Cornelius would hate it, of course, but what could he do? I’d write my own ticket. I’d have him by the balls.
I moved to the phone, and when the English butler picked up the receiver in the Van Zale mansion I never hesitated.
‘This is Mr Keller, Carraway,’ I said in my most charming voice. ‘May I please speak to Miss Vicky?’
[1]
‘Sam’s married Vicky!’ gasped Cornelius. He could hardly speak. His breathing was erratic.
I allowed myself three seconds to register this monstrous news before I paid full attention to his condition. ‘I’ll get your
medication,’ I said, slipping out of bed. ‘Lie down.’
He was standing in the doorway which connected our bedrooms but when I spoke he obediently groped his way to my bed and subsided
among the pillows. He was a bad colour and in considerable discomfort.
In his bathroom I found the phial, removed two tablets and filled a glass of water. I had lived with him too long to be frightened
by his asthmatic seizures but I was upset because I knew how much he hated me to see him in such a humiliating condition.
Half an hour passed with agonizing slowness. I wanted to send for the doctor but the suggestion was rejected. Cornelius was
an expert at diagnosing the severity of each attack, and just as I was on the point of overruling his decision he became better.
Even so, it was still another twenty minutes before he attempted to speak. His first words were: ‘This is the worst day of
my entire life.’
‘Now calm down, Cornelius, or the asthma will come back.’
‘SAM’S MARRIED VICKY!’ he shouted at me.
‘Yes, dear. I can’t imagine why you should be so upset. Wasn’t this exactly what you wanted?’ I stooped to straighten the
bedclothes.
Rolling over Cornelius buried his face in the pillow with a groan. His bright hair curled on the white linen, and taking advantage
of his averted face I sank down on the bed and touched the nearest strand. Since hair has no sensory nerves he felt nothing,
but I still held my breath for fear he should be aware of me.
I had just withdrawn my hand reluctantly when he flung himself over on to his back again, and the abrupt movement pushed the
bedclothes below his waist. His pyjama jacket, which I had unbuttoned at the start of the attack, was open and I saw he was
still faintly sunburnt from our Caribbean vacation in February. Below the crisp golden
hairs which covered a neat oval in the middle of his chest I could see the fine bones of his ribs and the hard smooth masculine
texture of his skin.
‘I heard the phone ring,’ I said at last. ‘Where were they calling from?’
‘Annapolis. They were married this afternoon in Elkton, Maryland, after fulfilling those token residency requirements. Apparently
the story Vicky handed us about staying with an old schoolfriend at Chevy Chase was a complete fiction and Sam met her off
the train as soon as she arrived in Washington from Velletria.’
‘I don’t understand,’ I said politely, watching the clumsy knot in the cord of his pyjamas but averting my gaze before it
could rest on the shadowy lines beneath the material. ‘Why did they feel they had to elope?’
‘Sam knew I’d turned right against the idea of him marrying Vicky.’
‘You had? Why didn’t you tell me? I never knew!’
‘The whole subject had caused us such problems that I didn’t want to drag it up again.’
‘But what made you change your mind?’
‘I … got myself into a mess. Accidentally. And I didn’t trust Sam not to compound it.’
‘What on earth are you talking about?’
‘The operative words are: “I didn’t trust Sam.” I only wanted Vicky to marry a man I trusted one hundred per cent.’
‘But—’
‘Forget it. I don’t want to talk about it any more.’
Hearing the abrupt note in his voice I tried to change the direction of the conversation before he could terminate it by returning
to his room. ‘Well,’ I said briskly, ‘what amazes me is not that they decided to get married. After all, Vicky’s very lovely
and Sam, though plain, is far from being an unattractive man. Of course I doubt if it would have occurred to him to marry
her if you hadn’t put the idea in his head in the first place, but that’s neither here nor there. No, what amazes me is that
Emily could have let this happen. Vicky’s been under her nose for two whole months – six weeks in Europe and now these last
two weeks in Velletria. Surely she must have suspected something was going on! Sam must have been in touch with Vicky – there
must have been letters and phone calls—’
‘Not necessarily. He probably sewed the whole thing up when he made that surprise trip back to Europe at the end of April.
I never really believed his story that one of our clients wanted to expand into the international market.’
‘But he was only in Paris for a week!’
