A Perfect Marriage (12 page)

"Coffee?" she offered, surprised at the shock of pleasure it gave her to see him. The sleeves of his white shirt were rolled up and his collar was open. A jacket and tie lay over the back of the swivel chair.

He smiled, and she felt her heart make a quiet revolution in her chest. It was the same smile he'd always given her, warming his eyes and softening the slightly austere lines of his face. "Thanks," he said. He reached out to take the cup she gave him, and glanced at the watch on his other wrist. "I'm
sorry,
I didn't expect to take so much time over this: ' He surveyed the nearly emptied shelves.

Celine just stopped herself from offering to help. It was a natural reflex, which she stifled with a shrug. "It doesn't matter." Leaning back against a bookcase, she took a sip of her coffee.

 
Max propped himself on the edge of the desk, his long, dark-trousered legs stretched in front of him, one ankle propped on the other. He drank some coffee and looked across at her. "How have you been?"

It was only a couple of days since they'd seen each other, but he asked as if he cared. Conscience, Celine told herself sharply. She shrugged again. Meeting his eyes, she said, "I will survive."

"Yes," he said, "I know you will. It isn't as though-"

When he stopped there, she asked curiously, "As though what?"

"Well-" he absently swirled the coffee in his cup "-as though you really need me. I mean, you've always been very self-sufficient."

"Does Kate need you?" Celine asked baldly.

The gentle movement of his hand halted. He looked up from his study of the coffee. His eyes seemed distant and expressionless, perhaps purposely so. "I don't think I can answer that."

Because he didn't know?
Or because he wouldn't discuss Kate with her?
She looked at him, searching for clues. She had never thought that Max was the type to be attracted to a needy woman. "Do you want her to?" she pressed.

He lifted the cup to his lips and half emptied it before straightening away from the desk and turning so that he almost had his back to her. He'd cleared the desktop except for a glass paperweight that Celine had given him a long time ago. Putting out a hand, he shifted it a few inches to one side. "I think I need her
, "
he said, so quietly that she almost missed the words.

Celine felt a painful tightening of her throat. Hastily she drank some more coffee. When she could trust her voice again, she said thinly, "Well, I hope it works out for you."

He shot her a quick look. "Thank you. That's very generous."

Bitterly, Celine reflected that she was making this all
too ,
easy. The trouble was
,
she'd had no practice at being the wronged wife. In most social situations she was able to be-

  
 
have
in the appropriate manner-it was one of the things, she knew, that Max liked about her. She'd never embarrassed him in public. But now she wasn't even sure how she should feel, let alone how to act.
   
, The woman in the film she'd seen tonight had never had any doubts or hesitations. She'd simply solved her problem in the most direct and crude way possible by removing her opposition, using a horrifying level of violence. But it hadn't given her husband back to her. He was revolted by what she'd done. The ironic ending left them in a deadly relationship, with both of them knowing that vengeance and murder lay between them for the rest of their lives.

Celine knew she wasn't capable of murder, and she didn't want vengeance. She wanted Max, she wanted her
marriage ,
back, she wanted-she supposed what she wanted was for everything to stay as it had been. And that was never going to be possible. No matter what happened now, their lives were irrevocably altered. Nothing would ever be quite the same again.

"How's Ted?" Max asked.

"Much the same," Celine answered automatically. Then she amended it. "Actually, a bit better, I think." One thing this had done was to go some way to pulling her father from the lethargic aftermath of his loss. He'd been making an effort to take an interest in her problems, offer her a level of comfort. "We went to a film tonight."

"Oh? What did you see?"

She told him, and he said, "Isn't that the one about-"

"Yes," she said. Their eyes met and she saw the quizzical gleam in his. "Kate's safe," she told him dryly, and saw his mouth curve with humour, his
body infinitesimally relax
.

"I'll tell her."

Oddly, she thought she'd always treasure this moment, the shared laughter. "I don't think so," she said huskily.

