Читать книгу The Philanderer's Wife - Katherine Trelawney - Страница 4

Paddy Gregory came home late on Friday evening, to find his wife Joscelyn already in bed, with her head buried under the duvet. He could tell, though, from the pattern of her breathing that she was not asleep.

“I had a good evening.” He sat on the bed next to her, and gently pulled the duvet off her face, wanting her to rouse herself and listen to his news.

“Good,” said Joss in an entirely neutral tone. Her eyes opened, but her gaze wasn’t quite directed at her husband.

“I took Hilary out for a drink. I had some news for her. I had the go-ahead on that short, the one on Celtic folk music. She’s going to direct it; she was delighted.”

“I expect she was.” Joscelyn was sounding noticeably grumpy. With a reluctant air, she sat up a little, resting her head on her pillows, and revealing a shock of hair, which grew down to her shoulders.

In his late thirties, Paddy showed little sign of impending middle age. Even sitting on the bed, and concentrating on his wife, he displayed a slight restlessness, which spoke of the impatience of youth rather than the complacency of achievement and experience.

“She’s such a nice girl; and so talented. I’m sure she’s got a great career ahead of her.”

“I thought she was a theatre director?” Joscelyn was finally looking intently at her husband’s face. She was a bit concerned. Paddy’s judgement was normally good, and his instinct to put himself first strong, but infatuation has a special way of magnifying a woman’s talents.

Joscelyn, eleven years Paddy’s junior, and very pretty, had a much more settled presence than her husband.

“Oh, a good director can do either,” Paddy said confidently, and he stroked his wife’s cheek. “Of course she’s got a bit of a thing about the theatre, but I’m not sure that her talents aren’t better suited to film.”

“So this is still a business relationship then?”

“Certainly, although I think that she’s getting quite fond of me. And you know that does matter to me. I don’t chase girls to score points, or to boost my ego, like some men do.”

Joscelyn looked at Paddy with steady eyes.

“I know you don’t do it to score points. But it does boost your ego.”

Paddy conceded that one. “Of course; but I do like them to care for me.”

He swung his legs up onto the bed, so that he was lying on top of the covers, but next to his wife. Even wearing casual clothes, corduroy trousers and a shirt without a tie, he had an affluent air, which contrasted with the shabby look of their rented flat, where the bed had a battered headboard, and the carpet was ancient, brown and bare.

“I know,” said Joscelyn. “You do.” Then after a pause, she said, “I care for you.”

“Absolutely, more than anyone. And I for you, Joss; you mustn’t ever doubt that.”

“I don’t.”

This was a conversation they had had many times. The exact phrases might vary, but the same words were re-used each time. It was the tone that would change, and it was from the tone that Joss could judge with almost exact precision what her husband was telling her. They might be celebrating their mutual strength against an outside threat. Sometimes, like this evening, Joss would use the opportunity to convey a little concern. And today Paddy was also pointing out that the reservations his wife had weren’t going to alter his plans.

Paddy took one of Joscelyn’s hands in his two, and held it firmly. She softened towards him. He had just had considerable professional success and she knew that this only activated his underlying sense of insecurity. He was daily haunted by the realisation that it could all go as quickly as it had come. Perhaps he felt that women had the capacity to be more faithful than fame.

Joss might have to deal with the anxiety, even sometimes the pain that Paddy’s girlfriends caused her, but she could cope. She smiled at him.

“Will you come to bed?”

“Of course I will.”

Paddy pulled off his clothes, but folded them, as he always did, quickly and neatly on a chair. In bed, he put his arms round Joscelyn, who still had something to say:

“You will be sensible, won’t you? You won’t waste too much time on ten minute shorts and lunches with Hilary rather than lunches with directors, backers and other useful people?”

“Of course I won’t. I’m working all hours of the day. I only spend a tiny bit of time with Hilary, and that’s all work as well.”

“Paddy, I don’t mind if you’re not a great success. But I know you mind and that’s why I care about it.”

