The Marrying Game (51 page)

‘Please, don’t talk about money,’ Rose said. ‘If I hadn’t been so obsessed with bloody money, we wouldn’t be sitting here now. Pass the Gordon’s.’

Edward returned to the table with a fresh glass of whisky, and passed the green bottle of gin to Rose. ‘I’m going to get very drunk,’ he announced gravely. ‘I’m going to get as drunk as I was that Boxing Day when Rufus glued up Bute’s arse. Then I’m going to sleep here, on the strangely hideous new sofa Rufa chose for your drawing room.’

Rose giggled, wiping her nose. How she admired a man who arranged his behaviour with efficiency – who could get drunk without involving the emergency services. ‘You’re very welcome. I’ll even crack out new sheets for you. Much better than going home to the farm.’ The farm where he had lost two wives: one dead and one temporarily mislaid. The gin was beginning to cauterize.

He took a dose of whisky. ‘Tomorrow I’ll go to Oxford to fetch Rufa.’

‘Hang on. She may not want to be fetched.’

‘I owe her another chance,’ he said. ‘Part of the fault is mine. I was obtuse about Prudence. I didn’t owe her anything, and I should never have let her make me feel guilty. I’m going to apologize, and offer to start all over again.’

Rose, without knowing precisely why, did not like the sound of this. ‘You’re saying you’ve decided to forgive her?’

‘Of course.’

‘Please, Edward, don’t—’ She stopped.

‘Don’t what?’ he asked irritably. ‘How could I possibly behave better?’

Rose said, ‘Please don’t forgive her too hard.’

Chapter Ten

TRISTAN’S FATHER HAD
bought him a small house in the part of Oxford known as Jericho. It was squeezed into the middle of a terrace of two-storey houses, each with a bay window overlooking a tiny front garden. The front door was painted scarlet. Dusty evergreens drooped in the window boxes. There was a cheerful, tattered air of well-heeled studentry.

Edward stood on the other side of the street, staring at the house. He could not connect it with Rufa. Suddenly, he was sick with longing for her. He cursed himself for never daring to tell her how passionately he had loved her at a distance, in the years after leaving the army. He had not properly made her understand how deeply he loved her now. His guilt over Prudence, coupled with his ridiculous pride, had caused all this mess. Minutes away from facing Rufa, he knew he was prepared to go down on his knees and beg. He could not imagine any other way to prise her from the arms of her triumphant young lover.

In his rational mind, he did not hate Tristan – the baby Alice had adored, the winning little boy, the callow oaf who had heedlessly blasted his marriage apart. He had already decided, while driving to Oxford, that there was no point in being heavy with Tristan. He would be
reasonable
, and wrestle down any unreasonable flashes of fury.

He crossed the road, feeling that the blank white windows were staring at him, trying not to picture Tristan and Rufa within, twined in each other’s arms. He pressed the tarnished brass bell, moving aside a heap of plastic-wrapped telephone directories with one foot. His pulse thudded in the back of his throat. He had crouched in shell holes under fire, and not felt as nervous as this. None of the things he had intended to say seemed right now.

There was movement inside the house. Edward tensed, and was taken aback when the door was opened by – apparently – a round-faced little girl of about twelve. The top of her head came up to his breastbone. Her brown eyes were solemn behind round spectacles.

‘Yes?’

‘I – er – is Tristan around?’

The little girl was cautious. ‘He sort of is, and he sort of isn’t.’

‘I’m his uncle,’ Edward said. Grimly relishing the enormity of the lie, he added, ‘I’m sure he’ll want to see me, and I can’t come back later. I’m only in Oxford for the morning.’

‘Oh, well,’ she said. ‘That’s different. Do come in.’

Edward followed her past two bicycles in the hall, into a narrow kitchen overlooking a rank, neglected patch of garden. The kitchen was new, cheap and incredibly untidy. There was a small table pushed against one wall, with two rickety chairs. Edward sat down on one of these, to take up less room.

‘I’m Clytie,’ the girl said.

‘You’re – what?’

‘It’s my name, I’m afraid – Clytemnestra Williams. My dad teaches classics.’

‘Oh. I’m Edward Reculver.’ He waited to see if she would react to his name.

