Secrets

After she met Sean Reilly, Lynn spent a lot of time trying to work out when her marriage had started to go wrong. She puzzled over it, while she was ironing Matthew’s shirts or getting the children’s supper or weeding the garden. Not that she supposed it would help her if she knew the exact moment, but it seemed important to pin it down, rather like trying to remember where you had last seen a beloved object, now lost for ever.

They had been totally happy when they got married, that much was certain, despite the fact that she was pregnant and Matthew hadn’t taken his final architectural exams. ‘Getting off to a bad start,’ her aunt called it, but they knew she was wrong and pitied her for being single. They couldn’t understand how anyone could be nervous on their wedding day. Nerves surely implied doubts, whereas they were radiantly sure of themselves and each other. Most of their favourite pop songs at that time said something about being two against the world. Looking back now, she sometimes wondered if they had needed the illusion of a hostile world to make themselves feel invincible.

She couldn’t recall a single argument during her healthy, interminable pregnancy in the cramped cold-water flat where they could hardly afford to run the metered gas fire and studied instead with blankets round their legs and overcoats blocking the draught under the door. In those days they went to bed early as much for warmth as to make love before they were too tired to enjoy it. Coming home from work or night-school, she used to pause on the landing to catch her breath before attempting the two final flights of stairs, or wedge herself into the loo, which was designed to be so space-saving that in the final month of pregnancy you could not actually close the door. Matthew, who said the designer should be bricked up inside it, was meanwhile standing guard outside or making occasional forays into the shared bathroom to light the geyser. He was justly proud of his expertise: the geyser was famous throughout the house. If provoked, or approached by an alien hand, it was known to retaliate by blasting the intruder across the room, and there were other tenants with singed eyebrows to prove it.

The slow painful hospital labour and forceps delivery were a shock. Previously convinced of her own health and vigour, positively smug about the ease with which all physical activities came to her, she felt her body had let her down for the first time. She was appalled to find herself repeatedly dissolving into tears, despite the euphoria she felt at the sight of her daughter. Post-natal depression was something which blighted other less fortunate women, something she had read about, pitied and forgotten, like plague in a distant country.

So was that the beginning, the first crack in the dream? Should they perhaps have stitched up her mind in hospital along with her body? But she recovered so quickly that she couldn’t really believe it had happened to her. Matthew was understanding and supportive, changing nappies, sharing bottle feeds, getting up in the night. Through a mixture of saving and borrowing, they managed to move to an unfurnished ground-floor flat with garden, where she could hang washing on the line and leave Emma outside to breathe fresh air. Her friends said how lucky she was, and she agreed with them. Only – there was a difference. They were parents now, she and Matthew. Responsible people. Not lovers or newlyweds any more. She fancied he looked different in some subtle way: older, more careworn. She worried, and peered in the mirror to see if the same thing had happened to her. Then she remembered when last she had done that, after making love for the first time, and laughed at herself for being so foolish. What was there to fear, after all? It was all perfectly natural, a part of growing up. She was on a par with her parents now, a fully-fledged adult. But she missed the carefree romantic days – and then she felt guilty for missing them. She felt a part of herself and Matthew had died and she wept for the loss, then blamed herself for weeping. In between all these bouts of guilt and tears she was extremely happy, busy and tired.

They decided to have a second baby two years later because that seemed a sensible gap and both of them had hated being only children. Lynn’s friend Angie, also an only child, said they were crazy because it was a great thing to be. All that love and attention and a room of your own. No problems about sharing your toys. A fine preparation for life, she said, which was really about grabbing as much as you could for yourself, although nobody liked to admit it. Lynn privately thought Angie might indeed be right, but it was more complicated than that: she wanted an intentional baby this time instead of an accident, however welcome. She wanted the experience of deliberately choosing something as important as a child, but she preferred to disguise this craving and present it as a socially acceptable desire to make sure Emma wasn’t lonely.

Tom was surprisingly difficult to conceive: he took them a year of what amounted in the end almost to hard work. It was a strange sensation to be neither pregnant nor afraid of pregnancy nor avoiding pregnancy. She had imagined that trying to have a baby would be pure delight: instead it soon became an anxiety. They were not making love for fun any more: they had a serious purpose in view. The longer it took to achieve that purpose, the less enjoyable and the more dutiful it became. The joyous freedom she had imagined turned into a nagging worry. ‘Have we managed it this time?’ she thought, and each month was disappointed. ‘Is there something wrong?’ was the next thought, rapidly pushed away but constantly recurring. The more Matthew tried to reassure her, the more angry she became. She was amazed and disconcerted by her own sense of failure: it was savage and destructive. Then suddenly she was pregnant and all was well. The worries belonged to another life, another person.

This time she was very sick during the pregnancy but the birth was easy. Jokingly, she had promised Matthew a son, so she was triumphant. They had long ago agreed they could only afford two children, and everyone congratulated her on producing one of each sex. Life should have been idyllic, yet looking back now, she saw a great sense of unease and dismay. Matthew was less helpful with Tom than he had been with Emma.

‘The novelty’s worn off,’ Lynn teased him, determined not to nag, but he didn’t smile.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I know I’m not pulling my weight but I’m so worried.’

It took ages to get him to tell her what he was worried about. They sat up talking for hours, Lynn glazed with exhaustion from coping with Tom, a cheerful but frenetic baby who hardly seemed to need any sleep at all, and Emma, whose whole personality had changed under the weight of that terrible new experience jealousy, making her fretful and clinging, babyish and destructive by turns. Lynn felt (and tried to say) that she had never needed Matthew’s help more, but here he was telling her that all he could think about was being passed over for promotion, not getting Greg’s job, which had been almost promised to him before Greg left, and instead having to watch it being given to Peter, who had no original ideas, who was totally unimaginative, who had hardly been with the firm any time at all.

She agreed it was unfair but tried to suggest it also didn’t matter as much as he thought because another chance of promotion was bound to come along; it was only a matter of being patient.