Paddy laughed. “Listen, you must stop thinking about Hilary. I’ve stopped thinking about her. I’m thinking about you, and how absolutely wonderful you are. I’m thinking that in a few weeks time we shall have a house of our very own, and won’t have to wake up looking at that awful purple wallpaper. I’m thinking that today was your very last day slaving away at Slater, June and Warbeck, and that tomorrow we are going to our favourite place in all the world for a perfect night away.”

He hugged Joscelyn even closer, and finally she put her arms around him, so that they were closely entwined, under the duvet.

* * *

“Number 53. That’s the room we had last time.”

Paddy held their key, with the number prominently displayed, for his wife to inspect, then leaned forward very slightly, and kissed her.

As they were in a cramped lift, and surrounded by rather more luggage than was necessary for two people spending one night away, they were squashed into the space between their suitcases, and clinging on to each other to avoid toppling over.

“Do you really remember the room number?” Joss was laughing, and she looked at her husband with mock admiration.

“Of course I do.” The lift doors opened, revealing the two of them, still wrapped in each other’s arms, wedged in by bags, to a small polite queue of people waiting on the second floor.

Joscelyn blushed, and Paddy smiled broadly.

“Good afternoon,” he said to their little audience. He waved Joscelyn forward out of the lift, shifted the luggage quickly and efficiently, and ushered a grey-haired lady from the front of the queue into the lift, before heading confidently into room number 53.

Paddy was right. It was the same room they had had on their last visit, earlier in the year. It was a smallish space, because you couldn’t expect large rooms in a fifteenth century coaching inn. Most of it was filled with a large dark wooden double bed, which had a billowing chintzy canopy.

Out of the window you could see the garden, a little bare in the winter months, but on a table in front of the window was a huge bunch of red roses.

“And you remembered the roses,” Joss said, reaching up to give her husband a kiss.

“Would I forget?” Paddy replied.

Dinner started at seven-thirty. The Gregories had booked an early meal, with the idea that this would give them longer to savour the excellent food in the hotel restaurant. In fact the four and a half hours between their arrival and dinnertime had slipped away very easily in the comforts of their hotel room. It was eight o’clock when quiet but determined-looking Joscelyn led a slightly grumpy Paddy into the dining room. He hadn’t been quite ready to dress and come downstairs, but she had insisted that they shouldn’t antagonise the hotel staff by being more than half an hour late.

“They have oysters!” Paddy looked up from the menu, and immediately caught the eye of a passing waiter. “Do you have oysters this evening?”

“Yes, sir, we do.”

Paddy’s temper changed instantly and he looked triumphantly at his wife.

“It’s a good job we weren’t down any later. They’ll only have a limited supply in the kitchen, and might well have run out.”

He managed to sound as if it was only his foresight that had brought them there before the oysters were all eaten by other people.

“Yes, it was.” Joscelyn’s equable tone had nothing in it that might dent her husband’s satisfaction.

Joscelyn looked down and studied the menu, while her husband watched her. She always took several minutes to choose her food. It was one of those idiosyncrasies that had seemed sweet when he first knew her, and now, after five years of marriage could sometimes be a little irritating. Tonight, however, he was all indulgence as he watched the serious expression on her face. She had a difficult choice between duck or salmon.

“Big decisions, ah?” Relaxed as he was, he didn’t like the silence going on too long. Those long moments, when her attention was focused so intently away from him.

“Yes.” Joscelyn nodded, calmly, but without looking up.

Paddy was going to have to be patient, and perhaps for thirty seconds more.

Paddy, large, and physically confident, ran his broad hands through a mop of dark curly hair. He was dressed with only just enough formality to conform to the rules of the Bear dining room, with an expensive but chunky green sweater, on top of a shirt and tie. In nineteen-eighties Britain, it still wasn’t exceptional for a smart restaurant to demand a tie. His wife, by contrast, was elegantly dressed, in a long blue silk gown.

Joscelyn had long fair hair, not Scandinavian blonde but a rich Teutonic dark yellow colour. It was her most striking feature, and tonight it was, apart from being regulated by an Alice band, allowed to fall loose over her shoulders.

