Tess Stimson - The Adultery Club (5 page)

News to me. I didn’t realize they were so keen to get

rid of me. ‘Thank you. I’m very much looking forward to

working here.’

‘Good, good. Well, welcome to the firm. I’ll look forward

to seeing you on Monday.’

God, he’s anal, he couldn’t be more restrained if he

was strapped to a gurney - but bizarrely, he’s kind of

sexy too. Can’t quite put my finger on it. Maybe it’s the

mouth: very full lips, and a kind of Douglas dent in the

chin. Good-looking, too, though he’s quite old: forty at

least. And clothes that went out with the ark. Braces, for

Christ’s sake! But at least he’s tall. And that mouth. I bet

he’d give great head if someone taught him right-‘Miss Kaplan, did you just want to drop off some

paperwork, or was there something else?’

My cheeks burn as if he can read my mind. I realize

my hand is floating aimlessly near my shorn neck again,

and quickly turn the gesture into an earring fiddle. My

lobes are going to fall off if I don’t get used to this haircut soon. ‘Urn. Well, it’s just that Mr Fisher invited me to his

leaving party, and I thought it might be nice to meet

everyone before Monday—’

‘Oh, I see. Yes, of course. It’s not here, though, it’s at

the Italian restaurant across the road. I’m just going over

there myself.’

He presses the button and we stand staring in mutual

fascination at the steel door whilst the lift takes its own

sweet time to come up. Well, this is fun. I’ve felt less

awkward playing Twister. He’s kind of gawking at me

out of the corner of his eye, probably wondering why the

fuck his colleagues hired me and vowing never to go

away and leave them to their own devices again. I can tell

I am so not his kind of woman. Bet he likes them small

and dainty, with long girly hair and little nubbin breasts.

He’s just got that old-fashioned air about him. Poker

straight back like he’s ex-military, and that nondescript

short-but-not-too-short haircut my father’s had since

before I was born. At least he’s still got hair, I suppose;

actually it’s thick and dark, it’d probably be curly too if

he’d just let it grow a bit. And his eyes are amazing;

they’re a rather boring, wishy-washy grey-blue colour but

they scream ‘bedroom’! Mind you, the rest of him is so

buttoned-up I bet he’d have a heart attack if he knew.

Surreptitiously I clock his left hand. Naturellement. I

guarantee the wife’s never worked. I can see it all now:

she probably started out a size eight but is more like a

sixteen now, irons and starches his shirts by hand, cooks

him homemade steak-and-kidney pie and has sex by

numbers every Saturday night whilst she plans the menu

for their next dinner party. Two pre-teen kids, boy and

girl, of course, unremarkable private schools, tennis and

violin lessons, newish Volvo on the drive, one modest

skiing holiday a year - upmarket but not too smart - and

two weeks every summer somewhere sunny but not package:

northern Cyprus, maybe Malta. God, save me from

death by domesticity.

The lift finally arrives and naturally he waits for me to

go first, shooting me this freaky look as if I’m an alien

who’s just pitched up on his front lawn after a short

sojourn at Roswell. I’d love to get in his trousers just to

shake him up a bit. I bet once you got him going he could

be a dirty bastard in bed; the funniest part would be

watching him find out.

Clearly I am never going to get the chance to put

my theory to the test. Lyon edges to the far side of the

lift, puts a London bus width between us as we cross

the road, and shoots off like an Exocet to the far side

of the room the moment we reach the restaurant. Either

he’s terrified of women or the radioactive waste I ate for

breakfast is repeating on me.

I grab a glass of tepid house white from a passing

waiter. From the look of it, the law firm has taken over

the restaurant for the night. Most of the tables have been

pushed back out of the way, which means everyone’s

standing around in self-conscious knots not knowing

quite how to juggle drink, canapes and handshakes. The

knack, I’ve discovered, is not to bother with the canapes.

