Tess Stimson - The Adultery Club (19 page)

it’s like trying to move anywhere at the moment. I don’t

even know if the trains are running yet.’

‘Waterloo’s open again, I heard on the news. Where

are you now?’

Panic flares, and I force myself to damp it down. She doesn’t mean anything by it. It’s a perfectly normal question. ‘Oh. Yes. At the office, obviously. Spent the night here.’

I’m aghast at how swiftly, how easily, the lie comes.

‘Look, Mai, let me go now, OK? I’ll be home when I can.

How are the girls?’

‘The girls are fine, they’re with Kit—’

Bloody would be. ‘Of course.’

‘Nicholas, please. He was worried sick about you - we

all were.’

‘Sorry. Yes.’

‘I love you she says, and I can tell she’s crying. ‘I do love you, Nicholas.’

I have never felt such a contemptible heel in my life.

How can I sleep with another woman and still love my

wife? How can I tell my wife I love her with another

woman’s juices still sticky on my skin?

I spin as Sara opens the hall door: gloriously, magnificently

naked.

‘You too I say quickly into the phone, and click it

shut.

Sara doesn’t ask to whom I was speaking, and I don’t

proffer an explanation. I feel my cock stir yet again as I

follow her back into the bedroom, searching for the words

to tell her I’m about to leave her high and dry. It was

undeniably the most physically satisfying night of my life;

but it was also, without doubt, unrepeatable. I know

better than most where this road will lead if we pursue it

further. The pain, the grief, to all involved. Better to end

it now. She’s a woman; she’s bound to have started to

read things into this. Get feelings for me. I need to let her

down gently, before she gets hurt.

I pick up my trousers from the sitting room floor and

am clumsily struggling into them when Sara comes back

out of the bedroom, knotting the belt of a scarlet coffee

stained kimono.

‘Look, Nick she says, pulling at her earlobe, ‘last night

was great - wonderful - but it was just a one-off, right? I

mean, I think you’re cool, but to be honest, I’m just not

that into the whole office romance thing.’

I stand there, one leg in my trousers. What was wrong

with last night? Wasn’t the sex good? I thought the sex

was good. Unbelievable, in fact. So why-‘It’s not you she says, perching on the arm of the

white sofa. ‘I had a great time, really. But you’ve got to

admit, the whole bomb thing - well, it kind of suspended

the normal rules for a bit, didn’t it? We made the most of

it, and I’m cool with that. But we have to work together

and I don’t want last night to get in the way, so I thought

I should just be, you know: upfront about it now

I should feel relieved. She’s let me off the hook.

‘You’re OK with that?’ I ask.

‘Oh, fine. Really. Don’t worry about me.’

She doesn’t sound at all regretful. ‘Good. Good. That’s

- good.’

‘Our little secret,’ she says.

‘Absolutely.’

‘So.’ She stands up. ‘I’m going to make myself some

coffee, and then go back to bed, I think. No work today,

obviously. Want a cup?’

‘No, I’ll - uh, I’d better get back to - I’ve got to - the

train. But thank you.’

‘OK. Make sure you really slam the front door downstairs

when you leave, it tends to stick and you think

you’ve shut it but you haven’t. We’ve already had to get

police to evict bums twice this year.’

‘Will do. Right.’ I match her businesslike tone. ‘I’ll get

Emma to email everyone to let them know when the office

is up and running again. The sooner the better, really.

Tomorrow if possible, even if we can’t get the windows

fixed for a day or two.’

She reaches for the remote control. “Thanks, Nick. I

can work on the Yeates file from home in the meantime,

I’ve got all the paperwork here from last weekend. By

the way,’ she adds, eyis on the screen as a correspondent

reports live from the clean-up operation in Trafalgar

Square, ‘love the hair. Knocks ten years off you. I told you

it’d look better long.’

‘Oh, Nicholas! You look dreadfuV.’

Thank you1 say tightly. ‘I feel so much better now.’

