A Bouquet of Barbed Wire (30 page)

H
E SAID
to her, ‘I feel the world’s gone completely mad and you’re the only sane thing in it.’ She did not know how to answer this, being only too conscious of the burden it imposed upon her. She could only think of things impossible to say (‘But I wanted to depend on
you’)
and so she became very silent and much more affectionate in order to fill up the silence. At the office it was easy to survive: she was shielded by routine and distance and the merciful presence of other people, but each evening in the flat she was at the mercy of his need. He talked endlessly about Cassie and Prue, how they had both let him down, how they were not as he had imagined them to be, how his whole life was based on fraud. ‘What would I do without you?’ he said fondly at intervals, and she kissed him to avoid answering. She began to feel pure terror, like a trapped animal. There was nowhere she could go. No one would take her in. The flat was supposed to be her home but he was in it day and night; she was never alone. She did not dare to drive the Jaguar in case he questioned her about it, so it sat in a side street, permanently parked, red and streamlined, mutely reproaching her. And at any moment Simon was expected back: the telephone might ring. She dreaded this and the explanations that must follow and yet she also longed for it, as for deliverance. She had left her new number with Annabel for anyone who might phone, except her parents. But the phone did not ring and she felt alone in the world. She sat with him, eating dinner or watching
television, and wondered how it was possible for her to feel so alone with someone in the room, and for him not to notice. He said, ‘I feel so comfortable with you,’ and squeezed her hand, and she thought, ‘No one has ever loved me before and now I don’t like it. What’s wrong with me?’ She could not even tell how she felt about him because she could not get back far enough to find out: there was no perspective to guide her. Sometimes she thought that if only he knew more about her it would be all right, but whenever she started to tell him, something would remind him of Cassie or Prue and he would be off again, talking for hours. He had given up visiting and merely telephoned the hospital asking for news. He seemed particularly incensed that Gavin was still staying at the house with Cassie and they both saw Prue every day.

‘G
EE, YOU’VE
been good to me,’ Gavin said on their last night.

Cassie merely smiled. It had been easy: he had been the most accommodating of guests. Up early and out for a walk, then studying in his room; cooking either lunch or dinner for her and refusing to let her wait on him, dividing visiting hours scrupulously with her and in the evenings playing cards or listening to music. He was the ideal guest and sometimes when she caught his face at a certain angle the memories were so sharp, the simularity so acute that she felt she had never looked at him before. It’s just a reaction, she told herself, a mad reaction to shock and strain. I am not quite myself. Or was it that she was now herself for the first time in years? She was scared, and it was rather delightful.

Gavin went on, ‘I don’t know if I should say this but do you think your husband will be back soon? I mean I hate to think of you here all alone.’

‘He’ll be back when he’s ready, I suppose.’ She smiled. ‘You mustn’t worry about me, really. I’ll be all right.’

‘I don’t know. I don’t think you’re so good at looking after yourself.’ He was quite serious and her heart turned over.

‘Maybe I haven’t had much practice. But I can learn.’

He frowned. ‘Would you like us to stay here for a bit? Prue needs to convalesce anyway and we could just as easily …’

‘No. You said you wanted to get her home and you’re right. That will do her more good than anything, I’m sure.’

‘Well, term will be starting soon. But … you could always come and stay with us. Hey, that’s a good idea, how about that? Why don’t you?’

She shook her head; she was surprised how much she wanted to agree. ‘No. You need to be alone. You really do. I’ll be all right.’

He leaned forward, clasping his hands; something on his mind. ‘Look, can I ask you something? Do you mind a lot, about him and his secretary? Because I always think these things aren’t important. Even if Prue … well, I mean I’d be sore, of course, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world.’

She said slowly, ‘No, it’s not the end of the world.’

‘I’m glad you feel like that. I mean it’s a shock and all that but it doesn’t really matter, it’s what’s between you that counts.’

‘Yes.’

‘He’ll be back,’ he said confidently. ‘I just know he will. He’d be such a fool not to come back.’

She smiled. ‘It’s nice of you to say so. But it’s a bit more complicated than that. We’ll see. You mustn’t worry about me, please.’

‘If I want to I will.’ He looked at her hard: the moment was peculiarly intense.

‘You’ve got enough to worry about with Prue,’ she said, retreating against her will.

