Her Living Image (29 page)

“Shall we sit in the summer-house for a while? It’s almost hot here – feel how this stone holds the heat.” He held his hand low over the path as if he were warming it at
a fire, and looked up at Caro. “What’s the matter?”

“It’s horrible! I don’t want to sit here.” She walked quickly around the garden, up the steps on the other side, and out. He followed her.

“It’s meant to be a rose garden.”

“So?”

“A walled rose garden – a little trap for heat and scent and bees. And what have they planted it with?”

Her indignation made him want to laugh. “I don’t know. Something pink.”

“Begonias! Bloody pot-grown plastic-faced begonias.”

“Well it’s nice and bright.”

“Yes, lovely. I wonder why they don’t fill the pool with blue plastic chips and paint the walls Day-Glo orange.”

“You’re a snob. People enjoy it. It’s colourful.”

She pulled a face. “They’re just lazy. They don’t deserve to have a garden like that here, if they can’t be bothered to plant it.”

In order not to laugh at her absurdity, Alan began to hum quietly. When he’d hummed the tune once, he sang the words.

“That’s a stupid song,” she snapped. Then she began to laugh.

“It’s not stupid,” he assured her. “Far from it. It has some of the most deeply moving and meaningful lyrics ever written.” He placed his hand on his heart and took
a deep breath.

“Are those really the words?”

He nodded.

“‘You don’t find roses growing on stalks of clover’?”

“‘So you better think it over –’”

They laughed until Caro could hardly breathe, and had to stop to wipe her eyes.

Heading back for a drink, Alan asked her, “Do you do this often?”

“What?”

“Take strange men to stately homes?”

“No, never.”

“Make dates with strange men.”

“Well, not with strange ones.”

“You’re being deliberately obtuse. I want to know about your love life.”

“I’ve never been married.”

There was a long silence.

“Are we going to talk about it?” she said.

Suddenly he was furious with her. Was this what she had planned? Did she want to talk about Carolyn, and find out “what was wrong”? Was that what she thought would happen today?

He began to walk more quickly, and she lagged behind. When he got to the big courtyard where the pub was she was out of sight. He drank a pint at the bar, and took two pints outside again. She
was sitting at an empty table. He went and sat opposite her.

“Thank you.”

They drank in silence.

“Why are you so angry?”

He shrugged. “My wife isn’t anything to do with you.”

“No. I know.”

“It’s none of your business.”

“Good. I don’t want it to be.”

She looked at him directly, and he felt so angry and frustrated that he wanted to throw the beer in her face.

“Alan – stop it. I wanted to know – how we stood. I don’t want it to be a mess. Now it’s clear. All right?”

“What’s clear?”

“What our relationship might be. I’m not into wrecking marriages.”

He downed his beer and went quickly to get another. When he came back she pushed some coins over the table.

“It was my turn. You were too quick for me.” He pushed the coins back angrily, and they fell on to the gravel.

They drove back in a silence more oppressive and explosive than any of those they had come home in in the evenings. When he stopped she turned to him. Her face was flame-red.

“You have a – a filthy temper. Do you ever listen – listen to what p–people say to you?”

He turned away from her and stared directly ahead, over the wheel. She got out quickly and slammed the door.

Both Caro and Alan spent the following week in extremely bad tempers. Alan hardly spoke to anyone at all, working grimly through his lunch hours, snapping viciously at Carolyn and the children
at home, and watching TV every evening in an irritable trance. On Friday night he went out with Mike and slept on Mike’s floor because he was too drunk to get home. On Sunday he and Carolyn
took the children to a wildlife park in order to have a pleasant family afternoon. But he was irritated by Carolyn’s continuous attempts to please and placate him. Her humility grated on him.
She asked him on Sunday evening what was wrong.

“Can’t I be depressed without you being offended by it? It’s nothing to do with you, surely I’m entitled to my own private moods. You don’t own my moods, do
you?”

