The Good Wife aka The Good Wife Strikes Back Page 14

  I smiled politely as I lifted the cup to my lips, but I was struggling to make sense of it all. In a former life – so long ago – I had come and gone as I pleased, drunk coffee in the café on Saturday mornings, and read my wine books.

  I looked up to encounter Pearl’s unequivocal gaze. ‘Are you feeling all right, Fanny? You’ve been very quiet.’ The implication was that, by not chattering like a parrot, I was letting the side down.

  ‘Chloë has been ill and I’ve been up several nights running.’

  ‘Oh dear.’ She brushed this aside. ‘I’ve been meaning to ask, could I encourage you to do more in the constituency? The elderly, you know, and the children.’

  Tact had never been Pearl’s strong point. That was the secret of her survival. With some astonishment, I heard myself say, ‘Would you like my life’s blood? Would that be of use? Please bear in mind that I’ve moved house and produced a baby. I have a job to go back to but if I can kill myself for the constituency of course I will.’

  The bullets bounced off Pearl, who did not even blink. ‘That’s the point, Fanny. The committee would prefer you not to have any other interests.’

  In a strange way, I was enjoying myself. ‘Do they live in an ark by any chance?’

  By some miracle, Mannochie appeared at my elbow and said, ‘Do you mind if I kidnap Fanny? There is someone she must meet.’

  I followed him to an empty anteroom. ‘You looked a bit at sea,’ he explained. ‘I thought you could do with a moment to yourself.’

  I smiled gratefully at him. ‘You’re so nice, Mannochie.’

  ‘It’s not always easy,’ he said.

  ‘What isn’t?’ asked my father, gatecrashing this tête-à-tête.

  Mannochie muttered something about constituency matters and eased himself out of the door. My father commandeered a gilt chair and patted a second. ‘First off, how’s Chloë?’

  I told him the details of Chloë’s illness. At the finish, he said, ‘Look at it this way, it’s built up her immune system.’

  I choked. ‘That’s good but mine’s down as a result.’

  He looked at me speculatively. ‘I thought you might like to know I’ve got a new shipment coming over from the Margaret River. I think you’ll approve. My bet is on the Semillon and Sauvignon blanc. Come over and try it.’

  ‘I will,’ I promised and, to my horror, felt tears spring to my eyes.

  He searched my face. ‘I think something is wrong. Can you tell me?’

  But there was no chance to talk.

  ‘There you are…’ interrupted Will from the doorway. ‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere. I thought you might like to know that I’ve rung Meg to check on Chloë. She’s fine, and I want to take you home.’

  I looked round. Will’s features wore a mixture of chagrin and what could only be described as… jealousy. I was glad to see it, delighted to see it. I wanted to hurt him.

  My father held out his hand. ‘How are you?’

  I thought Will might ignore the gesture, but he took it and answered without his usual easy charm, ‘Fine.’

  Will was never at his best with my father. Nor, it must be said, could my father have been less interested in what he considered an inferior occupation. Politics was for boys, business was for adults.

  The atmosphere in the anteroom cooled.

  ‘I’ve come to find Fanny.’ Will abandoned his half-full glass on a nearby table. ‘I thought she’d be anxious about Chloë and we should go home.’

  My father put his hands on my shoulders and pushed me decisively towards my husband. ‘Here she is. Come and see me soon.’

  I squeezed his hand. ‘Look after yourself, Dad.’

  His look was so loving that it almost broke me. I blew him a kiss and he blended into the crowd of chattering men and women who were making their way towards the cloakrooms and their homes.

  13

  In the car on the way back home, Will asked, ‘Have you been talking to your father about us?’

  ‘Would it make a difference if I had?’

  ‘Work it out for yourself.’

  I disliked driving in the dark and my hands tensed on the wheel. ‘Actually, I haven’t. We were talking about wine.’

  Will was not convinced. ‘You talk to him about most things.’

  ‘He is my father.’

  The road curved to the right and the white line appeared to veer into the verge, as did my thoughts. My hands grew slippery. ‘You talk to Meg all the time,’ I threw at him.

  ‘Yes, I do,’ he replied. ‘But I never had a father. Nor did she.’

