Casting Off (13 page)

She said at once, ‘Oh, I think he’d rather be on his own – for a bit, anyway. He’s told me that there are a lot of things to get used to.’

But she felt guilty (and angry) that her lack of generosity had been exposed – also depressed that he hadn’t considered the implications. It was all very well for
him
to be generous with the flat . . . Then she thought that perhaps he
had
worked out that it would mean they could see less of each other and felt frightened. Of course, Edward had no idea of John’s Victorian opinions about divorce, but they were the last thing she wished to expose him to at the moment.

‘How’s the house-hunting going?’ she asked, when they were back in the flat and he was pouring them a nightcap.

‘Pretty slow. The trouble is that so many houses are war-damaged that you have to have very careful surveys, and the bloke I’ve been advised to employ quite simply has too much on his plate. And, of course, one doesn’t want to find another house while one is waiting for a survey. Villy found one she liked, but it turned out to be riddled with dry rot, which is rampaging because of spore being blown all over the place from bombed buildings.’

Which was a lengthy way of saying that nothing had changed. It was curious, these days, how they seemed to collude in conversations that were really sort of coded messages. She no longer dared to say, ‘Have you told Villy? If not, why not?’ And he was equally unable to say, ‘I’m letting everything slide because I can’t face telling her.’ So she would ask about the house-hunting and he would tell her how difficult it was to find one. Occasionally the messages did become
en clair
– like the time when she had burst into tears and told him that she could not stand another winter in that cottage. He had been amazed: he seemed honestly to have had no idea how much she had endured there in terms of isolation and cold. Also it had been so awfully cramped when the older boys were home for the summer holidays that in the end she had had to capitulate and go to Angus’s parents in Scotland for a week to leave Ian and Fergus – where they were, in fact, far happier – for the rest of the summer. But the outburst about the cottage had resulted in his helping her to lease this mansion flat, and this had meant that she had been able to afford Norma, a girl she had found in the country who was fond of the children and who longed to come to London. She still had to do the cooking, which she loathed, but the children ate simple nursery food and she, who seemed nowadays to put on weight at an alarming speed, tried to eat as little as possible except when she was with Edward.

‘Bed?’

He put his arm heavily round her shoulders. ‘You are my favourite woman,’ he said.

‘I do hope so, darling. It would be really worrying if I wasn’t.’

They walked quietly down the long, narrow passage, past the children’s rooms and the room where Norma slept: everyone was peacefully asleep. Norma knew that Edward stayed the night sometimes; she had been told that there was to be an eventual marriage, and the illicit romance clearly thrilled her. She adored Edward, who gave her stockings and often told her how they could not do without her.

Romance, Diana thought, as she was taking off her make-up while Edward was in the bathroom,
she
was romantic; she would never have dreamed of having an affair with anyone if she was not desperately in love with them. The trouble was that she had begun to ache increasingly for security, for knowing that the children would be all right, that bills could be paid, and romance and security did not seem to go easily together. Of course, if Edward was not married, she could have had the romance
and
the marriage. Then Johnnie could be staying with them – she refused to feel selfish about that because she was not really a selfish person, not deep down. Edward had once said that she was the most unselfish person that he had ever met, excepting his sister; she remembered how much she had minded there being an exception. Because the other thing that was happening to her was that she had to recognize that she was capable of jealousy, an emotion that she had always despised, thought unworthy of any really good person. Again, she knew that she did not
really
possess a jealous nature; it was the situation that was provoking these unwelcome feelings – for instance, Edward’s apparent inability to tell Villy that he was leaving her must surely have something to do with feelings beyond moral compunction? And then there was his daughter, the older one that was married to Michael Hadleigh. He was very anxious that she should meet Louise, to whom, he said, he was devoted, and he’d told her that Louise had seen them, him and her, at the theatre one night and had been violently upset and that things had never been right between them since. ‘If we could all three meet, I’m sure everything would be fine again,’ he said. But he seemed nervous of actually making the plan. It was almost as though the meeting was to be a kind of
test
, and she felt that the idea of being judged as suitable or not for her father by a young girl – she was only twenty-two, for heaven’s sake – was distinctly humiliating.