Caro also worked hard all week, but she spent a fair amount of time in the evenings alone in her room, staring out of the window. He was an impossible, bad-tempered, egocentric man. It enraged
her that she had butterflies in her stomach when she went to work, and after avoiding the canteen every day for four days she was compelled to go there, and to sit alone with a book (in order to
look unconcerned) making her lunch last an unprecedented thirty-five minutes.

When she arrived at work the following Monday morning, he was parked next to the car-park attendant’s hut, where she usually left her bike. He leaned out of the window.
“Morning.”

She dismounted and wheeled her bike over to the car. “You’re up early.”

He nodded once, and grinned. They both started to laugh. When they had stopped they stood and stared at each other in silence for a minute, then started to laugh again.

“Why’s it funny?” gasped Caro.

Alan shook his head. “See you in the Rose and Kettle at five-thirty?”

“Six.”

“OK. Till then.” He raised his hand in a salute, and accelerated away to park his car nearer to the gate.

By eight o’clock that evening they were both quite drunk, not so much with alcohol as with each other, and relief that the past week had changed nothing. At the end of the silent ride
home, Caro said, “Why don’t you come in?”

“Into the house?”

“Yes.”

“What for?”

“We – we could go to bed together.”

Alan hesitated fractionally before saying, “All right.”

He followed her into the house but dawdled in the hall as she started to go upstairs.

“May I use the phone?”

“My room’s at the top, just keep going till there aren’t any more stairs.” She disappeared from view.

Carefully, he dialled his own number. It rang nine times before she answered it. “Carolyn? It’s me. I’m sorry, were you in the bathroom?”

“Yes; they’re in the bath. It’s all right, Chrissy’s there. Where are you?”

“I’m – I’m at Mike’s. We’re just going out for a meal. He’s – a bit – upset, he’s just had a bust up with Sarah. OK? Expect me when
you see me.”

“All right. Alan?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t drive home if – if you’ve –”

“No. I won’t be drinking much, don’t worry. I’ll see you later on.”

He was astonished at how easy it was. He believed the story himself. Poor old Mike. He moved to the bottom of the stairs, then turned quickly back to the phone and dialled Mike’s number.
But there was no reply.

He ran up the stairs two at a time. The door to her room was open. It was a big shadowy room, there was no light but a small lamp on a box by the bed. She was lighting a candle that stood on a
piece of furniture against the wall. He closed the door quietly. She looked up but he could not see her expression. “Well, here we are.”

He walked over to the window and looked out; beneath the black sky there were houselights and streetlights. “Don’t you ever draw the curtains?”

“No, not often. I like to look out, at night. No one can see in, we’re too high up.”

The dark room was large and mysterious, all its detail was hidden. He felt very exposed. There was only one chair. He leaned against the wall by the window, hands in his pockets. She came over
to him and put her arms around his waist. He felt frighteningly sober. She raised her face and kissed him.

“What’s the matter?”

He laughed uneasily. “Nothing. I didn’t think –”

Leaning her weight against him she swayed from side to side.

“Don’t think, kiss me.”

They kissed again, and gradually, and then very quickly, it began to seem all right.

Afterwards they lay hugging each other on the floor in silence for a time that neither of them knew the length of. At last Caro said, “Can we lie in the bed? I’ve been imagining you
in my bed. . . .”

In bed they made love again, slowly, with an intensity that each found almost frightening. When they had lain still for a while Caro touched Alan’s face with her fingers. It was wet.

“Are you all right?”

His whisper was so low she could hardly catch it. “I don’t know. I’m – hold me.”

She hugged him, then sat up in a businesslike way and reached for her watch. “It’s after midnight. You’d better go.”

Obediently he got up and stumbled round the room picking up his clothes. When he was dressed he was able to think more clearly. He walked back over to the bed. “I can’t – I
can’t go home like this. I’ll – I’ve got to have a bath – I –”

“Where are you supposed to be?”

“At Mike’s. I sometimes stay there. She won’t worry.”

“Do you want to phone?”

“No. Better not. I’ll go back in the morning before I go to work.”

He undressed quickly and got back into bed. He was wrung out like a rag but it was impossible not to touch and stroke her marvellously unfamiliar, private body.