That apparently was the wrong thing to say. Matthew became very angry, telling her she didn’t understand. If they thought so little of him, maybe it was time he looked for a job elsewhere. Unless, of course, his qualifications simply weren’t good enough. He sounded very bitter when he said that.

‘Don’t be silly,’ she said, ‘of course they are.’

He looked at her as if it was all her fault and said grimly, ‘How do you know? They’d better be, that’s all, or we’ll never be able to afford a house.’

She argued there was no urgent need for a house: it would be nice, of course, lovely, wonderful (when she saw from his face that nice was the wrong word) but it could wait, it was something to look forward to, and meanwhile the flat was perfectly all right.

No, it wasn’t, he said furiously, it was too small, it was positively squalid, it was no place to bring up two children, and the people upstairs drove him mad with their heavy feet and loud music.

‘I expect we drive them mad having rows and crying babies,’ she said because she was so tired, before she realised he was in fact showing her the anger he dared not show his boss. ‘You wanted Tom as much as I did,’ she said, ‘and the flat hasn’t shrunk.’

At which point he yelled at her, ‘God, you’re so stupid, can’t you understand how I feel if I can’t even look after my own family properly?’ Both children woke up and started to cry and the people upstairs banged on the floor.

For a long time after that, Lynn felt she had three children to look after instead of two. It was her task to boost Matthew’s confidence so that he could keep on applying for jobs, going to interviews and tolerating rejection. It was uphill work because the more he lost faith in himself, the more she lost faith in him. She had never doubted his ability before and now he had put doubts in her mind. She was terrified. Suppose he was right to be unsure? Here they all were, all three of them, depending on him. What would happen if he really couldn’t cope? They would have to stay in the flat for ever and it was too small and it was shabby and she couldn’t imagine why she had ever defended it so staunchly because she did want a house. In fact there were times when she wanted a house more than anything else in the world. Matthew, by telling her it was important, had somehow made it become an obsession.

When Matthew wasn’t behaving like a dependent child in constant need of reassurance, she felt he switched disconcertingly to the other extreme, becoming a critical parent, forever turning off lights, exclaiming over the phone bill and deploring the way she spent money. She didn’t like Matthew as child or parent; she wanted her lover/friend/husband back again, but that person seemed gone for ever or at best glimpsed briefly and tantalisingly, like someone disappearing round a corner before you have time to attract their attention.

Her mother told her she should be glad Matthew was so responsible. Her friends told her that all marriages went through long dull patches and some never came out of them. Everyone seemed to think she had unreasonable expectations and it served her right if she was disappointed. Everyone except Angie, that is. Angie was getting divorced and going to live in the country. ‘I’m bored,’ Angie said, ‘and boredom is bad for my health. I’m going to be a mistress again because that’s what I’m good at.’ Friends said Angie was only being flippant to cover up how deeply hurt she was. Others said bitterly it was all right for Angie, she didn’t have any children. Lynn’s mother said she had always known Angie was a bad influence. Lynn thought how much she was going to miss her.

Lynn and Matthew saved money. They stayed in and watched television instead of hiring babysitters and going to the pictures. They got Chinese or Indian takeaways instead of going out to dinner. They didn’t talk very much or make love very often because they were always so tired, and when they did make the effort (though she resented thinking of it like that) it was such a half-hearted performance she often felt they might as well not have bothered. Then she felt guilty. That was the one thing she still seemed to be good at. ‘You’re not guilty, you’re angry,’ said Angie, getting on the train to Somerset. ‘Tell him.’ Lynn agreed with her but she didn’t tell him.

Matthew eventually got the job he wanted. They moved to Hounslow to be near his work. They bought a rather nasty little semi-detached house which was going cheap because it was near the motorway. She thought it was strange that he cared so much about good design for other people, yet didn’t seem to mind living in a house like that. Or perhaps he did mind but was being brave about it. She felt she hardly knew what went on in his head any more and was afraid to ask in case he told her. If their marriage was in serious trouble, she thought, in a cold sweat of terror when she woke, as she regularly did, at two or four in the morning after dreaming of missed trains and lost suitcases, then she really didn’t want to know.

They had been married eight years, both children were at school and Lynn had just managed to get a part-time job as an interviewer when she found she was pregnant again. At first she was incredulous; then she wept savage tears. She wanted to kill her doctor, who had insisted she came off the Pill for a rest and assured her that other methods of contraception were just as reliable if you were highly motivated. She told Matthew, who was equally appalled. They did not want another child, now or ever, much as they loved the two they had. It would mean going right back to the beginning again. They only had three bedrooms. She would have to give up her job, which had been so hard to find, before she had even started it. They had never been in such total agreement about anything: a new baby would be a disaster. Yet part of her resented the fact that he did not say, ‘Don’t worry, we’ll manage somehow. It’ll be all right.’

They discussed abortion and found they could not do it. They had no religious beliefs, they advocated abortion on demand as a matter of right for other people, but when it came to the point they found they were incapable of choosing it for themselves. Nightmare closed in. They were trapped.

Lynn tramped round houses and flats and high-rise blocks asking people questions about things they bought and the money they spent and the journeys they made. She filled in the answers on the questionnaires the agency had given her. Some of the answers were pre-coded and she only had to put a circle round a number, but if she got an unusual answer there was a space for ‘Other: please specify’. There were not many unusual answers, but a lot of the people she interviewed wanted to tell her their troubles and if she stayed too long, being polite and sympathetic, she found that she ended up working for almost nothing. All the time she was praying to the God she did not believe in, to be merciful and let her have a miscarriage. And at three months He answered her prayers.

The shock and the relief were overwhelming, but instantly swamped by the sense of guilt. She and Matthew both felt like murderers. They had willed the baby to go and it had gone. Lynn was sure she felt worse than if she had actually had an abortion. Several of her friends had had abortions and seemed quite cheerful afterwards. She felt like a witch in a fairytale, who had put an evil spell on the unborn. She was certain she would be punished for it.

