Chapter 40 #2
‘Honeymoon?’ Marcus had been distracted ever since the wedding.
It was as though, after they signed the marriage register, he had assumed some great responsibility and instead of bringing them closer, it moved him further away.
‘Rae, we’re in peak season, we can’t just up and leave your grandfather…
’ He didn’t even lift his head from the crossword.
‘I know that, Marcus,’ she wanted to remind him, that he had promised they would go before the end of the month.
Mrs Daly could easily and quite happily cut through the work if they took a day or two away.
It wasn’t much to ask. ‘But maybe we could book something for later.’ It was a compromise, he’d set his jaw in that way, that she knew, there was no point trying to wheedle him, it never worked with Marcus, it just irritated him.
‘It would be something to look forward to,’ she said then and she walked across and leant over his shoulder, draping herself as she would have done when they first started dating.
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, Rae, you’re going to make me spill my tea.
’ He shrugged away from beneath her. ‘Anyway, I’ll have enough to look forward to if we make a profit at the end of this year, between all the shenanigans with your sister opening her guest house and then the weeks of bad weather just when you’d be hoping to get the early school holiday crowds in. ’
‘What’s this?’ Pappy said then. The doctor had insisted he use a walking aid for moving around the hotel, although it frustrated him no end.
‘Marcus says we must put the honeymoon on hold,’ Rae said, slumping back to her seat. She knew it was immature, but she felt so disappointed, she had hoped they’d get to stay in a hotel and be pampered for a change.
‘I’ve never heard such nonsense.’ Pappy shook his head. ‘Marcus, I insist you take a honeymoon with Rae.’ Pappy shook his head and navigated himself gingerly into the carver chair that Rae had placed at the head of the table for him. ‘My treat. Where would you like to go, Rae?’
‘Hang on, Jack, we can’t just walk out the door and leave the hotel?’ Marcus stopped a moment. ‘I mean, how would you cope? If anything happened, well, I’d never live with myself.’ He threw a side-eye towards Rae as if she was no better than Nurse Mildred Ratched.
‘Ah, whist now, stop with that nonsense. Amn’t I better checked out than any of you after my last visit to the hospital.
I know my limits, but I don’t need babysitting, thank you very much.
’ He turned to Rae. ‘So, where is it going to be, Meine Liebling? Timbuktu or Shangri-La? Which will it be?’ He was making fun of her now.
‘I think, Timbuktu?’ she said, biting off the corner of her slice of toast and they both laughed at that.
‘Seriously, though, book when you want, where you want and it’s my treat,’ the old man said and he winked at Rae, while Marcus concentrated on his crossword.
*
It was later that day, when Rae was putting some of the bedrooms back to rights that Marcus marched in and closed the door with a firm click, turning the key so they would not be disturbed.
For a moment, from behind, she thought he was being romantic, that perhaps…
but when he turned, her heart sank. His face was grey. His skin had that filmy sheen to it.
‘What the hell?’ he said, gasping for air.
‘Here.’ Rae patted his pockets, found his inhaler in the waistcoat he’d taken to wearing recently. ‘Take it,’ she said quietly and she tried to pull him down to sit on the bed next to her so he could catch his breath. Two puffs and his whole posture changed quite rapidly. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Am I okay?’ He spat at her. ‘What do you think?’
‘Did something happen?’ She had noticed that his asthma attacks were always triggered by something.
There was either great stress, excitement or anxiety before they hijacked his breathing.
Sometimes, she worried that if he was alone and he didn’t have his inhaler, well… it didn’t bear thinking about.
‘Did something happen?’ He had squeezed up his voice to sound like hers but ugly.
‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand.’ It must be his asthma, she thought, she didn’t know much about the condition, but perhaps he was still only coming out of the attack.
‘I’ll tell you what happened – this morning, that’s what happened.
’ He turned now to look at her and she tried to slide away from him on the bed.
There was a violence about him that was completely unfamiliar, for a moment, she thought he might strike her.
‘I don’t appreciate being made to look a fool by my own wife, that’s what’s wrong with me. ’
‘I don’t understand,’ she said then and she hated that her voice was simpering. ‘I’d never…’
‘Oh, please. Miss Perfect. Always so good. Don’t think I can’t see right through that goody two shoes act.
Your grandfather paying for a honeymoon.
Well, I’m not having it. I’m not leaving this hotel until the season is well and truly over, do you hear me?
The last thing I need now is leaving here and that sister of yours getting her feet under the table as soon as my back is turned. ’
‘It’s not like that at all, Marcus, don’t you see?’
‘I see, well enough.’ He grabbed her arm as she was just moving out of his reach.
‘Please, Marcus, you’re hurting me.’ But she was too shocked to make much more than a whimper and he pulled her harder, so hard she thought he might yank her arm from its socket.
‘There’ll be no more talk of honeymoons.
That’s a man’s place to organise, do you hear?
If I hear mention of it again, so help me,’ he twisted her arm back, just enough to make her gasp.
‘I’ll bloody break it next time.’ And then he let her go, with a flick that felt as if he was casting off something that truly disgusted him.
When he left the bedroom, Rae ran to the door and locked it after him.
Then she fell to the floor behind it, too shocked to cry, too numb to know that she couldn’t.
Tears streamed down her face, but she felt nothing, it was as if he had emptied out some integral part of her.
And suddenly she realised, that maybe this is what Blythe feared would happen and that alone confirmed, she could never admit to anyone that she had made a terrible, terrible mistake in marrying Marcus.