A Most Desirable Marriage Read online

‘Dad promised he’d call her. Let him explain.’

  *

  Lawrence Meadows rang the bell – to his own house. It hurt Jo more than she could explain. She wondered why she’d agreed to his request to come round and ‘talk things through’. But the truth was that she wanted desperately to see him, even if it hurt like rubbing salt into an open wound.

  ‘Hello.’ He waited like a guest for her to stand aside and let him in. He stood tall, with his customary elegance, but his face had the decency to look drawn and pale. They both walked through to the kitchen, Jo put the kettle on, brought out the tea. The glass door to the terrace was open; it was another hot June afternoon like the night of the party. But not like the night of the party.

  ‘I don’t know why you’re here.’

  ‘I didn’t say goodbye properly . . . and I thought . . . well, that you deserve an explanation,’ he said, hovering on the edge of the terrace.

  She didn’t reply. No one, not even her clever husband, could explain love. And no way was she going to listen again to how his eyes had met Arkadius’s over a row of pawns and he’d lost his mind. So she just completed her task: brewing the tea, pouring it into two mugs, putting them on the flower-pattern plastic tray, adding milk to his cup, honey to her own, placing two spoons alongside the mugs, carrying it outside. Her recent endorsement of mindless, repetitive action was working for her so far. They sat next to each other in the two wooden garden chairs, she handed him his tea.

  ‘You must want to ask me stuff,’ he suggested.

  Jo didn’t look at him. ‘Not really.’

  ‘Jo.’ He laid his hand on her bare arm. ‘Please. I can’t make this any easier for you, but at least I can listen to how you’re feeling . . . you must be angry, upset.’

  Don’t you dare tell me how I ‘must’ feel, she thought as she snatched her arm away, her stomach knotting with outrage at his calm, almost patronizing delivery.

  ‘If you think I’m going to scream and sob and beg you to come home, you can think again.’

  ‘I don’t expect you to.’

  ‘Well, what do you want to hear then? That I’m fine, that I understand? That it’s perfectly normal sixty-two-year-old behaviour to leave your wife and family for a Russian history professor in his forties?’

  ‘No . . .’

  ‘So what is there to talk about? Seems like a fait accompli to me. You have somewhere to live, someone to love, an exciting new life.’

  ‘Jo . . . please . . . it’s not like that.’

  ‘In what way is it “not like that” exactly?’ She had been determined not to cry, and she didn’t, but she almost frightened herself with her sangfroid.

  ‘I told you the other night . . . I didn’t plan this. I love you so much, you know I do. I’d never intentionally hurt you. But this thing with Arkadius has just sent me wild. I didn’t know what else to do, except stay here and lie to you. Would you rather I’d done that?’

  She shook her head. ‘Don’t make me responsible for what you do, Lawrence.’

  ‘You know I didn’t mean it like that.’

  ‘The children think you’ve been at it all your life.’

  Lawrence bowed his head for a moment. ‘I know, and I understand why they do.’ He turned to her, his light eyes pleading. ‘But I swear on their lives I haven’t. Not ever. Not with anyone, woman or man.’

  For a second her mind skittered back to a moment decades ago. They had been having a cheap supper in a Thai café in Acton – Lawrence loved finding new places to eat. The tables were side by side in a row, and a very pretty girl had sat down next to Jo, opposite Lawrence. Jo had got more and more jealous as her husband’s eye constantly wandered in the girl’s direction. She’d become sulky and refused to speak to him. But once outside, Lawrence had grabbed her, laughing, kissed her hard on the mouth as they stood in the dark on the pavement outside the café.

  ‘Don’t be like that. I’m sorry, I’m really sorry if you think I fancied her. She had a sort of fascinating face, that’s all. You’ve seen those people . . .’ And when she still refused to be mollified, the jealousy winding a tight knot in her guts, like a stabbing cramp, he had just gazed at her. ‘I love you, Jo, you know I do. More than anyone else on the face of the earth.’ As he spoke he had pushed her against the cold wall, kissing her urgently, clasping her face in his hands, his gaze intense with desire, until jealousy had been totally replaced by her own arousal.

  Now, as she looked up at her husband, the memory laid a trail across his features, like a cruel mirage that seemed to compound his betrayal.

