Page 17 of The Affair
Ignoring the exaggeration of her time away, Connie was surprised at how steady her voice sounded as she asked, ‘Think what, Devan?’ She knew in her heart of hearts that he was being unfair. But she also felt conflicted. Even Neil seemed to think her husband had a point.
This whole issue with retirement reminds me, she thought,of how Devan never breathed a word about me smoking when we first met. If, back then, he’d tried to make her quit, she would probably have taken years to do so. But he’d never mentioned it, despite apparently being disgusted by every puff, and she gave up soon after. If he’d taken the same approach as he did then, kept his thoughts to himself and let her retire in her own time – given her something to come home to, indeed – she would probably have set a date in the near future. But the more he backed her into a corner, the more she wanted to work till she dropped.
‘About us,’ Devan said. ‘About what our marriage means to you.’
Connie sat up straight. She still hadn’t touched her wine, although Devan had drained his. ‘And what didyou conclude?’ she asked coolly, sick of the whole thing and furious about all the pointless effort she’d put in to help him over the hump of retirement, the worry she’d invested in his health – mental and physical – the numerous times she’d reached out to him and been rebuffed. None of the support she’d offered had been, as he suggested, a selfish act on her part, but because she loved him and hated seeing him so diminished. In return he was bullying her until she did what he wanted, bundling her into a retirement for which she wasn’t yet ready.
When he didn’t reply, she said, ‘OK. So, hypothetically, what would happen if I did decide to retire at the end of the season?’
‘What would happen?’ He seemed puzzled by the question.
‘You finally get me where you want me, Devan. What next?’ She glared at him. ‘Seeing as you don’t even seem to like me any more.’
Now it was his turn to appear confused. ‘Of course I like you, Connie,’ he said, blinking nervously. ‘We’d … we’d start again, wouldn’t we? Recalibrate our lives.’
I don’t want to recalibrate my life, she muttered silently. But aloud she said, ‘And do what? You keep banging on about travelling, but we can’t afford to, not all the time. Would you do this history degree you’re talking about? Or take off sailing? Both things you could do right now, of course, if you were serious.’
His expression hardened. ‘No need to be spiteful.’
Neither spoke, both trapped in their own affront.
Connie was the first to back down. ‘Devan, please,’ she begged. ‘What are we doing? This is stupid.’ She shuffled her chair closer and put her arm across his shoulders, which made him look around self-consciously at the other drinkers who’d been accumulating in the low-ceilinged snug during the course of their row.
Shrugging her off, he picked up his glass. ‘I need another drink.’
He could have drunk hers, but he obviously wanted a break from the conversation. She watched him as he leaned on the bar, chatting amiably with Stacy as if nothing were awry, then had a smiling exchange with one of their neighbours.Charming to everyone in the world but me, she thought sadly. She got up. There was no point sitting here torturing each other. She didn’t tell him she was going, didn’t say goodbye. She’d never walked out on him in public like this before – never needed to.
Connie realized, as she covered the short distance to the house, that something very serious had just happened between her and Devan. She was pretty certain there was no cooing female voice online, consoling her husband in his outrage at her intransigence and neglect. This was worse, in a way. A significant breach had opened up in their relationship today. As if a door, long fastened and secure, were being slowly forced ajar. Devan, she saw, was using the threat to their relationship as blackmail. Forcing her to quit the tours. But she knew that if she gave in now, she would resent him for the rest of her life.
8
As Connie sat on the Eurostar, staring out of the window at the flat grey-green stretches of Normandy flashing past, she realized that each tour seemed to mark out a further decline in her relationship with Devan.
The tulip tour had seen the connection between them stuttering, as if they were coming in and out of signal, her husband’s increasing lack of motivation and attention to his personal care – including drinking too much – becoming more apparent. Lake Como had witnessed a ratcheting up of his sniping about her retirement, his ongoing avoidance of any physical contact and his obsessive withdrawal behind his phone screen. And now Lake Garda seemed to have identified a new low, where the very bedrock of their marriage was being questioned.
