The Mistress of Alderley (5 page)

“Well, I thought he seemed a nice young man,” she said, “and I hope next time you will invite him in.”

“He just wants to be the baggage I carry round with me if I become a star,” said Olivia contemptuously. “He should get real.”

Olivia spent the next day in vocal exercises, a long rest, and some swanning round the garden. Colm arrived to fetch her back promptly at three, and Olivia kissed her mother at the front door.

“Thanks, Mum.”

“You
use
that young man, Olivia.”

“Use, that ye be not used,” said her daughter. “He would if he could.”

But he didn't look at all like the type who would. All in all Caroline did not regard it as a satisfactory visit, and Alexander and Stella both made comments that included the words “prima donna.”

Marius coming on Friday, early in the afternoon as he had promised, made everything right. He embraced her, and sat happily drinking coffee and eating some nibbly cakes she had made specially for him, deprived of the chance to cook him a special welcoming dinner. Then they went upstairs to bed and stayed there till it was time to drive to Leeds, braving some sardonic remarks from the children as they left. Caroline was so preoccupied with what Marius was about to reveal that she even forgot to ask her usual question, what Alex and Stella would do about an evening meal. Marius drove with his usual brisk flair and efficiency, and they were in Wellington Street by seven o'clock, and had had an aperitif, chosen their meal, and been seated in their little alcove by half past.

“I told them when I booked that we would like to be as alone as possible,” Caroline said.

“They probably took you for a teenager,” said Marius.

“They know me, know my voice,” said Caroline. “I think they'll try and keep the other tables vacant if they can.
Now
—”

“Wait. Here comes my swordfish and your lamb.”

She looked at him—at the lock of brown hair that occasionally fell over the warm brown eyes, at the high forehead and full cheeks, the red, almost feminine lips. The tiny surge of irritation she had felt vanished. She looked down at her plate and took up her knife and fork. And it was after five minutes of satisfying eating that Caroline again said:
“Now.”

Marius shifted in his chair.

“This is going to come as a bit of a surprise to you. I know it did to me.”

Caroline said nothing, just kept looking at him.

“Sheila is pregnant.”

There were all sorts of questions Caroline wanted to ask but felt it would be unwise to. In the end the question she did ask came out sounding slightly absurd.

“How
old
is Sheila?”

“Forty-three. Five years younger than me.”

And seven years younger than me, Caroline thought. Marius had left his wife for an older woman. Somehow she felt that must have hurt more than if he had left her for a bimbo. Even if he hadn't, strictly speaking, left her: he had merely supplemented her.

“Go on, ask the question you want to ask,” said Marius.

“No. You know I tr—”

“Go on—ask it.”

The understanding between them was too total for Caroline to hold back any longer, though she was still reluctant.

“Are you the father?”

“No.”

“Do you know who is?”

“No.” Marius's face screwed up into an expression of puzzlement. “As you know, Sheila and I are just friends, though perfectly good ones, and with a long history behind our friendship. It's because it works so well, our friendship, that we've never opted for divorce. Why change something that, by and large, works well.”

“So you've discussed it?” Caroline asked.

“Oh yes.”

“I thought it might be the children.”

“That was the other thing. I'm afraid I'm rather traditional. I believe children need stability. I can become the heavy father if necessary. You can't do that coming from a position of weakness.”

“So you've stayed together, but both gone your own way.”

“Sheila has had a lot of—let's say pals, something more casual. She goes around with them to charity dos, arts events. I thought she'd gone off sex, though I did suggest it might be that she'd just gone off sex with me.”

“Difficult to imagine. And you think it's one of these culture-vulture friends, or one of her charity junkies, who's the father of this baby-to-be?”

Marius shrugged.

“Maybe. I just don't know. If I was a betting man—”

“Yes?”

“I'd bet on one of her arty friends, maybe one a lot younger than her.”

“I see….”

“One that she wouldn't think of having a long-term relationship with.”

“But I take it she told you about the pregnancy. Didn't you ask about the father?”

“Of course. She just said it wasn't important.”

Caroline's eyebrows shot up.

“Well, that really is downgrading the male role. Is she some kind of extreme feminist?”

