Ryman, Rebecca

by Olivia

  In the moment of parting, Olivia clung to her aunt in sudden despair. The journey that loomed ahead was terrifying, and she stood alone, absolutely alone, now part of a chain of events that could never be reversed. Today was her wedding-day—and her father and Sally, from whom she had never concealed anything before, were not even aware of it! Nothing else identified for Olivia with more sinister accuracy the underlying evil of this masquerade upon which she was so firmly embarked.

  She had believed that she could feel no passion more violent than the love that she had borne Jai Raventhorne. She recognised now that she had underestimated her capacity for emotion. And overestimated her ability to forgive.

  Olivia was sick from the moment she boarded the Seagull. With each heave of the ship in the swells and troughs of the Bay of Bengal, her stomach lurched in harmony. She had agreed to a honeymoon in Madras mainly because she didn't care one way or the other. But now, sprawled permanently on the canopied four-poster in the owner's stateroom, since the vessel belonged to the Birkhursts, she cursed herself. Waves of nausea sloshed around her body; once horizontal, she despaired of ever becoming vertical again. It was common knowledge that Freddie often used the ship to take his favourite doxies to Burma or Siam or Malaya. How fervently Olivia wished it could have been one of them in her place now as she was being buffeted so mercilessly to death!

  Freddie's ministrations were copious. "But you must eat, my darling," he insisted with the best intentions in the world on their first evening at sea. "Shall I fetch you some fish curry with coconut?"

  She turned over on her side to reach for the slop bowl and pleaded to be left alone for a while. To her relief, Freddie quietly crept out of the cabin and thankfully she slipped into sleep. Her last waking thought was—Olivia Siobhan O'Rourke has ceased to exist, both in name and in person.

  It was much later that, deep in exhausted slumber, Olivia felt a crushing embrace choke out her breath. She woke with a cry, but it was drowned in the rasps of Freddie's noisy breathing laden with the unmistakable fumes of alcohol as he covered her mouth with wet, drooling kisses. Olivia went cold. "Freddie, please...!" Retching, she struggled violently to wriggle out of his grip.

  "Please . . . what?" Through a foul-smelling mouth he laughed, his hands on her body everywhere at once. "My God, you looked delicious in all those yards 'n yards of . . . ," he hiccupped, "whatever. Nearly killed me to hold myself back..." His mouth clamped down on hers so swiftly that she couldn't stop his tongue snaking down her throat.

  She retched again, fought like a wildcat and, taking advantage of the slack in his arms as he cursed, broke loose to slide away from him. "Freddie, you're drunk! And you smell revolting . . ." Panting with fear, she crouched on the farthest corner of the bed.

  "Course I'm drunk!" With a lunge he grabbed her again and dragged her back. "You think any damn fool would be sober on his wedding night, you saucy little tease? Stop wriggling, blast you!" Huge hands, possessed suddenly with more strength than Olivia could have imagined, clutched at her breasts beneath her nightgown and squeezed hard.

  Shooting with pain, Olivia screamed but his ravaging mouth was tight on hers, biting and nibbling and devouring horribly. Blind with panic, Olivia pushed hard. "Freddie, not now, I beg you! I'm not well, I'm terribly ill, but tomorrow ... I promise, I give you my word . . ." Disgust and humiliation made her sob.

  He swore richly, raised his face from hers enough for her to see that he was furious. "What are you frightened of, eh?" he hissed between clenched teeth. "I'm not going to hurt you—and it's not as if it's the first time you've had a man between your legs, now is it, precious?"

  Even in her state of abject fear, Olivia's shock was so profound that, without realising it, she stilled. This was Freddie speaking, Freddie? The nicest, kindest, most decent man she had ever known?

