Deep Water (26 page)

When Andrea said gently, ‘You needn’t stay, Leo sweetheart,’ he realised that he must have been staring at his father in a grief-stricken sort of way.

‘It’s up to you, old chap,’ said Peter.

‘I’ll stay,’ he mumbled, and then started crying, though he hadn’t known he would, even a moment earlier. He wanted to hug his mother and beg her to stay with them, but his father’s calmness stopped him. Looking at his mother, with her hair loose on her shoulders, Leo knew she was beautiful. He hadn’t always known it, but he could see it very clearly today. She was wearing her dress with the pattern of splotchy flowers that he had used to think was too low round the neck, but which was really just right.

‘What do you want to do?’ Peter asked Andrea, as if inquiring about her plans for the evening.

‘I may not want what Mike wants.’

Peter said sharply, ‘I asked what
you
want.’

‘I’d prefer we talk later,’ she replied, avoiding Peter’s eyes.

‘You should tell him right now,’ Leo burst out, sensing her weakness.

‘Why, darling?’

‘Because we don’t want to wait. Because it’s cruel to make us.’

‘I didn’t want to say things till I knew they’d happen for sure. And I can’t be certain till Mike and I talk some more. But I
can
tell you what
may
happen next. I guess I’d like to teach in Oxford weekdays and be with Mike weekends, if he can see me. I’d like you to be with me weekdays in your holidays, Leo, and with dad weekends.’

Leo looked at her in amazement. ‘Where does dad go? Doesn’t he come home now?’

‘He’s away a whole lot already, darling.’

‘If dad can’t come home, I won’t either.’

‘Mum’s right about me being away lots,’ said Peter in a level reasonable voice.

The sight of his father pretending everything was fine, when it wasn’t, was too much for Leo. ‘Don’t give in, dad,’ he gasped. ‘You should fight for her.’

‘Duels aren’t legal these days, old chap.’

‘They blooming should be,’ shouted Leo, suddenly beside himself. Why couldn’t his father refuse to do what mum wanted? Why wouldn’t he tell her how miserable she was making him? Otherwise, how would she know?

‘You’re disgusting,’ he shouted at his mother. ‘I don’t know why he cares.’

‘Please, Leo,’ pleaded Peter. ‘It won’t help me.’

‘I don’t want to see you, ever,’ cried Leo, pointing a finger at his mother, like a witch doctor.

Before he reached the door, he could see he had upset her. Her mouth was open and her lips had gone floppy. She looked ugly, the way people did
when they were about to cry but the sound hadn’t come out yet.

Outside the door, Leo cannoned into Rose, whose ear had been applied to the keyhole. She caught him by the arm. ‘You listen now, Master Leo. Do ’ee wan’ to live with her? Because, after what ’ee said, she won’ think so. She’ll think ’ee won’ mind if she lives with who she wants. You should caterwaul and cling if you wan’ to keep her home with you and your dad.’

So, when his mother came to his room, Leo clutched at her legs and begged her to stay. He didn’t look up, so wasn’t sure if he’d impressed her. But when she’d gone out, he discovered some dark marks, a bit like tear drops, on his shirt.

Mike had called Andrea at the time he had promised he would, and had explained that he would have to stay in Falmouth overnight. So she had driven the fifteen miles around the river, and had come to him. Leaving her car near the Green Bank Hotel, she walked down the hill to meet him on Prince of Wales Pier. The narrow streets were crowded with sailors, dockyard workers and local women going to market.

It was early evening and light rain was filtering down from a pewter sky. Mike was late, and so Andrea wandered onto the concrete pier. She could feel the rain on her cheeks and imagined it in her hair, as on the day when they had first kissed. Knowing how crucial this meeting would be for their future together, she felt breathless with nerves. Scarcely noticed by her, the grey-green water splashed against the pier’s supports, spewing up cigarette packs, half-eaten sandwiches and bobbing bottles. Predatory gulls screeched overhead. An excursion steamer with
a red funnel – evidently pressed into naval service – was taking on board a crowd of sailors, to return them to the great grey warship in the harbour.

When Andrea spotted Mike getting out of a black sedan, her legs shook. He put on his hat, and strode briskly towards her, an anonymous figure in his uniform. Arm in arm, they walked together to an hotel, exchanging self-conscious small talk en route. To have spoken about Leo and Peter in the street would have been unthinkable.

