Rosie Thomas 4-Book Collection: Other People’s Marriages, Every Woman Knows a Secret, If My Father Loved Me, A Simple Life. Rosie Thomas
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in between.’ He was thinking rapidly as he spoke. ‘Come on, I’ll take you for a drink.’
There was a pub about ten miles the other side of Wilton that should be safe enough, and there would still be time afterwards. Star would be back from the Williamford parent-teacher evening, but that couldn’t be helped. He would think of something. It was Darcy finding out that he really wanted to avoid; it was comfortable knowing he was away.
Jimmy switched on the ignition, and Lucy’s triumphant smile was illuminated for him in the glow from the dashboard. She put her hand back on his thigh, her fingers grazing against him so that his dwindling erection immediately recharged itself.
*
Star came home and found the house in darkness, although Jimmy had not mentioned that he was going out. She went into the kitchen and made herself a cheese sandwich and a cup of tea, listening to the mixer tap dripping into the sink without bothering to turn it off or to switch on the radio to drown it out. She carried her supper into the dining room and sat down at the table with a pile of exercise books that were waiting to be marked.
Star picked up her red pen, but the silence of the house pressed into her. She could feel it like a weight on her head and on her hands.
When she looked at the walls she saw that the striped wallpaper was beginning to peel at the joins, and there was a film of dust on the shallow skirting. The vertical blinds at the windows were of a design she no longer liked; everywhere her eyes turned there seemed to be evidence of neglect. Jimmy and she lived in this house, but it was a long time since they had done anything to improve or cherish it. Star tried to offer herself the excuse that they lacked the money; it was true that they had her income, but Jimmy’s conference- organizing business had recently almost collapsed. He had never been as successful as the other Grafton men, but until quite lately they had been able to make wry jokes about that to one another. Now there were no jokes, but she knew quite well that there was enough money to look after the house, if either of them had cared sufficiently about it.
The truth was, Star thought, that it was good enough as it stood to enclose what existed within it.
She twisted the top off her pen and drew the pile of books closer to hand. Even in here she could hear the drumbeat of the dripping tap.
It was five minutes to midnight, and she was on the second-to-last book, when she heard Jimmy’s car pull into the space in front of the house.
‘Hello there,’ he called out as the front door rattled shut behind him. ‘Shall I lock up?’
Star waited until his sandy face appeared round the door, his pointy eyebrows raised.
‘Unless you’re planning to go out again,’ she said.
‘Would I be, at this time of night?’
‘How would I know that?’
‘Oh, dear God, what’s the matter now? How was the school evening?’
Star gazed down at the work in front of her. Gary Burdett’s translation, covered to a point halfway down the page with little red hieroglyphics.
She wondered if somewhere in some defiant corner of herself she loved Jimmy still, or if she hated him, or if she was simply tired and ashamed of them both, and finally indifferent. She wondered who he had been with, and if she knew her, or whether she was some mysterious and therefore incalculably alluring stranger.
‘It was exactly the same as usual. Where have you been?’
‘I went over to the golf club for a quick drink. Do you want a nightcap?’
He had opened the sideboard and found a bottle of Johnny Walker about one third full.
‘No, thank you. Who was there?’
‘Where? Oh, nobody much.’
‘Have you eaten?’
‘Yes, I had something at the bar.’
Looking at her, at her angular face, Jimmy thought, She knows, but the realization did not dismay him particularly. She only knew in the way that wives always knew, with a mixture of suspicion and intuition that shied away from wanting to find out the real truth. He wondered how he would feel if she was unfaithful to him, and decided as he always did that he would not care for it at all.
He leaned down to her, intending to kiss the top of her head, to make an offering of affection.
‘You look tired.’
Star jerked away from him, out of his reach, letting her anger show.
‘It’s late,’ she said coldly.
Her arm struck against his as she stood up, making him spill some of his drink. Jimmy felt an answering kick of anger within himself, fuelled by whisky.
He wondered if Lucy’s scent clung to him. He felt immersed in her. After their drinks, in the confined space of the car, she had wound her long legs around him in the gymnastic enthusiasm of their lovemaking. Now he was home and the bloom of guilt he had felt when he arrived was burned off by a jet of resentment. He did not want to come in and see Star with her face made stiff with accusation; there was a way a man’s home should be and Star did not make it so. He hated her when she did this. She could have made things easy and pleasant for both of them, for herself as well as for him, but there was some rigid determination in her that would not adopt the comfortable way.
His free hand grasped her shoulder, his finger and thumb pinching her flesh.
‘What’s the matter with you? I’ve only been out for a couple of drinks.’
Star looked at his face.
His eyes were reddened and there was a flush across his cheekbones that made the fair hairs above the shaving line stand out, but he was a long way from being drunk. A sequence of images passed, dreamlike, through her head. They were violent images, in which she struck out and Jimmy hit back at her, blow for blow. Star shrank. She was bigger, but he was stronger. The scenes in her mind were not all imaginary. Some of them were simply recollected.
Carefully, almost gently, she removed his hand from her shoulder. She walked past him, without saying anything.
Upstairs in their bedroom Star took off her clothes very carefully, and hung them in the old painted wardrobe that they had never quite got around to replacing with fitted alcove models like those in the bedrooms of the other Grafton couples. In bed she turned on her side and waited.
Jimmy followed her up after a few minutes. She heard him in the bathroom, and then he came in and undressed. There was the clink of loose change as he emptied his pockets on to the dressing table. As she lay there Star remembered other evenings that had followed this pattern. She thought, if he tries to touch me, wanting to show what he can do, then he hasn’t been with anyone else. If he doesn’t try, then I’ll know he has.
There was a draught of cold air on her skin as he lifted the covers. Jimmy lay down, turning his back as he composed himself for sleep.
The next day Star telephoned Nina. She felt like some labor-atory animal that had explored all the avenues leading out of a cage and found them blind, except for one that she could not remember encountering before. As she listened to the ringing she imagined Nina in her studio, although she had never seen it. It would be tidy and full of white light.
‘Nina, this is Star. Can we meet? I’d like to talk. I thought I’d forgotten how to, and then I half remembered on our walk. I enjoyed our walk.’
There was a brief silence and then Nina’s warm response. ‘So did I. I’m glad you called. Come round and see me. When? Are you busy this evening? I could make us some supper.’
‘Thank you. I’d like that.’
Star was surprised by the house. Nina showed her over it, right up to the studio at the top. There were pale walls, a very few pieces of furniture, most of them antiques that looked impressive even with Star’s limited knowledge of such things. She liked the feeling of space and