Tess Stimson - The Adultery Club (36 page)

starts to grind her hips in time with mine. As her movements

get more frantic, I thrust faster, reaching around to

knead her breasts, trapping her nipples - none too gently

- between thumb and forefingers.

I come in an explosion. As I slump over her sweat

slicked back, I glance up through the window again. The

fat woman is staring right back at me.

‘Fuck Sara pants, twisting round. ‘Can we finish up

in the bedroom? This sofa still stinks of puke.’

It took my father three weeks to die. He survived the

initial massive stroke, only to succumb to an infection

originating at the site of his IV line. The cause of death,

according to the sombre grey certificate with which I was .’]

presented upon registering his passing: septicaemia leading

to multiple organ failure.

I don’t know if I could be said to have got there in time. He was still, technically, alive when I arrived post-haste from London, so consumed with fear that I was able,

briefly, to banish the excoriating circumstances of my

summons in some uncharted corner of my mind to deal

with later. But he was already unconscious by the time

I reached his bedside, and so we never had a chance

to exchange a last word, a final farewell. I was left to sit

helplessly beside the husk of the man who had once been

my father, stroking his hand - occasionally his cheek and

trying to talk to him as if I really believed he could

still hear me.

Since we are being technical, Edward Lyon wasn’t

actually my father at all, but my father’s elder brother.

My biological parents achieved the unusual distinction

of being killed in the same car crash in two separate

cars.

Andrew Lyon had been having an affair with his

dental nurse. My mother, upon discovering this - quite

how never became clear - confronted him and a domestic

fracas naturally ensued. She fled in her car; he pursued

her in his. It was subsequently impossible to establish

which of them lost control on a sharp bend first, and

which smashed into the other’s wreckage. Very little

survived the fireball, and of course forensic science in the

Sixties was not what it is now.

Edward and his wife Daisy took me in. I was six

months old; they have always been my parents in every

sense that matters.

I have often wondered what kind of man could embark

upon an affair when his wife had just presented him with

their first child. Now, perhaps, I know.

Bad blood. Is there a gene for infidelity, I wonder, like

those for baldness or big feet? All my life, I have tried to

atone for the sins of my biological father. Made a career

out of picking up the pieces of adultery, in fact. Hubristically, I believed that of all the men I knew, I was without

doubt the least likely to have an affair.

This afternoon I stood at my father’s graveside, my

arm around my mother, and watched my wife, her face

undone by tears. Of course I grieve for my father, his

death has left a void in my life that nothing can fill; but

there is a point every adult child reaches when they

unconsciously begin to prepare for their parents’ deaths.

You ache for your loss, but it is the natural order of things.

Nature renders us heartlessly resilient when necessary.

Losing the woman you love through your own stupidity,

weakness and mendacity is another matter. Stultum est queri de adversis, ubi culpa est tua: stupid to complain about misfortune that is your own fault. Nature erects no self-protecting carapace for such preventable misery. Nor

should she; I deserve the obloquy now being heaped upon

me from all quarters.

Except, astonishingly, from Malinche.

‘This isn’t what I wanted she said quietly, stopping

beside me as I handed my mother into the waiting funeral

car. ‘I wanted to wait you out. I did try.’

A sea of mourners washed past on either side of the

car, newly turned earth sticking like coffee grounds to

their stiff black shoes. Muted snatches of consolation - ‘So

sorry, Nicholas’ - eddied around us. April seems such an

inappropriate month in which to bury someone, with its

pledge of life. I wanted bare branches scraping at leaden

grey skies, not this green-bladed promise and birdsong.

‘How long have you known?’

‘Since the Law Society dinner.’

‘How did you—’

‘Nicholas she whispered.

I looked away. On the gravel path behind us, a knot

of black-clad mourners stopped to chat; a rising laugh

was hastily smothered with a quick, abashed glance in

our direction. We can only do grief and pain for so long,

before life surges back out of us, bidden or not.

I took a deep breath. ‘Malinche, is there any chance I

could come—’

‘No, Nicholas. I’m sorry.’

Inside the car, my mother glanced fleetingly at us, and

then looked away.

‘I know how this must sound: but it didn’t mean

anything. Please—’

‘Of course it meant something,’ she said sharply, ‘to

me, if not to you! You aren’t the only one affected by this.

It’s not up to you to decide if it meant something or not.’

‘I realize you’re angry now, but—’;

‘Angry doesn’t begin to cover it.’

‘You can’t mean to go through with this. Separation.

A divorce. Surely?’

She stepped backwards slightly, as if I had just dealt

her a physical blow. ‘What else did you expect, Nicholas?’

‘Can’t we at least talk?’ I said desperately. ‘What about

the children? Did you think about what this will—’

‘Did you?’

In the distance, two men in blue overalls walked

towards my father’s grave, chatting, clods of dry earth

falling from the shovels over their shoulders.

Mai watched me watch them and sighed. ‘Nicholas,

now isn’t the time. I’ve told the children you’re looking

after Grandma at the moment. When the time is right, we

can tell them that you - that we—’

‘Can I see them?’

‘Of course you can see them!’ She touched my arm;

briefly. Her face softened. ‘I would have brought them to

see you before, but you were always either working or

at the hospital. It didn’t seem right to involve them in all

of that.’

I should have established a pattern of access immediately.

Set a precedent, worked out ground rules for

visitation. How many times have I rebuked a client for

failing precisely in this regard, thus enabling the other

side to allege non-involvement, disinterest, neglect? Never

considering for one moment that they simply couldn’t

face the children they’d so badly let down.

Mai shifted on her feet, imperceptibly, but enough to

tell me that she was finished here. My heart clenched.

