The Decision (36 page)

The registrar’s table. In Chelsea Town Hall. Not the altar in Wellesley village church.

She looked down; saw her shoes. Her white pumps, with those wonderful red bows on them, that echoed the red bows on her dress. Her short lace dress, not a long, full-skirted satin dress. A very short white lace dress with red bows all down the front.

The ceremony continued; they made their vows, were declared man and wife, exchanged a kiss.

She felt better now, turned, smiled into the room. At their friends. Not a church-full, just a couple of rows; and only a handful of family, mostly his.

They signed the register, stood up, walked out of the room. Out of the room, not down the aisle, not into the church porch but the register-office lobby. And then outside, onto the steps, not into a laughing, loving crowd but a couple of half-interested passers-by.

What had happened to her; what would happen to her? And how could she possibly feel so shockingly, wonderfully happy?

Autumn/Winter 1964

‘Mummy, I’ve got something to tell you.’

‘Yes, darling, we know. And it’s so lovely—’

‘No, Mummy, it’s not so lovely. It’s not what you think. Jeremy’s asked me to marry him—’

‘Yes, darling, we know. He asked Daddy, all very correctly …’

‘Yes, he told me. But – well, I’m not going to. Marry him. I can’t. I really can’t. Because I’m not – not in love with him. I’m in love with someone else.’

Who she wasn’t – necessarily – going to marry. He certainly hadn’t asked her. And she didn’t like his views on marriage. She didn’t like his views on lots of things. But she did, totally and absolutely and violently, love him. It was extraordinary. Really extraordinary.

It was partly the sex, of course. The sex was amazing. Totally astonishing. She would never have dreamed that a different body could make so much difference. The difference between smiling, easy pleasure and shrieking, frantic delight; between wanting and needing, desperately, desperately needing, so much that she was unable to think about anything else until she had it. Had him. Between comfort and torture; between warmth and tenderness and shocking, sweating near-distress; between saying ‘that was lovely’ and speechless, tearful stillness.

‘Oh, my God,’ she had said, when, after the first time, she finally eased, flung herself back from him, gazing at him, fighting for breath, her body still pulsing in a sort of aftershock, ‘Oh, my God, Matt.’

‘Oh, my God what?’

‘Just – oh, my God.’

‘I knew it,’ he said, and sounded smug suddenly, ‘I knew you hadn’t. Not properly.’

‘Hadn’t what?’

‘Hadn’t come.’

‘Of course I had.’

‘Not properly. Not how you deserved.’

‘Don’t be silly,’ she said, smiling. ‘You can’t deserve sex.’

‘OK. How you needed. You’re so bloody sexy, Eliza, and you were just missing the point. I could tell, you know. You were like – like some sort of half-virgin.’

‘That’s even sillier. You can’t be a half-virgin; it’s like being a little bit pregnant.’

‘Course you can. You were. Half-cooked – oh shit, I’m no good with words.’

‘No,’ she said, ‘you’re not.’

‘Well,’ he said, after a pause, ‘how about this? I love you.’

It was the first time he’d said it.

‘Mr Shaw seems very cheerful at the moment.’

‘He does, doesn’t he?’

‘I mean, I just told him Roderick Brownlow didn’t want to work with us on the development and he just said, “OK, fine.”’

‘I know. I heard him.’

‘Well, I’m sure it won’t last. We’d better make the most of it.’

‘It’s all over with that girlfriend of his, Georgina.’

‘Oh really?’

‘Yes, as of Monday morning.’

‘Jenny, how do you know that?’

‘He told her on the phone. He said he just wouldn’t be seeing her any more and that was that.’

‘God. What a bastard he is. Fancy doing it on the phone.’

‘That’s what I thought. And then she started to cry and he said all right, he’d meet her that evening one last time and explain. It wasn’t very nice to listen to.’

‘Maybe you shouldn’t have listened then.’

‘Maybe not. But it was the usual problem, I couldn’t seem to switch the interconnecting thing off.’

‘Jenny, if you’re having that much trouble with the phone, maybe you’d better get it looked at.’

‘I did, Miss Mullan. The man said there was nothing wrong with it.’