She couldn’t discuss it with Matthew because they were fellow conspirators, driven apart by their shared guilt, like Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, whom she had once played in a school production. They didn’t discuss it and they didn’t make love. She wanted to talk to her friends but feared they would think she was going mad. Only Angie understood. Flippant Angie, the bad influence, now earning a precarious living as a market gardener near Taunton and revelling in her role as mistress to no less than three men, who all claimed she was saving their marriages. Angie took it in her stride. ‘This is a crisis,’ she said firmly. ‘You must see your doctor, talk to Matthew, go to marriage guidance. Anything. You’re not like me, you take things to heart and you won’t bounce back without help. Please. I’m serious.’ Lynn loved her for saying it, but she didn’t or couldn’t take her advice.

So she was absolutely ready (although in no sense prepared) for Sean Reilly when she met him a few weeks later at London Airport. She was asking people a lot of tedious questions about how often they flew and whether it was business or pleasure and how they rated the facilities on different airlines. Some of the passengers were only too pleased to be interviewed; others were tired and cross and jet-lagged. Sean Reilly impressed her at once with his air of brisk efficiency blended with just enough charm not to seem abrasive. He was darker than Matthew and a few inches shorter, although heavier in build, and he had the startling green eyes that sometimes go with Irish colouring. She found herself thinking what an attractive man he was, and that in itself gave her a shock, as if she had just woken up after long hibernation. He carried hand luggage only and described himself as a frequent traveller, working for a merchant bank. He answered all the questions she had to ask him as if they were of real interest (which was clearly impossible) then when she had finished he gave her a quite unnecessary smile and said, ‘I’ve enjoyed talking to you. I do hope we meet again.’ To her own amazement she heard herself say ‘So do I.’

Mercifully he was out of sight before the full idiotic schoolgirl blush engulfed her. The next few interviews passed in a blur and she thought about him all the way home on the tube. It was like meeting a film star unexpectedly. She couldn’t remember when last she had felt so ridiculously joyful. Half a minute of harmless flirtation, that was all it was, but it had transformed her day.

When she got home, Matthew was already preparing supper. He was better about cooking now that she had a part-time job. He had fetched the children back from June-next-door and they were watching their favourite television programme.

‘Hullo,’ he said when she went into the kitchen, ‘How was your day?’

She hesitated for a split second and decided, for no good reason, not to share her harmless secret with him. She preferred to hug it to herself. ‘Not bad,’ she said, feeling a great wave of deceitful glee. ‘How was yours?’

He said it was okay; she poured herself a drink and went into the other room to see the children. Their programme was just finishing and she was only in time to catch the credits. The name jumped out at her from the screen: presented by Anne Reilly.

It was like learning a new word: there was an unwritten law that you were bound to see it again three times within a short space of time. She went on interviewing at London Airport but didn’t see Sean Reilly or indeed any other attractive man. But the very next week there was a picture of Anne Reilly in the paper, receiving some award for her television programme, and an interview with her in which it said she had a husband called Sean who was a merchant banker. Lynn was thankful to be alone when she came upon all this information, as she was sure the shock it gave her would have been visible. Anne Reilly smiled up at her, one hand ruffling her short dark shiny cap of hair, the other clutching the award. She had a big wide smile and slightly too large teeth that were none the less endearing. She looked warm and friendly. You could see why all the children in the country adored her. The interviewer praised her successful career and her happy marriage. Anne Reilly modestly put it all down to a mixture of hard work and luck. The interviewer unkindly pointed out that despite all this, she didn’t have children of her own. Anne Reilly said that was the one great sorrow of her life and made the interviewer look like a heartless beast for mentioning it.

The day after that Lynn literally bumped into Sean Reilly at the airport as she was racing from loo to coffee lounge between interviews. ‘We can’t go on meeting like this,’ he said laughing as he picked up her bag and scattered questionnaires. ‘Come and have a drink with me, my flight’s been delayed.’

It was out of the question, of course. She had work to do; she had children to collect. She was breathless with shock at colliding with him, but there was absolutely no point in their having a drink together.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘That would be lovely.’

They sat in the bar and drank Martinis. She felt as if she were suddenly a character in an old film. She could not recall when she had last drunk a Martini or why it had suddenly become her favourite drink. His too, it appeared, or was he merely pretending? They talked about themselves: his green eyes staring at her made her feel mildly hypnotised. She could have told him anything. She felt she had known him all her life and yet he was still an exciting stranger who terrified her.

‘I don’t even know your name,’ he said after the second Martini.

‘Lynn Culver.’ Her throat was dry despite the drink. ‘And I should be working.’ But already it didn’t seem important any more.

‘We can make it all up,’ he said. ‘I’ll help you.’

‘I saw your wife in the paper,’ she said, ‘getting her award.’

‘Would you believe me,’ he said, ‘if I told you I’ve thought of nothing but you since we met?’

‘No,’ she said automatically, but she did believe him because she wanted to, and she smiled.

‘If you gave me your telephone number,’ he said, ‘I could ring and invite you to lunch.’

She was overjoyed and confused; her heart seemed to do a disconcerting leap that made it hard for her to breathe. She muttered something about it all being impossible because of her husband and children; then she gave him her telephone number and watched him write it down in the back of his diary.

He rang a week later, when she had given up hope, despaired on the phone to Angie, cursed herself for being stupid and vain. He rang when she was loading the washing machine, prior to going to the supermarket. ‘Hullo,’ he said. ‘Sean Reilly. D’you remember me?’

She said yes, she did, trembling.

‘Lynn?’ he said hesitatingly.

‘Yes?’

‘I wanted to ask you to lunch,’ he said, ‘but you sound so remote. Are you all right?’

‘Yes, of course, I’m fine.’ She heard her own voice, so cool, so detached, and marvelled that it could come out of her own throat.

‘It’s not the same at Heathrow without you,’ he said. ‘I wanted to ring before but I’ve been away, and when I got back they had a very inferior type of interviewer. Could I complain to someone, d’you think?’

She laughed. She assumed that was what she was meant to do. The tiny joke eased the tension and she suddenly felt relaxed with him again. ‘Ah well,’ she said, ‘you see, I’m so expensive, they simply can’t afford me all the time.’ Which was one way of explaining that she was lucky to have a part-time job at all.

