‘But… didn’t you explain what had happened… what he did to you?’
‘I didn’t go into detail, no. I kept it general.’
‘But you can’t get a divorce on general grounds. You can only get a divorce on particular grounds.’
‘Now don’t get shirty with me, Paul, I’m doing my best.’
‘Yes, but…’
‘He told me that, for a starting point, I should go away and write it all down. Because he could see I found it hard to tell him about it directly.’
‘That sounds very sensible.’ Suddenly, you approve of this solicitor.
‘So that’s what I shall try to do.’
When, a couple of weeks later, you ask how her statement is coming along, she shakes her head without reply.
‘But you’ve got to do it,’ you say.
‘You don’t know how hard it is for me.’
‘Would you like me to help you?’
‘No, I have to do this by myself.’
You approve. This will be the start, the making, of the new Susan. You try some gentle advice.
‘I think what they need are specifics.’ You know a bit about divorce law by now. ‘Exactly what happened, and roughly when.’
Another two weeks later, you ask how she’s doing.
‘Don’t give up on me just yet, Casey Paul,’ is her reply. And whenever she says this to you – and you never think it is calculated, because she is not a calculating person – it tears at your heart. Of course you won’t give up on her.
And then, some weeks later, she gives you a few sheets of paper.
‘Don’t read it in front of me.’
You take it away, and from the first sentence, your optimism disperses. She has turned her life, and her marriage, into a comic short story, which sounds to you like something by James Thurber. Perhaps it was. It is about a man in a three-piece suit, called Mr Elephant Pants, who every evening goes to the pub – or the bar at Grand Central Station – and comes home in a state which alarms his wife and children. He knocks over the hatstand, kicks the flowerpots, shouts at the dog, so that there is a spreading of Great Alarm and Despondency, and he rackets away until he falls asleep on the sofa and snores so loudly that tiles fall off the roof.
You don’t know what to say. You say nothing. You pretend you are still considering this document. You know you have to be very gentle and very patient with her. You explain again about them needing to know specifics, the where and the when and, most importantly, the what. She looks at you and nods.
Slowly, over the next weeks and months, you begin to understand that it is not going to happen, not ever. She is strong enough to love you, strong enough to run off with you, but not strong enough to enter a court of law and give evidence against her husband about the decades of sexless tyranny, alcoholism and physical attack. She will not be able – even via her solicitor – to ask the dentist to describe her injuries. She cannot attest in public to what she is able to admit in private.
You realize that, even if she is the free spirit you imagined her to be, she is also a damaged free spirit. You understand that there is a question of shame at the bottom of it. Personal shame; and social shame. She may not mind being thrown out of the tennis club for being a Scarlet Woman, but she cannot admit to the true nature of her marriage. You remember old cases in which criminals – even murderers – would marry their female accomplices because a wife could not be compelled to give evidence against a husband. But nowadays, far away from the world of criminality, in the respectable Village and many, many similar, silent places across the land, there are wives who have been conditioned, by social and marital convention, not to give evidence against their husbands.
And there is another factor, of which, strangely, you have not thought. One calm evening – calm because you have officially given up on the project, and all false hope and annoyance have drained from you – she says to you quietly,
‘And anyway, if I did do it, he’d bring up the matter of you.’
You are astounded. You feel you had nothing to do with the break-up of the Macleod marriage; you were just the outsider who pointed out what would have been obvious to anyone. Yes, you fell in love with her; yes, you ran away with her; but that was consequence, not cause.
Even so, perhaps you are lucky that the old law of enticement is no longer on the statute book. You imagine being called as a witness and asked to explain yourself. Part of you thinks this would be wonderful, heroic; you play through the courtroom exchange, in which you are dazzling. Until the final question. Oh, and by the way, young enticer, young seducer, may I ask what you do by way of a job? Of course, you reply, I am studying to be a solicitor. You realize that you might just have to change profession.
You know that sometimes, after checking on the house she owns half of, she goes to visit Joan. This is a good idea, even if on her return her hair smells of cigarette smoke. Once, you catch sherry on her breath.
‘Did you have a drink with Joan?’
‘Did I? Let me think… Quite possibly.’
‘Well, you shouldn’t. Drink and drive. It’s crazy.’
‘Yes, sir,’ she agrees satirically.
Another time, she has smoke in her hair and Polos on her breath. You think, this is silly.
‘Look, if you’re going to have a drink with Joan, don’t insult my intelligence by chewing a few Polos afterwards.’
‘The thing is, Paul, there are parts of the drive I don’t like. They give me the jitters. Blind corners. I find that a little nip of sherry with Joan calms my nerves. And the Polos aren’t for you, darling, they’re in case I get stopped by a policeman.’
‘I’m sure policemen are just as suspicious of drivers smelling of Polos as when they smell of alcohol.’
‘Don’t you turn into a policeman, Paul. Or a lawyer, even if you are going to be one. I’m doing my best. That’s all I can do.’
‘Of course.’
You kiss her. You have no more taste for confrontation than she does. Of course you trust her, of course you love her, of course you are far too young to be a policeman or a lawyer.
And so you both laugh your way through several uncomplicated months.
But one February afternoon, she is late back from the Village. You know she doesn’t like driving in the dark. You imagine the car off the road, in a ditch, her bloodied head against the dashboard, Polos spilling from her handbag.
You ring Joan.
‘I’m a bit worried about Susan.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, what time did she leave you?’
‘When?’
‘Today.’
‘I haven’t seen Susan today.’ Joan’s voice is steady. ‘I wasn’t expecting her either.’
‘Oh fuck,’ you say.
‘Let me know when she’s back safely.’
‘Sure,’ you say, your mind only half there.
‘And Paul.’
‘Yes?’
‘If she comes back safely, that’s the main thing.’
‘Yes.’
It is the main thing. And she does come back safely. And her hair is clean, and there is nothing on her breath.
‘Sorry I’m late, darling,’ she says, putting down her handbag.
‘Yes, I was worrying.’
‘No need to worry.’
‘Well I do.’
You leave it at that. After supper, you pick up the plates, and, making sure your back is to her, ask,
‘How’s old Joan?’
‘Joan? Same as ever. Joan doesn’t change. That’s what’s nice about her.’
You rinse off the plates and leave it at that. You are a lover, not a lawyer, you remind yourself. Except that you are going to become a lawyer, because you need to be solid and stable, the better to look after her.