Act Two |
The next morning, in the kitchen area of his office, Marker is warming an ancient teapot with water from the kettle. He empties it down the sink, then returns – just as the gas expires under the kettle. He rootles in his pocket for change for the meter, but finds nothing appropriate. Then he hears a knock at the office door. “It’s open,” he calls. Marker continues fishing for change as he hears his visitor joining him in the kitchen. “Haven’t got a bob for the meter, have you?” he asks. A hand offers him a shilling. “Thanks.” Marker feeds the meter, turns the gas up, lights it, then turns to tell his visitor, “Won’t be a moment.” He does a slight double take when he sees that his visitor is Jean Clayton. “Mrs Clayton!” he exclaims. “I thought it was the estate agent from downstairs. He’s taken to dropping in for tea.” Marker again fumbles for a shilling, but the closest thing he can find is a florin. “Look, if you can change this –”
“I’ll settle for a cup of tea,” says Jean.
“It comes expensive.”
“Just so’s it’s drinkable.”
The kettle reboils, and Marker fills the teapot. “Let it stand a minute, shall we?” he suggests. “Husband send you?”
Jean shakes her head. “He doesn’t know I’m here.”
“I’ve no authority to negotiate, you know, Mrs Clayton.”
“If you say so.”
“It’s a fact.” Marker pours the first cup and shows it to Jean. “That about right?”
“Splendid.”
“Sugar?”
“Please.”
Marker reaches for a jar of it, then finds a rather grubby-looking spoon and hands it over. Jean inspects it, dubiously. “Tarnish,” Marker assures her. “It’s clean otherwise.” Jean takes some sugar, then offers the spoon to Marker. “Not for me,” he says. “What can I do for you?”
“Explain, if you would.”
“Try me,” says Marker, inviting Jean to step through into his office.
She does so. “This girl,” she begins.
Marker follows her. “You know about her?”
“Found out,” Jean confirms. Marker asks how. “A friend,” she replies.
“Marvellous, isn’t it?” smiles Marker. Arriving at his desk, he gestures towards the chair opposite.
Jean takes a seat. “Friends?” she asks.
“There’s always somebody.” Marker sits down behind his desk.
“I’d have found out sooner or later,” says Jean. “Hugh’s not exactly cut out for the double life.”
Marker nods. “It can get complicated.”
“I think you’d have to be a very selfish, simple person to cope with adultery successfully. You know – really able to live in separate compartments.”
“He couldn’t?” asks Marker.
“Poor Hugh,” sighs Jean. “All the time he was with me, he was worried about her.”
“And vice versa?”
“I like to think so.” Jean pauses, then asks, “Mr Marker, why are they bringing it up after all this time? Hugh broke up with Ann Maitland four years ago.”
“You’re sure?”
“I ought to be. If you knew the scenes… Night after night, day after day. All night, sometimes. Screaming at each other – but in whispers because we didn’t want to wake the au pair. And, in the morning, trying to be bright and normal for the char, the tradespeople, the children – when one’s head rang with recriminations and guilt and drink and utter, sickening fatigue. I wasn’t just a woman wronged, you see. It wasn’t as simple as that.”
“It hardly ever is.”
Jean stares down into her tea. “I was at least as much to blame as he was. How two people… But we got it sorted out… and he left her. So you see… that proved something, didn’t it? That’s what he said.”
“It’s what you do that counts,” says Marker.
“You don’t think –?”
“The picture’s supposed to have been taken two weeks ago.”
“It can’t have been.”
“That’s what they told me.”
Jean protests. “Don’t you see –?”
“I can see that’s something you’d rather not believe.”
“If it was still going on,” argues Jean, “I’d have known, wouldn’t I?”
“Would you?” wonders Marker.
“Of course.”
“Did you? When it started, if it hadn’t been for your kind friend –”
“We’ve learnt a lot about each other since then. We both have. We must have.”
“Mrs Clayton. Business is business. I don’t want to be unsympathetic, but what your husband’s done or whether and when and why – it doesn’t matter that much to me.”
“But you’re prepared to assume that he’s been living a lie these past four years?”
