by Sarah Duncan
'I want you,' he said when they pulled apart. He put his hand under her elbow as if to steer her to some corner but she resisted.
'No, I must go back. Someone will notice we're gone.'
'Forget them.'
'I can't. Neil might -' At the mention of Neil's name Patrick dropped her arm. He shrugged.
'So, no chance of a fuck then.'
'Patrick.'
'Or inter-course intercourse.'
Isabel took a deep breath. 'Look, we can't talk here, we'll talk on Tuesday.' She started to move down the hall towards the dining room.
'Isabel -' He had caught up with her and taken her upper arm in a tight grip.
'I must go back,' she said pushing him off.
'Back to your hubby,' he sneered. 'No wonder you're like a bitch on heat, the man's a patronising bore. You'd be better off with me.'
'Don't you dare talk about Neil,' she hissed at him. 'He's worth a hundred of you.'
'I love it when you get angry.' He was close, she could smell his scent, feel the warmth of his body, the danger of being with him. His eyes held hers and she felt she was falling, falling. 'Bitch,' he whispered before kissing her. 'Carissima.' His hand was on her breast and she could feel him against her. She felt as limp as a puppet, where sex was the puppet master and Patrick pulled the strings. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back, almost lost to the moment.
Almost. With the tiny corner of her brain not curling up under Patrick's caresses she registered a noise, the scrape of a chair, and a man's voice. George. The horror of being caught by George acted like an ice shower. She tore herself away from Patrick, and scuttered down the hall, heart racing. She met George at the door.
'Excuse me,' she said, slipping past him, head down so he shouldn't see her flushed cheeks. She quietly sat down next to Quentin, hoping no one had noticed her absence.
Patrick didn't come back into the dining room, which flustered Helen as she doled out profiteroles.
'D'you think he's all right?' she said. 'Perhaps I should...'
'Please don't worry,' Mary said. 'My brother's manners are atrocious and I apologise on his behalf.'
'Not for the first time,' Richard muttered.
'If you'll excuse me,' Victoria said, standing up and leaving the room.
The next ten minutes were hard for Isabel. Patrick and Victoria's absence divided the table in half - Neil, Helen, Richard and Justine at one end, Mary, George, Isabel and Quentin at the other. Mary was talking to George, a conversation Isabel definitely didn't want to get involved with. Quentin tried having a conversation with her, but she found she kept on thinking of Patrick and then realising Quentin was waiting for her to reply. 'Sorry,' she kept saying. 'Sorry.'
She lost her bet with Neil. Helen didn't expect the ladies to remove themselves from the dining room leaving the men to port and cigars. Instead she served coffee in the drawing room.
Justine came to sit next to Isabel.
'So, what do you think's going on with Patrick?' she said, tucking her slim legs neatly underneath her.
Isabel's heart flipped but she thought she managed to look unruffled. 'Who knows?'
'Bit of a surprise him turning up with Victoria. I thought that was over ages ago.'
'Oh?' Isabel tried not to show interest.
'Poor girl, she's been dangling after him for years, and every now and then he deigns to notice.' Justine shrugged her elegant shoulders, as if to show contempt at any woman who could be so foolish. 'He really does treat women badly.'
All at once Isabel felt angry with Justine. 'Speaking from personal experience?' she said as lightly as she could.
'No,' Justine purred sweetly. 'I don't believe in letting men treat me badly. Especially not men like Patrick.'
'What do you mean?'
Justine paused. 'You can divide people up into cats and dogs. Dogs are loyal and dependent and trustworthy and look at you with big doggy eyes. Cats are independent and think for themselves. They can bestow affection, but they usually demand it.'
'So?' said Isabel, trying to work out if she was a cat or a dog on Justine's scale. Dogs sounded better people, but cats were more glamorous.
'So cat people can be happy with other cats but they're happiest with the uncritical attention of a dog. And dogs can be happy with other dogs, but they're happiest with a cat to worship. Patrick and I are both cats, so we're better off with dogs.' She drew out the word and Isabel wondered if she meant to be insulting.
