Infidelity (27 page)

I watered it down a bit for Selena: ‘She'd be reluctant to say anything. But if you pushed her, I'm sure she'd suggest waiting. She'd say we should only act when the heart and the head and the gut are all sending us the same signal. She'd also say we should never respond to pressure, especially not from someone who claims to love us. Love is never about control.'

‘Sounds like a smart woman, this close friend.'

‘She is. A very smart woman.'

‘If I may say so, the misty way you quote her, it sounds as if she's a really,
really
close friend.'

‘That close. Yes.'

‘So why are you, like, working your butt off on a Saturday instead of out with her somewhere, playing?'

‘Ouch.'

‘Ooh. Touched a nerve?'

‘Can I give you a tiny piece of professional advice?'

‘I'm desperate for some advice.'

‘I don't mean the kind you're looking for. My advice is much simpler – never ask why. Too brutal. Too confronting.'

‘Did I ask you why?'

‘You did – about why I'm here instead of with her. As usual, there's a simple answer and a complicated one. If you ask me straight out like that, I'll always give you the simple one, like this – she's away for the weekend.'

‘Oh, yeah. Sorry. You could ask me the same thing, I realise. Why aren't I spending the day with Stoker?'

‘I'd never ask.'

‘I'll tell you why. I'm using the office as a hidey-hole. Giving myself a break. Losing myself in work. It feels like a safe, familiar place.'

‘After-hours offices are places where lots of unhappy souls take refuge. It's a great escape. Anyway, whatever it is we're supposed to be doing, p'raps we'd better go and do it.'

I paid the bill and we walked outside and stood under the cafe's awning. The earlier drizzle had turned into rain, light but steady. The cars had their headlights on.

‘I'll bet she's not twenty-five,' Selena said.

‘My really close friend? No, she's my age, roughly. A year older, actually.'

‘The older woman. Fabbo.'

‘Steady on. Only a year.'

‘I was kidding. Don't think I haven't asked myself the obvious question. What's a forty-five-year-old – especially
this
forty-five-year-old – doing falling for a twenty-five-year-old? You don't have to be a psychologist to wonder whether he's trying to wipe out the past twenty years and start all over. Kind of creepy, isn't it? As if he thinks being with me will make him, like, twenty-five again. Or even thirty-five. Split the difference.'

We lapsed into silence, watching the rain. I was thinking of my really close friend's marriage, dragging through its endgame, with an age gap of twenty-six years. I wouldn't wish such a marriage on Selena or anyone. Age aside, I wondered whether Stoker's overbearing religiosity might turn out to be as damaging to Selena as Perry's overbearing wealth was to Sarah.

‘Doesn't sound very charitable, does it – what I just said? I mean, maybe he just loves me. Nothing's ever tidy. Nothing's ever perfect. I've learnt that much.'

‘I don't think this is going to let up,' I said, and we dashed across the road and along the unprotected footpath to the Blair building.

35

21 May.

Eleven weeks, practically to the day. Fox took Sarah to the clinic. I had pleaded with her to let me take her myself, but it was like an echo of her visit to Bethany, the rejected obstetrician: ‘We're not a proper couple, Tom,' she had said, ‘not a public couple. Not yet.'

I was in the apartment. No lights on.

Another grey day. Spring seemed to be in retreat.

Lying on the bed in the guest room, back where I had started.

I was not ready for this. No preparation. No coping mechanism.

The appointment was for three. Nothing would have been allowed to stand in the way of Sarah's Friday lecture. Clear the decks, then do the deed. That was my Sarah.

I couldn't bear to look at my watch. I had put it in the drawer of the bedside table, and there it would stay.

I hadn't gone to work. I had told the Death Rey I would work at home.

There was no way I could work at home. I hadn't achieved much this whole week. We had both been dazed by our looming . . . what? Loss? Even Sarah's conviction that she was taking the only possible course of action – even her impatience to have it over – had not been enough to insulate her from my sadness. I had told her I was sorry I hadn't been able to hide it better. (I couldn't hide it at all.)

