Tess Stimson - The Adultery Club (48 page)

I wonder idly if there is a Minotaur waiting for me as I

follow the thread from one bank account to the next in

Beirut, Switzerland, the Cayman Islands and Cyprus. My

attention is caught by a shady cash deposit in Guernsey.

A little close to home, Guernsey, not quite the launderer’s

haven it once was, there’s a chance we may be able to-‘I have always preferred,’ Mai says from the doorway, ‘the Still Life (Talking) album myself.’

I startle, spilling my cold coffee. My wife looks pale,

but otherwise composed. She’s wearing a clingy dress I

haven’t seen before: the colour of burnt coffee beans, it’s

sharper, sexier than anything I’ve seen her wear for years.

There’s something that reminds me uncannily of Sara; for

a moment I think it must be the short, boyish haircut, and

then I realize it’s more in the defiant tilt of her head. It is 1

impossible to tell, from her shuttered expression, what she

is thinking.

Heels, too, I notice. And lipstick.

‘Did you know he used his baby daughter’s voice on

that album?’ I say hoarsely. ‘He washed it through his

computer, and then hooked it up to his guitar. Every time

he played a note, it was his daughter’s voice.’

‘Such a Latin American sound, for a boy from Missouri

Mai says.

Once more I understand how much I love her; how

much I have lost.

‘How did you know I was here?’ I ask, after a moment

of silence.

‘You weren’t with Sara, or Daisy. You hadn’t asked to

see the girls. And,’ she adds, ‘it’s always been easier for

you to sort out other people’s problems than your own,

hasn’t it?’

She moves into my office and picks up the photograph

of Metheny, touching our daughter’s face with her

fingertip.

‘When I discovered you were having an affair,’ she

says slowly, ‘I thought I would never get over it. I thought

I would drown in the pain.’

‘Malinche, I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry. I can’t begin to

tell you—’

She puts down the photograph and whirls towards me.

‘No,’ she says fiercely, ‘this isn’t about you. Shut up,

Nicholas. Shut up and listen.’

I close my mouth, awed by the force of her anger.

SluŤ turns her back on me, as if I no longer matter. I

w.iiI (or her to speak again, but instead she moves to my

m

cluttered book shelves, examining the childish artefacts

I have collected over the years, the proud proof of my

fatherhood: macaroni Father’s Day cards, cotton-wool

snowmen, a folded tea-towel covered with painted hand

prints, bits of pottery. Propped in front of the heavy,

unread leather law books are photographs spanning our

decade together: on Brighton Pier, the summer after we

first met; our wedding day; cradling each of our daughters

moments after they were born. Family holidays in Crete

and France, my fortieth birthday, my father’s eightieth.

Framed certificates attesting to my qualifications as a

steward of family affairs - or at least of their sundering;

a small wooden box we bought on our honeymoon,

smelling still of the sweet, heavy church incense once

stored in it.

The high heels define her calves, give a sexy lift to her

buttocks. As my cock stiffens, it hits me: she no longer looks like my wife.

But then she isn’t my wife now, is she? In any sense

that matters.

‘You broke my heart,’ she says, without turning round.

‘But I discovered something, Nicholas. Hearts are remarkably

resilient. They heal.’

Not mine.

‘Trace,’ I say tightly.

‘Trace is part of my past, Nicholas. He always was. I

just didn’t realize it.’ Finally she turns and looks me in

the eye. ‘I’m not going to make this easy for you. I’m not

going to let you say that I didn’t pay attention to you,

wasn’t giving you something you needed, and that’s why

you looked elsewhere. That might all bo true, though

m:i

forgive me if my attention wandered whilst I brought up

your three daughters and made a home for you; but even

so it’s no excuse. No excuse at all for what you did to me.’

She’s shaking: from grief or anger - or perhaps both, I

have no idea.