She only asked, ‘Would you like some tea?’ She knew her duty towards all parentish figures. ‘There’s peppermint or camomile. Or ordinary, of course.’

Edward could not help smiling at her. ‘Ordinary, please. How do you know Tristan?’

‘Well, I live here,’ Clytie said. She took two dirty cups from the draining board, and briskly rinsed them under the tap. ‘I’m his lodger.’

He adjusted her age upwards. ‘What college are you at?’

‘Somerville. I’m reading English, like Tristan.’

She knew what he had been about to ask, Edward thought morosely, because all old people asked the same questions. He did not know how to demand an audience with Tristan and Rufa. He was afraid of what he would find.

She asked, ‘Do you take milk?’

‘Please.’

Clytie went to the fridge, which was covered with magnets, photos and scrawled notes. The inside of the door was jammed with cartons of milk, some with cheesy yellow encrustations. She sniffed two or three cartons before selecting one and shutting the door. She made tea slowly, as if for a board of examiners. Edward felt as old as Everest, and oddly moved by her freshness. She sat down opposite him. Their knees touched under the table.

‘I suppose I should tell him you’re here,’ she suggested.

Her trustfulness alarmed Edward. No wonder the Man had been so neurotic about his daughters – it must be hellish, he thought, to turn your little girls out into the world, when you knew what men could do to them.

Then he noticed the photograph, on the door of the fridge. It was a view of the valley at home, taken from the edge of his farm. In the bottom left-hand corner, with her dark red hair pouring over one shoulder, sat Rufa. He could see the ecstatic abandon of her smile from across the room. He had one moment of piercing desolation. Clytie was curiously following his gaze. It was not fair to take advantage of her ignorance.

He spoke gently. ‘I’m Rufa’s husband.’

In any other circumstances, it would have been comical to see Clytie’s mouth drop open. She was dismayed. ‘You? Oh, God – he’ll kill me! I don’t think I was allowed to let you in!’

‘I’ll leave, if you like.’

‘No, that’s just silly.’ She was recovering. ‘I thought Rufa’s husband would be old, you see. And you’re quite young. You – you haven’t come to kill him, or anything, have you?’

He smiled, in spite of himself. ‘No.’

‘Well, I think you should stay. He’ll have to face you sooner or later. And you seem perfectly all right to me.’

Edward mentally wrote a letter to Clytie’s classical father, begging him to warn her about men who seemed perfectly all right. ‘Thanks. As you see, I’m unarmed. And more or less in my right mind. I only want to talk to them.’

Her dismay rushed back. ‘Them? Oh – no – she –’ Clytie made an obvious attempt to improvise, then
foundered
. ‘Look, I won’t say a word. It’s not my business. I’ll take you upstairs.’

Rufa was not here. Edward found himself bitterly disappointed, and suddenly enraged with Tristan. Without the presence of Rufa to control him, he wanted to flay the little bugger alive. Grimly, he followed Clytie up the newly carpeted but stained stairs, to a small landing.

She knocked softly on a closed door. ‘Triss!’

A voice within snapped, ‘What?’

‘There’s someone here to see you.’

‘Tell ’em to fuck off.’

‘I can’t,’ Clytie said. ‘It’s Rufa’s husband.’

A leaden silence fell behind the door. After a long moment, there were sounds of a chair being dragged across floorboards, and footsteps. Edward stiffened, his hands automatically rolling into fists.

The door opened. He was gazing into Tristan’s blue eyes, on a level with his own. He looked ghastly. His face was pasty and swollen, his long hair lank and unwashed. There were bluish smudges in the hollows above his cheekbones. He was the incarnation of misery. Edward saw that he had been crying himself blind, and felt a twinge of foreboding. The two of them faced each other hopelessly, neither knowing what to say.

‘I’ll leave you,’ Clytie announced, rather regretfully. ‘Under the circumstances, I really think you ought to make it up.’ She went downstairs.

Edward asked, ‘What circumstances? Why is she being mysterious? Where’s Rufa?’

‘Come in,’ Tristan said. There was a hint of sullenness buried in the depths of his misery. ‘Make your scene. I know exactly what you’re going to say.’ His gaze
dropped
. He turned back into his room, and sat down at a littered desk beside the window.

