Tess Stimson - The Adultery Club (33 page)

amber. But it isn’t real. I have to keep telling myself that. None of this is real. However vivid and dizzying it seems.

Trace forgets that we aren’t irresponsible teenagers any

more. Other people are affected by the decisions we take,

and the mistakes we make. And so-‘Get up, you twit I scold, deliberately refusing to take

him seriously. ‘It’s a bit late for bended knee.’

His expression darkens. ‘Would it have made a difference?

If I’d asked you to marry me before you - before?’

‘No, Trace I say softly, ‘it was never about that.’

He gets to his feet, and throws wide the doors to the

roof garden. I follow him out onto the terrazzo. We stand

side by side without touching, gazing over the starlit roofs

of Rome, breathing in air that smells so very different

from the air back home: city air, yes, but with rich, deep

low notes of roast chestnuts and spicy lemon, mimosa,

bougainvillea and heady, feminine perfumes. Easy to get

intoxicated on a midnight terrace in a foreign country

with a man who, still, has the capacity to make your soul

sing.

‘You’ve put me in an impossible position, you know1

say quietly. ‘I can’t stay here in Rome alone with you.

Much less in the same room.’

‘You could.’

I sigh deeply. ‘Yes. I could. But we both know it would

be a terrible mistake. What happened thirteen years ago it’s

in the past, Trace. We can’t go back. Too many people

would be hurt; people I care about very much. You can’t

build happiness on someone else’s misery.’

Furiously, he swings round to face me. ‘What about

me? What about my misery?’ he says fiercely. ‘Tell me

you don’t still love me, and I’ll never mention it again.

I’ll be the dearest, most respectful friend a very proper

married woman could ever have. Just tell me, Malinche,

and I swear, I’ll never ask you for anything again.’

‘I love Nicholas,’ I say steadily.

‘More than me?’

He really is so beautiful. Tall, lean, just the right side

of louche with his bare feet and faded jeans and layered

T-shirts - really, he should be whizzing down a snowpipe

in Colorado - and that black, black hair sweeping back

from his forehead in a startling widow’s peak; and then

of course those extraordinary hazelnut-whirl eyes, fringed

with lashes that no man has a right to. It’s about symmetry,

isn’t it, beauty: our unconscious mind busy again,

matching, measuring, weighing up, looking for patterns

and points of reference. In a chiselled jaw or the curve of

a cheekbone; or a relationship between two people who

once believed themselves destined for each other.

‘I love Nicholas,’ I whisper.

He steps closer, so that we are drinking in each other’s

breath.

‘Then why the tears?’ he says softly.

Our gaze snags and hangs in the air, a dewdrop on a

blade of grass. The smell of him - cedar, spiced rum and

clean sheets - drifts over me like woodsmoke from an

autumn bonfire.

I shiver, and the next moment Trace has caught my

head with both of his hands and bent his lips to mine.

His kiss is so familiar, and yet so other. He tastes cool

and minty and smoky and honey-sweet. His stubble

grazes my chin; I feel the rough calluses of his thumbs

against my cheeks. My arm snakes around his back and

tangles in his hair and as he scoops me up and carries

me back into the bedroom without breaking our kiss, a

kiss that speaks roughly to every cell in my body, as he

lays me gently on that damask bedspread and starts to

unbutton my dress, it’s as if the long years without him

have been the betrayal, and this, this is where I’m meant

to be.

Of course I can’t stay in Rome now. I call Nicholas and

explain that we have, Trace and I, foolishly failed to take

into account the fact that it’s Easter, and this very Catholic

country has effectively closed down; apart, of course, from

those bits of it making huge sums of money fleecing the

hordes of devout tourists. I tell him I will be returning

home that afternoon; which Nicholas seems to accept

without demur, without any real expression of his opinion

at all, in fact, something I would find very perplexing

were I not so caught up in this hideous, hideous guilt.

Which is only exacerbated when Nicholas then organizes,

for the first time in our married life, a birthday party

for me the following week; and even includes Kit, which

must have pained him.

