Junction X (24 page)

I took a lot of care with the room. Linen was my responsibility and I had newly bought sheets ready. I scrubbed valiantly at the counterpane and trusted that the stains wouldn’t show, or might at least blend into those already there. I checked that nothing had been left, nothing identifiable, nothing personal, turned off the gas and locked up behind me.

It was a lot later than I had planned when I finally got home. I was ravenous. The oven offered up a dried up offering of steak pie, hard peas and congealed gravy all covered with foil. I tipped it into the bin and made myself sinful cheese doorstop sandwiches heavy with mayonnaise, which I took through to the study. With a smile on my face, I watched the lights in Alex’s house go out one by one.

+ + +

A man who has never been unfaithful might stop and question this account, and I’d hardly blame him. But for all the guilt and the fear, once I’d got to the stage of having the flat at the Junction and once we were able to meet there regularly, it became as routine to me as going to work. The more you lie, I discovered, the easier it becomes. It seems nothing to say to one’s wife, “Yes, I like that hat” when, if truth be told, you’d rather see it shredded under the lawnmower. Small lies seem nothing—, and big lies—even the biggest—are no harder. They shrink with time and with repetition.

I know now that I compartmentalised my lies—in the same way that I compartmentalised many things—like my clients, for example. Never the twain shall meet, and that sort of thing. After a while, I didn’t even
think
to myself that I was lying to my wife about my affair with a teenager. I believed my own lies, and in so short a time span that I surprised even myself, the cold flush of guilt no longer plagued me when I told her I wouldn’t be home till late.

I was able to cover the extra hours I was allegedly working by blaming the weather and the time away from the office. I invented financial deals, new clients, fluctuating markets. There are many reasons why a conscientious stockbroker would be doing overtime. When we were starting out I had done it before, working all hours God sent, making new clients and was out of the house so often I might as well have been living aboard. I think that Val saw nothing strange in my new spurt of ambition and industry.

Something strange happened to my relationship with my family, however. Perhaps it was because I had to be very busy leading two lives; perhaps it was due to a sense of guilt, not for what I was doing when I was away from them, but that I was spending so much time away. But as the weeks passed and the winter slowly thawed away to a late and much-welcomed spring, I found that Valerie was more of a friend now than she had been since we were engaged, and that she was pleased with me for spending so much time indoors with her and the children. Home became something I worked at, something I did to fill in the gaps between stocks and shares…and Alexander.

From that first moment when he left me alone in the flat, the calendar came alive. I started counting days, then hours, sometimes minutes, sometimes seconds. Just sixty-four more minutes and the train will arrive at the Junction. Just two more days and it will be Thursday. Just ten more minutes and I’ll see him. Just five more seconds in your arms. Alex wasn’t the only one who begged for extra time. We were equals there; sometimes I had to hurry us out, sometimes he had less than an hour before he had to be home. Those times were frenetic; we had to cram into a mere sixty minutes what we could do for several hours.

There was no more uncertainty, either. We were like animals, at first. The second time he came through that door, I was waiting, pacing like an expectant father; I took hold of him as if it were a year since I’d kissed him, instead of less than a week. I think I hurt him, and I know I cut his lip, but it didn’t slow us down, and penitence didn’t surface until we lay gasping for breath, our clothes tangled around our ankles. There were many times, too many times, when we felt we didn’t have the time to undress. I would be buried to the balls in him while my hands slid under his school shirt and pullover, kissing what exposed skin I could reach, or he’d have my cock out almost as soon as he threw his satchel to the floor, pushing me back onto the bed as his mouth closed greedily, hungrily, around me.

We stole what time we could, at least once a week, sometimes a dizzying two, for he would pout and beg for a second meeting, and I would do anything when he begged me. We learned our sin quickly, or I did. I learned his skin, his shape. Learned the way his hair felt under my fingers. Mapped every curve and angle of him, both in the light and in the dark; traced the curve of his lips, the hollow of his shoulders; felt his warmth and his exuberance; and clung to him, our skins sticking together. I loved the way his body arched against that bed at the simplest of touches; I learned where he was ticklish—and he was amazingly ticklish—and where he loved to be touched the most. But I never learned to stop being astounded that once he had me—a middle-aged, inexperienced, married man—it wasn’t a joke. That
he
wanted
me
. That he didn’t tire of me. Of us. He never tired of us.

+ + +

“Have you and Phil fallen out?”

I pretended to finish the row of figures I was working on and spun my chair to face Val where she stood in the door. “Not at all. What’s for lunch?”

“Roast lamb, and don’t change the subject.” She came up behind me and rubbed my shoulders.

I shrugged her away with a show of impatience. “No. I suppose with the weather… I see him at work.” I hadn’t, not to speak to, at least.

“Why don’t you ask him over for lunch?”

“Oh you know him,” I said, and I couldn’t stop the blush I felt crawl over my skin. “He’s bound to be booked up.”

“You
have
argued!” She looked confused and angry at the same time.

“I swear to you, Val, we haven’t. You know how busy I’ve been.” It didn’t seem to placate her, as the frown remained. “Why the concern? You see Claire often enough—or are you spying for her?”

She turned away abruptly. “I happen to be fond of Phil. He’s not just
your
friend. And
I
don’t put people down and pick them up again as if they were toys.”

“What do you mean by that?” I said, but she’d gone. About five minutes after that, I heard her laughing. Suspicious, I edged out of the study and heard her talking to someone on the phone.