“All I’ll say is it looks like it. If he accepts –”
“It could mean that he’s sick of the whole wretched business, couldn’t it?”
“It could,” agrees Marker. “On the other hand –”
“Well, we’ll just have to wait and see if he shows you the door, won’t we?” says Jean. She stands up. “I’m sorry to have troubled you.”
“It’s no trouble. I wish there was something else I could say.”
“You’ve said enough as it is, thank you. More than enough.” Jean walks out.
Marker looks after her, thoughtfully. He sips at his tea, trying to square the facts of the case with her story and his own impression of Clayton. There’s something adrift somewhere. Abruptly, he finishes his drink, snatches up his coat and leaves.
* * *
Ann Maitland is in bed, reading. From the clutter of tissues, chocolates, fruit, jug of barley water, medicine bottles and lozenges that surround her, it’s clear she’s ailing – convalescing, anyway. She glances up, checks the time, then returns to her book. The flat doorbell rings. She gets out of bed and pads out into the hallway, where there’s a speaker arrangement to the main entrance. “Yes?” she says into it.
A distorted voice replies. “You won’t know me. The name’s Marker.” He tells her it’s about Hugh Clayton.
“Come up.” Ann presses the release mechanism, secures the Yale lock on her door and pads back into the bedroom. She checks her appearance and gets into bed as she hears a knock on the flat door. “It’s open,” she calls. “Let the latch down, will you?” She hears the door opening and closing. “Through here.”
Marker comes in. “Miss Maitland?”
Ann nods. “Sorry to drag you in here.”
“Nothing serious…?”
Ann shakes her head. “A cold. I don’t think it’s infectious. It’s very much the tail end. It’s just that I promised the doctor I wouldn’t get up till he’d seen me today. And now, of course, he’s late.” She invites Marker to sit down. “Smoke if you want to. You’re a friend of Hugh’s, are you?”
“Let’s say an acquaintance,” says Marker, pulling up a chair. “He’s had this.” He hands Ann the envelope.
Her reaction to the photograph inside is decidedly muted. “From you?” she asks.
“From the Chairman of the Board,” replies Marker. “I was just engaged to deliver it – with a message.”
“Which was?”
“To the effect that they might use this to force his resignation, if he didn’t tender it voluntarily. It wasn’t quite that bald, but essentially –”
“Poor old Hugh,” says Ann, unconsciously echoing Hetheridge and Jean’s earlier words.
“You don’t seem surprised,” notes Marker.
“I’m not pleased.”
“But not surprised?”
“You have to be prepared for your sins to find you out, don’t you?”
“Four years after the event?”
Ann looks confused. “Four years?”
“I thought that was when the affair with Hugh Clayton ended.”
Ann smiles. “That’s what you were supposed to think. You and anyone else who happened to be interested.”
“But it didn’t?” asks Marker.
“Does it look like it?” Ann returns the photograph to the envelope and hands it back.
Marker takes it. “Clayton claims it must have been taken four years ago.”
“Oh,” says Ann.
“Could it have been?”
“Certainly.”
“But, equally, it could have been taken two weeks ago? In the Carlton Hotel in Edgbaston? Is that what you’re saying?”
“I don’t want to get him into trouble.”
“He’s in trouble. Just how bad depends on how recent this could be.”
“Look,” says Ann, “whose side are you supposed to be on?”
“If he’s had nothing to do with you in four years, maybe he ought to fight this,” reasons Marker. “If you’ve been carrying on all the while, maybe they’re justified.”
Ann raises an eyebrow. “A moralist? In your job?”
“I might be able to help him,” argues Marker. “I can’t harm you.”
“Okay,” says Ann. She lights a cigarette and retrieves an ashtray from beneath her heap of goodies. Then she begins her story. “Four years ago…” She pauses to reflect. “Is it really that long? Funny, sometimes it seems like forever and then… yesterday. Whenever it was, we weren’t adolescents. We were playing it cool. You know, why burn your bridges? Could just be one of those things – you know, here today…? Don’t get me wrong, it was good – in fact, great – just not the end of the world or the beginning, or whatever these things are supposed to be. I mean, he was married with kids and all that, so… we weren’t making too many plans… more or less, well… drifting, you see. And then – wham! His wife finds out. And the Chairman. And all hell breaks loose. And it’s who really loves whom and with what, morning noon and night, and on and on about blame and responsibility and prior claims and needs and duties. I can’t tell you. It was the mouse on the wheel touch – very hard work, boring and frightening and hopelessly inconclusive. It was all such a hideous muddle, I’d have agreed to anything just to stop. So I did. Finish. I went away.”
