Casting Off (20 page)

Veronica seemed unaware of any of these disadvantages. ‘I’ll be able to cook meals for us!’ she had exclaimed when she saw the Baby Belling and the small cracked sink. ‘Oh, I do think it’s wonderful of you to have found somewhere so cosy!’

That first evening they had unpacked, and eaten a picnic meal of Scotch eggs and beetroot salad, procured from a pub that they frequented, which they ate in the sitting room before the gas fire. He occupied the battered armchair, she sat on the floor beside him and they were both slightly intoxicated by the sense of adventure and whisky, and he with the feeling that he had rescued her, and she was prattling on about how she had never dreamed that he would find such a solution to her problems so quickly . . .

She had fallen suddenly silent.

After a moment, he put his hand on her dark, curly hair. ‘And?’

‘Nothing – really.’

‘Now, now,’ he said, gently reproving. ‘You don’t have secrets from me. You were just about to say
something
– I know you.’ He put his hand round the side of her head and tilted her face towards him.

‘What I was
thinking
’, she said, as though this had in no way entailed her saying it, ‘was that now we are really alone.’ Her eyes were fixed upon his, and she began to blush. ‘I mean, now it would be perfectly all right for you to sleep with me. Nobody would know.’

Somewhere, at the back of his consciousness, a warning bell sounded: commitment, total responsibility, divorce, another family, losing Jessica entirely . . .

‘Now, my pet, it’s time we had a serious talk.’

It was serious indeed. He told her that as he was married – never mind the circumstances – he could not possibly take advantage of her, it would be unkind, utterly wrong, since she was so much younger than he, with her whole life before her (he was beginning to believe himself, gathering strength and argument). His wife would never divorce him, he said, and therefore he could not dream of them becoming lovers when there could be no future to it. It was
not
(her eyes were full of tears now) that he didn’t love her – she must understand that (she nodded, and the tears trickled down her face); there were some things that people such as himself did not do. However much they wanted to, he added, however hard it was for
him
. . .

She knelt upright and flung her arms round him. ‘Oh, Raymond, darling! I didn’t mean to make it harder for
you
! You’re so good – and
sincere
. One of the reasons I love you is that I admire your character so much. It’s not just a question of sex with you, like it is with so many men. You’re different, I know you are.’

While he was mopping up her face with his handkerchief, she said, ‘I’m lucky to have you at all!’

They must both be strong, he said. He felt an immense relief.

But there was no doubt that a darker note had been introduced that, in one way or another, changed everything. Not completely, of course, and by no means all the time; it was more as though territory had been laid round their hitherto innocent playground that was a kind of no man’s land. They still met for lunch most days and – it was winter by then – went to the cinema and to pubs and occasionally out to dinner in between the quiet domestic evenings when she cooked stodgy meals and they played bezique or Racing Demon, or he listened to the radio, or wrote letters, while she did the ironing and mended her stockings. But now when he kissed and touched her small pointed breasts that were, he knew from more carefree times, of an engaging whiteness, she would become unnaturally still, and if he went on, would start to tremble and further persistence resulted in tears. Then she would apologize, protest her love and say how much she respected his self-control. There was now some of that to respect, since once he had decided that he must not have her he found her more desirable. In a way, he was grateful for this: it was somehow better than having to employ gestures and language simply to protect her pride. None the less, a kind of theatrical streak had crept into their behaviour with one another, a scene of dialogue between them about what they wanted if only things were different, and what they could have as they were not, that became worn and to him irritatingly familiar with its frequent use. It was irritating, because she never seemed to tire of it; could hardly allow more than a day or two without reverting to the hopeless anguish of their situation. He discovered two ways to stall these scenes. One was to make love to her by talking rather than touching, and if, as on one or two occasions, this simply inflamed her into taking the initiative – flinging herself into his arms, taking his head in her hands and pressing her fresh red pouting mouth upon his – he could become, in his turn, agonized and beg her to refrain before it all became too much for him.

