Tom pours another glass of red wine for Belinda, and one for himself. Chloe is back, upstairs in her room, but she’ll be down any minute. By an unspoken accord they’re both concealing what has happened from Chloe. Belinda has repaired the damage to her face so Chloe won’t know she’s been crying. Tom has cleared up the red cabbage, or at least, he tried to. Apparently he was doing it wrong because Belinda took over, pushing him angrily out of the way.
‘Not like that!’ she said. ‘You can’t pick it up with a wooden spoon!’
Now she’s banging a bag of frozen peas on the work surface to loosen them up. She’s not looking at him but she’s not crying any more.
What am I supposed to do now?
Tom feels aggrieved even though he’s the guilty party. He’s not stupid, he knows that’s illegitimate, even outrageous, but it’s how he feels. He’s confessed his crime, he’s promised restitution. He’s promised his little fling is over, which by the way is something of a wrench, but he’s not allowed to present that in mitigation. Now what does he have to do?
The truth is he’s frightened. He doesn’t want his marriage to be over. He wants to say, ‘I still love you’, but he feels as if he no longer has that right.
Chloe comes bouncing in. She comes to him for a kiss.
‘Dad! I’ve hardly had a chance to say hello.’
He hugs her. He admires her.
‘So how’s your term been, darling? Are you a star?’
‘Not exactly. I don’t think I’m much good at drama. But apparently we’re developing our presentational skills, and they’ll help us in our careers.’
‘Of course they will. Got to have presentational skills.’
‘Not that there are going to be any jobs when I graduate. Will you go on supporting me, Dad?’
‘For how long?’
‘Till you die and leave me all your money.’
‘And Alex.’
‘Forget Alex. You love me much more than him.’
‘No, I don’t. I love you both just the same.’
But it’s not true. Alex is unreachable. You can’t love someone who’s never there. But this is treacherous ground. He can see Belinda watching him.
She’s just put the steaks on the griddle pan. The smells and sounds of frying fill the room. Chloe goes over to the stove.
‘I am so hungry,’ she says.
‘Well, I couldn’t put them on until I knew you were back, could I? And the red cabbage got ruined so we’re having frozen peas, but at least that means it won’t be an all-red meal.’
‘All right, chill out, Mum, I’m not complaining.’
Belinda starts to cry. Tom braces himself. Here it comes.
‘What is it?’ says Chloe. ‘Is it me?’
‘Just everything,’ Belinda says. ‘Sometimes it’s all too much.’
‘Oh, Mum.’ Chloe takes her mother in her arms. ‘I shouldn’t have gone out. I was ever so quick, wasn’t I? We’re not really late, are we? We’re going to have some lovely steak and some wine and you’ll feel much better. Say you’ll feel better.’
‘Yes. I expect so.’
‘I hate it when you cry.’
‘I’d better turn the steaks.’
She dries her eyes. Chloe fetches her half-drunk glass of wine and makes her drink some more. So the moment passes.
Over dinner Chloe does most of the talking, telling them silly stories about her life in Exeter. She’s decided she’s responsible for the family’s morale. Then she tells them about meeting Alice Dickinson on the train.
‘I’m going to fix her up with Jack Broad,’ she says. ‘My Christmas present.’
Tom says, ‘Does she want to be fixed up with Jack Broad?’
‘Definitely. I get to play Cupid.’
Belinda looks down, bites her lip. Tom closes his eyes for a moment. This is heavy pulling. When he opens his eyes Chloe is gazing at him across the dinner table.
‘You look tired, Dad.’
‘I am tired. Early night tonight.’
Chloe helps him with the clearing away and the washing up. For a brief moment he thinks she must know what has happened. But when she starts to chat again it’s clear she knows nothing.
‘Don’t you think I’d make a great Cupid?’ she says.
‘Yes, darling.’
Belinda is at the other end of the room by the fire.
‘He makes people love each other. Don’t you think that would be a great job to have? I mean, if you got people together, and they ended up married and having kids and all the rest, you’d feel pretty good, wouldn’t you?’
‘I expect you would.’
Chloe is scrubbing the tin the tomatoes were baked in, which is the kind of dirty job she usually evades.
