‘No.’
‘I’ll show you round sometime.’
‘Does Nerissa like it?’ I blurted, then bit my lip. I hadn’t meant to ask that.
The arrogant black eyebrows twitched into a frown. ‘What does it matter?’
‘She told me you were engaged, so it must matter to her!’
‘When did she tell you that?’
‘She called round a few days ago.’
He smiled, rather unpleasantly. ‘She’s a pretty little thing, isn’t she? But I’ve no intention of marrying her, as she knows very well.’
‘How very trendy!’
‘Don’t be sarcastic,’ he said absently. He seemed to be thinking something over. ‘You’d recommend marriage, would you, Tish? Everything in the garden coming up roses?’
Watchful green eyes …
‘Lettuce and peas mostly!’ I hoped my smile was convincing. ‘Yes, I have everything I ever dreamed of.’ (Except Fergal and/or a faithful husband.)
Since he was still watching me, I babbled on, ‘But I didn’t ask you – did you get that ring I sent you?’
‘That’s why I came.’ He patted the pockets of his black jeans and produced a small blue velvet box. (Amazing – I wouldn’t have thought there was room left for a door key in there, let alone a box.) ‘Here it is.’
I opened it to a gentle sparkle of blue and gold, and exclaimed in surprise, ‘Oh, how pretty! You wouldn’t think it was the same dirty, twisted bit of metal I picked up.’
‘I’ve had it restored, and taken advice about who owns it, and it’s yours.’
‘M-mine? I’m sure that can’t be right! Besides, you must have paid for it to be restored.’
He shrugged. ‘You found it, and you ought to have it – and wear it. The motto suits you: fidelity does deserve love.’
I eyed him suspiciously, but he looked quite serious, so I thanked him and slid the ring on to my finger, where it looked and felt strangely familiar. ‘Well, thank you, Fergal. I hope this means that we’re friends again?’ I ventured.
‘Friends?’ He savoured the word. ‘Is there room in your cosy little life for anyone except your wonderful husband?’
‘Of course!’ I said lightly. ‘I – oh, are you going?’
‘I have to see a lady about some cat food,’ he replied, picking up the box from which we’d been serenaded throughout our conversation with soft sounds of distress and temper: very appropriate really.
‘Mrs Deakin? She’ll also sell you a cat tray, bowl and flea powder!’
‘So she will.’ He smiled as he went past me. ‘But she can supply me with everything I need, don’t you think? Including the most up-to-date village gossip.’
Oh God, I hope not! I don’t want him to feel sorry for me (or know I’ve been lying through my teeth).
He paused on the doorstep and demanded abruptly, ‘Tish, just how pregnant are you?’
‘I’m not even sure that I am yet.’
‘That early?’ He scowled down at me. ‘Go and see your doctor. You’re too pale, and you don’t look well – and tell your husband he should be looking after you.’
Why does everyone want me to see a doctor? I don’t look that bad!
‘I’m just not sleeping very well.’ With a disintegrating marriage, who would?
‘You’re not worrying about anything?’
‘Me? No! Not a care in the world,’ I assured him, not quite meeting his eyes.
‘Then when you come up soon and see Greatness Hall, I expect you’ll be looking much better.’
‘See the Hall?’
‘Yes. I’ll show you round.’
‘Well – thank you,’ I began.
‘You can see how the cat is doing.’ He favoured me with one of his more enigmatic smiles. ‘Ciao, Angel.’
Later, when I’d calmed myself somewhat by making several jars of apple chutney (I don’t know why I find this kind of thing soothing, but I do), I discovered that Toby had let himself out of his cage and was chewing the corner of the cloth that covered the table it stood on, in a bored kind of way.
‘Hello?’ he said, fixing me with a beady gaze. ‘Toby want biccy.’
You’d swear he knew what he was saying sometimes!
As I lured him back into his cage with a trail of leftover sultanas, it occurred to me how very difficult it would have been having a cat about, when Toby might escape at any time.
So really, I should be feeling even more grateful to Fergal … only I’m not exactly sure what I feel about him at the moment, and it’s probably much better not even to try to find out.
