Adultery for Beginners

by Sarah Duncan

  But we have no shared history to squabble over, she argued, trying to convince herself that there was no reason to fear Patrick's reaction. He has Victoria and we're grown-up people. She jangled the car keys. She'd never felt particularly grown-up. It was Neil who'd been the grown-up, she realised, letting her remain a child. She didn't think Patrick, erstwhile playmate, was very grown-up either. He'd said 'no tears when we part', but she was certain he fully expected that it would be him who would be doing the dumping, not her.

  Earlier, before anyone was up, she'd written him a letter. Should she drive to the house now and risk knocking on the door? Or slip it silently through the letterbox, to glide onto his nonexistent doormat? She bit the side of her thumbnail, running her teeth along the edge, gaining some comfort from the familiarity of her own smell. What to do? Face to face seemed the only honest way of breaking off the affair, but she didn't feel like being honest. She could imagine Neil in the same circumstances being sad, but accepting. She didn't think Patrick would be either. She felt stupid, standing in the street umming and ahhing, so she got in the car, and stuck the key in the ignition. She had to make a decision, and quickly. It only took so long to return a video and pick up a few things at the supermarket.

  It would help if she knew whether he would be in or not, she thought If she knew he was out, she could knock on the door and then, when he didn't respond, drop the letter off and drive away fast with a clear conscience. Clear-ish, anyway. But if he was in... He might be angry. Worse, he might take no notice of her, and stop her talking with first a 'Don't be stupid, woman', then with sex. And if he did, she wasn't sure that she could withstand his confidence. She saw herself, stumbling explanations, getting confused under his amused stare. And would her body, so used to him, swing into action before she could stop herself?

  No, she didn't want to see him alone inside the house. But it seemed so awful to write, a coward's way out. Don't be silly, she told herself. The reason it seems bad is that it gives the other person no chance to respond, to put their side. And that's what you want, isn't it? No comeback. She glanced at her watch. He often went away at weekends, she knew. Perhaps he was with Victoria. Even if he were at the house, he probably wouldn't be up yet. A brief vision of Patrick, unshaven, hungover, answering the door bleary-eyed with his skin warm from bed, came into her head. She resolutely pushed the image away, slid the car into gear and drove off.

  The house looked deserted, curtains closed at the upstairs windows. She parked and got out of her car, closing the door carefully so it didn't make a noise. She looked around but couldn't see his car. She opened the gate carefully and stepped up the path to the front door. She listened for a moment but heard nothing, so tapped the door softly. Her heart was thumping as she listened, but nothing disturbed the silence on the other side of the door. Either asleep, or not there, she thought. She slipped back to the car and read her letter through.

  Sunday morning

  Dear Patrick,

  I've been thinking really hard over half term and have decided that I can't come with you to Rome. I can't leave the children, and I can't take them with me. So I must stay here and make the best of things.

  I expect you'll be angry, but hope you can forgive me. You told me from the start, no regrets, and we both knew it was never going to last. I've had a wonderful time but I can't risk the children's happiness. It's too high a price to pay for my own.

  Love, Isabel

  She found a biro gathering dust in the footwell and crossed out the sentence about it being too high a price to pay for her own happiness. If she made the break it had to be final. Patrick mustn't know how difficult it was for her to leave him. She read the letter again and as she did so, she remembered her father saying, be careful what you put in writing. He was a great one for never putting anything in writing, especially if it could be compromising.

  She tore the letter up, ripping it into tiny pieces. Better safe than sorry. Scrabbling around the car she found a piece of lined paper that had strayed from Michael's homework bag. She paused, sucking the end of the biro, then started to write.

  Sunday morning

  Dear Patrick

  I came over to tell you in person, but you're not in so I'm writing this letter. Please forgive the grotty paper and biro. I have decided that, due to family commitments, I can no longer work for you. I'm sorry to leave you in the lurch, but I'm sure you'll find someone else soon.

