The Paper Marriage

by Flora Kidd

  He gave her a strange glance, then concentrated on finishing his soup. The waiters appeared and removed empty dishes. Main courses were served and the wine was poured and tasted. Owen was silent and she could see that he was thinking. She was surprised how easily they had been talking, as if they had known each other a long time; as if they were good friends and not strangers.

  He began to eat quickly, ravenously. Watching him, Brooke felt a faint prick of sympathy as she sensed that like herself he was lonely and possibly in need of comfort. She sipped some wine and felt its warmth slipping through her. She thought about sipping wine with Kevin, sharing the same bottle when they had picnicked in France, in Italy, in Greece. Her eyes darkened with pain. The food was suddenly tasteless.

  “Forget him and come and live with me.” The tersely-spoken words startled her, causing her to glance up at her companion.

  Come live with me and be my love. So Christopher Marlowe’s Passionate Shepherd had spoken to his love, and she had hoped that one day Kevin would say the same to her.

  Deciding to ignore the challenge in the smoky grey eyes which met hers across the table, she asked smoothly,

  “Forget whom?”

  “Forget the fellow who walked out on you. Come with me to Caracas and.. .. ”

  “Mr. Meredith,” she said quickly interrupting him, “I don’t know what your relatives may have told you about my friendship with Kevin Daley....”

  “Kevin,” he interrupted her in his turn. “Irish. I suppose you fell for his blarney. Shame on you!”

  "As I was saying,” she continued slowly and emphatically as if she was speaking to a childish patient, “no matter what you may have learned about my relationship with Kevin you have no right to assume that I’m....” She paused, searching for the right words.

  “That you’re open to improper advances from men,” he finished for her with a cheeky grin. “But you see, I’m not making an improper advance. I’d marry you first, here, by special licence.”

  He continued to eat as if he had said nothing unusual. Brooke opened and closed her mouth, then picking up her glass of wine she gulped some of the smooth red liquid. Setting the glass down as carefully, she said as coldly and as blightingly as she could, “I think you’re crazy or drunk. We’ve only just met.”

  Owen shook his head and laid his knife and fork tidily side by side on his empty plate.

  “I’m neither crazy nor drunk, and we haven’t just met. This is our third meeting,” he said imperturbably.

  “But a man doesn’t ask a woman to marry him when he knows scarcely anything about her,” she objected.

  “How many proposals have you had in your life?” he said cruelly. “What makes you think you’re an authority on the subject?”

  The brutality of his questions left her silent and seething.. He sipped some of his wine and gazed at her over the rim of his

  wine-glass. Again his eyes were hard and cold.

  “That wasn’t very pleasant of me, was it?” he said. “But it was true. You know nothing about how a man proposes or what makes him wish to propose marriage. I know enough about you to come to a decision and I’ve met your father. I’m asking you now because I haven’t much time and I want to plant the seed of the idea in your mind so you can think about it during the next week.”

  “I don’t need to think about it,” she said in a low angry voice. “The answer is no. I’m not in the market for marriage. I can’t marry you.”

  “Not even for Megan’s sake?”

  “What do you mean? What has she to do with it?” she queried sharply.

  “Everything. I want her to live with me in Caracas. If she was ready I’d take her when I fly back in two weeks’ time. After all, she is my daughter and she should be with me. However, I can see that she should also have the right female influence in her life too, someone stable who can be a mother to her and give her a settled background. I can’t leave her here any longer. I’ll lose her if I do. Already her grandparents, Glynis’s parents, have begun to turn her against me—” He broke off, his face darkening morosely again.

  “I’m sure that once you’re back in Caracas you’ll find someone suitable to look after her,” Brooke replied smoothly, not wishing to be involved with his problems in case they hurt her too much.

  “But not someone like you, someone kind and good, with eyes like crushed violets and hair like the sunset, the good fairy stepped right out of a fairy tale,” he murmured.

  “Apparently the Irish don’t have the monopoly of the blarney,” she retorted sharply, although her breath caught in her throat.

  “The words aren’t mine, they’re Megan’s. She has the way of the Welsh with words. I don’t have the gift, which is why I’m making a mess of this,” he added with a touch of impatience.

  “No!” she reiterated rather wildly.

  “Why not?”

  “Oh, because I have a perfectly good job. I don’t need to marry.” “Time for a change in your life,” he suggested.

  “Find someone else,” she insisted, feeling as if a trap was closing

  round her.

  “Only you,” he argued.

  She bit her lower lip and stared at the tablecloth. What would happen to Megan if she refused? What would happen to Owen Meredith? Surely there was someone else who could fill his need for a mother for his child.

  And yet she was tempted. She was in need of a change, if only to get away from the ghost of Kevin. If she married Owen she would be able to go to Venezuela and perhaps find out more about her father’s disappearance and at the same time satisfy her own perpetual desire to travel to foreign countries.

  But marriage! Her mind boggled at what marriage would entail. Marriage would mean the loss of her much-loved liberty and independence. It conjured up such words as rights and demands.