"No." The smile died from his eyes. "I won't. She wouldn't-"

,
 
Wouldn't
think it was funny, Celine finished mentally for him. Not that one could blame her. It was the kind of joke that long-married couples shared.
Or freshly separated ones, perhaps.

Perhaps shared laughter would make him realise that he was indulging in a ludicrous fantasy, that their marriage was more real and precious than any temporary infatuation. But beneath her determinedly composed facade she was too perilously close to hysteria to allow
herself
the luxury of laughter.

Her mouth took on a wry curve. She lifted her cup and finished the coffee in it. "There's some mail for you," she said. "I left it on the hall table. I was going to readdress it, but as you're here..."

"Thanks. I'll pick it up on my way out. I shouldn't be long in here." He finished his drink, too, tipping back his head. She watched the movements of his throat, and the way his hair fell over his forehead when he lowered his head again. Assailed by an unexpected wave of desire, she clenched her teeth to stop it showing on her face.

He stood, looking slightly awkward until she stretched out a hand, offering to take his cup.

"Thanks," he said tersely. "Don't let me keep you up."

Dismissed, she took the cups and trailed downstairs with them. Leaving them in the dishwasher, she climbed the stairs again, lingering outside her bedroom, the room where last night she'd slept alone.
Where from now on she would always sleep alone.

The study door was firmly closed. Max had shut her out, just as he wanted to shut her out of his life.

When she made herself open the door of the study the next day the shelves were bare, the top of the desk swept clear. Even the glass paperweight had gone. She wondered what Max had done with it. Several boxes, neatly sealed with wide sticky tape, were piled in a corner. The desk drawers, when she opened them, were empty. Would
Kate
 
mind
that he still kept a picture of his first love? Or per-

  
 
haps
for Kate he had got rid of it. Celine had never been able to erase his memory of Juliet, but had Kate taken her place in his heart?

He phoned at lunchtime, saying, "I didn't want to disturb you and Ted by carrying everything out last night. I'll pick up the boxes later today, probably this evening.
And ... the rest of my clothes."

"Yes," she said. "That's fine." Tonight she'd be playing bridge. "Do you need your desk, or anything?"

"No. Do what you like with it. Perhaps I'll have the chair if I can fit it into the car. You wouldn't mind?"

"Take whatever you want."

"Thanks. I do appreciate ... your attitude."

Sure, she thought. He'd have hated her to make scenes, throw tantrums,
act
like a jealous woman. He probably thought she was being pragmatic, sensible, even sporting about the whole thing.

No, not that. Max wasn't crass enough not to imagine that his actions hadn't deeply affected her, at the very least dealt a crippling blow to her self-esteem; his face-saving gesture in not publicly going straight to Kate's arms and her bed were evidence of that. But he'd left Celine, anyway. And that was the clearest, unequivocal indication of how desperately important Kate was to him.

After she had returned from her evening of bridge, grateful for the fierce concentration needed so that for minutes at a time she almost forgot what was going on in her life, she forced herself to open Max's wardrobe. There had been no sign of his presence in the house, although when she asked, her father said yes, Max had been in, briefly.

The, shelves and hangers stared back at her, patently empty. She closed the wardrobe doors. He'd left nothing of himself behind, except the silver brushes that still lay on his dressing table. Perhaps he hadn't known what to do with her wedding gift to him.

She went over and swept them into an empty drawer, firmly closing it.

 
She'd seen the exercise machine still in the corner of the garage when she got out of the car. Max wouldn't have forgotten it, so he didn't want to take it. He'd hinted that he wasn't interested in belongings that couldn't be easily taken in the car. The Red Cross Society was having a garage sale next week. She'd phone someone and ask them to collect it.
And the desk that he didn't want.
They could have the shelves, too, from his study. And anything else she couldn't bear to look at.

