Infidelity (18 page)

22

R
eturning to my desk after the Easter break, I was less inclined than ever to develop a training program designed to inspire the young scorers to do something they were simply not equipped to do. Whenever I came across any of them in the lift or at the gents, I took the opportunity to encourage them to put more effort into reading great novels. I had no reason to believe they ever had the faintest idea what I was driving at.

Sarah had been right when she declared that that Easter Monday would come to feel like the beginning of a new chapter for us. I felt a new confidence in our future, though I had resolved not to mention the pregnancy question again – either she was or she wasn't, and we would soon know, though I couldn't stop my heart drumming out its rhythms of hope.

Lectures at King's didn't resume until the Wednesday after Easter, so Sarah had gone back to Littleton for the day. ‘I think it might be smart to turn up at the house again,' she had said, ‘unscheduled and unannounced, especially as I left earlier than I was going to. I don't expect to find him in congress with the day nurse – Mrs Hepworth assures me that service is provided exclusively at night – but I see no harm in just popping in. I might call on a couple of my friends in Compton as well. I won't stay the night, but I won't be too precise about that, either.'

I met Sarah at Blackfriars bar that Tuesday evening, she straight from the Guildford train, me straight from the office. She looked exhausted and distressed.

‘I don't know if I can keep doing this,' she said, and a surge of panic rose in me.

‘This?'

‘All this to-ing and fro-ing. I don't just mean the travelling – that's nothing, although I do feel a bit more tired than usual after these two trips down and back in such quick succession. No, I mean the constant separations from you. Us being apart every weekend. Not just being apart. Me being down there, trying to . . . oh, I don't know, Tom. It's quite appalling even being in that house, the way things are. Mrs Hepworth is kind and supportive, but Perry is like some giant spider lying in wait . . . I don't know.'

This was not the bold and confident Sarah I had come to know. This was not the reckless, assertive woman who so airily dismissed any interest in her private moral maze. (It was also not a woman who was about to reveal the true reason for her regular visits to Littleton.) She pulled a tissue from her purse and pressed it against her eyes, but the tears kept flowing.

‘I've never cried as much as I have since I met you, Tom. Some of those tears have been of pure joy – you know that. Like the very first time you took me to bed. I'd never felt so . . . so
consumed
. It was such a release. But . . .'

I reached across our table and took her hand.

‘See? You shouldn't even do that in a place like this. I've been coming here for years. Perhaps we should only meet in places where they don't know me. Oh, it's all so stupid. So wretched.'

I withdrew my hand, and that provoked fresh tears.

‘Am I being silly? I
feel
silly,' she said, using a word I had certainly never before heard her apply to herself.

‘Not at all. I'm just not sure I've heard everything yet.'

‘Look, every weekend I go off, so disciplined, so sensible, so self-righteous about the house and everything. And what happens? I sit in my beautiful, beautiful study, paralysed by the horror of the situation.
Paralysed
by it. Missing you. Missing you?
Longing
for you. And hating that man downstairs. Yes, I haven't said it before, have I? Hating him.'

‘But we know it's more complicated than that. We've been through that. I do try to understand.' (Why did I continually do this? Why, with Sarah, did I so often find myself arguing the opposite of the things my heart wanted to say? Was it simply in the hope of reassuring her?)

‘Of course you do, Tom. That's because you're some kind of angel. But I don't want you to have to go on being so reasonable. So kind. You've come into my life and . . . the thing is, when I say I'm hating Perry, you know full well I'm hating myself, too. I hate what I've become. I hate that the house matters so much to me. I hate that everything's become so complicated. Can we walk, please?'

We walked for an hour, aimlessly, barely talking, Sarah clutching my arm as if I were saving her.

‘It's better now it's dark,' she said, as we stood again on Hungerford Bridge and gazed into the black water of the Thames, the reflections of the city's lights blurred by a drizzle that had begun to fall.

‘Let me get you home, out of this,' I said, and we ran to the Embankment and caught a cab to Vincent Square.

After we had eaten, Sarah told me the rest of her Easter story.

