The Decision by Penny Vincenzi

Author:Penny Vincenzi [Vincenzi, Penny]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, General, Contemporary Women, cookie429, Kat, Extratorrents
ISBN: 9780755383849
Amazon: 0755320905
Publisher: Hachette UK
Published: 2011-09-14T14:00:00+00:00

Chapter 37

It wasn’t fair, it just wasn’t fair; here she was with her life in order at last, everything going well, the company a success, making money, and this had to happen.

‘My dear,’ Mrs Berenson wrote, ‘I have some very sad news. David and Gaby are to divorce. It seems they haven’t been happy for a long time, and they see this as the only solution. I am devastated, as we all are. I don’t suppose you remember David very well, you only met him once as far as I can remember, but I can tell you he is the most sensitive man and is deeply upset by what has happened. I shall be over in the New Year and will hope we can share our usual tea at the Connaught then. With my love, Lily Berenson.’

Actually, Scarlett thought, reading and re-reading this letter, trying to define how she felt – shocked? pleased? sorry? outraged? – the one thing that could be reliably acknowledged was that David and Gaby hadn’t been happy for a long time. No truly happy marriage would allow for a long, adulterous relationship within it. That was what she had always believed, how she had justified her affair with David; if Gaby had made him happy, then he might have flirted with her, might have taken her to bed even, but it would not have gone on as long as it had. She had no real picture of Gaby, no idea of what she was like: the darling girl of Mrs Berenson’s imagination, the perfect mother, the adoring wife, or the cold distant creature of David’s, controlling and greedy.

Perhaps she would learn more over yet another of those life-changing teas at the Connaught; and meanwhile, she would simply wait. She wasn’t sure what for – a visit from David? A phone call? A letter? Or nothing? Probably the last, she thought, for she knew she had angered and antagonised him hugely, and with good reason. Blackmail was not an attractive crime.

And perhaps she should be fearful of him; for now freed from the reason for it, and his own silence, might he come back for retribution?

It was a wonderful moment: in its own way. It didn’t exactly make everything all right, everything never would be all right again. But the escape, from the fear that she was going mad, and even some of the guilt, was intense, and she sat staring at the calm, gentle face of the psychotherapist, feeling stupid with relief, and asked her to repeat the words, just to make sure she hadn’t imagined them.

‘Of course,’ said Mary Miller, smiling and understanding at once why she should be asked to repeat herself. ‘I said, had your gynaecologist ever suggested that you had post-natal depression? Because to me it seems really rather – likely.’

‘No. Well, I never went back to her, there didn’t seem any need.’

‘In which case I think perhaps you should, and ask her yourself. I am not medically qualified, but – well, apart from all your very natural grief, think of the physical trauma you’ve been through.

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