by Sarah Duncan
After the service the parents swarmed out and stood in clusters talking loudly. It was rather like the new parents' coffee morning all over again. Helen found Mary, who was wearing a tweed hat complete with jaunty pheasant feather, and explained that Isabel had volunteered to join the PTA committee. Mary was pleased, then set off to accost the headmistress, leaving Isabel feeling that she had just had a close encounter with a steamroller.
'Don't worry, you'll get used to it.' Justine was standing next to Isabel, her eyes sparkling with amusement.
'I think being on this committee might be exhausting,' Isabel said.
'Now Mary's eldest three have been packed off to boarding school she's got time on her hands. And she does get a lot done for the school.' Justine walked beside Isabel as they made their way out of the churchyard. 'I meant to ask you earlier, but have you lost weight? You look terrific.'
'Thanks. I have lost some.'
'What's your secret?'
Isabel blushed, thinking sex, sex and more sex. 'I've taken up swimming,' she said. Not for the first time, Isabel wondered exactly what Patrick and Justine's relationship was. He said they were friends and, when she pressed him, that Isabel shouldn't pry. 'You wouldn't like it if I talked about you, would you?' he'd asked. Which was unanswerable.
'I must dash,' she said. 'I promised Patrick I'd be back to cover lunchtime. I'll see you soon, if not at school then later on.'
'The next committee meeting is on Monday,' Justine called as Isabel escaped to the security of her car.
- ooo -
Isabel swam steadily, eating up the lengths and letting her mind roam. She hadn't lied entirely to Justine; she was swimming regularly. Swimming at lunchtime was her cover for the frequent afternoon showers and hairwashing needed to wash the scent of sex away. If caught with wet hair she just said 'I've been swimming', and two days out of the five it was true. At first she had been puffed after a few lengths but to her surprise she had quickly got fit enough to swim for half an hour non-stop. She loved the feeling of efficiency, trying to power along with making the smallest of ripples. She despised the flashier swimmers, the splashers and flailers, the goggle-wearers. After a quick burst of front crawl, squandering energy along with the arcs of water, they loitered at the shallow end, maybe doing a few stretches while their heaving lungs recovered. Isabel swam serenely, enjoying the feeling of being suspended in the water, of her muscles working, legs kicking, arms scooping, stomach holding the energy together and propelling it forward, while her mind wandered.
Sometimes she replayed scenes with Patrick, or excuses with Neil, lies that she had got away with. Other times her mental cinema scrolled up images from a possible future, a future as different as possible to her present: perhaps a modem apartment in London, somewhere trendy like Notting Hill, with a glass staircase and American walnut floors, the sole decoration being a solitary butterfly orchid arching gracefully from a matt black raku pot. Or there was the Italian fantasy: dark glasses and cappuccinos in the Piazza Navona in front of the Bernini fountain, watching the passeggiata, or strolling through the urn-filled inner courtyard of a crumbling palazzo. Patrick lounged elegantly in these settings, but she couldn't put herself there. She kept slipping out of the frame.
In the changing rooms Isabel showered, washing the chlorine away in rivulets of hot water. She soaped her body, feeling the new firmness, the definition around her waist where once there had been flab. It had only taken a few sessions before she had started noticing the difference. On her non-swimming days she would take a bath at Patrick's house before the school run, Patrick running slippery hands over her. The thought made her weak with longing for him and she hung her head, letting the water pound onto her skull.
There was a camaraderie among the women swimmers that she loved, especially among the older women. Bunioned feet, pendulous breasts, arthritic hips, padded thighs that had moved beyond cellulite into a world of cushioned rolls and deep dimples like lunar craters. It wasn't just that Isabel felt young and slim in comparison. She felt accepted. After three weeks, every Monday and Friday, she had become a regular, someone who would share a grumble about the shower temperature, or the splashers who were now safely ensconced in the male changing rooms. She had started coming for an alibi, but stayed for the enjoyment of the gossip with strangers. Problems with neighbours and the planners came up most frequently; acquaintances' past histories were comprehensively filled in with eyebrows raised and lips pursed.
She wondered what they would say if she told them about Patrick.