  Eventually I turned the car into our lane and drove up between the fields. ‘This evening was a farce,’ I said. ‘One of many.’

  ‘Possibly,’ Will replied. ‘But at your insistence.’

  I parked in the drive, jerked on the brake and switched off the ignition. The interior of the car flipped into darkness.

  ‘Now what do we do?’ asked Will.

  I struggled to control my panic and, with panic, came doubt. ‘What I don’t understand, Will, is that we hadn’t had time to get bored with each other.’ I removed the key from the ignition. ‘Which means something was lacking. If it was, you should have told me.’

  This situation was my fault.

  As was his habit, Will sat upright in the passenger seat. ‘You mustn’t blame yourself, Fanny…’ Silence. ‘I can’t possibly ask for more than we have and share.’ Another silence. ‘I’m not good at this, Fanny.’ He twisted to look towards the laurel hedge. ‘Nothing was wrong. It was a moment when I was offered temptation, and instead of refusing it I took it. How stupid was that?’

  ‘That is one way of explaining it, I suppose.’

  ‘Fanny – ’ he began.

  I cut him off. ‘The bed is made up in the spare room.’ I pulled on my shoes, got out of the car and left Will to lock up.

  I lay awake, stomach unsettled, eyes wet, in mourning for a marriage as I had envisaged it. I was frightened by the violence of my feelings and by how savagely I had been thrown off course by an event so commonplace, so every¬where, so discussed.

  I twisted and turned in the half-occupied bed.

  At four o’clock, I got up and slipped into Chloë’s room to check on her. I hovered in the doorway but could not hear anything and, with a shudder of apprehension, put my ear close to her lips and listened for the faint breath of my sleeping, alabaster baby.

  On the landing, I paused by the Gothic window. Dark¬ness. Nothing else. During the last few days my waistline had shrunk and I retied my dressing-gown cord so tightly that it bit into my flesh.

  The spare-room door was open and I looked in. The night-light in the passage illuminated Will hunched over on his side. He muttered like a puppy, sighed and flung out a hand – just like Chloë. Drawn like a magnet, I tiptoed towards the bed. This side of Will, this sleeping, vulnerable, dreaming side, was private. It belonged to me and I would not share it.

  His eyes flicked open. ‘You were watching me.’

  ‘You betrayed me, Will.’

  ‘I know. And I betrayed myself, too. Double whammy, Fanny.’

  ‘I don’t know you one bit,’ I said, and the cold crept into my bare feet.

  ‘But you’re wrong, you do know me.’ He held out a hand. ‘Come.’

  As ever, my body obeyed him, and I slid into the bed, cold beside his slackened warmth. He did not try to touch me, and we lay like the marble effigies of the Earl of Stanwinton and his wife in Stanwinton church.

  ‘You had a baby,’ he confessed at last. ‘It made a difference.’

  ‘I did my best,’ I said. ‘I came back as soon as I could.’

  ‘Yes, but half your mind is elsewhere.’

  How could I deny it? The small-print department on motherhood had been careless, too, as to precisely what would happen, which meant that Will no longer took full possession of me – as once he had.

  ‘I mourn the old you,’ he said, and added miserably, ‘I felt safe
when you had only me to think about.’

  That was as close as Will had ever come to admitting that his upbringing had laid a finger across his soul.

  ‘I love Chloë beyond words,’ he said, ‘but it is different.’

  I thought of the rooms of the spirit, and of how I had moved from a familiar one into another, as yet strange and unexplored. ‘We change,’ I said, for I was beginning to understand better. ‘We can’t escape it.’

  I must have slipped into a doze, for I started when Will asked, ‘Is it the not knowing me or what I did that’s worse?’

  ‘I think… I think it’s that you didn’t understand what I meant by us. Or, if you did… it didn’t stop you bringing Liz home. Into our home.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Fanny. Do you believe me? Please… believe me.’

  ‘Does it matter what I believe?’

