A Perfect Marriage Page 13

  Chapter 29

  NOW

  When I shut Helen’s front door, I shut up the past. I have to push hard. Against those things that happened the last time I saw Jeff alive, for instance. They’re never going to be let out, not if I can help it.

  Hurrying to South End Green, I slip on some wet leaves and fall to my knees. A smiling old lady helps me up; the irony isn’t lost on either of us. But what am I doing at the bus stop? Time is shrinking too fast, clasping me in its tight embrace. I begin to run back to the car, parked in Helen’s street. I have to get my mother to Paddington for the ten o’clock Inter-City. Even though I know a number of shortcuts, it will still be a rush and after dropping her off. I’ll have to dash back in time to give a two-hour lecture.

  It’s twenty past nine when I turn into Trafalgar Terrace. There’s no time for coffee. It’s as well my mother has her return ticket; we won’t lose precious time queuing at Paddington. And there she is, standing on the front porch, surrounded by parcels and holding her suitcase. She looks small, vulnerable even; but this is misleading. She has always known what she’s doing. When she sees me, she waves. I double-park outside the house, and help her and her belongings into the car.

  ‘Sweet of you to drive me,’ she says, fastening her seatbelt. ‘I know you’re very busy.’

  ‘It’s fine, Mum.’ I try to keep any trace of impatience out of my voice. This must be the fifth time we’ve had this conversation.

  ‘But it gives me a chance to ask you something,’ my mother says.

  ‘What’s been wrong with the past five days? No chance then?’ I smile at her; I can guess what is coming next.

  ‘This Anthony,’ she says. ‘He sounded pleasant on the phone.’

  ‘How could you tell? You only spoke to him for a minute.’

  ‘Lovely voice.’

  ‘Lovely accent. You’re a bit of a snob, Mum.’

  She laughs as I hoped she might. I want to deflect her from the impending interrogation.

  ‘Lovely manners, Sally. You interrupted us.’

  ‘He was calling long distance, to speak to me.’

  ‘Yes, phoning every two days from the States, Charlie said.’

  ‘He’s on leave there for a term. Well, actually he’s working with someone there, so that’s why he chose to go to Harvard.’ I negotiate the turn onto a side street where there isn’t so much traffic before adding, ‘He’s visiting the cellular and molecular biology department there.’

  ‘Same field as you then. How old is he?’

  ‘Forty.’

  ‘What does he work on?’

  ‘Genetics. But he’s specialised in cloning. I’m glad I got to the phone last night in time to stop you grilling him!’

  My mother doesn’t reply. I steal a glance at her; she is looking out the side window and her thick white hair obscures her face.

  ‘Cloning, eh,’ she says eventually. ‘Such a funny thing. I sometimes wonder what it would be like to have a clone of oneself instead of a biological child.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be exactly the same as you,’ I tell her. ‘People don’t realise that differences in the environment of the womb, what the mother eats and so on, can have a big impact on the embryo. So even at birth it wouldn’t be the same.’

  ‘Upbringing too, I suppose.’

  ‘Yes.’ I glance at my mother, who is smiling benevolently at me.

  ‘Think how strong the temptation would be with one’s clone to load it up with advice,’ my mother says.

  ‘Why would you do that?’

  ‘Because with the biological child you know it’s going to be different, because it has different genes. So you’d think you couldn’t affect its behaviour in quite the same way.’

  ‘I’m not so sure. Think of Charlie. I tried to squash out any tendency towards violence when she was little, as you heard last night with the true tale of Tico. Not that Jeff’s violence was necessarily genetic.’

  ‘I know. But what a mistake that marriage was! Your father and I have often wondered what might’ve happened if we’d opposed it.’

  ‘Nothing I expect, Mother. We would have gone ahead regardless. Or if you had succeeded there’d be no Charlie.’ I sigh but not loudly enough for her to notice. I know my parents feel they were partly to blame for my marriage and she and I have had this conversation again and again.