‘Well, ask him to check it again.’

‘Yes, all right Miss Mullan, I will.’

Everyone was so angry with her. Her parents, in a quiet, damaged, seething way: how could she have turned Jeremy down, when he loved her so much – ‘I’m not sure he does, you know, actually’, when he could offer her so much – ‘but what he’s offering is not what I want’; when they had been together for so long – ‘I mean, this – this other young man, how well do you know him?’ her mother said, her eyes full of tears.

‘Not that well. But well enough.’

She could see, of course, what it meant to them.

Jeremy had been what her entire upbringing had been about: what they had worked for, sacrificed for, hoped for, almost prayed for. Turned down for someone and indeed something so inexplicably different, so outside the realm of their own experience, that they saw it as a personal slight, an insult to their social creed. And she could see she had robbed them of something else as well, although they would die rather than admit it.

Charles, who had professed such genuine friendship with Matt, was almost as shocked and nearly as angry. ‘It’s ridiculous, Eliza, you must see that, an absurd idea, throwing over Jeremy for Matt Shaw.’

‘But why?’ she had asked, and, ‘Just tell me what’s so ridiculous about it, Charles?’

‘You know very well,’ he said, and no, she had said, she didn’t,’ and he said rather lamely that Jeremy was one of his greatest friends, he had been his best man, for God’s sake, and she had said she was very sorry, but she really couldn’t be expected to marry someone she didn’t love just because he had been her brother’s best man.

‘Well, I hope you know what you’re doing,’ Charles said. ‘I really don’t want you to be hurt.’

Juliet said nothing to her at all.

She saw Emma in a restaurant one day and went over to her table, trying to be friendly, hoping to explain; Emma was curt and cut her short, turned back to her companion very pointedly. Eliza supposed it was understandable, but she was surprised nonetheless. Emma was such a free spirit, so anxious to be recognised as such.

She began to dread bumping into any of Jeremy’s friends; they were all very cool with her, clearly feeling, exactly as Emma did, that she had behaved extremely badly. Anyone would think, Eliza reflected, she had been married to Jeremy and two-timing him. Whereas they hadn’t even been engaged, and whose fault was that? If he’d asked her earlier, she’d probably be married to him by now. She did try making this point one night at a drinks party to one of his old army friends; it was a big mistake. He looked at her very coldly and simply walked away.

What was that expression? Oh, yes, closed ranks.

Most of her friends, the ones she had grown up with anyway, and gone to school with and shared flats with, were horrified, and told her she’d regret it, and that men like Jeremy Northcott didn’t come along very often; though a handful were clearly intrigued, and asked her what exactly it was about Matt that was so special. She knew what that meant: sex. Everyone assumed it was sex and only sex. It had to be the only explanation, for turning down someone as rich and handsome and totally suitable as Jeremy for someone who was – as one of her friends put it – ‘from such a different world’. But it wasn’t sex – or only partly; it was almost impossible to explain, but the closest was that when she was with Matt, she felt absolutely and completely interested and absorbed by him, on every level and in every way. He engaged her. He engaged her head and her heart and her body and her very self. Life without him was completely unthinkable. It was as simple as that.

Even Maddy seemed a bit shocked. ‘Jeremy’s so sweet,’ she said, ‘and he just is so suitable for you.’

‘Maddy!’ cried Eliza. ‘Don’t you start! I thought at least you’d understand, I thought you’d be pleased with me, for choosing someone not suitable and predictable.’

‘It’s not that,’ said Maddy. ‘It’s just that I’m not sure Matt’s really right for you altogether. He’s awfully different from you, Eliza. As a person, I mean. And in his own way, he’s more old-fashioned than Jeremy.’

‘Well, that’s just totally ridiculous,’ said Eliza.

Most of the younger fellow fashion editors thought she was mad, throwing away a prize like Jeremy, ‘instead of getting away from all this shit,’ said one, and Annunciata and her ilk were coolly amused, implying that they thought Eliza was being silly and immature and didn’t quite know what she was doing.