Grownup birthdays have never been very big in our

house; not for want of trying on my part. Nicholas belongs

to the half of the population (generally male) who thinks

they’re a big fuss about nothing. Which is rather a disappointment to the other half (generally female) who thinks

fax machines and new vacuum cleaners are not the way

to celebrate being another step closer to forty.

As we all sit down to dinner, which he has, astonishingly,

refused to let me cook, he hands me a long, thin,

scuffed cardboard box.

‘Oh, Nicholas!’ I exclaim, as I draw out the string of

exquisite hand-blown Venetian glass beads. ‘It’s the loveliest

thing you’ve ever given me!’

He fastens them about my neck, dropping a light kiss

on my cheek. I certainly can’t complain about his attentiveness.

I don’t think I’ve felt so cherished since our

honeymoon.

Which only makes me feel so much worse.

‘Come on, Evie,’ I whisper, as Nicholas moves to the

sideboard to carve. ‘It’s your turn to say Grace.’

‘I don’t know what to say,’ Evie hisses back.

‘Duh!’ Sophie says scornfully. ‘It’s only the same every

Sunday!’

‘Just say what I always do, sweetheart,’ I encourage.

Evie respectfully bows her head. ‘God,’ she intones

gravely, ‘why on earth did I invite all these bloody people

to dinner?’

‘It wasn’t funny,’ I say to Kit later as he helps me wash

up, whilst Nicholas drives his parents to the station to

catch their train back to Esher. ‘I know you and Louise

think it’s hysterical, but Nicholas’s parents probably won’t

accept an invitation here for the next five years.’

‘I would imagine—’

‘Sssh! Little pitchers, Kit.’

Sophie lolls against the kitchen island, ears waggling

avidly. Kit is always so wildly indiscreet; I dread to think

what outrageous gossip they pick up when he’s around.

‘Mummy?’ she asks. ‘When’s the right time to get

married?’

I’m grateful for the change of subject. I dunk a copper

saucier into the sudsy water.

‘I don’t know, darling. Why?’

‘Evie says she’s never going to get married. She says

you have to kiss boys if you get married. Mummy, when

is it OK to kiss someone?’

When your husband isn’t looking.

‘When they’re rich and handsome as sin Kit quips,

watching me carefully.

‘Kit! You have to date someone a bit first, Sophie

darling,’ I explain, elbowing him in the ribs. ‘Dates are

for having fun, and people use them to get to know each

other.’

‘On the first date, you tell each other lies, and that

usually gets people int’rested enough to come back for a

second date,’ Evie opines. ‘Even boys have something

int’restin’ to say if you listen long enough.’

I try not to laugh. ‘Not lies, exactly, Evie—’

‘Daddy wishes he wasn’t married,’ Sophie says casually,

running her finger around the birthday-cake plate to

scoop up the last of the icing. ‘I heard him on the phone

yesterday; he said everything would be different if he

wasn’t already married.’

My chest tightens. Nicholas was no doubt talking to

Giles, all boys together, moaning about the wife, that

kind of thing. But for no reason that I can think of an

image of the gold lipstick I found in Nicholas’s pocket a

month ago swims into my mind. He found it in the corridor

at work, he told me so. And of course I believe him.

That horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach is my guilt,

not his.

‘I can’t see why you feel guilty Kit complains, after I’ve

shooed the girls upstairs to bed and we stand on the

kitchen doorstep enjoying a furtive smoke. ‘It’s not like

you did anything to feel guilty about.’

‘Kit! I kissed another man! And what’s worse, I enjoyed

it - very much, if you want to know the truth.’

‘Darling girl, if that was the criterion for adultery,

there’d be very few people left married at all. Temptation

isn’t a crime.’ Thoughtfully, he watches me stub out my

cigarette and carefully wrap the butt in a piece of kitchen

foil. ‘You sweet romantic child, did you really think you

could sail through to your golden wedding anniversary

without the odd little slip now and again?’

