The Failed Marriage

But Joanna knew enough of tall distinguished men not to be impressed. After all, she was married to one.

‘When am I going to see you again?’ James demanded.

‘Perhaps your secretary could call me,’ she dismissed, already at the door.

‘But—–’

‘I’ve enjoyed meeting you, Mr Colnbrook. And I’ll give the idea of writing more books some thought. Goodbye.’ She left with her head held high, not seeing James Colnbrook sink dazedly back into his chair, shaking his head in bewilderment.

Joanna nodded coolly to the secretary on the way out, easily stopping a passing taxi once she was outside to take her to the restaurant where she was lunching with her mother. No one looking at her could have guessed at the thoughts going through her beautiful head.

She was going to have a book published! She, Joanna Proctor Radcliffe, had written a children’s book good enough to be published! After years of feeling as if she were no more than Joshua’s wife, she was at last able to claim she had done something without his help or influence. Not that there would be much money in her writing, James Colnbrook had already warned her, but just to have some sort of independence, if only an intellectual one, was something to her. And she didn’t need the money; she was married to a rich man, was rich in her own right from a legacy left to her by her grandmother several years ago. No, this feeling of accomplishment was what she needed, what she craved.

Her mother was already seated at their table when Joanna hurried into the restaurant, several minutes late despite her hasty departure from the publisher’s office. And her mother made no secret of her dislike of unpunctuality; just her look of disapproval was enough to dispel some of Joanna’s inner elation.

‘Sorry I’m late, Mother.’ She glided into the seat opposite the other woman, accepting with a smile the sherry the waiter placed in front of her, her preferences being well known in this particular restaurant.

‘That’s all right, Joanna.’ Her mother’s voice was sharp; she was an older version of Joanna, her hair kept the same glowing blonde as her daughter’s by a gifted hairdresser she frequented, her face and body still beautiful in her forty-fifth year.

Joanna flushed at the lack of sincerity in her mother’s voice, feeling, as she always did in her presence, like the gauche schoolgirl she had once been and not a woman who had been married for five years. ‘I was delayed at the publishers’.’ She sipped the sherry, dry, just as she liked it.

The two women made a startling pair as they sat together, looking more like sisters than mother and daughter. Cora did everything cosmetically possible to maintain her youth, while Joanna had a maturity beyond her years.

‘What did he say?’ Her mother’s query was made out of politeness. Joanna refused to show any hurt caused by her mother’s obvious lack of interest, not expecting any gold medals from anyone in her family for anything she did. Her father was a prominent banker, her mother his accomplished hostess, and Joshua—well, Joshua was a success at whatever he did. Her minor achievement would be unimportant to them all. Only she would know of the new inner pride in herself.

She shrugged coolly, accepting the menu placed in front of her. ‘They’re going to publish it.’

‘Really?’ her mother’s eyes widened. ‘It’s about a collie or something, isn’t it?’ she said vaguely.

‘A boxer,’ Joanna corrected flatly, wondering why she tortured herself with these weekly luncheons with her mother. She always ended up being hurt by her mother’s indifference to anything that happened in her life; it would have been more sensible just to have gone to the monthly Sunday visits with Joshua the only time she ever saw her father. Both her parents lived such hectic lives that they didn’t really have the time for her. They never had done; she had accepted that very early in her life. Her marriage to Joshua had been her one redeeming feature as far as they were concerned, although in the beginning even that had been heralded as a disaster. ‘Like Billy,’ she added softly.

‘Really, Joanna,’ her mother snapped. ‘The dog has been dead for years!’

‘Maybe. But I loved him.’ When she was a child her father had impulsively bought her a boxer. He had forgotten her birthday one year, and had seen the puppy in a pet-shop window on his way home, going in to buy it without considering the fact that his wife might not approve. Joanna had loved the puppy from the first, and despite shrill protests from her mother had somehow persuaded her father to let her keep him. Billy had chewed any and everything in sight, from the furniture to her mother’s shoes, and it was after finding half a dozen expensive pairs of the latter chewed beyond repair that Billy had been banished to the garden and kitchen only. Not that he seemed to mind, enjoying chasing butterflies in the summer, and falling asleep in the warmth of the kitchen in the winter. And Joanna had made no complaints either, just being relieved to be able to keep the dog.

