This is my first submission so all comments will be gratefully received.
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Edward manoeuvred the Crossley into the small garage off Wallgrave Road. It had originally been designed for small carriages so the large tourer was a snug fit. It helped that the top was down; he found it so much more difficult when he had to squint out of the small rear window and had, on a number of occasion, hit the back wall as marks on the bumper showed. It had been a glorious drive home, the warm August sun beat down on him and there was promise of more to come over the following days. As he shut the doors of the small mews garage he breathed a deep sigh. Whilst his work was not especially difficult -- he did work for his uncle's bank -- it was good to able to return home to his own house.
The house was not in the most fashionable area of London but it served its purpose well. As the underground railway expanded so London was spreading out. His parents may own a large town house in Belgravia but he was more than happy with this property. Earls Court was a developing neighbourhood -- he had heard that there were plans to develop the old showground nearby. He had bought the house as soon as he and Alice had been married. She had not been able to bring much in terms of breeding to the marriage -- a fact of which his father reminded him on regular occasions -- but he loved her. Well, he thought he did. As he opened the front door, he felt a twinge of guilt over what their marriage had become after only 8 months. Stepping into the hallway he was greeted by Mrs. Peters. They didn't keep many servants. In fact, Mrs Peters only came in to cook, bringing her daughter, Elsie to help with the cleaning. However, this evening Mrs Peters was looking concerned.
"Yes, Mrs Peters, what is it?"
"It's your wife, Sir."
"My wife? What's happened to her?"
"Oh nothing like that, Sir. She's..in there."
Mrs. Peters gestured towards to the sitting room at the back of the house. Edward put down his briefcase and moved towards to door. As he entered he saw his wife sitting on a chair, staring out of the French windows to the garden beyond.
"Alice...darling, what's the matter? Mrs. Peters said..."
She turned toward him and he saw the unmistakable signs that she had been crying. With a crack in her voice she asked him, "Don't you know?"
"Know? Know what?"
She gestured towards the table. He saw there was a copy of today's Times folded to show one story. He picked it up and read the headline 'VALENTINO DEAD. AMERICA MOURNS FILM IDOL'. Later, he would regret what he said next but, now, it was his first thought.
"But darling, he's just..."
She knew she would scream if he said what was already implied.
"...an actor." Alice screamed. As she screamed, the tears returned, unbidden, to her eyes, dripping onto her cheeks. She stood up and rounded on him.
"You don't understand! You never understand!"
Still crying, Alice pushed by him and ran out the door. He heard her footsteps as she fled up the stairs. He paused before turning and returning to the hall. As he did so, he saw the kitchen door close quietly and knew that little episode had been witnessed by Mrs Peters. He looked up towards the closed bedroom door but then turned and entered the study. His wife was clearly in no mood for conversation.
Dinner that evening was a strained affair. Alice sat at the opposite end of the table and made no eye contact with her husband. Since fleeing upstairs she had cried some more but now simply had red rings around her eyes. As her husband inspected his food she glanced at him. How had their marriage come to this so quickly? She knew she was not what her husband's family would have wanted. Whilst her husband had a title, the Hon. Edward Stanbridge and would one day be Lord Stanbridge, she came from new money. Her family had prospered in the new industrial era in the early years of the twentieth century and, whilst she had no title, her family were more than financially secure. However, part of her was still a little girl from a provincial town and, like so many provincial town girls, she loved the cinema. Often she had to sneak to the picture houses as her husband felt that such entertainment was below people of their standing. She did not care. She laughed at Chaplin and was stunned by Swanson but most of the time she was in love with Valentino. She had seen The Sheik so many times she could run it in her head. On a number of occasions she had dreamed that she was Agnes Ayres being taken in Valentino's arms and woken to find a surprising warmth between her legs. On those occasions she had drawn close to her husband but he had remained stubbornly asleep. Maybe it was that these films had created an unrealistic belief in what marriage would mean but she felt, often, that it was simply a disappointment. On the occasions when her husband had made love to her, it had been perfunctory, messy and unsatisfying. The women she saw in the films seemed to sink into the arms of their lovers in exotic locations. For her, it seemed that sex was, as the vicar had said, for the continuance of mankind and took place with no interaction in a darkened room at night. She had begun to see why so many of the actors and actresses she admired seemed to take a number of lovers.