As Mike approached a building, set at an angle to the street, and pushed open a heavy glazed door, Andrea’s heart started to race. The hotel already. Soon she would know what he wanted. From the corner of her eye, she saw little clipped trees in tubs, a red-carpeted entrance. He led the way across an almost empty lounge, from which guests were leaving for the dining room, and guided her into a deserted bar with panelled walls. Only when Mike had settled her into a brass-studded leather armchair and put a highball in her hand did Andrea gaze directly at his face. He had taken off his hat and looked drained and vulnerable. Sitting back in a chair identical to hers, he seemed further away than the physical distance between them.

‘Darling,’ she whispered, ‘what’s wrong?’

He put down his glass, and raised a hand to his brow. ‘I’ve been given the boot. Leo isn’t to blame. My crime was losing a ship and eight lives, including two agents. So it’s curtains for my lot.’

‘That’s so unjust, Mike. The people who sent you are to blame, too.’

‘That’s not how they see it.’

‘What will you do now, darling?’

‘I’ve asked to go back to gunboats on the East Coast.’

To ease his depression, she smiled encouragingly. ‘The East Coast’s much nearer to Oxford than Cornwall, sweetheart.’

Unexpectedly, Mike grasped one of her hands. ‘Did Peter come down this morning? I’m so sorry I didn’t ask sooner.’

‘He did. And he’s being embarrassingly nice about everything.’

Mike nodded to himself, as if this was what he had feared. ‘It’s a ploy to give his lawyer more time.’

‘Time for what?’

‘To plan getting custody of Leo.’

‘Darling, you don’t understand.’ Andrea freed her hand and said bravely, ‘Leo wants to be with his father now.’

Mike’s handsome features became stubborn. ‘Andrea, you
cannot
give in to a boy his age. He can’t properly know what he wants. Imagine how you’ll feel if you hardly ever see him.’

‘He loves his father more than me, and shares all his interests, so why shouldn’t I be happy to let Leo live with him?’

Mike shook his head slowly. ‘Because if he lives with Peter, you’ll miss him terribly, whatever you may think now.’

‘If you knew what Leo said to me, you wouldn’t try to …’ She paused, too upset to continue.

Mike leaned forward and kissed her cheek. ‘He’s
angry, darling. But it won’t last. Please do what’s best. He goes back to school next week. So take him home with you first. Be sweet to him. It’ll only be for a few days. And that way, you’ll spare him a term spent brooding about his dad
and you. In three months, he’ll be far more forgiving about a split, and may even decide to live with you after all.’

For a moment, Andrea wanted to laugh. Mike sounded so wise and sensible, but he had completely missed the point. She said, as if speaking to a f
oreigner
, ‘
Leo
won’t
come
home
without
his
father.
He’s said so, many times.’

‘Then you must persuade Peter to come back for a few days.’ Mike gripped her hand tightly. ‘Listen to me, Andrea. I’ve done enough harm to my own son, and I don’t want to hurt yours. Adults forget, but children never do. I adored being with Simon more than anything else in my life. But after his mother and I parted, she made him dread my visits. So he screamed and hit me when I came through the door. For his sake, I had to stop visiting.’

‘That’s so sad, darling, but it’s not like my
situation
. Your son was too young to make a choice of his own, so you had to make it for him. But Leo’s nearly thirteen, with a mind of his own. So the choice must be his. If he decides to live with his father, I’ll have to accept it.’

‘You’ll go through hell like I did, so don’t kid yourself you won’t. If he lives with Peter, you’ll lose him completely. I can’t let that happen to you, Andrea.’

His frown scared her. If she couldn’t persuade
Leo to return to Oxford with her, would their affair be over?

As if answering her question, his eyes met hers. ‘Leo did an amazingly unselfish thing when he risked his life on that trawler. We owe it to him to get him through this mess with as little pain as possible. If that means being patient for a while, we’ll damned well have to be.’

Andrea thought she understood. Mike admired courage more than every other quality, so Leo’s brave act placed him on a pedestal, above the rest of them. Disagreeing deeply, she nonetheless couldn’t argue. Not today, with his men disbanded and some dead or missing. She promised to do her best to take Leo home with her before his school term began. Before they parted, Andrea agreed to tell Mike, as soon as she knew whether she had
succeeded
.

*

After looking vainly for Peter all over the house, Andrea went into the bathroom and stifled a cry. He was lying stretched out in the tub, eyes closed, and for a moment she feared a Roman death. But the water was not red, merely dirty, and as he heard her he opened his eyes.

‘I guess this isn’t the best place to talk,’ she murmured, disconcerted to see the tip of his penis bobbing like a small pink buoy.

