Marrying the Mistress (33 page)

And then there was Carrie. Alan didn’t feel very comfortable about Carrie, either. They’d always talked about Laura, sure, they’d talked about most things, but it had been easier – for Alan anyway – to keep Carrie and Laura’s relationship as a joke: a tired joke, a typical, conventional, clichéd joke, but a joke all the same and therefore manageable. But perhaps it had all gone deeper for Carrie, really deep, to a level where an irritant became a threat, a menace, and you couldn’t think how to fight it, you seemed to have no weapons. Of course he’d listened to Carrie, he’d listened to her recently when she got quite vehement about Laura, quite specific, but he
seemed to remember that his reaction had been along the noncommittal lines of, ‘There, there.’ It was patronizing, he thought now, unsympathetic. He was ashamed of himself. But it was only now, only today, with this new situation of being exposed to Laura without the shield of Simon, that he could see for himself. He could see what that letter lying on the sofa might lead to. He could see where Laura might try to take him from here, and if she succeeded – she wouldn’t, he told himself, he wouldn’t let her – where would that leave Charlie? It was thinking of what a clamorous commitment to Laura might do to Charlie, to himself and Charlie, that made him think of Carrie. And when he thought of Carrie, he told himself that he’d been no support to her at all.

‘Hey there!’ Charlie shouted from the front door.

‘Kitchen,’ Alan called.

‘I can smell,’ Charlie said. ‘Boy, can I
smell
. What have you been doing?’

‘Curry,’ Alan said. He didn’t look up.

Charlie put an arm round Alan’s neck. He still held his car keys. He put his face into Alan’s neck and bit him gently.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘I had a letter,’ Alan said. ‘It just got to me a bit—’

Charlie looked at him.

‘What’s the yellow on your face?’

Alan put a hand up and brushed at his cheek.

‘Turmeric—’

‘Where’s the letter?’

‘Over there,’ Alan said. ‘On the sofa.’

Charlie let go of Alan’s neck. He went through into the sitting room, dropping his keys on the coffee table, and picked up the letter. He stood reading it, his back to Alan, legs apart. Alan watched him.

‘Well,’ Charlie said, finishing the letter. ‘Who’s a poor wee me then?’

‘My brother’s had it for years,’ Alan said. ‘All his life.’

‘The favourite?’

‘Always.’

‘I was never anyone’s favourite,’ Charlie said, coming back to the kitchen, still holding the letter. He gave Alan a quick kiss. ‘Until now.’

‘You’re too awkward,’ Alan said. ‘And criminally untidy.’

‘I
know.’
Charlie looked at him. He said, ‘Do I gather your brother has thrown her over?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oops. So you’re next in line.’

‘Yes,’ Alan said. ‘But I can’t. I can’t do it.’

‘You don’t have to,’ Charlie said. He dipped a forefinger into a bowl and licked it. ‘What’s that?’

‘Lassi.’

‘As in dog?’

‘As in yoghurt. I just don’t want to be pursued. I don’t even want to be
asked.’

‘She’s on her own,’ Charlie said. ‘She doesn’t know how to cope, she doesn’t know how to run life. Lots of women her age don’t. Men, too.’

‘Whose side are you on? You can’t want me to take her on, can you?’

‘No,’ Charlie said. He peered into another bowl. ‘We’ll take her on together.’

‘You can’t mean it—’

‘I do,’ Charlie said. ‘I’m good at mothers. Ask mine.’

‘But you don’t know her—’

‘All the better.’

‘And,’ Alan said, ‘she doesn’t know about you.’

Charlie came round the kitchen table. He put his arms around Alan.

‘She soon will.’

‘Charlie,’ Alan said into Charlie’s shoulder, ‘I don’t want you dragged into this. I don’t want you mixed up in it.’

‘If it gets nasty, I’ll get out. Taking you with me.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Course I am.’

‘You haven’t got time—’

‘If it helps you, I have,’ Charlie said.

‘Oh God—’

‘We do everything together. No exploitation permissable or indeed possible.’ He gave Alan’s back a thump and shifted his arms to hold him by the shoulders. ‘Right?’

Alan grinned.

‘Right.’

‘Now then,’ Charlie said, ‘why don’t you make a phone call?’

