Marriage and Other Games

by Veronica Henry

  ‘I’m off to the Speckled Trout,’ she said to him brightly. But like Megan, he barely looked up from his task, just seemed mildly irritated that she had interrupted.

  She ran back down the stairs. As she walked through the hall, she stopped at the mirror, unable to leave without checking for lines, wrinkles, slackness of jaw or openness of pore. She felt mildly reassured by what she saw. She wasn’t classically beautiful, but Penny knew she was striking. She had a long, pale face, with pronounced cheekbones and brown, rather hooded eyes that spoke of hidden depths and dark secrets. She kept her brunette hair short and choppy, shot through with crimson-red flashes that some might have considered inappropriate for a GP, but she didn’t care. She was tall, five foot nine, with long, rangy legs and a small bum, so she knew she could get away with the short skirts, dinky cardigans and opaque tights that were her uniform. She had a collection of arty silver jewellery - chunky rings and beaten necklaces and dangly earrings - which she’d collected over the last few years, buying trinkets for herself on her birthday because no one else ever did. OK, so her mum sent her a book token and the kids usually gave her a cellophane-wrapped basket from the Body Shop, but she never received anything of any significance. So she treated herself once a year, going to one of the trendy galleries in Exeter and finding a piece that suited her personality. Or rather, represented the person she longed to be. Not the world-weary, embittered, frustrated middle-aged woman who had once had so much to give but whose generous heart was being slowly frozen. She was well in her forties, even if, thanks to great skin and good bone structure, she barely looked thirty-five. There wasn’t much time for her dreams to come true, she was beginning to realise. By the time Tom was ready to go to university, and she could realistically just think about herself, it would be too late.

  As she walked down the road towards the pub, the chill night air settled around her. She tucked in her scarf, wishing she had put on her fake Uggs as the cold from the tarmac seeped through the bottom of her zebra-skin ballet flats. But her legs didn’t look as good in stumpy sheepskin boots . . .

  She was trying desperately to pretend to herself that she didn’t care if he was in there or not. But deep inside there was that little kernel of hope, the one that kept one foot in front of the other. She knew she would feel either joy or despondency the moment she stepped over the threshold. A quick glance to the chair he always sat in at the end of the bar. He was usually in there on a Sunday night. Don’t be disappointed if he isn’t, she warned herself. Prepare yourself. But a little bit of her imagined him at the bar, turning to smile at her as she walked in, nodding at the seat next to him, pulling out a crumpled fiver to get her a drink . . .

  Charlotte sat at the bar, not quite able to believe that one of the country’s best known artists was digging a spare spoon into the citrusy yellow goo that oozed out of her lemon pudding. It had eventually arrived, hot and steaming, with a dollop of Devon clotted cream on the side, and Sebastian had eyed it hungrily.

  ‘Can I have a bit?’ he’d asked, grabbing a teaspoon from the glasses on the bar that held spare cutlery.

  ‘Get your own!’ chided Norman.

  ‘I only want a spoonful,’ he insisted, and Charlotte relented.

  Sebastian proceeded to eat more than half.

  The evening was definitely turning out better than expected, Charlotte decided. It had got off to a shaky start, but she found she was enjoying herself, bantering with Sebastian, trying to keep up with his capricious trains of thought. Of course, it was plainly obvious that he was self-centred and spoiled to death, but he was so open about the fact, and so charming with it, that one couldn’t help but be . . . well, charmed.

  ‘Go on,’ she urged him. ‘Finish it off. I’ve already had a huge steak and mushroom pie, remember?’

  He didn’t need any more encouragement. As he scraped up the last of the lemon sauce, the door opened, and a tall, dark-haired woman walked in, wrapped in a shearling coat. Sebastian raised a hand in greeting and the woman’s face lit up.

  ‘Hey! Penny! A glass of red for Penny, please, Norm. And another for Charlotte . . .’