“And then?” asks Marker.
“What do you think? He wrote to me. He was coming to Scotland on a sales trip. Would I have dinner with him? I did. We’d learnt our lesson. We were very discreet. When I came back to London, the habit stayed.”
“The habit of Clayton? Or the habit of discretion?”
“Both, since you ask.”
“A great romance,” says Marker, ironically.
“It was an arrangement that suited both of us.”
“Him, I can understand. But you?”
Ann smiles slightly. “Funny the way men expect women to be romantic about sex. We’re much more matter-of-fact about it than you, really.”
“That’s all it was?” asks Marker.
“We like each other,” says Ann. “We’re quite good friends. I think we both got a certain kick from imagining his wife and our gallant Chairman’s reactions had they known how ineffectual their intervention had been. But, basically, I’m afraid, it’s purely physical.”
“It still is?”
“Well, I imagine in the circumstances tonight’s liable to be off.”
“Wednesday, eh?”
“Usually.”
“And always at the Carlton?”
Ann nods. “For some time now.”
“I could check.”
Ann looks unconcerned. “Do.”
Marker nods and gets to his feet. “Get well soon.”
Ann can sense him passing judgement. “You wanted the truth, didn’t you?” she asks.
Marker pauses in the doorway. “I asked for it, yes.”
“If you don’t like it, I’ll back Hugh’s story. I will, really.”
Marker shrugs. “Makes no difference to me.”
“Why so disapproving, then?”
Marker tells her. “If he had to lie to his wife for four years, I just wish it could have been for something less cold-blooded.” Angrily, Ann tells him to get out. “I’m on my way,” he assures her.
He leaves Ann rigid with anger and indignation. That is, until she hears the front door closing. Then she relaxes, smiling slowly, with genuine and evil glee. She starts as Marker reappears in the doorway.
“Share it, why don’t you?” he suggests.
“What?” asks Ann.
“The joke.”
“I thought you’d gone,” says Ann, coldly.
“Evidently.”
“Please do so now.”
Marker picks up the envelope that he deliberately left behind. “I only came back to collect this,” he says. “Bye.” He goes.
Once again, Ann hears the front door slamming shut. This time, she gets out of bed to assure herself that he’s actually gone. She checks the door, securing it behind him, thoughtfully.
* * *
Bert Carter is in the boardroom, looking worried. After a moment, Mark Hetheridge joins him. Carter wants to know why things are taking so long. Hetheridge tells him not to worry. “Everything’s going to be all right,” he says. He smiles easily, then departs with a wave. Carter isn’t really assured.
* * *
Hugh is slumped in his living room, staring into the fire. Jean is knitting as if her life depended on it. After a moment, Hugh gets up and pokes idly at the fire. Then he turns and looks at his wife. “Drink?” he asks. She shakes her head. Hugh goes to the sideboard to get himself one. He pours out an enormous Scotch, holds the glass under the soda syphon – and manages to squirt most of the whisky out of the glass and on to his hand. He looks pained, dumps the glass and returns to his chair. He ponders the fire again, then says, “If you still aren’t sure whether I’ve finished with her, all I can say is I wish to God I hadn’t.”
Jean puts down her knitting. “Then you still want her.”
“I want to know that what we have today was worth what we’ve been through these last four years – not to mention the hurt we inflicted on… her.”
Jean is aghast. “We inflicted!”
“Ann Maitland would never have come on the scene if we hadn’t made such a stupid –”
Jean defends herself. “I was trapped. Nappies and saucepan lids and –”
Hugh shakes his head. “Nobody’s blaming anyone.”
“Your giving her up was the whole basis for us beginning again,” Jean reminds him.
