“He’s changed his surname. He’s a Cambridge don. He’s got a solid future. That he’s been married before is a bit of a problem, and I’d be happier if he weren’t so much older than you. But, all things considered, he’s not a bad catch.” He crossed his legs at the ankles and reached for his pipe and the copy of Punch which he’d long ago decided was appropriate gentleman’s Sunday afternoon reading. “I’m damned glad about that surname, however.”
Anthony hadn’t been the one to change it. His grandfather had done so, altering just two letters. The original i-n became a-v, and there he was, born anew, not a Weiner from Germany, but a Weaver, an Englishman. Weaver, of course, was not exactly an upper-class name, but Anthony’s grandfather couldn’t have known or understood that at the time, any more than he could have understood the delicate sensibilities of the class to which he aspired, sensibilities that would prevent him from ever breaking through the barrier constructed by his accent and his choice of profession. The upper crust, after all, did not generally rub social elbows with their tailors, no matter the proximity of their tailors’ shops to Savile Row.
Anthony had told her all this, not long after they’d met at the University Press where as an assistant editor newly graduated from Durham University, she’d been assigned the task of shepherding a book on the reign of Edward III through the final stages of the publication process. Anthony Weaver had been the editorial force behind the volume, a collection of essays written by lofty medievalists from round the country. In the final two months of the project, they had worked closely together- sometimes in her small offi ce at the Press, more often in his rooms in St. Stephen’s College. And when they weren’t working, Anthony had talked, his conversation drifting round his background, his daughter, his former marriage, his work, and his life.
She’d never known a man so capable of sharing himself in words. From a world in which communication constituted a single lift of the eyebrows or a twitch of the lips, she’d fallen in love with his willingness to speak, with his quick warm smile, with the way he engaged her directly with his eyes. She wanted nothing more than to listen to Anthony, and for the last nine years, she’d managed just that, until the circumscribed world of Cambridge University had no longer been enough for him.
Justine watched as the Irish setter rooted in his toy box and brought out a worn black sock for a game of tug-of-war on the kitchen tiles. “Not tonight,” she murmured. “In your basket. Stay here.” She patted the dog’s head, felt the soft caress of a warm, loving tongue on her fingers, and left the kitchen. She paused in the dining room to remove a loose thread that dangled from the tablecloth, and once again in the sitting room to turn off the gas fi re and watch the flames’ quick, sucking disappearance between the coals. Then, nothing more to keep her from doing so, she went upstairs.
In the half-darkened bedroom, Anthony was lying on the bed. He’d removed his shoes and his jacket, and Justine went automatically to place the former in their rack, the latter on its hanger. That done, she turned to face her husband. The light from the corridor glittered on the snail-track of tears that forked across his temple and disappeared into his hair. His eyes were closed.
She wanted to feel pity or sorrow or compassion. She wanted to feel anything save a recurrence of the anxiety that had fi rst gripped her when he’d driven away from the house that afternoon, abandoning her to deal with Glyn.
She walked to the bed. Gleaming Danish teak, it was a modern platform with side tables attached. On each of these, mushroom-shaped brass lamps squatted, and Justine switched on the one by her husband’s head. He brought his right arm up to cover his eyes. His left hand reached out, seeking hers.
“I need you,” he whispered. “Be with me. Stay here.”
She didn’t feel her heart open as it would have a year ago. Nor did she feel her body stir and awaken to the implicit promise behind his words. She wished she could have used the moment as other women in her position would have done, by opening the little drawer in his side table, taking up the box of condoms, and saying, “Throw these away, if you need me so much.” But she didn’t do that. Whatever self-assurance powered that kind of behaviour, she’d used up her stock of it long ago. What she had left was what remained once all the positives were gone. For an age, it seemed, she had been filled with outrage, distrust, and a need for vengeance that nothing had yet been able to satiate.
Anthony turned on his side. He pulled her down to sit on the bed and laid his head in her lap, his arms round her waist. In a rote reaction, she stroked his hair.
“It’s a dream,” he said. “She’ll be here this weekend and the three of us will be together again. We’ll take a drive to Blakeney. Or practise shooting for the pheasant hunt. Or just sit and talk. But we’ll be a family. Together.” Justine watched the tears slide across his cheek and drop onto the fine grey wool of her skirt. “I want her back,” he whispered. “Elena. Elena.”
She said the only thing which she knew to be the single, absolute truth at this point. “I’m sorry.”
“Hold me. Please.” His hands slid beneath her jacket and tightened against her back. After a moment, she heard him breathe her name. He held her closer and eased her blouse from the waistband of her skirt. His hands were warm on her back. They smoothed the way to unfasten her bra. “Hold me,” he said again. He pushed the jacket from her shoulders and lifted his mouth to nuzzle her breasts. Through the thin silk of her blouse, she felt first his breath, then his tongue, then his teeth on her nipple. She felt her nipple harden. “Just hold me,” he whispered. “Just hold me. Please.”
She knew that making love was one of the most normal, life-affirming reactions to a grievous loss. The only thing she couldn’t keep herself from wondering was whether her husband had already engaged in a life-affi rming reaction to his grievous loss today.
As if he sensed her resistance, he backed away from her. His spectacles were on the bedside table, and he put them on. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t even know what I’m doing any longer.”
She stood. “Where did you go?”
“You didn’t seem to want-”
“I’m not talking about right now. I’m talking about this afternoon. Where did you go?”
“For a drive.”
“Where?”
“Nowhere.”
“I don’t believe you.”
He looked away from her, to the teak chest of drawers with its sleek, cool lines.
“It’s starting again. You went to see her. You went to make love. Or did you just communicate-how was it between you?-soul to soul?”
He returned his gaze to her. His head shook slowly. “You choose your moments, don’t you?”
“That’s avoidance, Anthony. That’s a play for guilt. But it’s not going to work, not even tonight. Where were you?”
“What do I have to do to convince you it’s over? You wanted it that way. You named your terms. You got them. All of them. It’s over.”
“Is it?” She played her trump card smoothly. “Then where were you last night? I phoned your rooms in the college, right after I spoke to Elena. Where were you, Anthony? You lied to the Inspector, but surely you can tell your wife the truth.”
“Lower your voice. I don’t want you to wake Glyn.”
“I don’t care if I wake the dead.”
She recoiled from her words as immediately as he did. They served to throw water onto the fire of her anger, as did her husband’s broken response.
“If only you could, Justine.”
5
