Rosie Thomas 4-Book Collection: Other People’s Marriages, Every Woman Knows a Secret, If My Father Loved Me, A Simple Life. Rosie Thomas
Читать онлайн книгу.
I want? Anyway, in a couple of years Hannah will look like you.’
She waited in the absence of the clock’s ticking for Andrew to realize what he had said, and when he did not she was nearly angry.
Then she understood that he was sliding into sleep, and she knew that it was easier not to have an argument than to wake him up and insist on one. She found suddenly that she was smiling, out of affection for his clumsiness and relief that the evening had harmlessly ended.
Marcelle lay on her back and stared up into the darkness. She was thinking about the separate wooden cubes of the chalet rooms stacked above and below her, and of the walls that separated the couples from each other, two by two.
Michael was breathing evenly beside her. She was not certain that he was asleep, but when she had put out her hand to touch his side he had made no response. That was the pattern now. If one of them was awake the other was asleep, or seemed to be.
She turned away from him, on to her side, and began to think about the evening. It was Hannah who had set it off, but Marcelle knew that she had only been the trigger. Since the day she had seen Gordon and Nina together at the level crossing she had known that the possibility of collapse, of the destruction of their tidy lives, lay quietly just beneath the surface of these featureless days. Dissatisfaction and the desire for change, for the sharpness of some new feeling, whether pleasure or pain, was like a virus that had reached Grafton with Nina Cort. The virus must spread, Marcelle thought, whichever direction it took.
She put her hand to where Darcy’s mouth and cheek had rubbed against hers. She could still taste the whisky from his tongue.
She closed her eyes, willing sleep to come.
If it had been Jimmy, Marcelle thought. If it had been Jimmy, tonight, what would I have done then?
She was not certain, but she thought that she might have clung to him, and begged him to rescue her.
Hannah put on the oyster-grey silk robe that matched her pink and grey lace and silk nightgown, and loosened her hair from the bunch she had tied at the nape of her neck. Standing in front of the small square of mirror fixed to one wall, she examined her reflection. She gave it her full attention, knowing that by doing so she was avoiding the necessity of thinking about less pleasant things. She spread her hair over her shoulders, admiring the way it rippled over the sheen of the silk.
Not bad, Hannah thought. Not bad for thirty-four, after having had two children. Better than Vicky Ransome, anyway.
She had seen the way Andrew and Michael had looked at her. It had given her a wonderful surge of power, to switch on the magnetism and see that it worked. The pleasure of their admiration stayed with her, energizing her. She lifted her chin, and met her own eyes in the mirror. There had been a time, when she and Darcy had met and fallen in love, when Darcy had looked at her like that every time she came near him.
But it was not all bad. Whatever Darcy thought, whatever he thought he wanted, the truth was still partly palatable. She was still objectively desirable.
She watched the reflection of her mouth, and saw how the corners of it had begun to take on a downward curl. She made herself smile, reversing the expression.
Darcy came out of the box of a bathroom and walked across to the bed without glancing in her direction. He took off his robe and lay down in his pyjamas, easing himself into the unfamiliar bed. Watching him, as he turned on to his side and his body slackened under the sheets, Hannah realized that he looked heavy and old. She felt a quick and surprising beat of sympathy, as she might have done for her father, or for Freddie if he was unhappy or ill.
She turned out the lights and got into bed beside her husband. Carefully, she fitted herself against the loose curve of his back. Then she edged her arms over and under him. She waited, acknowledging to herself and waiting for Darcy’s acknowledgement that the evening had excited her. Darcy did not pull away, but he did not respond either.
Hannah whispered against the meaty slab of his shoulder, ‘Come on, come to Mummy.’
Darcy turned over then.
He did not say anything, but he put his hands under her nightdress and spread them over her breasts.
Hannah pulled him closer, needing to exact another tribute from the evening. Without saying anything more to each other they went through the customary agenda of their love-making.
Afterwards, when they lay side by side again, Darcy said to the empty space over his head, ‘I didn’t very much like what you did this evening.’
Hannah made a small sound in her throat, not quite a laugh. ‘Were you jealous?’
‘No, not at all. The opposite. I didn’t like the way what you did affected Marcelle, and Janice.’
‘I’m sure they understood. Women do understand these things, don’t they? They have to.’
‘What is that supposed to mean?’
Hannah felt the sudden tension in him. It made his arm and leg quiver, tiny shivers that were transmitted to her own warm limbs. She felt the charge of power again, this time the power that her knowledge gave her. She chose her words with pleasurable care.
‘It means what I said. Women have to understand what their husbands do. Their little lapses, their small betrayals and the lies that don’t quite cover them up. They have to look on, don’t they, and pretend not to see, or not to mind? It’s kind of you to feel for Janice and Marcelle. But why doesn’t your ready sympathy extend to me? Or is it used up on poor, poor Vicky?’
‘On Vicky?’
‘Yes, on Vicky. Alone in that house with her lovely, innocent baby girls, without her wicked, unfaithful husband.’
‘Hannah –’
‘Don’t Hannah, with all your pretend bewilderment. I know you’re fucking Vicky. What else would you be doing on the mornings your car is trying to hide itself in her driveway? Advising her on her investments? Why did you think you could get away with it, in a place the size of Grafton, when Gordon and his widow woman couldn’t?
‘Linda Todd who lives opposite the Ransomes is a customer of mine. She couldn’t wait to tell me how many times she’s seen you there. I drove past myself, just to check. Including the day you said you were going to Bristol.’
Darcy said calmly, ‘There’s no reason why I shouldn’t call on Vicky. She does need advice, as it happens. That doesn’t mean I’m sleeping with her.’
Hannah drew away from him so she could no longer feel the quivers under his skin. She said softly and finally, ‘But you are, Darcy, aren’t you?’
‘What can I say to convince you otherwise, as you seem to have made up your mind?’
‘Nothing, darling. We were talking about what women are obliged to understand. I’m not going to worry about Janice and Marcelle because their husbands can’t take their eyes off my backside.’
Hannah turned over. She was surprised to find that she was sleepy, that her body felt pleasantly warm and heavy. She had told Darcy what she knew and there was nothing else she wanted to say. He didn’t speak again, and after a few minutes Hannah drifted into sleep.
Darcy lay awake for much longer. He was thinking about Vicky.
Apart from a handful of trivial lapses that were easy enough to discount, Darcy had been faithful to Hannah ever since their marriage – until a month ago.
After Vicky had locked Gordon out of their house she had stayed alone with the children for a night and half a day. And then, emerging from a daze of distress and needing to talk about what was happening to her, she had telephoned Hannah at Wilton. Only on that day Hannah had gone to her shop to make everything ready for her post-Christmas sale, and it was Darcy who answered the telephone.
‘I’ll come over,’ he said at once.
In the Ransomes’ house he found a litter of toys