But Patrick was tucked away in the house with the parrot-green front door and didn't belong in the outside world. She recognised that she had drawn lines across her life, slipping Patrick into a neat little box, while the real world carried on outside. The school run, the meaningless conversations with other mothers, preparing Neil's supper, going to bed. Nothing had changed.
Sometimes, standing in the schoolyard waiting for the children at the end of the day, she felt like shouting 'Guess what I was doing an hour ago'. Would the mothers be shocked, or would some say smugly, 'Me too'? Because if they couldn't spot Isabel, then could Isabel spot anyone else? She washed herself thoroughly, scrubbing away the chlorine, just as on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays she scrubbed away the scent of Patrick and sex. The smell of guilt is soap and water, she thought. Cleanliness is next to adultery.
And then there was Neil. She had wondered what to say, but in the end said nothing. She had wondered how she would feel, but in the end felt nothing. It was easy to deceive someone when they trusted you absolutely. But was it really trust that Neil felt - or arrogance?
He trusted her because he thought she was incapable of such a betrayal, not because she was a good, upright person of unimpeachable morals. He thought she would be inept at deception, incapable of deceit because that required mental agility and confidence. Stuff the morals, he thought she lacked the nerve. And wasn't there an element of self-satisfaction in his arrogance? That he was enough and she would never feel the desire to go elsewhere. Then she thought how unfair that was to him. After all, she assumed that he was faithful to her. Would she notice the signs, or was she blind too?
As she dressed she thought more about Neil. She didn't want to be unfair to him. There was the distinct possibility that she took Neil for granted in exactly the same way that she felt he took her for granted. Before Patrick she had felt she was invisible to him. Look at me, she sometimes wanted to shout. See me as I am. Did he feel that about her? But she had tried to talk to him. She could think of all too many occasions when he had snubbed her approaches, treating her like a loved but wayward child who really shouldn't bother the adults. She couldn't think of a time recently when he had reached out for her in any but the physical sense. And now, now she was convinced that she was invisible to him. Otherwise, surely he would have recognised her mistakes, the lies, the slips of the tongue?
She combed her hair through, feeling the wetness seep across her back. She was brought back to the present by one of the women saying a cheerful goodbye to her.
'Bye,' she said quickly. 'See you Friday.' A whole new week lay ahead, and three blissful days of Patrick. But she'd got the rest of Monday to get through first. Her heart sank, remembering that tonight she had agreed to go to the PTA meeting. She thought about not going, but then, what would her excuse be? She sighed. Neil was right in his assessment of her; she was a useless liar. It was only that he was worse at spotting it.
After swimming she walked into town: She thought about having lunch at one of the cafes, but that seemed totally extravagant when there was a whole house filled with food only ten minutes away. Patrick usually went to a pub for lunch, if he bothered with lunch at all, and she did think of drifting past The Mason's Arms but stopped herself. You'll see him tomorrow, she told herself. Instead she strolled down the High Street, looking into shop windows. She thought about buying some new clothes - the ones she had were getting loose around her middle - but decided to wait and se
e if she would drop down another dress size. One of the advantages of an affair, she thought, swinging her bag happily and giving a little skip. The pleasurable way to lose ten pounds. Perhaps she should start a club. Instead of counting calories, you'd get points for the number of times you made love. And there could be variations, like the Mediterranean Diet with lashings of olive oil liberally smeared all over, or the All-Protein Diet (a firm favourite with the men). The sun was bright, lemon-sharp but the wind was cool on her wet head and she felt cold. She ought to get inside.
Isabel turned into the bookshop and started to browse. Books were laid out enticingly on tables, covers as glossy as sweets. And entirely non-fattening. She sighed. Adulteresses in fiction ended badly, like poor Anna Karenina, losing her children and dying under a train. Or Madame Bovary. Isabel couldn't remember what happened to her: it was hard to empathise with a heroine whose surname you weren't sure how to pronounce. Did it rhyme with ovary (which would be apt) or carry? Or perhaps it was something completely different, one of those unlikely French spellings that pronounced Reims as Rance and d'Oex as Day. Isabel put down the book she was holding and moved to the children's section where she chose a book for each of the children, on kittens for Katie and racing cars for Michael.
