A Bouquet of Barbed Wire (28 page)

He started to make love to Sarah, as much to comfort and reassure her as to give himself pleasure, but when she said, ‘Do you mind if we don’t? I’m awfully tired,’ he was more relieved than disappointed and stopped at once.

C
ASSIE WROTE
, ‘Darling, I’ve had a lot of time to think since you left yesterday. It isn’t easy to write this but I think it would be even harder to say, on the phone, or face to face.

First of all, I wasn’t quite honest with you yesterday when you were blaming yourself for everything. In fact one of the reasons I asked you to go was I couldn’t bear to hear you take any more blame but I wasn’t brave enough to share it. I hope I am now. Also I wanted to keep certain things private but now I think that was selfish of me and, in the circumstances, unjustified.

I’m trying to be very calm. Forgive me if I sound pompous. I think there are three reasons why we are in this situation: the normal attraction between you and Sarah, the stress of Prue’s marriage which you’ve found hard to cope with, and a very natural longing for excitement and change after being married for so many years. It’s the last reason I want to write about. Five years ago I had to face the fact that I would never have another child, and we had been married a long time. Do you remember, it was about that time Prue was sculpted by Sven? I never wanted to tell you this, I wanted to keep it private, but now I think I should tell you. I had an affair with him. It lasted for nearly two years, until he went away, and it was very humiliating and painful because he did not care for me at all, except in bed, and I was in love with him. It was also, in a sense, the happiest time in my life. That isn’t meant to hurt you, just to prove
that I can understand how you feel about Sarah. I have never felt more alive than when I was with him; in fact the more he despised me the more I adored him. I even wanted to have a child by him, before it was too late, but in the end that was something I couldn’t do to you. It was a very difficult affair to manage because of you and the children—sometimes when he phoned I couldn’t go to him because you or they were there, and then I really wished you all dead. I think I was a little out of my mind. At other times I would phone him and he’d say, “Not now, I’m working.” Or I would go round there, if I was quite desperate, without phoning, to his house, to the studio, and he might make love to me if I was lucky, but sometimes he just said, “Go away, I don’t want you today, I’ve got someone else coming.” He knew there’d always be another time because I just couldn’t stay away from him. And when he finally left he didn’t even tell me he was going, or anyone else—I was just as surprised as the whole village was. One day the house was empty and the next day the agent’s board went up and that was the first I knew of it. That was when I was so ill for months and you put it down to the menopause and the doctor kept giving me those pills—do you remember? I thought it was a kind of judgment on me because I had been praying that one of us would die, you, me, or him, to solve everything, and then he solved it by simply going away, which was the one thing I had never considered, and much worse than death. So I thought it was God punishing me.

I’m telling you this now for two reasons. One to prove I understand the need for excitement, even misery, after years of contentment. As one gets older, it seems to get stronger, this longing to be reminded of the distinction between loving and being in love. You know which is better, just as you know it is better to be sober than drunk as a permanent state, but sometimes it is so wonderful to be drunk that you simply can’t stop yourself drinking and you don’t even want to try.

The other reason is about Prue. Now don’t get alarmed, she’s perfectly all right. But she’s in hospital because Gavin hit her rather badly on their way home. He was very upset by her behaviour and he lost control. They think the baby will be all right too, so you
must not worry
. I’ve talked to Gavin and I’m certain he loves her and is terribly ashamed of what he did. But the point is that from what he said I gather they have always had a very violent relationship, instigated and encouraged by Prue, and leading up to the other night when it got completely out of hand. My relationship with Sven was also violent, although it never went as far as this, obviously, but I expect you remember the time I was always getting bruised or cut and again I had to blame it on the menopause; I said it was making me clumsy so I kept having accidents. I don’t say this to hurt you—ait least not consciously—but to explain that I know how Prue feels and that what happened last night is not entirely Gavin’s fault. You remember how we tried to cope with this problem (in a much more minor way) when we were first married and we solved it, if that’s the word, by ignoring it. This was an area where you couldn’t meet me, you were always so gentle and sweet, so I tried to suppress this side of me because everything else was so good. But it came out again when I met Sven.