Mai throws her arms around me, burying her face in

my shoulder, and I stiffen in horror. I should have showered

at Sara’s. Washed away the warm, honeyed scent of her

skin, toffee in the sun; I can still feel the dry stickiness

of her cum on me - I have never slept with a woman

who ejaculated before, it was the most erotic sensation

I’ve ever experienced. Surely Mai can tell, surely-With a sob of relief, my wife releases me and I follow

her into the warm fug of the kitchen. Every available

surface is covered with pans and crocks of freshly cooked

food, still warm from the Aga: gingerbread loaf, blue

cheese polenta, chevre and garlic timbales, apricot-glazed

foie gras, peach and champagne cobbler, olive bread,

grilled quail. Enough to feed an epicurean army. Mai’s

usual answer to emotional crisis. I just hope it freezes.

She whips a milk pan of creme en glace from the heat.

‘Darling, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean you look dreadful, it’s

just you’re so crumpled and dishevelled - I can smell the

bomb on you, so terrible, it’s like Guy Fawkes night only

of course much, much worse. All this dust in your hair goodness, it’s getting long, isn’t it, your hair, I must make

you another appointment at—’

‘Malinche,’ I interrupt. ‘I’ve just survived a terrorist

explosion, I’ve barely slept in forty-eight hours’ - this

much is true - ‘it’s taken me the entire day to get back

I

-ik

home and you’re worried about grime on my jacket and

the length of my hair?’

She looks stricken.

‘Nicholas, I’ve just been so terribly worried about you,

you can’t imagine - and I know you’ve had such an awful time—’

‘Better than many I say soberly.

‘Yes. Of course. Oh, Nicholas.’

‘Anyway,’ I say quickly, before she goes off again,

‘I like my hair like this. Knocks ten years off me. Where

are the girls?’

‘Metheny’s in bed, she couldn’t wait up any longer,

but Sophie and Evie are in the dining room, doing their

homework. Can I get you a cup of—’

‘I could do with a Scotch. Don’t worry, I’ll get it.’

I am aware of Mai’s hurt and bewildered expression,

but deliberately fail to catch her eye as I leave the kitchen.

I didn’t think it would be this difficult.

Sophie flings herself on me the moment she sees me

with melodramatic gusto; her godfather would be proud.

Evie, however, doesn’t look up from what she’s doing,

the tip of her tongue protruding with concentration as

she pores over her work. Mai does exactly the same thing

when she’s working on one of her cookery books.

..’ ‘Hey, Sophs,’ I say, ruffling my eldest daughter’s hair.

I peer over Evie’s shoulder. ‘What are you doing, sweetheart?’

‘Stuff,’

Evie says succinctly.

‘What sort of stuff?’

‘About God and mothers Sophie scorns. ‘We did that years ago.’

‘Well, you were Hvie’s age years ago,’ I say reasonably.

‘Who’s the boss at our house?’ Evie demands, looking

up.

‘Your mother allows me the honour I say drily.

‘Mummy is, of course Sophie says. ‘You can tell by

room inspection. She sees the stuff under the bed.’

I don’t need reminding of Mai’s all-seeing eye. I reach

for Evie’s homework handout, scanning her startling

answers, which are written in vivid purple pen: Evie

naturally assumes the school’s edict that all homework

be completed in boring HB pencil does not apply to her.

It appears that Charles Darwin was a naturist (not a

pretty thought) who wrote the Organ of the Species in

which, apparently, he said God’s days were not just

twentyfour hours but without watches who knew?

Evie’s eyes narrow, daring me to laugh. It is a struggle.

I cannot imagine what trendy modern teaching methods

lead primary school teachers to think it a good idea to

ask a classroom of precocious six-year-olds what God

made mothers from, but Evie’s answer - ‘He got his start

from men’s bones, then he mostly used string’ - suggests

my middle daughter has significantly more imagination

than do they.

I’m muffling a howl at Evie’s answer to the disingenuous

query, ‘What would make your Mummy perfect?’

‘Diet. You know, her hair. I’d diet, maybe blue.’ And then

a sudden cold thought slices across my laughter, silencing

me so sharply that Evie stops scowling and looks at me in surprise. These are the moments you’d miss if you lost Mai.

