A Game of Consequences Read online

  ‘Darling,’ said Aurora.

  ‘Hullo,’ said the other casually. ‘Didn’t know you were down here.’ She leaned down and placed her cheek to within an inch of Aurora’s: ‘When did you arrive?’

  Aurora reached out to pull her closer, but the young woman had already withdrawn with an austere expression. ‘Oh, we’ve been here a long time,’ she said, ‘but what brings you to this part of the world?’

  ‘Visiting friends.’

  ‘Oh. Who?’

  ‘You wouldn’t know them,’ the young woman said with crushing decisiveness.

  ‘Well, what a bit of luck running into you, darling, it’s been such — ’ Aurora broke off and said in a coaxing voice: ‘Now do sit down for a moment, there’s so much — ’ Again she broke off and went on hastily: ‘This is Tom Ransome, who is staying at Upperdown. Tom, this is — ’

  ‘Deirdre Desborough,’ she cut in roughly with a quick half-nod to Tom. Surlily she bumped on to the seat Tom had drawn out for her and thrust out her long legs, shoulders hunched up to her ears and chin on her chest like a moody child.

  ‘What’ll you drink?’ said Tom, but she shook her head and said: ‘Nothing, thanks.’

  ‘You look tired, dear.’

  ‘I am.’ She tipped her head back and thrust her fist into an enormous yawn. ‘Shagged out. That’s why I came down here for a few days’ break. Not knowing you were here, of course.’

  Aurora hesitated whether to pick the last remark up, but decided not to.

  ‘You’ve been working hard, I expect.’

  ‘You can say that again. I’ve a show opening on the 18th of next month, if it’s of any interest to you.’

  ‘Of course it’s of interest to me. I hope it does marvellously well. Tom, Deirdre is a metal sculptor. She welds all kinds of metal bits together so cleverly into abstract forms, just out of odds and ends from the scrap yard.’

  The young woman uttered a coarse laugh and turned to Tom with a contemptuous expression:

  ‘That tells you exactly how she regards it; like turning an old dress into an evening-blouse or something: a matter of ingenuity.’ She tipped a cigarette from a crumpled pack and put it between her lips. ‘Which reminds me: how’s my ex-boyfriend getting on?’

  ‘Jerry’s fine.’

  ‘You’re still together then? Not seeing him here, I wondered.’

  To this Aurora made no reply.

  The girl leapt to her feet: ‘I must go.’

  ‘Would you … come to dinner one evening?’

  ‘Sorry, can’t do. The people I’m staying with have got the whole weekend fixed up for me. It would look rather rude to walk out and have dinner with someone else, wouldn’t it, and I shouldn’t like to hurt their feelings.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘Good. I thought you would. It’s wonderful how we all get what we ask for in this world, isn’t it, old dear,’ she remarked with a flicker of a smile and turned away.

  Aurora rose too, looking oddly subdued. ‘Let’s get out of here, Tom,’ she muttered, going quickly ahead of him.

  She was very quiet in the car, spoke not a word. Presently Tom heard her fumbling in her handbag; she found a handkerchief and blew her nose; and a little later she said in a shaky voice:

  ‘She hates me. My daughter hates me.’

  Tom said: ‘Oh, my dear, I’m sure she doesn’t.’

  She blotted up the tears running down her cheeks like black pearls: ‘No, it’s true. She won’t even see me if she can help it. You must have noticed she could scarcely bring herself to speak to me.’

  ‘I hadn’t realised till this moment that you had a daughter.’

  ‘No, did you see how she jumped in to prevent me introducing her as my daughter. She’ll never forgive me. But it’s my own fault. I’ve no one to blame but myself. I didn’t realise it at the time, I swear, or I’d never have married him. I’m not quite without heart, you know. I wouldn’t have hurt her for the world. But she was deeply hurt and wounded in her pride too, I can see now, my poor baby. And there’s nothing I can do to make amends. She won’t let me. The irony of it is,’ she said, brushing away a fresh spate of tears with the back of her hand, ‘that I probably spared her a much greater hurt, she could never have coped with a man like Jerry. He can be one hell of a bastard.’

