I was happy. I was happy when we met again, I was happy when I came to live with him here. I was happy when we married, and after we married. I was happy for – what, two years? At least.
I was happy.
I knew perfectly well that he was not the easiest man in the world. I knew he could be moody, irritable and demanding, I knew his irrational dislikes and that he needed to have things just so. I knew. But I was happy because he seemed to become softer, easier, less selfish. Because he was such good company. We laughed a lot. We enjoyed some of the same things and were happy to give one another space. We spent weeks in a camper van touring round America and we could not have been happier. We got along. We rubbed along. We … I …
Judith sat with the doors open onto the garden, a rug on her knees, book open on her lap. It was almost half past six and the last of the westerly sun was on the wide border beneath the wall. Meriel’s border. She had planned, planted and tended it, as she had the rest of the garden. Meriel’s garden then. And that was fine. She felt happy and blessed to have inherited it, though she herself didn’t do a great deal. A young man called Olly came every week and looked after the beds and borders, the shrubs and the lawn, as if they were his own. Meriel would have liked Olly. They would have spent contented hours working together, discussing what might suit here and ought to come out of there, what needed cutting back, what was doing particularly well.
Judith liked to think of it. She had no disturbing feelings about the past in this place, about Meriel, about the family. There had been no doubts, in spite of Simon. He had resented her at first, but in the end, he had warmed to her and accepted her. She was his father’s wife. She was not Meriel but she was his stepmother and she loved him and, eventually, he realised it. Now, they were as close as they could ever be.
Now.
Now that she was unhappy, and had been so for the past year and a half. Now that Richard had become hostile, distant, cold. And occasionally – only occasionally, she told herself, only once or twice – had been violent towards her. It was not his fault. He found retirement difficult, he found her different ways hard to adjust to, he flared up for no reason but, but, but, of course, his temper flickered and went out just as quickly. He was not at heart a violent man. He was troubled and much of it had been her fault. She needed to understand him better, be more sensitive to him, give way, be less self-absorbed.
A swallow sat gracefully on the telegraph wire at the far end of the garden, forked tail dipping up and down to balance itself, and Judith had a moment of agonising awareness that it was free to stay there or to go, free to do anything until, in September, that strange communal instinct drove it to leave with the others for Africa and the sunshine. And mingled in with her flash of awareness was longing. I could do that. I could do that. She caught herself in mid-thought and was frightened.
‘You not getting ready?’ Richard stood in the doorway.
‘Darling, I told you, I can’t come. I’m still feeling nauseous and when I stand up I go giddy. This really is a knockout bug.’
‘Funny I haven’t caught it. Eat a couple of cream crackers, then go and get changed. You’ll feel all the the better for it.’
‘I doubt it and it would be such a nuisance for you if I was ill when we got there and you had to bring me home. You’ll enjoy yourself much better on your own.’
‘You just don’t care for the Freemasonry.’
‘I’ve no problem with the Freemasons, darling – don’t forget Donald was one.’
‘How does that make a difference?’
‘It made me used to it. I’ve simply continued. I really don’t feel well enough for a formal dinner.’
‘Ladies’ night is twice a year. People will wonder if I have a wife at all.’
‘They certainly won’t if you just tell them I’m ill.’
He clicked his teeth irritably and went out. She looked at his back. Straight, as if he had been a guardsman, hair grey but still thick. Shirt collar neatly settled into his sweater.
I was happy. I was very happy and I loved him. Not in the way I loved Donald. Who was it said ‘the arrow only strikes once’? That was true, but it had not prevented her from marrying for a different sort of love, and for friendship and company. Why not? She had met an old friend whose husband had had both hips and then a knee replaced. ‘He’s not the man I married!’ Yvonne had said, laughing.
He’s not the man I married. No. Or was he? Had it taken all this time for the real man to reveal himself or had he changed radically for some reason impossible to fathom?
She closed her eyes, feeling nauseous and giddy again. Poor Felix was still suffering from it; Cat was better but pale with dark shadows under her eyes.
‘I haven’t caught it.’ He made her feel that catching a virus was her own fault. He was more careful. She had done it on purpose to get out of ladies’ night.
She felt tears prick. That was because the illness had made her feel weak and vulnerable, of course, but she had cried more in the last year than in the last thirty and she had not always been able to blame a virus.
‘You look very handsome, darling. A dinner jacket well becomes a man.’
Richard grunted. ‘Have you seen my black wallet?’
‘Yes, on the dressing table.’
‘It certainly is not.’
‘It was there this morning. Do you want me to –?’
But he had gone, running up the stairs – he could still do it.
‘Yes?’
He did not answer, merely patted his pockets.
‘Have you booked a taxi?’
‘Naturally.’
‘I am sorry, darling, but have a very good evening.’
‘Eat something bland and get to bed early.’
‘I will.’
The sound of the cab turning into the drive.
He left.
What have I done? Judith asked herself. What is it? When did it begin, this aloofness, this curt way of talking to me? What did I say, do, or not say, not do? We were happy. I was happy.
Something had flipped over to show a dark side. Never flipped back.
What did I do?