Made in Heaven (29 page)

*

Maureen would never have said so to anyone and felt a little guilty admitting it to herself, but when Graham was away, things in almost every part of her life became instantly easier and altogether more enjoyable. For a few moments, as she lay propped up against heaped pillows in the double bed with her lists, magazines, notebooks and other wedding paraphernalia taking up the space her husband would normally occupy, she considered what her life would be like if she were single. In many ways, she thought, it would be much improved. Did that mean she didn't love Graham? Nonsense, she told herself. Of course I do. But I don't miss him when he's not here. Also, I've had a lovely day, doing exactly what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it, without stopping to think about a single other soul.

Unfortunately, she needed the money Graham provided to maintain the house and garden and her own wardrobe in a decent state, and she'd miss the sex. Still, she was sure – because there had been enough rather thrilling and unconfessed little kisses at various parties over the years and sometimes even a bit more, though never outright infidelity – that there were plenty of men out there who'd be willing, more than willing, to share her bed. She was, after all, only fifty-two. Just last week at the tennis club, the young and quite dishy coach had been positively flirtatious. She would only have needed to encourage him a teensy bit and he'd have been raring to go. She sighed, and scrabbled in the folds of the duvet for her pencil. The guest list needed doing, but she couldn't resist reading again the details of four houses she'd picked up that afternoon from the best estate agents in town.

She'd been to meet a firm of caterers who'd turned out to be useless, but on her way home she'd passed a house that had a
for sale
sign outside. It wasn't very big, but it was pretty and on a tree-lined street where all the
other properties had owners who cared. She'd looked at the hanging baskets, the shaved lawns and closely trimmed hedges, and thought, how lovely if Adrian could live here, close to me, in such a sweet little house. Away from London and all those ghastly security alerts. She'd vaguely thought about it before but now the idea seemed to her both so exciting and so somehow right that she'd parked the car and got out to have a closer look. She'd walked up to the front door and rung the bell, but there was no one at home.

While the cats are away … Maureen said to herself, and walked all round the property, staring in through the windows. Parquet floor in the living room and dining room. Small garden at the back with lots of possibilities. Modern kitchen … She'd felt quite breathless as she made her way back to her car. The house would be perfect for Adrian and Zannah. As she drove to the estate agent's to pick up the written details, enchanting fantasies unfolded in her head: Adrian and his children playing in that garden, the whole family coming over to tea on Sunday, Adrian transferred to the local branch of his bank, Zannah teaching at the local primary school … The house was just round the corner from theirs. Maureen felt quite elated.

At the estate agent's she took the details of several other houses as well. You wouldn't want to rush into anything recklessly and it was better to consider all options before committing yourself. I'll email Adrian, she thought. I'll invite the two of them down for the weekend, maybe at the beginning of October. She didn't want to give the game away. Subtlety was important. This whole thing had to be done so that Adrian and Zannah didn't think she was interfering. The best thing would be if they could see the place and think they'd discovered it. She could arrange to drive past it. Maybe they'd fall in love with the house just as she had. The wedding wasn't until next year, true enough, but Adrian
could apply for a transfer right away. He could move in down here before the wedding. Zannah and Isis could join him after the honeymoon.

Now, as she re-read the details, it seemed an even better idea. Zannah must have faced the fact that she'd need to move out of that grotty flat. It was big enough and in quite a reasonable location, but there was something terribly graduate-student about it and the decorative state they kept it in made her shudder. There was no way Adrian would put up with living there after the wedding and his place wasn't big enough for all three of them. This seemed the ideal solution. She had sent an email to Adrian inviting him and Zannah down for the weekend, and couldn't wait for his reply.

She got out of bed and went downstairs. In the kitchen, she assembled a little picnic on a tray: biscuits and Stilton, a nice ripe pear and a glass of red wine. She intended to eat in bed. No Graham there to wrinkle his nose and moan about crumbs. Utter bliss!

