A Perfect Marriage (20 page)

He shook his head, his mouth extremely grim. "In any case," he said, "I don't want to get her pregnant-"

Yet.
The unspoken word hovered in the air between them. Once they were married they would, naturally, like a family. Kate was young and fit and presumably fertile, and Max had been told there wasn't anything wrong with him. It was just bad luck that for some reason the chemistry between him and Celine wasn't ideal for conception.
But with Kate...

"I hope she's not relying entirely on you to prevent it,"

Celine said dryly.

"I'm not selfish enough to forget."

"I don't suppose you are. But everyone seems to have conveniently forgotten that when we were teenagers we were forever being warned about the high failure rate of that particular form of contraception, though now it's some how supposed to stop people from contracting a deadly ill ness."

"Thanks for the warning." Max's tone was ultrapolite. "I'll bear it in mind."

She supposed it was ludicrous for her to be lecturing him on the subject, but this had started, after all, as a query concerning her own safety. "You're welcome," she said, trying to keep any hint of sarcasm out of her voice, and this time she stepped into the bathroom and closed the door.

Was it true that Kate was inexperienced?
she
wondered as she stood under the shower, the jets on at full blast. She thought about the younger woman's air of girlish, innocent coquettishness, and decided that it probably was. A circumspection that had been distinctly unusual when Celine was that age must be much more common among intelligent young women now. And despite appearances to the contrary, Kate was intelligent, all right.

Intelligent enough to deliberately engage on her first sexual experiment with a man who'd been faithfully married for years?

Max seemed sure that Kate was as much in love as he
was,
that she wanted to share his life, be his new wife. Had he discussed all that with Kate, Celine wondered, or was he just taking it for granted?

Clutching at straws, she told herself. She had no reason on earth to believe that Kate wasn't as committed as Max. In fact, this new revelation strengthened that likelihood. A woman who looked like Kate and yet hadn't succumbed to temptation earlier wasn't likely to have lightly given herself to anyone. No, she was serious about Max.

"But he's my husband," Celine muttered, reaching to turn off the faucet. "Damn her, she hasn't any right!"

The ends of her hair were damp again, and she dried them roughly, then the rest of her body.

It takes two, she'd told Max earlier. It was no use casting Kate in the role of vamp, exonerating Max from blame. Any outsider would conclude that it was he who had seduced a younger, innocent girl. Perhaps it was true?

 
She wandered into the other room, for once not bothering to cover herself. Max would be gone by now. There was no one to see her.

The bed showed the effects of the half hour they'd spent on it. She stood looking at it, remembering,
her
body warming as she relived the feel of his hands on her skin, the silk sheathed iron of his body under her fingers. She had a wild urge to lie down on the bed, among the tumbled sheets that would still hold the scent of him, of their lovemaking, to lie with her eyes closed and relive those thirty precious minutes.

Instead she walked briskly to the wardrobe and dragged out a blouse and a pair of jeans, hauled undies from a drawer and shut it with a bang, dressed hastily and pulled her hair carelessly back with a clasp. Then she stripped the bed with quick, efficient movements, got clean sheets from the linen cupboard to remake it, and left the room without a backward glance, to go downstairs and hurl the linen into the washing machine.

"Max has gone," her father said, looking up briefly from the TV set when she walked into the lounge.

She hadn't realised that she'd hoped he'd still be here. But of course he'd gone, raced off to keep an appointment with Kate and explain to her why Celine had been breakfasting with him this morning. And now he had something else to explain ... if he could.

"What do you fancy for lunch?" she asked. "There's some leftover chicken, and tomatoes, but no lettuce, I'm afraid. Or I could do some egg-and-cheese sandwiches." Ted was particularly fond of those.

"Whatever's easier for you," he said, not taking his eyes from the screen. "I'll come and help you soon."

Celine laughed. "Don't bother, you watch your game. I'll bring your lunch in here on a tray."

"You spoil me," he said when she placed the tray on his knees. "What about you?"

