The Affair (20 page)

Nina knew her face was behaving oddly. She should be relaxed and flippant about this boyhood fun, matching James’s lightness, but she was
struggling with her expression. She couldn’t make herself smile.

‘What’s wrong, Nina?’

‘Nothing … I …’

James watched her.

‘Darling, what is the matter? It was just a silly boys’ drinking game. It was a joke. Why has this upset you so much?’

Nina shook her head. How could she explain the pain that pierced her heart. Sudden, inexplicable, blinding pain. Count Mauro de March was the name they used to get girls into bed. She felt humiliated and foolish.

She walked over and looked again at the photo on the wall. Half-a-dozen schoolboys sitting in a row laughing. There was Felix, James, a couple of others and then someone who looked like a young Leo. They all wore the uniform of a private Sydney boys’ school. Nina felt as if the walls were closing in on her. Everything had become so complicated and messy and sordid. She wanted to set it right.

‘James, we need to talk.’

James sat up. He took in Nina’s tone, her manner. Everything about her screamed serious.

‘What is it, darling?’

Nina continued to pace around the cramped room. She walked from the top of the bed to the foot, around the end to the door, and then back again. She looked at the pictures and banners on the wall and the books in the bookcase. She couldn’t look at James.

This was so hard. So much had happened. ‘For
the past month or so I’ve noticed you were distracted. You seemed preoccupied and I didn’t know why,’ she began.

James tried to see the recent past from Nina’s perspective. He saw her loneliness and felt bad. ‘Nina, I’m sorry. I know I have been a pig to live with. I know I virtually ignored you. I am so, so sorry. I just did not know what to do. This Lloyd’s thing has been a nightmare.’

Nina nodded. ‘I know. Well, at least I know that now. But that’s the problem. I didn’t know what was going on. I can’t see inside your head. From the moment I met you we have talked, about everything. For you to face that disaster and shut me out is probably the most hurtful thing you have ever done.’

James pulled at a loose thread on the bed coverlet. ‘I guess I was trying to protect you,’ he said softly.

‘Protect me?’ Nina was incredulous. She stopped pacing and stared at her husband.

James nodded. ‘I didn’t want to … to worry you.’ It sounded so weak, even to his own ears. He hadn’t really considered it from this angle until now and he was realising that his action didn’t hold up to closer scrutiny.

‘You think I don’t worry when my husband doesn’t come home? And when he does he locks himself in the study all night? You think I don’t worry when he suddenly won’t talk to me? James, I have been beside myself with worry. And I have been very lonely. I missed my husband.’

James murmured something unintelligible. He looked contrite.

Nina sat on the bed. ‘James, you can’t keep anything from me again. Not like that. If there is something worrying you, you have to tell me. Otherwise a gap opens up between us. And that’s … dangerous.’

James agreed. ‘Yes, you are right.’

Nina stood up and started pacing again. She hadn’t planned this conversation and wasn’t sure how to proceed. She was surprised when James blurted: ‘In that case I do have something else to tell you.’

Nina stopped and looked at him.

‘Now I don’t want you to get upset or angry. It happened a long time ago. But I should have told you as it might explain … well, as it might explain something about what is going on.’

‘I’m listening.’

‘Years ago, before I met you, I had a drunken fling with Amanda. Don’t ask me why. We were pissed and I don’t know, but next thing … well … we did.’

Nina looked at her husband. This was so unexpected. Amanda. James and Amanda? ‘How long ago?’

‘Before I came to Canada. Before I went to London with Felix in 1987. Years ago.’

‘Just the once?’

‘Yes, just the once.’

‘Does Mark know?’

‘I have no idea. I certainly never told him.
Amanda was working on door sales with me. I left soon after and the next time I saw her was when I came back with you. As you know I didn’t keep in touch with my family much, except for sending Mum the odd postcard. I was surprised when Mum wrote and told me Amanda was going to marry Mark. But then I thought, why not? They have a lot in common. They are passionate about wine.’

‘Wow,’ said Nina.

Her legs felt tired. She sat in the chair at the desk and faced him. James wanted Nina to know everything. It was suddenly vitally important to him that they not have any secrets.

‘Amanda hates me. She told me the other day that she feels I used her and then dumped her. That I behaved like a pig to her. What can I say? I was drunk. I thought she was too. I didn’t see it as the beginning of anything. But it looks like maybe she did.’

