Semi-Detached Marriage (8 page)

Cassie smiled back up at him, relief in her
face. 'A typical male chauvinist pig.'

He laughed and kissed her nose. 'We'd better
unpack or we'll be late for lunch.'

'Do you still want me to go on the tour this
afternoon?'

'I think you owe that much to Mullaine's if
not to me.'

Simon spoke lightly, but those last four
words made Cassie realise that no matter how much he pretended otherwise, he
still saw her defiance on a personal level, still brought the issue down to the
basis of she either loved him enough to give everything up for him or she
didn't. Really, to Simon, it was as simple as that.
        

Opening the suitcase, Cassie took out her
make-up bag and went into the bathroom, locking the door behind her. She turned
on the tap but didn't immediately begin to wash, just stood and stared at
herself in the mirror. Why did life have to be so complicated? You were going
along happily with everything fine and even getting better, and then,
suddenly-wham!-life hit you in the face and knocked you down again. And it was
all because of Simon's stubbornness. He must have known, even before he'd asked
her, that she would never consent. Slipping off her sweater, she began to wash
and then re-do her make-up, taking her time about it, for the first time since
she'd known him feeling so angry with her husband that she wished he'd just go
away and leave her alone.

Lunch wasn't an easy meal, nor the tour after
it, but Patrick Bright had obviously realised his mistake and managed to keep
down his salesman's patter, while Simon-bearing in mind the temper that went
with her tawny hair and green eyes-had advised her to play it cool. `After all,
Patrick is my boss,' he reminded her. So somehow they got through the afternoon
with Cassie obediently inspecting every amenity including even the half-finished
sports complex and making suitable remarks whenever she could think of them.

 Actually, if anything, she was rather
impressed with all the facilities available for the construction workers, and
to a lesser extent, for the small percentage of people who lived permanently in
Kinray. Permanently in most cases, of course, being for the two to three years
it would take to build the terminal. Then the number of workers would gradually
decrease until their places were taken by the maintenance and specialist people
who would man and operate the oil terminal and its jetties when these were
fully functional. Just a very small number in comparison to the thousands who
were here now. Yes, the facilities were ideal for men who had done a hard day's
physical work and just wanted to sit back and be amused, but there was nothing
here that could attract Cassie, nothing that wouldn't make each day spent here
a small, individual hell of boredom and frustration.

Dinner that night was easier, because three
other couples had been invited together with Patrick Bright's secretary to keep
the numbers even. They ate in a private room in the hotel, the food was good,
there was plenty of wine and the atmosphere soon became relaxed and congenial,
so that it was gone midnight before they went up to their room. Cassie flopped
down in an armchair and kicked off her shoes, more than a little inebriated.
Rifling through the box of chocolates, she found one with a nut centre and put
it in her mouth.

'Mm, I could get used to this kind of
treatment,' she told Simon mumblingly.

'Didn't your mother ever teach you not to
speak with your mouth full?' he demanded with a mock frown.    

Cassie wrinkled her nose at him, but
swallowed the sweet. 'Do you stay at this hotel every time you come up here?'

`Yes, in this suite sometimes. Shall we open
the champagne?'

'We might as well. Another couple of drinks
aren't going to make any difference after what we've had already.' She waited
until Simon had opened the bottle, the cork flying off with a satisfying bang.
'It must seem rather a come-down to go home after this,' she remarked, not looking
at him.

Simon glanced at her sharply, then answered,
'The service here is certainly very good and the food is always excellent.' He
paused, and Cassie thought of all the meals she'd ruined or dished up out of
tins at the last minute. 'But,' Simon went on smoothly, 'I must say that the
chambermaid service one gets at home is much, much better.' And he came to put
a hand on each arm of her chair and lean over to kiss her.

Cassie laughed and put her arms round his
neck. 'Oh, the hotel doesn't provide everything, then?'
          

'Not as far as I'm concerned.' He
straightened up and gave her her glass of champagne.

She watched him as he took off his jacket and
tie, as always at this point beginning to be sexually aware, knowing every inch
of the powerful body concealed by his clothes. She sipped her champagne,
watching him, but then an intriguing thought occurred to her. 'Simon? You said
that Mullaine's doesn't provide everything as far as you're concerned. But does
it for everyone else? I mean-all those single men who work here? Is there a-you
know-a place for them to go to?'

Simon had his back to her and she didn't see
the flash of laughter that came into his eyes, but, schooling his features, he
turned a bland face towards her and was deliberately vague. 'A place?'

'Yes. You know=-a place where they can meet
girls.'           

'Well, there's a dance every Saturday night.
I believe quite a few local girls go there.'

No,' Cassie shook her head impatiently, 'I
meant a place where they can go to-well, have sex. A—-a brothel.' She flushed
as she said it and looked up to find Simon grinning widely. Setting down her
glass,

she jumped up and ran to hit him on the chest
with her fists. `You beast, you knew what I meant all the time!'
   

'Yes, but it was more fun trying to get you
to say it.' He put his arms round her and kissed her. 'My darling girl, if you
want to ask a question like that then you've got to come right out and say it.
It only becomes embarrassing when you beat around the bush like that.'
   

'Well, you still haven't answered me. Do they
have a brothel here?'

Simon laughed and picked her up. 'Of course
they don't. This site is in the centre of a moral God-fearing community. They'd
have the whole project closed down at the merest hint of such a thing. No, the
men go home to their wives and girl-friends to satisfy their sexual appetites.
Just as I,' he added, making for the bedroom, 'am going to satisfy mine.'

'And mine, I hope,' Cassie put in, her arms
round his neck, her mouth biting his ear.

