A Willing Victim (33 page)

‘She
has
met the right one, Edward. And the right one, in her case, happens to be a woman.’

‘No. No! It isn’t true. It can’t be.’ In an effort to keep calm, Stratton tried to light a cigarette, but succeeded only in spilling matches all over the eiderdown.

Diana took the cigarette from him and lit it. ‘There you are.’

‘But it can’t be right. If she’s always been so keen on women, why would she want anything to do with Benson in the first place? And she’d had boyfriends before …’

‘Had she?’ Diana looked up from picking up the matches. ‘How many?’

‘Well …’ The truth was, not many at all. In fact, Stratton could only think of one, and that hadn’t lasted long. He thought of Pete’s words – Christmas, 1950 – he remembered that all right because it was just before Davies’ trial: “You want to get yourself a boyfriend, Monica – or perhaps you don’t.” He’d thought, at the time, that Pete was just being Pete, needling people, but perhaps his son had spotted something he’d failed – or perhaps refused – to see … ‘Anyway,’ he finished, ‘it still makes no sense that she would go with Benson, if—’

‘Yes, Edward, it does. She was trying to convince herself that she was, as you would put it,
normal
.’

‘How the hell can you possibly know that?’

‘Because Monica told me.’ The finality with which Diana said this removed Stratton’s last shred of hope. ‘Haven’t you ever wondered, Edward? It’s not as if you’re narrow-minded, and you come across everything in your work—’

‘Yes, but I don’t expect to come across it in my own family!’ As he spoke, his nephew Johnny, Reg’s son who’d only narrowly avoided Borstal, flashed through his mind.

‘Why not? Aren’t your family like other people?’

‘Of course they are. It’s just … How long have you been having these cosy little chats with Monica, anyway?’

‘It’s not as if we’re in league against you, Edward. We bump into each other sometimes at work, and …’ Diana shrugged. ‘You know how it is. You get on better with some of your colleagues than others, and you chat to them …’

‘Yes, but about work, not about things like
that
.’

Diana put her head on one side. ‘No, I suppose
you
don’t, being a man. But Monica and I became friendly because of you, really. And she wasn’t the one who raised the subject of Marion. I did. It was after Marion had come to the studio one day, and I saw them together and wondered …’

Realising that this was exactly what Pete had told him Monica had said about himself and Diana, Stratton said, ‘Did you tell her about the two of us?’

‘She asked me, so I said that yes, you and I were friends. That was one of the reasons I felt I could ask about Marion.’

‘And Monica told you she was in love with her?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you think it’s real? Not some sort of late-adolescent crush or … I don’t know … arrested development or whatever doctors call it? Because I’m sure this wouldn’t have happened if Jenny
was still alive, if … Oh,
Christ
.’ Stratton put his head in his hands. ‘It’s my fault, isn’t it? I’ve been so stupid. I thought she could look after herself – she was always so sensible – and then after that awful business with that shit Benson … Sorry, Diana. But all of this is my fault.’

‘No, Edward.’ Diana grabbed his arm and shook it. ‘You’re wrong.
None
of it is your fault. Look at me. Please, Edward. Please …’ Kneeling up, she put her arms around him. ‘Listen to me. Monica is the way she is because that’s the way she was meant to be and nothing you did or didn’t do would have made the slightest bit of difference. She didn’t want me to tell you. In fact, she asked me not to – she said that if you knew, you’d never want to speak to her again. She thinks
she’s
failed
you
.’

Pulling away from her, Stratton said, ‘Of course she hasn’t bloody failed me! I’ve told you, it’s the other way round. What the hell am I supposed to say to her now?’

‘How about that you love her? You do, don’t you?’

‘Of course I do!’

‘There you are, then.’

‘It’s not that simple, Diana, and you know it. People like that have terrible lives. They get laughed at, shunned … They’re unhappy. They end up committing suicide. We see it all the time.’

‘You see the tragedies. You don’t see the happy ones who’ve found somebody they love and who loves them, do you?’

‘No, but—’

‘As I said, there you are. And I didn’t tell you this to be spiteful or catty or anything like that, but because I thought you should know. I’ve thought so for some time.’

‘Monica obviously didn’t.’

