Infidelity (19 page)

As the preacher's voice rolled on, I wondered why hypocrisy so often lurked in the shadows of fidelity. In my own experience, both personally and professionally, plenty of people managed to be faithful to things that appeared contradictory, God and
Mammon being one of the more popular combinations (though Mammon was often disguised in smart talk about the free market or capitalism or even ‘consumerism' – as though that was yet another belief system that might repay our faithfulness to it).

I recalled one of my former clients, a wildly successful businessman, who came to me for help with ‘a crisis of faith' – that was how he described it. Though he was a pillar of his local church, the tentacles of his business operations had reached into some murky places. A principled teetotaller and something of a puritan, he found himself promoting liquor sales through one of his companies and distributing soft-porn magazines through another. His crisis sprang from his sudden realisation that the drive for profit had softened the edges of what he had previously imagined were the absolute moral imperatives flowing from his religious beliefs: his commercial success had come to feel like an infidelity as damaging to his integrity as any extra-marital affair.

Conscientious therapist that I was, I had always tried to resist judgements about human frailty, though I noticed that people's judgements about each other were usually harshest when sexual impropriety was involved. I also found those most self-righteously judgemental about other people's infringements of some particular code of sexual morality were often gripped by unhealthy sexual obsessions of their own. (Guilt, I thought, manifests itself in tediously predictable ways – passing judgement on others perhaps the most tediously predictable of all.) Celibate priests and so-called ‘morals campaigners' sprang to mind as two categories peculiarly at risk of being unfaithful to their own too-loudly-trumpeted values – rather like cops tainted by their lifelong fascination with crime.

Most of our infidelities, I knew, involved less dramatic, less public transgressions: the everyday distortions, misrepresentations and pretences – the little lies – that chip away at our integrity. But I had always declined to set myself up as the judge of those. I had come to believe that many of the lies we tell each other are representations of a truth we wish for, even if it doesn't quite match the one we're stuck with. And some of our most flagrant untruths feel less like infidelities than acts of mercy.

Dragged from these reflections by the sound of the organ, I stood and sang the final hymn with gusto.

On Sunday morning, I wandered around the town again, returning to the Minster for the late-morning matins. On my second visit, I was prepared for the magic and was not ambushed by it. I was able to concentrate more closely on what was being said and sung, to appreciate it, yet also to realise that I could never go back to where I had once been. (All my significant homecomings, I believed, lay ahead of me.)

One of the readings in the service was the passage from Corinthians chosen by virtually all of my married friends to be read at their weddings –
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal
. I enjoyed hearing it in the traditional words of the old King James Version. When the reader reached the end of the passage, I was struck again by those disturbing words: ‘
Now we see through a glass, darkly.
' That seemed a perfect description of the life I had left behind me in Sydney; a life spent hiding behind my own version of that dark glass – the persona of the helpful, caring therapist. Those professional filters had distorted my view of the world as surely as any prejudice.

I left the service with a sense of uplift, grateful for the beauty of both music and words, and went off in search of lunch. Some of the old aura of wellbeing I recalled from my days as a regular churchgoer still clung to me, as if attendance itself could be regarded as a virtue.

After a sandwich in Dean's Park, I returned to the Royal York to collect my bag and wait for the train. I was feeling weary, my sleep the night before having been disturbed partly by trains clanking in and out of the station all night, and partly by the clankings inside my own head. I had been trying to reconcile Philip's concern about Sarah with my own lack of concern, and deciding, as if it explained everything, that Philip and I simply saw the world differently: neither of us could live comfortably in the other's skin.

The waiter at the hotel's Tempus bar found me an outside table protected from the wind that had sprung up and I immersed myself in a crime thriller to help me pass the time until my train was due. I was irritated by the staccato prose and engrossed by the plot.

On the journey back to London, settled in a warm carriage, I was lulled by a dreamy sense of disconnection from all the towns and villages racing past my window, and all the lives lived within them. I simply gave myself up to the hypnotic rhythms of the wheels on their tracks . . .

