‘I felt bad about it. Sort of funny and bad. I told Sofe and we laughed like drains – after all, Sabine’s not her mother, there’s a certain distance there. It seemed like a bit of a joke, our little secret, something perfectly containable. And it was until Sabine began to show an interest.’ He stubbed out his cigarette. ‘ I was there one evening and Sofe and Martin went to bed early because they were going to some farmfest next day. Sabine offered me a coffee. She was looking – amazing. I was having a real problem with the whole thing, but I didn’t want it to end, either. When it came time for me to go, she kissed me. Not a social kiss, on the lips. That was it: we had sex, the most incredible.…’
Ian and I sat there like a couple of Chinese fire dogs, staring at him. Though Ian, of course, must have heard all this before. My flesh crawled. The silence seemed interminable, but was probably only fifteen seconds.
‘I couldn’t stop then, neither of us could. It was every time I went up there, and we got less and less careful. Sophie was scared shitless in case Martin found out, and worried about him, too. But she’s a very, very cool customer. She said if her dad ever suspected anything and asked her directly, I needn’t expect her to lie, and I wouldn’t have done. The crap thing is, I like Martin, he’s a nice bloke.’ He shook his head. ‘Anyway, it was mad. Completely mad. I couldn’t think about anything else. I still can’t. And she’s the same.’
I cleared my throat, but still my voice sounded husky. ‘You were infatuated. You did the right thing in getting away.’
He gave a short laugh. ‘I’ll have to go a lot further than Yorkshire to get over this one. And I’m going to.’
‘Oh?’ He didn’t answer, he seemed to have fallen into a reverie. I looked at Ian.
‘I’ve found something for him with our lot in Denmark,’ he said.
It took an effort after what I’d just heard, but I went and sat next to Ben and put my arm round him. ‘It will be for the best, darling.’
He didn’t look at me. His shoulders felt hard and hot, rigid as metal. ‘Will it?’
‘I know it sounds trite, but time and space are great healers. Given both you will get over it.’
‘I don’t want to get over it.’
‘No, but—’
‘I’m in love with her.’
I glanced at Ian again, who gave a don’t-ask-me shrug: he’d heard all this – now it was my turn.
I played for time: ‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes.’ His voice was almost a whisper.
‘Because no one would blame you for being infatuated. She’s much older than you and as you say very attractive—’
‘She loves me, too.’
I felt a surge of pure bile. ‘She made a play for you, Ben, that’s not—’
‘Don’t use that expression!’ He glared at me. ‘It’s disgusting. There was no play, as you put it. It wasn’t a game. I love Sabine and she loves me. And why do you say infatuated as if you know something that I don’t? I don’t know what the difference is – do you?’ He turned to look at Ian. ‘Do you?’
Ian pursed his lips reflectively. ‘I think what we mean by infatuation is feelings that are overwhelming and obsessive, but which for all kinds of reasons don’t include a real sense of partnership. Maybe they’re more about gratification than giving. But I’m not making much of a fist of it … And of course only you know what you’re feelings really are. We aren’t trying to hijack them.’
I thought that if I’d sounded pompous Ian – with the best of intentions – had left me for dead. But at least he’d had a go, and I was grateful for his use of “we” – he hadn’t needed to do that, and to align himself with my poorly chosen words.
‘I see,’ said Ben. ‘Well thanks.’ He didn’t need to pile on the irony, we were only too well aware of it.
‘What does Sabine say?’ I asked.
‘That she loves me.’
I don’t know why, but every time he said the word ‘love’ it tore at me so that I had to catch my breath.
‘What does she want?’ asked Ian. ‘I mean, how does she plan to handle this?’
‘She’d like us to be together. We both would.’
‘So does she plan to leave Martin?’ I had to hand it to Ian – it was a necessarily brutal question, asked gently.
I thought Ben shook his head – the smallest movement imaginable but Ian asked again: ‘Do you think she’ll leave him?’
