Wicked Pleasures (90 page)

‘It’s Kendrick, Nanny.’

‘What about him? Has he gone?’

‘He’s gone back to New York.’

‘Well that was a short visit. Doesn’t he like it here any more?’

‘Not today he didn’t. Well he didn’t like me.’

‘He should make his mind up. I thought he wanted to marry you.’

‘Not any more, Nanny. Not any more.’

‘So what’s gone wrong?’

‘I’ve gone wrong, Nanny. Or rather I haven’t gone right, his way.’

‘You’re talking in riddles,’ said Nanny, as if her own conversation was always perfectly straightforward. ‘What are you going on about, Georgina? You always did have trouble expressing yourself.’

‘Oh Nanny, don’t scold me. I can’t stand it. The thing is, Kendrick wants us to get married and then for me to go back to New York straight away, and I told him I couldn’t.’

‘Why?’

Georgina stared at her.

‘Well because of Daddy, of course.’

‘Oh,’ said Nanny. ‘Oh, I see.’

‘I can’t leave him, Nanny, I can’t. Not even if it means losing Kendrick.’ She had started crying again, staring up at the ceiling, her face swollen and ugly. ‘He needs me. He needs me so much. And I love him, you know, I really really do. And I just don’t think he could manage without me. Not now. I can’t leave him, Nanny, I really can’t.’

Virginia, 1960

‘I can’t leave him, Nanny, I can’t. He needs me so much. And I love him, you know I really do.’

Nanny looked at Virginia. It was the latest in a long series of conversations. The first seemed a long time ago now, but it wasn’t really, only a few weeks. Virginia had been sitting in the small chair in the window in her bedroom; Nanny had been listen-ing to her crying for hours, and unable to bear it any longer had come in.

‘Is everything all right, your ladyship?’

Virgina looked at her and in spite of everything she managed to smile: a watery, lopsided smile.

‘Not absolutely, Nanny. Not absolutely. Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to worry you.’

She had been at Hartest nearly three months; a pale, rather subdued bride, struggling to make the adjustment to her new life, solitary much of the time, riding alone through the grounds, meeting her official commitments, making herself familiar with the house, its history, its demands. Alexander was still painfully proud of her, showing her off; only a month after they had reached England, he had insisted they gave a big party, to introduce her to all his friends and their neighbours in Wiltshire, supper for two hundred and fifty, in a marquee on the back terrace, with dancing afterwards. A great success, it was agreed, and it had been reported in the local press and even a couple of the London papers.

‘It was too much for you, that party,’ said Nanny, ‘I told Alexander, his lordship, that it was too much, too many people.’

‘Well that was kind, Nanny, but of course it wasn’t too much, I should be able to cope with a few people coming round.’ She giggled weakly. ‘You must think I’m hopeless. Really hopeless. Alexander should have married some stalwart Englishwoman with nerves of steel and an iron constitution.’

‘No,’ said Nanny simply. ‘I think you’re wonderful.’

Virginia looked at her, startled. ‘That’s really very sweet, Nanny. I don’t see anything very wonderful in what I’m doing.’

‘You’re making Alexander – Lord Caterham happy,’ said Nanny. She sounded stern.

‘Well – he’s making me happy,’ said Virginia determinedly, and then burst into tears again. ‘Oh Nanny, you’ll have to excuse me. I’ll be all right soon. Just tired, I suppose.’

‘Yes, I suppose,’ said Nanny. ‘Well I will leave you. If that’s what you want. Would you like anything? A cup of tea?’

‘I’d love a glass of wine,’ said Virginia. ‘It’s a funny time for it, I know, but that’s what I’d really like. Do you think you could ask Harold to bring a bottle into the library? I’ll be down in a minute for lunch.’

‘Yes, if that’s what you want,’ said Nanny. She implied that it couldn’t possibly be what Virginia wanted. She started to leave the room, then turned in the doorway.

‘I do know,’ she said, looking a little flustered, ‘I do know how difficult everything must be for you. I just thought I should say that. I’ve known Alexander ever since he was a tiny little boy.’

Virginia stared at her. A very faint hope that there was someone she might be able to share the nightmare with began to uncurl somewhere deep within her.

‘Well, Nanny, maybe you could be my friend. Maybe I could talk to you sometimes? I miss my mother particularly. She is such fun, Nanny, you’d really like her.’

‘Indeed?’ said Nanny, in tones that implied very clearly that she wouldn’t.

