‘Hi. Me. I’m home … What’s the matter? … OK, yes … Are you sure? You sound—… Good.… Well then, late fish and chips d’you think? … OK, no hurry … they’re open till eleven … I’m going to have a bath … Pour me a drink in about half an hour or so … ’Bye.’
He lay his head back on the sofa for a moment and closed his eyes, then suddenly rose and took off his jacket as he walked out of the sitting room and down the hallway. He flung the jacket on the bed, then moved into the bathroom and leant down to turn on the taps, standing up as the steam hit his face and turning to confront himself in the mirror over the basin. He wiped away the condensation that was already beginning to gather on the glass, then turned his head from side to side as he examined himself, considering a shave but knowing even as he half-heartedly felt his chin with one hand that he probably wouldn’t bother. He picked up a comb from the shelf below the mirror, and swept it back through his hair, tutting a little in irritation at the way a long, loose strand would break free of the smooth shape and drop over one ear, or flop onto his forehead. He liked to keep his hair this long, he liked the way it swept right back across his head in silvery grey stripes and reached halfway down his neck, where it broke in the tiniest of neatly trimmed curls, but even with the small swipe of gel that he added to it to smooth it sleekly into place, the occasional lock would insist on escaping.
After the bath he felt good. He went to pick up his shirt and boxer shorts from the tiled floor, but a twinge in the small of his back stopped him and he grunted and straightened again.
‘Oh, never mind, Mrs Whatsit can do it,’ he muttered to himself, and gently pushed them with one foot towards the white laundry basket in the corner. He hummed quietly as he walked into the bedroom, put on a clean short-sleeved sports shirt that he took from the neatly filled shelves of the fitted wardrobe and some beige slacks that were hanging from metal clips on one of the mahogany hangers. He pulled on a pair of maroon leather mules and took his wallet out of the pocket of his jacket, which he then flung back onto the bedcover.
He went into the sitting room, picked up his keys and then walked out of the flat and made his way quickly down the stairs to the first floor. He glanced down at the silver keyring, picked out one of the several Banham keys that were hanging on it and pushed it into the lock of the first-floor flat door.
He closed the door behind him and turned round. A young girl was standing at the other end of the hall, watching him.
‘Hi!’ John said. ‘How’re you doing?’
‘OK.’
As John put his keys into the pocket of his trousers and walked towards her, she turned away and moved into one of the rooms that led off the hallway.
Eleanor reached the house at nine thirty and headed straight for the bathroom, where she turned on the taps and pulled off her clothes in a burst of furious, unhappy energy. She felt polluted, dirty and degraded, and as she pulled down her pants and unhooked her bra, she was tempted to throw them into the rubbish bin under the basin, but instead opened the linen basket and chucked them into the gingham-lined inside.
The water was too hot even for her skin that had been toughened by years of scaldingly hot baths, so she added a little cold as she swished it about with her hand. She reached out towards the little shelf inset in the tiles above the bath, and hovered for a moment between the choice of the two aromatherapy oils – one labelled for relaxation and the other for revival. So what if you need both? she thought to herself. She almost smiled as she considered mixing the two in a desperate attempt to bring her poor body into some sort of balance. The woman she had been a few days ago who had added a little oil to her bath in the morning to revive herself and a few drops of the other one to relax should she have taken an evening bath instead, was a creature from another planet. It would take more than oil to either restore or relax her now; the old body that had taken such a battering in the last few days could probably never be restored again – at least not to its previous state. Perhaps it could only function usefully and efficiently again if it could be transformed into something that was altogether less ambitious, like cutting up an old dress to make dusters, or chopping up a piece of furniture to make firewood.
She chose the bottle for ‘revival’, feeling that relaxation was so utterly out of the question that it would be perverse even to attempt it, and after adding a few drops and mixing them in, climbed into the now bearably hot water and lay back. She was astonished to find herself closing her eyes and slipping into a semi-doze, smiling to herself at the apparent ineffectiveness of the oil, but was jarred awake by the sudden ringing of the telephone. She began to clench her stomach muscles in the effort to pull her body out of the comforting suction of the water, but frowned and let go again, allowing her head to rest back again onto the cool enamel of the bath. What the hell was the point in answering it? Nothing could bring her good news, she was sure of that. She knew there was a lot more misery and discovery to come but she just couldn’t face it at this moment. She wanted to stay disembodied and removed for a few more minutes before having to tackle anything else; and if – oh if – she could even get a few hours’ sleep before she was expected to take in any more she thought she just might be able to survive.
After several rings she could hear the answering machine click on in the sitting room, and then the distant sound of her own recorded voice – the voice of another age. She tried not to listen any more, willing herself to think about nothing but the warmth of the water and the pleasant feeling of it lapping over her stomach, but the sound of John’s voice forced her to pay attention. She couldn’t hear clearly enough to pick up every word, but even at this distance could make out the familiar tone of reassuring cheerfulness that he used to talk to her on the machine. The dutiful husband trying in vain to say goodnight to his faithful wife, and leaving instead a fond, loving, caring message. She almost screamed out loud at the outrageous dishonesty of it, at the sleek practised way he would be giving her a little bit of news from the day, or sharing a quick anecdote.
‘Shut up!’ she shouted out loud, then quickly clamped a hand over her mouth, frightened that he could somehow hear through the machine. So what? she thought, and wondered why it mattered to her. She had done nothing wrong – why did she feel frightened at the idea of John finding out that she was onto him?
‘Because I don’t trust him,’ she said out loud. Well, of course you don’t, you idiot, what else do you think all this is about? she thought, scornful of her own naïvety. No, she mused, I don’t just mean that. It’s more complicated than that. And she thought of all the years of little lies and deceptions that she had watched John indulge in without any compunction. It hadn’t seemed to matter too much when she had been party to them all: a little twisting of the truth to make a higher percentage profit here; a small distortion of the facts to secure a deal there. How easily and smoothly they had all been accomplished! And somehow, even when he had patently been in the wrong – or at least been in the shadowy no man’s land where the perception of what would be the right thing to do is carefully avoided so that no choice appears to exist – John always managed to emerge looking as if he had behaved with integrity and honesty. She sometimes wondered whether he fooled everyone but her, or whether they could all see, just as she could, that something a little less straightforward than appeared was hiding behind the front of confidence and honesty. In their arguments, however forcefully Eleanor put her case, and however much she knew her point of view was the valid one, he always made her appear to lose – even to herself. Although she could see the hints of insecurity hovering behind his eyes, she could never seem to force them out into the open, and would later think back over their conversations and marvel at the way he had yet again managed to manipulate them to his own purposes.
If he could twist things so easily in a simple argument, Eleanor knew she was going to have to be very, very careful when confronting him with – with what? What would she say to him?
‘You’re having an affair.’
‘Oh, really? With whom, may I ask?’