‘No!’ Ben stood up abruptly. He seemed surrounded by a shimmer of pure energy like heat haze. ‘I don’t know, and I bet that makes your fucking day, doesn’t it?’
I tried to catch hold of his hand but he evaded me with the swift, fierce fear of a wild animal. Ian and I sat there with downcast eyes, rebuked. All three of us were completely still, but it wasn’t the stillness of peace, or even of reflection. It was as if the room were full of thorns and by not moving we were avoiding pain. But the barbs were inside us too – I now knew what it meant to feel one’s heart was bleeding.
Ben moved towards the door. His neck below the new haircut was thin and boyish. It was Ian who found a voice to speak for both of us.
‘Ben – please don’t go.’
He stopped, with his back still turned to us.
‘Please,’ I said. ‘We love you.’
His head dropped and he made a choking sound. Clenched his fists and held them to the sides of his head. It was awful. All his typical style, grace and confidence had deserted him. He was on the rack. I found myself actually praying that he wouldn’t walk out as he must feel he had every right to do – and yet to turn back would need unimaginable courage.
But that was what he did. There was even a kind of defiant pride in the way he didn’t bother to hide his tears, and in deference to that pride I didn’t attempt to touch or comfort him as he collapsed on to a chair.
He just sat there and cried for a minute or two, big sobs, from the gut, that shook him all over. His tears splashed on to his jeans, and on to the carpet. Ian – the only man in London still to carry such a thing for practical purposes – produced a clean handkerchief and leaned forward to lay it on the sofa next to his son. And yet in spite of that dreadful weeping the thorns seemed to have retreated. I was conscious of my own breathing, and my heartbeat, as though both had been in suspension and were now resumed.
After that long couple of minutes, Ben picked up the handkerchief, mopped his eyes and blew his nose. We waited. He had come back. He was going to talk to us.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘you’re entitled to your opinion. I can’t ask you to get inside my head, any more than I can get inside Sabine’s. But when she told me she loved me, I believed her. I don’t just want to, I do believe her.’ He addressed me: ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but I think I know her better than you do.’
I stifled the impulse to disagree with him, up to a point. ‘Differently, anyhow.’
‘No Mum – better. More completely. You don’t have to list all her faults for my benefit, I know what they are, and she knows mine. The thing was we seemed to be nicer, kinder people when we were with each other. More honest, even, although I know you’ll find that hard to take. We didn’t have any secrets.’
‘Except,’ said Ian gently, ‘ from the rest of us. You can see that.’
‘Yes. But what were we supposed to do? OK, I know, you said it before – stop. But when something feels that good, it’s not so easy. When you’re so happy you keep thinking there must be a way through which will make other people happy too – or at least not unhappy. So you hang on and play for time and hope for the best. And then it was taken out of our hands.’
‘By me,’ I said.
‘Yes, but it could have been anyone. It was going to happen.’
He lit yet another cigarette. It was a measure of Ian’s forbearance that he had not just allowed Ben to smoke, but even refrained from leaping up to empty the ashtray. We were walking on eggshells.
‘So what now?’ I asked.
‘I’m going to fucking
Denmark.’ His tone wasn’t aggressive, but weary.
I caught Ian’s eye. ‘It was Ben’s idea,’ he explained.
‘But you said you didn’t want to go – that you didn’t want to get over it,’ I said.
‘I don’t. But I can’t ask Sabine just to walk out on Martin, either. And she wouldn’t do it. We can’t go on, and we can’t stop. We sure as hell can’t go backwards. So I’m going, and she’s staying.…’
‘For how long?’
He seemed not to have heard me, but Ian replied for him: ‘The initial contract’s six months.’
‘I think it’s very brave of you,’ I said.
‘It’s not brave.’ He was scornful. ‘We love each other. We want to give ourselves at least a chance of doing the right thing. Contrary to what you two seem to think it’s not our intention to spread blood all over the walls.’
‘I’m sorry.’
He shook his head, eyes closed. ‘No – no, it’s me, I’m sorry.’
‘And when the six months is up?’
