Night Over Water (13 page)

She was going to miss the twins.

Mervyn enjoyed an energetic social life with the city’s leading businessmen and politicians, and for a time Diana enjoyed being his hostess. She had always loved beautiful clothes and she wore them well. But there had to be more to life than that.

For a while she had played the role of the nonconformist of Manchester society—smoking cigars, dressing extravagantly, talking about free love and communism. She had enjoyed shocking the matrons, but Manchester was not a highly conservative place, and Mervyn and his friends were Liberals, so she had not caused much of a stir.

She was discontented, but she wondered whether she had the right. Most women thought her lucky: she had a sober, reliable, generous husband, a lovely home and crowds of friends. She told herself she ought to be happy. But she was not—and then Mark came along.

She heard Mervyn’s car pull up outside. It was such a familiar noise, but tonight it sounded ominous, like the growl of a dangerous beast.

She put the frying pan on the gas stove with a shaking hand.

Mervyn came into the kitchen.

He was breathtakingly handsome. There was gray in his dark hair now, but it only made him look more distinguished. He was tall, and had not got fat like most of his friends. He had no vanity, but Diana made him wear well-cut dark suits and expensive white shirts because she liked him to look as successful as he was.

She was terrified he would see the guilt on her face and demand to know what was the matter.

He kissed her mouth. Full of shame, she kissed him back. Sometimes he would embrace her and press his hand into the cleft of her buttocks, and they would become passionate so that they had to hurry to the bedroom and leave the food to burn; but that did not happen much anymore, and today was no exception, thank God. He kissed her absentmindedly and turned away.

He took off his jacket, waistcoat, tie and collar, and rolled up his sleeves; then he washed his hands and face at the kitchen sink. He had broad shoulders and strong arms.

He had not sensed that anything was wrong. He would not, of course; he did not see her; she was just there, like the kitchen table. She had no need to worry. He would not know anything until she told him.

I won’t tell him yet, she thought.

While the potatoes were frying she buttered the bread and made a pot of tea. She was still shaky, but she hid it. Mervyn read the Manchester Evening News and hardly looked at her.

“I’ve got a bloody troublemaker at the works,” he said as she put the plate in front of him.

I couldn’t care less, Diana thought hysterically. I’ve nothing to do with you anymore.

Then why have I cooked your tea?

“He’s a Londoner, from Battersea, and I think he’s a Communist. Anyway, he’s asking for higher rates for working on the new jig borer. It’s not unreasonable, really, but I’ve priced the job based on the old rates, so he’ll have to put up with it.”

Diana screwed up her nerve and said: “I’ve got something to tell you.” Then she wished fervently that she could take the words back, but it was too late.

“What did you do to your finger?” he said, noticing the little bandage.

This commonplace question deflated her. “Nothing,” she said, slumping into her chair. “I cut it slicing potatoes.” She picked up her knife and fork.

Mervyn ate heartily. “I should be more careful who I take on, but the trouble is, good toolmakers are hard to come by nowadays.”

She was not expected to respond when he talked about his business. If she made a suggestion, he would give her an irritated look, as if she had spoken out of turn. She was there to listen.

While, he talked about the new jig borer and the Battersea Communist, she remembered their wedding day. Her mother had been alive then. They had got married in Manchester, and the reception had been held at the Midland Hotel. Mervyn in morning dress had been the handsomest man in England. Diana had thought it would be forever. The idea that the marriage might not last had not crossed her mind. She had never met a divorced person before Mervyn. Recalling how she felt then, she wanted to cry.

She also knew that Mervyn would be shattered by her leaving. He had no idea what was in her mind. The fact that his first wife had left him in exactly the same way made it worse, of course. He was going to be distraught. But first he would be furious.

He finished his beef and poured himself another cup of tea. “You haven’t eaten much,” he said. In fact she had not eaten anything.

“I had a big lunch,” she replied.

“Where did you go?”

