Riley, page 35
She patted his hand now, saying, ‘You’re a nice old thing, Mr Beardsley…at times. But only at times.’ And her tone changing again, she said, ‘There’s one thing we’d have to do, we’d have to tell him she’d be coming. I’d hate her to walk in on anything.’
‘So you do think…?’
‘I don’t know. I really don’t know, but with one thing and another I think we shall soon find out.’
Nyrene put down the phone, then stood back and stared at it before walking to the open door. She went out onto the terrace and sat down in a low chair opposite the side drive they had made to the new gate, from where, across a broad expanse of green, could be seen the silver streak of the river and the hills on the far side. Presently Hamish came and stood by her side, and said, ‘Well, I’ll be off, ma’am. You needn’t go up for a time, he’ll be asleep by now. After a day like this, I say give me the snow any time. And to think this is what people go abroad to lie in. They must be mad, paying good money to get burnt and have the strength sucked out of them, and then having to come back for a rest. Mad. Mad. People are, you know, ma’am. Quite mad.’
‘Hamish.’
The tone in which she spoke his name made him alert, and he stepped from the side of the chair to the front and, staring down at her, he waited. She looked up at him and slowly she said, ‘Would it put you out if you didn’t go for half an hour?’
‘Put me out, ma’am? For half an hour? If you want me to stay the night you’ve only to say the word. You should know that by now. But the boy…he’s fine.’
‘For once I’m not thinking of the boy, Hamish.’ She was staring up at him. ‘I’ve got a decision to make. Mrs Beardsley has suggested my going down for a long weekend. In order to let me go and join’—she paused before saying—‘my husband,’ she usually used the term Mr Peter when speaking of him to Hamish. ‘Now if I decide to go at all I won’t wait till Friday, when they will be expecting me, but I will go tomorrow.’
They stared at each other in the soft twilight, and she didn’t find it strange that she could talk to this man in a way such as she could not to Mary or even to Louise.
‘I shall go unannounced. You understand, Hamish?’
She saw him pull in a deep breath before he said, ‘Aye, ma’am, I understand well enough, and have done for a long time, and my heart is sore for both of you. But I will say this: whatever is wrong, he’s greatly troubled by it.’
She was thinking, Yes, she supposed he was greatly troubled by it, and he hadn’t been able to hide it.
‘I’d like to arrive there about five o’clock tomorrow, and I’ve no need to say one word about the boy because you, Hamish, have been a father to him as his own father never has.’
‘Oh, my dear ma’am, don’t say that, no. ’Tis circumstance. It is always circumstances that set up situations like this. If Mr Peter could have been here he would have, except again for circumstance, and who is there at the time of the circumstance? Oh yes, who is there at the time of the circumstance? But there’s one thing I’d like to swear on, ma’am, and that is, whatever else he has let go astray you’ll always have his heart and his deep love.’
She thought she was going to cry. No, no, she mustn’t cry. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Mary coming from the yard, and when she was near enough she said, ‘There’s a storm in the offing, ma’am, and it’ll be a whopper.’
‘Yes, I think you’re right, Mary.’ Nyrene looked up at the older woman. ‘I’ve asked Hamish to stay on for half an hour. I’ve got to do a bit of thinking. It’s because of the phone call I’ve just had. I would have told you straight away, but you didn’t happen to be on the spot and Hamish did, and so I’ll leave him to tell you what I may do tomorrow.’
Mary stared at her for a moment, then said, ‘Well, ma’am, whatever line you decide to take, we are with you. As me dad would say, if it’s to hell, it’s to be rough, but far better rough it than be left behind.’
Rather than laugh, she still wanted to cry as she watched them walking away, the tall gaunt man and the woman not half his height, but ten years older. Yet the difference in their ages was in no way noticeable, not like that of a boy of nineteen and a woman bordering on thirty-nine. Yet their love had been more passionate than if they had both been youngsters. He had brought youth into his loving and she had brought experience into hers, and the combination had been dynamic.