“You know she's not.”

“So what she meant by it, I presume,” said Caroline slowly, “is that this doesn't change anything.”

“I assume so. When I'd had time to think through what she might have meant, that's what I thought it must be.”

“That you go on as you have been doing, and the child when it comes is treated as yours.”

“Yes.”

“That's a decision only the two of you together can make.”

“Of course.”

“And are you willing to go along with it?”

Marius chewed for a few moments, thoughtful.

“I don't know…. Why don't you eat up?”

Caroline looked down at her lamb chops as if she didn't know how they had got there, and then up at Marius, who had continued attacking his swordfish. How could things suddenly be so ordinary again? She put her knife into the bright pink flesh and conveyed a piece to her mouth.

“To get back to your question,” Marius said, “it occurred to me that if I went along with this, I'd only be doing what some man has probably done with an offspring of mine. That thought seems to give it a bit of perspective.”

“You have a lot of such offspring?”

“One or two. On the other side, Sheila is asking me to wink at the sort of activity that she has had to wink at from time to time with me.”

“Rather more than that, surely. She's never had to be a pretend mother.”

“True. The really crucial question, I think, is what sort of a father I'd likely be to the child. If I know myself, I feel I'd be pretty unlikely to give it the sort of love and attention that I give my own children. Sad—bad, perhaps—but true.”

“Honest, anyway.”

“It's a situation that calls for honesty. On your side too. I need to know whether you're really being straight with me when you say you're not interested in getting married.”

Caroline didn't need to consider.

“Of course. I shall never be married again. I'm quite happy for the situation to continue as it is.”

Marius scraped the last fragments of fish and sauce from his plate and then laid down his fork.

“There is a possible halfway-house situation.”

Caroline frowned.

“I'm not sure I like the sound of that. I've never been one for messy compromises.”

“I don't know that this one is messy. I more or less move in with you, and keep the marriage up merely as a facade. I couldn't run the businesses from the wilds of South Yorkshire, so it would mean your moving to London.”

“Oh God—Maida Vale.”

“I think we could manage Islington.”

“I lived in Islington before it became fashionable. I've
done
Islington. Oh dear, I had hoped to have seen the last of London. I do so enjoy being at Alderley.”

“Being the mistress of Alderley. I know you do. I
see
you enjoying the role. And it suits you down to the ground. The house was made for you, and you for it.”

“And then again, perhaps living with you would be too much like being in a marriage. Perhaps it's not marriage as such that doesn't work for me. Perhaps it's living with someone all the time.”

“Sounds like heaven to me, but if it's not that for you…”

“Oh darling, you're making me sound ungrateful and halfhearted. I'm not. But I have to be clear-eyed about myself, and about us.”

“That's exactly what I want both of us to be. Now—have another glass of wine, think things through, and then tell me how the situation appears to you after proper reflection. And then perhaps we can think about what we should do.”

Caroline had had periods between the men in her life, and was used to eating quietly by herself and using the time to think things through. So she went back to her lamb, finished the plate almost greedily, then wiped her mouth while she considered what next.

“We take it as read, I suppose,” she said finally, “that Sheila is not only not considering marriage to this child's father, but is not considering entering into a relationship of any sort with him. Beyond casual and no-strings-attached sex.”

“Yes, I think we can take that as read.”

“That being the case, she will certainly need someone around at the time of the birth. OK, it's not her first, but the others are nearly grown-up, and at her age there could be problems.”

“So you think I should stay with her until the birth?”

“Yes. Unless she has someone else lined up to be with her and play that role—mother, sister, whatever.”

“She hasn't. Hasn't got either, for a start, and no best friend who fits the bill. There's Helena, of course—they are great mates, Sheila and her—more mates than mother and daughter. But she is only fifteen. She just doesn't measure up to the responsibility, I'm afraid. It would be unfair to put it on her.”

“Then it comes down to you, doesn't it?”

“I suppose so. There's not really a problem in my staying on until the birth. The question is what to do after the birth. Me there in the house with a small kid I have no particular feeling for, and a wife who is that only in name.”

