Rosie Thomas 4-Book Collection: Other People’s Marriages, Every Woman Knows a Secret, If My Father Loved Me, A Simple Life. Rosie Thomas
room seemed to shiver around him, with all its accumulated weight of familiarity, curtains and covers chosen, books collected, photographs and mementoes and worn patches accumulated over the years lived through together. It shivered with the precarious balance of the necessary truth against his merciful deception.
Vicky sighed. ‘We should have an evening, I know. But, to be honest, I don’t think I’ve got the energy to do it. Perhaps we could have some people in over Christmas?’
He put his hand on her shoulder. There was a pad of flesh there, and he felt the dent where the broad strap of her nursing bra bit into it. He knew her so well; he saw her set in her separate place like a fly in amber, or a fish held fast in the winter ice, and himself beside her, a way apart. The two of them no longer flowed together, they didn’t blur and coalesce and give off energy by their combination as they once had done.
‘You don’t have to bother about anything like that. We’ll only do it if you want to.’
Vicky stretched herself again, luxuriating in his concern for her.
‘All right. Only if we both feel like it. Is that Helen waking up? Have a look for me.’
He leaned over the basket. The baby’s eyes were open. They were very deep and dark in her tiny red face, and they stared straight up into his.
‘Yes, she is awake. Do you want her?’
Vicky undid her front buttons in answer to him. He saw the armoury of her underclothes, and then the veined blue-whiteness of the overfull breast when she released it. The loose flesh of her belly swelled up in another curve below it. There was a tissue pad in her bra cup that gave off a stale-milk smell. He thought of Nina’s spare, freckled body and its touching knobs of bone.
Gordon lifted the baby carefully out of the basket. Her heavy head wobbled against him and he cupped it in his hand, noticing how the silky skin wrinkled over the hard, fragile skull. As he held her with her tiny face against his cheek he felt a rising up of pain inside him that made him want to cry out. He breathed in the scent from the downy head and the pain grew so acute that he did not know how he could contain it.
Then Vicky held her empty arms out for the baby, and he handed his daughter over to her.
The evening before the dress rehearsal for the nativity play Marcelle and Nina met at the Wickhams’ house. The two women had not seen each other since the morning of the level crossing. Nina brought with her the animal masks that she had made in her studio over the last few days. She had taken a lot of trouble with them, as if doing so would somehow atone for everything else.
In Marcelle’s dining room Nina took the masks one by one out of their wrappings and laid them out for her approval. They were very light and simple, stylized suggestions of animal faces rather than attempts at realism, but Marcelle could see at once how effective they would be.
‘They are good,’ she said, picking up one of the lambs to examine it more closely. She held it to her face, and regarded Nina through the oval, slanting eye holes. Then she lowered the mask again and the two women looked straight at each other.
‘Are you sure they are what you wanted?’ Nina asked.
‘Yes. Really, they’re perfect. I could never have made anything half so good.’
Marcelle wrapped them carefully and put them aside. There were play costumes all round the room, arranged on hangers hooked to the picture rail, everything labelled and pressed ready for the dress rehearsal.
There was a moment’s silence.
Marcelle wondered what she should say, whether there was some word of caution or advice or admonition for Vicky’s sake that she might offer. Nothing came into her head, and she saw Nina twisting her wedding ring round and round her finger. The ring appeared too loose for her. She felt sad, and sorry for Nina as well as Vicky.
Nina also waited. She didn’t know Marcelle well enough, but she wished she could confide in her. Could she plead with her now, Don’t judge us too harshly. Don’t assume it is only what you think, a bald and commonplace act of adultery.
But then, how else could she explain what it was to Vicky’s friend? By emphasizing her own need, or Gordon’s, or the happiness that they generated for each other when they were together?
There was nothing, she realized, that she could say to excuse herself or Gordon. The weight of dislike and mistrust coming from Marcelle was no more than she should expect.
Neither of them spoke, and the silence lengthened into awkwardness. It was Marcelle who broke it, at last.
‘Thank you for helping me out. It must have taken hours of your time.’
Now they could not mention what they both knew because the moment for it had slipped past. Marcelle was angry with herself, and at the two of them for placing her in this dilemma.
‘It didn’t take that long,’ Nina lied. ‘I’m glad there was something useful I could do.’
Marcelle would not tell anyone, Nina was finally sure of that. We must be careful from now on, she thought, experi-encing a surprising surge of relief and gratitude that made her almost lightheaded.
Michael Wickham looked in to the dining room. It was after eight, but he was formally dressed as if he had only just come in from the hospital. Nina had the impression that he was irritated by the sight of them hovering with their masks and by the clutter of costumes, but he made the offer of a drink politely enough.
‘Yes, do stay and have a drink,’ Marcelle echoed. ‘A drink, at least. I feel that I ought to be offering you dinner, after all you have done.’
‘Is there any dinner?’ Michael dryly interrupted.
‘Yes. In half an hour.’
Gordon had promised Nina that he would telephone this evening. Vicky would be out of the house for two hours, after the children were asleep. She said quickly, ‘I can’t stay even for a drink, but thank you anyway. If there’s anything else last-minute I can do …’
Marcelle did not suggest anything. Nina said good night to the Wickhams and drove back to Dean’s Row.
*
‘Did Marcelle say anything?’ Gordon asked. He was sitting on the edge of the double bed, looking out beyond the undrawn bedroom curtains to the grape-black sky. There were toys and baby clothes on the floor by his feet.
‘No.’
It was one of their flat, melancholy telephone conversations. Sometimes they could forget the distance and talk as if they were touching each other, but tonight everything they said seemed to convey less than they meant. They both wondered what they were doing, begging questions, making these banal offerings of words into thin, humming space.
‘When can I see you again?’ Nina asked. She twisted the spiral cord of the telephone around her little finger.
‘I don’t know. I’m not sure, it’s not a good week. And Andrew made some crack this evening about my disappearing acts.’
Nina wondered why he should have to account for himself to Andrew, but she only said, ‘Does that make it difficult? I’m sorry.’
‘There’s no reason for you to be sorry.’ With an effort, wanting to change the direction, he said, ‘I love you.’
‘I know,’ Nina answered soberly.
It was plain that the mood would not change, and neither could offer the other any comfort. Gordon tried to imagine how it would be if he left the house and the children and drove straight to her.
‘I’ll call you soon,’ he promised.
‘Yes. Please call.’
She hung up, wanting to sever the connection for herself.
The night of the nativity play came.
Nina had imagined that she would