I’m not quite certain why I married Ivan. After I graduated from university, I took a position with a very exclusive public relations company. It had been my plan to work hard and make my way to the top. That was before I discovered what an incredibly vicious world it was. I’d thought I was tough, but compared to some of the barracudas I met, I was a helpless kitten.
So I did what women had done for centuries. I took the easy way out. I was beautiful, educated, charming if the situation required, any man’s perfect other half. And there were plenty of men who’d happily pay for the option. Not pay pay, I wasn’t a prostitute, although I suppose there are others who would argue that accepting accommodation, credit cards, spending money, whatever I needed, was akin to being paid. I considered I was making use of my natural talents.
So why did I marry Ivan?
Because I’d noticed two things when I hit thirty-nine. The first was that it took more time and money to keep looking as good as I did; the second was that I’d started to compare myself with the other women who crowded the pubs and clubs I frequented. The equally beautiful, younger women. It became increasingly obvious that the men I was attracted to, were attracted to them.
Anyone who argued that it came down to personality was fooling themselves. In the busy nightlife that was upmarket London in the twenty twenties, it was appearance that counted.
It was around that time of self-doubt that Ivan wandered into my orbit. He was rich, handsome enough for a man pushing seventy, and flatteringly attentive. He courted me with weekends away in five-star hotels, a diamond bracelet I admired in Tiffany’s on a weekend to New York, shopping trips to Harrods, everything a woman like me could desire.
‘Marry me,’ he’d said while we were out for dinner one night only a couple of months after meeting. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a ring box and flicked it open with his thumb.
The sparkle of the diamond under the restaurant lights almost took my breath away. It was a huge, almost vulgarly large solitaire.
I had always been against marriage or any kind of commitment. My father, who had walked out on us – on me – when I was only ten, had a lot to answer for. It was thanks to him that I was unwilling to put myself in the position of being abandoned again. But now that I was pushing forty, perhaps it was time to be clever and think of my future. I looked at Ivan in that upmarket restaurant, saw his shirt stretch across his paunch, the buttons straining to hold him in, and thought maybe this would be a good move for me. He was almost seventy, overweight, with a high colour in his cheeks. He drank too much, and smoked cigars where he could. He looked like a man who wouldn’t make old bones. I didn’t think there was any fear he might abandon me – dying was a different matter and his death would leave me more than comfortably off. ‘Yes,’ I said, sliding my hand across the table to allow him to slip the ring in place, ‘I’ll marry you.’
Marry in haste… who doesn’t know the second part of that annoying epigram? Ivan had mentioned a family home a few miles from Windsor. What he hadn’t said was that this is where he expected us to live. All the bloody time. He had an office there, and still ran his financial business from it. He also made it more than clear that he’d expected to hear the pitter patter of tiny feet in the not-too-distant future.
I quickly became disillusioned with the turn my life had taken. I’d turned into a damn housewife. The most Ivan would countenance was a cleaner once a fortnight. And even then, he insisted they had to be supervised in every room for fear they might damage some of the tatty family heirlooms in his twee, chintzy country pile.
It didn’t take me long to discover my beloved husband didn’t love me. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise. I didn’t love him either. The big problem was in the level of our expectations. I’d got what I’d wanted, although being buried in the countryside wasn’t exactly how I’d envisaged my life, but he didn’t get what he wanted. A child. Ivan had waited till he was almost seventy before realising he wanted one and expected his wife to be a broodmare. He chose me because I was beautiful, and would, he assumed, have beautiful babies.
He also assumed I was far younger than I was, but what woman of a certain age doesn’t lie and subtract a couple of years, or six in my case.
When there was no sign of a child appearing, the distance between us – already grand-canyon sized – grew deeper. I began to see dislike rather than possessiveness in his gaze, to feel a chilly reluctance in the press of his lips against my cheek. Until that final day, when the discovery of what he’d have seen as my treachery tipped him over the edge into vicious hatred.
* * *
I was kept a few days in hospital before being released with a warning to return if I suffered any headaches or if the blood in my wee returned.
It was another couple of weeks before Ivan was allowed home.
He was only home a couple of days when I knew I couldn’t stay. It was something unbelievably simple that gave me that final push. I’d been searching through the bookshelves in our living room in search of a book to lift my mood, discounting ones I’d never read in favour of ones I’d read and knew would suit, where if they weren’t quite happy ever after, the main female character always came out on top. I needed that story. To know that it existed somewhere. I was on my knees, searching through the lower shelves, pulling out each book, one by one, shoving it back in frustration when it wasn’t what I needed. And then I came to a book I hadn’t read in years. It perfectly suited the mood I was in and I lifted it out with a smile.
Struggling wearily to my feet, I crossed to the sofa, sat, and curled up. Ready to dive into the book, I flicked the pages to the start of chapter one, unsurprised when something fell from between the pages. I had a habit of using whatever came to hand as a bookmark and frequently found receipts, scraps of paper, old envelopes between the pages of books I’d read. Whatever this was, it fluttered once before landing face down on the carpet. It was slightly out of reach and moving still caused me some discomfort, but as I read, my eyes kept flicking towards it so that after only a few pages, I grunted in annoyance, put the book down on the back of the sofa and swung my legs slowly to the floor.
I reached for the small card and turned it over with little curiosity, my eyes widening when I realised it was a photograph of me and an old boyfriend.
Shuffling along the sofa, I held it closer to the lamp. I knew who it was, of course. Mark Shepherd. How could I forget a man who’d loved me so desperately? I turned to look at the back. Nothing written there. It didn’t matter; it took only seconds to remember when it was taken. Twenty years before. My last year in university. The knuckling-down year.
I brushed a finger over his face and reached for the memory. It came back like a caress from the past and, for the first time since Ivan’s attack, I felt a lessening of the tension and fear that had gripped me.
Mark had made me feel loved.
I should never have let him go.