tell them about the impending breakdown of her marriage when the telephone rang early one morning. Her sister’s voice was clear, but small and distant. ‘Mom just died, right here in London,’ she said.
*
Seated in the jumbo jet on her way to England, Deborah found herself preoccupied with the practicalities of death, as well as the grief and the disbelief. For instance, she worried about not having anything appropriate to wear to the cremation as she only had one outfit that was not tropical, a blue wool skirt and sweater, and a crumpled white raincoat. This was her travelling gear. She had not thought to acquire something suitable for a winter funeral in Europe. And shoes, she did not have any winter shoes. It was stupid not to have shoes for this stupid, wrong, unexpected death.
*
In the event, she managed to squeeze into an old coat of Susan’s and bought, in a hurry and at vast expense, some unattractive black boots. In her borrowed clothes, she went with her father, Susan and Brian to Putney Vale Crematorium. They were all horribly civilized and brave. While they were waiting for the coffin, they made jokes in bright voices about all the depressing wreaths and morbid cushions of chrysanthemums laid out for other customers in the Garden of Remembrance. Then they attended the short impersonal ceremony in the empty crematorium. Afterwards, they went back to Richmond where they ate a tasteless Chinese takeaway meal as no one wanted to eat out and Susan did not feel like cooking.
Her father, over-calm and over-rational as ever, said he would take the ashes back to the US to scatter at home in the yard. Then he would have a church service for Mom in Washington so that all her friends could attend. He talked about Mom, and his daughters listened. Deborah had never felt close to her father and even now he seemed remote and far away. But that was his way of dealing with emotions. It must be.
Mom had always been the one who dealt with Dad, tactfully negotiating on behalf of the girls: permission for Deborah to go out with a boy, permission for Susan to buy a new tennis racquet, to go on a school trip. It occurred to Deborah that throughout her childhood she had rarely spoken directly to her father. Mom had always arranged everything. She had been Father’s agent for dealing with not only his daughters but with the rest of the practical world. Only international affairs and diplomacy, his profession, were worthy of his direct attention. Now he would have to manage without Mom. They all would. It was hard to comprehend.
As a form of therapy, Deborah played with her nephews, who seemed little affected by their grandmother’s death. She said nothing to her family about leaving Johnny. It was not the right time. Nor did she make any enquiries about jobs or housing in London. That bleak November, the city no longer seemed like any kind of home.
*
After Deborah returned to Maising, Claire took a deep breath and went up to see her. ‘I am so terribly sorry to hear about your mother,’ she said sincerely, but she felt both hesitant and inadequate.
Deborah’s voice was shaky, but she smiled. ‘Yes, thank you.’
Putting her arms around her, Claire searched for the right thing to say. ‘D’you want to talk about it or not?’
‘Seems like I want to talk all the time. It’s affected me that way.’ She recounted every detail of her trip to Europe, her father’s face, her sister’s dress, buying the wrong shoes even.
Pima came into the room to pour their coffee. She paused for a minute, seemingly concerned about something, but she went out again without speaking.
Deborah pulled out a small gold cross which was hanging around her neck. ‘Dad gave me this. It belonged to her. She was kind of religious. I’m not, not religious, except in emergencies like now. Anyway, I’m wearing this for Mom. There’s some more of her stuff I’d like to show you. It’s in the bedroom.’
With quiet methodical movements, Pima was making the bed. She spoke urgently when Deborah came into the room. ‘Madame, Pima see man on beach wear cross, same like cross belong to madame.’
‘What man?’
‘Dead man. Man from water. Sam find long time ago.’
‘I thought you said he was an Asian man?’
‘Yes, Asian man, but wear cross.’
‘What are you talking about, Pima?’ asked Claire.
‘Never mind, Miss Claire.’ Pima looked confused, as if aware she should not have spoken to her mistress in front of a visitor.
‘She’s just remembered something about the body on the beach, at the yacht club – I think I told you. It was a few months ago now. She said it was an Asian wearing a cross. Sounds very strange.’
‘Did they find out who he was? I remember you mentioned it at the time,’ said Claire, not especially interested.
‘I don’t know. I didn’t hear anything more about it. I suppose if it’d been a Westerner there might have been more publicity. But Pima thought she’d seen the dead guy once before at a party, not here, at the Bank or the Embassy. You know she waits at parties sometimes.’
They had been speaking too fast for Pima to follow the conversation, but she suddenly repeated the word Embassy.
‘Excuse me, what did you say, Pima?’
‘Pima see Asian man wear red shirt with cross at Embassy, same dead man.’
‘Are you sure?’ asked Deborah.
She drew Claire out of the room and muttered, ‘She’s confused, poor girl. It doesn’t sound very likely that a man would wear a red shirt to an Embassy party. I mean, they always dress quiet and conservative on an occasion like that.’
Claire felt a strange lump in her stomach. ‘Except for Pel.’
‘Who?’
‘Someone I used to work with. A nice boy. He went away a few months ago. And he hasn’t come back.’
‘When was this?’
Claire gulped. ‘Last August. When did Pima see the body?’
‘I think it was around then. I remember because I had just weaned Jojo. Let me get my calendar. Where’s my purse?’ She went through to the hall and came back with a straw bag. She rummaged around in the bottom and produced her diary. ‘Yes, right, August the ninth we went to the club.’
Claire said slowly, ‘Well, I last saw Pel in the first week of August.’
‘And did he wear a cross, this Pel guy?’
‘Yes, yes, he’s a Christian, quite devout.’ Claire paced about. ‘Another thing about him, he was rather a sharp dresser in an informal way. He never wore a tie. And he did go to the Embassy, to Lucy’s, once with Jean-Louis, but I can’t remember when, except I was there too, and . . . and Howard.’
Tropical Connections Page 18