A Talent For Destruction (16 page)

‘That's exactly why I want to bring him home. I hope he'll become your friend too. And you needn't imagine,' she added with an unusual flash of spirit, ‘that he has any designs on me, because he made a point of telling me that he has a woman friend he's hoping to marry. So you've no need to suspect his motives in our friendship, any more than mine.'

They had stood glaring at each other, Gillian guilty with new-found defiance, Robin furious with mistrust, both of them aware of the way the ground was crumbling beneath their feet.

‘I shall see him in Yarchester when I go to my classes, anyway,' pointed out Gillian. ‘If you prefer me to do that –'

‘Bring him, then, if you must,' he had snarled. ‘Just don't expect me to welcome him, that's all!'

She should have had more sense, after that, she thought wryly, listening while her husband systematically quashed Alec's affable attempts at conversation, than to persist. On the other hand, she had never imagined that Robin could be so deliberately rude. Treating their guest as some kind of challenger, her husband was using all the weapons he could lay tongue to in an attempt to cut down Reynold's size. He was more tense than his wife had ever seen him. The muscles of his face tightened the skin so that it shone where the light caught it, and his pale blue eyes had a disturbingly unfocused gleam.

Gillian herself was so anxious about the relationship the men were failing to establish that she was unable to control the conversation. Her father tried to help, but his contribution was unattractive.

‘A very nice bit o'chicken, dear,' he said to his daughter. He fingernailed a shred of meat from between two teeth. ‘When I was at Gallipoli in 1915 –' he began; he had spent only three days on the peninsula, at the age of eighteen, but he relived some part of the searing experience every day for the rest of his life, ‘– all we had to eat was bully beef. Rum ol'grub, in that climate in August. The ground was hot enough to scorch the soles o'your feet through your boots, and the bully beef was runny in the tins. More like soup. Half o'the battalion went down with dysentery –'

Understandably, Alec Reynolds refused to stay for coffee. Gillian walked dejectedly with him to his car, which he had parked in the drive. The clocks had recently changed, gaining an extra hour for summer time, and although the evening was still winter-cold there were pink bars of light in the sky behind the copper beech trees at the top of Parson's Close.

‘I'm sorry, Alec,' she said. ‘I shouldn't have invited you – I wouldn't have, if I'd known he'd be like this.'

Reynolds took off his glasses and polished them with his handkerchief. The atmosphere in the dining room, and the effort of remaining courteous, had made him sweat and smudged his lenses. Without them, he looked considerably less mild.

In fact he was blisteringly angry with Ainger for his rudeness, and vexed with Gillian for her naivety. He had accepted her invitation in good faith, expecting to spend a pleasant social evening with just such a relaxed and hospitable couple as he and Sylvia had been. But five minutes with the Aingers was enough to show him the direction and strength of Robin's emotions, and he was astonished that Gillian hadn't anticipated her husband's likely reaction. He put his glasses on again and opened the car door, anxious not to add to Ainger's suspicions by lingering too long.

‘Surely you know that you're married to a very possessive man?' he said. ‘Didn't you realize that you were asking for trouble by bringing another man home?'

‘But that's juvenile!' she protested. ‘It's uncivilized. Robin knows perfectly well that I love him. It's completely irrational of him to be upset.'

‘My dear, reason doesn't come into it. Your husband can't help being possessive, any more than your father can help being old. You'll never change him, and it's risky to try. Thank you for inviting me tonight, but it'll be in your best interests not to ask me here again.'

And not only in Gillian's interests, he thought. He had longed all evening to knock her husband down. He had never struck anyone in his adult life, but living alone had taught him that he was capable of lashing out. Although he had sat in the Rectory dining-room turning the other cheek in a civilized fashion, under the table his fists had been tightly clenched.

He had held back for Gillian's – for Sylvia's – sake, of course. He was able to hold back, because he had plenty of self-control as long as he was sober. But there was another consideration: prudence.