She paid and left the shop. In the street she looked up and down. Left to collect the car and go back home, right to walk into the heart of town. She checked her watch. If she went left she'd have an hour or so at home before picking up the children. Just enough time to hoover everywhere. It didn't seem enticing. On the other hand, she was fed up with looking in shop windows. She shifted from foot to foot, trying to decide. Left looked unenticing, right looked - was that Patrick?
She peered. At the end of the street, at the point where it became pedestrianised, a tall dark man was talking to a woman with shimmering blonde hair. Justine? Isabel couldn't tell at this distance. The man threw his head back and laughed and Isabel became almost certain it was Patrick. Then he kissed the woman. It was brief, the social kiss of casual acquaintances, but something about it - the tilt of her head, the placing of his hand on her upper arm maybe - made Isabel freeze. They parted and the woman turned and was swallowed up by shoppers. The man came towards Isabel, and as he came closer she saw that it was indeed Patrick.
She waited for him, questions buzzing in her head like a hive of angry bees. I mustn't ask him, she thought. I promised I wouldn't make demands on him. He seemed oblivious to her until about twenty feet away, then his face lit up.
'Isabel,' he said. 'How nice to see you.'
'What are you doing here?' she blurted out.
'I do live here, remember.' He leant forwards and kissed her cheek, a cool friendly kiss.
'You smell of garlic and booze,' she said, trying to sound playful.
'Been out to lunch.'
She couldn't stop herself from asking, 'With a client?'
'Mmm.' He reached and took the bookshop bag from her. 'Now, what have you been buying? A present for me?'
'No, for the children.' She took the bag back from him, strangely disturbed by the thought of him handling Katie and Michael's books, as if by handling the books it confirmed that Patrick would spill out into her domestic life. He hadn't answered the question about the client. 'Your hair's wet,' he said, fingering a strand.
'Who were you with?' There. She'd said it.
'You ought to dry it. I don't want you off work because you're sick.' He smiled at her, his hair ruffling with the breeze, his eyelids heavy.
'Was it Justine?'
He paused, looking up at the sky as if deciding what to say. Or what lie to tell. Isabel bit her lip, feeling slightly sick. He looked at her, his face serious,
'I told you at the start. No strings. No commitments. No falling in love.'
She tried to laugh lightly, the laugh of a cool, sophisticated person. 'I'm just curious.'
'I see.'
'Please?' She registered that she sounded neither cool nor sophisticated, but she didn't care.
'You know I don't discuss people, and especially not one woman with another. You really ought to get that hair dried, you know.'
She stared at him. Would he suggest going back to his house? Her heart beat faster, and she realised it didn't matter if he had been out with another woman, been out with Justine. She wanted him. Wanted him so badly that if he'd suggested going up an alleyway and doing it against a rough brick wall she would have followed.
'Patrick,' she said, touching his hand, feeling his skin warm and alive. He moved his hand away, brushing back his hair.
'This is a small town, darling,' he said quietly. 'Let's be discreet.' She knew he was deliciously experienced so why was she surprised it was clear he had done this before. He knew what to do, how to behave. She didn't care. He kissed her cheek and she had to stop herself from clinging onto him. 'I'll see you tomorrow.'
She watched him saunter up the street, turning up his jacket collar against the wind, which had sharpened, tossing dead leaves and litter in the air. Her head was freezing, the strands of wet hair whipping around her face. Patrick turned up a side street that led towards his house. He didn't look back.
- ooo -
'Sorry I'm late,' Isabel mouthed at Mary, squeezing into the last empty place in the school library. Mary glanced towards her, obviously annoyed, then majestically turned away and listened to the woman on her left. Isabel shifted on her uncomfortable child-sized chair and grimaced as she sifted through the loose bits of paper in her bag - receipts, notes, cards, petrol vouchers. She was sure she had the agenda somewhere.
'Here,' muttered her neighbour, passing a copy over to her. 'We're on number three.'
