Adultery for Beginners

by Sarah Duncan

  Isabel couldn't remember having had such a conversation before; the houses on the compounds just existed, rented boxes for living in for a few years at the most. Now she leaned forward to listen to Helen talk, a feminine conspiracy of sofa throws and beaded tea light holders. She wasn't sure if it was her attention, or the fact that George and Neil were deep in some masculine bonding session of their own that seemed to be based on the best way of travelling from Hull to Bristol, but Helen became positively girlish. Although Helen and she hadn't been exact contemporaries at school Isabel could imagine her discussing the merits of pale blue eyeshadow or whether Rimmel mascara was better than No17.

  Helen was in the middle of describing some magic netting (available by mail order) that stopped rugs from creeping on solid floors, her teeth gleaming with enthusiasm, when Rufus and Michael came in, on the scrounge for food. Helen flapped her hands while Rufus helped himself to handfuls of crisps.

  'Oh dear. Don't do that. We're eating any minute.' Rufus continued to cram his mouth with crisps. He had the same hair as his mother, the colour of wet sand and growing straight down, dense as a shaving brush. He was nearly a head taller than Michael who had followed him, hands in pockets. Isabel raised her eyebrows at him, wordlessly checking that he was happy, but he frowned at her. She assumed that meant he was happy, but would be embarrassed by any maternal displays.

  'Where do you go to school, Rufus?' she asked.

  'Benedict's,' Rufus muttered through crisps.

  'Weekly boarding,' Helen said. 'So much nicer than full time.'

  Isabel loathed the idea of sending Michael away to school, however "nice" it was. It would be like paying to have your arms ripped off.

  'I don't know how you can bear it,' she said.

  'Oh, but he loves it, don't you darling? And you'll find at St Joseph's that most of the boys leave for boarding school by the end of Year Four so it must be a bit lonely for the ones left behind. Benedict's is hardly any distance away so I can always go and watch matches and things. Can't I, darling?' She reached out an arm for Rufus.

  'Mu-um.' He shrugged her off. 'When's lunch? I'm starving.'

  Helen got up, her face suddenly anxious. 'I'd almost forgotten about lunch.'

  'Can I help?' Isabel offered, but Helen told her to stay sitting, she could manage, and hurried to the kitchen. In ten minutes they were all sitting round a large polished table in a formal dining room while George hacked chunks off a large joint of overdone beef. The walls were painted green and hung with framed prints of dead pheasants. An elaborate bowl of fruit stood on the highly polished mahogany sideboard, framed by twisting silver candlesticks. It could have doubled as a stage set for a Sunday teatime family drama series. All that was missing were starched pinnies and maids saying 'Lawks!'

  George was making a sterling attempt at impersonating a Victorian paterfamilias. Isabel looked across at Neil, wanting to share her amusement, but he was talking to Helen. Helen was nodding, but with an abstracted air as if counting spoons. Isabel could imagine the litany in her head - pepper, salt, mustard, gravy, horseradish sauce - and realised with a stab of sympathy that Helen was not going to relax until all the food had been eaten and the children were running about in the garden or watching a video. It was as if she felt that her whole value as a woman was measured by her ability to produce a traditional Sunday roast.

  'This is wonderful, Helen,' Isabel said. 'Such a treat. We haven't had a meal like this for ages, have we Neil?'

  'No, more's the pity,' Neil said, tucking in with gusto. Isabel felt guilty. She'd forgotten how much Neil had always enjoyed his mother's cooking when they'd come back to the UK on holidays. But they weren't on holiday now; they were home for good. She ought to be preparing this sort of meal for Neil.

  'In hot countries you often don't want to eat big meals, do you?' Helen said with her soft voice, smiling sympathetically across the table at Isabel. 'Just salads and pasta and things.'

  Isabel smiled back and opened her mouth to speak, when George butted in.

  'Got to have decent food. Sunday wouldn't be Sunday otherwise.'

  Isabel tried to think of witty things that, while not actively offensive to her host, would show him up for being a pompous twit. But the phrase that would allow her to be both exquisitely polite and downright rude at the same time escaped her, so she made no reply. She talked a little to Helen, mainly about the PTA, and helped Katie cut up her meat despite a few derisory comments from George about mollycoddling.

