Catherine Narracott
The Wife
Through a gap in the curtains of our room I can see a row of small peaks – like the frill of white lace on a collar I once embroidered for myself in needlework class at Cheltenham Ladies’ – and a little of the glacier, which I am surprised to learn is not blue and clear but mainly covered in snow and a rather off-putting dirty white at the bottom.
Higher up it curves up around the mountainside and is lost to sight.
A charming view, I will write in my letter to Mummy. And a beautiful room – if a little masculine – its dark wood panelling and coffered ceiling mercifully softened by patterned rugs on the floor and richly upholstered armchairs.
My husband sighs. ‘It’s no good,’ he says.
He rolls away from me and lies back against the pillows.
He is cross; I can feel the crossness coming off him like heat.
I don’t say anything, I know it won’t do any good.
And all the while I can’t help feeling a little relief that it is over for the time being.
‘It doesn’t help,’ he says, ‘that you society girls aren’t taught anything about how to please a man,’ he says. ‘You think it’s enough to lie there like a plank of wood staring at the view.’
It’s odd: really my whole education has been about how to please a man. But of course, I don’t say any of this. Poise, grace, and a smiling face. I do not think I had realised it would be possible to be so lonely when married to someone else. ‘Love will grow over the years,’ Mummy said.
‘Shall I make you a drink, darling?’ I ask, as he begins to light a cigarette. There is a cocktail table in the corner of the room beside a sweet little chaise. A good society hostess knows how to observe others, to learn to anticipate their needs. My husband seems a man who needs a drink.
He runs a hand through his red-gold hair – his crowning glory. It is growing a little thin but I think only he and I know, because it is only noticeable from very particular angles. ‘Fine. Yes please. A gimlet.’
As I cross the room I feel watched by the portraits on the walls – oils of various serious-looking women and men in traditional Alpine dress: full skirts and brown woollen trousers, plentiful embroidery, supremely unflattering hats.
I catch sight of myself in the gilt-framed looking glass above the cocktail cabinet.
The surface is a little foxed but what stands out are my dark hair, my dark eyebrows, my pale skin.
I have learned to bring out these features with clothes: pastels and greys make my skin look luminous, while I avoid white and strong colours because they wash me out.
My wedding dress was a very light pink, which Mummy thought a little non-U, though she also understands the importance of making the best of oneself.
I am pretty, I know, but a cold sort of prettiness. Not the kind that excites a man.
My pink lipstick is still perfect, which at one time might have seemed odd to me.
I had an idea that when a man made love to you it should be ‘kissed off’.
That must have come from the romance books girls passed around at chalet school.
But then all my knowledge of the world before marriage came from school.
Cheltenham, Switzerland to finish, then coming out as a deb.
I do know how to make a good gimlet at least; or indeed any other cocktail my husband might happen to ask for.
I was always a diligent student at school.
I was the one who read all of the books, did all of the homework.
I’ve taken the same approach to being a wife, always, really from the moment I arrived at finishing school.
I paid attention; I learned exactly how to set a table, to write an invitation.
The preparatory work is all so important.
It has brought me a strange kind of satisfaction, being good at it.
But when I get to the cocktail cabinet, I let out a little scream.
Anthony comes out of the bathroom. ‘What is it?’
‘There!’ I show him the offending item on the brass tray.
There among the other items – the shaker, the bitters, the Rose’s lime and the atomiser – is a small metal container with a white label and angry red letters reading: RAT POISON.
An icon: skull and crossbones. Danger of death.
A prettily ornate silver spoon is stuck into the white powder inside, as though inviting one to take a scoop.
He stalks across the room to take a look. ‘Rat poison?’ he says, reading the label. ‘But what on earth …’
‘I— I just found it here,’ I say. ‘Just sitting there with the spoon stuck into it, as though it were another cocktail ingredient. Oh, it’s horrible!’
There is a long pause as he stares hard at the thing.
‘A foolish prank,’ he says, finally. Confidently, even.