  ‘Rory dear, if he married you it must have been because he wanted to. Presumably he had some say in the matter.’

  ‘Who can say what goes on in Jerry’s mind? Who knows what he feels or thinks about anything?’ And again she broke into weeping.

  ‘Don’t, darling, don’t,’ Tom said, halting the car on the grass verge and taking her in his arms quite naturally. He kissed her wet cheek and her salty lips. Her tongue entered his mouth, her warm hand slid up inside his T-shirt and moved quite naturally to his flies …

  ‘This damn seat … ’

  ‘It’s all right … ’

  She groaned ‘Oh, quickly, darling, quickly … ’

  *

  The bedside lamp was alight but Kate was asleep, her book spine upward on the floor. He picked it up and laid it on the table beside her. She stirred: ‘Wuh?’

  ‘Ssh, don’t wake up … ’ he whispered.

  She humped on to her right side: ‘Wha’ time?’ she mumbled.

  ‘Night time. Go back to sleep,’ he softly urged.

  But she woke up and wanted to know where he had been. He told her he had taken the Roarer for a drink.

  ‘Till this hour?’

  ‘Well, things were rather hectic. I couldn’t get away.’

  ‘Hope you enjoyed it, Tom-puss.’

  ‘No, not really, it was actually pretty pathetic.’

  ‘What happened? Did she fall flat on her face?’

  ‘Not physically, no. That humiliation would not have been so painful. Poor old Roarer, she chanced to run into her daughter, whom I gathered she had not seen since she married Jeremy. Not a nice young woman, hard as nails. It was not a pleasant encounter. The poor Roarer was very upset, pangs of guilt and heartbreak and all the rest of it.’ He kicked off his shoes, pulled at his socks. ‘Extraordinary, isn’t it, to think that never once in all this while, in all the earfuls of confidences I’ve had to take, did either she or Jerry ever mention her existence.’

  ‘A mystery. But then I’ve always regarded the Roarer as a pretty hard nut herself.’

  ‘That’s because you don’t like her.’

  ‘I would say it’s because she’s got this hard streak in her that I don’t like her.’

  ‘You’re hard on her. She’s had a rough time.’

  ‘So she says. What’s her story?’

  ‘It appears that Jeremy was the girl’s boyfriend before Rory came on the scene. She’s never forgiven her mother for marrying him.’

  ‘Can you wonder! What a bitch! Didn’t I always tell you she was a bitch? It’s a mystery to me how Jeremy came to marry her. I just don’t understand it.’

  ‘I’ll ask him. I’m sure he’ll tell me if I say you want to know,’ he laughed. ‘It was one of those things that just happen: they were in love. She simply didn’t know Deirdre was really in love with him, or she would never have done it. If you’d seen the girl you could well believe it, she doesn’t look as if she’s ever been in love with anyone. She looks a cold bitch, if you like. Whereas poor old Rory was nearly in tears, in fact she sobbed all the way home; knowing she would never be forgiven.’

  ‘Oh pooh! having not given it a thought all the while she’s been here!’

  ‘There are some things too painful to dwell on, Kate. She is her only child. Think how it must hurt.’

  ‘Think how it must hurt to lose one’s lover to one’s mother.’

  ‘But Rory loved her daughter. You don’t know what she went through for her. Deirdre’s father was a monster. Really vicious. He used to knock her about — ’

  ‘She seems to have a taste for that.’

  ‘ — and bring his women to the house, and she put up wit
h it all for the sake of the child. And then because he happened once to find her in bed with someone, he instituted divorce proceedings and she lost the custody of her little girl. It broke her heart.’

  ‘I bet.’

  ‘I can believe it,’ Tom said simply. ‘It would break my heart if I were to lose my children.’

  Kate favoured him with a long steady look. She passed a tongue across her lips. After a moment she said: ‘Well, wasn’t she a chump? She should have divorced him first, if she had all that evidence, and then she’d have got custody.’

  ‘You think she was lying?’