‘Don’t go, I’ve been wanting to ask you
something
.’ He soaped his chest and stomach
thoughtfully
. ‘Is your affair with Harrington likely to last?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Would you like it to?’ And now his voice shook ever so slightly.

‘Yes, I would.’

He caught his breath as if winded, but rallied at once. ‘Then what’s the problem? Isn’t
he
so keen?’

‘I think he is.’

‘You
think
!’
His angry trembling made the water ripple. ‘I want to know
now.
Is he fishing you out for good, or planning to throw you back? It’s killing me, tell him that … please.’

She looked down at the cracked linoleum and said, ‘Mike’s worried I may lose Leo if he goes on with me. He cares what happens to him.’

‘What a stinking hypocrite.’ Andrea stared at the battered copper cylinder above her husband’s head. Anything to take her eyes away from his penis, which, to her dismay, had started to jut clear of the water, like an artist’s impression of the Loch Ness monster. Aware of it, he pulled himself into a sitting position. ‘You know what gets me about your lover boy?’ he said, bitterly. ‘He’s so falsely diffident about his looks.’

‘You really liked him him, Peter; so why pretend you didn’t?’

‘Because I’m so bloody unhappy,’ he shouted.

At home there were two handles on the wall above the bath. Here there was nothing, and Andrea had not thought of it till this moment. Knowing he would shout at her if she offered to help him get out, Andrea left the bathroom. As she closed the door, Leo appeared on the landing. Without looking at her, he turned and went downstairs. She guessed
he had been listening. As they reached the hall, she said, ‘I hope you won’t mind me asking … but has dad said you can go live with him right now?’

‘That’s my business.’ The grubby shorts and socks that had fallen to his ankles made his harsh
grown-up
manner all the harder to endure. Andrea imagined Leo walking about in clothes that didn’t fit, and not eating enough.

‘Do you think dad’ll pack your trunk and sort your school clothes? Will he cook your food?’

‘I suppose he can get a housekeeper,’ her son remarked, in a worried voice that broke her heart.

She said eagerly, ‘Sweetheart, come home with me till dad finds somewhere to live. Then go live with him in the summer vacation.’

‘If dad doesn’t come home, I won’t come home either. I told you that, mum.’ Leo walked towards the French doors and looked back at her for a moment, before going out. Andrea felt such pain that she longed to call out and remind him that they had loved one another too much in the past to drop every trace of affection now. If she had only spared him from going away to school, there might still be enough understanding left between them to prevent this rift becoming permanent.

Without meaning to follow him, she went out into the long grass under the apple trees. How could she ask Peter to come back to Oxford for a few days? There was no possible way she could, and Mike was plain wrong to think otherwise. Peter would consider it shabby to pretend to be reconciled with her, simply so that Leo could return to school in a
state of happy delusion. After all, what would Leo think of his father later, when he realised he’d been deliberately deceived by him? Mike couldn’t have thought of that.

When she saw Leo walking back towards the house from the lane, she came to a firm decision and went up to him. ‘Darling, please don’t try and persuade dad to come home with us.’

‘I’ll do what I want.’

‘You’re such a kind loving son, of course you want dad to come home. Maybe you haven’t realised how hard that would be for me. One can’t be in love with one man, and suddenly start to feel the same way about another without having time to oneself first. So you see, even if I stop seeing Mike tomorrow, I won’t want to live with dad for a while.’

Leo’s earlier bravado crumbled. ‘Does dad know this?’ he asked sadly.

‘I’m sure he does, darling.’

As tears started to spill down his cheeks, Andrea could not bear it, and with a moan, clutched him to her breast. For a while, Leo remained limp in her arms and did not try to get away.

Term had started again at the village school, so Andrea could not arrange to see Mike there. She would have liked to suggest meeting in a field or wood – somewhere entirely private – but at the end of a hurried telephone call she had been too flustered to come up with precise directions. Instead, he had suggested the parish church, which he would be
passing
anyway en route to the station. He was due in London for what he had told her lugubriously would be ‘my terminal bollocking by the old gents at
NIDC
’ – whoever they were. As they walked up the nave together, she supposed that if this were a happier occasion she might start humming Mendelssohn’s
Wedding
March
in a mildly ironic way.

Mike glanced at the famous fourteenth-century wall-painting, with its gaggle of men and women being prodded into the fires of hell by assorted devils. ‘At least medieval adulterers knew the score,’ he muttered.

‘I guess they did,’ agreed Andrea, imagining he
was thinking of sinners who’d loved and lost, and had always expected to. Héloïse and Abelard, Paolo and Francesca, falling unsurprised into the eternal flames. Whereas we
are
surprised to suffer, he seemed to be saying.

