Authors: Maggie Ford
The statement sounded vehement. Was it a hint that he might one day take up his life with her? He wished she wouldn’t make those sort of comments. He loved Susan. But what was love? A bonding of two like souls, each helping the other without thought of self? Or was it this overwhelming, mindless desire for someone who selfishly destroyed? One endured of course, yet the other was all-consuming. What if he were to take Jenny on and Susan came crying back? Would he have strength enough to reject the one who’d torn him apart and cling to the one who’d been steadfast all these years without hope of gain? The thought frightened him, but he wasn’t contemplating proposing marriage to Jenny, was he?
‘Let’s leave it,’ he told her almost savagely. ‘Just enjoy the afternoon, shall we?’
She was equally sharp. ‘Yes. Shall we? If that’s what you want.’
‘That’s what I want,’ he snapped back, faintly surprised at her tone. It wasn’t like her. She was usually so mild-mannered.
He lifted his face to the sun and tried to forget it as she went quiet. Not moody, Jenny was never moody, but he could sense anger simmering inside her. This was a side of her he’d not seen before. An odd tingle of new respect for her went through him, warm as the sun on his face. He let the warmth soak in and tried not to think of Jenny or Susan or anything.
It was a sweltering summer. Temperatures had been soaring into the eighties; newspapers announced it as sizzling, with photos of eggs frying on pavements, toddlers naked by the sea, tarmac bubbling. Only the holiday-makers revelled in the heat. For himself, having known the humid sweat-bath of a Burmese jungle, this English summer could be comfortably endured lounging on a bench beside a shingle path. Victoria Park again looked beautiful, its railings restored, its lawns, where he’d been told ack-ack guns had once run up and down ploughing up the grass, once more verdant and immaculate. What had been allotments were now replanted with shrubbery and bright flowers.
It was peaceful sitting here, far from the problems the country faced. Food rationing was still going on, the government was still trying to repay America’s Marshall Aid loan. Attlee talked of the country as being engaged in another Battle of Britain and the cost of cigarettes had risen to three shillings and fourpence. India, Ceylon, Pakistan and Burma all wanted to break away from British rule with resultant massacres; at home the rising cost of living plagued everyone.
It all came a poor second to his own problems, with this damned divorce business. For all his efforts trying not to think about it, he was. He felt so powerless even though he could stop it at any point. But soon it would be too late. It was as if he was being driven towards a cliff edge, unable to cry out, but he could watch the precipice drawing nearer, his life ceasing to exist. Why didn’t he call a halt? He could still grab the wheel of his own fate and turn it from what they were all telling him was inevitable. Why didn’t he? Because breaking this marriage
was
inevitable, if not now, then at some time. He couldn’t
make
Susan love him, could never reawaken those feelings she had once had for him. But, dear God …
‘I still love her, Jenny,’ he said, and his voice broke.
Sitting beside him, Jenny knew he hadn’t heeded a word she’d said. He remained lost in his own world, hoping all would come out the way
he
wanted it to come out. But it couldn’t. Others were making sure this broken marriage did not mend, his parents, his solicitors, his wife.
Then there was herself – she too exerted an influence on him. She knew it from the way his face brightened when he saw her, though since that day in October he seemed to be holding her at bay. Before then their friendship had been easy. Now, when she came to his home, he would get up and go out into the garden or somewhere upstairs, anything to avoid being with her in the presence of his family. Yet he readily accepted the opportunity to be with her alone, as he was now.
‘I expect you’ll always feel that way about her,’ she returned, studying a squirrel that had scurried down from a tree to investigate a bit of dry bread dropped by children going to feed the ducks. As it nibbled it kept one eye on the couple on the bench for a more likely morsel.
She was conscious of her voice sounding strained. ‘But it’ll serve you to no avail, you know. You do know, Matthew?’
She felt her heart shrink as he turned on her. ‘What do you know about it?’ Immediately he caught himself. ‘I’m sorry, Jenny, I didn’t mean that to sound like it did,’ he said, then justified it by repeating himself in a different way. ‘But you can’t know how I feel about her.’
‘Perhaps I do,’ she countered softly, only to reap more bitter reaction.
‘You sound like my mother.’ This was accompanied by a cynical curl of his lips.