  There was no time for further wonder. He cursed again and pounced unerringly on a body made even more vulnerable by shock. Olivia used all her ebbing strength to fight, to escape his marauding mouth and hard, plucking hands, to plead for mercy; but he was past reason and in his drunkenness his strength was prodigious. Past words, past coherence, past any semblance of tenderness, he set out to systematically and single-mindedly defile her body in every way that he could. The flimsy nightgown ("Why, pink for the honeymoon, of course!" her aunt had insisted coyly) lay on the floor in shredded pieces, wrenched off her with scant regard for its finery. Rough hands abrased her skin into stinging fire, pinching and pummelling and almost tearing it off her bones. His breath, rancid and hot, spurted dribble everywhere. With the brute force of his kisses, her lips felt crushed and her cheeks and breasts were raw. Her revulsion almost suffocated her but, powerless, she could do nothing to divert his repeated violations. And when he finally possessed her, his brutalisation almost cleaved her apart and Olivia cried out in pain. It was an assault, an act of degradation, but in her despair and helplessness Olivia protested no more. To whom? And with what validity?

  The vandal making free with her body was her legally wedded husband. She had married him not only willingly but eagerly. The ravishment was part of his conjugal rights. And the sweet Lord knew he would be getting little enough out of this farcical marriage anyway.

  Clenching her eyes shut to blot out the nightmare of Freddie's love-making, Olivia trapped her screams of outrage within her throat. Searing tears burnt holes behind her eyelids, but she willed them not to fall. On her tongue was the taste of salt as her teeth dug into her lips and drew blood. In her physical capitulation, she uttered no more sounds but, slowly, she died again within herself. The husk of her being could be used and abused but it could not be obliterated; what could be cancelled out was her mind. Blinding herself resolutely to the present ugliness, Olivia quietly transmigrated into the past. Like a homing bird, her mind took wing to fly back over forbidden memory to another world she had once inhabited. She was held in different arms, being kissed with feather-tipped lips, in love, in tenderness and in a passion that dazzled with its purity. Drugged with the past, she forced herself to forget the present.

  But yes, I do love you . . .

  The fibres of her skin turned into glowing repositories of memories, golden and guarded, unforgettable and eternal. One by one she savoured them again, turning them over on her tongue like drops of an elixir too precious to be swallowed. Where are you Jai, my love, my life, my everything? The silent echoes in her heart reverberated hollowly. Why have you abandoned me to this, to this...? There were, of course, no answers. But then there would never be.

  Floating within her trance into a realm that was hers and hers alone, Olivia barely noticed that Freddie's appetite was satisfied. Drained and replete, he now lay snoring by her side dead to the world. Olivia struggled up, stumbled to the bath-room and was heavingly sick. Then she scrubbed herself clean, changed into a fresh night-gown and returned to the cabin overwhelmed with defeat and abandonment. Her head swirled, her body felt sore and bruised, but sleep was impossible. For the rest of the night she sat crouched on a stool gazing out of a porthole. Her eyes were dry, but everything else inside her wept, mourning for something that would now never be hers again.

  Her hand strayed unconsciously to the gentle mound of her stomach. It felt warm and alive. A strange emotion, unfamiliar and potent, stole across her heart. She filled with revelation, a sense of something miraculous. She was not alone after all. She would never be alone again.

  The odium of the night washed away. She could bear it.

  "Morning, dear heart, I've brought you some hot milk. Feeling better today?"

  Olivia awoke with a start and recoiled. Freddie was leaning over her and there were still whiffs of alcohol on his breath, but his expression was open, anxiety writ all over his face. Eyes wide with nervous tension, Olivia merely turned away.

  Freddie flushed, his pink skin turning even blotchier. "I know I, ah, drank rather too much last night. Stupidly, I let the captain talk me into a, ah, few." He laughed sheepishly. "I wasn't too, ah
, rough with you last night. . . ah, was I?" He crimsoned further and lowered his eyes.

  Rough? Slowly Olivia sat up, took the cup he offered and started to sip with her face still averted. "Why, don't you remember?" she asked with bitter sarcasm.

  "Well, actually, no." He grinned quite cheerfully. "Never can, you know. Dashed waste and all that—especially on a chap's wedding night." He frowned and looked dreadfully cross with himself.

  Concealing her astonishment but still wary, Olivia scanned his face closely. There were no indications of subterfuge, of shame or cunning; as always, he shone with earnestness and a sort of inane innocence that had always been his hallmarks. She was bewildered—could it be that he was telling the truth? But her suspicious disbelief lingered. "You really have no recollection of . . . last night?"