Fergal: September 1999
‘Fergal Rocco – First exclusive pictures of the star’s new country home …’
Trendsetter
magazine
Once Tish’s husband knows about the baby, he’s bound to see sense and come running, and I’ll have to back off, even if I don’t think he deserves her.
And what makes me vain enough to think she’d have an affair with me, just because I caught her in a weak (and drunken) moment in London?
Do I think I’m so irresistible?
And why is she still so irresistible to me? Pregnant, and another man’s wife, and I only have to touch her, like yesterday, and I want her …
Why her? She’s not even really beautiful (unique, yes), she’s got prissy little ways, and one week in her company and I’d be so clean I’d squeak . .
.
It’s disconcerting having the real Fergal about, especially now I know he didn’t behave quite so badly to me. And he’s been kind. Perhaps he really isn’t as black as he’s been painted. (Just darkish grey.)
I bet he knows all about my marital difficulties now too. Maybe he did before and
that’s
why he was so kind.
But he could be wrong about the pregnancy. He’s only a man, how on earth could he tell from my face? I’m not even going to consider the idea. There’s already too much to think of without such a remote possibility.
Like that box belonging to James I found in the attic, when I was searching for the one containing all the old possessions I couldn’t throw out, but didn’t want around the house, including some mementoes of Fergal. Suddenly I needed to see them again – it was either that or go and strangle my interfering, impossible mother.
I might do that later.
As I pushed my box towards the hatchway I caught sight of another behind it, and remembered that James had stored some old things up there too, so I thought I might as well get those down while I was at it.
Compared to the several months’ fuzz of dust on my box, his was singularly free of it; clearly he’d been in it for something recently. I wondered what, and lifted the lid.
The top layer was crammed with letters: love letters. And the very first one I looked at was signed ‘Little Snookums Wendy’ – the bitch! I was right then, because I’m sure Wendy was the name of Alice’s sister. It all ties in.
Once I’d read all the letters I could see the double life that James had been leading since soon after we moved here, without stupid, credulous old me ever realising it.
But who would have thought he was clever enough to conceal it? I didn’t think he had such deviousness in him. And why on earth didn’t he keep his letters at the office, when I can see from the envelopes that that’s where they were sent?
Wendy’s letters show an increasing determination to hang onto him, and quite a bit of jealousy of me. I bet that’s why she made those silent calls.
And the day of the SFWWR dinner I’d seen him with her and he’d made
me
feel guilty!
Swine.
If I could be so deceived in the man I married, how could I ever trust anyone again? What with Fergal’s revelations and James’s infidelities, it’s as though my whole life has been shaken up like a kaleidoscope into a totally different pattern.
I received an answer to the letter I wrote to James before I found his hoard, suggesting that ‘now I’ve had a chance to cool off’ I’d be amenable to settling our trifling differences and resuming our marriage, so I sent him a postcard asking what he wanted me to do with all the love letters from his mistress. That should circulate round the village in record time.
Later I saw Bess in the distance with Margaret, but I turned and walked away through the whirling bronze leaves. Early autumn was always my favourite time of year …
The kitchen cupboards are still full of tins of dog food. I wonder if I could get a refund …
It’s no use, I simply can’t hide my head in the sand any longer. My abdomen is becoming spherical and I have a strange sensation round my bust … which is growing.
Fergal might be right.
I certainly don’t need this worry on top of all the others, so I’ve got a pregnancy testing kit – rather a pretty thing to put to so sordid a use. There were simpler kits, but who’d trust some sort of dipstick?
I’ve added an early-morning sample and must leave it for two hours: please let it be negative!
It wasn’t: it was blatantly positive.
I am shaking like a leaf at the thought of something – and something I don’t want – growing inside me, with nothing I can do about it.
There is abortion, but since it was my carelessness that caused the baby in the first place, I can’t very well murder the poor little thing, can I?
It must have been the barbecue – it’s the only possible time – which means I’m getting on for three months pregnant, I think, so it now has all its little fingers and toes and a heart beating in time with mine …
No, I can’t murder it.
But I just know when James finds out he’ll put my decision to throw him out down to softening of the brain caused by the pregnancy. I must press on with the divorce before he finds out – and I suppose I must see my doctor.
