Perfect Marriage Material

‘I mean, I know he’s your cousin, Livvy,’ Tullah told her fiercely, her emotions darkening her eyes as she remembered how she had felt for the older couple the previous evening. ‘But what kind of man...what kind of decent, caring, mature man who feels good about himself as a man and who feels really at ease with his masculinity, his sexuality, experiences the need to keep on massaging his ego by seducing a string of younger and younger naive girls?’

As Tullah paused for breath, she saw that Olivia was looking rather shocked.

‘I’m sorry,’ she apologised contritely. ‘I know, of course, that you probably don’t share my views and that your opinion of Saul is bound to be different from mine especially in view of the...the relationship you and he—’

‘Tullah, Saul and I—’ Olivia began, only to break off in maternal concern as Amelia, who had been playing quite happily a few yards away in the garden, let out a frightened cry. ‘Oh no! She’s probably trying to catch another bee,’ she told Tullah. ‘Amelia darling...’

‘Oh dear,’ Tullah sympathised as they exchanged another brief hug and stepped back from each other, leaving Olivia free to go and rescue both the indignant bee and her small daughter whilst Tullah got into her car.

‘I think I’ve discovered why Tullah is so antagonistic towards Saul,’ Olivia commented to Caspar over dinner several hours after Tullah had left.

‘Mmm... You mean there is a reason and it isn’t just that she’s a woman of incomparable taste and good sense who couldn’t help but prefer me?’ Caspar joked.

‘No, I’m afraid I cornered the market in that particular brand of good taste and sense.’ Olivia informed him gravely, trying not to giggle.

‘Oh well, go on, then. What deeply traumatic reason lies behind her aversion?’

‘It isn’t funny, Caspar,’ Olivia warned him. ‘At least it isn’t when you know about Tullah’s background. Her parents divorced when she was in her teens, and very shortly after that an older man...a family friend, in fact, on whom she’d got a massive crush, instead of realising that what she was really looking for was a father substitute, someone to treat her gently and give her the nonsexual love her father had deprived her of, decided instead to use Tullah’s innocence and naivety to boost his own flagging ego.

‘She was only sixteen at the time and she believed he loved her. He told her that his marriage was over, the usual kind of thing, and of course, she fell for it and she now seems to have jumped to the totally wrong conclusion that Saul is doing exactly the same thing to Louise as this man did to her.’

‘Ahh...I’m beginning to see daylight. You put her right, of course,’ Caspar commented as he helped himself to a second helping of pudding.

‘No...Amelia tried her latest bee-catching trick before I could and then by the time I’d rescued the bee and calmed Amelia down, it was too late. Tullah had left. Do you really think you should eat that?’ she asked her husband conversationally. ‘All that cream will be loaded with cholesterol, and you—’

‘I need the energy,’ Caspar told her. ‘Or have you changed your mind about enlivening our incipient bee-keeper’s life with a little bit of sibling rivalry?’

‘Not at all,’ Olivia responded, adding provocatively, ‘but if we’re going to do that, I can think of far better uses to put that cream to....’

‘Such as?’ Caspar invited.

‘I thought you weren’t going to make it,’ Olivia commented warmly to Saul as he and the children joined them in the departures lounge.

The whole family had gathered to wave Ruth and Grant off for their regular biannual visit to the States.

After fifty years apart with each believing the other bad betrayed their love, they were now happily reunited, and in keeping with the spirit of the mock prenuptial agreement both of them constantly teased the other with, they had fallen into a pleasant routine of spending three months in Haslewich followed by three months in Grant’s home town in New England.

It was Bobbie, Ruth’s American granddaughter and her cousin Luke’s wife, who would miss them the most, Olivia acknowledged. For this trip a very special concession was being made for Joss, Jon and Jenny’s younger son who had always been especially close to Ruth, who together with Jack, Olivia’s own brother, was being allowed to go with the older couple and spend some time with the New England side of the family.

‘Mmm...I was afraid we wouldn’t make it,’ Saul responded after he had hugged Ruth warmly and shaken Grant by the hand. ‘Robert had another bad night.’

‘Oh dear, is he...?’