She had no reply to that. Something inside her was growing angrier by the second. Usually she curbed it, waited until he calmed down and tried to vindicate his hurtfulness, but this time her patience had no power and the anger exploded before she could catch it to hold it back. She turned on him, her grey-green eyes blazing.
‘That’s it, Matthew. Go on feeling sorry for yourself.’ At her raised voice, the squirrel dropped its piece of stale bread and scurried back up the tree, but she did not see it go. ‘I’ve just about had it up to here, Matthew. I do try to see your point of view. I do feel sorry for what’s happened to you and I know I’m being unfair, that no one who’s not suffered what you have can know what it was like, for all the stories and pictures we’ve seen. And now this on top of everything. But I’m only flesh and blood. Now do I sound like your mother? I want to help and I feel so useless, and I love you so much, Matthew. Yes I do know
exactly
what it’s like to love someone who doesn’t love you, when nothing can be done about it. I know it like mad.’
Tears were springing from her eyes. They rolled down her cheeks. ‘I wish I was small and dainty and had someone to be crazy over me, as you are with
her.
But I’m not the sort of girl you fancy, am I? I’ve never been the sort of girl you fancy. Well, if she’s the sort you fancy then you’re welcome to her. That’s what I say. But is that supposed to alter what I feel inside? You’d rather run after someone like her and let your heart be torn out of you while you grovel at her feet, pleading for her to come back and hurt you all over again. Well, honestly, Matthew, if that’s what you want, I might as well just give up. No point me being your friend forever and ever. Damn what I feel.’
He was staring at her, the expression on his thin, handsome face one of confusion. Surely he couldn’t be so naive as not to have some inkling of how she felt about him? She had said too much, had revealed her heart to him when she hadn’t intended to. She felt exposed, but she was too angry with him to care. And now she fought to recover her composure, savagely sweeping the tears away with the back of her hand.
‘What does it matter anyway? I’ve got a good career in nursing and that’s all right with me. I don’t suppose I’ll ever marry, not now. I’m not the wife type. I’d only start bossing him about, whoever he’d be. I’m the bossy kind, you said so yourself. Like your mother. I suppose if I was like your wife you’d be letting me wipe the floor with you. I don’t think I could ever bear that – from you.’
He was looking at her in a strange way, studying her, his dark brows drawn together. ‘Jenny, I’m sorry. I didn’t intend to upset you.’ He was always being sorry.
She shrugged and looked away from him as he went on inadequately. ‘You’re the last person I’d want to hurt, you know that.’
Jenny said nothing, very much in danger of refuting the statement. He didn’t seem aware of it.
‘I’ve only been thinking of myself all this time. I never once stopped to consider how you feel in all this. Even when you said you loved me, I could think of no one else but Su …’ he hesitated over the name, but plunged on. ‘Susan. All I’ve ever done is abuse your friendship. Your real friendship. Using it and giving nothing back, especially knowing how you felt about me. Jenny, I wouldn’t hurt you for the world. You’re the only decent thing that has ever happened to me, and …’
As he broke off, she turned to see him still gazing at her, realised he hadn’t once ceased looking at her, even though she had turned away from him. Now he put his hand out and laid it on her upper arm. She could feel the warmth of the hand penetrating the thin material of her summer dress.
He was drawing her gently towards him, his voice husky. ‘I couldn’t have gone on without you. I know the thought of her still consumes me, and I know I’ve got to fight it. But I know you’re worth two of her, Jenny.’
His other hand took hold of her, he was pulling her closer to him. When his face was inches away from hers, she felt his lips touch her cheek.
No, it was too much. He had no right. He was taking it upon himself to offer comfort with a kiss on the cheek. She made to turn her face aside from the insult of that friendly peck, the sudden move causing her lips unintentionally to brush his.
All at once she found herself unable to break away as the pressure of his lips on hers became instantly firm. In that second all her love for him poured out to encompass him. With a small choking sob, Jenny let her arms wrap themselves about his neck as if they had a will of their own, and to her astonishment his arms encircled her in response. The squirrel in the tree ceased scratching at the bark to look down at a young couple in a close embrace, the girl crying, the man holding her, kissing her gently now, and murmuring soft words of comfort.
‘It’s all right, Jenny. It’s all right.’
