More Than You Know

by Penny Vincenzi

  Perhaps she would learn more over yet another of those life-changing teas at the Connaught; and meanwhile, she would simply wait. She wasn’t sure what for—a visit from David? A phone call? A letter? Or nothing?

  It was a wonderful moment—in its own way. It didn’t exactly make everything all right; everything never would be all right again. But the escape—from the fear that she was going mad, and even some of the guilt—was intense, and she sat staring at the calm, gentle face of the psychotherapist, feeling stupid with relief, and asked her to repeat the words, just to make sure she hadn’t imagined them.

  “Of course,” said Mary Miller, smiling. “I said had your gynaecologist ever suggested that you had postnatal depression? Because to me it seems really rather … likely.”

  “No. Well, I never went back to her; there didn’t seem any need.”

  “In which case I think perhaps you should, and ask her yourself. I would say your body has as much to do with your problems as your mind, Eliza. Now, we can continue with these sessions if you like, and I would hope that would be helpful, but first …”

  Eliza made an appointment to see Mrs. Munroe the moment she got home, and sat in her consulting room the following morning, hearing the wonderful words repeated.

  “I think that is a very likely diagnosis, and I only wish you had come to me before. Everything you describe, the insomnia, the rage, the weeping, it all fits. Of course, you have also lost a baby—I don’t for a moment diminish that as a cause of unhappiness either—and I think your session with Mrs. Miller sounds very helpful. But I am going to write to your GP immediately and suggest you are prescribed some antidepressants.”

  “Oh, no!” wailed Eliza. “I shall feel such a failure taking them; I really don’t approve of all that stuff, and now that I know—”

  “Eliza,” said Mrs. Munroe firmly, “you are not a failure, and it would be extremely foolish not to take them. You are physically ill; your body needs help. Now, please, otherwise, I wouldn’t like to answer for the consequences.”

  And so it was that the very next day, tentatively, nervously, but still flooded with relief, Eliza embarked on a course of Trazodone. Within a week, she was sleeping well, and by the second she could feel, day by day, the baffling and frightening sensations of despair shifting from her. She still cried for baby Charles, but she felt in control of herself and her emotions once more; she was less exhausted and she could find some sense in life and even began to enjoy simple things again: going to Summercourt, making progress on the Fulham house, and looking for a pony for Emmie for Christmas—as instructed by Matt.

  She even began having conversations with Matt again, talking about the baby and how he felt about it now, and that was hugely helpful, as he felt less rejected by her and less alone in his own grief. They even managed some sex, a poor, frail shadow of its early, noisy self, but as they each quietly reflected, it was a beginning.

  She did not, however, tell him about what had happened with Emmie that dreadful day in the drawing room; she decided that had been the actions of the other Eliza, the poor, mad, sickly Eliza, and what would be the point?

  She still avoided certain things: social gatherings were beyond her, and she hated the bossy, pushy mother Mafia at the nursery school gates, saying, “Sorry, double-parked,” whenever anyone tried to engage her in conversation. The Mafia thought they understood and continued, mercifully, to invite Emmie to parties and to tea.

  Heather had been the only person she really wanted to see in those early dreadful days; Heather had lost two babies herself, and had been quietly kind, concerned, and helpful, and would come round to the house, not as overawed by its size and opulence as Eliza had feared, taking Emmie out when Eliza lacked the energy to walk to the park or was crying so hard even Emmie became alarmed. She had provided Eliza’s link with sanity, and she owed her more than she felt she would ever repay.

  But she had been avoiding Eliza recently; baffled, anxious, slightly hurt, but thinking that perhaps she had foisted too much of her grief on her, Eliza went round to see her at lunchtime one day.

  Heather appeared at the door, looking listless and pale. “Oh,” she said, “oh, hallo.”

  “Heather,” said Eliza, alarmed, “what it is it; what’s the matter?”

  Heather said nothing, just started to cry.

  “Oh, now, come on; you can’t cry. That’s my job,” said Eliza.

  Heather managed a feeble smile. “Got a tissue?”