Reynolds was not at all sure how far his host's self-control extended. Difficult to tell, when he had not met the man before; difficult to assess, when the atmosphere was as highly charged with emotion as a circuit with electricity. But the strange, staring look in those eyes had alarmed Reynolds sufficiently to make him reluctant to tangle in any way with Robin Ainger.

He said a hasty good-bye to Gillian, backed out of the Rectory drive, and headed, thankfully for once, for his empty house.

From behind the half-drawn curtains of the darkened Rectory dining-room, Robin Ainger's pale eyes watched him go.

For the next hour or two the Aingers hardly spoke to one another.

Robin retreated to his study and sat at his desk with his head in his hands, raging silently over what he saw as Gillian's infidelity. She had not fallen in love with Reynolds – having seen them together, he realized that – nor Reynolds with her; but instead of easing his tension, this knowledge increased it.

Love, to Robin, was a passion that was total. Had his wife and Reynolds fallen in love, it would have seemed to him understandable; completely unforgivable, but at least involuntary. But he saw this easy friendship between his wife and another man, their ready conversation, the platonic pleasure that they evidently derived from each other's company, as a deliberate betrayal. If Gillian could do this to him, cynically repudiating what he saw as the totally exclusive nature of the marriage-bond, then she no longer loved him. He might not have lost her to Reynolds, but he had lost her in a way that was infinitely more destructive of his self-esteem.

Gillian, having washed up, stayed in the kitchen. She was furious with Robin for his rudeness, cross with herself for her inability to stand up to him, ashamed of the impression they had made on their guest. At the same time she was worried about Robin, anxious for his health because she knew that he was under stress, and guilty because she knew that she was contributing to his problems. But she had inherited from her father not only his lack of subtlety but also some of his peasant stubbornness. She was determined to persist with her classes in Yarchester and her new friendships, because she found it impossible to believe that Robin wouldn't soon get over his possessiveness and start to behave more sensibly.

But Robin, locked in his study, had been overwhelmed by the enormity of his wife's behaviour, and the desolation of losing her. He had put his head down on his desk and had begun to thump the side of his fist against the edge of the wood, rhythmically, viciously, until the skin broke and spots of blood flicked on to the pages of last night's sermon.

Soon after ten o'clock, Gillian heard his footfall in the tiled hall, and the creak of the downstairs cloakroom door. When he emerged, she called to him that she had just made coffee.

Robin followed his wife slowly into the kitchen. His face was pale and he smelled of antiseptic lotion. His damaged hand, wrapped in a handkerchief, was tucked into his trouser pocket. He took the mug she offered, mumbled an acknowledgement and, keeping his eyes averted from her, turned to walk away.

‘Robin –'

He stood still with his back to her.

‘Surely we can talk?'

‘What is there to say?'

‘You were rude to our guest, and spoiled my supper party. You could at least apologize.'

‘I don't want to discuss it. Is the spare bed made up?'

She was jolted. In the whole of their married life they had never not shared their double bed. ‘Oh – but –'

He shrugged. ‘It doesn't matter. A couple of blankets will do.'

He followed her up the stairs. She went slowly, head down, feeling wretchedly confused. She hadn't bargained for such a rift. But perhaps Alec was right, perhaps Robin couldn't help himself. And however badly he behaved, she still loved him.

In the upstairs corridor she turned to him, lifting her head. ‘I'm sorry,' she said. ‘It was my fault, I should have known better than to invite him here. He means absolutely nothing to me, and I won't ask him again.'

Robin tried to focus his eyes on her, for the first time that evening. ‘Really?' he asked with painful slowness.

‘Really.' She lifted her hands and rested the palms lightly on his chest, close to the base of his throat. This was her accustomed prelude to offering him a kiss. After a moment, he bent his head and brushed his dry lips against her forehead. She could feel the too-rapid beat of his heart, the quiver of his chest against her hands, but his sketch of a kiss had reassured her.

‘Really and truly,' she repeated, almost with gaiety. ‘I'm certainly not going to quarrel with you over a friend.'