  He was instantly stricken. Grabbing her hand, he covered it with kisses. "Then I was rough! Forgive me, forgive me, my beautiful, perfect, mistreated darling—I would rather blow out my brains than hurt one single hair of your exquisite head. I am an oaf; no, worse, a cad. I don't deserve the honour you have done me by becoming my wife. I—"

  "No, you weren't rough." Quietly she cut him off. "You were most considerate." Heat flooded Olivia's cheeks and she again turned away.

  He let go of her hand to crush her in a clumsy embrace, laying frantic kisses all over her face. "If in my sottish stupor I did or said anything to offend you, my sweet, I beseech pardon, I did so unknowingly." His voice quivered. "I do love you with all my heart, Olivia, you must believe me, you must."

  She almost retched afresh with the foul fumes of his breath but, gritting her teeth, she somehow managed a smile. "No, you did and said nothing to offend me. You worry unnecessarily."

  His relief was pitiable as, with reverence, he kissed her hand again. "Does it make you unhappy when I drink?"

  "Yes. Very unhappy. It is stupid to indulge to the extent that all memory is wiped out."

  "All right, in that case I won't." His chest filled out with manly pride. "Not one drop from now on. It won't be easy, dash it, but if it will make you happy, so be it."

  She didn't believe him, of course. "If that is a promise, Freddie," she said, trying inwardly to equate this disarming, utterly simple and likeable man with the crude, brutal animal of last night, and not succeeding, "I assure you it is worth more than all the diamonds you could possibly give me."

  "Of course it's a promise! I'm a man of my word, dear wife, haven't I proved that already?"

  Throughout that day Freddie remained Olivia's ardent slave. Every wish of hers became his command, her comfort his only consideration. In an infinite number of ways he waited on her hand and foot, talking when she wanted conversation, falling obediently silent when she didn't. By evening Olivia was convinced that his lapses of memory were genuine, and the realization filled her with sadness. Poor Freddie! Underneath that veneer of infallible good humour and self-effacement lurked resentments. Sober, he could sublimate them, perhaps was not even aware of them, but when loosened with drink, they erupted over his tongue with all the viciousness so carefully suppressed under unconscious pretences. How would he be able to survive a lifetime of this duality?

  How would she?

  Stone cold sober that night, he lay with her again but with trembling, almost reverent awe. For Olivia it was still unmitigated torture, but, grateful for minimal crumbs of mercy, with the force of her sheer will-power she endured his clumsy gropings, his stuttering declarations of love and his constant pleas for responses. Somehow she quelled her nausea, allowing only one thought to dominate others: A bargain was a bargain. Whatever the cost it had to be paid. Freddie had fulfilled his part of the deal; on hers she could not and would not renege.

  Olivia hated Madras.

  Only ten degrees north of the equator, Madras—unlike Calcutta—had no winter. It was hot and humid all year round, its atmosphere soaking up all her strength like a carnivorous sponge. They stayed in a tidy little whitewashed bungalow belonging to friends of the Birkhursts who were away, and like all European habitations, this too was comfortable and well staffed. If the bamboo blinds were lowered early enough in the morning, the stone interiors remained reasonably cool throughout the muggy day. But forevermore, Madras for Olivia became a station associated with disgusting sickness. Nausea now was her constant companion; she could not keep down even the tiniest morsel of food. Sometimes she was laid low for hours with not even the energy to curse. Had it not been for Freddie's unfailing devotion and understanding, she felt she would have gone mad.

  The choice of Madras for a honeymoon had been dictated by a polo tournament now being held at the local army establishment, Fort St. George. Freddie had been looking forward to the games with tremendous enthusiasm. "Will you come to the match this afternoon?" he inquired anxiously two days after their arrival.

  With a shudder, Olivia clamped a handkerchief to her mouth, waiting for the spasm to subside. "I will not be able to sit through it, Freddie, and if I were to be sick I would be an embarrassment to you."

  "Oh." He looked crestfallen. "How much longer does this, er, sickness persist?" he asked, suddenly awkward.

  "A month or so, I guess." Then, because he asked so little of her and his demands were so few, Olivia felt ashamed. "If I rest all morning, perhaps I will feel sufficiently recovered to sit through the match. I've never seen you play before. I think I'd like to."