  “Yes, of course. I knew there was something wrong. Can I come in?”

  “Yes. Yes, of course. Sorry.”

  Eliza followed her upstairs. “Cup of tea?”

  “No, thanks. You have some. I’ve … I’ve gone off it.” She met Eliza’s eyes reluctantly.

  “Oh,” said Eliza, and it was as if the ground had dropped beneath her. “Oh, Heather. I see. You’re pregnant.”

  “Yes. I’m pregnant,” said Heather with a huge sigh. “I’m sorry, Eliza.”

  “Sorry?” said Eliza, crushing the fierce shot of jealousy. “Don’t say ‘sorry,’ Heather. Is that why you’ve been avoiding me?”

  “Yes. Yes, it is. I thought it would be so … so terrible for you. Oh, God, excuse me.”

  She rushed out of the room and into the toilet on the landing and came back a few minutes later, ashen, tears in her eyes.

  “It looks like it’s terrible for you, not me,” said Eliza. “Did you really think I was so mean-spirited I’d not want to see you because of it? Heather, you’re my friend; you’ve saved my sanity this summer. I’d do anything for you, anything. I’m sad you felt like that.”

  “I didn’t. Well, not exactly. It just seemed so … so ironic. And cruel. You losing a baby you wanted so much, me pregnant with one that we really don’t want at all. That’s not exactly right, but that we can’t cope with.”

  “Well, I think that comes under the heading of life,” said Eliza. “Matt says it’s shit and he’s right. Now come on; tell me all about it.”

  “There’s not much to tell,” said Heather. “Alan’s really bad tempered with the worry, and me being so sick, and we’ll have to move now and I can see we should, but we can’t find anywhere. Not that’ll take a baby. And this flat is at least cheap. It’s a controlled rent; do you know what that is?”

  “I … think so,” said Eliza carefully. (Controlled rents and the iniquity of them formed one of the main subjects of Matt’s rants. “… people living in places, prewar rents, can’t put them up, can’t get the tenants out; it’s completely wrong …”)

  “But it’s terrible living here now,” said Heather. “The roof’s leaking now and old Mrs. Foster on the top floor, she’s finally had to go to live with her son, and the other toilet is leaking too, and often blocked.”

  “Oh, God. Poor you. Look, I’ll go and get Coral for you; Emmie’s out to tea. I’ll pick up a few things from the shop. And have you tried peppermint tea for the sickness? Or chamomile? I’ll get you some of both. And don’t start rummaging for your purse, because you can give it to me some other time, OK?”

  “OK,” said Heather, leaning back with a sigh, “thanks, Eliza.”

  Eliza fetched Coral from play school, and then whizzed her round the supermarket, buying her what were clearly luxuries, biscuits, squash, fruit yogurts, crisps.

  She took Coral back to the flat, cooked her tea, and made some chamomile and then peppermint tea for Heather to try. Heather said they were both disgusting and managed a feeble smile.

  “Right. I’d better go. Her Highness will be waiting for me. But I mean what I said, Heather: I really would do anything for you, anything at all. I mean it.”

  She went to collect Emmie and transport her from one large, luxurious home to another, reflecting yet again on the iniquity of life.

  “A drink, Miss Scarlett?”

  “Oh … Demetrios, yes, please. How lovely.”

  She was spending the last sweetly warm days of autumn on Trisos; she had wanted to be alone, to think.<
br />
  “Lot of bookings for next year already, Miss Scarlett. We’re thinking of extending the house.”

  “Oh, Demetrios, is that wise?” She had visions of some hideous modern adjunct. “Don’t spoil it.”

  “No, no, only just a little courtyard at the back, and maybe two, three rooms round it. I asked Mr. Frost what he thought; he said we should talk with his architect.”

  “That’s a good idea. Has he been here this year, Mr. Frost?”

  “Oh, a lot of time, yes. He is writing a new book.”

  “And … was Mrs. Frost with him?”

  “For a week, in the spring. She does not like the heat.”

  “Right.” Bit of a funny place to build a house, then; but why did she care about Mrs. Frost, for God’s sake?

