Old Sins (20 page)

‘Or maybe I’ve just been lucky,’ she would say. Five years into her marriage with no baby in sight, even though she and Dean hadn’t used any kind of contraception for years, she realized she maybe hadn’t been so lucky after all.

Hugo Dashwood spent a weekend with the Wilburns about a month later; Dean and Lee took their duties as hosts seriously and showed him the sights of LA, in a tireless, enthusiastic forty-eight hours; they took him to Graumann’s, and to Griffith Park and the Observatory; they took him to Beverly Hills and showed him the film stars’ mansions; they took him to Muscle
Beach where he laughed at the desperate seriousness of the men posing and pumping (‘Look,’ said Lee in awed tones, pointing to one particularly impressive rippling blond mountain, ‘it’s Mickie Hagerty’) and to Malibu where they sat in a beach bar and he marvelled at the compulsive joy and excitement of the surfers and the sea. ‘I just love it,’ he said when they finally got back to the Santa Monica house on Sunday afternoon. ‘I would adore to live here.’

‘Well, come,’ said Lee, flinging herself on to the swing seat on the patio and tearing the top off a bottle of beer. ‘Bring your wife over. It’s not expensive. There’s all the opportunities in the world. New people coming in all the time, with the new engineering industries. And this particular bit where we live, here, do you know, they’re so desperate for young people to come and live, because everyone wants to be inland, up in the hills, we got free rent for a year and a free television, as bait.’

‘I wish I could,’ said Hugo, ‘but I have enough problems coping with living in London and getting a business going in New York. Any more complication would finish me off altogether.’

‘How’s it going?’ said Dean lazily. His eyes were closed. He had drunk several beers and the sun and the alcohol had got the better of him.

‘OK. It’s tough over there, as you know. But I think it’ll work. My main base will always be London, though.’

‘Why doesn’t your wife ever come over?’ asked Lee. The last thing she wanted was the minutiae of Hugo’s marriage, but she found ignorance still more painful than knowledge. The knowledge she had was minimal, not because he did not answer any questions, but because she did not ask many (not wanting to know the answers); neither did Dean because he wasn’t interested, and Hugo didn’t volunteer a great deal of information. (Lee was a little disappointed to learn that Hugo wasn’t as aristocratic as she had imagined; middle class, he told her he was, and the product of a grammar school rather than Eton as she had visualised.) They knew he had a wife, whose name was Alice; that they had been married five years; that she did not get over-involved with the business, largely through lack of time; that there was a child; and that as families went it was a fairly happy one. More than that Lee could not bear to hear; she
pictured Alice as buttoned-up, frigid English, with a plummy voice and a cold stare, and the vision kept her calm and conscience-free. It was based on nothing Hugo had said or even implied.

‘She’s busy. She has a lot to do. The house is in a dreadful state, and then we have the child, she can’t keep whipping across the Atlantic for the dubious pleasure of waiting in a hotel room for me to come back from work every day.’

‘Will you get somewhere permanent to live, do you think, in New York?’

‘Not worth it at the moment. I don’t plan to stay on a long-term basis. I want to find someone who can run the business for me. If it really takes off, then obviously I would take a place, but at the moment it’s cheaper to stay in hotels when I do come. I’m still doing a suck-it-and-see operation, as we say in Britain.’

Dean was now snoring, his mouth hanging open, his empty beer bottle dangling loosely in his hand. Lee took it gently, looking at him in some distaste, and set it down on the ground.

‘He’s always like this after the sun. He can’t take it, really. Not like me. I love it, it makes me feel just – oh, wonderful.’

She stretched herself out on the seat, arching her body; seeing Hugo looking at it, at the long, slender line from her breasts down to her legs, she stayed still for a moment, holding the pose; then she relaxed and smiled at him.

He smiled back. ‘You should go and do that at Muscle Beach. You’re much prettier than all of them. Tell me how the sun makes you feel.’

‘Oh, you know, kind of warmed through. Happy, peaceful, good all over.’

‘Sexy?’

She was surprised by his directness. He was normally rather Englishly reserved. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘yes, very.’

‘I thought so.’ He was silent.

‘You look tired,’ said Lee, jumping up, easing out of the tension. ‘Let me get you a drink. What time do you have to be at the airport?’

‘My plane leaves at nine. Could you ring for a taxi?’

