There were things which she found, now, that she didn’t want to know. One thing, however, she must ask.
‘How long?’ she said abruptly. He looked up. ‘How long have you been – like that?’
He was stung by her choice of words. ‘I don’t know what you mean by “like that”. I don’t know what you suppose I am.’
‘1 know what you are,’ she said with loathing. ‘But how many others were there before Jean-Luc?’
‘Is it any business of yours?’ he retorted.
‘Of course it is,’ she said. ‘I want to know if you were always like that, while you were sharing my bed – before me, even.’
‘Jean-Luc was the first,’ he said with dull anger. ‘And you don’t understand. I’m not “like” anything. I love him, that’s all.’
‘Is that why you didn’t marry?’ she asked, ignoring the second half of his reply. ‘Was it that you didn’t like women? Was it always men you wanted?’
The brandy lipped over the edge of his glass with his angry swirling. ‘I’ve told you, Jean-Luc was the first. Before that–’ The truth was that he had always been a little afraid of women, except for his mother and Olga. He had early developed a charming way of flirting with elderly dowagers, and a whole repertoire of near-outrageous compliments with which he kept younger women off-balance and at arm’s length.
The truth was that when he had married Anne he had been a virgin, but he could not then, and certainly would not now, admit it. His pursuit of her had been at least partly because he felt safe with her, as with his sister. She was not coquettish like other women, not moved by dark and incomprehensible passions. Her open mind and straightforward speech had made her seem to him clear and plain like daylight, and he had become more and more attracted to her as other women seemed increasingly alien.
He had thought it would all be all right. But though Anne’s mind might be like a man’s, she still had a female body. The dark power, the earth magic, the animal smell of women, the secret eyes and the mystery, the bleeding and the pain and the exaltation: these things all attached to his familiar, safe Anne. In the daytime, he could love and admire her, but at night she filled him with horror; and after Rose was born, he found it easier to live apart from her, and to lavish on his daughter the love he had once given his wife.
And then came Jean-Luc, woman-like, yet with a safe, clean, smooth man’s body; adoring Basil, admiring him, regarding him as wise, witty, learned, mature – all the things he had hoped to be, and which Anne proved he was not. How could he help falling in love? And how could that love be wrong?
Jean-Luc was simple and kind and good, and loved little Rose. When he and Jean-Luc took her out on a sledge or in a carriage or a boat, they were like a true family: man, woman, and child, loving each other, and safe together.
The truth was, that he had never felt himself to be married until he met Jean-Luc; but how could he tell her that? Besides, it was plain that she was not really listening to him. With a frown between her brows, she was pursuing her own train of thought, only a small part of which was emerging in words.
‘How could you?’ she said, more in wonder than anger now. ‘How could you do such a thing? How could you bring yourself to touch – that creature – in that way?’ She shuddered. Thinking about the scene she had witnessed robbed her of words.
Basil stood up abruptly, driven by a mixture of guilt and resentment to defend himself. ‘I don’t know why you’re being so pious about it. It’s no more than you’ve done, after all, and I don’t see you beating your breast.’
‘What are you talking about?’ She was astonished.
‘I’ve taken a lover – very well, what’s so wrong with that? You did the same thing. Oh yes, I know about you and Kirov – don’t think I didn’t! I know all your sordid little secrets! Don’t forget I took you in the first place because you wanted to get away from him.’
‘Don’t,’ she said, white with fury. ‘Don’t dare to speak his name–’
‘Too holy for my profane lips, is it?’ he sneered, whipping his pain and guilt into rage. ‘Which of them seduced you first? Quite a family the Kirovs! Was it the father or the son? But I don’t suppose you resisted too hard! And did you have them one after the other, or was it both together? Of course, Kirov père won in the end – he always wins! Sent his son off to Azerbaijan for the Persians to kill! Putting him like Uriah in the forefront of battle, you might say!’
Anne felt nausea knotting itself in the pit of her stomach. She was trembling with rage – and worse than that, with a sort of horrified pity, as though she were witnessing the results of a terrible accident. This man, after all, had rescued her, married her, shared her bed, fathered her child.
‘What you have done is different,’ she managed to whisper at last. ‘You know that it is.’
It was. Right or wrong, even putting aside the moral or religious implications, it was different. The fact was that society turned a blind eye on marital infidelity. People married each other mostly for financial, social or family reasons: they were not obliged to be in love, or even to like each other very much. If they later found someone more to their fancy, well, provided they were discreet about it, who was the worse for their little act of adultery?
But what Basil had done – there was no condoning that. It was unforgivable, unspeakable. A man taken in adultery was regarded with amused toleration; the man discovered in the act of sodomy would be treated with horrified revulsion, would never be received in society again. She knew it and he knew it, and as she met his gaze steadily, his wavered and dropped.
‘What do you mean to do about it?’ he asked at last. She had not considered the implications. Now she saw that he had placed himself in her power; he might make no further demands of any sort. But the realisation for the moment led nowhere.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. All the excitement of anger had drained out of her. She felt now desperately tired, wishing most of all that she could sleep, and forget. ‘I’ll have to think about it.’
‘If you want to leave me – set up your own establishment – I’ll make you an allowance,’ he said. He looked up. ‘I suppose I owe you that much.’
It was an apology, and again she felt that terrible, unwelcome pity. This was a maimed creature, she thought – no devil, no colossus of evil, but a pathetic, pitiful thing, like a dog run down by a carriage. She could not hate him. Hate the sin, and love the sinner, the words came to her. Well, she could not quite love him; but she had known him a very long time.
‘What about Rose?’ she said at last.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That’s the question, isn’t it?’
They looked at each other consideringly. Hers was the power. If he tried to prevent her from seeing Rose, tried to keep Rose from her, she could threaten to expose him. But would she really do that, either to him, or to her daughter? If Anne ever parted with the secret, it became common property; and one day some helpful person would tell it to Rose.
‘She loves me,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ she said.
She could go, leave him, be free of him; set up her own establishment, live with all the freedom of a widow; she might have Rose with her. But Rose would cry for her father and Jean-Luc, and even though she would gradually forget them – as Sashka had forgotten Anne – her love would only be Anne’s for second best. It was a hard thing, she thought bitterly, to be jealous of such creatures. Rose must be protected. Jean-Luc must be eradicated from Rose’s life – and perhaps Basil too. But it must be done carefully. She would not willingly inflict suffering on her already suffering child.