Cambridge Blue - Alison Bruce [43]
Goodhew waited some more, then Richard’s words began to flow in earnest.
‘Obviously I was in a relationship with her. On the face of it, I don’t suppose we seemed at all compatible – there was an age gap of over ten years, and our backgrounds were quite different. We didn’t even look very well suited. But those are very outdated notions, and neither of us took them as valid reasons for . . .’ He drew a deep and weary breath and then let it out noisily, like it was steam forcing itself through a faulty valve, ‘Not pursuing each other.’
Without warning, he rose and walked towards the window, stopping just before it. He stared downwards and Goodhew couldn’t tell whether it was at the traffic passing outside or at the square work station which occupied the floor space immediately in front of the bay. Then his hand reached out, with narrow fingers extended, the tips touching an item which lay out of Goodhew’s view in the open top of a container marginally larger than a shoebox.
He carried the box back with him, and Goodhew now saw that it contained a variety of books and magazines. Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus lay on top, and it must have been its cover that Richard had been stroking. ‘These are Lorna’s,’ he explained. ‘She would sit in here, often just where you are, and read them. Never for long, just brief snatches of books or magazines. She had a short attention span, and needed constant diversions, new things to do or to read. New people, too.’
Goodhew sensed that Richard was close to making his point.
‘She was lovely . . . please, that’s one thing I don’t want you to misunderstand. She was warm and caring and never set out to hurt me. I know that. And she wasn’t unfaithful, not in her own eyes.’ Richard delved back into the box, lifting out a chunky handful of paperbacks. Mostly books that fell into the category of Popular Psychology. Goodhew spotted one called On Kissing and another entitled Toxic Parents. Richard dumped them on the cushion in-between them and carried on digging through the box. Goodhew flipped over When Your Lover Is a Liar, which promised ‘practical strategies to stop them before they ruin your life’. He then picked up the other books and shuffled it in between them.
Richard seemed too preoccupied to notice. Finally he pulled his hand out again, and with it a bundle of seven or eight glossy magazines which he spread out on the settee. ‘These are the sort of things she would normally read.’
Goodhew studied them. He was no expert on magazines and really had no idea what insight was supposed to be jumping out at him. Two of them were aimed at men: lad mags, but certainly not top shelf. Middle shelf or thereabouts. The other five were women’s magazines, and he could see instantly that they were aimed at the younger end of the market; single independent girls, the so-called ladettes. Whatever Richard was showing him, he wasn’t getting it.
‘I was out of my depth here, because this is what she embraced. Sexual freedom was part of who she was; she never wanted monogamy and told me so from the start. And, like a mug, I thought she’d change her mind, or wasn’t really serious, or . . . God, I don’t know, perhaps I thought I could handle it.’ He flicked the mags sharply with the back of his hand, making a brittle crack. ‘Promiscuity is a fashion now, a must-experiment necessity. I’ve read these articles, but find them sick and vacuous.’ Blotchy red patches had begun rising around his throat, like he’d swallowed his discomfort, just to have it break out through the skin. His voice quietened as he hit his stride. ‘It’s society going down the tube, by turning decent women into whores.’
Goodhew guessed the word ‘whores’ wasn’t one that Richard often used. Of course, he didn’t know for sure, but he noticed the way the word dried up on Richard’s lips, the way his mini-tirade vaporized as he registered what he’d just said.
‘Sorry,’ Richard muttered.
‘It’s fine,’ Goodhew replied. ‘So Lorna saw other men?’
‘No, I don’t think so, but she insisted she could if she wanted to. And that she