A Parliamentary Affair (55 page)

Wife – and lover. Surely this could not go on forever, this state of double pleasure. It must end, but how? How, without hurting anyone? It would not even be true to say she felt herself being torn apart. Her reactions to the dilemma were curiously quiescent, perhaps because for the moment there was virtually no problem. With Mike away such a lot it was easy to deceive him, without even considering it disloyal, so routine was it. There was plenty of time to see Roger in…

With a jolt she realised how casually she accepted that two men shared her life. That made her immoral, surely; or amoral, perhaps, devoid of morality. Cautiously she prodded her battered conscience. Karen’s illness had shaken her complacency, but now that the girl was much better and expecting her GCSE results any moment the impact of that night of terror had diminished. How strange that she, who blithely entered Parliament with such strong views on the importance of traditional marriage and family, should find herself in this position. Circumstances change things. Or maybe those principles were only codes of practice, to be modified and discarded at whim. How frightful if barely two years as an MP had made her as cynical as the rest of them already.

Troubled, she considered what her double life was doing to her, then perked up, reassured. If she were really such a calculating bitch it would show, and neither Mike nor Roger would have anything more to do with her. Two fine men, both loving and lovable; charming and attractive in their different ways, professional men, wrapped up in their work, both apparently needing her, but excluding her also from much of their lives, so that both her partnerships gave plenty of space, to herself and to the men. Perhaps that explained their durability. Seeing neither man for very long, with long periods between contacts, diluted their emotional demands on her. With Roger, even with Mike had he wanted, she could concentrate and summon up all the intensity needed, not cold-bloodedly, but with a rush of joy and exhilaration. An intense continuing affair which never let up with sex every night of the week would have exhausted her
mental
capacity in no time; that might be a fairy-tale relationship but it would never have suited her. Her first and last love was always politics. For Mike it was flying: he was bewitched by the wide soaring skies above the cloud cover, reaching out to touch the face of God, as all pilots do. Roger was the same in his world, which was, also hers. This was the reason they understood each other so well: there was always tomorrow’s debate, next week’s vigorous row, this month’s hot issue, in a political life which was carried forward on its own thrilling momentum. Everything else came unavoidably second: family, children, home, lover, spouse.  

Husband. Hadn’t seen him, it seemed, for ages. Freed of the constraints of motorway driving, Elaine wound down a window, slipped the Brandenburg Concertos into the cassette player and headed along the pretty back lanes leading home. The familiar music restored a soothing touch of orderliness.
Rain-spattered hedgerows were still full of wild flowers, bright and undisciplined, the trees showing a hint of shorter days as their lush green foliage, welcome product of the wet summer, slowly dried out and began to rustle. In cottage gardens gnarled mossy trees were laden with apples and plums. Flower baskets hung on village lampposts were starting to straggle but red and pink geraniums kept up their summer-long extravaganza. She hoped Barbara next door had remembered to keep an eye on hers.

On the familiar journey between office and home, her noughts oscillated without rhythm or conclusion between her lover, her husband and her job. Elaine knew she was not really happy unless she had something demanding to get on with, preferably with a deadline to meet that others would have found punishing. Like those years on Barham council, starting so young the year Jake died, when she needed to assuage her grief with busy days and over-full timetables. Exactly ten years ago she had been at the same time vice-chairman of social services, a senior member of the health authority, teaching twenty hours a week at the local prep school and with Karen still a small child. Mike was away most of the week, so she coped mainly by herself.
And loved it
. It had been a surprisingly good period as the pain of Jake’s loss slid to an ache, a time full of achievement, increasing ambition and hope for the future. The council’s busy agenda gave its part-time politicians more than enough to do. She had relished it: had pushed haul and made things happen. It had given her a real buzz. At Westminster there was no such power. No one told you when you left local government and headed for national platforms that as an MP you would exchange power for obligation, importance for impotence. It was partly that the time scale was different. It could take weeks to see a minister, and months after that for a decision, as often as not a refusal however effusively worded. The newest member of the smallest local council’s majority party had more power than any MP. Nor had she control of her timetable now. She had not realised how many hours would be required in the patch. Mike had not changed his rotas, yet they were lucky to see each other more than once a month. She was only home at weekends while he could not easily guarantee being there at the same time. Even weekends could be difficult for her.

