The Art of Losing Page 10

  Thinking those thoughts, the words were easy to say. ‘I forgave you a long time ago,’ I said, and it sounded true to my ears. ‘We were younger then – we made a mistake.’

  Impulsively, she crossed the room towards me and put her hands on my shoulders. ‘I didn’t want you to come, but I’m glad you did,’ she said, and hugged me, just for an instant, before stepping away. ‘And what you said on the phone about being friends – I don’t know, it sounded crazy, but maybe it could work. We’re both happy now, aren’t we?’ she asked, eyes anxiously searching my face. ‘We don’t regret how things have turned out?’

  ‘Not at all,’ I said. I was thinking of Adam, and the security and companionship that had always been the bedrock of my marriage. Those things I had never regretted.

  ‘Well, then,’ she said. ‘Maybe we should try. I know this sounds selfish, but it would make me feel better in a way – to see you happy, to think that what we did hasn’t ruined either of our lives—’ She broke off. The children were running up the garden towards the kitchen, their excited chatter filtering in through the open window. ‘If you don’t mind, you’d better go now,’ she said, and I nodded.

  I was almost out of the front door when she caught up with me. ‘Nicholas,’ she said, a little awkwardly, ‘all the same, I don’t think I’ll mention to Martin that you came round today. I think it would be better, if we do meet up again, that he’s there too, so … well, as I say, I won’t mention it.’

  ‘OK.’ I could see it embarrassed her, having to hint that she would rather keep my visit quiet. It didn’t matter to me. We would always have secrets between us, so one more would make no difference. I saw the same thought in her eyes and it made her hang her head and turn away from me, her cheeks suddenly flaming red. I let myself out and walked up the road towards my car, feeling oddly victorious, as if I had gained something unexpected and precious.

  Naomi and Adam came back to our house several hours after I returned. Adam was in good spirits, smiling and chuckling in his pushchair, and I immediately volunteered to give him his bath. Naomi agreed warily, her mind obviously still on our earlier confrontation. I knew from past experience that she had expected to find me sullen and ungiving, mulling over the argument. It was true that I had a tendency towards sulking, but I found myself so pleased to see them both that my earlier aggravation with her melted away. I took Adam up to the bathroom and ran a warm bath, floating his favourite plastic toys on its surface. He sat in it happily enough, splashing and squealing, and I soaped his hair and kept up the burbling one-way conversation that he seemed to like to hear, even if his only response was the occasional squawk of surprise. Crouching by the bath, I watched his chubby limbs flailing and kicking in the water and felt a rush of protectiveness that fleetingly pricked tears to my eyes.

  ‘He looks like he’s enjoying that.’ Naomi was standing in the doorway, leaning against the door frame in a silk dressing gown. I looked up at her, smiling.

  ‘You know he loves his baths,’ I said. ‘I think it’s bedtime, though, eh, Adam?’ I lifted a compliant Adam out of the bathwater and laid him down on a towel to rub him dry.

  ‘He should go down easily,’ Naomi commented. ‘He’s had quite a hectic day. Listen, Nick, I’m sorry we argued earlier. I did think I’d told you about going to Mum’s, but I might not have done, so I’m sorry I sprung it on you.’

  ‘No, you probably did tell me.’ Too intent on dusting Adam’s plump, wriggling feet with talcum powder to look up, I made my voice conciliatory by way of compensation. ‘I’m sorry too. Anyway, it was nice for him to have a change of scene.’

  ‘Shall I take over?’ she asked, stretching out her arms to scoop Adam up. ‘I’ll tuck him in, and then maybe we could get an early night ourselves.’

