Tess Stimson - The Adultery Club (43 page)

to fill this empty house - strangely cold despite the Aga with

laughter and noise. ‘Now go, you mustn’t talk to me

whilst you’re driving, I don’t want you to crash.’

‘I’ll call you in the morning,’ he says.

And he does. He rings me in the morning, and at

lunch, and in the afternoon; he peppers my day with calls

to see how I am, to check that the hours aren’t dragging,

and then at seven he scoops me up on his white charger

(well, racing-green Aston Martin) and whisks me out to

dinner. When he drops me off later, much later, that night,

Ś .1!

I am so tired that I fall asleep the moment my head hits

the pillow, my tears drying unnoticed on my cheeks.

Every day that week he calls me; every night, he takes

me out whilst Kit babysits: to the theatre, the movies (a

romantic comedy with a handsome new actor I haven’t

seen before, someone called Matthew McConaughey; it’s years since I saw a film at the cinema), to an art gallery, to dinner. And afterwards, he takes me back to his cottage

in the village, where we spend some energetic, pleasurable

hours in bed - not quite as smooth, as practised, as

with Nicholas, perhaps, not quite as easy; but then it lias been a long time, we are having to learn each other all over again.

I never stay the night. The children need me home, at

I he breakfast table as I always am, constant and steady.

Now that their father has gone.

Trace keeps me so busy, that what with the girls, and

my work (for some reason the recipes come thick and fast,

now; feverishly I race to write them down) I don’t have a

moment to dwell. To think or wonder what I’m doing, or

where this is all going. I’m a dancer whose partner has

spun away, out of her reach, only for another to take her

hand, whirling her back into the reel with steps so fast

she barely has time to register the change.

I feel as if I’m on a merry-go-round, colours and shapes

spinning past me so quickly everything has become a blur.

Even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t know how to get off.

It is Kit, of all people, who sounds the first warning note.

‘It’s happening too fast, darling,’ he says, kneading my

shoulders as I sew in name-tapes, ‘too soon; heaven knows

I don’t want to rain on your parade, but you can’t just

bounce from the marital bed to the arms of your admittedly

toothsome lover. It’s just not you.’

I bite off a thread.

‘How do you know I demand, ‘how do you know that

about me?’

‘Angel. It’s barely three weeks since you marched into

his girlfriend’s flat and told your husband not to come

home, before vomiting heroically all over her sofa. You

then walked straight round to your childhood sweetheart—’

‘Hardly

childhood—’

‘—and hopped into bed with him—’

‘It’s not as if Nicholas—’

‘Since then Kit interrupts firmly, ‘he’s had you gallivanting

all over town, rushing off to one glam junket after

another. He’s turned your head and blown your mind

with premieres and parties; he hasn’t given you a moment

to yourself.’

‘I haven’t wanted—’ Ś

Kit brooks no argument. I can’t remember ever seeing

him this serious.

‘For the past month, your beautifully shod feet - love the Ginas, by the way, darling - have barely touched the ground. And let’s not even get into the extraordinary pink

paint job you’ve given your bedroom; what on earth possessed

you, Malinche, did you give Barbie carte blanche?’

He releases my shoulders and drops into the chair

opposite me. ‘Look, darling, I’m not saying you shouldn’t

enjoy yourself a little he sighs, Tiut for the best of motives

Trace deliberately isn’t giving you a moment’s peace to

think. And think, my darling, is what you really need to

do before you let this go any further.’

‘I can’t I say, terrified. ‘I can’t, Kit. If I start to think,

I’ll break apart, I’ll collapse, I’ll be no good to anyone—’

‘Malinche, apart from anything else, this isn’t fair to

Trace. If you two are going to make a go of it, it has to be

honest. And sooner or later, you’re going to have to face

Nicholas—’

‘Tomorrow, actually, Kit I say faintly. ‘It’s Edward’s

funeral.’

Kit is silent for a long moment. He lights a cigarette:

now that Nicholas isn’t here, I’ve given in and allowed

him to smoke in the kitchen. Exhaling slowly, he blows a

stream of smoke across the table.

He pounces with the speed and accuracy of a rattlesnake.

‘Trace

or Nicholas?’

‘Nicholas I say instantly: and then gasp and cover my

mouth.

‘It doesn’t count I whisper, ‘it’s just force of habit—’

‘This says Kit, ‘is why you need to think.’

My chair scrapes hideously across the stone floor.

“There’s nothing to think about, is there?’ I cry anguishedly.

‘Because I don’t actually have a choice! Nicholas has

gone and he isn’t coming back! He hasn’t even called once

to see how I’m doing, much less thrown himself at my

feet and begged for forgiveness—’

‘Do you still love him?’

‘What does it matter, if he doesn’t love me? And Trace does. Trace makes me feel special and wanted and cherished!

I’ve loved him for as long as I can remember, I

can’t imagine ever not.’

‘But you love me,’ Kit says. ‘Not quite the same thing, “m though, is it?’Ś

I start to shake. Kit stubs out his cigarette and pulls me

into a hug, resting his chin on the top of my head.

‘Why are you doing this?’ I sob into his shirt. ‘You

don’t even like Nicholas. You’ve pushed and pushed me

to be with Trace. Why are you doing this?’

‘Because somebody has to make you face the truth,’ Kit

says simply. ‘Whatever it is. You can’t keep burying your

head - and your heart - in the sand forever. You have to

allow yourself time to grieve for your marriage. You can’t

just move on to Trace as if the two men are interchangeable.

This isn’t real.’

