The Water Room

17. INFIDELITIES

She would always remember how strangely the day had begun.

A Krakatoa dawn, intense and viridescent, had been obliterated by dim silhouettes of cloud, great grey cargo ships bearing fresh supplies of rain. By noon it had grown so dark that she had been forced to switch on the hall lights, and, not knowing what to do for the best, waited for the call.

She had known it would be George before the second ring. They had established the pattern of communication whenever he travelled, to fit around the time differences. If he was further west, he never rang before one. Further east, and he would call just as she was having breakfast. He never grew tired of waiting in airport lounges or dining late in half-empty hotels. He seemed to have deliberately chosen work that would deny him the comforts of home life. He was meeting factory representatives in company branches around the world, but she often wondered if he could have delegated these tasks and requested an administrative position in London. Perhaps, like Kallie’s partner, it was something to do with never having taken a gap year; perhaps he too imagined that beneath the jacket and tie he was a backpacker, free to watch dawn from mountaintops and follow the contours of the shorelines. Except that his journeys took him to places no student would choose to visit. And on that day the call came at the wrong time, the pattern disrupted. He was only in Paris-no distance at all-but something was wrong.

According to the readout on her receiver, he stayed on the line for no longer than four minutes. Barely time to boil an egg; certainly not long enough to discuss a divorce. She had been half-expecting him to raise the subject for almost a year. When she added up the days they had spent together, the total came to little more than three months in twelve, but it was still a bitter shock. He recited the guilty man’s litany: It’s me, not you. . You’ve done nothing wrong. . I need to rethink my life. . I’m holding you back. . I can’t expect you to wait for me. But it rang so false that she knew there was someone else involved, that there would be a younger version of herself, probably living in Paris, where so many trips had taken him lately. He wouldn’t rethink his life, merely repeat it with someone more naive. She resented the fact that he had reached the decision without her involvement. Let someone else deal with his intermittent sex drive now, she thought. Let someone else feel the weight of his damp flesh on top of her. I hope it’s worth it.

From an early age, Heather had worked hard to have the life presented in style magazines; but it hadn’t turned out like that. She had hated the kind of women who hung out at sports events with an agenda for searching out the right class of man, yet she had done exactly the same, attending fixtures in the season’s calendar, frequenting the fashionable Kensington restaurants and bars until meeting George. Her desire to establish such a specific lifestyle had separated her from Kallie, whose honesty and simplicity were quite uncalculating.

He had promised her the London house; he would sign it over tomorrow, but there would be nothing else. She was sure he would move his base of operations to Paris and live with his younger-Heather clone, this year’s more desirable model. Heather would join the ranks of embittered divorcees who prowled the cafés of the King’s Road, sipping their lattes and stalking certain designer stores because the staff were cute, dining with women in similar situations, discussing shoes and spas and drinking a little too much wine over lunch. And the worst part about being cast into this tastefully appointed limbo was that she only had herself to blame. She had made a single, humiliating mistake that would taunt her for the rest of her life.

‘Come through to the studio. It’s better that you’re here while my husband’s still out. You look absurdly well.’

Monica Greenwood led the way through the cramped apartment occupying the top half of the house in Belsize Park. Every spare inch of space had been filled with books and canvases. When shelves had overflowed, paperbacks had been stacked in precarious piles along the already narrow hallway, beside jam jars of turpentine and linseed oil. Monica looked much as he’d remembered. Although her hair was now more studiedly blond, it was still carelessly tied back, kept from her face while she worked on her paintings. Her figure was fuller, subject to the natural effects of a miraculous maturity. She looked sumptuous in jeans and an acrylic-stained sweatshirt, comfortable in this stage of her life. Too much time had passed for John May to remember if he had truly been in love with her, but he had certainly been bewitched at some point during the national miners’ strike.

She carried mugs of coffee into a narrow conservatory coated in peeling whitewash. ‘I’m glad to see you still paint,’ said May. ‘I’ve been looking out for exhibitions featuring your work.’

‘You won’t have found any,’ she warned, pulling the cloth from a large canvas. ‘I’m off the radar of popularity these days. I switched from figurative stuff to rather fierce abstracts; I think you often do as you mature and become interested in states of mind rather than accurate depictions of people and buildings.’

May examined the painting, an arrangement of curling cerulean lines that drifted to a dark horizon. ‘I like that. Is it sold?’

She blew an errant lock of hair from her eye. ‘Please don’t humour me, John. There have been no takers so far. I’ll let you have it if you can sort out this problem with Gareth. I’m glad you’re still in the force.’

‘That’s just it, I’m not really. The unit has been separated from the Met, but we still handle cases in the public domain.’

‘Whatever happened to that funny little man who was rude to everyone?’ she asked. ‘The one with the foul-smelling pipe?’