By now she had undressed and put on the midnight blue satin nightgown that Edward had given her for her birthday. It had a low V neck out of which one breast or the other was constantly falling. They had not recovered their shape since feeding Susan. Edward had said that the blue was to go with her eyes, but actually it was more of a peacocky dark blue, whereas her eyes were hyacinth.
They
hadn’t changed, at least, but in a way they only pointed up everything else that had. Her upper arms that were beginning to sag, the tiny broken veins in the middle of her cheeks that had to be covered with make-up, the slight, but perceptible slackening of the skin over her jawbone and her throat, which was no longer smooth and creamy as once it had been . . . How much more one missed things that one had taken for granted, she thought, and then, almost immediately, ‘Will I ever feel that I have got what I wanted, or will what I want keep changing so that I can’t?’ She wanted Edward and it was entirely his fault that she had not got him, so it was also his fault that her reasons for wanting him were changing. When she had been so much in love with him, her love and her unhappiness had in no way detracted from her view of herself or of him: he had seemed to her the most glamorous, desirable man she had ever met, and his simple and continuous capacity for enjoyment had charmed her. There was nothing ignoble in being so much enchanted by such a man, especially as all his attributes showed her so clearly what for years she had had to do without with her husband. Edward was not a snob, he was no spendthrift; he spent money with delightful extravagance, but he had it in the first place – he did not use it to show off to people he wished to impress at the expense of paying the household bills. She had been disillusioned about Angus long before she met Edward. But now she had known him for over eight years – had been his mistress for nearly eight of them – had borne him at least one child, Susan, if not two, if Jamie was indeed his, although she noticed that Jamie had the Mackintosh nose, not something she drew to Edward’s attention. She had also, inevitably, learned more about Edward, had recognized that his simplicity involved a lack of imagination where other people were concerned, and that his capacity for enjoyment had also a good deal of selfishness about it, that he also never seemed particularly aware of or interested in what happened to her in bed. These things she had been able, most of the time, to excuse, reason away or ignore. Men
were
selfish, and lack of imagination was perhaps something that the person suffering from it could not really help – there was nothing either deliberate or considered on their part. But the failing in Edward that she could not ignore was his lack of what she had to call moral courage. He seemed unwilling, perhaps actually unable to say anything to anyone that they might find uncomfortable. To begin with she had called this his kindness, but as this trait began to affect her own life it had ceased to seem kind. Sometimes, she was afraid that he would never bring himself to leave Villy unless she managed to force him to do so. With every week that passed now she felt her respect for him leaking away, which in turn made her desire to marry him less respectable. When he had told her in the summer, one of those last evenings at the cottage, that he was resolved to go ahead with informing Villy, she had felt a surge of such happiness and love for him that she had easily fallen in with the proviso that he must get Villy comfortably settled in a house in London first. But that was months ago, and nothing had happened or showed much sign of happening.

She got into bed and almost at once he joined her. She was not in the mood for being made love to, but after all the hints about Villy’s unresponsiveness to sex she did, as usual, conceal this with a kind of breathless eagerness that she had discovered he liked. ‘Darling!’ he kept saying until he came. And then, as always, he asked her if it had been all right. Later, and full of amorous contentment, he said: ‘I’ve been wondering whether we couldn’t perhaps find something for your brother to do in the firm. It wouldn’t be frightfully well paid, at least not to begin with, but it would be something.’

‘Oh, darling, that would be wonderful! I know he’d be thrilled.’

‘I’ll have a word with Hugh. It might be at Southampton.’

‘I’m sure he wouldn’t mind
that
!’

‘Don’t say anything to him in case it falls through. Got to get the other side of the bloody dock strike first.’

‘Of course not. Oh, darling, it would be kind!’ She felt doubly grateful to him; for wanting to help her brother, and perhaps even more for being somebody whom she could admire as well as love.

