Unfaithfully Yours (6 page)

Then some weeks ago I found myself by the cheese counter at Waitrose in Putney Shopping Centre. I was moving my trolley forward when I caught sight of a man’s behind raised in my direction as he stooped to pick up a tranche (is that the right word?) of Jarlsberg.

The sight of his bottom must have triggered some deep feelings that I had been struggling to suppress for years. In rehearsal for our play there had been many slightly dangerous moments – especially when he laid his head in my lap in the scene in which Ophelia is taken to the theatre. But this was different. It was intense. Suddenly the memories of those villas we had shared in northern Corsica, southern Portugal and western France came back to me with the force and vigour of one of this man’s swallow dives hitting the surface of a shared holiday swimming pool all those years ago!

Pretending an interest in Norwegian, Swiss and other hard, nutty cheeses, I leaned forward and found myself once more looking into his long, muscular face. He has a wide mouth and I have heard people say he reminds them of one of the larger and more menacing sharks. His hair, still abundant I noticed, continued to start up from his forehead in a bold, masculine manner and, in spite of the many years that had passed since we last met, he could easily have been mistaken for a man of forty-five.

We talked, for the first time, with real intimacy. He told me about his family. I had always found his wife a somewhat snobbish woman who often paraded her learning at the breakfast table and corrected my attempts to speak any language apart from English (although even that sometimes came under her scrutiny). I gained the impression he was unhappy. He has a son who became dangerously addicted to cider at university and a daughter who works for an organization dedicated to preserving Rwandan gorillas.

‘Perhaps,’ he said, throwing his head back with a booming laugh, ‘they remind her of her old man!’

He inflated his chest and beat upon it, violently, with his fists, uttering a throaty cry as he did so. The effect was overpoweringly erotic. After we had talked for several minutes he gave me his mobile number and suggested we meet one evening for a drink.

‘I won’t tell the wife if you won’t tell the old man!’ he said, with another of his deep, attractive laughs, and, with these words, strode off in the direction of the fish counter.

As he left me, Doctor, a sudden and disturbing image came to me. I am almost embarrassed to write it down but I feel you need to know all the facts of the case. It was no more than a fleeting vision but it has stayed with me and I cannot get it out of my mind.
I was being penetrated by him in the open air
. It was – I am fairly sure – mountainous terrain and there was a crowd of peasants or tribesmen, or people of that sort, watching me and applauding as I allowed him access to my body.

I find myself constantly thinking of this man and, although I have always been something of a feminist, I find my dreams of him often involve his taking me by force – very much as Ledaia (is that her correct name?) was taken by Zeus, who had disguised himself as an animal of some kind in order to take advantage of her. I do not know whether to ring his mobile. I feel that if I do it may lead to events I will be unable to control. But I am very tempted to call him. What should I do?

Yours truly,

Worried W, Putney

From Dr Wise

Putney Guardian

9 Industrial Way

Salford

Greater Manchester NTR 345Z

18 August

Dr Wise is a working medical practitioner with a wide experience of medical and emotional problems. He will answer your questions – which should be sent by post to DR WISE’S BUREAU at the
Guardian
– in complete confidence but regrets he cannot enter into any private correspondence.

Should I or shouldn’t I?

Dear Dr Wise,

I have recently become attracted to a married man with whom I have been re-acquainted after losing touch for many years. I am very worried about where this may lead. I am married to a man who is completely absorbed by his work and with whom I have not had sexual relations for some time. The married man has asked me to call him in a way that suggests he would like to take the relationship further. What should I do?

Yours truly,

Worried Woman of Putney

Dear Worried Woman,

It is clear from your letter that you are suffering from something that the French call
un coup de foudre.
There is no recognized medical term for this condition – in which long-repressed feelings come to the surface in a way that makes them very difficult to control.

The married man you describe is clearly making advances to you without in any way offering you the chance of a serious relationship. You need to raise this – and the whole issue of your marriage – with your husband before you fall into the trap of seeking solace with someone who does not sound as if he is deeply committed to you or, indeed, anyone else.