  ‘And I’m sorry, too, for making you cynical. Cynicism’s the politician’s line.’ His hand journeyed over the space between us and came to rest on my thigh. ‘I imagined it would be different but it isn’t, and you get caught up in the Westminster round,’ he said. ‘That’s the trouble, and I know it’s affected me. That’s been a shock, Fanny. Finding out just how deep the cynicism is.’ The hand on my thigh grew heavy. ‘I’ve been wanting to tell you for some time.’

  He shifted closer, wooing me with his own disappointments and frailties. I fought the impulse to cling to him and to weep until there were no tears left.

  ‘I need to know what you’re going to do. I’m not sure I can live with the suspicion that, every time you leave home, you might happen on another woman up in London.’

  ‘But you won’t have to.’

  We must have slept for I awoke, stiff and feeling slightly sick. Chloë was practising her version of the dawn chorus and I stumbled out of bed and pulled on some clothes.

  Sleepy and beautifully rosy, she cuddled against me and I carried her downstairs and fed her puréed banana and cereal. Frantic for some resolution, almost mad with exhaustion, I strapped her into the car and drove over to Ember House.

  Alfredo swung Chloë up into his arms. ‘Beautiful.’

  Chloë nuzzled his cheek. And what’s going on with you?’ he asked, over the small, fair head. ‘Don’t bother to lie. You have circles under your eyes, you’ve lost weight and the atmosphere between you and your husband could be cut with a knife.’

  ‘Can we go into the garden, Dad? Chloë needs a bit of fresh air.’

  We walked at a snail’s pace across the lawn towards Madame Mop, a bad statue of a woman holding what looked like a bucket but my father was fond of her. I narrated the bare facts and set Chloë down to see if she could take a few rudimentary steps.

  ‘Bastard,’ he said, and that shocked me more than anything, for my father never swore.

  Between us we balanced the tottering Chloë, who shrieked with delight at the novelty. ‘You’ll need a strong nerve, Francesca, and cleverness. You’ve been badly hurt and I dislike Will for that. Very much. But you’re not the first… or the last in such a situation.’

  I listened to his beloved voice, which had seen me through childhood.

  ‘At the moment, you imagine it is the only thing. Indeed, it is the only thing you can think about. But it isn’t the only thing. The family matters, Francesca, very much.’ He paused. ‘It is a shock to discover that no one can expect serene and perfect happiness for always.’

  ‘How can I manage knowing it might happen again?’ I said.

  ‘It may. Or it may not. We can never know. Part of the risk.’

  Chloe’s knees buckled and I bent down to pick her up. She crowed with delight and offered me a small dirty hand.

  It was quiet in the garden, damp and cool. English weather. It was possible to think here.

  ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘I think I should get a replacement for Raoul.’

  ‘Are you sacking me?’

  ‘I think I am. It will release you. I think it would be better. In a few years’ time the picture will be different. Depending…’The last was delicately implied. Depending on the marriage, on Will’s career, on… other children.

  ‘I’m not giving up my work, Dad. I can’t. I don’t wish to.’

  ‘It’s a pity. But you must be reasonable and kind to yourself. Women are often not good at being kind to themselves. You have a lot to cope with. I’m getting older and I need more and more help, and you are not free to give it.’

  That hurt. But my father knew what to say next. ‘Your work is not dead, Francesca,’ he said, ‘only dormant. You can keep your hand in, if you wish, in a minor way. You can keep practising and learning and storing up knowledge. You are lucky.’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘Listen to me, Francesca, you have to be clever about life. I wasn’t so clever, and I made mistakes. You have to put something together. I don’t know what it will be, and you need to concentrate your energies on Will.’

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ I conceded.

  Madame Mop had grown a garment of green lichen. I held Chloë up in front of her, and she made tiny mouse-like marks on the grey-green with her fingers. ‘Have you got a handkerchief, Dad?’

  I wiped a protesting Chloë’s hands. ‘She’s exploring,’ said her grandfather fondly. ‘Bold and brave. When she’s old enough, I must get the tree-house repaired.’

  Will was surrounded by the debris of fried bacon and toast when Chloë and I returned. ‘Thanks for letting me know where you were,’ he said. ‘It didn’t take much to guess.’ Then he added nastily, ‘I knew you’d run off to your father.’