  Charlotte put up her hand to stop him.

  ‘No, no. I’ve had enough. Honestly. I can’t get drunk on my first night.’

  ‘Hi!’

  The woman came up to join them and leaned in to kiss Sebastian, who put a hand on Charlotte’s arm to introduce her.

  ‘Penny, this is Charlotte. She’s just moved to Withybrook. She’s run away, just like you and me.’

  ‘Hello.’ Penny gave Charlotte a polite but cool smile as she unwound the scarf from her neck and took off her coat.

  ‘Penny is in Category C,’ Sebastian informed Charlotte. ‘An incomer. But she’s also very useful because she’s a doctor. And she knows everyone.’

  ‘It’s lovely to meet you.’ Charlotte tried to meet Penny’s eye, but she was busying herself putting her coat on the back of a chair. She could tell she wasn’t thrilled by her presence. Her eyes were guarded, and she had a nervous energy about her that made Charlotte feel tense. As she pulled up her chair to join them, Penny looked askance at the pudding bowl on the bar top. The two spoons lay incriminatingly close. Charlotte immediately felt guilty.

  Sebastian waved to Norman.

  ‘Actually, I might as well order a bottle for these two.’

  ‘Honestly, not for me,’ protested Charlotte.

  ‘Just one more glass. An ice-breaker. You can’t just leave now Penny’s arrived. It would be rude.’

  Charlotte couldn’t help feeling that Penny would be perfectly happy for her to leave right this second, but Sebastian was very persuasive. And she really didn’t feel like going back to Myrtle Cottage on her own just yet.

  ‘Just one more, then,’ she heard herself saying, against her better judgement.

  The bubble of excitement Penny had felt at seeing Sebastian at the bar was quickly burst by the presence of the small curvy blonde at his side, a wide-eyed Patsy Kensit lookalike wrapped in cream cashmere. Penny tried hard to smile a greeting, and swallow down the choking bile that rose in her craw as she realised they’d been sharing a pudding. She wanted to pick up the bowl and throw it across the room. They had, apparently, only just met, but she felt as if she was intruding. There was an air of intimacy woven around them that was almost impenetrable. But then, Sebastian did that. Drew you in, made you feel as if you were his only ally, as if it were you and he against the rest of the world. No doubt he’d been weaving his spell on this hapless creature.

  Penny had had a crush on Sebastian Turner ever since they’d got drunk together one Friday night two years ago. Bill had taken the kids to Centre Parcs for the weekend and Penny had faced the prospect of a weekend alone. She knew there was a band on at the Speckled Trout. She could see no reason why she shouldn’t go. There would be a good crowd in there. She wouldn’t stand out. Why shouldn’t an attractive, middle-aged divorcee be allowed to have a good time? Yet it was an ordeal, to screw up your courage and face a pub full of people, trying to appear nonchalant. What if everyone ignored her, and she had to stand, self-conscious, with a drink she had clearly bought for herself, trying to look absorbed in the band? But she forced herself to do it. No one was going to come knocking at her door to sweep her off her feet. If she wanted to find someone else to share her life, she had to get out there.

  In the end, it had been a wonderful evening. There had been plenty of people ready to greet her, buy her a drink and make her feel welcome. As a local GP she was well known and appreciated. She still didn’t know why Sebastian had homed in on her. He’d been there on his own, miffed because his wife had phoned to say she wouldn’t be able to get back down to Withybrook until the next morning. They’d sat in the corner with a bottle of Havana Club and a bucket of ice, talking and laughing and listening to the band. They were playing covers - Van Morrison, Leonard Cohen, songs from Penny’s student days - and it was a half-pleasant, half-painful experience. She loved the music and the lyric
s, but they reminded her of happier times, when she had been young and naïve and hopeful and totally innocent of the pain that lay ahead. She wished she’d worn something more glamorous than black jeans and a white T-shirt, but Sebastian told her she reminded him of Chrissie Hynde, so she supposed she didn’t look that bad.

