Tess Stimson - The Adultery Club (42 page)

of pollen. I know country life isn’t all bucolic vistas and

pastoral idylls, I’ve seen abattoir footage, but it seems so

beautiful and meandering out here - a world away from

the rush and dirt of London.

Nick’s farmhouse is the only one for several miles,

bounded on three sides by fields and meadows, and on

the fourth by a small copse of young saplings. It looks

old and picturesque, if - as I drive nearer - rather in need

of some TLC and modern wiring. No wonder he could

hardly bear to leave it.

The gate is open. I park in the wide gravel space at the

front of the house. My heart thumps wildly in my chest as I get out of the car. Oh, shit. Suddenly I don’t know if I’ve got the balls to go through with this.

I can’t bring myself to ring the doorbell. Instead,

threading my way around several outhouses, I peer

through the grimy kitchen window at the back. Inside, it’s

smaller and messier than I expected: I’d had visions of

some Sunday Times Nigella Lawson supplement kitchen all

gleaming surfaces and shining saucepan racks. She is a

bloody celebrity chef, after all. But the only things suspended above this ancient-looking Aga are some rather

grey bras and several pairs of Bridget Jones knickers.

The stone floor is covered with newspapers and what look

like rabbit droppings, and dirty crockery is piled high in

the sink. A few chipped pots of dead herbs lino Ihi

windowsill.

Sitting at the scrubbed pine kitchen table, head buried

on her arms, is a small figure in a filthy, ratty old dressing

gown. Her wild tangle of dark hair is unbrushed. Every

now and again, her thin shoulders heave.

Oh, God, I shouldn’t have come. This was a huge

mistake-She looks up, and I feel a stab of shock. I barely

recognize her. Her eyes are swollen and red from crying.

Misery is etched on her face. Dark circles under her eyes

speak of sleepless nights and long hours waiting for

dawn to break. She looks bereft and heartsick, shrunken

by grief. There’s no trace of the flirty, lively woman who

drops off the children every weekend before skipping

merrily down to the car and her hot new lover.

I swallow. I’ve done this to her.

She unbolts the door, and turns back into the kitchen

without speaking, wrapping her skinny arms around herself.

I step gingerly over a heap of muddy Wellingtons.

And then I blurt out the question I came all this way

to ask.

Malinche

Anger can take you a frighteningly long way, I discover:

far from those who love and hurt you, far from everything

that’s familiar, and - it’s this last I find so terrifying - far from everything you thought you knew about yourself.

After I have vomited on Sara’s sofa, I wipe my mouth

carefully on the back of my wrist. Without even glancing

at my husband, now frantically throwing on shirt and

shoes and jacket, or his mistress, still standing frozen in

shock by the door, her cheap red kimono gaping, I walk

out; and keep on walking.

I walk down New Fetter Lane towards Fleet Street, my

feet starting to blister in the ridiculous gardening clogs I

grabbed in haste from the scullery as I ran from the house,

desperate to get to Nicholas before it was too late. Barely

noticing the traffic or the fumes or the lewd remarks from

hooded teenagers loitering in doorways, I concentrate on

putting one foot in front of the other, terrified to stop even

for a moment in case I cannot start again. My feet are raw

and bloodied by the time I reach the Strand, and the left

turn that will take me across Waterloo Bridge, back to the

railway station and home; such as it is, now.

But I turn right. I hadn’t known where I was headed,

until now; but I keep walking, up Bow Street, with

renewed purpose, and then, ducking through a maze of

small narrow streets, I emerge abruptly in Covent Garden.

His beautiful gourmet shop is easy to find; but it is in

darkness, of course, closed, and I realize with a shock that

it’s after nine-thirty, late; that if he is anywhere, he will be at home now: or else out of my reach entirely. Jostled by

tourists and theatre-goers, I take a side turning out of the

piazza, and within moments find myself in an elegant old

street, lined with tall, narrow white houses; graceful,

sophisticated houses that seem to close their eyes with

pained expressions at the litter and the down-and-outs

and the youths urinating into the street.