She shook herself, as a dog might after getting wet, and changed the tape. The extent of her negative thoughts surprised her. Next year it should get easier to manipulate the timetable, and leave more time for herself. And for Karen.

And for Mike.

Now when did he say he would next be home? The carefully arranged conjunction, as of two planets spinning in unconnected orbits, had completely slipped her mind. Mike’s diminution in her life was entirely understandable; and avoidable, if she made the effort. That would be necessary if the relationship with Roger went into decline, or if she were ever to attempt to break with him and return to normality. She pulled a wry face. Normality seemed so unattractively dull. How fortunate that Mike never complained if she were not there; just left loyal messages stuck to the fridge door: ‘Kilroy was here. Hope the speech went well.’ Almost a lodger. There were only 108 waking hours each week and around eighty were spoken for, week in and week out. Next year she would get it organised.

The house was in sight now; it was almost five, a beautiful evening. Pleasant enough to sit out for a drink, then shove in some laundry, open a bottle of decent wine, make an omelette and a salad, watch TV by herself –
Some Like It Hot
was on again – or feet up on the sofa with a John Mortimer or David Lodge novel. How thoroughly nice: no need to pretend, no need for a conversation with
anybody
.

Mike’s silver BMW was in the garage. She was non-plussed for a moment, her first reaction a start of annoyance that her solitary evening would be up the spout. Surely he wasn’t supposed to be home today? But then neither was she. Better make the best of it. She squared her shoulders, emptied her car and laden with files, bags and briefcase went round the back of the house to the kitchen door.

Mike’s uniform jacket was slung over a chair, his papers and
The Times
on the kitchen table. The house was extremely quiet. The kitchen clock seemed to tick very loudly; afterwards, it would be
that clock and its insistent reminder of irrecoverable time lost that she would remember. She was to give it away for Mrs Horrocks’s next Bring and Buy sale.

She deposited her own things in her study, listening for sounds of life. He must be upstairs, asleep. In the hallway were his shoes, tossed carelessly near the front door. Nothing unusual in that. A pile of post lay on the hall table, some opened, the rest awaiting her attention. Two letters had fallen on to the floor and she bent to pick them up.

Then she saw them.

Another pair of shoes. Woman’s shoes. White, high-heeled.

Not her own.

Upstairs there was a sound. Elaine felt her mouth go dry. A tight knot formed in the pit of her stomach. The breeze from the open kitchen door wafted through the hall; somewhere a door slammed.

She looked up the stairs as Mike came out of their bedroom.

Eye to eye they met, man and wife. He was completely naked. And so was Barbara, the friendly, overweight, unloved neighbour, who was standing behind him.

Barbara gasped, covered her breasts in a curiously virginal gesture and ran back into the bedroom. Elaine could hear her yelping: ‘Oh, my God! You said she wouldn’t be here! Oh, God! Oh, my God! Mike, you are a pig. How could you?’

There was the sound of furniture being knocked over. Mike stood helplessly, impassively, at the top of the stairs, hands opened in an apologetic gesture, eyes unblinking. Even as she stood there, Elaine found herself coldly examining him. He was developing a bit of a paunch; the belly overhung a bit, making his private parts look smaller. Maybe it was true they shrank with age. That they had been in recent use was evident.

Barbara reappeared, crying and sobbing. She had managed to pull on a skirt and blouse, half buttoned, but not much else. Clutching crumpled beige underwear, tights and a string of pearls, she came stumbling down the stairs and went to push past Elaine. The powerful odour of sex and sweat came with her. Elaine wrinkled her nose and made herself stare. Mike did not move.

‘It’s your own fault!’ Barbara paused, snuffling on the bottom step, her way barred. Barbara the interloper, Barbara it was who felt wronged, betrayed.