  “She is wonderful lady. Very, very clever. She is poet. She talks not very much.”

  That must be a quiet household, Scarlett thought. But at least it was a household. Which remained just a tantalising mirage in her own life.

  She was thirty now, and she wanted marriage, a home, babies. She sighed, finished her drink, looked at the moon rising over the dark, dark blue sea, cool, clear, huge, almost near enough to touch. But, of course, she couldn’t; it was far, far away. Rather like the husband and home she wanted.

  Maybe that was all she was doing, crying for the moon.

  Mariella had invited Eliza to stay with her in Milan that autumn, to cheer her up after the death of her baby, and Eliza had clearly longed to accept. Matt, however, had refused to allow it.

  “He says it is term time, and I must be here with Emmie.”

  Mariella could hear the tears in her voice and felt a rush of sympathy and sorrow—and rage towards Matt.

  “Perhaps,” she suggested, “I should speak to Matt myself?”

  “Absolutely not,” said Eliza, horrified. “That really would do no good at all.”

  “Well, I am not pleased with him. Not at all. You must tell him so.”

  “Maybe,” said Eliza.

  “Eliza.”

  “Yes, Matt.”

  “Look …” He was clearly finding whatever it was difficult to say. “It probably would do you good to go away for a few days. I know I should have taken you, but I’ve been so busy.”

  “Yes, I had noticed.”

  “So … maybe, I thought … you could go a bit later. Emmie breaks up quite early in December, I think, and then you could take her with you.”

  “Well, I don’t know if that would suit Mariella,” said Eliza coolly. “She’s a very busy woman.”

  “Oh, Eliza, come off it.”

  “There are more ways of being busy than covering the country with concrete.”

  “Yes, all right, but I don’t count buying frocks among them. Look, I’m trying to help. To be … nice.”

  “I … I know. But I don’t think you understand. Getting away would be so lovely—”

  “Getting away from me, you mean.”

  “No, Matt, of course not.”

  “Well, that’s what it looks like. From where I am.”

  “You are so self-obsessed,” she said. “You know that?”

  “And you’re not, I suppose. Oh, what’s the use. You do what you bloody well want; you usually do.”

  And he stalked out of the kitchen.

  She hesitated for a moment, then followed him.

  He was standing in the drawing room, staring out of the window.

  “Matt. I’m sorry.”

  He turned round; his face was flushed and his eyes very brilliant.

  “You really are not the only one hurting, you know,” he said, and his voice cracked slightly. “I know it’s worse for you, but—”

  “I know. And I am sorry. Really sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “No, you shouldn’t, Eliza; we’ve got to stop being so hard on each other. It isn’t helping.”

  “I know,” she said. “I know. But I feel you don’t even like me anymore. I don’t know what I’ve done.”

  “You’ve shut me out,” he said. “You’re so hostile …”

  “Matt, it’s not me being hostile; it’s you. I just want—”

  “What?”

  “For things to be better again. Oh, we’ve had this conversation too many times.”

  “Probably.”

  She walked up to him, stood very close. He looked down at her, his expression blank.

  “Please,” she said, “please, Matt. Let’s not give up.”

  He didn’t answer, just kissed her rather perfunctorily and walked out of the room.

  That night, he wanted to have sex with her; wearily, she gave in. He could sense her reluctance. Afterwards, he turned away from her and sighed, a deep, heavy sigh.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, after a moment. “So sorry, Matt. I just can’t … don’t …”

  “Want me anymore?”

  She hesitated.

  “Not just now, no. I can’t help it. Mrs. Miller says it’s quite natural; it’s—”

  “You’ve been discussing our sex life with that bloody shrink?” he said. “Well, that’s great. Marvellous. All I need.”

  “Matt, I tell her everything. It’s important in the whole process. How I feel about myself, my life, how I feel about Emmie—”

  “What do you mean, how you feel about Emmie? Why should that need talking about?”

