Folly's Child (39 page)

Harriet grew from a beautiful baby to a beautiful toddler. Hugo spent every spare moment he could with her, taking her for outings to Central Park, reading to her from books with colourful illustrations and sometimes bathing her and melting her up in bed himself. Two nannies came and went, their noses put out of joint by what they termed his interference and Paula became quiet jealous of the attention he lavished on his little ‘Tumbleweed'.

Had she but known it Hugo was in fact compensating for their own deteriorating relationship and lavishing on Harriet all the love he had to give but which Paula no longer seemed to want to accept from him.

Since Harriet had been born they hardly ever made love any more. When the baby was six weeks old he had made the first gentle but eager attempt but she had gone cold and stiff in his arms.

‘What's the matter, honey, are you still sore?' he had asked, his voice husky with suppressed passion.

‘A little,' Paula had said, wriggling away. ‘And anyway, you'd better not, in case …' Her voice tailed away meaningfully.

‘I'll be real careful, honey.'

‘I know, but … Hugo, I'm scared. I don't want to get pregnant again. I couldn't stand it. And you feel the same. You know what you said …'

‘Yes,' he said a little guiltily, feeling the desire go out of him like the air from a punctured balloon.

‘I'm just afraid to trust any method of birth control now,' Paula went on, her voice soft but insistent. ‘Look what happened with my diaphragm. Nothing is a hundred per cent safe.'

‘I thought you got pregnant that time you didn't use it,' Hugo said. ‘And anyway, I'm sure we can find a method that is 99.9 per cent.'

‘How can you bear to take even the smallest chance?' she persisted. ‘Hugo – couldn't you have a vasectomy? That way we'd be quite certain.'

In spite of himself Hugo was a little shocked. He had thought of a vasectomy himself but he hadn't expected Paula to suggest it.

‘Honey, that is something that needs a lot of thinking about. We'd need to really talk it through, be absolutely certain, before I did that. It's not reversible, you know – at least not at present. They couldn't guarantee a thing.'

‘So you
have
looked into it?'

‘I've talked with Buster Hertz, yes.' Buster Hertz was their doctor, a jolly, beer-drinking father of six who had shown no sympathy for the idea.

‘Good God man, whatever would you want to do that for after just one child?' had been his reaction. ‘Now if you had six like me it might be a different matter.'

‘What did he say?' Paula asked now eagerly.

Hugo hesitated. He didn't feel the time was quite right to pass on Buster's next comment – that though she might have had a bad time Paula was a young, fit woman who would quickly forget what she had been through.

‘He wasn't in favour,' Hugo told her. ‘He doesn't think at our stage it's an option we ought to consider.'

‘Why not? We agreed – no more children.'

‘I know but it's conceivable we might change our minds. And Buster said it's highly unlikely you'd have so much trouble a second time.'

‘
Buster
said! What does he know? It wasn't him lying there hour after hour in agony. If it had been … well, he wouldn't have put his own wife through it six bloody times.'

‘Paula, I'm not saying we should have another baby, just that we should keep our options open. Suppose something should happen to Harriet – God forbid, but …'

‘Nothing is going to happen to Harriet,' Paula snapped. ‘She is a perfectly healthy baby. How can you even think of such a thing?'

‘I know it's too dreadful even to contemplate,' Hugo agreed. ‘But suppose something
did
happen and I'd had the chop? We've got to think it through, honey – be absolutely sure about what we are doing.'

‘I am sure!' Paula said determinedly. ‘I thought you were too. But it seems you care more about your manhood than my well-being. Well, I'm not prepared to take any chances even if you are. And I think until we come to some decision we ought to have separate rooms.'

‘That's a bit drastic, isn't it?' Hugo said, shocked.

