Page 38 of The Affair
Neil went first. ‘Remember the pull at the bottom,’ he warned, as he picked his way across the slippery rock to the natural stone slide – now beneath the water – that delivered them into the calm pool downstream. He wobbled and laughed as he poised at the head of the slide, water gushing round his ankles. Then he sat down and was immediately engulfed, swept the length of the slide as he disappeared from view.
‘Oh my God, oh my God!’ he shouted, head popping up the other side of the rocks. ‘It’s bloody knackering.’
Connie shivered as she followed Neil’s path across the rocks and stood where he had. The morning breeze wafted cool over her skin, and she waited for a moment, savouring her nakedness. ‘Here I come.’ Tensing as the water seized her, she felt the smooth stone beneath her bottom, the fierce tug of the river. Then she let herself go, the cold making her gasp and shout until she was submerged, the rusty water closing over her head as she slid into the pool beyond.
They swam vigorously to and fro across the river, reeds tickling their bellies in the shallows near the bank. As their bodies adjusted to the temperature, they lay on their backs and looked up towards the trees and the sky, listening to the pounding of the water on the weir.
Later, damp and cold but exhilarated, they huddled in the car and drank the last of the coffee, gazing down at the river through the rain. A heron landed on the rocks where they’d just been standing, perching delicately on its spindly legs, its sharp yellow beak swishing slowly from side to side, as if it were surveying its kingdom. They watched in silence. This was what Connie loved about Neil. He knew how to justbe.
Draining his mug and slotting it into the well between the seats, Neil turned to her. ‘OK … I’ve been pretty patient,’ he began, ‘but you’re hiding something, Constance McCabe, and I want to know what it is.’ He accompanied his words with a severe flick of his eyebrows. The swim had left his short blond hair sticking up at all angles and softened his handsome, angular face.
Connie, cuddled in a thick wool cardigan, warm and relaxed after the swim, which was like a meditation for her, did not really want to engage with his demand. But she owed him an explanation. ‘I’ve told Devan I’ll retire,’ she said.
Neil looked shocked. ‘Seriously?But you were so dead against it.’
‘I wasn’t really conscious of what I was saying at the time. I just wanted it all to stop. But since then I’ve come to realize it’s the only way, if I’m not going to waste the rest of my life wrangling with him about it.’ She sighed. ‘Otherwise, it’s stalemate. As I told him the other night, I just can’t do it any more.’
Neil frowned. ‘Me and Brooks thought you were backon track, what with the anniversary dinner and Devan telling us how good things are between you now.’
‘Yes, and he’s been trying really hard, I’ll admit. It’s just he’s rushing me, Neil. He thinks because he’s back onboard with our marriage, I should be too. It’s what I want, of course, but I’m not finding it easy.’
Neil didn’t speak for a moment, just sat staring out of the window. Then he said, ‘You can’t let him railroad you, Con.’
‘I know. But maybe he’s right. Maybe I am being unfair to him.’ She took another sip of lukewarm coffee. ‘I really want us to be OK again. All this sniping and bickering is exhausting.’
Another silence.
‘Yeah, but next spring comes around, and you have no tours, no work.’ He turned his kind blue eyes on her. ‘How are you going to feel?’
Connie shrugged. She’d done the same projection. ‘I’ll feel bereft,’ she admitted. ‘But I’d feel even more so if my marriage fell apart because I was being “stubborn”, as Devan puts it.’
Neil laughed. ‘Men, eh? Can’t live with them, can’t live without them.’ He rubbed his hand over the stubble on his chin as if considering something. ‘Could you perhaps cut down next year, see how it feels?’
‘I’ve thought of that. Part-timers tend not to get the tours they want. Those go to the keen beans, for obvious reasons. But I’ve proved my worth over the years …’ She paused. ‘I could try.’
Neil picked up his phone, checked the time, pulled aface. ‘Sorry, I should get going. Have to be in Bristol by twelve and I need to clean up.’