  But will they work for no money? she thought and she suddenly wondered if Patrick had started the affair so as not to pay her. But no, she couldn't accuse him of that. Although he had kissed her, it had been she who had initiated the affair on the afternoon of the storm. It seemed a very long time ago. She sucked on the end of the biro for inspiration. Grimacing, she wrote:

  I'm giving no notice in lieu of wages.

  With best wishes

  Isabel Freeman

  Not very good, but it would have to do. She folded the note into four and wrote Patrick's name on the front. At the door she hesitated for a second. Was this right? What she wanted? She pushed the note through quickly. There. It was gone. Too late to change her mind. As she got back in the car she felt light-headed. It was good to have chosen, to have made the decision. She slipped Mozart's horn concerto into the CD player and sang along to the resolutely cheerful music as she drove the few miles home.

  Chapter 15

  The euphoria of Sunday morning had vanished by Monday morning when Neil left for work, leaving her alone in the house, depressed and without energy. She spent the day in a state of anxiety, fearing for Patrick's phonecall. In town, hair damp round the edges from swimming, she walked nervously along the pavement, expecting to see Patrick emerge and accost her. Sick with nerves she loitered in the bookshop, half looking at the books and half watching out of the shop window to see if he went into the Italian cafe opposite. Once she looked up from Organise Your Life Forever! and thought he was peering in at her, dark face in shadow, but it was only some stranger who didn't even look like him. She realised the man at the till was watching her, presumably because he thought she looked shifty. A potential shoplifter, probably. Flustered, she bought a book called Rekindling the Passion: Rediscovering the Joys of Marital Sex, blushing slightly as the man at the till gave her a sideways look, having read the title. She hid it in the depths of her shopping basket in case she bumped into Patrick and his eyes might see through the paper bag.

  She swam every day that week. On the way down the pool her eyes were fixed on the entrance to the men's changing rooms, just in case, and on the way up she could feel his eyes burning her back through the water. But he was never there. It was never him who emerged and surveyed the pool as if he owned it, pulling at his swimming trunks as if too tight, like all the other men. Some of the swimmers had beautiful bodies, broad-shouldered, tapering to slim waists and long legs so firm that the calf muscles threw arcs of shadow towards the ankles. Their smooth movements through the water made her think of Patrick lying languorously on the bed, sated and contented as a cat. But cats have claws. She waited for Patrick to flex his.

  On Tuesday, when she should have been at work, she started writing the Christmas Round Robin letter they sent every year to friends. It was a good way to stay in touch when your friends were, like you, working all over the world. But what to write?

  Dear Everyone,

  The year's been an interesting one. We moved back to the UK - Neil's now a big cheese at company HQ and I got a job and took a lover, but I've chucked them both in now.

  Perhaps not, although it would make a change from the usual litany of minor successes. She struggled for a while with anodyne phrases before giving up. Instead, she read the book she had bought and tried rekindling the passion, or rather, tried kindling with Neil the passion she'd had with Patrick. But although they had made love satisfactorily at the weekend, Neil now seemed wary of her advances, almost embarrassed as if that Saturday afternoon had been an aberration. He did what he usually did and seemed
thrown when she tried whispering suggestions or showing him what she liked. She felt ashamed, as if she'd been caught doing something wrong. Which in a way she had, because she had learnt how to ask, and what to ask for, from Patrick. After her second attempt she gave up and they each retreated to their own side of the bed.

  She thought of Patrick a lot. Patrick laughing in the garden, Patrick pacing the room talking rapidly into the phone, Patrick getting angry and crashing through the house slamming doors then fucking her. Bedroom, kitchen, stairs; it didn't matter where. She knew the quality of the floors and furniture in that house better than a surveyor. He would be angry when he got the letter. She was sure of it. She kept thinking about him being angry, anger turning to passion.