‘Shall I?’ Alan said.

‘Sure you shall. You ring your mother and tell her that you’ll see her on Sunday. And that you’re bringing a friend.’

‘I think we should go for a walk,’ Guy said.

Merrion moved slightly under the crackling mound of Sunday newspapers.

‘I thought,’ she said, ‘that you were going to see Simon and co.’

‘That’s later.’

‘Oh.’

‘I do wish,’ Guy said, ‘that you’d come with me.’ She shut her eyes. She said, ‘I’m not being unfriendly, I like them all, I really do, but I sort of can’t.’

‘What sort of can’t?’

‘I can’t get my head round it,’ Merrion said.

He reached for the nearest section of newspaper and folded it up.

‘It isn’t a big deal, dearest. It’s just supper.’

‘It’s a big deal for you,’ Merrion said. ‘Simon asked you.’

‘Yes—’

‘So you go. I’ll come another time.’

Guy stood up.

‘Come on. Walk.’

She stretched.

‘Can’t.’

He bent and took her hands and pulled her up.

‘Got to.’

‘Bully,’ she said. She took her hands out of his and moved towards the bedroom. ‘I’ll just get some shoes.’

Guy bent and picked the newspapers up, section by section, smoothing them and folding them. He made a pile of them on the table. Then he shook the cushions out.

Merrion appeared in the bedroom doorway. She had put trainers on.

‘Ready,’ she said.

He smiled and held his hand out to her.

‘Got the key?’ she said.

They went down the long flights of stairs in silence. In the entrance hall, someone had left a double baby buggy chained to the bottom of the banisters with a plastic-covered cycle chain. There was a green plush frog in one seat of the buggy. Merrion glanced at it when she went past. It had huge yellow plastic eyes and a wide red felt mouth. Why give a child anything so gratuitously ugly to play with?

‘Hideous,’ Guy said, glancing at it, too.

She nodded. He went past her and opened the huge front door to the street and held it.

‘Thank you,’ she said.

They went down the pavement together, towards the park. He took her hand, as he always did, and held it with their fingers interlaced. It was warm and clear and there were bright soft leaves on the trees and drifts of spent blossom in the gutters and up against the railings. People were out, everywhere, couples and families, and people with dogs, and people lying on the grass and sitting on the benches. All through the park, along the paths and across the grassy spaces and in and out of the shadows cast by the trees, you could see these little figures, running and cycling and walking and sitting and lying. The sight made Merrion feel intensely lonely. She thought
of her hand lying in Guy’s hand and it felt as if it didn’t belong to her.

They took a meandering route through the park, past the Reformer’s Tree and round the Tea House and back towards the Serpentine, where the crowds were, moving along the paths with weekend aimlessness. There were ducks on the Serpentine, and three huge swans and little gabbling dark groups of moorhen. Guy led Merrion away from the water and the people and the darting children, towards the nearest trees.

‘Sit down,’ he said.

She looked at the grass.

‘Here?’

‘I think here will do.’

She released her hand and sat down on the grass, holding her knees. He sat beside her, turned towards her. Even without looking, she could see how he looked, how he had arranged himself.

He said, ‘I didn’t plan to have this conversation this afternoon. I didn’t plan to say what I’m going to say. I just knew I had to say it sometime.’ He put a hand out and laid it on her clasped ones. ‘I think – oh, my dearest, I
know
, that I shouldn’t marry you.’

She stared straight ahead. She said softly, ‘Here it comes.’

‘It’s not your age,’ Guy said. ‘It’s mine.’

‘And suppose I not only don’t mind your age, but I like it?’

‘Now,’ he said, ‘now you do. But not later. In eight years I shall be seventy and you won’t even be forty still.’

She unclasped her hands and swung her knees to the grass so that she was facing him. Her hands were shaking terribly. She tucked them under her thighs.

‘Are you—’ She stopped.

‘Am I what?’

‘Are you going back to Laura?’

‘Absolutely not.’

‘Have you thought about it?’

‘Only in the sense of knowing I never could.’

She said, her eyes on the grass beside her bent knees, ‘I always knew it would be hard. I always knew it would get complicated and painful, but – but I never knew it would get like
this.’

