Jessica Hart - Marriage Reunited

‘Maybe I’ve changed,’ she said with a certain defiance. ‘I don’t see what it has to do with you, anyway. To be honest, I could just wait another year and the divorce would come through automatically, but I thought we could be civilized about the whole thing. I can’t believe you seriously want to stay married. You certainly never had any interest in being married before!’

Mac’s brows snapped together at that and he let the chair drop abruptly to the floor once more. ‘That’s not true!’

‘Isn’t it?’ Georgia met his look directly. ‘Oh, I dare say you didn’t mind having a wife who waited at home and dealt with things while you were away. It was easy for you to drop everything and go when there was someone there to pay the bills and get the boiler fixed and have some milk in the fridge when you came home, but you could get all that from a good housekeeping service. You weren’t interested in being married to me.’

The lazy humour had vanished from Mac’s face, to be replaced by a grimness she had never seen before. ‘Of course I was interested in you!’ he protested, rather white about the mouth. ‘I loved you!’

‘But what did you love, Mac? Oh, the sex was great, I’ll give you that, but the rest of the time I’m not sure you even saw me. How much did you know about what I thought and what I felt and what I wanted? It was wonderful when we were first married,’ she acknowledged, ‘but after a while you started to take me for granted, and you forgot about me.’

‘How could I forget you? You were my wife!’

‘Exactly, and that’s all I was. I was just your wife, someone who was always there, someone you could always rely on, who could see what needed to be done and got on and did it without making a fuss because what was the point? Someone had to do it, after all. I knew your job meant that you had to go away at a moment’s notice, but after a while it began to seem that my only role was to support you, and that wasn’t enough for me.’

She stopped and made herself breathe slowly, fighting down the old resentment. Mac had never understood this.

‘I needed you to look at me and see me, see how I’d changed and what I could do for myself, not just for you,’ she said quietly. ‘But you never did.’

‘I knew you better than anyone else,’ he said, a muscle jumping in his jaw.

‘You knew me as I was when we got married,’ Georgia agreed, ‘but you didn’t know me when we separated, and you don’t know me now. It’s not me that you want at all. You want the Georgia you married,’ she told him, ‘but you can’t have her. She doesn’t exist any more.’

‘YOU’RE just being a dog in the manger,’ Georgia went on, warming to her theme. ‘You haven’t wanted me for the past four years, but you don’t want anyone else to have me either. And please don’t try telling me that you’ve been faithful to my memory!’ She fixed Mac with a clear look. ‘Journalists are a gossipy lot, and I know all about your girlfriends.’

Faint colour tinged his cheekbones. ‘I’m not going to pretend I’ve been celibate for four years. Yes, there have been women, but I didn’t love any of them the way I loved you and, God knows, I tried.’

‘Oh, thanks, that’s very reassuring!’

‘I’m trying to be honest,’ said Mac with obvious restraint. ‘I know we both agreed we would be happier on our own, but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t feel hurt and bitter about the way things had ended. I wanted to meet someone else, someone I could love, someone who wanted children too, but the harder I tried to forget you, the more I found myself missing you. I’d meet someone young and beautiful and gentle, she’d be good with children and longing to have a family of her own, and all I could think about was you.’

He sounded almost angry about it.

‘I did everything I could to get you out of my head. Over and over again, I reminded myself about your annoying habits, the way you drove me mad with your lists and your routines and the way you always had to be at the airport four hours early.’

But then he would remember her sensuality and her intelligence and her honesty, the kindness she kept concealed behind that brisk façade.

And, more treacherously still, he would remember her perfume, her warmth and her softness and the tickle of that glorious hair as she leant over to kiss him. Even now the very thought of it could make his whole body clench with desire.

‘So you were always there, whether I wanted you or not,’ he went on, resigned. ‘I went a bit crazy after you left. I threw myself into work. The more dangerous the story was, the more I wanted to go. I got myself sent on a long assignment in Africa, but even that couldn’t dislodge you from my mind. The thought of you just wouldn’t go away. In the end I gave up,’ he said simply. ‘I decided it was always going to be you.’

Georgia bit her lip. She had been through the long, weary process of trying to shake off a haunting memory herself.

‘If you felt like that about me, why didn’t you do anything about it?’ she challenged him, her grey eyes bright and direct. The last thing she wanted was to start identifying with him!

‘I’ve only reached that conclusion recently,’ he said, picking his words with care now. ‘I could have come back, but I think part of me was afraid to change the balance of things. I used to hear about you occasionally. I knew you were doing well and I guess the fact that you never did anything about a divorce made me think it might be better to leave things as they were until I finished my assignment and could try and see if we could have another go.’

‘In fact, I’m fitting conveniently into your schedule,’ said Georgia in a withering voice.

That was typical! She had spent her whole marriage waiting for Mac’s attention, waiting for him to finish one assignment, waiting for him to shake off the memories of some bitter, dreadful conflict that consumed him when he came home, hoping for a moment when he could stop thinking about what he had seen and think about her instead. But the call to the next war, the next disaster, the next misery had always come first.

‘No.’ Mac’s jaw tightened. ‘I got your letter, and that changed everything. I can make a living as a freelance, so I resigned and came home to find you. There was no way I was going to stay in Africa and let you divorce me without a word of explanation.’

‘I have explained!’

‘Not in a way that I can understand,’ said Mac. ‘I want to talk.’

Georgia regarded him crossly. It never occurred to him to think about what she wanted!

This was her new life, and she didn’t want him here, reminding her of what she had left in London, reminding her of the kind of person she used to be, leaving memories and associations behind after he had gone. He changed things just by walking into a room. Now she would never be able to look at that stupid chair he kept tipping back in without thinking of him.

‘I can’t talk now,’ she said irritably. ‘I’m busy.’

Mac lifted a disbelieving eyebrow and looked into the newsroom where Kevin now had his feet on the desk while he checked his mobile phone.

Georgia gritted her teeth. ‘I’ve got a lot to do, even if no one else does!’

‘You were just staring out of the window when I came in,’ Mac pointed out unfairly.

‘I was thinking!’

‘Well, I’m not going to sign any papers until we have talked some more,’ he said, ‘so when do you suggest we meet?’

Georgia could feel her shoulders tighten with tension. It was just like Mac to go on and on and on until he got what he wanted. He just never gave up. His persistence had won him some fantastic pictures, but it was a less appealing quality on an emotional level.