  At the end of the evening, he offered to walk her home. He had to pass her cottage on the way back to Withybrook Hall. They linked arms as only the very drunk can do, meandering their way up the high street under the lamplight. Penny felt her heart thumping very loudly, knowing she was being ridiculous, but recognising the signs - she had fallen head over heels in love.

  She wanted to smother him, mother him, inspire him. Smooth away the hunted look he seemed to wear, the one that had made him toss back drink after drink that evening. It would destroy him eventually if he carried on. The ferocity with which he devoured alcohol was nihilistic. He drank to escape his demons, to blot out reality. She knew it was eating at his insides. The hollow cheeks and huge eyes were not just a fashion statement. As a doctor, she should want to cure him. Only she wanted the cure to be her. She wanted to be his reason for living, the thing that gave him joy.

  But most of all, she wanted to make love to him. She wanted that smooth, pale skin under her fingertips, to kiss the mouth that spoke of such preposterous things, to pull him inside her and help transport him to a place that released him from the torture he felt. But why would this angelic demon boy want to sleep with a woman of her age? She must have at least ten years on him. Though there had definitely been moments. Frissons. When he had looked at her with those clear green eyes, and she’d known he was thinking about it, and not rejecting it out of hand. There was chemistry. She hadn’t imagined it.

  Yet how could she want to sleep with another woman’s husband, after what had happened to her? She didn’t; not really. But a tiny little part of her thought, why not?

  ‘Is this your house?’ They had stopped by the little wooden gate that led to her cottage. Sebastian ducked behind the hedge. ‘Don’t want your husband seeing me and coming out with a shotgun.’

  Penny realised that he thought she was still married. That they had talked all evening and, although she had mentioned her kids, she hadn’t once referred to Bill, their marriage or their divorce.

  ‘Don’t worry. He’s not an issue. He’s long gone.’

  ‘Really? You didn’t tell me.’

  ‘It’s boring, isn’t it?’

  Sebastian looked perturbed by this latest information.

  ‘So you’re divorced?’

  She nodded, feeling a lump of self-pity in her throat.

  ‘And you haven’t got anyone else?’

  ‘Why would anyone want me?’ Even as she said it, she cringed. Her self-pitying mew was more of a turn-off than a surfeit of cellulite, thread veins and greying hair.

  ‘Why wouldn’t they? You’re gorgeous.’

  ‘Yeah, right. They’re queuing up.’

  ‘Don’t do yourself down. All the men in the pub were eyeing you up. You’d got the best arse in there.’

  ‘Shut up!’

  But she couldn’t help grinning. He moved in close to her and she drew in her breath as he put his hands on her hips and pulled her towards him. She could feel the warmth of him as he pushed his pelvis into hers. It was suggestive, but not unpleasantly so, as their legs entwined.

  ‘I’d do you.’

  She blinked, surprised by his frankness.

  ‘Easy to say,’ she flashed back, because it was.

  The next moment she was astonished to find him kissing her. Deep, sensual, controlled kisses that stirred feelings in her she thought had been long buried.

  She breathed in shakily. They stood in silence for a moment, arms wrapped round each other.

  ‘Do you want to come in?’ she whispered.

  He didn’t answer for a long time.

  ‘I better not,’ he sighed. ‘I might start something I shouldn’t.’

  She wasn’t going to beg. She still had her dignity. She just gave him a kiss on the cheek and extricated herself from his embrace.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said in a small voice, not quite sure what she was thanking him for. Turning her upside down? Giving her a sympathy snog? Kick-starting her bloody libido? She’d have been much better off if he’d left her alone.

