Sowing Secrets (29 page)

I can’t believe that with the temperature hotter than summer ever gets at home, I’m cooking a full roast chicken dinner in a strange kitchen – and without even the benefit of the ceiling fans, since all the doors and windows are open.

Mal came home from work early today, but the whispered argument we had in the bedroom has not cleared the air any. He’s still insisting that Alison
has
been off the island and he’s no idea if she’s back yet, but I’m not sure I believe this horrible new Mal about
anything
.

Marriage used to seem to me like a chess game, all advancing and retreating with the occasional checkmate; sometimes you even had to sacrifice the odd pawn, since you needed to keep your eye on the bigger picture.

Now suddenly I feel that I’m taking part in a Thomas Hardy novel instead, and although the scenery is delightful the odds are so stacked against me I might as well abandon hope now.

Jude the obscure is lying in the sizzling sun out on the deck with a long cold drink, while his little bag-of-bones-and-acid mother sits knitting some sort of steel-grey straitjacket under a palm tree. It’s probably a present for me, though I haven’t forgotten the opportune poke in the back at the blowhole that nearly brought an abrupt end to my holiday, so maybe it’s Mrs M. who should be in the straitjacket?

The only chickens the supermarket had were cook-from-frozen ones, which rather flies in the face of everything I’ve ever been taught about cooking poultry.

By the time it had been roasting for an hour or two the temperature in the kitchen area was reaching meltdown, and so was I. Opening the huge fridge I tried to get in, only of course it was full of food and drink so I just pressed myself against it for a few wonderful moments.

My legs have turned to jelly, my head is swimming and I’m about to pass out. This is ridiculous – I’m putting the ceiling fans on.

Mal, coming in for more cold beer, found me in a wilted condition and said he expected I would feel the heat more, being overweight, while it does not seem to bother dear Mother in the least.

‘No, but she’s not slaving in a hot kitchen, is she?’ I pointed out, and added menacingly that if he switched the fans off I would kill him. How I wished I were driving round the island in my little car with its efficient air conditioning and the radio tuned into a jolly local station!

The ready-stuffed chicken, solid as a lead bullet, is roasting away as instructed, so we will see if dear Mother’s metabolism can cope with Salmonella Surprise later. The packet of bread sauce I sneaked out in my luggage has been decanted into a bowl, though of course Mrs M. will know it’s not home-made the minute she tastes it. But then it will be too late for her to go all stiff-lipped and insist on doing it herself from scratch, ‘with her bad heart’.

Come to that, the oven is big enough to cook
her
in, trussed and with an orange in her mouth, if my homicidal impulses should rise even further. I never knew I had them before, but now the heat just makes my brains run out of my ears and my temper rise …

This gave me a wonderful new cartoon idea, which I jotted down quickly before I forgot. I haven’t finished a single drawing since I got here, mainly because I feel so hideously hot, sweaty and uncomfortable all the time, except when I am in the pool. I wonder if I could get an underwater sketchpad? But anyway, I can work up all the ideas when I get home.

And forget what people say about the sun making you feel sexy: the one night Mal left the air conditioning on was the only time I felt truly interested,
or
Mal, come to that. I simply don’t believe any longer that he’s abstaining from respect for his mother’s wishes, so perhaps a combination of my excess weight and Elephant Woman appearance has had something to do with it.

Justin is joining us shortly for Salmonella Surprise and rum cake. It couldn’t happen to a better person, Mrs M. apart. No, that was mean: Justin has never done me any harm, apart from the gleam in his eye and roving hand, easily dealt with. And I may not have
that
problem any more – he hadn’t seen me for ages, so my appearance obviously came as a
very
large surprise.

Having reached a point where everything was cooking under its own steam and almost ready, I went to change, and when I got back found Justin had arrived and everyone had come indoors. Dusk is mosquito time, and until it gets properly dark even Mal doesn’t sit outside.

