her as much as he had always done. That he clearly did not
was painful, very painful, but she could possibly learn to live
with that. And there was more to a marriage, surely, than
sexual fidelity. There were other things that mattered as much to the stability of the family unit — financial security, social standing, professional success.
The more she thought about it, about this approach, the
more her spirits lifted. Of course it would not be easy, but it
would be easier than the other way. She would tell Tom
that night, tell him what she had discovered and what she
had decided, and he would be bound to do what she said.
Or find himself caught up in a very expensive divorce. He
was so sure of her, of her emotional dependence on him, it
would be quite amusing, pleasing even, to show him she
was not.
She felt odd, almost excited, pain and humiliation gone.
She wasn’t even sure what she felt for Tom any more: it
seemed to be very little. Well, that was good. The less the
better. As for The Woman, whoever She was — well, this
way she could deal with Her. This way she would win.
She got out of the bath, pulled on her robe and went
downstairs again, made herself a cup of herb tea — her head
was spinning quite badly — and went into the family room,
to wait for Tom.
It was after one when Tom came home; Octavia woke
from her slightly drunken, confusing sleep to hear the taxi
chugging in the street. She sat up, pulled her robe round
her, and sat waiting, dry mouthed, for the door to open, for
the confrontation with him and what he had done: she felt
very frightened.
She heard him go up to their room, then along to the
guest room, up to the top floor, and then his footsteps on
the stairs, coming down again, and still she didn’t move.
She couldn’t.
Finally the door opened, and he looked in, saw her; he
was clearly exhausted. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’
‘I didn’t want to see you,’ she said with simple truth,
sitting up, staring at him, breathing rather hard.
‘Why not?’ he said. ‘Why the hell not? And what the hell
were you doing today? Behaving as you did, letting me
down?’
The letting you down! Oh, Tom, I like that. I like that
very much.’
‘And what is that supposed to mean?’ he said, and she had
just opened her mouth in a rush of courage to tell him,
when he suddenly said, ‘Whatever it is, I’m too exhausted.
I’m going to bed. You sleep wherever you please. Safe in
the knowledge you have done great harm today. I hope
you’re well pleased with yourself
‘I’ve done harm! What harm am I supposed to have
done?’
‘Oh, I thought you’d be gloating over it. Being difficult
with Michael Carlton, practically ignoring the Macintoshes,
refusing to come out to dinner, embarrassing Aubrey and
me: how much more do I have to spell out? Well, if
Fleming Cotterill go down the pan, which is not impossible,
you might be interested to know, you can be quite
confident you contributed to it in your own inimitable
way.’
‘That is ridiculous! Of course I didn’t do anything that
would inflict that sort of damage. I wouldn’t, I—’
‘Oh, just stop it,’ he said. ‘Good night, Octavia. I’m
going to bed.’
He walked out, shut the door after him. She sat there,
staring at it,,.marvelling that even then her courage had
failed her, wondering why she was so afraid to confront
openly what he had done; it was as if it was she who was the
guilty one. She sat for a while, cold now, huddled in her
robe, and then decided she would go to bed herself. She felt
too frail, too confused to talk to him now.
She went up to the guest room very quietly, got into
bed. She had been there for a few hours when Tom slipped
into the bed beside her. She had been thickly asleep, did
not remember just for a moment everything that had
happened, turned to him, relaxed and warm. And then it
came back, ugly, violent, and with it the memory of how
she hated him; but in that moment, he had pressed himself
against her, taken her in his arms, moved his mouth to hen.
She pulled back, outraged, horrified, but ‘Don’t,’ he said, ‘please don’t. I’m sorry, sorry about what I said, come here, come to me please
‘I won’t,’ she said, sitting up, feeling breathless, her heart
pounding. The early dawn of high summer was just
beginning to break, she could see him looking at her; could
see him, unbelievably, smile at her, the rueful, sweet smile
of proposed intimacy, that she had always loved and now
must mistrust.
‘No,’ she said, again, ‘no, Tom,’ but he ignored her,
reached up his hand and began to outline her nipple very
gently with his fingers.
‘I want you most when you’re angry,’ he said, and she sat
there, wanting to hate him, wanting to be repelled by him,
but something extraordinary happened. Quite without
warning she looked at him, and through the violence of her
misery and shock and rage came a desire to have him.
Afterwards she was absolutely unable to explain it, was
ashamed even, that sexual hunger could be so strong, so
treacherous, but in that moment she only knew she wanted
him furiously, frantically.
How can I be doing this, she wondered, even as she felt
the familiar sweet sensations begin, how can I be lying here,
submitting myself to this, and not just submitting, savouring
it? How can I let him do this, how can I allow him to use
his hands, his mouth, how can I want him in me, how can I
feel myself growing round him, how can I, it’s terrible,
horrible, don’t, Octavia, don’t, don’t come! But it wasn’t
terrible and nor was it horrible, it was wonderful, unwelcomely
wonderful, as she rose and rose, higher and sweeter
and fiercer than she could remember for a long long time,
and then the sharp bright fragments broke around her and
within her; and she lay there afterwards, turned away from
him, shocked and wondering what sort of a creature was
she, that she could not just endure but enjoy, and enjoy
acutely, a sexual experience with a man she knew to be in
love with someone else, betraying trust, vows, love.
herself out of bed, went and stood in the shower for a long time, trying to explain it, to justify it. The nearest, she
supposed, was that she had wanted to feel desirable herself
still, not dull, not sexless, not someone to be set aside in
favour of another lovelier, more joyful body. Or perhaps far
worse — that she had found the thought of his sexual
treachery in some way exciting, arousing. That really
brought her to self-distaste, a sense of self-betrayal; this had
not been the behaviour of the sort of woman she had
decided to become.