'You don't really want me to do your colours, do you?' Justine said, disconcerting Isabel with the abrupt change of subject, as if she had tired of a game that Isabel had not even realised they were playing. 'I got the impression that you weren't too keen.'
'Well, it was a bit embarrassing, the way Patrick brought it up over dinner.' Isabel winced inwardly, thinking about it. 'It's probably a good idea. My wardrobe is stuffed with things I don't wear.'
'Did you want to do the wardrobe sort-out as well? It's quite expensive.'
'In for a penny, in for a pound,' Isabel said. 'I expect I need the whole lot chucking out.' She picked up her bag and fished out her diary.
Justine got her diary out too. 'When's a good date for you?'
'It's got to be a Monday or a Friday in term time. What about the Friday after half term?'
'That's the Bonfire Party night. I'll be busy helping to set up.'
'Help, I'd forgotten. I'd better write that in, I don't want to forget and get into Mary's bad books,' she added, knowing she was already in them. 'The Friday after, then - the morning would be best for me, I think.'
'That's fine by me. I look forward to it.'
That's more than I will, Isabel thought as she wrote the date in her diary. As she replaced the diary in her bag there was a clatter and Victoria came back in, her face glowing. Patrick behind her looked impassive, his eyes inscrutable. They sat together, near Mary.
'You found him then.' Mary was good at stating the obvious.
'Yes,' Victoria said, a bubble of laughter escaping. She turned round to Patrick. 'He'd gone outside for a cigarette.'
'I thought you'd given up,' Mary said.
'I have.' His expression was bland.
Isabel heard Justine, sitting next to her, snort with amusement. She looked up quickly, but Justine was watching Patrick and Victoria, a wry smile on her face.
Victoria smoothed her dress down over her hips. She had lowered her head, but Isabel could see the blush spread over it, the satisfied smile. One of her hands lay casually on Patrick's thigh. Patrick looked almost sleepy, sleek and well fed, the look he had after-
Isabel took a sharp intake of breath. Patrick looked across at her, and very deliberately smiled.
Chapter 12
Isabel let herself into Patrick's house on the Tuesday after the dinner party. From habit she bent down to pick up the post. As she straightened up she realised that Patrick was dressed and sitting on the sofa.
'Good morning,' she said. Usually she would have taken off her coat and slung it over the banisters, but today she stood there, fingering the middle button. 'You're up early.'
He stood up. 'I was waiting for you,' he said.
'We need to talk,' she said. She hesitated, then started to take her coat off, turning her back on him. He came and stood behind her.
'Isabel.' He pressed his mouth to her neck, ran his hand down her shirt. Once she would have swooned back against him, but today she felt cold, with no more interest than if he was tuning a dodgy radio. 'I've been waiting for you all weekend.'
'We need to talk,' she said again, moving away from him. 'About Victoria.'
'She's irrelevant,' he said, following her.
She spun round. 'And what about me?' All the emotion that she'd been feeling flooded her mind, anger melting the cold indifference she had been maintaining. She hit him, and then again, her fists pounding into his chest. 'Am I irrelevant too?'
He grabbed her wrists and kissed her though she struggled ag
ainst him, his mouth on hers, and suddenly she was kissing him back, and they were snatching at each other's clothes, desperate for each other, and all she could think of was how much she wanted him, and then he was inside her and her back was pounding against the cold flagstone floor and it was everything she wanted, he was everything she wanted.
Afterwards she lay on the floor, her back aching, energy leaching out of her. She felt too feeble to move. She turned her head towards Patrick lying beside her.
'What do I mean to you?' she whispered.
He kissed her neck, her hair. His voice was muffled but she heard him clearly. 'Everything,' he said. 'You mean everything.'
'And Victoria?'
Patrick sat up. 'What about her?' he said, and started to get dressed.
'You're sleeping with her.'
'So what? You sleep with your husband, don't you? Every bloody night, and I don't complain.'
'We haven't for ages,' Isabel said, starting to get dressed herself in her cold and crumpled clothes.
'Oh, sure,' Patrick said, shrugging his shirt on and stalking off to the kitchen.
