Going Too Far

by Catherine Alliott

  ‘Just get on with it, will you!’

  ‘OK, OK.’ I gulped and pulled my dressing gown around me. ‘Right.’ I licked my hellishly dehydrated lips. ‘Well, there was this party in a restaurant, you see, on the Friday night, after the shoot.’

  Nick looked puzzled. ‘Which you went to?’

  ‘Well, yes I did, actually, but only because everyone kept asking me to go. I was sort of – persuaded into it.’

  ‘But you were supposed to be back here on Friday night, you knew that.’

  I nodded. ‘To check the delivery on Saturday morning, I know, I know, but – well, I had this brainwave, you see!’ I looked at him eagerly, hoping he’d share my enthusiasm. ‘I thought – why not leave the car in London, get the sleeper after the party and still be back in time to check the stock on Saturday! Brilliant, eh?’

  Nick looked more incredulous than enthusiastic. ‘You left the car in London? I thought you’d just put it away in the garage or something – Christ, Polly, you must have wanted to go to this party very badly.’

  ‘Well, yes,’ I shifted uncomfortably. ‘I suppose I did, but – only because it was going to be such fun.’ I grabbed his hand, desperate for him to understand. ‘And it was so long since I’d been to anything remotely like that, and I’ve missed that part of my life a bit – not much, of course, not much at all, in fact, but just a bit – and I thought, well, just for once – damn it, why not?’

  Nick pulled his hand away. ‘Why not indeed,’ he said drily. ‘I had no idea you were suffering such withdrawal symptoms for your good-time-girl days.’ He looked pained.

  ‘Oh no, I’m not! No, not at all really, it’s just that now and again – well, obviously I can see how superficial it all is but sometimes I miss that buzz, that little thrill of excitement, that feeling you get when you’re out with loads of people having a good time; there’s something so –’

  ‘Polly, could we debate the pros and cons of London’s social scene some other time? Just get to the point. You went to the party, and …?’

  I sighed and lit my third cigarette of the morning. ‘Well, after that, a few of us went on to Annabel’s.’

  ‘I thought you said that was Thursday night?’

  I dredged up yet more saliva.

  ‘I lied,’ I said in a small voice.

  ‘I see,’ he said in an icy one.

  I swallowed hard. This was going very badly, very badly indeed, and I hadn’t even got to the horrendous bit. I desperately wanted to get it over and done with so I speeded up.

  ‘So as I said, we went on to Annabel’s – me, Amanda, Chris and S-Sam.’ There, I’d said it. I hurried on. ‘And of course there was lots of dancing and drinking and that sort of thing and – oh yes, lots of drinking, actually, I got incredibly drunk, Nick, absolutely steaming, in fact I was –’

  ‘How unusual,’ he cut in sarcastically.

  ‘No, but I was really spectacularly drunk.’ It was imperative he understood I was in no way responsible for my actions. ‘To the point where I was’ – I looked down at my hands – ‘practically unconscious.’

  ‘Really.’ I felt his eyes burn into me. ‘And then?’

  I twisted my hands together miserably. ‘Well, that’s just it, I don’t know, I’ve got absolutely no idea how what happened next actually … happened.’

  ‘How d’you mean? What did happen next?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ I gazed at him desperately, willing him to understand. ‘Because the next thing I knew, I was waking up in bed the next morning.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In a … hotel bedroom,’ I whispered.

  There was a horrible silence.

  ‘With Sam?’ His voice was weird, strangled.

  I dared not look at him. I pulled at a thread in my towelling dressing gown.

  ‘No, not with Sam, but – well, he’d obviously been there. At some point. There was a note, you see …’ I trailed off miserably.

  ‘Give it to me.’

  With a hand like blancmange I reached behind me to the dresser, pulled my handbag down, rummaged around for the crumpled note and handed it to him. He spread it out on the table. I watched his face as he read it. It went white. He handed it back to me.

  ‘I see.’ He got up and went towards the door.

  ‘Wh-where are you going?’ I stammered.

  ‘Out.’

  ‘But I haven’t finished! I have to tell you why I –’

  ‘You mean there’s more!’ Nick swung around. His face was like a mask, like someone else’s face, not my husband’s.

