The Affair (31 page)

Stephanie smiled as she walked toward her car. Her entire world was changing. She was looking at possibilities that simply hadn’t existed forty-eight hours ago.

The cars were parked alongside one another in the darkened corner of the street. Stephanie and Robert hit their electronic car door openers together, and both sets of lights blinked simultaneously.

Robert opened her car door, and she threw her gym bag onto the passenger seat, then turned to him. She loved this man. And she would love to have his child. She reached up, pressed the palm of her right hand against the back of his skull to bring his head down to a level with hers. “Think of all the fun we’ll have practicing to conceive children,” she whispered. Then she kissed him, passionately and deeply. Finally they broke apart, panting slightly. Without saying another word, Stephanie climbed into the car, waved once, and drove away. She was thinking about baby names as she glanced in the rearview mirror and saw him still standing by his car, talking on the phone.

And would she keep her own name or take his?

She quite liked Walker. She tried it out, saying it aloud. “Stephanie Burroughs-Walker.” No, just Stephanie Walker. That’s what she would become.

Mrs. Walker.

Christmas Eve

Tuesday, 24th December

 

 

W
hen Stephanie Burroughs opened the hall door, she instantly recognized the woman standing on the doorstep. A dozen emotions flickered through her—shock, fear, anger . . . and, surprisingly, relief.

“Hello, Stephanie.”

“Hello, Mrs. Walker. Kathy.”

On the drive over, Kathy Walker had rehearsed her conversation with Stephanie Burroughs a hundred different ways. She’d gone through every emotion: from anger to resignation, from disgust to horror, and what was left was . . . nothing. An emptiness. A hollow feeling inside.

She knew, right up to the moment she pressed the doorbell, what she was going to say to her husband’s mistress, but when Stephanie Burroughs opened the door and looked at her with instant recognition in her eyes, all of Kathy’s carefully laid plans, her nicely ordered words and phrases deserted her. Instead, she stepped forward and cracked Stephanie across the face with the flat of her hand.

The two women blinked at one another, each surprised, shocked, horrified by what had just taken place. Kathy felt herself start to shake; she’d never raised a hand to another person in her life.

Stephanie pressed her hand against her stinging cheek. She had absolutely no intention of striking back. She bore the woman no animosity; Kathy had done nothing wrong. Almost from the very first moments of her relationship with Robert, Stephanie had been dreading—and expecting—an encounter with Robert’s wife. She knew once Robert told Kathy that he was leaving, she could expect a visit. And if she ever ended up calling at the home of her husband’s mistress, she’d belt her one too.

“I’m sorry!” Kathy began, abruptly breathless. “I promised myself I wasn’t going to do that. I’m sorry.”

Stephanie hadn’t been expecting a visit this soon; she hadn’t thought Robert was going to tell his wife until after Christmas.

Kathy gathered herself. “We can . . . ,” she began, but her voice was trembling with emotion. She swallowed hard and tried again. “We can have this conversation here on your doorstep, or you can let me in.”

Stephanie looked at the woman. She didn’t want to speak to her . . . but somewhere deep inside her, she felt a twinge of sympathy. Kathy deserved an answer. Mrs. Moore’s curtains twitched, making the decision for Stephanie. She moved aside. “Yes, absolutely, you should come up.”

The older woman hesitated a moment, then nodded and stepped into the foyer. Stephanie directed her through the door on the left to number 8, up the stairs to Stephanie’s apartment, where she found herself standing in a large room with skylights that was a combination living room and dining room.

Stephanie took her time closing the door, composed herself. There were tears in her eyes, more from the fright than the slap across the face. She glanced at herself in the hall mirror: The imprint of Kathy’s fingers was clear on her pale cheek.

Stephanie hung back in the doorway, a hand pressed to her cheek, and watched Robert’s wife. The woman was not entirely as she remembered her: older certainly, the skin on the face sagging a little, black bags under bloodshot eyes. She was simply dressed in a cream blouse over black pants, with plain jewelry, a gold necklace, a gold bracelet, and gold wedding and engagement rings. Stephanie got the impression that Kathy Walker had taken some time dressing for this encounter.