‘Is that why she is so awful?’

‘To you? Probably. I’m sorry, Nina. I should have told you. I know it’s been hard for you, starting a new life here in Australia, without any of your friends and family around. And having her as your sister-in-law probably hasn’t made you feel so very welcome.’

‘No, you’re right there,’ agreed Nina.

Nina thought of Amanda. She didn’t like her but she was beginning to understand her. ‘I don’t suppose Amanda is used to being rejected,’ she said. She sighed deeply. This conversation had not gone
the way she had intended. She wondered how she could bring it back.
Well, I have something I want to
get off my chest
…

James got out of bed and knelt at her feet. He put his arms around her legs and looked up at her. ‘Nina, I adore you. I would never do anything to hurt you. The day I stood beside you and promised to love and honour you I meant every word. Amanda will get over it. It’s just hurt pride. And if she doesn’t, well that’s her problem. It has nothing to do with us, not that it ever did have.

‘And I apologise from the bottom of my heart for the pain I have caused you over the past few months. I missed you, too. I don’t ever want a gap to grow between us again. When I have a problem, I’ll tell you.

‘Let’s draw a line in the sand tonight. Here and now. Let’s forget the past. Everything that has gone on is behind us. It is irrelevant. We start afresh right now.’

Nina stared at her husband. Did he know? He was kneeling there in front of her, his face open and honest and was offering her redemption, a clean start. The force of his love almost overwhelmed her. She knew she had a choice. It was speak up now or forever hold her peace.

She leaned forward and took his head in her hands. ‘A clean start. Here and now, my love. I’m all yours.’

The doctor was deliberately ambiguous. His words hung in the air.

‘
Your
son doesn’t have
any
bad Wilde genes.’

Nina remained deathly silent. It was as if even the blood in her veins had stilled. She dared not look up.
He knew. The doctor knew.
It was obvious in the way he spoke, the choice of words and his manner. His voice was soothing but his light blue eyes were hard, and cold, staring at her with uncompromising directness. She felt like he was looking right into her soul.

Nina started to tremble.
He’s going to tell James
that Luke is not his son. He’s going to do it sitting here,
right now. No, no, no. It will kill James. Please don’t tell
him. Why does he have to find out? Oh my God. How
can I get James out of here?
Nina ceased to think rationally. She saw her life with James and Luke crumbling into a pile of rubble. A wave of panic engulfed her.

James and the doctor watched as a range of expressions flitted across her face. It was partly hidden from them as she stared intently at her hands, clasped together in her lap.

‘Nina,’ said James softly.

She seemed to have retreated inside her own head. The relief that he and their son were healthy must almost be too much for her, he thought. He felt such tenderness for his wife. She was so vulnerable and he felt himself to be personally responsible for her happiness. It wasn’t rational and Nina would have been surprised if she realised how deeply he felt it, but it was part of what he saw as his role as husband and protector. He needed to be needed. To see her this upset physically hurt him. That he and his son were the cause of her pain made his sense of responsibility all the more intense. He didn’t doubt that she loved him. It was what drove him out of the house each morning to work and sent him home just as soon as he could. Not for James nights drinking with his mates or golf weekends out of town. He just wanted to be with her, around her, in her space, loving and protecting her. After ten years of marriage, that desire had never waned.

Nina felt James’s voice coming to her from a long way off. She could feel the warmth of his fingers inside her elbow. Comforting, solid, tangible.
Anchoring. James did that for her. He was solid. Whenever she thought she might fade away, he was there, grounding her.

Nina lifted her face to him. He didn’t seem to find anything unusual in what the doctor said. In fact he was looking relieved. He had been told what he wanted to hear. He was healthy and his son was healthy. The facial tic had stopped. He looked like he had just been handed the world. But Nina was getting a different message. She tried to appear normal, giving James a little reassuring smile that she didn’t feel. She had to get him out of there. Fast. Before this oaf of a doctor said anything further.

‘It’s great news – we really should go,’ she said, rising to her feet.

James looked surprised by her sudden hurry but stood also, placing a reassuring hand on her arm.

‘Thank you, doctor, for such wonderful news. We are very grateful.’

Nina almost started to relax. The meeting was over. They could go home and resume their life, their happy cosy little life, just the three of them.

The doctor watched them.

‘We are very relieved that the tests proved so favourable,’ repeated James.

