The Sexopaths (34 page)

Right now he wants to take hold
of Monique and squeeze her until the truth comes spilling out, like Snow
White’s little choking bite of
pomme empoisonnée
. 
He thumps the mattress with a clenched fist,
contemplates replying to Lucien using Monique’s handset, inviting him to ‘get
the fuck away from my wife,’ but he feels somehow it would be a weak gesture;
and phoning him last time obviously made no difference, albeit the guy hung up pretty
smartly.  Direct intervention might feel good, but in his heart he knows
it will offer but a Pyrrhic victory; Monique is his only ally, and the outcome
of the battle lies in her gift.

***

‘Monique – look, over there
– no, no, not straight at them!  Stand like you’re meant to be in
the photo.  That’s it – now you can turn round a bit and see.’

Monique giggles and makes an
exaggerated pose.  Adam, one eye squinting into the camera, the other
stage-directing Monique, zooms in on his real subject behind her.  It’s a
street-food shop manned by an extended Chinese family who, shaded by a dingy
tattered green-and-white-striped awning, squat indolently on low stools around
a pile of king-sized dim-sum baskets.  The elderly matriarch is stretched
out bare-legged as she undergoes some kind of foot massage from a peripatetic
practitioner who has slung his yellowing plastic carrier bag of snake oils on
the back of his cut-off chair. Beyond, at a table in the shadows crouches an
old man, shaven headed and ostensibly naked (at least from the waist up),
staring unseeingly into Adam’s lens, unmoving except for the rhythmic motion of
his chopsticks and lower jaw as he loads noodles into his mouth from a
tarnished wok.  Several small presumably grandchildren also in various
states of undress slowly wrestle one another like juvenile primates for the
increasingly precious remnants of the dripping ice-lollies they each
possess.  At the equally haphazardly organised fruit-and-vegetable outlet
next door a group of younger adults sits shaded in more relaxed contemplation,
their seats – in the fashion, it seems – no higher than those at
Camille’s nursery school.  At their backs an opening in the wall is
completely blocked by crates overflowing with unfamiliar produce.  Through
the viewfinder Adam notices that one of the party, a woman squatting so that
her backside touches the heels of her pale-aquamarine flip-flops, is looking
right at him, accusingly.  Silently he steals her image and then turns the
camera more pointedly upon Monique and sidles around so there can be no doubt
he’s photographing her.  He says:

‘Okay – that’s good. 
I got them but they’ve rumbled me so we’d better walk on.’

‘Which way shall we go?’

‘I think if we kind of bear left
we’ll get deeper into this old part.  We seem to be skirting round the
edge of it now.’

He lowers the camera and reaches
for her hand.  She reciprocates and offers him a share of the shade
beneath the umbrella she’s carrying.  He ducks away and says:

‘I’m fine – you keep it
over you – it’s not big enough for two.’

‘Unlike you, my darling.’

He makes the sound of a
suppressed laugh – so as not to reject her saucy compliment – but
looks ahead rather than meet her eyes.  He doesn’t yet feel ready for the
intimacy she’s offering.  As they trip along in their superficial
cheerfulness, they tread on eggshells.  Like naughty children who have
escaped sanction for their wrongdoings, they now over-compensate in their
efforts to please.  Monique, he’s sure, despite her outward joviality,
bears a mantle of guilt woven from the indisputable evidence of the abridged
email exchange.  She seems to have conceded he was entitled to reach the
conclusion he did, however much of a misapprehension it might be in fact. 
He, meanwhile – having so forcefully accused her of having an affair,
frightening her with his anger, reducing her to tears – sports a lighter
cloak: of remorse nonetheless, though edged with the lingering doubt that there
is some element of truth, and thus infidelity.  Indeed, while Monique he
senses would gladly let matters drop and move on bright and breezy,
happy-go-lucky, for him as-yet-unformed questions still push and probe at the
brittle surface of his consciousness from the turbulent magma beneath, destined
to burst forth their fetid ills.

