Tess Stimson - The Adultery Club (25 page)

had answered—’

‘I was bored,’ Trace says carelessly, and I can’t help

thinking, amused and frustrated in equal measure; no

wonder Kit loved him, they’re both so much alike. ‘And

you wnbore me. Besides which, I have to talk to you about

sourcing.’

‘Can’t it wait until the morning?’

‘Not if you’re coming with me, it can’t.’

‘Coming where?’

I’ve just unearthed this amazing new supplier in Normandy, fantastic cheeses, Mai, out of this world, you’ll love them. If we get the first Chunnel train after six, we

can—’

I laugh. ‘Trace, don’t be absurd, I can’t do that. It’s

Saturday tomorrow, Sophie has Pony Club, though I must

say I rather think she’s growing out of this particular

phase, thank God, you have no idea how expensive it is;

and then Evie’s got a birthday party in the afternoon.

I’m sure Metheny’s getting a cold, too, it’s just out of the

question, I’m afraid.’

‘Bugger. Can’t Nicholas look after them for the day?’

Nicholas is a good father, a good husband, but the idea

of leaving him to cope with the three girls all day on his

own whilst I gallivant off to France in search of cheeses of

course, Trace has never actually met Nicholas-‘He isn’t even home from work yet, Trace, I can’t

expect him to mind the children tomorrow. He needs a

break, he works incredibly hard.’

‘So do you,’ Trace says, ‘harder, actually, I should

imagine.’

For a mildly hysterical moment I think of the laundry

room, the dirty clothes hamper filled to the brim, the

overflowing ironing basket practically an archaeological

ili. Of the dishwasher still full of dirty plates from last

nif.’,lil I just haven’t had a spare moment to crawl in it

.tiiiI Itsh out the soggy spaghetti clogging the filter - and

the kitchen bin squished full with so much compacted

rubbish I can’t actually get the plastic liner out. The empty

larder - ‘Mummy! These Cheerios aren’t Cheerios, they’re dust, we’re going to starve, Evie says she’ll call social services’ - the overdue car insurance, the forgotten dry

cleaning, the late birthday cards, the unreturned library

books. The burnt-out bulb in the fridge that I keep meaning to replace, the dirty bed-sheets I simply must get round to’

changing before they climb off the beds themselves. The

Christmas thank-you letters I haven’t written, the name

tapes I need to sew in, Sophie’s science fair project, the

manuscript I still need to deliver, oh God, oh God-‘Where is your husband at this time of night, anyway?’

Trace asks. ‘Didn’t you say Evie had a school thing on

tonight?’

I don’t often feel angry - it’s so demanding: time,

energy, I don’t have enough of either to squander on just

being cross - but I could have cheerfully killed Nicholas

this evening. I chose him precisely because he seemed like

the kind of man who would never let you down.

‘He had to work, some eleventh-hour settlement that

needed to be thrashed out I say through gritted teeth.

‘Poor Evie, she was so disappointed. They’ve been doing

a special project on Stonehenge and she spent hours on it.

All the girls in her class did presentations and of course

she was the only one there without a father watching. It

broke my heart’

‘Bring her with you tomorrow,’ Trace suggests. ‘Go on,

why not? Nicholas could cope with the other two, surely,

and it’d cheer Evie up, a trip to France.’

When Trace says it like that, it seems so do-able.

Everything always seems so simple, so easy, to him. He

has such energy, such passion and determination: enough

to cany you with him even when you know, in your heart

of hearts, that it’s not that straightforward.

He fills the world with such possibility. Whereas

Nicholas-But I can’t start to compare them. Or I really will be in

trouble.

Kit must think me still twenty-two, foolish and wide

eyed. I do know why he exerted himself to persuade me

to take the job with Trace; and it has nothing to do with

the fantastic career opportunity, the dream come true, that

it absolutely is. Kit has never really forgiven Nicholas

for coming into my life when he did, closing the door on

Trace and thus any chance Kit might have had to redeem

himself. When I said I was marrying Nicholas, Kit insisted

it was too soon, I hadn’t yet worked Trace out of my

system, I needed Nicholas for all the wrong reasons.

