Marriage and Other Games

by Veronica Henry

  Sixteen

  As downers went, this was pretty spectacular, thought Sebastian. Worse than the plummet after any drug-induced high, and he’d had plenty of those. But this was different. This was proving harder to recover from. A day in bed had no effect. Three days in bed and the low was more suffocating than ever. And he knew why. Because he’d brought it upon himself. He had unwittingly engineered his own downfall, and he couldn’t see a way out.

  On paper, he was a triumph. On paper, he had peaked. The exhibition was sold out, and could have sold ten times over. The reviews were unanimously glowing, from the tabloids to the most esoteric, snotty art magazines. The phone rang non-stop with requests for him to do interviews, features, documentaries. Jonathan Elder had to join the long list of publishers badgering him for his autobiography. Someone had even approached him to record an album, wanting to tap into his wild-boy, rock ’n’ roll image. Never mind that he couldn’t hold a tune - they had equipment that could deal with that.

  He was a phenomenon, by anyone’s definition. But in his heart, he’d screwed up. By unlocking himself, he had sacrificed everyone he loved and cared about. He was an absolute fool, a self-absorbed, self-indulgent, self-serving waste of space. So here he was, locked up in a prison of his own making, with nothing but the walls to look at.

  Never had Withybrook Hall felt so empty. It had always been empty during the week, but now he knew Catkin wasn’t coming back it felt emptier. The rooms echoed his footsteps mockingly. The air was cold. It was as if the house itself was chastising him. The home he had always loved was determined to teach him a lesson and refused to offer him any comfort or succour. His refuge had turned its back on him. He had always, always felt safe here. But now, he just felt very afraid, and there was nowhere else to run.

  He’d sent Stacey away. He’d given her a fortnight’s paid leave, although she had protested volubly. But he couldn’t bear her presence.

  She was so . . . ordinary. Her very presence made him realise what a luxury it would be, to be ordinary. Because let’s be honest, who was happier? Sebastian Turner, alone in his mansion with his millions? Or Stacey Humphries, with her cramped council house over-spilling with children, with every last penny accounted for?

  Stacey, of course. She’d got it right. She earned an amount of money that was entirely proportionate to what she actually did, and therefore she valued it. She worked herself to the bone to better the lives of the people she loved, and for that they loved her back. That’s not to say they didn’t squabble and bicker and fight, and give her a hard time occasionally, but she gave as good as she got and as a result she had respect. She would never wake up with a sinking feeling, thinking melodramatically, God, there is no way I can pick up a Hoover today, as he did a paintbrush. She had no option. Her world was entirely objective. She had few, if any, choices.

  He paced the corridors, the rooms, looking for respite. He couldn’t rest in his bed, on a sofa, on the floor. He didn’t want to eat. He drank himself into oblivion, and then stopped, because he knew the alcoholic cocoon was false, and what he was desperate for was an answer. Grey Goose would supply him no resolution. He had to find a way out for himself. He had to purge himself of his shame, and figure out a way to get through the rest of his life. And hopefully restore the travesty that his relationships had become.

  Firstly, of course, his marriage. He felt sick at what he had done to Catkin. He had allowed his own cowardice, his own niggardly fears about what he could and couldn’t achieve, to seep into their relationship, eating away at the foundations until it had collapsed just at the point he had reached his nadir.

  They should be enjoying his success together. Catkin would have revelled in the media attention. She would have loved helping him choose which magazines and programmes to go with. She would have dressed them both, played up to the cameras, showed the world how gripping the Mr and Mrs Turner Show was. They would have eaten out and drunk at other people’s expense, been ushered to the front of the queue for every glittering occasion. And even now, designers were sending him samples of clothing, begging him to wear their exclusive ranges. She would have adored every second of it.

  And no doubt Catkin would have reaped success off the back of him. She was talented and clever herself, but there was nothing like being associated with success for propelling your own career forward.

  Her exposure next to him on the screen and in the papers would have brought any number of offers out of the woodwork.

  But Sebastian hadn’t done a single interview, or returned a single call. He had become a recluse. Luckily, his money was automatically transferred into his account, because he wouldn’t even have been bothered to bank the cheques. The only person he had called was Catkin, but it wasn’t long before he realised she had barred his calls from her phone. She was refusing to have anything to do with him.

  He’d taken to watching her on television, flipping on the morning show hungry for a glimpse of her. He was chagrined to find that she looked fantastic; glowing and animated. She didn’t look as if she was pining. And she did her job so well - listening intently to the viewers when they phoned in their problems, never judging them, but providing them with well-considered and appropriate solutions. She never belittled or patronised them. She was a star, his wife. And he’d trodden all over her in his quest for gratification. No wonder she had cut him out of her life. He deserved everything he’d got.

  It wasn’t just Catkin he had screwed over. There was Charlotte and Penny. He had abused both of them too. He had totally exploited the two people who had made his life bearable over the last few weeks. He hadn’t known about Charlotte’s past, and couldn’t have predicted that her cover would be blown, of course, but nevertheless he had given no thought at all to the effect the exposure might have on her. He had used her, prostituted her image, captured her likeness for his own ends. Not once had he wondered whether what he was doing was an infringement of her privacy.