I’m just reaching for my second glass when the old

guy, Fisher, pounces from behind a pillar covered with

plastic grapes. Bloody lucky he’s leaving, I think, as the

dirty git kisses me on the cheek and grabs the opportunity

to cop a quick feel of my bum at the same time. Hasn’t he

heard of sexual harassment suits? Mind you, I suppose

you take it where you can get it when you hit sixty and

bugger the risk.

I network for a bit, letting Fisher’s paw roost between

my shoulder blades as he introduces me first to a fiftyish

battleaxe called Joan Bryant, their scary-looking ‘sleeping’

partner - she should be so lucky, she’s got a face like a

slapped arse - and then to David Raymond, a rather

skittish lawyer who looks younger than me but is probably

early thirties. You can tell just by looking at him that

never in a month of Sundays would he ever be called

Dave. I’m guessing his father was the original Raymond

on the firm’s letterhead.

The conversation turns to the pig’s ear the Government

has made of its latest legislative proposals for no-fault

divorce. Joan immediately - and predictably - says the

whole premise is a logical impossibility, since divorce is

always the man’s fault, and then glares at David as if

she’s going to eat him and spit out the bones, like Gollum.

David gives a sickly grin and feebly starts to point out

that there are always two sides to every story - oh dear,

not in divorce, David, what are you, a frigging Relate

counsellor? There’s only ever one side: the side paying us

- but he subsides into pale sweaty silence when Gollum

licks her lips.

Fisher slides his meaty palm down my spine and rests

it comfortably on my arse. ‘C’mon, c’mon, let the new boy

speak. What do you think, Sara?’

T guess quickie no-faulters could be a good idea,’ I

muse, resisting the urge to grab his wrinkly dick to even

things up a bit. ‘You’re more likely to get repeat customers

if you can recycle the exes quickly.’

‘Contested, drawn-out divorces bring in more fees

Collum snaps.

Fisher laughs uproariously. ‘You girls are two of a

kidney he splutters. ‘Fees first, everything else later.’

I barely have time to register this monumental insult

when a rosy-cheeked dumpling in creased Laura Ashley

Fisher’s long-suffering wife, I presume - sidles over and

gently extracts him from temptation and my waistband. I

like her instantly. Mrs Fisher looks like every little kid’s

ideal mother, all pillowy soft bosom and warm forgiving

hugs. Couldn’t be further from mine, then, if she tried.

My parents married tragically young - seventeen, the

pair of them - and had me six months later. Hmm, you

do the maths. My mother likes to relate the ‘nightmare’ of

giving birth to me to anyone who’ll sit still long enough:

the agonizing three-and-a-half-day labour, the emergency

Caesarean, the haemorrhaging, the next-of-kin consent

forms, the hysterectomy, the works. Makes you feel kind

of guilty from the word go just for existing, really. So

anyway: I’m it, their one shot at immortality. At least Dad

has his job to distract him - he’s a financial adviser - but

my mother’s never worked; I’m her entire focus, and to

be honest, it can get a bit wearing. She’s always buying

me things: a Louis Vuitton handbag for my birthday,

Gucci loafers for Christmas; I still get a stocking filled

with goodies collectively worth more than I earn in a year.

I’m not really complaining; but you get nothing for

nothing, not even from your parents. Every time I find

myself in a financial scrape - which is pretty much whenever

I walk past Jigsaw - my mother bails me out, then

beats me with it for months afterwards. She doesn’t do it

to be nice, but to control me. Dad doesn’t approve but

he never interferes; there’s no question who wears the

trousers in our house.

I toss back the house vinegar and glance round idly

for Nick. He’s standing in the furthest corner of the room

- and staring intently, almost fixedly, at me. I feel a jolt

of recognition at the hunger in his eyes. As soon as he

catches my gaze he blanches and looks away, but it’s too

late. You know when a man wants you.