The innocent question threw her into a panic. She had eaten sandwiches in bed with Mark at a hotel in Blackpool, and she could not think of a plausible lie. The names of the principal restaurants in Manchester came to mind, but it was possible that Mervyn had had lunch in one of those. After a painful pause she said: “The Waldorf Café.” There were several Waldorf Cafés—it was a chain of inexpensive restaurants where you could get steak and chips for one shilling and ninepence.

Mervyn did not ask her which one.

She picked up the plates and stood up. Her knees felt so weak she was afraid she would fall down, but she made it to the sink. “Do you want a sweet?” she asked him.

“Yes, please.”

She went to the pantry and found a can of pears and some condensed milk. She opened the tins and brought his dessert to the table.

Watching him eat canned pears, she was swamped by a sense of the horror of what she was about to do. It seemed unforgivably destructive. Like the coming war, it would smash everything. The life that she and Mervyn had created together in this house, in this city, would be ruined.

She suddenly realized she could not do it.

Mervyn put down his spoon and looked at his fob watch. “Half past seven—let’s tune in to the news.”

“I can’t do it,” Diana said aloud.

“What?”

“I can’t do it,” she said again. She would call the whole thing off. She would go and see Mark now and tell him she had changed her mind. She was not going to run away with him after all.

“Why can’t you listen to the wireless?” Mervyn said impatiently.

Diana stared at him. She was tempted to tell him the whole truth; but she did not have the nerve for that either. “I have to go out,” she said. She cast about frantically for an excuse. “Doris Williams is in hospital and I ought to visit her.”

“Who’s Doris Williams, for heaven’s sake?”

There was no such person. “You have met her,” Diana said, improvising wildly. “She’s had an operation.”

“I don’t remember her,” he said, but he was not suspicious: he had a bad memory for casual acquaintances.

Diana was inspired to say: “Do you want to come with me?”

“Good God, no!” he said, as she had known he would.

“I’ll drive myself, then.”

“Don’t go too fast in the blackout.” He got up and went through to the parlor, where the wireless was.

Diana stared after him for a moment. He’ll never know how close I came to leaving him, she thought with a kind of sadness.

She put on a hat and went out with her coat over her arm. The car started the first time, thank God. She steered out of the drive and turned toward Manchester.

The journey was a nightmare. She was in a desperate rush, but she had to crawl along because her headlights were masked and she could see only a few yards in front; and besides, her vision was blurred because she could not stop crying. If she had not known the road well, she would probably have crashed.

The distance was less than ten miles but it took her more than an hour.

When finally she stopped the car outside the Midland, she was exhausted. She sat still for a minute, trying to compose herself. She took out her compact and powdered her face to hide the signs of tears.

Mark would be brokenhearted, she knew; but he could bear it. He would soon come to look back on this as a summer romance. It was less cruel to end a short, passionate love affair than to break up a five-year marriage. She and Mark would always look back on the summer of 1939 fondly—

She burst into tears again.

It was no use sitting here thinking about it, she decided after a while. She had to go in and get it over with. She repaired her makeup again and got out of the car.

She walked through the lobby of the hotel and went up the staircase without stopping at the desk. She knew Mark’s room number. It was, of course, quite scandalous for a woman alone to go to a single man’s hotel room; but she decided to brazen it out. The alternative would have been to see Mark in the lounge or the bar, and it was unthinkable to give him this kind of news in a public place. She did not look around her, so she did not know whether she had been seen by anyone she knew.

She tapped on his door. She prayed that he would be here. What if he had decided to go out to a restaurant, or to see a film? There was no reply, and she knocked again, harder. How could he go to the cinema at a time like this?

Then she heard his voice: “Hello?”

She knocked again and said: “It’s me!”

She heard rapid footsteps. The door was flung open and Mark stood there, looking startled. He smiled happily, drew her inside, closed the door and embraced her.

Now she felt as disloyal to him as she had to Mervyn earlier. She kissed him guiltily, and the familiar warmth of desire glowed in her veins; but she pulled away and said: “I can’t go with you.”

