Tess Stimson - The Adultery Club (14 page)

New Year - always a beautiful piece of jewellery, some

years more expensive than others, but always a one-off,

commissioned especially for her: to thank her in advance,

he says, for spending the next three hundred and sixty

five (or sixty-six, if it’s a leap year, he’s nothing if not

precise) days with him.

I’m fed up with being single. I want someone to save me from the aunts and dance with me on New Year’s Eve. I’d like a special present and a first kiss and a man to drive me home when I’ve drunk too much to walk. I’m so tired

of having to put a brave face on being lonely. Dammit, it

must be so nice to be married this time of year.

As the sound of Big Ben blares from the speaker

system, I dig my new BlackBerry out of my bag and pull

up Nick’s details. Without giving myself time to think too

long, I download the song I want, attach it to an email,

and hit ‘Send’.

Malinche

Oh, heavens, it’s not often I wish this - Lord knows I’d

hate to tempt Fate, she has a nasty habit of taking you

a little too literally; I’m always afraid to wish I could lose weight in case I end up having my leg sliced off in a car crash: there, now you weigh less - but there are times

I can’t help thinking how wonderful it would be to be

single and child-free at this time of year.

No hot, desperate searches for must-have toys that

sold out last October. No three-trolley trips to Salisbury’s

for, amongst other things, nine pounds of spuds (which

you don’t have time to peel until three a.m. on Christmas

morning). No excruciating multi-faith carol concerts in

which you cannot even see your offspring because of the

shadow cast by the tallest child in the school who is

always placed right in the centre of the front row.

And, oh dear, no irate publishers left sitting alone in

expensive London restaurants because lunch clashed with

a carol concert and you forgot to let them know.

mm

That lovely young girl in the low-cut jeans and biscuit

suede jacket by the luggage rack, for example. She can’t possibly be Christmas shopping for three under-tens; not in sexy boots four inches high. She’s probably going to

be whisked away for Christmas to some glorious white

sugar beach in the Caribbean by a bedroom-eyed Adonis,

far from sticky-fingered children high on E numbers and

know-better husbands who throw out instructions and

then can’t put Barbie’s Own Recording Studio together.

I cling on to the spring ceiling thingy for grim death as the train barrels round a tight corner. I must be mad.

Heading into London to go shopping four days before

Christmas is like rowing back to board the Titanic for an

ice cube. My feet hurt already despite my sensible pumps,

and we’re only five minutes out of Salisbury station. The

train is packed - not a hope of a seat. As it is, I’m nose

to gabardine overcoat with the rather large businessman

squashed next to me.

And my knickers itch. Well, scratch, really. Can’t be the

label, I cut that out (it’s a bit embarrassing when your

pants say ‘Age 8-10’ and you’re more 36-38, but Sophie’s

undies are so much more comfortable than mine) so - I knew it. Real Christmas trees are much nicer, Nicholas is absolutely right; but-I don’t know why Gabardine Overcoat is looking at me

so strangely. They’re only pine needles.

Christmas is about children, of course it is. But three of

them does mean rather a lot of presents to buy, what with

FC (mustn’t call him Santa, Nicholas gets so terribly cross)

and then the aunts and grandparents and godmothers

who ring up and say, ‘Oh, darling, you don’t mind getting

I horn something from me, do you, you’ll know what they

I

want.’ And even though it’s very kind of them and f know they’ll pay you back, eventually, still now that‘5 something else you have to think of and find and b and wrap. Though after last year - just what my mothef thought three small children would do with a full-s potter’s kiln except try to bake the poor rabbit is beyo

me

I should have started shopping earlier, of course

meant to; but then I got distracted with planning

sorts of yummy Christmas eats - I thought this yea l

try goose stuffed with persimmon foie gras and a v Chateau d’Yquem sauternes reduction, though I m ra dreading what Nicholassuch a champion of trad