‘He’s fine now,’ Saul assured her, anticipating her question and nodding in the direction of his three children who were huddled in a small group with all the younger members of the family, including Joss and Jack.

‘What with Robert’s sickness and Meg’s nightmares, you can’t be getting much sleep,’ Olivia sympathised.

‘Nowhere near enough,’ Saul agreed ruefully, ‘and not just because of the kids.’

But when Olivia looked questioningly at him he simply shook his head. There was no way he was going to enlighten even someone as close to him as Olivia about the fact that his sleep had been broken not just by the children but far more disturbingly by dreams about her weekend guest, dreams of such intense sensuality and sexuality that if he hadn’t been a mature man in his thirties he would have blushed to even have recalled them.

‘Oh, Gramps...I so wish I was going with you,’ Bobbie wailed, hugging her grandfather tightly as the notice flashed up to say that their plane was boarding.

‘Thanks a lot,’ Luke, her husband, teased her ruefully, looking round for someone to hand their baby daughter to whilst he comforted his wife.

‘Here, let me take her,’ Saul offered, deftly taking the child from him and expertly settling her comfortably against his shoulder as his own Meg sidled up to him and slipped her small hand into his.

‘Can I have a look at Francesca?’ she asked him. As she studied the sleeping baby. Meg informed him chattily, ‘My friend Grace at school, well, her mummy’s going to have a baby. Will we ever have a new baby, Daddy?’ she asked him, crinkling her forehead.

‘Don’t be stupid, Meg. Only mummies can have babies and we...’

Saul grimaced to himself as Robert overheard their conversation and spoke scornfully to his younger sister.

‘I’m not stupid,’ Meg responded heatedly, ‘am I, Daddy?’

Jemima, his elder daughter, eyed them both with disfavour. His little Jem, Saul called her, and in many ways he felt that the break-up of their marriage had been the hardest for her to cope with. At eight, she was mature mentally for her years and just beginning to grasp the concept of the intricacies of adult relationships and to know that adults were not infallible.

He had always felt that she was more her mother’s child than his, and it had surprised him to discover how passionately and intensely she had wanted to return to England and to him.

‘Our mother won’t have any more babies.’ she informed her siblings sharply. ‘She doesn’t like children.’

Saul caught his breath.

What Jemima had said in essence was the truth. Hillary did not like children and she had already informed him that since her new husband did not like them, either, she had decided to be sterilised.

‘Something I should have done before I married you,’ she had told him starkly and more than a little bitterly when she had informed him that she wasn’t going to contest his having full custody of the children.

‘She loves you,’ he told the three of them now as they watched him. And how could it not be true? Hillary might not like children but surely she must love her own. What mother could not do?

At eight, seven and five, their three had, he accepted, been conceived too closely together for a woman who was not particularly maternal. He accepted, too, that the larger part of the responsibility for them in their early years, especially Jemima and Robert, had fallen on Hillary.

With Meg it had been different; their last-ditch attempt to rescue their marriage and cement it together with Meg’s conception had been a sanity-threatening mistake and grossly unfair to Meg herself.

Six weeks after her birth, he had arrived home one afternoon, prompted by heaven alone knew what paternal sixth sense, to find Hillary on the point of leaving for America—without the children and without apparently having any intention of telling him what she was doing.

Later that day, having failed to persuade Hillary to change her mind, he had gone to pick the children up from the child-minder and had promised them mentally then that even if he might have failed as a husband and a lover, he would not fail them as a father...a parent....

‘When is Louise coming to see us again?’ Meg asked later when they were on their way home, ‘I like her.’

‘She doesn’t like you.’ Jemima sniffed disparagingly. ‘She only comes round to see Dad, really.’

‘Jem...’ Saul warned her, glancing in the rear-view mirror to give her a stern look whilst he monitored Meg’s quivering bottom lip.

They were just so vulnerable...all of them in their different ways. Meg with her fear of the dark, clinging to him, Rob who thought that boys shouldn’t cry and who made himself sick instead, and Jem...big, brave, cynical Jemima who wrung his heart with her studied and oh so heartachingly fragile defence of contemptuous disdain mixed with anger.

Listening to Tullah on Saturday night had reminded him of Jemima.

Tullah...