In due course Paddy’s oysters arrived, as did some mushroom soup for his wife.

“This is really nice,” said Joscelyn.

“Certainly is.” Paddy was looking at his food with wholehearted appreciation.

“Just the two of us.”

“Absolutely.”

There was a pause, and they both ate. Then Joscelyn said, “I’m very glad that Barbara has gone to Hong Kong.”

“Well, you’ve no need to be.” Paddy smiled at his wife, but there was a hint of irritation in his face. Why did she have to bring that up all of a sudden? They were just about to have a really good meal. That was one of the annoying things about women, they harboured all sorts of resentments which just came out, without warning, and often at the most inappropriate times.

He held her hand briefly. “I’m very glad to be here with you. Especially as they have oysters.”

As Paddy ate his oysters, Joscelyn thought about Barbara, the woman who had gone to Hong Kong, a couple of weeks before, and Paddy’s thoughts turned to Hilary.

She was young and serious-minded. Straight from university, she’d directed a play in one of London’s better-known pub-theatre venues. Then Paddy had helped find money to stage another one, which was currently in rehearsal.

“You should come with me to Cannes,” Paddy had told her last week.

As director and producer, the occasional lunch had been almost a professional obligation. They had taken to going to a small vegetarian restaurant, where Hilary ate heartily and Paddy normally insisted on paying the bill.

“I’ll be there for the showing of Terrible Beauty, and of course I’ve got a number of other projects to discuss with people. Everybody goes to Cannes. You have to go.”

Paddy’s recent big success, Terrible Beauty, had started off as a stage play, and was now a film. He had told Hilary, over one of their lunches, how he had left his job as a commercial lawyer to work at getting it onto the big screen. How it he had done it, by sending the Hollywood actor Patrick Doyle a crate of Guinness on St. Patrick’s Day, and Doyle had agreed to play the leading role. The film was already doing well in America, and it was about to open in London. It was a good story, and Paddy had become well practised at telling it. Hilary had been impressed, despite working hard not to show it.

Hilary looked worried. “Surely not?” she had said.

But Paddy noticed that she wasn’t absolutely appalled by the idea. He’d been winning her round. It was his help on her play that had done this, slowly. He had, gently and unobtrusively, supported her, and now she was responding to him.

“Why surely not? We’d go as two colleagues. It would be a business thing. We’d enjoy ourselves and get lots of work done.”

Hilary put her head on one side, as she had a habit of doing, her dark eyes solemn and unblinking. Then she had said,

“I am grateful to you for your help on this production. You’re so good with everybody. The way you always seem to turn up just as we’re getting tired and cross, and creating a bit of a party atmosphere to help things along.”

“I admire the way you cope,” Paddy replied. “There are some difficult people, even by theatrical standards, and you manage them magnificently.”

This was not just flattery. Hilary had a way of accepting and negotiating the various large and fragile egos on set with a quiet authority that was unusual in someone who couldn’t be more than twenty-two.

She’d smiled a brief smile.

“We make a good team then.”

Hilary hadn’t responded to this one, but Paddy had sensed his chance.

“You see, you should come with me to Cannes.”

Hilary frowned. “Well perhaps,” she’d said. “I’ll think about it.”

Paddy looked up from his thoughts and across the table at his wife, and just caught the end of a frown on her face.

“Penny for your thoughts.”

“I was thinking about Barbara, and how she took me out to lunch that day to try and frighten me away from you.”

Paddy grinned. He was soothed by the meal and a good bottle of wine, and prepared to indulge this little bit of upset from his wife. “She didn’t succeed, though, did she? I’m not even in touch with her these days.”

“No, she didn’t succeed.” Joss looked at him archly.

“You are made of sterner stuff than that, Joss, and that’s one of the many reasons why I love you. And when we are back in our room, I’ll tell you a few more of them.”

* * *

On Monday morning, refreshed from the weekend with his wife, Paddy was in work early. Hilary was still in bed in her rented room when the phone started ringing about a quarter to nine.