  I dropped the car keys on to the kitchen table. ‘What are you getting at?’

  ‘Just that.’ He put his hands on the table and levered himself to his feet. ‘We might as well acknowledge it, Fanny. This is not going to work. I’ve made a big mistake. Let’s call it a day, pick up our lives and start again. I’ll make sure that you’re all right and we’ll share Chloë as best we can.’

  The strange intimacy of the night had vanished, replaced by a brisk, decisive, politician’s blueprint for sensible arrangements and legal niceties. ‘OK?’ His eyebrows remained in a straight line. ‘That’s what you want?’

  I felt faintness spread through my stomach and turn my knees as soft as butter. ‘I have to change Chloë,’ I said.

  I bore her upstairs to her room and laid her on the changing mat, which was patterned with fat yellow teddy bears and, for some reason, bells. She was tired by her outing, and from the excitement of seeing her grandfather, and was scratchy and grizzly.

  I cleaned and wiped and patted. When I had finished, I put her into her cot and turned on the musical mobile. The wretched tune tinkled and the ducks embarked on a stately, circular dance.

  ‘Gotcha,’ they seemed to say.

  Chloë’s eyes drooped. I knelt down beside the cot. What was the truth? The truth was that now Chloë was here and well and safe, the luxury of choice had vanished. That was the deal with children. I knew. I knew about the chill of a child’s lonely incompleteness. I knew inside out their bewilderment and the nag of unanswered questions. A person has to choose. But that was mind candy. There was no choice. ‘I won’t leave your father,’ I told Chloë. ‘I can’t do that to you.’

  Neither, I realized, could I do that to myself, for I loved Will. I hated what he’d done, but I loved him. I loved his passionate devotion to the idea of a better world; I loved the possibilities that beckoned in our future. I was not willing to give them up without a fight.

  Chloë whimpered, and I stuck my finger through the bars and stroked her cheek. ‘Weeping Eros is the builder of cities,’ wrote a poet. I would weep and build my city too.

  And rule it, and grow powerful.

  I went downstairs to Will, who was waiting in the kitchen. As I entered, he turned slowly and I saw how beaten and tired he looked.

  ‘Fanny?’

  ‘I’ve decided to give up working with my father,’ I said. ‘We agreed it would be better.�
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  I crossed to the dresser and picked up the diary, which shed its snowfall of invitations and reminders.

  ‘OK.’ I opened it up. ‘Let’s go through this. We have a busy month.’

  Will sat down opposite me and dropped his head into his hands. ‘Thank God,’ he said.

  A few days later, when I was lying in the bath and he was brushing his hair in the mirror, he asked, ‘Do you really forgive me? Will you forget?’

  I squeezed a sponge of water over my shoulders. ‘I’ll do my best.’

  He abandoned the beauty parade, hunkered down beside the bath and kidnapped the sponge. ‘I promise I will never, ever do it again.’ His arm rested on the side of the bath. It was brushed with golden hairs that lay flat and silky over his skin. Underneath it the muscles were hard and different from my softer, yielding body. I reached out and arrested the hand that was trickling water over my shoulders. Will stared down at me and I returned his scrutiny more boldly than in the past.

  I would do my best. I would clamp my mouth shut, stitch up my wounds, fight back and demand Will’s sexual… loyalty. In return, I would place myself by his side: smiling, entertaining, supporting.

  Yet in future I would be watchful.

  I would reserve the right to inner immigration. When faced with the intractable, or the intolerable, people fled inside themselves. They studied, they dreamed, they learnt. My situation was hardly intolerable – I was neither oppressed nor abused – but my spirit had been dented. Nothing so terrible there either. Every girl… and every woman, the woman into which I would grow, required an insurance. That was mine.

  ‘You will try?’ Will bent over and kissed me. ‘Will you try to forget?’

  From its position on the shelf above the basin where I had propped it, a postcard from Benedetta of the church and a flower-filled piazza in Fiertino flashed in the corner of my eye. The red varnish on my toenails emerging from the water matched the scarlet of the geraniums in the photograph. An optimistic red. After a second, I kissed him back. ‘Yes.’