The Open Marriage Read online

  'Oh, he won't,' said Jessica with conviction. 'Alun isn't at all interested in the business. He's an explorer and a writer. He won't interfere, I know he won't. We had an agreement that we should each of us do our own thing.'

  Chris didn't say anything because the waiter had come back to take their orders, but he was frowning again heavily and his lower lip was thrust out obstinately. As soon as the waiter had gone he leaned forward again, reaching a hand across to the table to touch hers.

  'I'd like to think he would be out of the way, though, Jess; out of your life for ever,' he said. 'While you're bound to him legally there'll always be the danger of him turning up and making claims on you. I'd like you to be completely free of any relationship with him so that one day I can take my chance with you and ask you to marry me. Promise me you'll write to him or get a lawyer to write to him suggesting a divorce?'

  She looked away from him, avoiding the intensity of his gaze. She didn't want to do what he had suggested, but she guessed that if she refused he would begin to argue with her, would begin browbeating her, and that she couldn't bear. Wasn't it enough that she had come up to London with him and had gone to see Margian?

  'All right,' she said with a sigh. 'I'll do what you say.' She looked up smiling. 'And now can we talk about something else? You mentioned you're going away on business for a few days? When?'

  'Tomorrow, to Germany. But I'll be back for Friday.'

  'That's the day the bank is going to foreclose,' she said.

  'And the day that you'll have to give me an answer to my offer to merge with Martin's. I'll phone you as soon as I get back on Thursday. Okay?'

  She nodded her agreement, but she was thinking: Three days. He'll be away three whole days. I could go to Wales, see Alun and come back while he's away and he'll be none the wiser. Yes, perhaps that's what I'll do. I'll go to see Alun instead of writing and by Thursday evening I'll know whether he agrees to a divorce or not. I'll know where I stand and whether I'll have to agree to Chris's offer of a merger.

  When she left the restaurant with Chris an hour later the June evening was still drenched with light as if reluctant to give way to darkness. They drove westwards into the glow of sunset, sitting side by side in Chris's dark blue Rover; past Hyde Park Corner where crowds of people, tempted out by the warm weather, lingered; past the Royal Albert Hall and on past the warm brick buildings of Kensington, on to Hammersmith.

  Pale streaks of light still lingered in the sky when at last they reached the red brick detached house on the outskirts of Beechfield, the small Buckinghamshire town renowed for furniture-making for over two hundred years, where Jessica had been born and had lived until she had gone away to London to find Alun and to which she had returned to live when Alun had apparently deserted her; and where she had continued to live after her father's death to keep her widowed mother company.

  Chris didn't kiss her when he said goodnight and she didn't encourage him to, but he asked her again to promise to write to Alun and she said again that she would. She got out of the car and it reversed down the drive into the road to turn back the way they had come. Chris lived on the other side of the town not far from his own furniture-making factory and offices.

  For a few moments she stood listening to the Rover's engine as it retreated into the distance. The garden, her mother's pride and joy, breathed out into the night the heavy smell of well-manured earth, and the oriental scent of climbing pink roses. High in the sky, above the roof of the house opposite, the house where the Fairbournes had once lived and where she had first met Alun eight years ago when she had been only seventeen, a hazy moon shimmered, its radiance trickling over the leaves of a poplar like a fall of water.

  Jessica turned and entered the house. It was quiet and dark. When she reached the second floor landing she was glad to note that no light shone from under the door of her mother's room. Anthea had gone to sleep and so there was no need for Jessica to look in on her and to answer the many questions her mother always bombarded her with when she had been out with Chris.

  She went into her own room and closed the door. At one window open at the bottom, the curtains were still drawn back and outside the window the branches of a tree hung black festooned with many leaves until she turned on the lights.

  In bed with the lights out she lay on her back staring at the branches silhouetted against the moon-bright sky and tried to compose a letter to Alun. How did you write to someone you'd known for seven years and hadn't seen for two and whom you didn't really know at all? Several times she began it:

  'Dear Alun, How are you?', and got no further because memories of Alun kept flitting across her mind, distracting her.