will say at the turkey’s non-appearance - and so ť & I’m rather desperately behind. About two months, to precise. Very sweet of Liz to mind the girls for me,

heaven knows where I’ll find a Barbie ski-suit far CN

Poor duck, she does rather take after Liz inJtajW

department, a size 16 at nine years old ť a bit tr

Luckily she’s stunningly lovely to look at - that del

pre-Raphaerite hair - but born in totally the Ť century, of course. Seventeenth would have beer,i pe Rubens would have loved her. Now if only Nic

could have nipped into Snow+Rock for me there s one

minutes from him in Holborn, bound to have some

but of course he’s away in Manchester. And even ť weren’t, presents aren’t exactly his thing. Although possession of two X chromosomes automatically

them mine, as Nicholas seems to think, he doesn t eV

The Christmas cards. I did put them in the P

didn’t I? Or - oh, Lord, I didn’t leave them on the l seat of the Volvo? Heavens, I’m not normally this sc

It’s Christmas, it does this to me every year. It’s like my

brain’s on fast forward, scrolling through everything I’ve

still got to do-I sent them. I’m sure I did.

I wish I was brave enough to copy Louise. She has a

three-year Christmas card cycle: she does A to H one year,

then I to P the next, and Q to Z the third, so that everyone

gets a card every three years. Just often enough that

people don’t sulk and strike her off their lists.

I stare out of the train window at the pelting rain as

we stop for another set of engineering works. It’s ten

already; I have to be back by four-thirty for Evie’s Bible

class recital. And as well as scouring London for inspirational stocking fillers I must make time to go to Harrods

Food Hall for some Spanish Roncal cheese (so tricky to

find, that creamy, buttery Navarre) for the potato gratin.

Pitt’s would have it, of course, quite certain to have it, but

obviously that’s not possible, Trace might be there, and

it’s bad enough that he’s moving back to Salisbury; even

after all these years-No, don’t think about that. Regrets are for cissies, as

Kit loves to say.

Another surge of passengers piles onto the train at

Woking, and suddenly it really is too crammed to breathe.

I feel like I’m on one of those cattle trucks to Auschwitz oh,

Lord, I didn’t mean it, that’s a terrible thing to say,

you can’t possibly compare-Tm not standing for this,’ Gabardine Overcoat suddenly

announces, levering himself out of the luggage rack

whence the latest influx has pushed him. ‘The amount

they ask for a ticket these days the least I expect is a

seat. If they don’t provide enough second-class carriages,

I think we’re perfectly entitled to find seats elsewhere.’

His accent and pale gold silk cravat are true-blue Home

Counties. When the much-put-upon silent majority finally

finds its voice, you know there’s trouble ahead.

Murmured assent runs around the carriage. It really is

stifling in here; we are all of us kitted out in our warmest

winter coats, mittened and buttoned and scarfed and

hatted, and the carriage is starting to smell somewhat

unwashed. A conspiratorial I-will-if-you-will camaraderie

seizes us; it reminds me of playing Knock Down Ginger

as a child. (My sister Cleo was always much braver than

me, she’d even dare to ring the doorbell of The Perv - I’m

sure he wasn’t a pervert really, just a lonely old widower

whose children lived too far away to visit much - and

count to three before running away.)

Two puddingy girls in sleeveless Puffa jackets - I can

only imagine what Nicholas would think of their silver

nose piercings - push open the connecting door to the

First Class corridor. Gabardine Overcoat helps a frighteningly

young mother manoeuvre her double pushchair

across the swaying threshold. Within minutes, we’re all

sinking into the posh seats with a delicious feeling of

naughtiness.

A pinstriped businessman opposite me snaps his clever

pink newspaper in front of his face with a disapproving

tut. I giggle and think: I do miss Nicholas.

There are many things I have learned from my daughters

over the years. For example, a king-sized waterbed holds

enough water to fill a three-bedroom Florida condo four

inches deep. (Evie, last summer.)