  And Penny. He’d seen her across the room as she’d walked into the exhibition. Seen the hurt and shock on her face as she’d realised who it was on the walls. He hadn’t given a thought to how she would react when she saw Charlotte emblazoned all around her, when he knew she had a crush on him.

  He was barely human, he thought in disgust. Because to be human you had to empathise. But not once had he been able to put himself in someone else’s position. All he’d been able to think about was himself.

  Now, he stood in front of an empty fridge in the kitchen. He hadn’t slept, bathed, shaved or eaten for three days. He thought he had probably reached his lowest point. He stared out into the back garden, at the sweeping lawn he had played on so many years ago, when he’d had no idea that such a bleak future lay ahead of him.

  Bleak? Who was he trying to kid? There was absolutely nothing bleak about his position. Any despair he was feeling was totally of his own making. He was standing in the middle of a beautiful house, looking out at the most staggering view, his name on the lips of some of the most powerful people in the country, and he expected pity?

  He gave a derisory snort, and the noise made him jump. He hadn’t heard a sound for days. He had a choice: do the world a favour and slash his wrists, so they could all forget about him and move on to the next flavour of the month, or pull himself together and enjoy the fruits of his success.

  He looked at the Sabatier knife block. The black handles with their brass rivets offered themselves to him invitingly. He turned away. That really would be the ultimate act of self-indulgence. Not to mention sadly predictable: the tortured artist taking his own life.

  It was the horrifying prospect of being considered a cliché that made Sebastian walk up the stairs and run himself a bath.

  It was, therefore, an entirely appropriate place to have his eureka moment. He was lying in the cooling suds, surrounded by stubblestudded scum, thinking that he really should get out and pour himself a fresh tub, when his eyes spotted a crack in the ceiling. He followed the crack down to the
tiles, which he suddenly noticed, for the first time, were an unappealing grey with an art deco abstract border that had probably, at the time of application, been quite the thing but which were now horribly dated. So, too, was the enormous corner bath in which he was lying, and the dolphin taps. Although it was large, and the fixtures and fittings had been top of the range at the time, the whole room suddenly struck him as shabby and outmoded. Catkin had tried to tell him as much many times, but he had refused to see it. This had been his parents’ bathroom, where his ravishing mother had prepared herself for party after party, and for Sebastian it was part of who he was.

  But now he was searching for answers, about who he was, and why, and how he could change himself, he realised that his environment had probably had an enormous influence on him. By preserving Withybrook Hall in aspic, he was selfishly clinging on to the happy memories of his childhood, in the vain hope that he could replicate it in adult life. Of course he couldn’t. He had to make his own way in life, not live in the past.

  He clambered out of the bath and wrapped a towel round his waist. He then gave himself a tour of his home being as objective as he possibly could, trying to detach himself from any sentimentality. As he wandered through the rooms, it was as if he was seeing Withybrook Hall for the first time, and he began to see why Catkin had constantly complained. It was dated, tired, almost decrepit in places. And as much as he loved it as it was, he realised that the house deserved better. You wouldn’t keep a beautiful woman in clothes that were faded and out of date, so why a house?

  He finally stopped in the kitchen. He had to admit, it had absolutely nothing going for it, except its size. But all that could be changed. All it would take was a bit of imagination, and he certainly had plenty of that. He pictured it flooded with light, a haven of polished elm and limestone, warm natural materials interspersed with the very best in culinary appliances. A dream kitchen. No. A dream home.

  He felt a burst of excitement. The house was going to be his next project. It would be a showcase for the various pieces of art he had collected over the years, which were racked up in his studio waiting to be hung. He would redecorate the house from top to bottom to surprise Catkin. A grand gesture, perhaps, but a heartfelt one. One that would prove to her that he knew he was wrong, and that he was sorry.

  And the one person to help him do this was surely Charlotte. He trusted her taste. He’d seen what she had done to Myrtle Cottage. Her drawings were imaginative, fresh, not self-consciously over-stylised. She would keep the essence of the house while giving it a total face-lift. And at the same time, he could atone for treating her so badly. He’d had no idea how he was going to even begin to approach her and apologise, but now he had a valid excuse for knocking on her door.

  Sebastian felt exhilarated. He pulled on his jeans, nearly tripping over them in his haste, grabbed a sweater, some socks, dug out his Converses from under the bed. He was still tying his laces as he fell out of the front door. He raced down the drive and along the lane, slipping on the slippery surface of the frost-encrusted road, his breath coming out in cloudy white gusts.

  By the time he reached Myrtle Cottage he was gasping, with a stitch in his side. But he banged urgently on the door nevertheless. The moments before Charlotte answered seemed like a lifetime.

