The Prodigal Wife (14 page)

Jolyon was pottering in his tiny sitting room in the gatehouse. He was only half listening to the voice of Lea Delaria singing ‘Losing My Mind' whilst he held his mobile and tapped a text to Henrietta with one hand and swung the guard in front of the dying fire in the grate with the other. As the weekend approached he grew less confident about how he should handle the meeting between his mother and Henrietta. Resentment lurked, reminding him that he was under no obligation to present Henrietta for inspection to the woman who had made him so unhappy.

Jolyon sent the text message, put the phone down and picked up Roger's books, which were piled on the sofa and the floor. He put them on to the shelf and paused, his attention caught by the softly gleaming pink and blue glaze of the ginger jar. Jolyon stretched out his hand and touched it, tracing the cracks, remembering when Fliss had given it to him.

She'd talked about how each person had to face crossroads in their lives: had choices, decisions to make…

Well, this was one of them – and he would decide now. There was no way that he was prepared to expose Henrietta to the kind of humiliation he'd suffered; he wouldn't be coerced into it. The music drifted into silence and he turned away. Switching off the radio and the light, he picked up his mobile and went up to bed.

 

Across the courtyard Fliss was sitting on the window seat in the little sitting room that adjoined her and Hal's bedroom. Once it had been her grandmother's room, a private place of sanctuary, and very little had been changed: here was the bow-fronted bureau with its shallow drawers, a tall glass-fronted bookcase full of well-loved books, the small inlaid table with its bowl of flowers, and the Widgerys hanging on the pale walls.

Fliss watched the light go out downstairs in the gatehouse and another flash on upstairs.

‘I can't decide,' Jolyon had said to her earlier, ‘whether I want my mother to meet Henrietta yet.'

He'd glanced sideways at her; defensive, embarrassed that he even needed to be mentioning it to her, yet somehow requiring her support. She'd been surprised at a sharp sense of triumph; that he was appealing to her as if he and she were on the same side – against Maria.

‘You must do what is right for you and Henrietta,' she'd told him. ‘It's tricky with new relationships, isn't it? They need nurturing.'

He'd flashed a look of relief at her. ‘That's it. It's very early days…Only Dad thought it might be nice to get Henrietta over for lunch or something…'

His voice had tailed off, and she'd touched his shoulder encouragingly. ‘If I were you I'd play it by ear,' she'd advised. ‘Don't make any plans till you see how you feel once Maria's arrived.'

He'd nodded, given her an awkward, grateful smile and gone out.

Now, sitting at the window, Fliss suspected that she was somehow conniving with Jo against Maria and Hal; that she was taking sides. She knew very well that Hal's suggestions sprang from his natural generosity and self-confidence, but she was less sure about her own reactions. Old antagonisms and fears had resurfaced since Maria's visit a few months ago and, as she stared out at Jolyon's light, she tried to pin them down. She felt cross with Hal for putting Jolyon into an awkward position, yet it was something much deeper than partisanship for Jo that was gnawing at her peace of mind. Maybe it was simply that it was impossible to be indifferent to Maria. After all, she was Hal's ex-wife; they'd been married for twenty years and she'd given him two sons.

This is the crux of it, thought Fliss. She and Hal had twenty years together. We've had eight.

Looking back, it was hardly possible to believe that she and Hal had given in so readily to being separated; had acquiesced without a fight. But then – a bitter little thought –
she
'd never had the chance to fight. It had been a
fait accompli
between Hal, his mother and his grandmother, and suddenly she could visualize the scene, could remember exactly how he'd told her why they could never marry.

Spring 1965

It is a cold day in early spring and the house is very quiet. There is nobody around and Fliss wanders into the drawing room and seats herself at the piano. She likes to play, and she selects a Beethoven sonata from her grandmother's music. It is here that Hal finds her.

She swings round to greet him, her eyes alight with pleasure at the sight of him. He looks cold and almost stern as he stands beside her, rubbing his hands to warm them. As usual she finds it difficult to speak when they are quite alone and so she simply sits smiling at him, waiting for him to say something. When he does begin to talk to her she is unable to take it in. She frowns, watching him, feeling suddenly frightened. His words sound stilted, as if he has been practising them, and he continues to look aloof. At one point she puts out her hand to him, hoping to stop him, to make him look at her properly. He holds her hand tightly but drops it almost immediately.

‘It's you I'm thinking of, Fliss,' he is saying. ‘You're very young and then there's all your training to get through…'

He sounds quite desperate – and very unhappy. She shakes her head, puzzled, wanting to comfort him. Surely he must know that she'd wait for ever for him? Now he is talking about being cousins, the problems, children…

‘We couldn't take the chance, you see. Think how you love children. Supposing you…we were to have a child that wasn't normal. It would break your heart. We mustn't take the risk. It's bad enough for ordinary cousins, but our fathers were identical twins. It was silly of us to get carried away but we'll go on being close, won't we?'

