The Wonder Worker (35 page)

But now I knew I had to have a rest, not just from that soul
destroying spirit which built the Empire but from all manner of exhausting problems which I couldn’t master. My life during the week had become a desert since the sale of my business, while my life at weekends had apparently become so fraught that I could no longer face sex. Obviously I was approaching some sort of mega-crisis. Could I be on the brink of a nervous breakdown? Absolutely not. Breakdowns were for wimps, and anyway no one in our family ever broke down. It wasn’t the done thing.

But there was no denying I was currently behaving like a wimp. God, I couldn’t even work out how to avoid sex for the rest of the weekend! Obviously something had to be done quickly before a nightmare scenario unfolded in which I lost control of the situation altogether and went bananas.

Staggering out of bed I reached for my Filofax and tried to convince myself I was about to make some efficient, sensible decisions.

V

I began
by looking through the addresses. It had occurred to me that what I really needed to do was to get right away from Butterfold for at least three days in order to
think.
A change of scenery well away from Nicky would not only stimulate my flaking brain but would with luck produce a detachment which would enable me to visualise a viable future.

My fingers drifted to a halt in their journey through my Filofax as it then dawned on me that I had to resist the temptation to stay with friends. To get my brain ticking over briskly I had to be alone. Moreover, it was important that I didn’t tell Nicky, because once he knew something was definitely wrong he’d be buzzing around trying to “fix” me. Eventually, of course, I’d have to enlighten him, but by that time I would have “fixed” myself. The whole point of beating my brains out in solitary confinement was that I had to work out how to tell Nicky without sending him into orbit and driving us both round the bend.

There was no problem about disappearing for three days between weekends. Nicky and I seldom spoke during the week, and if I left the appropriate non-committal message on my answering machine to cover all callers … My thoughts slithered on, twisting and turning as I worked out how to guard my privacy without arousing suspicion.

Having made the decision to flee on Monday I then had no alternative but to solve the problem of how to survive the rest of the weekend, and finally I pretended to be ill. I cancelled the lunch-party we were due to attend, and languished in bed with a Ruth Rendell mystery while Nicky brought me tea on a tray plus a little vase containing a very late flowering, boudoir-pink St. Swithun rose. The weather was about to give a death-blow to the flowers which bloomed till late autumn and the rose did look distinctly wan, but I thought it was so nice of Nicky to want to cheer me up by bringing me something beautiful from the garden. In fact he was so nice and so kind that as soon as he had left the room I plunged fathoms deep into depression. How could I conceive of leaving him? But that was the problem. I couldn’t conceive of it yet it had to be done and that was exactly why I was going away to beat my brains out and come up with a viable plan. Sternly I reminded myself how utterly impossible he was as a husband.

I’d discovered soon after the wedding that Nicky wasn’t very clever at being married. The problem was his compulsion to pour himself out into his ministry and be wonderful to everyone in sight. There was little space in his life, I soon realised, for a wife and virtually none for children. The problem was that he had had an off-beat upbringing; although he had been much loved his parents had been preoccupied with their own lives and he had emerged from childhood with little idea what a normal family life was like. When the children were small he was appalled by the noise and mess they generated. I suspected that his inability to cope with this disruption was the primary reason why he had escaped into a chaplaincy which, unlike a parish job, meant he didn’t have to work from home. Sometimes, seeing how ill-at-ease he was with family life, I thought he should never have married at all, but of course as a clergyman he had to marry in order to have a sex-life. Perhaps, realising how difficult marriage would be for him, he had felt he could only risk a trip to the altar with a friend who could be trusted not to bolt when the going got tough.

When we were engaged I had found myself wondering more than once why he wanted to marry me. I’d always wanted to marry him, but my motives were easier to understand. I was so mousey while Mummy was alive that I had no boyfriends who were seriously interested in me and I often felt frustrated by my inability to attract the opposite sex. Nicky was the only young man who showed me
affection, and even then his affection was mostly fraternal. He was rather plain in his youth. He was too thin and he had to wear spectacles, but even in his plain days he had a fluent, easy way of moving which made him stand out from the crowd, and as the years passed the plainness stealthily diminished. By the time he was forty and able to give up wearing glasses he had an excellent figure and a subtle sex-appeal which was all the more lethal for not being obvious. With his unremarkable brown hair and pale eyes and angular features he was hardly classically handsome, but these low-key looks formed the perfect backdrop to his powerful, hypnotic personality.