‘You’re never bloody well here! What’s a man supposed to do – play with himself? He needs a woman, not a… a poster on the wall. He can’t make love to you when you’re on the telly. Fat lot of good you are to him.’

The woman’s flesh was white, pudgy, excessive. A substantial veined breast was escaping loosely from the blouse. Coldly Elaine handed Barbara her shoes. ‘I should tidy yourself up before you go outside,’ she suggested in an icy, level voice.

It was an eternity while the weeping woman shuffled into more clothes in the kitchen, knocking papers wildly off the table in her haste. At last the back door banged shut. Elaine turned her attention once more to her husband.

Mike. Mike was
hers
. No one else’s. Certainly not that stupid cow’s from next door. Maybe what she said was true: that her husband had been neglected. But they were a couple, they had been through so much together, had made each other promises, had conceived and birthed children and watched one die, had shared their bodies, their ideas and joy and laughter. And sex. And
sex
.

Her body moved. Feet apart, lips now parted, she swayed slightly from side to side, willing her husband to compare, to continue if he wished. But not with that bitch, not with an outsider.

She kicked off her own shoes and began to climb the stairs, slowly, forcing her stockinged feet down into each tread, feeling the stubby carpet with her toes, as the wood sighed and creaked with her weight. She was breathing hard, her mouth slightly open, her own nipples hardening against her blouse. The sight of her familiar man unfamiliarly naked and the naked gross intruder woman, the powerful smell of the sex, the warm house on the soft summer evening, all combined as an extraordinarily heady aphrodisiac as she climbed the stairs towards her husband. She kept her eyes
firmly fixed on his bewildered face. By the time she was halfway to the top her own blouse and bra were discarded and the trim office skirt followed. Hers was much the better figure, with its narrow waist, the black suspender belt curved lightly over firm buttocks, the dark stockings shining over well-shaped thighs: hours in the gym had seen to that. She felt supremely inviting, powerful, dominant.

She put her hand flat on to Mike’s chest. From his expression she could tell he knew what she was doing, what she was asking. His eyes lost their dullness and lit with horror, but also with something altogether more animal, more primeval. His toes curled around the edge of the top step. His breath was rasping and fast, his skin clammy to her touch.

Had she known his thoughts or the history of the day Elaine might have forgiven him. Barbara hadn’t been a long-term thing. She had been there, unconsidered and ignored, popping in as he came home when Elaine was busy, making him coffee, settling herself unasked at the table, chattering inconsequentially with such pleading eyes. It was all an accident.
No, that was a lie
. He had seen her several times during the summer and found himself watching the large buttocks moving almost independently, wobbling unattractively in their cotton slacks. He had been tired and not quite quick enough to turn his glance away as she busied herself at the cooker for him, so she had caught him at it, and had blushed furiously and with great longing, like a big soft dog needing to be patted. It was such a while since he had had a woman, Elaine or anyone else, and celibacy was certainly not part of his natural make-up. As Barbara turned to face him, his eyes had wandered of their own accord to the curving V between her thighs. She was close enough to touch, standing there, hands clasped, feminine and available, wanting it as much, as simply, as he did. He had leaned across and stroked her thigh as she quivered under his hand, and moved closer until his finger slipped firmly inside the V. The bargain was made. And so it had happened, then and again on one other occasion, and by arrangement today when he was sure Elaine would be absent. And interrupted before he was finished; indeed, just as he was getting started. The memory of the woman’s thighs reminded him. Not bloody finished yet.

Elaine could sense it, and she gestured at the open door behind him.

‘This is my bedroom,’ she said, with a hint of menace in the allure of her voice.

As his wife breathed to speak, her shoulders moved so that Mike saw as if for the first time her clear firm living flesh, and her breath was soft on his own body. His look took in her breasts, the curve of her belly, the thighs, clean and straight. The erection which had died a few moments ago began to resurface as if to salute this lovely, angry female. As she had guessed might happen, there arose in her husband the same undiluted lust for her as when first he had seen her at university and had wanted badly to bed her long before he even knew her name.