Stephanie couldn’t help but wonder how she would look if her lover had just said he was walking out. How would she feel? How was Kathy feeling right now? In that moment, Stephanie felt an extraordinary rush of pity for the other woman. She folded her arms across her chest; she couldn’t afford to feel pity for Kathy. This was the woman who had effectively driven her husband away with her uncaring indifference.

Kathy looked at the quaint room and found that she liked it; it wasn’t her taste, it was just a little too fussy, but it was homey and comfortable, not at all what she’d imagined it was going to be. She’d somehow imagined that Robert’s mistress would be a slave to fashion and have an apartment straight out of
In Style
magazine. It was spotlessly neat of course, but it was easy to keep a house clean if you didn’t have two teens running about.

Kathy turned a full circle. “It’s very nice,” she said eventually. She was relieved to find no pictures of Robert and Stephanie on the walls, no signs that he was already living there. “I suppose you know why I’m here.”

Stephanie looked at her closely, spotting the remarkable resemblance between them, and realized with a frisson of horror that she was seeing herself as she would be in ten years’ time. Or at least as she would be if her husband had just left her for a younger woman. “So he’s told you about us?” she asked coldly.

Kathy shook her head. “No. Robert didn’t tell me.”

Stephanie nodded slowly. Trying to prevent her voice from trembling, she said coolly, “So, you found out.”

“I found out,” Kathy said, her voice as icy as Stephanie’s. “I found out about you and him.” Anger began to edge her words.

“I thought he’d told you. He said he was going to.”

“Robert says he’s going to do lots of things. Then he forgets,” Kathy added bitterly. “I just want some answers. That’s all. I can’t ask him—I can’t ask him anything—because he’ll lie. He’ll lie to me. I’ve discovered that he’s been doing that a lot lately. And since I can’t ask him, I thought I’d ask you instead.”

And although Stephanie did not want to speak to this woman, she felt that she owed her that much. She nodded. “I was going to make some tea. Would you like some?”

“Yes. Please.” Kathy pulled off her coat and folded it over the back of a chair while Stephanie disappeared into the kitchen. Kathy hesitated a moment, then followed her, unconsciously taking up the same position and the same pose that Robert had adopted on Friday night.

“On the way over here I knew down to the last word everything I was going to say to you. Now that I’m here, I can’t think of anything worthwhile to say. But I never intended to hit you,” she added, embarrassed by the action. “That was . . . unnecessary.”

“I’d have done the same thing. If you want to shout at me, scream at me, I’d understand that too.”

Kathy shook her head. “What’s the point?”

Stephanie nodded.

“Why?” Kathy asked simply. “Why did you take my husband from me? Why would you do that?”

Stephanie concentrated on the kettle. “It just . . . happened,” she said, surprisingly softly. “It just happened.”

“Things don’t just happen,” Kathy said. “People make things happen. You made this happen.”

“And Robert too,” Stephanie added.

Kathy nodded, forced to agree. “Yes, he did.”

“And you.” Stephanie rounded on Kathy. “You had a part in this too.”

Kathy was taken aback by the fervor in the other woman’s voice. “I did nothing . . . ,” she began.

“Exactly,” Stephanie snapped. She was getting angry, terribly angry. She wasn’t going to shoulder the entire blame for this. Kathy was responsible, Robert was responsible, and she was responsible too. “I want you to know that I never set out to have an affair with him. I’ve never had a relationship with a married man before. I got together with Robert . . . I allowed myself to get close to Robert because I understood that you and he had parted. Emotionally, I mean.”

Kathy opened her mouth to snap a denial, but then she closed it again. Was it true? Could it be true? She watched the younger woman make tea in the rather sterile-looking kitchen. She’d recalled Stephanie as being much more glamorous than she was, slimmer, prettier. Maybe that was just her memory playing tricks; the Stephanie she was looking at now was rather ordinary looking in a well-kept sort of way. Was this the woman Robert was thinking of leaving her for?

Kathy accepted the tea from Stephanie’s hand, noting the slightest tremble on the surface of the tea. But maybe it was her own hands shaking.

Together the two women went back into the living room, Stephanie taking up her usual place, Kathy settling into the chair usually occupied by her husband. They drank their tea in silence, not quite looking at one another.