  ‘They also think you’re having a senior moment . . . that you’ll come to your senses and be back.’

  Lawrence didn’t answer immediately, and Jo found herself counting the seconds, holding her breath as she waited for him to confirm that this was, indeed, a possibility.

  ‘I . . . I feel too crazy to . . .’

  ‘I don’t think you’ll be back. I’m just telling you what the children say.’ She interrupted his stammering reply, unable to bear another reiteration of the truth.

  Cassie had been on the phone for hours the previous night. Lawrence had told her before Nicky had the chance, so perhaps she’d vented her rage on him, because she was calm and very supportive with her mother. Jo, always loath to ask for help, had felt for the first time that Cassie was the adult, herself the damaged child. Cassie had offered to come to London, or as an alternative, suggested Jo stay with them in Devon for a while. But Jo had refused both options. She loved her children for their concern, but at the moment she needed to be alone. People wanted answers; they wanted to know what the plan was. But there was no plan.

  Her husband got up, put his mug back on the tray. He had tears in his eyes. ‘I’m so sorry, Jo.’

  She felt her throat constricting and looked quickly away as he hovered, his shadow over her face as he blocked out the sun.

  ‘I’ll call you,’ he muttered.

  ‘Don’t,’ she replied.

  ‘The children—’

  ‘Cassie and Nicky are adults, Lawrence. They make their own decisions.’

  He nodded and turned to go.

  *

  Joanna sat in front of her computer in her upstairs study, her sanctuary. The room was piled with books – her own and other people’s – both on the shelves and off them, stacked on the floor, the filing cabinet, the windowsill, leaving space only for her large beech computer desk and ergonomic chair. Looking over the garden, it was hot with the afternoon sun. Normally she would be working in there every day, but she hadn’t been into her study or checked her emails since the night of the party; she’d been existing in a numb cocoon. Now she found nearly forty messages from her friends, colleagues, her agent, all relating to that other time, her normal life, before Lawrence’s baffling announcement. How would she tell them? The Meadows had an enviable marriage, everyone knew that. Would they laugh now, enjoy the fall from grace? She was ashamed to think they might, but had she and Lawrence been a bit smug? Donna’s twenty-odd years with Walter had ended in separation four years ago – the only argument between them by then being who should keep Max – as had many of her other friends’ long relationships. But the Meadows had seemed immune to the threat of boredom and sexual infidelity, even surviving their children’s departure from home without a glitch.

  She decided she wouldn’t answer any but the most pressing email. The news would filter out anyway, it always did. And until then she could pretend.

  Chapter 3

  30 July 2013

  ‘I’m worried about you.’ Donna had her concerned frown on, one she wore a lot these days with Jo.

  ‘Yeah, so you keep saying. I’m just not sure what you expect me to do that would stop you worrying.’

  Donna lay on the grass outside the hut, her head on an ancient patchwork cushion, steadying a glass of red wine with her right hand. Jo sat on a folded tartan rug, leaning against the wooden wall of the hut. It was late, after nine and still not quite dark,
warm enough for them not to move inside.

  Donna pulled herself up, crossed her legs in the navy crumpled-linen trousers, making Max – snuggled next to her – stir in his sleep and open one eye. ‘Not sure either. But you seem so calm. As if Lawrence has just gone on an extended trip to China or somewhere, not actually left you . . . perhaps for ever.’ Donna held up her hand as Jo was about to protest. ‘I’m saying it how it is – or at least how it might be – darling, because you don’t seem to get it. Sorry to sound cruel, but you do understand that Lawrence . . . well he might not come back.’

  Jo didn’t answer, just rubbed her eyes, as if she was having trouble seeing clearly in the half light.

  ‘You’ve got to face it one day. Otherwise you’ll just stay in this limbo for God knows how long . . . waiting.’

  ‘And this facing it? How exactly does that work? Sounds like you won’t be satisfied until I’ve had a nervous breakdown and been carted off to the bin.’

  ‘Don’t get upset. Of course I don’t want you to have a breakdown. It’s just your life seems to be going along as usual. I can’t see that anything’s changed.’