‘How could you?’ he said. ‘How could you? You’d never done anything like this before. Nor had I.’

She inched forward and laid her head against him.

‘I’m not – sure if I can bear it.’

He put a hand round her head, round her thick, strong hair.

‘Nor me.’

‘Guy—’

‘Yes?’

‘Please—’

He said desperately, ‘My darling, if there
was
a way to do our future, don’t you think we’d have thought of it by now?’

She nodded.

‘Imagine it,’ he said, ‘you going deservedly up the scale, me retiring soon, all those impossible checks and balances, all those things you might not say or do because of
me, all the things I might feel but could not say because of you. We’ve seen what it’s like confronting all the elements we couldn’t allow for, already. There’ll be more. It will get harder. You’ll still love me, I’ve no doubt of that, but that love will change as time goes on. It’s bound to. It’ll change with being secure, being socially accepted. It’ll change because we’ll become orthodox, not forbidden.’ He moved his hand so that it lay lightly over her eyes and mouth. ‘I could not bear it if your love for me turned
motherly.’

She said faintly, from behind his hand, ‘I’m not sure I’ve got much mother love in me—’

‘You haven’t tried it. And I can’t be the one that stops you from trying it. Not me, above all people.’

She lifted both her hands and took his away from her face and held them.

‘I’d still risk it.’

He looked away for a moment.

‘I can’t,’ he said, ‘I can’t risk you.’

‘But all this love—’

‘Not wasted,’ he said. He looked down at the grass. He said, round incipient tears, ‘Never wasted. Nothing lovely ever is, not people, not feelings—’

She said wildly, ‘I just think I’m going to break up!’

‘I know.’

‘I can’t bear it, I can’t stand it, I can’t—’

He twisted and put his arms round her and held her tightly against him.

‘You can. You will.’

‘You’re everything,’ Merrion said, her face in his shoulder. ‘You’re where I came home to—’

‘It’s all homes,’ he said. ‘Home after home. All our lives. It’s just that now, maybe, you know where you’re setting out from.’

‘I’ve been so vile,’ she whispered, ‘these last few months. Awful to live with.’

‘No, you haven’t.’

‘I was frightened—’

‘Rightly so,’ he said sadly.

She pulled away a little.

‘Where will you go?’

‘I don’t know. Do you?’

She said, ‘I’ve never felt so lost—’

‘No,’ he said, ‘not in this way. Neither of us have.’

She got on to her knees and began tearing at little tufts of grass. She said childishly, ‘I don’t
want
to live life without you.’

‘No.’

‘I’ll be walking wounded, I’ll be half alive—’

‘Not for ever.’

‘And you?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I really don’t know anything at the moment except what I’ve got to do. I don’t know how I’ll do it, any more than you do.’

He got to his feet, slowly and stiffly. Then he bent and held a hand out to her.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Up you get.’

She took his hand and let him pull her up. He held her for a moment and then he took her left hand as usual, interlacing the fingers with his, and began to lead her back across the park towards the flat.

It had been, Gwen calculated, two months since she had spoken to Merrion; two months and three days. It was exactly two months and one day since she had posted her letter. Merrion hadn’t replied to the letter, but Gwen hadn’t really expected it. She wasn’t sorry she had sent the letter and she wouldn’t have expressed herself any differently if she’d delayed writing it, until her feelings were cooler. She had said things that needed to be said, that she had needed to say, and she had tried to say them in a way that Merrion couldn’t take exception to because of being unable to avoid seeing that Gwen loved her and was anxious for her welfare.

It had been a long two months. There had been times when Gwen had had her hand literally on the telephone, ready to dial Merrion’s number, never mind who she got on the other end. There had been moments when she thought she might send a postcard – a local scene, perhaps, a picture of somewhere Merrion would remember from her childhood – and just write simply on the back that she was thinking of her. ‘Thinking of you.
Love, Mum.’ But she hadn’t done it. She hadn’t done either. She had, instead, like a girl waiting for a boy to make the first move, felt that the right thing to do was to wait for Merrion. She had to let Merrion feel she was making the moves, dictating the pace. She had to allow Merrion to feel that she had stepped out of the childhood space where any kind of confrontation might result in a ticking off.