Infidelity (26 page)

When I tried to be as truthful with myself as I could possibly be, I had to acknowledge that any theoretical position I might take on the subject was coloured by the dizzying prospect of Sarah becoming the mother of my child, and that this could be achieved simply by taking no further action. It was comforting to think I might have had the weight of moral opinion on my side, but how unfair was that? If I had been as ambivalent about having a child as Sarah obviously was, wouldn't I have been less smug about the ethics of it?

It was clear we were not going to have that conversation, nor, I supposed, did we need to. The future of this baby was not a philosophical debating point. Our positions were clearly opposed, though we hadn't got around to admitting that – let alone arguing the case for them. We hadn't even quite reached the stage of acknowledging that one must yield to the other.

All I said was this: ‘You said Jelly is dead against it, but you're obviously not – at least, it sounds as if you're not. I assume you're not morally squeamish about it at all, or are you?'

‘Don't bring Jelly into this. Jelly has become aggressively anti-abortion ever since he became a Roman Catholic, which is a quite recent development. I don't see how he could actually believe most of what he now claims to – throwing in his lot with the Romans seems to have caused him to betray half his values. I think he was attracted to the tribe – that huge extended family he never had. Jelly's a great networker, don't forget – the Catholic Church is a networker's paradise.'

‘You don't think he's a believer at all?' At that moment, I couldn't have cared less about Jelly's beliefs. I knew we had gone down this side-track as a way of Sarah avoiding my direct question. The further we drifted from the main point, the more animated she became.

‘Who knows? I have no access to Jelly's soul – I'm sure he has his faith. But this isn't about theology – it's his new-found moral convictions I personally find distasteful. How faithful is it to capitulate to a set of institutionalised precepts that contradict your own values? I'd call that its own kind of infidelity – its own kind of betrayal.'

‘Betrayal? Sounds a bit harsh.'

‘I don't think so. Jelly's scruples are a shambles. We all love him to bits but I don't think he adds much weight to either side of this argument.'

‘This argument? Either side? Is it really so clear-cut?' My question was disingenuous: I knew that's exactly how it was.

‘Me against you? I hope not. But, so far, you do rather seem to be marshalling forces in favour of keeping the pregnancy going. I haven't heard you imagining anything about a future for you and me without a child.'

‘And I haven't heard you saying much about your vision of life
with
a child. But here's something else to imagine. Suppose one of us had strong religious convictions –'

‘Which we don't. That really is fantasy, Tom, and completely unhelpful – I'm sorry. As a matter of fact, plenty of religious believers would say that if I terminated this pregnancy – assuming the foetus already had a soul, and there's abundant angels-on-a-pin arguments about that rather arcane topic – but if it had a soul, and the pregnancy were terminated, that innocent soul would go straight to paradise. Whoosh! I'd be doing it a favour. No sweat and toil. No pain and sorrow. Express to heaven. I might go to hell, but the not-quite-a-child wouldn't. How do you like that?'

Sarah's voice was becoming shrill. I looked closely at her. At first I thought she might be about to break the tension with a laugh, but I saw tears welling in her eyes. I drew her to me and wrapped her in my arms.

‘Don't worry, Tom,' she said, ‘I'm not going crazy. I just find all this intensity a bit much at present. It's so easy to end up saying silly things. Like I just did. I don't want to mock people's beliefs, any more than I want people to think I'm being cavalier about this pregnancy. Especially not you.'

Cavalier? That was not what I had been thinking at all. I knew Sarah had agonised over this from the very beginning. I knew she was shocked and confused by the discovery that she was pregnant. I knew that almost every argument presented to her by her own head
and
heart was in favour of not going ahead. It wasn't just Perry, though I could see she was carrying some vestige – perhaps it was more than a vestige – of loyalty to Perry that I thought was misplaced and was, in any case, hopelessly enmeshed with financial considerations. But it was her academic career, too. It was her whole way of life. Perhaps it was even the prospect of her mother's disapproval. It was the thought of an upheaval so vast, so profound, so
unplanned
, she had trouble imagining any of it.

Some time in the midst of all this, darkness had fallen.

‘Are you hungry?'

‘Not hungry, Tom, just exhausted. Can we stop now?'

I got out of bed, went to the bathroom, turned off a couple of lights and drew the curtains. By the time I was back beside her, she was deeply asleep.

34

A
Monday-to-Friday office is a comfortable place to be on a Saturday. It's practically deserted. You can work at your own pace, without interruption and without guilt if you decide to ease back for a while.

Sarah and I had shared a taxi to Waterloo and I'd come on to Blair to make some serious progress on my strategy document. Already there had been a noticeable improvement in morale and a general buzz around the place – perhaps because people felt someone was showing a genuine interest in them and taking their grizzles seriously.

That morning at the apartment had not been easy. Sarah was looking drawn and we had agreed there was nothing to be gained by more discussion. I had taken her hands in mine, looked into her troubled eyes and said, with all the courage I could muster, that I would support her in whatever she felt she must do; that I respected her problem of divided loyalties; that I acknowledged her deep uncertainty, from almost every point of view, about the wisdom of keeping the child.

