Tess Stimson - The Adultery Club (44 page)

‘whisking your adorable little girls off to theme parks and

playing dress-up and braiding their hair. Easy to play the

fairy godmother when you can throw money at the problem

for a couple of hours and then send them home. It’s all a

little different when you have to live with them twentyfourseven.’:?

I’ve never quite got used to my mother’s easy appropriation

of teenage slang.

‘Tell me about it I say crossly, going into the scullery

to soothe Don Juan. ‘Metheny slept in my bed for

two nights after they got back, and Sophie was an

absolute swine for days. Wouldn’t do her homework,

refused to clean out the rabbit’s cage, was beastly to her

sisters—’

‘Real life, in other words. Something Nicholas must be

missing.’

I toss a carrot into the rabbit’s cage. ‘What are you

getting at?’

Her mouth twitches. ‘I think perhaps it’s a little unfair

to refuse to allow them to stay over at Madam’s flat after

all. Nicholas said his mother found it all a bit much, so

soon after losing Edward. Maybe you should let them

spend the weekends with the lovebirds at their bijou little

nest after all. Their charming, one-bedroom, no-garden,

white, minimalist London flat.’

I gasp delightedly. ‘Louise, I can’t, they’ll run amok—’

‘Well, come on, Malinche she says robustly. ‘It’s one

thing to put the children first, but no one said you had to

be a saint. The little trollop pinched your husband from

right under your nose. It’s about time you rubbed hers in

a little reality. And it won’t do any harm at all if you drag

that ridiculously handsome new man of yours with you

either. Nicholas could do with a taste of his own medicine.

And before you start in about turning the other cheek and

the rest of that nonsense,’ she adds tartly, ‘I’m not the one

who threw up all over her sofa.’

Trace and I sit in darkness, the three girls asleep, finally,

on the back seat behind us. He cuts the engine, but neither

of us can summon the energy to get out of the car.

‘Well. That was a big hit, wasn’t it?’

I start to laugh, end up on a half-sob. ‘I’m so sorry. I

don’t know what else to say.’

‘I think unmitigated disaster just about covers it. Hey

he says, as I dissolve into tears, ‘hey, relax. It’s OK. No

one expects children to be angels all the time. The more it

matters to you that they behave, the less likely it is to

happen, you know that. Come on, Mai. I hate it when you

cry.’

‘But they were awful!’ I wail. ‘The worst they’ve ever

been! I don’t know what got into them, I bet they’re not

like that for their father—’

He wraps his arms around me and I rest my head

against his shoulder. I can feel his heart beating, strong

and steady, beneath my cheek. ‘Look he murmurs into

my hair, ‘it’s been a tough time for them. Perhaps it was

too soon for us to all go away together to France. I know

they’ll have to get used to it eventually, but maybe it was

just too much, what with having to deal with Nicholas

and Sara too. Give them a little time, and it’ll sort itself

out.’

I dash the back of my hand across my nose. Trace is

right. The past few weekends have been dreadful; certainly

for me. Watching my children - my children, minel - walk into that woman’s arms. Well, not literally, Nicholas did at least have the decency to keep her out of sight:

but it might just as well have been. I don’t know how I’d

have borne it if it hadn’t been for Trace.

And I deserve an Oscar for my performances on the

doorstep. Smiling, laughing like I haven’t a care in the

world, refusing to let Nicholas see the pain splintering

my heart. I do have my pride.

I dress more carefully to drop off my children than for

anything since my wedding day. I am not a victim. I am

not.

‘You’ve cut your hair,’ Nicholas said, shocked, one

Saturday.

‘Kit persuaded me to go to his stylist in London.’

Without thinking, I added, ‘Do you like it?’

I could have kicked myself for sounding so needy. But,

to my surprise, ‘I love it,’ Nicholas said. It’s very short,

very gamine, but it really suits you. I don’t think I’ve ever

seen you with your hair short like this before.’

It’s funny how the pain catches you unawares, just

when you think you are ready for it, have steeled yourself

for the worst. In bed, Nicholas would often twine my hair

around his fingers, telling me how much he loved it long,

making me promise never to cut it. He said he loved the

way it fell across my face when I was on top of him,

claimed it made me seem wild and abandoned.

‘I used to have it this way, before we met,’ I said

steadily. ‘But you never let me cut it. You always insisted

I keep it long.’

‘Did I?’

He didn’t even remember. Oh, dear God, when will the

pain stop?

I smiled sadly. ‘You used to insist on a lot of things,

Nicholas.’

I got back into the car and sobbed for the entire hour it

took us to drive to the beautiful country manor house in

Kent that Trace had booked for the weekend. To his great

credit, he never once indicated that he was anything other

than thrilled to be rubbing my back as I snivelled and

hiccoughed like a child. I don’t know if I’d have been so

phlegmatic if the boot had been on the other foot and it

had been Trace bawling his eyes out over an ex-girlfriend.

When Nicholas rang last week to ask if I could keep

the children this weekend, I was thrilled. Mondays to

Fridays are such a slog, getting the girls ready for school,

cleaning, laundering, helping with homework; it’s the

weekends with them that are the real treats. Well, usually.

I’ve really missed them the past few weeks when they’ve

been with their father. Nicholas and I are clearly going to

have to come to some sort of arrangement to divide our

time with them more fairly; perhaps a midweek visit and

alternate weekends. Oh, Lord, the horrid, soul-destroying

business of divorce.

Trace and I extended our original romantic reservation

at the farmhouse in Normandy to include the children,

and I had thought it might be the perfect time to introduce

them properly to Trace. Not just as Mummy’s friend, but

as - well, Mummy’s friend.

It started to go wrong the moment we got into the car.

First the non-stop battery of questions - ‘Why aren’t we

going to Daddy’s this weekend? Doesn’t he want to see

us? Are we going next weekend? Why don’t you know?

