Adultery for Beginners

by Sarah Duncan

  'What do you mean?' she stammered.

  'I told you. I opened the envelope on the train. I didn't realise at first it was you - My God, who'd imagine that they'd see their wife like that?' Isabel hung her head.

  'I'm sorry, I'm sorry.'

  Neil shot her a sharp look, then carried on. 'I was sitting with the others, George, Richard, the usual crowd.'

  Isabel's heart missed two beats and she looked at Neil with horror. 'Oh no. Oh please, no.'

  'Unfortunately, oh yes. They saw. Not their fault, they couldn't help but see. We were laughing and joking, guessing what the person who was supposed to get them might have got instead, when one by one they went quiet. Then someone, Richard I think, said I should put the photographs away.' He rubbed his hand across his forehead as if he was easing a headache. 'I hadn't looked at them. Not properly. It's not my sort of thing. I just looked enough to see that they weren't for me - or so I thought.' The lines in his face were etched deep, thrown into relief by the grey light coming from the window. 'Not my sort of thing, you see. Never has been. Well. Obviously, you know that. Silly of me to say. I hadn't realised until Richard said...I was the last to...' He bit the side of his thumb. 'I got off at the next station. They're good chaps, but they won't keep this quiet. They'll go home and tell their wives, and the wives'll tell just one really good friend, and so on.'

  She bowed her head, already feeling the weight of the gossip lying on top of Neil's pain.

  'It'll be hell, of course, but people will rally round. Keep an eye on the children, help out, that sort of thing. If you're not here.'

  'I see.' She could see too, see the way people they knew locally would rush to help Neil, the innocent victim, and how the gossip would die down sooner if there wasn't an object to vilify. He was right. Her not being around would make it easier for the children. She looked round the room as if seeing it for the first time.

  'I can't just leave.'

  'Why not?'

  'Because...the children need me.'

  'Really? I can't say the evidence points to you giving them any thought at all.'

  'That's not fair, and you know it.'

  'If you do think about them, then you'll want to spare them pain. What's it going to be like, everybody pointing and whispering? Go now and you save them from that.'

  She couldn't think. She couldn't do what he was asking. She couldn't leave the children. Couldn't.

  'I can't...'

  'This isn't about you. It's about what's best for the children.' His words burnt through her head. 'If you loved them you'd go.'

  'No,' she said, pressing her fists into her eyes. 'I can't leave them.' But what if he was right? What if it was better if she went? It wouldn't have to be for long, just until the gossip had died down a bit, a week at the most. I must do what's right for them, she thought desperately. Tell me, someone, tell me what to do. But there was no one. I have to think for myself. She tried to control her breathing, tried to calm down, tried to stop the swirling thoughts. If I stay, it'll be like this all weekend, fighting, crying, recriminations. And they shouldn't see us like this. Perhaps Neil was right. She was thinking of herself and not the children. Perhaps it was better to go. Better for them.

  'Maybe for a short time. Just the weekend,' she said, the words stumbling out.

  'I don't care.' He looked tired and grey, nearer sixty than forty.

  'Neil, I'm so sorry.' She moved towards him but he put up his hand to stop her. She couldn't go. But if she stayed...she thought of Neil pressing her face down into the bed, so hard she couldn't breathe. If Michael saw that, would he rush to rescue her? And then what? She had to protect the children from seeing the ugly consequences of her affair. Finally she spoke.

  'I'll pack some things.'

  He pulled down a weekend bag from on top of the wardrobe and handed it to her. Their fingers touched briefly and he pulled his hand away from the contact. She felt tired and defeated. She started to pack at random, unable to think properly, flinging clothes into the bag. I can't believe I'm doing this, ran through her brain incessantly, but her hands continued to pack. She went into the shower room and filled a bag with toiletries, adding them to her case. When it was full she picked it up, and let out a gasp, surprised by its heaviness.

  'I'll take it down for you.'

  'Thank you.'

  'No problem.'

  They spoke quietly, politely, as if they were strangers.

  'I haven't said goodbye to them. I can't go without saying goodbye.' She could feel panic rising inside as she thought of leaving.

  He shrugged. 'What would you say?'

  'That I love them.'

  'Ah.'