  There was Alun as she had first seen him, jean-clad long legs asprawl, curly hair a wild tangle and in need of trimming, eagle-gold eyes glinting with mockery as he had lounged one summer afternoon on the patio at the back of the Fairbournes' house, drinking beer with his cousin Bill Fairbourne, Sally's older brother.

  She and Sally had just returned from horse-riding at the exclusive stables a few miles away and had been dressed in jodhpurs, white stocks, black coats and hard black hats.

  As soon as she had seen him Sally had shrieked with delight and had flung herself upon him.

  'Alun, Alun—oh, where have you been? How long are you going to stay here?'

  Skilfully he had extricated himself from Sally's hugging arms and had avoided her kisses while he had answered her questions.

  'I've been in Africa getting copy for an article on a wild-life park in Kenya,' he had answered. 'And I'm here just for today.' He had looked past Sally at Jessica. 'Who's your friend?' he had asked with a wicked glint of mockery in his tawny eyes. 'Goldilocks?'

  At that time Jessica's hair had been long, almost to her waist. For riding she had had it tied back in a ponytail, but while she had been jumping her horse the ribbon had become untied and the golden silky hair had swirled on her shoulders and had hung close to her cheeks.

  'Oh, this is Jessica,' Sally had said carelessly. 'She lives in the house opposite. Jess, this is my favourite cousin, Alun Gower. Remember me telling you about him? He goes to the most fantastic places and writes articles about them which are published by an American geographic magazine.'

  'Hello, Jessica.' His voice had softened when he had spoken to her and his glance had lingered caressingly on her hair.

  Always shy in the presence of the young men she had often met at the Fairbourne house, mostly friends of Bill's, all of them arrogantly chauvinistic towards Sally and herself, she had merely nodded at him, not knowing that in her well-tailored jodhpurs and jacket with her hair shining on her shoulders she had looked superior and untouchable, her long-lashed blue eyes looking at him down the straight edge of her finely modelled nose.

  She had appeared not to be interested in him, but secretly she had been. Dark-haired, his skin browned by the African sun, his topaz-coloured eyes sparkling with intelligence, his lips quirking with sardonic humour whenever he had spoken, he had fascinated her that afternoon.

  Two years had gone by before she had seen him again, but in that time she had thought of him often and had even made an effort to find and read some of the articles he had written. But she had never mentioned to Sally or anyone else that she had been interested in him. Her feelings about him had been something she had wanted to keep inviolate, a secret never to be shared with anyone. Not even with him!

  He had turned up again unexpectedly at the Fairbourne House one afternoon just as she had been coming home from her father's furniture factory where she had been working, learning the business, ever since she had left school. Nineteen years of age, she had lost some of her shyness and had had her hair cut to ear-tip length. Thick and golden, it had curved about her head like a shining cap.

  The day had been cold and wet, typical of mid-November and, as she had driven the small car her father had given her into the driveway of the house where she had lived, she had noticed a man wearing a trenchcoat coming away from
the Fairbourne house. Immediately she had recognised him. Even now she could remember the way her heart had jerked at the sight of him; the way her whole body had flooded with heat. He had come back, her secret hero. She had been out of the car in a flash and had hurried down the short drive to the road.

  'They're all away,' she had called out. 'Mr and Mrs Fairbourne have gone to Birmingham for the weekend to see Sally who's at the university there and Bill has gone to work in Scotland.'

  Hands in the pockets of his trenchcoat, he had stared at her across the road and she had wondered if he had remembered who she was. Then he had paced towards her. When he had reached her he had stood in front of her, looking down at her. His face had looked pale and drawn and the golden eyes had been circled with mauve shadows. His lips had been set in a taut line.

  'Why did you cut your hair?' he had demanded harshly, and again she had felt that strange jerk of her heart. He had remembered her!

