A Perfect Marriage (3 page)

Chapter
 
2

A cotton apron tied over the lavender dress, Celine opened tie doors from the dining room and spread a cloth on the small table outside. The weather was balmy and there was so wind. She set silver cutlery and placed a tiny crystal bowl of pansies in the centre of the table before returning to the kitchen.

She was drizzling Cointreau over a bowl of pears when the phone rang.

"Darling, I'm going to be late, I'm afraid," Max said. "Andrew's asked me to help out with a tricky case of his, as my workload's a bit lighter this week. Don't wait dinner for w- We're not having anything special, are we?"

"I found a nice piece of smoked kingfish that I thought we'd have with salad."

"That'll keep, then," he said cheerfully. "Don't you have a night class or something, anyway?"

"Tonight it's the badminton club. I wasn't planning to go, actually."

"You're all right, aren't you? Not off-colour?"

"Just feeling a bit lazy.
I've been gardening all afternoon."

"Have an early night," he advised her. "I won't disturb you if you're sleeping when I get home."

Celine put the phone down with a little bang. She stood uncertainly by it for a moment, sighed and went quickly out to the terrace, carried the pansies inside and placed them on the dining table, then returned to gather up the silver and whip off the dainty tablecloth, dragging the doors shut with one hand as she retreated inside.

In the kitchen she put away the two varieties of lettuce, the firm, rosy tomatoes, the slender fresh cucumber
and ,
- jar of black olives. The pears, she supposed, would do just as well tomorrow.

There was still plenty of time to go to her badminton, but, somehow the idea had no appeal. After making
herself .
salad
sandwich, she carried the plate into the lounge to eat sitting in front of the television.

She went upstairs early as Max had suggested, spent .o hour skim-reading the remainder of her book so that she could discuss it with its owner, and turned off the light. She didn't even hear Max come in.

On Saturday Celine came home tired, hot and footsore - after collecting house-to-house for the Hurricane Relief Fund. She'd dealt with barking dogs, reluctant givers, ano people who peeked through the curtains pretending not o be home, and one man who had lectured her on the iniquity of taking good money out of New Zealand to assist island communities that he seemed to think had called do o, the wrath of God upon themselves. But they were balanced by children who had emptied their money boxes and e derly people who gave generously and apologised for no being able to donate more.

Max was in the swimming pool, and she went upstairs o change into a swimsuit and
join
him. But by the time she arrived on the terrace he was coming into the house,
a to
- wrapped about his waist.

"Hello," he said. "I didn't know you were home. My mother phoned to say Michelle and Tony are here for the weekend, with the kids. I said we'd go over for lunch tomorrow. Okay?"

"Fine."
She smiled at him. Max's sister and her family
an
a dairy farm near the pleasant coastal town of Tausanga, and didn't visit Auckland very often.

In the morning they lay in bed for an extra hour before breakfast, Max listening to the bedside radio while he filled in the cryptic crossword in the Saturday paper, and Celine
wading
a historical romance from the library.

"Did you know that a woman was artificially inseminated in 1785?" she asked him.

"Really?"

"According to this book."

Max glanced at the cover. "
It's
fiction, isn't it?"

"But the author has obviously researched it well. A chman called Thouret performed the procedure on his -e"

"With another man's-?"

"No, I don't think so."

"So, what was wrong with him?"

Celine shrugged. "Maybe he was just experimenting." "Was he a scientist?"

"A doctor, I think."

"Hmm."
Max frowned over the paper in his hand. "Do know many birds?"

"As in females or wildlife?"

"Wildlife, probably.
I'm sure the second bit's bird. `The
' 's
forgotten the words?"'

"Hummingbird."

"Of course.
Thanks." He filled in the clue. "Are we
go
to church this morning?"

"Mmm.
We could go straight on to your parents' after s."

"Better get up then."

"When I finish this chapter.
You can have the
bathroom :
'

"Auntie Celine! Uncle Max.""