'No, really,' Isabel said, wriggling into her skirt. She couldn't remember the last time, wondering if the night when she had shouted at Neil was really the last time he had approached her. She'd become so absorbed in her affair with Patrick that she'd lost track of time. Her clothes felt horribly uncomfortable, twisted and damp, as she followed Patrick to the kitchen.
Patrick seemed on a mission to slam all the kitchen cupboard doors while taking out the new cafetière and a single mug.
'I don't know why you're so cross,' Isabel said. 'If anything, it's me who should be cross. Doing it under my nose like that.'
'I asked you first: you wouldn't, she would.' Crash. Any minute the new cafetière would be following its predecessor into the dustbin. 'I think the word is prick tease.'
Isabel was shocked by his crudeness. 'That's a horrible thing to say.'
'It's true. Isn't it?'
'I didn't know you could be so cruel.'
'Perhaps we don't know each other very well.' He fiddled with the signet ring on his little finger, then sighed. When he spoke his voice was quieter, more measured. 'You were waving your husband under my nose. How do you think I felt?'
'I don't know. I don't know how you feel.'
He stared out of the window, his mood unfathomable. Isabel felt confused, trying to understand why he was so angry. Her lower back was sore.
'You've always known I was married,' she tried, 'so why does it make a difference now?'
He hunched his shoulders and turned away from her.
'If you won't talk to me, how can I understand?' she cried. She wanted to go to him, to touch him, turn him round to face her. But his back was rigid.
'I'm going to start working upstairs. There's a lot to do,' she said, although she knew that the only job with any urgency was locking herself in the bathroom and crying. Just as she was through the kitchen door he called her name.
'Yes?' she said from inside the living room, not wanting to appear at his beck and call by going back, but longing for him to come to her, for this not to be the beginning of the end.
'Do you love me?'
Isabel stared at the ceiling to try to keep the brimming tears from overflowing. How can he even ask me this? she wondered. She didn't know how she felt. 'No falling in love. That's what you said. No strings, no ties, no responsibilities, no nothing.' She kept her voice level as if it didn't matter, and it flashed into her mind that she'd become good at deceit.
'So I did.'
Isabel waited for him to say more, or to come out from the kitchen, but there was nothing but silence. It was ridiculous for them to be in separate rooms but she didn't move and neither did he. After a while she collected the post from where she'd dumped it on the stairs and went up to the office, her feet heavy on the treads and her whole body aching as if she were climbing Mount Everest without oxygen. This is it, she thought. This is the beginning of the end.
Patrick was irritable for the rest of the day, shouting at her for losing some vital telephone number, shouting again when she told him she wouldn't be in next week because of half term. Later in the afternoon, she looked up from the computer to discover him watching her, but she couldn't read his expression and he left the room before she could ask him what he wanted.
The next day Patrick was out most of the time with a client. At least, that was what he said, although she wasn't sure if it was true. He kissed her gently before leaving, but a kiss could mean anything, she thought. Or nothing. She started to think about money. She hated the idea of discussing it with Patrick, especially in his present mood, but she couldn't work for nothing. She began to flick through her diary to check the dates she'd worked and caught sight of Frances's address and phone number in Thailand.
Her hands shaking, she dialled the number. They're seven hours ahead, she thought, she's bound to be in, perhaps making tea for the children.
'It's me, Isabel' she said, when the phone was answered. 'I can't talk long, I'm using the office phone.'
'Naughty girl,' Frances said, her familiar voice distorted by heavy crackling. 'But lovely to hear you. Is everything okay?'
'Yes, fine.' Isabel hesitated. How to start? 'I'm thinking about giving up my job.'
'Is that why you're calling? I thought you were loving working, you lucky thing. God, it's so boring out here at the moment, I wish I were you. And the humidity! Is it raining in England?'
'I'm not sure...' The hissing noise on the phone sounded as if Frances was in the middle a tropical storm.
'I've been nagging David for us to go back home, but no luck so far.'