  'I wanted a change, and anyway, it was a nuisance at work,' she had explained. Then, asserting herself, she had added sharply, 'Anyway, what's it to you?'

  Some of the glitter had gone out of his eyes and it had seemed to her that he had stepped back from her, not actually because he hadn't moved, but she had sensed a definite withdrawal in him as if he had hidden from her. A faint slightly cynical smile had curved his lips.

  'Nothing, of course,' he had replied with a shrug. 'You have every right to cut your hair if you want to. Do you have any idea when the next train to London is?'

  'There won't be one until eight-thirty. But you could get a bus to Uxbridge and catch the tube from there.' The need to keep him there, to delay him somehow, had surged through her. 'I expect you're disappointed that there's no one at home,' she had rushed on. 'If you like you could come in,' she had waved a hand in the direction of the house behind her, 'and have a cup of tea and then I could drive you into town to the bus station.'

  She had looked up at him invitingly and he had looked down at her coldly. She had thought he would refuse and had been trying to think up some other way of preventing him from going when he had suddenly changed, a smile making two dents in his lean cheeks.

  'Thanks, I'd like to come in and have a cup of tea with you. I'm feeling damned cold—I've just come back from Australia and haven't got acclimatised to November in England yet. But I'm afraid I've forgotten your name—your real name, I mean. In my mind you're always Goldilocks.' His glance had roved over her hair and to her surprise he had raised a hand and had touched it. 'What a pity you've cut it,' he had murmured.

  She had let it grow again, of course, just for Mm. Infatuated she had been, just as Margian had pointed out, blind with a young woman's first love. writing to him at the address he had left with her when he had gone away again, letter after letter, some of which, surprisingly, he had answered.

  Shoulder-length her hair had been when, driven to the end of her tether by her father's insistence that she should marry Arthur Lithgow, she had stormed out of the office at Martin's factory over four years ago and had caught the first bus to Uxbridge; flying the coop at last and aiming straight for the one person she had felt understood her, not really sure whether he would be in London or not.

  He hadn't been at his flat in Bloomsbury, but the woman who had owned the old house that had been made into small apartments years ago had told her she was sure she had seen him about. So Jessica had waited, sitting on the floor outside his door, because she had had nowhere else to go.

  Jessica turned restlessly in the bed, wishing she could stop the flow of memories. Never would she forget the expression on Alun's face when he had found her sitting at his door, half asleep and faint from want of food at one o'clock in the morning. He had been furious.

  'What the hell are you doing here?' he had demanded, frowning down at her.

  She had struggled to her feet and had leaned against the wall, blinking at him, bewildered by his roughness when she had been expecting tenderness and realising for the first time that she had hardly known him, that he had been older than her, not only in actual years, ten in fact, but also in experience of life.

  'Why?' he had rapped.

  'I . . . I. . . .' She had tried very hard to stand up to him to find some retort, but for some reason— she knew now that it had been lack of food—she had turned sick and dizzy and for the first and only time in her life she had fainted.

  When she had come round she had been lying on a bed and Alun had been sitting on the edge of it staring at her with hard eagle-gold eyes, bright with suspicion.

  'What happened?' she had muttered.

  'You fainted, or appeared to faint,' he had replied dryly. 'How long had you been out there?' He had jerked his head towards the door of the apartment.

  'About ... six or seven hours,' she had whispered.

  'So you've had nothing to eat?'

  'No.'

  'That will be why you fainted,' he had said, still dry, his lips twisting. 'I'll get you something.'

  He had brought her bread and butter and a glass of milk and had sat on the bed watching her eat. When she had finished drinking the milk he had said,

  'And now I think it's time you told me what you're doing here.'

  'I ... there was no one else,' she had muttered. 'No one else but you that I could tell. You see, I can't go through with it. I can't do what my father wants me to do—I can't, I can't, so I've left. I walked out of the office this afternoon and came straight here.'