Before we were married he did tell me he had been “a bit wild” with various members of the fast set who had adopted him when he was younger, but he swore this period of his life was now past. He still maintained his friendships with the survivors but soon they too were settling down and becoming respectable—except for that wreck Venetia Hoffenberg. I didn’t care for his friendship with that woman
at all
, but long periods would go by when they never saw each other and in the end I convinced myself she was no threat to my peace of mind. I’ve no time for losers who when the going gets tough just chuck in the sponge and drink themselves silly. When the going gets tough the tough should damned well get going—as I intended to do if only I could get my act together and stop being such a dithering wimp.

I got my act together speedily when Nicky moved to St. Benet’s, and my God, some tough decisions needed to be made then to keep the marriage from disintegrating! I knew straight away that he’d never be able to cope with his family if we were living at the Rectory and getting under his feet, so I said the City was an impossible place to bring up children and I worked out the blueprint for the split-level marital life in which he and I were apart during the week and together at weekends. The scheme was a brilliant success, although sometimes I thought I might die of loneliness. But I solved that problem, didn’t I, by starting my own business and working so hard that I had no time for wimpish self-pity. If you don’t like a situation you should change it. You’ve got to get on top of problems, control them before they can control you.

But how could I control a divorce? That was the question. If things got out of hand … No, it was better not to think of that, and I had to stop myself thinking of Mummy too. I had to make up my mind not to hear her saying: “You’ve got to stick to your marriage. You’ve
got to play the game and not let the side down.” But it was impossible not to hear those words. I couldn’t shut them out, and although in my head I screamed at her: “But I’ve put up and shut up for long enough, and I can’t take the unhappiness any more!” Mummy just said tight-lipped: “No shouting, Rosalind, please, and no scenes. We don’t behave like that in our family.”

The forbidden anger turned inwards. Dragging the duvet over my head I squeezed my eyes shut to control the tears and despised myself for my lack of Empire-building spirit.

VI

Well
, I got over that. Despair’s for wimps. Telling myself I had to postpone all thought of the future until Monday, I bent my will towards surviving the weekend.

When I awoke the next morning I pretended I was still unwell and Nicky went to church without me. The closing of the front door seemed to give my brain a welcome jolt, and suddenly, after all the hours of brain-dead torpor, I thought of the ideal bolt-hole.

It was a holiday cottage which belonged to a couple who had once been friends of ours, although nowadays I never saw the two of them together because the husband had degenerated into a nasty piece of work and neither Nicky nor I could stand him. It was the wife who remained my friend, and unknown to Nicky I met her regularly for lunch. The secrecy was because she was my mole at St. Benet’s. I was fairly sure Nicky was too immersed in his work to have the energy to be unfaithful, but the prudent wife of a one-time wonder worker should always be well informed about any groupie who tries to muscle in on her territory.

Propping myself up on the pillows I reached once more for my Filofax and phoned my old pal, Francie Parker.

I

Francie
and I had met at finishing school longer ago than either of us now cared to remember. I had wanted to stay on at boarding school and do A-levels but Mummy had thought that would be a waste of time as all I needed to know for my future as a Nice Girl, destined for marriage and motherhood, was how to cook decently and arrange flowers with flair. I took my revenge by refusing to go to finishing school in Switzerland. Daddy, who had been hiding behind
The Times
when this polite altercation had taken place, supported me when I said I hated “Abroad,” but the truth was that I hated the idea of being compared to Phyllida and found wanting. Phyl had cut a terrific dash in Switzerland and had had a passionate but unconsummated affair with an Italian prince who had wanted to buy her oodles of clothes in Paris. Aping Mummy I said this was all very vulgar, but in private I was madly jealous.

