Two Loves (3 page)

‘Do you want to come in?' Eliza asked her after opening the door, almost as though she was delivering pamphlets rather than visiting a new baby.

‘Please. If it's convenient, I'd love to see him. I've brought him a little sweater. I'm sure he's got dozens, but this one was so pretty. Joss thinks he's wonderful. What are you calling him?'

‘We haven't decided yet.'

‘May I see him? I hope he's not asleep.'

Eliza looked at her wearily and pointed to a chair. ‘Sit down, won't you. Look, I don't feel like making small-talk, but now that you're here, I'd just like to ask you to lay off my husband. All right?'

‘To lay off your husband,' Rosamund repeated, shocked to the bone by Eliza's attack. ‘But you've always said … I mean, Thomas has always said that you didn't mind his spending some time with me occasionally when you're working.' She glared at Eliza. ‘And you're always working,' she said, unwilling to take all the blame. ‘I mean, Thomas and I are friends. I mean, I don't see him very often, hardly at all these days. I mean…'

‘I admit to treating him in rather a cavalier fashion, I know I cut him out of my life to some extent, I know I didn't give him enough time and attention, but—'

‘A man needs time and attention.'

‘All right, I've admitted to being negligent. I don't blame you for trying to take him away from me – he's an attractive man – but now I want him back. It's as simple as that.'

‘Have you given up your job, then?'

‘Yes.'

‘I see.'

‘So what's your answer?'

Rosamund took a deep breath. She wasn't prepared to accept Eliza as the wronged wife and herself as the intruder; it was far more complicated than that. ‘I'll have to discuss it with Thomas – he's got a part in all this. I don't want to make you a promise I can't keep.' They looked hard at each other. ‘Do you love him?' Rosamund asked.

‘Of course. He's my husband.'

‘That sounds a bit glib. What if I love him, too? I'm certainly very fond of him. I'm always very happy to see him.'

‘You're just happy to be fucked. Because you haven't got anyone else.'

Rosamund looked straight into her eyes. ‘Have you? I answer your questions. Why don't you answer mine?'

‘He's my husband and the father of my children and I want to turn over a new leaf and be a good wife and mother. I want us to be a proper family again. And if you have any decent feelings you won't stand in our way.'

‘Does that mean you love him? That's what I want to know. That's what I asked you.'

‘I certainly don't love anyone else. Though I admit to neglecting him, it was never for another man – there's never been another man – it was only for my work.'

‘And I expect your work will take over again quite soon.'

They were interrupted by a sudden cry from the pram standing outside the French windows, not the first shaky bleat of a new baby on waking, but a sharp wail of pain, a cry to be immediately attended to.

Eliza fetched the baby, put him over her shoulder and patted his back. He grew quiet.

Rosamund was surprised again at how small new babies were. She wasn't able to see his face; Eliza seemed determined to keep his back to her, but the little body cocooned in its white cotton blanket seemed too small to be living a separate life. She suddenly decided that if she was about to give Thomas up, she'd like to be pregnant first. ‘I'd love a baby,' she said. And was surprised at how fretful she sounded.

‘They're nice little things,' Eliza said, her voice milder.

And then she must have realised how lucky she was, or at least how strong her position, because she took the baby from her shoulder, loosened his shawl and showed him off to Rosamund. His face was red and stern and his hands were little trembling claws. ‘Oh, he's beautiful,' Rosamund murmured, her voice hushed as though in a church.

She hadn't expected Eliza to breast-feed in front of her, especially as her breasts were rather slack and tired-looking, white with greyish veins. It made her look weak and vulnerable instead of sophisticated and powerful. Rosamund felt pains in her own breasts, almost as sharp as when Joss was newly born. ‘I'd really like a baby,' she said again.

‘Well, you certainly can't have Thomas's; that would be most unfair. It's bad enough for him already. He's very worried about giving you up.'

So it was already arranged? Rosamund felt she should at least have been consulted. ‘Perhaps he's miserable rather than just worried. We've been … quite close.'