‘Arthur’s very well, touch wood,’ said May apologetically. ‘I’m still partnered with him.’

‘You two have lasted longer than most marriages. Doesn’t he drive you mad?’

‘I don’t know, I can’t tell any more. Do you still call yourself Mona?’

‘God no, nobody’s called me that in years. Gareth hates contractions. I had to become respectable in every way when I married an academic. All those formal dinners with elderly men. Tell them you paint and they look at you with condescension, another bored housewife looking for hobbies to fill the evenings while her husband is working on something important. I lost my husband to them after he made his mistake about that bloody statue, the Nereid. He needed to regain their respect, and they made a pact with him; they would allow him back into their exalted circle if he devoted all his time to their various causes. So Gareth behaved himself, joined the right committees and worked late every night, and we were grudgingly re-admitted.’

‘If things got back to normal, why do you think he’s in trouble again now?’

‘We’re short of money, of course. I’m not allowed to work, so we survive on his pitiful salary. But I think it’s more than that. This “client” has appealed to his vanity by insisting that no one but Gareth can work for him. He’s the best in the field, there’s nobody else who could handle the job, it’s the opportunity of a lifetime, a chance to make some real money, etcetera. You should see him when he comes off the phone, as excited as a schoolboy.’

‘What made you think he was planning something illegal?’

‘He won’t talk about what he’s been asked to do, and I know what he’s like. He thinks that if I find out, I’ll have a go at him for being so stupid.’ She lit a cigarette. ‘Do you still smoke?’

‘No, I gave up years ago-doctor’s orders.’

‘Any idea what he’s up to?’

‘I can tell you a little,’ May admitted. ‘He’s exploring the remains of London’s lost rivers. We’ve tracked him at the sites of three so far-the Fleet, the Effra and the Walbrook. He seems particularly interested in the point where their tunnels widen and open to the Thames.’

‘Why? I know it’s his area of expertise, but surely that sort of exploration is all above board.’

‘We checked out the most obvious reasons. I thought the various councils involved might have failed to grant access, but no requests to explore closed sections of the rivers have been received at all. Thames Water occasionally issues permits for non-professionals to enter the system with a team, but they’ve told us they know nothing about this. Besides, the recent rainfall has made conditions so hazardous that only experienced workers are entering for essential repairs. The rivers run through and under various parcels of private property, so we’ve made discreet inquiries with landlords and developers. But we’ve turned up nothing there, either. Which means that your husband is acting without permission, on behalf of a private client. He’s been photographed at all of these sites.’

‘You’re talking about breaking and entering, trespass at the very least. It’ll get back to the museum, these things always do. He’ll be thrown out again. Can’t you do something to stop him?’

‘Arthur wants to find out what he’s up to. The idea is to step in before he commits himself to anything serious, and hopefully avoid the trespass charge by getting something on his client.’

Monica ran a hand through her hair. ‘I can’t take much more of this life, John. I’m not very good at being a sidekick. I don’t want to just be supportive. I was seriously thinking of leaving him when this came along, like some kind of a test. I know it wasn’t fair to involve you, but I didn’t have anyone else to turn to. The academic wives don’t want anything to do with me, and my old friends have all moved on. I thought you might remember me fondly.’

May smiled. ‘You know how I felt about you.’

‘Then why did you let me go?’

‘What can I say?’ The subject embarrassed him even now. ‘They were the disco years. Nobody acted their age, nobody settled down.’

‘That’s the lamest excuse I ever heard.’ Her laugh was unchanged. ‘You were married when I met you. What happened?’

‘Oh, it was all a long time ago,’ said May evasively as he rose and examined the canvases.

‘So it didn’t last.’

‘No, Jane and I divorced. She was-there were health problems. She became ill. Not physically, you understand, just-’ He couldn’t bring himself to say it. He saw little point in resurrecting the past, at least not while the pain of those years remained.

‘You don’t have to tell me, John.’

‘That’s just the problem-I haven’t talked about it in a long while. I rarely discuss my marriage with Arthur because-well, he has very particular views on these things.’

‘You’re talking about mental illness, aren’t you?’

‘We didn’t know what we were dealing with back then.’

‘But you had children.’

‘Yes, two. Alex was born first, then Elizabeth came along four years later. Now there’s only Alex.’

Monica rose and came to his side, resting her hand lightly on his shoulder. ‘What happened to your daughter?’

He turned aside, barely able to voice his thoughts. ‘She died, and it was my fault. I was more ambitious in those days, perhaps too much so. Alex is married and lives in Canada now, but wants nothing to do with me. Elizabeth-she gave birth to a baby girl. April reminds me so much of her mother. She lives here in London, and will be fine one day soon, I’m sure. She still has problems, but we’re learning to overcome them.’

‘Poor John, you haven’t had the things you deserve.’