  Isabel caught sight of the envelope lying on the bed. 'What are you going to do with that?'

  Neil looked at it in surprise, as if he had forgotten it was there. 'I hadn't thought.'

  'I'd like them destroyed.'

  'I'm sure.'

  'Please.' He hesitated. 'They've done enough damage,' she added.

  In answer he rummaged in the drawer of his bedside cabinet and found a dusty book of matches from a restaurant. He tipped up the metal waste-paper basket, scattering tissues over the carpet, then lit a corner of the envelope. It burnt with a glowing golden flame, turning lurid green as the fire flickered over the photographic paper. As the flames caught hold, leaping up, Neil dropped the blazing envelope into the bin, and they watched in silence as it burned brightly then subsided into smouldering charcoal and ashes. There seemed to be nothing to say.

  They walked down the stairs, Isabel going first, Neil following behind with her bag. She had the feeling she was wading through treacle. 'What are you going to say?'

  'That you had to go away suddenly. I hadn't thought.'

  'It's only for a few days, I'll be back soon. You will tell them that? You will tell them that I love them, that I didn't want to go?' She hugged herself, trying to keep the sobs inside. 'Please, Neil, let me stay.'

  'No.' He stopped. 'I am trying hard to be civilised. If you stay I will... His voice trailed off while he regained control. 'I don't think you understand how I feel. I can't... I can't...'

  She hugged him, feeling his body stiff and unyielding. She let her arms fall, limp with embarrassment and remorse. He wouldn't meet her eyes.

  'Please. Just go.'

  'Neil, it's all wrong.' She couldn't go. It was impossible. Her chest ached, her brain was spinning. Impossible.

  'I can't bear to see you. Every time I look at you I see...' He shut his eyes as if shutting out pain. Isabel couldn't bear to look at him and stared at the floor. I should have got that rug mended, she thought wildly. If it doesn't get fixed soon it'll collapse into threads.

  'Neil, please... I'm sorry -' She started to shake at the prospect of going. But she had to. She had to protect the children.

  'Don't.' The expression of pain on his face stopped her from carrying on. She took a deep breath, then picked up her bag and opened the front door.

  'Neil, I'm only going for a short time. Not forever. You will tell them?'

  Neil nodded, lips pressed tightly together. She stepped out of the door.

  'Isabel?' She turned back. He looked so tired, she wanted to hug him again, but instead she stood there, conscious of the heavy bag weighing down her right arm.

  'The photographs. Is that what you... I mean, do you like... Did you want...' He looked embarrassed. 'I'm sorry, I shouldn't ask.'

  'It's all right.' She shifted the bag to her left hand. 'It was different. Exciting. Fun. Eighteen years is a long time. You know.' She shrugged. 'I didn't love him. I never loved him.'

  Neil didn't say anything so she walked stiffly on shaking legs to her car, dumped the bag on the passenger seat and got in. She couldn't believe she was just going to drive away. She swivelled round in her seat and caught Neil watching her. Please, she said to him with her eyes. Please. But he turned his head and refused to look at her. He looked old and shrunken, the family resemblance between him and his
father very strong. He went back into the house and shut the door. Isabel stared at it, unable to really believe that it had closed with her on the wrong side. Finally she started the engine and drove off. She felt totally alone.

  - ooo -

  Isabel drove aimlessly, circling the lanes around Milbridge until the third near miss made her realise that she wasn't safe on the roads. She turned the heater on full blast to try to warm up, starting with her feet, which were so cold they kept slipping off the pedals. She needed to find somewhere to stay. A little way further on was a village sign, and she realised that she wasn't far from Helen's house. She could see Helen's people carrier, so she knew she was back from the school run. There was another car in the drive, an expensive saloon she suspected might be George's. It must be later than she thought.

  The driveway seemed scarier than usual, the big yews whispering in the wind, their branches reaching out to snatch. She rang the doorbell.

  'Isabel!' Helen looked surprised to see her.

  'Helen, can you help me? I've got a problem.'

  'I heard.' Helen looked embarrassed and despite the cold Isabel blushed. Did everybody know?

  'Can I come in? I'm freezing.'

  'I don't know.' Helen bit her lip, her face anxious.