  She glanced across the table. Owen was ordering dessert and coffee and liqueurs, this time without consulting her. She picked up her glass and drank the last of the wine, then wished she hadn’t. The wine sang in her head, making clear thought difficult, and she had a suspicion that Owen had topped up her glass when she hadn’t been looking. He hoped that she would get confused and wouldn’t be able to think straight.

  What would it be like to be married to him? His square face was tanned, making him look swarthier than he probably was. His curly hair was longish, but probably because his appearance was the least of his concerns and not because he was attempting to follow any trend. He wore his pale grey businessman’s suit as if he was unused to it and as if he would be more at home in casual clothes. His attitude to his shirt and tie was the same, for he had unbuttoned the top button of his expensive shirt and had loosened the knot of his striped tie as if both irked him. Brooke guessed that he was about ten years older than herself and had been married, going by Megan’s age, about nine years to a woman called Glynis, who had returned to live with her parents because she couldn’t stand Venezuela.

  Possibly Glynis had returned because she couldn’t stand Owen Meredith any longer either!

  The thought was unkind, but no more unkind than his jeer that she had never received a proposal of marriage, and possibly it was near the truth.

  The waiter departed and Owen turned back, caught her staring at him and demanded brusquely,

  “Well, you’ve had time to think. What’s your answer now?” “Couldn’t you employ a nanny?” she ventured.

  “No.” His negative was quiet but definite. “I’ve thought it all out. I’ve decided that in order to give Megan a proper home background I have to marry again. The woman must be sensible and without any illusions about men or marriage. She must be someone calm and competent who will always have Megan’s welfare at heart. Ever since I landed in Britain last week I’ve been looking for someone. Most of the women I’ve met have already been married or attached in some other way. You’re the first I’ve met who is suitable, unattached and possibly open to persuasion. The fact that Megan knows you and likes you and that you’re als
o a qualified physiotherapist makes you doubly suitable.”

  Sensible, calm, competent - the words were familiar to Brooke. They had often appeared on her school reports and more recently on her references. At least Owen Meredith had the decency not to wrap up his proposal. He wanted her only for the qualities she knew she possessed. He wasn’t pretending he was attracted to her for any other reason.

  “But marriage would give you certain rights,” she said.

  He looked thoroughly puzzled and began to push at his forehead with the fingers of one hand as he tried to understand.

  “I don’t get you,” he said at last. “What rights?”

  “I couldn’t, I wouldn’t - ” she began to stammer, unnerved by his steady interested gaze. “I mean, without love I couldn’t be a proper wife to you,” she finished in a rush, wondering why her usual frankness had deserted her.

  His grin flickered briefly as he sensed her discomfiture.

  “But I’m not asking you to marry me for love,” he scoffed softly. “Romantic love is something which I’m not entirely sold on. I’m thinking of a different sort of relationship. I’m putting Megan first. Between us we can give her a settled background. We can be parents without being lovers. While we’re on the subject of rights, it’s as good a time as any to remind you that as a married woman you’d have rights too. They’re not all on one side. You’d have the right to my name, the right to live in my house, the right to be a mother to my child, the right to draw on my bank account. You’d have a fairly pleasant time of it as Mrs. Owen Meredith. No housework, all that’s taken care of. Caracas has a good climate and there’s plenty of entertainment there. I have many friends. No, the rights wouldn’t be all mine and you can be assured that I wouldn’t take the one you’re thinking of for granted. I may be a bit rough in my behaviour at times, but I’m not completely insensitive.”

  The coldly spoken rebuke brought a flush to her face and she couldn’t meet his eyes.

  “Look at it this way,” he continued more gently. “You and I both know what it’s like to take an emotional beating, so at the moment we’re both wary of emotional involvement. As a result we should get along quite well together and not expect too much of each other in that respect.”

  The arrival of the waiter with dessert and coffee saved her from replying. Her companion certainly knew how to command service and attention, she thought ruefully, thinking of the times she and Kevin had been kept waiting in restaurants. This was her first glimpse of how life would be if she married Owen Meredith.

  But did she want her life arranged by a strong-willed, arrogant ruffian? And then there was still the possibility that Kevin would write from Canada and invite her to join him there.

  They ate dessert in silence, both of them thinking over the recent conversation. Brooke poured coffee and passed a cup to Owen. He thanked her absently and she looked at him, noting how thick and dark his eyelashes were as he looked down at his coffee while he stirred it, how taut the skin was across his high Celtic cheekbones, how strong and muscular were the fingers holding the spoon, with dark hairs growing between their knuckles.

  “Well, what’s your answer now?” he prodded abruptly, making her jump.

  Brooke was confused. She stared at his lean piratical face and saw only ruthlessness there, the long eyelashes notwithstanding.

  “I can’t give you an answer - not now. I have to have more time to think.”

  He nodded as if in agreement.

  “Will eleven days be enough? I have to fly back to Caracas on the sixteenth of March. We could be married on the fifteenth, before I

  g°.”

  “Megan won’t be ready then,” she exclaimed.

  “I know. In a month from now, Streater said this afternoon, if she makes good progress. But if I’m sure of you, I can fly back with an easy conscience knowing you’ll follow with her.” She felt helpless, pushed into a corner from which there was no escape. “As long as you promise not to badger me into an answer while I’m thinking,” she parried, stalling for time.