That being said, it is, of course, everyone’s right to have a satisfying sexual relationship and the problems you have described in your letter are serious ones. It may help you to seek the advice of a therapist – either with or without your husband – but I would advise you not to do anything you may regret later.

Best wishes

Dr Wise

From:

Mary Dimmock

24 Beeston Crescent

Putney

22 August

To:

Dr Wise

c/o
Putney Guardian

9 Industrial Way

Salford

Greater Manchester NTR 345Z

Dear Dr Wise,

I suspect I am not supposed to write to you again and I cannot expect you to write to me. I am sure it is against your professional code of ethics to write to a person’s home address, and although my husband would never do anything like open my mail, I suppose it is possible he might do so inadvertently.

I feel I have to write, though. I have to pour out my heart to someone and you are so calm and reasonable and gentle. I can tell this from your column and the sensitive way you edited my rambling thoughts for public consumption! Writing tells you so much about a person, doesn’t it?

I write myself and can spend hours describing things, like the way an ant moves. I also write poetry.

It seems strange that you are based in Greater Manchester and not in Putney, where I – as you will see from the address – live! Although I suppose that means there is less chance of me bumping into you on the high street!

I have, I am afraid, already disregarded your advice and now feel I am paying the price for it. Forgive me, Doctor. I have not only telephoned the married man in question. I have also made love with him five times. All these sex acts took place in the open air. One of them happened in a tent in Richmond Park. Gerald brought it along for that specific purpose. As we were doing it a large dog tried to get under the canvas to join us. I am afraid this only made my sensations more intense!

At first this was because we had nowhere else to go. My husband’s surgery is in our home so he hardly ever leaves the premises and my lover is – in spite of his great physical strength – very afraid of his wife. He says she is capable of murder and sometimes seems to suggest she has actually committed it!

But now it has become something of a compulsion for both of us. I am in the middle of a maelstrom. If that is the correct expression. Last week we did it in the bushes on the towpath not more than two hundred yards from Putney Bridge. I think – though I cannot be sure – that other people were also doing it in the near vicinity although it was not late. The sex is very passionate and enjoyable and I nearly always have an orgasm, although none of them seem to have quite matched up to the one where the dog tried to get into the tent.

It is, however, Doctor, a purely animal affair. We meet, go for a brief stroll and then, before we have really had any conversation at all, I am grabbing his penis, which is enormous, and thrusting it into me, quite often within earshot of late-night pedestrians and, on one occasion, an entire rowing team in the middle of a training session.

If we do talk it is about the old days when – as I think I said – I and my dentist husband often went on villa holidays with him, his wife and two other couples. But I find these conversations even more disturbing than the casual violence of our physical relationship. I do not feel I can go into it here, Doctor, but it seems that one of the members of our villa parties back in the 1980s may have died in suspicious circumstances!

Please help me, Dr Wise. I do not want to be having sex with this man. And yet I do. I am! I am behaving like a slut!

Yours in despair,

Mary Weston

PS My married name is Dimmock. I do not feel I have the right to use it, given the way I am behaving with this man.

PPS We have now had intercourse twenty-eight and a half times. The half was in Richmond Park’s Isabella Plantation. He took his penis out in the rhododendron bushes and I made him put it away but he ran after me with his trousers at half-mast with his cock waving around in the dusk like a conductor’s baton. Eventually he fell over and we both laughed about it, but there is nothing to laugh about, is there, really? We could both be arrested for indecency. They are very strict about that in Richmond Park. You are not even allowed to let your dog have a poo – although I do not have a dog – without the Royal Parks Constabulary coming down on you like a ton of bricks. I have one daughter to whom my husband and I are totally devoted. What would she think if it got into the papers?

PPS We often do it ‘doggy style’.

