Nest of Sorrows (14 page)

‘You’re the one that’s changing, love. Silly old Geoffrey can’t see what he’s got. I was saying to Phil only the other night that neither man is grateful for a wife who works in a good profession. He’s no different to yours, I’m taken for granted too. He’s glad we can afford to renovate the bathroom, but doesn’t notice that it’s my money we’re using. Not all of it. I keep some to one side. What do you do with yours?’

‘I save most.’

‘Oh, what for? Holidays?’

‘I really don’t know what for, Maureen. Against a day that will be more than rainy, I suppose.’

‘What? You’ll leave him?’

‘I don’t know the answer to that, either. Perhaps I intend to invest in myself some day – do something other than teaching. At first, I wanted my own school, but, as I say, things change all the time. Not in there, though. Everything’s still the same in there. He can’t see it, won’t see it. Now she often takes Mel back to her house for weekends. When I complain to Geoff, he just says she’s lonely. The child is becoming an old woman herself.’

‘Then do something about it!’

‘Oh, Maureen, even you don’t truly understand. I can’t alter the situation. I’ve tried. If I say anything, it’s because I’m unstable. You see, when I talk about things, about Dora’s interference and Geoff’s indifference, I get upset. When I get upset, he makes another appointment with the psychiatrist. The psychiatrist is also a man, so he shares Geoff’s viewpoint. I’m doing too much, don’t need to work full-time, should invest my meagre store of energy into making a home. If I did finish working, Dora would still be here almost every day. I’ve told the psycho all this, he knows I work just to get away from home. But he says I’m running and that I’ll have to stop some time. If I gave up teaching, then I’d probably run in a different way, a more dramatic way. At school, I see some sanity and order. I can even have a say in its creation now. Here . . .’ She waved a hand towards the house, ‘I have to be a good girl, say nothing and do little. As long as I look the part and hold my corner in a bridge game, then all’s well. You and Phil are the only pair of friends discovered by me. Everyone else is positively geriatric.’

‘Oh Lord! I can see big trouble ahead for you, Kate. Why don’t you get it over and done with? Why don’t you cite one of his floozies?’

Kate shrugged slightly. ‘In the first place, I don’t know who they are. Even the letters have no addresses on them. Secondly, I can’t seem to care enough. Also, I’m not ready yet. Perhaps the doctor is right, perhaps I can only do one thing at a time. Then there’s Mel. What would I do about her? The child doesn’t know me – if I took her away, she’d scream blue bloody murder. But if I were to leave her with Geoff and Dora while she’s so young, then what would become of her? There are too many things to consider, Mo. One day, though. One day . . .’

Geoff’s face seemed to cloud over that evening when she told him the news about her job. Dora, who had stayed again for supper, mumbled something about a little brother or sister for Melanie, and Kate foolishly latched on to this. ‘I’m not here simply to breed, Dora. There are other important things in life, you know.’

‘But Melanie’s a big girl now.’ Dora drew in her third chin. ‘It’s a very big gap you’re leaving.’

Kate nodded her head towards her husband. ‘Geoff had no brothers or sisters.’

‘His father died!’

‘When Geoff was ten. Mel’s nowhere near that age. I really think you should mind your own business, Dora. When it comes to producing children, our life is no concern of yours.’

‘Kate!’ barked Geoff. ‘Enough of that, now.’

She turned on him, her temper snapping in spite of the rein she was trying so hard to apply. ‘I am sick to death of your mother’s interference. Every time I come home, she’s here. Every time the school day ends, I’ve got her to put up with!’

‘I bring Melanie home from school,’ wailed Dora. ‘Do you want me to leave her here alone?’

‘I want you to leave me alone,’ screamed Kate.

Dora burst into tears. ‘Thank goodness the child is in bed,’ she sobbed.

Geoff rushed to his mother’s side. ‘This is no time for one of your tantrums, Kate.’ He hugged Dora closely.

‘They’re not tantrums! I am stating the plain and simple fact that I don’t like your mother being here all the time. Do you know of any other marriage like this one? Do any of your friends’ wives have to tolerate another woman in the house all the time? And she’s turning our daughter into a grabbing, scheming little bitch. What’s the matter, Dora? Are you having a tantrum? I’m not allowed to cry like that, so just enjoy the luxury of indulging yourself. As for you, Geoff, you are not a man. You never were and you never will be. She made sure of that!’ Kate pointed an accusing finger at the weeping woman, then flounced out of the room, slamming the door in her wake.