The Colombian emerald shop had been poorly lit, and although I’d thought Justin looked a little odd, seeing him now I was stunned: what was left of his hair was dyed a strange shade of green and sticking up at the front like a cockatoo crest, and it clashed horridly with his red Hawaiian shirt.

Aloha.

The chicken was very peculiar, but fortunately Justin had brought lots of bubbly to wash it down with, and after that no one much noticed. Even Mrs M. allowed Justin to persuade her to try a glass. Mind you, it didn’t stop her giving me a very suspicious look after her first taste of bread sauce, and later I found her peering into the pedal bin; but I’d already been across to the trash can with the empty packet and other incriminating evidence, double-bagged.

Then she apologised to Justin about the lack of ‘a real dessert’, but I don’t think there could be anything more delicious than chocolate rum cake … except maybe the banana one.

Afterwards, while I stacked the dishwasher, Mal and Justin retired to the now-dark deck to drink and talk boats and money, while Mrs M. snored gently in front of the TV. I was dripping with sweat again by the time I’d finished, so went to have a cool shower and put on a fresh dress, even though I knew it would be limp in five minutes.

Through the reopened bedroom doors wafted the lazy sound of the two men talking, and my attention was arrested by hearing Justin say, ‘Why on earth did you let Fran get so fat? She was such a slim little thing last time I saw her!’

‘I didn’t let her – in fact I’ve done everything I can think of to get her to lose weight! I mean, she’s still
pretty
, but I have a real thing about fat.’

‘Gross,’ agreed Justin. ‘And that allergy doesn’t help.’

‘Believe it or not, it’s miles better than it was. I was ashamed to own her.’

‘Well,
I’m
not taking her off your hands, looking like that,’ Justin said lazily. ‘She’s your problem.’

‘Thanks for reminding me,’ Mal said, and then their voices faded as they moved away.

I just sat on the bed and cried silently. Is this how men usually talk when they think they are alone, even about their wives? And what did Justin mean, ‘take her off your hands’?

The tears stung the pink and tender skin around my eyes, and I felt despondent and so depressed. I wanted to run home to my mother; but then something stiffened my spine and I thought, no, this is something I would have to sort out myself.

And really, there’s no escaping the conclusion that if your husband
acts
as though he doesn’t love you,
talks
as though he doesn’t love you and
looks
as though he doesn’t love you … then probably he
doesn’t
love you.

It was to hell with the hostess bit after that, and I got absolutely slammed on Mudslide, the wonderful liqueur that fulfils all cravings and soothes the worried breast. Also numbs the worried head after a while too.

I don’t remember Justin’s departure, or really anything else much after that, and this morning I had the hangover from hell and a dark cloud of depression hanging over me, so I didn’t exactly spring out of bed at dawn and start cooking breakfast.

Let them eat cake.

When I finally emerged, Mrs M. looked as if she regretted having agreed to share a roof with the Scarlet Woman, and the only thing she seemed to be communing with was the TV.

Being a Saturday, I knew Mal would do exactly what he felt like doing all day, regardless of the rest of us: lying outside reading, swimming, walking along the beach, or popping out to unnamed business in his monster machine. So, in a spirit of rebellion, I took a leaf out of his book and pleased myself: I had a nice swim, lots of long, cold, non-alcoholic drinks, a snooze on the bed with the ceiling fan turned on, lunched on rum cake and then drew rather dark-edged cartoons in the shadiest corner of the deck.

If anyone ate anything cooked that day it wasn’t done by me.

Later, when Mal had gone off on one of his mysterious and now suspicious solo drives, I went down and sat on the beach under my large pink water-lily umbrella and called Nia, mobile to mobile.

‘Nia, it’s me!’

‘Fran? Is everything all right?’

‘No, not really – but don’t tell anyone, especially Ma. I don’t want to worry her. Mal’s been a total pig since I’ve been out here, and I have a strong suspicion he’s been seeing a lot of Alison. He told me she was off the island, but Mrs M. is sure she’s seen her.’