I mount the steps of his townhouse, knowing that if

he’s not in, or turns me away - we’ve barely spoken, after

all, since Rome - I shall simply curl up in a corner and

wait to be blown away, like the rest of the unwanted

rubbish bowling along the street like urban tumbleweed.

But he is in. And when he opens the door, and I

stumble across the threshold in my bare, bleeding feet,

clutching the silly clogs in my hand, my hair whipped

wild by the wind, my face streaked with tears I hadn’t

known I was weeping, he simply picks me up without a

word and carries me upstairs.

I awake to the sounds and smells of a summer a long

lime ago. Nancy Sinatra’s ‘Sugartown’ plays distantly in

another room. Coffee and freshly squeezed orange juice

scent the air - I sit up, realizing he has placed a breakfast

tray at the foot of the bed, complete with croissants and

muffins and a single white rose - and sunshine streams

across the high, white brass bed from the bank of French

windows, casting rhombuses of light on the hand-finished

planked floor. One pair of doors is flung wide open; white

muslin curtains billow in the light breeze, catching on

the iron railing. Overhead, a woven plantation fan slowly

turns. I feel like I have stepped into a Flake advert; all I

need now is a lizard on the Bakelite telephone.

I sink back against the marshmallowy pillows, pulling the fluffy cloud of duvet up to my chin. Even my British winter pallor looks fetchingly honeyed against this much

eye-watering white.

My thighs ache; there is a raw, sticky, unfamiliar throb

between my legs.

Last night, after Trace ran me a bath in his clawfooted

movie-bathroom tub, and soaped my back, and rinsed my

hair free of vomit and street grime and tears, he took me

to bed; and made love to me with such controlled passion,

such gentleness, that the ice storm in my heart finally

ceased blowing its frozen winds through my body.

At the thought of that erotic, blush-making sex ‘Lights on,’ Trace said firmly, T want to see you, all of you, I want to see your face when you come’ -1 suddenly

realize I’m ravenous.

I sit up in bed and pull the tray towards me. I am on

my third croissant and raspberry jam when Trace comes

in, towelling hair still damp from the shower. His white

linen shirt and cornflower-blue linen pants would look

outrageously Men’s Vogue on anyone else. His feet are

i

bare. Despite the satiating gymnastics of last night, a pulse

beats somewhere in the region of where the knickers of

a thirty-something married mother-of-three should be which

is not twisted inside out and hanging on the bedpost

of her lover.

‘Sleep well?’ he asks, throwing aside the towel to sit on

the edge of the bed.

I rescue my glass of orange juice as it tilts on the tray.

‘Oh, yes,’ I purr, stretching lazily, ‘I can’t remember when

I last—’

I bolt upright, nearly sending everything flying. ‘What

time is it?’ I grab his wrist to see his watch. ‘Eleven-thirty!

Trace, you should never have let me sleep in that long! the

children! - I need to get home. And Edward, poor Edward, I must speak to Daisy, I—’

‘All taken care of he says, ‘I rang Kit. He’s arranged

for Liz to keep the girls until tomorrow evening, they’re

all going to some gymkhana or another, having the time

of their lives. And Kit checked with the hospital: no news

yet, he’ll call me back as soon as he hears anything. But

in the meantime you,’ he says briskly, taking the locusted

tray from my lap and flipping back the duvet, ‘need to

get up. I have plans for you today.’

His gaze lingers appreciatively. Blushing furiously, I

grab back the bedclothes.

He laughs and stands up.

‘I took the liberty of getting Alice - my right-hand,

Alice, couldn’t manage without her - to nip along to

Whistles and get you something fresh to wear. Five minutes,

downstairs. And don’t bother to shower he adds,

with a wink, ‘you’re not going to need it where you’re

going.’