‘Do you think I’m an entirely worthless person, Dad?’
‘Of course I don’t. You’re my pride and joy.’
‘I’ve decided to be a better person. I’m going to start thinking of others from now on.’
Belinda lets out a sudden cry. Tom turns to her with nervous dread.
‘I made a pudding!’ she says. ‘I forgot all about it.’
The table is cleared. The moment has passed.
‘We’ll have it tomorrow, Mum,’ says Chloe. ‘It’ll be even more delicious tomorrow.’
It’s a big bed, so wide that they can lie in it side by side and not touch, as they are now doing. Impossible for Tom to know what’s going on inside Belinda except that it’s not good. He can tell that because she’s crying again.
She lies half curled on her side, face in the pillow, and makes this pitiful whimpering sound. Once he reaches out and puts a hand on her shoulder but she shakes him off and twists her head even further away. So he’s not welcome. No surprise there.
He’s dizzy with tiredness and can’t sleep. Unwillingly awake in the darkness he tries to work out what he should do. What he should say to Belinda in the morning. He’ll say anything, he’ll say whatever she wants him to say. But she won’t accept that. Words won’t do it. She’ll want feelings. She’ll want to know how he could do something that hurts her so much and he won’t be able to explain.
Here’s the question, which he can’t speak aloud because it’s unacceptable: how bad have I been? How unforgivable has my conduct been?
It’s Tom’s nature to respond to any given crisis in an entirely practical way. Analyse the problem, identify a solution, act. Don’t flinch from the harshest reality. Is the marriage over? If so, what will that be like? Not good. Let it not be over.
Let this be about me for a few moments, while I’m alone with myself in the night.
What do I need for my happiness?
To his surprise the answer is work. Only when he’s in the moment of doing what he’s been trained to do, fully focused on the precise and delicate task in hand, cutting through tissue, suturing blood vessels, slowly and with infinite patience stitching a wound he himself has made, is he fully himself. People think a surgeon’s work must be stressful but it isn’t. It’s his time of tranquillity.
By contrast all the rest of life is a mess. Tom hates being in a situation where he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do. Like now.
Tell me what I’m to do. Tell me what price I’m to pay. If I’m to be punished, let me be punished. And then can we forgive and forget?
Unacceptable, of course. And yet, and yet – his crime is so very small, he’s done no more than all men do, and if they don’t it’s only for lack of opportunity. If you only knew – he addresses Belinda in his mind – it changes nothing between you and me. I still love you as much as before. I still want to be married to you. I still want to come home to you. Why do you have to be so hurt, when I never meant to hurt you?
You want to know the simple truth? It’s different for men. For us sex is something that happens outside our bodies. It’s something that has no consequences. For you, for women, it’s an act that takes trust and surrender, it has lifelong consequences. So don’t grant my actions the emotions that would accompany them if they were yours.
He hears her snuffling on the other side of the bed. He feels the urge to shake her into full wakefulness. Don’t just lie there and suffer. Let’s sort this out. But he knows he must let her come to him in her own time. This is a grieving process, it can’t be rushed. She’s grieving over me.
Every hour that passes in the dark bedroom leaves him more exhausted. Guilt, of course, but also other emotions that are not appropriate but nevertheless drain away his energy. Frustration, that the problems can’t be thrashed out and resolved. Self-pity, because however this thing works out he’s going to suffer. And anger, secret anger, impermissible anger, that his life should be ruined by such a minor offence.
At last, maddened by sleeplessness, he gets up and pads softly out of the bedroom. Once the bedroom door is closed behind him he feels for the landing light switch, but then decides not to turn on the light, not wanting the shock of brightness. The landing window looms above the stairs, a rectangular grey blur in the surrounding blackness. Somewhere out there is a full moon, more than a full moon. He read about it in the paper, the moon’s orbit is an ellipse, every fifteen years it reaches its closest point to earth, and so appears bigger and brighter. Except that right now clouds cover the sky, and the rare phenomenon is of course invisible.
He feels for the banister rail and descends the stairs like a blind man, by touch and memory. He likes doing this, it makes him feel he’s coping with his difficulties. So feeling his way he crosses the hall below and enters the kitchen.
