Authors: Roberta Latow
After fifteen minutes it was Alexis who said, ‘Oh, Mom, we were supposed to be at the headmaster’s office twenty minutes ago.’
‘I know, so were we. That’s where we’d planned to spring this surprise, and meet your dad.’
All the fun and life seemed to drain from the boys’
faces and they went very quiet. Finally it was Mishka who asked, ‘Mom, you’re not going to have a fight with him and say terrible things to him or make a scene like last time we were all together? That was terrible. You were kind of crazy, very scary. It’s not going to be like last time, Mom? You wouldn’t do that, would you?’
Then Alexis spoke. ‘If you’re going to make a scene, please not in front of the headmaster. That would be so embarrassing. Or any of our friends. We’d never live that down.’
‘I’m not going to make a scene. You have my word on that. And not in front of
my
friends either.’
Smiles reappeared on the boys’ faces. ‘Well, that’s all right then,’ said Alexis happily. Mishka looked relieved. The atmosphere was relaxed again.
En route to the headmaster’s office they were stopped several times by boys who would approach Mishka or Alexis seeking to be introduced to their mother and her friends.
She could never remember seeing such pride in her boys’ faces or hearing it in their voices when they said, ‘This is my mom. She’s flown in from an island in Greece just for Parents’ Weekend. These are her friends, the ladies she’s going to sail the Atlantic with.’ And then they would very deliberately introduce everyone to each other. It was therefore a very happy party that finally burst into the headmaster’s office.
‘Boys, you’re late. This won’t do. Your father has been waiting. Oh, I see you have your surprise.’
Anoushka greeted the headmaster, introduced her
friends to him and then apologised. ‘It was by accident that we bumped into each other on the way here, and I delayed us.’
That seemed to smooth things over with the headmaster who did not seem very cross but actually more interested in Jahangir than anyone else. Anoushka found it difficult to take her eyes off Robert and Rosamond who were standing at the window.
Sally and Page were watching her with some concern. Both of them felt a new admiration for her for what she was doing. How brave to be fighting back, they had declared to each other. Mishka and Alexis were obviously happy to see Robert and Rosamond and did nothing to hide their affection for them, kissing Rosamond on the cheek and shaking hands with their father who ruffled their hair. Anoushka thought her heart would break. They had had to think twice about giving her a hug, and the kiss had never happened.
Jahangir, standing next to her, whispered, ‘Remember, boys don’t kiss mothers in front of other boys.’ That helped. Anoushka closed her eyes for a second and took a deep breath. She was all right, in control of herself again. How had he guessed what she had been thinking? Had it been showing? She simply could not have that. She could and would carry off this weekend, and on her terms.
Introductions had to be made. That eased things, distracted the emotions. It gave her time to organise her thoughts. Finally she was able to say something to her ex-husband. ‘Robert, you’re looking very well.’
‘So are you, Anoushka. In fact you look marvellous.’
Rosamond had not left Robert’s side. Anoushka faced her but was unable to bring herself to speak to her. The others were at the far side of the room looking at framed photographs of former pupils and searching for Jahangir’s brother in them. So Anoushka did have a modicum of privacy for this awkward meeting. It was Rosamond who spoke first. ‘I hope we can be friends?’
Not wanting to make a scene, Anoushka dropped her voice so that it was just above a whisper. ‘Oh, I don’t think so. But I’m calling a truce for my sons’ birthday.’ And then she walked away to join the others.
It was an exhausting day, with a continuous programme of field sports, some theatre, a concert, rowing, and sailing events, lunch and tea. The socialising with other parents was the most exhausting of all. In the evening there was a dinner dance at the school, black tie and evening gowns, and Mishka and Alexis and half a dozen of their close friends joined the Riverses and party. All in all it was a great success and no one was in doubt that Anoushka Rivers and her friends had made a great contribution to the festivities.