‘I don't see why. It's quite sensible really. Lots of married people have their own suites and we've got plenty of room here.' Paula was warming to the theme. ‘Actually I'd quite like a suite of my own. Somewhere that would be just mine. I'm sure you would too. Think how nice it would be to have some privacy when you're working. If you got an idea in the middle of the night you could jump up and sketch it before it slipped away without having to worry about disturbing me.'

Hugo refrained from saying that the only ideas he got in the middle of the night since their marriage were all concerned with making love to Paula.

‘I think we should see about it,' she continued firmly. ‘It would be more more civilised.'

‘We'll talk about it some other time,' Hugo suggested thinking that when Paula recovered her strength she would forget such peculiar notions. Buster Hertz had said as much and warned Hugo to watch out for what he called ‘baby blues'. ‘ It's all in the hormones,' he had said cheerfully. ‘They can play havoc with a woman – make her behave totally out of character. But she'll get over it, never fear.'

Lying beside her, the warmth of her body reaching out to his own, Hugo fervently hoped Buster was right and Paula would drop the absurd idea of separate rooms. But she had not. He had returned from the showroom one evening to find her deep in conversation with the interior designer – discussing how to turn part of the upper storey into a second self-contained suite. He was angry that she should have gone ahead without consulting him but he decided nothing was to be gained from making a scene in front of the woman. He would look foolish and Paula … well, perhaps he should humour her as Buster had suggested. That way she might return to normal the sooner.

But she had not returned to normal. The suite was prepared and she moved into it without the slightest sign of regret. And to be honest his own initial distaste for the idea had mellowed somewhat for Paula these days was not a great deal of fun to be with.

Just how she had changed he could not be quite sure but changed she had. She had always been the ice-maiden, of course, always cool and contained, keeping her true feelings hidden beneath that glacially regal manner. But now he sensed it was more than that. There were times when she was almost withdrawn. She would seem to go right inside herself to a place he could not reach, her eyes glazed and faraway as if she was seeing things that no-one else could see. At other times she seemed depressed – once he found her crying and she could not – or would not – tell him what was wrong. And then again there were the times when she made mountains out of ant hills, as his mother would have said, imagining slights where none were intended and becoming quite agitated by them.

The first time he noticed it was when she had brought Harriet to the showroom one day. He had been busy and had to leave her alone in his office for a while. When he returned she had gone.

‘What happened to you, honey?' he asked when he got home.

Paula shrugged. ‘I didn't want to stay. The staff have never liked me, as well you know, but today it was worse than usual. They were all talking about me – looking and whispering. I felt very uncomfortable.'

‘I expect they were remarking on what a beautiful baby Harriet is,' Hugo said, but he was surprised. Paula had always seemed impervious to what others thought of her.

The next thing he noticed was that she had begun to complain about the time he spent away from her.

‘You're always working. Why do you have to work so late?' she asked, sounding peeved.

‘Honey, you're well acquainted with the fashion business. You know there are busy times.'

‘And when you do come home early more often than not you go off to see your mother.'

‘She's getting older and she hasn't been well lately. I like to see her when I can – and it's not that often for God's sake! You could always come with me.'

Paula pulled a face. ‘And have her telling me how to bring up Harriet? No thanks. Your mother hates me. She's always criticising and I know she talks about me.'

‘Talks about you? Whatever do you mean?'

‘I've heard her say things. I can't imagine why you don't hear her. She's a vicious old woman.'

‘Nevertheless she is my mother and I intend to spend a few hours a week with her while I can,' Hugo said, his voice hardening.

Paula pouted. ‘ I don't think you love me any more.'

‘Now you are being ridiculous,' he said, exasperated.

‘You see? You just get cross with me.' Tears were glittering in Paula's eyes.

‘Because I just don't know what's got into you. You say you want me here more but when I am it's a different story. You have everything a woman could wish for and I honestly don't know what else I can do to make you happy. To be truthful I don't think you know what you want yourself.'

‘I want them to stop talking about me.'

‘Who?'

‘Oh – everybody.'

He could see she was lapsing into one of her black silences and pulled her into his arms.