‘I’m sure you must be very much in demand,’ he said, ‘but I do hope you can find time to have lunch with me one day next week. Would Tuesday or Friday be any good for you? Could you look at your diary?’

She glanced at the calendar where all the social engagements, such as dentist and PTA, were scribbled. Now was the moment to stop all this nonsense. They were playing a silly game and they both knew it. Of course lunch was innocuous in itself, but its implications were not. She was flattered and that must be enough.

‘I think Tuesday would be better for me,’ she said, her mind racing ahead. June-next-door could always collect the children from school on a Tuesday if Lynn was delayed at work, but she often went to see her mother on Fridays and sometimes Matthew came home early for the weekend.

‘Wonderful,’ Sean Reilly said. ‘How about the Savoy Grill at twelve thirty?’

Angie fell about laughing down the phone when Lynn told her that. ‘He’s certainly trying to impress you,’ she said.

‘He said it was near his office,’ Lynn added feebly, and Angie laughed even more. ‘And he gave me his office number to ring if I got delayed. So I can always cancel. That’s what I should do really. The whole thing is ridiculous. I know that.’

‘If you cancel,’ Angie said, ‘I’ll never speak to you again. This is a chance in a lifetime to cheer yourself up. It’s not actually a crime, you know, to have lunch with a man who isn’t your husband.’

‘But I’ve got nothing to wear,’ Lynn heard herself say.

‘That’s better. You’ve got that red dress you wore to my divorce.’

‘But that was a birthday present from Matthew.’

‘Well, it looked very nice in court. A blonde in a red dress always looks sexy. Especially with legs like yours. Even my solicitor was impressed and he’s half dead. And you must wear those silly shoes, the ones you got in Bally sale.’

‘But I can’t walk in them.’

‘Of course you can’t, but you can totter very nicely. Just travel in your wellies and change in the loo. I’ve heard rumours that they actually let you sit down for lunch at the Savoy Grill. That’s probably why it’s so expensive. Now please may I go? There’s a load of manure outside that’s really demanding my attention.’

Lynn had the red dress cleaned, smuggled it in and out of the house like contraband. When she was alone, she practised walking in the silly shoes. They hurt so much that after a while her feet went numb, but they certainly did wonderful things for her legs, Angie was right about that. Then she suddenly wondered what all the fuss was about. Sean Reilly had already seen her at Heathrow in jeans and jersey, with no make-up.

Matthew had taken on a lot of freelance work so they could afford a proper holiday abroad. He spent most of the weekend at his drawing board which was set up in a corner of the living-room and she watched him covertly while she did the ironing. Through the window she could hear the delighted squeals of Emma and Tom visiting June-next-door, whose popularity had soared since she acquired a puppy. It was a typical family weekend.

Lynn tried to see the Matthew she had married, the young man now submerged under a load of domestic responsibility. She remembered thinking of him in her teens as a replacement for the teddy bear she had grown out of: all brown hair and brown eyes and cuddly warmth, always in touch with her moods, ready with understanding and comfort. Where had that image gone? Matthew looked much the same physically; he hadn’t really aged any more than she had. But in some way he had turned in upon himself, become shut down, as if for protection. Had she burdened him so greatly with her pregnancies, her miscarriage, her need for financial support mixed with just the right amount of independence, her conflicting demands for sex and celibacy, conversation and silence? Had she, in short, been impossible? Or had he withdrawn from her for reasons of his own? Should they be discussing this very subject or was it safer to leave well alone?

‘Coffee?’ she said.

‘Thanks.’

She unplugged the iron and went into the kitchen. While she was making the coffee she thought about Tuesday. She felt like a naughty child planning to play truant from school. She prayed that neither Matthew nor Tom nor Emma would go down with an infectious disease on Monday night. Where could she legitimately be going in the red dress at that hour on Tuesday morning? To an interview with another agency, she decided, in the hope of getting more and better paid work. But would even that worthy intention justify leaving the sick one on their bed of pain to be cared for by June-next-door or Rosemary-opposite?

She went back into the living-room with the coffee and Matthew took it out of her hand without looking up from his drawing. ‘I think this might be good,’ he said in tones of real enthusiasm. ‘They’re mad about roof terraces, these people, and they’ve got money to burn. I might have to go and stay with them again to get it all sorted out.’ It was one of the features of his new job and his freelance work that he occasionally had to spend a night away from home.

‘It looks terrific,’ she said, although she had never really learnt to read plans properly, and he knew it, so he laughed, though not unkindly. She envied him work that could make him so visibly excited. She envied the clients with money to burn and wondered if they were at all like Sean and Anne Reilly. Then she reflected that envy was not an attractive quality and she should give it up. The children came back from playing with the puppy and Matthew stopped working and had a game with them while she prepared supper. She thought what a lucky woman she was and how grateful she ought to be for her good fortune.

God was indulgent to her and nobody fell ill on Monday night. She lay awake for hours, listening to Matthew’s steady breathing and wondering how he could possibly fall asleep without noticing how tense she was beside him. She finally took a pill and had terrible dreams about buses going in wrong directions and herself getting off and waiting on the kerb for the next one but knowing it was already too late to reach her destination on time.

Tuesday dawned bright and sunny. Everyone was healthy and departed for work or school. Her hands shook as she did her make-up but she had an absurd sense of wellbeing. She was actually going to be allowed this enormous pointless treat, like a prisoner out on parole. No one was going to arrive and say her permit had been cancelled.

Sean Reilly was every bit as mesmerising as she remembered him. There had been an awful moment on the tube when she imagined he might have turned into some kind of odious conceited boring dwarf. He seemed impressed enough with the red dress and the silly shoes to gratify even Angie; he said, ‘I was afraid you might cancel,’ and when they were both looking at the menu, she noticed that his hands were ever so slightly shaking. She felt instantly better: excited but calm. A woman of the world at last – what a joke. It had only taken her twenty-eight years to achieve it.

