A Crowded Marriage (34 page)

“What are you thinking?” He was watching me.

I smiled ruefully. “That I've let this place get to me. And I said I never would.”

“Ah, well, places have a habit of doing that. They creep up on you. Steal into your heart when you're not looking. People too. Just when you don't want them to.”

He looked into the fire as he said this, leaning back on his elbows, but it seemed to me he looked straight into my soul. I hardly dared breathe. I watched the flames lick around the logs, knowing it was imperative not to take my eyes away from them. From those embers. And suddenly, I knew too I wanted to bottle this moment for ever. Wanted to freeze-frame this snapshot of the two of us: Pat, stretched out with fluid grace on the rug, me beside him on the hearth, my legs tucked under me, brandy glasses by our sides, the firelight flickering on our faces. As the implications of this thought trickled through to my consciousness, it simultaneously horrified me. I began to scramble to my feet, but as I did, he laid a hand on my arm.

“Where are you going?”

“Well, I just…”

“Come here.”

And with those words, he rolled over and took me in his arms. His weight wasn't heavy against me, just warm and solid, not pinning or constricting: and his lips, when they touched mine, weren't hard or forceful; they were gentle, tender. I could easily have pulled away. But I didn't. I surrendered entirely to his embrace, and as his fingers swept through my hair, cradling my head in his hands, I arched my back into him; felt a flood of uncomplicated passion surge through me, then lost all sense of myself in the utter abandonment of the moment.

Seconds later, I was on my feet, my hands clutching my mouth. I stared down at him, appalled.

“I can't believe I did that!” I gasped.

He propped himself up on one elbow and regarded me. “Joint effort, surely?”

“What must you think of me!”

“Would you like me to tell you?”

“No!”

I dropped the hands, aghast, and began to wring them instead, pacing the room in an agitated fashion.

“You must go,” I breathed, stopping at the window and spinning round to face him. “Go on, quick!”

It seemed to me I needed a duster to shake at him, to shoo him away like a dirty fly.

“I'm going, I'm going.” He got to his feet in one fluid movement, grinning and still looking absurdly handsome.

“You must think I'm appalling!”

“You said you didn't want me to tell you what I thought of you.”

“No, no, you're right. Quite right.” I gaped into his amused eyes. “I—I don't do this sort of thing,” I flustered, hastening him down the passage way to the door.

“Of course you don't.”

“I mean, God, if Rufus had come down—”

“He didn't.”

“No, but if he had!” He turned and I boggled into his twinkling eyes, inches from mine in the narrow hallway “What were we
think
ing of?” I breathed.

“Well, I know what I was thinking of.”

“Yes, but I'm
married
!”

“You are. But you're lonely.”

The eyes that held me now were steady, less amused. I stared into them.

“Don't be ridiculous,” I spluttered.

“I'm not being ridiculous. It happens. Good night, Imogen.” He reached up and ran a finger lightly down my cheek. “Take care.”

And then he went, letting himself out of the front door, sauntering down the path and into the night, or the dawn, actually: a tall, broad figure in a navy fishing jumper, hands in his pockets, moving with casual grace down the zigzag track, silhouetted against the cold pale light that filtered over the distant hills. When he got to the end of the track, he turned to look back at me. Oh God—now he thought I was
watch
ing him!

I slammed the door shut and spun round with my back against it, wondering, for a gaudy moment, if perhaps he were coming back. For more? I held my breath. But when it became clear he wasn't, I crept through the hall and across to the sitting-room window. I twitched the curtain and peered out. Yes. Yes he'd gone. I clutched the neck of my jumper and stole across to the fire, like a criminal. What had come over me? What on earth had possessed me to behave like that, like—like a
teen
ager, down there on the rug? I gazed at it in horror. It seemed to zoom towards me, magnified, like a shot in a horror movie. One brandy? No, surely not. Surely I couldn't blame that.

On an impulse, I hastened to the downstairs loo, switched on the light and stared in the mirror. My eyes were overbright, my hair was mussed and I had—oh God—I had
snog
rash round my mouth!
Just
like a teenager. I touched it tentatively. But also…well, also I looked younger too, I decided, moving closer to the glass, fascinated, as if perhaps my reflection might reveal other clues to my new personality, my newfound wantonness. But the moment it threatened to, I snapped the light off. Turned and hurried from the room. On second thoughts, I didn't want to know.

I went upstairs, my arms wrapped around myself, holding tightly. It was hardly worth going to bed now, I reasoned, but maybe I'd just crawl in under the duvet in my clothes, just for an hour or so. I wouldn't sleep, not after all that drama, but I could just lie down. Yes, that was it. Too much excitement; that's what my mother would have said when I was younger. Running round after cows in the middle of the night—golly, it was bound to lead to trouble. Bound to end in tears.