I wait until he leaves the room before getting out of

bed (thirteen years and three children is a little too much

water under the bridge in the cold light of day) and open

the bag he’s left propped against a beautiful cherrywood

armoire. Alice, whoever she is, has taste; and common

sense. In addition to the simple turquoise tunic and loose

fitting cropped cream trousers, she’s included some flat,

non-blister-rubbing (oh, bliss!) sandals, a pretty pair of

pink-and-white knickers and a matching bra. All in the

correct sizes. If I didn’t know better, I’d think she’d done

this kind of errand for Trace before.

I catch myself. Of course she has. He’s hardly been living

the life of a monk for the past ten years whilst I’ve been

marrying and giving birth to three infants. I catch up my

hair with a clip, feeling a little disoriented by the speed

things are moving.

‘Come on. You have no idea how many strings I had to

pull to get you in at this short notice,’ Trace urges, as soon

as I come downstairs. He tenderly wipes a splodge of jam

from the corner of my mouth with his thumb. ‘Luckily the

girl who takes the bookings is a friend of mine.’

That ugly twinge of jealousy again. I give myself a shake. It was this kind of absurd paranoia that ruined everything last time.

Five minutes later, I’m being propelled across the

cobbles towards the glass door of the Sanctuary, a girls

only oasis of spoiling I have visited only in my dreams.

Liz and I always said we’d treat ourselves and book a day

there for our fortieth birthdays, get Giles and Nicholas to

mind the children-A fist of pain winds me. I take a deep breath, and open

my eyes again.

Dear Lord, what am I doing here? Wandering around

Covent Garden in strange clothes with aches in strange

places from, a night of sex with a man who is not my

husband whilst my children are somewhere in the wilds

of Wiltshire and Nicholas is - Nicholas is-‘Go on Trace prompts, ‘I can’t go in with you.

You’ve got an entire day, booked and paid for - massage,

aromatherapy, toe painting, belly-button cleaning, the

works—’

‘Belly-button cleaning?’

He grins, and my heart lurches as if I’ve just driven

over a hump-backed bridge.

‘Well, I don’t know what they do in there, do I? I’ll see

you at five, a new woman.’ His eyes gleam wickedly. ‘Not

that there’s anything wrong with the old one, if last night

is anything to go by—’

He kisses my flushed cheek, and I follow his longlimbed

stride as it eats up the cobbled street.

There are so many confused thoughts whirling around

my head, tangling into a Gordian knot of fear and panic,

that the only way I can prevent myself from splintering

into a thousand pieces is by refusing to acknowledge

any of them. And so I meekly go inside and submit to the

pampering that has been arranged for me, deliberately

emptying my mind until it’s as blank and cloudless as the

sky on a sunny day.

At five, pummelled and polished and smoothed and

painted, I am collected as promised, and taken straight to

Michaeljohn, where my hair is smoothed and tamed and

coiled on my head. And then to Gucci, where he has

picked out a dress - black, thank heavens - which fits me

beautifully, and is perfect for the film premiere (a premihreK) in Leicester Square, where I try not to hang on his arm too adoringly, too obviously. And then to Boujis, to

dance until four a.m., when he finally takes me, drooping,

home, and to bed; and, eventually, to sleep.

On Sunday, we drive out to Oxford for an afternoon

picnic - roast pheasant, grilled asparagus, truffles stuffed

with Bermuda onion confit and the smallest, sweetest early

strawberries, washed down with a bottle of cold Krug

Tete de CuvŁe - lolling on a riverbank across from a

beautiful, mellow stone college; not the one Nicholas went

to, that was further in town-Don’t think don’t think don’t think.

Trace finally drives me home to Wiltshire a little before

eight; and then calls me on his mobile before his car has

even pulled out of the gravel driveway.

‘I miss you,’ he says.

‘You’ve only been gone two minutes!’

‘I miss you,’ he says firmly.

‘You too,’ I say, sifting through the clutch of envelopes

on the floor, hoping Liz will bring the children back soon,