The prices made her dizzy, but she ordered what she wanted, although by the time it arrived she could hardly taste it. They had had several drinks and discovered a shared passion for Humphrey Bogart. They spent much of the meal trying to out-do each other with their memories of his films, but all the time Sean Reilly was looking at her as if he was thinking of something much more intimate. She found herself wanting him in such a basic physical way that she developed the sort of pelvic ache she only dimly remembered from the early days with Matthew. She was ashamed, and she also did not care. She felt beautiful and desirable and strong. She felt alive again. Fun had been missing from her life but now she was having precisely that once again. A line from the Beatles came to her: ‘Fun is the one thing money can’t buy,’ yet here was Sean Reilly’s money buying it for her. Then she remembered the line came from a song called ‘She’s Leaving Home’, and she was suddenly frightened.

She had talked about Emma and Tom as well as Humphrey Bogart. After lunch, Sean said he had an appointment in Chiswick, so they could share a taxi and she would be in time to collect her children from school. In the taxi she found herself badly wanting him to kiss her, but instead he held her hand and said, ‘You’ve no idea how much I envy you having children.’ She was astonished but before she could say anything he added, ‘Anne doesn’t want them, you see.’

Lynn said, ‘But in the paper –’

He said, ‘Oh yes, she always says that to reporters, it sounds a lot better, the big grief. I can’t really blame her, she’s got a great career going – why should she give it up, even for a year?’

‘But you do blame her,’ Lynn said, because his voice made it clear and she already felt she knew him well enough to say so.

‘No,’ he said, letting go of her hand. ‘I blame myself for not getting all that straight before we got married.’ He got out of the taxi and paid the driver to take her on to Hounslow. ‘I hope I see you again,’ he said. ‘You’re very special. May I phone you?’

She was home in time to change out of the red dress before she had to explain it. She chewed mints so the children wouldn’t think she smelled of alcohol. Angie rang up and chortled and said Sean was being very subtle and clever with all this sad humility. ‘A man of experience,’ she said. ‘He’s been over the jumps before. Still, he’d be no use to you if he hadn’t.’ It was at times like this that Lynn regretted having told Angie that Matthew had been her first lover. Worse, that she had never kissed her previous boyfriends without clenching her teeth. It made her feel so old-fashioned, when the newspapers were telling her how permissive everyone else was. And now here she was feeling guilty for something she hadn’t even done yet. The way the word yet popped into her mind was alarming. She suddenly understood something that as a schoolgirl she had always thought was stupid: that bit in the Bible about committing adultery in your heart. It sounded like grounds for divorce. It also reminded her of food getting spoilt in the shops, like tins of salmon that had to be sent back before they poisoned you.

That night Matthew made love to her for the first time in many weeks. She couldn’t remember exactly how long it was but she knew she had thought resentfully that she might as well not bother taking the Pill, though she did. She had given up making the first move, however, because Matthew so often was not in the mood, and then she felt rejected and humiliated, which usually led to a row. It was simpler to ignore the whole issue, wait for him to be ready, and then go along with it, whether she was in the mood or not, because if she refused, then that too would lead to yet another row. She much preferred silence to rows. But that night it was all magical. She wondered if he had somehow picked up her mood of suppressed elation and that had made her subtly more attractive. Whatever the reason, Matthew made love to her that night and she fantasised about Sean Reilly.

After that it was only a matter of time. She went on meeting him for lunches in smaller and more intimate restaurants, or drinks in secluded pubs. She was always afraid of being seen by someone she knew, yet somehow also convinced she wouldn’t be. Their relationship seemed to have a magical element, a sort of time warp, that rendered them almost invisible, although they were present in the same places and at the same hours as everyone else. They talked about their marriages and their childhoods. Sometimes they just looked at each other without saying anything for what seemed like long spells of time. They held hands under the table and they kissed in taxis. She felt young again.

Her job proved a help and a hindrance. It gave her a legitimate excuse to be out, but the time she spent with Sean meant she either had to skimp her work or earn less money. Sometimes they sat together making up the answers to her questionnaires and she discovered there were more varieties of guilt than the merely sexual. She had always prided herself on her honesty, and here she was, cheating her employer and deceiving her husband, and all for what? Technically, nothing.

They both longed to make love but he did nothing to persuade her. ‘It’s different for me,’ he said. ‘Anne and I don’t sleep together any more, we’re more like brother and sister. But you and Matthew still have a real marriage. I wouldn’t like to do anything to harm that. So it has to be your decision. You know how much I want you – but only when you’re ready. Maybe you never will be. I have to risk that. It won’t change how I feel about you.’

Lynn didn’t repeat much of that to Angie. She could already hear Angie saying, ‘If you believe that, you’ll believe anything,’ and there was no way she could explain to Angie that she only had to look at Sean, hear his voice, to know he was telling the truth. ‘Irish blarney,’ Angie would say, in that jokey contemptuous way she had. ‘We know all about that, now don’t we?’

Matthew brought home holiday brochures and they discussed the relative merits of Italy and Yugoslavia. The children got excited: they had never been abroad. It was the same excitement Lynn remembered from her own childhood. What could this new strange experience possibly be like? But she noticed that Emma and Tom soon drifted back to the familiar delights of the television. She herself found it increasingly difficult to look at Anne Reilly’s cheerful face without wishing her ill.

Matthew was friendly, busy, remote. They made love about once a month now, but without much enthusiasm, as if they were doing it for their health. He went away on business every two or three weeks and he sometimes brought her back a present. One night when she was nearly asleep he suddenly put his arms round her and said in a low voice, ‘I’m sorry it’s not all better. I’m sorry we never really talked about the baby and all that.’ She was so startled that for a moment she couldn’t reply; then she said, ‘Never mind, it’s all right,’ and held his hand while she thought. Finally she added, feeling on some deep level that she still owed him her first loyalty, if only for this shared experience, ‘Maybe we still can.’ She waited for a reply but none came and she realised he must be asleep. She was angry, sad and relieved all at once, for the missed opportunity.

