more to each other they went through the customary agenda of their love-making.
Afterwards, when they lay side by side again, Darcy said to the empty space over his head, ‘I didn’t very much like what you did this evening.’
Hannah made a small sound in her throat, not quite a laugh. ‘Were you jealous?’
‘No, not at all. The opposite. I didn’t like the way what you did affected Marcelle, and Janice.’
‘I’m sure they understood. Women do understand these things, don’t they? They have to.’
‘What is that supposed to mean?’
Hannah felt the sudden tension in him. It made his arm and leg quiver, tiny shivers that were transmitted to her own warm limbs. She felt the charge of power again, this time the power that her knowledge gave her. She chose her words with pleasurable care.
‘It means what I said. Women have to understand what their husbands do. Their little lapses, their small betrayals and the lies that don’t quite cover them up. They have to look on, don’t they, and pretend not to see, or not to mind? It’s kind of you to feel for Janice and Marcelle. But why doesn’t your ready sympathy extend to me? Or is it used up on poor, poor Vicky?’
‘On Vicky?’
‘Yes, on Vicky. Alone in that house with her lovely, innocent baby girls, without her wicked, unfaithful husband.’
‘Hannah –’
‘Don’t Hannah, with all your pretend bewilderment. I know you’re fucking Vicky. What else would you be doing on the mornings your car is trying to hide itself in her driveway? Advising her on her investments? Why did you think you could get away with it, in a place the size of Grafton, when Gordon and his widow woman couldn’t?
‘Linda Todd who lives opposite the Ransomes is a customer of mine. She couldn’t wait to tell me how many times she’s seen you there. I drove past myself, just to check. Including the day you said you were going to Bristol.’
Darcy said calmly, ‘There’s no reason why I shouldn’t call on Vicky. She does need advice, as it happens. That doesn’t mean I’m sleeping with her.’
Hannah drew away from him so she could no longer feel the quivers under his skin. She said softly and finally, ‘But you are, Darcy, aren’t you?’
‘What can I say to convince you otherwise, as you seem to have made up your mind?’
‘Nothing, darling. We were talking about what women are obliged to understand. I’m not going to worry about Janice and Marcelle because their husbands can’t take their eyes off my backside.’
Hannah turned over. She was surprised to find that she was sleepy, that her body felt pleasantly warm and heavy. She had told Darcy what she knew and there was nothing else she wanted to say. He didn’t speak again, and after a few minutes Hannah drifted into sleep.
Darcy lay awake for much longer. He was thinking about Vicky.
Apart from a handful of trivial lapses that were easy enough to discount, Darcy had been faithful to Hannah ever since their marriage – until a month ago.
After Vicky had locked Gordon out of their house she had stayed alone with the children for a night and half a day. And then, emerging from a daze of distress and needing to talk about what was happening to her, she had telephoned Hannah at Wilton. Only on that day Hannah had gone to her shop to make everything ready for her post-Christmas sale, and it was Darcy who answered the telephone.
‘I’ll come over,’ he said at once.
In the Ransomes’ house he found a litter of toys and children’s detritus underfoot, a half-eaten meal on the kitchen table, a broken-down central heating boiler and Vicky in her dressing gown with Helen in her arms.
Darcy had tidied up some of the mess and called out his own central heating repair man. He had made tea and toast for Vicky, fed the older children and found the whisky bottle. The business of creating order for her had filled him with happy energy and he whistled softly as he worked.
Vicky watched Darcy moving around her house.
‘It seems that I can’t manage on my own,’ she said sadly.
‘Yes, you can,’ Darcy told her.
Neither of them mentioned Christmas Eve in Hannah’s bedroom. But when it was time to feed the baby he saw the tender and businesslike way that Vicky settled herself to the task, and it tightened some string inside him that pulled at his heart. He reached out and with the tips of his fingers he brushed her cheek. The colour came into her face, but she kept her eyes fixed on the baby in her arms.
Darcy left her with the name and telephone number of his London solicitor, and promised to come back the next day.
It was not very long before all the couples in the Grafton circle knew Vicky had turned Gordon out.
The wives visited or telephoned her, offering their different versions of support and advice, but it was Darcy she looked forward to seeing. She knew that he came unknown to Hannah, and his secret presence in the house seemed to change the quality of it for her – the light in the rooms became sharper and brighter, and the weight of her anxiety dropped away to leave her feeling calm and decisive. When she told him this Darcy laughed and said that Hannah would say the opposite about him at Wilton, but Vicky could see that he was pleased.
Gordon telephoned constantly, from his office and then from the hotel, but Vicky told him that she did not want to see him until she had had more time to think. As the days passed her first hot anger with him curdled into weary disappointment, but she held firm, telling him that she did not want him to come back yet. She surprised herself with the strength of her own resolution.
One morning, after Gordon had been away for two weeks, Darcy came to visit Vicky, leaving his Range Rover parked to one side of the house where it was hidden from the road by a screen of evergreens. It was a clear day, and as she went to let him in Vicky saw in the changed angles of the shadows the first intimation of spring.
Darcy sat at her kitchen table while she made coffee for him. The older girls were at school, Helen was asleep in her cot and there was a thick, expectant silence in the house. Vicky turned to the table with his cup in her hand, and when she had put it down she hesitated beside him.
‘I’m very grateful,’ she told him. She meant for the solace of his company, as well as for the practical advice he had given her.
Darcy reached out and took her hand and she looked down gravely at him. He remembered in that instant that he had imagined himself in love with her, as well as wanting to take her to bed. He stood up, and she did not move when he held her by the shoulders and kissed her. She smelt of baby scents, innocent soap and milk.
‘Come upstairs with me,’ Darcy said.
The double bed was unmade, with lacy pillows tumbled on the floor and the quilt still rucked in the contours of her solitary sleep. Standing beside the bed Darcy unbuttoned her loose shirt, and rediscovered her distended breasts and the curves of her belly marked with pregnancy. She made a move to cover herself with her hands but he pushed them aside and knelt so that he could follow the silvery lines with his eyes and the tips of his fingers.
‘Vicky.’