I awoke to find bright sunlight streaming through the thin cotton curtains. Rufus was shaking my shoulder.

“Mummy—Mummy, wake up!”

“Hmm?” I peered at him through bleary, half-shut eyes. “Wha's wrong?”

“We've overslept. It's ten o'clock!”

“Bugger.”

I sat bolt upright and grabbed the clock. He was right, it was.

“Oh God, we're going to be so late, Rufus!” I threw back the covers, happily already fully dressed.

“Much too late,” he said decisively. “No point going in now, Mum. Why don't I have the day off?”

I paused, midway through scrabbling for my trainers under the bed, midway through shoving my still grubby feet into them, and looked up into his wide, innocent brown eyes. Then I flopped back on to the bed.

“Good idea. Why not? God, we've been up half the night cattle rustling. I think we deserve it.”

A big grin broke over Rufus's face and I could tell this was no impulse plan. He'd been dreaming it up over his cocoa-puffs downstairs in the kitchen for the last ten minutes.

“But this is a one-off, Rufus,” I warned, sitting up again. “We won't be making a habit of missing school just because the cows get out, OK?”

“OK,” he agreed, sitting with a bounce beside me on the bed. “It was fun, though, wasn't it? Seems really weird now, to think we were running round the countryside in our pyjamas. Like a dream.”

Wish it had been a dream, I thought darkly as I got to my feet, snatching up a towel from the floor and heading off for a shower; particularly the latter part of the evening, the steamier end; but actually, Rufus was right: in the bright morning light, the whole episode had taken on a faintly surreal quality. Perhaps Pat would see it in the same light, I thought nervously as I padded round the bathroom finding my shampoo, conditioner. Perhaps he too could imagine it had never happened?

It was a glorious, bright spring morning, tiny clouds scudding around after each other in a sailor-blue sky, and as Rufus skipped outside to feed the chickens, revelling in his unexpected day of freedom, I resolved to set to in the house. Yes, I'd give it a jolly good going-over, I decided, getting out the Hoover and roaring around, enjoying the noise as it blocked out thought. I found a feather duster and got up on chairs, flicking efficiently at pictures. Really—you know—get it gleaming, really lose myself in it.

An hour or so later, I took my head out of the oven and sat back on my haunches, Brillo Pad limp in my hand, shoulders sagging. This wasn't working. Wasn't working at all. I wasn't in the least bit lost. Not remotely. I sighed. It was no good, no amount of elbow grease and sparkling chrome was going to exorcise the memory of…you know. I bit my lip. Well, of course it wouldn't. When had housework ever, ever solved anything? Painting—that was it, I thought feverishly, throwing down my Mr. Muscle. Why wasn't I painting? Well, because Rufus was around, that's why, and I wasn't sure I could immerse myself in it properly with him badgering me for a biscuit every ten minutes, but, on the other hand, I'd managed it in London sometimes, when the evenings had been really bad, so why not here?

When the evenings had been bad. That brought me up short as I went to get my easel. Yes, painting had been a balm, a salve there, but I'd been happier here.
We'd
been happier, Alex and I. My chest tightened. Why was I trying to ruin everything, then, by grappling with the local stud? The man who exercised women the same way some men do polo ponies, who had a string of them, and clearly regarded me as a challenge, a bit of married totty to be added to that string—
flaming cheek
!

Face burning and hands fluttering, I fell on my oils in the cupboard under the stairs and hustled them outside. I hastened to the buttercup meadow. Here. No, here. No, actually, over
here
, in the lie of the hill, in the sunshine. Too hot—back into the shade. Under the trees. I set my easel up quickly, trying not to notice my hands were still quivering. This would do the trick. And Rufus was happy in the hay barn. I could see him out of the corner of my eye, whittling sticks with a horribly dangerous-looking knife. Now. That barley field over there, with the old hay wagon in the distance and those scampering clouds above—perfect.

Somehow, though, I couldn't get started. Couldn't capture it. My brushstrokes were tense and agitated, and nothing flowed. It felt all…wrong. All disjointed. After a couple of hours, I stood back in dismay. All I was doing here was wrecking a canvas, I decided grimly as I unscrewed it from the easel. Pouring good money down the drain.

I went inside for something to eat. Yes, food. That's what I needed. Hadn't even had breakfast. Rufus appeared to have made himself a sandwich, judging by the cheese and pickle left out on the side and the uneven fly-walk on the loaf of bread. God, he'd be in care soon. A nine-year-old boy, playing truant from school, getting his own meals, experimenting with knives. Social Services would have something to say about that. I picked up the loaf and the knife. But I wasn't hungry. Wasn't hungry at all, I realised in horror as I put them down. Now that was a first. Well, not entirely a first. I'd gone off my food once before, when I'd first met Alex; but that was because I was in…oh Lord.

