The Truth Hurts

Over the course of a year, Rosemary had come to rely on André’s e-mails, the way a kicked dog relies on a treat. For a few minutes each week, he beamed her up out of her routine, ordinary life and put her somewhere special. His stories about artists were like food for her soul. Getting an e-mail from him put her in such a good mood that she’d sing pop songs while doing the household chores. She put extra slices of beef into her husband’s sandwiches and extra fabric conditioner into the family’s wash. She’d bake batches of fairy cakes and carefully apply the coconut icing with a piping bag. 

Not getting an e-mail produced the opposite effect. She’d stock her husband’s lunch box with egg-mayo sandwich filler, spread on stale bread. She’d stay up late and sit in her office, an old typewriter pushed up against the door. She’d read and reread the last e-mail she’d received, drinking the words like wine, looking for secret codes in the text, like a hopeless Christian with a cheap Gideon’s Bible. 

Sometimes, before she fell asleep, she fantasised about running away to Bordeaux. She thought about sitting on a sunny terrace overlooking an emerald green vineyard, drinking a Cabernet Sauvignon, like a real-life Shirley Valentine. She fantasised about a dirty weekend with André. She would take the Eurostar and he would meet her at the station and take her overnight case. They’d hold hands and stare at the paintings in the Parisian galleries. They’d order room service and get crumbs from their croissants in the bed. 

She fantasised about sitting for one of André’s portraits. She’d lie naked on a red leather chaise longue, a flimsy white sheet covering her pubis, her body steeped in André’s undivided attention. They were only fantasies; they were allowed to be clichés. She had no intention of carrying them out. Sometimes she only fantasised that she was a student in André’s art class, listening to him talk about the way to create a realistic vanishing point. 

Lately, though, his e-mails had become fewer and fewer. She was lucky if she got one a fortnight. Each one opened with an apology. ‘Je suis désolé …’ He said he was busy with marking, but he’d never been busy with marking before. 

Also the e-mails’ content was becoming shorter. Often they’d only contain one uninspired sentence. ‘When the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre a guard noticed it missing the morning it was taken but assumed that the museum photographer had taken it.’ Or, ‘Rubens’s Massacre of the Innocents was actually painted by his students – he only added the finishing touches later.’ 

When she did get an e-mail she worried that it would be the last. She had nightmares about her inbox remaining forever empty. She’d get up in the night to check her mail and often when there was nothing, she felt suicidal. Please let there be something, she’d think, just an offer for half-price Viagra, or a cheap penis enlargement procedure in a Venezuelan clinic. Anything! Something! The last e-mail she’d got had been a few weeks before she lost her connection. As ever it had begun with an apology, which was followed by three empty lines. On the fourth, it said, ‘Work, work, work. No play. More soon. AAx.’

The repairman sighed, blowing a stray hair out of his face. He was gazing at Rosemary, waiting for her to speak. ‘Actually, it’s not really an affair,’ she said in an attempt to brush off the confession, ‘more an ongoing conversation.’ The repairman was silent. ‘He talks to me about art,’ Rosemary said. ‘He’s an art teacher, and an artist. He just talks to me about his work. It’s quite fascinating. He lives in Bordeaux.’

‘French,’ the repairman said. ‘Like you.’ 

‘Yes, French,’ Rosemary said, her voice sour. As if nationality had anything to do with it! She was beginning to regret telling the repairman anything. ‘I’ve never met him,’ she said, ‘so it’s not technically an affair. That was a Freudian slip.’ She tried to smile, her shoulders hunched. ‘Who could resist a Frenchman?’ 

‘You ought to be careful who you talk to on the Internet,’ Aaron said. ‘It’s a dangerous place. It’s no different to going out alone at night. In some cases it’s worse. When you can’t see who you’re talking to, how do you know they’re genuine? There are thieves, hackers, not to mention the perverts. He could be just trying to get at your bank details, or your phone number, or your address.’ 

He nodded to confirm his point, his eyes serious. ‘Only last week some fella in London was stabbed and mugged. He was responding to an advert for a car. He had the money to pay for it in a plastic grocery bag, five thousand pounds. There was no car, just a couple of wrong’uns armed with guns. They saw him coming.’ 

‘Don’t be so absurd,’ Rosemary said. ‘André’s a real person. That’s his real name. He’s an art teacher at a school. How else would he know so much about art? He told me that when Picasso was born, the birth was so difficult, and the baby was so weak, the midwife thought he was stillborn. She put the baby down on a chair and turned to attend to the mother. Also he told me that Picasso was christened with twenty-three names but Picasso wasn’t one of them. Picasso was his mother’s middle name. His father’s name was Blasco, or Basclo, something like that.’ She wasn’t managing to control her excitement very well.

‘How do you know?’ Aaron said. 

