A Perfect Marriage (24 page)

"It was nothing," Celine told her. "Max can stop feeling responsible for me. I really don't need anyone fussing over me."

"Shall I go?"

"Oh, Nancy, of course not!
Come into the kitchen and have a cup of tea."

It was one thing to tell Max she was prepared to cut his family out of her
life,
it was another altogether to snub a woman who'd been a second mother to her.

Over the tea ten minutes later Nancy said, "All the same, you have been avoiding us. You do know that no matter what happens
,
you'll always be part of our family?"

"Thank you," Celine said huskily. "Only we can't turn back the clock, Nancy-or make it stand still. Max and I
aren't
a couple anymore. If you want to visit me, you and the rest of the family are very welcome. But I won't come to your house."

  
 
Nancy nodded sadly. "I understand, dear." She sighed and said on an exasperated note, "Oh, I could shake my son! Doesn't he realise what he's giving up?"

"He thinks it's worth it," Celine said.

"Worth all this upset and heartache?"
Nancy shook her head. "The trouble with Max is that he sets himself such high standards. Any man might fall for a younger woman, be flattered that she's interested, and even have a brief affair. But Max simply can't conceive of being the victim of an infatuation. It has to be something more important that could make him stray.
Something worth breaking up a perfectly good marriage for!"

Celine had said something similar, she recalled, when Max first told her that he was in love with Kate. "Have you seen the girl?" Nancy asked her. "We've met a couple of times."

"She's not even his type!" his mother wailed.
"I meanthat dolly?"

"Kate's a colleague of his," Celine reminded her.
"Hardly a dolly."

"She looks like one," Nancy snorted. "She's certainly very pretty."

"I would have thought Max had more sense than to be bowled over by a pretty face."

"Nancy-he loves her. And she must care a lot for him." "Are you defending her?"

"I'm just facing reality. Kate has given Max something that I've never been able to give him."

"What?" Nancy asked scornfully. Then, a look of horror on her face, she said, "She's not pregnant?"

"No," Celine said hurriedly, "not that I'm aware of, and I know Max wants to
. ..
to
wait until they're married."

"Thank goodness for that! I'm having enough trouble adjusting to the idea of a new daughter-in-law without facing the prospect of a new grandchild, as well!"

"Wouldn't you like another grandchild?"

"Well, of course I would! I've always thought it a darned shame that you and Max hadn't-but I'm not sure that I want hers!"

"I expect you'll get used to the idea. It'll be Max's, too." Celine
paused,
afraid her voice would wobble and give her away. "Kate ... must be something very special, Nancy, for Max to have fallen so hard for her."

"Hmm, she is to him, obviously. I tried to tell him everyone finds their marriage going a bit stale at times, we all look over the fence now and then to greener pastures, but good heavens, in my day our marriage vows meant something! We didn't go hopping into bed with everyone who looked temporarily more exciting than our own partner. Sometimes the temptation wasn't easy to resist, but in the end it was worth it. What would have happened to my family-to Max-if I'd run off with-"

"With my father?"
Celine enquired gently as Nancy broke off abruptly, her face flushing.

Nancy looked astounded. "He told you?"

"He didn't say you were the woman, but I guessed."

"Oh, Celine."
Nancy's face showed remembered anguish. "I've felt so guilty about that, all these years. Your mother was my best friend in
all the
world."

"Dad says she knew."

Nancy nodded, her eyes filling with tears. "I know she did. But the only hint she ever gave, the only thing she ever said was, `I'm glad it was you, Nancy.' I still don't know if she meant that she'd trusted me not to take him away from her, or..." Nancy made a helpless little gesture with her hands.

"Maybe she meant that she was glad it was someone worth loving," Celine suggested. "That he wasn't wasting all that emotion on someone ... cheap or mediocre."

Nancy wiped her eyes. "Thank you. But I know we hurt her dreadfully-and now my son is doing the same thing to her daughter."