‘Can’t you have it out with him?’

‘Not with Mrs M. about – it’s impossible! I’ll have to wait until she goes home. How are things with you?’

‘Fine. I’m up at Plas Gwyn now, in my studio. You’d be amazed at how the rose garden is taking shape,
and
all the rest of it – and the filming doesn’t go on all the time, so that’s not too intrusive, either.’

‘How are the hens?’

‘They’re OK – and, actually, Gabe offered to do them. I hope you don’t mind, Fran. He’s been looking after your roses too.’

‘I – well, no, I don’t
really
mind,’ I said slowly.

‘To be truthful, I’m practically living up here with Rhodri now, so it was very convenient when he offered,’ she confessed.

‘Nia!’

‘Don’t get excited. I don’t see how it can possibly work out, long term.’

‘Don’t be such a pessimist – of course it will!’

‘We’ll see,’ she said cautiously.

‘Nia, did Gabe mention that night when he saw me with Tom?’

‘Not a word, and—’ She broke off and said more faintly, ‘Hi, Gabe!’

‘He’s there now? Don’t—’

‘I’ve got Fran on the phone – do you want to say anything to her?’ I heard her ask.

‘Hello, Fran,’ said that familiar deep, warm voice, and for some reason my eyes filled with tears and my legs went trembly. ‘Your Mermaid and Golden Showers are going to make a full recovery, but I don’t think I’d ever realised quite how stupid hens were before.’

I thanked him for looking after everything for me, and then told him about the roses I’d seen out here. ‘I don’t know about Sir Thomas Lipton, but I’m pretty sure Seven Sisters is old enough for the Regency garden.’

I’d quite forgotten that I was clocking up an enormous phone bill until Nia reminded him where I was calling from. ‘Champney’s Pink Cluster,’ he said quickly before she grabbed the phone back.

Strangely comforted, I found I was humming ‘I Will Survive’ – and so, apparently, will my savaged roses.

I should have tried the self-centered male route before, since I’m suddenly being treated with much more respect.

Mind you, Mrs M. seems to think I’m suffering from some sort of delusional state brought on by sunstroke, though actually I’m feeling much, much better apart from trying to fend off the dark cloud of depression. I can feel it hovering, but I’m not giving in: I’m a rebel with a cause – my sanity.

No one’s mentioning the lack of hot dinners, they just seem grateful for anything; nor does Mal complain that I keep turning the fans and air conditioning on, though of course he follows me round switching them off again when he’s here.

Mrs M. announced that she had now seen everything on the island, and would spend the last days of her holiday around the apartment, so I take myself off to my favourite spots as the fancy takes me, especially the botanic park, where I can sit in the pavilion by the pond and feel peaceful.

Strangely enough, I seem to have lost a little weight without trying. Perhaps it’s simply melted off – or maybe it’s because my appetite is not great in such heat. Whatever the reason, I must be looking better, since Mal has ceased to avert his eyes from me with that look of fastidious distaste, and indeed has started to be quite kind in his way. But he’ll have to be a damn sight kinder before I forgive him for what I overheard him say to Justin –
and
I want the truth about Alison.

Once his mother has gone home and we are alone at last I need to tell him just how strangely he’s been behaving these last few months, but the thought is making me feel very nervous.
Can
we clear the air, put everything behind us and recreate our love? Or are we way beyond that?

I’m probably sending out inadvertent subliminal messages by my constant humming of songs like ‘Where Did Our Love Go
?’
and ‘Band of Gold’.

Not that I’ve ever
had
a band of gold.

Mrs M.’s plane left in the early evening, and we both went to the airport to see her off. She turned unexpectedly gracious as we parted, allowing me to kiss her cheek, and saying that she wished me well, as though I were embarking on some new venture. Perhaps I am.

‘You’ll look after Frances, won’t you, Maldwyn?’

