Faith - Lesley Pearse [104]
One thing Laura realized immediately was that she couldn’t just rush off somewhere now with Barney. She had very little money of her own, nowhere to take him to either. And she would need to find somewhere to live where Greg would never find them, for she knew he’d come after her just to spite her.
That meant she would have to play for time, keep on an even keel and even seem to be going along with whatever Greg came up with, while she made her own plans.
Greg came home that evening after she’d put Barney to bed. His face was stiff and cold, and Laura took some delight in behaving as if nothing had happened. He looked shocked to see the table in the dining room laid for dinner. She felt certain he’d expected her to launch into a shouting match, which would enable him to turn round and walk right out again.
‘I suppose you want a divorce,’ she said as she dished up the coq au vin. ‘I don’t like the idea, I thought we had married for life, but if that’s what you want just let’s make it as amicable as possible.’
As she expected, he tried to provoke her into a row, turning everything around to make out it was her fault, claiming she had always been ‘difficult’, that she wasn’t cut out to be the wife of a senior executive, or a mother. He brought up her refusal to live in the country, her drug-taking, and accused her of only marrying him for his money and position anyway.
She didn’t rise to his bait, just nodded as if she agreed with all his complaints. ‘So let’s cut to the chase,’ she said. ‘What are you intending to do?’
He said he didn’t know. She said that they should just carry on for the time being until he did.
The winter passed, spring arrived and Laura continued to try to hold her tongue as the pressure mounted between them. Greg came and went as he pleased. He gave no explanations as to what he was doing, or what he wanted, and there was no attempt at friendliness. When he spoke he was curt and dismissive; he threw his dirty clothes down on the floor, he’d demand a meal late at night, then push it away after one mouthful claiming it was disgusting.
Outside the house in nearby Kings Road Laura saw women of her own age shopping in the boutiques, flirting, laughing and having fun, while she at only twenty-seven had no one and nothing in her life other than Barney.
Jackie had sold the first house she had bought to do up and sell on, and made a vast profit, immediately ploughing it into other properties. She could talk of nothing but building and design, and how happy she was with Roger. Meggie and Ivy had put their place on the market too after hearing of Jackie’s success and they were preoccupied with finding another one. Laura didn’t feel able to tell them how bad things were for her, or how scared she was that Greg might eventually do something terrible to her. So when she saw them she pretended everything was fine.
Belle often popped round to see Laura. She had left her parents’ home in Muswell Hill and moved into a shared flat in the Fulham Road while she was attending a drama school. Her excitement and wonder at being in central London, the clubs, shops and her many boyfriends, made Laura feel as if she was being rubbed with sandpaper, and she wondered how much longer she could put up with Greg without cracking up.
But she couldn’t leave, not till she had more money, and it was becoming increasingly difficult managing to squeeze anything extra out of the housekeeping money Greg gave her each week. If she tried to economize by buying mince, he would demand steak; if she said Barney needed new shoes he would check his feet and say his current shoes still fitted. It was as if he knew what she was planning.
By the end of April he was hitting her. The first time it was just a slap when she forgot to collect his favourite shoes from the cobbler’s. He raged at her and said it was her job to take care of such things, and hit her.
That