From:

Dr John Goldsmith MRCGP, DRCOG

101 Fellen Road

Putney

26 August

To:

Mary Dimmock

24 Beeston Crescent

Putney

My dear Mary,

I have been agonizing about whether to reply to your letter. I suppose the mature thing to do would be to do nothing. It is often, I find, the best thing to do. But I am afraid I just had not got the heart to do that. I am somehow programmed not to be able to sit back and watch people suffer. I wish it were otherwise. I don’t claim any credit for it. It is just the way I am. Unhappy people make me unhappy and so, for purely selfish reasons, I always seem to find myself trying to solve their problems. Which gets me into terrible trouble.

A quiet word with you on your own?

Not really. The telephone, like email, is a distressingly public medium. I suppose I could have organized a trip to the dentist. Are you still Sam’s nurse? I do not think, however, we would have been able to snatch a few words on our own. And, in any case, I am afraid I don’t think I would ever have the nerve to show old Sam the inside of my mouth. When we were at Puerto Banús in the weird place that looked like a castle in a horror film, I found I had to keep my lips closed even when eating meals. Not an easy thing to do when chomping spaghetti. Your old man, Mary, was always a hell of a dentist.

So – a letter. If you decide to answer, it might be best to address your thoughts to me at the paper. Yes – this is not Dr Wise talking to you but John Goldsmith whom you knew all those years ago on the villa holidays. I’ve been doing the job for about a year – as a cushion against impending retirement.

My God, Mary, you and Sam always seemed such a perfect couple. And you were both absolutely devoted to Elaine. She was a delightful little girl. I can still see her, with her long, red hair and snub nose, walking through the villa in a pinafore dress and a total dream. I seem to remember once she walked into the kitchen door – I think it was on that first holiday we all took in Brittany – and said, when I had picked her up off the floor, that she had been ‘worrying about Rapunzel and whether her hair would be all right and not hurt from all those people climbing up it’.

Did she become a writer, perhaps?

I am so sorry to hear the physical side of your marriage is not good. I hope that, at least, you are still friends. I do remember Sam being a very amusing bloke. Some of his anecdotes – especially that one about the chap with the cleft palate – were hilarious.

Gerry Price. Well – as you probably noticed all those years ago – I cannot stand the fellow. I think he is arrogant, totally selfish and not nearly as good at tennis as he thinks he is. He is also completely callous and uncaring as far as women are concerned. Some of the remarks I heard him make about his own wife – to my mind a very sweet and compassionate person – made me want to punch him on his substantial nose.

Sex is obviously something that has been a problem in your marriage and you are seeking it elsewhere. That’s fine. But – and I am speaking as a friend rather than a doctor – please, please, please not with Gerry Price. Actually I think I am speaking as a doctor as well as a friend. I imagine the man is seething with sexually transmitted diseases of one sort or another!

I hope you won’t think I am being impertinent in saying this. My own relationship is not exactly in great shape. What relationship is after forty years of marriage? Barbara’s demands in the sex department are often really hard to satisfy. It’s difficult to know how to put this but she has a pretty well laid-out formula for the way in which we’re supposed to make love. Well – after years of marriage I suppose that’s inevitable. And I don’t blame her in any way for demanding it be strictly adhered to. I won’t say any more about it except that it involves a particular piece of music and an item of footwear that is not usually worn indoors!
Sauve qui peut
, old bean! Don’t wish to embarrass you with such revelations but, as I have had such access to the intimate details of your marriage, I feel I should, in fairness, be as open as you were with me. I can appreciate you probably feel rather vulnerable after pouring out your heart to someone you thought was a complete stranger! And I would like you to know that you are not alone.

Do feel free to write again. I would like to help. My boys Jas and Josh have left university, got married and even come up with a few grandchildren for the old man. The effect on Barbara is not always good. The other grandparents seem to bring out the inner Nazi in her. I am accused of being ‘remote’. My God! If someone wasn’t remote something even worse than murder would have occurred in the Putney area last Christmas. My life these days is divided between work in the surgery and trying to make sure my two dearly beloved louts are not nagged narrow by their wives. Not to mention avoiding their in-laws. Which is, as it happens, not an easy thing to do.