‘I don't want to know. Please don't upset me. I try to clear my mind of worries when I'm breast-feeding.'

Rosamund relented. ‘Do you have any other worries? Besides me, I mean?'

‘Of course I do. Money.'

‘Money's always a bloody problem.'

‘We used to have oodles and now we've only got Thomas's salary. We're selling the BMW. We may have to sell the orchard. We'll certainly have to sell the—'

Eliza looked up to see that Rosamund was looking about her and yawning, so she stopped abruptly. ‘Sorry to bore you,' she said.

‘It's just that you used to be so genial towards me,' Rosamund said. ‘That evening we were all at that parent–teacher barbecue, and you came across Thomas and me sitting on our own behind the beer tent and you seemed so complacent about it, almost as though you were giving us your blessing. “I've got to go now, Thomas,” you said, “but if you want to stay longer, I'm sure Barbara and Tony can give you a lift back.” To tell you the truth, I was sure you'd got someone waiting for you.'

‘No, I just had some work to finish. Work was always more important than anything else. I had to keep at least one jump ahead of all the others who were scrabbling around for my job. I was the first woman to be made a director of the firm, so I had something to live up to.'

‘And yet you gave it all up to have another baby?'

‘That's right.'

‘Aren't you going to give him the other breast?'

Eliza glanced at her sharply. ‘No, he's all right now. He's dropping off.'

‘But won't you feel lopsided?'

‘No, he'll have the other side when he wakes up next. Though I don't know what concern it is of yours.'

‘I can't help being interested in babies, that's all. Who does he look like?'

‘Can we change the subject? I don't know why we should be discussing mothercraft. The thing is, I thought I could trust Thomas. I thought you and he were just friends. I wanted him to have friends because I felt guilty about neglecting him. I didn't know he was fucking you.'

‘As a matter of fact, I didn't know he was fucking you.'

‘Christ, I'm his wife. Haven't you got any decency?'

‘We didn't for ages. He used to come to the house to fetch Harry and we'd just sit and talk and drink coffee. I was pleased to have company, I don't meet many people except my mother's friends.'

‘And then?'

‘Well, it was the evening Harry stayed the night in that little tent Joss had. I think it was Joss's birthday. Yes, his seventh birthday.'

‘That was … three years ago.'

‘Almost three years. Yes, three years in June. And Thomas strolled up to see if they were all right – you know how they can suddenly get homesick and frightened of the dark. But they were both fine. Asleep, in fact. They were both asleep.'

Rosamund's voice had become low and meditative as she re-lived that night, but Eliza's acid look brought her back to the present. ‘So we sat and talked for a while. And then there was this terrific thunderstorm; thunder, whipping lightning, rain in torrents flowing down the garden, so we simply had to get them in. We went out with torches and scooped them up, still in their sleeping-bags, and would you believe, they were still asleep as we laid them down on the floor in Joss's room. Their faces were soaking wet from the rain as we carried them in, but they were still fast asleep. Then I went to my room to get a dry shirt and Thomas followed me.' Rosamund felt herself blush and put up her hand to shield her face. ‘And … well, that was that. Quite unpremeditated. Not that that excuses us, I know.'

Rosamund sighed as she thought of that stormy night, all the pleasure she'd be giving up.

Eliza laid the baby back in the pram.

‘Don't you wind him after his feed?' Rosamund asked.

Eliza gave her another angry look, but disdained to answer. She came back to her chair and sat down rather heavily. And then, with no sort of warning, she started to cry – great shuddering sobs, one after the other as though she would never stop.

Rosamund started to tremble. ‘Oh, it's terrible, I know,' she said, as soon as she could make herself heard. ‘But I'll give him up, I promise you. I honestly didn't realise how much you needed him. You see, I always thought you had someone else, someone connected with your work, someone more your type, more exciting. I suppose I wanted to think that, needed to. I'm very, very sorry. Honestly.'