He blanched. “Don’t say that.”

She looked around the suite. He was packing. The wardrobe and drawers were open, his cases were on the floor and everywhere there were folded shirts, tidy piles of underwear and shoes in bags. He was so neat. “I can’t go,” she repeated.

He took her hand and drew her into the bedroom. They sat on the bed. He looked distraught. “You don’t mean this,” he said.

“Mervyn loves me, and we’ve been together for five years. I can’t do this to him.”

“What about me?”

She looked at him. He was wearing a dusty pink sweater and a bow tie, blue-gray flannel trousers and cordovan shoes. He looked good enough to eat. “You both love me,” she said. “But he’s my husband.”

“We both love you, but I
like
you,” Mark said.

“Don’t you think he likes me?”

“I don’t think he even knows you. Listen. I’m thirty-five years old. I’ve been in love before. I once had an affair that lasted six years. I’ve never been married but I’ve been around. I
know
this is right. Nothing has ever felt so right to me. You’re beautiful, you’re funny, you’re unorthodox, you’re bright and you love to make love. I’m cute, I’m funny, I’m unorthodox, I’m bright and I want to make love to you right now—”

“No,” she said, but she did not mean it.

He drew her to him gently and they kissed.

“We’re so right for each other,” he murmured. “Remember writing notes to one another underneath the silence sign? You understood the game, right away, without explanations. Other women think I’m nuts, but you like me this way.”

It was true, she thought; and when she did oddball things, like smoking a pipe, or going out with no panties on, or attending Fascist meetings and sounding the fire alarm, Mervyn became annoyed, whereas Mark laughed delightedly.

He stroked her hair, then her cheek. Slowly her panic subsided, and she began to feel soothed. She laid her head on his shoulder and let her lips brush the soft skin of his neck. She felt his fingertips on her leg, beneath her dress, stroking the inside of her thigh where her stockings ended. This was not what was supposed to happen, she thought weakly.

He pushed her gently backward on the bed, and her hat fell off. “This isn’t right,” she said feebly. He kissed her mouth, nibbling her lips gently with his own. She felt his fingers through the fine silk of her panties, and she shuddered with pleasure. After a moment his hand slid inside.

He knew just what to do.

One day early in the summer, as they lay naked in a hotel bedroom with the sound of the waves coming through the open window, he had said: “Show me what you do when you touch yourself.”

She had been embarrassed, and pretended not to understand. “What do you mean?”

“You know. When you touch yourself. Show me. Then I’ll know what you like.”

“I don’t touch myself,” she lied.

“Well ... when you were a girl, before you were married—you must have done it then—everyone does. Show me what you used to do.”

She was about to refuse; then she realized how sexy it would be. “You want me to stimulate myself—down there—while you watch?” she said, and her voice was thick with desire.

He grinned wickedly and nodded.

“You mean... all the way?”

“All the way.”

“I couldn’t,” she said; but she did.

Now his fingertips touched her knowingly, in exactly the right places, with the same familiar motion and just the right pressure; and she closed her eyes and gave herself up to the sensation.

After a while she began to moan softly and raise and lower her hips rhythmically. She felt his warm breath on her face as he leaned closer to her. Then, just as she was losing control, he said urgently: “Look at me.”

She opened her eyes. He continued to caress her in exactly the same way, just a little faster. “Don’t close your eyes,” he said. Looking into his eyes while he did that was shockingly intimate, a kind of hypernakedness. It was as if he could see everything and know everything about her, and she felt an exhilarating freedom because she had nothing left to hide. The climax came, and she forced herself to hold his gaze while her hips jerked and she grimaced and gasped with the spasms of pleasure that shook her body; and he smiled down at her all the while and said: “I love you, Diana. I love you so much.”

When it was over, she grabbed him and held him, panting and shaking with emotion, feeling that she never wanted to let go. She would have wept, but she had no tears left.