A Bouquet of Barbed Wire (29 page)

Prue somehow managed a smile. ‘He’s not,’ she said, defensive.

‘Well.’ The nurse examined their faces with professional concern. ‘Better not stay too long; she gets tired easily,’ she said to Manson.

Alone again he said to Prue, ‘I didn’t realise I was shouting.’

She smiled again. ‘You were rather splendid, I think you frightened her.’

He felt sick. Everything was violence, noise, cruelty, loss of
control. That was what counted. No one had any respect left for old-fashioned virtues like peace and consideration. He said, ‘I’ll have to go now.’

‘Why? They haven’t rung the bell yet. And anyway, I’m a special case.’

‘Oh yes,’ he said, ‘you’re that all right.’

‘D
ADDY CAME
to see me today.’

‘Oh good, darling. I thought he would.’

Prue was frowning. ‘He was a bit peculiar. He got very angry when I asked if you were going to make it up. You
are
going to make it up with him, aren’t you?’

Cassie hesitated: she felt extreme reluctance to discuss this with Prue. ‘I’ve written to him, darling. The next move is up to him.’

Prue clasped her hands over her stomach; she had to reassure herself constantly that the baby was still there. It still seemed too much of a miracle to believe without frequent confirmation. ‘But he’s with
her
—that girl. He’s
living
with her. Don’t you mind?’

As Prue’s recovery grew more certain, Cassie’s urge to slap her returned. She said very gently, ‘I’d really rather not discuss it with you, darling. I think you’ve said enough on the subject, don’t you?’

The easy tears spilled out. ‘Oh God. I’m so sorry. I truly am. Don’t you believe me?’

‘Yes, but I’d rather you proved it by not saying any more. That’s fair, isn’t it?’ She was reminded irresistibly of childhood bargains. Prue had always been swift to promise, slow to fulfil.

That’s more than fair. I don’t even deserve to have you here at all.’ Instant retreat. The pattern was familiar.

She said brightly, ‘Let’s talk about cheerful things. Isn’t it wonderful to know the baby’s all right?’

Prue said mournfully, ‘Poor baby.’

‘Why?’

‘Having me for a mother.’

‘Darling, you really mustn’t
wallow
.’

‘I know. Or you’ll lose patience with me.’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘But it’s true. Oh, I know I shouldn’t, I really do. But I’m so scared. I want this baby so much but I’ve never felt sure I’d be a good mother, the way you were. I’m too selfish. And I can’t cope with Gavin either; he’s too much for me. He won’t go the way I want him to go.’

Cassie said gently, ‘Can’t he go his own way? Why won’t you let him?’

‘I can’t stop him. That’s what’s so terrifying.’

* * *

‘Cassie.’

She turned her head, startled, and there he was, his head out of the window, calling to her. She should have noticed the car but had been too wrapped in her own thoughts to be aware of her surroundings. She walked over to him and said, ‘Hullo,’ thinking how pointless and inadequate the word sounded.

He said, ‘I want to talk to you.’ Hesitated. ‘Can you sit in the car for a minute? I don’t want to come to the house.’

She got in, wondering idly if his reluctance was due to the state of their marriage or the temporary presence of Gavin. She said to break the silence, ‘I’m glad you’ve seen her.’

She thought he actually shuddered. ‘Yes.’

‘Oh, I know she looks terrible.’ Automatic soothing. When it came to the crunch she was stronger than he was, she thought regretfully, not for the first time. ‘But she’s going to be all right. They both are, please God.’

He shook his head. ‘I don’t understand any of this.’

‘I know, it’s a shock. But I tried to explain in my letter—’

He cut her short. ‘Oh yes, your letter. You wrote that to punish me, didn’t you?’

She was shocked, then wondered guiltily if that had indeed been her subconscious intention. Retaliation for the night of anxiety and revelation that she had endured alone? ‘Not on purpose,’ she said.

‘You could have phoned me at the office,’ he said furiously. ‘You made me wait twenty-four hours for news. I suppose you thought it served me right; I’d forfeited my rights as a father, was that it?’

‘No.’ She tried to be honest. ‘I just didn’t feel I could explain on the phone.’