‘She’s going to write to me. She knows what I want, but if it’s not going to happen she’ll write and tell me.’
‘And you’ll accept that.’
‘I doubt it.’ He may have felt my quiver of apprehension, for he added, ‘But I’ll abide by it. If Sabine’s found a way of being happy with Martin, then I’ll butt out.’
I could say nothing, I was choked.
‘What we don’t yet know,’ said Ian after a pause, ‘is where Martin stands on all this, of if he even knows.’
‘There’s no reason why he should,’ said Ben, ‘unless someone’s gone out of their way to tell him. As far as I’m aware it’s only you two and Sophie who know about it.’
And we certainly wouldn’t have said anything,’ I declared a little over-emphatically, remembering how strongly I’d been tempted.
‘Then it’s up to Sabine whether he finds out or not.’
I remembered something else – that I’d confided in Ronnie Chatsworth. But Ronnie, of all people, was the sort who would carry a secret to her grave.
I stayed about another half an hour, but after the emotional switchback we’d been on all three of us were suddenly exhausted. Conversation dried up. The Test highlights were mentioned, and that was my cue.
This time when I kissed Ben goodbye, he put his arms round me as he always used to do. He knew how I felt, and he gave my back a little rub, comforting me.
‘So long Mum … Take it easy.’
‘When are you off?’
‘Next week. But I’ll have to come down and pick up some stuff.’
‘I’ll see you then.’
‘Definitely.’
Ian came down with me while I found a cab. In the lift, he said: ‘It was good you came. It brought things to a head.’
‘I seem to have done just about everything wrong.’
‘Not at all. He was always more natural with you. More himself. I think we got somewhere this evening, don’t you?’
‘Somewhere … I don’t know where.’
The lift opened and we crossed the hall. Out on the pavement I spotted a cab more or less right away. The driver sat patiently as we made our farewells.
‘In my opinion,’ said Ian, ‘for what it’s worth, we must have done something right. Given the situation as is, I think Ben’s behaving with astonishing maturity. He was wonderful in there.’
‘Yes, he was.’
‘After all, as he would say, stuff happens. That’s life. But how you deal with it – that’s character.’
I didn’t go to my hotel, but to Troughtons. It was only nine-thirty, and I was going to get the receptionist to put me through to Charles’s room. I was then going to suggest we go out for a drink. I was already teetering on that dangerous emotional cusp between elation and despair, or I should never have been so daring. I was almost in a mood to cast caution to the winds. I no longer saw Charles’s ignorance of my problems as a difficulty, but a blessed relief. I wanted to recapture that sweet, specific pleasure that had nothing to do with anyone else, and feel again that focus and that light touch which was for me alone and not my family, no matter how honourably they’d behaved.
I was quite light-headed with anticipation by the time I got there and made the cabbie’s day by overtipping monstrously.
‘Well thank you sweetheart,’ he exclaimed with amiable chauvinism.
‘Just don’t expect it every time,’ I replied feistily.
There was no one about in the foyer, and this time I spotted a brass bell on the table, which I tinkled cautiously. At once the pinstriped gentleman appeared, apologising profusely for not having known I was there (by telepathy, I suppose) and come sooner.
‘I wonder,’ I said, ‘ if I could speak to Mr McNally?’
‘I’m very sorry madam, Mr McNally’s no longer with us.’ I smiled anxiously, there was something in his turn of phrase. ‘How do you mean?’
‘He checked out last night.’
I felt as though I’d been doused with cold water. ‘ Oh. Did he say where he was going?’
‘The Emirates, I believe.’
‘I see.’
‘How long for?’
‘I’m afraid I have no idea.’
‘Oh.’ I realised I must be starting to look like some sad and desperate jiltee, but it was a little late for pride now. ‘ I don’t suppose he left any messages … for anyone?’
‘Not that I know of, but I shall go and check. It’s Mrs Piercy, isn’t it?’
‘That’s right.’ Even this feat of memory couldn’t cheer me.