Edward suppressed an urge to smack Tristan’s head. ‘Where’s Rufa?’

‘Gone,’ Tristan said.

‘Gone? What are you saying?’

Tristan swivelled his chair round to face Edward, not meeting his eye. ‘It’s over. She doesn’t want me any more. She’s left me.’

Edward struggled to process this. He had expected to find a lovers’ bower, yet here was Tristan, as deserted and sorrowful as he was. It made no sense. ‘Look, what has been going on?’

‘I can’t talk about it.’

‘Force yourself,’ Edward said shortly – how dared Tristan behave as if his sorrow was higher up in the pecking order of sorrows?

At last Tristan looked up at him properly. ‘We had a row.’

‘Are you telling me she walked out after a lovers’ tiff? I don’t believe you.’

‘Well, you’d better,’ Tristan shouted. His words ended on a dry sob.

Edward sighed. The last thing in the world he wanted was a shouting match. His frail dignity had suffered enough. ‘If you don’t tell me the truth, I’ll start to think she’s under the floorboards.’

‘It wasn’t my idea,’ Tristan blurted out desperately. His reddened eyes filled. ‘I didn’t make her run away. Yes, I fell in love with her. Yes, I had an affair with her. But as far as I knew, I was leaving her at the farm. I hated it, I begged her to arrange our next meeting – and she wouldn’t. She acted as if she never wanted to see me
again
.’ He looked away, withering under Edward’s searchlight glare. ‘She turned up here, out of the blue, the day before yesterday.’ His lower lip buckled pathetically. ‘Everything was different, because she – she’d found out she was pregnant.’

Edward dug his fists into his pockets, gritting his teeth to stop himself roaring aloud. This was as cruel as death. He had lost a chance to have a child, as well as losing his wife. ‘And what did you have to say to that?’

His tone made Tristan wince. ‘I freaked out.’

There was a charged silence. Tristan waited for Edward to sketch out the rest.

Edward said, ‘You told her to get rid of it.’

‘No, I wouldn’t do that.’ He sounded doubtful. ‘Honestly. I just assumed, you know – it just never crossed my mind that she wouldn’t get rid of it. I mean, how can we cope with a baby? Does she honestly think I want to miss my finals, because I’m sitting in a maternity ward? God, it’s a nightmare.’

The longing to deal him a mighty sock on the jaw, like Gary Cooper in a film, was so intense that it was almost erotic. Edward struggled to restrain his anger. ‘Presumably that wasn’t quite the reaction she’d hoped for.’

‘No. She seemed to think I’d want to get married, or something.’ Tristan rubbed his eyes wearily. ‘Then she went cold on me. She said I didn’t love her enough. I got scared, and started swearing I loved her, and I’d do anything for her. But it was too late. She said I was making her choose between me and the baby.’

‘And of course she chose the baby,’ Edward said. ‘You don’t know her at all, do you? And she realized she didn’t know you.’

Tristan nodded. He began to cry. ‘She said she was an
idiot
to fall in love with me, because the man she loved had never really existed – she saw me properly now. And that was it. She went.’ Another sob shook him. He swivelled his chair around towards the desk, and buried his head in his arms.

Edward’s mind was in a state of chaos. He looked for somewhere to sit. There was only the bed, heaped with damp folds of duvet. He sat down. ‘Where did she go?’

‘I don’t know.’ Tristan’s voice was muffled. ‘If I knew, I’d be there, begging her to forgive me. I’d force myself to put up with the baby, if she’d just come back.’

Edward ignored the part about begging forgiveness. He knew Rufa. This was something she would never forgive. Tristan was no longer dangerous. ‘Do you have any idea?’

‘No.’

‘London. Of course.’ Edward sprang up, reaching for the phone on the desk. He punched in Wendy’s number, learned by heart during his engagement.

Wendy answered, and was fluttered to hear him – he had never been able to get much sense out of the woman. Rose had probably been on the phone since dawn, telling the whole world that Rufa had bolted. He asked about her as neutrally as possible, and ended the call abruptly as soon as Wendy told him Rufa was not there.