A Perfect Marriage (16 page)

Max straightened and looked at her. "I see," he said quietly. "In that case, it makes no difference. Take your choice, the couch or the bed."

Celine swallowed hard, afraid she was going to be sick. Of course he and Kate hadn't confined their lovemaking to the bed. The couch was long enough to accommodate Max's length, and wide enough to be comfortable for two, if they were sufficiently close.

With an effort she banished the image of them from her mind. "I'd still prefer the couch," she said.

Max looked surprised, but shrugged and suggested, "Perhaps you'd rather have the duvet, then?"

She couldn't bear this. In a minute she'd be screaming at him. "Just leave me alone please, Max, and go to bed."

"Okay. Sleep well," he said, and went towards the bathroom.

Celine draped her dress and underclothing over the back of the couch, and when she was sure Max had finished in the bathroom and gone to bed, she pulled the blanket and pillow from the couch onto the thin, nothing-coloured carpet. Wrapping the blanket about her, she tried to sleep.

Chapter 8

The floor was hard, and the night air rapidly cooled. Stubbornly, Celine closed her eyes and willed herself to sleep. Outside she could hear cars passing, and somewhere in the distance a burglar alarm pulsed. It seemed no one was taking any notice, because it went on for at least half an hour.

She was almost dozing off at last when a motorbike roared past the building, startling her awake again. Then an ambulance came by, its siren wailing loudly. She wondered if it had woken Max.

When she heard voices in the street, and then a scream, she got up and pulled the window curtain aside. Across the street several young people were milling about, and she heard laughter and raised voices. She watched for a few minutes as they walked along, jostling and whooping, and guessed that the sound she'd heard was a scream of laughter rather than a signal of distress. With relief, she dropped the curtain into place and turned to go back to the makeshift bed.

 
In the dark she groped for the sofa, trying to avoid the coffee table, but her foot caught in the rumpled blanket and she tripped, barking her shin on the edge of the table. Unable to stifle a cry of pain, she sat down on the sofa, her hands tightly clasping the injured leg.

"Celine?"
Max appeared as a shadow in the doorway and the light went on. "Are you all right? What have you done?" He came swiftly towards her, kneeling in front of her to prise her hands away. As usual, he wore only the bottom half of his pyjamas.

"I bumped into the table. It's nothing. Sorry I woke you.

'

"You didn't-those idiots out in the street did that. I thought someone needed help."

"Me, too.
That's why I was blundering about in the dark."

"This is bleeding a bit." He stood up. "I'll get a plas ter."

As he left the room she peered down at the small graze, and stopped a trickle of blood with her finger, to save the carpet.

Gazing absently about the room, she mentally refurnished it. A picture that used to be in Max's study hung on the opposite wall, a Rita Angus that he was particularly fond of. That and one of the chairs, simple and functional, were about the only things she'd keep.

He came back and knelt again, pressing a plaster over the graze.

"Thank you," she said.

He got up and looked at the bedding on the floor, then at her.

"I couldn't," she said.

A look of enlightenment came into his face, followed by a fleeting expression that might have been embarrassment. "You misunderstood, I think," he said shortly. "Kate has never been here."

"But you said-oh." He'd said it didn't make any difference if she chose the sofa or his bed. About to ask him why

  
 
Kate hadn't seen his flat, she hastily swallowed the question. Probably he didn't think the place was good enough for her, with its minimal furniture and air of functional impersonality. Briefly she speculated on what Kate's home would be like, picturing a wide double bed with a pink valance and a bouffant broderie anglais duvet. Hardly Max's style...

He said, "Have you had any sleep?"

"A bit."
She lifted her hand to cover a yawn.

"This is stupid." Before she could protest, he'd bent and picked her up in his arms and was striding towards his bedroom, pausing to switch off the light with his elbow.

"We've shared a bed for twelve years," he said as he deposited her on the big mattress and twitched a sheet and duvet over her. "One more night isn't going to make any difference." Then he settled beside her. "Go to sleep, Celine." Pulling the other half of the bedclothes over his shoulders, he turned his back.