‘We all get bored, Nicholas! We all feel neglected, that

we aren’t getting enough attention! Did you think ironing

your shirts and knocking up a quick lasagne in between

checking in with your mother and organizing the school

run was fulfilling for me? Do you really think it was enough for me?’

‘Of course not—’

‘I had dreams too, Nicholas! I’m not just somebody’s

wife or somebody’s mother! But you know what? Being a wife, a mother, mattered more to me than anything else.

And so I made it enough.’

She grips the edge of the bookcase for support. The

pulse at the hollow of her throat beats fast; she takes a

deep, steadying breath.

‘I wanted to kill myself when you left. And then I

wanted to kill you. I was so angry with you, Nicholas. So hurt. It wasn’t just my life you’d smashed to pieces, but Sophie’s, Evie’s and Metheny’s too. Did you never stop to

think about them?’

Her gaze lacerates. I have no answer; she knows it.

‘You wrecked everything, and for what? A roll in the

hay that didn’t last five minutes once real life got in

the way. Oh God, Nicholas, how could you be so stupid?’ With a visible effort, she collects herself, swallows hard.

‘But after a while, I realized I didn’t want to spend my

life angry and hating. And I’d spent years loving Trace.

It was such an easy habit to fall back into.’

‘Is he here?’ I ask jealously. ‘Downstairs, waiting for

you?’

‘She came to see me last week Mai says, ignoring my

question. ‘Sara.’

My throat closes.

‘Yes. She said.’

‘She asked me if I still loved you.’

I wonder if it is like this, the moment before you die. If

every sense is sharpened, the world you are about to quit

suddenly a thousand times more vivid. I smell her shampoo:

oranges, mangoes, pineapples and lemons, mingling

with the warm, fresh-sheet scent of her skin. My scratchy

wool trousers chafe where they have ridden up around

my groin. A faint hiss from the computer speakers - the

album is old, even the wonders of iPod technology cannot

work miracles - is overlaid by the thud of my heart in my

chest. The smudge of mascara beneath her cinnamon eyes

tells me she has cried before coming here.

‘What did you tell her?’

‘I told her to go home,’ Mai says sharply. ‘She has no

place in our marriage. No right to know what I think or

feel. I wasn’t even going to talk to you again, Nicholas.

I certainly had no intention of making the first move. But

then,’ her voice changes, ‘Kit gave me this.’

She holds out her hand. A small cassette sits in her

imall palm. The kind of cassette you find in a telephone

answering machine.

‘He came to feed Don Juan and the bloody hamsters

when I was in France. He saw I had a message and played

it back in case it was something urgent—’

‘Jesus Christ, he took it!’ I exclaim. ‘The bastard).’ h ‘He was just trying to protect me, Nicholas. You left it

at three in the morning, for heaven’s sake, you could have

been drunk and changed your mind the next day, who

knows. But when I told him it was over with Trace and

explained what Sara had said—’

An explosion of fireworks occurs somewhere in the

vicinity of my heart.

‘It’s over with Trace?’

‘Nicholas, you never listen she says crossly.

The chocolate jersey of her dress clings to her slender

frame, delineating her girlish silhouette. She isn’t wearing

a bra; her nipples jut against the delicate fabric. My cock

throbs, and I force myself not to leap up and take her in

my arms, to stay instead in my chair.

‘You should know: I slept with Trace she says, eyes

on mine. ‘Not just once.’

The surge of rage is so strong that if he were here, I

would reach down the man’s throat and pull his balls out

through his mouth.

‘Yes,’I say, white-lipped.

‘Can you deal with it?’

I swallow hard. ‘I’m not in a position to—’

‘It’s different for a man. Pride is involved. Territory.

There’s a reason that men are cuckolded, that there’s a

special word for it. There isn’t one for women who are i betrayed, of course. This is why I’m asking you, Nicholas.

I need to know if you can get past it.’

Suddenly I hear what she is saying. ;

‘Be sure, Nicholas,’ she warns. ‘Before you answer, be

sure.’