'Oh, most definitely yours as well.' He
stopped to kiss her, then picked up the bottle of champagne. 'Let's finish the
rest of this in bed, shall we? Why don't you put out the light?'

Cassie obeyed and he carried her into the
bedroom, shouldering the door shut behind them. Setting her down, he began to
undress her, his fingers sure and skilled. Cassie let him for a while and then
she, too, began to undress him, but her hands often stopping to touch, explore,
until Simon grabbed her hands and exclaimed, 'You little hussy! Get in bed
before I take you here and now.'

She pulled a petulant face, put her arms
round his neck and moved her breasts against his bare chest so that his hairs
softly tickled her. 'I don't like single beds,' she complained.

'Oh, but in single beds you
have to stay very, very close all night,' Simon told her as he pulled back the
covers and helped her in.

`All night? You promise?'

He laughed. 'That's not just a promise,
sweetheart, that's a certainty. Move over and I'll show you.'
           

And he did, most satisfactorily. But it was
cramped in the small bed and when Cassie awoke early in the morning and tried
to turn, she woke Simon as well. He grunted and reached out for her.

'No,' Cassie mumbled, still more than half
asleep. 'It's too early.'

He chuckled and kissed her car. 'Always knew
you wouldn't be able to stand the pace!'

'You're lying on my arm, it hurts.'

'Okay, okay, I can take a hint.' He got out
of bed and climbed into the other one. 'God, this feels cold. The things I do
for you!'

'Oh, shut up and go to sleep.' Cassie yawned
and spread herself luxuriously, then almost immediately fell asleep again as
Simon laughed at her bullying tone.

It was just as well they had split up,
because a few hours later a maid brought them up breakfast and the papers,
courtesy of Mullaine's, of course. Cassie was no prude, but she didn't relish
being gossiped about by workers at the hotel. Not that they were directly
employed by Mullaine's, because another group had the hotel concession, but she
could well imagine that in a close-knit community such as this, everyone
already knew that Simon had been offered the post of site director, and that
she had come up to Kinray to look the place over.

'Good heavens!' she exclaimed. 'They've sent
us up all the Sunday papers. We'll be able to have a colour supplement each,
instead of fighting over it.'

Cassie took her time over breakfast and
getting dressed, and Simon didn't hurry her, although he was ready long before
she was, sitting stretched out in the armchair reading one of the papers more
thoroughly. It was perverse of her to take so long, because she knew that they
were due to look over the site director's house at eleven and it was almost
that already. But some instinct told her that even now Simon was clinging to a
last-ditch hope that she would see the house and be willing to live there.

He wasn't the type to give up easily, of
course, she'd always known that, and for him to have to accept defeat would be
very hard, especially as he wanted this job, wanted it badly. This weekend, if
it had done nothing else, had shown her that. And because she loved him and
didn't want to hurt him, she was reluctant for the time to come when she would
have to say that last, definite no.

At last she couldn't procrastinate any longer
and turned to him. 'I'm ready.'

He folded the paper neatly and stood up, looking
her over sardonically. 'You're quite sure you haven't forgotten anything?'

Cassie flushed, knowing the barb was
deserved, but said steadily, 'No, I don't think so.'

'Let's go, then.'

He took her arm and led her down to the foyer
where the chauffeur was waiting. He had been waiting some time and apologised
because the car had got cold, which made Cassie feel rotten. They drove out of
Kinray and skirted the long perimeter of the construction site, the house being
to the south of the oil ter
minal.

The morning was cold and frosty but very
dear, and as they drove the sun carne out, turning the frozen puddles at the
side of the road into eye-dazzling mirrors. Once past the construction site,
they turned off the new wide highway that had been specially built to supply
it, on to a much narrower road only wide enough for cars to pass at special
places every quarter of a mile or so where the road had been widened. The road
wound through a kind of pass between the hills, hills that were dark grey and
inhospitable, the white of snow nestling in the deeper fissures of rock where
the sun didn't penetrate. There was very little flora on the hills, just the
dry brown sticks of heather plants, their flowers long faded.

As they rounded the shoulder of a hill, the
car descended into a valley, and to her surprise Cassie saw that there were
trees there, mostly firs and evergreens, growing in an area sheltered from the
wind. The road ran through them and then turned in between stone pillars
leading up to a house. The road didn't go past the entrance, it led only to the
house. They came out of the trees and Cassie saw the sea on her right, with a
long open sweep of land leading down to it, bordered on both sides by the
gentle slopes of the hills. She was sitting on the right-hand side of the car
so had a perfect view as they drove along, and she didn't even turn to see the
house until the car drew up outside and the chauffeur got out to open the door
for them.

The house was the type that you either fell
in love with immediately or couldn't stand at any price. It was built of the
same grey stone as the hills, mellowed by time and its harshness softened by
the rich greenness of ivy, and had a front door set into a sort of rounded turret
to one side. It was old, probably eighteenth or early nineteenth century, and
three-storied, with the top storey windows set into small gables in the roof.
The original windows in the rest of the house were also small, probably to let
in less of the sea winds, but some on the ground floor had been enlarged at
some time and there were also patio doors set into a corresponding turret at
the other side of the house, leading into a garden. Not so much a garden in the
English sense with neat flower beds, lawns and shrubberies, but a long expanse
of rough grass hedged on each side by wilderness-like areas of spindly trees
and rhododendron bushes, but with the view to the sea left open and
uninterrupted so that the smell of it came clear to Cassie's nostrils on the
light breeze.

A woman had come to the door at the sound of
the car and for a moment Cassie thought she was going to have the embarrassing
experience of meeting the woman whose husband Simon had been asked to replace.
But it was soon made clear that the woman was only the maid.