‘I begged him to change his mind but he wouldn’t listen. Now I have the two of them to worry about—’ She shivered and clutched the pillow, pressing back her incipient tears.
Joe became aware of her shivering. He moved closer to her. ‘Don’t worry, Emma,’ he murmured. ‘They’ll be all right. Anyhow, this mess will be over in a few months.’
Emma groaned, suppressing the anger that flared in her. Joe had no conception of the facts. She had been predicting the war for months. Her words had fallen on stony ground and she no longer bothered to argue with him. Joe touched her shoulder tentatively. His pressure increased and he pulled her over on her back. He raised himself on one elbow, peering into her face in the dim light. Emma felt his warm breath against her cheek and she instantly stiffened. He smelled faintly of onions, beer, and stale tobacco and she moved her head away from him, filled with distaste. Joe began to kiss her face and his free hand slid under the bedclothes to grasp her breast.
‘Joe, please. Not now!’
‘Don’t be cold to me, Emma,’ he muttered thickly.
‘I’m not being cold. I just don’t feel up to—’
‘You never do,’ he snapped.
‘That’s unfair and you know it,’ she said, bristling. ‘It’s been a long day and I’m upset about Frank. How can you be so inconsiderate? Anyway, you aren’t very careful these days. I don’t want to get pregnant again.’
‘I’ll be careful, Emma. I promise,’ he said in a wheedling tone. ‘Please, love. It’s been weeks.’
‘Ten days,’ Emma said flatly, infuriated by his insensitivity and selfishness.
‘But I want you,’ he moaned, and ignoring her protestations, he pulled her into his arms. ‘Please, Emma, don’t turn me away.’
Emma did not answer. Mistaking her silence for acquiescence, Joe fumbled with her silk nightgown, his breathing now rapid and belaboured. He began to explore her body, his hands roughly insistent as they roamed over her legs and thighs and breasts. Emma averted her head, avoiding his kisses. She closed her eyes, crushing down on the impulse to push him away. In the four years they had been married Emma had made a tremendous effort to accommodate Joe Lowther’s physical demands, and she knew she would yield yet again. It was easier than repulsing him and prevented violent quarrels later. Also, she had made a bargain with herself, to be a good wife to Joe, and she never reneged on a bargain. She had not reckoned with Joe’s unflagging sexual aggressiveness and his voracious appetite, which seemed to increase rather than lessen with time.
It was too late to pull away without creating an explosive scene and so Emma automatically let her body go limp. And then she detached her mind, thinking of other things, fleeing into her private world. She began to do complicated mathematical calculations pertaining to her latest financial ventures, seeking refuge in her business to block out the reality of the moment.
Joe rolled on top of her, panting, his pounding against her relentlessly sustained. Her body was his anvil. His momentum increased and rudely shattered her self-induced detachment, and just as she had known he would he lost all restraint, became utterly unconscious of her in his wild abandonment. He grasped her legs and roughly pushed them up against her chest and at that moment Emma thought her control would snap. She swallowed a scream of unexpected pain and rage and revulsion as he lunged at her time and time again, a charging bull mindlessly intent on its purpose.
He was still. Thank God he was finally still. Depleted, Joe fell against her, his breathing harsh but returning to normal slowly. Emma stretched out her cramped legs and moved her head wearily on the pillows, tears of humiliation seeping out of the corners, the taste of blood bitter in her mouth where she had bitten her inner lip. Unwanted sex was nauseating, was becoming unendurable, for Joe did not attract her physically and he aroused neither desire nor passion in her. Furthermore, he had never even tried to do so. Despite his own preoccupation with sex, or perhaps because of it, he was oblivious to her unresponsiveness. Perhaps if he had shown more consideration, had been sensitive and understanding of her female needs, the situation might have improved. As it was, Emma believed it was inexorably disintegrating. She did not truly know how long she could continue to tolerate his unremitting assaults on her body as she had done for so long. Joe seemed to be in a perpetual state of heightened potency and this frightened her.
Joe put his arms around her and buried his head against her bosom. ‘That was wonderful, love,’ he said quietly in a voice that was oddly shy. ‘You’re too much for any man. I can’t get enough of it with you.’
Don’t I know, she thought angrily but made no comment. Joe moved away from her, turned his back, and within minutes was fast asleep. Why, he didn’t even say good night, Emma thought with a flare of irritation and she was mortified. She slid carefully out of bed and glided across the floor to the bathroom, her bare feet sinking into the thick pile of the fine Wilton carpet. She locked the door firmly behind her, threw off her crumpled nightgown, pinned up her hair, and stepped into the bath. Crouching in front of the taps she ran the water until it was steaming hot, almost too hot to bear, soaping her body generously, scrubbing energetically at her delicate white skin until it was bright red. And then she lay back in the water, hoping to soothe her aching body and calm her jangled nerves. After a while she began to feel relaxed and she climbed out of the bath and towelled herself dry. Moving across the elegantly appointed bathroom, Emma caught sight of herself in the mirror. She paused and looked at her face. There was not a trace of anguish or despair on that pale oval, but then there never was. Blackie was for ever telling her she had the inscrutable face of an Oriental and she was beginning to believe him. But then my inscrutability serves my purpose most admirably, she said to herself. She took a clean nightgown out of a chest of drawers, slipped it over her head, picked up her slippers, and hurried downstairs.
Emma went immediately into the small study next to the drawing room, intending to work for an hour. She was wide awake and restless, and she always retreated into work when she wanted to avoid dwelling on unpleasant matters. But moonlight was pouring in through the french doors and she stood staring at the garden, admiring its beauty.
Impulsively Emma pushed open the doors and stepped out on to the long flagged terrace that ran the entire length of this side of the house. It was a lovely August night, so still and balmy the soft air seemed to enfold her. Emma breathed deeply, feeling a sudden sense of release, an easing of her worries. She looked up. The sky was soaring and hollow, a deep pavonian blue, clear and without cloud, and the new moon was a perfect sphere whose glassy surface was unmarred, and its sharp radiance cast a silvery sheen on the trees and shrubs, the rolling lawn and the glorious flower beds that punctuated the perimeters of the garden in the dusky shadows of old stone walls matted with ivy.
Emma swept along the terrace and stood poised at the top of the flight of stone steps that led down into the garden, her hand resting on one of the great urns positioned at their edge. Her eyes roved over her garden, so typically English, pastoral in its gentle beauty and filled with tranquillity. It was hard to believe there was a war raging on the other side of the Channel or to accept the fact that thousands of young Englishmen were preparing to enter that grim and bloody battle.
Emma proceeded slowly to the bottom of the garden, heading for her own special spot, the sheltered corner she loved the most. Here, near an old sundial, magnificent rhododendron bushes and great clutches of peonies spilled forth their translucent pinks and mauves and whites. Joe had wanted to grow roses in this area, but Emma had objected in the strongest possible terms, not permitting one single bush to be planted anywhere in the garden. She had never told Joe that she could not abide that particular flower or that its perfume sickened her to the point of violent nausea.
A splendid beech tree, huge and spreading with its branches dipping down to touch the ground, was a protective arch of interwoven greens above an old garden seat. ‘Mummy’s seat’, the children called it, for it was here that she always came when she wanted to escape the activities of her busy household, to think and to relax, and they had learned never to trespass on her solitude in this private place. Thoughts of Joe intruded into her mind,