From The Moment I Saw Him .... (17 page)

“How did that get there?” I quavered.

“Open it.”

I did so, praying it might be earrings or a
bracelet.  But an enormous trio of diamonds winked at me in the lights, and I
felt faint for a moment.

“Try it on.”

Ian leant across the table to help me, my hands were
shaking. 

“No, darling, on your left hand...”

He slid the ring over my third finger, where it
blazed like a band of fire.  I was speechless.

“Darling Eithne - will you marry me?”

  I was almost stunned by surprise.

  A torrent of emotion flooded me.  Like all girls,
I had dreamed of a proposal, but my fantasies had always featured another
person entirely.  I looked down at the ring.  I remembered all the times I had
wept over Nick, the emptiness and uncertain days, and then thought of the
golden future which Ian seemed to embody.  I didn’t love him wholeheartedly
...... would I ever really love anybody the way I had loved Nick?  But I had
heard nothing of Nick for two years now.  Wouldn’t it be better to take the
chance of future happiness with someone who wanted me?

To give myself a breathing space, I whispered

 “But you’ve only known me such a short time ...... 
Ian, are you absolutely certain?”

 “I am.  I don’t need time.  Surely you know by now
how I feel about you.”

I thought, “Yes...... but you’ve never asked me how
I feel about you”.

 He half rose from his seat.

“Do you want me to get down on one knee?  Because I
will....”

Somehow, I could not have borne that.  I took a deep
breath, and prepared to do what seemed to be the right thing.

“No, no - thank you Ian, I will marry you, if you
want me to...”

It wasn’t perhaps the most gracious acceptance, but
it was the best I could manage.

 Ian got up, came round the table and kissed me.  He
summoned the head waiter.

“Jacques, a bottle of champagne to every table! 
Mademoiselle has agreed to marry me.”

The rest of the evening passed in a blur.  There was
a lot of noise, as other diners came to the table to thank Ian for the
champagne and congratulate us.  Strangers kissed me heartily, which I did not
appreciate, and envious eyed women oohed and aahed over my glittering ring. 

I could hardly touch my food, but no one appeared to
notice.   Quite early on, I asked Ian if we could go home.

“Aren’t you feeling well?” he asked in concern.

“I’m just a bit overcome...”

He told the taxi driver on our way back to Chelsea,
and the driver insisted on giving us a free ride, but I saw Ian slip him a
tenner anyhow.

At his flat, he undressed me carefully, and took
possession of my body in his usual expert way.  I waited until he was asleep,
and then crept into the bathroom, where I was violently, horribly sick.

 I leant my face against the cold porcelain of the
bath, and a cascade of tears streamed down my face.  Wherever he was, whatever
he was doing, I hoped so much that Nick would understand.

Then I crawled into bed and fell into an exhausted
sleep.

By next morning, I had recovered some of my self-possession. 
Reviewed in the cold light of day, I could not fault my decision.  It would be
the height of folly to refuse Ian in case an unreliable figure from my past
might reappear.  I persuaded myself that my feelings for Ian would be strong
enough to make things right, and Ian was pleased at the prospect of our
relationship being out in the open.

Our engagement came like a bolt from the blue to
family, friends and colleagues, and I was wryly amused by the extreme reactions
it caused.

Both families were delighted, after the initial
shock had dissipated.  My parents were overjoyed at the prospect of a son in
law who was well off, handsome and successful, above all they relished the
thought that I would no longer be put on the rack by “that bloody boy”.

My godmother Deidre met Ian, was completely bowled
over, and thought I had made a very wise choice.

“All those tears you cried over Nick DeLisle - I
told you there would be something much better waiting for you,” she exulted,
when next we spoke on the telephone.  I felt a sudden pang, as I remembered my
reaction on the night of the engagement.

“I still love Nick.  I always will,” I told her. 

There was a sharp intake of breath.

 “But I know that’s over and done with.  Of course,
I love Ian too, but I’ll never forget what Nick and I had together.”

I could feel her disapproval radiating down the
line.

