‘Kay.’ He’d been drinking too. She could smell it on him as he came closer, a yeasty smell, beer, not the spirit she’d doused him with. He put his hand on her shoulder.
‘Don’t touch me!’ she spat at him.
‘I don’t know what you want me to do,’ he said in anguish.
‘It’s a bit late for that now, isn’t it? I wanted you to honour our marriage vows. I wanted you to love and honour me, to forsake all others. To be true to me.’
‘Kay, I promise-’
‘You promise? You promise what?’ she began to shout. ‘You don’t know how to keep a promise, you bastard! You rotten, cheating, bloody bastard! I hate you, Adam, I hate you for this.’
There was a silence. She heard the blackbird outside trilling in the dark, the hoot of the train in the distance. Adam’s breath, harsh as though he’d been running. Then she heard him sit. The creak of the chair and a sigh.
‘What will you do?’
‘Well, I can’t divorce you.’
He made a sound. Had she shocked him? Good. She wanted to frighten him, though, make him feel an ounce of what she was feeling. ‘I don’t know about the rest. Separation, maybe.’ Had he any inkling how unlikely that was for her? ‘I’d need to get a solicitor, maintenance for the children. And we’d need to stay in the house.’ She wouldn’t do any of it, though, would she?
‘Kay, please. It was one mistake, a stupid, bloody mistake. I love you, and the children. You mean everything to me. There’s no need to-’
‘What? Take it to heart? Don’t tell me what I need or don’t need, Adam.’
‘I just meant-’
‘How long?’
‘What?’
‘How long have you been fucking Joanna?’ She swore to shock him.
‘Kay, really.’
‘The truth, Adam. How long?’
A pause.
‘A couple of months.’ He cleared his throat.
‘When did it start?’
‘Kay… I don’t…’ He fell quiet.
‘Don’t remember? Why not? Do you sleep with the neighbours often? When?’
‘Why?’ He said softly.
‘When?’
‘Easter.’ he cleared his throat again. Four months, not two. ‘The dinner dance.’
At the Tennis Club. Kay had left early so their babysitter could get home. ‘But Ken was there?’ The four of them had sat together.
Silence.
‘You didn’t take her home. Where then?’
‘In the gardens.’
She lit a cigarette, the flare from the lighter illuminating her face, the flame just catching a wisp of hair. She smelt the acrid stench as it shrivelled up, a tiny crackling sound.
‘Where else?’
He didn’t answer.
‘Did you do it here?’
‘No,’ he said quickly.
Liar. ‘Adam?’
‘No,’ he insisted.
‘Where else?’
‘Joanna’s.’
‘That weekend at Southport,’ she said flatly. ‘After the picnic? When we went horse riding?’
‘Kay, please, don’t.’
‘Tell me, Adam.’
‘Yes,’ he said and sighed.
She felt her past unravelling. The memories distorted now by the image of them having sex. Bitterness flooded her anew. Joanna had lent her a stole that weekend. They’d all got drunk in the chalet bar. She’d been wearing Joanna’s stole and Joanna had been borrowing her husband. How ironic.
‘Since then, how often?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Lost count.’
‘What’s the point,’ he yelled, ‘dragging it all out. It’s not doing you any good. I’m sorry. What more can I say?’
‘The point,’ her voice trembled with fury, ‘the point is that I have a right to know. To know the truth. To know exactly what you have been doing. In her arms and between her legs. Twice a week, more?’
‘No.’
‘Once a week?’
He said nothing.
‘And what do you like? When you get together? Fast or slow? Do you usually do it in the lounge or was today an exception? Do you satisfy each other?’
‘Kay, that’s enough!’ he shouted.
She knew it would never be enough. No matter how many details she had she would never believe that he’d told her the whole truth. But she kept on.
‘Who started it?’
‘It’s not that easy…’
‘Someone must have made the first move, that night at the Tennis Club. You went outside together. Who suggested that?’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘Oh, come on, Adam!’
‘I was drunk.’
‘That’s handy. Drunk but not incapable.’
‘She tripped, I helped her.’
‘How gallant!’
‘We didn’t plan it, Kay. It just happened.’
‘And today? Does Ken know?’
‘No.’
‘Because he’s been unfaithful too, you know. Did Joanna say? With Bev, last time I heard. Regular Peyton’s Place round here, isn’t it? Must be catching. Have to hope none of you has picked up anything nasty, won’t we? Spread like wildfire.’
Silence again. She drew on her cigarette, listened to the sizzle of tobacco. ‘Do you love her?’
‘No. It’s just a silly fling. It got out of hand. I never meant to hurt you. Neither of us did. I’ll make it up to you.’
What a stupid expression. How could he ever do that? He’d ruined it. Ruined everything. No matter how good things were in the future he had taken the one thing that you couldn’t repair and damaged it. Time might reduce the sting and erase the clarity of the details but she would never trust him again. He had broken her trust and broken her heart.
And as for Joanna, she couldn’t bear to think of that too. All those confidences, Joanna’s sardonic tone, sharing secrets. All a front, a con.
‘I’m going to bed,’ she said. ‘There’s blankets in the spare room.’
‘What are we going to do, Kay?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said honestly. ‘I really don’t know.’
Joanna had the barefaced cheek to turn up at Faith’s coffee morning two days later. When she arrived, Kay had two urges – she wanted her to slap her, she wanted to run and hide. Of course, she did neither, she ignored her completely and gave a tight smile when Joanna made one of her acerbic remarks that made the others laugh. It’s as though nothing has happened. Kay was incredulous. So blasé about it. She hated her, with her flip comments and her boutique clothes and her rotten deceit.
Kay left early, exhausted at the strain of maintaining a facade. She was halfway home when Joanna caught up with her.
‘Kay.’
‘Go away.’
‘Let me explain.’
‘Go away. I don’t know how you dare.’
‘Don’t be like this.’
‘How do you bloody well expect…!’ She broke off determined not to be drawn into talking about it.
‘Some of us make mistakes.’ Joanna put out her hand to touch Kay’s forearm, Kay wrenched her arm away.
‘We can’t all be saints,’ Joanna flared up.
Kay flinched. Was that how she saw her, how they saw her? Goody two shoes? ‘Leave me alone. I don’t want to see you again. Don’t come to my house and don’t even look at my husband or I’ll make sure everyone knows what a slut you are, including Ken.’
Joanna gave up – contempt and then resignation crossed her face. She turned away.
Kay continued home, trembling with outrage.
She buried their friendship: when she chanced upon Joanna at the shops or the park or in Church she treated her like a stranger: more than that, cut her dead. Inside, she seethed with bitterness. Over the weeks that followed, Kay gradually engineered it so that Faith and she spent time together and drifted apart from the larger group of women. She mentioned that Joanna was too flip and implied that she had been bitching about people behind their backs. She told Faith that there was never a chance to have a proper chat in a big crowd.
She found managing the children and running the house increasingly hard, she felt tired and irritable but had trouble sleeping too. She made an appointment at the doctor’s. He prescribed tablets, they would take the edge off things, he said, calm her nerves.