A fortnight later, Edward announced that he had fixed the evening when she was to meet Louise. It was to be at his club, he said, because it was quieter and would she not come until eight fifteen, as he wanted to prepare Louise first. She was coming on her own, he added, he’d especially asked her to do that. ‘I’m sure you’ll love each other,’ he said twice during the conversation, which made her realize that so far as he was concerned there was a great deal at stake.

While she was dressing for the evening, she remembered that he had once or twice alluded to Villy being hard on Louise. She had already discarded her hyacinth crepe, caught on one shoulder, as being possibly too tarty, too much – to hostile eyes – redolent of the kept woman. Now she put aside the black
moire
with a heart-shaped neckline (with which she had intended to wear Edward’s amethyst necklace) – again it showed her cleavage which she felt struck the wrong note – and opted for her very old black wool with long tight sleeves and a high cowl neck. She was bored to death with it, but it was reasonably smart without being glamorous. For the same reason, she discarded her usual cyclamen lipstick, and used a duller, rose-coloured one. She was aiming at a well-groomed, but slightly maternal appearance as the one that Louise would find most reassuring.

She had decided to save money and go on the bus – or, rather, two of them, as she would have to change at Marble Arch. But it was one of those still, raw, freezing evenings when the lack of a breeze simply made one dread fog. It was extremely cold waiting for the bus, but if she gave in and took a taxi she would arrive far too early. She must wait.

In the end, however, she had to take a taxi from Marble Arch, as after another freezing wait and no sign of a seventy-three, she knew she would be late if she waited any longer.

She had only once before been to Edward’s club – or at any rate this club of Edward’s, and over the years she had been forced to recognize that, as mistress, she could not be seen on what was tacitly known to be family territory. It was a place where she knew he had taken Teddy for treats before or after school, where he went for a quiet evening with one of his brothers, where, of course, he took Villy. He would be known to most of the other members, and to be seen there with a woman not his wife or relative would cause talk. She understood this but, none the less, it had been another small resentment. She supposed that now Louise was acting as a kind of chaperone.

They were in the room where ladies were allowed to have drinks with members, off which was the dining room where they were allowed to dine with members. The heavy velvet curtains were drawn, and apart from a colossal chandelier, there were various little lamps with parchment shades that provided patches of mellower light. Edward and Louise were seated in cavernous armchairs in a far corner of the room that contained a number of other people having drinks.

Edward rose on seeing her. ‘There you are, darling,’ he said, as though she was late, but he absolutely wasn’t going to blame her (she wasn’t late – she had arrived just when he had told her to). He kissed her cheek. ‘Louise, this is Diana.’ He clicked his fingers and the waiter, serving drinks at the other end of the room, immediately responded. She exchanged wary smiles with Louise, who she had to admit was really rather beautiful, long glossy hair hanging down each side of her face, eyes like Edward’s but with heavier, darker brows and a mouth that turned up at the corners. She wore a black silk dress with a low rounded neck. When she pushed her hair aside, Diana saw that she had enviably high cheekbones and that she was wearing opal and diamond earrings.

‘We’re drinking Martinis – would that suit you, darling?’

But she was so cold that she said she would prefer whisky. When the drinks were ordered, and she was seated in the third, enormous chair, Edward said, ‘I’ve sort of been putting Louise in the picture. She’s enormously understanding, as I knew she would be.’

Not knowing from this how far into the picture Louise had been put, Diana smiled again. Nor did she, during that evening, find out, so she concentrated on trying to get Louise to like her. To begin with, she appeared not to make much progress. Louise did not seem to want to talk about her famous husband, or her child, answering questions about either with a small, remote, dismissive smile which ensured silence and a fresh start. She admired Louise’s dress – it was unusual, the skirt swathed tightly in front and gathered to a small bustle with a loose bowed sash. She was amazingly slender, with long, childish arms and pretty, long-fingered hands (her own were her worst feature, large and shapeless: she always noticed other women’s hands).