As they drove home in silence, Connie wished with all her heart she could tell Neil about Jared.What a liar I’ve become. Mum would be horrified, she thought, glad for once that her mother was no longer around to witness her daughter’s shame. Talking to Neil without mentioning the momentous thing that had happened to her these past weeks was like making a cake with one vital ingredient missing. But she knew it would be selfish and pointless to give life to something that was now over. It would expand in the telling, be given a new reality, and colour all her exchanges with her friend – change Neil’s relationship with Devan for ever. Telling Lynne was bad enough. But her sister was discreet to the point of pathology – and not part of Connie’s day-to-day life.
The affair is over. I love Devan. My marriage is the most important thing in my life.She ran these resolutions around her mind, like a playlist on a constant loop, as she stared out of the car window. But she was leaving for Tuscany on Friday and a familiar question had begun to nibble at the edges of her thoughts:If Jared knocks on my bedroom door, will I be strong enough to send him away?If she had her doubts, she was pretty certain Jared would too.
16
Connie thought at first it was the heat. Tuscany was roasting in August. It was day six when she started to notice she wasn’t feeling well. The coach had taken the winding road up to San Gimignano in the morning. It was a spectacular hill town with medieval towers, built by various warring noblemen with the sole purpose of showing off and outdoing their rivals. After a potter round the sights, they’d driven down into the surrounding countryside, arriving at a rambling villa with faded ochre walls, green shutters and a terracotta roof, situated at the end of a long avenue of cypresses.
Two Italian chefs in toques and pristine whites had taken the next two hours showing them how to make ravioli filled with pork and red wine;panzanella– Tuscan bread salad; and custard-filledbomboloni– baby Italian doughnuts.
Connie’s cooking triumphs were sporadic and unpredictable, but she loved cookery programmes and leafing through glossy recipe books, closely scrutinizing the mouth-watering photos for dishes she knew she would probably never make. So she’d been looking forward to the demonstration, which was held under shady trees in the corner of the villa’s extensive vegetable garden.
But by the time the deliciously warm, sugarybomboloniwere being handed round, served with a little demitasse of strong espresso, she had a headache and was feeling slightly shivery.A bloody cold in the middle of August?she thought resentfully. But she hadn’t been sleeping.
The tour had gone well, so far. The magic of Tuscany – with its soft light and purple hills, its ancient culture amid such quiet beauty – always seemed to cast a spell over her charges. She felt she was seeing their best selves. One American complained about the lack of handrails on the steep streets of Siena, and she lost some of her group for half an hour during a climate-change protest in Pisa, but otherwise the only problem, with so many older travellers, was the searing heat.
There had been no sign of Jared.He must have meant what he said,Connie thought, as she lay awake night after night. She was ashamed to admit how dismayed she felt. But she knew that now she needed to shut down every thought relating to her time with him. Allow the images to fade, box up the bewildering pleasure she’d experienced in his company and lock it into the attic of her mind where, in years to come, she might bring it out and smile guiltily at the memory.
Life would gradually return to normal.It’s what I want, she told herself repeatedly. Her husband was irritating her at the moment but, then, whose spouse didn’t? She just had to be patient. These exhortations, however, did little good. Through the hot Tuscan nights her faithless body still ached to be lying in Jared’s arms again. But he didn’t come.
By the time Connie was lying sweating in her hotel bed in Turin – their stopover on the journey home – she knew this was more serious than a summer cold. Decongestants and copious quantities of paracetamol from the medicine chest she always carried on tour had staved off the worst during the remaining days in Florence, allowing her to function, just about. But she’d developed a nasty cough and her chest hurt, her head throbbing constantly. A couple of passengers commented that she didn’t seem well, but she brushed off their concern with a smile. She’d purchased hardcore cough mixture from a sympathetic Italian pharmacist near their Florence hotel; he’d also suggested she see a doctor – which she stubbornly felt she didn’t need – but the stuff made her drowsy and increasingly didn’t seem to touch the problem.