  Eliza felt a pang of fear. “Well … it’s hard to explain,” she said carefully, “and it’s fine now, but being so unhappy, so exhausted, I felt I was failing her as well as everybody else. And she is so demanding, you must admit.”

  “She seems like a normal little girl to me. And your life, what’s wrong with that? I thought you were feeling better since you’ve been taking those pills. Because—Oh, let’s stop this. I can’t cope with any more.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Downstairs, to do some work. It’s a bit more rewarding than making love to a limp fish.”

  “I hate you,” said Eliza.

  “That’s fairly obvious,” he said, and went out, slamming the door.

  In the morning they made up.

  Uncomfortably, uneasily, but it was better than not doing so.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, coming first with it, as always, “so sorry. I’m trying very hard. And I’m sorry about the sex especially. And sorry that you don’t like me telling Mrs. Miller. But … I feel I have to tell her everything; otherwise it doesn’t … doesn’t all work together properly. I’m sure in time it’ll all be fine again. I just feel so … so … unsexy.”

  “I can tell,” he said, and managed a grin. “I suppose I’m a bit … jealous. That you can talk to her and not to me. Never mind the subject matter.”

  “But we have been talking. More. Haven’t we?”

  “I suppose so,” he said, and sighed. “I’ll hang around a bit longer—and let you go to Milan to stay with your terribly busy friend—”

  “Matt!” she said. “You’ll let me go to Milan, indeed! You’re a feminist’s nightmare.”

  “Good,” he said. “Now go and get my pipe and slippers, and look sharp about it.”

  Eliza did something she thought she would never do again: she giggled.

  Mariella said a visit early in December would be excellent.

  “And it is the beginning of our social season, as you know.”

  “I do know. That’s wonderful. Thank you, Mariella.”

  And then Mariella called Timothy Fordyce at KPD Milan, and suggested he and his wife join her and Giovanni in their box at La Scala. “Callas is singing Traviata; it should be very beautiful.”

  “Wonderful, thank you, but in that case, let us do dinner. Oh … no, that won’t do; it’s the week Jeremy Northcott is here.”

  There was a silence, and then, “Well, he must come with you,” said Mariella, her voice a soft, sweet coo. “That would be truly delightful.”

  Perhaps she could teach Matt a lesson …

  “My dear, you look w
onderful. Truly wonderful.” Lily Berenson smiled at Scarlett, kissed her fondly.

  “Thank you. You look pretty good too, Mrs. Berenson.”

  “Yes, I suppose I’m fairly well. Of course, this wretched business with David has taken its toll. I feel so angry with her. David would have been prepared to struggle on, try again, for the sake of the children, but Gaby has proved herself very selfish. There is another man, as I suspected, even though she has no intention of actually setting up house with him. She will have the children; she is a very good mother, if nothing else, and David couldn’t possibly cope with them. He’s away such a lot. She told me she puts a lot of blame for the marriage breakup down to that. I was very shocked.”

  “Really?”

  “Of course. I did point out to her that the extremely comfortable standard of living she has always enjoyed was down to David and his hard work, but she couldn’t see it.”

  No longer a darling girl, Scarlett thought; how swiftly things had changed for Gaby. Poor Gaby. She could have told her a thing or two about David and the unselfishness of his absences …

  “Well, now, my dear, how about you? How is your business going? Such a very clever idea.”

  “Oh, it’s going pretty well,” said Scarlett. “I’m doing quite a bit in the States now; I’ve got a couple of hotels in San Francisco, and—”

  “I keep telling you, dear, you should consider Charleston. It’s exactly your profile, especially in the spring. There are several small hotels that I think would suit you; in fact, I think I’m going to speak to David about it tonight—”

  “David!”

  “Yes, dear, he’s here with me. Just overnight in London; then he’s flying over to Paris. He knew I was seeing you this afternoon, but most unfortunately he had several appointments, so he couldn’t join us. I wonder if dinner might be a possibility for the three of us—”

  “Oh, no,” said Scarlett, “no, I’m busy tonight, Mrs. Berenson. Sorry.”

  “What a pity. You couldn’t make breakfast, I suppose?”