  Which was true. It was six weeks since he’d left, and the time had plodded past in a determined effort on Jo’s part to Keep Occupied. She’d got into a rhythm each day: reading, gardening, walking and the gym, even making bread – which she hadn’t done for years, though the loaf turned out leaden and sour – dropping in for coffee or wine with Donna. Her husband called every few days but she didn’t answer the phone, and she hadn’t told a single person about the separation. Lawrence had occasionally taught a Human Rights course at Columbia University’s summer school. He would be away in New York for nearly three weeks in August. Now felt like then to her, Donna was right.

  ‘You should get back on the horse,’ her friend was saying, ‘before it’s too late. It’ll help you move past Lawrence.’

  Jo stared at her in amazement. ‘You mean . . . men?’

  Donna giggled. ‘Well, women if you like . . . on the principle that if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.’

  ‘You are joking.’

  ‘Of course I am . . . sort of.’ Donna leaned forward earnestly, her hands cradling her wine glass. ‘OK, I’m going to be blunt—’

  ‘That’d be a first.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. But seriously, darling. I reckon you’re still hanging in there on the shaggable index. Sure, you’re sixty, but you don’t look it: tall, slim, legs up to your armpits, those stunning grey eyes . . . you’ve even got muscles in your arms. Your hair could do with some attention, but I’d fancy you if I was that way inclined.’

  Joanna brought her hand up to her hair, self-consciously aware that the thick, layered, light-brown – tinged with grey – mop her friend referred to was long overdue for a cut and colour.

  ‘But the horrible truth is that you’re on the cusp. Another few years and your choices’ll be limited to the drooping willies, paunches and bad teeth of the ageing British male. Not a pretty sight.’

  ‘Thanks. So encouraging.’ Jo held out her glass for a refill. ‘Anyway, aren’t you forgetting something? You didn’t go out at all, not for months after you and Walter split.’

  ‘That was different. I was in love with someone who wasn’t in love with me. That bastard Julian broke my heart. Walter’s departure had nothing to do with any of it.’

  ‘And my heart’s not broken?’ Jo heard the tremor in her voice.

  Donna didn’t reply, just got up and came to sit next to Jo, wedging herself on to the rug and clasping Jo’s hand tightly. ‘I know it must be, darling. But I think I’m glad to hear you say it.’

  *

  Jo got off the two-coach train at Barnstaple and looked around for her daughter. The platform was normally deserted, but today there was a crowd of over-fifties backpackers milling around the small station. Cassie’s tall figure hurried towards her, long, golden hair flying behind her in the wind as it had when she was a child. Jo was always taken aback by her beauty. Cassie had her father’s aquiline nose, her mother’s large, grey eyes and thick, dark eyelashes, a clear complexion now enhanced by a light summer tan, the whole put together in a robust, charismatic beauty that drew the eye of every man she passed, despite the plain T-shirt, jeans and sandals she wore.

  Cassie squeezed her mother tight. ‘So glad you came, Mum.’

  ‘Me too,’ Jo replied, although she had her usual reservations about the visit. It wasn’t Cassie – she loved being with her daughter, and missed her terribly since she’d moved to Devon. Even earnest, humourless Matt (such an odd choice for her extrovert daughter) was bearable for short periods. The challenge was their eco-house.

  Matt had built it himself entirely from recycled materials. It had taken him years of painstaking work – he lived in a prehistoric canvas army tent on site throughout – and it was still unfinished when he’d met Cassie. She’d helped him out, driven him on, mainly out of self-preservation, and it was now habitable – to Cassie and Matt at least. Sitting on the edge of Muddiford Wood, north of Barnstaple, no other house in sight, a stream running alongside the extensive vegetable patch, it looked like a large woodsman’s cottage from a fairytale, except for the solar panels taking up most of the south side of the pitched roof. And although two eco-magazines had dubbed it ‘idyllic’, Jo preferred ‘primitive’.

  It was freezing in winter (despite the state-of-the-art Swedish wood-burning stove), boiling in summer, full of spiders, recycling bins and coir matting that skinned your feet if you were stupid enough to go barefoot. And if that weren’t enough, it was also noisy with the endless clucking of the chickens and grunting of Moby, the pig, in the run outside. But she could just about put up with all that. It was the composting loo that proved the last straw. Not only did it stink in all seasons, attract flies in summer and wobble alarmingly when she sat on it, but she was constantly aware of sitting above the collected poo of weeks. That it was covered in a thin layer of sawdust and aerated by some mysterious method that Matt had unsuccessfully explained about fifty times, was no consolation.