Perhaps lulled by the familiarity of the sound of his breathing and the dark hump of his body next to hers, or simply tired after the sleepless hours she'd spent on the living room floor, she dropped off almost immediately.

When she woke it was daylight and Max's side of the bed was empty. She heard his voice in the distance, followed by the ting of the telephone receiver being put down.

A minute later he appeared in the doorway. "You're awake," he commented. "I just phoned your father to let him know you're safe. You looked as though you might sleep for hours."

"You should have woken me. I must be holding you up." She pushed back the sheet and duvet, sliding her feet to the floor. The bed was higher than at home, and her legs looked long, her narrow, tapered feet pale and fine-boned. Once, a long time ago, Max had called them aristocratic feet, as he held one of them in his warm hands, caressing the soles and tracing the high arch of her instep with a leisurely finger. She'd laughed and said they were darned difficult to find shoes for.

"No hurry," he was saying. "It's Saturday, remember. I'll make breakfast while you're in the bathroom."

He turned away and she padded to the bathroom for a shower. She retrieved her panties and stepped into them, then wrapped a towel about her, and slipped out to the lounge for her other clothes.

She folded the stockings and suspender belt into her little bag, making it bulge, and buttoned the red silk dress over her bra and panties, then went barefoot to the kitchen, absently removing pins from her hair. "Could I borrow a comb?" she asked.

Max looked up from dropping a rasher of bacon into a smoking pan. "Bathroom cupboard," he said, "though I rather like your hair the way it is. Don't be too long," he cautioned her. "This'll be ready in a few minutes."

The bathroom cupboard contained a small range of masculine toiletries and first-aid supplies. She found the comb and fought the tangles out of her hair. Some of the pins she'd had yesterday seemed to have disappeared, and it was difficult to achieve the style again.

"Celine!"
Max called. "Will you belong?"

Ages if she was going to do this, she thought, grimacing at the unsuccessful result in the mirror. She hadn't been able to get all her eye makeup off using plain soap and water, and her eyes looked smudged in a pale face. Sighing, she removed the pins and combed her hair back from her ears. Why fool
herself
? She couldn't compete with a girl more than ten years younger and twice as good-looking.

She went back to the kitchen and sat down in the chair he indicated. The sky outside was grey, despite the warmth of the air, and rain pattered against the window. A glass of orange juice and a bowl of cornflakes and milk
was
set before her, and Max sat opposite, tucking into his own.

The bacon and eggs that followed were perfect-it was Max's one culinary skill. He'd sometimes made breakfast at the weekends as a special treat-for her birthday, their anniversary, or occasionally for no particular reason except that he felt like it.

"You haven't lost your touch," she told him as she finished.

He took the plates to the sink and poured coffee from the machine that was a twin to the one he'd given Nancy.

The surroundings were different, but everything else was much like scores of Saturday mornings they'd shared over the years. He even had the newspaper folded by his plate. On Saturday he enjoyed the luxury of reading it in the morning instead of skimming the headlines over breakfast before leaving for the office.

But this morning he didn't open it, eyeing her reflectively as he drank his coffee. Putting down the cup, he said, "I haven't seen that dress-have I?-before last night." Celine shook her head. "It's new."

"It suits you, that colour. You don't wear red very of ten." She'd always thought red a bit too flamboyant for her. Perhaps subconsciously she'd been breaking out when she bought it. She finished her coffee and held the empty cup in both her hands, and glanced down at the red silk. "It's not really breakfast wear."

Max gave her a lazy smile. "Oh, I don't know. It's rather like having an exotic rose on the table-unnecessary but nice."

"Yes, well-that just about sums me up as far as you're concerned, doesn't it?" Celine pushed back her chair and went to place her cup with the dirty dishes.

She heard his chair scrape on the vinyl-covered floor, and when she turned he was standing before her, his face grim. "You know I didn't mean it that way," he said. "It was a compliment."

