The Sleeper (13 page)

I laugh. ‘I wasn’t planning on this. It wasn’t even an outside possibility. I don’t walk round with condoms in my pocket.’

‘Neither do I. And despite the fact that I’ve turned up at your door like a cad, after you’d so graciously removed yourself from my company, I was not that well prepared.’

‘Maybe we can work around it?’ I say tentatively, and I kneel down on the floor in front of him. We cross so many lines that I soon forget all about my husband, and his wife, and everything apart from the movement of the train and the reality of Guy inside my mouth.

Later, much later, we squeeze together into the tiny train bed, both of us naked. I am on a high, and still so utterly in the moment that I do not feel even a momentary pang of guilt.

‘We really shouldn’t do this,’ I say, nuzzling into his neck. ‘I love the smell of you, by the way.’

‘Why thank you. I adore the smell of you. It drives me wild.’

‘Good.’ I smile and run my fingers through his chest hair. ‘What you did to me just then? It was …’ I stop, suddenly shy. ‘Well. You know what you’re doing. That’s all.’

‘It’s not me, Lara. It’s you. It’s us. Together we make it work like nothing else I’ve ever known.’

‘You have known it, though, really. Be realistic. You just haven’t had the excitement with someone new for a long time.’ Suddenly, I realise I am probably wrong. ‘What I mean is,
I
haven’t. You know I haven’t. You may well have done. I don’t mean to assume anything – if I’m one of a long line of conquests, that’s fair enough.’

‘Oh, Lara!’ He kisses the top of my head. ‘You’re not one of a long line. There’s no reason for me not to be entirely honest with you, though. I haven’t always been a great husband.’

‘That’s a euphemism for shagging around?’

‘It is indeed a euphemism for shagging. Not around. I’ve had a couple of flings over the years. I’m a bastard. My wife is a saint.’

‘Does she know, then?’ I suddenly imagine him telling her that a woman on the train gave him a blow job, and that he reciprocated with panache. The thought chills me. I feel myself tensing up, pulling away from him. His wife could track me down, turn up on my doorstep. She could tell Sam.

‘No, not really. We’ve never had a showdown. I’ve always felt she probably does know, but it’s one of those things that if you don’t talk about it then you don’t have to deal with it. Which probably suits both of us.’

‘Guy! That is so easy for you to say. Your poor wife.’

I can think about her objectively, and side with her, and sympathise. This is despite the fact that I am lying so close to her husband that our bodies are touching all the way down in every place, and both of us are naked. I could almost be swayed to gamble on the withdrawal method of contraception. I would not get pregnant anyway; but given Guy’s history, that is not the main concern.

‘You think?’ he asks. ‘You think I’m having my cake and eating it?’

‘Yes! What if she was doing the same? What if right now, she’s cuddled up with the milkman?’

He considers it. ‘We don’t have a milkman. Does anyone these days? Milkmen are almost obsolete. But I take your point. If she were the woman in this scenario right now, and some gorgeous hunk was the man, then obviously I’d be outraged. But if she’s done it in the past – and who am I to say that she hasn’t? She might have done. It’s unlikely but odd things happen. If it turns out she’s been unfaithful to me, then I accept that and I’d much, much rather not know about it, thanks very much.’

‘Hmm. Which, funnily enough, is a moral position that comes close to giving you carte blanche to carry on exactly as you wish without breathing a word to her.’

‘It does rather, doesn’t it?’ He kisses me. ‘Sorry. I am a shit, I fully acknowledge and own that fact. At least you know I won’t be telling Di, and she won’t be coming to your house.’

‘Oh, fucking hell. That’s exactly what I was worrying about. So that’s something, I suppose.’

‘And you? I’m assuming you won’t be stepping off the Falmouth train and breaking down and confessing all?’

‘I can’t even bear to think about the weekend, actually. I’m OK right here, right now. It’s going to come crashing down around me, I imagine, as soon as you get out of my bed. No, I’m not going to tell. I couldn’t do that to Sam. I spent all last weekend agonising. I’ve got a hell of a lot more to agonise over this time. I’m scheduling in some very heavy-duty agonising indeed.’

He puts his arm right around me, round my waist and on to the small of my back, pulling us even more tightly together. I love his fingers on my skin. No one touches the small of my back, not even Sam.