The doctor confirmed that I was pregnant, and seemed surprised when I told her the exact date of the conception. (Perhaps I should name the infant ‘Kebab’ or ‘Punch’?)
When I broke down and wept that I didn’t want it – I’d left my husband (sort of) and would make an awful mother, she went all Catholic and started waffling on about the Sanctity of Human Life.
The hospital antenatal clinic will send for me for a thorough going-over, and I get the impression my partially suppressed periods were not good news, though at least they have now ceased altogether.
I was in such a state I took a taxi home, where I was met on the doorstep by a thin, shivering, muddy Bess. Her frantic, affectionate and messy greetings were just what I needed to thaw my numb state of shock. I showered her, then poured half my bottle of conditioner over her, since I could see she’d be hell to brush. I still had to cut one or two really bad snarls out, but she looked a lot better afterwards, and wolfed down an enormous dinner. (Just as well I hadn’t returned the dog food!)
Considering how thin she is, her tummy really is a funny shape. I only hope we aren’t sharing a Similar Condition. It would be too ironic for words.
Since I’d forgotten to lock the door in the surprise of finding her, James just walked straight in later and demanded, ‘Have you taken Bess?’
Funnily enough, now I had the pregnancy to worry about, I’d ceased to be nervous about James: it was like looking at an alien but harmless being from another planet.
‘I haven’t taken her. When I got home she was waiting on the doorstep in a terrible state! What on earth have you been doing to her?’
‘Nothing! The silly bitch seems to have gone dotty, or something. Perhaps it’s catching?’ he added nastily, but the remark just slid off me. ‘She wouldn’t eat, she wanders round the flat howling when I’m at work, and Margaret can’t do a thing with her. You must have spoiled her.’
‘I spoiled her? I thought she was
your
dog?’
‘So did I,’ he sighed, and deflated a bit, like my soufflé the only time I tried making one. ‘But I suppose I was wrong about that and about a lot of other things too. Look, Tish, couldn’t we talk over a cup of coffee?’
I hesitated, but he seemed suddenly so unimportant and diminished that I led him into the kitchen.
Bess promptly tried to hide behind the Aga. He gave her a look of disgust. ‘That creature might as well stay with you, since it’s clear she doesn’t want anything to do with me any more. I don’t seem to be having much luck with females lately.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ I mused, getting out a second-best mug for his coffee, ‘you still have little Wendikins and Margaret to sympathise with you, and Mother to complain to.’
‘But – look here, Tish, you ought to let me explain about Wendy! The girl was nothing. She’s Alice’s sister, you know, and she made all the running. And I’m not seeing her any more.’
‘Aren’t you? Never mind, perhaps you’ll find someone else.’
‘What on earth do you mean? I don’t want anyone else! She didn’t mean anything to me – but you’re my wife, and I want you to stop all this nonsense at once. You must admit, I’ve been very patient.’
‘I expect you have, looked at from your viewpoint. I’m sure Bluebeard thought he was being perfectly reasonable, too. But you must stop thinking that I threw you out because I found out about the girl. I’d already made up my mind long before that. Wendy’s only made me even more determined on a divorce, not just a separation. We’ve both changed, and there’s no point in trying again.’
He opened and closed his mouth a couple of times like a rather dim fish and I added, ‘Anyway, our marriage didn’t even have going for it what I thought it had in the first place – on your side it was a sham. I’d rather be alone now.’
He looked at me with a sort of dawning horror. Had he really thought I’d dismiss Wendy as some sort of minor peccadillo, sob contritely on his shoulder, and beg him to return to me?
Certainly, patent uninterest was not what he was expecting.
‘Tish, what’s come over you lately? You never used to be so cold and hard – and I still love you!’
‘Do you?’ (‘
It’s love, Jim – but not as we know it!
’ said Spock’s voice in my head.)
In silence we sipped coffee-substitute and Bess cautiously emerged, looking pointedly at the biscuit tin. I gave her a ginger nut, and it vanished in a bite and a gulp. A bit like it does with Bob.
James heaved a long sigh. ‘Uncle Lionel warned me that you’d have small provincial ideas on fidelity if you ever found out about my bit of fun. But just remember that it’s not what I wanted, so don’t come running back crying in a few months and expect me to take you on again.’