From the other end of the table Edward glanced up at his wife. She seemed to be lost in a reverie. He felt he should say something but he did not know what. Not for the first time, he regretted that he had never really known a woman. His mother was a distant figure and his nanny was not someone to whom you could warm. He had two younger brothers but no sisters or even female cousins, certainly not ones he saw on anything like a regular basis. That's not to say he knew nothing about sex. In the dying months of the war, when he had finally been old enough to sign up, he heard the conversations that the junior ranks had about women but he never liked to hear words like 'fuck' and 'screw' used in these situations. There had even been one occasion when a young Belgian girl had lifted her skirt and allowed him to lose his virginity but he hated the memory of her cold, unfeeling eyes. She hadn't been a prostitute but he felt that he needed to leave a few francs on the side as he sneaked from her room that night. Alice was different; he knew she stirred something within him. She had, since the first moment he had met her at Cousin Lionel's wedding. But that was the emotional side of marriage. He could manage that -- just. It was the physical side he found so difficult. Alice told him she had been a virgin when they married and he had wanted their love-making to be special but something held him back. He had not enjoyed it and he was pretty certain she had not either. Occasionally, he had felt her hands on him in the night, as if she wanted him but he had feigned sleep and she had soon left him alone. He knew he could never match up to the film actors she so much admired but deep down he knew he must try. Otherwise he could see their marriage ending up as cold and loveless as that of his parents. He knew that both his mother and father had lovers and hated them both for it. He knew he must do something if he and Alice were not going to finish the same way.
Edward's cutlery clattering onto his plate and the scraping of his chair made Alice lift her head. Their eyes met. Edward stepped towards her but said nothing. Alice didn't move, her eyes just fixed, blankly, on the spot he had vacated. Fleetingly, he rested his hand on her shoulder then turned and walked quickly from the room. Alice looked down as her tears started to fall once again.
The following day, a Thursday, was as bleak as any Alice could remember. From the moment she had felt Edward rise from their bed to go to work to the moment she retired back to bed that evening she neither saw nor heard from her husband. She had walked for what seemed like hours in the afternoon, the hot sun a stark contrast to her mood. Buying a paper, she sat on a park bench and read of the crowds filing passed Valentino's coffin in New York, of Pola Negri fainting and having to be carried away. She dabbed at her eyes once again. She knew it was pathetic. In fact, she was almost as angry with herself for this ridiculous over-reaction but then thought back to Edward's cruel words of the previous evening. When Alice returned home that afternoon Mrs Peters had a message from her husband. Something had 'come up' and he was unlikely to be back early so she may as well go to bed. After a lonely supper, that was exactly what she did.
Lying in bed in that empty house she thought once again of Valentino, not just as the Sheik but as Juan in Blood and Sand and, especially, Julio in The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse. Oh my, that tango he did could stir even the coldest soul. As she lay there, picturing him dancing in those Buenos Aires backstreets, her hand strayed unbidden to the growing warmth between her legs. Through the material of her thin Summer night gown she pressed against the wiry hair that hid those parts meant only for her husband, revelling in the feelings produced. As she pressed harder a light moan escaped from her lips. The noise brought her back to reality. She stopped, feeling she was doing something wrong although she did not know what. Banishing thoughts of Valentino from her mind, Alice rolled over and, despite an unsatisfied feeling in her stomach, quickly fell asleep.
Waking the next day, Alice knew this was the day when she would have to confront her husband, would have to get him to treat her with something more than contempt. As she sat up in bed she was astounded to see that it was already 9.30. The sun was shining through the curtains. The dip in the bed next to her told Alice her husband had been there but she did not remember his presence from the night. Why had Mrs Peters not woken her? She jumped from the bed and the thump as she landed on the floor made her realise how quiet was the house. She went to the door, opening it nervously. She was almost prepared to find that, in the night, her husband had stripped the house of all chattels, leaving her penniless in an empty shell. But no, everything seemed to be in its place. In the bathroom, she quickly washed and, returning to the bedroom, pulled on her undergarments and a light Summer dress to match the weather.