When what he really meant was that he didn’t want to

live with his own guilt.

‘Come on, Mai,’ Trace wheedles, ‘come to Normandy

with me.’

‘It would be nice to just drop everything for once I say

longingly.

‘And it is business. We can be there and back in a day.

You know it’ll be fun, Evie can play chaperone - oh, shit.

Look, I have to go—’

Over the distant thrum of street noise, I hear a girl’s

high-pitched voice; I can’t make out the words, but her

sentiments are clear. 1 smile, wondering what hot water

Trace has got himself into now. Over the years, I’ve

spotted him popping up now .mil ;gain in the odd gossip

column - one of Lomlon’M most eligible bachelors,

II)!

apparently; not that I’m jealous, of course - usually

accompanied by one in an interchangeable series of whippet-thin girls with ribs like famished saints. I suppose it

was only a matter of time before it all caught up with

him.

‘See you tomorrow Trace says quickly, clicking off the

call.

‘We’ll see I reply to dead air; that favourite parental euphemism for No, but I’m too tired to argue any more, smiling despite myself as I replace the phone.

He could always do this to me. Make me smile, make

me believe that whatever insane idea he’d come up with

- write a book, run a restaurant, marry me - was the right,

the only, thing to do. Which is why I didn’t dare see him

again for thirteen years, until I was sure I was quite, quite safe.

I don’t leave Nicholas’s office for a long time, staring

at the framed picture of the two of us on his desk. Our

wedding day, ten years ago; we look so young, so carefree,

so certain.

Kit wasn’t entirely wrong in his assessment. I was a

little bit reboundish when I met Nicholas; after what had happened with Trace, who wouldn’t be? But I knew without doubt that he was the right man to marry, in a

way that Trace never had been. Not quite as dashing, perhaps, not as knicker-wettingly, stomach-churningly disturbing; but you can’t live on a perpetual knife edge of

excitement all your life, can you? If Trace was the ideal

lover, I knew instantly that Nicholas was the ideal husband.

Men are like shoes: you can have sexy or comfortable,

but not both.

Not that Nicholas wasn’t sexy, too. In his own way.

There was a depth to him that was shadowed and dark, a

carnal, sensual undercurrent of which he seemed totally

unaware. All it needed was the right woman to tap into

it. And I was so sure then that that woman was me.

‘You didn’t tell me Liz gave you a lift back from London

last night I say, bending to pull off Metheny’s muddy

wellies as Nicholas comes down the stairs a little after ten

the next morning. ‘She said it was well past midnight

by the time you all got back. I think she could’ve done

without taking Chloe to Pony Club this morning, to be

honest, she looked done in when I saw her—’

‘How could I have told you? I’ve only just woken up.’

I look up in surprise. ‘No need to bite my head off.’

‘Christ. I’m barely downstairs before you’re giving me

the bloody third degree. Didn’t realize this had become a

police state. Where are we, Lower Guantanamo?’

‘Mummy! That’s ow-eee!’

‘Sorry, sweetpea. There we are, all done.’ I watch

Metheny toddle happily towards the sitting room, then

follow Nicholas into the kitchen, unwinding my scarf

and pulling off my woollen gloves. My nose starts to run

in the warmth. ‘Nicholas? Is something the matter?’ He ignores me, flinging open cupboard doors at random. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any danger of a decent

coffee in this house?’

‘There’s a jar in the end cupboard, by the cocoa.

Nicholas, is everything at work—’

‘Not bloody Nescafe! I meant real coffee! You would

have thought I could get a decent cup of proper coffee in

my own bloody house! Is that really too much to ask?’

I stare at him in astonishment as he crashes and

slams his way around the kitchen. Nicholas has always

been a tea-drinker; rather a fastidious and demanding

tea-drinker, actually, a warming-up-the-pot, milk-first,

Kashmiri Chai kind of tea-drinker, to whom tea bags are

anathema and Tetley’s a four-letter word. I cannot recall

him ever drinking coffee in his life.