‘I did think,’ said Virginia wistfully, ‘that Alexander’s mother might have made some gesture for my birthday. Sent a card or something. But she seems determined to be hostile.’

‘She’s very nice really,’ said Nanny. ‘It’s unlike her to be unkind. She was always very kind to Alexander.’

Virginia looked at her, surprised. ‘Well she’s his mother, Nanny. She would be kind.’

‘It wasn’t always easy,’ said Nanny. ‘Lord Caterham, Alexander’s father, didn’t believe in kindness. He had to be stood up to.’

‘He sounds a very difficult man,’ said Virginia.

‘He was dreadful,’ said Nanny, and walked away. Virginia looked after her in surprise. It wasn’t Nanny’s style to criticize her superiors.

‘Alexander, I know it’s painful for you,’ she said after supper a few days later, ‘but I really would like to hear more about your father.’

‘Virginia, I do assure you that you wouldn’t like it.’

‘All right, I need to hear more.’

‘That is open to debate also, I would say.’ He looked at her, almost fearfully, and then managed to smile. ‘Why don’t we talk about something pleasant? Like your father?’

‘Alexander, please don’t keep running away from things. I’m here, I’m trying to do my best; but you have to give a little.’

‘I really cannot see,’ he said, ‘what good telling you about my father would do.’

‘It might help me. It might give me an idea.’

‘An idea of what, Virginia?’ He looked very cold, icily angry. Virginia faced him steadily.

‘Of how I might be able to help you. Of what we might be able to do.’

‘Virginia,’ he said, and the suppressed rage and misery in his voice made her shiver slightly, ‘I have told you. There is nothing we, as you put it, might be able to do. And your amateur, phoney American psychiatry least of all. Now can we please change the subject?’

‘No.’ She stood up, her own rage giving her courage. ‘No we can’t. I have a right to know, Alexander, I really do. Tell me about it. Otherwise I’m leaving. Right now.’

He looked at her and visibly weakened, his anger gone. At that stage in their relationship when they both thought it possible, even feasible, that she might leave, she could seriously frighten him with the threat. Later it was empty, invalid; they both knew she would never go.

‘Well – I told you. He beat me. Often. I – well, it gave him some kind of sexual thrill. Afterwards he would – oh God, do we have to do this?’

‘We have to do this.’ Virginia took his hand, held it, faced him steadily. ‘Please go on.’

‘Well – he would abuse me.’

‘You mean sexually?’

‘I mean sexually?’

‘Oh God.’

‘Well I can tell you He seemed fairly far away,’ said Alexander, with an attempt at humour.

‘And – your mother. Did she know?’

‘Yes of course she knew.’ He looked surprised. ‘He liked to threaten her with it. Threaten both of us.’

‘Alexander, this is awful. Dreadful. Why didn’t she leave him, take you with her?’

‘She did. Twice. But then he found us, both times. Used terrible emotional blackmail. And she didn’t have any money, and her own parents were dead, and then of course, you feel so foolish, so wretchedly foolish, being seen to be a victim, ashamed almost …’

‘Yes,’ said Virginia quietly. ‘Yes, you do.’

‘And I think in her own odd way, she was fond of him. Certainly she felt guilty about him. When he was in a good mood he had great charm, he was funny and immensely generous. He would suddenly rush her off to Paris, or Monte Carlo for the weekend, shower her with presents. Then they’d come back and she would make him angry, or I would, and the whole ghastly cycle began again.’

‘I remember reading a paper on this,’ said Virginia slowly, ‘on women as willing victims. Addicted to violence, to pain.’

Alexander looked suddenly cold again, withdrawn into himself, his mood of confidence lost.

‘I do loathe that American psycho-babble,’ he said. ‘Please don’t use it on me, it really offends me.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Virginia. ‘Alexander, did you tell the doctors all this?’

‘Oh, I did. Well one of them. A woman. An analyst. She was very clever, very skilful.’

‘And –’

‘Oh I don’t know. It didn’t do me any good.’ He sighed, and looked at her. ‘Look, I’m finding this very painful. Could we change the subject, please?’

‘Alexander, no, not yet. Did he – do anything else?’

‘Isn’t that enough? Not to me, no. But I would hear them sometimes.’

‘Hear them what?’

‘Oh, he would shout at her, hit her. And then –’

‘And then make love to her?’