In some obscure way that was what made her go to Sean’s hotel room the next afternoon, although she couldn’t have explained it to anyone, not even Angie. It was as nearly spontaneous as anything could be after nearly four months of weekly meetings. She was having a drink with him at Heathrow where he had just arrived from Nice and was staying overnight to catch the morning flight to New York. It wasn’t worth going home, he said: Anne was away researching a programme about zoos. Home, she had long ago discovered, was a flat in Bryanston Square and a cottage near Newbury, but she had refused to visit either, no matter how sure he was that Anne wouldn’t be there. She felt it would be an invasion of territory, though she was intensely curious; she was also extremely afraid of getting caught.

But the airport, that awful crowded noisy neon place, seemed like home, their home, because they had met there. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to move on to the airport hotel, like going at the right moment from living-room to bedroom. They hung the ‘PLEASE DO NOT DISTURB’ notice on the door and turned to each other, looking and kissing, undressing and stroking. It could so easily have been a disappointment but it wasn’t, because they had waited long enough but not too long. Through some divine skill or luck, they had judged the moment just right. She forgot all about Matthew and the children and work and guilt and Angie’s jokes: she seemed to have deposited all those things with her clothes on the floor. She knew only that she and Sean were at last naked together on the bed and able to give each other unlimited pleasure, as if they had both been deprived for a long time. But it was more than that: it had all the excitement of strangers and the familiarity of friends. She felt abandoned, yet safe. She couldn’t remember ever before having such a sensation of release.

When it was finally over and they couldn’t come any more, they lay in a tousled, sweaty, untidy heap, with their bodies still entwined, gazing at each other so closely that their vision went slightly out of focus. She felt they had both been away on a long journey, together and yet separate. She heard the fatal words spoken: ‘Lynn, I love you,’ and her own voice answering: ‘I love you too.’ The solemnity of all this and its terrifying implications might have overwhelmed her but he had the instinct to turn the moment into something lighter, without taking anything away from it.

‘Promise me,’ he said, ‘give me your solemn word of honour you’ll never cut your hair,’ and suddenly she was laughing.

Angie was shocked. Lynn could hear the good old-fashioned honest shock in her voice. She had never imagined herself capable of shocking Angie.

‘You can’t be serious,’ Angie said. ‘This whole thing is meant to be about sex and lunches and presents. Not love. For heaven’s sake, you’ve got a husband and two children. That’s what love is about. That’s why it’s not exciting.’

‘I can’t believe this is you talking,’ Lynn said. ‘You sound exactly like my mother. That’s just what she’d say if she found out. Well, the last bit, anyway.’

‘I feel like your mother.’ Angie was almost shouting at her. ‘You do realise this is 1982 and people don’t have to fall in love to justify falling into bed. Particularly not if they’re married to other people. Particularly not if they’re you.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Lynn said humbly. ‘It just happened. I know it must sound crazy to you but –’

‘Yes, you’re right about that. You’ve lost your marbles.’

‘But I feel so happy,’ Lynn said, and almost laughed. She felt light-hearted and light-headed. ‘Can’t you be happy for me? There’s no one else I can tell.’

After a long pause, Angie sighed heavily. ‘Yes, of course I’m happy for you. In a way. I haven’t heard you sound like this for about ten years. In another way I’d like to kill myself because it’s all my fault you’re in this mess. I was the damn fool who encouraged you.’

‘I’d have done it anyway,’ Lynn said.

‘Maybe. All I can say in my own defence is, I never dreamed you’d be such an idiot as to fall in love.’

‘But we both have. That’s why it’s so wonderful. I wish you wouldn’t keep making it sound so one-sided.’

‘Listen,’ Angie said. ‘I have three of them down here, right? They all say they love me but I know they don’t and they know I know they don’t. They love their wives. They fancy me, that’s all. It’s a game. It’s all perfectly safe so long as you stick to the rules. But you, my poor sweet innocent child, are going to get badly hurt if you think for one minute –’

‘This is different,’ Lynn said firmly.

Angie let out a positive wail. ‘God help us. Now I’ve heard everything.’

Sean borrowed the flat of a friend who lived in Chiswick. It was above an estate agent’s, so Lynn could always say, if seen by neighbours, that she had been enquiring about property. She and Matthew had always hoped to live in Chiswick eventually, but it cost a lot more than Hounslow. She also could no longer actually imagine moving with Matthew to a new house anywhere.

Sean’s friend was away a lot because he worked for an airline, so they began to think of the flat as their own. They gave each other presents that could be left there discreetly, such as scent, scarves, records. They bought special champagne glasses. They sent one another cards to the same address, as if they were living together.

She began to feel she was two people. At home the calm friendly busy person Matthew knew. She marvelled that the explosive secret inside her did not leap out at him like a live thing. She waited daily for him to say, ‘Lynn, what’s happened? You look different,’ but he never did. She wasn’t sure if she was relieved or disappointed.

At the flat she was the excitable crazy romantic person Sean knew. The place was full of flowers and bottles of wine. They were always meeting to make love and drink champagne and talk, and they never had enough time for any of it. They certainly never had time to quarrel or get bored. One day she said that to him.

‘We wouldn’t anyway,’ he said with perfect confidence.

‘Yes, we would,’ she said. ‘Everyone does.’ But she didn’t believe it.

‘Not us,’ he said.

She began to daydream about letting her two selves merge. If she couldn’t get back the excitement with Matthew, could she find security with Sean? They joked about running away together.

‘Anne wouldn’t mind too much, would she?’ Lynn asked. ‘She’s got her career. She could have an affair with some television person, couldn’t she, and let you go?’

‘I’ve no idea,’ he said. ‘We don’t talk very much. We always seem to be having people to dinner.’

Lynn wondered where Anne found the energy for entertaining after a long hard day in the studio. It was ages since she and Matthew had had anyone to dinner, except her mother from a sense of duty.

‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘if we were together, the children would drive you mad.’

‘You know that’s nonsense,’ he said. ‘I love children. But you couldn’t take them away from Matthew. What’s he done to deserve that?’