‘Of course, Mother,’ he assured her, putting an affectionate arm around me, but she gave him a severe look and he dropped it again.

Once she’d vanished through the gate he said abruptly, ‘Come on, let’s go home, we need to talk.’

This sounded ominous, but then the air certainly needed clearing, and the sooner it was over the better.

When we got back darkness had fallen and Mal said he would shower and change and then join me out on the deck.

‘Don’t you want anything to eat?’ I asked.

‘No, I’m not hungry,’ he said shortly, and vanished into the bedroom. He was in there for ages.

I sat sipping Ting, since I felt I needed a clear head. Beyond the deck the moon silvered the sea and the lights of a huge moored cruise ship seemed to hang improbably somewhere between sky and water. A coconut dropped off a tree and bounced nearby with a loud clunk, and I hastily moved my chair further away.

Mal finally emerged and sat a little way off, where I couldn’t quite make out his expression clearly.

‘Well, five more days, with just you and me,’ I ventured, trying to ease into what I wanted to say to him, which was more along the ‘Why have you changed?’ and ‘Is something going on?’ lines; but he wasn’t playing by my rules.

‘No,’ he said flatly. ‘Actually, there
is
no more you and me. Things have changed. You aren’t the girl I thought you were, and I don’t think you ever really loved me. I was just a meal ticket and a good home, like Alison told me when we married.’

‘She – she did? You’ve discussed me with her? And how
can
you say I never loved you? How can you say such horrible things?’

‘Because since I came out here I can see things clearly – and our marriage was a mistake practically from the start.’

‘But – but you said this holiday would be a new start, a second honeymoon! And we needed time to get over our loss. Remember all the things you said when I was in hospital?’

‘That was then, this is now, Fran!’ he said impatiently. ‘And I want a divorce.’

‘A – divorce?’

‘Alison and I intend getting married again, and we hope to make our home out here. My contract’s been extended for two years.’

I stared at him, stunned and shaking. Even though I knew things hadn’t been right between us lately, it was still a shock. And was this the man who once said to me, ‘You’ve been hurt, but you can depend on me, Fran – I’ll look after you’?

‘I’ve been in contact with my solicitor back home. I hope you’re going to be civilised about this, Fran.’

There was a silence between us, though the insect life chirped, squeaked and chirruped in the background as usual.

‘Civilised?’ I echoed eventually. ‘And if you’d already made your mind up you wanted a divorce, why did you let me come out here and string me along, all this time?’

‘Alison thought that under the circumstances I had to let you and Mother come out here. It was all arranged.’

‘Big of her! But how
could
you? And all those times you’ve gone off in your car, not saying where … I suppose you were seeing her!’

‘I’m not discussing it. But I’m not going to be ungenerous if you play ball, Fran – I’m making arrangements to transfer the ownership of the house into your name.’

‘My name? But the mortgage is
huge
, isn’t it?’

‘Pretty high, especially since I took those two loans out on it for the car and the boat.’

‘But you sold those and paid them back!’

‘No, actually I decided to pay my credit cards off with the money instead,’ he said. ‘But I could have sold the house outright, since it’s in my name, and you will still make quite a profit when you sell it. Justin wanted to buy it as an investment, but if you’d played your cards right he would have let you live there rent free! Well, he’s always fancied you, and it seemed like a good solution, only when he saw you again … ’ He shrugged.

I stared at him. ‘Is that what you were talking about when I overheard you the night he came round for dinner, saying I was fat and gross, and discussing me as if I was a commodity that had gone down in value?’

‘You can scarcely blame me for agreeing that you’d let yourself go and were hardly the woman I married any more!’

‘Why
should
I be the woman you married? I mean, I wasn’t cryogenically frozen on my wedding day, was I? And
was
there a bargain, Mal? Were you thinking you could just pass me on to him like a – a used toy?’