Suddenly my head was filled with a thousand things I

wanted to say to her. I wanted to tell her that I loved her

more than I could have thought possible, that I had never

stopped loving her, that I had been a complete and utter fool. I would do anything, promise everything, if she’d just give me a second chance. That my life without her

was ashes. And yet, like Lear’s daughter, unhappy that I am, I cannot heave my heart into my mouth.

I pinched the bridge of my nose. ‘I’d like to see them

this weekend, if that’s all right.’

Her expression flickered, as if she’d been expecting me

to say something else.

“They’d love to see you, too,’ she said, after a moment.

‘Where?’

‘I couldn’t come—’

She half-turned, presenting me with her profile. ‘No.’

‘Not McDonald’s. Or a park. I couldn’t face it.’

‘And not—’

‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ I said quickly. ‘My parents’,

then? Or,’ I added, ‘rather, my mother’s. I wonder how

long that will take to get used to?’

‘He was a good man she said warmly, ‘your father.’

‘Thank you for coming.’

‘Nicholas. I loved him too.’

Perhaps ten feet away from us, a man hovered. I hadn’t

noticed him before, but now that he’d caught my attention,

I couldn’t imagine why not. He was extremely good

looking, with that rumpled Steve McQueen edge women

inevitably find attractive. And he was clearly waiting for

my wife. She smiled sadly, briefly, at me, and then turned,

walking towards him. He didn’t touch her, but there was

something in the way he bent towards her, like a poplar

to a riverbank, that told me there was a history between

them of which I was not a part.

And for the first time it hit me that I’d lost her.

He’s there too when she drops off the girls at my mother’s

house the following Saturday, sitting in the passenger seat

of my wife’s car.

I take Metheny from her mother and nod towards the

Volvo.

‘Who’s that?’

Mai unshoulders a cumbersome quilted bag filled

with Metheny’s detritus: nappies, cream, plastic beaker,

Calpol, spare dummy, spare clothes, spare blanket. ‘Make

sure she sleeps for at least an hour in the afternoon, but

don’t let her go beyond two, she’ll never settle for the

night. She’s started taking the beaker of apple juice to

bed, but don’t forget to water it down first. And for

heaven’s sake, don’t lose the Wiggle-Wiggle book, she

had the house in an uproar last week when we couldn’t

find it—’

‘Malinche, I do know.’

She stops rummaging. ‘Yes. Of course.’

Sophie and Evie bound up the garden path towards

me, hair flying.

‘Daddy! Daddy! Mummy said we can stay all night at

Grandma’s house! I brought my new satin pyjamas, Uncle

Kit gave them to me for Easter, he said they were much

better than chocolate, I look like Veronica Lake, who’s

Veronica Lake, Daddy, do I look like her?’

‘You don’t look like a lake, you look like a big fat puddle,’

Evie says crossly, ‘you’re a big muddy fat puddle.’

Sophie smirks and folds her arms. In an irritating,

singsong voice, she chants, ‘I know you are, but what

ami?’

‘Puddle head. Puddle head.’

‘I know you are, but what am I?’

‘Puddle head—’

‘I know you are, but what—’

‘I’ll see you all tomorrow afternoon, girls Mai says

blithely, kissing each in turn. ‘Be good for Daddy. And

give Grandma lots of extra cuddles, she’s missing

Grandpa and she needs them.’

Metheny’s sweet brow furrows as she watches her

mother walk down the garden path. For twenty seconds

she is silent, and then as Mai gets into the car, she starts

to squirm in my arms, plump fists flailing as she realizes

her mother isn’t coming back. I march firmly into the

house and shut the front door as she starts to turn red,

then blue, with temper, waiting for the familiar bellow of

sound.

‘Oh, dear Lord my mother says nervously. ‘What’s

wrong with the child?’

‘She’ll be fine in a minute, Mother. Sophie, leave your

sister alone. Evie, stop fiddling with that lamp—’

We all wince as the scream finally reaches us. I’m

reminded of counting the seconds between flashes of

lightning and the thunderclap to work out how far away

the storm is.

I jounce my youngest daughter against my chest. Her

screams intensify.

‘Metheny, sweetheart, calm down, Daddy’s here.

Mummy will be back soon. Breathe, darling, please

breathe. Sophie, please. You’re the eldest, you should be

setting an example—’

There’s a crash. Evie jumps guiltily away from the

kitchen windowsill.

‘Not the Beatrix Potter!’ my mother wails. ‘Nicholas,

I’ve had that lamp since you were a baby!’

Metheny, shocked into silence by the sudden noise,

buries her wet face in my shoulder. I apologize to my

mother and hand the hiccoughing toddler over to Sophie

with relief. ‘Take her into the back garden for a run

around while I clear up this mess. You too, Evie. We’ll

talk about this later. Oh, and Sophs?’

I have always despised clients who use their children

to snoop on their spouses.

“That man who came with you today,’ I say, with

studied casualness. 1 don’t think I recognized him—’

‘He’s a friend of Mummy’s,’ she shrugs, banging out

into the garden. “The one she does all the cooking with.’

I digest this news as I sweep up the shards of broken

china. So that was the famous Trace Pitt, Mai’s onetime

boyfriend and current boss. I hadn’t realized he was quite

so young. And attractive. And close to my wife.

I wonder if his sudden ubiquity is the staunch support

of an old friend in times of need (in which case: why not

Kit?); or altogether something more.

And if the latter, how long has it been going on?

I am thoughtfully emptying the dustpan into an old

newspaper when Evie runs back in with muddy feet and

a bunch of flowers almost as big as herself. ‘I got these for

Grandma, to say sorry for the old lamp.’ She beams from

behind the blooms. ‘Aren’t they pretty?’

My mother moans softly. ‘My prize cheiranthus.’

She retreats upstairs for a lie down, whilst I struggle

dispiritedly to impose order on the childish chaos Mai