“Francie darling!” I exclaimed, wrenching my mind back to the present as she answered the phone. “It’s Rosalind. How are you?”

“Rosalind!” Francie sounded a trifle
bouleversée
, as Phyl would have put it after the racy year in Switzerland. “Darling, what a surprise! Why aren’t you in church with Mr. Glamour-Puss?”

“Why aren’t you in church yourself, you old slacker?”

“I’m too busy enjoying Harry’s absence! He’s gone to Hong Kong for a few days and I must say it’s rather heavenly without him—no one complaining if I get the sections of the
Sunday Times
muddled or if the roast beef isn’t pink in just the right places. My dear, what we girls have to put up with from these ultra-successful men …”

Francie rattled on. She was married to a lawyer with an acid tongue who got his kicks out of proving to her, in very elegant speeches, that she was a complete fool. Francie adored him. She worked at St. Benet’s as a Befriender and said it was so good for her self-esteem to be useful to others. Nicky reported that she did the work very well, and at one stage she had considered training to be a counsellor, but Harry the Horror-Husband had put his foot down and told her he wasn’t throwing money away on a course which she would inevitably fail. To my rage Francie accepted his decision meekly. Nicky said she obviously liked men to be masterful, and that Harry, by striking these revolting macho poses, actually made her feel cherished. I wasn’t sure who was mad—Harry, Francie or Nicky—but someone had to be round the twist. However, that wasn’t my problem. All that concerned me was that Francie was a loyal friend who could be trusted to give me accurate reports on any dangerous female shark who had swum into the St. Benet’s lagoon. A recent arrival had been Venetia Hoffenberg. That news had certainly set my teeth on edge, but apparently she was being counselled by Robin, the therapist, and Nicky seldom saw her.

“… and anyway, darling, enough of all that,” Francie was saying. “How about
you?
What’s new down on the Darrow ranch?”

“Well, to be honest I’m feeling very frazzled and I want to get away for a few days on my own before the boys roar home and Christmas soars out of control. Francie, would you mind terribly if—”

Francie didn’t mind in the least. Harry had long since decreed that the cottage in Devon could be lent to friends at any time during the winter. “But Ros, I’m so sorry you’re frazzled! Nick didn’t mention—”

“Nicky doesn’t know and you’re not to tell him. I don’t want him to start worrying about me when all I need’s a short break … Does that neighbour still have the key of the cottage?”

“Yes, I’ll ring her and tell her you’re coming. When do you aim to arrive?”

“Tomorrow lunch-time. By the way I’ve quite forgotten the address
and how to get there. It seems ages since Nicky and I borrowed the cottage for that naughty weekend.”

“Number Seven, Kine Street—”

“Hang on, my pen’s seizing up.” I shook the Biro to get the ink flowing and pressed down twice as hard on the notepad. “Okay, go on.”

Francie completed the address and gave comprehensive directions. “… and have a lovely time in deep seclusion,” she added. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

I thanked her profusely before remembering to ask: “What’s new at St. Benet’s?”

“Well, Venetia’s still seeing Robin, but Lewis is hovering on the sidelines—he’s been having spiritual chats with her every week.”

“How nauseating!”

“It’s certainly eccentric—they meet for drinks at various grand hotels. Funny old Lewis, he’s such a character!”

“Well, I suppose that’s one way of describing him. Does Nicky ever substitute for Lewis at the grand hotels?”

“I thought of that and checked his diary, but he only substituted once and that was when Lewis was in hospital, so I didn’t bother to mention the jaunt to Claridge’s to you—it was obviously just a pastoral manoeuvre.”

That made sense. Nicky would never normally go to Claridge’s unless he felt it was a pastoral necessity. Did I need to be perturbed that he hadn’t told me he was having a drink with Venetia? No. As a pastoral manoeuvre he could classify it as confidential and keep his mouth shut with a clear conscience. Very convenient. But as my marriage was on the rocks, did I really care what he got up to with Venetia Hoffenberg?