Almost a Crime (20 page)

colour, almost jaundiced, and the hand that held her glass

was skeleton thin. He feared for the ravages of chemotherapy,

what that would do to her frail body.

He looked over at Louise; she was sitting, ostensibly

watching the television, but actually staring beyond it, into

some distant thought. She didn’t look very well either, he

thought: pale and drawn, and very thin. She was taking her mother’s illness hard.

Louise seemed to come back to them suddenly, smiled at

her mother. ‘I was just thinking Octavia would be there.

Tom’s company takes a box every year.’

‘Yes, of course they do. It’s very much a working day for

these businessmen.’

‘Tom never stops working, as far as I can make out,’ said Louise. ‘Octavia says she’s always surprised the clients don’t go on holiday or spend Christmas with them. It must be

very hard, that.’

‘Well, my darling, you’re very good to Sandy’s clients,

and under rather less favourable circumstances than Octavia.

I’m sure she doesn’t have to do her own cooking. I’m

always full of admiration for you, managing without any

help.’

“Well, I don’t have to work all day as well as entertain at

night. I certainly wouldn’t like to be Octavia, I do know

that. Very tough.’

‘I thought you were very fond of Tom. I certainly am.

He’s such a sweet, kind man.’

‘I didn’t say I wasn’t fond of him, and yes, he is very

sweet and charming. I said I wouldn’t like to be Octavia.’

‘I don’t quite see, but … Charlie!’ Anna’s voice was

uncharacteristically irritable. It was the cancer, the doctor

had said; an unpleasant side-effect. ‘Charlie, I said I’d like

some more champagne. Please. And I think I’d like a

couple of my painkillers as well.’

‘Darling, should you? The two don’t really mix.’

‘Of course they do. Look, I know what I can and can’t

cope with. I don’t need lecturing about it. I’m in pain and it

isn’t necessary for me to be in pain. Now please get them

for me, Charlie, or shall I do it myself?’

Charles and Louise exchanged glances; after a moment’s

hesitation, Charles poured a second glass of champagne for

Anna and went up to her bedroom to get her painkillers.

What was the point of fretting over something so unimportant,

what did it matter?

And then he realised that for the first time he had

thought the unthinkable, and downed his own glass of

champagne in one go.

‘Shall I go in for this, do you think?’ said Zoe. She was

sitting at a pavement cafe just by the Royal Court in Sloane

Square with one of her best friends, Emilia; Emilia had

agreed the exam had been impossible, although Zoe knew

she didn’t quite mean it; Emilia had done marginally less

work even than she had, but was clever enough to get away

with it.

‘What? Let me see? Oh, God, another of those. Yes, why

not? If you really want to. I think they’re a bit daggy

myself

Zoe knew why she’d said that; Emilia had gone in for a

model contest herself the year before and not even reached

the final selection. Well, much as Zoe loved her, Emilia did

have very dodgy legs.

‘I think I will. You never know. In fact I’m going to do

it right now. Before I go home and get too depressed about

the exams.’

‘You’ll need to,’ said Emilia. ‘This is last month’s

magazine — look, closing date’s tomorrow.’

‘Oh, shit. Never mind, I can still do it. I’ve got some

pictures Mum took of me and Romilly the other day, here,

look, when we were sitting in the garden. It says just a snap

will do, as long as it’s full length and they can see your legs.

I thought this one, and maybe that. Nice?’

‘Very nice,’ said Emilia. ‘I think that’s the best, that one

with Romilly, on the swingseat. You look very sexy.’

‘Okay, I’ll send that as well. I’ll cross her out, scribble on

the back which is me. Well, maybe if I win this thing, I

won’t ever have to worry about exams again.’

