Tess Stimson - The Adultery Club (46 page)

‘I’m - I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for this to happen she

whispers.

I jump; I’d forgotten she was there.

‘You could have had anyone you wanted,’ I say helplessly.

‘Someone free to love you, without a wife and

family. Why did you have to take my husband?’

‘Because I fell in love with him she says simply.

For the first time, I notice the shadows beneath her

eyes, the fatigue and weariness in her face. I recognize in

her expression the fear and uncertainty that walk hand

in hand with love. I can’t bring myself to forgive what

she’s done. But with a sudden rush, I begin - just begin to

understand it.

‘It’s not just about love I sigh. ‘Marriage.’

‘No.’ She folds her hands in her lap. ‘No. I see that

now.’

My nose starts to run. Using the sleeve of my dressing

gown, like a child, I wipe my face.

‘I didn’t mean to hurt you she pleads. ‘I know that’s

no consolation. But I didn’t mean this. I’m not a bad

person. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. I kept

thinking I could stop it, that no one would ever need to

know—’

‘Enough. Please.’ Exhausted, I collapse into a chair.

‘Why are you here, Sara? Does Nicholas know?’

‘No.’ She shoves herself back from the table and

stands up. ‘I told myself you were happy without him.

Convinced myself he wouldn’t have come to me if his

marriage had been a good one. But that’s not true, is it?’

I shake my head.

And then, ‘He loves you, not me she says clearly.

I can’t breathe.

‘He’s never loved me. Not enough, anyway.’ She rubs

the heels of her hands against her eyes, and I’m reminded

of Evie. Somewhere, deep inside, I feel a dim tug of pity.

‘He wasn’t free to love me. I thought it didn’t matter, that

I could love enough for the both of us, but it doesn’t work

like that, does it? And it turns out she attempts a smile,

‘that I have a conscience after all.’

She hitches her bag on her shoulder. Her hand shakes,

and I realize how much this confrontation has taken out

of her too.

‘What are you doing here?’ I ask again.

She shrugs, then gives me a sad half-smile. ‘I’ve been

trying to work that one out myself.’

A fragile tendril of intimacy unfurls between us. We

are linked, after all, by love: for the same man.

‘May I use the loo she says, ‘before I go?’

I point her in the direction of the downstairs lavatory.

She’s come all the way here to offer me a choice: take him,

or give him back to me. Free and clear.

But it’s not up to me. I can’t go to him. He has to come

to me. He’s the one who made the choice to leave: he is

the one who has to make the choice to come back. Otherwise

I’ll never know; it will undermine everything we try

to build. I have to hear that he loves me not from her, but

from Nicholas himself.

She opens the lavatory door, and dips her head around

it. Her expression is a strange mixture of pain, embarrassment

- and an extraordinary, fierce relief.

‘Do you have any Tampax you could give me?’ she

says. ‘I wasn’t expecting it, but my period just started.’

Nicholas

Divorce is a difficult business. Never more so, may I

suggest, than when your lawyer looks at you with an

expression that suggests in no uncertain terms that all

men are bastards, and you’re left shifting uncomfortably

in your seat whilst your penis tries to make itself scarce.

Janis Schultz does not have a single photograph or

personal memento anywhere in her spartan office. A thick

slab of polished glass separates us, atop of which rests her

computer and one slim manila folder: mine. Its contents

currently number a single appointment slip and two

sheets of foolscap upon which she has written her notes

during this meeting in a uniform, precise hand. I know

that once this process gets fully under way, that solitary

folder will spawn letters, faxes, forms to be completed,

affidavits to be sworn, until the paperwork fills a box

eighteen inches deep. We will each, Malinche and I, be

required to provide copies of bank and credit card statements,

insurance policies and share certificates, details of

our income and our outgoings - not just those you would

expect, the standard, ubiquitous expenses like school fees

and mortgages, but the intimate, private details of our

lives, the window cleaner and the osteopath, gym membership

and private proctology examinations: all of it laid

bare for consideration and dry judgement.

The carpet is clearly new: the room smells pungently

of rubber. It tastes acrid in my mouth. I pinch the bridge

of my nose, my head aching.

Ms Schultz is known for her cool, detached professionalism

and tempered approach. I haven’t met her

before - one reason I chose her - but by reputation she

chases neither headlines nor precedent, and whilst naturally

seeking congenial rulings for her clients, makes it

plain from the outset that confrontational terms such as

‘victory’ do not belong in her chambers.

She is perceived as a wife’s lawyer. Her legal obligation

will be to me; but her hand may be stayed from the usual

gladiatorial excesses by a modicum of sympathy for my

wife. It will, perhaps, go some way towards ameliorating

my natural advantage in being so familiar with this eviscerating process. I want, above all else, for this to be fair.

‘And your wife can’t be persuaded to file a petition

herself?’ Janis Schultz asks.

‘I haven’t asked her,’ I say.

She taps her pen against the pad. ‘You do not wish to

wait for two years.’

It is no longer a matter of what I wish, but what is right. Sara is pregnant with my child; I cannot leave her to twist in the wind. My marriage to Mai is over, that much is

clour. The only honourable thing now is to extract myself

from it and attempt to do the right thing by Sara; whose

only fault has been to love me.

‘Very well. The grounds for our petition, Mr Lyon?’

I hesitate. Even though Malinche has found solace in

the arms of another man, I cannot bring myself to sue her

for divorce on the grounds of her adultery: it would be

monstrously hypocritical. My options, however, as I am

only too well aware, are limited.

‘I find in instances such as this Ms Schultz says

carefully, ‘a charge of unreasonable behaviour is often

cross-petitioned, where there is cause.’