There is silence. His voice has stopped and she can hear the grandfather clock ticking weightily, the logs sighing into ashes in the grate. He stands quite still beside her and she notices that he is wearing his old blue Shetland jersey, which is very slightly too small for him. Presently she looks up at him. His face is pinched with anxiety, clenched with misery.

‘But I love you.' She says the words quite simply, as if they will cure everything.

She watches him close his eyes and pass his hands over his face, sees his breast lift with a deep sigh. He lays the back of his hand to her cheek, touches her hair.

‘It's no good, Fliss,' he says gently and very sadly, looking at her properly at last. ‘We have to accept that it wouldn't work. Everything's against us. I love you too. But it's got to be a different kind of love from now on.'

‘But how? How are we just to stop?' she asks dully. His misery is passing into her, filling her up so that she can barely breathe.

‘We just must.' He is crouching beside her, watching her anxiously. ‘Don't look like that, Fliss. Please don't. I can't stand it. Look. You've never had a boyfriend. You simply don't know what you want yet.
Please
, Fliss.'

His last desperate plea pulls her together as nothing else can. She sees that he is suffering too, and instinctively wishes to protect him from it, realizing that she must be the strong one now. She swallows, nodding, accepting. He grips her shoulder, relieved, grateful.

‘Try,' he pleads. ‘Try not to let it change us, Fliss. We can still be close. Don't let this spoil everything.'

She shakes her head, agreeing, her smile woefully awry. ‘No…No, I won't.' Tears blind her and she turns away. ‘Go on, Hal. Just leave me. I'll be OK. Only please go away now.'

He stands up awkwardly, pausing only to kiss her neat fair head before plunging out of the room…

 

How odd that the memory should be so clear and fresh. It was her cousin Kit, Fliss remembered now, who had comforted her once Hal had gone, made her tea, and attempted to help her make sense of his words. The frustration and pain she'd suffered then unexpectedly struck anew at her heart, and anger shook her. Surely she and Hal could have made a fight of it? He should have stood up to them instead of backing down; he'd given in at the first blast of matriarchal manipulation.

Fliss frowned; was she angry with Hal, then? Could it be possible that her fear of Maria was simply masking a deep resentment that Hal had not loved her enough to fight for her all those years ago; and – yes, now another grievance slipped up out of her subconscious – that, even when they were both free at last, it had taken nearly a year for him to make that final declaration?

Hugging her knees, Fliss felt fearful and lonely. Staring out into the dusk, and seeing the lights streaming out across the courtyard, she experienced a sense of
déjà vu
. Back then the lights had been switched on by Hal, who'd been looking around the empty gatehouse, sizing up its potential to make it habitable for Jolyon. She'd been sitting up here on the window seat thinking about her uncle Theo and wishing he were still alive so that she might talk to him about the anguish of trying to contain her love for Hal alongside her loyalty to Miles. Now, she wished that she could present Theo with this new dilemma: was her self-righteous championship and loyalty for Jolyon the result of a subconscious desire to take revenge for a long-buried resentment, and a disguise for her fear of Hal's ex-wife?

She knew that Theo would have understood. Nothing had ever shocked him, he'd never preached or remonstrated, yet she'd always had an odd kind of horror at the thought of disappointing him. Miles had once said something so true about Uncle Theo that she'd never forgotten it.

‘If you were to let him down,' Miles had said, ‘you'd be endangering something far more precious than your skin or your pride. In fact, you'd be letting down this vital thing inside yourself, not him at all, and he'd be alongside you in the gutter, holding your hand while you wept with the grief and the pain of it.'

Theo had known that she'd married Miles as a shield against the pain of Hal's engagement to Maria, known that her love for Hal remained unchanged through the years of her marriage to Miles, yet he'd always been on her side.

Now, dropping her head on her knees, she longed to see Theo's smile, to feel his hand on her shoulder, and his strength communicated, flowing into her…As she sat there, remembering, the words of a prayer slid into her mind. She'd found it written on a paper in his Daily Office book; he'd recited it to her once, and she'd read it many times since his death.

How indeed? Fliss raised her head and looked out into the darkness. The lights in the gatehouse had been switched off but she no longer felt alone. She could remember the last words of the prayer and saw again, in her mind's eye, Theo's small clear writing.

It was a promise, and back then, in that time of crisis, she'd clung to it; perhaps she might need it again in the days to come.

The train was packed. Maria wrestled with the door handle of a first-class carriage and glanced around hopefully for some strong male to help lift her case on to the train. Philip and Penelope had driven away early to a lunch with friends in Hampshire and she'd been obliged to take a taxi to the station. A young woman pushed past impatiently, climbed on to the train and disappeared, and Maria began to bump her case up on to the step, manipulating the small wheels with difficulty, watched indifferently from the platform by two men in suits, clasping laptops and deep in conversation.