‘André!’ Rosemary said. ‘André told me.’ 

‘I mean, how do you know that this André is a real person? How do you know that he lives in Bordeaux? How do you know he’s not some psychotic stalker watching you from a house across the road?’ 

Rosemary laughed loudly, the sound echoing around the tiny room. ‘Because I do,’ she said. ‘I just do.’ She thought about his profile image. He was an old man, with lanky, white hair. If he was pretending to be 

someone else surely he’d use a better 

picture. He’d pretend to be young, dark, and athletic. 

‘He’s never asked me for any personal details,’ Rosemary said. Too bad, because she would have given them to him without question. She often wondered why he didn’t try to further their relationship, why he didn’t ask her for more pictures, why he didn’t suggest a meeting. She supposed that somewhere in her subconscious she had decided that he was married with children, that his family had no interest in his career. Like her, he was unappreciated, undervalued. He was lonely. ‘Nobody could know that much about art unless they really loved it,’ Rosemary said. ‘He’s cultured and passionate, all the things British men aren’t.’ She looked at the wall behind Aaron’s head, staring into the distance. ‘He told me things that only an artist would know.’ 

‘Do you love him?’ Aaron blurted out, unexpectedly. The question was born from a mixture of jealousy and contempt. He thought that if the woman was going to the trouble of having an affair, it should have been with him. He was a real, physical person, sitting right there in front of her. He could talk to her about graphic design, and he could make sure her Internet connection was working. 

But Aaron had never had any luck with women. His own wife had left him for another man after only six months of marriage. He’d been on his own for six years now and, though he didn’t like to admit it, he’d been very lonely since his mother had died two years ago. ‘Well, do you?’ he said, prompting her. He had some leverage on her now. He could use the knowledge against her if the situation took a turn for the worse. Plus, another hour of heart-to-heart was another hundred pounds in the bank.

‘Of course I don’t love him!’ Rosemary said. ‘How can you love someone you’ve never met?’ Love was an emotion that took over and changed the course of your life. It made you want to have children. It allowed you to make compromises. Love was what had turned her into what she was today – a bored housewife and mother of two. 

It wasn’t love. It was just some kind of infatuation. But if that was the case, why was she so frantic to hear from him again? Why did his lack of contact make her feel so awful? It was the danger, the excitement of seeing a foreign man’s name in her inbox. It shone out of the small list of companies and work colleagues there, like a diamond in a heap of coal. It was the anticipation of what he was going to say next. For a whole year their unusual connection had remained pure because they had never met, because they had never even touched. It was the vulnerable nature of their relationship that turned her on. It wasn’t safe. It wasn’t reliable. It wasn’t predictable. It was the opposite of what her marriage was. ‘We’re friends,’ she said. ‘Pen pals, that’s all. I love the things he says, though. Does that help?’ 

Aaron frowned. ‘Have you ever heard of the term, “grooming”?’ he said. 

‘I told you,’ Rosemary said. ‘I’ve got a fourteen-year-old daughter.’ 

‘There you go then,’ Aaron shrugged. 

‘What on earth would André be grooming me for?’ she said. 

‘I told you. Burglary! Rape! There’s nothing to say an artist can’t be a serial killer, is there? In fact, Hitler was an artist. Grown women go missing after meeting dodgy men on the Internet all the time. It really isn’t that difficult to fool someone, you know. What does he know about you? He knows that you speak French, so he talks to you in French. You’re 

half French, so he tells you he lives in Bordeaux. You probably told him, somewhere along the line, that you like Picasso. Now he’s an expert on Picasso. They tell you what they know you want to hear. People like you are too trusting.’ 

‘It’s none of your business anyway,’ Rosemary said. 

Aaron shook his head. He was frustrated now. ‘I didn’t ask to be here, did I?’ he said. ‘I could have had you up and running by now. If you hadn’t handcuffed me to the chair I’d be gone. You could have been online, talking to lover boy, talking to Jean Pierre.’ 

‘He’s not a boy,’ Rosemary said. ‘He’s not my lover, either.’

‘You don’t really know what he is, do you?’ Aaron said. The metal cuff was beginning to bite at his wrist. The feathers were aggravating his skin. The clock said it was gone twelve. He already had more money than he knew what to do with. He wanted to go now. ‘How about you unlock the cuffs?’ he said. ‘I’ll fix the connection and there’ll be no more said about it.’

Rosemary looked thoughtful. She slid off the edge of the desk and stood facing him, calmly considering his offer. 

‘What do you think?’ he said, encouraging her. ‘What happens in the French translator’s office stays in the French translator’s office.’ He smiled. 

The woman wiped at the dark make-up smudge on her cheekbone, spreading the stain further across her face. ‘Do you know what?’ she said. ‘I forgot to bring you your tea.’ She marched out of the room. Aaron bit his bottom lip.