‘Lara.’ He sounds hesitant. ‘Look. Tell me to fuck off if you like. But you know, maybe you don’t need to give yourself such a hard time. People do it all the time. Half the people you know will be doing it in secret. Sam could be, stuck in Falmouth on his own all week. As I said before, Diana might be, though there are so many demands on her time that it would require an impressive level of planning. Maybe it’s just the way people get through their lives. Perhaps this kind of thing is the secret to the long union.’

‘Guy! Stop it. That doesn’t work.’

‘I know it doesn’t. Sorry. I just wanted to hear how it sounded. It could have worked.’

‘Didn’t. But.’ I don’t want to say this, yet somehow I do anyway. ‘But the thing is, you don’t need to try to find ways to tie yourself up making me think it’s OK. I can’t bear to kick you out of my bed. I know it’s wrong. I’m doing it anyway. I should have left Sam ages ago. This just proves it to me.’

chapter ten

Christmas Eve

Iris lives down a lane, near some woods, in a cottage that, from a distance, looks somewhere between tatty and bohemian. It is raining softly, the sort of rain that hangs suspended and allows you to walk through it, rather than bothering to fall on you. The lane is stony, with a line of scraggy grass down the middle; at its end the house, with bare flowerpots and a bike clustered outside it, looks like a down-at-heel distant cousin of the stately home with sweeping drive.

I walk down from the top of the lane, where I have parked, as she told me to, nervously, when I called.

‘Don’t come to the house,’ she said immediately, offering to come to me or to meet me in a café, a pub, anywhere but here. I insisted, because I needed to. I feel bad about what I am planning to do here, but I will make it up to her one day.

‘Please,’ I begged her in the end. ‘I need to get out. I’d love to see where you live. I won’t stay long. I just want to be away from Falmouth. I’ll bring cakes.’

She paused, then laughed. ‘Well, if you’re bringing cakes …’

I sensed that she does not invite anyone to her place, ever, and this has made me particularly intrigued.

As I get closer to the house, I see that it is in a worse state than you would think, from a distance. The wooden window frames are rotten. The white rendering is falling off in places. A cat stalks around from amongst a group of trees to my left and rubs itself on my legs. I stop to stroke it. It has long hair and the inevitable enigmatic air, and its black coat looks fluffy but is, in fact, wet.

I stand on the doorstep, the cat at my feet, and pull a chain which rings an old-fashioned genuine bell just on the other side of the door. It clangs back and forth, completely different from other people’s doorbells. While I wait for Iris, I allow myself to savour the solitude.

I am being as nice to Sam as I possibly can. He senses this and clings to me ever tighter. He is at my side constantly, bringing me cups of tea, asking what I would like to do and looking hurt if it does not involve the two of us being exclusively, endlessly together, holding hands and smiling. I know that he deserves my full attention, and he has had it since I came back from work on Friday night. However, sometimes you just have to get out.

I am having an affair. The words go around my head so often, and they are so shocking and transgressive, that I worry I am going to say them in my sleep. I am constantly worried that I will call Sam by the wrong name, that I will blurt it out, get something wrong.

As it is Christmas, and Guy and I are with our families (or rather, Guy is with his family and I am with Sam), we have agreed not to contact one another until we go back to London after the new year. I am being determinedly and relentlessly nice to my husband. I am not texting Guy, not calling him, not showing up on his doorstep even though I know exactly where he lives, in a village near the edge of the world.

Sam and I have a Christmas tree, cards, a houseful of food. We will spend Christmas looking out at the mild drizzle, eating and drinking and watching television. Nobody is coming to visit us: Sam has insisted that his frail mother and his aggressive brother stay at their home in Sussex, producing our weekly separation as a trump card, effective at keeping all potential intrusion outside the fortress.

‘We’ll just have a quiet one this year,’ I heard him say on the phone. I had no idea who he was talking to, and it didn’t matter. ‘Just Lara and me. That’s the best present I could ever have.’

My thoughts are treacherous. The guilt makes me kind to him, and he is innocently happy.

Today, however, I have come out. I wanted to see Iris, mainly to escape the stifling togetherness but also for a second, equally reprehensible reason. As footsteps approach the door, I wonder whether her boyfriend stifles her or whether their relationship is darker than that. Instinctively, I think it is, and I find myself hoping that I am about to meet him.