Tom had gone: to dinner at Langan’s with the Carltons and the Macintoshes and Aubrey and his girlfriend. His expression was hostile as he said goodbye to her, feigned

concern at her terrible headache; he was angry with her, she

knew, for her behaviour that day, for her patent hostility to

him, for refusing to join them for dinner. “When he got

home, he would be in an appalling, silent rage that would

go on, quite possibly, for days. The only thing that brought

him out of such moods was a tireless onslaught of apology;

he wouldn’t be getting that this time, Octavia thought.

She couldn’t possibly have gone out with them this

evening, continued to drink, to eat, to smile, to talk. She

felt as if a layer of skin had been flayed off her; she was

acutely sore all over her body, her muscles ached, her head

was excruciating.

Mercifully, when she got home Minty was in bed and

the twins were watching television in a state of happy

exhaustion; they had been to a swimming party, and were

too tired even to argue. When she asked them about the

party, they both said shush, and returned their attention to Back to the Future. Octavia went gratefully into her study with a very strong cup of coffee, and wondered what she

could do next; and then realised that what she wanted to

do, and what would undoubtedly make her feel better, was to talk to Louise. Louise would understand; Louise would make her feel better.

Louise’s first reaction was to burst into tears. Helpless,

painful tears: Octavia listened, half touched, then mildly irritated.

‘Sorry, Octavia,’ she said, through sobs, ‘sorry. I’ll have

to ring you back. Just give me a few minutes.’

Octavia sat drinking her coffee and waiting. She understood;

she had felt equally at a loss when Juliet had died, a

complete loss to know what to say or do.

Five minutes later, the phone rang again. Louise sounded

calmer, I’m sorry, Octavia, I just couldn’t bear anything

else awful happening to the people I care about. It’s terrible,

I shouldn’t be crying, I should be rushing up to London, to

dry your tears.’

‘I wish you could, but it probably wouldn’t be the best

idea. Just at the moment.’

‘No. Maybe not. I can’t believe it, Octavia, I really can’t.

How could he do that to you, you of all people, such a

loyal, perfect wife?’

‘Hardly,’ said Octavia, surprised at the bitterness in her

voice. ‘If he’s done this. I must have failed badly

somewhere along the line.’

‘You mustn’t say that. Of course you haven’t failed him.

It’s him that’s failed. Does he know you know?’

‘No. I could hardly confront him at Ascot, could I?’

‘Are you going to tell him tonight? When he gets back?’

‘I-I suppose so,’ she said. ‘Yes. Yes, I’ll have to, I think.

I can’t not really, can I?’

‘Well - I don’t know. No, you can’t. Poor Boot. I’m so

sorry.’

‘I feel so awful,’ she said. ‘Angry. Hurt. Humiliated.

Maybe humiliated most of all. It was so terrible today, at

Ascot, seeing him flirting with all those women, kissing

them, hugging them, wondering if any of them were well,

you know, were her. I felt so — so degraded.’

‘Of course you did. Of course. Oh, God. What a bastard.

What an absolute bastard. Did he — did he realise, do you

think, there was something wrong?’

‘He must have done. I wasn’t exactly warm and friendly.

Oh, I feel so absolutely — stupid,’ she said suddenly and

burst into tears herself.

‘Oh, darling Octavia — oh, dear …’ Louise sounded

distraught again. ‘I’m so so sorry. I just wish I could help.

And you don’t have any idea at all who — who it might be?’

‘None whatsoever. I mean, I keep thinking of people,

obviously, but—’

‘And - well, are you quite quite sure there couldn’t

possibly be another explanation?’

‘What? How could there be?’

‘Well — oh, I don’t know. I mean, does the handkerchief really have to belong to a mistress? Someone might have lent it to him at this conference or whatever it was.’

‘Louise, he was staying at a hotel, in a double room,

booked for Mr and Mrs Fleming.’

‘Oh.’ Her voice was very bleak again. ‘Sorry. Oh, God. What a shit. I just can’t believe it — I mean he adores you so,’

‘Oh, really? You could have fooled me.’

There was a silence.

‘And you really don’t have any idea at all who - well,

who it is?’ said Louise.