With the benefit of hindsight
Adam wonders if he should have refrained from phoning Monique at Lifen’s firm’s
factory.  It had given her more than an hour to organise her defences, to
arrange historical events in her mind, to re-cast and smooth over those subtle
yet vital interpretations of words and phrases that for him had bristled with
ambiguity; had he held his tongue he might have caught her entirely off
guard.  But he doubts he could have battled the intervening period of anguish
alone, while the opportunity to speak with her lay within his reach.  And,
in spite of the disagreeable nature of the call, it had at least enabled him to
verify his bond with her, however damaged it had felt at the time, her soft
voice and soothing reassurance authenticating their common entity. 
Nonetheless, the prospect of waiting for her had stretched ahead, a lonely
road, dwindling to infinity on a desert horizon; it was a path he chose to run,
donning his kit in the bedroom and riding the lift up to the hotel’s penthouse
spa, treading out the miles long past the point of her likely return.

He’d returned, perspiring, still
panting, to room three-nine-three to discover the bathroom door locked and the
hiss of the shower just audible through its dark wood; Monique had later
professed herself to be overcome by the draining climate, though he suspected a
displacement activity at work on her part, too.  He’d prowled about,
stripped down just to his briefs, cooling his feet on the exposed tiles. 
Meanwhile Monique had lingered, he imagined psyching herself up, perhaps
extending the hiatus in case he had arrived infuriated.  She emerged
finally in her towelling gown (its cord restored) like a boxer ready for the
fray.  He had not announced himself, but she had presumably detected his
presence.  Crossing the room towards him with extended hands she’d said:

‘So… what have I done to upset
you, my precious darling?’

Her silky timbre and elegant
choice of words – considered?... spontaneous? – were an immediate
pouring of oil upon the treacherous waters that divided them.  When she
could simply have scolded him for being upset over nothing, opted for outright
denial, she had instead assumed liability, bared her throat to his fangs. 
Be it innate diplomacy or a desperate ploy for survival, she had obliged him to
hold back, accepting her offered grip with reluctant fingertips and enabling
her to engage him face to face, the hazel eyes laid open, inviting him to gaze
upon her soul.  Though ruffled by the success of these placatory tactics,
and dismayed that she was acting as if there had been no precursor to this
morning’s discovery, he’d retreated only by a quantum, from the angry to the
injured:

‘Shouldn’t you be telling me?

‘There is nothing to tell.’

‘So there’s nothing going on
between you and Lucien
fucking
Décure?’  He uses his knowledge of
the surname like a piece of telling evidence.

‘My darling – I promise you
– I am not having an affair with Lucien.  I do not want to have an
affair with Lucien… not with anybody!’

He’d felt she’d leapt a fraction
too hastily to the word ‘affair’.  And did her use of the present and
future tense shrewdly exclude the past tense, the careful literal avoidance of
a lie?  He’d picked up her handset, the offending email still open, and
held it before her eyes before releasing it into her custody.  He’d said:

‘You read it.’

‘My darling – I do not need
to – I know what is there and there is nothing to be concerned about.’

‘Well what about three kisses,
for a start?  I’m not familiar with this kind of business
correspondence.  I get one kiss on the note you leave for me.  And
this
‘Hey Lucien’
stuff – what’s all that about?  And your
‘personal circumstances’?  You missed him.  And you want to see him
again – and he’s suggesting you meet in London.  A
party
.’

He’d paused for dramatic effect,
before adding: ‘Is that nothing, Monique?’

Beneath the weight of his stare
she’d lowered her eyes, then slowly she’d sat down on the edge of the bed,
smoothing out the creases to one side with her free hand, perhaps hoping he
would join her.  After a moment’s apparent consideration she’d tapped the
phone ruefully against a bare tanned thigh, and looked up at him imploringly,
tears forming in her eyes.

‘I am sorry – I have
learned my lesson.’

His heart had leapt into his
mouth; he was certain she was about to confirm his worst fears, to give up on
the tiresome charade.  Too late, he’d realised he didn’t want to know
– he’d wanted to silence her – but quickly she’d continued:

‘Look – Lucien – he was
keen that I come to all the meetings – he thinks I can be elected as
Vice-President because they feel a big country like the UK should play a
significant role in the organisation.  So I was trying to show them I
value the Board and it was a difficult decision to miss a meeting.  I did
not mean I missed Lucien personally.’