But now, what was she to do? Let the present situation develop until there was nothing left of him for her? There was little enough now. Their positions in age could be reversed, for he could be the settled middle-aged man, loving still—oh yes, loving still—but gently, tenderly, considerate, aiming not to hurt, yet crucifying her mind with the knowledge that this man was not the Peter Riley who adored her and even, like his son, could not bear her to be out of his sight for very long. While he was ‘on the road’ his absence had tried him so much that it had brought him to the point of giving up his career. But now all that had changed. His work was swallowing him up, at least so he said, for was he not a producer, an actor and also a small partner in the business which meant he had to accept invitations to lunch and be present at meetings?
She pulled herself up in her chair. Well, there was one thing certain, her good friend Louise hadn’t offered to leave her darling husband for a long weekend unless they had previously talked it over and thought it serious enough for a parting; to her knowledge they had hardly ever been separated since they married. There was a strong love tie between them that even Gwendoline, with her persistence in claiming her sibling relationship, couldn’t fray in any way.
She got to her feet and began to walk slowly towards the gate. From here, the view was wide, and as her eyes scanned it through the gathering twilight she did not really see it, for she was arranging her arrival for tomorrow. The only free time he allowed himself during the day was that between four and six. Well, she would arrive during that period, and so there would be no excuse that he was too busy to talk about anything private. She would enforce upon him the reason she had chosen that time to arrive, to give him the opportunity to come out with the truth and tell her what was wrong, for something definitely was wrong. It hadn’t needed Louise’s tactful suggestion to make her realise this.
As she walked back towards the house it came to her that for the first time she could remember she wasn’t worrying about leaving her son for a day.
Nineteen
Outside Fellburn station the rain was stotting off the pavement like marbles and there wasn’t a taxi in sight. When a flash of lightning made her jump back into the doorway, she remained crouched there until she realised a taxi was arriving at the far end of the rank, and with head lowered she dashed towards it, and as she pulled open the door she gasped, ‘Flat one, Palace Buildings,’ and the driver repeated, ‘Right, ma’am; flat one, Palace Buildings. It’s a corker, isn’t it? There’s a tree down in Grove Crescent.’
‘Has it been like this for long?’
‘Oh, it’s been rumbling on and off since dinner time; but the last two hours it’s certainly played up. There’s flooding all over the place.’
It seemed a very short journey until the taxi pulled up, and she remained inside until she had paid him and extracted her latchkey from her bag. It was as the driver reached over and opened the door that there was a flash of lightning followed immediately by a crash of thunder that seemed to cleave the heavens, at the same time lifting her out and across the pavement and up the short passage to the front door.
She had inserted the key in the lock and turned it without knowing she had done so. She stumbled into the small lobby and thrust the door closed, then stood leaning against the panelled wall gasping for breath.
The thunder was still rumbling when she opened the glass door; then she became transfixed where she stood.
There were voices coming from the bedroom, and she recognised not only the one.
Automatically, her hand moved to her hat and she went to straighten it. Then her hand moved strands of her bedraggled hair to each side of her face. Finally, spread wide, she brought it down over her rain-drenched face. Some part of her was wondering why she bothered to do this for it mattered no more how she looked.
The rumbling of thunder had diminished and her husband’s voice came to her clearly now: ‘I’ve told you from the beginning, haven’t I?’
And the answer to this was, ‘Yes, you have, but I’ve also told you from the beginning that I never intended to marry, but now you’ve helped me to change my mind. Don’t you understand what I’m willing to give up for you? Ray is wealthy, but you are not; he’s a man of the world and you definitely are not; he is also generous, and so far I have yet to be the recipient of your generosity; except of course in one way. Oh yes, in one way, but it’s that way that makes me sure we are one. Oh, Peter, be sensible. Look, she’s had her day. She’s coming tomorrow; put it to her that you want a divorce.’
‘I’ll do no such thing.’
‘Then I shall.’
‘By God, you won’t!’
‘You try me. Just you try me.’
