May 1970, almost eighteen months earlier
Deborah Rainer waited just long enough for her husband to lift himself off her and roll over on to his back before pulling her white lace nightdress down to cover her body. The gesture eased her anxiety a little. She was already fretting about how she was going to prepare for the Bible study she was supposed to be leading at church in two hours’ time, and she was resenting him for asking for sex on a Wednesday afternoon, when he knew she always had Bible study on Wednesday evening. Their time for sex was Sunday afternoon, after lunch, when she had got through morning worship and Sunday school and could relax until it was time for evening worship. And he was still asking her to take off her nightdress, when he knew that she preferred to keep it on. She had pulled it up for him while they were under the covers, as she always did. What more did he expect?
He was still naked and breathing heavily, looking up at the ceiling as if he were unaware of her. Why hadn’t he covered himself up? Why was he so remote, so inconsiderate? Did he still love her? Why didn’t he hold her in his arms after sex any more? He used to when they were first married. Was it because she couldn’t have children? What had she done to make God punish her like that?
He was aware of her. Out of the corner of his eye, he had watched her go through the routine of pulling down her nightdress, signalling the end of their intimacy for the day. And as he gazed up at the ceiling, he was wondering how he had allowed his life to come to this: to a childless house in Guildford; to sex once a week by appointment with a woman who fretted about Bible study and pulled her nightdress up and down to announce the beginning and end of play, like a referee with his whistle; to a sexual adequacy dependent on summoning up fantasies about old girlfriends, or women he met professionally, or socially, or saw at a distance on the train or in the street.
‘I don’t know why you have to stay up in town over the weekend, Conrad,’ she was grumbling as she climbed out of bed and began to dress. ‘You’re going to miss church again on Sunday, and I know Pastor Brogan has started to notice; and I was hoping you might come to Bible study with me this evening. I feel more confident when you’re with me.’
He got up and reached for his dressing gown.
‘I’m sorry, Deborah. I can’t. It’s this fraud case I’ve told you about. It’s coming on next month and I’m not ready. Besides, you lead Bible study perfectly well. You don’t need me there every time.’
‘Every time? I can’t remember the last time you came with me.’
‘It was last month.’
‘It’s been at least two months, closer to three.’
‘Be that as it may, I can’t do it tonight. I have work to do.’
‘That’s the excuse you make every time you stay up in town.’
‘I’m a Silk now, Deborah, a QC. You know what that means. Professionally, I can only take more difficult cases, more complicated cases; and complicated cases take time. I explained all that to you when we took the flat in London. I told you there would be nights away. I don’t know why you have to keep bringing it up.’
‘It’s not just nights away, though, is it, Conrad? You’re sometimes gone for most of the week.’
‘I’m gone when I have to be. I came home yesterday evening, didn’t I? We’ve had a fuck on a weekday afternoon. I’m doing what I can, Deborah.’
‘Don’t use that word. You know I don’t like it.’
She was dressed now, apart from her shoes. She looked at him in silence for some time as he opened the wardrobe to take out his suit.
‘I need you for church committee next Tuesday evening. I promised Pastor Brogan you would talk to him about planning permission for the new church hall.’
He nodded.
‘Yes, all right; not that I know anything about planning permission – it’s hardly my field.’
‘You know a lot more than he does, and you know who to talk to about it.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘What train are you catching?’
‘The first one I can get. I’m off to the station now.’
‘Phone me before you go to sleep,’ she said, leaving him alone in the bedroom.
It was after 7 o’clock by the time Conrad arrived at his flat in a fashionable block in the Barbican, the City of London’s new upmarket residential area. He unpacked the few things he had brought with him. It didn’t take long. There was not much he had to carry back and forth between Guildford and the flat any more. During the five years of his tenancy, he had made himself more or less self-sufficient there. Deborah still seemed to have a mental image of him camping out, sitting on packing cases and brewing tea over a paraffin burner, huddling over it to keep warm in winter. But Deborah, by choice, had hardly ever set foot in the place, and had no real idea of what it was like. She preferred to pretend that it was no more than a temporary expedient, or a fad of which he would eventually tire. But it had long since become a comfortable home from home. He had furnished it tastefully, with every imaginable comfort, and he lacked for nothing. It was an extravagance, but he could afford it. He was doing well in Silk, and if he ever had a quiet period there was always Deborah’s trust fund, over which he now had as much control as she did. Just as well, too, given her propensity to be an easy touch every time Pastor Brogan came calling for a contribution to whatever new project he had in his sights.
Opening the sideboard in his living room, Conrad gratefully selected another reason for enjoying his London sanctuary – a bottle of good whisky. Deborah wouldn’t have it in the house in Guildford. He could barely get away with a beer at the weekend, or wine with dinner once in a while. Pastor Brogan wouldn’t approve even of that; there was always the feeling of dabbling in a forbidden pleasure, like some Prohibition-era American taking a solitary, nerve-racking drink of some nameless hooch in the darkness of his cellar. But not here. In the Barbican, he could enjoy a glass of beer, or wine, or whisky, or whatever else he wanted, whenever he wanted it; and now he sat relaxing on his sofa, nursing a large glassful, looking out over the quiet night-time City streets, and thinking again of Barbara, a free-spirited friend of his student days, the memory of whose generous hands had been the inspiration for his laboured passion with Deborah during the afternoon. Whatever had become of Barbara? He had heard that she had taken a job in Canada. Was that true? Had she stayed, or returned?
By 9 o’clock he was ready to eat something. The other benefit of the flat was that it had made him take an interest in cooking. Conrad would never be an adventurous or experimental cook, but he had taught himself to prepare a range of basic meals that didn’t take too long and didn’t leave a huge pile of washing up. He knew his limits as a domestic manager, and the rule was to keep it quick and simple. Tonight, a cheese omelette seemed right, with a glass or two of Beaujolais.
At 11 o’clock, he called Deborah to tell her that he was ready for bed, and listened patiently to her account of Bible study, and how much better it would have been with him there, and how Pastor Brogan sent his prayers and best wishes for his fraud case. When the conversation ended, he put on his jacket and adjusted his tie, switched off all the lights except the one by the front door, and made his way out of the building.