  
 
s
s s Michelle phoned the following weekend. "We're visiting Mum and Dad. Can I come round and see you?"

Celine's hesitation was only momentary. She'd already succumbed to Nancy. Was she going to tell her oldest friend point-blank that she didn't want to see her? Michelle had done nothing to deserve that. "Just one thing," she said, "I'd rather not discuss Max."

"Okay," Michelle answered. "It's just me-I'm leaving the kids with Tony."

True to her word, she refrained from mentioning Max, and after an initial awkwardness they were back on their old footing. When Michelle had gone Celine found herself humming a tune from their teenage days, when they'd been crazy about the same pop music and had plastered their bedroom walls with pictures of the musicians.

The office project was coming along nicely, and both Celine and Roland were pleased with its progress. He had given Celine a space on the premises and furnished it for her with a desk, a large table, some filing cabinets and a couple of chairs. She was able to check every step as the plans took shape about her. She had already been booked for another commission and was becoming confident she could earn her living doing interior design.

Once a week she collected her father and brought him home for a meal, and at other times she would visit him for an hour or two. He seemed to be making friends, and his garden was already showing the fruits of his loving labour.

Her own garden took up a good deal of what leisure time Celine had. The weather was cool now, and she found the physical work therapeutic, and although she sometimes got the husky teenage boy who did the lawns to help with heavy tasks like digging, or trimming trees, she enjoyed the fresh air and the feeling of accomplishment.

Several of the trees that needed their branches cut back to let light and air through to the smaller plants had been planted as mere saplings by her and Max when they'd first
 
built the house. The climbers whose faded blooms littered the lawn and paths had once been single, delicate tendrils that she'd trained to wind up the supports Max had fixed for them. Some of the shrubs they'd put in together needed severe pruning because they'd grown overlarge and greedy for space, and a few had become sickly or died and had to be rooted out.

She hadn't seen Max for weeks. She told herself that she was learning to live without him, making a new life for herself. But they were empty assurances. All the time that she was keeping herself busy and interested, talking and walking and working, she felt like a hollow puppet. Her mind jerked the strings and made her appear lifelike, even animated, but inside there was a gaping hole where her heart ought to be.

Then one Sunday when she was in the garden she looked up from weeding around a rose bed and saw him standing only feet away. "Max!" She started to get up, and he stepped forward, holding out his hand.

Celine shook her head. "I'm all dirty." She pulled off her gardening gloves and dropped them with the trowel into the barrow where she'd been tossing the weeds.

"You're looking well," he said.

She had no makeup on and her hair was carelessly tied back, several strands escaping round her face. She wore a baggy, ancient shirt of her father's over faded old jeans with ripped and dirty knees, and her shoes were caked with dirt. "Thanks," she said dryly.

He had lost weight, she thought, regarding him critically, and there was a look of strain about his eyes and mouth. "Is something wrong?" she asked him.

Max looked slightly surprised and shook his head. "No. You've done a lot of clearing here. Not all by
yourself
, I hope?"

"Most of it.
I had help with the trees and stuff. Would you like a drink or something?"

"Thanks. I'd love a beer." The weather wasn't as muggy as it had been in summer, but today the sun had shone all day.

"On the terrace?" she suggested as they made for the house. "I'll just have a wash and bring it out."

"I can get it. What do you want yourself?" Celine hesitated.
"Oh, a lime and tonic, thanks."
"No gin?"

"No gin," she confirmed, shucking off her shoes at the back door.

Inside she ran up the stairs, leaving Max in the kitchen. She quickly washed her face and hands and combed her hair out, retying it neatly. Looking at the old shirt and jeans, she grimaced, and went to inspect her wardrobe, biting her bottom lip thoughtfully. She changed into a clean pair of loose cotton pants, but the shirt would have to do, she decided. Max probably wouldn't notice what she was wearing. He didn't care anymore, she reminded herself brutally.

