Shape of Snakes

*19*

Sam was sitting in the car outside Dorchester South station when I finally reached it at ten o'clock that evening. I wondered how long he'd been waiting because I hadn't phoned to say which train I was catching, and I feared it couldn't have done his temper much good if he'd been there any length of time. My intention had been to take a taxi home and face the inevitable row behind closed doors but, if his bleak expression when he got out of the car at my approach was anything to go by, he planned to have it in public.

"Jock phoned," he said tersely.

"I thought he might," I murmured, opening the back door and dumping my rucksack on the seat.

"He told me you left him at about four o'clock. What the hell have you been doing? Why the hell didn't you phone? I've been worried sick."

I showed my surprise. "I said I'd make my own way home."

"I didn't even know if you were coming home." He stalked angrily round the bonnet to open the passenger door for me, but it was so out of character that I stepped back automatically, assuming he was opening it for himself. "I'm not going to hit you," he snapped, gripping me by the arm and pressing me clumsily into my seat. "I'm not a complete bastard."

He slid in behind the steering wheel and we sat for several minutes in silence. The tension in the confined space was palpable, although I had no idea if it was due to anger over my perfidy or concern at my late return. The station was virtually empty at that time of night, but one or two people peered curiously through our windows as they passed, presumably wondering why the two dimly seen occupants were sitting so stiffly and refusing to look at each other.

"Aren't you going to say anything?" he asked at last.

"Like what?"

"Explain?" he suggested. "I still can't believe you'd talk to Jock, and not to me. Why didn't you tell me Annie was beaten up? You know I'd have come clean if I'd realized how serious it all was."

"When?"

"What do you mean, when?"

"When would you have come clean?" I asked evenly. "I told you at the time what PC Quentin said about the bruising-but you just said we were talking bollocks. As I recall your comment was, 'Since when did a neurotic bitch and a disgruntled policeman know the first damn thing about pathology?' You could have told me the truth then and given me and Andrew Quentin a fighting chance against Drury ... but you didn't."

He dropped his head into his hands. "I thought you were wrong," he muttered. "I was pretty stressed out at the time, and you didn't make it easy for me."

"Fine. Then you've nothing to feel guilty about. You were saving me from myself. No one's going to blame you for that." I looked impatiently at my watch. "Can we go now? I'm hungry."

"You're not making this very easy for me," he said. "You must know how awful I feel."

"Actually, I don't," I said honestly. "You've never felt awful before. That year, 1978, was one of those little unpleasantnesses-like where the cutlery drawer is and how to boil eggs-that you manage to erase so successfully from your memory. I've always envied you for it, and if you're troubled now it's probably just a reaction to knowing you've been rumbled. It'll pass. It usually does."

He tried a different tack. "The boys are twitched as hell," he said. "They keep asking me what I've done that's so bad you'd want to run away."

"Oh, for Christ's sake!" I said bluntly. "If you want to make me angry, then hiding behind your children is the surest way to do it. Luke and Tom know damn well I don't run away from things. They also know I wouldn't abandon them unless I was on a life-support machine somewhere. In any case, I told them I wouldn't be home until late so I imagine they're lying in front of the telly, as per normal, wondering why their father has suddenly gone 'round the bend."

"We had a row," he admitted. "I told them they were unfeeling bastards."

I didn't bother to comment because I wasn't in the mood to massage his bruised ego. "Look," I said, tapping my watch, "I haven't had anything to eat all day and I'm starving, so can we either go home or get a takeaway? Have you and the boys eaten?"

"Tom made some spag bol for him and Luke, but I wasn't hungry."

"Good, then we'll have a curry."

"Why didn't you eat on the train?"

"Because it was trolley service," I said crossly, "and the only thing left to eat by the time it reached me was a packet of dry biscuits. So I had some wine instead ... and now I'm fighting mad and in no mood to play silly buggers with you or anyone else."

"I don't blame you," he began self-pityingly as he fired the engine. "I just wish there was something I could do or say-"

I cut him off. "Don't even think of apologizing," I said. "As far as I'm concerned you can grovel to me for the rest of your life. And it won't make a blind bit of difference. It'll make a difference to Jock, though. The sorrier you are the happier he'll be, and you'll be back in each other's pockets before you know it."

He mulled this over quietly as we turned on to the main road. "I've already apologized to Jock."

"I assumed you would."

"He calmed down pretty quickly as a matter of fact, once I'd explained what a mistake the whole damn thing had been."