“You care for Sheila. That counts a lot. And we would still have our weekends.” The waiter was hovering, and she turned to him with an instant decision to get rid of him. “I'll have the lemon sorbet.”

“And I'll have the apricot flan,” said Marius. “So…what you're saying is: keep the arrangement as it now is, because it suits us, and see how things develop—circumstances, relationships—after the birth. Is that it?”

“Yes, I think it is.”

“Maybe it's the least-worst solution.”

“Oh dear—you do keep putting me off. I hate least-worst solutions. They often result, in fact, in the worst of both worlds. But in this case…to put it shortly, I feel so happy that I don't want this new situation to stop me being happy in this wonderful way.”

“It won't, my darling. It won't.”

He was looking at her with such love, but also with such a little-boy air, that suddenly what she had been waiting to say to him for almost two weeks came out without premeditation.

“We had a hitchhiker drop by the other week, and do you know he had the look of a young you?”

It was not at all how Caroline had intended bringing it up, if she brought it up at all. She had decided to discuss it seriously, look at ramifications such as the family's poverty, the boy's future. But it had just come out as a Funny Thing Happened to Me on the Way to the Forum type of remark—as if she were narrating an incidental oddity.

“Oh? What was he called?”

“Pete Bagshaw.”

“Not one of my offspring. Where was he from?”

“Here in Leeds. Armley.”

“I was based in Manchester in my early years. Could be some kind of throwback…. Or, come to think of it, it could be one of my brother Phil's youthful sins.”

“I didn't know you had a brother.”

“I don't. He died in a motorcycle accident when he was twenty-two. But he was living in Leeds then—back, oh, twenty-two or twenty-three years ago. How old was this boy?”

“I don't think he said. But early twenties, anyway. He's at university, doing computer science.”

“Good, God. It seems to run in the blood. Guy and him, and probably Alexander in a few years' time.”

“Alexander's not your blood.”

“But he begins to feel like it. I hope these young chaps don't get disappointed: what seems like a smart career move now could mean they're sent out into an industry overpopulated already with computer experts.”

“Tell that to Alex, and try to persuade him to take something else.”

“People should never be persuaded in matters of education or career. In the end they have to make their own mistakes, otherwise they blame you for life.”

“So what sort of man was your brother?”

Marius's eyes went distant. He seemed hardly able to remember.

“A real tearaway. The motorbike was sort of symbolic. Phil was a rebel, he slept around as if there was no tomorrow, had a succession of jobs and often no job at all, and was into petty crime. Maybe he would have come through that phase, maybe not. To tell you the truth I didn't know him well enough to say. He was six years younger than me, and when he grew up and started going off the rails, I kept my distance. I was launching myself into the big world of commerce on my own account. One thing I could do without was a black sheep in my family.”

“Well, maybe this boy Pete was his, maybe he is some kind of throwback, with both of you having a common ancestor—”

“Or maybe it was just coincidence. I assure you I never kept a mistress in glamorous Armley, or had a son by anyone in Leeds.”

And there they left it. Though the conversation was so different from the way she had planned it, Caroline felt perfectly happy with it. In fact, it had cleared the air, and left her for the rest of the weekend with a feeling of blissful contentment. Pete Bagshaw as the son of Marius's scapegrace brother was a satisfactory explanation, though she did wonder whether he had somehow got it wrong and took Marius to be his father. That was the only way she could explain his final remark to her. That could be embarrassing or dangerous. As to the other matter, the solution they had come to began to seem to her close to the ideal: if, after the birth, Marius should find living with Sheila and the baby intolerable, he could get a flat in London, and she would visit him from time to time—something she would enjoy, and which she could not do so long as he remained with his wife. It could turn out to be a situation even better than the present one, she decided.

Stella touched on that question on the Saturday, while Marius was away discussing business matters in Middlesborough, where he was thinking of opening a supermarket, precursor of a possible expansion in the North. Stella always came out with what she was thinking, apparently artlessly, though, in fact, she had found by trial and error that it was the best way to get her mother to talk.

“So did you and Marius talk through what was bothering you over dinner?”

“Nothing was bothering me,” said Caroline, temporizing. “It was Marius who had the problem. Yes, thank you: we talked it through, and came to a decision.”