My husband is very good at sounding confident; I suppose it is what makes him such a successful politician.
But he has been something of a target of ‘Red’ activists, of late, and I know it has rattled him more than he admits.
‘A very macabre prank!’ I say. ‘And who on earth would do such a thing? We don’t know anyone else here.
It makes my skin crawl. I think we should tell the hotel, don’t you?
Move rooms? Because perhaps if someone else has a key for this one …
the thought, that someone could just come in here whenever they wanted …
in the middle of the night, say, while we were sleeping, oh it’s horrible, just horrible—’
‘Stop,’ he says, cutting me off. ‘You are being completely hysterical.’ He doesn’t raise his voice. My husband almost never raises his voice; he doesn’t need to.
I nod. ‘Sorry, darling.’
‘I’ll call Reception.’ He picks up the receiver.
To a stranger he might seem completely unconcerned.
My husband is known as a cool head in politics, even when other men are shouting at him across the House.
Daddy was not like that at all; he would work himself up into rages about things.
But he is perturbed. I can see it. He slams down the receiver.
‘No answer,’ he tuts. And then, in a hiss: ‘Bloody backward establishment. Come on, we’ll go down. ’
Just before we leave the room, I see him glance back at the offending jar. Yes: definitely perturbed.
Downstairs in Reception, I feel I am being watched.
I glance across and see three unmistakably English women standing there.
One of them, the littlest and oldest – a frail-looking creature with fluffy white hair and a coat that can only be described as Late Victorian Provincial – is studying me.
I give her my most gracious ‘old-dear’ charming smile (I am a politician’s wife, after all) and she smiles back.
The elderly women like me: often even more than they do my husband.
I remind them of a time when things were done properly, when women behaved themselves, protected their delicate skin from the sun, and their delicate hands with gloves that matched their hats.
I am to them the very picture of duty, honour and decorum and that is perhaps an accurate representation of how I have lived most of my adult life. I look like an angel in the house.
‘You, my dear,’ my husband likes to say, ‘are my secret weapon.’ I remember how I was filled with pride the first time he said it.
Anthony is asking the man behind Reception about us changing rooms. ‘Actually,’ he says, ‘we’ll take the suite; if it’s available.
Yes, yes, fine if it’s a little dearer. Though,’ he murmurs to me, ‘really, they should give it to us for no extra cost. Rather too fond of the gold here. That’s why they stayed neutral in the war, no matter what they might claim about pacifism. To the highest payer the spoils.’
‘Darling,’ I whisper, touching his arm, ‘I know I am so very stupid about such things. I thought … well, with our having to let Mrs Grady go just the other week …’ Mrs Grady was our housekeeper, who was very efficient, if a little less refined than the one I grew up with, who Mummy got straight from one of the Royal households.
‘And … what with having to sell the Rolls … can we really afford it?’
‘Of course we can, darling,’ he mutters, with a smile, though his jaw is tight.
I see the quick glance he makes about the room, to check that we have not been overheard – the prospective leader of the Conservatives, and perhaps one day of the country, cannot be seen to have any financial irregularities in the cupboard.
Then he lowers his voice. ‘I expect to be coming into a little money soon enough. An investment – it’s about to pay out very handsomely. ’
It would be the first time any of his investments have come to good.
My husband brought a small inheritance to our marriage, and I, a substantial sum.
Alas the remaining pot is nothing like what it was.
Not that anyone would know it, of course.
Whilst my husband is widely recognised as a very brilliant man he isn’t all that clever with money.
He is very good at spending it, though. Sometimes I have wondered if he is the sort of man Daddy might have called a bounder, for all his Good Works in politics and his war record.
Sometimes I have even allowed myself to wonder whether if I had been the one to invest it, we might have done better.
At school I was told I had a fine head for numbers.
And I have been brought up to enjoy and require money.
That is how girls like me are brought up.
But ‘Oh,’ is all I say, ‘really? Well, that’s lovely news.’
He chuckles. ‘It’s more than lovely, my sweet. It will change everything.’