In another life, I might wonder if Nicholas - but no; if

nothing else, the disaster with Trace taught me the value

of trust.

There’s a knock at the kitchen window, and the

window-cleaner waves cheerily. I sigh inwardly. I’d forgotten

he was coming today; and he only takes cash.

Things seem to be a little bit tight this month - we must

have spent rather more at Christmas than I’d realized that

wildly extravagant Joseph coat, of course. I can’t wait

for a chance to wear it. And Nicholas has been taking

rather more cash out than usual recently; expenses, I

should think - they’ll be reimbursed eventually; but in the

meantime— And I had been hoping to get to the beginning

of February without having to dip into the housekeeping

money for any extras-‘Nicholas, do you have any cash on you?’

‘God, I suppose so. Never bloody ends, does it? In my

wallet, should be on my desk. I’m going to have a shower

before this place turns into Piccadilly Circus.’

Pausing only to grab his mobile phone charger from

the kitchen counter, he stalks up the stairs, his stiff paisley back screaming resentment. I wipe my streaming nose on

a wodge of paper towel. Resentment at what I’m not quite

sure. He wasn’t the one up at six with three children.

His battered leather wallet is lying on his desk. I pull

out a couple of twenty-pound notes, dislodging several

till receipts and a photograph of the children as I do so.

I stop and pick up the snap, my irritation melting. I love this picture. It was only taken a couple of months ago; Evie has a large purple bump right in the centre of her

forehead, forcing her fringe to split in two around it like a

shallow brook around a rock. She did it running down

Stokes Hill with Chloe and Sophie; she was so determined

to win the race, she couldn’t stop and ran full-tilt into the

side of a barn at the bottom. Absolutely refused to cry, of

course. It took two weeks to go down. And Sophie, just

learning to love the camera, her head tilted slightly to one side, looking up from under those dark lashes - oh dear, she’s going to be devastating sometime really rather soon.

And Metheny, cuddled in the centre. My milk-and-cookies

last-chance baby. So plump and sunny, beaming with

wide-eyed, damp-lashed brilliance at me. The photograph

is a little out of focus and all three of them could have

done with a wash-and-brush-up first; but it captures them,

the essence of them. This is who they are.

Judging from the creases in the picture, Nicholas

loves it too. I can see marks in the print where he’s traced

his thumbnail fondly over their faces, just as I’m doing

now.

A childish shriek emanates from the other room, followed

by a crash and the sound of running feet. I shove

the picture back in the wallet, and pick up the folded till

receipts scattered across Nicholas’s desk.

A name on one catches my eye. I pause. La Perla? I

didn’t I’vcn know hc’il vvvn he.ml of them. certainly

wouldn’t h.tvr il Kil diiln’l keep me tvurnnt. And he spent I lilam I) hum minli!

iw

Good Lord. How very sweet and generous and romantic

of him; and how very, very lovely. Things have been

rather - well, quiet, in the bedroom recently. After the

sexual feast at Christmastime, it has been very much

famine this last month or so. This is clearly his way of

putting things right.

Smiling inwardly, I fold the receipt carefully and

replace it, so that Nicholas won’t know I’ve seen it and

spoilt his Valentine’s Day surprise.

It takes me ten days to find a dress worthy of bedroom

naughtiness from La Perla. I used to love shopping, of

course, but these days I’m always so conscious of the cost.

Sometimes I look at my yummy Gina strappy sandals or

the silly pink Chloe bag I just had to have the summer I

met Nicholas, languishing at the back of my wardrobe

now, pockets filled with coins that are probably out of

circulation, it’s been so long since I used it; and I think,

that’d pay for the girls’ school uniforms for the entire

year. How could I be so wickedly extravagant, what was

I thinking?

But Nicholas has obviously gone to such trouble. So