  Ever since that night she had been tortured by the memory of his lips on hers. She fantasised about him non-stop, dreaming that he turned up on her doorstep having left his wife and declaring undying love. Of course, it would never happen, and in the meantime she had to settle for the occasional drink with him in the pub. But a woman could dream, couldn’t she? What she couldn’t cope with, however, was the thought that there might be a rival for her affections. Seeing him with Charlotte had shaken her, as in a flash she could imagine him only too well walking out on Catkin to be with this girl.

  Penny felt the urgent need for a cigarette.

  ‘Coming outside for a fag?’ she asked Sebastian, knowing she was testing him and hating herself for it.

  ‘Nah.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s bloody freezing out there.’

  ‘I’ll have one.’ Charlotte jumped off her stool. ‘If you don’t mind me pinching one.’

  Penny was surprised. She wouldn’t have had Charlotte down as a smoker. She looked far too wholesome.

  ‘Course. I’ll be glad of the company.’

  Sebastian watched the two of them go. He felt guilty about Penny. He’d so meant to do the right thing that evening. Just restore Penny’s confidence and give her a little fillip. She was attractive, and entertaining, and sexy, and he knew that he could tell her that all he liked but she wouldn’t believe him. And so he’d kissed her, to prove it.

  Yet as soon as his lips had touched hers, he knew he had made a terrible error of judgement. This woman was so fragile. She had melted into him so totally. She couldn’t cope with his vote of confidence. In his world, people distributed meaningless kisses all the time. In Penny’s world, a kiss meant something. A commitment, a declaration. His slightly drunken, rather impulsive gesture had been meant as an act of kindness, which Sebastian realised now was not only patronising but dangerous.

  He knew she hungered after him. He enjoyed her company, he really did. She was lively, funny and unpretentious. Her head wasn’t filled with the posturing nonsense of the showbiz circles he and Catkin moved in. But he was careful to keep her firmly at arm’s length. She didn’t deserve to be damaged by the likes of Sebastian Turner, and he knew he would damage her. He always did. The only person who had ever been able to withstand his destruct button was Catkin, which was why he was married to her.

  Only lately, their relationship was beginning to wear him down. His isolation during the week meant he was alone with his darker side. Rather than inspiring him, it inhibited him, his confidence seeping away until his studio became a prison from which he was desperate to escape. And so it was hardly surprising he ended up in the Speckled Trout, talking to all and sundry and trying to find solace.

  Catkin tried to make up for being away all week by throwing elaborate house parties at the weekend, filling the house with people she thought were interesting and stimulating, or more to the point might be useful. She never invited Sebastian’s old art-college friends, because she thought they were bad for him. Most of them didn’t have even a modicum of his success and she felt they were hanging on his coat-tails. Not as much as the liggers and hangers-on that she invited, he wanted to point out.

  This weekend, he’d had to tolerate the heart-throb from the latest soap opera and his girlfriend and a celebrity make-over artist, among others. Sebastian strongly suspected Catkin had a hidden agenda, and was angling for him to have a make-over. She was always going on to him about his scruffy clothes, the fact that he still wore stuff from his schooldays, and didn’t get his hair cut properly. He insisted on going to the dodgy barber in Comberton when even he thought his locks were too straggly. But people didn’t expect artists
to ponce around in Armani, did they? Surely they wanted artists to be slightly bedraggled and unshaven?

  He was starting to resent this nannying. Why did Catkin feel such a great need to change him? It had been fantastic in the early days. They had loved each other for what they were. She had fallen for him because he dressed like he didn’t give a shit - and he didn’t. She had adored his friends; they’d all partied like rock stars. They had adhered to no timetable, obeyed no rules, had no regard for mealtimes or bedtimes.

  Now, she was trying to turn him into something he wasn’t. She was trying to stop him drinking. She even controlled what went into the fridge, and had the supermarket deliver what she thought he ought to be eating - crudités and fucking hummus and fresh fruit and pro-biotic yoghurts. He let it all rot, and walked to the village shop for Pot Noodles and Mars Bars and tins of Campbell’s condensed chicken soup and Jammy Dodgers.