Anyway, that’s all in the past. It’s been painful to write about and I hope we won’t have to discuss it, though of course we can if you want to. I just wanted to stop you feeling that you were the unfaithful husband of a faithful wife—we have both been in the same boat, though at different times. And I wanted to tell you about Prue’s accident without making you want to kill Gavin, which was my instant reaction and I don’t even dislike him. He is staying here at present so as to be near the hospital for visits. Because of the circumstances they asked my permission to let him see her. I wasn’t sure but I saw her today and all she could say was it
was all her fault and please could she see Gavin. So I let him go and he’s with her now.

He reminds me of Sven. Perhaps I shouldn’t say that—don’t misunderstand me, please—but he always has and I think that’s why I never objected to him as a husband for Prue. It seemed like fate. In fact it used to amaze me that you didn’t notice the resemblance, until I realised that you had no reason to remember Sven or even think of him, and besides when we met him he was already forty and going bald. But when you are in love with someone you can picture them at all ages, I think; your eyes get some kind of extra power, and you can see into their past and their future because you want their whole life.

Your feelings for Prue and your feelings for Sarah are your own affair and I don’t want to pry. I still love you and would like you to come home but obviously not before you are ready to do so because that would accomplish nothing. Perhaps I should not assume you will ever be ready.

I hope you will agree with me that we should keep the whole incident quiet about Prue and not involve the police. Legally, of course, we could take action but I think this could only do harm. At the same time I am very worried about the future of their marriage because I don’t see what course it can possibly take—I don’t see how they can work out a solution that will satisfy both of them. Still, that is up to them.

There is one more point. I don’t suppose Prue could have inherited this tendency from me but I wonder how much we may have encouraged it in the way we brought her up, whether she had too much love and not enough discipline. It was the other way round for us so maybe we tried too hard to compensate. We were so anxious not to spoil her materially, maybe we spoilt her emotionally and she needed Gavin to make her feel there was some power she could kick against that would always be too strong for her. Or maybe she felt
guilty about always getting her own way—after all she always has twisted you round her little finger, hasn’t she?—and wanted to be punished for that. Am I making any kind of sense?

Anyway, I know you’ll want to visit her. Please be tactful. And if you want to see me you know where I am. But only if you want to. I love you anyway. Cassie.’

H
E KISSED
her hand, squeezed it, and sat down on a chair at the foot of the bed. He had meant to kiss her cheek and hug her but the sight of the swellings, the technicoloured bruises, the half-closed eye, repelled him. He felt himself tremble at the sight of his daughter like this; and he trembled more because he could not approach her as if it made no difference.

She said, ‘Hullo, Daddy,’ and smiled. He saw that one of her teeth was chipped and the sight made him shiver, as if another person were masquerading as Prue.

He said, ‘Hullo, darling, how are you?’ He felt unspeakably alienated and prayed that it did not show.

She said, ‘Are you very angry with me?’ and he was surprised at the inadequacy, even irrelevance, of the word. His daughter had chosen a husband who beat her and his wife had had a lover years ago without his even suspecting. Apparently these two women, the two he had loved most in the world, were both raging masochists and deceitful into the bargain. Cassie had betrayed him long ago without conscience, Prue had stored up evidence against him and revealed it to hurt Cassie and discredit him in her eyes. Whereas he had loved them both devotedly all his life, worked hard to provide for them, suffered guilt over his own rare and tiny infidelities. He felt they had both become strangers who yet still expected him to understand their points of view. He thought of Sarah, thought of her with longing and gratitude,
wanted to be with her, to make amends for all he had failed to give her or had inflicted upon her.

Prue said, ‘I shouldn’t have told Mummy. I was wrong. I’m sorry.’

He registered her apology and knew it must have cost her a lot. He wanted to respond to it, out of human justice if nothing more, but he could not. She was apologising for betraying him to Cassie, but Cassie had herself betrayed him years before and she was not sorry. She had preferred a man who ill-treated her. And he would not be here, in this hospital, visiting his daughter, if she too did not prefer to be ill-treated. He had been totally inadequate for the women he loved, apparently: had he been able to beat them they might both have adored him.

