Page 46 of The Affair
‘Would you?’ he asked, a smile in his voice, as if he knew exactly the effect his words would have on her.
She shuddered. ‘Stop it.’
There was silence in the stuffy, enclosed space. Through the steamed-up windows, she watched the people from the other car get out – a middle-aged couple in matching purple anoraks – open the gate and walk slowly across the turf to the windmill.
Connie took a deep breath. ‘I told you … we were going through a bad patch. But things are better now.’ She bit her lip, struggling for the right words to convince him. ‘I should never have betrayed him.’ Jared gazed at her but didn’t speak. ‘You dazzled me. I was overwhelmed,’ she added, feeling the need to acknowledge what had happened between them. ‘Butthis,’ she waved her hands expansively, ‘this village, with my house, my husband, my dog, my friends, is my life.’ She wanted her next words to have the fullest impact. ‘Please, you have to listen to me, Jared. I willneverleave Devan. What happened between us isabsolutely over.’
He nodded, as if he understood. Then he said, ‘I’ve taken Foxwood for six months. I moved in two days ago.’
Foxwood? The name meant nothing to Connie. She tried to process what he was talking about, but her brain cells were in chaos, compromised by the mass of adrenalin pumping through her veins. Then the penny dropped.
She gaped at him, open-mouthed. ‘You’re the one renting Mr Solomon’s cottage?’
He nodded. ‘They’ve done a good job on the renovations. The kitchen’s a bit small for my liking, but I’ll be nice and cosy over the winter.’ Grinning, he added, ‘Pop round later and see for yourself.’
Connie was lost for words. She hunched in her seat, her arms crossed rigidly against her chest in an attempt to stop herself screaming.
‘Bring Devan,’ she heard him say, through a fog ofdisbelief. ‘I had a great chat with him and his friend in the pub the day I signed up for the cottage.’
The silence in the car was profound, as if she’d suddenly gone deaf.
‘Are you completely out of your mind?’ she whispered, all strength gone from her body.
With a puzzled frown, he leaned over and put both his hands firmly on her crossed forearms, staring intently into her eyes. ‘You look terrified, Connie.’ He drew back a bit. ‘Oh, my God … you’re not worried about your husband finding out about us, are you?’ He sighed. ‘You know I’d never betray you. I will never tell a living soul what happened between us, not in a million years.’ He smiled his gentle smile. ‘I just want to be near you.’
20
‘You’ve been ages,’ Devan commented, raising his eyes from the newspaper as Connie hefted the bulging shopping bag onto the kitchen counter.
She glanced at the wall clock. It was nearly one thirty. She’d been with Jared barely half an hour, but she was in such a state as she watched him walking back towards the village that she knew she couldn’t go home straight away. Those last words of his, spoken with such chilling reasonableness, had felt like ice forming around her heart. She could hardly breathe. It didn’t seem possible that they came from the same man whose casual, smiling flirtatiousness had got her so willingly between the sheets.
She’d driven around blindly, in a haze of distress, stopping by another gate somewhere west of the village and bursting into tears, her body shaking with dread. Jared had repeatedly assured her that their secret was safe. But revealing the truth or not was just the end of a long road stretching miserably ahead, littered with his presence in her life at every turn. How was she to survive that?
‘I kept bumping into people. You know how it is.’
‘Did you find the chamois?’ Devan was up, pulling things out of the bag, opening the fridge and stackingthe packets inside, tearing open the plastic mesh round a bag of satsumas and tipping them into the wooden fruit bowl, emptying an old carton of cream that was off when he sniffed it. Connie stood and watched. It was as if she were witnessing the last moments of her life as she knew it.The chamois, she thought.I forgot the sodding chamois.
‘Sorry, they only had the huge ones … which were twelve bloody quid.’ That was two lies in less than five minutes. And she knew it was only the beginning.
Jared is living in the village. She tested the words, unable to believe what she was hearing in her own head. Mentally, she began the journey to his house. Walk down to the corner, past the pub, turn right, then left through the small arcade of boutiquey shops, and the cottage was across the road, sandwiched between two identical ones. It was pretty, red brick with cooking-apple-green painted window surrounds and front door. A large bright yellow mahonia was flowering by the gate, the garden tidy and mature. Connie knew it: she walked past regularly, taking Riley for a walk. She’d watched the progress of the renovation, even chatted to Dougie, the young guy doing most of the work.
‘Connie?’ Devan was waving his hand in front of her face. ‘You haven’t heard a word I’ve said, have you?’
She came to as if from a dream. ‘Sorry …’
‘Are you OK? You look as if you’ve just seen a ghost.’
She tried to laugh, but it came out as a strangled cough. ‘I’m fine,’ she said, making a huge effort to compose her features.
Devan looked sceptical, but obviously his stomach took precedence over his curiosity. ‘Shall we get going? I’m starving.’
Images of Jared seated on a bar stool, chatting cosily to Stacy, came to mind.
‘Can we not do Skittles today?’
‘Oh … I had my eye on one of Nicole’s chicken pies.’
‘It’s just we always go there.’