  At the pool she swam fast. Her arms and legs trembled as she got out. Twice she had to sit down in the middle of changing, limp and exhausted, legs flopping open, arms hanging uselessly by her side, waiting for her pulse to settle down and her chest to stop heaving. I'm just not used to all this swimming, she thought. I'll be more careful tomorrow. But the next day, although she might start carefully, after a few lengths her pace quickened. She ploughed up and down the lanes, counting the lengths in her head, repeating the number on each inward breath. She had always swum by time before, twenty minutes, half an hour. She'd heard sixty-four lengths equalled a mile so she aimed for that. She counted lengths obsessively. It shut out thoughts of Patrick.

  By Friday she had got used to feeling sick when the phone rang, and fed up with standing beside it, agonising about whether to pick it up or let it carry on ringing merrily. It rang again and she realised she was bored with jangling nerves. She picked the phone up.

  'Yup? Oh, Mary. Hi.' She hated herself for saying hi. She never said hi. Cringing inwardly, she listened to Mary reminding her about the Fireworks Party. Her name was down for selling sparklers. She had to admit, she had forgotten completely, although she realised the children had been talking about it only that morning. It was information that hadn't stuck inside her brain.

  'I hear you're not working for Patrick any more.'

  'No.' Her hand gripped the phone, as she thought back to Mary coming round to Patrick's house, when she'd told her that Patrick meant nothing to her. She realised it would sound odd if she didn't say anything else so she added, 'It just didn't work out.' She waved her free arm airily, even though Mary couldn't see her.

  There was a slight pause. Mary was obviously running through all the things she could say, but decided against any of them.

  'Well. See you tonight,' was all she said.

  'Tonight, that's right.' Isabel nodded furiously.

  'And, Isabel? Don't be late.'

  - ooo -

  'We mustn't be late,' Isabel said, bundling the children into layers of coats and sweaters and searching for matching gloves among the newly acquired supplies. It was strange how a person could so consistently lose the right-hand glove of any pair. She found a pair of gloves on a string which would fit Katie, and had to get her out of her coat, thread them through and then put Katie back in. It all took time.

  'I don't need a hat,' Michael said, tossing his head away from a blue wool job, the plainest Isabel could find.

  'It'll be freezing,' Isabel said, jamming it down. 'You're not used to the cold. C'mon, we've got to go.' She nipped back into the kitchen to collect her car keys and checked Katie's note was still there for Neil.

  Dear Daddy

  we have gone to the Fireworks Party.

  here is a tikket for you if you get home in time.

  Love Katie XXXXXXXXXXXXX

  Isabel had dictated the words but the Xs were all Katie's. Such love, she thought. So many kisses to be squeezed into such a small space. She sighed, then squeaked at the sight of the kitchen clock and grabbed her shopping basket.

  'Yikes. Quick, everybody in the car.'

  The children, excited about being out in the dark, chattered in high-pitched voices as she drove through the streets. How many hot dogs, how many sparklers, how many sweets were they going to have? Millions, billions, trillions, squillions. They topped each other, squealing with delight. The children's excitement was infectious, and Isabel felt excited too, even though the weather was poor, threatening rain, clouds hiding the early stars. The moon was a thin sliver of diffused light hanging suspended on the horizon.

  Isabel's wasn't the only car in the car park but she was one of the first. She presented herself at the classroom they used as HQ on Bonfire Night, slightly puffed from the hurry. The fluorescent lights seemed horribly bright after the darkness outside. She waved her basket.

  'I'm here. Where are the sparklers?'

  Justine detached herself from a group fussing over the heated trolleys.

  'In this box. And the matches are here. Mary's got all the float money.'

  'Everything going okay?'

  Justine grimaced. 'Helen forgot to come in early and turn the trolleys and the urn on. So the mulled wine is lukewarm and we're selling tepid, not hot, dogs.' She lowered her voice. 'Food poisoning apparently threatens the entire school community. Mary was furious and shouted at Helen, then stormed off.'

  How like Patrick, Isabel thought, her insides turning over just thinking of him.

  'Stupid, really; it's not the Ritz,' Justine drawled.