‘OK, love?' one of them asked cheerfully, once she and her case were safely aboard.

She entered the carriage, pulling her case behind her, mourning the days of porters and young men with good manners, consulting her ticket and checking out the numbers on the seats. Her heart sank: a large young man was sitting in her reserved seat. She peered again, making the action quite pointed now, and smiled placatingly.

‘I'm so sorry – ' though why should
she
be sorry? – ‘but I think you've taken my seat.'

He stared at her combatively, clearly expecting her to back down – after all, there were quite a few empty seats including the one next to him – but she stared back at him, remembering Peggy Ashcroft's performance in
Caught on a Train
and determined to stand her ground.

She held her ticket under his nose. ‘D'you see?' She smiled at him now, almost enjoying the contest – she could always call the guard if he remained intransigent – and repeated the number loudly and clearly, but very sweetly. Other passengers had begun to be interested; his face grew sullen and he glanced pointedly but silently at the empty seat beside him, but she took him up on it at once.

‘I always book a window seat if I can. I feel sick if I can't look out. Do you get that too? Perhaps that's why you sat there.'

He gave in, getting up with very bad grace, taking his case down, while she waited, still smiling.

‘Thank you so much.' She put her ticket away, wheeled her case to the space by the door and when she got back to her seat he'd disappeared. She was relieved; it might have been rather stressful to have to sit beside him all the way to Totnes. She pulled down the little shelf from the back of the seat in front and put her bag on it. It never ceased to surprise her that, unconfident though she was, she absolutely refused to be bullied. Adam had always teased her about being a tough cookie, though he was the only person who'd ever truly known her, and had loved her despite her weaknesses.

Maria's eyes filled suddenly with tears. She bit her lips, feeling for her handkerchief. The train was pulling out of the station and she stared at the blurred buildings and sheds, blinking away her tears. She simply couldn't forgive herself for wasting so many years. They should never have been parted, she and Adam: she'd been too malleable, too anxious to please her parents. All those years married to Hal when she could have been with the one man who'd truly loved her, yet the odd thing was that it was to the Chadwicks she was turning in her grief, and she was so relieved to be going to The Keep now; to see Hal and Jolyon and darling old Prue. Hal's mother had always been kind to her.

The only fly in the ointment – although that was a terrible way of putting it – was Fliss. Fliss had always been the stumbling block; from the very beginning it was Fliss who'd shaken her confidence and made her feel inadequate. Staring from the window, Maria recalled other journeys to The Keep in the early days of her marriage to Hal.

Summer 1972

During the journey from Portsmouth to Devon, Maria sits wrapped in preoccupation while Hal talks about his posting to the frigate HMS
Falmouth
, the fun of returning to Devon, the possibilities of the married quarter available in Compton Road near HMS
Manadon
in Plymouth. She murmurs appropriately, trying to inject enthusiasm into her voice, but her thoughts are busy elsewhere. The prospect of their few days of leave is ruined by the knowledge that Fliss is at The Keep. Maria had been delighted when Hal suggested that they should go down to see the married quarter, staying for a few nights with his grandmother. She loves to be fussed over by Prue, to be approved by old Mrs Chadwick and Uncle Theo, spoiled by Caroline. She feels like a beloved child returning home from school – and Hal is such a favourite with his family. Although she stares straight ahead she can visualize his face; determined, confident, handsome, open. People take to him, warming to his friendly smile and good-natured laugh. He has a handclasp and a redeeming word for all; everyone loves him.

This, of course, is where the root of the matter lies. Maria does not want everyone to love Hal or, rather, she wishes he were not so indiscriminate in his returning of this love. In her more rational moments she knows that Hal's easy affection is given to male and female alike – but when was jealousy ever rational? It comes at her from nowhere, swooping in to undermine her fragile confidence, to shake her belief in his love for her. It drives her to be bitchy and cruel, it keeps her awake at nights when he is away; it makes her dread the other wives' gossip, hating to hear that he is enjoying himself in any way that might involve other women. She knows that, wherever the ship docks, the officers are invited to parties and dinners, entertained royally during their ‘showing the flag visits', fêted when they are in foreign ports. She waits eagerly for his letters, for the occasional telephone call, for any constant reaffirmation of his love.

This sunny June morning, as the road flees away behind them, she wonders if it would have been the same if Hal had never told her about Fliss. Was it Hal's ‘confession' – that he and his cousin had been romantically involved – that is to blame for her insecurity? It is so unfair. Manlike, he has been determined to get it off his chest, unaware of the effect on her. He's explained that it was adolescent and quite innocent, but there is something so horribly Romeo-and-Juliet-ish about the whole business and, or so it seems to Maria, if his family hadn't forbidden it then presumably he and Fliss would have continued to love one another. She has never been quite able to pin him down. Hal's stance is ‘well, it didn't happen so what's all the fuss about? I'm married to you now and that's that'.

