Straight on Till Morning

by Lynne Barrett-Lee

  I had put a cushion over my face. I lowered it again.

  ‘Do we have to talk about this? I don’t want to talk about this, Nick.’

  He shook his head and put his plate on the coffee table.

  ‘No,’ he said, stretching out along the sofa towards me. ‘We don’t have to talk about this at all. Not at this moment.’

  ‘But we’ll have to sometime, won’t we?’

  He put his feet up on the arm of the sofa and lay back against me. ‘I imagine. That rather depends on you, I think.’

  ‘When do you go back?’

  His head swivelled. ‘Hey! I thought you didn’t want to talk about it?’

  ‘I don’t. But now I’m all agitated about it I can’t not talk about it. It’s like when you get a raggedy edge on a nail. You keep nibbling at it. When?’

  ‘I finish up here end of July.’

  ‘Oh, God –’

  He clasped my hand in his. ‘Hey, you know, I don’t have to go back then. There’s a permanent HR job here if I want it. It’s just that, well, I hadn’t planned on staying. But Sally –’

  ‘Oh, God,’ I said again. ‘I don’t want to talk about this. We shouldn’t talk about this. No, no, no.’ I leaned forward and slipped my fingers underneath the fold of his towel instead. ‘Tell you what. Let’s not talk at all.’

  But my not talking plan was about to be vetoed. Nick pulled his lips from my own. ‘Sally,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to worry you, but there’s something going on in your bag.’

  I clambered up to get my handbag from the table and pulled my mobile out. Two missed calls. And one of them was Morgan. I rang her back.

  ‘Mum? Where are you?’ She sounded tired and cross. Snappy. Not like herself at all. ‘I’ve been trying to get hold of you for ages. Did Mr Poselthwaite get you in the end? I gave him your mobile number but he said he couldn’t get through. Where are you? Where have you been?’

  I’ve been up to London to visit the queen. So that would be the other missed call. Mr Poselthwaite. Who on earth was Mr Poselthwaite?

  ‘I’m at Ruth’s,’ I said, a little too quickly, as Nick padded silently out to the kitchen with our plates. Who was he? Who was he? Oh, yes! The penny spun and clattered to the floor. The marquee man! The man who was supposed to be calling this evening to measure up and cost the marquee! ‘Oh, God, Morgan! I’m sorry. I completely forgot!’

  ‘Oh, mum! How could you forget?’

  And would have done so already. An hour back. Obviously had done. Oh, dear. I could hear her irritable sigh. Why was everything was so amplified by guilt? ‘Look, I’ll call him back now, shall I? When will you be home? Perhaps he can call back or something. Oh, mum, honestly. How could you forget?’

  Twenty minutes later, Nick had dropped me at the end of the lane. I then walked the fifty or so yards to my house, still clutching the flowers I wouldn’t be able to put in a vase anywhere, still fretting about quite how I’d managed to forget Mr Poselthwaite, still wondering what on earth I was going to do next.

  The doorbell rang half an hour later.

  But it wasn’t the hapless marquee man with his tape measure. I opened the door to find someone else on my doorstep. It was Ruth.

  ‘I saw you,’ she said.

  Chapter 21

  I had, I judged, about three seconds in which to gather my face into order and formulate some sort of credible response, and I squandered every last one of them. In the production, instead, of a violent blush. Perhaps I was turning into a cuttlefish.

  ‘Saw you in his car,’ she added, stepping smartly over the doorstep and looming in front of me with an expression that, even in the midst of my small panic attack, I could see held gleams of both salacious delight and stern disapproval. But Ruth didn’t do disapproval. Hadn’t up to now, at any rate. But perhaps there were some things even Ruth disapproved of. Me, for instance. Right now. There was, of course, no need for her to qualify the ‘him’. We exchanged a look instead. It was a given. Oh, yes.

  She moved past me and took off her jacket, plopping it over the newel post on top of mine.

  ‘I was on my way home from Tesco’s and I saw his car. And you in it, Sal. And I thought ‘funny. What on earth is Sally doing in Nick Brown’s car at half past seven on a Tuesday evening?’ And then – don’t ask me why. Call it the product of a febrile and writerly imagination – It suddenly occurred to me that whatever you were doing had absolutely nothing to do with work. It doesn’t, does it? Does it? Sal, what were you doing?’

  I shut the door behind her and could think of nothing sensible to say.