‘I won’t keep you a moment.’
I stood rooted to the spot in the richly-carpeted hush of the hall. As before, no other people, either guests or staff, were to be seen. I was completely alone with my devastating disappointment.
Pinstripes reappeared with a quietly sympathetic expression. ‘ I’m sorry to have kept you waiting. No, Mrs Piercy – I’m afraid there were no messages.’
Outside in the street, for the first and last time in twenty-seven years I took off my wedding ring and put it in my bag.
The hotel I’d booked into was not like Troughtons. It was bright, bustling, competitively priced and handy for the southeastern railway termini. My room could have been in any similar chain in any city just about anywhere in the world. I could not, in other words, have chosen a place better calculated to deepen my sense of abandonment.
Automaton-like I went through all those little rituals intended to make oneself feel more at home. I drew the curtains, turned on the bedside lamps, the television and the kettle, pulled down the bedspread, kicked off my shoes and collapsed on the bed with the prepacked Golden Oaties for company.
I finished the biscuits, but they might as well have been sawdust. The exhaustion which excitement about seeing Charles had temporarily dispelled, swept back over me, but a mangling depression wouldn’t allow me to sleep. I couldn’t believe that he had simply returned to the UAE without a word, when he had been so keen to see me again, when he must have known I might be in touch. There again, had I been colossally naive? Was turning up late in the evening at the hotel of a man I barely knew really the behaviour of a mature, sensible woman? He might have been anywhere – restaurant, club, friends, the bloody jazz on which he was so keen – and the result would have been the same. But no, it wouldn’t have been quite the same: leaving the country required decisions and forward planning, and meant an absence of several days, at least, rather than a few hours. How could he just have gone without a word? What did he think had passed between us last weekend? Had I got it quite so disastrously wrong? Hadn’t he pursued me, rather than the other way round? And – and this was worst of all – was all that thoughtfulness and interest simply a front, so much well-honed American flim-flam, all in a day’s work for the middle-aged bachelor with a woman in every major city? Maybe Charles McNally was, after all, just another of the poolside sharks and I merely small fry swimming foolishly into his gently smiling
jaws.…
I remembered, oh, how I remembered, that little gesture of his – the way he had touched the roses, and later, my cheek. In the past few days the mere memory of that touch had been enough to light me up. It was not too much to say that it had kept me going. But now, with mauling masochism, I could picture him practising that gesture in front of a mirror.…
At midnight I took the half-bottle of champagne from the minibar and drank it, accompanied by a packet of cashew nuts, thus ensuring that I didn’t go to sleep for another two hours. This was, I reflected, the second recent occasion that I had spent in a hotel room, overwrought and the worse for drink. And on neither occasion had Charles McNally been available. Perhaps it was time I learnt something from the experience.
I woke again at three-thirty, dehydrated and with a throbbing head. I fetched water from the bathroom and crept back beneath the duvet.
As I stumbled back down the shallow slope into uncomfortable sleep I was vouchsafed one of those unexpected, unconnected thunderclaps of understanding. Suddenly, I knew why the word ‘love’ on my son’s lips, had so disturbed me.
With talk of love, Ben’s boyhood was finally over.
Chapter Eighteen
The message on my machine was from Marian, his driver. She had a brisk, classless voice.
‘Mrs Piercy, this is a message from Mr McNally. He’s been called away to an emergency in the Gulf, so he’ll be gone for quite a few days. He sends his best, and he’ll be in touch when things are back under control.’
Like a doctor – it was me who’d said it. But surely – surely – he could have called himself? I didn’t like the idea of being part of the conversational currency between him and Marian. I’d been relegated to something on his man-in-a-hurry list. The message simply completed my humiliation.
Desma called into the office mid-morning to ask about tennis on Saturday.
‘Sabine can’t,’ she said, ‘because Martin’s whisking her off somewhere luxurious for the weekend, lucky for some. But Ronnie’s back in circulation, and she says she’d like to play, as long as we make allowances.’
That Was Then Page 29