She told me how Perry had insisted on being taken to the cathedral in a wheelchair on Easter Day and what a major production that had been, with Sarah, the day nurse and Mrs Hepworth in attendance, and Sarah's friends being sympathetic and solicitous while her own heart was pounding with resentment at this further invasion of her world. Yet Perry had seemed so frail, so limp, so helpless, she found it impossible not to feel sorry for him, despite everything.

She told me how the clergy had made a great fuss of Perry, mentioning their gratitude for his extraordinary generosity to the cathedral, with Sarah not having the faintest idea what they were talking about. The puzzle had later been solved when the day nurse –
the nurse, Tom! –
showed Sarah a copy of a letter Perry had dictated to her, addressed to the dean, referring to two large donations – one for a new stained-glass window for the Lady Chapel, to be commissioned after Perry's death (no doubt with a plaque, Sarah added icily), the other to create an investment fund for the choir, to pay for the purchase of music and robes, stipends for outstanding young choristers and occasional choir tours.

When the three women had finally driven Perry home and struggled to get him back onto his bed, the nurse prepared lunch and Perry indicated that he wanted some private time with Sarah. She was sure he was going to unleash some of his anger at her, or reveal his plot to wrest ownership of the house from her, but all he had wanted to say – and he said it with great difficulty through slurry lips that wouldn't obey his brain – was that it was Sarah, and only Sarah, he had ever loved.

Telling me that story left Sarah utterly spent. She cried more tears – for us, she said, but also, I assumed, for Perry and the lost years. Perhaps she had caught another glimpse of the man she had once been so keen to marry; the man who had brought a certain frisson, a certain tacky glamour, into her young life; the man to whom, one way or another, she was still bound.

Even allowing for his illness, Sarah felt his behaviour had been so strange that she believed Perry was losing his mind and his decline was becoming steeper.

‘He couldn't have meant he loved me – he couldn't,' she said, gripping my hand. ‘I don't know why he said that. It was melodramatic. Whatever he had with me, it wasn't love.'

There was no exuberance in our lovemaking that night, just an urgent and intense need of reassurance. We fell asleep joined to each other, as if no man – not even a dying husband – could put us asunder.

23

T
he voice of my conscience: a postcard
from
Maddy I had retrieved, along with a couple of other items of mail, from under the battered doormat outside Fiona's flat. (
Mail 4u
, Fi's text had said.
Will come around 6 tonight. T
, I had replied.
No can do – left under mat
. A follow-up text mentioned ‘some issues' urgently needing to be resolved with Juan. Every text ended with
Ciudados
.)

Tom

Thought you might enjoy being reminded of our 'arbour. Beautiful as ever and still here – just like me. Thanks for flurry of emails. All well at work. Have you contacted the Harpers of Aberdeen? You did write to them last November, remember.
DO IT NOW!

M x

Sarah was so troubled by her Easter encounter with Perry and so torn by our weekly separations, I decided a quick trip to Aberdeen might reduce that stress, at least temporarily, simply because she would realise that I wouldn't be in London on the weekend even if she could have been. The last thing I wanted was for there to be a tug-of-war between her two worlds. (Spurious logic, of course: if she could have been there, there's no way I'd have been haring off to visit unknown rellies in Scotland.)

I'd never met the Harpers of Aberdeen, though contacting them seemed a good idea when I was still in Sydney, planning this trip and imagining vast tracts of lonely time to fill, before Sarah, before Blair. My phone call to them began in confusion – they appeared not to have received my letter, and I had trouble deciphering their Aberdeen brogue as the phone passed between husband and wife. We sorted out the family link via my father with much hilarity on their side and they concluded by promising me a warm welcome, though I was still not sure they quite knew who I was. ‘Aberdeen to heaven, nae a big step,' Aileen, the wife of my father's cousin (I think), assured me.

I explored cheap flights direct from Heathrow, and visited the Caledonian Sleeper website, attracted by the idea of an overnight train to Scotland and by their propaganda, inviting me to avoid a short-haul flight ‘and its disproportionate contribution to global warming'. Here I was in the classic consumer bind – conscience versus wallet.

All such considerations were swept away by my follow-up phone call to the Harpers to confirm the arrangements for my visit. Amid more laughter, Aileen seemed quite taken aback by my suggestion of a visit as soon as the coming weekend.