  ‘Ruth, I –’

  She put her hand on my forearm.

  ‘Sal, look, tell me this is none of my business if you like but, Christ! What the hell’s going on?’

  I could think of nothing to say to that either, so instead I asked her if she wanted a glass of wine or a cup of coffee and walked on heavy legs into the kitchen, her and anxiety both hot on my heels.

  She plonked her handbag on to the kitchen table.

  ‘Well, Sal,’ she said, chattily. ‘So it’s really true, then?’

  I had my back to her, reaching for wine glasses. Perhaps it wasn’t too late. Perhaps I could invent some meeting or other. Perhaps I could tell her I was helping him with his buy-one-get-one-free profit projections. Perhaps I could come over all indignant and huffy and – yes. I would do that. That would work. I turned around. ‘What do you mean,’ I spluttered. ‘So it’s really true? So what’s really true? What’s ‘it’s’? It’s? What on earth are you talking about?’ And so on. I put the glasses down and slid a bottle of red from the rack on the corner of the worktop but it was one of Jonathan’s poseur wine club ones. I pushed it back in again. And pulled out a Sainsbury’s discount Merlot instead. That would do. ’It’s? Honestly, Ruth. You are a case. What on earth are you on about? It’s, indeed. He was just giving me a lift, that was all. He’d seen me at the station and stopped to see if I wanted a lift. Is there a law against that, or something? I mean – ‘I stopped here, partly because I was already thinking the lady was protesting way too much, but also because it was evident from her expression that she knew perfectly well I was talking utter bilge. She was standing in the middle of the kitchen with her arms folded across her chest and one eyebrow slightly raised. She looked like Jeremy Paxman skewering a minor politician. And then she began nodding as well. It was a pathetic attempt and both of us knew it. ‘Oh, God. All right. Yes. Yes,’ I said sadly. ‘You’re right. It really is true.’

  Ruth pulled out a chair and sat on it, looking disarmingly pleased with herself.

  ‘Well, bloody hell.’

  ‘Quite.’

  ‘I mean – how long has this been going on?’

  ‘Not long. I mean, if you’re thinking –’

  She rubbed her hands together. ‘Oh, believe me, I’m thinking all sorts of things, most of them involving lower torsos. But – God! it’s all beginning to make sense. No wonder you were so crabby about the idea of me getting my claws into him.’

  She said this entirely without malice or pique. Indeed, she was grinning now.

  ‘Ruth, it wasn’t before –’

  She flapped a dismissive arm. ‘Oh, forget it. I’m well over that particular crush. Well over, believe me. In fact I was only thinking the other day how very fetching that new guy in – well. We’ll see. No. Not a problem. He’s all yours. So the way I figure it, you’re the one with the problem. Or not, of course, depending on your viewpoint. What’s the deal then? ‘She accepted the glass I held out to her. ‘Is it serious?’

  Is it serious? What an expression that was! Yes, of course it was serious! It was about a serious as an event could reasonably be! I had had sex with someone other than Jonathan. Three times now. Three times! Eighteen years of quiet, unremarkable, unblemished fidelity and then three frantic couplings in less than twenty four hours – two of them on the floor! Oh, yes. What was happening to me right
now was serious all right. Whether what was happening to us was serious – I didn’t know. I had no yardstick with which to analyse the rollercoaster of emotions I was experiencing right now. I just knew they were terrifying. That I wanted him – ached for him – and it was terrifying me. But did I feel as I did about Nick because of Nick? Or was it because of Me? Me and Jonathan? Me and my impending menopause? Me and my twitty, half baked notions of romance? No. It was him. It was him. It was a chilling thought, so I poured myself a hefty slug of wine before answering.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, pulling out another chair and sitting down on it. I felt poleaxed. ‘It’s extremely serious. Call me anything you like, Ruth – infatuated, obsessed, smitten, overwhelmed –– but that’s about the size of it. Yes.’

  She slid her glass across the kitchen table towards me. I only half filled it because she was driving.

  ‘Well, bugger me, Sally,’ she said, smiling.

  But it was nothing to smile about. Every perfect jewel of a moment of the last two and a half hours had now become dulled by the dirty stain of my guilt.

  ‘Quite,’ I said again.

  ‘And?’

  ‘And what?’ I pressed my fingers against the sides of my temples. ‘I feel terrible. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so terrible. I don’t know what to do, Ruth.’

