Page 62 of An Invitation to the Kennedys
‘Only Chips knows,’ Doris teased.‘I see nothing has changed in your marriage.’But even as she spoke, she realised how wrong she was.One proper look at Honor was enough to tell her that.Told Doris so much more than her letters had.It had been little over a year since her last visit, yet in that time Honor had aged.Not yet thirty, she looked older.It wasn’t just lines and wrinkles, it was the defeated stoop of her, the thickness around the middle, that spoke of unhappiness that was general and did not lift.Not the specific misery of, say, a love affair gone wrong, Doris thought; that might have expressed itself in agitation, something abrupt and intense.This was the sodden misery of a life only scarcely lived.
Sure enough: ‘Except thingshavechanged,’ Honor said dully.‘A very great deal.I am only really seeing that now.’
‘Let’s go up and you can tell me.’
Honor allowed herself to be led upstairs, as though she were the guest, Doris thought, pointing out her room and allowing Doris to take her to it, shut the door behind them, and even remind her to get out of her wet things as she stood, shivering, looking out at the buffeted garden.
‘Those plants will be destroyed,’ Honor said.‘Chips will be furious.They are only just laid down.Everything here is only recently finished.There is almost a smell of fresh paint.’She wrinkled her nose.‘He has no idea how vulgar he is.’
‘Nonsense, darling,’ Doris said briskly.‘That sort of thing means nothing anymore.This is a mighty comfortable house, and that is what matters.’
‘Is it?’Honor asked vaguely.
‘Yes.You know that.Now, as for Chips’ failings as a man, and a husband, that is something other entirely.Please tell me.’
‘I do not know where to begin,’ Honor said.She said it helplessly.As though, Doris thought, not knowing meant that there was no way to begin.
‘It doesn’t matter where.Begin in the middle.Go backwards from there, or forwards, it will all come out.’She remembered this of Honor from the time they were at school together – how overwhelmed she could be by too much information.
‘Ask me questions,’ Honor begged.‘It’s easier that way.’
‘Very well, but first, sit down.’Honor had dragged on a plaid dressing gown, her clothes left in a damp heap on the floor.‘Ring for tea, then come here and I’ll brush your hair.’
‘As you used to.’
‘As I used to.’
Meekly, Honor sat at the dressing table after the maid had been and gone, and Doris began to run the silver-backed brush through her hair that she had once described as ‘the colour of milky tea’.There was grey in it now, and it was coarser than it had been.‘So, where shall I begin,’ she wondered aloud.‘Because it’s Chips, I rather feel I had better begin with the obvious.Are there others?’She spoke briskly, but she was careful to avoid Honor’s eyes in the looking-glass in front of them; to offer her some refuge from shame.
‘Yes,’ Honor said, with a dismissive wave of her hand.‘Always.It wasn’t that.Or not exactly that.It was that … well, between he and I … there has been nothing.For so very long.Since Paul in fact.’
‘I see.’As usual, Doris thought, Honor squirmed to discuss anything intimate.She was twisting her hands in her lap so rapidly that they looked like small writhing creatures.
‘At first he didn’t seem to notice, or much care.But then he did and was agitated.Said we were not “proper husband and wife”.That there must be more children and how were there to be if we were never in the same room together.I said we were in the same room a very great deal, only there were always other people in the room with us.I tried, Doris, honestly I did.Only I could not.Could not bear it.Could not bear him.’
‘What did he say then?’Doris asked.
‘A very great deal.’She made a face.‘On and on, as he does.Then he sent a doctor to me.Dr Low.’Honor was so red now that her face looked painful.‘The doctor was at pains to tell me that everything that is wrong with me – the sleeplessness, the lethargy, the ill-humour – all this is because of that.Or rather, because of not that, if you see what I mean.’
‘I see what you mean.’Doris stopped herself from laughing – Honor’s inability to be more precise, to say what she meant, using only ‘that’ and ‘not that’ to express herself, was typical.But what lay behind it was not funny at all.
‘As though I were a farmyard animal,’ she continued bitterly.‘One that will not breed right and must have a vet sent, to stare into her mouth and twitch her tail and pronounce her fit, or unfit.’
‘Vile,’ Doris said with a shudder.
‘In any case, if he hoped to reawaken my interest in him through the doctor, he was a fool,’ Honor said with spirit.‘If anything could have made me more resolute to keep away from it, that was it.’
‘I can imagine.’
‘And there was someone else for me, also.For a little while.A very little while.’
‘I see.And?’
‘Well, no.I mean not really.’
‘Not really what?You will have to tell me a little more.’Doris hid her face so Honor wouldn’t see her lips twitch.
‘Not really anything,’ Honor said with sudden spirit.‘I cannot understand why everyone goes on about love and how they will die for it, or kill for it, or whatever it is they say they will do.How they leave their homes and children and risk everything to be with someone they shouldn’t.But for what?I tried it, and I found it all perfectly flat.And really rather awkward.’