Eliza's sobs gradually subsided and became deep intakes of breath. ‘I was sacked,' she said at last. ‘We had a new boss and he must have seen me as a threat because I'd been there nine years – longer than anyone else – and had all the relevant information at my fingertips. He called me into his office one Monday morning and said he was reorganising the business and had to make some changes.'

She broke down again and there was another bout of anguished sobbing. ‘I was sacked,' she said again, ‘and my PA, a girl of twenty-six, with no business degree, no experience, no personality, was appointed in my place. I gave my all to that company. I built up my department from nothing and it became the power base of the whole organisation. Everyone said so.'

‘You'll get another job,' Rosamund said, beginning to regret her promises. ‘You'll build up another department, be a director of a firm again.'

‘No, no. Things are getting tougher all the time. I'm too old to start again. I haven't the stomach for it, haven't the fight. I'm too old now, almost forty. That's why I decided to have a baby. From pique, I suppose, or to feel there was something still left to me, that I wasn't quite finished. I really need Thomas now as I've never needed him before. Oh, Rosamund, you must give him up. I'm so afraid he'll leave me and go to live with you. You're so much nicer than I am. I'm in such a state, always shouting at everyone or sobbing my heart out.'

There was a long, heavy silence. ‘Don't worry, you'll be better when the baby's six weeks old. It's post-natal depression, that's all. Thomas has never even suggested coming to live with me.'

Rosamund got to her feet. ‘He's never even suggested coming to live with me,' she said again, rather sadly, as she left.

*   *   *

Thomas came by that night; the first time he'd called since the baby was born. It was gone ten o'clock and Joss should have been in bed and asleep, but he wasn't, he was running a sudden high temperature and leaning up against Rosamund on the sofa, drinking hot lemon and honey. He was very miserable, his face flushed, his black hair lying in sweaty streaks on his forehead. ‘My throat's burning,' he wailed when he saw Thomas, ‘so don't tell me to go up to bed.'

‘Thomas never does,' Rosamund protested. ‘I'm the one who's always chasing you upstairs.'

‘You and Thomas,' he insisted in a hot little voice. ‘I always have to go to bed whenever he comes.'

Thomas and Rosamund regarded each other guiltily, failing to say anything in their own defence. ‘Perhaps you'd better go,' she told him. ‘This may be something infectious. I've heard how things are and I quite understand.' She put her arm round her son, needing the comfort of his small hot body.

‘And that's it, is it?' Thomas asked, his usual calm quite gone.

They sat looking at each other miserably. Minutes ticked by.

‘I think you can carry him up for me now,' she told him later. ‘I think he's fast asleep.'

‘I'd like to stay here with you,' he told her, when Joss had been settled in his bed. ‘That's what I'd like.'

‘No, you wouldn't,' Rosamund said. ‘You're much too dutiful and so am I. We both know it isn't feasible. You've got to put me out of your mind and try to be happy without me.'

‘And you'll be happy without me?'

‘I'll try, too.'

He followed her downstairs, looking as though he'd only that minute found out about loss and pain. ‘I've always dreaded partings,' he said.

‘Let's cut it short then, shall we?'

She led him out to the cloakroom where generations of schoolchildren, happy and unhappy, had hung their coats, and they stood there looking at each other for a moment or two. Then she opened the door and very gently pushed him out into the mild spring night, and stood watching him walk away from her. He didn't once turn round.

‘He's a lovely, gentle, sweet-natured man,' she said to herself, ‘but it's over. It's over. It's over. It's over.'

She didn't cry, but found that the muscles round her mouth had begun to quiver and jerk. She went to bed immediately, without locking up, without even brushing her teeth. The telephone rang, but she put the pillow over her head and let it ring.

*   *   *

‘That's why I'm feeling so vulnerable,' she told herself that evening, a week later. ‘If I were still seeing Thomas, I wouldn't be as affected by what Ingrid thinks of my life. All right, it isn't exciting. I suppose I have buried myself away. But the thing is, Thomas made up for its shortcomings.'

Chapter Three

‘Well, you've certainly made inroads into the cake,' Marian said.

‘It was very good. You must give me the recipe sometime. Do you want another piece, Joss?'