The rain had stopped. It grew dark on the journey back to the city. The moon and the sun were in the sky at the same time. Then the sun disappeared and it was only the moonlight that was reflected in the flooded fields. Christopher had closed the sliding glass window which divided the driver from them. They could tell by the way his shoulders slumped as he drove away from the nursing home that this gesture of separation had offended him. Christopher and Angela clung to each other on the back seat of the taxi, sliding along the shiny seat whenever the driver took a sharp corner on the country roads.
The dog slept at their feet. They talked quietly about the new life they would construct with each other, and when that would happen. Christopher offered to come to Angela’s house that night and explain everything to Gregory, but Angela said she couldn’t imagine that scenario. “It would be too much of a shock for him,” she said. Christopher asked her gently how she wanted Gregory to find out that she was leaving him for another man, but all she could say in reply was, “I don’t know.”
It began to annoy him. He patiently spelt out the options open to her. “You could write him a letter, you could telephone, or you could tell him face to face, with, or without me being there. Or, you could just disappear. We can go abroad.”
“Where?” she said. At the moment flight and disappearance seemed the most attractive option open to her.
“You’re the travel agent,” he said. “Where would you like to go?”
“Abroad, somewhere hot. But what would we do with the dog?” She knew she was prevaricating, putting off the evil hour. She answered herself. “No, we can’t go away, we can’t leave the dog. I’ll tell Gregory tonight. Drop me off at the house and I’ll come to you later.”
Christopher sighed with relief and took Angela in his arms. He told her over and over again how much he loved her. The dog whimpered in its sleep. Christopher bent down and stroked it. It woke instantly and licked his hand, then leapt on to his lap. Christopher laughed and cradled the dog in his arms. “You big baby,” he said and looked at Angela, wanting her to laugh at the dog, which was grinning and lying on its back with its paws in the air. But she was staring out at the black countryside, rehearsing the words she would use that would break Gregory’s heart.
♦
When Gregory heard the throb of the taxi’s engine he pulled the sitting-room curtain aside. He dropped it quickly when he saw that the tall man was inside the taxi speaking urgently to his wife. She stood at the open door with her head bowed, listening. Gregory heard the door slam and the taxi drive off. Then he heard Angela’s key in the door. He went into the hallway to meet her. When he saw her white distraught face he took pity on her and said, “I know about the tall man, what’s his name?”
“Christopher Moore,” she said. She looked down at the oriental rug. There were intricacies in the patterning that she hadn’t noticed before now.
“You used to live with a Christopher Moore,” he said. “Is it the same one?”
“Yes,” she said. She traced the petals of a flower with the pointed toe of her boot. “I’m going to live with him again.”
“When?”
“Tonight.”
“I’d better put the kettle on.”
She followed him into the kitchen and watched him filling the kettle under the tap.
“What will I do in this big house?” he said. Then, “Have you slept with him?”
“Yes.” She wanted to sit down, but thought it best, more polite, to remain standing during the coming interrogation.
“How many times?”
“Three.”
“How long has it been going on?”
“Less than a week.”
“A week!”
“Less than.”
“Do you love him?”
“Yes.”
“Do you love me?”
“No.”
She was like a surgeon making an incision without an anaesthetic. It was best to cut quickly and deeply and get it over with.
He hadn’t expected her to say ‘no’. It had never once crossed his mind that some day Angela wouldn’t love him.
He was seven years younger than her and more attractive. She was forty-six. She was fat. She was clumsy and vague and she hadn’t given him a child. He plugged the kettle in.
“He must be desperate,” he said. He wanted to punish her further.
“He is desperate,” she said.
She’s like a zombie standing there in her coat with her arms hanging down by her sides, he thought. He crossed to the refrigerator and took a bottle of milk from out of the deep shelf inside the door.
“What’s he like in bed?” he said.
“I’m going upstairs to get some things together,” she said.
“You’re going nowhere!” he shouted, and he ran to the kitchen door and slammed it shut and stood in front of it.
“What’s he like in bed?”
“Please, Gregory, don’t.”
“What’s he like in bed?” He was screaming now. She covered her face, hiding from the rawness of his anger. The full milk bottle hit her on the side of her head, and broke on the tiled floor. She lost her footing and fell on to the spreading pool of milk and shards of glass, then he was on top of her, crying and slapping and sobbing that he loved her and begging her not to go. She watched the blood from her forehead insinuate itself into the milk. It looked like a pink river flowing into a white sea. Eventually he grew quiet and lay with his head on her belly. She smoothed his bristly hair and, to comfort him, said, “He’s no good in bed, his penis is too small.”
Gregory lifted his head and said, “We’d better clean each other up.”
They got up and went upstairs to the bathroom and took their clothes off and examined their bodies under the bright light of the small bulbs set in the ceiling. Like chimpanzees grooming, they removed the almost invisible shards of glass from each other’s wounds. Then they climbed into the huge bathtub together and washed away the blood and the milk and the tears and the marriage.
Gregory had been sexually excited during the struggle on the kitchen floor, but the thought of the desolate months ahead of him and the stinging pain from the cuts on his hands drove all sexual feeling away. As they applied Savlon to their wounds they discussed what to do about their finances. They were both scrupulously fair in the discussion. They moved into their bedroom. Gregory put on his dressing gown and slippers and sat down on the edge of the bed and took a pencil and pad from his bedside drawer. He wrote ‘Angela’ and ‘Gregory’ at the top of the page and drew a central line between them. In the half an hour during which she dressed herself and packed the few clothes she was taking with her that night he had divided their property equitably. She agreed to his every suggestion.
She was frantic to leave ‘the house. She didn’t trust his apparent calmness and made sure that she kept him in her sight at all times. She didn’t dare turn her back on him. When she was ready, she wheeled her small green suitcase out on to the landing and parked it next to her matching overnight bag. Still watching him she went to her jewellery box and tipped the contents into her handbag, then stood in front of him and said, “Have you retrieved my car keys yet? If you haven’t I’ll call a cab.” He folded the piece of paper, drew his thumbnail down the crease, then carefully tore the paper in half and gave her the piece headed ‘Angela’.
She took it without looking at it, and put it inside her handbag. She used the phone in the bedroom to call a cab and gave a false destination. She didn’t want Gregory to overhear and find out where Christopher lived, not yet. She wanted to spend her first full night in Christopher’s arms without the fear that Gregory would turn up raging on the doorstep. He carried her suitcase downstairs and left it by the front door.
The door to the understairs cupboard was slightly ajar and she automatically went to close it, but before she did so she saw the stacked-up toys he had bought earlier that day. She saw the doll in its Cellophane and cardboard box. As she picked it up its unnaturally blue eyes opened and stared at her. She replaced it on top of the stack and closed the cupboard door.
“Who are the toys for?” she said.
“A kid I know,” he said, and his voice was thick with tears.