  If she had given him the moon on a plate, he could not have been more ecstatic. "Capital, capital! The chaps all want to meet you, especially their lady mems. I say, after the game I'd like to ask them for supper and maybe a glass of beer," he said, avoiding her eyes. "Can you manage something at home or shall we stay on at the Fort?"

  It was such a trivial request that she did not have the heart to refuse. "Of course I can manage something here. The servants are well enough trained. All I have to do is give the orders."

  Overjoyed, he crushed her in an embrace. "My God, I want everyone, the whole world, to see just how lucky I have been in my choice of a wife."

  Olivia wanted to cry. Was he trying to convince her—or himself?

  As socially desirable to the "Mulls" as to the "Ditchers," the Birkhurst newlyweds were suitably lionised by Madras society. At the game that afternoon, Olivia made a concerted effort for Freddie's sake to be sociable, although she was bored to tears. The women fussed and flattered but she knew inwardly that they had already dubbed her a gold-digging hussy who had used her American forwardness to snare the Birkhurst heir. The men, as usual, were more forgiving; indeed, they seemed enchanted by the new Mrs. Birkhurst's charm and intelligence. She was, they decided privately behind the backs of their wives and daughters, far too good for that idiot Birkhurst. But then they asked each other, come to think of it who wasn't?

  Generously unconcerned that his lovely wife outshone him in company, Freddie rejoiced in her success. "You know, I still can't believe it!" he whispered to her during the carriage ride back. "I keep thinking you'll turn back into a pumpkin or something at midnight and fade away."

  "No, I won't fade away, Freddie dear," Olivia responded with caustic humour, "but yes, I certainly am turning into a pumpkin!"

  He coloured and fell silent. If there was one topic that made him visibly uncomfortable, it was her pregnancy.

  Their first burra khana that evening turned out to be an unqualified success. Olivia had taken endless trouble over the buffet menu and in some odd way it gave her pleasure to do so. She had laden the table with a considerable variety of well-prepared food and, with grave apprehensions, had also ordered an extravagant quantity of beer and liquor. Whatever her qualms, she felt she could not shame Freddie before his friends by appearing niggardly. She went out of her way to make the raucous polo crowd welcome but, since there were no ladies in the party, retired to her room early. As the hours ticked by and the jollifications became noisier and more uninhibited, she started to fill with dread. With enough alcohol on the premises to launch a ship, what would be Fr
eddie's condition when the party eventually concluded?

  It wasn't until four in the morning that he finally crept into the bedroom. Shaken out of her restless doze, Olivia stiffened. He leaned over her quietly and kissed her on the forehead. As discreetly as she could, Olivia sniffed at the air around him. He chuckled. "Sniff away, dear wife, sniff away to your heart's content—you won't sniff a whiff tonight, not one damned whiff!" Chortling proudly, he opened his mouth wide and panted rapidly for her benefit.

  With a small cry, Olivia sat up. "Oh, Freddie—you didn't drink at all this evening?"

  "Not a sip, not one blasted swallow! See, my love? Tonight I smell of roses. Huge, horrible, god-rotting roses." He groaned.

  "Oh, Freddie dear . . .!" It was all Olivia could say in her relief. Impulsively, she pulled down his head and kissed him.

  Slowly, his eyes filled with tears. "You know, that is the first time, the very first time, you've kissed me of your own volition."

  Gritting her teeth, she forced herself to kiss him again. "For keeping your promise you deserve more, much more. If it were within my power to give it, I would gladly."

  "Whatever you give, my sweet, is gratefully accepted," he breathed thickly. "I want nothing more." Slipping into bed beside her, he fell asleep with his head on her shoulder.

  But someday you will. . .

  If there was anything Olivia found entrancing in Madras, it was the beach along which their bungalow stood. She had not been by the sea since she had left California. Now, walking along the white sands barefooted every morning, she felt achingly close to home, once more overwhelmed with nostalgia. She would never see her beloved country again, never. She was caught in a trap, this silken trap that was India. She would never be free again. Fanned by the saltiness of the sea breezes, she walked miles each day fluttering helplessly within her solitary cage of despair and loneliness. The endless expanses of the ocean brought with them other heartaches; it was somewhere on this very water that Jai Raventhorne sailed on his Ganga.