He looked uncomfortable. ‘No, of course not, but you’ve always seemed to like him – and it’s not as though you haven’t been seeing other men while I’ve been here, is it? I know all about you and this Gabe Weston,
and
that Tom Collinge has been seen at the house in the middle of the night! For all I know you’re still carrying on with Rhodri too. Alison says she’d be surprised if that baby you lost was actually mine at all!’

‘Then she’s a slut who judges other people by her own moral standards! How dare she say that about me when she’s been carrying on with my husband behind my back for months? You’re both just trying to justify the way you’ve behaved, and I think you’re
despicable
!’

‘Well, it doesn’t really matter what you think now, does it?’ he said quietly. ‘I think I’ve made you a pretty generous offer in the circumstances, and you’re going to have to accept it. I’m staying out here, so even if you take me through the courts and get maintenance I’m not going to pay it – and there’s no way they can make me. You can get a decent job and pay the mortgage, or sell the house to Justin and move out – it’s up to you.’

In the ensuing silence a coconut dropped onto the sand with a dull thud.

Mal got up. ‘I’m going to stay with Alison tonight, and then we’re spending a few days on Cayman Brac. You’ve had the sort of exotic holiday most people only dream of, and you can stay here until you leave. I won’t be back until you’ve gone.’

I was too stunned to respond, and he started ticking items off one of his neat mental lists: ‘You can arrange to drop the car at the airport, but I’ll return the phone. Leave the key in the house and slam the door when you go … There, that’s it, I think.’

I found my voice again at last. ‘That’s –
it
? Ten years and a lost child, and that’s it, Mal Morgan?’

‘I’m sorry it had to end like this,’ he said coldly, and walked off into the apartment.

Forget Thomas Hardy, this felt much more like
The First Wives Club
.

I’m marooned … all alone on a desert island with no Man Friday –
or
Saturday, Sunday or any other day of the week.

It’s now suddenly become plain to me, all the things that I ignored or didn’t want to see, dropping into place. The signs are clear that he actually started the process of leaving me more than a year ago: all those ‘friendly’ meetings with Alison, the sudden enthusiasm for ‘women who could do it all’, his dissatisfaction with me … Yep, all as clear as crystal now.

I must have been a complete ostrich.

Mal might have meant what he said to me about second honeymoons and new beginnings when under the influence of guilt and compunction at the hospital, but clearly, once he met up with Alison again out here, my dream holiday became just a game of charades I didn’t know we were playing.

Have you ever seen that old horror movie where there’s this big, black, mysterious cloud sitting on top of a mountain, and the ski lift keeps taking people up until they vanish into it, where unspeakable and unnamed things are done to them? Well, I felt I was on that ski lift, a one-way ride that I couldn’t stop.

The sound of the surf whispering sweet nothings on the beach began to be drowned out by rustlings, clickings and soft dragging noises as the creatures of the night got going – and I remembered the spidery crabs and rushed back inside.

Once I’d closed all the doors I turned the air conditioning on full blast and headed to the kitchen for a drink – which was when I spotted Mal’s final list of instructions under the lump of coral on the counter, wrapped around a small wad of banknotes.

It more or less repeated what he’d said to me about the car and phone just before he went, then added that he’d left me some cash to keep me going for the rest of the holiday, the equivalent of a hundred pounds in USA dollars. This isn’t exactly munificent considering the price of everything out here.

I’d have liked to have ripped his money up into shreds and put it back under the coral, but it looks like I’m going to need every penny I can get: I think I have to fill the car up with petrol again before I return it, and I might want to eat and drink in the next week, unlikely though it seems just now. And isn’t there some sort of exit tax I’ll have to pay when I leave the island?

The house felt very empty. I switched on the TV for some background noise and it was another old British comedy series, which was sort of comforting, as was the big glass of cold Mudslide over crushed ice: manna from Cayman heaven.

Do you know what was
really
rankling? That barbed comment about my never having really loved him, I’d just married him as a meal ticket for life! That is
so
untrue. We were in love, and the me he fell in love with was the scatty, arty, hopeless-at-getting-rich Fran. It’s the only one of me there is.