He said, ‘You had your reasons.’

‘No. No, I didn’t. It was just spite. Beastly rotten jealousy. Oh, I kidded myself it was justice, that Mummy ought to know and it would serve you right, but really Gavin was on to it at once, he knew it was just spite.’ She wiped a tear from the swollen, discoloured eye, and he winced for her. He found the whole scene offensive and disgusting, and would have given anything to avoid it. To his horror the tears gathered momentum; she went on, ‘Oh, I’m too much for him, I know I am, he came to see me and he was all quiet and guilty. He doesn’t understand, I can’t make him understand. I think he’s afraid of me now. He sits very quiet and then he says things like “This must never happen again”, as if it was the end of the world.’ The tears oozed out, seeming to flow with difficulty past the bright, swollen flesh, and he wanted to turn his head away. Yet this was the daughter he had anguished over and loved too much, this was his child, part of his body and part of his life. He patted her hand and gave her his handkerchief; but more he was unable to do, and he did not even feel ashamed, merely numb.

She said, weeping, ‘You see I love him very much and I
need him.’ He nodded but for all the comprehension that he felt they might have been discussing some strange addiction. The picture of Gavin swung before his mind, untidy, bizarre, dramatic, and suddenly crossed as on a double exposure with another, older face with receding hair and short thick body, middle-aged, kindly agreeing to sculpt Prue for her devoted parents, and even to do it a little cheaper because they were so nearly neighbours. He felt sick. And Cassie was not sorry. Prue was not sorry. They wanted to wallow in it, both of them.

Prue said urgently, ‘Have you made it up with Mummy? Is it all right? She’s been marvellous to me, so understanding. She’s fantastic, isn’t she?’

He said, ‘Yes. Fantastic.’

‘It will be all right between you, won’t it?’

He hesitated. ‘Don’t push it, Prue; it’s our affair.’

She burst out, ‘Oh, but I’m sure she’ll forgive you, I think she has already. I know I’d forgive Gavin, anything. You must make it up, I can’t bear it.’

Sudden anger flamed up in him and he lost control, in so far as he ever could.
‘You
can’t bear it,’ he said,
‘You
. Always
you. You
had to tell her. Now
you
want it all smoothed over, you’ve had your fun.’ He saw her look shocked, saw her lips, pale and puffy, move to frame a denial. He went on: ‘And Gavin. He has to jump when you say jump, too. You want all three of us on the end of a string. Then you only have to tug on the string and say, “Hit me, love me, forgive me,” whichever it is, and hey presto we do it. Well, if Gavin wants to play that game, let him; it’s about all he’s fit for. What do you know about your Mother and me? We must make it up, you say, because
you
can’t bear it. Well, what can’t you bear? You’re not at home with us, you don’t have to bear anything except responsibility for your own actions, and we all have that. You can’t bear to see what
you’ve done: well, you don’t have to look. But kindly don’t imagine that Gavin beating you up makes the whole thing all right; the odd black eye and it’s all cancelled out.
You
talk of your mother forgiving me … Why should she forgive me? Why should I forgive her? What do you know of your mother and me, what’s between us, whether it’s good or bad? I walked out on Sunday night, if you really want to know, and I haven’t been back since.’

Her lips moved again: she said almost inaudibly, ‘Oh no, not to
her
. You didn’t go to
her’
and he thought he could actually see her move away from him, as far as the bed allowed her. He stood up.

‘What the hell does it matter,’ he said, ‘If I went to
her
or not? And her name is Sarah. You know that perfectly well. You’ve met her, for God’s sake; you’ve been introduced. Of course I went to Sarah, where else would I go? And it has nothing to do with you what I do. You’ve made it plain enough this past year that I don’t affect your actions, so why in God’s name should you affect mine?’

A nurse put her head round the door and seemed surprised to see him. She glanced at Prue and back to him. ‘I’m afraid,’ she said, mildly reproving, ‘you’re disturbing the other patients. And anyway, your daughter needs absolute quiet. We can’t have you upsetting her.’