  As she had predicted, Helen didn't relax until the last apple crumble plate was ensconced in the dishwasher and the coffee was on the table. Rufus slid off his chair with a sidelong look at his father, busy expounding on the follies of the euro. Michael hesitated, looking across to Isabel. 'Is it okay for the children to get down?' she whispered to Helen, who nodded. 'Run along and play, darlings.' Katie and Millie scampered off hand in hand. Isabel watched them wistfully. She quite fancied running along and playing, rather than sitting in the formal and stuffy room with her waistband threatening to cut her stomach in half.

  George brought out brandy and two glasses, which irritated her. Not that she wanted a brandy but he should have asked, not assumed. She looked across to where Helen was sitting, listening to the men talk. George was persuading Neil to join the Golf Club, and for some reason Isabel thought of Mr Sherwin. Patrick. She stirred her coffee slowly, watching the cream swirl into psychedelic patterns. She'd hardly thought of him all weekend but now she had, she could imagine him all too clearly - leaning back on his chair, relaxed, his deep voice mocking George's pretensions. She frowned. She should have been pleased that Neil was getting on so well with George, but instead she felt slightly disturbed. Both men were now leaning back, George's red checked shirt straining across his stomach, the squares distorting into op-art patterns like a Bridget Riley painting. He lit a small cigar.

  'So,' he said between puffs. 'How did you two meet up?'

  'At a party,' Isabel shrugged. 'Same as most people.'

  'Come on, darling. Hardly like most people.' Neil was beaming at her, brandy glass in his big hand. She smiled tightly at him, hoping that would be an end to it.

  'Aha. There's a story here, I can tell,' George said, cheeks shining like a raddled cherub.

  'It was a very hot summer night, a mini-heatwave in fact, and -'

  'Neil, they don't want to know. It's too long a story,' she said to Helen, shaking her head.

  George thumped the table. 'Come on, spit it out.'

  'As I was saying, it was a very hot night -'

  George topped up his brandy glass. 'You've said that before,' he crowed.

  'So I have,' Neil said, amiably, blinking at George's interruption. He'd had more to drink than she'd thought.

  'Neil, I really don't think -' Isabel started, but Neil cut her off.

  'It's a good story. Don't be silly.' He waved his hand dismissively at her. 'Anyway, this party. A joint eighteenth and twenty-first, I think. So long ago I can hardly remember.'

  'Lin's eighteenth and Peter's twenty-first,' Isabel said, trying hard to think of a way out of this conversation. 'Lin was at Richmond House too,' she said to Helen, 'Did you come across her - Lin Hetherington? Her mother drove a very smart sports car.'

  But whether Helen could remember Lin or not, Neil was determined to carry on. 'Whatever. The parents had really pushed the boat out, marquee, dinner, band, dancing. The works. Really good do. But it was boiling in the marquee. So, some bright spark jumped into the swimming pool - fully dressed, you understand - and soon everybody was going in. Including Isabel.'

  'Neil, you didn't save Isabel from drowning, did you?' Helen sounded impressed.

  'Better than that,' Neil said with satisfaction. 'Now, I'd spotted Isabel earlier in the evening. Obviously she was the prettiest girl there, but she was also dressed differently from the other girls in this long, floaty thing.'

  'It was a second-hand dress I'd bought from Portobello Road market.' She could remember t
he dress clearly. Fine navy crepe, splashed with scarlet and white flowers, buttoned down the front with strawberry-shaped buttons, seams piped in scarlet reaching to the ground. It had a sharply defined waistband and was the sort of thing worn by Hollywood actresses in the Forties. A collector's item now; then it was a cheap way of dressing. She thought back, how lacking in confidence she had felt alongside the other girls with their generous clothes allowances and shopping trips to Harrods on Mummy's account card. She couldn't compete with that, but her market dress had sidestepped any question of competition. And the Forties style suited her, emphasising her small waist (those were the days) while skimming over her more generous hips. 'I loved that dress,' she said, more to herself than to the others.

