A La Carte

by Jeffrey Archer

  But soon he came to recognise that, although Jill had been close as they all wrestled with tables and chairs, she was not close enough to touch him. It was Amy, Jeremy Postern’s strapping young wife, who had been nearest on his left. By now, the hand was withdrawn and they all prepared to sit down. There had been no apology or joke from her about the contact, which seemed to confirm – to confirm needlessly – that it had not been unintentional. But Amy seemed to make no attempt to be seated next to him during the meal, and, when he talked to her and looked at her as the evening went on, he could find no personal message, no easily readable equivalent in her blue-black eyes of knuckles calculatedly nudging his nuts. By then, anyway, Jill had begun to sparkle in her unique way, beguiling everyone, and particularly Brian. It still saddened him that this little slice of pressure had not come from her, but an agreement was an agreement, and he could take his customary solid pleasure in her social being. It was not ferocious pleasure, yet valid, surely.

  A couple of days later, he began to feel that only foolish, smug optimism had made him imagine Jill wished to return. In fact, he had been guilty of trivialising the agreement they had so conscientiously worked out together. Now, he re-ran in his head the details of the agreement, and decided he did not give it due seriousness. Jill might be correct to resent his patronising attitude, particularly, for instance, Brian’s pious, dismissive treatment of the major clause offering him equivalent sexual liberty.

  Early one evening, when he was having an after-work drink with Jeremy Postern and other business friends in The Old Barn cocktail bar, he left them briefly, went to one of the hotel’s public booths and telephoned Amy. She seemed warm, pleased to hear him, unsurprised. He wondered if they might meet one evening, and she thought they might. They arranged a time. Brian went back to the group in the bar feeling not excited or victorious but, yes, more wholesome – that was the state – more wholesome than for a long while.

  Amy and he seemed to need no preliminaries. It was as if they had been waiting for each other. She went halves with him on a bottle of Dubonnet and the charge for a room overnight in a small, cheap hotel, though they would be using it only for a few hours in the early evening. After they had made fierce love – yes, he had to concede, even ferocious love – and were lying relaxed on the bed, he felt he should reassure Amy about the care he would always take with her reputation. He explained that he had telephoned her only when certain Jeremy could not be at home.

  ‘Oh, the bleak sod wouldn’t care,’ Amy replied. She sounded appallingly defeated and miserable. ‘We go our own ways.’

  ‘You don’t like that?’

  Hurriedly, she turned towards him: ‘Darling, of course I do. I couldn’t be here with you now, otherwise, could I?’

  ‘You’re just being polite?’

  She did not answer. In a while, though, she said: ‘Isn’t it the same with you and Jill?’

  ‘Good God, no. I could not tolerate the idea of her seeing, screwing somebody else.’

  ‘Ah, I love jealousy in a man,’ she cried, moving her hand on to his thigh again, though this time the front of her hand and higher still, then higher. ‘It means he cares. It’s because you can throb with jealousy, Brian, that you’re so damn irresistible and sexy. You’re not the kind who would doze through a marriage. God, but Jill’s so lucky.’

  This opening meeting with Amy changed him, gave him vision. Jesus, did Jill think he did not care, because he showed no rage and accepted the agreement? Was this why she would never return fully to him? But he did care. He must show it. He was not like Jeremy – and like so many husbands Brian knew: husbands who by sexual indifference forced a loveless wife to seek fulfilment elsewhere. The next time Jill said she would be out for the afternoon, he decided he would follow her. He still loathed the idea of spying, but now he had come to loathe even more the idea of being passive: of ‘dozing through their marriage’ and, so, pushing her towards another man. He would blow this disgusting, bloodless agreement to smithereens. But agreements were just words and sentiments. He wanted something solid to smash, and he needed a good look at the opposition. It had been an understood part of the agreement that he asked nothing about the man Jill saw. Now, though, Brian had to identify him.

  To tail her would involve taking time off from the business, and he could certainly not afford to do that very often. Although the firm was successful, it was very much a one-man operation, and he would not neglect it simply to dog his wife and her boyfriend week after week. But possibly things would not take that long.

  On both occasions that he watched them they began by going to a grubby little restaurant for lunch. He could have predicted it. This would be another reason for her not dressing up. Wearing one of her authentic ensembles, she would have looked outlandish in this place. Generous to call it a restaurant. This was a café in a drab street, with ‘Heavy Breakfast – £1.50’ scrawled in thin, white lettering on the window. He saw people who looked like clerks or shop assistants going in at lunchtime, and some men in dungarees. Never would Brian have taken a woman there, and certainly not a woman like Jill, even in run-of-the-mill clothes.

  At first, he thought lover-boy must be short of money. In a while, though, Brian saw the cleverness. The pair were unlikely to meet anyone they knew in such poor surroundings, and especially not Jill. Secrecy was more important than cuisine.

  Following her was tricky, of course. Jill would soon notice his car behind her, so he hired different vehicles each time: once an Escort, next a Cavalier. Their drill seemed to be to meet in a waste ground, municipal car park, then walk to the café. First, though, he went to her VW for a few minutes and they kissed and talked, all excited smiles, one arm around the other’s shoulders, as if they had fought their way back together across ice floes, mountains and volcanoes after God knew how many years of forced separation. Probably, they were here every week.