“I don’t think I would say that sort of thing to
Ian.  He might not understand,” Deidre murmured, her tone expressing alarm and
displeasure.  I couldn’t help myself - it was true, however, I knew she was
right.  The sentiment couldn’t be expressed again, but would always stay buried
in my heart.

Ian’s family were pleased that he would not now be
sowing so many wild oats as his father quaintly expressed it.

    “Time Ian settled down.  Well done,” he told me,
as if I had somehow won a prize in a race to civilise his son.

His mother was a sharp eyed lady, who surveyed me
coolly from head to toe when we first met, before taking me by the arm and
leading me into her house like some sort of captive.  She persisted in
referring to me as “Ian’s little girl”, which baffled and infuriated me, and I
could see that dealings with her would not be easy - already, she had decided
ideas about our wedding, and I thought these would be unlikely to coincide with
mine.

Luckily, she and Ian’s father lived in rural Kent,
and hardly ever ventured up to London, and I hoped that we would be able to
maintain a polite, if not an affectionate relationship, at a distance.  Ian
didn’t appear to notice anything amiss, and because he was very much the blue
eyed boy where his parents were concerned, I counted on him having the final
say in matters involving our life together.

Most of the female and account management staff at
work were amazed and perhaps even jealous that the lady killing Ian had his
wings clipped.  There remained a few, however, notably Robin, and most of the creative
staff, who thought I was making a big mistake.

I arrived at work early on the Monday following our
engagement, to finish off a progress report which was overdue.  I knew Ian had
informed his fellow directors of our news, and it would not be long before the
agency was buzzing with gossip.

Sitting at my desk in my small office, I jumped when
Robin came banging in, with a thunderous face.

“What the hell is all this about you and Ian?” he
demanded.

His rudeness annoyed me.  I did not look up from my
papers, but extended my left hand and waved it in front of him.  He caught it,
and examined the diamonds sparkling on my finger.

“Bloody hell!  I wouldn’t have thought you were that
materialistic.  Is this what you were after all along?”

I only just restrained myself from slapping his
face.

“How dare you?” I gasped, furious and upset.

We were both momentarily at a loss for words.  Then
Robin said, more quietly,

“I apologise, I didn’t mean to be rude.  But -
Eithne darling, whom we love - you can’t be serious?  You can’t marry Ian, he’s
nothing but an expensive facade, he’s a horrible person behind that elegant
front.  You’ll never be happy with him.”

“People who are expensive facades don’t end up with
great jobs in hotshot agencies,” I retorted sharply.  There was something in
his words which resonated with me, and I didn’t like it.  

We stood in silence for a minute, both of us
disconcerted, both wondering what to say next.  He was the first to speak.

“Of course, if it’s really what you want, then I’m
happy for you,” he said slowly.  “You’ve been a dark horse, keeping it so
secret.  Everyone’s very surprised.”  He paused.  “We’ll have to be careful
what we say around you now.”

He meant that I might report back any criticisms or
problems now I had a personal link to a director. This seemed unfair to me.

“I’m sorry you feel like that, Robin. You can’t
seriously think I’d ever tell tales behind anyone’s back.” 

 I was disappointed, I had hoped my friends might be
pleased for me.  But Mia was furious with me too.  She could not believe that I
had been seeing Ian for so long without telling her.  I tried to explain why I
had wanted to keep it quiet, as we sat huddled over a bottle in a local wine
bar.

“At first, I thought it would just be a fling - if
no one knew about it, when it finished, I could still stay on here without it
becoming an issue,” I explained somewhat haltingly.  “Things overtook me.  I
wasn’t expecting Ian to ask me to marry him when he did.”

“So why are you marrying him?  Have you developed a
taste for the high life?” she demanded.  “I can see he’s very good-looking and
all that, but isn’t he the faintest bit ruthless under that polished exterior? 
I’ve heard you talk about Nick, and you haven’t got the same look in your eyes
when you talk about Ian.”

I winced.  That seemed a low blow to me.