In the bedroom, her own tears came, quickly soaking into the pillow she used to smother her sobs. She had a new job, a good job and no-one in the house was even slightly impressed or interested. As a person, she didn’t count here. But why had she suddenly opened up tonight? After being so good for so long? Was it because of her conversation with Maureen, or was it because of her unnoticed and uncared about promotion? And why was Mr Collins’ face in her mind all the time? Poor Rosie! Dear God, poor Rosie!

It was yet another lesson for Kate. From this day on, she showed little emotion at home, was even less of a wife and mother than she had been previously. An armed truce existed between herself and Dora, who continued to haunt the house as if it were her own. There was little in life for Kate. Her only solace was school, where she was slowly breaking down the barriers between uppers and lowers, where schemes of work for poor achievers were now sent upstairs to a sensible if not quite enthusiastic reception.

It was in the middle of this very dead period that she met Mike Wray again. She was in the Central Art Gallery with a party of six from the scholarship class when he turned up similarly surrounded, though by older children.

As soon as he saw her, his handsome face lit up. ‘Kate,’ he yelled across a dozen heads.

She stopped dead in her tracks and stared at him. He hadn’t changed, not much anyway. Wavy blond hair was pushed back carelessly from a fair-skinned strong face, while his bearing was still youthful in spite of the dark grey suit he wore. ‘Mike! How are you?’

‘Buried in work.’ He negotiated his way round the children and came to join her. ‘Still painting?’

‘No. Married with one child.’

‘Ditto. Did you marry that Geoff chap?’

‘Yes.’

‘I married a nurse. Susan, she’s called.’ He collared a passing youth of about fourteen. ‘Marshall! No trouble in here or it’s double detention. Right?’

‘Right, sir.’

‘Sir.’ She giggled quietly. ‘And I’m deputy-head now.’

‘Honestly? Well done.’

‘Only because nobody else wanted it. The school’s a mausoleum, looks like a derelict workhouse from the outside, and inside’s not much better.’

‘Which school is that?’

‘Daubhill.’

‘Really? I’m at Thornleigh, as you can see from these dreadful uniformed urchins. Got a degree in art, finally. Stayed on and went to Manchester University. So I’m second in command of the art department. Mind, there are only two of us, so second in command is bottom rank.’

They watched their charges for a few minutes, each suddenly shy and unsure of what to say to the other.

‘Roses round the door, eh?’ he finally whispered from a corner of his mouth.

‘And painting on summer evenings.’

‘Are you . . . are you happy?’

‘No.’ Her voice was low.

‘Neither am I.’ He raised his tone. ‘Marshall! Do not touch anything. For goodness sake, boy, go down into the aquarium where you can do no damage.’ He turned and looked at her again. ‘I shall serve time for Marshall. One day, I’ll be put inside for what I’m going to do to that silly lad. You’ve turned out pretty, just as I always knew you would. Why aren’t you happy?’

‘I don’t know. Too many reasons.’

‘Meet me by the duck pond on Saturday? Please?’

‘What if someone sees us? That’s silly, Mike. We’re both married. Meeting will only bring trouble for us.’

‘Sue doesn’t give a damn where I go or what I do. She’s too busy midwifing to care about me. What’s wrong with two old friends meeting? Is there a babysitting problem?’

‘No. My daughter goes to Geoff’s mother most weekends. The problem is with me, Mike, I don’t know what I want from life. Please don’t complicate matters any further. And if Geoff found out, he would go mad. It’s all right for him to play away from home, but . . .’

‘Does he?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then why worry?’

‘Because I have my own standards. I’m a married woman. Perhaps I won’t always be married . . . Look. These kids are getting out of hand. I’m going, fine art is obviously not their forte.’ She dragged herself away with reluctance, but he pursued her.

‘Saturday. Two o’clock,’ he whispered.

When Saturday came, she went to the duck pond, just as she had always known that she would. It was drizzling and they huddled together beneath Mike’s large black umbrella. ‘Why didn’t we wait for one another?’ he moaned softly. ‘Why did you have to marry that bloody man?’

‘I loved him. It seemed right at the time. Only it’s turned out to be a stinking rotten bore. I am not right for marriage, Mike.’

‘All because of Josianne Hedouin.’

‘Who? Ah, yes. The French girl in the daring red dress. I wonder what became of her?’

‘My parents sent her packing after a fortnight – she was always trying to get into my bed. And there were boys hanging round the house at all hours of the day and night. She’s probably running a thriving business in the Quartier Latin.’