A seven-year-old girl can start a fire with a flint rock,

even though a forty-three-year-old lawyer insists it can

only be done in the movies. (Evie again.)

Brake fluid from the garage mixed with bleach from

the laundry room makes smoke; and lots of it. (Evie.

Followed by Kit, and then Nicholas, when they heard

about it.)

Always look in the oven before you turn it on - plastic

Fisher Price toys do not like ovens. (Incidentally, the

Salisbury Fire Department has a response time of a little

under four minutes.)

And this morning, we all discovered that the spin cycle

on the washing machine does not make earthworms dizzy.

It will, however, make pet rabbits dizzy.

Pet rabbits throw up twice their body weight when

dizzy.:

Cleaning up animal sick on your hands and knees

before breakfast is not necessarily the most festive way to

start Christmas Day, I think, scouring the flagstones with

unnecessary vigour. So when Nicholas sneaks up behind

me and slides his hands under my dressing-gown to

fondle my naked buttocks, I think I can be forgiven for

not responding with quite his level of amour.

It’s not that I don’t enjoy sex with my husband. Per se. Whisked away to a water villa in the Maldives for two weeks whilst someone else minds the children, with no

phones or cross publishers or school runs or laundry, I

would like nothing better - well, perhaps not nothing bHU’r; I must admit to a terrible weakness for homemade

bread-and-butter pudding and a fat Jilly Cooper - but

anyway, the idea of sex as recreation rather than chore

certainly appeals. Whereas these days I seem to find

myself thinking, as Nicholas rolls contentedly to his undamp

side of the bed: well, it’s Thursday today, so that

gives me until at least - oh, the weekend after next before

we have to do it again. Which is possibly not the most

romantic way to approach lovemaking with your soul

mate. But a hundred and fifty-two Christmas cards don’t

write themselves.

I remember, with unexpected nostalgia, surprising

Nicholas in his office one evening, not long after we’d

met, wearing nothing but a suspender belt and seamed

stockings under my raincoat. I’d persuaded the cleaning

lady to let me in (it turned out she was a huge fan and

had bought all my cookery books) and sat there in the

darkness for two hours, waiting for Nicholas to come

back from Court. He was terribly late; I nearly lost my

nerve and went home, but I’d gone to so much trouble, I

couldn’t bear to just leave. I’d painted my nipples with

special edible chocolate paint - I’d trekked all the way out

to a ladies-only erotic emporium called ‘Sh!’ in north

London to find it, it was the most embarrassing and

exciting tube journey of my life - and even dusted my

pubic hair with cocoa powder; I was terrified it’d somehow

melt or something before Nicholas got that far, but it

didn’t, it was perfect, it all went off exactly as I’d imagined, just like a late-night movie.

‘Don’t put on the light,’ I said in my most sultry voice,

as he walked into his office and reached for the switch.

He jumped about six feet as I moved forward into Jhe

amber puddle of a streetlight and unbuttoned my coat.

His mouth simply dropped open; I nearly ruined everything

by laughing at the astonished look on his face.

‘Close your eyes I said, trying not to giggle. ‘Now:

open your mouth.’

I fed him expensive Belgian chocolates I’d bought in

Harrods as I unbuttoned his trousers; one bitter-orange

truffle and a cognac-centre later, he laid me across his

desk and disappeared between my legs with the rapt

expression of a cat that had just got the (chocolate) cream.

I sigh now and reach for the persimmon foie gras. It’s

been a very long time since we made love anywhere but

between John Lewis’s finest Egyptian cotton (two-hundred

threads per square inch). I just don’t have the energy.

The rabbit incident aside, Christmas morning passes

off relatively well. There’s a slightly hairy moment after

Church when Louise presents Nicholas’s parents with a

spiky-leafed cannabis seedling; but fortunately to the pure

all things are pure, and Kit discreetly (if a little keenly)

appropriates it before it can be put in the back of my in