My mind wandered back to the Minster. I used to think ‘through a glass, darkly' was how we were condemned to see the world. Don't try to wipe that glass clear! Don't be greedy for enlightenment! Dreams of escape are futile – content yourself with the blurry, partial view! And always the paradox at the centre: the more you limit your view, the more you'll feel as if you understand
everything.

(But didn't Eve eat the apple? Wasn't that about enlightenment? And wasn't the point of that story that God preferred his creatures to be kept in the dark, ‘innocence' being code for ‘ignorance'?)

Had I really stepped out from behind the dark glass? It felt like it. Dropping the mask. Falling in love with a free spirit like Sarah. (But was she free, really? Or was she even more of a captive than I?) I felt as if I were coming face to face not with any ultimate answers, but with an even more beguiling prospect: seeing, with a new clarity, the people and places I had previously seen only through that opaque barrier of prejudice, or judgement, or fear. Half of what we think we're seeing through the dark glass is just a reflection of our own preconceptions, anyway – no wonder it's such a seductive, comfortable place to be.

As I half dozed, feeling an unaccustomed sense of contentment, I idly wondered whether I was only swapping one dark glass for another; one highly subjective way of seeing the world for another equally distorted, Sarah-centric way of seeing it. I didn't care. I preferred this one, anyway.

24

B
ack in London well before Sarah was due in from Guildford, I opened the door to the apartment to find the light on and an envelope lying on the floor with my name written on it in felt pen. I had never torn an envelope open more quickly, nor experienced such panic in the process.

T –

I've been throwing up for most of last night and today, so I came back early to see Fox. I might have eaten something off – I did unwisely have a scallop risotto in Guildford on Saturday night – rather too far from the sea – also rather too far from Italy. But this could be something else and I didn't want to be like a teenager, slinking into a chemist for a test kit – is that silly?

Whatever it is, I need Fox to give me something to control this dreadful vomiting – I'm afraid I'm not terribly beddable.

Come wind, come weather,

S

Waiting for the sound of her key in the lock, I caught myself pacing the floor like an expectant father in an old-fashioned movie, at a time when men were banned from labour wards. I abandoned any pretence at staying calm and gave way to a desperate wish to know that Sarah was pregnant, though I didn't, of course, want her to suffer.

I was envious of Fox – her knowing what there was to be known, either way, before I did – and I was resentful of Sarah's archaic refusal to use text messages for anything except public announcements. (I played with the thought that there might soon
be
a public announcement.)

And then she was through the front door and in my arms, leaning against me, her own arms limp at her sides.

‘Let me look at you,' I said. Her face was as white as the fleece of Mary's little lamb.

She smiled a crooked, uncertain kind of smile I had never seen before.

‘Fox is almost positive the vomiting
was
thanks to the risotto. I won't be facing scallops again for the foreseeable future. That was a dreadful experience – I don't think I've ever felt so wretched before. I spent most of the train trip in the loo. But it's settling down now, and Fox has given me something to take during the night if the nausea returns.'

‘And?'

‘Fox examined my breasts and asked lots of questions about the soreness and the fullness. I told her about the desperate fatigue, and about the stresses of Easter. She gave me the famous test.'

‘And?' I was betraying too much eagerness for this news.

Sarah came close to me again, leant against me, and whispered, right into my ear: ‘Yes, I am.'

I kissed her, long and deep.

Feeling faint, I dropped onto the sofa and drew Sarah down onto my lap.

‘Pregnant,' I said, searching for some other words. ‘Our child.'

We rolled over and lay beside each other, crammed together on that narrow couch. I laughed; I wept; I said all kinds of incoherent things that tumbled out of my mouth like mingled cries of joy and terror.

Sarah held on to me, but I became aware that she had been silent through these outpourings.

‘Are you well?' I asked, foolishly.

‘No,' she said, sitting up. ‘Have you forgotten? I'm as sick as a dog.'

‘I mean, apart from the risotto. Does Fox think you're well?'

‘She does, yes. She's referring me to an obstetrician colleague of hers, and I'll go and see her next week. But the birth would obviously be due some time in early December.'

‘The birth,' I said. ‘Did you hear yourself say “the birth”?' Trying to make it sound joyful. Striking a light note. But wondering why she hadn't come right out and said ‘the baby'.