He tried to make light of it. ‘I don’t know, I suppose it’s still better to have raised a family than to be like Arthur, even if I eventually lost it.’

‘You never lost me,’ said Monica, raising her hands to his face.

‘You’re telling me you slept with her? Somebody from our own neighbourhood?’ Kayla Ayson yelled.

‘What the hell has that got to do with it?’ Randall shouted back. The front bedroom of number 39 was small, and Randall was sure that the neighbours could hear every word. ‘What does it matter anyway? It was two years before I met you.’

‘Then why wait until now to tell me? Wait a minute.’ Kayla raised a hand to her forehead. ‘You were the one who liked this house so much, even though I thought it was too small for the children. Did you do that just so you could be near her again? Are you still seeing her? Christ, she came to the Wiltons’ party. You call yourself a decent Christian but you still want her.’

‘Will you listen to yourself? Of course I don’t, I’m telling you because it’s bound to come out sooner or later. I didn’t even know she lived in this street until I saw her that evening. She came over and spoke to me when I went to get a drink in the kitchen. What could I do?’

‘You could have told her that you’re happily married.’

‘Of course I did that, but she’s the kind of woman-I just thought you should know.’

‘She’s probably told half the neighbourhood. How do you think that makes me feel, knowing that they’re laughing behind my back?’

‘I wanted to be honest with you,’ Randall pleaded. ‘I wish I hadn’t told you.’

‘Was she married? Did you commit the sin of adultery?’

‘No, she was single, working in a plant nursery in Camden. I was just as shocked to see her as she was me. And she won’t have told anyone, it would only cause more trouble.’

‘But you had to tell me. And now she lives with that awful estate agent in the house opposite. What a convenient coincidence.’

‘We had a few dates, Kayla, that’s all. Lauren means nothing to me. Do you think I’d have told you about her if she did?’

Behind them, their daughter began to cry, awoken by the discordance in the house. Randall stamped out of the room, slamming the door behind him, leaving his wife in anguish and bewilderment.

Kallie had never been prone to tears, but she found it hard to stop them now.

‘I have to do it, Kal. They’re not going to pay me a penny more. I don’t have a job. I don’t have any savings. I can’t get work here. What else can I do?’ Paul was pacing before her in his unravelling turquoise sweater, more angry and confused than she’d ever seen him.

‘There must be something. What about Neil, doesn’t he have any connections?’

‘He sells vases and candle-holders to retailers, for God’s sake. Even if he could find me something, how long do you think I’d last? I’ve always been in the music business. I survived the price-fixing scandals, the Britpop explosion, I made it through hip-hop and the boy bands, but the only growth area is acoustic stuff and I know nothing about that.’

‘Couldn’t you learn?’

‘I detest acoustic sets. I don’t want to earn a living doing something I hate. I know it’s selfish, but if I don’t take the chance now, I’ll always be thinking about what might have been. You’re covered, you’ve got this house and your modelling work, your friends, all your other interests. Besides, it may turn out to be good for both of us. It’s not going to be for ever.’

He wanted to take off. Paul had already decided to fulfil his dream and travel around the world. He explained he would be back in six months, nine at the most. Paris, Nice, Amsterdam, Prague, Greece, Russia, Thailand, Vietnam, Japan-he had already described the itinerary in detail. She wondered how long the idea had been forming in his head. She wanted to argue that he was running away from his problems, that if he couldn’t make it here and now, building a new home with her, then she was not about to wait around for him. But the words dried in her mouth.

‘I could go with you.’ She hadn’t meant to suggest it, because she knew what he would say.

‘I’ll be doing bar and DJ work to pay my way. What would you do? You’re happy in your own home, it’s what you always wanted.’

She had promised herself that she would discuss the matter rationally, but now a crackling cloud of panic settled on her. ‘I don’t know. There’s something wrong here and I don’t understand-while you were away I became so nervous, it’s not like me, I kept hearing water, and it felt as though someone had been in the house behind my back, my stuff was moved around-’

‘You’re just over-sensitive to the fact that the old lady died here, Kal. And there are pipes running under the bathroom floor. How do you think the water drains away?’

‘There was that awful thing, the crayfish, in the garden. It’s like we’re living at the coast instead of being in the centre of town.’

‘But you love it, and I know you’ll settle. You took a year off and got the travel bug out of your system. Can’t you see how unhappy I am? If I wait any longer, I’ll grow old and die under these fucking grey skies without ever having experienced the world.’ He untangled her reluctant hands from his. ‘I have to, Kal, this place is killing what we have. I don’t feel at home here. I have to go.’

She found it hard to believe this was the same man who had said he would never leave. Something deep within him had changed. Paul’s determination to be free of her finally made her cry. She sobbed because now there was no going back to what they had shared, because he had not answered his mobile, and because she had seen the faint crescent of the lovebite on his neck.