“I don’t want to put any pressure on you,” he said, “but I’ve just been asked to confirm my dates for Cannes. I’ll probably be fixing everything up in the next few days. I’ll need to know for definite whether you’re coming with me.”

Hilary hadn’t expected this. Paddy had talked about her going to Cannes with him, but she hadn’t expected him to ring up first thing in the morning and talk about dates as if it was virtually settled.

“Well, if I do come along, I can make my own arrangements. You sort yourself out, for the time being. I haven’t had the chance to think about it yet.”

“Yes, but I’ve got a chance to get two rooms in the best hotel in town, both with views of the sea. I’m getting such a good deal, they’re practically free, so you wouldn’t need to pay anything. I’d put it down as a business expense.”

“I’d prefer to pay for myself.” In fact, Hilary was thinking that the whole trip was probably beyond her budget.

“Why waste the money? As long as I confirm the booking today, I can get them for almost nothing and then charge them against tax. You can buy me a meal while we’re there.”

Hilary wasn’t quite sure what she felt about Paddy Gregory. He had a reputation for being a dreadful philanderer, but (and Hilary wasn’t sure whether or not she should be offended about this) he hadn’t tried anything on with her. She thought about her father, who now lived on his own in Provence. She could combine a trip to the festival with a visit to her Dad. And Cannes would be fun.

“Thanks for the offer. I’ll think about it and call you back.”

* * *

Joscelyn felt that next year was going to be her year. Paddy had definitely had his, with his film not only being produced but doing so well. Her achievements would be more modest, but being at last able to give up a job she disliked, and study. It would be enough to make her very happy, and very proud. At least, until they had children.

Her contented mood was shattered by Paddy, who came home a little early. He was in transit, having another meeting that evening. Joss didn’t mind him going out, but she was shocked when her husband, over a cup of tea and in the course of relating the day’s events, told her calmly that he had arranged to go to the Cannes Film Festival with Hilary.

Joscelyn looked at him for a moment. This was completely out of the blue. Last time she had heard, it was just the odd working lunch.

She was outraged, and turned on Paddy.

“Didn’t you know that I wanted to go to Cannes more than anything else in the world?”

Paddy was taken aback by his wife’s reaction, but he didn’t hesitate more than a second before responding.

“No,” he shouted back. “Because you didn’t bloody tell me! I’m not psychic.”

Surely he would have known she would want to go to the Film Festival?

“Tell her you made a mistake. That I want to go, and you didn’t realise.” Joscelyn stood up in the small kitchen of their rented flat, and glared at her husband, who sat with his mug of tea.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Joss. This is work. That’s why Hilary is coming with me, because it will be work for both of us. She’s made it clear to me that this is strictly professional. She’ll have her own room and will be paying for herself. There’s no need for you to react in this way. It’s completely over the top.”

“But I wanted to go. I really did. I deserve it. I was the one who put up with our flat being sold to finance a project that might have been a total flop – that might not have happened at all. I kept on working for the awful Mungo Muggins when you gave up the law to try your luck in films. And now it’s paid off – which of course I’m delighted about – I want to share in the rewards. And you take a young thing who’s taken your fancy and is directing a short on Celtic folk music!”

“May I remind you,” Paddy used his stern, stern, lawyer voice, “that ‘our flat’ that was sold was my flat paid for before we got married by my very hard-earned bonuses when I was a partner in Slater, June and Warbeck.”

“It was our home,” Joss interrupted, but Paddy carried on,

“And as for rewards you will get plenty of them. A new house in Fulham; time off to study, paid for by me. You’re already going to the premiere in London, and you’re coming to the one in Dublin.”

Paddy looked at his wife, standing by the oven, still looking angry. He changed his tone:

“I’m going to need you at the Dublin one, as you know. Only you can keep me sane when I have to spend more than a day at a time with my family. I shall be absolutely relying on you then.”

Joss said nothing. Paddy finished his tea and went out to his meeting. By the time he came home, it was very late, and his still angry wife had finally gone to sleep.