  'Please, Helen. I don't have anywhere else to go.'

  'Who is it?' George's voice, obviously in the sitting room. Isabel could hear the television in the background.

  'It's nobody,' Helen called back to him.

  'If it's that bitch, tell her she's not welcome.' Isabel flinched as his voice echoed in the stone hall.

  Helen looked shamefaced. 'I'm sorry.'

  'It's my fault, I shouldn't have come.'

  I can't go against George.'

  'I know.'

  'Where will you go?'

  'Don't worry, I'll find a B&B or something.' Isabel turned away.

  'Hang on.' Helen came out, closing the door behind her. 'Are you okay for money? I've got some you could have.'

  'Don't.' Isabel screwed up her face with humiliation. She should have known not to ask. 'I'm fine,' she said, trying to smile.

  'Look, come round tomorrow. George always plays golf on Saturday mornings.'

  But I need help now, Isabel thought.

  'I want to help. Let me give you some money.'

  'No, I'm fine, really. I shouldn't have come.'

  'Come round tomorrow and you can tell me all about it.' Helen's face looked eager, excited by the prospect of vicarious thrills.

  'Oh no, Helen, I couldn't possibly make you go against George.' Isabel stomped off down the path back to the car. The interior had cooled down dramatically in the few minutes she had been absent. She drove off smartly, trying not to register the tears in her eyes. If Helen wouldn't help her then no one else would. Or rather, they might, sneakily and behind their husbands' backs, in exchange for salacious details and a sense of being at the heart of things. I'd have done the same, she told herself, trying to forgive them. I wouldn't have gone against Neil.

  Thinking of Neil, his distress, made the tears start to roll down her cheeks. She tried to blink them back but they wouldn't stop coming, making driving dangerous. She was near the escarpment of the Downs so she headed up the next track that led to the summit. The metalled section petered out quite soon leaving a muddy farm track rutted from tractors and motocross bikes. She pulled the car over, worried about getting stuck in the mud, and then got out. Stumbling, she made her way to the brow. There was a clump of trees and she settled down with her back against the largest of them. The ground was crisp with fallen leaves: scarlet, terracotta, yellow-blotched green. She carefully shredded one of them, removing what was left of the fleshy part, leaving nothing but the skeleton. Michael was doing flower parts in school. Stamen, sepal, calyx. The sex life of plants, dissected and drawn in section. Stigma, style, ovary. Busy bees, buzzing to and fro. The light started to fail.

  The valley was stretched out before her, shrouded in twilight. In the villages around the town people were putting their lights on, making pinpricks of yellow warmth among the misty grey haze. She watched, ignoring the cold wind that drove its way through her coat, her sweater. Milbridge itself was a cluster of lights, gold and silver, creating an aura of dark orange in the darkening sky. In one of those houses Katie and Michael were eating their tea, and asking where she was. She hoped they were, anyway.

  She sat there a long time, letting the wind whip her hair onto her face, the chill creep in and age her bones, the damp penetrate to the marrow. The valley became dark, lit only by the twinkly fairy lights that showed where people lived. A vixen screamed, a high-pitched shriek. On the ground there were little rustlings in the leaves and an owl swooped by on silent wings. She realised that she was cold, really cold.

  Thinking vaguely that she should find a B&B she staggered down the escarpment, slipping in the mud and getting caught by brambles. It seemed a long way and for a horrible moment she thought she had made a mistake and had missed the farm track. The thought of being stuck up on the hills late in November concentrated her mind and she became more alert to the signals that she was going in the right direction. She followed a hedgerow, went over a stile and there was the car ahead of her.

  She opened the door to the driver's seat. As she stood there she changed her mind, closed the door and clambered into the back. Anything was preferable to going back into the harsh real world, even a night in a freezing car. There was an old blanket that the children used on frosty mornings, their thermostats still not fully adjusted to the cold after the heat of a Syrian summer. She wrapped herself in it, finding some comfort in the traces of their presence, arms folded across her lower stomach, trying to hold in the pain. Perhaps if she lay perfectly still nothing would hurt her again.