  ‘Still more?’ he whispered. ‘Jesus, Polly, you really know how to kick a man when he’s down, don’t you? I don’t believe this, I just don’t believe it!’

  ‘But you don’t understand!’ I wailed. ‘I didn’t do it!’

  He just stared at me.

  ‘Don’t you see?’ I pleaded. ‘I don’t remember anything, nothing at all! I just woke up and found this on the bedside table, so – so if I don’t remember, well, I can’t have done anything wrong, can I?’

  ‘So – what, you expect me to believe he raped you while you lay there unconscious? D’you want me to phone the police, Polly?’

  ‘No, but –’

  ‘Or – or perhaps nothing happened at all? Maybe he tucked you up in bed, read you a bedtime story, made you some cocoa and then curled up quietly on the floor. Is that more to your liking?’

  ‘Well, perhaps not on the floor, but –’

  ‘Oh, on the bed? But no funny business? Ah, I see, there’s a sporting chance he just lay down beside you, is there? Oh yes, of course, it’s all becoming crystal clear now, a platonic little sleep-in, babes in the wood, a kind of mixed dorm, is that it?’

  I felt his tone lacked a certain conviction. I shifted uncomfortably.

  ‘Well, it’s possible, isn’t it?’

  ‘Oh, quite possible, quite possible, and tell me, Polly, the “wonderful evening” he refers to – what are your theories on that? Was he perhaps referring to your sparkling conversation? Your witty line in repartee? Or do you have any other ideas?’

  ‘Well,’ I whispered, ‘I wondered perhaps if it was …’

  ‘Yes? Go on, I’m keen to learn.’

  ‘Well, a combination really, you know – chatting, laughing, joking, dancing –’

  ‘Dancing! Yes, of course, why not? You’ve always created quite a stir on the dance floor, haven’t you? Your dancing! Why not indeed?’

  ‘Oh, Nick,’ I said desperately, ‘I know it all sounds a bit odd, but –’

  ‘A bit odd? A BIT ODD!’ he bellowed.

  He leaned his hands on the table and stuck his face close to mine. I shrank down in my seat.

  ‘Polly, I just don’t believe this. You sit down at the breakfast table one Sunday morning and cool as a cucumber tell me a story about how you spent the night in a hotel room with a man I very much suspected you had the hots for anyway –’

  ‘Now that’s not –’

  ‘Let me finish!’ he yelled. I gulped. ‘You tell me you woke up the next morning and found this note’ – he flicked it across the table as if it were a piece of dog shit – ‘saying what a wonderful lover you were and what a marvellous time you’d given him –’

  ‘But it doesn’t –’

  ‘Yes it does, Polly, clear as daylight I’m afraid, and then you expect me to believe you had convenient amnesia between the hours of midnight and seven a.m. and that because you don’t remember anything, nothing actually happened? D’you honestly expect me to swallow that?’

  His incredulous face was inches from mine now. I’d never seen him so angry, not even back in the bad old days of Penhalligan and Waters when he was my exacting boss and I was his useless secretary and he bawled me out on a regular basis. Nothing had ever remotely prepared me for this. I quaked in my slippers and tried desperately to defend myself.

  ‘Well, I know it sounds a little far-fetched, a little unbelievable even –’

  ‘
A little far-fetched? Polly, it’s downright lies and you know it!’

  His eyes had me pinned again. I shrank, I slithered, I ducked and weaved, but there was no getting out of the line of fire.

  ‘Don’t forget, Polly, I know you,’ he hissed. ‘I know you inside out, and God knows you’ve told some whoppers in your time, but this really is the biggest, isn’t it? This really takes the biscuit. Tell me, I’m genuinely intrigued, what exactly were you wearing when you woke up?’

  ‘Wh-what was I wearing?’

  ‘Yes, do tell.’

  ‘Well … I was …’

  ‘Naked?’

  I hung my head, shame overwhelming me now, filling every crevice, every nook, every toenail.

  ‘I see. And you still don’t know what happened?’

  I shook my head miserably.

  ‘Well, let me enlighten you, Polly, let me fill you in. It’s like this. You went to bed with him. You went to bed with Sam. You took advantage of the fact that your husband was away on a business trip and you bonked another man whom you’d fancied for some time. Not a very original scenario, I grant you, and a pretty cheap and nasty one at that, but one that you obviously had no qualms about participating in. In fact I’d go so far as to say you almost planned the whole thing.’