‘Yvette’—there was pleading in the voice now—‘please don’t do anything like that.’
‘Give me a good reason why I shouldn’t after what we’ve been to each other these past months; come on. Anyway, she’s not a child, she’s a woman and she must know there’s something wrong. Your excuses about being invited out to lunch and meetings and so on wouldn’t hoodwink an imbecile, and she’s no imbecile. She’s a crafty woman though, who inveigled a young boy into giving her a child in order that he should marry her. Look, Peter, I’ll ask you this. If you weren’t married to her and you had met me, would you have married me?’
When there was no answer her cry was triumphant. ‘There you see! And I’ll tell you something else. If you let me go now you’ll never get me from under your skin. You know what the song says, “I’ve got you under my skin,” and I’m under yours, and I mean to stay there.’
He was the first to emerge from the bedroom. He was pulling a shirt over his head and the neck of it was halfway down onto his shoulders. Then Yvette came to his side and what she, too, saw brought her mouth agape for a moment. But only for a moment, for then, her voice light and high, she said, ‘Last scene, enter wronged wife.’
‘Shut up!’
Riley had turned on her so quickly that his voice caused her to step back from him and to stare at him blankly for a moment. But then, recovering her poise, she said, ‘Well, if she’s been standing there all this time there’s nothing more to say, is, there?’
Now he did actually shout, and his words rang through the room as he bawled, ‘Get out! Get out!’
And to this her remark was strangely quiet: ‘No, I’m not going to get out; I have a life to live as well as she, or you.’ She nodded from one to the other now. ‘What decision she makes is going to direct it one way or the other. I either marry you, stay here and mix in with your motley crowd next door or I marry a wealthy man, travel the world and live a life of luxury. Now’—her voice took on an angry tone and she marched up to Nyrene to stop only an arm’s length from her and say—‘I couldn’t imagine you in your youth being faced with such a decision and hesitating. You’d have gone for the money and the world tour, I am sure of that. You see, I know a lot about you and your early days, more than you think. Well, you think I’m a trollop. Oh yes, I know what you think, and dear Louise, yet…all right, be what I am, and the daughter of a trollop, I am willing at this moment to give it all up in order to marry the man who is your husband. I should have said, the young man who is your husband now, and someone you should never have married because you could have borne him and fed him at your breast.’
When the small table crashed against the wall, they both started, and Riley, pointing at Yvette, said, ‘That’s enough!’ Then they both turned to look at Nyrene who said in a strained low voice, ‘You are quite right in all you say. You, Peter, make your own arrangements; I shall contact my solicitor when I get home. Also I shall have your things packed and sent down.’
She was in the lobby before he cried, ‘Nyrene! Please! Please listen. It isn’t like that. I don’t want—’
Then he was dragged back by Yvette’s arms around his neck.
By the time he had thrust her off Nyrene had reached the end of the alley and she was hurrying along the street before he caught up with her and pulled her to a stop, gasping, ‘Nyrene, it isn’t like it seems.’
‘Leave go of me, Peter!’
‘No, no! I can explain it. You are my wife; you will always be my wife.’
‘If you don’t leave go of me I shall call for help.’
His hands dropped from her, and she was about to turn from him when she said, ‘Don’t try to get in touch with me in any way; what I’ve got to say to you and you to me can be said through our solicitors. You understand?’ And with this she walked from him, her head lowered against the force of the rain and the gale, while he stood still and let the rain drench him to the skin.
He staggered back to the flat and when Yvette approached him and went to put her arms about him he brought his forearm across her chest in such a swift cut that it knocked her flying. It was only the back of the couch that saved her from sprawling to the floor. Then he was bending over her, his lips bared from his teeth and grinding out, ‘You, you vicious bitch, you!’
She had pulled herself up straight; and now she was confronting him and crying back at him, ‘Me, vicious? I haven’t betrayed anyone; I haven’t married anybody yet. You were a married man; you could have stopped me any time you liked.’