When he returned from one of his visits to London – requested by Jessica – with the news that Nora was to be married, she had seemed quite sulky and uninterested. ‘Oh,
that
was all she wanted you for,’ was one of the things that she said. She did not ask anything about the engagement and altogether behaved in an uncharacteristic manner, refusing to meet his eye and disappearing into the kitchen where she made rather a lot of noise with pots and pans. He supposed she was getting her period, she sometimes had a bad time of it, but by the time he had changed out of his suit into the corduroys and thick polo-necked sweater that helped to keep him warm – the gas fire was too small for the room with its ingenious draughts – she returned from the kitchen and apologized. ‘I thought, you see, that she might have asked you to come up for something quite different.’

‘Did you? What?’

‘Well, you know – about the marriage.’

‘But that’s what it was about.’

‘I didn’t mean Nora’s. I meant yours.’ She had gone rather pink. ‘Silly of me. I just sort of
hoped
—’

‘Oh, darling, I’ve told you, she’ll never do that.’ He put his arms round her and gave her a hug. Whenever he made the future impossible for her, he found he could be indulgent about the present.

She had made a large, rather watery rabbit stew, and while they ate it, he told her about Nora’s fiancé.

‘Does that mean that they won’t be able to have any children?’

‘I’m afraid so. It apparently means that they won’t be able to have anything.’

‘Do you mean he won’t be able to sleep with her?’

‘That’s about it.’

‘Oh, how
awful
for her!’ She thought for a moment. ‘She must be an amazing person.’ After that she enquired tenderly after Nora and was intensely interested in her wedding.

During the following year, he became aware somehow that Jessica’s affair had waned and eventually finished. His feelings about her were confused. There was an immense relief when one day she referred with perceptible disparagement to ‘poor Mercedes’, Clutterworth’s wife. What was poor about her? he had asked. Oh, she seemed constantly to have to put up with students and girls in choirs falling in love with her husband. ‘It must be a frightful bore for her.’

Aha, he thought. He’s deserted her. It was a moment of triumph. But the triumph did not last or, rather, it quickly became adulterated with other, less celebratory feelings. If Jessica had been left, as from her listless manner he thought most probable, ought he not to reestablish himself with her? But if he did that, what was he to do about Veronica? Supposing he left Veronica and resumed married life with Jessica who then found
someone else
? Or supposing she didn’t get anyone else and he tried to live with her and, well, it turned out like the last time? What would he do then? She would most certainly despise him if he proved impotent. In the end, he decided to do nothing, except to go to London more often to keep an eye on things up there.

Some months later, Jessica had announced that she and Villy had decided to sell the Rydal house in St John’s Wood, and that she was going to rent a much smaller one with her share of the proceeds. She had found one, she said, in Chelsea.

Life with Veronica in Oxford continued ostensibly to be the same, but as his confidence gradually came back about Jessica, he found less pleasure in Veronica’s adulation – sometimes it was even slightly irritating. She was so
young
! he thought, but the inference of this had become different. Whereas it had been balm to his vanity that someone so youthful should find him attractive, now he found her youth something that required his patience. She was so predictable! It was as though he knew what she thought and felt and was going to say about everything, which made everything not quite worth talking about. Poor little thing! She could not help any of it: she was slipping back into being his daughter.

Throughout that year, he consoled himself with the idea that the end of the war would bring about every kind of change – for the better. His job would come to an end, which would make a natural severance of his Oxford life. He would go home and Jessica would be unable to stray because he would always be there. Indeed, he would take her back to Frensham and they would settle down to a stable and sedate country life . . .