“Maybe not - but Ian’s here in person, he wants to
be with me, while Nick is - who knows where?  For all I know, he’s married to
someone else by now.  Can’t you understand that I’ve had to make a decision
based on facts and not fantasies?”

“Why be in such a rush to marry anyway?”  She
scowled at me across the table.

“How many offers do you think one gets?  I think Ian
is too good a prospect to turn down.”

I took the greatest care at work not to flaunt my
connection to Ian, or behave any differently, and as a result, the furore about
our engagement died down quickly.  Ian was right, life became easier once
everyone knew, and I enjoyed being included in the higher echelons of agency
social life outside the office.  I asked Ian not to press me for a date for the
wedding, as I wanted to get used to being engaged first, and I thought I would
enjoy some tranquil months before getting caught up in making wedding plans.

My only regrets at this time were that I hardly ever
seemed to be able to spend time at Wapping.  Ian liked us to be in Chelsea,
which was always more convenient for the life we led, and he would only spend a
reluctant night at Wapping with me on infrequent occasions.  I missed the river
and the sound of the sea birds, and started to devise little ways of escape
whereby I could enjoy the solitude of my watery home.  I knew I would have to
give it up entirely when I married.

Now that we were officially a couple, life was
extremely busy.  Work was always demanding, and Ian seemed to have an address
book full of friends and contacts who wanted to entertain us, and meet his new fiancée. 
I had to buy a whole new wardrobe of evening clothes - what a hardship that was
- because Ian made it clear he expected me to be stylishly dressed at all
times, and I wanted to please him as much as I could.

It was not always easy.  There were eight years
between us and as a consequence, his friends were all older than I was, and
their lives were at a different stage.  Sometimes, I chafed at the dinner party
conversations about nannies and school fees, because I felt worlds away from
such cares, and I think that a few of the wives resented my youth and looks. 

However, Ian was delighted to be an object of envy
for his contemporaries, whose admiring glances in my direction seemed to
increase his satisfaction with the status quo.

“How did you manage to snare him?”  a lady called
Tania, the wife of an old school friend of Ian’s, asked me one evening, as we
left our coats in the theatre foyer.  We were going to see a new production of
Twelfth
Night
at the Old Vic.  “None of us thought he would marry for years, he’s
always had a load of glamorous girlfriends in tow.  You must have something he
really likes.”

I disliked this kind of comment, which I had
encountered on several occasions.

“Perhaps by not trying to snare him, as you put it,”
I retorted.  “We just started seeing each other and it developed from there.  I
wasn’t looking to get married.”

She gave me a glance of unwilling approbation.

“Well, if I were you, I’d set the date quickly.  You
don’t know what a catch you’ve landed, that’s obvious.”

The other side of the coin was that Ian found my
friends somewhat juvenile.  He was long past the stage of kitchen dinner
parties with spaghetti bolognese and rough red wine, if, indeed, he had ever
been there, and his essentially conservative nature meant he disliked the
spontaneous element of my old social life.  Soon, it became easier for me not
to try to include him and I had to restrict my own involvement to evenings when
he was occupied elsewhere.  It needed careful juggling, and occasionally a ball
would drop.

However, we were happy together, and I told myself I
did not regret my decision to accept his proposal. 

One day, when we were discussing the wedding, I was
upset to find that he did not intend us to marry in Beresford.  It hadn’t
occurred to me that this was likely to be an issue.

“You don’t live in Beresford any more, you’re not
living a Beresford life,” he stated calmly.  “It’s the back of beyond, no one
will want to go there.  I thought we would be married at Chelsea Register
Office, with a lunch to follow at the Savoy.  My family and our friends will
expect something along those lines.”

I opened my mouth to say that my parents would
expect me to be married from home, but one look at his face made me hesitate. 
Recently, when Ian had decided something, I found it was almost impossible to
persuade him to think differently. 

I must have been a bit quiet the day afterwards,
because Robin asked me whether anything was wrong.

“Well - I’m not looking forward to telling my
parents that Ian wants the wedding to be in London,” I told him.  