“I haven’t seen Ann Maitland, or written to her, or heard from her since we made that bargain,” Hugh maintains. He pauses as the doorbell rings. “Punctual, our friend,” he notes. He gets up and continues their discussion as he goes to answer the door. “You don’t believe me?”
“I don’t know,” admits Jean.
“Well, that simplifies things.” Hugh lets in their visitor – Marker. Hugh turns to his wife. “I expect you’ll have things to do.”
Marker looks from Hugh to Jean. “No need for secrets, is there?” he asks. “Not any more.”
“No,” agrees Jean. She explains to her husband that she went to see Marker this morning. “To tell him what you’d told me.”
“The four-year bit,” specifies Marker.
“He told me the picture was taken two weeks ago,” adds Jean.
“Nothing personal,” says Marker. “That was what I’d been told.” Hugh takes this in. Marker continues. “I hope I didn’t let on, but your wife shook me enough to do a little checking up.”
“And?” prompts Jean.
After a pause, Marker looks at Hugh and says, “Miss Maitland told me you’d been carrying on… well… more or less up till now.”
“Then the break –?” asks Jean.
“Was to pull the wool over your eyes,” replies Marker. “And the Chairman’s. That’s what she said.”
“She’s lying,” protests Hugh. Jean asks why. “I don’t know,” says Hugh, “but she’s lying.”
“In that case,” says Marker, “the receptionist at the Carlton Hotel’d have to be lying, too.” Hugh reacts with surprise. “I saw him this afternoon,” continues Marker. “He identified you and Miss Maitland immediately. From the photograph. Of course, he knew her as Mrs Clayton. I’m sorry, but –”
“And they were there two weeks ago?” asks Jean.
Marker nods. “Regulars, apparently. Every Wednesday.” Jean doesn’t want to believe it, but Marker produces a photostat of a page from the hotel’s guest book. He shows it to Hugh. “Now tell me that’s not your signature.”
Hugh looks at it. “It’s uncannily like it, but –”
“Oh, Hugh!” cries Jean, in dismay.
“And you still say you haven’t seen Miss Maitland in four years?” continues Marker.
“Yes,” replies Hugh.
“Quite a conspiracy to prove different, then, isn’t there?”
“Please,” says Jean, “let’s put an end to this charade.”
“I’ve told you the truth,” insists Hugh. He gestures, baffled, trapped. “It’s like some sort of monstrous nightmare.” He gives in. “I’ll take their golden handshake.”
“Why?” asks Marker.
“Isn’t it obvious?” says Jean.
“Look at the evidence,” says Hugh. “My wife had her doubts before this – my own wife. Who’s going to believe me now?”
“Funnily enough, I do,” reveals Marker, surprising both of them. Jean asks him why. “Couple of things,” Marker replies. “Miss Maitland didn’t half talk for someone who’d been that discreet that long. The way she opened up… I mean, it was almost as though she was expecting me.” He turns to Hugh. “Same thing at the hotel. The receptionist hardly glanced at the picture, and, well, it’s kind of an unusual angle for anybody to be able to identify you that easily – if you’ll pardon my saying so.”
“What does it matter?” asks Hugh, dejected.
Jean turns to him. “Don’t you understand? He’s agreeing with you.”
Marker nods. “I’m beginning to think you just might be what you said – the victim of a conspiracy.”
“Why would anyone do this to me?” wonders Hugh. Marker suggests that they try and find out. “I’m not sure I want to,” says Hugh. Catching Jean’s look, he explains. “No, not because I don’t think we’ll succeed. At least… not just because I don’t see how we can succeed.” He still had an affair with the girl, after all – the only question is over the timing. “It was too much to hope that I could avoid the consequences. Perhaps it’s not so unjust, after all. I haven’t the heart to fight it, anyway.”
“Well, I have,” declares Jean, to her husband’s amazement. “Oh, not for your sake, Hugh, don’t worry. I need to know that you told me the truth.” It seems to Marker that they need to establish whether Ann is lying – and why. Jean suggests they simply ask her, but Hugh isn’t keen on the idea of a confrontation. “Scared?” challenges Jean. Hugh turns away – it’s no use saying anything when his wife misinterprets his every action and reaction. Jean turns back to Marker. “Would she meet us?” she asks.