'I thought you were having a good time,' Isabel said, confused at the direction the conversation was going. Frances started to talk about living in Thailand, chattering as if she hadn't spoken to anyone all day, which Isabel knew from her own experience might be true. The loneliness of the ex-pat wife. But she couldn't concentrate on what Frances was saying.
'I've had an affair but it's breaking up,' Isabel blurted out across the stream of talk.
'Breaking up? Am I? The line's not good this end either.' Above the background hiss Isabel could hear other voices. 'Look, love, I've got to go and feed my ravening hordes. Send me an email and tell me all about it. Love to Neil and the children. Bye!'
Isabel put the phone down, feeling lonelier than she'd ever felt before.
- ooo -
On Thursday morning first thing, before she had time to lose heart, she laid the envelope containing her invoice in front of Patrick, who was working at the kitchen table.
He looked up at her, and reached out an arm to pull her towards him. 'What's this?' he said, with a smile in his voice as if it might be an invitation to a party or some other pleasant function, as he ripped open the envelope and pulled out the invoice. His expression changed. 'What's this?' he repeated, in quite a different tone.
'An invoice for the work I've done,' she said, faltering.
He took his arm away from her waist.
'You said that's what I was to do,' she added, standing on one leg in embarrassment. She'd only invoiced him for half the hours she had been at the office, on the grounds that they might have been making love for the other half. It didn't come to very much, but it was something.
Someone rapped at the door. 'I'll get it,' she said, glad for an excuse to escape.
A deliveryman stood outside, almost hidden behind an enormous bouquet of flowers.
'There you go, love,' he said, pushing the flowers into Isabel's hands.
'No, that can't be right. You must have the wrong address,' Isabel said, pushing the flowers back.
'Freeman? Number forty-five, Downton Road?'
'Yes, but are you sure?' Isabel took the flowers from him.
'Someone loves you, sweetheart. Don't knock it.' He winked at her before going down the path.
There must have been at least a hundred flowers in the bouquet. Isa
bel had to cradle it, almost overwhelmed by the scent from the lilies and freesias - freesias, at the end of October. Isabel looked for the card with trembling fingers.
'Mi perdone, carissima,' it read.
Patrick. She looked up from the flowers. He was leaning against the kitchen door, watching her.
'They're amazing. Thank you.'
'The timing was interesting.' His voice was cold, his face withdrawn. He had the invoice in his hand.
'Patrick, I can't work for nothing.' She hugged the preposterous flowers to her. 'We agreed this is what we'd do.'
'I'll write you a cheque,' he said, turned abruptly and went back into the kitchen. She hesitated, then followed him in.
'There you are.' He held out a cheque to her. She disengaged a hand from the flowers and took the cheque.
'Thank you.'
He sat down at the table and started to read as if she wasn't there.
Isabel put the flowers in the sink.
'Patrick,' She touched his shoulder. 'What does the card mean?'
'Nothing.' He shook her hand away. 'Absolutely nothing.'
- ooo -
On Friday morning Isabel consulted the 'to do' list she'd made late on Thursday evening. Drat, she'd forgotten to remind Neil about coming home early. She thought about phoning him at work, but decided against it. He'd probably have remembered and there was something off- putting about phoning the office on such a wifely task. Her at home. The little woman. She pulled a face. She was sure he would remember.
She'd meant to start cleaning the house in anticipation of her parents-in-law's visit during the week but each evening she'd felt dragged down with worry about the situation with Patrick. For the first time in weeks she'd eaten her way through a packet of biscuits, not tasting them but finding comfort in the rhythmic munching, the sweetness.
Cleaning the house in anticipation of the in-laws worked off some of her spare energy. Isabel scrubbed at floors, dusted the tops of the curtains and wiped dirty fingermarks off the woodwork. Pictures that had been lying against walls cocooned in bubble wrap were hung on the walls, Isabel whacking in picture hooks with an oversized hammer that made a satisfying thud. The company paid for transporting a container and a half, so their belongings were edited with each move, but she'd filled this permanent home quickly: toys waiting to be mended and spare legs from the new kitchen units saved 'just in case'. She opened a new roll of bin bags.