We were waiting for a train back to the city, having
had a meeting with John Warrender in Guildford.  The platform was grey and
dusty, we sat on a bench which badly needed painting, and I felt depressed.

“They’ve always been set on a big reception at the
Golf Club.  It’s been a bit of a family joke, but I know they will be hurt.  I
don’t think Beresford is good enough for Ian.”

Robin gave me a sideways glance.  I had to be
careful when talking about Ian with him, because I knew they disliked one
another, and this made things difficult for both of us.

“Forgive me if I’m speaking out of turn, but I
always thought it was the bride’s privilege to choose where she wants to
marry,” he said.  “Don’t let Ian railroad you into something you don’t want,
Eithne.  He likes his own way, and you need to make sure he doesn’t always get
it.”

I felt tearful suddenly, and couldn’t speak.

“Ian’s always more malleable when you stand up to
him and put forward a good argument - at least, he is at work,” Robin
continued, warming to his theme.  “Now he’s got you where he wants you, I
expect he’s a bit too inclined to rule the roost.”

This was such an accurate description of recent
events that I almost gasped.  It was true.  In our first months together, Ian’s
dominant personality had been tempered by his uncertainty as to my feelings. 
Now he knew where he was, he was rapidly assuming full control. 

I was confused by my reactions to this.  It was
Ian’s self-confidence and authority which had attracted me in the first place,
and I could not have tolerated a liaison where my partner was weaker than I
was.  However, I could not help contrasting our relationship with my time at
Oxford with Nick, where we had been happy and in tune without one of us holding
sway over the other.  Perhaps it was easier at a relatively young stage of
life, without so many commitments and concerns.

I hoped that Ian and I would be able to achieve a
similar balance in due course.  We did not disagree about anything else of
importance, and life continued smoothly, apart from one incident which shook
me, and left me unsettled.

 We attended an Advertising Awards dinner, where
Mackerras Mackay took two tables, and invited a number of senior clients as
guests.  After the main event, everyone moved on to the Arethusa night club in
the King’s Road, a popular venue for after dinner dancing.

None of the clients present were known to me at
work.  There was one man, oily, insinuating, who had been drinking heavily, and
eventually demanded that I join him on the dance floor.  I think he did not
understand my connection with Ian, because he kept trying to paw my body, and I
had to evade his persistent attempts to kiss me.  He insisted that we dance
again, and I did not want to make a scene.  It was very uncomfortable, and I only
extricated myself with some difficulty.

Ian glared at me when I re-joined him at the table. 
He ignored me when I tried to speak to him, and after a while, he indicated
that we should leave.

I was surprised and annoyed - I didn’t think I had
done anything wrong.  Outside, he hailed a cab, and threw himself back in the
seat with averted face.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.  “I don’t understand
why you’re acting like this.”

“I don’t like you showing me up and making me look a
fool,” he hissed.

“What?  I haven’t done anything.  I could hardly
refuse to dance with him at the beginning, that would have looked very odd. 
But you can’t blame me for what he was trying to do.”

We rode home in uncomfortable silence.  Back at his
flat, Ian turned a cold shoulder on me in bed, and I lay awake for ages,
wondering why he was so annoyed with me.

Eventually, I fell into an uneasy sleep.  In the
early morning, I woke abruptly to find Ian parting my thighs, and he proceeded
to satisfy himself roughly and rapidly, before stalking off to take his shower.

I lay in his bed feeling shaken and tearful - the
episode had not been without pain for me.  I could not believe that this was
the same man who had whisked me off for a passionate weekend in Paris, and who
had surprised me with a ring on St. Valentine’s Day.  What on earth was going
on?

Ian emerged from the bathroom, and began to dress
without a word, grim faced.  I couldn’t bear it.

I shrugged on my dressing gown, and went to him as
he was fastening his cuff links, putting my arms round him and laying my head
against his chest.

“Please, Ian darling, don’t be like this.  I haven’t
done anything wrong.  I don’t understand how you can make love to me and then
just walk away,” I said, trying hard not to cry.