‘About Prue or
Sven?’
He nearly spat the name at her. ‘You put that first, I notice. Prue was an afterthought. Oh, by the way, she’s in hospital. But don’t worry, it’s fun to be beaten up. I suppose you thought I wouldn’t bother reading your true confessions if you put Prue first. Well, you were right, I wouldn’t have. Not that it matters. There’s not much to choose between you as it turns out.’ He put his head in his hands. ‘My God, and to think you made me feel guilty. I actually felt guilty for loving my own daughter and being unfaithful to you. God. You’d never have told me about him, would you? But when you did, my God you did it thoroughly. You must have wanted to make me feel I’d been there.’

Cassie wondered if she had. She had not re-read the letter before posting it but she knew once she started writing it a kind of total recall had come over her. Maybe she had said too much, but if so surely more to remind herself, to re-live some of the buried memories, than to punish him. ‘I wanted you to understand,’ she said. ‘I thought that was all. But perhaps I was self-indulgent.’

‘Perhaps!’ He laughed, a bitter, theatrical laugh.

‘Oh, Peter.’ She was embarrassed. ‘You’re making too much of it.’

He shook his head. ‘I don’t feel I know you any more.’

‘Oh, that’s ridiculous.’

‘Is it?’

She said nothing, hating his new way of talking: heavy, melodramatic. He went on, ‘You’re strangers, both of you. You and Prue. But you obviously understand each other perfectly.’

‘That’s not fair. I was trying to help you understand, and make you feel less guilty. That’s all. Honestly.’

He turned to look at her and she was shocked by his remote, accusing expression. ‘You
honestly
thought that now was the time to favour me with all the squalid details of your revolting affair—with Prue in hospital? He could have killed her, have you thought about that? You’re sheltering a homicidal maniac. I hope you know what you’re doing, that’s all.’

Cassie said evenly, ‘That’s nonsense, and you know it.’

‘Oh, is it? Well, of course you’re the expert. I’m too old-fashioned to appreciate the finer points of sadism.’

‘It’s not like you to be so pompous.’ She was angry. ‘Can’t you see it’s more important to
understand
people than to worry about wounded feelings?’

‘I didn’t notice you being particularly understanding on Sunday night.’

‘No, maybe not. But I’ve had time to think and I’m trying to make up for it.’

‘You mean you’re trying to get even.’

Cassie’s depression increased. ‘Peter, we’re not children. Do we have to have a slanging match? Do you really think it will help?’

‘I don’t think anything will help. If you really want to know, I think we’ve all got in one hell of a mess and I can’t see any way out of it.’

Cassie had regained her calm, although she wondered if it owed more to exhaustion than generosity. ‘In time you will. You’ll know eventually if you want to be with me or Sarah. Prue and Gavin have to work out their own answers. We only have to accept them.’

He was silent. Presently he said, ‘Does that mean you want me back?’

‘If you want to come.’

‘How very welcoming.’

Cassie shook her head as if shaking off flies in the summer. His words and his tone of voice were an irritant, flitting round her head and disturbing her. ‘I’m sorry, I’m too tired for emotion.’

He said suddenly, abruptly, ‘But you wished me dead.’

She was shocked. ‘No.’

‘Yes, you did. In your letter. Do you want me to show it to you? You wished me dead when you were grovelling to him. You didn’t care about me or the children or anyone.’

She was sobered. ‘Did I write that? I can’t remember. I … wanted a way out, that’s all. It was a long time ago.’

‘You wanted me dead.’ He repeated the words with a kind of grim satisfaction. ‘And you wanted his child.’

Cassie gathered her failing strength. ‘Look, I wrote that letter in a kind of dream. I’d been up most of the night, I’d had you and Sarah to think about, then Prue in hospital, then Gavin telling me his side of it. I was in such a state I can’t even remember what I wrote. I just felt we all had to put our cards on the table.’

‘Well, you did that all right.’ He paused, then added slowly and deliberately, ‘I just can’t tell you how indescribably dirty I think the whole thing is.’

Cassie, stung, hesitated, then said, ‘I could say the same about you and Sarah using Prue’s flat.’

He said as if he had conditioned himself to believe it, ‘There was nowhere else we could go.’

‘Oh, really. All the hotels had closed down.’ She heard the barely repressed savagery in her own voice and pondered again the nature of sexual jealousy.

‘You know what I mean.’

‘Yes, I certainly do. It was the only place you wanted to go. Well, I expect you had your reasons.’

There was a long pause. Finally he said, ‘I don’t think there’s any point in continuing this conversation.’