‘You say in your email that
you’ll see him soon.’

‘My darling – that is just
politeness… good manners.’

‘It sounds like you’re arranging
a date to me.’

‘Adam, no.  Read it again
– it is he who says something about seeing me – and I just reply
that I shall see him soon… at the next Board meeting, I expect.’

Adam had to admit this part of
the exchange was accurate as she described it – and he’d prayed she was
being truthful about it, too.  But he’d persisted:

‘Except then he says he’ll see
you in London.’

‘But what can I do if he writes
such a thing?’

‘Tell him to fuck off.’ 
He’d paused.  ‘Or I will.  In person.’

‘No, Adam – you do not need
to get involved, there is nothing to merit that.’

‘Well – what will you say?’

‘I do not have to reply.’

He could tell she knew this
wasn’t a plausible answer.  He’d protested:

‘Oh, come off it – how’s
that being polite, then?’

Monique had shrugged.  Of
course they both understood she had to reply.  She’d said:

‘I shall think of
something.  I do not want to hurt his feelings for no good reason.’

Adam had taken her face in his
hands – too forcefully, really – and made her look into his
eyes.  Was there fear amidst the tears?  After a long pause, he’d
said:

‘Monique… whose feelings do you
care most about?  His… or mine?’

She’d hesitated for a
disconcerting second before answering, although her reply when it came had
sounded quite unequivocal.

‘Yours of course, my darling.’

‘Then it’s easy.’

Now Monique had sighed, as if it
wasn’t easy – and why should that be?  Adam had said:

‘So if there’s nothing to it,
what’s all this about ‘personal circumstances’?  You make it sound like
you’d get involved with him if you weren’t married – why say that to
somebody?’

Again Monique had deliberated for
a moment or two before replying.  Preceded by a small involuntary sob,
she’d explained:

‘Like I said – I have
learned my lesson.  Look, Adam – when you just meet someone –
and then after that you mainly communicate by email – it is very easy to
be drawn into being a little bit more intimate than you would normally –
it is easy to make a joke and to joke back – to say things that could be
construed as a little bit risqué.  I have been trying to make a good impression
on the people in AMIE.  They want to find out about me, get to know me…
and I want them to like me.  Lucien – maybe he has been looking for
a little bit more.’

‘A little bit on the side, I
think is the correct expression.’

Curiously, although Adam had
still not been sure that she wasn’t going to reveal an affair, a wave of relief
had suffused his tortured mind – at least his intuition had been correct,
and now at last she was admitting to him there was indeed a hint of something
about which he might justifiably be concerned.  It felt as if she had
finally slipped off the fence of infuriatingly blithe indifference, putting a
first tentative toe down upon the dewy grass of his side.  He’d lowered
himself beside her, though avoiding contact, suddenly self-conscious of his
near nakedness.  She’d shaken her head vigorously at his suggestion of ‘a
bit on the side’, but had not offered an accompanying verbal denial.  He
asked:

‘What about this
‘party’
he’s planning to have with you?’

Monique had giggled – in a
serious way, as if to show she knew it was a mistake he couldn’t help
making.  She’d used it as an opportunity to place a hand over his, and
replied:

‘No, no – he means they had
a party for him after the Board meeting – he has completed his term of
office and is leaving.  Simone had emailed last week me to tell me she had
arranged everything.  They went to some trendy restaurant and nightclub in
Brussels.  It was not a party for me, silly!’

There’s further relief, though
Adam can’t avoid the stark contradiction with her earlier statement about the
next meeting.  Nevertheless, he’d returned to the point that was most
vexing him, although this time he’d phrased the question in her favour:

‘So you’re saying to Lucien that
you’re sorry about your personal circumstances as a way of being polite about
not being able to get involved?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why did you say ‘our’ personal
circumstances?  It’s like you’ve discussed things with him.  That
doesn’t feel good – you and he talking about whether you’re in a position
to have an affair or not.’