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‘Come on, let’s go out and eat,’ Piet suggested.
Half an hour later, seated in a small, comfortable restaurant, Marcus glanced round at his fellow diners. Men in the main; sober-faced and equally sober-suited; an echo of the town itself; the décor, the food, the people, all of them were respectable and conservative, outwardly at least. Who knew what emotions, what turmoil, what trauma they might feel inwardly? ‘And now,’ Piet announced when their meal had been served, ‘I think you should tell me all about this young American who brings you scurrying to my door for sanctuary.’ He added slyly, grinning at Marcus, ‘It is a very sad thing to be a middle-aged man, my friend. One is never more aware of one’s vulnerability and the passage of time. Is she very beautiful?’
‘She is very attractive, and very determined,’ Marcus told him wryly. ‘But not beautiful; Eleanor is beautiful.’
As he said it he realised that it was the truth, and suddenly he felt as though a weight had started to lift from his shoulders.
* * *
It was late when he eventually returned to his hotel room. He was just getting undressed when the phone started to ring. He stared at it, quickly envisaging Sondra in her own room, lying on the bed, her body naked, sensually relaxed and her skin burnished with that glow of health a certain class of American woman seemed to exude so effortlessly.
His mouth had gone dry, his body tensing; and not just with apprehension, he recognised as he reached automatically for his robe to conceal his growing erection.
The fierce sound of the shower drowned out the ring of the telephone. It was better this way… saner… safer… and besides, he had things to think about.
Remembering listening to Piet telling him about his case made him frown; but he was not a murderer—he would never hurt anyone… would he? Hadn’t he hurt Nell… destroyed their love? Hurt Vanessa too perhaps, by the way he had distanced himself from her, unable to admit even to himself the conflicting emotions she caused in him? He had an illuminating mental memory of Vanessa as a small child, clinging nervously to Julia while she tried to coax her to go to him. Vanessa had been almost two at the time; he had been away for a month in Brussels and at that age it was hardly surprising that she had been a little afraid of him. Given the hours he had been working, he had after all virtually been a stranger to her.
He closed his eyes, standing motionless under the hammer of the shower, remembering another incident. Vanessa… six years old… three years after the divorce…
It had been her school sports day, something he had reluctantly attended, chivvied into it by the woman he had been seeing at the time. She had mistakenly thought that by encouraging his paternal sense of duty she would bring him a step closer to marriage. As far as Marcus was concerned, however, their relationship had already run its course; but he had given in to her demands that they attend Vanessa’s sports day.
They had arrived late… just in time to see Vanessa win her race. She had seen him, her face lighting up as she came over to him, flinging herself into his arms… only he had stepped back from her, fending her off.
Why had he done that to her? Beneath his closed eyelids he could see two different images, two different children… himself and Vanessa… both of them young, helpless, wanting… aching to be acknowledged and loved… both of them rejected by the person whose love they needed the most.
‘Oh, my God…’
In the close confines of the shower the words seemed to echo as loudly as though he had shouted them.
His client had been jealous, Piet had said… Jealous of the love his wife had shown their daughter and their grandchildren… Just as he had been jealous of the love Nell had for Vanessa—not her sons; no, he hadn’t been jealous of them, they were boys… male—but Vanessa! He had even been jealous of the house, resenting it not just because of the time it consumed, the attention it took away from him, but because Nell had wanted it for Vanessa… Every time Nell had exhorted him to spend more time with his daughter, every time she had worried about her or shown concern for her, the jealousy he had refused to acknowledge had been driven a little deeper… festered a little more poisonously. But, unable to accept or understand this, he had blamed not himself for what he was feeling, but Nell.
In London Eleanor sat up in bed, her stomach ice-cold with fear and despair. She stared at the receiver she had just replaced. Marcus wasn’t in his room… Where was he? Did she really need to ask?
She remembered the way she had seen Sondra leaning into him; the intimacy of their bodies, their total lack of awareness of her presence.
‘That damned house is more important to you than me,’ Marcus had accused her. ‘If the house means so much to you then go ahead and buy it… but I…’
‘But I won’t be living there with you.’ Was that what he had been going to say?
What had happened to them? Where had it all started to go wrong? She had tried so hard… Too hard. ‘You’re trying too hard,’ he had told her when she had expressed her concern over Vanessa’s attitude towards her, and she had sensed then the criticism and irritation in his voice, had felt then the beginnings of her sense of somehow having failed him or fallen short of certain standards by not being able to get on with Vanessa.
How little it took to erode one’s self-confidence: an antagonistic teenager, the betrayal of a business partner, the feeling of a life going slowly out of control, the awareness of personal needs that were not being met, the need to reach out for something to hold on to, the almost childish need for some kind of comforter… For some women it was food, for others it might be sex; for her it had been a house. No, not a house but a home, the home she had never had as a child; the home which as a child she had believed would magically make her world safe and secure and would bring her her parents’ love and attention.
Was that what she had been looking for with Broughton House—not, as she had believed, as somewhere for their children to experience the kind of childhood she had wanted, but for herself, a consolation for not achieving the ‘perfection’ she was supposed to achieve… perfection not just as a wife, but as an independent career woman, a devoted, caring mother, an understanding, wise stepmother, a good friend, someone to whom others turned and leaned on, someone secure in herself?
But she was none of those things. So what was she, then? Just another tired, stressed woman who was fed up with trying to match impossible standards, who was afraid of admitting she couldn’t achieve the goals others seemed to reach so easily, who was so afraid of not reaching those goals that she would rather crawl into the sanctuary she had found for herself and hide away than confront the reality of her life.
What was it she really wanted? Not the perfection she had once believed she must attain; just thinking about the effort it would require, the ceaseless battle to be so many things she was not, exhausted and drained her.
No, what she wanted was simple acceptance of what and who she really was. What she wanted was to be allowed to fail sometimes; to be allowed to be human and vulnerable, to be allowed to forget that her sons needed new football boots and to be allowed to feel angry and helpless when she was confronted by her stepdaughter’s antagonism.
And to be allowed to be jealous and to show it when another woman made a play for her husband.
To be allowed to be hurt and afraid at the thought of him having an affair with her.
* * *
Irritably Marcus glanced at his watch. The reception was dragging on longer than he had expected. He had been hoping to catch an early flight home. There were things he needed to do, to say.
