The Adultery Club (8 page)

There’s a brief moment of silence before it becomes apparent that denials are required. Naturally young David is the first to slither up to the plate. He could save Fisher a fortune in proctology examinations were he medically qualified. It’s hard to believe he’s the son of one of the most gifted and charismatic divorce lawyers I have ever met. Losing Andrew Raymond to leukemia at the age of just fifty-four was a tragedy on both a personal and professional level; that this oleaginous, talentless squirt should be his genetic legacy verges on the criminal.

The door opens behind me, and I tense at the faint scent of Allure. I was at the Chanel counter in Harrods buying Mal’s favorite—No.
5
—for our wedding anniversary last week, when a salesgirl near me sprayed another fragrance onto a nearby customer’s wrist. I recognized it instantly as Sara’s scent. On some insane impulse I added a large bottle to my other purchases; even now it is delighting the ladies of Oxfam, to whom I donated it in panic on my way home.

“Ah, the lovely lady herself!” Fisher cries, leaping up to usher Sara to the table. “Have a seat, my dear, have a seat. Joan, if you wouldn’t mind moving along—there we are, young lady, that’s right, next to me.”

Joan glares, but shifts to the next chair. As Sara takes her seat, her skirt rides a couple of inches up her thighs, revealing a tantalizing glimpse of lace stocking top.

I don’t return her pleasant smile, busying myself with my case notes.

Joan launches into her usual polemic on the subject of client credit; more precisely, our over-extension thereof. A mediocre lawyer but stridently efficient manager, she recognized early in her legal career where her true talents lay and planned accordingly. A hefty legacy from her father enabled her to harness herself to two able, but impoverished, young lawyers, Will Fisher and Andrew Raymond, who founded the firm with the happy combination of her money and their talent; I came on board a decade later. Effectively a sleeping partner, Joan rarely interferes in client matters, but she is as abrasive in manner as Fisher is genial. Nonetheless, under her watchful stewardship, Fisher Raymond Lyon has become one of the most profitable small niche firms in the country.

Joan voted, unsurprisingly, against employing Sara. However, with David so far up Fisher’s arse that he could kiss his tonsils, and the old man chronically smitten by Sara’s charms, it was evidently a case of two votes to one.

I don’t care to ask myself how I might have voted had I not been detained by that case in Leeds. Such a dangerous absence
that
is turning out to have been—

“—no choice but to go to Court, then, Nicholas?”

I jump. “Sorry, Will. Miles away. You were saying?”

“Will was talking about the Wainwright case in Manchester, Nicholas,” David says helpfully. “I believe he’s correct in saying there’s been no response from the other side to your last offer?”

“None, unless we had something in this morning that I haven’t seen yet—”

Sara shakes her head. “I called them first thing. Claire Newbold’s out of the office, but when I spoke to her secretary, she said off the record that Claire thinks our offer’s more than generous, but the wife simply won’t budge.”

“Damn.” I frown. “I was hoping this wouldn’t have to go to Court. The assets just aren’t there to justify it. Two or three days of wrangling in front of a judge and they’ll both be lucky to end up with the cab fare home.”

“As long as there’s enough to pay
us,”
Joan interjects sharply.

The thin toffee silk of Sara’s blouse tautens across her breasts as she leans forward to reach for the file, gray eyes intent. Her nipples jut against the fabric.
Good God, is she even wearing a bra?

“The husband’s not going to get much change out of thirty thousand if it ends up in Court,” she says, scanning her notes, “and that’s on top of the forty he already owes us. It probably makes economic sense for him to give the wife what she wants and walk away with whatever’s left—”

I shift uncomfortably in my chair. Christ, my balls ache. “Hasn’t got it. He made his money years ago from a print shop franchise, but lost a lot of it when the stock market plunged, and his business folded about the same time. Apart from the house, his only other serious asset is his pension. He’s fifty-six, what else is he going to do?”

“What’s the wife asking for?”

“She wants the house, which has no mortgage and is worth about half a million, give or take, and sixty thousand a year for her and the two youngest kids. He’s earning thirty-three as a tree surgeon and living in a rented bedsit over a chippie. She’s dreaming, but it’s going to bankrupt him to prove it.”

“Looks like you’re going to Manchester on Monday,” Will says brightly to me.

“Jesus. That’s all I need the week before Christmas.”

“Why don’t you take Sara?”

I start. “What?”

“Yes, it’s just what she needs, a meaty case to get her pretty little teeth into,” Fisher enthuses. “It’ll be a great learning experience for her, and it already sounds like she’s got an in with the secretary which could be very useful. You never know,” he says, leaning toward me with a wink, “you might even learn something, Nicholas.”

“But our client can’t afford one lawyer, never mind two—”

“This’ll be on us. No, Joan,” he says firmly as she opens her mouth to protest, “think of it as an investment in the firm’s future.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose. Two nights in a hotel a long way from home with a woman I haven’t been able to get out of my mind for four weeks.

My balls are going to be black by the time I get back.

My mood is not
improved when, having raced to Waterloo to catch the early train home, I discover that the station has been temporarily closed because of flooding. By the time it opens an hour later, I have no hope of making my daughters’ Nativity play on time.