Maria thinks: There's something still there, though, I just know it. I can feel it when they're together. I'm second best, that's the problem. How can I compete with her? God, I hate her!

The truly irritating thing is that Fliss is so nice to her. In fact, during one of Hal's longer patrols at sea, she accepts an invitation to stay with Fliss in her little house in Dartmouth. For a brief, sane moment, Maria sees that she might neutralize the whole thing by making friends with Fliss; they will form an alliance so that she has nothing to fear from her.

To begin with it actually seems as if it might work. Without Hal around, the two girls settle into a delightfully friendly relationship and have a wonderful week together. Fliss introduces her to the beaches and moors, takes her into the small market towns, they even go to choral evensong at Exeter Cathedral after a glorious morning of shopping in the city. They barely mention Hal, except as he relates to Maria's being utterly miserable when he's away. His absence allows her to talk about him as if he were a different Hal, one whom Fliss knows only slightly but whom
she
knows intimately. She is worldly-wise, tolerant about his shortcomings, joking and light-hearted about his lack of domesticity. Fliss makes no attempt to be proprietorial, makes no mention of her own particular knowledge of Hal. She is so understanding, so sympathetic, and they laugh together over the problems facing the naval wife. By the end of the week Maria is convinced that she's laid the ghost and her certainty lasts until the next visit to The Keep.

They are in the hall with Uncle Theo, having arrived much earlier than they'd expected to, when Fliss comes in with Caroline, helping her to carry the tea things. They are laughing together and pause just inside the door to finish their conversation, heads bent together and looking suddenly serious, before they turn to look at the group around the fire. Maria's heard the phrase about faces ‘lighting up' and, at that moment, she knows exactly what it means. Fliss's small face smoothes out, her eyes widen and her lips curve upward. Glancing involuntarily at Hal, Maria sees that his face too is bright with love. It is as though something invisible but almost tangible stretches between them. Her heart beats fast with terror and she knows a longing to smash something, to scream, anything to snap the thread that seems to draw her husband and his cousin together.

She overreacted then by chattering wildly to Uncle Theo; her voice too high, her gestures too exaggerated but knowing that she must do something to break the tension between Hal and Fliss. Then Prue appears and the charge of electricity falters, dwindling into the affection of two members of the same family greeting each other with perfectly natural friendliness. Maria melts into her mother-in-law's hug with relief and gratitude. Prue is so motherly, so sweet, so delighted to see them…

 

The train was pulling into Honiton, sliding past the waiting passengers grouped on the platform. Maria stared unseeingly at them. She'd hated the married quarter in Compton Road; been jealous when she'd discovered that Fliss was pregnant, relieved when she'd heard that she and Miles were going to Hong Kong for two years. And now, thirty years later, Fliss still had the power to make her nervous; make her heart beat anxiously. How foolish: Fliss couldn't harm her now. They were all friends together – old friends. Now was the time to build bridges and mend broken fences, especially with Jolyon. She wanted so much to make things up with Jolyon. And it wasn't just because darling Ed was in America and she missed him terribly. No, Adam's death had shown her how precious people were, how fragile love was, and she was beginning to realize what harm she'd done in her own crazy pursuit of love.

And this was a beginning, the thin end of the wedge – no, that made it sound a rather contrived and calculating effort to worm her way back into favour; but it was a new start. She must make a special effort with Jolyon, because she
was
proud of him now that he had a really great career – and he looked so much like Hal. It was uncanny, actually, and rather heart-wrenching, to see him quite so like the young Hal she'd once been married to, and loved. She
had
loved Hal, though she still tried to persuade herself that without her parents' pressure she'd have remained with Adam. But they'd been so knocked backwards by the handsome, confident young naval officer. And, let's face it, so had she. If she were to be brutally honest, she couldn't remember a single occasion on which she'd defended her affection for Adam. Oh, yes, her parents had encouraged and persuaded, and been so pleased with her for being malleable, but she hadn't put up much of a fight.

‘He'll go far,' her father had prophesied. ‘You'll see,' and he'd been right. Actually, it had come as a bit of an unpleasant shock to discover that Fliss was to be Lady Chadwick; rather as if Fliss were reaping the reward without putting in the work. After all, it was she, Maria, who had been at Hal's side through those early years, not Fliss.

‘No regrets?' Adam had asked, watching her across the table as she read the announcement in the
Daily Telegraph
– and she'd ignored that ever-ready thrust of jealousy of Fliss and answered, ‘Of course not. All those social events? No thanks.'

Had he believed her? Too late, now, to ask the question. Pain clutched her heart and she bit her lip. The guard was approaching, checking tickets, and Maria summoned up her friendliest smile and reached for her bag.