  ‘I think it probably didn’t occur quite the way she tells it. We all put our own interpretation on events, don’t we? I mean, one imagines she must have defended the case; so if he really was the brute she makes out one would have expected her to have been awarded custody.’

  ‘Yes, I see.’ He lay still awhile thinking. ‘There was another husband between that one and Jeremy, you know. An Italian movie star named Aldo Marino. He was in that thing with whatsername — Julie Christie, remember?’

  ‘I remember. She certainly manages to pick them young and dishy, I must say. I’d like to know how she does it.’

  ‘I should think she was pretty dishy herself when she was young. She’s still a very alluring woman.’

  ‘What became of the Italian?’

  ‘Aldo Marino? Oh, that was dreadful. Don’t you remember? He was killed in a car crash. And for Aurora the horror of it was that she was driving. She was exonerated from all blame in the matter; a lorry swung out in front of her, and Aldo was flung out. He died in her arms at the roadside. She never drove again. She’s never really got over it. It’s awful, Kate, isn’t it, the things that can happen to people, really through no fault of their own.’

  There was no answer.

  ‘Kate,’ he murmured, ‘are you asleep?’

  ‘No. Thinking. Poor old Roarer; I agree it has come a bit thick. But can one ever be quite not responsible in some way for the things that happen? I doubt it. I mean, if she hadn’t been driving the accident might never have occurred; the husband’s reflexes might have been just that much swifter.’

  ‘That only makes it worse.’

  ‘But better to recognise the fact than to rail uselessly against fate or another person.’

  Tom grunted and turned on his side, not wishing to continue that dour train of thought. Soon he was asleep. But Kate lay awake a long while, quite still save for the silent ceaseless invisible motion of the thoughts turning and turning in her brain in her efforts to resolve the problems which beset her.

  The problem was a moral one. It was unquestionably wrong to keep the truth from Tom, he had every right to know. Yet if he knew, it would make what she considered to be the right decision, impossible. To Kate the right decision was a pragmatic inevitability, only Tom would never see it in that light. Therefore Tom must not be told. She would have to deceive him. There was no other way out of the situation. She realised to the full that for the first time in their married life she would have to do him a grave wrong. Something at least that he would regard as a great injury. Something which if he were ever to find out he would never forgive.

  Tomorrow she would pull herself together and face the issue.

  The clock in the room below struck four. Tomorrow was already today. Kate was suddenly ravenously hungry. She slid gently from the bed and padded down to the kitchen where she hacked a chunk of ham off the bone and ate it greedily in her fingers.

  Next morning when Tom ran up to call her for breakfast she was in the bathroom being sick.

  ‘Poor old duck, what’s up?’

  ‘It’s nothing,’ she gasped, retching. ‘I’ll be down in a minute.’

  ‘Oughtn’t you to go back to bed?’

  ‘No, I’ll be all right.’

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Quite sure.’ She wiped the icy sweat from her brow. ‘Just something I ate.’ She looked up with a pale smile to say: ‘Like Hannah Bantry in the pantry I went down in the night and made myself a piggy sandwich. I think the ham was probably a bit “off”, you’d better throw it out.’

  But she had to admit, as the tummy upset continued, that it probably had not been the ham. More likely a touch of gastric flu, several people in the office had gone down with it.

  ‘You’ve been sick three mornings running, I think you ought to see the Doc.’

  ‘I will at the weekend if it’s not better.’

  ‘You don’t think … by any wild chance … ?’

  ‘Indeed I do not,’ Kate said firmly, flushing to the roots of her hair like a girl.

  FIVE

  ‘And what did the Doc say?’ inquired Tom a few days later.

  ‘Yes, it’s just an upset tummy, a touch of gastro-enteritis, nothing to worry about. He’s given me some stuff to take.’

  *

  ‘Patrick, will you do me a favour, and no questions asked?’

  ‘Don’t look so wrought-up, you know I will. What is it?’

  ‘I need two hundred pounds, and just at this moment I can’t lay my hands on it. Not without Tom knowing.’

  ‘And he mustn’t know. Is that it?’

  ‘No, he mustn’t know.’