Next morning she noticed the two keys lying on the small table in the hall. Max must have taken them from his key ring and left them there last night. She picked them up, feeling as though a huge leaden weight had descended on her chest. There was something very final about them lying there, signifying the end of Max's right to use them. They made a small sound, a metallic chink, in her hand as she dosed her fingers on them, so tightly that the serrated edges left marks on her palm for hours afterwards.

Celine went on somehow with her life. It was lucky she had a full calendar, she told herself. Only it was difficult somehow to enjoy her various activities with the same zest. In time perhaps it would return. No one could live in this fog of bleak bewilderment and resolutely buried anger forever.

One day she had lunch in a city restaurant with Nancy, feeling slightly guilty about leaving her father
on his own,
but after placing a ham salad in the fridge for his midday meal, she'd left him happily poking about among the plants with a gardening fork.

Nancy tactfully let Celine steer the conversation away from the subject of her marriage, for which she was grateful. After they parted with a warm hug she was walking to her car when a dress in a shop window caught her eye.

She passed the shop, then hesitated and turned back to look again. It was a striking dress, with a vaguely thirties Wok, slim and flowing, low at the neck, elegantly longish in the skirt, and bias-cut to cling. The kind of dress that might make a woman with a voluptuous figure
look
overblown,

  
 
but
on her, with her modest bust, narrow waist, almost flat stomach and gently curved hips, it would be supremely sophisticated.

The most eye-catching thing about it was its colour-deep violet at the neckline, gradually shading to palest mauve at the floating hem.

"Yes," she said to herself, and walked into the shop. The price tag was considerable, but she had just received a substantial cheque from the Chatswoods for the redecoration of their home. She could afford it. And it fitted her like a dream.

She walked out of the shop feeling better than she had in weeks. Heaven knew when she would ever get to wear the dress. Most of the evening functions she'd attended had been something to do with Max's work or Max's friends. And it wasn't a daytime dress, unless for a very special occasion. But, she reminded herself, she did have friends of her own. Anyway, just seeing
herself
in the dress had given her spirits a much needed boost.

Hanging it in her wardrobe, she wondered if she was a very shallow person, that the purchase of a pretty dress could even slightly soothe the wound of a broken marriage.

But of course it hadn't healed it.

Sharon Chatswood phoned. "Stephen and I are holding a small party to show off our new decorating. You and Max will come, I hope?"

Celine presumed that Max had let his colleagues know discreetly what the situation was, but obviously the news had yet to filter through to ex-colleagues. "That's very kind, Sharon," she said warmly, "but perhaps you haven't heard that Max and I are not together anymore."

"Not-?
Oh! Celine, I'm terribly sorry. I had no idea-"

"How could you?" Celine answered reasonably. God, she hated this! "It's quite recent-just a few weeks ago we decided to part." She might as well get the speech off pat. "I'd be delighted to come, if you still want me on my own.
But
 
if
you want Max, I'll give you his new telephone number and you can invite him separately."

"Well, you must come, dear, naturally. It's your skill we're showing off, after all." Hesitantly, Sharon added, "You're still good friends, then? You won't mind if we invite Max, too?"

Hoping he'd have the discretion to decline, Celine said pleasantly, "I'm sure that neither of us wants to force our friends to take sides. And we're still talking to each other. Please invite him if you want to. I have the number right here. Or you could phone him at work, of course."

Ted was still half-heartedly house-hunting, and although she had several times almost told him that there was no need to move if he'd prefer to stay with her, something stopped her. Despising herself, she supposed it was a subconscious hope that Max might change his mind and come back. And he had made it very plain that he didn't intend permanently sharing a house with her father.

Somehow Celine had found neither the time nor the inclination to get her hair cut lately, and it was much longer than she was used to. She'd taken to holding it back with a clasp to keep it away from her face. Before the Chatswoods' party she decided to get something done about it.

When she phoned for an appointment she was told that her regular hairdresser had gone on leave to have a baby. Celine hadn't even known the woman was pregnant. For the first time in years, she felt a once-familiar pang of envy. Whatever lingering hope she might have retained of one day having Max's baby, it had gone now.