I knew it was time for us to work out how to live with the conclusion that had always been coming to her, like birds to their evening shelter.

By midday, I had completed the first draft of my report and I was ready for some lunch. On the stairs to the ground floor I met Selena, also heading out.

‘Working Saturday,' I said, ‘is that unusual for you?'

She smiled. ‘I'm just another wage slave, I guess. What about you?'

‘Oh, my little project isn't quite as little as I'd thought. I have a deadline looming. But no complaints. I'm enjoying it.'

I punched the after-hours exit button, opened the door and stood back to let Selena through. On weekdays, she wore smartly tailored suits and high heels to work; on this bleak Saturday, she was in jeans, a corduroy jacket and boots.

‘Have you finished for the day?' she asked me.

‘No, just ducking out for a sandwich. How about you?'

‘Same. Would you mind if I joined you?'

‘Of course not. I'd be delighted. I do literally mean a sandwich, though. Is that okay?'

‘Totally fine,' she said. ‘I'd like company.'

We turned the corner into Charing Cross Road and headed without consultation for the cafe on the other side of the street that was clearly as familiar to her as to me. We placed our orders at the counter and took a table by the wall, facing each other. Selena picked up a small vase of artificial flowers, moved them to the table behind her, and placed her smartphone on the table in front of her.

‘You haven't come to one of our Friday drinks sessions yet,' she said, trying to look stern. ‘You've interviewed the others, of course, in that disarming way of yours, so now they're keener than ever to get this naughty boy from Australia away from the office some place where they can talk to him about something other than Blair.'

‘Oh. Great.'

‘No, really. They'd love to bleed your brains about your clinical experience. I told you once before, most of them regard Blair as a staging post on the way to something more serious.'

‘You too?'

‘Totally. I'm just a bit more inert than the others. My friends so can't believe I'm still here.'

‘Are you still thinking of going into clinical work?'

‘Actually, I'm hoping your mini-revolution might suit me, and I might stay a while longer. Does that sound, like, totally pathetic? I'm not so conservative in most other respects.'

‘Pathetic? Not at all. That's precisely what I'm hoping a lot of the psychologists will decide. It is going to become a very different place for them if our masters accept my recommendations.'

‘Hmm. You know, Tom, I don't want to talk about work at all. Do you mind?'

I shrugged. ‘It's Saturday. Open slather. What would you prefer to talk about?'

‘Can I ask you something much too personal?'

‘In clinical mode, you mean?'

‘Kind of, I guess. The stereotype of psychologists is that we're pretty hopeless in our personal lives, isn't it? You know – either we're drawn to psychology because we're already pretty dysfunctional, or studying it makes us so.'

I laughed. ‘I haven't heard that one since I was an under­graduate. But plenty of people do think we're better at dishing out advice than taking it ourselves. Physician, heal thyself. Builders in unfinished houses. Plumbers with leaky taps. Financial advisers going broke. Same idea.'

Selena looked as solemn as another stereotype: the gorgeous young woman whose brow is furrowed by worry over matters that will seem inconsequential in another ten years. I was guessing Selena's luminous beauty had been as much a problem for her as beauty is for most people who've had to learn how to live with the special treatment they know they haven't earned.

‘What's on your mind, Selena?'

‘Can you keep a secret?'

‘It's my stock in trade. I don't leak.'

‘This is about my love-life, of course. What else?'

‘I remember you mentioned a boyfriend. A rapper, wasn't it?'

Selena nodded. ‘This is weird. I feel as if I can trust you. But I never would have sought you out. Just meeting you on the stairs like that, I thought . . . Tom, of course. The perfect person!'

‘Whoa. Not the perfect person for anything, I assure you. But I've had a lot of practice at listening. You won't find anyone more client-centred than I am.'

Our sandwiches and coffee had arrived and I wondered if Selena might use this break in the conversation to change her mind about opening up to me. Clients were often glad of an excuse to deviate from the course of self-disclosure they'd set out on. But not Selena.

‘I'm impressed you even remembered my boyfriend is a rapper. Do you remember his name?'

‘Give me a hint,' I said, as if this were a game.

‘Rap evangelist. Über rapper, actually. Famous as. That's if you're in the scene. I seem to recall rap doesn't do it for you?'

‘Can't say it does.'

‘Well, he's Paul Stoker.'

‘I do remember you told me that. I'm sorry the name didn't stick. I admit I've never heard of him.'

‘Probably helps with my little story, actually. No prejudices one way or the other?'

‘Well, I'm not keen on “motherfucker” as a lyric.'

‘Oh, Stoker's the very opposite. This is your full-on voice-crying-in-the-wilderness vibe. Prepare ye the way of the Lord. Started out vaguely Rasta, then went fundo. I'd say he's, like, semi-charismatic, but still recognisably mainstream. He rejects any labels, by the way. I'm just trying to give you a feel for his posi on the spectrum. He's a humble disciple of the Lord Jesus. I'm quoting him. A simple fisher for souls.'

‘So he's a preacher as well as a singer?'

‘Rapper, Tom. Rapper. Get with the project. No distinction here between, like, rapping and preaching, whether your bag is religion or any of the other ways to the stars.'