‘No, of course not. I told you. It’s one of the reasons I

feel so terrible, being so trusting, so stupid …’

‘Oh, darling Boot, don’t cry. I feel so helpless. Are you

sure you don’t want me to come up and see you?’

‘No,’ said Octavia, blowing her nose, ‘not just now,

anyway. I have to decide what I’m going to do. Maybe this

weekend I’ll come down. I’ll phone you.’

‘Yes. Do that. Whenever you want to. I’ll be here. Or at

Rookston. I’m there quite a lot at the moment. Daddy’s

finding it so hard.’

‘Oh, God. Yes, of course. I forgot about your mother for

a moment. I’m sorry, I must come and see her. ‘Bye,

Louise. Thanks for listening.’

‘Goodbye, darling Octavia. I’ll be thinking of you so

much.’

‘Thank you,’ said Octavia. ‘Louise, don’t tell Sandy yet,

will you? I can’t face everybody knowing.’

‘Of course I won’t. Good night. Lots and lots of love.’

Octavia poured herself a very large and very strong gin and

tonic. She drank so seldom, she knew it would practically

knock her out, but she didn’t care. That was what she

wanted. Then she ran herself a bath. The conversation with

Louise had made her feel worse, not better.

She climbed into the water, and lay there, sipping her

drink and contemplating her life as it was to be from now

on, and how she was going to manage it. And for the first

time that day she slowly began to feel something other than

helpless and defeated.

It was largely the gin, of course, but there was something

else as well, and it had come to her as she undressed and

looked almost fearfully at herself in the bathroom mirror.

She had never felt confident about her body, had never

considered it sexy; and like all deceived wives, she had felt

that day not only hurt and wretchedly unhappy, but plain,

dull, unattractive. She was only five foot five tall, and had

an ongoing struggle with her weight; left to itself it would

have been plump, her body, with a rounded stomach and full breasts. A stringent diet, a twice-weekly appointment with a trainer at the gym, and a workout on her own when

she had the time, had earned for her something rather

different, but it meant very little to her, in terms of self

esteem. It was her former body that she carried about with

her, that haunted her, that threatened her, what she forced

herself to confront in the mirror that night was, by any

standards, pleasing; small, firm breasts, a fiat stomach, legs

that were undeniably good, with tiny ankles and narrow

thighs and hips.

She lay thinking about her body, about what she had

been able to do to it by sheer force of will and diligence;

and that led in turn to a contemplation of her personality

and what she had been able to do to that. Naturally shy, unsure of her opinions and over-eager to please - largely

due to her father’s influence — she had learned to present to

the world a confident, articulate and coolly independent

woman, a woman other people admired, whose opinion

they sought, a woman who — in that ubiquitous phrase of

the ‘eighties — had it all.

Now what would they say? That she was a fool, that she

had lost her husband, that she had very little, certainly not

all; her friends would sympathise with her, but her enemies,

and indeed most of the people she came across, would quite

possibly say she had been complacent, foolish, would smile

at the irony of it, at all the nonsense about her perfect

power marriage.

But - and at this thought Octavia sat bolt upright in the

bath, so forcibly did it strike her — supposing they didn’t

need to know? Supposing she kept quiet about it, supposing

she told Tom she had no desire to know any details of his

squalid affair, that he could do what he liked, for all she

cared: would that not be a far more dignified - and

controlled and controlling — solution?

Life was not the same now as it had been for earlier

generations of women, dependent upon their husbands,

with no way of retaliating; women of today — for whom she

had somehow become a kind of role model - were

independent creatures, financially, professionally, emotionally.

Even sexually: should she so wish, she could retaliate in

kind to Tom. That thought in itself was exciting. Sexually

exciting.

And that way there need be no humiliation, no loss of

esteem, indeed she would rather gain in it, by her courage,

her cool, her tolerance. Much of her misery that day had

been caused by a sense of her own naivety; by the fact that

she had wrongly assumed that Tom loved her and needed