  I could feel myself growing very close to tears.

  She took a sip from her wine and looked carefully at me. ‘Hmm,’ she said. ‘Well that really depends on how you feel about extra marital shenanigans really, doesn’t it, sweetie pie? Which is obviously not the way I always thought you felt about it.’ She shook her head. ‘What a turn up. I really thought you were happily married, Sal. All tickety boo and sorted. But are you? I mean, lustful obsessions about the Anglo American Treaty aside, are you? Honest answer, now. Do you love Jonathan?’

  Shenanigans. Another hateful expression. I swallowed the lump this damning question had forced into my throat. ‘That’s just it. I don’t know. Every time I start to think about it, it really scares me. I don’t want to think about it. Because every time I do the answer seems so obvious. No. I don’t. But how could that have happened? How can you fall out of love with someone so comprehensively without even realising it was happening?’

  She shrugged. ‘Same way as you can fall in love with someone, I suppose. It just happens. Catches you unawares.’

  The telephone rang than. It was the marquee man, to remind me what a failure I was as a parent as well, and let me know he’d been held up at a costing in Horsham and that as it was almost dark there wasn’t much point in him coming round again now. He’d come tomorrow instead, if that was all right. I said yes, it was all right and wrote MARQUEE MAN 7.30 WEDS in big letters on the back of a Christian Aid envelope and took it back into the kitchen. Ruth was still sitting there. Expectant. Wanting details.

  ‘So,’ she said. ‘Wales. That was it, wasn’t it? That was when it ‘just happened’ for you guys, was it? You’ve definitely been a bit peculiar since then. Bit of a gleam. Bit of an edge to you, lately.’

  ‘Nothing happened in Wales,’ I said, then immediately thought better of it. What point was there in pretending to her? I shook my head. ‘No,’ I said. ‘That’s not true. It had already happened. Not sex. Nothing like that. Just that I guess it was then that it really dawned on me how I felt about him. It was like, wham! It was like I’d been going around with shutters over my eyes all my life. It was almost like it had taken me over physically, you know? Not a conscious thing at all. I didn’t seem to have any control over it. I just had this overwhelming sense of, I don’t know, need. Of connectedness. This awesome sense of inevitability, of it being the strongest, truest, most intense – ‘

  ‘Yeah, yeah. And you felt like you’d known him all your life. Or in some other life, maybe. That you were made for each other. That it was meant to be. That it was –’she clutched a hand to her bosom. ‘– don’t tell me – written in the stars?’ She put the hand back on the tabletop and tutted. ‘Sal, I know. I write this stuff. Bloody hell, I live this stuff. It’s what makes the world go round. Comprendez? I know. But though it pains me to be the one pouring a bucket of yesterday’s dishwater on your lofty musings, I think you’ll find that’s just plain old lust. You know, spelt S.E.X. Or ‘phwoarh!’, perhaps. You can tart it up with all the hearts and flowers and adjectives you like, but the bottom line is still sex . You fancied the pants off him. And he fancied the pants off you.’ She smiled. ‘It feels romantic, I’ll grant you. It works well in Woman’s Weekly, I’ll admit. But it’s still basically about sex.’

  I blinked at her, my tears now arrested, my mind lucid. ‘God, Ruth, you make it sound so tawdry.’

  ‘Oh, piffle!’ she said. ‘Tawdry? There’s nothing tawdry about it. It’s normal, Sal. It’s human. And God knows, I’m no expert, but I’d imagine that if you’ve been shagging the same guy for eighteen years, and this is the first time you’ve tasted forbidden fruit, it could even be classed as pretty damned restrained. I mean, I know there’s the odd wrinkly that raves on about their fantastic sex life with the guy they got it together with just after the Boer War, but I’m afraid I don’t see it. I certainly don’t see it around me. People aren’t made that way. Look, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, how would she know? She just lurches from one hopeless infatuation to the next – but it seems to me it must be bloody difficult getting a sweat on over the guy you’ve been sharing basic bodily functions with for half your life, even with the best will in the world.’

  That was true, I thought sadly. It was difficult. It was very difficult. Nigh on impossible in fact. But you just got on with it, didn’t you? Made the best of it. Didn’t you? Didn’t everyone? I could do the routine – the sporadic and perfunctory sex, the intermittent, nice-cup-of-tea orgasms. But this wasn’t about the realities of long term libido sustainment. It was about the fact that far from being the best in the world, my will, since the moment I clapped eyes on Nick Brown in that lane, had simply turned tail and run away. I sipped some more wine.