‘I’m sure Nicholas hasn’t slipped1 say miserably.

‘Dear one Kit chides, ‘you didn’t go to bed with the

man, you silly girl: which if you ask me is where the

real crime lies, but that’s a different matter. In the end

you Just Said No, like the good little girl you are, and

ran back home to mother, no harm done. Although if

you’re going to cut up this rough about it, you might as

well have thrown caution to the winds and bonked him

silly.’

‘I very nearly did I admit. ‘Oh, Kit, you can’t imagine how much I wanted to—’

‘You’d be surprised.’ Kit sighs.

‘We were kissing and kissing and it was wonderful, and

then at the last minute he stopped and said, “Are you

sure?” and of course I wasn’t, and he was very sweet

about it, said of course he understood, it didn’t matter at

all, he didn’t want to rush me into anything I didn’t really

truly want—’

Kit exhales. ‘Oh, he’s good.’

‘He was,’ I say, deliberately misunderstanding. ‘He was

very good. He slept on the sofa - it was too late to book

another room - you should have seen him, his feet hanging

off the end. And then he very kindly ran me to the

airport in the morning and - and—’

Suddenly it’s all too much. I flee inside and crumple

on the kitchen sofa, wailing like a child.

Kit sinks down next to me and gently rubs my back.

‘Sweet girl, don’t cry. Not on your birthday. Nothing

happened, it was just a silly little kiss, everything’s going

to be absolutely fine—’

I raise my head. ‘But I wanted to sleep with him, Kit,

don’t you see? It doesn’t actually matter if I did it or not.

I wanted to go to bed with Trace, which is just as bad as

if I’d gone ahead and done it. It’s worse than if we’d had

meaningless sex and forgotten about it in the morning.

That would’ve just been physical, but I’ve betrayed

Nicholas emotionally. I’ve got involved with another

man: to all intents and purposes I’ve committed adultery.

Whether we got our kit off doesn’t really matter.’

‘Bullshit Kit says succinctly. ‘If you really believe

that’s true, why didn’t you sleep with him in Rome?’

I

hesitate, sniffing noisily. Kit hands me a tissue.

‘You don’t jail people because they think about robbing

a bank. This kind of self-flagellating nonsense is what

keeps the bloody Church in business. You didn’t fuck him.

You thought about it, you kissed him, and then you

backed off.’

‘But—’

‘Malinche, get over it already. Worse things happen at

sea. Just try not to call your husband Trace in bed; he

might not be quite as understanding as you were—’

We both startle as Nicholas lets himself in through the

kitchen door.

‘Well, I think I got them to see the funny side by the

time we reached the railway station,’ he says, shrugging

off his jacket. I’m not sure my mother’s entirely forgiven

us, but if we promise to—’ He stops, one arm still caught

in his sleeve, as he sees my reddened, blotchy face.

‘Malinche? What’s the matter? Has something happened?’

‘Bit of a ding-dong with Louise Kit says cheerfully.

‘I’m sure it’ll all blow over by the morning.’

Nicholas frowns. “Things seemed fine when I left.’

I feel absolutely wretched. Oh, what a tangled web we

weave! I hate deceiving him; and yet the lies keep growing,

spiralling out of control, each one sprouting two more like

some mythical Greek monster.

‘Mai?’

‘It’s nothing I mumble. ‘Like Kit said. It’ll all blow

over in the morning.’

1 hope so Nicholas says, hanging up his coat. ‘It’s the

Law Society dinner next week, and Louise said she’d babysit for us since Kit’s in New York. It’d be a nuisance if you couldn’t come, Will Fisher asked for you especially.

266

And with this mess over buying out his partnership, I do

really rather need you to be there.’

‘You are one of the few women I trust within a ten-foot

radius of my husband Meg Fisher tells me sadly. ‘Look

at him. Bee to a blasted honeypot

We both watch Will all but disappear into the cleavage

of a rather flashy young girl in a plunging blue dress. My

heart goes out to Meg. Does Will have no shame, that he