The doctor’s face was impassive.
That’s what you
think.
He was in no hurry. He was enjoying himself too much. He allowed himself a small smile. Beneath the desk, his foot tapped out a slow rhythmic beat.
Not
…
so …
fast.

Often he had sat here watching women like
Nina, smiling through their deceit. Women, the weaker sex. Huh! The lying sex, more like it. Their doting men supported them, raised the fruit of their infidelities, and all the time the men were being treated like fools or, worse still, a meal ticket. It was an old, old story and it offended the doctor every time it was presented to him.

The cheap plastic folder beneath his clasped hands bulged with information, secrets that could destroy the web of lies that this woman had clearly woven around her son’s birth. James’s obvious anguish sickened him. How heartless this woman was.

But Dr Jones had just changed the rules. This one wasn’t going to get away with it. He was going to have some fun. He felt powerful, almost godlike. It was an intoxicating feeling. He waited till they were almost at the door.

‘Oh, by the way …’ he began.

Nina stiffened.

In front of her James, hand outstretched, stopped and turned back to him, his face polite and enquiring. ‘Yes …?’

Leo kept his eyes fixed on the tree. He packed the spinnaker under the bed in the boat’s little cabin and knotted the ropes into neat piles. He wasn’t concentrating on what he was doing, just killing time while he waited and watched that tree. Every few minutes he picked up his binoculars and scanned the park. He wondered what he would do if someone else came along and sat there. After all, it was a nice day and that was a damn fine-looking tree. But no-one did.

Leo had a couple of bottles of French champagne chilling in the fridge at home. He had bought new crystal champagne flutes. An enormous bunch of white lilies sat in a vase decorated with a huge tartan bow on the hall stand. They were the first thing Nina would see when she walked in. He had
been planning their afternoon together all week. He was filled with anticipation.

‘Ah, Nina,’ he sighed to himself.

They would meet by the tree. Then they would walk slowly, casually, separately, not touching, back to his place. Every step would be delightful, excruciating suspense. Then they would fall on each other. He had never felt this way before.

Leo had hoped Nina would already be waiting by the tree. Every second apart was delicious agony. He remembered their farewell the previous week. Such tender soulful kisses on the landing of his penthouse apartment while they waited for the lift.

‘See you next week,’ Nina had called out just before the lift doors closed.

And Leo had been counting the hours ever since.

They hadn’t made a firm time or confirmed the arrangement. Leo wouldn’t know how to contact Nina. But it wasn’t necessary. The world revolved around them. Nina felt it as strongly as he did. Leo was sure of it. It was in the way she had smiled, tilting her head on one side and flashing her eyes. They had a date. Late Saturday morning, by the tree, was a commitment as solid as if they had put it in writing. Leo would just have to be patient, he told himself.

He locked the boat away and made his way across the grass, stopping to pick up a coffee and a newspaper. It was his turn to pretend to read while he watched the pathway for Nina. He settled into
their spot, nestled among the roots of the fig tree. He watched a couple argue a few metres away. They were sitting on the back of a park bench, their feet on the seat. She was wearing short gold shorts and a skimpy black halter top with a man’s jacket around her shoulders. In one hand she held a pair of gold sandals and in the other a bottle of water. He was wearing denim jeans and a tight white singlet that showed off muscly arms. Leo tuned in to what they were saying.

‘If Ghandi had been an elected politician he couldn’t have achieved what he did,’ argued the girl, waving her arms about.

‘I don’t think you can make that generalisation,’ said the guy. He sounded quite angry.

‘No, no, no,’ insisted the girl, stamping her foot on the seat. She seemed equally agitated. ‘He would have been forced to function within a corrupt system.’

Leo listened to them, fascinated. They were both vehement, worked up, talking over each other, desperate to make their point as if their very life depended on it.

‘You are full of crap,’ said the girl, shoving him hard in the chest with her shoes.

The man tipped backwards, lost his balance and fell off the bench, landing with a thud on the grass.

The girl looked shocked for a minute, then started to laugh. Her laughter had a manic quality that Leo found unnerving. The man stood up, brushed himself down, then pulled her backwards off the bench and onto the ground. They rolled
around, kissing noisily. People ignored them. A woman in her eighties power-walked past them, not even bothering to look down. Her arms and legs were pumping furiously. She was followed a few seconds later by an identical woman. Leo did a double take, then realised they must be twins. The second one appeared to be trying to catch up to the first.