‘My train’s the three o’clock.’ Mike looked at his watch. ‘Doesn’t leave us long, I’m afraid.’

They slid into a pew near the pulpit and an unhappy silence ensued. She wished he would do something loving, like kiss her, or at least hold her hand. Thoughts of legendary lovers and their losses had made his anxiety about train times seem less forgivable.

Wearing a tweed jacket and check shirt, Mike looked strange to her, though these ordinary clothes were probably more familiar to him than naval uniform. Suddenly she realised how nervous he was and felt a surge of sympathy. Mike was holding his hands together to keep them still. He looked at her imploringly, ‘For God’s sake, Andrea, what did Leo say? Is he coming home with you?’

‘Dearest, I had to tell him his dad and I are going to be apart for a while.’

‘Why did you say that?’ His smile drooped and died. ‘I’m staggered you imagine he’ll come
anywhere
near you now.’

‘Lying to him wouldn’t have been right.’ The forthright tone she had hoped for emerged as
something
less convincing.

His face was distraught. ‘Who cares what’s
right
if a white lie could have stopped him fretting all
summer
at that awful school?’ Mike’s fingers tightened
on the back of the pew in front. ‘You deliberately did the opposite of what I asked.’

Refusing to be cowed by his anger, she said, ‘I can’t believe you’re blaming me because I didn’t do something I thought wrong. He’ll worry less if he feels he can trust what I say. Isn’t it for
me
to worry about him?’

‘Not when he’s just risked his life because of
us.
That makes it
my
responsibility too.’

‘Fair comment. But lying to Leo won’t help him.’

‘Come on, Andrea! I only asked you to hold back briefly so you wouldn’t alienate him for good. It was the one thing I begged you to avoid.’

‘Whatever happens, I’ll never blame you, darling.’ Andrea felt so shaky that her words came out blurred and breathless.

Mike held his head in his hands for a moment. ‘That’s not the point at all,’ he objected. ‘I’d blame myself
anyway,
especially if I had to watch you go through what I did. I couldn’t bear that.’

‘What do you mean?’ she cried, just then
remembering
what he had said about his own son.

A woman with a mop and pail came out of a door to the right of the altar and started to clatter about and splosh water over the chancel floor.

Mike whispered, ‘I think we should see how we feel in a month.’

‘And not meet till then?’ Her head was
spinning
. He was slipping away from her, without even trying to reach out a delaying hand. ‘You’re so goddamn unfair,’ she cried. ‘You set me impossible conditions; told me I had to take Leo
and
Peter
home with me till school started; and now, because I’ve failed to persuade them, which I was always sure to, you say I can’t see you any more. That’s pretty low.’

‘Try to understand,’ he murmured. ‘I felt fine grabbing things for myself when I was in danger. But now I’m safe, everything’s different. Peter and Leo deserve better than a rushed decision.’

Andrea felt hot and shivery as if she were running a fever. Giving up any attempt to speak softly, she burst out, ‘Just when I don’t want to live with them any more, you decide to leave me for
their
sake. Do I have that right?’

His dark eyes were full of tender appeal. ‘All I’m saying is we should take stock after you’ve settled down again in Oxford, when I’ll know about my new posting. The last few days have been hell for all of us.’

‘You’re being dishonest,’ she cried, as the woman with the mop gawped at her. ‘If we leave it a month, then that’s the end. Be brave enough to admit it, instead of giving me false hope.’

‘Please, Andrea, it’s been the most beautiful time in my life, and I couldn’t bear it if we …’

Scarcely knowing what she was doing, Andrea was on her feet, stumbling over hassocks in her hurry to be gone before she began to rage or plead with him to reconsider. Above all she must
not
plead. From the graveyard, she saw, beyond the lych gate, a Wren driver and a weedy looking man in civilian clothes sitting in a familiar looking naval sedan. These people had been waiting for him. What reason
had he given them for spending time in church? ‘Got to tell the little lady the party’s over’?

Her head throbbed with unshed tears. Either Mike had been incredibly unselfish to put a boy’s interests before his own, or he had used Leo as an excuse to end it. But which was true? Ever since her
appearance
at naval headquarters, with Justin at her side, she had thought Mike honourable. Now she no longer knew. Deserted by his own wife, scared, lonely – wouldn’t he have painted his self-portrait in any way he thought likely to lead to love? The hardest thing for her was knowing that, even if Mike
had
used Leo, she still wanted to find some magical excuse that would let her go on loving him, as she had done before Leo stuck his nose into her love affair and popped it like a child’s balloon.