By evening Anoushka, Sally and Page had become the centre of attention for parents as well as boys and staff. They all wanted to know about the plan to sail the Atlantic. Why were they doing it? How? When? From where to where? Some wanted to know about their trekking in the Himalayas, others what it was
like to live on a Greek island. They were adventurous, and boys and parents found them fascinating. Mishka and Alexis kept asking their father, ‘Isn’t Mom different? And terrific.’
‘A great surprise,’ Robert would reply, relieved that all was going so well.
Throughout the evening and all the attention heaped upon Anoushka and her party, Rosamond behaved impeccably. She joined in and was charming to everyone, including Anoushka, whenever the occasion arose. At one point while everyone was dancing Anoushka found herself alone at the table with Robert.
‘You’re making the boys very happy. You’re making a hit.’
‘And you?’
‘You surprise me pleasantly. But I would be grateful to you if you would be nicer to Rosamond. She misses you as a friend. She bears no malice towards you.’
‘Robert, please don’t be stupid, it doesn’t suit you.’
He bristled. ‘There’s no need for you to talk to me that way.’
‘And there’s no need for you to defend Rosamond. There is no defence for her behaviour. She stole you from me, and my home, my children, my life. What malice could she possibly bear towards me? She got everything she wanted. Why should I be nice to her? I said there was a truce and I’ll stand by that. But you expect too much.’
‘The lost years? The children we might have had?
But let’s talk no further about this. There’s no point. We’re here for the boys.’
‘Maybe you are, Robert, but I’m here for the boys and me. If that means being civil to Rosamond, I will be. She’s a part of their life and has been for almost all of their lives, now more so than ever, but if she wants to stay that way she had better be damned nice to me. I suggest you tell her that instead of lecturing me on how to behave with her. Now excuse me.’ Anoushka rose from the chair and walked to the far side of the room to join her friends.
The following day at the school was more or less the same as the day before but Anoushka was with her boys and she had won them back. That for her was everything. There were odd moments when they expected her to behave as the mother they had always known: permissive of everything they wanted or did, vague, indifferent to their criticism of her, accepting of the little jokes about her bad housekeeping and lack of organisation. They sometimes sounded as if they were mimicking their father. The new Anoushka saw and heard things that she could no longer equate with herself.
Her greatest problem though was not her boys, or even Rosamond. It was Robert. She still found him handsome, sexually charismatic, charming. She still could not divorce herself from the years of happiness she had had with him. The security of home, a family, status in the community. She still wanted him sexually. She would have gone with him to any corner in
that school, behind a hedge, anywhere, if only he had asked her. He could still trigger in her erotic feelings so intense she wanted to weep for his rejection of her, his deceit, the years of lies and disloyalty, but more than all of those things put together, for not wanting to have sex with her any more.
Anoushka struggled with that but kept it well hidden. She could see in the way he looked at Rosamond, his every touch, every word was filled with love for her. Sexual desire for her shone in his eyes when he looked at her across the crowded room. There was no hope for Anoushka. No reconciliation was even remotely possible. Had that been what she had hoped for?
Now for the first time she understood what those looks she had seen exchanged between Robert and Rosamond for so many years during her marriage had meant. They had always loved each other and she had refused to see it. She had been in the dark, whether by choice or ignorance. Should they not have taken her by the hand and led her into the light? How they must have hated her when all the time she thought she was bathing in their love for her.
Anoushka was aware that this was the new, the very changed Anoushka seeing the truth of her past life with Robert. The new woman could not feel the pain of that realisation as the old one would have. Anoushka had learned during her exile from marriage how to harden her heart, to love herself. She had stopped beating herself up for someone else’s faults.
It was no longer a matter of getting the weekend over with. She was enjoying being in the States, being a parent again, seeing her boys and their friends, their admiration for her, and the new life she was carving for herself. She was aware that it was in part thanks to her friends.
Jahangir had, of course, triumphed in his organisation of the journey from Groton to Lakeside. She was certain the boys at the school would never forget the vintage cars that swept the party away to a private airfield where they boarded a small plane. Anoushka told him, ‘Your organisation of things is making this such a joy for me, however did you manage it all?’