But he'd said she looked well. He had noticed that much. She peered into the mirror, wondering if she looked any different from last time he'd seen her. Perhaps her face was a little fuller? She took out a lipstick and, deriding herself for the vain effort, applied a swipe of colour, blotting most of it off.

When she came out of the house Max was lounging in one of the chairs on the terrace, a can of beer beside him and a tall glass set waiting for her.

He watched her as she walked to the table and sat down.

"Thanks," she said, picking up the glass. "Cheers."

He returned the salute with a faint, preoccupied smile. Celine sipped her drink, wondering when he would tell her why he was here. But the first thing he said was, "I saw-Ted the other day."

"

"I just dropped in to say hello to him. He seems happy." "Yes, I think he is." It had been kind of Max to stop by. "He seemed to think that his being here might have led to our break-up."

 
Distressed, she said, "Is he still worrying about that? I told him he had nothing to do with it."

"I told him the same thing." He traced a circle on the tabletop with his beer can. "Are you still seeing Roland Jackson?"

"Sometimes," she said cautiously.

Without looking up, he nodded. "My mother says she's been to visit you a few times, and Michelle, too." He looked up. "I want to thank you for that."

Celine shrugged. "Your family isn't easily brushed off."

"They would have known if they weren't welcome."

There was silence for several minutes, and she finished her drink. "What are you doing here, Max?" she asked finally. "Why did you come?"

"I wanted to... to be sure you're okay."

"I am. You don't have to keep reassuring yourself of my well-being. Give that overactive conscience of yours a rest. It isn't the nineteenth century anymore, and women have more to fill their lives with than marriage and families. It's sad that our marriage didn't last, it upset me considerably for a while, but there's no point in mourning forever about something that can't be mended. There are other things in life-in my life. The best thing you can do for me is leave me alone and let me get on with it."

The beer can
bent
and crackled as his fingers tightened on it. "Is that what you really want?"

"I told you," she said, "I don't want your friendship
. "

"You changed your mind about my family."

"I haven't changed my mind about you! You left me, Max. So don't-please-keep coming back and offering me half a loaf."

"All or nothing?"

"That's right."

He stood up and took two strides that brought him to the edge of the steps,
then
swung round, shoving his hands into the pockets of his trousers. "But it never was `all,' was it? That was the problem with our marriage. We both settled for too little, right from the beginning."

"You were perfectly happy about that at the time."

"Were you?" he asked, his eyes finding hers with sudden brooding intensity. "Did I cheat you, Celine?"

"Cheat me?" Celine shook her head. "No! We were both absolutely honest with each other. I knew you couldn't give me what you'd given to Juliet."

"And you-?"

"I'd been burned once, and I didn't trust those feelings anymore. I didn't want to be `in love' with anybody ever again. It clouds your judgement and it doesn't last. What we had was a much better foundation for marriage. At least that's what I thought then. We knew each other so well."

"Too well, maybe," Max said.

"Well, apparently not," she said tartly. "I never imagined that you'd-that this would happen to us."

"Neither did I" He had his hands deep into his pockets. "And I realise now what a very shaky foundation our marriage really had. We didn't expect much, did we? So we didn't get much."

"That's unfair and untrue." He still had the power to wound her, put her on the defensive. "We had something good. But you didn't value it."

"What we had was a close and loving friendship," he insisted. "That's what I wanted to salvage from all this. You're the one who insisted on throwing that away along with the other. Is it to punish me? You weren't in love with me on our wedding day, Celine." It was a blunt statement of fact.

"Nor you with me."

"True," he agreed coolly. "Are you in love with me now?"

The question was totally unexpected, like a stone hurled into a smooth pool. She felt the first impact with stunned surprise,
then
ripples of outraged shock began to spread throughout her body. She stood up, unable to sit any longer. Her head buzzed with tension, and her palms were damp as she clenched her fingers. "You have no right to ask me that!" she snapped.

"No right at all," Max
agreed,
his voice flat, level. "But I'm ... curious. Are you?"