‘Yes.’ The answer slid out of him, clearly taking him by surprise. ‘Yes. I knew that was what was happening. I learnt to know – the sounds. At first I thought it was pain, the same cries of pain I’d heard earlier, I hammered on the door once, I was a brave little boy you see, telling him to leave her alone. She came to answer it, dressed in her robe; she looked strange to me, wild, but not unhappy. She told me to go to Nanny. Nanny was always there.’

He looked at Virginia and there were tears in his blue eyes; he tried to smile at her. ‘It’s casebook stuff, I’m afraid. They all say so, the doctors.’

‘Alexander, when did you first try to get help?’

‘I’ve told you. I was eighteen, went to the GP.’

‘On your own?’

‘Yes, of course.’ He looked surprised.

‘You never talked to your mother about it?’

‘Of course not. How could I?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe not.’ She thought of her own inability to communicate with her parents. ‘Did anyone know? Apart from you?’

‘Well,’ he said, ‘as much as she was able to understand it, I think Nanny knew. I broke down one day, in front of her. She said could she help. I said no one could help. She pointed out she’d known me from the moment I was born, that it had been a very close relationship. She has a great sense of humour really, you know.’

‘I know,’ said Virginia. ‘I love her.’

‘Well, I said I had a problem. A physical problem. That I was seeing some doctors. And she said, and I’ll never forget it, she said, “Does that mean you won’t be able to get married, Alexander?” And I said, “It might, Nanny, but let’s hope not.” We never mentioned it again.’

‘I see,’ said Virginia.

She went into Swindon to the public library, spent hours reading up impotence. Growing braver, she went to London, and made an appointment to see a specialist in psycho-sexual medicine. She gave a false name, told him about her husband who was impotent. She asked him if there was any hope. The specialist said it was always difficult, such cases, but it was possible. He would naturally have to see her husband, and treatment was long and often traumatic. He asked her to make an appointment for them to come together.

Virginia screwed up her courage (aided by several glasses of wine at dinner) and told Alexander about the specialist. She asked him if he would go and see him. He said he wouldn’t, that he would never see any doctor again, that he was sick to death of seeing people, that she had no right to go round blabbing about their marriage all over London, that he had told her that nothing could be done. Then he stood up, hurled his glass of wine at her and ran out of the room and up the stairs. Virginia followed him; the door of his bedroom was locked.

‘Alexander, please please let me in!’

‘No.’

‘Alexander, I shall scream if you don’t.’

He opened the door. There were tears streaming down his face; he looked stricken, ashamed, almost afraid. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and held out his arms. ‘I’m sorry about everything. So desperately sorry. Maybe you should go. Maybe you should go home to America.’

Virginia faced him steadily. ‘I won’t go,’ she said, ‘because I do seem, in spite of everything, to be very fond of you. And I want to help you. But you’ve got to promise me to see this doctor. You’ve got to.’

‘All right,’ he said. She closed the door behind her, and went into his arms. ‘I love you, Virginia,’ he said, ‘I love you so much. I don’t know what I would do without you now. I really don’t.’

He started to kiss her. Virginia, overwrought, sexually starved, her loneliness and misery rising up in a great wave, returned his kiss, her body pressed frantically, desperately against him. She stroked his hair, caressed his neck, moved her hands slowly down his body. She still, in those days, hoped for miracles.

‘Alexander.’

‘Yes darling.’

‘Alexander, when I was in New York I saw a most marvellous man. Well I didn’t exactly like him, he wasn’t marvellous in that way, but he was breathtakingly clever.’

‘Really, darling? In which field? Interior design? Banking?’

Virginia took a deep breath. ‘Psychiatry,’ she said.

Alexander’s face froze. His eyes shot ice at her. ‘Please don’t go on,’ he said. ‘Alexander, I promise I will never ever talk to anyone else about this for as long as I live, but –’

‘Indeed, Virginia? I think I would utter a heartfelt amen to that. How dare you go talking to some quack about me and my problems? How dare you?’

‘Our problems, Alexander. Ours. Please listen.’

‘Virginia, I’m going out now. When I get back, can we recommence today, in a more pleasant way.’

Virginia got up. She stood in the doorway, barring it with her hands. ‘Alexander, listen to me, God dammit. Listen.’

‘I will not listen.’

‘You will or so help me I’ll kill you.’

‘Indeed? By what means?’

‘Alexander, please. Please.’

‘No. Get out of my way.’