"I had a sandwich in the kitchen," she lied. She didn't feel like even looking at food.

Ted settled the tray more comfortably and picked up a sandwich. "I reckon it's about time I got myself out from under your feet."

"You're not under my feet," Celine protested.

He cast
her a
rather bothered look. "I can't help wondering," he said slowly, "if Max's leaving had anything to do with the fact that I'm here."

"It didn't," she said. Sitting down, she leaned towards him. "Honestly. It wasn't that."

"Oh, I don't mean that I caused the break-up, exactly, but maybe you two would have worked it out if you'd not had a third person in the house."

Celine shook her head. "Dad, Max is in love with someone else. That isn't something we can work out easily."

Ted frowned.
"Another woman?"
The noise from the TV increased as the crowd cheered, but Ted's eyes didn't waver from her face. "I'm sorry to hear that, my dear. But it isn't necessarily the end of your marriage."

"Max thinks it is," she told him quietly. "It was his idea to move out?"

"Yes."

"So you were ready to forgive and forget?" "I never got the chance, Dad."

"Would you," he asked, "if you got the chance?"

Would she? Could she swallow her pride if the miracle happened and he wanted to come back to her? "I don't know," she confessed. "Sometimes I think I'd give anything to have him back, on any terms. And other times I'm so angry, and hurt, and humiliated, I just want him to feel the same. If he wanted
a reconciliation
, I wouldn't make it easy for him. I don't even know if I could bear to have him back."

An interior voice jeered, Then what was all that about upstairs? He touched you and you melted! You weren't standing on your pride then!

"That's natural," Ted said. "But you know, if you love him, you'll find a way."

"I'm not likely to be given the opportunity," she said. "He wants to marry her."

"Is she younger?"

"Yes," she said. "Aren't they always?"

"Not always. Sometimes-look, switch that thing off, will you, please?"

Astonished, she said, "But the cricket-?"

"Pah! I can tell who's going to win, anyway. The Pakistanis are walking all over us." He waited until she'd turned the TV off. "There's something I was never going to tell you, but maybe you need to know now."

At his solemn tone, a tremor of apprehension ran through her. Carefully she reseated herself on the edge of the chair, her hands clasped before her. "What is it?"

"I loved your mother very much," he said. "When she died I thought I couldn't even go on living without her. Except that she expected me to look after you and the boys for her. If it hadn't been for that-" he shook his head "-I don't know what I might have done. I was very fond of Dora, and we had some good times together. I never regretted marrying again. But your mother-she was the love of my youth.
And the mother of my children.
If you and Max had-but that can't be helped." He paused, staring down at the plate of food on his lap but obviously not seeing it.

"The thing is," he continued, "when you were all young, and I was trying to get ahead at work, and your mother was busy caring for the family and trying to budget on not a lot of money, she was always tired, and afraid of getting pregnant again. The pill wasn't available then, and she didn't quite trust the things that were. It was a time when we sort of lost sight of each other."

He paused again, and Celine, guessing yet disbelieving what was to come, held her breath.

Ted cleared his throat. "I never wanted to hurt her, but it seemed to me she didn't really care. She was tied up with the house and the kids and her sewing-you remember, she used

  
 
to
get a little money by sewing for other people, besides making clothes for herself and you kids-and she never had time for me. And there was another woman-one we both knew. We saw a lot of her, and somehow I fancied I was in love with her."

Celine caught her breath. A fantastic thought entered her head. She bit her lip, silencing her mind.

"For a while," Ted said, "she thought maybe she felt the same. Later she said she realised that mostly she'd just felt flattered, and excited. She was in much the same boat as your mother, really, surrounded by children and housework, and pretty bored with it. She'd stopped thinking of herself as a woman, she told me. She was a mother first, a wife second, and it was nice that some man-a nice man, she said-desired her. Oh, it was all very innocent, really= just looks and whispers and secret telephone conversations. It would have been almost impossible for us to-well, to go any further, the way we were situated.
Too difficult to arrange."