‘Lara! Hey. Good to see you.’

Iris is motioning to me to come in. She is dressed in skinny black jeans and a thick jumper that I have to reach out and stroke as I pass her because it is so obviously gorgeously soft.

‘Is that cashmere?’ I ask. She laughs.

‘In my dreams. It’s H and M faux-cashmere, ordered from the internet. How are you? Tea? Coffee? Something stronger?’

Suddenly I wish I had cycled here, like she does.

‘A coffee would be great. Thanks. If I didn’t have the car, I’d have loved something stronger.’ I hand her the Tupperware box of brownies.

‘Yeah, that’s why I offered to meet you in town. But that’s fine. Coffee it is. And brownies? Thanks.’

I follow her into a kitchen that is homely and warm, and not at all as tatty as the house’s exterior would imply. The floor, throughout, is battered wooden boards, and the kitchen is dated but lovely.

‘I like your Aga,’ I tell her. She pushes her hair back from her face.

‘It’s not a real one. It’s electric – essentially it’s an electric oven disguised as an Aga – but yes, it looks good. In fact, I’ve got some mince pies in it. I hope you like them.’

‘Of course. Thanks. You can’t not like mince pies. Is your boyfriend at home? Laurie?’

She pours hot water into a bizarre contraption made of two plastic cylinders, and starts pressing them together over a jug.

‘He’s miles away, I’m afraid. It’s a shame – he’s such a homebody normally, but he’s had to go and do a duty family visit. You know. Christmas. His family are … complicated.’

‘Tell me about it. It took me years to realise that everyone’s family is complicated. I always thought it was just me. Then I realised that when you scratch the surface, there’s no such thing as normal. Or at least, to be weird is to be normal.’

‘That is definitely true. I’m just glad I managed to stay home while he’s gone visiting. Me and the cats.’

‘You’re not alone for Christmas, though, are you? What about your family?’

‘Oh, I don’t really speak to them much. They live in Putney, but I haven’t been for years, and they don’t come here either. But no, Laurie’s going to be back late tonight. I won’t be on my own. I can’t wait to hear the taxi at the top of the lane. It’s only at this time of year that he ever goes anywhere, and that’s just because it’s inescapable.’

She takes an oven glove and crouches in front of the Aga, producing a tray of mince pies with a flourish that, I sense, ends the conversation. I want to ask about her family. I am intrigued by the fact that she never speaks to them, not least as I wonder whether Olivia and I are ever going to exchange a single word, ever again. I want to know what that will feel like.

Instead I say, ‘Bloody hell, Iris! Home-made ones! That must have taken you hours.’

She smiles. ‘I love it. I’m incredibly good at making pastry. Cold hands. If I ever feel the need to move to Paris or somewhere, I’d be able to get an apprenticeship in a bakery. Other people might be good at maths or brilliant at, you know, particle physics. But I’ll generally be able to beat them at jam tarts.’

‘And people will always want jam tarts.’

‘That’s true. Come the Apocalypse, I’ll just have to assemble some flour, fat and fruit, and I’ll be able to barter sweet pastries and get the essentials.’

She hands me a mug of coffee, and puts my brownies onto one plate, and her mince pies onto another. The mug is wide and chunky, with a design of roses on the side. She is using a matching one, though I notice that hers is chipped on the rim.

‘That must be a relief,’ I say, picking up the brownie plate and following her along a dark passage to a sitting room with French windows that look out on a bare but well-tended back garden. The grass is short, the beds turned over and free from weeds. ‘I mean, knowing what you can do when society collapses.’

She gestures me to a big comfy chair, and sits down on a sofa, moving a copy of last Saturday’s
Guardian
magazine. A cat materialises from thin air and settles itself on her lap. ‘You can stay, Desi,’ she tells it maternally, ‘but not if you try to lick my mince pie, OK? But you’ll be all right too, Lara. You know how to build a house. You’ll be the most popular woman in whatever remains of the world.’

‘I’ll build you a house in exchange for anything you’ve baked,’ I offer. ‘These mince pies are amazing.’

‘Thanks.’

‘I can’t really build, though. I’d have to have a gang of workers to boss around.’ I think about it. ‘And no one’ll even need planning permission, will they? There’s a significant part of my skill set, redundant.’