I’ve
never
spent any of his money on myself – except, come to think of it, with the guilt card recently …

The guilt card!

Making a dive for my handbag I found it still nestled in my purse. Had he forgotten I’d got it? Or just assumed I wouldn’t use it any more?

I sat in front of the burbling TV holding the rectangle of plastic and thinking things over while I downed most of the rest of the bottle of Mudslide. I worked through the hysterical broken-hearted sobbing bit, including another weep over my poor lost baby, whom he’d never wanted anyway, and moving on to a sodden state of searing anger that he could string me along like this and then dump me the moment it suited him.

Mal Morgan owed me something, and if he thought he could make it up with money then I’d just have to become a Material Girl until he remembered to cancel the card.

Anger and depression are now slugging it out between them. May the best mood win.

I haven’t called anyone to tell them what’s happened – I just can’t face it yet. It all seems so unreal, especially being alone here on Grand Cayman.

All I’ve bought to eat and drink for the rest of my stay is Mudslide, Ting and rum cake in various flavours. I’m going to eat myself to death, one way Dorothy Parker seems never to have thought of. The big black cloud has got me, and my whole existence is pointless, but I need to kill myself
very
slowly, since Rosie will need me for a while yet.

I’m feeling slightly revived today, after reading a magazine article that hit just the right chord: all about what horror writer Cass Leigh would like to do to the book reviewers who rubbish her novels. I simply can’t believe her appalling inventiveness and my eyes are still stretched so wide I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to close them again –
especially
at night! And maybe ‘pulling their intestines out through their ears with eyebrow tweezers while forcing them to listen to loud Bee Gees music played backwards’ was going too far even for the most horrible reviewer?

Still, visualising it all happening to Mal was terribly cathartic, and I revived enough to go on a huge spending spree, clocking up a frightening amount on the guilt card.

Mal should just be grateful I didn’t visit the expensive tourist outlets at Kirk Freeport. Most of my purchases were gifts for the family and friends, including lots of miniature boxed rum cakes. Oh, and a lovely leather holdall from De Bag Man for me, and another visit to The Mermaid’s Cave in search of a gift for Ma.

I bought her a big sarong, which she will probably wear as a shawl, or tied around her waist over her skirt, or something. No, on second thoughts, she’ll probably turn it into a turban.

I love their unusual clothes, though I don’t know what the effect of bright floaty cotton batik and tie-dye silk will be like in Wales. But I did also get cool cotton trousers and T-shirts and stuff, handy for gardening – if I’ve still
got
a garden after the dust settles, that is.

I don’t know what is going to happen to the cottage, except that I can’t afford the mortgage. The studio is mine, though, bought by my own money. Could I move it somewhere if I have to leave? And what about my roses? I
can’t
leave them … but I can’t take them, either, they are too big and too well-established, though I could put one or two of the newer, still small ones in large tubs just in case.

I must try not to panic. I’ll work something out when I get home.

On my last day I paid one more visit to my favourite spot, the pavilion overlooking the water lily pond at the botanic park, and afterwards sat with an iced drink at the open-air café in the courtyard behind the information centre, feeling calmly widowed.

Then I went back and tried all the permutations possible to fit my belongings into the suitcase, had a last swim and walk along the beach – then finally phoned Nia, to tell her what had happened.

‘Mal’s
left
you?’ she repeated incredulously. ‘He’s gone back to his
ex-wife
?’

I could hear male voices exclaiming in the background, and realised she wasn’t alone. But, then, everyone is going to know Mal’s left me soon enough; it’s such a small village that anything that happens is round the place like wildfire.

‘Who’s that I can hear in the background, Nia?’

‘Rhodri and Gabe,’ she said apologetically. ‘Sorry, I was just so shocked I couldn’t help myself.’

‘It’s OK, it’ll get around fast enough.’ I poured out all that had been happening.