‘Stopped you?’ He was spluttering now, the spittle spraying from his lips. ‘Nobody could stop you, because you’re a snake, a selfish, greedy, sex-mad snake.’
She was backing from him as she said, ‘Be careful what you’re saying, for you’ll be sorry for it tomorrow. Now you heard what she said; she’s going to give you a divorce.’
‘She’s giving me no divorce; but if I were divorced ten times I’d never marry you.’
The look on her face told him that at last he had hit home. In some strange way he had hit at the depth of her, for now she came back at him, saying, ‘Well, it’s just as well, I suppose, because I’m waking up too. Definitely at this moment I’m waking up, and I’m wondering what on earth attracted me to you. But attracted to you I was. Oh yes, by the commonness, the cheapness, everything opposite to what I had been brought up to expect in a man. And what did all this amount to? A ham actor, a big fish in a tiny bowl. And you wouldn’t have reached even that eminence,’ she spat the words out, ‘if it hadn’t been that you married an old woman. She was old then, but look at her now, kicking fifty and looking it. Oh yes, and looking it.’
His tone was quiet as he said, ‘Shut up!’
‘Don’t tell me to shut up, but I will tell you to listen. Have you any idea in that narrow small-town mind of yours the lengths that I was willing to go to in order to be with you? When I compare you with Ray, I realise that I must have been stark staring mad, because you’re a weakling.’ She now thrust towards him as she hissed, ‘Even in bed. You never knew what it was all about.’
‘Get out! Go away before…before…’ he said, when she came back quickly, ‘Before what? Before you break down and cry? You do cry, don’t you?’
She was glaring at him, waiting for a response, and it was some time in coming.
‘I’ve never cried in my life before,’ he said, ‘but I’ll likely cry tonight because you, you sex maniac, have spoilt something beautiful.’
He watched her throw back her head now and laugh derisively as she said, ‘“Beautiful”, he says; more like something touching on incest, because she could have been your mother. Having given yourself to a woman who could be older than your mother has driven that poor woman almost mad, I understand. And then you talk about something beautiful. Huh! She can’t even carry her age. My mother could give her fifteen years and she doesn’t look as old as her.’
‘Well, she wouldn’t, would she, being a registered whore and never off her back.’
When the clenched fist came out and tore at his face, he thought he was being ripped by a razor blade, but it was just the stone in her ring that was acting as a substitute. He reacted as if he were fighting a man, with his fists pummelling her face. Then he had her by the throat, screaming at her, ‘I could kill you at this moment. I could kill you,’ when an odd thing seemed to happen: the thumbs that were crossed over her windpipe sprang apart as if he’d had a blow on the head and as she fell into an armchair he staggered back, because the figure he was seeing was that of his son.
He was going mad; he was going back to Larry.
He was supporting himself by leaning over the side of the couch, when the croaking voice came through to him, saying, ‘I’ll make you pay for this; I’ll create such a scandal you’ll not be able to live it down. I’ll put an end to your so-called career; you see if I don’t. You’ll end up doing the pubs with your comic touch. She won’t have you back, that’s for sure!’
He watched her, one hand holding her throat, the other tight against the side of her cheek as she made her way to the bedroom and when she returned wearing her macintosh coat she had to sidle past him to get to the door, where she turned and said, ‘We haven’t seen the last of each other, Mr Peter Riley. The next time we meet will be in a courtroom.’
He heard the door close with a bang but he still stood where he was, but now he was nodding to himself, saying, ‘Oh yes, the next time we see each other will be across a courtroom, I’ve no doubt of that at all and by tomorrow your face will be in a mess. Oh yes, it will.’ His head still went on bobbing. She would have a photographer to make a record of it. Oh they hadn’t seen the last of each other.
As if coming out of a nightmare he blinked his eyes and saw that his light shirt was covered with blood. His shirt had been sopping wet from his diving outside after Nyrene and he had taken no notice of it, because it had cooled his sweating body, but now the sight of the blood brought him fully to himself.