“She might,” he reckons, “particularly if she didn’t know she was going to. I’ll try and dream something up. I’ll be in touch.” With that, he goes.
“We’ll see,” says Jean, determinedly. Hugh just looks at her as she reiterates, “Now we’ll see.” It almost sounds like a threat.
“I’ll settle for a cup of tea,” says Jean.
“It comes expensive.”
“Just so’s it’s drinkable.”
The kettle reboils, and Marker fills the teapot. “Let it stand a minute, shall we?” he suggests. “Husband send you?”
Jean shakes her head. “He doesn’t know I’m here.”
“I’ve no authority to negotiate, you know, Mrs Clayton.”
“If you say so.”
“It’s a fact.” Marker pours the first cup and shows it to Jean. “That about right?”
“Splendid.”
“Sugar?”
“Please.”
Marker reaches for a jar of it, then finds a rather grubby-looking spoon and hands it over. Jean inspects it, dubiously. “Tarnish,” Marker assures her. “It’s clean otherwise.” Jean takes some sugar, then offers the spoon to Marker. “Not for me,” he says. “What can I do for you?”
“Explain, if you would.”
“Try me,” says Marker, inviting Jean to step through into his office.
She does so. “This girl,” she begins.
Marker follows her. “You know about her?”
“Found out,” Jean confirms. Marker asks how. “A friend,” she replies.
“Marvellous, isn’t it?” smiles Marker. Arriving at his desk, he gestures towards the chair opposite.
Jean takes a seat. “Friends?” she asks.
“There’s always somebody.” Marker sits down behind his desk.
“I’d have found out sooner or later,” says Jean. “Hugh’s not exactly cut out for the double life.”
Marker nods. “It can get complicated.”
“I think you’d have to be a very selfish, simple person to cope with adultery successfully. You know – really able to live in separate compartments.”
“He couldn’t?” asks Marker.
“Poor Hugh,” sighs Jean. “All the time he was with me, he was worried about her.”
“And vice versa?”
“I like to think so.” Jean pauses, then asks, “Mr Marker, why are they bringing it up after all this time? Hugh broke up with Ann Maitland four years ago.”
“You’re sure?”
“I ought to be. If you knew the scenes… Night after night, day after day. All night, sometimes. Screaming at each other – but in whispers because we didn’t want to wake the au pair. And, in the morning, trying to be bright and normal for the char, the tradespeople, the children – when one’s head rang with recriminations and guilt and drink and utter, sickening fatigue. I wasn’t just a woman wronged, you see. It wasn’t as simple as that.”
“It hardly ever is.”
Jean stares down into her tea. “I was at least as much to blame as he was. How two people… But we got it sorted out… and he left her. So you see… that proved something, didn’t it? That’s what he said.”
“It’s what you do that counts,” says Marker.
“You don’t think –?”
“The picture’s supposed to have been taken two weeks ago.”
“It can’t have been.”
“That’s what they told me.”
Jean protests. “Don’t you see –?”
“I can see that’s something you’d rather not believe.”
“If it was still going on,” argues Jean, “I’d have known, wouldn’t I?”
“Would you?” wonders Marker.
“Of course.”
“Did you? When it started, if it hadn’t been for your kind friend –”
“We’ve learnt a lot about each other since then. We both have. We must have.”
“Mrs Clayton. Business is business. I don’t want to be unsympathetic, but what your husband’s done or whether and when and why – it doesn’t matter that much to me.”
“But you’re prepared to assume that he’s been living a lie these past four years?”
“All I’ll say is it looks like it. If he accepts –”
“It could mean that he’s sick of the whole wretched business, couldn’t it?”
“It could,” agrees Marker. “On the other hand –”
“Well, we’ll just have to wait and see if he shows you the door, won’t we?” says Jean. She stands up. “I’m sorry to have troubled you.”
“It’s no trouble. I wish there was something else I could say.”
“You’ve said enough as it is, thank you. More than enough.” Jean walks out.