‘I’m sorry, Matthew. I shouldn’t have …’
‘No, you should. I’ve been damned stupid, selfish.’
‘But you don’t love me. You can’t. You love …’
‘I don’t really know any more what love is. What I do know is I can’t imagine being without you, Jenny. You’ve become part of my life.’
The squirrel, looking down, heard only a meaningless chatter of human sounds and went on exploring his own world, seeking food and, instinctively searching for a mate with whom to procreate his own species.
Below, if Jenny was expecting the words, ‘I love you, marry me?’ she was doomed to disappointment. The kiss had been emotional but an accident. She knew that later he would be embarrassed at having been carried away on a wave of brief, profound affection. She knew that too. She’d ruined everything in a weak, thoughtless moment. In the meantime they would walk home together as though nothing had happened.
What she didn’t know about were the new feelings she had awakened in him.
Jenny took the envelope her mother held out to her: ‘It’s addressed to you, dear,’ and stared at the unfamiliar handwriting. She rarely received mail other than
The Nursing Journal.
Her friends were local nurses with no need to write, seeing them every day. Her first thought was that it was from one of the old group in the QAs but the postmark was local. It was the small uneven handwriting that gave her the first clue as with the edge of a thumbnail she slit open the flap to withdraw a single sheet of cheap, blue-lined notepaper. She cast her eyes to the foot of the letter, noting the name.
‘Who’s it from, dear?’ queried her mother with interest.
‘Matthew’s wife. Why should she be writing to me?’
‘Odd.’ Mrs Ross moved to lean over her shoulder. ‘She won’t be his wife for much longer. The divorce comes up in two weeks’ time, so I hear.’
Jenny nodded, already reading, ignoring the misspellings:
Dear Jenny, I thought I’d write to you becaus I need some advise from you if its possible. Im ever so worried and I don’t know what to do. As you know the devorce comes threw in a couple of weeks time and Geoffrey. Thats the man I am living with. Geoffrey is acting very strange. I think he’s worried about the devorce but he is not as nice to me as he used to be. Im getting ever so worried. I wanted to talk to Matthew but I cant very well ask him direct after all this time and I was wandring if you could have a word with him on my behalf so as to pave the way so to speek. I know youve always been a good friend of his and perhaps you can act as a go between like. I will be waiting for your reply and hope you can help me. Thank you. Susan Ward.
‘Well I never,’ breathed Mrs Ross in Jenny’s ear. ‘That’s a cheek if ever there was. You’re more than friends with him nowadays from what you’ve told me.’
Jenny had told her about the incident in the park several weeks earlier, full of hope that in voicing it she could make love come true. What she hadn’t mentioned was Matthew’s reticence since then, just as she’d predicted but hadn’t wanted to believe. His true feelings remained a mystery, leaving her alternately filled with hope and despair: perhaps he was battling within himself as to whom he needed most, perhaps needing to come to terms with it; or again perhaps his inane pursuit of that worthless cat dominated him still and he hadn’t the heart to tell her she must forget what had happened. Maybe he’d been too taken up with the finalities of the approaching divorce to think of anything else as yet, but would once it was all over. Then again, maybe he still had hopes of the divorce never taking place and hadn’t the courage to tell her that either. Time and time again a flood of anger would pour through her at the unfairness of being strung along. He was not man enough to tell her the truth and still her churning soul one way or the other.
This time she held it in, so as not to give him even more reason to fend her off. Outwardly they behaved as they had always done, still talked about all sorts of things – everything but the one thing that mattered to her. Her pent-up emotions were doing odd things to her. One minute she saw him as weak, the next she swept the thought aside in a fit of remorse, for whatever he was, she loved him. And he wasn’t weak. He wasn’t. He was merely terribly confused. Once this divorce was over he’d have to forget Susan.
But now she must hand him Susan’s letter, stand by and watch his reaction; felt she knew already what it would be.
These closing hot days of summer they had continued to frequent the park together. He seldom wanted to go anywhere else, but now as they sat on a bench or on the lawn watching other late-summer sun-worshippers, picnicking families, children, people walking dogs, they didn’t touch. They spoke of trivial things. Matthew never spoke of his wife now or the imminent divorce. It was as though neither existed and she hadn’t dared bring up the subject lest she drive him further from her.