‘Did she take your virginity?’

‘Don’t be silly. I lost that in the Air Force.’

‘I see. I lost mine to Geoff. The ducks are still here, I notice. Remember how I used to try to paint them? So many different colours in their feathers.’

They gazed together at a past that was gone and, beyond that, at a future they had denied themselves. Each could feel the other’s misery soaking deeper than the wetting fine rain. ‘What do we do?’ he asked at last. ‘Can we see one another?’

‘I think,’ she said carefully, ‘that I would like to have a lover. Someone who thinks I’m special, someone all to myself. But a married lover isn’t the answer. We could not communicate when we needed or wanted to, could not meet whenever or wherever we pleased. Apart from which, it would be totally dishonest. I scream at him for knocking about with other women and I enjoy the virtuous stand I am able to take. The guilt would weigh me down.’

‘That’s daft.’

She turned slightly and studied his profile. ‘What about you and Susan? Surely you would feel some guilt, too?’

He gripped her arm. ‘We get one life, Kate. This isn’t a rehearsal, you know. There is no second chance, so why don’t we take some pleasure while we can? And the relationship need not be physical.’

‘Rubbish!’

He inhaled deeply, then blew out his breath in a noisy fashion. ‘Damn and blast everything! You just walked out of my life when I made one mistake – why? Now I’m married to a woman who’s married to her job, while you live with a man who bores you senseless. Let’s run away.’

She began to giggle. ‘Away? There is no away, Mike. Life is all around us, it’s part of us, inside us. We can’t run from what we are, which is basically a decent pair of people. OK, we’ve dealt ourselves a bad hand, but we chose our own cards, remember that. Through selfishness and bad management, we’ve made a muck of our lives. Now, we just have to grin and bear it. Susan and your child would really miss you. And I can’t let them pay for the roses round my door.’

He grabbed her to him and kissed her fiercely on the lips. In spite of the rain, she could feel the heat coursing through her body, a heat she had felt years ago with Geoff. Sex. It was only sex. She pushed him away. ‘No! Please, I am not very strong just now. It would be unfair of you to take advantage of my unhappiness. There can’t be a relationship. Two children, Mike . . .’

‘We’ll take them with us!’

She thought of Dora, giggled again as she pictured herself trying to grab a screaming Melanie from the cozy fireside at home. ‘No. I can’t take my daughter anywhere. She’s been raised by Geoff’s mother. There is nowhere I can go, Mike, nothing I can do.’

But he kissed her again and she knew that she was lost, that she would grab this small island of happiness and keep it close for this one day at least.

He drove her to his parents’ house where they made gloriously uncomfortable love halfway up the stairs. ‘They won’t be back till tomorrow,’ he moaned into her hair. ‘I’m supposed to look after the cat.’

‘Where is it?’ she managed while he caressed her naked thighs. ‘Where’s the poor cat?’

‘Bugger the cat!’

They heated soup in the kitchen, then made beans on toast to assuage a hunger that had arisen out of their joining. After eating greedily, they talked about the old days, days of bullies and house-making on the bombsite, days of dreaming about a home in the country and children and art galleries. Kate found herself laughing, really laughing in a way she hadn’t laughed for years. ‘Remember Froggie-Boggie Dawson?’ she screamed. ‘How he used to bring all sorts of creatures to school?’

‘Worms in the teacher’s desk,’ he said. ‘Caterpillars in her paper-clip box. But the frog in the bog was the best, especially when the nun came out with her skirts held high. And then there was that other lad in your class, the one with the speech impediment. He always said “shit” instead of “sit” and the nuns didn’t know where to look. Good old days, eh? I wish, oh God, how I wish Pamela hadn’t gone in for that French exchange bit. It did her no good. She’s a clerk in some office in town, not an O’level to her name. You look delicious after making love. Shall we do it again?’

She was suddenly sober. ‘I have to go home. I will always have to go home. So will you.’

‘No!’

‘Yes! That’s why it could never have worked for us, Mike. You’re an incurable romantic and I’ve always existed on a less elevated plane. It’s lovely to see you again, but it can’t go on. We’d fall in love, then we’d both be miserable. If we became long-term lovers, we’d get all screwed up about when we’d see one another, worried in case one of us might be making love to wife or husband. And if we ran off together, that would set off a chain of endless unhappiness for everyone. Nothing built on sand can last, love. Second marriages are not joyful if they’re started off by abandoning dependants. See? I told you I was sensible. Let’s just keep today with our other memories.’