  'So, what happened?' prompted Helen.

  'Isabel was one of the swimmers, but then she got out and went into the marquee.'

  'The water was cold - it was Surrey, not the Tropics after all. I wanted to warm up again.'

  'She starts dancing, right? But each time she moves, this dress tears a little.'

  'Tears?' Helen looked at Isabel, eyebrows raised.

  'I think it must have been the chlorine in the swimming pool. I don't know if the dress was synthetic, but the fabric just couldn't cope.' It was like candy floss, the damp fibres pulling apart. Not tearing or ripping, more melting, dissolving with each gesture, each movement. She could remember so clearly, looking down and seeing -

  'This is so embarrassing,' she said to Helen, hopeful of female solidarity.

  Helen looked confused. 'Perhaps we should have coffee in the drawing room.'

  'Nonsense. Get on with it, Neil,' George said, patting his stomach.

  Isabel tried to send telepathic messages to Neil. She hoped her face was smilingly casual, with an underlying hint of steel that Neil would pick up. 'Please Neil, stop there.'

  'But this is the good bit. You see,' Neil said, untouched by telepathy, utterly unmoved by her embarrassment, 'she wasn't wearing anything underneath.'

  Isabel wanted to curl up and die. They were all looking at her, Helen wide-eyed, perhaps slightly shocked, Neil pleased with the effect his story was having, and as for George, his eyes had been designed for boggling.

  'It was a very hot night,' was all she could think to say.

  'I should say,' said George. He didn't actually wink and nudge Neil in the ribs and say Phwoar', it just felt to Isabel as if he did. She tugged at her cardigan, barricading herself against George's prying eyes that were fixed firmly on her chest. And suddenly she felt eighteen again, exposed, distressed, with people laughing and pointing. She had scanned the faces in the darkness round the dance floor, looking for help, for a friend, and with each turn the dress quietly shred a little more. She crossed her arms over her breasts, feeling the back give way, and walked to the side, moving slowly to minimise the damage and the humiliation, laughter echoing in her brain, and then there was a man holding out a dinner jacket. 'Take this,' he'd said and wrapped it around her shoulders. It was still warm from his body, the satin lining slippery against her damp skin.

  'But that's so romantic,' Helen exclaimed, her eyes shining, as she smiled at Isabel. Isabel shrugged, sliding a look across at Neil, one-time saviour, now humiliator. How could you? she asked him wordlessly, but his eyes weren't focused on her.

  George's eyes glittered. 'I hope she was properly grateful.'

  'I think so,' Neil said smugly. He even winked at George as if to convey all sorts of sexual adventures, whereas Isabel knew that the evening had ended with him driving her back to the flat she shared in Fulham, then a few kisses over the transmission of his Ford Mondeo, gear-stick acting as a latter-day chastity belt. She would have asked him up, probably would have slept with him, but being the sort of man he was it didn't occur to him to ask. 'Nice girls don't on the first meeting' was so ingrained in him that he'd not registered the opportunity.

  For some reason an image of Patrick came into her head. Would he have rescued her, or would he have been part of the laughing crowd like George? A rescuer, she thought. She could see him, slipping his jacket over her shoulders, but then he would have happily taken advantage of her gratitude and ravished her behind the marquee. She gave herself a little shake. What an extraordinary thing to think, she told herself.

  Katie came into the dining room and sidled up to her, thin arms about Isabel's neck.

  'What is it?' Isabel said, relieved at the distraction, slipping an arm around Katie's waist.

  Katie put her mouth by her ear. 'I want to go to the loo,' she whispered, her breath hot.

  'Can't you ask Millie?' Isabel whispered back.

  'I want you.' Katie's face was small, eyes screwed up in embarrassment.

  Isabel excused herself to Helen, grateful for the reason to escape, and went with Katie into the hall. She realised that the loo door had no lock, which was why Katie was anxious. Isabel stood outside, guarding Katie against unwanted intrusion, not that the boys were anywhere to be seen or heard. This seemed to her what motherhood was about. The little things. Tiny noses gently wiped. Small clothes washed, dried and ironed, woolly socks in pairs. Cool hands placed lovingly on hot foreheads. Eggs boiled and then dunked in cold water so the whites were hard but the yolks were runny, and the toast soldiers buttered with the crusts cut off just so. Bumps that could be cured with kisses. Love bound by a thousand daily intimacies, a thousand daily acts of service.