  ‘You’re right about that.’

  ‘I know I am,’ she said. ‘Which is why people find themselves lusting after other people all the time. It’s basic biology, Sal.’

  Basic biology. Was that all this was? My body having a last frantic sexual mutiny before osteoporosis and crepitude kicked in?

  ‘Biology?’ I echoed, not believing it for an instant.

  ‘Biology,’ she confirmed. ‘So what the hell? Join the human race. Go with it. Have a fling with him. Shag him senseless. Get it out of your system while you’ve got the chance. As long as you’re scrupulous about keeping it quiet, where’s the harm? What Jonathan doesn’t know can’t hurt him.’

  ‘What – just like that? Have an affair? Ruth, how can you suggest something so clinical?’

  She shrugged. ‘Tawdry, clinical. God, you have a rarefied take on sex, Sal. What is it? Once a month with the Laura Ashley curtains drawn, the lights all switched off and no mention of body parts allowed?’ She laughed, very heartily. Then scrutinised me carefully. ‘Ah, but that’ll be a ‘no’ as of just lately, then, will it?’ I managed a smile. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘I don’t mean to devalue it. I’m just a pragmatist. I’m not saying having an affair with Nick Brown would be the ideal. The ideal would be that you didn’t have the hots for Nick Brown in the first place, and that you and Jonathan shuffled on through life together without it even occurring to either of you to shag someone else. Great. But likely? I think not. The thing is that the concept of fidelity in perpetuity probably worked just fine when everyone dropped dead before they were forty, but that’s not the case any more, is it? People live longer. Relationships wear out. When you think about it logically, the only purpose of sexual attraction is to get men and women together to pass on their genes. It’s not written in the stars that they should stay in love for all time. Just long enough to make their babies and rear their children. After that, well, like I said, t
hey used to drop dead. These days they stock up on viagra and HRT and yeehah! Round two. Why not?’

  ‘Seahorses mate for life, don’t they?’

  ‘So that’s your template, then, is it? That because seahorses mate for life you have to do likewise? But you’re not a seahorse. You’re a woman, Sal. And, remember, you’ve as good as done the child-rearing bit.’

  Ruth, of course, had not yet had children. Didn’t she realise? The child-rearing bit was for life. ‘But, OK,’ she went on. ‘Say that is your template. Then fine. Like I said, have an affair.’

  I shook my head. ‘I can’t do that.’

  ‘Why not?

  ‘Because I simply couldn’t bear it. It’s not about sex, Ruth. That’s the whole point. You’re right. You’re absolutely right about the sexual attraction, of course you are. But that isn’t what makes this so dreadful. Don’t you see? If it were simply that I felt sexually frustrated, I could just give myself a good slapping – or a vibrator even – and get on with things with Jonathan. It really, really isn’t about sex. That’s the whole point. That’s the reason I’m so frightened. It’s about everything else. All the other things we’re not doing very much of – being friends, being loyal, being committed, respecting each other, enjoying each other’s company, having consideration for one another, nurturing each other – ’

  ‘Blimey! You’ve been doing a bit of thinking, haven’t you?’

  ‘But don’t you see? If we had all that then the sex wouldn’t matter at all, would it? If I loved Jonathan – if I looked at Jonathan and felt all those things were a part of my life, if I felt Jonathan truly loved me, then it wouldn’t matter that we didn’t fancy the pants off each other any more, as you put it. Because sex wouldn’t be about sex. It would be about love. Making love would be exactly that. An expression of love. An expression of –’

  ‘Whoah! OK. I think I get the picture.’ She lifted her hand and spread her fingers before her. ‘OK, so the basic situation as I see it is that you’ve got the hots for Nick Brown, big time,’ she was ticking them off as she spoke. ‘You think you’ve fallen in love with him, you know he’s not going to be around very long, but nevertheless you’ve still got this big panoramic picture all sorted where you float off into the sunset and grow old together – making love once you’re too old and shagged out for shagging, and jam when you’re both completely decrepit – you think it’s something you have absolutely no control over, you think it’s something, moreover, that you’re not going to get over, you’re certain you don’t love your husband any more and your pretty sure he doesn’t love you.’ She put her hand down and nodded sagely at me. ‘You’re right. It is serious,’ she said.