She didn’t know if Marianne had researched this woman, they hadn’t discussed her. Perhaps she’d been so preoccupied with painting for her degree show that she hadn’t paid enough attention. Or perhaps, after so many years of Seb’s messing around, she’d finally become inured to it, suppressing the anger and disgust and telling herself that he would get over it in a month or two, move on.
But she would pay attention now, she would have to, because by inviting Lorna here, Seb had made an announcement. Blatant as his infidelities were, they had still, as long as Rowan had known the Glasses, been conducted according to certain inviolable rules, the most important of which was that he should never bring his women to the house. Also sacrosanct was the understanding that he would never knowingly let Jacqueline encounter one of them in public. Having affairs was one thing, humiliating her was another. And he loved her – rule or not, he would never have wanted that, the damage it would cause to their marriage.
When they reached the kitchen door, Rowan hung back and let Lorna go into the garden alone. She wanted nothing to do with her; refused to be seen as endorsing her in the slightest way.
But if she was aware that she was on her own as she went up the steps, Lorna gave no sign. Self-possessed, she stood and scanned the garden until she spotted Seb’s dark head. At the moment her eyes landed on him he turned, seeming to sense her presence, and Rowan watched a change come over his face. In a second, the sharp, anxious energy commuted into a look of pure happiness. Love. It shone from him like a beacon, so private and yet now horribly, obscenely public. She wanted to cover him, throw a blanket over the light before everyone saw it.
With a single touch on the shoulder, he excused himself from Roger Stevas and forged his way through the crowd towards Lorna. Rowan darted up the steps behind her and skirted the knot of people at the food table. Where was Jacqueline? The last time she’d seen her, just before going inside, she’d been talking to Andrew Farrell, a psychology don from St John’s, glass in one hand, untouched plate of food in the other. Yes, there she was – thank God, thank God – still with Farrell, angled across the garden in the direction of the Dawsons’ side of the house, her back almost turned.
Where were Marianne and Adam? Desperate, Rowan searched the lawn. If one of them could collar Seb, demand that he get Lorna off the premises, perhaps the day – their marriage, said a small voice – could still be saved.
Over the shoulder of a couple she didn’t recognise, Rowan caught sight of Marianne but as she started towards her, Vita Singh, an old family friend, put her hand on Jacqueline’s shoulder. Jacqueline swung around to greet her and as she turned, her eyes snagged on Seb and Lorna at the edge of the crowd.
Even a couple of mouthfuls of wine gave her a high colour but under the two red stripes across her cheeks, Rowan watched her turn pale. Jacqueline knew who Lorna was – she recognised her. She’d always projected utter disinterest in Seb’s women, diminishing their power by the sheer force of her apparent obliviousness, but even if she’d never looked up another one of them, it was plain that she’d done her research this time. Seeming to feel the weight of her stare, Seb turned and met her eye, and Rowan saw them look at each other in mute acknowledgement. Jacqueline let go of her plate and it fell to the grass, surrounding her new shoes with a spray of pasta salad.
Marianne got drunk. Stupidly, dangerously drunk. Adam took his father inside for what seemed like a long time and when he returned, expressionless, Seb found Lorna again, excused her from the conversation she’d been having with Ben Milford, the philosopher, and ushered her away. He was gone from the party for an hour. Jacqueline disappeared upstairs for twenty minutes and returned with the pained pallor of someone who’d recently undergone surgery. She’d borrowed the pair of huge vintage sunglasses that Marianne had bought the previous summer at Portobello Market and she kept them on for the rest of the afternoon.
It wasn’t easy to judge how many people were aware that something had happened. Among those who were, there seemed to be an unspoken decision to pretend everything was normal, born either from an English impulse to sweep things under the carpet and carry on or, Rowan thought with a rush of tenderness towards them all, a collective urge to reassure and support the plainly stricken Jacqueline. Booze no doubt played a part but the conversations got louder and so, too, a few minutes after she reappeared, did the laughter, as if by putting on a good enough show, they could make it the truth.