I’m shocked. I would never have thought - he doesn’t

seem the type. Not your usual kind of player. In a

previous age I’d have cast him as one of those medieval

monks who wore a hair shirt to mortify the flesh and got

out a cat-o’-nine-tails whenever he had carnal thoughts.

Actually, for all I know he’s a paid-up member of Opus

Dei. I’ve read The Da Vinci Code too, you know.

He looks so appalled you’d think he’d fallen headfirst

into a pit of decomposing plague victims. I almost want

to go over and tell him not to worry. He is hot, especially

with that suppressed slow-burn thing he’s got going on.

But off limits. I might borrow the odd unattended husband

from time to time, but I never do office romances it’s

always the woman who gets screwed. No way do I

intend to end up like Amy in four years time.

But I can’t deny it’s going to make encounters by the

coffee-machine at playtime more interesting. And if he’s

got the hots for me, it’s not going to do my career any

harm either, as long as I tread carefully.

God, that makes me sound like a calculating witch,

and I’m really not. It’s just that in this business men get to

play the Old School Tie card all the time, whereas women

have got nothing but the wits - and body - God gave

them. You don’t often see women reaching down to

give their younger sisters a hand up the career ladder

the way men do. I’d never sleep my way to the top, but a

little flirtation - that’s all, I swear - to oil the wheels of

fellowship never did any harm. Hey. You play the cards

you’re dealt.

A middle-aged woman suddenly flusters into the restaurant,

her head bobbing frantically as she tries to find a

face she recognizes. Probably a clerk’s wife. She’s missed

brushing a bit of her rather wild, dark hair, and it’s all

bed-heady at the back. No coat, safe, dependable little

black dress to the knee, discreet early-marriage jewellery

- big on sentimentality, small on diamonds - and a

battered bucket handbag the size of the Chunnel. Lovely

dark eyes, though, and she’s reed-thin, lucky cow. But oh,

God! - she’s forgotten to change her shoes. Oh, poor

bitch. She’s standing in the middle of this snotty Italian London restaurant in a pair of pink towelling slippers.

No one else seems to have even noticed her arrival. I

grab another glass of house white from a nearby tray and

shoot over.

‘Here,’ I say kindly, shoving it towards her, ‘it tastes

like lukewarm battery acid, but it’s better than nothing.

By the way,’ I murmur discreetly, ‘you might want to

change your shoes in the ladies before you join everyone.’

She takes the wine and shifts her huge bag from one

shoulder to the other, shedding a cascade of tissues,

broken pens and what looks like a half-eaten gingerbread

man onto the floor as it flaps open. I wonder if she’s in

the right place; surely even a clerk’s wife couldn’t be this dippy. ‘Sweet of you,’ she says absently, spilling half the

wine on herself as she bends to pick up the shit she’s just

chucked on the ground. Still glancing distractedly around i

the restaurant, she mops ineffectually at her dress with

one of the tissues, rubbing what looks, like flour into the

worn fabric.

‘Your shoes1 hiss again.

She looks curiously at her slippers as if seeing them for

the first time. ‘Oh, yes,’ she says equably. ‘Well, at least

the rain hasn’t ruined them.’

I watch disbelievingly as she calmly kicks the slippers

off and shoves them into the bulging tardis on her

shoulder, seemingly untroubled by the fact that she’s

now wandering London in her stockinged feet. Is this

woman for real? God, I hope I don’t get that frigging

mental when I’m old.

Abruptly Nick materializes beside us, looking strained.

He ignores me completely.

‘Malinche, where in heaven’s name have you been? It’s

eight-thirty, Will’s been asking for you for the last hour!

What kept you?’

Fuck, this is Nick’s wife?

‘Traffic,’ she says, waving a hand vaguely in the direction

of the street.

‘I told you to allow - oh, never mind. Now that you’re

here, you’d better come and be sociable.’

‘I was, darling, I was talking to this gorgeous girl here

- such a lovely suit, I hate chartreuse itself, of course,

the drink I mean, but that’s simply a delicious colour,