Tess Stimson - The Adultery Club (31 page)

probably just karmic payoff.)

But you can’t help who you fall in love with. I know it’s

wrong, but I can’t help it. It’s not as if I’ve wrecked their

marriage; it’s impossible to break up a good relationship,

isn’t it? If he was happy with his wife, he wouldn’t be

with me in the first place. And she can’t want him to stay

with her out of guilt. No woman would. What kind of

second-hand relationship would that be? It’s got to be

fairer to both of them if he leaves, and gives her a chance

to find someone else too. If she really loves him, she’ll

want him to be happy.

I can make him happy. I understand him. I love him;

and I know he loves me. He’s as good as said so. And you

can’t have the kind of amazing, soul-baring sex we have

if you don’t love each other, can you?

The day Nick’s due back at work, I put on a vintage

black nipped-in Fifties suit I know he likes, and a gorgeous

apple-green bra and knickers set, just in case. It’s

only been four days since I last saw him, but I’ve got

first-date butterflies; I’m so nervy I have to reapply my

lip liner twice. I even get to the office half an hour earlier

than usual, and sit at my desk pretending to work whilst

I wait for him to get in. I’ve decided I’m not going to

tell him I know about Cornwall. I’m not even going to

mention-‘What the hell was this all about?’

He storms into my office, slams the door and flings

something on my desk; I want to look but I can’t take

my eyes off his face. I’ve never even seen him slightly

angry, never mind like this. His grey eyes are as cold as

granite, his jaw clenched as he fights to keep his fury

under control.

I flinch when he puts both palms down on my desk

and pushes his face into mine.

‘I’m waiting,’ he spits furiously.

‘Nick - someone might hear.’

It’s a bit late now!’

I drop my eyes. My gold Est6e Lauder lipstick rolls

gently to a stop against my mouse mat.

When I was nine, I dropped my grandmother’s

precious Royal Worcester coronation figurine on the

floor. I’d taken it off the dining-room mantelpiece, despite

express instructions never to touch it. I stared at the broken

shards on the fireplace tiles in an unthinking, blind terror,

as if I could will the last few seconds not to have happened.

In my mind’s eye, I ran a spool of tape backwards

and saw the pieces jumping back together again, becoming

whole, like a cartoon. My craving was such that I

could almost see them move.

What possessed me to put my lipstick in his jacket

pocket? What?

A wave of heat washes through me, instantly followed

by a cold sweat that chills to the bone. I concentrate very

hard on not licking my dry lips, unable to tear my eyes

from that small gold tube.

1 think that’s answer enough,’ Nick says disgustedly.

He turns on his heel. I watch him walk towards the

door, and know that if I let him leave this room now I

will never have another chance.

‘Where did you find it?’ I ask, somehow squeezing

surprise into my voice.

He freezes. ‘Where did I find it?’

‘It’s my favourite, I’ve been looking for it everywhere.’ I pick it up; my hand shakes, and I put it down again. ‘I thought I must have left it in the hotel the last time we

stayed there; I can’t remember seeing it since then.’

For a long moment, he doesn’t move. I can’t breathe.

Then he turns round, his eyes dark with suspicion.

‘It kept rolling off the marble vanity in the bathroom

I say, ‘so - of course! - I left it in that china tray by the

television, where you always put your keys and wallet.

You must have picked it up without noticing when you

left in such a rush to get the last train.’

‘I picked it up?’

I shrug. ‘You must have done. So where did you find

it?’

‘I didn’t Nick says, his eyes fast on mine. ‘My wife

did. In my jacket pocket, when she went to get my keys.’

I don’t have to fake my appalled expression. I just have

to think what will happen if he doesn’t believe me.

‘What did she say?’ I whisper.

‘She’s my wife. She found another woman’s lipstick in

my jacket pocket. What do you think she said?’

‘Does she - have you—’

‘Told her about us?’ he asks curtly. ‘No. Fortunately,

my wife is a very trusting woman. When I tell her an

obscene pack of lies about finding lipsticks in hallways,

she tends to believe me.’

I nod. I’m relieved; of course I am. Hot shame washes

over me again. I’d never have believed myself capable of

being this sly and manipulative. I didn’t understand how

much I love him until I realized what I’d do - and what

I’d put up with - to keep him. But if I naively thought for

one moment that planting a lipstick where his wife would

find it would push him into choosing me, I’m certainly

disabused of the idea now. He’s not going to leave his

wife for me. Of course he’s not going to leave his wife.

They never do.

‘Nick?’ I say carefully. ‘Are we OK?’

He hesitates. A chink opens; it’s all I need. I move out

from behind my desk, aware that I look just the right side

of slutty in this figure-hugging suit. My top button has

come undone; I don’t bother to fix it. I let my eyes flicker

to his groin just long enough to put the idea into his

head. I’m close enough for him to smell my perfume and

the warmth of my skin, but I leave him a little ground to

cover between us. The last thing I need is for him to feel

cornered.

‘I’m sorry he sighs, wrenching his eyes from my

cleavage. ‘I thought - I don’t know what I thought. It’s

been a difficult weekend.’

‘Will I see you later?’

‘Not tonight. It’s not that I don’t want to - I can’t,’ he

says quickly. ‘We’re having my parents over for dinner.

But tomorrow. I could come over tomorrow. As long

as—’

I look away so he won’t see the resentment on my face.

“The last train. Yes. I know.’

Is it my imagination, or is Nick - is he cooling on me? I

can’t put my finger on it, but he just doesn’t seem as hungry as he was before. It’s nothing he’s doing - or not doing - in bed. It’s more a sense that the closer I move

towards him, the further he moves away.

I push myself up on one arm as he rolls out of bed and

reaches for his trousers. ‘You’re leaving already? It’s not

even eight!’