I remember watching her fold naturally into his arms

the other night, her body slotting neatly into his. I picture

hrr in bed with Trace, her small breasts pressed against

his chest, his hands moving possessively over her skin,

his cock buried inside her. Inside my wife. I feel sick at the

thought.

And then I consider a life without Mai in it, and

suddenly it’s so simple I don’t have to think at all.

‘Trace is the past,’ I say.

‘Yes.’

I take a deep breath, force myself to let it go.

‘The past is the past. It doesn’t really matter if that is a

week ago, or ten years, then, does it?’

She takes a step towards me. I stand up, but make no

move towards her. Her face turns up to mine, a flower

to the light, and I marvel again at the luminous beauty

of the woman I fell in love with more than a decade ago.

Extraordinary, that such ethereal fragility should conceal

such tensile strength.

‘So did you mean what you said,’ she opens her hand

on the cassette, ‘on this?’

‘I wasn’t drunk,’ I say. ‘I haven’t changed my mind.’

She looks at the tape, then at me.

‘You have been a bloody fool. What you did was unforgivable.

You don’t deserve a second chance. Why

shouldn’t I shut you out, no matter how much you swear

you love me?’

My own words, I realize, turned against me.

7 wish you could turn back the clock, too, Nicholas. I

wish you’d told me before how happy I’ve made you,

how much you loved coming home to me every night,

and waking up next to me every morning. You’re right:

what you did was wrong, and there are no excuses.’

Her expression is cool, unflinching. Ice washes through my veins. She hasn’t come here to give me a second chance at

all. She’s here to skewer me with my trespasses, to ensure

I am fully cognizant of what I have lost. And she is doing

it not out of spite or bitterness, but because she’d rather

face me and have it out, fair and square, here, alone,

than in a courtroom. Not for her the coward’s way out.

She won’t use the children as weapons, or bleed me dry

financially out of revenge. I can only imagine what it has

cost her to come here; but I know that after today, she

will draw a line beneath the score and walk away.

And I would give everything I own for her to stay.

‘I know it’s too late for us,’ I say, ‘I know that. And I

will spend the rest of my life half-alive because of it.

You’re right. I had everything, and I let it slip through my

fingers. I chose to do what I did, it didn’t just happen, I

have no one to blame but myself.’ I realize I am crying;

and that I don’t care. ‘I would never intentionally have

hurt you or the girls, but my negligence amounted to the

same thing. Oh, Mai. I deserve this, but you don’t - you

don’t—’

‘No she says, ‘I don’t. And nor,’ she adds, in a quite

different voice, ‘do you.’

‘But it’s all my—’

‘Enough, Nicholas. Enough of fault and blame and I

wish and you should. I believe that you love me. I wouldn’t

be here if I didn’t. And I certainly love you. If you still

want that second chance, it’s yours.’

I gape at her, slack-jawed. ‘What?’

‘Come home,’ says my wife.

‘Are you - are you sure? After everything I’ve done?’

‘Nicholas, it wasn’t just you. Mostly,’ she smiles wryly,

‘but not all. You weren’t the only one who didn’t appreciate

what they had until they lost it. I realized last week

that no matter what you’ve done, I’m happier being

unhappy with you, than when I’m happy with anyone

else. If you see what I mean.’

I do see, despite the tortured semantics.

‘I don’t want you unhappy at all.’

‘No,’ she says briskly. ‘Well, neither do I. But that’s

rather up to you, isn’t it?’

‘She’s left the firm. I won’t be seeing her again. You

know that, don’t you? Not her, not anyone, you do

understand that, I swear, Malinche, I will never—’

‘Trace has gone back to London,’ she offers. ‘He

came round one night last week and said he wanted me

to buy him out of the restaurant in Salisbury. I’ll have to

borrow some money from the bank, of course, but — did

you know? - your father very generously left me something,

quite a lot, actually, and I think he would be rather

pleased—’

‘Yes, I did know. He told me he was going to.’ I smile

sadly. ‘He would be very pleased.’