  Owen considered her slowly, then smiled. The ruthlessness was obliterated temporarily from his face and with a faint feeling of uneasiness she recognised that he possessed an elusive and, consequently, dangerous charm.

  “I didn’t dare to hope that I would get this far tonight,” he said softly. “I promise not to badger you. I’ll keep my distance, Brooke.” Then he added, “I like your name. It’s unusual.”

  “My father chose it,” she answered, seeing a way to steer the conversation towards another subject.

  “And he’s an unusual man,” he murmured.

  “How long have you known him?” she asked. She had noted he had used the present tense when speaking of her father and this gave her hope.

  “Most of the time he’s been out there. Our company does the drilling for government surveys. He’s a fantastic geologist, the best I’ve ever met.”

  “Do you think he’s still alive?”

  He lowered his coffee cup to the saucer and gave her a wary glance.

  “That’s a strange question to ask,” he replied. “Has anyone said he’s dead?”

  “The letter I received from the government in Venezuela said that he was missing, presumed dead. You know the country. Do you think it’s possible he could still be alive?”

  “Yes, it is possible. It’s a very big country and the part of it where he was surveying, which is called Guayana and lies to the south of the Orinoco river, has still not been fully explored. But he’d need the assistance of the local Indian tribes to survive.”

  He finished his coffee and she waited for him to tell her more, but he was silent and turned to signal to the waiter for the bill.

  “You don’t think I’m silly to hope that he’s still alive, then?” she persisted urgently, and he gave her another wary glance.

  “No. I think it’s only natural for you to hope,” he replied. “Who wrote to you from Caracas?”

  “The letter was from the Department of Development and it was signed by the man who had helped to organise the search.”

  “Do you remember his name?” he asked casually.

  “Perez - Miguel Perez. Do you know him?”

  Owen looked down at the bill which the waiter had placed before him and she could not tell what he was thinking.

  “Yes, I know him,” he replied in a toneless voice. He said something to the waiter, then scribbled something on the bill and handed it back. “He’s an under-secretary to the Minister of the Interior who supervises that department of the government. He’s an up-and-coming politician,” he added in the same toneless voice. Then he looked at her and smiled, and again she had an uneasy feeling that his charm was dangerous because it was un-deliberate. He probably didn’t know that he possessed a smile like that.

  “Do you like dancing?” he asked.

  “Yes, I do,” she replied, surprised by the question.

  “So do I, so I suggest we spend the rest of the evening doing just that.”

  In the days that followed the evening Brooke had spent dining and dancing with Owen, he kept his promise to keep his distance. In fact after a while, Brooke began to wonder whether she had imagined he had proposed marriage to her. Although she saw him almost every day in the hospital on his way to visit Megan, he never once approached her, being content to wave a casual hand in her direction before going on his way. It was not surprising, therefore, that as time went on and the deadline he had given her drew nearer, she began to feel a little piqued by his off-hand treatment.

  It was silly to feel like that, she told herself, one evening as she walked home from the bus stop beside the curving park wall, especially since she had come to the conclusion that she could not marry him. He was not the kind of man she could see herself living with in any way whatsoever. During that evening they had spent dancing she had learned nothing more about him because he was extremely uncommunicative when it came to talking about himself. All she knew was that he was a very good danc
er. She would have liked to have found out more about him and had thought of asking Gwen Thomas for her opinion of Dennis’s second cousin, but she guessed that Owen had said nothing of his proposal to his relatives, so she shied away from showing interest in him which might lead to curiosity on their part.

  No, marriage between herself and the stranger from Venezuela was out of the question, and she would tell him so tomorrow.

  Humming cheerfully to herself, feeling light-hearted because the sun had shone all day and spring was coming and the chestnut buds were swelling, sticky pink on the curving branches, Brooke let herself into the house where she lived and glanced at the letter rack on the wall.

  Her heart leapt up and began to beat more quickly. There was an air-mail envelope bearing the maple leaf of Canada on it. A letter from Kevin at last! Her hand shook slightly as she took it down. She sped upstairs to her rooms to read it in privacy. Once there she delayed opening it, putting off the pleasure until she had changed out of her skirt and sweater and into an old quilted housecoat and had made some tea.

  The tea made and poured, her shoes off, she sat with her feet tucked under her and slowly slit open the letter. The address was Vancouver and the letter began simply,

  “Dear Brooke,

  Sorry not to have written before now, but ever since I arrived in Canada life has been hectic, full of new stupendous impressions and new people.

  I’ve decided to stay here in Vancouver for a while. I’ve met the greatest girl. Her name is Poppy. She’s an artist too and we have a lot in common. I’m growing so fond of her that I’m actually thinking of asking her to marry me. Imagine me as a respectable married man?

  I thought I’d better write and tell you all this because we always agreed to tell each other honestly when one of us found someone we preferred. Well, I’ve found Poppy and I expect that by now you’ve found someone you like better than me. I hope so.

  Let me know some time how life is with you.