She was never quite sure how serious these conversations were. Were they planning a future together or playing parts, as they had at their first lunch, pretending to be characters out of Humphrey Bogart films? When she went home, the sheer solidity of Matthew and the children shook her, the noise they made, the demands on her time, attention and energy, the actual reality of them filling the house. And yet they did all that without seeing her, Lynn, the person, who was all that Sean saw. She found herself shaking her head as if trying to clear a moment of double vision.

She felt sorry for Matthew these days, as if he were an old friend who had fallen upon hard times. She felt his life was still black and white, whereas hers had launched itself into technicolour. She felt great affection and pity for him and wanted to cook him nourishing meals to make up for all the emotion she could not give him. She was startled to find that her mind wandered even from the children, so that they often said in that cross, forthright way they had, ‘Mummy, you’re not listening.’ She no longer fantasised about Sean in bed but merely tried to avoid making love with Matthew, who seemed easily deterred.

Italy in August, the precious two weeks of blissful family foreign holiday they had all worked and saved for and looked forward to so avidly, now began to loom as an endurance test, an impossible amount of time to spend away from Sean. It would be their longest separation since they had met. In self defence they planned a weekend in Devon while Matthew was away on business. It was beginning to obsess them both that they had never actually spent a night together. Lynn begged Angie to provide her with an alibi.

‘Matthew will be in Ireland looking at someone’s house,’ she said, ‘and I’ll get my mother to look after the kids. Then I can pretend to be with you and you can ring me at the hotel if there’s a crisis.’

‘God forbid,’ Angie said automatically. ‘And ask for Mrs Reilly, I suppose.’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘You realise this is about as silly as us both dressing up in our mothers’ shoes when we were ten?’

‘There’s no one else I can ask,’ Lynn said. ‘And I can come and see you and you can meet Sean.’

There was a long silence. ‘Wouldn’t it be simpler,’ Angie said, ‘to make it another weekend and let Matthew look after the children? Then you needn’t involve your mother.’

‘I know,’ Lynn said, ‘but I can’t somehow. It doesn’t feel right.’

Angie actually laughed.

Matthew thought it was a splendid idea for her to visit Angie while he was away. She was looking tired, he said, and the change would do her good. Her mother was thrilled at the prospect of having the children all to herself, and they were only moderately put out at the prospect of Lynn going away. She was surprised how easy it all was and wished she had dared to try it before, often. Proverbs such as nothing ventured, nothing gained, or seizing the nettle danger drifted through her mind. But mostly she was just bemused at the thought of two whole days and two whole nights with Sean. He was visiting the West Country on business and would meet her at Taunton to call on Angie and drive to the hotel.

She was so happy. Afterwards that was what she remembered most clearly. There was something very pure about her happiness as she arrived at Paddington with her luggage in good time to choose magazines to read on the train. As an afterthought she bought the evening paper as well. She was full of goodwill for the whole world; she caught herself smiling at strangers.

As the train drew out she relaxed with a sensation of carefree liberation. She was off on an adventure and no one was angry with her, no one could stop her. She gazed out of the window for some time, savouring the feeling of floating in space with no duties, no anxiety. Then she decided to read: a further indulgence, a positive luxury. On impulse she opened the evening paper first.

She never read headlines if there was a picture, because her eyes were always drawn to the picture. This time it was a picture of Anne Reilly smiling with all her impressive teeth, and the caption said: ‘Baby for TV Auntie’. She blinked as though someone had hit her in the face, and read it again. Anne Reilly went on smiling up at her with what seemed like a look of triumph and there was a short interview in which she said how it seemed too good to be true that she was pregnant after so many years of disappointment. The interviewer too appeared impressed, as if it were a miracle that Anne Reilly, having entertained millions of the nation’s children for years on television, should finally face the prospect of entertaining one, all by itself, in her own home.

Lynn wasn’t aware she was crying until she caught the woman opposite staring at her with a blurred face. She put on her dark glasses, which she had brought partly because it was sunny, partly because she wanted to look mysterious, and cried on and off for the rest of the two-hour journey. She hadn’t cried so much since she was a child, deprived of some treat; then, she had cried herself to sleep. She wished she were in bed now: she would have liked to hide from the whole world.

He was waiting on the platform when she arrived at Taunton. He actually came running towards her as she got off the train. He looked so innocent, radiant; so pleased to see her, as if he had nothing to hide, nothing to fear. She held out the paper and watched his face change, to a look more of rage than guilt, though, she was surprised to see.

‘Oh God,’ he said. ‘Damn it all. She said she wouldn’t tell them for at least a month.’

‘Them?’

‘The bloody press. Of course I was going to tell you, I knew I had to, but I thought there was plenty of time. We’ve only just found out ourselves.’

Lynn put her suitcase down and sat on a bench. Her legs seemed to have gone very weak. He sat beside her and tried to hold her hand, but she pulled it away.

‘Darling,’ he said, ‘I’m so sorry. I never meant it to happen like this. It’s a hell of a shock, I know. It was for me too.’

‘It must have been,’ Lynn said, ‘if you were like brother and sister.’

He flushed slightly. ‘That was true at the time,’ he said. ‘Well, nearly. That was how it felt, anyway.’

Lynn said, ‘I think you lied to me right from the start.’

‘You’re wrong.’

‘You must have nearly died laughing at how gullible I was.’

‘Stop it.’ He shook her by the shoulders, quite roughly, and passers-by glanced at them. ‘I never lied to you. I just left a few details out because I was so afraid of losing you. That’s God’s honest truth.’

Lynn pointed at the newspaper lying between them. ‘That’s quite a detail to leave out.’

‘But I was going to tell you, only Annie jumped the gun. Look, when you think about it, when you get over the shock, there’s no reason why it should make any difference to us at all.’

Lynn got up. She picked up her suitcase but left the newspaper lying on the seat. ‘I’m going to get a taxi,’ she said.

He got up too and followed her to the exit. ‘But I’ve got the car.’

