Page 3 of An Invitation to the Kennedys
‘Must we?’she asked after a while.‘Wasn’t it bad enough to live through it once, but I must now do it all again, in memory?’
‘I simply thought you might be interested,’ Chip said stiffly.
‘In what?Parsing every detail and finding what bits of it all might benefit you?’she responded rudely.‘I am going up.’
‘May I come with you?’he asked, reaching forward to put a damp hand on her arm.Sometimes, she noticed, he seemed to almost enjoy her displays of contempt.Finding in them an excitement that repelled her.That was another reason she was careful to keep them under control.
‘Not tonight.’She shook his hand off and stood up.
‘Not tonight.Not any night.How long has it been?’
‘Please, Chips, not now.’
‘I know exactly,’ he responded.‘As do you.Certainly not since Paul was born.’
What could she say?It has been a great deal longer.Not since the day you knew I was expecting.Once he knew she was pregnant, he had turned to mist and vapour, as she had thought of it then; as though his duties were discharged.Had left her entirely alone.It was only when Paul had reached his first birthday that he had begun to try to come to her at night again.And by then it was too late.She no longer wanted him.
‘You know I have had a long and confidential natter with Dr Low,’ he said, pouring a dash of brandy into a cut-glass tumbler.
‘Have you indeed?’
‘Yes.And we are agreed, he and I, about the cause of your nerves and difficulties with sleep.’He turned the glass this way and that so the deep slashes in its crystal sides caught the firelight.
‘Are you?’
‘We are.’And, when she said nothing, ‘Aren’t you going to ask what it is we agree on?’
‘No, because I do not at all want to know.’She stood with one hand on the high back of the armchair, ready to leave, but not quite able yet to go.
‘It is a delicate matter, granted,’ he said, ‘but one we must talk about.’
‘I feel certain that we must not.’
‘I know it is difficult to resume marital relations once they have been allowed to lapse, but Dr Low is certain this can only be of benefit to you.’
‘To me?’
‘And to me, of course,’ he added hurriedly, politely, ‘my dear.’
‘I don’t wish to discuss this.Not now.’
‘But Honor, darling, Paul is nearly three.It is time there were more children.’
More children.How much, a year or so ago, she had wanted to hear those words.How she had clung to the idea of them, when the world of Nanny and the nursery, where she felt always a visitor – like a cat that has snuck into the kitchen and found a warm spot, but knows it will be ejected – closed around her baby son.Taking him from her, briskly, efficiently, cruelly; always in a way that meant she didn’t know how to resist: ‘It is time for his nap.’‘He must have his bath.’‘It is better for him if he is not spoiled.’
Perhaps Chips took her silence for contemplation, because he put the glass down and came to stand close beside her, putting a hot hand on her arm.‘It’s time,’ he said again.He stood so close that he breathed into her ear and, with his thumb, began to stroke the inside of her elbow.Already his breath was fast and jagged.Honor’s stomach lurched.She imagined capitulating.Allowing him to move his hand further up her arm, to her shoulder.Imagined him pulling her forward and pressing his mouth on hers.Imagined the wet brandy taste of him.Imagined going upstairs to her bedroom and the way his body would feel against hers after all this time.
‘I don’t wish to discuss it,’ she said again.‘I’m going up.Please do not fall asleep here.It makes things so difficult for the maids if they must dust and set fires around you.’He shot her a nasty look.It was the first time she had acknowledged that she knew this was how he had ended too many nights recently: sprawled across the sofa, decanter empty beside him.
Upstairs, she barely had energy to unhook her dress and wished she had told the maid to wait up.She didn’t bother brushing her hair but fell straight into bed.Molly would have to wash it in the morning anyway.Wash away the smell of cigars and hairspray.The memory of another dull night.She must try to be kinder to him, Honor thought as she fell asleep.Only it had become so hard.
Chapter Three
Honor
The next morning he came to her room while she still drank her tea in bed.Though he had barely slept, had been noticeably drunk and had suffered rejection by his own wife, he was now buoyant again with energy and good humour.‘We are lunching with the Duff-Coopers,’ he said.‘And I have brought youThe Times.There is an account of that play we saw.Not a very fond one.’Then, when she was settled with the newspaper and another cup of tea, ‘I think I will get another dog.A companion for Bundi.He must be lonely, poor chap, the only canine in this big house.Everyone should have a companion and playmate, should they not?’By which she understood that he had not given up his plan for another child.Only he had decided to approach it by another way – through the guilt she felt that Paul was growing up with only Nanny and a tutor.
‘Get another dog if you must,’ she said, ‘but I will love only Bundi.’