I placed my hand on her abdomen and she laughed. ‘You're a funny boy – there's nothing to see or feel. This has only just happened. Fox is amazed I had any symptoms at all, considering that a missed period is hardly a symptom with me. Whatever's in there is as tiny as can be. Roughly the size of a lentil, or perhaps she said a raspberry. I've forgotten. Anyway, tiny. I think she said a quarter of an inch. I can't be more than six weeks' pregnant at the very most. We know that much. The first time we had sex was the first Wednesday in March. Remember? Fox was very taken with that idea.'

(No secrets, indeed.)

‘Anyway, a December birth might be quite good really. It would keep me warm. And term would be over.'

For a moment, I was taken aback by the matter-of-factness of these calculations. But I abandoned myself to unalloyed pleasure, chortling like a chimp.

In the middle of the night, after euphoria had swept me into a deep sleep, I awoke and reached for Sarah's warm body beside me. The bed was empty.

I found her at the dining table, sitting with her head in her hands.

She looked up at me, her face still white and her eyes rimmed red with exhaustion.

‘Come and sit beside me, Tom,' she said. ‘I'm afraid I had another wave of nausea. I've just taken Fox's magic pill. It will pass soon.'

The problem was not nausea, of course. I knew that. We had embarked on a long and difficult journey. Euphoria could only carry us so far – here we were, after less than one night, sitting in grim silence, knowing this was to be no ordinary pregnancy.

‘Tom, I know you're overjoyed. You'd be a wonderful father. Anyone could see that. And you've wanted this. You never told me until it happened, but you've wanted this. Ever since I complained of sore breasts, I could feel you willing me to be pregnant.'

‘Willing you? You'll be a wonderful mother.'

Sarah shook her head. Not in disagreement, I thought; more like bewilderment, or a reluctance to engage with the very idea.

‘The big difference between us is that nothing was further from my mind than motherhood, whereas you . . . Look, Tom, I have to tell you something. This has hardly sunk in. Do you mind me saying that? If I had to tell you how I'm feeling right now, I'd have to say I'm shocked. Terribly, terribly shocked. Shocked and numb. I'm sorry.'

‘No, don't be. No need to be sorry. We didn't plan this. Of course you're shocked. I'm shocked myself. Excited and amazed. But shocked, too. Yes.'

‘Not the way I am, Tom. I was on the pill, remember.'

‘Well, sort of,' I said with a smile.

Sarah laughed. ‘I know I'm hopeless,' she said, and wiped away a tear. ‘What I meant was, I was theoretically using a contraceptive. I wasn't trying to conceive – I was trying
not
to conceive.'

‘Lots of first pregnancies are unplanned, you know. Even in marriage.'

‘Marriage,' she said sharply. ‘Why did you mention marriage?'

‘I wasn't talking about us. I was just saying lots of pregnancies –'

‘But of course one of us
is
married. Me. Just not to the father.'

This was not the right time to pursue any of this. ‘Don't you think we should both try to get some sleep?' I said, and guided her back to bed.

In the darkness, her voice barely audible, she offered what I knew was meant to be reassurance: ‘I'm happy for you, Tom. That's the truth. You're the kind of man who deserves a child.'

I squeezed her hand. She said: ‘I can't pretend I'm happy for me, though. I do know I'm astonished, but I don't know what else I am. Apart from shocked. This pregnancy is not just an accident – at forty-four, it's an absolute fluke. Give me time to adapt, to adjust. Even to decide what I think. Dear Tom, I have to be honest with you. Let it be enough that you're so thrilled.'

The next morning, Sarah was still unwell. We abandoned our regular Monday walk to King's and I phoned for a cab to take her to her breakfast meeting with her colleagues, though she assured me she wouldn't be eating anything. As we stood on the footpath waiting for her cab, she said: ‘We mustn't tell anyone yet. Not anyone. Too much can go wrong in these early weeks. Did you know that thirty percent of pregnancies spontaneously abort in the first three months? Mother Nature isn't very protective of fertilised eggs, is she?'