‘No, but she wouldn’t, would she? But when
I
told you, a lot of things fell into place, didn’t they?’ Diana held up a hand. ‘Don’t deny it, because I could see they did. Would you rather I hadn’t told you? Because you’d have been bound to cotton on at
some stage, although I suppose you could have pretended it wasn’t true and kept on telling yourself she just hadn’t met the right sort of chap. But then it would have been a lot of lies, wouldn’t it, between the two of you?’

Stratton rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. ‘Yes, it would. And I don’t want that. But it doesn’t stop me from …’ Finding himself unable to express what it didn’t stop him from, and, for that matter, what it had started him on, and caught up in a tornado of conflicting emotions, some of which he couldn’t even put a name to, Stratton gave up on speech. Had Monica had eyes for Diana, too? Was that what had prompted her confession? Fighting to contain a sudden up-rush of sickness, he carried on rubbing his eyes until his head hurt and all he could see was a blizzard of black spots.

Diana rubbed his back. ‘I’m sorry, Edward.’

‘Sorry you told me,’ he mumbled, ‘or sorry about Monica?’

‘I’m not sorry I told you. I’m sorry about how I said it – I was a bit stung by the not-being-a-parent business, I suppose. And I’m not sorry for Monica, because she’s happy.’

‘So,’ said Stratton irritably, taking his hands away from his face, ‘what – or who –
are
you sorry for?’

‘You. That you’ve taken it so badly.’

‘How the hell am I supposed to take it?’ asked Stratton bitterly. ‘As a cause for celebration?’

‘No, but it’s not the end of the world, either.’

‘Possibly not, but it’s not what you’d call good news, is it?’

Diana sighed. ‘OK. Look, I spotted some brandy in the cupboard downstairs, and I think you could do with it. I’ll be back in a moment.’

‘You know,’ she said, sitting on the bed with her arms round her knees and watching him drink, ‘during the war, and then after, with all that business with Forbes-James and Claude, and then
leaving Guy and marrying James and him leaving me, and everything else that happened, it slowly began to occur to me – sort of piece by piece – that a lot of the ideas and values I’d grown up with, what I thought was right and the only way one should do things, was actually wrong – or at least not the only way of looking at the world. When I look back now, I see how impossibly naive I was, how unquestioning … I learnt that the hard way. You helped me learn some of it, but a lot of it I learnt from my own mistakes. I’m not the same person I was fifteen years ago, and I’m glad of it. You’re not, either, and the world’s changed, too. I know that all sounds pat, but it’s true – and I think it’s important to recognise it because things are going to change more before we’re in our dotage. A lot more.’

‘They’re bound to,’ said Stratton, wondering what she was getting at, ‘that is, assuming the Americans and the Soviets haven’t blown us up before we
get
to our dotage.’

Diana made an impatient gesture. ‘I mean, Edward, look at the two of us, here. We both know that I’m not ever going to be Mrs Stratton. We – I mean, in the sense of you and I, together – are living on borrowed time.’

‘Is this something else you’re trying to tell me?’ asked Stratton, wearily. ‘I know I’m not good enough for you, and if you’ve met someone else you’ve only to say—’

‘Stop! In the first place, you’re the best person I’ve ever known.’

‘Doesn’t say much for the rest,’ Stratton muttered.

‘Don’t be silly. In fact, just shut up for a moment and listen. In the second place, don’t be so ridiculous, there isn’t anyone else, and thirdly, all I was going to say was that we might as well enjoy it while it lasts because – as you’ve just pointed out – none of us has any idea what’s coming round the corner. After all, that’s why – or partly why – all those people at your strange Foundation place are looking for a different way of life, isn’t it?’

‘I’d say so, yes.’

‘Well, perhaps there’s something in it. Not
them
, particularly, but … well, it just comes back to seeing things differently. Monica being the way she is is
not
the end of the world.’ She leant over and kissed him on the cheek. ‘And when I said you were the best person I’ve ever known, I wasn’t just being kind. I meant it.’ Diana took the glass from him, kissed him again, and blew out the candle. ‘You should try to get some sleep.’