Eating was out of the question.

Sarah had seemed remarkably calm when I left her at King's. We hadn't kissed, of course – I accepted that we were not a public couple – though we had clung to each other earlier, inside the apartment, kissing and murmuring our most tender assurances. I was hanging on to that, and I hoped she was too. After I had gone with her in the cab to King's, I managed to squander the entire morning meandering back to Vincent Square, responding to every distraction on offer, giving Mrs Hepworth a clear run. The river had been busy.

I had paused to watch a small boy – he couldn't have been more than three – sitting on a bench licking an ice-cream cone. The woman beside him had looked more like a nanny than his mother, and I hadn't wanted to attract her attention by gazing too intently at the boy. But the intensity of his pleasure had been a marvel to behold. The care he had taken in slowly turning the cone in his hand, licking the ice cream in a way that preserved its hemispherical shape, suggested that this was a ritual of immense importance. I had almost been moved to go and buy an ice cream of my own.

Fox called me on her mobile to say the clinic was behind schedule.

It must have been almost three.

I sensed some change in the light outside. It was growing darker. I thought I heard rain.

Fox called again to say Sarah had gone in, and that she would take Sarah home to her place and phone me from there.

I was certain we had agreed Fox would bring her straight back to the apartment from the clinic. It was I who should have been caring for her, not Fox. (I, the father. The once-to-be-father.) That plan had evidently changed.

I felt as shallow and useless as a puddle.

Miraculously, I fell asleep. I had an intense dream. Amanda and Philip came to me with a basket full of picnic goodies. They told me it was a celebration – of what, they didn't specify. I removed the cloth cover and the basket was empty. They ran away, laughing. (My dream machine was in prosaic mode.)

My cheeks were wet when I awoke to the sound of the phone.

It was Fox again, calling from her home. Sarah was sleeping. She was fine, Fox said. (I wondered what ‘fine' meant, if you were a doctor.) I asked when I might speak to Sarah. Fox was non-committal. ‘We'll just let her sleep,' she said. It sounded as if that meant all night.

I remembered to phone Jelly, to tell him I wouldn't be joining his party for Saturday's FA Cup final. I felt as if I was being scarcely coherent, but Jelly seemed unfazed. No doubt he knew everything. His tone was warm.

I wondered what I should do next.

I stayed in my clothes and slept on and off through the night.

The phone rang at eight a.m. and I was instantly alert, fired with wild excitement.

It was Fox.

‘Hello,' I said, as warmly as I could, trying to cover my disappointment. ‘I was expecting you to be Sarah. How is she? When can I speak to her? When will I see her? When can I bring her home?'

‘Look, the news is not terrific, Tom,' Fox said. ‘Sarah's not in great shape. She's badly in need of peace and quiet.' That was the way she put it. She thought Sarah was more stressed than she'd been letting on and, now it was over, she seemed really zonked. (Zonked. Funny word for a doctor to use, I thought.)

‘Is she unwell?' I asked. I was having a lot of difficulty processing the idea that Sarah either didn't want to speak to me, or wasn't capable of speaking to me. But this is
us
,
I kept thinking
– Sarah and me
.

‘Not unwell, exactly,' Fox said. She thought Sarah was mainly tired. She described Sarah as being quite withdrawn, as if she'd retreated into her shell. Not quite herself.

I pressed her a bit. ‘I really need to hear the sound of Sarah's voice. Is she actually asleep?' I asked. ‘Are you sure she wouldn't like to say even a quick hello?'

Only then did Fox mention that she had given Sarah a mild sedative (something I knew Sarah would have resisted mightily). She said that had seemed the kindest thing to do. So that was why Sarah wasn't up to a conversation.

‘As soon as Sarah surfaces again,' she said, ‘I'll bundle her up and put her in the car and we'll go.'

‘Go?' That seemed a strange word to use. Shouldn't Fox have been saying ‘come' if she had been describing the short trip back to Vincent Square?