  ‘You were so headstrong you would have married anyway.’ This facet of my teenage character provides them with the reassurance they need; it absolves them from feeling responsible for the failure of my marriage. And why should they? My mother is right; I was so crazy about Jeff I would have married him come what may. ‘Anyway,’ my mother continues, ‘Charlie’s loving and gentle.’

  ‘Yes. So I don’t quite see the logic of your argument about clones.’

  ‘I think you do, Sally. You just told me that the differences between you and your clone arise through the environment. So you’d try to make the environment for your clone as different as possible to whatever you’d experienced, to avoid having the clone turn out like yourself!’

  ‘Very clever,’ I say. ‘Maybe there’s an argument for having the clone brought up elsewhere.’

  ‘Is that the sort of thing you and Anthony talk about?’

  I peek at my mother again. She looks innocently back and I burst out laughing. ‘Even more clever than I thought! Are you asking if we discuss our work, or if we’re going to reproduce? The answer’s yes to the first and no to the second. We’re not lovers either, if that’s what you’re getting at.’

  ‘One should be cautious of course,’ my mother says. ‘But not too cautious. Now that reminds me, Sally, of what I intended to tell you about Charlie. She wants to visit Jeff’s grave, you know. She told me last night when you were on the phone.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘She’s too frightened to tell you herself and she certainly won’t ask you to take her.’

  ‘I don’t want to go.’

  ‘That’s as may be. But it would be better for her to go with you than anyone else. I asked Charlie if she missed her father. She said, “The funny thing is, Gran, I don’t. I’ve had a really happy life on my own with Mum.”’

  My eyes blur; I blink rapidly.

  ‘She told me that she can’t even remember much about him. So I said that she must remember something, that it would be a pity to let all her old memories of him lapse. She went quiet for a bit and then she said, “I just remember games. Playing in the garden while he was digging, that sort of thing.” Then she said, “It was really sad that he died so young,” and she asked me if weak hearts were genetic.’

  ‘And what did you say?’

  ‘That I didn’t think so but that she should really speak to the resident geneticist. She asked me if there was anything else she should know about his death. The conversation was getting a bit beyond me, Sally. So I said that I couldn’t remember the details – that’s the thing about growing older, you find you actually can’t – but I didn’t think she needed to worry about the genetic aspect.’

  My mother stops talking to take a quick look at her watch. ‘Slower, Sally,’ she says, as if she is talking to a cab driver. ‘Plenty of time before my train.’

  ‘No there isn’t. What else did Charlie say?’

  ‘Well, I could tell she thought I was being evasive. She must know that your father and I never thought that much of Jeff, although we’ve always tried to hide it. Then she said that not remembering much about him makes her feel quite guilty. It’s as if she’s betraying him by not remembering. After that, she burst into tears. That’s why I came downstairs for another glass of wine when you were on the phone, Sally. It was for Charlie. I made her drink it to steady her nerves,’ my mother says in her imitation of a Dame Edna Everage accent.

  ‘I didn’t notice.’ A quick ingestion of alcohol has always been my mother’s fix for an emotional outburst. Being tired and emotional comes before, not after, the drink in my mother’s calculus. ‘But I’ve been a b
it preoccupied lately. I’m glad you’ve told me about this, Mum.’

  ‘I thought you seemed rather distracted. But it was just as well last night that you were, because Charlie and I were able to have a really good heart-to-heart. I told her she’s doing brilliantly and we’re all so proud of her. But you might want to think about telling her more about Jeff, Sally. She’s nearly grown up.’

  ‘I know and I’m going to.’ I have trouble keeping the anxiety out of my voice. ‘It’s a matter of choosing the right time.’ But when? The days are flashing by too fast. ‘I’ve only wanted to protect her.’

  ‘And so you have, Sally. But there’s such a thing as being too cautious as I said to you earlier.’

  ‘Not with respect to my driving.’

  ‘There’s a time and a place for everything,’ says my mother.

  And with that cryptic comment we arrive at Paddington Station. As we get out of the car, I hear the honking of birds.

  ‘Is nowhere safe from Canada geese, not even Central London?’ my mother says.