  'I seem to have missed the action,' Isabel said, matching Justine's cool tone. She looked across, and saw the high colour still on Helen's cheeks. 'Poor Helen.' She decided against commiserating with Helen now; it would only draw attention to her. She'd say something later. She crammed as many packets of sparklers and matches as she could into her basket and went outside. It was very dark, lit only by the light from the school buildings, and she wished she had remembered to bring a torch. That was the problem with rushing about, trying to be early: you ended up forgetting things. The children had joined Rufus, Millie and Rachel and several others and were running about, bodies criss-crossing the dark lawn. She called Katie and Michael to her.

  'They'll be lighting the bonfire soon.'

  'Where?' Katie looked around her, eyes big under her hat.

  'Right up at the very top of the field, as far from the school as possible.' Isabel pointed into the darkness, although it was impossible to see anything. 'And then the fireworks will be in half an hour. Be careful.'

  'Remember, remember the fifth of November,' Michael chanted.

  'Here's some money for hot dogs and sweets. Rufus's mother is dishing up; she'll help you. Please watch out for Katie, Michael. I won't be far away if you need me, or if you're frightened.'

  Michael snorted with derision.

  'You may be fine, but Katie might get scared,' she said quickly. 'I'll be wandering around outside but if you miss me, go into the classroom where the food is.'

  She gave them a packet of sparklers each and lit the first. They streaked off up the lawn towards the top field, which was hopefully called the athletics track in the summer term, sparks of light emitting from their sparklers so they resembled boisterous Tinkerbells.

  Car headlights started to flash up the track to the car park, at first irregularly, then in a steady stream. Isabel sold sparklers to children and parents, having brief, meaningless conversations with most of them - 'Let's hope the weather holds' and 'When do the fireworks start?' Children wrote their names in sparkler fire, or swung great swooping arcs of flashing neon that burnt out the darkness, after-images lingering in the air before dissolving into the night. Parents talked loudly, fuelled by mulled wine, while their children ran wild. The bonfire blazed beyond the lawn in the top field, a beacon that people gradually drifted towards. The first firework went up, a large rocket that exploded into a chrysanthemum head of green petals with a thunderclap of sound, and everybody oohed.

  Isabel sold the last of her sparklers to the crowd in the top field, and thought about going back to get fresh supplies. She looked down towards the school buildings. Through the big windows she could just make out the PTA women, shadowy figures chatting in
the warmth. They would be clearing up and making ready for the next bout of frenzied feeding and drinking after the firework display was over. Standing alone in the cold night air, she felt torn between staying with the crowd and watching the rest of the firework display or continuing her duty by trudging all the way down to collect the rest of the sparklers. I want to be with my children, she thought, oohing and ahhing with everybody else. But the children were at the front of the crowd, unfussed by the noises that had made her duck involuntarily. They didn't need her and she couldn't reach them even if she wanted to. She looked at the empty basket. She knew what she ought to do.

  Reluctantly she started to walk down, turning her back on the crowd and the fireworks. The darkness pressed in on her, making her stumble, and the money she had taken nearly fell out of the basket. She stopped and gathered it together, putting it into a plastic bag in her pocket. Her hands were cold, and she fumbled tying the top of the bag. When she reached the school buildings, she decided, she wouldn't go back up to join the crowd but would stay for a chat, perhaps have some mulled wine to warm herself up. There weren't many packets of sparklers left in the classroom to sell.

  As she passed the cedar of Lebanon, part of the trunk detached itself and turned into a figure, making her jump.

  'God, you gave me a shock,' she said, hand on heart.

  'I didn't mean to make you jump.' A rocket exploded in the black sky above and flooded Patrick's face with lurid green light. 'Mary told me you'd be here. I've been watching you.' His voice was steady but in the brief flash of light she saw that his face was set in deep lines. Then the light faded and all was darkness again.

  'What do you want?' She could hear the fear in her voice and clutched the empty basket in front of her.

  'Why, you, of course. What else would I want here?' He took a step towards her and involuntarily she stepped back. There are hundreds of people all around me, she thought. There's no danger. But all she could see was darkness and the nearest people were fifty yards away behind closed windows.