The park was home to anyone and everyone. Leo went back to his newspaper and idly turned a page. It was impossible to concentrate. He looked into the canopy above him, where the forks of the tree created a natural, leaf-covered cradle. It was mostly hidden from the ground but Leo could see it. A slow secretive smile spread across his face.

Nina saw the car pull into the driveway.

‘They’re here,’ she called out in every direction.

James came quickly down the stairs. Mark rushed in from the barn and up the verandah steps. Amanda, waiting in the sitting room, readied the boys.

‘Now you must be very careful with Grandma. Just stay very quiet and don’t rush her. Okay?’

The boys, dressed in matching denim overalls, with their hair combed back behind their ears, stood side by side at the front door, wincing as their mother preened them.

James helped Patty from the car while Mark and Frederick retrieved her bags from the boot. The car was filled with flowers. She was a popular
woman among the people of the town. Nina helped Amanda carry armfuls into the house.

Nina was shocked by how much weight Patty had lost. She was like a bird. Nevertheless, Dr Wilson was very pleased with her progress and had sent her home. She had a lot of healing to do, he said, and the best place to do that was at home.

Amanda and Nina had spent a full day together dusting and disinfecting every room. Frederick had turned the downstairs drawing room into a temporary bedroom, moving elegant period furniture out and a new bed and mattress in. Yesterday had been a long day working together to prepare and get the house in order. They started early and sat around the kitchen table, exhausted, eating pizza at the end of the day. Their common purpose had brought a temporary truce to the troubled family.

James towered over his mother, bending his head to hear what she was saying. Somehow in the hospital it hadn’t been so noticeable. But, standing next to her strapping tall sons, she looked angular and fragile.

‘I have put lunch out on the verandah, Patty, if that suits you?’ said Nina. She felt suddenly uncomfortable, taking charge in another woman’s house.

Patty beamed at her. ‘That would be lovely.’

Frederick helped her through the house and outside. Patty stood for a moment at the verandah post surveying the vineyard. Their faces wore the same expression as they looked out across the rows and rows of vines.

‘The red still hasn’t been picked, eh, Fred? I thought you were going to do that yesterday.’

‘We were but the baume still isn’t up quite high enough. We hope to do it at first light tomorrow.’

‘Will the rain hold off?’

Frederick shrugged. ‘Should do.’

They continued for a few moments mumbling together in a kind of shorthand that only they could follow, using incomplete sentences. Their sons listened without interrupting. They were used to these kinds of conversations between their parents. So many of Frederick and Patty’s hopes and dreams over more than two decades were out in those paddocks. When their sons and their wives looked out they saw neat, orderly rows of vines, a huge stone barn and a clear blue sky. They couldn’t begin to see what Frederick and Patty saw.

After Patty had reassured herself it was all still there, just as she remembered it, she looked back around the faces of her family. Already she had more colour in her cheeks and an alert expression in her eyes. She settled into her favourite wicker chair with the faded floral cushion.

‘You can take me for a walk later, Fred. Right now I want to know how my family are. Have I missed anything?’ she asked.

The first Leo was aware of any commotion was a loud sharp bark followed immediately by a woman screaming. People all across the park looked in the direction of the noise. Leo twisted his body around
and followed their attention. A skinny woman in her twenties wearing only a very brief black bikini was flailing her arms about and chasing a small Jack Russell terrier around in a circle. It was an incongruous sight, even for Rushcutters Bay Park.

As Leo watched he realised the dog had something in its mouth, which it was thrashing about at the same time as it evaded the hysterical woman.

‘My rabbit, my rabbit …’ she yelled.

A young teenager, a boy of about fourteen, was racing around with her trying to catch the dog.

‘Pepper! Come here. PEPPER!’ he yelled, adding, ‘Sorry, lady.’

Pepper avoided them both, thinking this was all part of a game. He would let them get close, then effortlessly evade them. He wasn’t trying to get away. He was having far too much fun.

A crowd started to gather. Leo stood, watching the spectacle.

The boy got a lucky break, catching Pepper by his collar when he was distracted by the woman. Throwing his body half across the little dog, the boy pinned him to the ground. The woman, happy to have a stationary target, started hitting the dog while the boy tried to prise Pepper’s jaws open, at the same time trying to protect him from her blows.

Pepper finally gave up his quarry and Leo watched as the boy handed the limp, lifeless body of the rabbit to the woman.