Marker looks after her, thoughtfully. He sips at his tea, trying to square the facts of the case with her story and his own impression of Clayton. There’s something adrift somewhere. Abruptly, he finishes his drink, snatches up his coat and leaves.
* * *
Ann Maitland is in bed, reading. From the clutter of tissues, chocolates, fruit, jug of barley water, medicine bottles and lozenges that surround her, it’s clear she’s ailing – convalescing, anyway. She glances up, checks the time, then returns to her book. The flat doorbell rings. She gets out of bed and pads out into the hallway, where there’s a speaker arrangement to the main entrance. “Yes?” she says into it.
A distorted voice replies. “You won’t know me. The name’s Marker.” He tells her it’s about Hugh Clayton.
“Come up.” Ann presses the release mechanism, secures the Yale lock on her door and pads back into the bedroom. She checks her appearance and gets into bed as she hears a knock on the flat door. “It’s open,” she calls. “Let the latch down, will you?” She hears the door opening and closing. “Through here.”
Marker comes in. “Miss Maitland?”
Ann nods. “Sorry to drag you in here.”
“Nothing serious…?”
Ann shakes her head. “A cold. I don’t think it’s infectious. It’s very much the tail end. It’s just that I promised the doctor I wouldn’t get up till he’d seen me today. And now, of course, he’s late.” She invites Marker to sit down. “Smoke if you want to. You’re a friend of Hugh’s, are you?”
“Let’s say an acquaintance,” says Marker, pulling up a chair. “He’s had this.” He hands Ann the envelope.
Her reaction to the photograph inside is decidedly muted. “From you?” she asks.
“From the Chairman of the Board,” replies Marker. “I was just engaged to deliver it – with a message.”
“Which was?”
“To the effect that they might use this to force his resignation, if he didn’t tender it voluntarily. It wasn’t quite that bald, but essentially –”
“Poor old Hugh,” says Ann, unconsciously echoing Hetheridge and Jean’s earlier words.
“You don’t seem surprised,” notes Marker.
“I’m not pleased.”
“But not surprised?”
“You have to be prepared for your sins to find you out, don’t you?”
“Four years after the event?”
Ann looks confused. “Four years?”
“I thought that was when the affair with Hugh Clayton ended.”
Ann smiles. “That’s what you were supposed to think. You and anyone else who happened to be interested.”
“But it didn’t?” asks Marker.
“Does it look like it?” Ann returns the photograph to the envelope and hands it back.
Marker takes it. “Clayton claims it must have been taken four years ago.”
“Oh,” says Ann.
“Could it have been?”
“Certainly.”
“But, equally, it could have been taken two weeks ago? In the Carlton Hotel in Edgbaston? Is that what you’re saying?”
“I don’t want to get him into trouble.”
“He’s in trouble. Just how bad depends on how recent this could be.”
“Look,” says Ann, “whose side are you supposed to be on?”
“If he’s had nothing to do with you in four years, maybe he ought to fight this,” reasons Marker. “If you’ve been carrying on all the while, maybe they’re justified.”
Ann raises an eyebrow. “A moralist? In your job?”
“I might be able to help him,” argues Marker. “I can’t harm you.”
“Okay,” says Ann. She lights a cigarette and retrieves an ashtray from beneath her heap of goodies. Then she begins her story. “Four years ago…” She pauses to reflect. “Is it really that long? Funny, sometimes it seems like forever and then… yesterday. Whenever it was, we weren’t adolescents. We were playing it cool. You know, why burn your bridges? Could just be one of those things – you know, here today…? Don’t get me wrong, it was good – in fact, great – just not the end of the world or the beginning, or whatever these things are supposed to be. I mean, he was married with kids and all that, so… we weren’t making too many plans… more or less, well… drifting, you see. And then – wham! His wife finds out. And the Chairman. And all hell breaks loose. And it’s who really loves whom and with what, morning noon and night, and on and on about blame and responsibility and prior claims and needs and duties. I can’t tell you. It was the mouse on the wheel touch – very hard work, boring and frightening and hopelessly inconclusive. It was all such a hideous muddle, I’d have agreed to anything just to stop. So I did. Finish. I went away.”