‘I can’t keep arriving home at midnight, Sara.’

I watch silently as he buttons his shirt and fastens

his cufflinks. The power has inexplicably but undeniably

shifted in our relationship. A couple of months ago, he

was the one showering me with presents and besieging

me with attention. Now, the sex is as vigorous and satisfying

as it ever was, but he’s barely whipped off his

condom before he’s shooting out the door.

He shrugs on his jacket and picks up his briefcase. Til

see you at work tomorrow.’

I nod tightly. He sighs, and comes over to sit on the

bed. I pull up my knees and rest my chin on them, and

he rubs my bare back as if I’m a child. ‘Sara, I’m sorry.

I’d understand if you wanted to stop this. I wouldn’t

blame you. I can’t offer you a future, or make you any

promises. You deserve better than me.’

Ice trickles down my spine. Men always say that when

they’re too spineless to dump you.

Tm fine with it I manage. ‘No strings. It’s the way I

like it.’

‘Look. Mai’s going away the week after next, remember,

this bloody sourcing trip of hers he says gently,

turning my face towards him with his finger. “The girls

will be staying with her mother. I’ve booked us into a

country house hotel in Kent. Four-poster bed, hot tub,

roaring fires, the works. The office is closed over Easter;

we can spend five whole days and nights together. How

does that sound?’

‘Bliss I laugh, folding myself into his arms.

Of course he’s not going cold on me. I’m just being

paranoid. He’d hardly arrange a romantic break away d deux if he wanted to end it.

He kisses the top of my head. ‘We’ll get a chance to

talk. After that, we’ll know where we are.’ He hesitates.

‘And where we’re going.’

‘You have got to be kidding me!’

‘Christ, Sara! What do you want me to do? Say no,

sorry, darling, you can’t change your mind and come

back, I’ve got a dirty weekend planned with my mistress?’

‘Dammit, Nick!’ I almost wrench the phone out of its

socket as I storm across my bedroom. ‘I’ve just finished

packing; the taxi is outside waiting at the kerb for me!

What the fuck am I supposed to do with myself for the

next five days? You can’t just mess people about like this!’

‘You’re right he snaps back. I’m clearly making you

bloody miserable. Why don’t we just call it a day and

have done with it?’

‘Fine. Why don’t we?’

Because we can’t.

No one knows how painful it is to be a woman in love

with a man who goes home every weekend to his wife

and family unless they’ve been there. It’s too easy to judge

her, to paint her as a scarlet woman, a home-wrecker,

a destroyer of lives. Easy, too, to forget that the life she

destroys most is her own.

I think of him day and night. I ride a roller-coaster of

emotion: rising to dizzy heights working with him during

the day, and in the evenings when I steal him to my flat;

through the dreaded anticipation of his going; to bleak

pillow-sobbing desolation as the door shuts behind him.

‘I can’t be in a position where your happiness depends

on me he sighs one day, when the tears start before he

even leaves. ‘I don’t think I can take the responsibility.’

Despair descends on me like a cloak. Does that mean

he doesn’t want to be with me after all? Is he working up

to telling me it’s over?

And then I come downstairs the next morning, to find

a huge cardboard box with my name on it just inside

the threshold. I open it, and a chocolate-box calico kitten

leaps into my lap and kneads it as if she’s been there all

her life.

Now the responsibility is halved reads the note attached to her collar.

I scoop her up and take her upstairs. I was right: I will

die a lonely old spinster with fourteen cats. At least my

mother will have the satisfaction of being proved right.

Four months ago I believed mistresses could be

divided into two groups: those who, like me, had chosen

their role deliberately, and delighted in the intoxication of

forbidden sex; and naive victims - like Amy - hanging on

in there, hoping for marriage.

It never occurred to me that the line between the two

wasn’t fixed.

The thrill of sneaking around to meet him has long

since gone. That vanished one afternoon as we checked

out of Claridge’s, a giveaway two hours after checking in.

As Nick paid the bill, I hung back, pretending to reapply

my lipstick, feeling slightly self-conscious in my slinky

dress and too-high heels. I waited until Nick had gone

outside and hailed a cab, so that no one would see us

emerge together. As I was about to leave, the concierge

materialized at my elbow.

‘Word to the wise: tell your clients not to use their credit

cards in future, love he murmured. ‘Too easy to trace.’

Nick has made a liar and a cheat out of me; he’s turned

me into a person I don’t recognize, someone who can

actually be mistaken for a freaking hooker.

And still I can’t give him up.

‘If it wasn’t for your wife - if you weren’t married - do

you think we’d be together?’ I ask him casually one day.

He hesitates. ‘Yes, of course. But I do have a wife. And

three children.’

So he does want to be with me. He must have considered

the idea of leaving, then.

Which is only a small step from actually doing it,

isn’t it?

‘I told you not to come,’ Nick hisses.

‘And I told you I was coming anyway,’ I hiss back.

‘So nice to meet you again, Mrs Lyon,’ I say brightly, as

she stops gossiping with Will Fisher’s dowdy wife and

catches up with us. ‘I love your dress.’

She glances down doubtfully. ‘You don’t think it’s a

little, well, orange? I was in Rome a few weeks ago - the

Italians wear colour wonderfully, don’t you think, but

then the light there is so luminous - of course I got it

home here, not the same light at all. I feel rather like a

giant nasturtium.’ She smooths her palms nervously on

her skirts. ‘Rome is such a wonderful city, but don’t ever go over Easter weekend; just heaving with tourists, I can’t imagine what I was thinking.’

Ah, yes. My five-day romantic break, over before it

began as I was about to jump into a taxi. Alas, alack, the wife is back.

‘Nicholas gave me the necklace for my birthday last

week. Venetian glass she adds dreamily, fingering the

delicate blown beads at her neck. ‘It’s antique; very