‘But we winnae be here, laddie,' she chortled into the phone. (How old did she think I was?) ‘We're off to Speen in the morning for our wee bitty o'sunshine.'

‘Spain?' I said.

‘Aye. We gan there whiles to my sister Mildred's hoose. It's nae sae cold and that wee bitty closer tae London. Dougie will drive us. Mildred's boy. He's a muckle great laddie. That's if his car is back from the repairs in time. Nae chance, Mildred says.' This prospect generated a fresh outbreak of mirth in Aileen. ‘Nae matter. Enough blether. D'ye ken Speen at all, yersel'? It's a bonny wee toon.'

Clearly she was not talking about Spain after all.

We made loose undertakings to get together on their return.

‘I'm not so sure I ken wha ye are. Where are ye frae again?' Aileen asked as we were about to hang up, and I realised our confusion was down to more than a problem of accent.

With the visit to Aberdeen on hold, I still felt the urge to get away from London for the weekend and decided on an overnight trip to York. I telephoned Philip to see if he was free to join me but he was rostered to be on call at Great Ormond Street.

‘We should get together again soon, though,' he said. ‘Another session at Henley, perhaps?'

‘Love to,' I said.

There was a long pause and I wondered if we had lost our connection.

‘Are you there, Philip?'

‘Look, Tom, do you mind if I say something?'

This was unexpected. Philip, like his father, was a model of restraint; ‘something' was clearly code for ‘something personal'.

‘Of course,' I said, knowing this would be about Sarah, and possibly a follow-up to my conversation with Amanda.

‘I've had you on my mind a bit. You remember when we were talking about your new lady, I said a few things that might have offended you. I hope not.'

‘Not at all. We've known each other a very long time, Philip. We're family. You can say whatever you like.'

‘None of my business, of course, but I just wondered how it's all shaping up.'

‘It's going well, Philip,' I said, conscious of all his reservations. ‘She really is a remarkable woman in so many ways. The situation is no less complicated, of course. That's why I'm off to York on my own this weekend.'

‘Yes, I assumed that. I would like to meet her. Perhaps dinner one night?'

‘Good idea. We should get something in our diaries.' (I was saying it was a good idea though I was not at all sure Sarah would agree to meet Philip. I probably wouldn't even raise it. I didn't want to hear her say again that we were not yet a ‘public couple'.)

‘Look, I don't want to repeat what I said over lunch at Henley. You know I'm worried you might be rushing things – that's just me being cautious. But it's more than that. I'm also worried that she might be taking you for granted – you seem to be the one doing all the compromising. Just seems a bit unequal, somehow. Do you know what I'm saying? Am I being desperately insensitive even raising this again?'

‘I can see what you're driving at,' I replied as convincingly as I could, ‘but it doesn't feel like a problem to me. I don't feel as if I've given anything up. She's being open and transparent, and very generous, as well. The free accommodation, I mean.'

‘But her life does seem to be pretty much the same as it was before you arrived on the scene, whereas yours is a very different life. Perhaps what I'm driving at is . . . it all revolves around her, rather. Not much give and take? Everything on her terms? Am I misreading it hopelessly? I'll back right off if you want me to. I'm just putting a point of view, Tom.'

I was moved by Philip's concern and by his uncharacteristic frankness.
Was
he misreading the situation? Or was I? There were times when I did feel as if Sarah's schedule was inflexible, and quite unchanged by my presence. But I understood why – she had a full-time job, and I didn't; she had a house in the country, and I didn't; she had a terminally ill husband in circumstances that were unusual, to say the least. She had the responsibility of her mother; she had a commitment to sing with the First Wednesdays for her own health and sanity. I knew none of that could – or should – change.

Yet what we had, in among those commitments, was good. Better than good – unimaginably good. We talked together, we walked together, we laughed together, we read together, we ate together, we occasionally went to the theatre or the cinema together (always behaving circumspectly in public), we played together . . . I felt like the luckiest man alive when I was with her. Philip's perception, from outside the relationship, would probably have been mine too, if the roles had been reversed. (Somehow I couldn't imagine the roles being reversed: Philip would have expected more from a partner; would have been more ruthless if his expectations had not been met.)