He removed my arms and took a step back.

“Did you think we were making love?  That was just
sex,” he said coldly, turning his attention to the knot in his tie.

 I stood there, dumbfounded.  He put on his jacket,
and picked up his car keys.

“You’ll have to make your own way in to work this
morning,” he said, and then I heard the door slam shut.

I did cry then.  After a while, I went into the
bathroom, and showered and tried to compose myself ready for the working day. 
I even wondered whether I should still consider myself engaged to him after his
behaviour towards me, and a dreary train of thoughts ran through my head - I
would have to leave my friends and find a new job, it would mean starting all
over again.  For a moment, I thought wistfully of Nick.  Even in our worst times,
he had never treated me with such cold cruelty.

“Sorry I’m late,” I mumbled to Robin, as I walked in
to my office at least thirty minutes after I should have been there.  He took
one look at my face, and opened his mouth to speak, but then thought better of
it.  I shut myself in, and tried to concentrate on work, but it was very hard
going.

I did not see Ian at all that day - not surprising,
as I hardly ventured outside my safe little space.  He would usually contact me
as five o’clock approached, and we would agree what the plans were for the
evening, but my telephone did not ring, and I was not going to call him.

I wandered into the Ladies at about half past five. 
Ian’s secretary, Mara, was in there, applying lipstick before the mirror.

She gave me a cool glance.  I never felt she liked
me, indeed, I often wondered whether there had been something between her and
Ian in the past, but I didn’t like to raise the subject with him.

“Hello Mara.  Do you know where Ian is?”  I asked,
with an attempt at nonchalance.

“He left half an hour ago,” she said, snapping the
top back on her lipstick with a sharp movement.  “Don’t you know where he is?”

“Well, we’ve kept missing each other today,” I said,
a false note of cheerfulness in my voice.  I could not ask her for more
information, it would have been too embarrassing.

I debated whether to go to Chelsea or Wapping.  In
the end, I decided to go back to Chelsea.  If Ian wanted to finish things, I
might as well get it over with.  However, the flat was empty when I got there. 
After a while, I opened a bottle of wine, and made myself a scratch meal, but I
had little appetite.

The evening wore on.  When it got to ten o clock, I
could bear it no longer.  I found a case and started to pack up my
possessions.  I would go back to Wapping for good and there would be an end of
it.

I was just putting on my coat, when I heard Ian’s
key in the door.  He came in, looking calm and unruffled, and stared at me as I
stood there with the case.

“What on earth are you doing?” he asked.

I remembered my unhappy day, and felt confused. 

“You were horrible to me this morning, Ian.  I
thought you wanted me to go,” I said, tears beginning to roll down my cheeks. 
I brushed them away miserably.

He stepped towards me, and folded me into his arms. 

“Forgive me, my love, I’ve been a brute,” he
whispered.  “I can’t bear to be at odds with you.  Whatever happened, it’s not
worth all this pain.  Of course I don’t want you to go, but please promise me
you’ll be more circumspect in future.  You really are an innocent at times.”

“Nothing happened,” I tried to say, but he was
kissing me so hard that the words were stifled.

We fell on to the bed, and this time, it was making
love, not having sex.  The next morning, it was as though the day before had
never been.  Life went back to normal, but I was a little less comfortable in
myself.  I felt that there was a part of Ian I did not fully understand, and I
hoped I would never find him so unreasonable again.

Towards the end of May, Mackerras Mackay was
galvanised by a board decision to open an office in America.  There were a
number of small, creative agencies there with whom negotiations might be
appropriate, and Ian was asked to go to New York to begin the process.

I was amused by the parallels with Nick and
Sphere
,
the difference being that I had no fears about Ian not coming back. 

“Be good,” he told me, as I kissed him good bye at
the airport.  “And when I get back, we really must agree a date for the
wedding.”

  I was looking forward to spending a whole month at
Wapping, enjoying the security of my engagement, but also relishing some time
to myself.  It promised to be a happy few weeks.