None of this had come to pass. He was, in fact, moved to London by the War Office, a curious job that took place, rather surprisingly, in Wormwood Scrubs. This entailed, of course, some unhappy scenes with Veronica. ‘Couldn’t you come back at weekends?’ ‘Couldn’t you ask for
me
to be moved?’ But he could not, or would not, do either of these things. It was time to say goodbye, he felt, and set about it as carefully and kindly as he was able. Of course she wept, he had known she would do that. (He spent one sleepless night holding her in his arms on her narrow bed while she sobbed and slept and woke again to cry.) He explained, again and again, that he could not leave his wife. He would always love her – Veronica – but as there was no future for them, it was essential that she start her own life when she would, he was sure, find someone and be very happy with them.

A few days later, when he returned from a night in London, where he had told Jessica about his new work, with the intention of packing up his things to move from the Oxford flat, he found Veronica lying in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor, unconscious. She had cut the veins in both wrists, but had not, most fortunately, been efficient about it. None the less, he experienced moments of panic and horror on a scale that reminded him of the First World War. She lay face downwards, and at first he thought she was dead, but when he managed to lower himself on to one knee (his other refused to bend) and, pulled at her shoulder until he had turned her over, he realized that she was still breathing. Her face was a frightening grey-white colour; one wrist was clotted with drying blood, but from the other it was still weakly pumping out. He bound the wrist tightly with his handkerchief and rang for an ambulance. Then he fetched a couple of blankets from her bed and waited. He felt like a murderer: if she died he would be responsible. Those minutes, until the ambulance men arrived, were the worst in his life.

They were wonderfully professional and reassuring. In no time at all they had put her on a stretcher, had undone his bandage and fixed a tourniquet. ‘She’ll be all right, sir. She hasn’t lost all that much blood. It always looks more than it is. You can come along with us, if you like.’ He went. In the ambulance they said that they would have to inform the police, who would want a statement from him. ‘She’s your wife, is she?’ He said no.

In the hospital she was wheeled away and he was put in a small room where he sat and worried about what on earth the police would ask him. Of course it would all come out, that he had been living with her. They would discover that he was married and they would assume that she was his mistress. Her parents would have to be told, Jessica would find out and he would probably be sacked from his job. Had she
meant
him to find her? Of course she must have meant that, but whether she knew that he would find her in time was uncertain. He always returned from London on the same morning train, and almost always went first to the flat before going in to work. He began to think that she had simply meant to give him an awful fright, had not meant actually to kill herself. He began to feel a dull anger with her. By one stupid, irresponsible act she had mucked everything up. Then the really awful thought occurred that, if she hadn’t meant him to find her in time, she might do it all over again. This made him feel utterly trapped, and unable to think at all clearly.

The police came, and he made his statement. He stuck to the truth about the facts connected with finding her. What else could he do? But when he was asked if he could think of any reasons why she might do such a thing, he became ingenious. They went away with the idea, if not the actual knowledge, that she was highly strung and impressionable, had conceived feelings for him that he had been unable to reciprocate, but that in view of the disparity in their ages, he had tried to be paternal and patient with her. He had had absolutely no idea that she would do such a thing. ‘She always knew that I was married,’ he had said. He explained that the War Office was moving him to London, and added that he supposed that this had upset her more than he had realized. He implied, as delicately and in as many ways as he could think of, that she was not and never had been his mistress, but he wasn’t sure they believed him.

They finally let him go home. She was sleeping, quite comfortable, they said. He could see her later in the evening if he liked.

He got back to the flat with its bloodstained floor and a six-page letter she had written to him laid upon his bed. He had a stiff whisky and spent half an hour mopping up the blasted lino before he read it.

But even after reading the letter twice, he was no clearer about what her intentions had been. You could say that she wouldn’t have written it if she hadn’t meant to kill herself; on the other hand, if she had simply meant to frighten, or
blackmail
him into doing what she wanted, she would still have written a letter because she would have wanted him to think she was serious. Well, in either case, it hadn’t worked, he thought grimly. All he wanted now, was
out
. His feelings for her, whatever they had once been, had now diminished to a sense of angry responsibility. He poured himself another whisky. The shock had worn off, and what he described to himself as enlightened self-interest took over.