  I couldn’t look at him, this seemed so unfair, and yet, what could I say? Had I? Had I done it? I stared at the floor, my eyes filling with hot tears. Nick saw my shamed face and took it as an admission of guilt. He straightened up and shook his head slowly.

  ‘Jesus,’ he whispered. His face, which had been firm and furious up to now, suddenly wobbled precariously. His mouth trembled, his eyes watered.

  ‘This time, you’ve just gone too far,’ he said in a shaky voice.

  He got up and walked out of the kitchen, banging the back door behind him. I stared at the door for a second, then my head dropped on to the table and I burst into tears. My heart broke into the stripped pine. After the few first terrible convulsions, I dragged myself up and ran after him. Sobbing and heaving, I flung open the back door and raced down the garden path, dressing gown flying, but he was striding fast. I ran through the vegetable patch in my bare feet and eventually caught up with him in the lettuces. I grabbed his sleeve.

  ‘No! No!’ I sobbed, clinging to his arm. ‘It wasn’t like that, really it wasn’t, you don’t understand, you must let me explain! I don’t know what happened, but it wasn’t that! I know I’m a terrible liar, but, Nick, I promise I’m not lying this time, I’m not, you must believe me, I’m telling the truth, I’m telling the truth!’

  He tried to shake me off but I clung to his arm like a puppy with a rubber toy, tenacious, desperate, sobbing. Eventually he prised my fingers off one by one and pushed me away. Not hard, but definitely away. We stood facing each other a few feet apart. The tears were streaming down my face now, my shoulders were shaking and my breath was coming in gasps. I’m not sure, but I think he was crying too.

  ‘Nick, please …’ I sobbed, holding out my hand.

  ‘I’ll be staying at Tim’s tonight. We’ll make other arrangements later,’ he whispered.

  With that he turned on his heel and left me standing there. I watched him go, then covered my face with my hands and sank to my knees in the lettuces.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I must have sat there for some time, because when I tried to get up my legs were stiff and numb from being doubled up beneath me and my dressing gown was sopping wet and covered in mud. I pulled it around me, shaking with cold and misery. As I knotted the cord, I noticed a tiny black spider scrambling furiously along it, frantic and lost amongst a mass of blue towelling. I flicked him on to the mud and he sped away on more familiar terrain, just a wrong turning in an otherwise ordinary day. As I turned and stumbled back to the house I saw Larry mending a fence in the far field. He looked up, waved and smiled, just an ordinary day for him too. Life, for the rest of the planet, seemed to be going on as normal, why was mine falling apart?

  I went into the kitchen and sat down carefully, holding myself tightly. I rested my head on the table. I couldn’t even cry now. I stared at the remains of the breakfast things in front of me. The blue teapot was inches from my nose. Was it only this morning I’d been pouring tea from it? Funny, it seemed like days ago. It had a crack, I saw, just at the top, by the handle. Odd, I’d never noticed that before. I shut my eyes and heard Nick’s voice in my head. ‘I’ll be staying at Tim’s tonight. We’ll make other arrangements later.’ What other arrangements? What did that mean? Separate rooms? Separate houses? Separate lives?

  I turned my head, leaned my other cheek on the table and stared at the fridge minus its magnets. Minus its finger paintings. I felt my guts knot themselves into a tight little ball and my face buckled. Did I say I was all cried out? The tears flowed silently down my cheeks. This was so unreal, I just couldn’t believe it was happening. Nick … my Nick, was I losing him? Had I lost him already? It was something I’d never, ever envisaged. I’d assumed we’d be together forever, have children together, grow old together, and now, in the space of just a few days, it was all over. What had happened?

  I buried my head in my arms and groaned. I’d cocked it up, that’s what. A loving husband, a beautiful house, security, love, happiness – it hadn’t been enough for me, had it? No, I’d wanted more. Not much more, of course, just a little bit, nothing big enough to trouble the happy home, but enough to bring a small frisson of excitement now and then. A secret, something to think about in quiet, private moments – when I was drying my hair, or driving to the shops, or listening to a slushy record, or before I went to sleep at night – something to hug to myself or, more precisely, someone. And someone to be thinking about me too.