“And then?” asks Marker.
“What do you think? He wrote to me. He was coming to Scotland on a sales trip. Would I have dinner with him? I did. We’d learnt our lesson. We were very discreet. When I came back to London, the habit stayed.”
“The habit of Clayton? Or the habit of discretion?”
“Both, since you ask.”
“A great romance,” says Marker, ironically.
“It was an arrangement that suited both of us.”
“Him, I can understand. But you?”
Ann smiles slightly. “Funny the way men expect women to be romantic about sex. We’re much more matter-of-fact about it than you, really.”
“That’s all it was?” asks Marker.
“We like each other,” says Ann. “We’re quite good friends. I think we both got a certain kick from imagining his wife and our gallant Chairman’s reactions had they known how ineffectual their intervention had been. But, basically, I’m afraid, it’s purely physical.”
“It still is?”
“Well, I imagine in the circumstances tonight’s liable to be off.”
“Wednesday, eh?”
“Usually.”
“And always at the Carlton?”
Ann nods. “For some time now.”
“I could check.”
Ann looks unconcerned. “Do.”
Marker nods and gets to his feet. “Get well soon.”
Ann can sense him passing judgement. “You wanted the truth, didn’t you?” she asks.
Marker pauses in the doorway. “I asked for it, yes.”
“If you don’t like it, I’ll back Hugh’s story. I will, really.”
Marker shrugs. “Makes no difference to me.”
“Why so disapproving, then?”
Marker tells her. “If he had to lie to his wife for four years, I just wish it could have been for something less cold-blooded.” Angrily, Ann tells him to get out. “I’m on my way,” he assures her.
He leaves Ann rigid with anger and indignation. That is, until she hears the front door closing. Then she relaxes, smiling slowly, with genuine and evil glee. She starts as Marker reappears in the doorway.
“Share it, why don’t you?” he suggests.
“What?” asks Ann.
“The joke.”
“I thought you’d gone,” says Ann, coldly.
“Evidently.”
“Please do so now.”
Marker picks up the envelope that he deliberately left behind. “I only came back to collect this,” he says. “Bye.” He goes.
Once again, Ann hears the front door slamming shut. This time, she gets out of bed to assure herself that he’s actually gone. She checks the door, securing it behind him, thoughtfully.
* * *
Bert Carter is in the boardroom, looking worried. After a moment, Mark Hetheridge joins him. Carter wants to know why things are taking so long. Hetheridge tells him not to worry. “Everything’s going to be all right,” he says. He smiles easily, then departs with a wave. Carter isn’t really assured.
* * *
Hugh is slumped in his living room, staring into the fire. Jean is knitting as if her life depended on it. After a moment, Hugh gets up and pokes idly at the fire. Then he turns and looks at his wife. “Drink?” he asks. She shakes her head. Hugh goes to the sideboard to get himself one. He pours out an enormous Scotch, holds the glass under the soda syphon – and manages to squirt most of the whisky out of the glass and on to his hand. He looks pained, dumps the glass and returns to his chair. He ponders the fire again, then says, “If you still aren’t sure whether I’ve finished with her, all I can say is I wish to God I hadn’t.”
Jean puts down her knitting. “Then you still want her.”
“I want to know that what we have today was worth what we’ve been through these last four years – not to mention the hurt we inflicted on… her.”
Jean is aghast. “We inflicted!”
“Ann Maitland would never have come on the scene if we hadn’t made such a stupid –”
Jean defends herself. “I was trapped. Nappies and saucepan lids and –”
Hugh shakes his head. “Nobody’s blaming anyone.”
“Your giving her up was the whole basis for us beginning again,” Jean reminds him.
“I haven’t seen Ann Maitland, or written to her, or heard from her since we made that bargain,” Hugh maintains. He pauses as the doorbell rings. “Punctual, our friend,” he notes. He gets up and continues their discussion as he goes to answer the door. “You don’t believe me?”
“I don’t know,” admits Jean.
“Well, that simplifies things.” Hugh lets in their visitor – Marker. Hugh turns to his wife. “I expect you’ll have things to do.”