He replied, ‘It’s easy when you have a string of polo friends to help you out.’
She had fantasised so many times what it would be like to return to Lakeside, to see it again. The reality was nothing like her fantasies. It was difficult, she had expected that, but in a different way than she had imagined. She found Lakeside even more beautiful than she already knew it to be. And the house, when they drove up to it, all but took her breath away. It was home. The only real home of her own she had ever had, the only home she had ever wanted. Though she no longer wanted it, it still remained a palatial, beautiful place with all the grace and charm of New England at its best. To have allowed herself to be thrown out of this house and this town that she’d loved, she knew now she must have been momentarily out of her mind. It was at that moment, standing with Page and Sally
and Jahangir, that she knew why she had insisted they stay in the house. She was laying ghosts that might haunt her all the rest of her life had she not faced them.
A few people were already there for the party when they arrived. Mishka and Alexis ran out to greet them, and Rosamond showed them to the guest rooms. That was almost unbearable for Anoushka, and certainly awkward for Rosamond and Robert. Just as she had predicted, however, they all managed to hide their feelings from the boys.
For Mishka and Alexis, having them all together again, mother, father, and Rosamond, and having a good time as they used to, gave them a sense of security about their future. They kept talking about it to the three adults. Anoushka had accomplished what she had set out to do.
If her friends and even Robert and Rosamond made it as easy as possible for her, Robert and Rosamond’s friends, people she had known for most of her married life, did not. Neighbours and their children, Robert’s colleagues, the children’s best friends and their parents, all found Anoushka an embarrassment, an intruder. They thought her appearance with her friends there to be in the worst of taste and that she should impinge on Robert and his new wife, vindictive. They were neither subtle nor kind about it. Only sensitivity to the boys’ feelings allowed them to be just civil to her.
It was so obvious that it prompted Page to say to
Sally, ‘What could she have done to make these people dislike her so? How did she get it so wrong? How did she alienate herself from them so completely?’ Page and Sally were her friends and they would never think of discussing it with Anoushka but they could between themselves. As usual it was the down-to-earth Lancashire lass who got it right.
‘Look at Robert, he’s sensationally attractive. Knowing her story as we do, and I’m sure no one else but Robert does, put two and two together. She loved him, had possession of him, had everything she wanted, and was in the nicest possible way cocking a snook at them. “Get stuffed, I’ve got it all and you haven’t,” was what she was saying, and they thought she did. She flaunted, they were jealous. She was always the intruder. Poor sod!’
Page and Sally loved Anoushka more for her having had such bad luck.
Robert and Rosamond put on a great party for the boys and the house seemed full of fun. Anoushka kept up for as long as she could but suddenly knew she had done it all. She kissed her boys and went to her room, promising to be down for breakfast with them before she left. The chorus of thanks from them and their friends had made it all worthwhile. In the room, alone at last, all Anoushka could think about was sleep.
A knock at her door and Rosamond entered the room. She asked, ‘Have you everything you need?’
‘Yes, I have, thank you.’
‘I’d like to talk to you, Anoushka. I think what you
did coming here was very brave and right, and I was wrong not to want you here in the house.’
‘Is that what you’ve come to tell me? You haven’t come to apologise? Not that you can. How does one apologise for ruining someone else’s life? Stealing their husband and their children, their home, not to mention their dignity. Next you’ll be telling me you haven’t been disloyal to me, a liar, a cheat?’
‘No, I can’t tell you that. But what I can tell you is that I tried many times to go away. To leave Robert for you and the boys’ sake.’
‘Not hard enough. Just go, please, Rosamond, leave me in peace.’
Rosamond left the room without another word. She walked down the stairs and her heart lifted. This was her house now and it was teeming with people who were happy and laughing and having a good time. People were dancing to the steel band and singing, they were spilling out on to the lawn. Waiters were still serving all the boys’ favourite food, washed down with beer and wine for the adults, root beer or milk shakes thick with ice cream for the girls and boys, all forty of them.