‘I know that, but we’re going in different directions. I’m going to stay with Angie.’

‘Darling, please. It’s a lovely hotel. We can sort out this whole mess, you must give me a chance.’

‘There seem to be things I can’t do,’ Lynn said, ‘and sleeping with a man who has a pregnant wife is one of them.’ She caught a look of genuine bafflement on his face and added, ‘You see, I know how I’d feel if Matthew had done that to me. You’re so vulnerable then, you feel so –’

She started to cry again.

He said, ‘But I love you so much.’

She got into the taxi she could not afford and gave Angie’s address. Her last sight of him reminded her of one of her own children about to say, ‘But it’s not fair …’

About halfway through the journey she noticed that he was following her taxi in his car. When they reached Angie’s cottage, he paid the driver, who went off reluctantly, as if he would have preferred to stay and find out what happened next. Sean and Lynn struggled over her suitcase, which he was trying to put in his car. Angie came out and asked what the hell was going on. ‘I want to stay with you,’ Lynn sobbed. Angie threatened Sean briskly with the police, as if that was something she had to do every day, and he drove off.

Angie hugged her, took her inside, poured her drinks, made her eat, listened. She managed not to say ‘I told you so.’ By the end of the evening Lynn was so exhausted that she surprised herself by sleeping well.

In the morning Angie brought her breakfast in bed. ‘Pity I don’t have neighbours,’ she said, ‘they’d have loved all that last night. Better than the telly.’ She sat on the edge of the bed and looked at Lynn closely. ‘How d’you feel?’

‘I don’t know yet.’

‘Well, you look as if you’ve been in a fight but you just won on points. If you want to cry any more and you’re really going home tomorrow as planned, then try to get all the crying done by six o’clock tonight, or your eyes will never recover in time.’

Lynn smiled.

‘I’m serious,’ Angie said.

‘I don’t think I could cry any more. Not now, anyway.’

‘Well, it’s now or never,’ Angie said. ‘You absolutely mustn’t let Matthew know about this. That’s all that really matters.’

‘Is it?’ Lynn said, and started to cry again. ‘I was thinking of leaving him.’

Angie put her arms round her. ‘Not really you weren’t,’ she said. ‘You were just a little crazy. We’ve all been like that once or twice. By the way, you’d better ring your mother. Tell her you tried to ring last night but the phone was out of order.’

‘You think of everything,’ Lynn said.

‘It comes of getting caught out once too often.’

Angie’s cottage was in an isolated spot, but they went for drives and spent a lot of the weekend walking in the countryside or along the beach. By the time Lynn went home even she felt she had talked out her problems to the point of exhaustion.

She had braced herself for the noise of the children and a grudging welcome followed by sulks because she had been away. She expected to answer her mother’s questions about Angie’s cottage and the error of her ways. Instead she found Matthew alone.

‘Where is everyone?’ she said. ‘Why are you home early? Is there something wrong?’ She was suddenly terrified: visions of accidents and hospitals, divine retribution, flew into her mind.

‘The kids are with your mother,’ he said. ‘I told her you were staying on with Angie till tomorrow.’

‘But why?’

‘I’ve got to talk to you alone.’

That was it. Somehow he had found out. Now that it was all over, she was going to be punished for it.

‘What’s the matter?’ she said. ‘Are you all right?’ He looked quite ill, as if he might be getting flu.

He poured two large drinks and handed her one. ‘I have to tell you this while I’ve still got the courage. I’m being blackmailed.’

She said, ‘What?’ and sat down rather suddenly while he paced up and down.

‘There’s this girl at work I’ve been seeing and when I tried to break it off she said she’d tell you. So I thought – I thought I’d better tell you first. In case she meant what she said.’

Lynn was silent, too astounded to speak. It wasn’t possible. Matthew, who had always been so reliable … All this time and she had never even suspected …

‘I don’t know if you can ever forgive me,’ he went on rapidly. ‘It wasn’t serious and I never stopped loving you. Only … we seemed to get so far apart after the baby and you didn’t seem to want me and she did. I realise that’s no excuse but –’

Lynn said, ‘How long –?’

‘Nearly a year.’

A year. Longer than she and Sean had. She felt tears starting again.

He said humbly, ‘D’you want me to go away?’

She shook her head. She wanted to hug him, he looked so guilty and sad. She wanted to comfort him and say, ‘We’re in the same boat,’ and tell him everything so he could forgive her and they could start all over again, level. But what if he didn’t forgive her? Never let Matthew know, Angie had said, and Angie was supposed to know about these things. What if Angie was right? All her instincts prompted her to confess, but her instincts had also got her into the affair with Sean. You could always tell a secret later, but once you’d told it you could never take it back unless you said you’d been lying before and then you might not be trusted again. She looked at Matthew and thought how much she had missed or forgotten about him that this other girl had seen and wanted.

‘I think a lot of this has been my fault,’ she said. ‘Let’s try again. Let’s try harder this time. Both of us.’

He looked at her as if reprieved from a death sentence. ‘You’re so generous,’ he said. ‘That’s so much more than I deserve.’

Next day the phone rang twice. Once it was Angie who said Matthew was very clever and probably making the whole thing up just to regain her interest because he had felt she was slipping away. Very successful he’d been, too, she said, but confession was still definitely out. The double standard was alive and well, and it never did any harm to be one up. Lynn didn’t think Matthew was capable of such a complicated double bluff; but then she hadn’t thought him capable of an affair either. He was obviously capable of one or the other and she would probably never know which. Angie said it didn’t matter: either way, they would have a better marriage. And one day Lynn might want to see Sean Reilly again, or she might meet someone else.

‘I don’t think so,’ Lynn said. ‘I’ve learnt my lesson.’

‘There’s no such thing,’ Angie said. ‘You’ve had a lucky escape, that’s all. Quite different.’

The second call was from Sean. She listened to his voice saying he still loved her and he wanted to see her again. She put the phone down without answering. Her children came back from school and switched on Anne Reilly’s programme. Matthew arrived home from work with roses.