Marker looks from Hugh to Jean. “No need for secrets, is there?” he asks. “Not any more.”
“No,” agrees Jean. She explains to her husband that she went to see Marker this morning. “To tell him what you’d told me.”
“The four-year bit,” specifies Marker.
“He told me the picture was taken two weeks ago,” adds Jean.
“Nothing personal,” says Marker. “That was what I’d been told.” Hugh takes this in. Marker continues. “I hope I didn’t let on, but your wife shook me enough to do a little checking up.”
“And?” prompts Jean.
After a pause, Marker looks at Hugh and says, “Miss Maitland told me you’d been carrying on… well… more or less up till now.”
“Then the break –?” asks Jean.
“Was to pull the wool over your eyes,” replies Marker. “And the Chairman’s. That’s what she said.”
“She’s lying,” protests Hugh. Jean asks why. “I don’t know,” says Hugh, “but she’s lying.”
“In that case,” says Marker, “the receptionist at the Carlton Hotel’d have to be lying, too.” Hugh reacts with surprise. “I saw him this afternoon,” continues Marker. “He identified you and Miss Maitland immediately. From the photograph. Of course, he knew her as Mrs Clayton. I’m sorry, but –”
“And they were there two weeks ago?” asks Jean.
Marker nods. “Regulars, apparently. Every Wednesday.” Jean doesn’t want to believe it, but Marker produces a photostat of a page from the hotel’s guest book. He shows it to Hugh. “Now tell me that’s not your signature.”
Hugh looks at it. “It’s uncannily like it, but –”
“Oh, Hugh!” cries Jean, in dismay.
“And you still say you haven’t seen Miss Maitland in four years?” continues Marker.
“Yes,” replies Hugh.
“Quite a conspiracy to prove different, then, isn’t there?”
“Please,” says Jean, “let’s put an end to this charade.”
“I’ve told you the truth,” insists Hugh. He gestures, baffled, trapped. “It’s like some sort of monstrous nightmare.” He gives in. “I’ll take their golden handshake.”
“Why?” asks Marker.
“Isn’t it obvious?” says Jean.
“Look at the evidence,” says Hugh. “My wife had her doubts before this – my own wife. Who’s going to believe me now?”
“Funnily enough, I do,” reveals Marker, surprising both of them. Jean asks him why. “Couple of things,” Marker replies. “Miss Maitland didn’t half talk for someone who’d been that discreet that long. The way she opened up… I mean, it was almost as though she was expecting me.” He turns to Hugh. “Same thing at the hotel. The receptionist hardly glanced at the picture, and, well, it’s kind of an unusual angle for anybody to be able to identify you that easily – if you’ll pardon my saying so.”
“What does it matter?” asks Hugh, dejected.
Jean turns to him. “Don’t you understand? He’s agreeing with you.”
Marker nods. “I’m beginning to think you just might be what you said – the victim of a conspiracy.”
“Why would anyone do this to me?” wonders Hugh. Marker suggests that they try and find out. “I’m not sure I want to,” says Hugh. Catching Jean’s look, he explains. “No, not because I don’t think we’ll succeed. At least… not just because I don’t see how we can succeed.” He still had an affair with the girl, after all – the only question is over the timing. “It was too much to hope that I could avoid the consequences. Perhaps it’s not so unjust, after all. I haven’t the heart to fight it, anyway.”
“Well, I have,” declares Jean, to her husband’s amazement. “Oh, not for your sake, Hugh, don’t worry. I need to know that you told me the truth.” It seems to Marker that they need to establish whether Ann is lying – and why. Jean suggests they simply ask her, but Hugh isn’t keen on the idea of a confrontation. “Scared?” challenges Jean. Hugh turns away – it’s no use saying anything when his wife misinterprets his every action and reaction. Jean turns back to Marker. “Would she meet us?” she asks.
“She might,” he reckons, “particularly if she didn’t know she was going to. I’ll try and dream something up. I’ll be in touch.” With that, he goes.
“We’ll see,” says Jean, determinedly. Hugh just looks at her as she reiterates, “Now we’ll see.” It almost sounds like a threat.