In her vocabulary, the word was completely innocuous. She had no idea why he stiffened and pulled away from her. ‘Are you going to give up going to those classes?' he demanded in a tight voice.

‘No, of course not. Not until they finish in May.'

‘So you'll still see Reynolds?'

‘Yes, at the classes. But good heavens –'

Her husband pushed her blindly aside, descended the stairs and began to drag on his coat. All his motions were exaggerated, as though he were sleepwalking. The handkerchief binding fell away from his hand, but he failed to notice.

Gillian ran down the stairs after him. ‘Where are you going?'

‘Do you care?' he spat, without looking at her. His face was a stranger's, older, uglier, the skin coarse and grey as lead. ‘No, you don't, so don't lie to me. If you did care, you wouldn't go on hurting me like this.'

He went out of the door and slammed it behind him. A minute later she heard their car start up. He gunned the engine, she heard the squeal of rubber as he slewed the car out of the gates, and then he was off, shattering the quiet of St Botolph Street, driving as though all the devils in hell were at his shoulder.

Gillian was frightened.

She ran downstairs to pick up the handkerchief that Robin had dropped, saw the bloodstains, went to his study and found the spots of blood on his papers and the smears on the edge of his desk. It was not the injury itself that alarmed her. She knew that he could have accomplished little beyond bruising the flesh and breaking the skin. What horrified her was the violence with which he would have had to pound his hand against the wood before the skin broke, the passion that had caused him to do it, the insanity of the act. For those few moments, at least, her husband must have been out of his right mind.

She was not afraid for herself. But she was afraid for Robin, partly for his safety, partly for his sanity; and she was afraid for Alec Reynolds.

She rang Alec's number and blurted out her fears. He had been savouring a double whisky and reflecting philosophically that living alone had its compensations, and the urgency of her words startled him. He set about trying to reassure her as quickly as possible.

‘I'm sure you've no need to worry, Gillian. Robin's probably just driving about until his head clears – he'll be all right. But if you're concerned about him, why not have a word with the police? No need to tell them what the problem is, you can say that he's been unwell and that he shouldn't be driving. They'd get their patrol cars to keep watch for him and make sure he gets home safely.'

There was an appalled silence from Gillian. Then, ‘But Robin's the Rector of this parish. He'd never forgive me if I let him down like that.'

She told him then what she had hoped to be able to reveal gradually during the course of their friendship, about the pressures and problems of clerical life in a small community. ‘That's why I've so much enjoyed coming to Yarchester, to get away from it all. But if Robin's going to let it upset him as much as this, I'll have to stop.'

Reynolds was genuinely sorry, but his chief concern at that moment was to get his doors locked and his house lights off. He said a few more words of reassurance and concluded, ‘But if you're still worried, ring me again, whatever time it is. And if there's ever anything I can do, or if you just want someone to talk to –'

He went to bed anxious about her, determined if she rang again to insist that she should call the police; and resolved to call them himself if Ainger were crazy enough to come to his house and create a disturbance.

But it hadn't occurred to Robin Ainger to seek out Reynolds. That would draw unfavourable attention to himself, and, distraught as he was when he left the Rectory, he remained conscious of his cloth. It was not a moral consciousness, but rather an obsessive awareness of his clerical image. And so, although he drove away from Gillian in a rage, the sight of the church tower looming up at the end of St Botolph Street, dark against a starlit sky, reminded him almost immediately of his position in the community, and he slowed.

He had nothing in mind when he took out the car except the need to distance himself temporarily from Gillian. But as he drove, anger and self-pity began to give way gradually to unease. Had he perhaps made too much of what was, after all, a minor act of defiance on Gillian's part? Was he by any chance in danger of making himself look foolish?

It was twenty minutes to two when he garaged the car and let himself in to the Rectory. The hall light was still on, and Gillian came hurrying from the drawing-room in nightdress and dressing-gown, her hair hanging loose on her shoulders, her face apprehensive.