Fox explained that she and Sarah planned to drive down to Littleton for the weekend. She told me (I wish
Sarah
had told me) that Sarah had decided to take the following week off work and stay down there for a while.

I simply couldn't face the thought of not seeing her for a whole week. A week seemed a very long time. I assumed we would soon speak by phone and clear all this up.

Fox told me she had a clinic at the hospital on Monday morning, so she would be coming back to London on the Sunday night. She assured me Sarah would be fine (that word again) with Mrs Hepworth, and I could only agree (never having met Mrs Hepworth, of course). Fox undertook to call me when she got back and arrange for us to have a drink together after work on Monday. She promised to fill me in properly.

She was sure Sarah would be feeling better in a day or two.

When I sounded a bit agitated at the reference to ‘a day or two', she said: ‘It's hard to predict how quickly she'll come out of this. Please try to be understanding, Tom. She sends her love, of course. She told me that three times, the dear thing. She'll be dying to speak to you as soon as she's up to it.'

I liked the sound of Sarah sending her love three times.

After we'd hung up, I tried to sleep.

I had known Sarah for only four months. She had transformed my life. Yes, I admit that when the possibility of parenthood had crashed unexpectedly into our lives, I had seized on it. I had wanted her to be the mother of my child. Yet I had known, almost from the start, that it was not to be. Now all I wanted was to hear Sarah say, once again, that she could live without a baby but she couldn't live without me.

That would be enough.

36

T
hat Sunday might just as well have not existed. I did finally feel hungry enough to eat. I wandered to the Embankment and back, Sarah's spirit everywhere. Three times, I composed text messages that I never sent, though I did reply to one I received from Fiona:
Jack gone. Mikey keen
. I noticed there was no
ciudados
– Fi's Spanish period was definitely over.
Go for it
, I replied, unable to think of anything wise or witty.

I realised it made no sense to say I loved Sarah if I wasn't prepared to respect her wish for peace.

Fox phoned, as promised. She was unforthcoming. No change. Sarah still withdrawn, but otherwise fine. We arranged to meet at a pub near the Blair office after work on the Monday. I was sick with apprehension.

Fox was twenty minutes late to the pub. The place was crowded and noisy and I had lost control of my anxiety.

When she finally arrived, I was shocked by her appearance – I had forgotten that she, too, was pregnant, and her bump was now the kind of balloon Sarah had been dreading. This shouldn't have distressed me, but did.

‘Sorry, Tom,' she said, planting a kiss on my cheek and squeezing my arm. ‘Someone threw themselves onto the track and tube services are in disarray. I thought the bus would be quicker. Wrong.'

‘Tell me, Fox. Tell me everything, please. I need to know. Is she okay, or not?'

‘Tom, Tom. It's okay. She's fine.' Fox rested a hand on my forearm. ‘Calm down,' she said.

‘I don't feel calm,' I said, resentment and irritation rising within me, ‘especially when you use that word.' I felt the unwanted prick of tears. This had not begun well.

‘What word?'

‘“Fine”. Too vague. That's the kind of word doctors use when –'

‘Listen to me, Tom. Sar's not in great shape. No doubt about that. I'm not pretending she is. But it's in her mind, not her uterus, I assure you. Gynaecologically, she's fine.'

‘The procedure . . .'

‘A piece of cake – she was barely eleven weeks. Nothing to it. Quick and easy, and entirely without complications.'

‘So what's the problem?'

‘She's gone into some kind of melancholia, I'd say. Some women become depressed after a termination, but I don't think Sar is a simple textbook case of that.' Fox smiled warmly at me. ‘Sar isn't textbook anything, is she?'

‘You mean she regrets what she's done? What we've done?'

‘I doubt that very much, Tom. Some women do, of course, but Sar was as clear about this as it's possible for anyone to be. So I don't think it's that, either. No. She knows she's disappointed you, of course. That's tearing at her a bit, I'd say.'

‘So why can't I talk to her? I could settle that in an instant. What's done is done. I said I'd support her, and I do. I do. She's disappointed me? That's rubbish. I love her. Pure and simple, Fox.'