  I watched her sashay through the hallway, still managing to look sensual and suggestive despite the burden in her arms. When she had disappeared into Adam’s room I went to the kitchen and poured myself a drink. Whisky on the rocks; I downed it in a couple of gulps and poured another, carried it to the bedroom. Sitting down on the bed, I loosened my tie, feeling like a nervous schoolboy before a dance. We had made love only six times since Adam had been born; Naomi had never refused me, but I could tell that her mind had been about as far from rampant sex over the past few months as it was possible for it to be. I hadn’t blamed her, far from it, but as I sat there fidgeting impatiently in the bedroom I realised how much I had been missing our physical contact. When Naomi came into the room she smiled at me, and immediately pulled the dressing gown from her body, stepping naked out of the puddle of silk on the floor towards me. She had never been shy about her body – it was one of the things I found most attractive about her. I cupped her breasts, still swollen and taut from breastfeeding, in the palms of my hands and kissed her nipples, ran my fingers lightly down over her stomach. I wanted to take things slowly, but as we kissed I couldn’t resist any longer and we fell on to the bed together. I made love to her gently at first, then more roughly, unable to hold it back. I caught an exciting echo of the old Naomi in the way her fingernails raked my back, the toss of her red hair on the pillow reminding me of times that seemed so long ago that their memory came as a shock. I came quicker than I wanted, holding her tightly against me. Afterwards she rolled away from me, put her hands behind her head so that her breasts arched upwards, and I felt another stirring of desire, as quickly as the last had faded.

  ‘I love you,’ she said, staring straight into my eyes.

  I told her that I loved her too. Ten minutes later I told her something else: that I had run into an old friend from my school in London, and that I wondered whether it might be an idea to invite him and his wife around for dinner some time soon. She agreed without asking any questions, telling me to name the day, and then yawned and snuggled up against me. In a few more minutes she was asleep. I stayed awake a long time, thinking over what I had done. At that moment, with my wife pressed up warmly against me, the baby monitor flickering greenly by the bed, it seemed safe.

  Martin responded with characteristic effusiveness when I called to invite him and Lydia for dinner. ‘I’d almost given up on you, Nicholas,’ he commented when I called. ‘How long is it since I saw you in town now – almost a fortnight? I thought you’d forgotten us!’ From this I deduced that, true to her word, Lydia had not mentioned my visit to their home. We settled on the following Saturday. Martin hastened to tell me that they would find a babysitter for Louise – which was just as well, as at her age I could hardly have trusted her not to make some table-quietening reference over dinner to my curious presence in her kitchen the week before. I rang off feeling a mixture of guilt and resignation. I didn’t want to have to lie to Martin, but it felt too complicated to explain the visit, and besides, I had implicitly promised Lydia to keep quiet.

  Saturday came round so fast that I had no time to dwell on the multiple possibilities that it contained. Naomi was up early, slaving over the stove in an attempt to prepare as much of the food as possible in advance, so that when the guests arrived she could waft nonchalantly in and out of the kitchen as if she could create a sophisticated meal with little or no effort. In reality cooking had never come naturally to her, and before Adam’s arrival we had eaten out more frequently than our wallets should have allowed. In the months since his birth I had manfully devoured more culinary disasters than I cared to remember, from leaden rice puddings to slimy, over-spiced curries.

  ‘You’re not doing anything too complicated, are you?’ I asked as I wandered into the kitchen at about midday, and was met with a terse request to leave her alone. I tactically withdrew and spent the afternoon lazing in the garden, only returning inside an hour before the guests were due to arrive. I caught a glimpse of carnage in the kitchen as Naomi came to greet me, hurriedly slamming the door behind her. She was smiling brightly, too brightly, but her voice didn’t crack as she told me that she was going upstairs to change. I thought about investigating the kitchen, but decided against
it. I hoped, though, that the meal would turn out all right. If Martin’s word was to be believed, Lydia was a brilliant cook, and I didn’t want her to pity Naomi, or to feel smug in her superior prowess.

  ‘I’ll check on Adam,’ I called up the stairs. There was no response. I spent half an hour or so aimlessly playing one of Adam’s current favourite games – taking turns to clap hands and chant wordlessly louder and louder, culminating in a frenzy of battering hands and exuberant shouts from Adam. We had just begun the clapping for the fourth time when he gave a squeak of surprise, his eyes saucer wide and questioning as they stared over my shoulder, I turned to see Naomi in the doorway, wearing a dress I couldn’t remember seeing before, pale green twined sinuously around her body like spring ivy. Her feet were bare and her long red curls fell over her shoulders in the way she knew I liked. She was relaxed now, confident that this was one way she could shine.

  ‘You like it?’ she asked simply, placing her hands on her hips and mock-pouting.

  ‘Gorgeous.’ I went and kissed the tip of her nose, smoothing my hands down the dress. ‘In fact, why don’t we pretend we don’t hear when they ring the doorbell and just go to bed instead?’

