6

Sally slammed her foot down on the accelerator and careered recklessly out of Monks Bottom Manor. Without warning, heavy rain began to fall and the high beam of the headlights illuminated a sheet of glassy shards. With rare aggression she flicked the windscreen wipers to fast speed and they sprang into action, swiping and parting the deluge as a parody of her own bitter rage. She knew Timothy had left the room to phone Roger. Why not? It was the final scene in the mummer’s play of silence they were all enacting.

How many crouching birds in the dry shelter of the beech hedges observed the hurtling silver Mini, seemingly intent on suicide? But it wasn’t death she sought. Just desperation to get home and plead her final case. To beg a change of mind and heart, no matter how much groveling and humiliation it cost. But as she turned into the drive of The Dower House, her bold power surge collapsed. There would be no dramatic scene. Roger’s car had already gone.

She ran through the teeming rain to the front door, listening for Finnegan performing his usual manic leaps of welcome, but as she turned the key in the lock there were no deep woofs, no skidding scrapes on the floorboards. The house was holding itself in a dark, silent vacuum. After switching on the lights she walked through to the kitchen to see a note on the table; just a hurried note, written on the back of a junk-mail envelope.

Sally.

Gone straight over to be with Tim. I’ll come back and collect my things tomorrow. I’ve taken Finnegan. I know we agreed he’d stay with you, but he knew I was going, and he looked at me so sadly I just couldn’t bear to leave him behind.

Speak soon,

Love, Rog

She stared at the note. Just this? Only this? He’d gone, and Finnegan too had gone, when all she wanted was to wrap her arms around his big doggy body and seek his warm, uncritical devotion. The network of strings around her mouth tightened and her eyes stung, but an inner voice screamed at her not to indulge in self-pity.

She walked upstairs and sat down heavily on the king-size. The bed bought in the 2005 January sales by a jovial couple who’d agreed their old one was worn out by twenty years of regular coupling and the twists and turns of sleep. Finding out three months later that, for most of it, she’d been sharing her husband’s body and affections with Tim Proudfoot.

She’d been spring-cleaning the windows and paintwork in Roger’s study. Stepping back, she’d carelessly kicked over a bucket of soapy water, followed by the panic of trying to save a large Numdah rug. Crawling to mop up beneath the narrow confines of his desk she hit her sweaty head on a firmly taped, padded envelope. A hidden video! She smiled. In fact, she nearly laughed out loud. Oh, well. Roger was no different from the average man. She just had to take a look. Porn wouldn’t shock a nurse. Might even do her some good.

Tim was lying naked on a giant-size brass bed, his eyes wide open and his beautiful, neo-classical face set with an actor’s pose of wickedness. Then Roger’s large hairy body lumbered into view, like an ungainly brown bear, smiling hideously to the camera. Gradually they slithered and entwined, like two netsuke wrestlers, to begin the deft manoeuvres of time-served lovers… Oh, Jesus Christ! She thumbed the eject button, yanked out the video and pulled the tape into yards and yards of plastic tangle.

Roger’s sobbing admission revealed that a passionate affair had begun long before he’d met Sally. Terminated the year before they’d married and re-kindled when Louise was four.

‘Who took the video, Roger? You must know it’s a criminal offence.’

‘I set it up on a tripod. No one else was there. I swear to you, Sally, there’s not another single soul who knows.’

‘Don’t be stupid. Marina’s not deaf, dumb and blind.’

‘We’re very careful. We only… well, show our affection, when she’s away. Honestly. Tim’s neurotic she doesn’t find out. You know how special their relationship is. Even I have to take second place a lot of the time.’

‘Oh, poor you! I actually thought our relationship was quite special too.’

‘It is, Sally. It still is and always will be. You’re my wife and I love you. I really do love you, but I can’t help the way I am.’

‘The way you are revolts me.’

‘I can’t help it. Tim’s an obsession.’

Sally had turned away, crying softly, but Roger came up behind her and gently touched her shoulders. ‘Are you going to throw me out, Sal?’

She’d shaken him off and rounded angrily. ‘No. In fact, I forbid you to go. Louise is fifteen, Roger. How can she cope with a gay father?’

‘Will you still share a bedroom with me?’

‘Of course. But that’s all I’ll be sharing.’

‘Have you stopped loving me?’

‘No. That’s the most miserable thing about all this. I do still love you, but right now I hate you. How many Monks Bottom wives have to have HIV tests?’

‘There’s no need.’

‘Why should I believe you?’

Memories of that brutal encounter now forced Sally’s tears to break through. Rising from the bed she kicked the carpet, realising that the whole sordid story would now hit the village fan. OK. She would have to admit defeat, but it wouldn’t be a pathetic tail-turning and creeping away like a kicked cat. A feline anger she didn’t know she had drew its claws. ‘So, Roger dearest,’ she thought. ‘You’ll be back for your things tomorrow, will you? Well, great expectations, lovely. I’m off to pastures new. All you’ll find is a pile of ash and an empty house.’