Cassie shrugged. ‘I suppose not, now you’re not winning. As long as you were telling me how disgusting I was it was all worthwhile.’ She felt herself trembling. (I was right not to tell him before.
This
is why I was so reluctant. I must have known he’d trample all over it.) They had never had a row like this before.

He said, ‘All right, I’m sorry I used that word.’

‘But you meant it.’ She marvelled that she could not let it alone. After years of pacifism she suddenly could not even accept an apology.

Her mood must have reached him for he said, ‘Well, you’re not ashamed of anything, are you?’

‘You mean it would be better if I was?’

He didn’t answer.

‘You think I ought to be? Why? Are you ashamed? Does being ashamed make everything all right? I must tell Gavin; he certainly feels ashamed. It’s ironic, really, when he had more provocation than any of us, but there it is.’

He said heavily, ‘I don’t even want to hear his name.’

‘Well, I don’t see how you’ll avoid it, with Prue and the baby and everything. Or are you planning to cut us all out of your life?’

He sank into his seat. She thought he looked suddenly old; she was even moved to pity in the midst of her anger.

‘I don’t know what I’m planning. I’m incapable of planning.’

‘You’ll know in time,’ she said soothingly.

‘You mean if Sarah lets me down I’ll come back to you. Is that what you mean? That’s why you stayed with me, isn’t it, because he went away?’

‘There was never any question of leaving you.’

‘But only because he didn’t want you. You told me. You wanted his child and everything. You wished us all dead.’

She burst out violently, ‘God, I wish you’d stop saying that.’

‘Well, isn’t it true? You put it in your letter.’

She lit a cigarette. It tasted awful. Since Sunday she had smoked almost constantly. ‘I was out of my mind.’

‘What, when you wrote the letter? Or when you were with him?
Which?’

‘Both. Oh, I don’t know. I never thought about leaving you.’

‘But you would have if he’d asked you.’

She shook her head. ‘I knew it would never arise.’

‘So you put up with me. How very generous of you.’

‘Oh, don’t. It … wasn’t the same. Surely you can understand that. You can find room for me and Sarah—you must know what I’m talking about. Don’t make me wish I hadn’t told you.’

There was a long silence before he said, ‘I’m sorry. I’ve taken it very badly, haven’t I? And it means a lot to you, doesn’t it?’

She was silent. In her mind she saw Sven, retreating, stubby and hostile, and she thought, I’ve betrayed you, oh, forgive me. At the same time the rational part of her reflected, I am going mad. How very alarming. This whole thing has turned my brain. She said, ‘It was like a dream. I’d never have told you because I didn’t think you needed dreams, I thought it was a weakness peculiar to me. But … this thing with Prue brought it all back. It seemed relevant.’

He said almost resentfully, ‘I can’t get over how alike you must be. I’d never realised. This whole business of violence …’ She thought she felt him shudder. ‘I just don’t understand it. It makes me feel quite inadequate. When I looked at you just now … you were a stranger. When I went to see Prue, I couldn’t get it out of my head. I didn’t know what to say. Have … have you discussed it with her?’

‘No. No, I couldn’t. Besides, it’s none of my business really. It’s between the two of them. Whatever I said would only be irrelevant.’

He said in a low voice, embarrassed, ‘You must both think me very unsophisticated. I was shocked. I mean your letter shocked me. I know it’s very old-fashioned to be shocked but I was.’

She said gently, ‘And you still are.’

‘I can’t help it.’

‘I know.’

Another long silence. ‘Well, I suppose I better be getting back.’

‘Yes.’ She picked up her bag, her gloves.

‘Shall I run you back …?’

‘No. I’m parked over there.’ She pointed.

‘Oh yes.’

They both sat still and surveyed the windscreen.

‘Well, you can contact me at the office if you want to.’

‘Yes.’

‘I mean—’

‘Yes, I don’t want the other address.’ She was surprised how strongly she still felt about that.

‘No, I meant … well, I don’t think I’ll be coming to see Prue again.’

‘Oh.’ She was chilled. Intellectually, she understood but emotionally she was chilled just the same.

‘Unless … there’s any change, I mean. Will you let me know?’

‘Oh yes. Of course.’

‘You blame me,’ he said, suddenly harsh.

She shook her head, shrugged, weary with emotion expressed and restrained.

‘I can feel it.’ He was hostile, defeated.

‘I’m tired,’ she said, meaning it. ‘I’ve no energy left to blame anyone.’