Here to his surprise he finds an array of tiny lights, as if fairies have taken up residence while the family sleeps. They are the pilot lights of the many electrical appliances the kitchen holds, far more than he ever knew. The amber light on the fridge-freezer, with its illuminated temperature display. The red charging light on the cordless phone. The green light on the dishwasher that says its cycle is completed. The white numerals on the cooker’s digital timer. The red standby light on the TV. There’s no need to turn on the main room lights. The fairy lights show him all he needs to see.
He sits at the kitchen table and considers whether he wants a drink of some kind. Brandy, perhaps, or hot chocolate. But he makes no further move. Slowly, as his eyes adjust to the darkness, he makes out the faint forms of the two tall kitchen windows, and the night garden outside. The roof of the stable block against the sky. The thin bare branches of the willow tree. The curving line of the Downs.
How long have we lived here? Chloe was seven when we came, she went straight into Year Three at Underhill, that makes it twelve years. Bad time to sell the house, of course. Probably worth as much as two million at the peak, whenever that was, a year or so ago. Now it has to be down thirty, forty per cent. That’s a loss of £800,000. Except it’s not a loss because he never had the two million and paid way less than that back in ’96, not much more than half a million, though they’ve spent a fortune since.
It’s all an illusion. The things we talk about as if they govern our lives, money, youth, beauty, none of them matter. They’re all just accidents. He wants to say this to Belinda but he knows it will sound as if he’s trying to excuse himself. Maybe he is. But it doesn’t feel that way to him, it feels as if it’s the other way round entirely. These deeply disturbing thoughts came first, about the randomness of all our values. And out of their disintegration he reached for something simple and strong, or rather, as it seems now to him when he looks back, the simple strong impulse reached out to him, and it was desire.
That moment, which in the past would have been called the moment he gave in to temptation, the moment he fell, the fulcrum of sin, can only be understood as an accumulation of a million moments: a million impulses, from puberty to today, so much longing, so little expectation of joy. You get so that it seems to be the natural order of things, that you want something with all your being, a touch, a kiss, a generosity of the body, but it never comes, you don’t deserve it, such bliss is for others. But knowing this does nothing to diminish the longing. Instead, every moment of the day is made just a little more burdensome by the sadness, the gap between the aching need and the reality of life. From every street hoarding, from every magazine cover, desirable women smile and beckon, a taunting chorus, until you truly believe you alone are alone, that all round you this same insistent desire is being actively explored, that all the world but you is making joyous love – and why shouldn’t it be so, since you’d do it yourself if you could?
But you’re married, she says. If you want sex, you’ve got me. You’ve got a wife, a bedroom, a king size double bed. What more do you want?
I want to be desired.
Think about it, Belinda. Think about how it happens between us, the wordless negotiation that ends in lovemaking. Always the same pattern. An overture from me, God knows modest enough, a tone of voice, a touch. Never ambiguous, we know each other well. Often welcome, not always. Your response minimal but unmistakable, the momentary pause, the slow exhalation. Sometimes there’s a weary reluctance. Why not? You’re tired. A few words, ‘Not tonight, do you mind?’ Of course I don’t mind. Sometimes no words, only a reaching embrace. But on every single occasion, for me at least, the moment of uncertainty: is my desire welcome? And why should it be otherwise? You’re not a toy, maintained for my pleasure.
But can you understand this? Because if you can’t, I have no case. I have no defence. I have longed all my life for the response that matches my desire. For the woman who wants me for sex just as much as I want her for sex. I’ve wanted to be used so that I can use, without all the intervening layers of guilt and lies. I’ve wanted to make up for the ten million moments when I’ve been alone with my desire. So when it comes – unlooked for, like grace from above – how can I resist? Why should I resist? This is the confirmation I have never had: that I am desirable. And being desired, the desire breaks within me like a storm.
You, my beloved wife, have given me your loyalty and your love. But you’ve never whispered down the phone to me: ‘I want you to fuck me now. I’m waiting for you. Come home and fuck me.’