Billy had been her constant companion for nine years, until a mad excited dash into the road after a car had caused his sudden death. She had never forgotten him, or the unselfish love he gave her, and the character of Billy Boxer was based on him and the endearing—and often mischievous—things he did.

Her mother gave her order for lunch, waiting while Joanna did the same before speaking again. ‘You mean a publisher is actually willing to pay you money to write about a pest of a dog?’ she derided in her haughty voice.

‘Yes,’ Joanna bit out resentfully.

‘I don’t know what the world is coming to,’ Cora shook her head. ‘What does Joshua think of all this?’

Joanna’s mouth firmed angrily, and she looked nothing like the composed young woman who had left James Colnbrook’s office half an hour earlier. ‘He hasn’t said a lot about it,’ she mumbled.

‘I should think not! A man of his reputation and standing having a wife who writes children’s stories!’

Joanna stiffened. ‘I didn’t say he disapproved of it, Mother, we just haven’t discussed it very much.’ They didn’t discuss anything any more, they were barely civil to each other!

Her mother opened her mouth to say something, then stopped as the waiter began to serve their meal, the avocado pear deliciously ripe, the prawns nestling in its well pink and juicy.

‘You were saying, Mother?’ she prompted after the first mouthwatering spoonful.

She received an irritated look. ‘Not while we’re eating, Joanna. We’ll talk later.’

Joanna ate her meal with unhurried grace, her wrists small and delicate, her hands long and slender, seeming weighed down by the rings on her wedding finger.

The coffee stage of their meal came round soon enough, and she prepared herself for more lectures on the inadvisability of having a career when her husband was such an important man, when he needed a wife to perform all the social graces for him. She had heard it all before, in fact she had become sick of hearing it over the years. Billy Boxer might not be everyone’s idea of a great achievement, but it was the one thing she could truly call her own, the one thing that didn’t belong to Joshua or that he hadn’t given her.

‘… and so I was just wondering how he is.’

She blinked, her mother’s beautiful face and the sound of the other people talking in the restaurant fading back into her consciousness again. ‘How who is?’ she frowned.

‘Joshua, of course. I realise you’re excited about your book, Joanna, but do listen! Your father and I missed Joshua at lunch last Sunday, I wondered how he is.’

Joanna shrugged. ‘I told you, he had to go back to the clinic last Sunday. He sent his apologies.’

Her mother frowned. ‘He seems to be—working rather a lot lately.’

‘Joshua has always worked hard, you know that.’

‘But he seems to be working extra hard the last few months.’

Joanna looked at her mother’s expectant expression, sighing deeply. ‘If you have something to say, Mother, then say it. I don’t feel like playing games.’

Her mother looked irritated. ‘Are you happy with Joshua, Joanna?’

She looked away. ‘Of course.’

‘I know that at first your father and I didn’t approve of your marriage—–’

‘Approve?’ Joanna echoed scathingly. ‘As I remember, you objected very strongly—until you knew exactly who he was.’

‘That isn’t true!’ her mother protested indignantly. ‘I never doubted that Joshua was somebody. He’s just so much older than you. None of us were sure you were mature enough for marriage, but in the circumstances…’

‘Just tell me what you have to say, Mother,’ Joanna interrupted tautly, knowing her mother too well to be deceived by this show of concern for her welfare.

‘Well, I’ve heard—–’

‘Yes?’ she prompted tensely as her mother hesitated.

‘It may only be gossip—–’

‘Mother!’

‘There’s talk that Joshua may not be spending all his time away from home working! There, I’ve said it now.’ Cora sounded quite shaken. ‘I feel so much better now that I’ve just said it. And it could only be talk—you know how Jackie Simms loves to gossip. I don’t—–’

Joanna had stopped listening, lost in her own thoughts once again. Her mother might feel better for having dropped this bombshell, but it certainly didn’t have the same effect on her. She and Joshua had had their problems over the years, but she had never in all the time of their marriage suspected there could be another woman in his life. Of course Joshua was a sensual man, and she—–