‘I’ll take you. Dean has his Sunday homework to do, he’s always busy on Sunday night. I get lonely. It’ll be a pleasure. Beer?’

‘Do you have any whisky?’

‘Bourbon.’

‘Fine.’

She was gone for a while, finding the bourbon, cracking the ice; when she came back he had drifted off to sleep too; she sat there, very quiet and still holding his drink. He opened his eyes with a start, looked towards Dean, who was utterly soundly asleep, and then took her hand, and raised it to his lips and kissed it and smiled at her; and then took the drink from her.

‘Tell me, Mrs Wilburn,’ he said, ‘why have you not had any children?’

‘Oh,’ she said, turning away from him and looking out to sea, ‘it just hasn’t happened, that’s all. I’d like them, we both would, but God and Mother Nature don’t seem to agree with us.’ And without warning her eyes filled with tears.

‘Oh, darling, I’m sorry, so sorry,’ said Hugo, using the endearment unself-consciously, entirely naturally. ‘I’m an idiot to have asked, I shouldn’t have.’

‘It’s all right,’ she said, smiling at him slightly shakily, ‘in a funny way I think Dean’s quite pleased. I think. It means I can concentrate completely on him.’

‘Well,’ he said, ‘he has a point.’

‘Do – do you enjoy being a father?’

‘Oh yes. But it has its drawbacks. They’re very demanding.’

‘And does – your wife like being a mother?’

‘Yes, I believe so. She finds it difficult at times, of course. All women do, I imagine.’

‘Yes, I imagine they do,’ said Lee bitterly.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘that was tactless of me. I didn’t mean to hurt you. Look, don’t worry about driving me to the airport. It’s silly. I can get a taxi.’

‘No, honestly, I’d like to take you. I like driving. And I love airports. Let me have a shower and fix Dean a steak, and we’ll go.’

He looked at her, and gave her his slow dancing smile. ‘All right.’

The road to the airport was busy; the city was growing relentlessly and even the new freeways seemed inadequate. They sat in silence, crawling along, listening to the radio. Pat
Boone was throwing his heart and soul into ‘April Love’. It was hot. Lee sighed, pushed the hair off the back of her neck, threw her head back. ‘Just think, you’ll be cold tomorrow. March in New York. And what about England?’

‘Cold.’

‘Well,’ she said, ‘I’d rather be here.’

‘Lee,’ he said.

‘Yes.’

‘I do find you very interesting, and very very beautiful. I would like to know you better. Could you remember that?’

She turned and looked at him. ‘I think so.’

‘Good.’

The traffic had slowed to a complete standstill. The radio was now playing a selection from
West Side Story
; Hugo leant over to Lee, turned her towards him. ‘Kiss me.’

She kissed him. She didn’t usually like kissing, it was somehow rather tedious, and men got so worked up about it, breathing heavily and slavering away. Kissing Hugo Dashwood wasn’t too much like that. He kissed with what she could only call style, thinking about it afterwards; very slowly, very strongly and deliberately, pausing every now and again to stroke her hair, her neck, his hand lingering gently, tenderly, on her breast, and he did not just kiss her mouth, he kissed her eyes, and her chin, and her throat. Lee felt as if she was floating, drifting in some delicious, tossing liquid, rising and then sinking, let loose in desire. She sighed, pulled away from him for a moment. He took her face between his hands.

‘What do you feel?’ he said.

‘Everything,’ she said simply. ‘Absolutely everything.’

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Good.’

Around them cars were hooting, other drivers shouting. ‘Get a goddamned move on,’ and ‘Get off and do that off the fucking road.’ The disc jockey had just started to play ‘Good Night Little Susie’.

Hugo sighed, then laughed and drew away from her. ‘We’d better go or we’ll be arrested.’

They drove in silence the rest of the way. When they got there he simply kissed her cheek briefly and got out. ‘Good night, Lee. I shall hope to see you soon. Thank you for a wonderful weekend.’

‘Good night, Hugo.’

She watched him until he disappeared into the crowd and then drove home, very fast, which was the only other way she knew of relieving sexual tension; when she got home she went into the shower for a long time and came out calmer.

She was never able to hear ‘Good Night Little Susie’ again without becoming seriously sexually aroused.