Yes, I know, I should have asked you to say it. If that’s what I want, why can’t I say so? Because, because. We men are so full of shame. These simple desires, these primitive desires, they have low status in civilized society, they represent an immature stage of human relationships. Which is bullshit. These simple desires are all the glory we’ll ever know on earth.
So that’s all it is. Call it making up for lost time. Or grabbing my chance of one last dance before the music stops. One first dance. But don’t call it sad. I’m not trying to prove anything. I’m just a man who has stumbled upon his heart’s desire and said yes.
How can I tell you any of this?
No, I must speak another language. How I’ve cheated you, how I’ve demeaned you, how I’ve hurt you. We’ll tell of all that has been taken from you and none of what has been added to me, because I shouldn’t have wanted any more. My crime is greed, because wasn’t I well enough fed already? I must be tried and found guilty and sentenced, and must be punished, and if I accept the punishment with true contrition I will in time be rehabilitated. And so the charade must be played out to the end because that’s what everyone deems right and proper. Everyone being all the women, who have no idea what goes on in men, and all the men, who know perfectly well what goes on but who lie, as they have lied for centuries.
You don’t agree? You, my imaginary male listener? So tell me: does your wife know you’d gladly, joyfully, pick up a hooker in a hotel lobby and take her up to your hotel room and fuck her and pay her and never ask her name? Does your wife know the only reasons you don’t do so are you’re afraid of being seen, afraid of it getting back to her, afraid of diseases? Nothing about how it would deprive her of your love, because it wouldn’t. Men are different. You know it, I know it, but we lie, don’t we? Oh no, we say, the prostitutes and the pornography, that’s for the sad old men and the sailors. Oh, and millionaire footballers and rock stars. Oh, and businessmen abroad. Oh, and politicians caught in sex scandals. Oh, and young men who get drunk on holiday when the sun shines. But not us, not the normal guys with wives, we’re too sophisticated and too mature and too complex to want something so elementary as a mindless fuck.
So we lie about what we want. And sometimes, if God relents and we get to do what we want, we lie about what we do. And then we get caught, and everyone’s life gets ruined.
How stupid is that?
The kitchen is cold. He realizes he’s shivering, has been shivering for some time. Better get back to bed.
All this ranting in his head has calmed him. He thinks he’ll be able to sleep now. But as he treads softly into the bedroom, back to his side of the bed, as he folds back the duvet, Belinda speaks.
‘Where did you go?’
‘Kitchen.’
‘Why?’
‘Can’t sleep.’
He eases himself back into bed. The sheets have gone cold on his side. He must have been downstairs for some time.
‘Me neither.’
So they lie there, side by side, not sleeping. He could slip into sleep, he’s pretty sure of it, but now it would be a desertion. He can feel her unhappiness welling over.
‘I suppose it’s my fault,’ she says at last.
‘No,’ he says. ‘It’s not your fault at all. It’s me who’s done it. I’m the only one to blame here.’
Which is nothing but the simple truth. So why does it sound like a line in some pre-rehearsed script?
Nothing for a few moments. Then:
‘So why did you do it?’
Her voice in the darkness so small, so bewildered, so hurt. The question that can’t be answered.
‘It was nothing. Really. Not any kind of a big deal at all.’
‘So why do it?’
‘Oh, God, I don’t know. Because I got a chance. Because I could, I suppose. Don’t you ever give way to temptation?’
‘Tom, this isn’t like having another chocolate or something. This is about me, too.’
‘Yes. I know that.’
‘So why did you do it?’
‘I suppose I thought you’d never know.’
‘You can’t have thought that. All the girls in the office know.’
So that’s how she knows. Until this moment he hasn’t asked himself who told her. It could have been so many. Everyone at the clinic seems to know.
‘Was it Karen?’
‘No. It was Lisa. She felt sorry for me.’
Lisa who’s always so sorry for herself. Kind, conscientious, lonely Lisa. Why would she want to hurt me?
‘You didn’t feel sorry for me,’ says Belinda. ‘You didn’t think about me at all.’
No, I didn’t think about you. Must I think about you all the time? Have I no life of my own? If you want to know the truth, Belinda, even if I had thought about you, it was too strong for me to resist. I knew I was being a fool but I still wanted it. I still do. Life is so short. Don’t grudge me this.