‘Prue doesn’t need it. She’s tougher than all of us.’ He got up, began to pace about. ‘She scares me. I think she’s great but I don’t really know her and I don’t think she needs me.’

‘Oh yes, she does.’ Panic. ‘You mustn’t think that. I’m sure she needs you. I
know
she does.’

‘Oh, I think I have a function to perform in her life—though I’m not too clear what it is and that scares me. But the real me, me as a person, not a function, I don’t think she needs. I don’t think she knows who I am. She just takes what she needs and leaves the rest lying around. She doesn’t wait to be offered what you want to give. She makes her own
selection and that’s it.’ He shivered. ‘And that sure scares the hell out of me.’

Although Cassie had not thought in these terms before she found the analysis strangely penetrating. ‘Maybe we spoilt her,’ she said. ‘Maybe she just needs a firm hand.’

‘Yeah. That’s just what I mean. I’m a
person
. I shouldn’t be around to provide a firm hand—or to spoil her either, if it comes to that. She’s got to grow up.’

‘So have I. So has everyone.’

‘Oh, you,’ he said, stopping in front of her. ‘You’re grown up all right. I guess you always were. D’you know, it’s funny, I don’t know what to call you. I know I always called you Mrs. Manson but I can’t any more, it’s too formal. I haven’t had parents since I was a nine-year-old kid. I just rolled around from one aunt to another till I was fourteen, then I quit and took care of myself. That was eight years ago. You can grow up a lot in eight years.’

‘Yes, you can.’ Or a day. The estate agent’s board in the garden.

‘So what do I call you?’ He squatted in front of her chair so their eyes were on a level; clasped his hands and stared at her.

‘I suppose you call me Cassie.’ There was a pain in her chest where she had forgotten to breathe.

He grinned. ‘Do I? Gee, that’s nice; I thought you’d never say it.’

‘Well, I did. Now suppose you get me a drink.’ She did not want a drink but she needed one, and in any case, anything to get him to move.

He did not move. ‘Are we friends, Cassie?’

‘Of course we are.’

‘Really friends?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s good.’ He held out his hand. ‘Shake, friend.’ She put her hand in his, hesitating, and he pulled her towards him, quite slowly, giving her time to resist, and kissed her on
the mouth. At first she was quite still with shock, then she found herself kissing him back and hanging on to him as if she were drowning. He gathered her into his arms.

‘Poor baby,’ he said presently, rocking her, and she found she had started to cry. ‘Poor baby, never mind, it’s all right.’ He held her very tight with her face pressed against his shirt so she could hardly breathe and she sobbed like a lunatic for about two minutes: she did not even know what she was crying about. He kept murmuring above her head with soothing monotony like a litany, ‘There, baby, it’s all right, cry it out, I’ve got you, let go,’ mesmerising her, letting her wash it all away, whatever it was. When she had finished crying she felt wonderful, pure and drained and peaceful; she smiled at him with real friendship and said, ‘Thank you. Now will you get me that drink?’ feeling the danger had passed, but he still held her, both hands on her arms quite tight, and said simply, ‘Cassie.’ She began to tremble again; she said, ‘We’re not going to do this, you know.’

‘Aren’t we?’ His eyes were very dark and fixed on her face as if to hypnotise her.

“No. Of course not. After all—’

‘If you say you’re old enough to be my mother I shall hit you.’

‘Gavin, you’re being ridiculous. And taking advantage. Have you forgotten—’

‘Prue and your husband? No. Will you stop telling me things I know. Come here …’ and he pulled her down on the floor beside him. ‘There’s only one relevant thing you can say and I’ll stop right away. Say you don’t want to and mean it. That’s all.’

They stared at each other for a long time. She could feel his whole body trembling through the hands that held her.

‘We’re not going to do this,’ she said again, but presently, quite soon, she found she was wrong.

* * *

‘Don’t get dressed yet.’ He put up a hand to stop her and shifted position so he could look at her. ‘You have such a beautiful body.’

‘I’ve had three children.’ Moved and incredulous.

‘I know.’

‘And I’ve put on weight.’

‘Don’t argue with me. I think you’re beautiful.’

‘I’m forty-eight.’