  Jo could tell that Cassie was nervous about seeing her for the first time since Lawrence’s news.

  ‘Do you and Dad talk?’ her daughter asked in a low whisper, as soon as they were seated at the back of the Ilfracombe bus.

  ‘Not for weeks. I asked him not to ring. Although he keeps leaving messages.’

  ‘He’s sent me loads. Texts and voicemail. But I haven’t called him since he told me.’

  ‘You should, darling.’

  ‘Mum! Dad has left you – and us – so he can shag a bloke. Why should any of us speak to him again, ever?’

  Jo wished everyone would stop pointing this out. Did they think the horrible fact had somehow escaped her?

  Cassie’s voice had risen, but the three other people on the bus didn’t even twitch, they seemed to take no interest whatsoever. Perhaps it was standard practice in north Devon.

  ‘Whatever he’s done he’s still your father. You don’t want to lose touch.’

  Cassie was silent for a moment. Jo knew how hurt she must be. She idolized Lawrence.

  ‘That’s what Matt keeps telling me, but I don’t know how to talk to him . . . what to say. And the longer I leave it, the worse it gets.’ Jo heard the stubborn note in her daughter’s voice.

  ‘Believe me, I understand, darling. But it’s almost harder for you and Nicky than it is for me.’

  Cassie shot her a bewildered glance. ‘Uh, no, Mum. I don’t think so. Your life has been turned upside down.’ She sighed. ‘I’m just embarrassed . . . for him as much as myself.’

  ‘My life hasn’t really changed.’

  Now her daughter’s look was astonished. ‘How can you say that?’

  She shrugged. ‘Well it hasn’t. The only difference is that your dad doesn’t come home any more.’

  ‘And that’s not relevant?’ Cassie grabbed Jo’s bag. ‘This is our stop.’

  *

  Joanna was up earl
y the next morning. The day was cloudy and still. It wasn’t the chickens or the thin futon that had kept her awake this time. Still dressed in pyjamas, she put on her daughter’s wellington boots and wandered outside, taking long, deep breaths of the clean air, heavy with impending rain. She missed the country, but Lawrence had a horror of anywhere without people and a pavement and they’d rarely spent much time out of cities, except on a beach, which didn’t seem to panic him in the same way as green rolling hills.

  Jo went over to lean on the fence that supported Moby’s pen. The pig was an Oxford Sandy and Black, a breed which even had its own pig society – set up, according to Matt, to get it recognized as a true rare breed. Moby was pretty, with his light sandy coat and black blotches, his lop ears almost covering his eyes. He snuffled over to Jo and stared up at her with his buried black eyes. ‘They’ll never eat you, will they?’ she asked softly. But the pig was clearly unconcerned by her question and wandered off, riffling the mud with his snout as he went.

  She looked round for Matt. She’d heard him get up and go out hours ago. Matt was always happier outside. After a short while in the house, he would just wander over to the hooks on the wall by the door and collect his anorak, pull on his battered striped beanie without a word, as if he’d been programmed. Cassie would ask ‘Where are you going?’ but his answer was always vague. Jo thought he’d probably gone for a ride now – bikes were his only hobby outside his eco-obsession – and she was glad she didn’t have to face him yet.

  There had been an argument the night before. Nothing serious, but they’d all had quite a lot to drink – Jo had brought a good supply of wine with her – and she knew she was doing it, pushing Matt’s buttons. She found herself almost enjoying it. But it was Cassie, of course, who’d been upset and the guilt had stopped Jo sleeping. There was something about her situation at the moment – a sort of pity badge – that seemed to give her licence to behave badly. And with her son-in-law it was all too easy.

  It had started with him retrieving the camomile teabag Jo had dropped, after some thought, into the recycling bin labelled ‘Paper and Card’. It was one of five, the others bearing the respective tags: Plastics; Glass; Aluminium Foil/Tins; Electronic (including things like printer cartridges, batteries). Matt had then pointedly placed it in the stainless steel compost bucket behind the sink.