But it’s not that simple, I think the next day, watching

as Edward Lyon’s casket is lowered into a gaping dark

wound sliced into the bright green grass, tears streaming

unchecked down my face. I used to believe that every one

of us had a soul mate - ‘A bashert,’ I explained to Nicholas,

not long after we first met, ‘that’s Yiddish for destined

other’ - but perhaps that’s fanciful, too suggestive of order

and purpose in a life that is really nothing but chaos and

confusion. Thirteen years ago, I was convinced Trace was

my soul mate; then I met Nicholas, and was suddenly

certain that he was the man I was destined to be with.

And now? Now I don’t know what I believe. I’m not sure

I believe in anything any more.

All I know is that Trace wants me. And Nicholas

doesn’t.

After the service, I stop by Nicholas as he helps his

mother into the waiting car. For several moments, I

struggle for words. What do you say to a man who has

shared your bed for more than ten years, and now looks

straight through you, as if you’re not even there?

‘This isn’t what I wanted,’ I manage, finally. 1 wanted

to wait you out. I did try.’

‘How long have you known?’ he says shortly.

‘Since the Law Society dinner.’

‘How did you—’

How can he be so cold, so clinical? I choke back a sob

on his name.

He shifts uncomfortably. ‘Malinche, is there any chance

I could come—’

I cut him off, not yet ready to have him at the house,

emptying his wardrobe, clearing his book shelves; not yet

ready to put away the framed wedding photographs currently

flat on their glass faces, but still there. Misery

makes my tone harsher than I intend. ‘No, Nicholas. I’m

sorry.’

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

anything. Please—’

‘Of course it meant something, 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,’ I breathe fiercely, ‘doesn’t begin to cover it.’

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

A divorce. Surely?’

Divorce. The word hits me like a hammer blow. Of

course, I think bleakly. He’ll want to marry her now. I

shrug dully. ‘What else did you expect, Nicholas?’

‘Can’t we at least talk? What about the children, did

you think about what this will—’

‘Did you?

Two grave-diggers pass us, cigarettes and shovels in

hand. The grief on my husband’s face as his eyes follow

them is so naked, so raw, that despite myself, my anger

dissolves. ‘Nicholas,’ I say quietly, ‘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?’ he says, his voice cracking slightly.

‘Of course you can see them! 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.’

From the corner of my eye, I see Trace get out of the

car - which I asked him to wait in; I don’t want Nicholas

to see him, not now, not here, at his father’s funeral - and

walk towards me. He stops twenty feet away, hovering

on the edge of a knot of mourners. Waiting.

I turn back to Nicholas. A strange expression crosses

his face; almost a look of yearning. Suddenly, dizzily, the

years fall away, and I’m standing before him, at the altar,

my hand in his, the gold of my wedding band shiny and

new and foreign on my finger. And as we stand outside

another church, ten years later, for a funeral, not a wedding,

I understand, with startling clarity, that I still love

him, that my love for him is stamped through me like a

stick of rock, that even if I’m shattered into a thousand

pieces by grief it will always be there, running through

the centre of my being, an absolute certainty; and that all

he has to do is tell me he loves me now and nothing else

will matter: nothing at all—

But, ‘I’d like to see them this weekend he says coolly,

‘if that’s all right.’

We arrange his painful, timeshare access to the children;

at his mother’s house - I can’t quite bear to think of her with them yet. A part of me wants to fight him, to make it as difficult as I know how, to hurt him in the only way left

to me. But that would hurt our daughters, too, and I can’t

do that. They are suffering enough as it is. And however

angry I am with Nicholas, however much I hate him in the

small hours of the morning, when Trace has gone and I am

left to sob into my pillow, I can’t do it to him either.

I say goodbye and walk away from him, towards

Trace, who loves me, honestly and unreservedly, who will

be the one I’m with, now, if not quite the one I love; and

realize for the first time that I’ve lost my husband forever.

‘But you said I could have it!’

‘No, I never! I said you could have it later.’

‘It is later! You’ve been ages. Give it to me, Mummy

said we had to share—’

‘I haven’t finished with it yet! It’s not fair.’

‘But I want it now!’

‘Give it back! Give it back, you’ll break it! You can’t do

it anyway - now look what you’ve done! I’m telling on

you! Muu-uuu-mmmmyl’

Louise marches into the sitting room. I hear her scary,

Mary Poppins tones through a foot of thick cob wall. ‘Stop

it, the pair of you!’ she says sharply. ‘You’ll wake the

baby. One more word out of either of you and neither of

you will see that PlayStation again.’

‘I don’t know what Nicholas was thinking she adds,

coming back into the kitchen, ‘buying them expensive electronic toys at their age. Buying their approval, if you ask me.’

‘Well, it seems to be working1 say despondently.

‘Children aren’t stupid, Malinche. They’ll see through

it—’

‘Chessington was a roaring success last weekend I

despair. “The girls came back full of how Sara took them

on all the big rides, Sara took them to have their faces

painted, Sara didn’t mind at all when she got absolutely

soaking wet on the flumes.’ I pick fretfully at my nails.

‘She’s practically half my age, she doesn’t nag them to

brush their teeth or do their homework, of course she’s

going to seem fun compared to their ancient dull mother,

no wonder Nicholas upped and—’

Louise slams her palm on the kitchen table. I jump six

feet; in the scullery, I hear the frantic scrabble of claws

against wood as poor Don Juan nearly dies of fright.

‘You can stop that nonsense right now she says

fiercely. ‘Self-pity will get you nowhere. Your eldest

daughter has a great deal more sense than you give her

credit for. She’s pushing your buttons, that’s all. Testing

you, to see how you feel about all of this.’

I bite the inside of my cheek.

Louise folds her arms. ‘Little Miss Drop-Her-Drawers is

full of peace and love right now she says thoughtfully,