She did wonder if she should tell Amy or Kim what she had orchestrated so cleverly for the next weekend; they were both such good friends, they wouldn’t tell, they would be thrilled for her and she felt an overpowering need to talk about Hugo and how she felt about him. With Amy in particular she had the most terrific and explicit conversations about sex and men in general, their husbands in particular; Amy had a husband who was the opposite of Dean, and couldn’t let her alone; he would disturb her as she cooked and sewed, made up her face and even went to the lavatory (that, indeed, she told Lee, seemed to excite him more than anything). Lee could see that could be worse than permanent frustration, and that a rampant Bob Meredith would not always be a welcome element in a quiet baking session or even a spell on the toilet; on the other hand, Amy plainly did not have the first idea of the constant hot hunger in her body, or the fretful misery of a half-accomplished orgasm. It would be such fun to talk to them about Hugo; to describe him and how sexy he was, how much she fancied him, how intelligent and how special he made her feel, how skilfully she had made her plans, how nervous and excited she felt about the weekend. But then on the other hand, it was safer not to tell anyone; neither of them lived in Santa Monica, none of her friends did, and nobody at all would know who she had there with her. It had to be better that way. And so she waited, fearful, excited; she doubled her exercise routine, she swam and sunned herself; she tidied the house compulsively; she changed the bed; she counted the hours, the days; she bought the London and the New York
Times
so that she might make intelligent conversation; she even, on the afternoon before he was due to arrive, shaved her pubes. And then she could do no more, and so she simply waited.

She was on the patio when he arrived. She was wearing a T-shirt and a pair of white slacks; unusually (for she felt uncomfortable, uneasy without them) she had left off her bra and her pants; she had drenched herself in Intimate; her hair was slightly damp from the shower; she looked just about seventeen.

‘Lee, you look like an angel,’ said Hugo, kissing her formally on the cheek. ‘An all-American angel. It’s so nice to see you.’

‘It’s good to see you too,’ said Lee, smiling at him, ‘can I fix you a drink?’

‘That would be nice. A beer I think. Is Dean not home yet?’

‘Not yet,’ said Lee, going quickly into the house; she re-emerged with the beer and a glass, and poured it for him, thinking that she could never remember how amazingly good-looking and sexy he was, and feeling all over again inadequate and crass.

‘How was your flight?’

‘All right. Long.’

‘Are you hungry?’

‘Not really. I can wait. Why don’t you have a drink too?’

So Lee fetched another beer and sat down beside him on the patio, on the swing seat, and they looked together silently at the ocean; she did think of asking him what he thought might happen over the Suez crisis, just to show she knew there was one, or even if he had seen
West Side Story
yet, but it didn’t really seem very appropriate, so she just sat there; then: ‘When will Dean be home?’

‘Not tonight.’

‘I see.’

That was all he said; no corny responses, no come-on, no surprise. Just ‘I see.’ Very English.

‘Would you like your dinner now?’

‘Yes please, I would.’

So they sat inside eating steaks and salads and drinking red wine, just chatting like any married couple, like she and Dean did in the evening and it wasn’t especially exciting or erotic or anything, just very very nice.

‘I’m tired,’ he said at last, ‘can I go to bed now?’

‘Of course,’ she said, ‘I’ll show you your room.’

‘Don’t worry,’ he said, ‘I’ll find it, it’s the same one, I
suppose? You tidy up down here. I’ll look after myself. Good night Lee.’

She felt half rebuffed, anxious; was he telling her he didn’t want her, she wondered, that she was being foolish and presumptuous? And saying she should tidy up, had he noticed the overflowing trash can, the dishes heaped in the sink, the magazines dumped behind the couch; she was sure Alice would keep the house neat as a pin all the time, he probably hated it here and her casual ways. She smiled at him nervously.

‘I’ll fix you some coffee,’ she said.

‘No, don’t,’ he said, ‘it’ll keep me awake, but I’d like some water and a brandy maybe to go with it. Perhaps you could bring it up to me in a minute.’

And she knew then she wasn’t being foolish and presumptuous, that he wanted her as much as she wanted him, that he was simply a courteous, thoughtful man, giving her every chance to let herself off the hook should she change her mind – or indeed should he have misread it.

She put a jug of iced water on a tray and a bottle of brandy and a glass, and went quietly up the stairs in her bare feet. Outside his room she listened: silence. She knocked gently and went in; at first she thought he was asleep. She went over to the side of the bed and put down the tray very quietly. As she turned to leave the room, his hand came out and caught hers.