Hands trembling, I reached for the coffee jar. Caffeine. Yes, caffeine would help, and actually, I glanced at the phone—a chat. With Kate. My heart leaped. Yes,
that
was who I needed to talk to, to spill the Pat Flaherty beans to. She'd be horrified, of course, appalled, but then, being intrinsically on my side, would laugh it off too. Tell me that these things happen, particularly in the middle of the night on a glass of brandy, and not to get it out of proportion, to move on, de-dah-dedah.

I took the phone in the sitting room and rang her number, but her answer machine was on. Damn. Knowing Kate, it could be days before she picked up a message, and likewise it was hopeless ringing her mobile, which only sat in her car in case of a breakdown. I glanced at my diary. Thursday. Where was she likely to be on a…oh God. I went cold. The play! There it was, in my diary, in red, on the evening of Thursday 25th—
As You Like It—
underlined in red too. I went hot. From cold to hot in moments. Lordy. I'd completely forgotten. What sort of a friend was I? But then again, that date had been put in my diary months ago, I reasoned wildly, while I was still in London: she wouldn't expect me to come all the way from here for it, would she? I got up and paced across to the window. And there was Rufus to think of…

I rang Alex. My voice was unnaturally high when he answered. I hadn't envisaged speaking to him quite so soon after…I gulped, my eyes darting across the room to the rug.

“Um, darling, you couldn't possibly scoot along to Kate's play tonight, could you? I completely forgot, it's a charity thing, at that Little Britain theatre in Kensington, near the Albert Hall.”

He groaned and I heard him push his chair back. “Imo, I would, but I've got the ghastly Cronin brothers over from the States today. I've got to entertain them this evening. I dare say I shall be ploughing through Yorkshire pudding at Simpson's yet again, indulging in some good old-fashioned English nosh. They'll explode soon, the pair of them.”

“Oh God, poor you. No, well, don't worry, I'll leave Kate a message. She'll understand. Are you very busy, my darling?”

“Sadly, yes, and I've just been told I've got to head back to New York next month to clinch this wretched Cable and Wireless deal. Charles Baxter's just arrived to crunch some numbers, actually.” His voice suddenly became more formal.

“Ah. Right oh.”

I took it as my cue to say good-bye and put the phone down.

I walked slowly back to the window, arms folded, and gazed out. Well…OK, hang on. I narrowed my eyes at the sheep sprinkled decoratively on the hillside. Why was it so impossible for me to go? There was always Hannah. I mean, sure, she'd just had a baby, but Rufus was no trouble: could even be a help, fetching and carrying nappies and things…Yes, why didn't I go to Kate's play myself? We could maybe have supper together afterwards—or a drink, if she had to eat with the cast—and then I could whiz back here. I felt my shoulders unknot. Suddenly, I felt better. I had a plan. I
al
ways felt better with a plan. Yes, I thought, my heart quickening, I'd talk it over with Kate, and she'd say, Don't worry, these things happen, heavens, Imo, we've
all
behaved disgracefully in our time—although actually, I thought cringing, I couldn't imagine Kate
ever
doing that, or saying that, but no matter. I'd come back feeling it was just a silly nonsense to be passed over and quickly forgotten.

I rang Hannah, who said she couldn't be more pleased to have Rufus helping with bath time. I quickly got changed, chivvied him out of the barn and into the car—persuading him to leave the knife behind—and then dropped him off on the way. I watched as he ran up the path, hardly giving me a backward glance; thrilled to bits to be with his new cousin, to be an invaluable helping hand.

I roared off down the lanes. Yes, this was a
good
plan, I decided, straightening my back and smiling as I joined the slip road that led to the M40. I zoomed up the hill to meet it, checking my lipstick in the rearview mirror. A night out in London was just what I needed, to remind myself that there was a world out there; a world beyond my bucolic little village, my rural idyll, beyond snogging a local vet.
Snogging a vet!
I gripped the wheel as I almost swerved under the wheels of a passing juggernaut. Oh God. I bit my lip, feeling very sticky-mouthed. There was no doubt I needed to get out more.

There was surprisingly little traffic on the roads, and I reached London in record time. I should do this more often, I thought, as I swung confidently around the Hammersmith roundabout and headed off towards Kensington; after all, Alex did it regularly, so did Eleanor, and even Mum popped up and down at a moment's notice. It was sheer laziness that made me not bother.