  Katie came out, unselfconsciously pulling up her knickers with both hands. Isabel smoothed her dress down.

  'Shall we go and find Millie?'

  Katie nodded. Isabel took her hand and they went to the playroom where Millie was playing with a doll's-house. Katie left Isabel and crouched down beside Millie. Isabel watched them playing, enjoying the freshness of their skin, the seriousness of their conversation. Millie had very decided ideas about what went where, and which dolls had to do what. Mother dolls were in the kitchen, the babies and children were upstairs in bed, or being naughty in the sitting room. Isabel knelt down beside them. She could remember her own doll's-house, random furniture of different sizes so the house looked as if it belonged to the Three Bears rather than a pallid felt doll with a faded smile and curly wool for hair.

  'What about the father doll? What does he do?' she asked.

  Millie paused in her arrangements. 'There isn't a father doll,' she said, matter-of-factly, and went back to discussing with Katie where the cat should go in their exclusive little world of mothers and babies. Isabel picked up a tiny teapot, painted with a carrot, carefully holding it in her palm. But although the lid came out there was no hole for the spout. The teapot could never function. There would be no dollies' tea parties. Isabel turned it round between her fingers, feeling as disappointed as Hunca Munca in the Beatrix Potter tale, although she restrained herself from bashing the plaster lobster with the miniature coal scuttle.

  The little girls were talking, a continuous murmur. They were not excluding her; rather there was no place for her in their self-absorption. Isabel got up, feeling her knees creak. I'm getting old, she thought, and went back to the world of adults.

  - ooo -

  They left late in the afternoon, George promising Neil to nominate him for membership of the Golf Club. Isabel was cross with Neil on the way home for what she saw as his betrayal, but he was unrepentant, unwilling to acknowledge any problem.

  'I've told that story to loads of people,' he said yawning, despite two coffees.

  'And I've never liked it,' she snapped back.

  It wasn't strictly true. But a story told to friends under the relaxed blue skies of the Middle East was quite different to hearing one's past revealed under the gaze of George's bulging eyes on a grey English afternoon. Would she have minded Neil telling Patrick? She wondered what Justine would say about Patrick when she came to tea.

  'I like this house,' Justine said looking around Isabel's kitchen, the bell of her hair swishing round like a girl in an ad.

  'I don't,' Isabel said, then r
ealised how odd that must sound. 'I mean, it's all right, and there are enough bedrooms and the kitchen functions and all that, but it's not what I wanted. Still, that's what comes of looking in a hurry.'

  'You must have stunning views over the town from upstairs.'

  'Mmm.' Isabel sipped her tea, thinking about houses. 'I would rather have lived in something older. We've been living in modem houses for such a long time, and I dreamed that when I got my own house it would be more traditional. And in the country rather than a town.'

  'A cottage with roses round the door?' Justine sounded amused, her eyes sparkling with gentle mockery. Isabel couldn't decide if she liked her, but she enjoyed Justine's acerbity after Helen's cosy conformity.

  'Something like that. I don't know, I spent all my childhood traipsing around from one house to another, and I always promised myself that my own children would be settled in one place.'

  'Was your father in the army?' Justine asked.

  Isabel drank the rest of her tea, hoping that Justine would think she hadn't heard the question, then carried on talking exactly as if she hadn't. 'The alternative was going into rented accommodation and I didn't want to do that. We only had a couple of months' notice you see. This time last year we didn't know we would be here.'

  'How come?'

  'You never know. That's the way the company works. Oh, you can put in your preference about where you want to be sent but you take what's available. If we'd stayed abroad our next posting would have been either Nigeria or Eindhoven, neither of which appealed. And I wanted to come back to the UK anyway, so Neil applied to go into management at Head Office. We looked at anywhere close to a station that ended up at Waterloo. So here we are.'