‘I know you do. I know.' The hand again on my arm.

‘I told her before we left the apartment on Friday morning – I was absolutely on her side. I understood it perfectly. Accepted it all. Absolutely. We'd been over and over it so many times. Disappointed? That's crazy.'

‘Is it?'

‘What do you mean? How would you know?'

‘I realise this is totally between you and Sar. I just don't want you to say you're not disappointed, even to me, if you are. Or if you were.'

‘I need to talk to Sarah, Fox.'

‘I'm sorry, Tom. Not yet. She really doesn't want to talk yet, and I don't think she's up to it. Mrs Hepworth is there with her, and I'm in close touch.'

‘I can't even ring Mrs Hepworth, of course,' I said with some bitterness. ‘I don't exist for Mrs Hepworth.'

‘I really don't want to get into any of that. But I can tell you I did see Perry on the weekend. I hadn't seen him for years – hardly at all since the wedding, in fact.'

‘And? Don't ask me to feel sympathy for Perry.'

‘Of course not. I just thought you should know he's very, very frail and scarcely capable of speaking. The nurses have to do everything for him.'

‘Why are you telling me this, Fox?'

‘I thought you might want to know. That's all. Subject closed.'

I felt a spurt of anger. ‘Subject closed?
Subject closed?
Like the other subject, is it? Closed, because you say it is.'

‘Tom, I'm sorry I mentioned it. Obviously I misjudged. I'm truly, truly sorry. Okay?'

We hadn't even ordered drinks. To calm myself, I asked Fox what she wanted and went to the bar to order, soft for her and hard for me. When I returned to our table in the corner, Fox was weeping.

‘I spoke sharply, Fox, and I apologise for that. It was completely unjustified. We both know it wasn't about Perry. I'm worried sick about Sarah. But I shouldn't have snapped at you like that.'

‘Don't apologise. We're both worried sick about Sar. I've never seen her like this, to be frank. It just isn't like her to be so withdrawn. So . . . uncommunicative. Sar of all people.'

We sipped our drinks and looked everywhere but at each other. I thought: Perry was frail, was he? Was he going to die within days of the termination? Was that to be the way it was?

Eventually I said: ‘What happens now? Do I just wait for her to call? Will you speak to her?'

Fox shrugged. ‘I'll keep in touch with her as much as I can. Mrs Hepworth is a gem – she's a bit mystified, but far too discreet to pry. She knows to call me if anything worries her. And I'll call you. Of course I will.'

‘So I just . . . wait?'

‘I don't see what else you can do. Waiting is the most loving thing you can do. Do you mind me saying that?'

I shook my head, but couldn't speak.

‘E and I are having a meal at a little place in Berwick Street. It's only a ten-minute walk from here. Do you want to join us?'

I shook my head again. ‘I'm not good company, Fox. Another time, maybe. How is E, anyway? And how are
you
?
I'm sorry – it was rude of me not to ask that first.'

‘Fine,' Fox said, rubbing her abdomen. ‘See? It's not such a dreadful word after all. I
am
fine. I'm due in eight weeks and everything's on track, with the possible exception of my marriage.'

The First Wednesdays got top marks for transparency.

‘And E?'

‘Oh, E is E. Disgruntled is the best way of describing E, I think. He wants to change the world via green energy, and nothing's moving quickly enough for his liking. But he's a brick. He really is. Sometimes a rather crumbly, rather wobbly brick, but a brick nonetheless.'

We lapsed into a bruised silence.

‘How much longer are you going to work?' I asked, casting about for some continuity.

‘Tom, you don't have to make conversation. Not with me. But thanks for asking. In case you really are interested, the answer is – no idea. I'll keep going for as long as I can.'

It was on the tip of my tongue to say that, yes, I really was interested and even to ask how Fox was planning to manage when the baby arrived. But I realised I was actually not that interested, except out of politeness, and I was getting the hang of the First Wednesdays' modus operandi. I said nothing.