Russell Blythe and Joss were having an after-lunch drink in the local pub with half a dozen of the course members. Gray was one of them. The Admiral was only a short walk away and because the day was pleasantly warm, Russell had suggested that the workshop adjourn there. ‘Otherwise,' he said, ‘I don't know about all of you, but I'll fall asleep after that lunch.'

Joss had made a point of walking next to two women, and the talk was about children and husbands and, because Joss had mentioned Zannah, weddings. When they reached the Admiral, she took a seat as far away from Gray as possible because she wanted to indulge in something she'd learned was completely pleasurable: watching him without talking to him. Watching him talk to other people. She wouldn't have been able to explain it, but being separate from Gray and thinking of how they'd been last night, how they'd be again tonight, made her aware of every nerve ending in her body: almost painfully aroused. She watched in silence as, further down the table, his mouth moved in laughter and speech. Remembering how that mouth had felt on her skin, breathing words into her ear, opening under the pressure of her lips brought a flush to her cheeks that had nothing to do with the relative warmth of the sunshine.

Gray didn't usually say much in company. Bob was
a jovial person and liked to be the centre of attention. He often did what Em called ‘holding forth', but Gray usually sat quietly as the talk buzzed round him. Joss had noticed this during meals at Fairford. He knew how to listen. That must be one reason why he was so good at his job. She could imagine how soothed his patients must feel, how comforted to have him beside them, knowing he was attending to them
completely
.

Now Gray was discussing rhyming verse, which always got poets steamed up. He said, ‘It's true, rhyme isn't
necessary
but I bet you've sometimes thought this or that poem was only a piece of prose cut up. Haven't you? Can you swear you've never thought that?'

Russell laughed. ‘You're right, of course. Some poems are about as poetic as … well, as some very unpoetic thing. But it's not rhyme that makes a poem, because then what's in a Hallmark card would be poetry and we know it's not.'

‘Okay, that's true. But you have to have that extra … I don't know. Not just description. And not just nonsense going under the banner of surrealism.'

‘My skin tells me,' said one of the other course members, a shy young woman called Maggie. ‘If I get goosebumps, it's real poetry. And if I don't, it's not.'

‘That can't be right,' said Blake, a dark-haired man who was just a fraction too old to be wearing the punkish clothes he favoured. ‘Funny poems don't raise goosebumps, nor does political satire, but you're not saying that Dryden's not a poet, are you?'

‘I agree with Maggie,' said Gray, smiling at her. Making her feel better. Protecting her from Blake's ill-disguised scorn. ‘You have to be moved. And not necessarily in a sentimental way. You can be … I don't know. Stirred. Thrilled.'

Blake sniffed. Came back with some remark about humour. Joss smiled to herself. She wasn't going to get involved in the general chat, then wondered if that
would seem unfriendly or strange. She decided to speak and said, ‘I read a novel once where the characters spent a few pages discussing what a poem was. The punchline was: you know it's a poem if it has the name “Ted Hughes” at the end. Or any other poet would do, I suppose. T.S. Eliot. Yeats.'

Everyone laughed. Maggie said, ‘I get goosebumps when I read all of those. Who said poetry was the right words in the right order?'

‘Coleridge, I think,' Russell said. ‘My round.'

The talk went on. Laughter rose into the air. Russell went inside to get more drinks. Joss was starting to count the hours until she could be alone with Gray, but she was sharply conscious of how happy she was now, this minute. I wish this afternoon would go on for ever, she thought. I want it never to stop: this delicious waiting for the day to end.

