Page 69 of The Affair
That evening Connie sat in the Hampstead house, waiting with a mixture of longing and dread. In the end, though, the call was a bit of a damp squib.
‘Please, can we meet?’ she asked, after a subdued greeting from her husband. ‘We really need to talk.’ She could hear the pleading in her voice, but she had put it there deliberately. He had to know how much she wanted to see him.
Devan made her wait for what seemed like a lifetime before he replied. ‘I suppose we should.’
Connie made no attempt to hide her joy. ‘Great, that’s great. Thank you. Where would be good?’
Silence.
‘I’m coming up to see the family at the weekend,’ he said eventually, sounding as if the words were being pulled from him like teeth.
Connie bit her lip and took a slow breath. His use of the word ‘family’ was carefully chosen to exclude her, she was well aware. He didn’t know that her daughter had purposely arranged for him to be in London …Don’t react, she warned herself, and used a deliberately lighter tone as she replied.
‘We could meet in a café? Or you could come to Tessa’s? She’s not back till Monday, now. It might be a better place to talk.’ Tessa had rung to say she was staying in Scotland another few days. In fact, she sounded to Connie as if she were reluctant to come back at all.
‘OK,’ he said eventually. And Connie let out a breath she seemed to have been holding for a lifetime.Whatever transpired between them, anything was better than stalemate.
Devan looked both strange and endlessly familiar as he stood on the doorstep at Tessa’s house. He was thinner, Connie thought, and seemed older than she remembered, his eyes wary as he greeted her. They didn’t kiss or touch each other in any way, just nodded their hellos. He brushed past her as she held open the door and waited silently in the hall.
‘Give me your coat,’ Connie said, her heart going out to him because he seemed so lost.
She had bought another pie from the deli for lunch, serving it with potatoes and buttered cabbage – Devan loved cabbage – and a good bottle of red wine. The pie was warming, the potatoes boiling, but it would be another fifteen minutes before the meal was ready. Her body was strung tight with nerves – she needed a drink to ease the awkwardness. She waved the Rioja at Devan, her eyebrows raised in question. He nodded his assent and she brought out two glasses, pouring for them both.
‘Let’s sit by the fire,’ she said, taking the armchair and leaving Devan the sofa. ‘That’s Monty, by the way. Just push him over. I’ve been looking after him for Tessa and we’ve become firm friends.’ She heard herself being bright and polite and swallowed any more niceties.
He sat down with a heavy sigh, cradling his glass in one hand, not looking at her as he stroked Monty absentmindedly, nudging him onto the other cushion.
Feeling on the back foot, the one who had sinned and therefore had no agency over the proceedings, Connie waited for her husband to speak. But he just sat there, staring into the fire. ‘Devan?’ she said, already overwrought by the encounter she’d been dreading and dying for in equal measure for three days now. She steadied her breath. ‘I’ve really missed you,’ she said quietly.
He looked up, his expression not as hostile as she’d feared. For a moment he didn’t reply, just stared at her. Then he said, equally softly, ‘I’ve missed you too.’
Connie wanted to cry. She hadn’t expected that. She’d been bracing herself for something altogether more bitter and reproachful. A flood of apologies sat on the tip of her tongue but she held back, knowing the pointlessness of just repeating what she’d said so often before.
‘I’ve been trying to work out if I deserved it.’ Devan spoke into the silence. ‘I know things weren’t great between us these last two years. But was there something else, further back? Something I did that you never mentioned?’
‘Of course not,’ she said quickly, surprised he should ask.
‘So … if not, why did you think it was OK to behave in that way … destroy all we had together, so carelessly?’ His frown was bewildered. ‘It was just a bad patch, Connie. Most marriages have them at some point.’
She couldn’t look at him. His reasoning, although not the whole story, was painfully valid.
‘Please tell me,’ he went on, when she didn’t immediately answer. ‘I need to understand.’
Connie sighed. Then, selecting her words warily, she did her best. ‘Why does anyone have an affair, Devan? I can’t explain without sounding like I’m excusing my actions, which I’m not. But, as you said, we were in a mess at the time. I suppose I felt detached from you, upset at how you were treating me … and flattered that someone else found me attractive.’ She gave a small shrug. ‘Those tours are like a bubble, not real life.’ She stopped. If she told him the real truth, told him how intensely she had desired Jared, she would hurt him beyond repair.
‘You know …’ Devan seemed to be thinking out loud ‘… Ialmostget how you could be lured into bed once.Almost. A drunken night, a foreign hotel room, some creep coming on strong, flattering you. And, if so, I need never have known.’ He put his glass down and got up, walking towards the fireplace where he leaned on the mantelpiece with both hands, staring down into the flames. Then he turned to her again. ‘But more than once, Connie?’ His eyes were black with distress as he threw his hands into the air. ‘I feel like the biggest fool on the planet. Dr Mac, the highly respected village doctor for three decades, just a pathetic cuckold.’ He appeared to shiver at the thought.
‘Nobody thinks you’re a fool, Devan. Anyway, it’s none of their business.’ She sounded more sanguine than she felt about the village gossip mill. And his sceptical glance showed he wasn’t taken in. She didn’tknow what to say. Didn’t know what shecouldsay that would change things for him. His next words, delivered in a dull monotone, made it perfectly clear.
‘You still haven’t told me about the sex.’
‘Don’t,’ she said, lowering her face from his anguished gaze.
But, like a dog with a bone, he wasn’t about to let it go. Standing uncertainly now, his palms rubbing up and down the sides of his jeans, he looked like a small boy. ‘Please, Connie. I need to know … I can’t move on … It’s driving me mad.’
Her face was already flushed from the wine, so any blush would barely have shown. But she did not blush. Being reminded of those nights now was like watching a movie starring another woman. She was no longer remotely aroused by the memory. She sighed.
He waited dumbly, crossing his arms as if bracing himself for the blow.