‘So? I don’t care if you’re sixty-eight, you look great to me.’ He put his head in her lap, closed his eyes. ‘Cassie, Cassie.’ Opened them again. ‘Wow,’ raising his head to kiss her breasts. ‘Are you really Cassandra?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘How did that happen?’

‘My parents in a mad moment. Most uncharacteristic’

‘I like it. I hope you don’t have her gloomy gifts, though.’

‘No. I don’t think so.’

‘That’s good. Can I call you Cassandra?’

She didn’t answer for a long time.

‘Can I?’

‘When?’

‘In future.’

‘I suppose so. But it may sound a little odd; nobody uses it.’

‘That’s why I want to. Beautiful Cassandra, will you kiss me please.’

She bent her head with considerable discomfort and kissed him. He made purring noises, remarkably authentic. She said slowly, ‘I don’t believe this.’

‘Why not? It’s the here and now. What else can you believe? Didn’t I make you happy?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You know you did.’ She had forgotten what the vigour of youth was like, but even more astonishing had been the tenderness.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘I thought so. I’ve been wanting to for ages.’

‘Have you? I couldn’t be more surprised.’

‘Then you must have very little imagination. For months I’ve been thinking, My God, this woman, she’s so attractive. But that wasn’t enough. Then over the past ten days when I found we actually liked one another, we were friends, we were close, I thought, Wow, this is too good to be true.’

She smiled at the dark, sleepy head in her lap, hair tousled and damp with sweat. ‘No pangs of conscience?’

He looked surprised. ‘No. And you’re not to have any either. It’s a beautiful thing to make love to someone you love. Now I know and you know we’re not in love the way Prue and I are, but I
love
you, you as a person, and that has nothing to do with Prue or your husband, it’s just between us. When you think what we’ve been through together, you and me, the hospital and all that stuff and being here together all this time getting on so well, it would have been terribly wrong not to make love.’

Cassie smiled. ‘The complete amoralist.’

‘I don’t know what that means.’

‘Yes, you do. But never mind, it doesn’t matter.’

‘Yes, it does.’ He sat up, taking both her hands in his own. ‘I’m not making excuses for anything, I don’t have to. To say I love you if it isn’t true is wrong. To make love when you don’t even like someone is wrong. I’m very old-fashioned. I have my own rules and I don’t do things I know to be wrong. The only wrong things I’ve done in years have been hurting Prue. That was wrong, that’s why I felt so bad. If a thing is wrong you feel bad about it, that’s how you know.’

Cassie said gently, ‘Then if Hitler didn’t feel bad you mean he was justified?’

‘I don’t know about Hitler. I only know about me.’

‘No, you must know. Murder is wrong, and persecution.’

‘Sure. Sure I know. But Hitler was nuts. Say, how did Hitler ever get into this conversation? Cassandra, you’re cheating. I was talking about us and you drag in a lousy guy like that to put me down.’

‘No.’ She felt herself irresistibly smiling again. ‘Not to put you down. What a lovely expression.’

‘Don’t change the subject. You’re always changing the subject. Now listen to me. I’m not going to let you feel bad; you’ve done nothing wrong, do you hear? What’s worrying you, Prue or your old man?’

Cassie hesitated. ‘Both. But mostly Prue. And … well, the fact that I’m your mother-in-law, doesn’t that bother you at all?’

‘No, not a bit. Should it? I don’t go around putting lousy labels on people. Okay, let’s take it step by step. Your old man’s busy. Oh, he’ll be back but right now he’s busy. Prue’s in hospital. We’ve not done anything together that we could have done with either of them. If you don’t tell them they won’t ever know. I’m not a blabbermouth like Prue. As for the family bit, I just don’t see it. I don’t feel related to you and even if I did, what of it, what could be nicer? Prue’s Dad kind of fancies her, doesn’t he? Well, that doesn’t shock me. Oh, I know it shocks him and it shocks her, maybe it shocks you too, I don’t know. But my mom ran off when I was three, I don’t even remember her. And Dad died when I was nine. Now if my mom’s alive somewhere she may have remarried, she could have a different name, anything; she wouldn’t know me and I wouldn’t know her. We could meet and make love, what’s the difference? Maybe we already have.’

‘Oh, Gavin,
really.’

‘It’s the truth. My aunt even changed my name, so how would my mother know? But that’s not the point. The point’s how you feel, not who you are. And making people happy not sad. That’s all there is to it.’