  But the loss of the children was like a dull ache that filled her mind, blocking out any other thoughts and even awareness of the cold, despite her shivering. She could picture them now: Michael, leaping amongst the windswept leaves, faun-like in long-limbed exuberance; Katie, serious and intent, puppy-fat cheeks curving over the planes of her face, star-fish hands unfurling to show some discovered small treasure. If someone said to her, you may have the children back, but you must lose your right arm, she would instantly hold it out, hack it off herself, if need be. Nothing mattered except them.

  She hugged herself tightly, a hard twisted knot of pain piercing her inside. She thought of Michael, lost in the woods, the way the branches had clawed at her, holding her back. She had thought then that she would die if he had been lost, yet here she was, through her own fault, without him. The world outside the car was cold and dark. She shifted position on the back seat, stretching her legs out before curling them up again. There was no escaping from her thoughts: it was entirely her fault. She should have been faithful, and if not that, then at least more careful. Oh, Patrick, why? Jagged emotions caught at her, confused and indistinct. She tried to unravel the strands: love, hate, anger. Anger. If only he had not carried out his threat, she would be safely at home with Neil and the children. Would Neil know that Michael liked seven kisses before being tucked into bed, that Katie couldn't sleep unless the bathroom light and not the landing light was left on?

  She scrunched her face up, trying not to think about them, but it was overwhelming. She longed for them, every molecule in her body yearning to hold them. But they were gone.

  Chapter 18

  Isabel woke to someone thumping on the car window. She half sat up, bleary-eyed, and squinted at two faces peering in at her through windows covered with condensation, one face black and white and hairy, the other red and blue and fluffy. Was she hallucinating? She wiped the window with her sleeve and looked more carefully. The faces transformed into a border collie and a woman in a woolly hat, well wrapped up against the morning chill. God, she was cold. And stiff. Her face felt pressed to one side, probably imprinted with the pattern of the rear seats. She screwed her face up to try and bring some life back into it. The woman in
the woolly hat was mouthing something to her. Isabel pulled herself into a sitting position and gingerly opened the car door.

  The collie jumped up at her, healthy pink tongue lolling amid clouds of hot doggy breath. She disentangled herself a bit more from the blanket to fend him off. The collie's owner was speaking, one gloved hand to her chest, as if she'd had a shock.

  'I thought you were a suicide.'

  'No.' Isabel's mouth felt strange as if she had sealed it when she had withdrawn to the comfort of the children's blanket. She licked her dry lips, feeling the raw cracks at the corners with her tongue. 'Not dead yet.'

  'You do get them up here. They put bricks on the accelerators so the car goes until the petrol runs out.'

  'I'll know another time.'

  The woman looked horrified. 'I didn't mean...'

  'It's all right; neither did I.'

  Isabel ran her hands through her hair, feeling it stick up in tufts. The woman lingered, obviously itching with curiosity, but too polite to ask. Once Isabel would have tried to allay her concerns, asked the dog's name, chatted about the weather, but now she was too tired to bother. Whatever reserves of social good behaviour she possessed had vanished over the last twenty-four hours. She leant back against the seat, eyes closed.

  'Do you need help?'

  'I'm fine. Just fine.' She kept her eyes shut.

  'I'll be on my way then.' Isabel made no response. She could sense the woman teetering on the brink of departing. 'Well.' A deep intake of breath. 'It's a beautiful day. Come on, Tan.'

  Isabel listened to them go, stoutly shod feet crunching the ground, dog rustling through the hedge, the sounds fading. She sat still, absorbing the silence. Then other sounds began to impinge. Birdsong in short snatches, three repeated notes ending on a rising note, like a question. A blackbird's whirring warning call further away. Rustling in the hedgerow, a fieldfare searching for hawberries. She opened her eyes and saw a spider had made a web between the car and the wing mirror. It glistened with ash-white dew strung like beads along the silvery threads, the sunlight passing through the dew, prisms converting the light into sparkling rainbows. She could feel the warmth of the sun on the car, see it melting the frost on the muddy track. Slowly, with her joints feeling as rusty as the Tin Man's, she pushed the door open and stood up, her lungs aching as she breathed in the sharp, thin air. The sky was high, a clear pale blue floating over ploughed fields, earth rich as chocolate, and the escarpment of the Downs, sweeping across the horizon. The dog walker had been right. It was a beautiful day.