“I saw you last night,” Kathy said, breaking the long silence. “Coming out of the gym. I was so angry then, but only for a moment. Just a single instant. Then I felt . . . nothing.”

Stephanie nodded, not entirely sure what to say. She was trying to remember what they had said and done last night. They’d been talking about children, and she’d kissed him. Had Kathy seen that? Probably. Stephanie found herself wondering how she would feel if she saw Robert kissing another woman.

“What do you want to know?” she asked eventually.

“I’m not sure,” Kathy said truthfully. “When I set out to come here, I was going to fight for him. I was going to plead with you to let him go, ask you not to take him away from me, from his children. But I’m not sure I want to do that anymore.”

“Why not?” Stephanie whispered.

“I want my husband back . . . but I don’t want him to come back to something he doesn’t want to commit to.”

Stephanie nodded. She could understand that all too clearly.

“Tell me something . . . ,” Kathy continued.

Watching this woman, Stephanie tried to analyze her own emotions; unexpected feelings that were churning through her at this moment. Stephanie had never really thought too much about Kathy. Izzie had been right: Everything she knew about this woman had been filtered through Robert, and he, no doubt, had edited the story to make it his version of the truth. It worried her now that she was beginning to feel the first stirrings of sympathy for Kathy.

“Six years ago, when you first joined the company, did you have an affair with Robert?”

“No,” Stephanie said simply, “I didn’t. I was an employee, nothing more. I swear to you that there was absolutely nothing between us.”

And Kathy believed her. She took a moment to absorb the answer, looking at the woman sitting across from her. They were strangers, with nothing in common—except the one man. Her man. The man who Stephanie Burroughs had tried to take from her. But that feeling was changing; her perspective was altering. Stephanie was right. She was not entirely to blame. Stephanie might have made herself available to Robert, but he, in turn, had responded and made himself available to the younger woman. And suddenly Kathy was forced to ask herself what she had done. She had distanced herself enough from him to allow him to act—and think—like that.

“Do you believe me?” Stephanie asked.

Kathy nodded. Her eyes filled with tears. “I was wrong then. I was wrong.”

“Wrong?”

“I made a mistake back then—about you and him.”

“Yes, you did. I didn’t realize until very recently that you’d made the accusation. Have you accused him again?”

“Not yet. This time I wanted to be sure. I wanted to speak to you first.”

“Maybe you should have done that before,” Stephanie snapped.

“Maybe I should have,” Kathy agreed.

“When did you find out about us?”

“Thursday evening. By accident. I needed an address for a Christmas card, and I discovered your name in Robert’s phone. There was a little red flag beside it. I jumped to a conclusion: the same conclusion I jumped to six years ago. Then I was wrong; this time, I was right. When I went looking for proof I discovered that it wasn’t that hard to find. Sometimes I think he wanted me to find out and save him the trouble of having to face me and tell me himself.”

“As far as I can see, he’s done everything in his power to keep this a secret from you. He didn’t want to hurt you.” Stephanie was unable to keep the trace of bitterness from her voice.

“I’ve been trying to analyze over the past few days when exactly the rot began in our marriage. I think I can pinpoint it back to that moment, six years ago, when I accused him of having an affair with you. I made a mistake then; am I paying for it now?”

“I’ve told you: We weren’t involved then.”

“I believe you,” Kathy said.

“Why did you accuse him in the first place?” Stephanie had the sudden urge to reach out and touch Kathy’s hand.

“He was always with you, always talking about you, spending time away with you. You were so young, pretty, idealistic. I was jealous, I suppose. I thought it was inevitable that he’d sleep with you.”

“But it wasn’t. He never even hit on me. Remember, we were working all hours of the day on that huge project. He couldn’t afford to hire a second researcher, and you’d backed away from the business to raise your kids. That’s how we were thrown together.”

“But I made the accusation. He denied it of course. I called him a liar, doubted him, and you know something, once you doubt someone, then there’s no way to come back from that. It taints everything.”

Stephanie nodded. She’d spent weeks doubting Robert’s intention to commit to her. And even now, even with the words said, she still had the vaguest of niggling reservations.