‘Yes, people do, you know.’
Sighing, she went over to the window which opened on the front of the house. The lower part of the sash window had been pushed up to let in sea breezes, presumably in Deirdre’s desire to clear the house of its closed-up smell. Teresa leaned out with her forearms on the sill, as if she could not bear her husband’s proximity, and gazed towards the boat-filled harbour.
She was wearing a flimsy summer dress, low-cut round the shoulders. Squire had a good view of her shoulder-blades. From behind, she looked slender and youthful, almost thin, for her cramped attitude made the shoulder-blades project. His fancy saw her as a member of a mutated species, developing wings and about to fly away from him.
The tender bones, so functionally shaped, protruding under the flesh. The skin itself, clear and fair, roseate with a touch of the summer sun. The bumpy little tract of her backbone, leading down under the material of the dress, and there glimpsed in outline. The downy line of hairs following the track. The curve of her neck up into her dyed bright hair. At all these things Squire gazed during the silence, heavy with their frustration.
And said to himself, ‘Whatever arguments I put up, however I attempt to reason, however unreasonable she is, she will win. Because she has that beautiful body.’ Biology was always going to win in the end.
He walked round the room, and stubbed his cigarette out in Deirdre’s ashtray, hardly aware of what he was doing. Stuck into the side of Deirdre’s mirror, beside other treasures, was a card he had sent her from Tinjar Park in Sarawak, showing ancient supplicatory hands painted on a cave wall. He felt gratitude to his sister for caring enough to keep it.
‘Tess, I know how you must be distressed,’ he said to her back, moving unhappily behind her.
She brought her torso in from the window and slowly drew the sash down.
‘Depressed! You’re joking.’
‘I said distressed. I’m trying to tell you that I understand. I won’t say what I think about Jarvis, but I have bought him off and paid the debt to your Italian packaging firm. I’ve settled all the financial side of things. Now I want to look after you and see you happy again. We are too old for this sort of emotional jag.’
‘Oh, Tom,’ she said wearily, brushing a curl of hair from her eyes.’ You’re being superior again.’ She sat down on the foot of the bed, her back to him.
‘Well, I’m trying not to be superior. I’m trying to keep my temper. Perhaps you think I’m complacent — that’s simply because mainly I’m happy, most of the time. Despite the male menopause… Or perhaps I’m not…’
‘You’re only interested in yourself,’ she said feelingly. ‘That’s more to the point.’
‘Did you drive over from Grantham just to insult me? If you won’t make our quarrel up, then what more do you want from me?’
She regarded the carpet, inspecting the grains of sand on it. ‘I want nothing more. Mother persuaded me we should look in here. I hoped… Oh, hell. I know I sponged off you, and that kept me quiet. I hate myself, it’s not just you. Life’s so bloody difficult. Everything’s gone wrong. Besides — you turned me out at New Year. A fine start to the year that was. Don’t deny it.’
‘You were with Jarvis, Tess. Don’t forget that. You were with Jarvis.’
‘That dreadful row. In front of the Broadwells… Now my business ruined on top of everything.’ She produced a handkerchief and wiped her nose. ‘You’ve paid up generously. I know. I’m supposed to be grateful and come creeping home. But you’re not really sorry. The truth is, you bought me. I’m another Squire acquisition, like the furniture. You just want me standing around while your life goes on.’
He stood looking helplessly down at her, wondering what to do. ‘You needn’t stand around. Come back and start up your business again at the Hall.’
She stole a glance at him. ‘Those dreams I used to have. A dark figure trying to break into the Hall… It was you all the time, breaking into my life.’
‘Or Jarvis, disrupting our lives?’
‘You would think that…’
‘Actually, I don’t think it. It’s too glib. If you remember, I used the dark figure in the TV series…’ But it was no good trying to talk to her about that, no good trying to cool the temperature. Like God, the dark figure was a part of the lives of all men and women; sometimes it merely waited in the wings, idly; sometimes it came marching in boldly through the french windows. Like God, it lurked in the attic at the back of the skull, the space created by generations of blood and perception; the trick was to acknowledge its existence and yet manage to live sanely. At the moment, Teresa could not bear to live sanely; and that was still his responsibility, whether he wanted it or not.
She stood up, confronting him with slightly downcast face, regarding him through her eyelashes, one hand resting pensively on the brass bed-end.
‘You know I’m sorry, Tommy.’
Unwished, the memory came back to him of their first encounter outside his tutor’s rooms in Cambridge, when he and Teresa were both undergraduates. Later, he had said to his friend Rotheray, reporting the meeting, ‘Either she was giving me the old come-on, or she has a slight squint.’ There the fugitive thing was again — rarely seen, the slight strabismus lent her helplessness in his eyes. He reached for her bare arm. Her hair had been dark in Cambridge days; she had been the first girl he knew to wear a sweater under a shirt.
‘Well, you’ll have to help me, Tess, or I can’t help you.’
‘That’s what you said three years ago.’ She shook her head.
‘It’s as true now as it was then. You bring up the name of Sheila Lippard-Milne. I admit I loved her, though amazingly I didn’t realize it at the time, but I gave her up, as I have Laura. I chose you. I’ve not seen Sheila since, or written to her. I felt at the time I was making a considerable gesture, proving my love for you. Yet it honestly seemed as if you never noticed.’
‘Oh, I remember how miserable you were. You made it pretty obvious.’ She was silent, and went to stare out of the window at the sunshine, resting her finger-tips on the glass. ‘Perhaps marriage is always a cage… What do you want me to do?’
He stood up. ‘Let’s have a grand reconciliation. All back to the Hall, you, the girls, the dog, try and get John to come back, at least for a day or two. Celebrate, throw a party. Make love to each other. Both say we’re sorry — all that kind of thing. Start again, see if it’s possible, make it possible.’
Still looking out of the window, she said, ‘The horoscope in the paper this morning said I should look out for a betrayal by someone close to me.’
‘Did you hear what I said?’ Angrily.
‘Oh, I know you think they’re rubbish. Anything I believe in is rubbish. But they were right about Sheila. “A disruptive influence”, they said, and I remember it was that very day I discovered that letter she wrote you from New York. Don’t tell me there isn’t something in it. I date the start of my cancer from then, you’ll be interested to know.’
‘Perhaps tomorrow the horoscope will mention a grand reconciliation, then you’ll be convinced.’
She said, turning to confront him, ‘Supposing I want to go off and get screwed by any man who happens to come along. How will you like that?’
‘Would you like it? Is that what you want? You could have been more enthusiastic with me.’