‘Well, I probably don't need to grasp the nuances, do I?'

‘No, I guess not. Neither would I if I wasn't totally in love with Stoker.'

That solemn look again. A lusty bite into her sandwich.

‘Sounds good – totally in love with someone. Where's the problem?'

‘Being in love with a man twenty years older than me? A man with five kids back in Jamaica? By three different mothers? A man whose beliefs I don't . . . well, it's not that I don't share them – it's more that I think they're, like, wacko. Wouldn't you say that's a problem?'

‘Nothing's a problem if it isn't a problem.'

‘It's a problem.'

Another ferocious bite.

‘Which part – the three women? The kids?'

‘Nuh – past life. That's what he says. Wild days. Wild oats. He supports them all. Sees them whenever he can, which is not often. But he's a servant of the Lord these days. Even switched his name to Paul – yep, he used to be Saul. Heavy, eh? No more wild. That's what he says.'

‘You're sceptical?'

‘Not at all. I believe every single word he says, except when he talks about Mary as if she was an actual, sexual virgin. Or when he says the Second Coming is going to be a literal, physical event – the Rapture's, like, his personal obsession. But I do believe he's straightened out his life. I see it in front of me. He's clean. He's good.'

‘Totally in love with him, you said.'

‘Absolutely. And he's in love with me. I'm his God-given partner for eternity. The queen of his new life. Spot the flaw in the argument – God gives him a total atheist as his partner for eternity? No problem for Stoker.
The wind bloweth where it listeth.
Whatever.' Selena took a gulp of coffee. ‘Anyway, he adores me. He honours me – that's his favourite word.'

Silence from me. (
Since first I saw your face I resolved/To honour and renown ye . . .
)

‘It's spooky, really. His conviction that I'm the One for him. Capital O. He spotted me in the crowd at a club he was playing. Came to find me after a set and . . . I fell for him, completely. Total collapse of cognitive function. Total capitulation to my roaring hormones.'

‘Only that?'

‘'Course not. Lust is the easiest way to justify reckless romantic behaviour, though. Don't you think? I was already a fan, of course. So I was, like, halfway there.'

‘More coffee?'

‘Thanks. I will. Say when you need to get back.'

I went to the counter and ordered two more coffees and a friand for Selena. Her rapid demolition of the sandwich suggested her appetite roared as loudly as her hormones.

‘Tell me about your family,' I said, when the order had arrived. ‘Have they met him?'

‘Met him? They're enchanted. My little brother is like,
wow!
Can't believe he's had Stoker in his room, looking at his posters, signing Stoker gear, whatever. Sitting at our dining-room table, drinking tea with Mum and Dad. Not your image of a rapper, is it? Not even a rap evangelist, I'll bet.'

‘You live at home?'

‘I come and go a bit. I share a house with two girls who used to work at Blair. But Mum and Dad like me to put in regular appearances.'

‘They into rap?'

‘Not as silly as it sounds. They're both Jamaican. Dad's a paramedic, Mum's a social worker. Both God-fearing Methodists so they're prepared to forgive Stoker his past. As for his loopy beliefs . . . well, they basically share most of them and I think they're hoping he'll drag me back into the fold.'

‘So you love him. He loves you. Your parents approve. Little brother ecstatic.'

‘I know, I know. Sounds straightforward, doesn't it? Dream come true, except for the religious bit. But even apart from that, I'm totally torn . . .'

Selena sipped her fresh coffee and took a wide-open bite of the friand. (Torn? I was imagining the scene in Littleton on that drizzly Saturday. I was certain Sarah was no longer torn, and was pondering only the logistics.)

‘He wants me to marry him. Babies. The full catastrophe.'

I nodded.

‘Go on – react!'

‘What could I possibly say?'

‘I'm twenty-five years old, Tom. I've known Stoker for six months. How can I decide a humungous thing like this? I know there's a difference between love and infatuation but I'm not even sure how long it takes to work that out. And, sure as hell, I have no way of knowing the difference between loving someone enough to enjoy hanging out with them and loving someone enough to spend the rest of my life with them. There's no way. My parents already had me by the time they were my age. I so can't imagine that. One of my school friends is already, like, married with a baby. But she's the only one. Can't even imagine what that would be like. There's no way.'

I was wondering how far to go with this. Selena was a colleague, not a client. I gazed out the window, noticing that the light, already dim when we came here, had faded further. Serious rain was on the way.

I plunged in. ‘A close friend of mine says that's the key to any big decision.'

‘What?'

‘Imagine it. Play with it. Let it unfold. How would I feel if
this
?
How would I feel if
that
?
Let the answer come to you, like breathing.'

‘Yeah, well. Nothing's coming to me like breathing right now. Marriage certainly isn't. Not even to Stoker. What would your friend say to that?'

I knew precisely what Sarah would say. Sarah would say that if Selena's imagination couldn't project her into a life entwined with Stoker's, she might as well back off right now. Sarah would say that if a situation isn't clear, you need to wait till the fog lifts. Wait until those answers waft into your mind on a gentle breeze of knowingness and settle in your heart as a conclusion.