  A flock of perhaps thirty of them is flying in spear-shaped formation above us.

  Chapter 30

  THEN

  ‘Look at that!’ Jeff had one arm around my waist, and with his free hand he pointed east, to the triangle of geese flying in a tight formation, immediately above the dark smudge where the river met the pale sky.

  ‘Going away, like us.’ I ran my hand down his long back, and rested my head on his shoulder. We were standing on deck, about an hour into our honeymoon, delayed because the earliest ship we could book to La Spezia didn’t leave until a month after our wedding.

  We watched the geese wheel along the estuary, following its curves as if they were using the river as a navigational aid, until finally they were out of sight. Tilbury Dock was far behind us. The light was fading; the sky to the west was patterned improbably, like Venetian vellum, in swirls of pink and grey. As we watched, the clouds glowed before parting briefly, revealing the orange ball of the setting sun.

  Jeff turned to me, and kissed me, a gentle salty kiss.

  ‘Happy?’

  ‘Never better.’

  The ship had turned, so that we were facing eastwards again. An ashen full moon was now visible, advancing up the eastern sky as we watched, ripening visibly before assuming a warmer hue, and metamorphosing into a glowing golden disc. The air, smelling of salt with a faint odour of mud, was starting to feel damp as the evening quickened. A few seagulls flew alongside us, but their cries were all but drowned out by the throbbing of the ship’s engines.

  ‘Too dark to see much,’ Jeff whispered into my ear.

  In fact it was not, but I knew from the way he was nibbling my earlobe that he wanted to make love.

  In our cabin Jeff turned on the desk-lamp, and we undressed each other in its yellow glow. The ship had begun to rock more, as we moved out into the Channel and away from the shelter of the land. When the ship lurched, we fell into the lower bunk.

  I shut my eyes and felt the room moving.

  That moment of love, that last moment of trust, was when Charlie was conceived. I am sure that was when Charlie was conceived. Our lovely child, our child of love; born just over nine months later.

  For a long time we lay together on the bunk, not speaking.

  ‘I’m crazy about you,’ I said eventually, kissing his eyelids. Lightly I ran my forefinger along his profile, his high smooth forehead, his finely arched eyebrows, the straight nose.

  ‘I’ll always love you.’ Jeff’s voice was thick with emotion.

  I ran my fingers through his blond hair, tousled after our love-making, and rested my head on his shoulder. In complete harmony we lay entwined on the bottom bunk, gently rocking with the movement of the ship. I was almost asleep when he said, ‘Will you always love me?’

  ‘Of course.’ I turned my head to look into his clear green-gold eyes, a few centimetres away from mine, and raised my head to kiss him in the centre of his flawless forehead.

  He grinned. A few minutes later, I slid off him, and out of the narrow bunk bed. I switched on the lamp over the small basin in the corner and washed. While I dressed, Jeff watched my every move with a calm unblinking gaze.

  I had never felt happier.

  Our two suitcases – wedding presents from Jeff’s father – stood where they had been placed earlier, just inside the cabin door. I lifted the smaller one onto the desk and unzipped the fastening. I’d left our jumpers towards the top and we would need them before we went up on deck again. As I lifted the lid of the suitcase, a small flat object slid from on top of the clothes. I lunged to catch it but missed. It fell with a clatter on to the hard vinyl floor.

  Jeff was out of bed in a flash, and at first I thought he was coming to help me. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

  ‘That’s not good enough.’ His voice was cold.

  There was a pause while he glared at me, his face red. Slowly he raised his right arm and slapped my face hard with the palm of his hand. Then with a deft wrist movement, he flicked his hand back and smacked my other cheek with the back of his hand.

  I stood still, my cheeks ablaze with the blow and the humiliation, while Jeff bent down to pick up his iPod from the floor. He switched it on. The strains of his favourite Albinoni washed over us, peaceful music that was in sharp discord with the crashing of my heart and pounding of my head.

  Jeff switched off his machine. He looked at me but said nothing. For a full minute we stared at each other. The red drained from his face while I waited for him to apologise. Finally, when his face had become a white mask, I left.