"I don't think you have.
the
right to give me compliments anymore, Max," she said coldly. "You should save them for

A spasm of irritation crossed his face. "That's crazy. Why should loving Kate stop me from saying something nice, and sincerely meant, I might add, to-to any woman friend?"

 
Quietly, Celine was simmering with that dangerous fury that kept threatening to overwhelm her. "I'm not `any woman friend,"' she reminded him. "I'm your-your exwife. And if I no longer have your love, and your loyalty, I don't want your shallow compliments!"

A frown line appeared between his dark brows. "I didn't mean to offend you, Celine." He paused. "And I haven't stopped loving you. It's just ... different from-"

"Oh, spare me! I know! You're fond of me, the way you'd be fond of a dog or a cat that had been around for years. You have some lukewarm affection for me, a pale shadow of your feelings for Kate!"

Stubbornly, he said, "I wouldn't call it lukewarm. I value it-a lot. I always have."

"But not enough to stand by your marriage vows," she said flatly, glad to see him recoil slightly.

"Is that what you really want? To be locked into marriage with a man you know has given his heart to another woman?"

If she had flicked him on the raw, it was nothing compared to what she felt now-he had flayed her. Unable to speak, knowing from the cold dampness at her temples and a sudden disoriented sensation that her face had paled, she brushed past him and walked into the lounge, with some vague idea of collecting the rest of her things and getting out of here.

Of course he followed. Before she could reach the couch and her bag and shoes, he caught at her arm, turning her to face him. "I don't mean to
cause
you pain, Celine," he said in a low voice. "But you have to face up to what's happened.'

"I have!" She lifted her head to look at him. "But have you?"

"What do you mean?" he asked blankly.

"You can't have it both ways!" Spelling it out, she said, "You can't have Kate's love and my... friendship. I'm not asking you to choose-you've already chosen Kate. Well, I wish you
every happiness
," she managed, bitterly. "But

  
 
don't
invite me to your wedding. I would really rather never see you again."

"You don't mean that-"

"I do mean it!"

"I understand that you're upset-hurt," he added quickly as her brows rose derisively. "I accept that I'm to blame, and believe me, I'm not proud of it. I wish there was some other way. But cutting yourself off completely from me means cutting out my entire family-my mother, Michelle. Next to your own parents, we-they are the people you're closest to in
all the
world. You know you can't do that to them-to yourself."

"If you can do it to me," she said starkly, "I can do it to your family. And you can add that to your guilty conscience."

He frowned.
"Revenge?
That's not like you, Celine."

Not revenge, self-preservation. But obviously he couldn't see that. Wonderingly, she said, "I don't believe you've ever known me at all."

"Only all your life," he argued dryly.

Celine shook her head. "Perhaps that's why-" Gropingly, she added, "Maybe we took each other too much for granted. I thought I knew you, too. But I never imagined that you'd bring us to this."

Releasing her, Max made a helpless gesture with his hands. "I didn't plan to. One day you may fall in love-really in love- yourself. Then you'll understand."

Her throat ached, and she felt her shoulders droop, her interior rage swamped by hopelessness.

He was standing just feet away, and she could almost feel the barrier between them, like a sheet of invisible but armour-tough plate glass. She didn't know how to get through to him. Did he honestly think that her feelings for him were so mild and feeble that she could face with equanimity the prospect of casually bumping into him-him and Kate when she visited Nancy, of having to pretend she didn't care when Michelle mentioned his name?

 
She turned from him again and groped for her shoes, slipping them on,
then
picked up her bag. "Are you taking me home or shall I call a taxi?" Her voice sounded cool, remote and steady. She had herself firmly in hand again.

"I'll take you, of course," Max said curtly. "Go out the front way and pull the door to. I'll bring the car around." The garage was at the rear of the block of flats, and outside it was still drizzling. "Do you want to borrow a coat?" he asked her.

The silk would spot, even during a short dash from the front door to the road. "Yes," she said, "thank you."

He found his raincoat and handed it to her. Taking it, she asked, "What about you?" She had an umbrella at home, but Max disliked them and didn't own one.