Two olive-skinned little girls came running across the lawn, the older one dark-eyed and dark-haired like her part Maori father, the younger with striking green eyes and fair hair inherited from her mother. Max swung four-year-old Susan up into his arms, and six-year-old Maxine clung to Celine's hand, pulling her along to the house and into the big lounge, announcing, "Uncle Max and Auntie Celine are here."

They were Maxine's godparents, and she took a proprietary attitude to them.

Michelle, her two-year-old son on her knee, waved a hand. "Hi!"

Her husband was talking to his father-in-law by the big empty fireplace. Max crossed the room to kiss his sister, and Michelle's husband gave Celine a hug before she turned to the tall, grey-headed older man and kissed his cheek.

"You're looking well, my dear." He held her hand in both of his as he smiled warmly down at her.
"Nice to see you."

"You, too."
She released herself and said, "I'll just take these muffins into the kitchen. I suppose Nancy's there?"

In the kitchen, Max's mother was turning over a couple of roasted chickens before replacing them in the oven. She presented a cheek to Celine and said, "Lovely to see you!"

"What can I do to help?"

Celine knew her way around this kitchen almost as well as she knew her own. For years her family had lived across the street from the Archers. Nancy Archer and Beth Pentland, both recently married, had moved into the neighbourhood at about the same time, and become firm friends. Their children had been thrown together almost from birth.

Celine's older brother had been Max's closest friend and his best man at their wedding, but he'd met a Dunedin girl while studying medicine at the university there, and remained in the South Island. Her younger brother had gone off to see the world when he was twenty-two, and settled
in
 
America
, where he had a highly paid job in the automobile industry, but no family.

It was not until after her own marriage that Celine had stopped calling her mother-in-law "Auntie Nancy" and been invited to use her name without the prefix.

"I don't suppose you want to call me Mum," Nancy had said pragmatically. "You remember your own mother too well for that."

Beth Pentland had died only a few years before Celine married Max. Nancy had been totally delighted with her son's marriage to the daughter of her dearest friend.

After lunch the two younger men went for a stroll while Max's father, pretending to watch the Sunday sports programme on the TV, dozed in his favourite armchair and his mother read the Sunday paper. Michelle put the baby down for a nap, and she and Celine sat on the back steps, watching the girls play on the lawn. A swing dangled from one of the trees and Maxine was pushing her sister, who clung grimly to the ropes.

"Remember when it was us out there?" Michelle said. "I'm beginning to feel old. Tony and I had our tenth anniversary the other day."

Celine smiled. "We can beat you there."

"Mmm.
That's right. D'you ever
regret
it?"

"Getting married? No. I regret-a bit-not having children. But we've learned to live with that."

"You and Max would have made good parents. You two never fight, do you?"

"We've had disagreements. What couple doesn't?" Celinn looked at her sister-in-law curiously, finding her expression pensive. "Do you have a problem?"

Michelle made an odd little grimace, half smiling. "Do you remember David Dryden?"

"Dreamboat Dryden?"
Celine laughed briefly.
"Of course.
Who could forget?"
David Dryden had for a few months been Michelle's boyfriend when she and Celine were still in their teens.
Besides being spectacularly good-looking,

  
 
he
was endowed with brains and personality. All of the girls had envied Michelle.

"He happened to be in Tauranga the other day. We bumped into each other and had a cup of coffee together. It was nice. Only we got talking, and I didn't notice the time, and I'd forgotten to pick up Tony's suit from the drycleaner. He needed it that night."

 
6 So what happened?"

"He was annoyed and ... I was going to tell him about meeting David, but ... somehow I didn't. I started yelling at him instead about him thinking I was his household slave and brood mare, and...well, a lot of stuff that I didn't even know I felt until I let it out, and-" Michelle clenched her fists and raised her eyes heavenward "-it felt so good. "

Celine laughed, and Michelle grinned wryly at her. "We had a fearful row. Only afterwards I was ashamed, because most of the time I don't really feel like that, and by then it was too late to tell him about David, and it's become this big guilty secret!
Which it wasn't.
You see what I mean?"