Can we ring and ask him? Why can’t we ring? Can we

ring later? When?’ - and then the sulks, punctuated by

demands to stop the car every five minutes for the lavatory,

a drink, to be sick. When Trace finally insisted that

everyone do up their seatbelts and hold their bladders

and their bile until we got to the Eurotunnel train, Sophie

muttered, audibly, ‘You’re not our father. You can’t tell us

what to do.’

Once in France, it just got worse. The girls hated the

farmhouse: the sheets were scratchy, the room too cold,

the food too foreign; they were bored, they couldn’t watch

television, they had nothing to do. Did they want to go to

the beach? Duh, raining! Well, how about a nice long walk

along the river? I’ve got your anoraks, in some places it’s

shallow enough to paddle in - oh. All right. Maybe a

pony ride, then; wouldn’t that be nice? It’ll be dry in the

forest, under the trees. They’re very friendly, you can feed

them if you - well, what do you want to do? No, I’ve told

you. Your father is busy this weekend. I don’t know what

he’s doing. No, I can’t ring and ask him. No!

When, on Sunday, the owner of the pension apologetically

explained that her mother had been taken ill, she was extrSmement desoU, she couldn’t cook us our lunch after all, c’est bien dommage, she’d quite understand if we.

wanted to leave early: we all leapt at the chance.

The drive home has been the only peaceful part of the

entire trip, I think ruefully, glancing at the sleeping children in the back.

Trace carries the bags into the house, whilst I rouse

Sophie and Evie, who stumble, drowsy and grumbling,

up the garden path, and carry Metheny, still sleeping,

upstairs to her bedroom. She doesn’t wake even when

I undress her and lay her gently in her cot.

For a long moment, I stand looking down at her, my

hand resting possessively on the side of the rail, moonlight

gilding the plump curve of her cheek, warm as a

ripe peach.

Our last-chance baby: named for the jazz guitarist

Nicholas loves so much. She still isn’t yet two. What happened to us? How did it all go so wrong, so fast?

I sink onto the window seat, watching Trace unloading

her pushchair from the car below. He looks so competent

and assured, it’s as if he’s been doing this for years. But

he hasn’t, I remind myself. He isn’t the father of your

children. However much you have, at times, wished he

were.Kit was right when he said I hadn’t got over Trace

when I met Nicholas. That I loved Nicholas, I had no

doubt. But I didn’t give myself time to heal. I simply

papered over the cracks, and threw myself headlong into

Nicholas; used him, perhaps, to get over Trace and so

started everything out on the wrong foot from the beginning.

When Sophie was placed into my arms, even as

Nicholas and I gazed at each other in awe at what we had

made and I drank in her pink-and-white perfection, greedily,

a tiny part of me wondered what my lost baby would

have looked like: how it would have felt to give birth to

Trace’s child. Once a year, I slipped away to the tiny

Catholic church in Salisbury to light a candle for him - it

was a boy, I’m sure it was a boy - and thought of Trace.

Every time Nicholas and I ever had a row, and we were

married ten years, of course we rowed, a secret, black part

of my heart turned, disloyally, towards Trace. Wondered

if he would have cancelled a skiing trip because of work,

or failed to buy a single Christmas present again, or

undermined me with the children: whatever silly, domestic

niggle had triggered the fight. My internal calendar

observed his birthday, the day we met, the date we

p.irk’d. I followed his exploits in the gossip columns,

I

telling myself the ugly swirl of jealousy was maternal

frustration at his refusal to grow up. I never acknowledged

it, even to myself; but he was as much a part of

my marriage as I was, an undercurrent always tugging,

tugging me away from Nicholas.

If I hadn’t been so focused on Trace, on his sudden

physical presence in my life after a decade of imagining,

I would have seen what was happening with Nicholas.

Perhaps, even, in time to stop it.

I reach up to close the curtains. Trace glances up as he

locks the car, smiles, lifts his hand. He really is startlingly handsome.

All these years, I’ve secretly believed Trace was my

soul mate, wrenched from me by Fate. I’ve thought of

Nicholas as the sensible choice, the husband of expediency,

the safe, steady, reliable option; loving and loved, of

course, but not passionately, not in the wild, untamed

way I had loved and was loved by Trace.

But Trace and I weren’t destroyed by jealous gods. The

rather prosaic truth is that we were never right for each

other. I was always convinced I didn’t deserve him: which

is why I was so ready to believe the worst. And he just

wanted to fix me.

Nothing has changed. He is still racing around, bending

life to suit him by sheer force of will. And if I no

longer feel inadequate, I can see how wildly unmatched

we are. Have always been. I don’t want a saviour; I want

a partner. A friend, an equal. I want Nicholas.

My hand shakes. All this time I’ve spent missing

something I never had, letting what really mattered slip

through my fingers.

Nicholas is the love of my life, not Trace. It is Nicholas I

love with a real passion, born of years of loyalty and

laughter and shared love; of tears and hardship, too.

Frustration and joy, contentment and boredom: that’s

what makes up a marriage, that’s what real love is all

about.

I close Metheny’s door softly. It’s not that I don’t love

Trace: I do. But not enough to make this work, however

easy and safe it would be for me.

He glances up as I walk into the kitchen and pushes a

mug of tea towards me. ‘Here, thought you could do with

this—’

My eyes fill. This is going to be so hard.

‘No,’I say softly.

He knows immediately that I am not talking about the

tea. A shadow crosses his face, replaced in an instant

by his usual, easy smile. ‘It was just a bad day, Mai,’ he

soothes. ‘A bad couple of days. It doesn’t mean anything.

Next time, it’ll be easier—’

‘No.’

Outwardly relaxed, smiling still, he leans back against