‘Tom, I have to run. Let's talk some more another time. After I've met Sarah, perhaps. I want this to be wonderful for you. I really do. But there's this shadow across it in my mind. I suppose I worry that your commitment isn't quite being matched – anyway, I've said more than enough. Enjoy York.'

I took the Saturday morning train to York and was enchanted by the place, starting with the magnificent Victorian railway station itself – once the largest in the world, a station attendant proudly assured me. I checked in to the vast and rather faded Royal York Hotel, adjacent to the station. I was too early for a room and left my bag with the concierge. Like millions before me, I headed towards the Minster that dominates the town. Winding my way past the city wall and through the commercial centre, I was constantly distracted by the whispers of history. I wandered through The Shambles, where the upper storeys of the old houses almost met across the street and tourists crowded together on the cobblestones, holding their digital cameras aloft, aiming for the perfect shot. I contented myself with a couple of postcards, and tried to suppress images of the street awash with the blood of a dozen slaughterhouses-cum-butcher shops before they became stylish tea rooms like the one I chose for lunch.

The Minster itself inspired something close to awe, and I idly wondered how modern voters would feel if a politician were to announce a civic project that was going to take two hundred and fifty years to complete, as the Minster had. I noted the time of choral evensong and resolved to return to hear this space filled with its own distinctive sound.

I visited the Treasurer's House and Yorkshire Museum and strolled in the museum gardens. I was utterly absorbed by the beauty, the history, the charm. Climbing the worn steps to the top of Clifford's Tower, I heard a small boy behind me confessing to his mother that he was rather afraid of heights and wasn't sure whether to go on. Later, I saw him on the second-top step, clutching the railing, not having quite ventured on to the walkway running inside the ancient parapet. As I passed, he looked up at me with a tentative grin.

‘I made it,' he said.

‘Good for you,' I replied. ‘It's a long way up. Had a look at the view?' Three hundred and sixty degrees, over the city and surrounding countryside, stretching away to a flat horizon.

‘No, thanks. I think I'll just stay where I am.'

I spent the afternoon prowling around the city, losing track of the time and allowing myself to be drawn far away from the Minster. Even walking briskly I was late for evensong, and by the time I entered the Minster the first hymn had been sung and the small congregation was settling into its seats, rustling and coughing. I found a spot halfway down the nave and surrendered myself to the familiar sonorities of the liturgy. The organ, majestic and ethereal by turns, vibrated into every corner of that vast space, and into some neglected corners of my soul, too, awakening a kind of yearning in me, as if I might float free of my rationalist's moorings.

When we reached the anthem, Edward Bairstow's ‘Save us O Lord', I found myself drawn back, back, back into the recollection of other choirs in other places, singing this same work; back into the period of my life when my faith was stronger than my doubts, or when, at least, regular churchgoing smothered them; back into past simplic­ities, past passions. Even the preacher drew me back, though I was scarcely listening to his words. It was those rhythms, those cadences, that evoked . . . what? A time of greater certainty, perhaps. A time of greater hope.

Yet I didn't hanker after those past certainties – not consciously, anyway. And I had present hope aplenty. So why that dark ache in my chest? Remorse? Not that. Regret? No more, I thought, than was normal for a forty-three-year-old. Loss? Of what? Faith? Perhaps that.

I pondered the idea of loss of faith. Unfaithfulness. Was that, I wondered, one of the infidelities that could lead on to others? Was that what Sarah had meant when she said being corrupted by Perry's wealth made other infidelities easier? Was one kind of faithfulness a bastion against other lapses?

Sitting in that magnificent setting, surrounded by all the panoply of religious practice, I wasn't sure. Not sure at all. I could be true to myself, I thought, and faithful to a partner, without needing religious faith to shore me up. Yet I saw how the reverse process might work: one kind of infidelity
could
make others easier. If a man betrayed his wife, or his friends, or his colleagues – or even his country – perhaps that would lower the moral barrier to other betrayals. But I couldn't see why steadfast religious belief should be the core fidelity. Wasn't the core fidelity being true to yourself, to your own scruples? And wouldn't other fidelities be more likely to flow from that one than from any others? That was an idea that had been with us for thousands of years. Shakespeare, as usual, put it best:
This above all – to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man
.