Celine said, "How long did this go on?"

"About a year.
She came to her senses sooner than me, and tried to cool things off. Only I wouldn't listen. Until the day I realised that your mother knew-" his voice trembled "-and I saw how hurt she was."

"What ... did she say?" Celine whispered.

"She told me she loved me. That's all. She said nothing at all about-about the other lady, or my disloyalty. But I could tell she knew. All she did was let me know that she loved me. And I knew then that if it came to a choice, I'd have chosen her." He picked up the sandwich again with an absent air, and lifted his gaze to Celine's face. "I don't know just how things are with you and Max, except that they're bad. And maybe my advice won't be any use at all. But for what it's worth, here it is. Just ask yourself two questions. Do you love Max? And does he know it?" He waved the sandwich in a slightly random fashion, and dropped his eyes. "This looks very good," he said in an almost embarrassed way.

 
Celine smiled faintly. "Do you want me to switch on the game again?"

"Oh, may as well," he said, trying to hide his interest. "Not that much has changed, probably."

Later after dinner as he was having his hot drink, he said, "I want you to be honest with me, Celine. Do you want me to stay here, or would you sooner be on your own?"

"I like having your company," she said. "You must know that
: '

"For good?
I've asked you to be honest."

Celine's gaze wavered. "If Max isn't going to be here," she said, "it really doesn't matter, Dad. What do you honestly want to do?"

"You've been very good to me," he said, "but if I stay here I'm going to be an old man whose daughter looks after him. I don't think I'm ready for that. And maybe you're not, either. When I really need looking after, if I can't fend for myself, I don't want you to be doing it. I had a letter from the estate agent in Rotorua yesterday."

"Yes, I know." She'd seen the return address on the envelope, but Ted hadn't said anything and she'd assumed it was just a routine progress report.

"He's got an agreement on the house. When it's final I'll be looking in earnest for somewhere not too far away from you-and not too close. That last village arrangement that we looked at-I met an old friend of mine there, remember? "

She did. The two men had taken a while to recognise each other, but they'd been delighted at the reunion.

"Well, Charlie seemed to think the place was okay. What's good enough for him is probably good enough for me. I've got my name down for one of those self-contained flats. If the time comes when I can't manage for myself, I can move into a room in the rest home next door."

"When did you do that?" Celine asked, astonished.

"The day after we were there.
It doesn't hurt to be on the waiting list, and I'm not committed to taking the first vacancy. But I can't do anything definite until the money from

  
 
the
house comes through, and I wasn't sure how the wind was blowing between you and Max. I don't want to leave you in the lurch when you might need me."

"Thanks, Dad." She went over to him and kissed his cheek. "But I'm a big girl, now. Whatever happens, I can look after myself."

Chapter 10

Celine had finished the decorating of Roland's house, and the furniture had been moved in under her supervision. He came to inspect the result and said she'd done a wonderful job. "Let me take you out to dinner as a gesture of appreciation," he suggested.

"There's no need," she told him. "You're paying me very well to do this."

"I'd still like to take you to dinner," he insisted. "No strings, I promise. I have another proposal lined up for you that I'd like to discuss."

Roland was a nice man. She knew he was attracted to her, but his tentative overtures had met with no encouragement, and he seemed content to settle for a friendly business relationship. Celine appreciated his tact, which had allowed her to concentrate on the job in hand without having to fend off unwelcome advances at the same time. "All right," she said. "Thank you."

She wore the red silk dress, taking care to look her best. If this wasn't exactly a date, it was the first time she'd been

  
 
out
alone with a man other than Max for many years, and she couldn't help a small flutter of nervous anticipation.

Roland called for her in a taxi. It wasn't until they were in the restaurant, seated at the table with its starched white cloth and the small floral
centrepiece, that
he looked at her properly and said, "You look wonderful. Even lovelier than the first time I saw you."