I sigh heavily.

“There is cause,’ I say.

We will provoke Malinche by charging her with

unreasonable behaviour - ‘On the fourth of this month,

the Respondent rinsed out the milk bottles with tepid

water instead of hot, as had previously been agreed with

the Petitioner from the outset of the marriage’ - and her

lawyers will no doubt advise her to throw the book at

me, to insist that she cross-petitions on the grounds of my

adultery. At which point I will concede the issue of blame;

and secure the divorce.

Ms Schultz recrosses her legs. Beneath the glass slab,

her crisp grey wool skirt rides up a little, exposing an

inch or two of thigh. She is close to sixty; my interest is

academic.

I glance up, to find her steely gaze upon me.

‘Mr Lyon. I think that’s all,’ she says knowingly.

Her handshake is firm, masculine. She ushers me

briskly from her office.

I pause at the door. Atop a low bookcase is a small

cream cardboard box, of the kind in which handmade

chocolates are presented. A gold label affixing a ribbon in

place suggests these originated in Belgium.

A memory ambushes me: Malinche, waiting for me in

my office, perhaps a month or two after we first met. It

was late; everyone else had already gone home. She had

persuaded the cleaner to let her in, and then sat in the

darkness until I returned from Court, whither Fisher had

despatched me with a vexatious case with which he did

not wish to be troubled.

I walked into my office and smelled it instantly.

‘Don’t put on the light,’ she said, as I reached for the

switch.

I jumped as she stood up and took the briefcase from

my hand. Streetlights gilded her skin as she unbuttoned

her coat. Beneath it, she was naked, save for a coffee

coloured suspender belt and a pair of dark seamed

stockings.

‘Close your eyes,’ she said, her voice curving. ‘Now:

open your mouth.’

It took a moment to discern the mix of orange and

bitter chocolate. As it melted to a creamy puddle on my

tongue, Mai sank to her knees and unzipped my trousers.

She took my cock in her mouth, reaching up and feeding

me another chocolate. Dark chocolate, this time with a

cognac centre.

When I pulled away from her, fearing I would come

too soon, and pushed her back onto my desk, kissing her

hard on the mouth, I tasted white chocolate and mint on

her lips. My cock throbbed as I moved lower. She had

painted chocolate on her nipples; cocoa powder dusted

her pubic hair. It seemed to me, when I bent my head

between her thighs and plunged my tongue inside her,

that she had become chocolate herself, her centre a rich,

creamy liquid that made me long for more with every

taste.

I can never smell chocolate without remembering that

night.

I leave Ms Schultz’s office and hail a taxi. Without

giving myself a chance to think, I tell the driver to take

me immediately to Waterloo.

Salisbury station is deserted when I arrive; I have to wait

more than forty minutes for a cab to collect me and drive

me to Stapleford. Forty impatient minutes in which the

certainty which impelled me here evaporates, replaced

by a knell of doubt and fear thudding in my stomach.

This is madness. Madness. Mai would be quite within her

rights not to permit me through the front door. May well

do precisely that, in fact.

‘Stop here,’ I tell the driver suddenly, as we reach the

village.

He pulls sharply onto the side of the road and I get

out. ‘Thirteen quid, mate.’

I hand him a twenty-pound note through the window.

As he fumbles for change, I glance up the hill. The house

appears to be in darkness; for all I know, she isn’t even

here.

I realize dispiritedly how ridiculous this enterprise is.

Mai isn’t going to want to see me. She’s made it quite

clear that she doesn’t need me in her life any more - for

which I have only myself to blame. I can’t expect her to

suddenly trade back, as if we are children in the play

ground negotiating an exchange of Yu-Gi-Oh! cards. And

there’s Sara to consider. She’s sitting in London even now,

wondering where the hell I’ve got to, pregnant with our

child. What does my presence here say about my future

with her?

I lean into the cab to tell the driver to take me back to

the station, just as he puts his foot on the accelerator and

roars away into the darkness.

A horse snickers softly in a nearby field. Shifting my

briefcase to the other hand, I step onto the grass verge

to avoid another car, headlights bucking and swaying as

it picks its way down the country lane. A wash of ditch

water puddles over my socks and shoes.

In two days’ time, my wife will be served with papers

informing her that due to her unreasonable behaviour, I

require a divorce. I know from experience that once that

happens, there is no turning back. Our legal mercenaries

will enter the ring on our behalf to do battle, and our

positions will become entrenched. Such tentative cordiality as we have now will disappear under a storm of

disclosures and Form Es and our client believes and Without

Prejudice. However much I give her, it will be less than

she needs or deserves. Whatever access I am permitted

with my children, it cannot be enough.

If there is a window, one chance to turn back the clock,

it is now. p;

Grasping my case more firmly, I strike out up the hill. love Mai. I have to convince her of that. Throw myself at her feet and beg her forgiveness, whatever it takes. I’ll

sleep in the scullery with the bloody rabbit if she’ll just

nree to give me another chance. Counselling, therapy,

rluirrh, castration, whatever she wants. I made one mis

I

take: a huge mistake, of course, the worst; but I’ve learned

from it. Surely she can understand that? Errare humanum

est, after all. Of course it’s going to take time to rebuild

trust, I can’t expect her to forgive me overnight, but if we

both work at it, if we both really want it to work-The front of the house is still in darkness when I reach

it, but light spills from the back, by the kitchen.

I make my way around the outhouses, my shoes

crunching on the gravel. God, my feet are cold. I brush

past a bank of lavender; the silky leaves stroke the back

of my hand, tickling. I have trodden this familiar path