  And of course, if that someone had ever got out of hand, if Sam had come on a bit strong, for instance, why then I’d have been wide-eyed with innocent amazement.

  ‘Heavens, Sam, you mean you thought that you and I might one day … oh! Golly, so sorry to have misled you, to have wasted your time, but you see I’ve got this husband … Love him? I adore him! Worship the ploughed fields he tramples on – didn’t I mention it?’

  I probably would have shot him one last hot look full of the promise of what might have been, given a tantalizing flick of the long blonde hair that never lay on his pillow and then left him to stew in his own frustrated juices, longing for me, lusting after me. Yes, that had been about the size of it, hadn’t it, Polly? Hadn’t that been the big idea? Well, blow me if it hadn’t backfired in one hell of a big way.

  I dragged myself up from the table and moved slowly through the kitchen to the hall. I went to go upstairs but the mirror at the foot of the banisters stopped me. I stared. God, I looked like I’d been beaten up. My jaw wobbled and another tear made its way rather self-consciously down my cheek. I brushed it away roughly and scowled fiercely at my reflection.

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, get a grip,’ I hissed. ‘Who are you to feel sorry for yourself – you’ve brought it all on yourself, haven’t you? Shut up, you silly fool, stop blubbing and bloody well do something about it, all right?’

  But what? I rested my burning face against the mirror. My head felt so thick, so gummed up, I couldn’t even begin to think. I had to make Nick believe me, that much was clear – he’d never forgive me, not in a million years, so I had to make him believe me. I turned my forehead against the cool glass. If only I could remember what had actually happened, if only I hadn’t been so out of it, so drunk. I mean, if I didn’t know, how on earth could Nick be expected to?

  Suddenly I froze and eyeballed myself in the mirror. A gem of an idea was scuttling across my retina. Blimey. Of course! Yes, of course, you idiot, ask Sam, just jolly well ask him! And if it transpires that you did indulge in any naughtiness – as I was rapidly coming to suspect I had – well then, just get him to lie! Get him to ring Nick and say it hadn’t happened at all, that I’d fallen asleep and he hadn’t laid a finger on me!

  I frowned and
bit the skin around my thumbnail. But why should he do that, why should he lie? I thought hard. Because – because if he didn’t, I’d – I’d tell his wife! I gasped and clapped my hand over my mouth, my eyes huge with horror, stunned by my own treachery. Goodness, Polly, what an awful person you’ve become! I gazed in wonder at my reflection, wondering if it showed. I hesitated, but only for a moment. No, damn it, this was no time to be moral and whimsical – my marriage was at stake. It was a brilliant idea, absolutely brilliant.

  Today was Sunday and I couldn’t possibly ring Sam at home, but I’d do it tomorrow morning. Yes, absolutely first thing, just as soon as he got into his office. I set my mouth in a determined line and regarded my reflection. Things were looking distinctly upward. Well, all right, not distinctly, but marginally, because you see I had a plan, and there’s nothing I like more in a crisis than a plan.

  The following morning I woke up alone. I had a brief sob into the pillow about this sorry state of affairs, then I remembered my plan. I sat up straight and forced myself to think positive. I looked at the clock. Eight thirty. At nine o’clock I’d phone. I grabbed my muddy dressing gown from the floor, pulled it around my shoulders and sat watching the minutes tick by. I lit a cigarette – couldn’t find an ashtray so commandeered the top of a deodorant spray and wedged it precariously in the bedding. I took one deep, thoughtful drag and murmured a brief rehearsal of what I might say to Sam on the phone.

  ‘Er, hello there, Sam, it’s Polly … Fine thanks, and you? … Good. Sorry to bother you but there’s something I’d like to clear up. Did we do it last Friday night? … Ah, we did, I rather suspected as much. Listen, old boy, sorry to be a nuisance, but get on the blower and lie through your teeth to my husband, would you, or before you can say alimony I’ll be round at your place spilling the beans to her indoors, all right?’

  I gulped and took another deep drag of nicotine. Well, something like that anyway. My cigarette-holding fingers were shaking violently, bad sign. I suspected this was going to be rather an awkward phone call, but on the other hand it had to be done. At nine o’clock on the dot I bit my lip and punched out Sam’s work number. A rather plummy receptionist answered.