She stopped yelling and took it. The crowd quietened as it realised what had happened. But
no-one made a move to leave. They waited, wanting to see what she would do. The boy waited too. It seemed everyone in the park was holding their breath, watching the bikini-clad woman.

‘I’m so sorry, lady,’ he said.

The woman gave no indication she was aware of anyone watching her. She ignored them all. Cradling the small lifeless bundle of fur, she picked up her handbag and her clothes, and with enormous dignity, walked slowly out of the park and into the street.

Leo returned to his tree. It was way past lunchtime and he was hungry. He lit a cigarette and looked anxiously up the path in the direction of Nina’s apartment block. He hoped she wouldn’t be much longer.

The Wilde family slipped into a comfortable camaraderie, presenting a happy and united front for Patty’s sake. No-one needed to be told. They all knew what was expected of them, what would make Patty happy.

Frederick praised Nina’s efforts in Patty’s absence.

‘They say nice things now but they complained at every meal that it wasn’t how you would have done it,’ said Nina.

It wasn’t true but it was in keeping with the mood of the afternoon.

Throughout the day James never actually spoke directly to his brother, father or sister-in-law. But
Patty didn’t notice that. She noticed only how loving her sons seemed to be with their wives. Nina kept stroking James’s arm, almost as if she couldn’t get enough of him. Of course, they were still newlyweds, thought Patty.

But what did surprise Patty was the new deference in the way Amanda spoke to Mark. Patty often had been uncomfortable with the sharp tone Amanda used with her husband. It showed a lack of respect, Patty thought. It had first become apparent around the time of their wedding and it had made Patty uneasy. Something hadn’t been right though she couldn’t put her finger on what it was. Amanda just didn’t seem to appreciate Mark enough, thought Patty. Then the boys arrived, one after the other, and life became very busy for them with two young children to care for. Those boys were a handful. Mark seemed happy, as far as Patty could tell. But today, Patty noticed a marked difference in the way Amanda related to her husband. She seemed positively adoring of him. About time, thought Patty.

As for the two boys, apart from a scratch on Harrison’s nose they looked fine, playing with each other among the vines. Lachlan had the hose and was chasing Harrison, who was too small to get out of the way.

Frederick, who continued to hover nearby, was treating Patty like a piece of rare, fragile porcelain, terrified she might suddenly break and while she complained to him to let her be, secretly she liked it. She was touched by his worry and devotion.

Patty settled back into her chair and sipped her tea, happy that the vineyard had been well cared for and content to be the focus of all the family’s attention. All was well with her little world.

Nina was finding the afternoon a bit of a strain. Her whole body was tuned into James. She could feel his tension. She was aware what it was costing him to take part in this happy family charade when he felt so miserable and guilty. She continued to stroke his arm, trying to impart reassurance and support.

There was a nagging feeling at the back of her mind, like something she had forgotten to do. A little niggling thought that kept poking and pricking the deepest recesses of her brain. It was a mixture of guilt, longing, shame and resolve – a cacophony of emotions that she wouldn’t allow to come to the surface. She knew what it was and she wasn’t going to let it in. The more it threatened, the more she focussed on her concern for her husband.

Leo watched the shadows move across the grass. His stomach grumbled painfully and he felt a chill. The sun had disappeared behind a clutch of buildings. It was still some hours till dusk but the heat of the day had passed and people started to pack up their picnics, rugs, frisbees, books and playthings to head home.

Leo was fearful. What could have happened? Was Nina hurt? How would he ever know? He could turn on the news tonight and see the debris of a
smashed-up car, not knowing it was Nina that had been injured. That thought seemed unutterably tragic. Nina lying hurt in a hospital somewhere and he unable to go to her. Leo shivered.

He knew which apartment block she lived in. He remembered that day a few weeks ago, watching her run down the driveway, already sodden, trying to escape the rain. She had been a small, darting figure carrying lots of shopping bags. But he didn’t know which apartment she lived in. She knew where he lived, but not the phone number. How would she get a message to him? Suddenly it all seemed so very flimsy. Evanescent. Fading before his eyes.

But he refused to give in to those feelings. What was between them was anything but flimsy. It was young and fledgling but it was a potent force. Something irrevocable had passed between them. He knew it. And yet he was aware of a heavy melancholy settling in his heart. Something
was
different. He felt sad and he didn’t know why. Ah, lovely Nina. Where are you?