  Each time he tailed her, Brian waited in the hired car not far from their house until she left at about 1 pm. On the first outing, it was really difficult, because he did not know where she was going, and he had to keep close enough to stick, yet avoid being recognised in her mirror. When she entered the car park, he quickly selected a spot for himself far from the one she made for. He had to take his eyes off her then, as he parked. When he looked again it was just in time to see the back view of a middle-height man as he left from a Toyota close to her car, walked the few steps, opened her passenger door and climbed in. To Brian, this appeared a routine: it was that kind of confident stepping out and decisive opening of the door. This bastard could count on a welcome. He had had a lot of welcomes already.

  Brian was a distance from them, had to be, but he saw the heads go together for a prolonged thank-God-we-made-it kiss, and then could observe happy grins and laughter, hers. The back of the man’s head was still towards Brian, mostly grey, but cut short and bristly in a young thruster style. This was how Brian had to think of him on that first occasion – as the man, or lover-boy. Boy? Christ, he had to be at least ten years older than Brian. This was plain at first glimpse, and it hurt. She could prefer someone that age? Only subsequently did Brian discover his name was Lowther, and, quite fortunately, where he lived.

  On the second expedition, it was easier. When she set out from home, he did not know as a certainty she would make for the same place, but it soon became apparent that this was her route again. As they approached the car park, he saw the Toyota waiting, this time with a space available right alongside. She made for that. Once more Brian found a place far off. As the man moved to her car today, Brian was able to get a good, thirty-second view of him face-on; a round cheerful-looking face, with heavy eyebrows. The shifty glow of Indian summer was about him. He could easily have had the eyebrows trimmed, but must feel they were a key part of his image, giving him definition and weight. His face was full now of. … full now of what Brian would have liked to dismiss as raw, lucky-old-me triumph. After all, this was someone in his fifties at least, all set for a long
afternoon with an attractive woman of thirty-four. And he would manage it on the greasy cheap. Yet, horrified, Brian found he could not honestly describe what he saw like that. He saw … well, Christ, yes, he saw love there – maybe ferocious, maybe just intense, but in any case enough to frighten him. He sensed the power of their relationship, could almost admire it, and could certainly envy it.

  He directed himself back to hostility and hate. This man’s clothes were like some 1970s sports commentator’s – three-quarter-length sheepskin coat and a crimson scarf. For his age he was nimble, Brian could not deny that. Of course he was bloody nimble. The relic skipped with pleasure at getting in amongst someone else’s wife. Even now, during this greetings kiss, there was no knowing where their spare hands were.

  But, God, Amy had it right and Brian could switch on the jealousy. He might tell her about this whole damn sequence, as testament to his vehemence. For the moment, today, Brian sat still: perhaps there was still a tremor or two of power left in the agreement. He wondered if Jill had told this old lad about it. That would make him even more hearty and nimble. The creep knew he had a nice clear track.

  When they were ready to go and eat they would have another sweet, close, chuckly time, obviously sorting out their coins for the ticket machine – so chummy. The man walked over to pay. No, perhaps not as much as fifty, and presentable, unquestionably, despite the eyebrows. But, of course presentable. Wasn’t it a rotten insult to Jill to think otherwise? Brian saw it would be absurd to feel jealousy if the rival was a washout. He looked as if he might be assistant manager of a Social Security office, or a newsagent. How could he get this time off continually?

  They fixed their tickets to the car windows then strolled to the cafe. On both days that he watched, she took his arm for a while, as though feeling anonymous in this downmarket end of the town. But then she would suddenly let go and put a little gap between them, probably thinking that, downmarket or not, acquaintances could be driving through and might spot her: To be spotted at all would be bad, but walking arm in arm was a total give-away. They would hold the distance for a few paces and then drift close again. These lechers could not bear not to be touching. He might put his palm on her back or behind, really finger-digging the cleft through her clothes, despite daylight, and she might hold his arm again for a few strides. Eventually, they went out of sight of the car park.

  On his first trip, Brian bought himself a ticket and, when it seemed safe, walked after them. By now they were quite a way ahead, and they never looked back, anyway. He did not know where they were going, of course, but was just in time to see them turn into the café’s doorway. He was glad he witnessed it, because he would never have believed any man would use a place like this for a tryst, and Brian might have walked past, in view from inside through the window. In fact, he crossed the street and loitered until a group of people would shield him as he passed. He had time for a few swift glances only. They were at a table far from the window and were too interested in each other to watch what was happening outside. Brian continued on, had a quick sandwich and tea in another café, and then found a different way back to the waste ground via side streets. Their cars were still there, unoccupied.