“No, he didn’t tell me about that. No, and I don’t believe that for a minute. Ed doesn’t know how… Oh no! You
are
making it up. Yes, yes, of course, we are! Of course, the children will be thrilled to see you. One o’clock? Yes, if you want, you don’t have… All
right,
then. I submit to your superior taste buds. See you then.” She put the phone down and walked back into the kitchen.

I stalked after her. “You rang him?”

“Yes, I did. And why shouldn’t I? He was delighted to be asked and said he’d thought he’d done something to annoy you.”

“I don’t like you discussing me with him.”

She reached down and put the meat in the oven. “Why on earth not? And why are you being so defensive? I can’t wait to hear the truth about that night out you’ve been so secretive about.”

I could feel the heat of a guilty blush starting again, creeping up from my collar. “I’m not being defensive. I told you before. Phil had a good time, I didn’t.”

“That’s not what he says.”

“What did he say?” I was nettled, and off-guard. Phil and I had hardly spoken since my asking for an alibi that Saturday night; I’d kept away from him because he’d wanted details of my ‘girlfriend’ and I wasn’t likely to go telling him anything at all. So we’d never arranged a cover story about the nightclub.

“Nothing, really. He hinted that you’d been dancing with some beehived beauty or other, that was all.”

“He should keep his mouth shut,” I muttered.

“Oh, he’s promised to tell me the whole sordid story at lunch.”

I opened my mouth. Then I shut it again and walked out. Back in my study, I cursed my short-sightedness not to have had an extra phone line there. I would have called Phil and got some details of his story from him. Or put him off. I had a very bad feeling about this sudden burst of friendship between him and my wife.

I sat and stared at the side of Alex’s house, hoping for a sight of him, just a glimpse—a reckless wave through a window, anything. I was unlucky. There was no sign of him. The mystery was solved when I went outside to open the gates for Phil’s arrival and noticed that the Charles’s car was missing.

“I think they said they were going to visit friends in London,” Valerie said, as we got changed.

“I didn’t know.”

“Well, I don’t know, for certain. I just vaguely remember Sheila saying that she hadn’t seen her sister since they moved here. Why should you know?”

I hesitated, caught out in my pettiness, without a glib lie to hand. I knew I sounded sulky, even as I spoke. “I thought they might have said.”

She came around in front of me. “Is this about Alec?”

This time I turned away, fast. The blush hit me hard, cold and violent. I opened the wardrobe door and peered inside a drawer, pretending to look for cufflinks. “No. Why do you say that?”

“Trains, darling. You spend
far
too much time with him and his trains. Honestly, you men never grow up, do you?” She laughed that silvery taunting laugh I knew so well, leaving me behind, sweating and shaking.

Lunch. It stands out in my mind as a turning point, when I started to be aware of the chasm between me and my old life. There was a surface me now, and that was all that I could give to my wife and my friend: surface, but no substance. What’s ironic is that no one noticed for such a long time. There I was thinking I was oh-so-different, and no one even noticed.

Chapter 19

It was a little like being with clients, that lunch. Like playing poker with emotions. Finding the chinks in the armour and guarding against your own. Conversations with people you had some things in common with.

I took the offensive at first, greeting Phil with a hail-fellow-well-met, and being suitably impressed with the wine he’d brought. But Phil was clearly there to outflank me, and before long, he had Valerie firmly on his side. Throughout the meal he was charming and entertaining. The children laughed at his stories of grumpy clients and impressions of various board members, which he play-acted for their amusement.

After lunch, Valerie banished them upstairs, and the atmosphere changed. Phil played the grass-widower well, and even though Valerie was loyal enough not to gossip about Claire to Phil’s face, she understood that, as Claire had moved on, so should he.

“Are you…” she hesitated, twirling her small dessert wine glass, “making any arrangements?”

“There’s no need to be coy,” he said. “Divorce?” He sat back with a sigh as she gave a brittle, unsmiling nod. “Don’t think I haven’t thought about it a hundred times.” He ran his hand through his hair. “I don’t know. I
could
. But…”

Val threw him a look which had a lot of sympathy in it and rose, waving us back down. “Stay here and finish your wine.”

“Let’s go to your study,” Phil said, picking up the bottle. As we stood, he caught my eye and grinned. “You can tell me about the birds in the garden.”

When the study door was shut, he made himself comfortable on the Chesterfield and waited for me to sit down. “Well? I thought you’d have rung me by now.”

“It’s not something I could talk about on the phone.”

He threw the cork at me. “Eddie. Don’t be obtuse. To make an arrangement to come around, or go out somewhere.”

“And we weren’t sent in here to discuss
me
, anyway. I’m supposed to be giving you a shoulder to cry on.”

“Let’s just pretend we’ve already done that. This is
far
more interesting. If one of us is getting some, I may as well live vicariously. Come on, Eddie, you can’t keep me in the dark. I’m covering for you. What’s happening? It’s been weeks since I’ve even heard from you. Is it all off, or what?”

I told him to keep his voice down.

“Well,
tell
me then.” He raised his voice. “Or I’ll shout!”

“All right!” There wasn’t any way out of it now. “Just as long as you look suitably talked-to when Val brings the coffee in.”

He grinned and stretched out on the couch. “I’ll be contemplating divorce with all seriousness. So?”

“I’m not giving you any details.”

“I’m not really surprised, old boy. You always were tighter than a drum. Just tell me—you are enjoying yourself and it’s worth the risk.”