  Blinded by tears now, I felt my way along the corridor and up onto the deck. I found a quiet spot at the back of the ship and clutched on to the handrail while I struggled to put Jeff’s action into perspective. I felt as if I’d walked into icy water and was waiting for the numbness to set in, waiting for the moment when my body would take over so I wouldn’t have to feel.

  But it didn’t come.

  What was I going to do? ‘Start as you mean to continue.’ My mother said that to me the morning Jeff and I were married. I wished I could talk to her now but I’d never be able to tell her about this.

  The coldness present in his voice when he said that’s not good enough. He was like a different person. And the deliberation of his action. He had thought before he slapped me. It wasn’t an act of passion. It was an act of punishment.

  I should leave him. But how could I get off the ship? We were day one into a four-week holiday that my parents had paid for; our trip was their wedding gift. And what would I tell them if I could get off? I couldn’t do it.

  At least the iPod was OK. If it had broken I would have felt even worse. It would have complicated my already confused feelings. Jeff should have told me that he’d put it in there on top of the sweaters. It was more his fault than mine that it had fallen out. But why would he hit me for such a small thing? Could material possessions mean more to him than our love?

  Certainly I would leave him if he didn’t apologise. I could get off at the first port and make my way back to London.

  I had to tell him he couldn’t treat me like this.

  For what seemed like hours I stood at the back of the boat, watching the night go by while I wondered what to do. The moon illuminated the wake of the ship so that it looked like a sheet of silver foil dragging along behind us. This incident might be like that wake, something that would be forever with us.

  When shivering hit me, I began to pace up and down and a new thought struck me. Perhaps my face would be bruised; my skin marks easily. Maybe there would be finger marks on my cheeks, and someone might ask how that had happened. A bruise would be a real give-away. It would make it hard to protect him; to protect us.

  But was I going to protect him? I’d married him for better and for worse. Shouldn’t I give him another chance? Only if he apologised. I touched my face; it felt sore. I would have to creep back to our cabin and check. I didn’t want to see Jeff, b
ut perhaps he’d gone out too.

  I returned quickly, hoping not to see anyone. The narrow corridors were strangely empty of people; the other passengers must be in their cabins or the bars. The lamps on the desk and over the hand basin were still glowing, but to my relief Jeff was not there. I looked in the mirror. My eyes were red-rimmed but my face wasn’t bruised, not even a patch of red left on my cheeks. I washed my face with cold water, undressed and climbed into the top bunk. I pulled the covers right up over me, to blot out the world, to blot out my husband.

  After some time Jeff returned. I was still awake, anxieties churning through my head, but I lay motionless with my back to the cabin.

  ‘Sally,’ he whispered.

  I stayed where I was, eyes wide open. There was a smear of something on the wall in front of me. It looked like blood.

  ‘Sally!’ He touched my shoulder gently. ‘I’m sorry, Sally darling. I really am.’

  ‘Never do that again.’ I rolled over and saw the lamplight reflected as circles in his lovely eyes. ‘Never do it again or I’ll leave you.’

  ‘I love you Sal. I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.’

  He put a box of chocolates in the bunk next to me. I ignored them, this guilt-offering. He leaned across and kissed my lips. And afterwards he took off his clothes and climbed into the top bunk with me.

  Chapter 31

  NOW

  We’re going to be late for Jim’s birthday party. This matters, I tell Charlie. The boat can’t start on its odyssey from Little Venice until we’re all there. She has spent half an hour changing from one set of black clothes to an almost identical set and that’s why we’re running late. She says that I don’t really understand the subtleties of her wardrobe; she tells me that I shouldn’t risk our lives by driving too fast down side roads, trying to save two minutes. I ignore her and focus on negotiating the car along the narrow streets.

  Charlie is still sulking when we reach Little Venice, but I think she is nervous too at the prospect of seeing the beautiful Ben again. How could I have been so tactless as to suggest that all her clothes look the same, especially when she’s always supportive of my appearance?