Page 22 of The Affair
Now, as she lay on her back in bed, blinking in the early-morning light, she was bemused at the extraordinary licence she’d allowed an almost perfect stranger. Someone with whom she’d exchanged only brief conversation and had absolutely no future.
‘It’s just sex,’ she remembered a cheating work associate insisting. ‘I don’t love her.’ As if that made it perfectly fine. But now she thought she could appreciate the distinction. What had happened between her and Jared was just a one-off crazy thing and seemed to have nothing whatever to do with Devan. She felt almost detached from her behaviour, now she was home. It was as if that night by the lake was completely separate, contained in an illicit bubble, a million miles away from her marriage, her home, her friends.
She would be away again in two weeks. Auschwitz was part of the Polish tour, which she’d never done before and was quite nervous about. It would be a far cry from the lazy Italian sunshine, the decadent hot chocolate, the humorous Carpaccios … and, thankfully, Jared. The intensity of that night wouldeventually fade from her memory, she was certain. She would never forget, but she would put it firmly behind her and swallow her guilt. What she needed to do now was concentrate on mending her marriage.
The door creaked open and Riley’s face appeared. He trotted over to the bed and nuzzled her face. He always seemed to know when she woke, even though she hadn’t made a sound.
‘OK, OK,’ she said, delving into his warm coat and massaging his neck with her fingers. ‘I know whatyouwant.’
She got out of bed and pulled on jeans and a T-shirt. It was a beautiful morning for a walk, and she felt glad to be back in the temperate English climate. She knew Devan would sleep late, and she was happy for that. Facing him would be a challenge this morning.
‘Hey.’ Devan emerged from the spare bedroom as Connie was taking the washing basket piled with her tour clothes down to the kitchen.
‘Good night?’
He stretched, yawned. ‘Great, yeah. You should have come. Everyone asked after you.’
The smile he gave her as he brushed her arm on the way to the bathroom was more giving than yesterday’s and she smiled back, encouraged, keen to coax him out of his recent truculence, bombard him with sweetness and love. ‘Shall I make coffee?’
When they were seated with it at the kitchen table, she asked, ‘So, who was there last night?’ The gardendoors were open, a warm breeze wafting the scent of lilac from the bush by the wall.
‘Just the usual suspects. Gloria popped in. I haven’t seen her in ages. She’s been on a cruise around the Galápagos with her daughter.’ He took a sip of his drink. ‘They snorkelled and hiked … The wildlife is incredible, apparently – giant tortoises, turtles, sealions and iguanas, tons of birds. She says it’s stunning.’ He sighed heavily. ‘I would really love to go one day.’
Despite her determination to make an effort, Connie felt a spurt of irritation at his martyred sigh. But she smiled brightly. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘we should plan a trip.’ The expression on his face implied the wind had been taken out of his sails. ‘Why not?’ she added.
Devan shrugged. ‘You’re working most of the year.’
‘No. As I keep repeating, there are five months when we can go wherever we want.’
Her husband seemed almost disappointed at the unexpected reduction in his firepower. ‘It’ll cost, I imagine,’ he said. ‘Gloria’s not short of a bob or two.’
‘You could investigate.’
He stared at her, maybe wondering if she was serious. ‘OK.’
Connie felt the skirmish was over but was also aware that one cruise was not going to change the world. She genuinely wanted to hug her husband, to love away his detachment. But she could still feel, reprehensibly, the imprint of Jared’s mouth on hers and she knew it would be wrong just now: it would be fraudulent.
There was a knock on the front door.
‘Postman?’ Devan said, getting up.
Connie heard him chatting, then laughing, thanking whoever was at the door.
‘It’s for you,’ he said, dropping a heavy package onto the table and sliding it across to her. She picked it up, puzzled. She hadn’t ordered anything. ‘I’m meeting Bill later,’ he added. ‘He wants to look at a car and I said I’d go with him.’
Bill Kitson was married to Jill, a good friend of Connie’s in the village. He was obsessed with classic cars, frequently buying wrecks, which he then lovingly restored. Jill’s only objection was that he kept them all. There was now a barn on the edge of the village that had upwards of ten: MGs, Sunbeam Alpines, Morris Minors.
‘Count me out for supper.’ Devan grabbed his phone from the table and turned away. ‘We’re going over Oxford way, probably won’t be back till late.’
Connie sat on at the table after Devan had disappeared upstairs to get dressed. She was worried about her husband’s sudden desire to be out socializing all day, after so many months slumped comatose on the sofa.Is it just a desire to avoid me?But she was pleased he seemed more motivated. She stared unseeingly at the package on the table in front of her, her fingers smoothing the cardboard exterior. Then she automatically began to pull at the tab that would release the contents.
Inside was a glossy hardcover, full of illustrations: Carpaccio. She gave a small gasp. There was only one person in the world this could be from.How did he get my address?She felt her heart pounding.
But she was quickly reminded that she and Devan were in the phone book. She thought back to all those questions of Dinah’s, that night by the lake. She didn’t remember specifically mentioning the name of the village they lived in, but she knew she had talked about Somerset and the Levels. It would be a matter of minutes to trace her online, knowing her husband was a doctor.
With shaking hands, Connie examined the paperwork tucked inside the cover of the book. There was no message, no indication of where it came from, only a gift invoice from a French forwarding company called DFB – Connie was familiar with forwarders: Fiona had regularly used them for shipping her products abroad.
The book was beautiful. As she leafed through the pages, she found herself smiling at the reproductions of the panels in the Scuola di San Giorgio, lost for a moment in the artist’s mastery … and remembering the smell of the darkened chapel, Jared close at her side. But although she felt flattered he’d been thinking of her to the extent of sending the book, marking the time they’d spent together in Venice, his attention made her instantly nervous.