Since the conversation in the pub, Connie felt they had been shocked into a temporary moratorium on any further discussions about their relationship. They’d tiptoed around each other in the days before she left, as if each were an invalid who couldn’t cope with stress. She didn’t dare explore what Devan had meant. He clearly didn’t dare either. And, as had become the norm these days, Connie had not taken a proper breath until she was on the train to London and away from herhusband’s discontented presence. She wondered gloomily how bad it would have become by the time she was on her way to Poland next month.
‘Ah, Connie!Bentornata, cara.’ Bianca Conti, diminutive but fizzing with energy – although she was well into her seventies – kissed her warmly on both cheeks. ‘Avanti! Ciao, ciao, benvenuti a tutti.’ She opened her arms to the group in the foyer with a charming smile.
Connie had been bringing tours to this family-run hotel in Desenzano for a decade now. It was Venetian in style, faded terracotta with narrow arched windows and lacy balconies overlooking the peaceful harbour for small boats on the shores of Lake Garda. Bianca ran the hotel with her two sons, Federico and Sandro, but was unquestionably in control.
As soon as the hurdle of check-in was cleared, Connie found her room and threw herself onto her bed with a sigh of relief. The journey had been unusually trying. One of her passengers, Martin, sixty-seven, from Cheltenham, had not been able to lift his case because of his bad back – although it was a company rule, made very clear at booking, that everyone was responsible for their own luggage. So Connie had had to lug his heavy suitcase on and off the trains, along with her own. Then the hotel next to where they overnighted in Turin was hosting a wedding, the shrieks and thumping music going on into the early hours. And, to cap it all, the train on to Lake Garda had been cancelled, and Cheltenham Martin had been pickpocketed as they hung about at Turinstation, his wallet stolen out of his back pocket. Luckily it had only contained his bus pass, some loyalty cards and his RAC membership: his bank card had been in his shirt pocket at the time. But he was upset, and it had taken Connie a while to calm him down.
None of that matters now, she thought, as she lay on her back, looking up at the light from the water outside reflected on the cream ceiling in glinting ripples. She’d got her passengers here, safe and sound, the sun was shining, and Bianca, as always, would give them a wonderful time.
The weather had been perfect so far – sunny and hot, but with a pleasant breeze – the tourists gradually coalescing into their groups and obviously enjoying themselves, with the lake excursions, pretty squares to explore, and the pavement cafés in which to sit with a cool drink orgelato.
Now it was day five: Venice, Connie’s all-time favourite.
They took an early train to the city, then a couple of private water taxis along the Giudecca canal to Piazza San Marco. The first sight of the city – although Connie had seen it more times than she could count – always took her breath away. It sat shimmering in the soft morning light above the water of the lagoon, its elegant skyline of domes and campaniles like a chimera: if she closed her eyes, she thought, it might vanish as if it had never been.
As the group stood on the square, phones held infront of their faces almost before they’d even taken in the extraordinary thirteenth-century Byzantine façade of the basilica, she spotted Gianni, the guide who would lead the walking tour through the city.
‘Adesso… You come with us,bellissima?’ he asked flirtatiously, when they’d greeted each other. He was young and handsome, sunglasses perched on his dark hair, the muscles of his tanned arms stretching the short sleeves of his white polo shirt. He was relatively new to guiding, and a touch cocky, Connie thought. He seemed to think his job was almost beneath him.
‘Not today,’ she said. She had absorbed much of the art and culture on previous trips, but in her current mood she craved indulgence, nothing she had to concentrate on too hard. Maybe she would drink a dramatically expensive hot chocolate on the piazza to the music of the small café orchestra, then wander the shady, picturesque streets, stroke some of the soft leather handbags she couldn’t afford. ‘Don’t drown them,’ she said.
Gianni batted his eyelids in mock seduction. ‘For you, signora, I do anything you ask.’