‘Alicia, Sam could take a corporation, analyse it, dissect it, restructure it, merge it, parcel the shares out among the selling
syndicate and bank the profits all within the space of forty-eight hours. Don’t tell me he couldn’t sew up his own marriage
in a week!’
There was a pause while he sipped some water. He was leaning on his right elbow with his back to me, and I was conscious of
the gap between the pants of his pyjamas and the jacket. Stretching out my hand I let my fingers stop a millimetre from the
skin.
‘What are you going to do?’ I said mechanically, withdrawing my hand as he set down the glass.
‘What can I do? He’s got me by the balls.’ This crude figure of speech, quite unlike the language he usually used in front
of me, both revealed the degree of his distress and made him more aware of his surroundings. He buttoned his jacket, surreptitiously
checked the fly of his pants to make sure it was closed and thrust back the bedclothes. ‘Let’s both get some sleep,’ he said,
leaving the bed and moving to the communicating door between our rooms. ‘It’s after midnight.’
‘But Cornelius—’ I had been so hoping that he would spend the rest of the night in my room that I automatically tried to delay
his departure.
‘Perhaps it won’t be such a disaster after all,’ I said quickly. ‘Sam’s fond of Vicky, and despite what you say I’m sure you
can trust him to do his best to be a good husband. Of course it’s a pity Vicky hasn’t married a man who truly loves her, but—’
‘Oh Christ, don’t start on your obsession with Sebastian again! It’s so downright unhealthy!’
‘Not nearly so unhealthy as your fixation about your daughter!’ I blazed, and then flinched as he slammed the door behind
him without bothering to reply.
I sank down trembling on the edge of the bed. Time passed but I did not move.
I had just resigned myself to my isolation when he slipped back into the room. He had reknotted the cord of his pyjamas but
his pants still sagged at the waist because he was so slim. Sitting down on the bed beside me he put his hand over mine.
I sat looking at his beautiful hands which should have belonged to an artist, and for a moment pictured them drawing some
exquisite picture or perhaps playing a Chopin nocturne. But Cornelius played no instrument and nowadays consigned nothing
to paper expect his signature. I had only received two letters from him in my life; he had
written to me in hospital after I had given birth to the second child of my first marriage. I had kept the letters and now,
eighteen years after Andrew’s birth, I occasionally reread them to remind myself of a time when communication, even by the
written word, had been easy and direct.
After the silence between us had persisted for a full minute I said levelly: ‘I’m sorry to detain you by making such a stupid
remark. You really should lie down and relax now or the asthma will get worse again.’
Without hesitation he climbed into my bed, and when I turned out the light and lay down beside him his fingers at once intertwined
with mine. We lay like that for some time, joined yet separate, he with his thoughts, I with mine, and just as I felt I could
no longer endure the tension his hand relaxed in mine as he slept.
I waited till I was sure he was sleeping deeply. Then I drew his hand against my body and pressed as close as I dared to him
in the dark.
[2]
He awoke at dawn. I felt his fingers curl involuntarily against my thigh and in a flash I too was awake, panic-stricken for
fear he would realize I had placed his hand where I most wanted him. Pretending I was still asleep I moved fractionally so
that his hand could slip free.
We were still. With relief I thought he had fallen asleep again but then he said quietly: ‘Alicia,’ and when I did not answer
he switched on the light.
The glare dazzled us both. When I could open my eyes I saw he was still shading his face with his hand, and I had three seconds
to watch the line of his arm and shoulder before he let his hand fall. I quickly looked away.
‘Alicia—’
‘No, don’t let’s talk, Cornelius. How are you going to get through a day at the office unless you have more sleep? This is
the wrong moment for talking, and anyway there’s nothing to talk about.’
‘My God,’ he said, ‘sometimes I really do think we’d be better off divorced.’
It was no longer possible to speak dispassionately in a cool voice while I pretended I was half asleep. Sitting bolt upright
I shoved the hair blindly out of my eyes and shouted at him: ‘Don’t say that! How dare you say that! You must, never, never,
never say that again!’
‘But I can’t bear to see you so unhappy.’ He was in despair. His eyes
were bright with pain. ‘I love you so much I can’t bear it. I thought that after last April we’d found some sort of solution,
but—’
‘Cornelius,’ I said, somehow recapturing my crispest, most sensible voice, ‘I think it would be the greatest mistake to choose
this moment, when we’re both so overwrought, to review the decision we reached last April, but just let me say this: our decision
was the only possible one in the circumstances, and I’ve been most relieved to see that it seems to have been working out
well. You now have a satisfactory mistress. I’m delighted. Nothing could please me more. I know for the moment I’ve chosen
to remain alone but that’s my own personal decision and there’s no need whatsoever for you to worry about me. Please rest
assured that I’m perfectly happy, and although of course I regret that we’re no longer as close as we once were, you should
know that I’ve completely accepted our new relationship and remain thoroughly contented with our marriage.’