Tired and frustrated, I slink into the darkened school auditorium at ten minutes to seven, just as the Button Dragon and all the little pterodactyls come onstage for their final bow with the Eight Wise Men and the Cookie Monster. Treading on toes and blocking video recorders, I take my seat next to Mal just moments before the lights come up, and am clapping vigorously when our offspring bound from the
school stage into the audience with the rest of the eclectic cast.

“Did you see me?” Evie demands.

“I did. You were wonderful—”

“Her tail fell off,” Sophie says scornfully. “Right in the middle of the Birdie Dance.”

“You mean that wasn’t supposed to happen? I never would have known—”

“It didn’t
fall
off. Susan Pelt trod on it,” Evie scowls. “On purpose.”

Sophie looks superior. “You were in the wrong place and going in the wrong direction, that’s why.”

“Was not!”

“Were too!”

“Girls,” I say firmly, confiscating the pterodactyl’s wings before somebody gets hurt.

Mal gathers our brood and shoos them gently toward the exit. She smiles wearily at me over their heads, but I can tell from the set of her shoulders that she is annoyed with me, and feel a rare flash of irritation. It was hardly my fault I was late.

On the way home, I explain about the waterlogged station, and later, in bed, she signals her forgiveness by pulling me toward her; but I’m too jittery to do more than kiss the top of her head and hold her close as I stare into the darkness. It’s ridiculous to be so nervous about next week; whatever emotional silt Sara is kicking up will soon settle down if I leave well alone. It’s just a question of self-control.

My life is perfectly harmonious. I have a wife I love and desire, three beautiful, healthy girls, a job I find fulfilling, satisfying, and profitable, a substantial home in an exquisite part of the English countryside—I am truly satisfied with my lot.

And yet, from nowhere, this young woman has suddenly been lobbed into my life like a sexual hand grenade.

I don’t sleep well, and the next morning I’m a bear with the children and distant and uncommunicative with Mal. When she sends me into Salisbury on a fool’s errand for red crêpe paper to get me out of the house, I detour into one of those upmarket shops that handcuffs their clothing to the rails in the midst of a sea of ash flooring, and purchase an expensive coffee-colored sheepskin coat that Mal would never consider buying for herself. Only when I have expiated my guilt in an orgy of Christmas shopping do I dare to return home.

On Monday morning, I
awaken in a more optimistic mood. There’s no doubt that Sara is a temptation—or would be, were there the slightest danger of her reciprocating, which obviously there is not; but even if she did, I’m not going to give in to this. I made promises to my wife before God, and I have no intention of breaking them, now or ever.

I do so loathe that modern euphemism, “the inevitable happened.” To borrow from Benjamin Franklin: Nothing is inevitable but death and taxes. Certainly not infidelity.

For the past four weeks, I’ve run away from Sara, ensuring I have minimal contact with her at work, and that we are never for a moment alone. While technically successful—there has been no opportunity for Fisheresque furtive glances or “accidental” physical contact on the stairs—this policy of avoidance has merely reduced me to a seething mass of teenage angst and hormones.

Since denial has simply stoked the fires, clearly a change of tack is required. I can’t possibly avoid Sara now, so I’m going to have to confront the issue head-on and deal with it, once and for all. What am I so afraid of, anyway? Nothing’s going to happen. No doubt being thrown together at such close quarters will break the fever, and I will be able to return to my untroubled, comfortable domestic life with no harm done.

I sincerely hope so; my constant hard-on is making it extremely difficult to concentrate on anything other than the chronic ache in my balls.

Sara and I are traveling to Manchester from different parts of the country, so I spend a surprisingly pleasant train journey alone reviewing my case notes and reinforcing my resolve. By the time I arrive at the Piccadilly Hotel in the center of the city, I realize I have allowed myself to blow this entire matter out of all proportion. What man approaching his mid-forties, married or otherwise, would
not
be visited by erotic thoughts when such a voluptuous, youthful siren appears in his office? The appropriate response is not to panic that moral degeneracy is imminent, but to daydream for a wistful moment of one’s youth, heave a regretful inward sigh, and wish the hopeful young pups snapping at her heels the best of luck. Surely the sin is not in being tempted, but in yielding. And I am more fortunate than most; I have a beautiful and sexy wife waiting for me at home.

I can’t deny that Sara has awakened disturbingly erotic feelings, yes; but this doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing. It’s just a question of redirection.

Over the years, I’ve learned from my clients that boredom is a far greater threat to most marriages than the turn of
a pretty ankle or a washboard stomach. It’s all too easy to slump indifferently into impending middle age, quarantining sex to weekends and opting for a quick bite at the local Italian restaurant on your anniversary so that you can get home in time for
Midsomer Murders
and an early night. Perhaps I
needed
a jolt like this to remind me that I’m only forty-three; it’s not quite time for tartan slippers and a mug of cocoa at bedtime yet. Christ, I do still have my own bloody hair and teeth! Even a pair of jeans, somewhere. Maybe Mal and I should try to get away for a weekend soon, leave the children with her mother for a night or two. Might even splash out on some silk French knickers and whatnot.

This whole Sara thing will die down as quickly as it blew up once I deal with these risible feelings of mine head-on. In fact, I’m almost looking forward to the next couple of days. It’ll be a relief to meet the challenge and get things back into perspective, back under control.

I check in and leave a message with the hotel receptionist for Sara to call me when she arrives later this evening, then go up to my room to shower and freshen up. Once I’ve conferred with the office in London and the local barrister handling our case here tomorrow, I telephone Mal to wish the girls good night.