Only Jack Beckham seemed to be on her side, and actually took her out for a drink. ‘Well done,’ he said. ‘Liked that young man, what I saw of him that is, liked him a lot. Not easy, what you’ve done, though, I can see that.’

Eliza was so touched and surprised she started to cry and then said she was sorry to be so silly; but Jack lent her his handkerchief, and said at least she wouldn’t be leaving to have any babies yet.

‘Of course I won’t be having any babies,’ said Eliza, sniffing, ‘I’ve just said I won’t marry someone, Jack, not the other way round.’

Anna Marchant, her godmother, invited her to lunch, and instead of launching into the attack Eliza had expected, handed her a large sherry and said, ‘I’m sure everyone’s been telling you what a terrible mistake you’re making. I’m not one of them. I’m proud of you. Too easy to just say yes and do what everyone wanted. Now, don’t start crying for goodness’ sake. I thought you’d be pleased.’

‘I am pleased,’ said Eliza, ‘of course I am. But it’s been so awful, everyone telling me I’m mad or bad or both.’

‘Well, I’m not surprised. Nothing to do with them, of course, but people are bloody nosy, and nothing easier than to live other people’s lives for them.’

‘I suppose so. And of course I’ve broken Mummy’s heart—’

‘That’s nonsense. She’s disappointed, of course she is, and I can see it would be very nice for her, to have you gliding up the aisle with young Northcott. But she wouldn’t have wanted you to be unhappy either. Which you would have been if you’d married someone you didn’t love. She’ll come round, darling. Don’t worry.’

‘And then there’s the house.’

‘Oh, I know all about the house, but you can’t go marrying someone just to pay for some building work.’

Eliza giggled, then looked more serious again. ‘Gommie, there’s more to it than that, you know there is. It’s so important to her, that house, and with Daddy being so ill, she needs to stay there, if she can.’

‘Well, her life would be easier if she didn’t, of course, but I know how she feels. We’ll sort something out for her, don’t worry. What about Matt, he’s in the building business, isn’t he? Can’t he help?’

‘I – don’t know. He hasn’t got any real money, if that’s what you mean.’

‘Maybe not, but he must know a few builders.’

‘Yes, I suppose so.’

‘You going to marry him? I liked him very much. Interesting, clever, bit of a rough diamond, but that was the whole trouble with Jeremy, he was too smooth a one for you: not a lot of sparkle. Anyway, you’re not answering my question. Are you going to marry Matt Shaw?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Eliza, with a heavy sigh, ‘he hasn’t asked me, so maybe not.’

‘He will,’ said Anna Marchant. ‘I’d put money on it.’

The one person who’d been completely sweet and nice to her had been Jeremy. It was absurd really; she’d looked down at him, as he knelt there in the mud, and after – actually – a very brief pause, said she was very sorry, but she couldn’t, she just didn’t love him enough, and then burst into tears; and he’d stood up, put the ring box back in the pocket of his Barbour, put his arm round her and said, there, there, he quite understood, he’d much rather she was honest and didn’t marry him now than walked out on him later. They’d gone back to the house and had tea and crumpets in the kitchen, and then she’d said she really thought she’d better go and he’d said yes, probably best, and then he’d actually put her case in her car and kissed her goodbye and waved her off. That moment had probably been the hardest of all; looking at him in her rear-view mirror, so unutterably handsome and nice and – so perfect really, his golden Labradors on either side of him, and the massive house in the background, and she wondered, just very momentarily, whether she had done the right thing. Very momentarily though; and then she drove straight to Matt’s place by the river and he was waiting for her, anxious and almost truculent with trepidation, and everything was all right.

She stayed in her own tiny flat in Earls Court, spending most nights with Matt in Rotherhithe, and driving home at crack of dawn to get ready for the day. She had wondered if he would suggest she moved in with him, but he did rather the reverse, pointing out on that first Sunday that it really wouldn’t be very practical. ‘It’s so small here, we’d drive each other nuts. There’d be all your clothes and where’d you put them? I’m falling over mine as it is.’ He then added that it was very early days anyway, and they should probably take things a bit steady. Ignoring a stab of raw terror, telling herself she was acting like a caricature of herself, she agreed.