He lay motionless in bed. He was watching some distant point above the picture on the far wall. ‘But if you’ve accepted it
and I’ve accepted it,’ he said slowly, ‘why aren’t we at peace?’
‘These things take time. One can’t turn from a sexual to a platonic relationship as easily as flicking a light-switch. Now
Cornelius, you must stop treating this situation as if it were in any way odd or unusual. Most couples don’t sleep together
anyway after they’ve been married for eighteen years. It’s nothing out of the ordinary.’
‘I wonder what would have happened if—’
‘That’s the most dangerous phrase in the English language. Please don’t use it. I hate it. It’s always the prelude to some
pointless reminiscence which is best forgotten.’
‘But I don’t see why we should have to suffer like this—’
‘There’s no suffering. We’re extremely fortunate and happy. We have money, we’ve kept our looks, and although your health
isn’t always good it hasn’t stopped you from having a successful satisfying career. We have three wonderful children, and
although I admit your daughter often drives me to distraction I’m at heart as devoted to her as I know you are to my two boys.
Of course it’s sad that we have no children of our own, but if I’ve accepted it totally – as I have – then I think you should
too. There’s no need for you to feel guilty, Cornelius. I’ve been saying this to you now for so many years, but I’ll say it
again if there’s any chance that this time you can finally bring yourself to believe me. What happened, happened. You didn’t
choose to get sick back in 1931. It wasn’t your fault. It was like an Act of God.’
‘Acts of God come and go. They don’t go on and on and on—’
‘This is sheer self-pity, Cornelius. I know it’s difficult for a man to
come to terms with the fact that he can’t father children, but think how much more difficult life would be if you were not
only sterile but permanently incapable of intercourse. In one of my soap operas the other day, the hero got polio and now
he’s paralysed from the waist down with the result that his wife—’
He groaned. ‘Please! Isn’t it enough that we have to cope with real life? Do we really have to cope with imaginary people’s
imaginary problems as well?’
I laughed, and when he saw I was amused he was able to laugh too. The tears were burning behind my eyes. Turning my head sharply
away from him I saw our reflection in the mirror across the room, a happy handsome couple relaxing in an elegant sumptuous
suite.
‘I love you very much,’ he said. ‘You’re the most wonderful woman in the world.’
‘I love you too, darling.’
The mirror seemed to absorb our words and make them as unreal as our reflection. I thought of all the magazines stories I
read about true love, marital bliss and happy endings, and suddenly the reflection in the mirror was a mere blur as if reality
had triumphed at last over the dreaming images of the mind.
‘Alicia …’
I should have stopped him but I did not. I was weak as well as foolish, clinging to him as he started to kiss me, and so it
was together that we wiped out all the painful progress we had made towards achieving a peaceful platonic relationship. We
were back where we had started before the catastrophe of our quarrel the previous April, and nothing had changed, least of
all the grief and the acute unendurable frustration.
When the failure could no longer be ignored he said to me: ‘Let’s do what we did before we were married – when you were still
pregnant – when we couldn’t – when I couldn’t—’
I had been weak and was now paying for the weakness by being forced to witness his immense humiliation and shame. For his
own sake, even more than for mine, I was now determined to be strong.
‘No,’ I said.
‘But I wouldn’t mind, I swear it – I’d do anything to make you happy!’
I knew very well he secretly hated any deviation from a sexual pattern which he considered to be normal. During the first
year of our marriage when our physical relationship had been perfect I had marvelled that such middle-class conservatism,
heavily swathed in puritan beliefs, could prove so erotic, but when I was older I realized that
Cornelius was erotic to me not in spite of his puritanism but because of it. I was reminded of stories of Victorian men who,
accustomed to women encased from the neck to the feet in elaborate garments, would swoon at the glimpse of a feminine ankle.
The sight of Cornelius discarding not only his shirt but his prim mid-western upbringing was still sufficient even now after
years of marriage to stimulate me to a fever of excitement.