“Are you going to tell her?”

“No.”

Her question focused his attention. “Why did you – why last Saturday, wouldn’t you –”

“I think you misunderstood me. I just – I wasn’t saying let’s not sleep together. I don’t think we could not, anyway. I mean, we were making it worse by not doing.
I just wanted us both to know that you were happily married, and I was a bit on the side, before we started.”

“I – do we both know that?”

“Yes.”

“All right. It doesn’t matter. Anything you say. Are you cold? Can I peel back the cover? I want to look at you.”

He dragged himself from the bed at six in the morning and scrubbed himself vigorously in the bath. It seemed impossible to him that the vapours of sweat and lust and all the secret smells of
both their bodies could be removed so perfunctorily; he felt they must follow him, blazing, like the trail of a comet, and that Carolyn would only have to look at him to know where he’d
been.

He let himself into the house silently and crept up to the bedroom. She was asleep. He went down and made them both cups of tea, then took them upstairs. When she woke up she smiled
luxuriously.

“How lovely. I didn’t think you’d be back at all.”

“I wanted to come back,” he said. “We didn’t have that much to drink actually, but Mike really needed to talk to someone. And then when he finally keeled over I
couldn’t sleep at all – so – here I am. Shall I make a cooked breakfast? You stay here. I’ll bring you breakfast in bed.”

“Oh, lovely.”

He kissed her lightly. It was like a dream, it was so easy. He wouldn’t hurt her, he would never hurt her. She would never know about this, and she would never be hurt by it.

Carolyn was brought near to despair by weeks of Alan’s evil and erratic moods. None of his “down” phases had ever lasted so long before. His temper was a
factor which had to be added to the planning of every activity and speech, constraining and exhausting her. He always came home at unpredictable times, and there were rows if everyone had eaten
without him, or if the children had been kept up late waiting for him. So she started giving the children their tea early regularly, and waiting herself to eat with him. She explained it carefully
to him in terms of their being able to have a sane adult meal together when the children were in bed. She did it to save the children from his displays of rage. Its main result was that she herself
no longer ate a regular evening meal, but picked at small amounts with the children, had a biscuit to stave off her appetite when he wasn’t home by eight, and was beyond hunger by the time he
finally rolled up. She lived through weekends on her nerve ends, juggling the needs and whims of the children with Alan’s, desperately trying to keep the household on an even keel. If Alan
went out drinking, or to Mike’s (the two were synonymous) she had failed. But it was getting to the point where the failures were a relief.

Then suddenly, when she was ready to scream with frustration, he changed. Suddenly there were cups of tea in bed in the morning, and little presents: a bottle of wine, a bunch of roses. It
was the first time he had ever given her flowers. He had always claimed that he hated cut flowers in the house, because of Lucy and her endless flowers. Carolyn didn’t remind him, but took
the roses gratefully as a symbol of renewed and kinder love. He paid more attention to her when they made love; they even made love in the morning one day, giggling and locking the door against the
children.

As their relationship entered what could almost be described (Carolyn thought to herself) as a second honeymoon, the rest of her life became calmer and more spacious. Suddenly, everything
seemed to be going well. Chris and Annie were both enjoying school and at the tops of their classes, and Annie was also displaying signs of unusual musical talent. Lucy had undertaken to pay for
piano lessons, and Carolyn was doubly pleased for Alan’s sake, both that his mother had finally shown interest in one of her grandchildren, and also that the talent he had felt a failure for
lacking had passed through him, like a river flowing underground, to surface again in his daughter. Chris’s room was a cross between a zoo and a natural science museum. On the window-sill a
wormery and cageful of stick insects with an alarming propensity for losing odd legs, vied for space, now it was spring, with endless jars of frog spawn. Geological specimens and rare fossils
hidden in lumps of rock (many of them hidden from all eyes but their proud owner’s) cluttered every other surface, interspersed with carefully labelled envelopes containing small dead
insects. He was pestering for a microscope. Carolyn intended him to have one for his birthday.