Well, too late: much too late. She had done it, put herself
much further into Tom’s thrall. Too late now to say that
she knew, that she was shocked and disgusted by him, that
she wanted nothing more of him than the trappings of their
marriage; he would know it was not true. Despair filled her:
despair at her situation, at her marriage, most of all at
herself.
Her father phoned her as she was driving the twins to
school; trying to hear him, while negotiating the traffic and
at the same time trying to stop Gideon shouting at Poppy,
was impossible. She said she would ring him back and did
so, sitting outside Hill House; he had been worried about
her, he said; was there anything wrong? No, she said firmly,
nothing, and was then not too surprised to be asked why, in
that case, she had been crying at Ascot the day before.
‘Who on earth told you that?’ she said irritably, giving
herself away rather neatly.
‘Marianne saw you,’ he said shortly, ‘she was concerned
about you. Now, you would tell me if there was really a
problem, wouldn’t you?’
‘Yes,’ she said, thinking with something approaching
terror of his reaction if he had known what the problem
really was. ‘You know I would. I was tired and — well …’
Inspiration came to her. Her father was always deeply
embarrassed by anything of a gynaecological nature. ‘It was,
you know, hormonal problems. Bad time of the month.’
‘Oh,’ he said, and she could hear him digesting this, wondering whether to pursue it, deciding without too much difficulty not to. ‘I see. Well, I hadn’t thought of
something like that.’
It wasn’t until she had rung off that she realised in a
moment of brilliant, piercing relief, that it was actually all
right, that Tom need not know - yet - that she knew, that
she could actually bide her time, reassemble her self-respect,
and then still move safely into her new persona.
‘I’ll be honest with you, Mr Madison. I know you’d prefer
that.’
Duncan Fry had been a cancer specialist for almost thirty
years; he still found it as painful to inform patients and their
relatives about their prospects, or rather their lack of
prospects, as he had the very first time. And now here he
was telling a middle-aged husband that his wife of nearly
forty years had a tumour in her liver, a secondary from the
one he had removed from her breast, and in a very few
weeks she could be dead. Charles tried and failed not to cry.
Duncan Fry stood up and turned and looked out of the
window while Charles blew his nose and hauled himself
back under control, knowing that Charles would be
embarrassed by his own tears, that he was that kind of old
style Englishman.
‘Octavia, I feel absolutely terrible. I must have eaten
something last night, went to a sushi bar, can’t believe how
stupid of me … I just have to get home before I start
throwing up. I’m sorry, with this meeting with Michael
Carlton, but—’
Octavia looked at Melanie; she did look genuinely
ghastly, her large blue eyes shadowed and sunk somehow
deeper in her head, her whole face set with a greenish pallor. ‘Melanie, it’s fine. Honestly. Just go home and don’t worry about a thing. As they say.’
‘Please explain to Carlton that we have to do the usual
window dressing, as he’s linked with Tom, announce he’s
been chosen as sponsor from a shortlist of three, okay? And
could you ring Patricia David, she phoned for you this
morning, sounding very waspish, that’s an important
account, Octavia, we mustn’t—’
‘Melanie, go! We can cope.’ Octavia was rather meanly
relieved. At least she wouldn’t have to go through the
difficult process of explaining to Melanie about the
awkwardness of the Battles Wood connection. Yet…
Michael Carlton was clearly annoyed that Melanie wasn’t
going to be there, but in the end it was a fairly satisfactory
meeting; Margaret Piper was clearly very taken with
Michael Carlton, graciously delighted with the sponsorship
deal, agreed all his terms — the Carlton logo to be on all
stationery, promotional literature, to be prominently displayed
at any events.
When Mrs Piper left, Michael Carlton looked at Octavia
and grinned. ‘Charming woman. Well, it seemed to go very
well to me. How about lunch? We can talk about the other
business then.’
Octavia said briskly there was still nothing to talk about,
and that unfortunately she already had a lunch; she offered
him a drink, which he refused.
‘Never drink in the middle of the day. Well, thank you
for a good meeting, Octavia. Excuse me.’
His mobile had rung shrilly. He listened, barking out
yeses and nos, finally turned his phone off, turned to her,
his tone triumphant. ‘Well, that was interesting news.
Apropos of my earlier question. We come up before the
planning committee next week. With the Bartles House
development. There’s a strong rumour that we’re going to
get it. But I’m still going to need your help, Octavia, to win
the locals round.’
‘Michael, I really don’t think there’s anything I can do in
that direction. And they’ll appeal if you do get planning permission.’
‘Why do I get the impression you’re not entirely on my
side in this?’ he said, his voice hard edged suddenly.
‘It would be wrong of me to pretend I was entirely. I feel
rather emotional about the countryside. I can’t help it. But
of course I have to be pleased that Tom’s been able to help
you. Anyway, I shall wait to hear. Good morning, Michael.
Thank you for coming today. I’m sure this is going to be a
very fruitful liaison.’
She sat and stared out of the window when he had gone,
thinking about the undoubted beauty of Bartles Wood,
under threat of being bulldozed away, thinking that Tom
had helped to bring that about, thinking of Carlton’s
absolute confidence that he would be able to force her to
help him, and felt suddenly furiously angry.
And picked up the phone, as instructed, after all, by
Melanie Faulks, to a distraught Patricia David, who had also
heard a rumour that the development was to be given
planning permission, and heard herself saying that if there