*

It must be nearly morning, Gray thought, and groped for his mobile on the bedside table. Just after five o'clock. I should go back to my room. Lydia – she'd asked him to call her Joss, but he couldn't think of her as anything but Lydia – was still asleep beside him. Everyone at Fairford always went to bed late, after wine and talk and laughter till the early hours, and then he'd had to wait until it was safe to slip along the dark corridors to her room. He smiled into the darkness as he recalled the hours that had elapsed since she'd opened the door to him. When they'd been together in public, he'd been careful not to give anything away. He'd been polite, smiling, signing up like all the other course members for his time alone with her, when they would pretend to be talking about his poems, chatting to Russell – a chubby gay guy with a wicked sense of humour – about music and cricket and how wonderful it had been to see England getting the Ashes back after so long and who was sleeping with whom in the world of poetry, joining
in with the writing exercises and volunteering himself for the first group in the kitchen and all the time dreaming about what would happen when they were alone. Today at the pub he'd felt her trying to not-watch him, which made him smile because he was also trying to not-watch her.

‘Gray?'

‘You're supposed to be asleep. It's only just after five-thirty.'

‘I woke up,' Lydia said, and turned to him. He opened his arms to her and held her naked body close, close to his. She was warm and fragrant and he didn't want to leave her.

‘I don't want to leave you,' he whispered.

‘You must. There's always someone who's up before the others. It's not safe.'

‘We've got to talk, Lydia.'

‘Do we? Why do we?'

‘Because … I want to ask Maureen for a divorce. I'm serious. I want us to be together.'

‘How can you say that? You've been married so long. You must love her, Gray.'

‘In a way I do. You can't live with someone for so long and not have … Well, you know what I mean. Think of yourself and … and Bob.' Gray shifted in the bed. He didn't like saying Lydia's husband's name, not even to himself, much less aloud.

‘I can't leave him,' she murmured, and as she did, she pulled him to her and began to kiss his neck, just under his ear.

‘Why not? Why can't you?'

‘He wouldn't cope without me. He'd go to pieces.'

‘He manages okay when you're not there. He's in Egypt now, not giving you a second thought, I bet. Maureen's having the time of her life in Guildford too, I expect. They're used to us, Lydia, and that's it. It's not like this. Are we happy when we're together?'

He could feel her nodding, but she said, ‘We made vows, Gray. We promised. That should mean something, surely.'

‘It does mean something, of course it does, but there should be a way of cancelling them when we're not happy any longer. We deserve to be happy, don't we?'

‘No one's completely happy all the time,' Lydia said. ‘What if other people are hurt? I don't want to do that, Gray. I'm sorry. Imagine what would happen if no one kept any promises. If nothing were binding. It would be – life would be – impossible.'

‘No one stays hurt for ever. What about Bob and Maureen living with us? We're unfaithful to them. Have you thought of that? And it's not just a casual affair, so it's an even worse betrayal. We've betrayed them. But we love one another, so how does that tot up, Lydia? Now, at this very moment. Are we being fair to them when we're like this?'

Lydia sat up in bed and rested her head on her clasped knees. ‘I explained, Gray. As soon as I saw you, I explained. This … These days are like time outside real life. Time out. We're not going to see one another alone again. I mean that. This is it. I can't spoil Zannah's wedding. Adrian's wedding, too. It would … Well, nothing would be the same again. You must see that.'

He began to stroke her back and felt her shiver under his hand. ‘I don't think I can do not seeing you any more, Lydia. What if we're careful? We can be so … discreet. No one need know.'

She shook her head. ‘I'd be terrified. It's no good. I feel … It's impossible. I can't … I can't think about it.'

‘Then don't. Don't think about it now. Let's discuss it. Seriously. When we have our session together tomorrow … I mean today … Not in bed, but face to face over a table. We can talk about the future. I want us to be together.'

She lay back and sighed. ‘I want that as well. But it's
difficult. Everything's so complicated. Let's just … let's just have these days and … '

‘And what? Leave Fairford and forget everything? I can't. You can't either. Admit it. No emails. No phone calls. Nothing. Just think about it. What sort of a life is that? Not one I'm willing to live, Lydia.'

‘Later. We'll talk properly, I promise. But it's getting late now, Gray. You should go.'

‘In a minute. Come here … '

‘Oh, Gray, there's no … '

He stopped her words with his mouth and she wrapped her arms round him. There was time. He felt her opening, softening under his hands, and closed his eyes.