‘I don’t understand. What do you get from her you don’t get from me?’
Dangerous territory. Don’t go there.
‘Nothing.’
‘So why do it? I’ve been over it and over it and I just can’t make any sense of it.’
He sighs. This is to signal that he’s cornered. That he’s going to admit the real truth.
‘I don’t know. Maybe I felt I still have something to prove.’
There. That’s what she thinks is going on. I’m fifty-five years old, I’m trying to prove I’m still young again. What I can’t say is I was never young. I’m young now, with Meg.
‘What do you have to prove? That you’re still attractive to women?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Can’t you do that without screwing them?’
‘Well, up to a point.’
Silence. Here it comes.
‘Is it about virility?’
She doesn’t say it but he hears it: sometimes you can’t get it up with me. More than sometimes. Men are supposed to be keen on the mechanics. Fine. Go with that.
‘Could be.’
‘So does it work with her?’
Yes, it works with her. Every time.
‘More or less.’
That hurts. What was I supposed to say?
‘What does she look like?’
‘Just kind of ordinary.’
‘Ordinary? What does that mean?’
‘I don’t know how to describe someone.’
‘Is she pretty? Is she young? Is she sexy?’
‘Nothing special. I think she’s round thirty. Not especially pretty, no.’
‘God!’
Now Belinda’s crying again.
‘What do you want me to say?’
‘I just want to understand.’ She’s speaking through her tears. ‘It doesn’t make any sense.’
‘I don’t know what else to tell you.’
‘Why did you do it? Why did you do it? Did you think of me for one second? Did you say to yourself, ever, this will break Belinda’s heart?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
Goaded, he risks a little truth.
‘Because it was nothing to do with you and me. Any more than playing a round of golf.’
‘Playing a round of golf!’
‘It’s just something I like doing that doesn’t involve you.’
‘What!’
She starts flailing at him with one hand, but feebly. She’s very tired.
‘I’m sorry. I’ve said I’m sorry.’
‘Well, it’s not fucking enough! You think you can screw your staff and say sorry and we just go on like we were before?’
No, Tom doesn’t think this. But oh, if only.
‘No.’
‘So what are you going to do about it?’
Grovel. Be punished. Show remorse. Oh, Christ.
‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Tell me why you did it!’
Round we go. How can I tell her? Sex is what we share. Sex made our children. How can sex be a pleasure, like a round of golf? That did not go down well.
She’s crying more and more. Oh, God, I don’t want to hurt you. Truly truly truly. Let me be the one who’s hurt. Sweetheart. Belinda.
‘It’s because I’m too old, isn’t it?’ No more shouting. This is a whisper between the sobs. ‘I’m all wrinkly now. That’s why you don’t want me any more.’
‘No, no, no.’ He reaches out an arm to touch her, and she rolls towards him, lets him hug her. ‘That’s not it at all. Not at all. You’re my gorgeous wife. Of course I still want you.’
‘I can’t bear it, Tom. Can’t bear it. I do what I can. What I can. I try to stay pretty for you. For you.’
Sobbing out her heartbreak. Now he’s crying too.
‘I’m the luckiest man in the world. Everyone says so. They envy me my gorgeous wife. You know I fell in love with you the first day I set eyes on you. I’ve never stopped loving you.’
‘Then why – why – why –’
‘It’s all over now. All over. Let’s not talk any more. We’re too tired, we’re not making any sense, it’s four in the morning. Plenty of time to talk tomorrow, and the next day, and all the rest of our lives.’
‘I don’t understand …’
Her voice muffled now, blurring into sleep.
‘There, now. Dry your eyes. We’ll come through this, I promise.’
‘Don’t leave me, Tom. Don’t leave.’
‘I’ll never leave. Promise.’
‘Even if I get old and ugly?’
‘I’ll be old and ugly too.’
‘Oh, yes. So you will.’
‘Sleep now, darling.’
And so exhaustion brings respite. He thinks he won’t sleep that night, but within minutes he’s asleep. The body more merciful than the mind.