  'What can't you do?' he had demanded.

  'I can't marry Arthur Lithgow,' she had replied.

  'Oh?' His eyebrows had tilted derisively. 'Why not? What's wrong with him?'

  'Nothing very much except that he's a widower and nearly twenty years older than I am and I just don't like him enough to marry him. But Dad has .: all arranged. If I marry Arthur he'll lend Dad some money to pay off the bank. If I won't marry him then he won't lend the money.'

  'You're joking!' Alun had exclaimed.

  'No, I'm not. I'm serious.'

  'But no father in this day and age can make his daughter marry a man she doesn't want to marry!'

  'You don't know my father,' she had muttered. 'He . . . he's very persuasive. He can make you feel like a worm if you don't do what he says. He can make you feel you've let him down badly. And he won't believe that I can't marry Arthur. The only way I could think of to convince him was . . . was to come away this afternoon and not go back. Only . . . only I haven't done it very well. I've no money, I spent what I had with me on getting here and . . . and I've nowhere to stay.' She had trampled on her pride then and had appealed to him. 'Alun, please will you help me? I can't go back—not yet. Not until I've convinced him I mean what I say. I can't marry Arthur!'

  Alun had risen from the bed and had wandered away to the window to stare out at the street below. After a while he had came back to look down at her.

  'All right, I'll try to help you,' he had replied. 'You can stay here tonight and tomorrow I'll see if I can find you a job. What can you do?'

  'I have all the usual secretarial skills and I know a lot about making furniture, the best sort of wood to use and where to get it from, and I've been taking a course in designing furniture and making it at the local polytechnic. I'll soon be a qualified designer.'

  'How old are you now?'

  'Twenty-one—nearly twenty-two.'

  'More than old enough to be taking charge of your own life,' he had drawled. 'So why didn't you leave home years ago?'

  'Because Dad made it so difficult. You see, I'm the only one of his children to survive. I had an older brother, Timothy. Dad doted on Tim. The company is Martin and Son Ltd and of course Dad assumed Tim would be in the business with him just as he had been in business with his father. Tim did start working at the factory, but . . . but he was killed, in a motorcycle accident when he was only nineteen. Dad was devastated, and it was from then on that he began to think of me as a substitute for Tim. So I went into the business when I left school too. Not tha
t I minded. I enjoy designing furniture.'

  'What about your mother? Hasn't she ever tacked you up against your father?'

  'No. She wouldn't. She's very supportive of him sad always has been. She works for him too, as his secretary. I couldn't tell her I don't want to marry Arthur. If I did she would argue with me, point out all the advantages of a marriage into the Lithgow family. Arthur is very wealthy.' Jessica had looked around the room. 'Your flat isn't very big,' she had remarked.

  'One room, this, a kitchenette and a small bathroom,' he had replied. 'All I can afford to keep up just now.'

  'But where will I sleep if this is the only bed?'

  'You can have it for tonight. I'll sleep on the sofa,' he had replied.

  Jessica shifted again, restlessly, then sat up and switched on the bedside lamp and looked at her clock. Two-thirty—the worst time of the night to be awake and remembering; the time when everything looked at its worst, when thoughts were depressing.

  Six weeks she had lived in that small flat of Alun's and she had always slept alone in the bed. He hadn't been there much, as she had told Chris, but he had been there when her father had arrived, informed by the Fairbournes that she was living with Alun

  That was something else she would never forget, the way Alun had listened to her father's accusations, calmly, with a slight smile curving his lips, his eyes glinting with mockery, and when Charles Martin had run out of breath he had said, 'Jessica can't marry Arthur Lithgow because she's going to marry me.'

  'Is that true? Is what he says true?' Charles Martin had demanded, and although she had been as surprised as he by what Alun had said she had been alert enough to recognise that she had been given another chance to defy her father's wishes.

  'Yes, it's true,' she had replied. 'I love Alun and I'm going to marry him.'