'Thanks.' She looked round the table. Again, like the coffee morning, it was all female. She wondered what all the fathers were doing while the mothers were out at PTA meetings. Of the twelve women there she recognised only a couple, apart from Helen and Justine. She looked at Justine. Had it been her with Patrick? As if aware of Isabel's gaze, Justine looked up and smiled at Isabel, her pussycat smile brimming with secrets. Flustered, Isabel looked down at her agenda. Numbers one and two were apologies for absence and minutes of the last meeting. Item number three was school uniform and a woman she didn't recognise was getting very agitated about the service at the school shop.
'The school shop is run by volunteers. You can't expect Harrods,' Mary was saying, impatience fighting with gracious tolerance on her face.
'I daresay, but -' The woman was determined to say her piece. Mentally Isabel switched off, although keeping an alert, listening look on her face. When she had taken Katie and Michael to the shop to be kitted out she had thought they were amazingly efficient. She looked around. Most of the rest of the committee were fidgeting, playing with pencils. School uniform was obviously a regular item. Justine sat still, her manicured hands resting lightly on the table in front of her. I mustn't be jealous, Isabel thought. I don't own Patrick, and anyway, Justine knew him before I did. What if they did have lunch together? It doesn't mean anything. Does it? It might not even have been Justine. It could have been some other woman. Isabel couldn't decide if that would be worse.
Mary, obviously sensing the restless mood of the women present, decided to bring things to a close.
'It's a subject on which we all have plenty to say. I suggest that we form a subcommittee and they can report back to us. Agreed? Fine, then we need some volunteers.' Mary looked round the table. Most of the women present had become very interested in doodling or finding something in their coat pockets but the woman who had been talking had her hand raised.
'Lucy and...' Much fiddling in handbags and checking of Filofaxes. Isabel felt guilty about not volunteering, although not guilty enough to stick her hand up.
'Oh, I'll do it,' Justine said suddenly.
'Thank you, Justine. You two can report back at the next meeting. Now, next on the agenda is the Fireworks Party. Rebecca, perhaps you'd like to tell us how things are going?'
Isabel fou
nd it difficult to follow exactly how things were going as Rebecca assumed that everybody already knew what was going to happen. It was a long time since Isabel had been to a Guy Fawkes party, complete with poor Guy on his bonfire. In some countries where they had lived, burning effigies was a dangerous political act. Isabel gathered that the committee brought hot dogs, baked potatoes and mulled wine - made to Mary's special recipe - and sold them along with sweets, fizzy drinks and sparklers. She volunteered to be a roving sparkler seller, a job that she hoped meant she would be able to keep an eye on how the children were coping with the noise. In Syria the rattle of gunfire had been an everyday occurrence, sometimes for a wedding, sometimes more sinister. The company provided cars and drivers so their employees never got involved in an argument over jumped red lights. Once on a trip out into the desert their driver, Hamid, had shown them the gun he kept in the glove compartment. 'Don't worry, Madam, I won't let bandits take you or the children.' He grinned reassuringly, gold tooth gleaming. 'I shoot you all first.' Isabel knew what he meant: there was said to be a market for European women and children, especially blue-eyed boys like Michael, brown hair streaked to blond in the sun. That evening she had asked Neil to apply for a transfer back to the UK. Perhaps the children wouldn't remember the sound of guns, or if they remembered, wouldn't associate them with fireworks. She wanted to be near them at the bonfire party, just in case.
She listened to the discussion, which had moved on to how they were going to ensure the sausages were cooked through, without leaving them hanging around in a lukewarm state for hours, given that they couldn't use any of the cooking facilities at the school. It seemed extraordinary that something so simple as sausage cooking could require so much organisation. Isabel started to doodle. She shaded in all the spaces in the word 'Agenda', then added in the top right-hand corner a large 'P', surrounded with lines, frilled round the edges with small picots. Then in case anyone was looking she added two more bumps so the T' was converted into a trefoil. 'Lucky clover' she wrote underneath, then started filling in the bumps. She thought of Patrick's eyes, green and long-lashed. She closed her own eyes, scrolling through images of Patrick: Patrick on the phone, Patrick searching for some vital bit of paper and getting crosser by the second, Patrick looking at her and saying 'Come to bed'.