  ‘Don’t push your luck,’ she said, wriggling away from me. ‘We did that last night, and besides, I’m damned if I’m going to waste all that food.’ Although her words were stern, she was smiling, and I knew the compliment had pleased her. She had been jumpy for a couple of days about the dinner party, and I didn’t think it was just because of the cookery challenge. Much as it was in her nature to scoff at such things, Naomi often displayed random flashes of intuition, and I thought that although she couldn’t quite voice it to herself, she was aware of the nebulous tension attached to the Knights’ visit. How much worse it would be for her if she knew the history between myself and Lydia, I reasoned. I had contemplated telling her that the colleague I had had the unsuccessful relationship with was Martin’s wife – after all, it had been years before the two of us had met, and so I had nothing to be ashamed of on that score. I had come very close just the night before; imagined myself making an offhand, wry comment that would set the matter to rest but which I had nevertheless stopped short of making. Perhaps I didn’t like the idea of my wife being aware that I had been a party in someone else’s adultery; perhaps I had wanted to spare her the embarrassment of having to sit opposite Martin all evening knowing that he was excluded from a secret shared by everyone else at the table; perhaps I didn’t want to risk making Naomi feel uncomfortable or jealous in the presence of another woman that I had slept with. There were certainly enough reasons to keep quiet. These thoughts flashed through my head as I pulled her back towards me and kissed her again, on the mouth this time, until I felt her start to respond.

  ‘Honestly,’ she murmured, ‘do I have to tell you again? There!’ She broke away as the doorbell rang sharply, making us both jump. ‘They’re early, and you haven’t changed!’

  ‘I wasn’t going to,’ I said, heading for the front door. A black T-shirt and jeans had seemed sufficient earlier in the day, but when I saw Martin in his starched collar and suit jacket I wondered whether I had specified that the event was black tie and subsequently forgotten about it. He was brandishing a bottle of wine and smiling broadly, glasses threatening to topple off the end of his nose. Behind him, Lydia stood in a straight sheath dress which it took me a few seconds to realise was almost exactly the same colour as Naomi’s. Judging by the look on Naomi’s face when I turned to introduce her, she had got there quicker than I had, but she quickly composed herself and beamed at the couple, holding out her hand.

  ‘Lovely to meet you both,’ she said. ‘I’m Naomi. You must be Martin and Lydia. I hear green is very in this season, so we’ve obviously both got our finger on the pulse!’ This was typical Naomi: she didn’t believe in glossing over an awkward situation or pretending not to notice it, but preferred to take the pin straight out of the landmine.

  ‘Yours is lovely,’ said Lydia politely.

  ‘What, this old thing?’ Naomi said, and laughed. ‘Anyway, come in, I’ll get you some drinks, and then I must check on dinner. I’ll let you reminisce about the old days with Nick – you must have a lot to catch up on.’

  As Lydia crossed behind Naomi into the hallway she shot me a brief questioning glance, little more than a fractional lift of the eyebrows. I shook my head just as imperceptibly, and instantly felt displeased with myself. I had caught on to Lydia’s question – Does she know about us? – and answered it without thinking, but I determined not to take part in any further silent communion. It felt disloyal; there was no reason for us to refer to the past any more, even wordlessly.

  ‘This is a charming house,’ Martin announced, looking around appreciatively. ‘I think the decor must be Naomi’s taste rather than yours, though, Nicholas – I seem to remember your bachelor pad in London being rather different!’ Martin had visited my flat only once, but it had obviously made quite an impression on him. I laughed uneasily – I didn’t like to think about the way I had lived before Naomi’s feminine influence.

  The three of us made small talk in the living room until dinner was ready, although Martin did most of the talking. Lydia was uncharacteristically quiet, sitting demurely in her pale green dress by Martin’s side, a hand placed loosely on his knee. Although I tried not to look, my eye kept drifting back to it. I couldn’t remember Lydia having been so tactile with her husband in the past.

  ‘So you’re still teaching, I take it?’ Martin asked, enthusiastically scooping up a handful of nuts and nibbling on them. His small white teeth reminded me of a squirrel’s.

  ‘No, I actually gave up teaching when we moved here,’ I said, feeling a spark of pride at the revelation. ‘I lecture now, and do some one-on-one tutorials in college.’