  ‘God, if all our troubles were as easily solved as that one,’ he said lightly.

  ‘I’ll pay you back just as soon as I can.’

  ‘Ah, if we can’t help our friends, what’s it all for?’

  *

  ‘Rory’s very down these days,’ Jerry said with a sigh.

  ‘Did she tell you we ran into her daughter the night you chickened out? It upset her pretty badly, I daresay that’s what is making her so unhappy. It was obvious even to me that the wretched girl still has a terrific grudge against her. How did it occur? It must have been a rather hairy situation for you, wasn’t it?’

  ‘It happened at a time when I was rather off women.’

  ‘Off women! Heavens, man, what do you get up to when you’re not off them, I’d like to know!’

  ‘I mean, I didn’t want to get involved again at that time. I was just getting over the fiasco of my first marriage, and Deirdre was very cool and casual, just what I needed after Lucinda.’

  ‘I had no idea you’d been married before. You’re full of surprises, you and Rory.’

  ‘It wasn’t worth mentioning. It was over so soon.’

  ‘What happened? Or would you rather … ?’

  ‘I don’t suppose you ever saw her, the Honourable Lucinda Harcourt, and photographs didn’t do her justice. She was … quite a girl.’

  Useless to try to describe the beauty of that ravishing child, light as thistledown when she moved, pale as a sea-maiden with aquamarine eyes, transparent and unseeing between their black lashes. ‘I was besotted about her. We were married in three weeks.’ His expression was remote, remembering the wild feverish excitement of their marriage; till that morning when she woke up and looked at him as if he were a stranger … as if she could not imagine what she was doing in this room … in this bed … in this man’s arms. He sighed. ‘She just walked out one day after four months and went back to the man she’d been in love with all the time. I suppose she never really cared for me at all and only married me to make him jealous so that he’d divorce his wife. When it didn’t work, she just went back to him. I imagine she couldn’t help herself, poor dear, but it wasn’t very amusing for me.’ He gave a short laugh. ‘It did rather put me off women for a time.’

  ‘I can see it would. And then you met Rory and found yourself in love all over again.’

  ‘Something like that. Yes, it must have been. She’d had a bad time too, what with Piers and then Aldo, poor old Rory. But she was awfully good value in those days. And terrific in bed. Still is, I may say. A bit too much so at times. But she has been a terrible bore of late and sour as hell. Going through the change, I expect; though she’d never admit it. It makes her difficult to live with, I’ll tell you that.’

  ‘She’s
worried.’

  ‘I know, damn it.’

  ‘Anyway, you decided to plunge into matrimony once more, brave lad. How long had you known her before you proposed this time?’

  ‘I can’t remember. I’m not sure that I did propose, I think it was Rory’s idea, actually. She seemed to think it was the reasonable thing to do.’

  Tom chuckled.

  ‘I can imagine that Rory’s the sort of woman who usually gets what she wants. It’s been a success though, hasn’t it?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know what you measure it against. You know me, I’m quite content to drift along so long as I’m left in peace.’

  ‘That’s all most of us ask.’

  ‘How’s Kate these days?’

  ‘Edgy.’ But she’ll enjoy this bit of gossip, he thought.

  *

  ‘Mother says Dad’s not too well. I think I should go and see them, do you know it’s nearly three months since I’ve been over there. I’ll go tomorrow and stay overnight.’

  ‘Why not wait a few days and spend the weekend with them, they’d appreciate that.’

  Kate hesitated:

  ‘No, I think I’d better go tomorrow. As a matter of fact, I said I would.’

  Next morning when Kate went to kiss the children goodbye in their warm little nests, Biddy clung to her with unusual intensity, and when her father came in and said to her mother: ‘Don’t forget your little overnight bag,’ Biddy exclaimed: ‘Don’t go, Mummy! I don’t want you to go.’

  ‘Darling, don’t be silly. I’m only going to see Granny and Gramps; I’ll be back tomorrow.’

  ‘I don’t feel well,’ the child wailed — taking a leaf out of Dinah’s classic repertory — and turned her face into the pillow.