  He was shocked at how dreadful she looked: even worse than he had looked when he woke up that morning. Her face was pale and gaunt; her eyes huge, with dark circles underneath. She was wearing tattered jeans and an old polo shirt, and her hair looked wild and unkempt, as if it hadn’t been near a brush for days.

  She looked at him warily.

  ‘Charlotte . . .’ he began, not sure where to start. ‘Jesus, you look terrible.’

  She gave a wry smile. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘I’ve come to apologise.’

  She stood to one side to let him in.

  ‘What for?’

  Sebastian slunk in through the door.

  ‘Thinking about myself, as usual. I honestly didn’t think. The exhibition - I didn’t realise how creepy it looked. And how incriminating. And I really had no idea about . . . you know, your husband and stuff. I didn’t know that was all going to come out . . .’

  ‘Listen,’ said Charlotte, ‘forget it. The exhibition was amazing. And you weren’t to know about my lurid past. It was stupid of me to think I could hide for ever. It was going to come out eventually. Though I must admit I didn’t imagine it would be quite so dramatic when it did happen. Splashed all over the Sunday papers.’ She managed a slightly mirthless laugh. ‘Again.’

  The two of them stood in the hallway, surrounded by ladders and paint pots and dustsheets. Sebastian scratched his head awkwardly.

  ‘So . . . are we still mates?’

  ‘Of course we’re still mates!’

  Sebastian looked at her in amazement. ‘How can you be so good?’ he asked. ‘So . . . forgiving?’

  ‘I’m not always.’ She motioned him to follow her. ‘Come and have a coffee. And see what I’ve done to the kitchen. I’m really pleased with it.’

  He followed her obediently. She obviously didn’t want to go over old ground, so he decided he would leave things at that, and be grateful that he had emerged unscathed.

  As he walked into the kitchen, he was astonished. The little room was totally unrecognisable. The ugly old units had been ripped out, and in their place were a row of tongue-and-groove cupboards painted white, with cup handles, topped with beech work surfaces. The floor was covered in bright green rubber; the tiles on the wall were a matching green shot through with silver. It was simple, fresh and modern, but with some traditional touches that kept the cottagey feel - a huge butler’s sink, the original drying rack that she had stripped back and waxed, a series of prints photocopied from an ancient Mrs Beeton that she had hand-tinted and framed up.

  ‘Wow.’ Sebastian gazed around admiringly.

  ‘I’m quite pleased,’ she admitted. ‘And I’ve managed to keep the cost right down. Less than two thousand pounds for the whole room.’

  Sebastian was impressed. If she could work this magic on a tight budget, imagine what she could do given free rein. He felt a surge of excitement.

  ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a proposition. I want to do up Withybrook Hall. From top to bottom. No expense spared. Catkin’s been going on and on about doing it for ages - as you know. So I wanted to do it for her, as a surprise. And I’d love you to do it for me. It seems only fair that you should reap some of the profits.’

  Charlotte looked at him in surprise. ‘Well . . . thank you. I’m really flattered.’

  ‘So what do you think?’

  ‘Obviously, I’d love to. But—’

  ‘Don’t say but. But’s never good.’

  ‘The thing is, Myrtle Cottage is nearly finished. It’s going on the market next month, with a bit of luck. So I’m going to have to move on.’

  ‘Where are you going to go?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. I’m thinking about travelling.’ She put her fingers up in quote marks. ‘Going to “find” myself.’

  Sebastian looked crestfallen.

  ‘Anyway,’ Charlotte went on, ‘I don’t suppose Catkin would be too thrilled with my input. Under the circumstances.’

  ‘Maybe not.’ Sebastian hadn’t considered that. Yet again, he hadn’t thought his plan through. Was he ever going to learn?

  ‘At least let me take you for lunch,’ he offered finally. ‘You look as if you haven’t eaten for days.’

  ‘No way. I’m not going into the Trout with you. Not after all those terrible articles—’

  ‘Do you know what?’ Sebastian interrupted. ‘The funny thing about down here is actually nobody gives a toss. They might be inveterate curtain-twitchers, and know the intimate details about your business, but they’re not actually bothered. They don’t judge. It’s not like London, when people give you the cold shoulder or cut you dead.’

  ‘Really?’ Charlotte looked doubtful.

 
‘Honestly. It’s why my parents moved here. All their friends used to behave dreadfully, but it didn’t matter in Withybrook. They could get up to all manner of nefarious activities and still be given the time of day. Basically, I don’t think people here understand the nuances, so they just let you get on with it.’

  ‘I haven’t dared go out for days, for fear of what people might be saying.’

  ‘You shouldn’t care anyway,’ said Sebastian stoutly. ‘You’re not actually guilty of anything.’

  ‘True. But there’s guilt by association, I can assure you.’ Charlotte still remembered the ignominy of being blanked in Sainsbury’s car park, and the churning feeling it had given her in her stomach.

  ‘Come on.’ Sebastian wasn’t going to be dissuaded. ‘You need one of the Speckled Trout’s game pies, and some lemon pudding.’

  ‘OK,’ she relented. ‘But let me go and put something decent on.’