Stratton lay flat and closed his eyes, but he might as well not have bothered. His teeth were clenched, and every muscle in his body was rigid. Sleep was impossible. Logical or meaningful thought was impossible, too.
His daughter
was an invert. She was never going to settle down – at least not in the way he understood, marriage and children. He didn’t know who he was more angry with – Monica for being … like she was, Diana for telling him about it, himself for practically everything, or God for doing all this – anyway allowing it to happen – in the first place. He glanced over at Diana who was curled up beside him, apparently asleep. It was all very well for her to be so matter-of-fact about it. Monica wasn’t
her
daughter. And what about the rest of his family? Pete would be bound to treat it as a huge joke, at least on the surface, Doris would be appalled, Don would probably suggest Monica have treatment or a course of injections or some Christ-knows-what thing that was the latest in medical science, and as for Lillian and Reg …

What the fuck was he supposed to do? He could hardly rush off to Monica’s cottage, drag her away from Marion and lock her up at Lansdowne Road until she came to her senses. That wasn’t on, and anyway, according to Diana, she
had
come to her senses, which was why she was with Marion in the first place. And it wasn’t as if Marion was some predatory older sort – he’d met her, hadn’t he? She was Monica’s age, and not in the least butch. He’d always supposed – inasmuch as he’d thought about it at all
– that one of them had to be mannish and the other feminine, but obviously that wasn’t the case … Stratton shook his head. He didn’t want to think about it, but the problem was, he couldn’t
stop
thinking about it.

What would Jenny have said? The answer to that was, nothing, because whatever Diana said, he was sure that if Jenny were still alive Monica would not have turned out to be – Christ, he had to stop shying away from the word – a lesbian. The thing with Benson he supposed he could understand, a bit – an attempt to convince herself she wasn’t one – but the fact it had gone disastrously wrong couldn’t have helped. She must have felt so lonely and scared. Knowing that she’d been scared of him, on top of everything else, made him feel about an inch high.
She thinks she’s failed you
. That’s what Diana had said. It was like Jenny, before she died, not telling him she was pregnant. Surely he couldn’t be that much of an ogre? Or had Jenny and Monica both, in their different ways, thought they were trying to protect him?
He
was supposed to protect
them
, not the other way round.

In any case, who was he to judge Monica? She evidently couldn’t help what she was, and here he was – with his
own son
, probably at this very moment, risking his life in a theatre of war – lying in bed with a woman who wasn’t his wife. And it wasn’t, as Diana had pointed out, even as if they were doing it on account, so to speak. Hardly on the moral high ground, was he? Of course, Monica and Marion weren’t planning to marry, either, but then
they
didn’t have the choice. The world really
would
have to change in totally unimaginable – not to mention completely implausible – ways before
that
ever became legal. Stratton made a vague stab at trying to imagine the sort of society in which it might even be considered as a possibility, but gave up almost at once and returned to considering his own position. Sleeping with Diana would be a thousand – a million – times worse, of course, if Jenny were still alive, but it still wasn’t any sort of example to
set to one’s children. He wondered if they knew – or rather, guessed – that he and Diana sometimes slept together. Pete had, he was sure. What had he said?
Nice to know you’re human like the rest of us
. If to err was human, then he was far too bloody human, in almost every way possible. That was the problem.

He’d been surprised – shocked, even, although compared to the other thing it was pretty insignificant – when Diana had come straight out with the fact that they both knew she was never going to be Mrs Stratton. She’d been so different when they were talking; forthright and sensible. Which, he supposed, she was in the normal course of things – nowadays, at least, being a career woman and all that – it was just that they weren’t words he’d ever connected with her. She’d always been too special for that, too rarefied. But tonight, she’d begun to sound … well, almost like Jenny. He glanced across at her, but her eyes were closed and her breathing slow and even.

Stratton turned away from her and lay gazing at the window until the blackness round the edges of the curtains began to lighten, and the first birds began to sing. Then, slowly and quietly, he crept out of bed, shivering in the freezing room, retrieved his clothes, and slunk downstairs to dress before leaving so as not to disturb Diana. He stoked the range so that there’d be hot water for her when she woke up, and tore a page from his notebook to write her a note. He was standing at the kitchen table, pencil poised, trying to think of what the hell to write after ‘Thank you for dinner’, when he heard a noise on the stairs and a second later, she was standing in the doorway, wrapped in a dressing gown.