  ‘Really? That’s great,’ Lydia exclaimed. She looked genuinely happy for me. In the past I had often told her that I didn’t feel at home in teaching and that I wanted a more cerebral, less mob-driven environment. I supposed this was the proof that they hadn’t been empty words. ‘That’s great,’ she repeated. ‘You must find that so much more rewarding.’

  ‘Some of us do find teaching rewarding, you know,’ Martin pointed out, a little petulantly, moving his knee away from her hand. It was the first time I had ever seen him take issue with anything that Lydia said. Even more surprising was Lydia’s reaction: she looked anxious, turning her huge green eyes on him placatingly and reaching out her hand to stroke his narrow shoulders.

  ‘Well, of course, darling,’ she said. ‘You’re a natural and very talented teacher, so it suits you perfectly.’ Now it was my turn to swallow the implied insult, but I decided against drawing attention to it. Nevertheless, she seemed to realise what she had said, and looked awkward, smiling to cover her embarrassment. Luckily, it was at this moment that Naomi appeared, announcing that dinner was ready. We filed dutifully through to the dining room, where Naomi had laid the table with our best silver cutlery, cut-glass flutes and napkins folded painstakingly into the shape of swans.

  ‘This looks delightful,’ Martin said politely. ‘If you might excuse me for a moment, I’ll just use the bathroom.’

  ‘Of course, of course,’ Naomi said, ushering him back through the hallway. Lydia and I sat down at the table opposite each other. I tried to think of something to say, but nothing came.

  ‘We have a little girl, you know,’ Lydia announced, apropos of nothing, when Naomi returned. ‘She’s four.’

  ‘Oh yes, that’s right, Nicholas told me,’ Naomi said enthusiastically. ‘Louise, isn’t it? I expect you know, we have a baby son. His name’s Adam and he’s in bed at the moment, but, well …’ She rolled her eyes dramatically at the baby monitor perched on the sideboard. ‘… you might get to meet him later, you never know.’

  ‘Are you planning to have any more?’ Lydia asked. It struck me as a strangely intimate question, but Naomi didn’t seem to mind. She often surprised me in this way, galloping on to
discussing bodily functions and deepest fears with random women met at parties before their husbands and I had even covered which make of car we drove.

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t rule it out, would you, Nick?’ she said lightly. It didn’t seem like the right time for a heart-to-heart so I simply made some grunt of acquiescence. In fact, I had not imagined having more than one child. Much as I loved Adam, he was exhausting, financially draining and still so young that the thought of tackling two young children at once frankly terrified me: I didn’t know how people did it. Naomi didn’t pick up on my reticence and beamed back at Lydia.

  ‘And how about you and Martin?’ she asked. ‘Were you always planning on just having the one, or might Louise still have a brother or sister at some point?’

  Lydia looked diffident. ‘To be honest, by choice we would have had another,’ she explained. ‘But it proved more difficult second time around. You know how it can be sometimes.’ Footsteps outside alerted her to Martin’s imminent arrival. ‘I don’t … we don’t talk about it,’ she added hurriedly, her eyes darting over to the opening door. Naomi nodded understandingly, busying herself with helping us all to soup.

  ‘Lovely!’ said Martin, rubbing his hands together and taking his place. ‘So what are you ladies gossiping about?’

  ‘We were just talking about Louise,’ Lydia said.

  ‘Ah, yes,’ Martin said proudly. ‘Extraordinarily clever young thing, if I do say so myself. I still think she might make a scientist, but Lydia seems to think she prefers stories, for some unfathomable reason.’

  Naomi launched into the tale of Adam and the geology exhibition. I withdrew from the conversation, concentrating on the soup. I couldn’t tie the flavour down, beyond that it was something green, but all the same, it wasn’t too bad. Naomi had obviously made an effort. Unbidden, a memory swam into my mind: Lydia standing barefoot at the cooker in my old bachelor pad, cooking a cheese omelette from the dribs and drabs left in my fridge, the only time she had ever cooked for me. Me, ravenous after sex, lying naked on the scratchy red sofa, watching her. When we ate it I swore it was the most delicious thing I had ever tasted. As I thought back on it I couldn’t help looking at her. She was already looking my way, her spoon arrested in the act of carrying soup to her mouth. I had the uncanny sense that she was remembering the same occasion, and a chill crept up the back of my neck and made me shudder unhappily. I looked away and scraped up the last of my soup.