  On the second occasion, Brian knew where they were going when they quit the cars and did not follow. It was too risky. He had brought a thermos flask of tea and a full picnic meal this time, with plastic cutlery and plates: two turkey drumsticks, tomatoes, bread rolls, cheese and yoghurt. How those two managed to spin out a meal for so long in a place like that, he did not understand, but he knew they would. He also knew now what the procedure would be later. They would return smiling and chatting and arm in arm, as though having forgotten about the danger of being seen. Perhaps the food had made them blasé, even that kind of food. Possibly customers were allowed to send out for wine, since such a dump could have no licence. At any rate, they looked euphoric. They would climb into the front of his Toyota and he would drive to a more secluded part of the car park. It was late afternoon by now and there were a lot of spaces. Brian made sure his car was parked near the edge of the waste ground adjacent to the main road, certain they would not relocate to this very visible area.

  The first time he tailed it was late November, and the second, early December, so that, by about half past three darkness had begun to come down. By four it was almost night, and also by four the Toyota was steamed up. No doubt there had been movement from the front to the back seats, though Brian could not see that from so far off. No need to see. Brian knew it. Afterwards, her lover would drive the Toyota back to alongside the VW and they would leave. Lots of waves, like emigration.

  While they were still at lunch on the second outing, and after he had finished his own, Brian strolled to the Toyota, took its registration number and glanced inside. He had a business acquaintance who, for a mighty fee, could somehow trace the owners of cars via number plates. Fortunately, however, this would be unnecessary because Brian saw an opened envelope on top of the dashboard, and it was now he learned lover-boy’s name was G. Lowther, and where he lived. He made another note. Brian thought this one looked like a Gordon rather than a Geoffrey or a Grant.

  After both these long spells of duty, Brian went back to the office to make up for time lost. Some routines really had to continue. But, obviously, his mind was badly troubled and he did not operate well. To clear the backlog papers and deal with calls on the Answerphone, he had to stay late for several nights after the second excursion with them; and, of course, there was now another rather central matter to be dealt with, quite unconnected with the office.

  Returning home very late after one of these business sessions, Brian was surprised to find Jill still up. She had seemed desolated recently and would go to bed early.

  ‘Jeremy Postern rang,’ she said.

  ‘Does he want me to call him back? At this hour?’ ‘He rang me,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, yes?’

  ‘Amy told him you and she have an affair going.’

  ‘But why would she do that?’ Brian replied.

  “To make him jealous, I expect. Force him to want her.’ ‘But he couldn’t care less,’ Brian replied.

  ‘He’s frantic. He asked me what we can do about it, he and I.’

  ‘Just like Jeremy.’

  ‘I won’t tolerate it. I’m leaving you, Brian. Tonight. Now. For keeps. I’ve sent the girls by taxi to my mother’s.’

  ‘But, Jill, darling, why?’ he cried. ‘It was only the agreement.’

  “The agreement is finished.’

  ‘It is?’

  She wept. ‘I’ve no need of it any longer. The man I was seeing is dead.’

  ‘Oh, dear. Poor Jill.’

  ‘Murdered outside his house. Brutally knifed.’

  ‘I think I read about this in the papers.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘I don’t follow you,’ he replied. Then he changed this: ‘I don’t understand you.’

  ‘How did you know that the man you read about was George?’

  He chuckled mildly for a second. ‘No, no, Jill, I meant I had read about a man being knifed near his house. Appalling. George?’

  ‘So, I’m going, for good,’ she replied. She went out to her car. He walked urgently after her, and saw that the VW was loaded with cases. The car looked lonely without the Toyota alongside. Jill turned: ‘Oh, Brian, how in God’s name could you betray me with someone like Amy Postern?’

  ‘She taught me the way to hold on to you, my love,’ he replied as she drove off. She did not wave.

  A SAFE PLACE

  Anna Reynolds

  Once upon a time there was a girl, and she lived in a small house with stripped pine floors, stripped pine furniture, and lots of dead flowers that she paid a fortune for. She didn’t mind the expense, because they hid a multitude of sins. She worked in an office as a secretary and she was given no responsibility except franking the mail and taking dictation from the Managing Director, who was up to some shady bu
siness, she was sure. The air in his office was filled with curls of blue smoke from his Benson and Hedges cigarettes and he had a bar made out of mahogany, with many crystal decanters set on its surface. He was a small, fat man, with photographs on his desk of his fat wife and fat children. He also had a girly calendar with women playing peek-a-boo with feathers and negligées, smiling flatly down at passengers through the office.

  The girl was often bored with her work but she didn’t really mind that because it gave her plenty of time to daydream of a better life and she read romantic sagas throbbing with powerful, glamorous women and strong, square-jawed men. The covers of these books even had helpful pictures of these women and men in case the descriptions inside didn’t give you enough clues.

  She had a boyfriend, this girl, and he worked in a fitness centre. He liked to work out a lot himself, and he often sat opposite the mirror in restaurants because he liked to gently flex his pecs and biceps underneath his crisp, white shirt and watch the candlelight illuminate his clean cheekbones and his narrow, grey eyes. His hair was cut sharply and his shoes were always well shined and polished. He insisted that they live in separate flats and he liked her to look fit.

  Everyone at the office liked this girl. She never lost her temper, never appeared in a ferociously bad mood, always made coffee when asked and didn’t wince at the MD’s leers and innuendos. She was a patient, sweet-natured girl and she lived a stripped-pine sort of life.