"Okay."

"It didn't mean Jack shit, you know ... just something that happened while you were away. The trouble is, Libby took it more seriously than I did. She and Jock weren't getting on too well at the time and it sort of ran out of control." He paused, inviting me to say something. When I didn't he went on, "Jock understands that. He's been there himself, knows what it's like to be caught between a rock and a hard place."

"Okay."

"Does that mean you understand?"

"Of course."

He flicked me an uneasy glance as he turned left at a pelican crossing. "You don't sound as if you do."

I sighed. "I'm your wife, Sam, and I've known you since I was twenty. If I don't understand you by now then I doubt I ever will."

"I didn't mean, do you understand me. I meant, do you understand how the thing with Libby happened? What a fucking disaster it was? How sorry I was afterward?"

I gave a small laugh. "The thing? Do you mean your affair? The time you rogered your best friend's wife because your own wife was away and you hadn't had sex for twenty-four hours?"

"It wasn't like that," he protested.

"Of course it wasn't," I agreed. "It was Libby's fault. She caught you at a low ebb, plied you with drink, then persuaded you into a quickie on the kitchen floor. Afterward, you found yourself in an impossible position. You regretted it intensely and hoped it was a one-off. She loved every minute of it and looked on it as the beginning of a great love affair." I watched him for a moment. "I should imagine Libby's version is a little different-you seduced her in other words-but the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle."

"I knew you'd be angry," he said unhappily. "That's why I never told you."

"Now you're flattering yourself," I said. "It's probably a huge disappointment but the only emotion I have ever experienced re you and Libby is indifference." Of course I was lying ... but he owed me ... I had honored my promises ... and he hadn't. "If I'd been able to work up the energy to feel angry, I think you'd have realized something was wrong. Certainly Libby would, but then she's a woman and women are better at picking up vibes."

He pulled up in front of the Indian restaurant. "Wasn't it her who told you about us?"

"No. I suspect she's even more embarrassed than you are. We're hardly talking Abelard and Heloise in all conscience."

He clamped down on his anger. "Who then?"

"You." I smiled at his expression. "One night in Hong Kong. Not in so many words ... You weren't that drunk ... but you said enough for me to put two and two together. It was quite a relief, actually. I remember thinking, So that's what this has all been about-a grubby little affair with Libby Williams. I even laughed about it afterward. I kept picturing you and her working up a sweat in Jock's bed while he was out getting blow jobs off the Graham Road tart. There was such a sweet irony about it-you being piggy in the middle of a couple of predators. It explained everything. Your unpleasantness ... your lies ... your dash to leave England. I even felt sorry for you in a funny kind of way because it seemed so obvious you'd sold your soul to the devil for something you hadn't enjoyed very much."

He shook his head in bewilderment. "Why didn't you say something?"

"I couldn't see the point. We were on the other side of the world. All I'd have been doing was closing the stable door after the horse had bolted."

Sam wasn't designed to remain humble for long. "Do you know what this feels like? It feels like I'm married to a stranger. I don't even know who you are anymore." He propped his elbows on the steering wheel and ground his knuckles into his eyes. "You always tell people what a great marriage we have ... what great kids we have ... what a great father I am. But it's all just crap ... one huge pretense at happy families when the truth is you hate my guts. How could you do that? How could you be so bloody devious?"

I reached for the door handle. "The same way you did," I said lightly. "Closed my eyes to what a bastard you'd been and pretended none of it had ever happened."

He agonized over my indifference while we waited for the curry, almost as if I'd thrown doubt on his manhood by refusing to take his infidelity seriously. For myself, I was wondering when he was going to realize that the bone of contention was Annie, not Libby, and how he would explain that when he did. We took seats in a corner and he muttered away in an undertone, afraid of being overheard, although my refusal to lighten his burden with sympathetic comments meant his tone became increasingly-and to my ears sweetly-strident.

He didn't want me to get the wrong impression ... It wasn't true that he'd tried to pretend nothing had happened ... more that he'd been terrified of losing me ... Of course he'd have admitted to it if I'd asked but it seemed more sensible to let sleeping dogs lie ... He knew I probably wouldn't believe him, but he was drunk the night Libby seduced him and the whole thing did turn into a total nightmare ... It was absolutely correct to describe Libby as a predator ... She was one of those women who thought the grass was always greener on the other side ... He remembered how shocked he'd been when he realized how jealous she was of me and how determined she was to bring me down to her size...