"Mmm.
I think so."

"I mean, I just happened to meet an old friend, you know-I had Timmy in the pushchair, for heaven's sake! - so why am I feeling so guilty?"

"Maybe because he can still make your heart flutter a bit?"

Michelle looked about to deny it,
then
smiled sheepishly. "Yes, a bit," she acknowledged. "And I suppose I was flattered that he still thought me attractive. Not that he tried to come on to me, but you know, you can tell. He was really nice, and I told him I was happily married, because it's true! He's divorced, and he said he envied me."

"And then you went home and Tony said, `Where's my suit?' and you were suddenly Mrs. Housewife again."

Michelle nodded. "That's it."

"Would you have felt bound to tell him if you'd run into an old female friend and had coffee with her?" "I probably would have mentioned it."

"But the time for mentioning it wasn't in the middle of a row, so the moment passed. Let it go. You've done nothing you're obliged to confess about."

"You're right. It would only upset Tony. And I don't want to start another row!"

On the way home Celine asked Max, "Would you be upset if I told you that a few weeks back I'd run into an old flame and had a coffee with him?"

Max glanced at her, his brows raised. "Upset? No. Did you?"

Celine shook her head.
"Actually, no.
Would you think it odd that I hadn't mentioned it the day it happened?"

This time he looked at her for a bit longer. "Not particularly.
Why all these hypothetical questions?"

"I just ... wondered. I mean, some men are insanely jealous, aren't they?"

"You don't think I'm one of them?" He sounded mildly shocked.

, "Good heavens, no!
Thank goodness. No, it was just...I was reading a magazine," she said hastily. "You
know,
problem pages."

"I
see .)p
She had an idea he knew that wasn't where the question had arisen, but he made no further comment.

Only, when he had put away the car and followed her to the house door, he said suddenly, "Have you ever seen Mike Parrish again?"

Surprised, she answered, "Not since you and
I
got engaged." Not since one incongruously sunny day nearly fourteen years ago, when she'd been young enough to have her fledgling heart broken by an unscrupulous married man. "He went to Australia," she said. Along with the wife he had assured her he was separated from, in the process of divorcing, and the two children he'd never mentioned.

The door swung open, and they stepped into the utility room. She turned to him with the key in her hand. "I told you it wasn't me I was talking about."

"Okay." He closed the door and put a hand on her waist as they moved towards the front of the house and the stairs. "I believe you.

That night after he'd switched off the light, Max reached for her and drew her into his arms, finding her mouth unerringly in the darkness, and they made love with the ease of long familiarity, attaining a climax together. Afterwards she lay relaxed against his shoulder, her hand resting on his chest, until she was nearly asleep. Max gently eased his arm away and lowered her head to the pillow before shifting to his side of the bed.

Celine's father phoned two days later, sounding confused and agitated.

Five years after Celine's mother died, Ted Pentland had married a pleasant, middle-aged widow and moved to Rotorua, where Dora hoped her arthritis would benefit from the hot mineral springs.

"Dora's in hospital," he said. "I think it's serious."

Celine tried to phone Max. Told he was in court, she left a message with his secretary. Then she cancelled a couple of appointments, packed an overnight bag and drove her car south to Rotorua.

Apart from supporting her father, who was obviously very concerned, she would be useful to provide transport. Dora had a car but Ted hadn't driven since he'd suffered a haemorrhage behind one eye and had lost some of his vision. The other eye was weak, needing a strong lens in his glasses, and although he might have scraped through a driving eyesight test he didn't feel confident at the wheel of a car.

Max phoned that evening after he'd got home.

"We don't really know anything yet," she told him. "They're doing tests. I'll stay until they have some results."