“All in good time, Bill,” Francis cut in smoothly. “It took us years to get round to it. Best to get all your fun out of the way first.”
“What? That was meant to be fun?” queried Yvonne.
There was a burst of laughter.
“Quite. There’s no hurry.”
Jennifer watched her husband pull a cigar from his inside pocket and slice off the end with careful deliberation. “No hurry at all,” she echoed.
They were in a taxi, heading for home. On the icy pavement Yvonne was waving, Francis’s arm protectively around her shoulders. Dominic and Anne had left a few minutes before, and Bill appeared to be serenading some passersby.
“Yvonne’s news is rather wonderful, isn’t it?” she said.
“You think so?”
“Why, yes. Don’t you?”
He was gazing out of the window. The city streets were near black, apart from the occasional streetlamp. “Yes,” he said. “A baby is wonderful news.”
“Bill was terribly drunk, wasn’t he?” She pulled her compact from her handbag and checked her face. It had finally ceased to surprise her.
“Bill,” her husband said, still staring out at the street, “is a fool.”
Some distant alarm bell was ringing. She closed her bag and folded her hands in her lap, struggling to work out what else she might say. “Did you . . . What did you think when you heard?”
He turned to her. One side of his face was illuminated by the sodium light, the other in darkness.
“About Yvonne, I mean. You didn’t say much. In the restaurant.”
“I thought,” he said, and she detected infinite sadness in his voice, “what a lucky bastard Francis Moncrieff was.”
They said nothing else on the short journey home. When they arrived, he paid off the taxi driver while she made her way carefully up the gritted stone steps. The lights were on, casting a pale yellow glow over the snow-covered paving. It was the only house still aglow in the silent square. He was drunk, she realized, watching the heavy, uneven fall of his feet on the steps. She tried, briefly, to remember how many whiskeys he had consumed and couldn’t. She had been locked in her own thoughts, wondering how she appeared to everyone else. Her brain had seemed to fizz with the effort of seeming normal.
“Would you like me to fetch you a drink?” she said, as she let them in. The hall echoed to their footfall. “I could make some tea, if you’d like.”
“No,” he said, dropping his overcoat onto the hall chair. “I’d like to go to bed.”
“Well, I think I’ll—”
“And I’d like you to come with me.”
So that was how it was. She hung her coat neatly in the hall cupboard and followed him up the stairs to their bedroom. She wished, suddenly, that she had drunk more. She would have liked them to be carefree, like Dominic and Anne, collapsing onto each other with giggles in the street. But her husband, she knew now, was not the giggling kind.
The alarm clock said it was a quarter to two. He peeled off his clothes, leaving them in a heap on the floor. He looked suddenly, desperately tired, she thought, and the faint hope dawned within her that he might simply fall asleep. She kicked off her shoes and realized she wouldn’t be able to undo the button at the collar of her dress.
“Laurence?”
“What?”
“Would you mind undoing . . . ?” She turned her back to him, and tried not to wince as his fingers clumsily ripped at the fabric. His breath was sharp with whiskey and the bitter tang of cigar smoke. He pulled, several times catching hairs at the back of her neck, causing her to flinch. “Bugger,” he said, eventually. “I’ve torn it.”
She peeled it from her shoulders, and he put the silk-covered button into her palm. “That’s all right,” she said, trying not to mind. “I’m sure Mrs. Cordoza will be able to mend it.”
She was about to hang the dress up when he caught her arm. “Leave that,” he said. He was gazing at her, his head nodding slightly, his lids at half-mast over shadowed eyes. He lowered his face, took hers between his hands, and began to kiss her. She closed her eyes as his hands wandered down her neck, her shoulders, both of them stumbling as he lost his balance. Then he pulled her onto the bed, his large hands covering her br**sts, his weight already shifting onto her. She met his kisses politely, trying not to acknowledge her revulsion at his breath. “Jenny,” he was murmuring, breathing faster now, “Jenny . . .” At least it might not take too long.
She became aware that he had stopped. She opened her eyes to find him gazing at her. “What’s the matter?” he said thickly.
“Nothing.”
“You look as if I’m doing something distasteful to you. Is that how you feel?”
He was drunk, but there was something else in his expression, some bitterness she could not account for.
“I’m sorry, darling. I didn’t mean to give you that impression.” She pushed herself up onto her elbows. “I’m just tired, I suppose.” She reached out a hand to him.
“Ah. Tired.”
They sat up beside each other. He ran a hand through his hair, disappointment oozing from him. She was overwhelmed with guilt, and also, to her shame, relief. When the silence became unbearable, she took his hand. “Laurence . . . do you think I’m all right?”
“All right? What’s that supposed to mean?”
She felt a lump rise in the back of her throat. He was her husband: surely she should be able to confide in him. She thought briefly of Yvonne draped over Francis, the constant looks that passed between them and spoke of a hundred other conversations to which no one else was party. She thought of Dominic and Anne, laughing their way into their taxi. “Laurence . . .”
“Larry!” he exploded. “You call me Larry. I don’t see why you can’t remember that.”
Her hands flew to her face. “Larry, I’m sorry. It’s just I . . . I still feel so strange.”
“Strange?”
She winced. “As if something’s missing. I feel as if there’s some puzzle to which I don’t hold all the pieces. Does that sound terribly silly?” Please reassure me, she begged him silently. Put your arms around me. Tell me I am being silly, that it will all come back to me. Tell me that Hargreaves was right, and this awful feeling will go. Love me a little. Keep me close, until I can feel like it is the right thing for you to do. Just understand me.