"When I told her I wanted to end it, she said she was going to tell you what a rat you'd married," he said grimly. "I know it's not much of an excuse but I honestly think I'd have killed her if she'd actually done it. I loathed her so much by then I couldn't be in the same room with her without wanting to strangle her."

I believed him, not just because I wanted to but because he'd never been able to mention Libby's name without prefacing it with "that bitch Jock married." There was a brief period when I wondered if he said it out of regret because he, too, had been rejected but I soon realized that the antipathy was real and that Libby was as irrelevant to him as the women he'd slept with before we married. That's not to say I wouldn't have clawed his eyes out if I'd known about the affair at the time-objectivity needs time and distance to develop-but to come across it when the ashes were cold was a reason for private grief only, and not for a fanning of the embers.

"You don't need to do this," I said, glancing toward a nearby customer who had one ear cocked to everything he was saying. "Not unless you insist on washing your dirty linen in public. Libby's a dead issue as far as I'm concerned." I lifted one shoulder in a careless shrug. "I've always assumed that if you'd loved her you'd still be with her."

He brooded for a moment in offended silence, his gaze fixing abstractedly on the eavesdropper. "Then why tell Jock about it? Why get everyone worked up if it's all so unimportant to you?"

"Not all of it, Sam. Just Libby. I couldn't give a shit what you did to her ... but I do give a shit what you did to Annie. You left her to die in the gutter then labeled her a drunk in case anyone accused you of neglect. That's the issue. And, as usual, you're busting a gut to avoid it." I paused. "I know you saw her there-and not just because Jock confirmed it this afternoon-but because you always get so angry every time her name's mentioned."

He wouldn't meet my eyes. "I thought she was drunk."

"What if she was? It was freezing cold and pouring with rain and she needed help, whatever state she was in."

"I wasn't the only one," he muttered. "Jock and that woman ignored her, too."

It was hardly an answer but I let it go. "They never got as close as you did," I said. "I was watching them."

"How do you know how close I got?"

"Jock said you told him Annie was reeking of drink, but I didn't smell anything until I stooped down to rock her shoulder." I watched him curiously for a moment. "And it wasn't drink I smelled either, it was urine, and I don't understand how you could mistake that for alcohol."

"I didn't. All I told Jock was that she reeked to high heaven. He assumed it was alcohol."

"Did you recognize it as urine?"

"Yes."

"Oh, my God!" I slammed my palms on to the table. "Do you know that every time I told Drury to question why her coat was reeking of piss he told me her neighbors said it was normal ... that she was filthy and disgusting and always stank."

Abruptly he dropped his head into his hands. "I thought it was funny," he said wretchedly. "Your good cause for the year ... Mad bloody Annie ... wetting herself on your doorstep because she was too drunk to control her bladder. I went into the house and spent the next ten minutes laughing about it until I realized you were the most likely person to find her. Then I knew you'd bring her inside and clean her up and I thought, this is the day my marriage goes down the drain."

"Why?"

He breathed hard through his nose. "She knew about Libby-I think she must have seen us together at some point because she kept sneaking up behind me in the road and calling me 'dirty man.' " He forced out the words as if his life depended on it. '"Have you been fucking the tart today, dirty man.' 'Is that the tart I can smell on you, dirty man?' 'What do you want with trash, dirty man, when you've got a pretty lady at home?' I loathed her for it because I knew she was right and when I smelled her in the gutter"-he faltered painfully-"when I smelled her in the gutter, I kicked her and said, 'Who's dirty now?' "

I watched a tear drip through his fingers onto the table.

"And I've been in hell ever since because I so much wanted to take it back, and I've never been able to."

I watched a waiter come out of the kitchen and hold up a shopping bag to signal that our curry was ready, and I remember thinking that fate was all about timing. If I hadn't been at a parents' evening that night ... if Jock had abandoned the pub at 8:30 when Sharon didn't show ... if food didn't arrive at inopportune moments...

"Let's go home," I said.

Two days later, Maureen Slater phoned. She was angry and suspicious because Alan had told her I'd taken photographs of his house, and she demanded to know what my side of the trade was going to be. I repeated what I'd told her on Monday, that if she wasn't prepared to tell me what she knew, I would pass the Chiswick jeweler's affidavit to Richmond Police ... and, for good measure, the shots of the Mexican artifacts in Alan's sitting room. "No one would doubt they were thieves," I said. The only question would be, were they murderers, too? She told me some of what I wanted to know, but rather more interesting was what she chose to leave out.