Divorce turns children into flesh-and-blood timeshares.

Residence with one parent, alternate weekends and

Wednesday evenings with the other. Christmas Eve with

Daddy this year, Christmas Day next. We may dress up

I

the inequity and call it joint custody, but the hard truth is

that a child only has one home; anywhere else and it’s

just visiting.

I can’t believe I’ve been so damned stupid. Dear God,

if Mai ever finds out-I put Evie to bed, and circumvent the usual four rounds

of SpongeBob Squarepants - a perverse concept, particularly

the aquatic Texan squirrel; whatever happened to

Pooh? - with a contraband tube of Smarties; Mai would

have a fit if she knew, but tonight I lack the emotional

and vocal reserves to essay the demanding roles of Mr

Krabs, Squidward and the rest.

Sophie settles herself happily in the saggy kitchen sofa with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Pretending I haven’t heard Mai’s request to stay and chat whilst she finishes up dinner, I slope off to my study.

Slumped in my leather armchair, I stare moodily into

my glass of Scotch. Everything seems so normal. Except

that for the first time since we met, I can’t tell Mai what’s

weighing so heavily on my mind. We’ve always had such

an honest relationship; we know each other so well. How could I have jeopardized that?

It was a one-off. The bombs and - force majeure, the

insurance people call it. Clearly I could help it, but events,

dear boy. Events. As Macmillan observed.

What’s absolutely certain, perfectly apodictic, is that it

won’t happen again. I cannot-‘Da-aa-addy!’

‘Mai!’ I call through the open study door.

I hear the clatter of pans, but Mai doesn’t respond.

‘Da-aa-addy!’

‘Mai! Evie wants something!’ A cold draught whisking

up the kitchen passageway suggests Mai is outside in

the scullery. Suppressing my annoyance, I put down my

drink and go to the bottom of the stairs. ‘Yes, Evie?’

‘I’m thirsty. Can I have a drink of water?’

‘No, you had your chance. No more messing about, it’s

lights out

I’ve just picked up my glass of Scotch when her voice

rings out again. ‘Da-aaa-ddy!’

‘What now?’

I’m really, really thirsty. Please can I have a drink of

water?’

Where the hell is Mai? ‘I told you, no! Now settle

down, Evie, you have school in the morning. If you ask

me again, you’ll get a smacked bottom.’

This time the glass gets as far as my lips. ‘Daa-aaa-aaa

ddy!’

‘What?’

‘When you come in to give me my smacked bottom,

can you bring me a glass of water?’

I relate this exchange to Mai later as we brush our teeth

companionably in the bathroom together. We exchange

complicit parental smiles - ‘She got the water, didn’t

she?’ ‘Yes, what I didn’t spill from laughing on the way

upstairs’ - and I tell myself, See, it’s going to be OK, you

can get past this. Last night was a mistake, an unconscionable

mistake, but what’s done is done. You just have to

put it behind you. Forget about it. It never happened.

But when we go to bed and Mai’s hand drifts gently

across my chest and then lower, questioning, I pull the

bedclothes up to my shoulders and roll away from her.

The next morning I leap out of bed, shushing Mai back

under the covers. I organize the girls in a trice - I really

can’t see why Mai finds mornings so taxing, especially

since Evie lets the cat out of the bag and admits her

mother gives them fondant fancies every day for breakfast

- and whisk them off to school. The Daddy-you-forgot-to

do-packed-lunches crisis (I could have sworn I paid for

school dinners) is averted with a ten-pound note which

will no doubt be spent solely on slimy canteen chips. I am

beginning to see that the principal consequence of my

indiscretion will be rotten teeth and childhood obesity.

Buoyed by an energy and optimism attributable to

my new-leaf frame of mind, I stop at Margot’s Flowers

on my way back home and demand the most extravagant

arrangement the shop purveys. ‘For my wife I add

needlessly.

The girl messes with secateurs and raffia and I resist

the urge to tell her to hurry up.

‘Anniversary or birthday?’,r

‘Neither.’