‘Honey, you have to snap out of this. Do you want me to arrange for you to see a shrink? Maybe if you talked things through …'

‘No! I don't want to see a shrink. There's nothing wrong with me.' But she sounded very lost, very frightened. Hugo made a mental note to speak to Buster again about her.

He kissed her tenderly and she stayed unresisting in his embrace, but when he glanced at her she was staring vacantly at a point somewhere over his shoulder, her eyes blank and pained.

‘Oh Paula!' He kissed her again, undressing her, trying to lift her mood with a show of physical affection. She did not protest but it was a very long time before he felt her beginning to respond. Desperate that she should not slip back into the blackness he ran kisses down her stomach until he reached her most secret places. This was something she always enjoyed, presumably secure in the knowledge that he could not make her pregnant with his mouth! As he worked with his tongue between the soft folds he felt her body begin to rotate in rhythm and her fingers clutched convulsively at his hair. He blew gently and felt her stomach and thighs tighten in rigid spasm: His own desire was subjugated now, he wanted nothing but to please her, make her know how much she was loved. As her excitement mounted he thrust his tongue in deeply and felt her tense into a tight-strung climax.

As the quivers and aftershocks subsided in her deepest, most secret muscles a sense of warmth and well-being flooded him. He slipped up the bed towards her, aching now to take his own pleasure, only to feel her hands on his shoulders, pushing him away.

‘Hugo – no! I haven't got my diaphragm …'

You do it for me then as I did for you, he wanted to say, but somehow he could not. It was not in his nature to plead for her to do the thing she never had, anymore than he could force himself on her when she did not want it, no matter that he was aching and throbbing with need of her. In that moment he could have died to have her take him in her mouth but he knew she would not – cool, fastidious Paula who would accept cunnilingus for her own pleasure but never give fellatio. In the days when he had been free to make love to her fully it had not mattered. Tonight it did. He could have wept with frustration and a sudden loneliness but even now his concern for her outweighed his own needs. He wrenched his body away from hers, but when he could trust himself to look at her he was dismayed to see she was staring vacantly into space again.

For the first time he felt a stirring of anger towards her, his frustration turning to sharp impatience. What the hell is wrong with you? he wanted to say, but he did not. He got up abruptly, desire gone. As he slammed out of the room she was still lying motionless and wide-eyed like someone in a hypnotic trance.

Puzzled, wretched, his patience tried beyond endurance, Hugo spent more and more time with Harriet, lavishing on her the love that Paula now rejected. He adored her, his little Tumbleweed, and could scarcely believe he could have fathered such a perfect child. He loved to play with her, tossing her into the air to make her chuckle, loved to take her to Central Park in the long warm evenings though Nanny complained he was upsetting the child's routine, loved to point out the landmarks to her though she was far too young to understand. It was Hugo who was there when she took her first faltering steps, holding out his arms to her as a safe haven, sweeping her off her plump little feet and swinging her high in the air when she finally triumphantly reached him. It was Hugo who coaxed her for the best part of an hour to repeat her first word – ‘dog-dog', the name of the huge fluffy toy husky who was her favourite bedtime companion, after Nanny reported hearing her say it quite clearly when she had been putting her down for her afternoon nap. And it was Hugo who read to her every night when he was not delayed too late at the showroom. He hated those nights when he came in to find her already tucked up in bed with the curtains drawn and only the little nightlight – an elf in a glimmering toadstool – giving just enough light for him to pick his way over to her cot. What did please him was that she was seldom asleep but the minute he bent over to kiss her and smooth the covers up around her silky fair hair her thumb would go into her mouth, her eyelids would droop and within moments she would be breathing evenly. It was as if she had been waiting for him to come home.

Love would fill him then, swelling with all the power of the North Atlantic rollers and the sweetness of an orchestral crescendo and he would sit in the semi-dark wondering that such a tiny scrap could arouse such intensity of emotion.