mistake of letting her find out. It’s never an accident when someone does. There’s malice in it, you can bet. If you really care for each other – I mean, beyond love – you make sure the other never knows. Carelessness in that situation is sheer stupidity, maybe even hatred, or to get revenge.’
Men are all the same, she thought, though she’d never had a lover with the wit to speak so openly, which threw her so much off balance that she could only join in, and give up wondering what he meant by caring for somebody beyond love. ‘What about those who have affairs by mutual agreement?’
He followed her into the kitchen. ‘It ends in disaster, which must have been what they wanted.’
She put two pizzas in the microwave. ‘Hungry?’
‘Starving,’ as befitted, she thought, someone who spoke in such a way. ‘You seem to have had plenty of experience.’
‘It’s all speculation. Or intelligent observation, if you like.’ He leaned across and kissed her. ‘Most of it comes from reading Norman Bakewell.’
‘I do hope not,’ she said into his ear.
Her parents had sold their house in France two years ago, and bought a flat in Sevenoaks. Having too much furniture from that rambling old mill, they had given her a double bed, and because they or their guests had slept on it Diana was put off when sporting with her lovers. Another thing was it took up too much room: all right to stretch out on in summer, but hard to warm with her own heat in winter. With Tom as a lover she didn’t care who had humped on it before.
A call of once a month was hardly sufficient to serve someone like her. She wanted to have an affair, and this was more like a treat from heaven whenever he cornered a spare hour. Time that dragged into a month had a ball and chain to its feet, though as soon as she heard the bell it was as if he had called only days ago. Out of chagrin she would greet him as if he were a stranger, forcing him into his most charming mode to get them back into high romantic style. Not until after the meal and bottle of wine, when she was lying naked on the bed, and he was leaning over in a very satisfactory state, did this feeling come about.
After they had made love she said: ‘I’d like a phone number, in case there’s a need to get in touch with you.’
‘You have the office one already.’
‘The home number, if you don’t mind.’
‘I’m hardly ever there. It would be a million to one if I were to answer it. And I shouldn’t like Angela to.’
She wasn’t so stupid as to go on if anybody but he lifted the receiver.
‘I know,’ he said, ‘but I wouldn’t even want her to suspect – not one little bit.’
He thought of everything.
‘It would be unforgivable if I didn’t.’
‘You like to keep everybody happy?’
‘It’s the best way of keeping myself happy.’
He wondered why she laughed, unable to understand.
Perhaps she was being unreasonable, and couldn’t think why, not especially wanting to call him at home. Nor, feeling his equal, did she need to test him, or put herself through such futile emotional hoops.
He fastened his shirt almost to the neck, and she pointed out that the buttons were in the wrong place, perversely wishing she hadn’t told him.
‘Christ!’ He rapidly undid them, remembering how he had once got home and, while undressing, Angela noticed his pants back to front, though she was satisfied when he told her he had been playing squash and in a hurry to have a drink. He looked around at windows and doors, as if planning a quick escape, though there was no need. Probably instinct, and in any case it was three floors up. ‘What’s in there?’
‘My spare room.’
‘Full of junk, I suppose?’
‘It’s where I do my painting.’ Daddy had walked into Winsor & Newton’s, and bought a great box for her birthday.
‘Painting?’
She laughed. ‘Therapy I call it.’
‘Look, Diana, I’m off to Rome next week. Can you sham illness at the Beeb, and get time off? I’d love to have you with me.’
Nothing easier. She could see some wonderful paintings. ‘How long for?’
‘Three days, say.’
‘Could swing it. We’re between projects at the moment.’ Which was half a lie, but she didn’t want him to think she was doing any favours.
‘Marvellous. I’ll bell you.’
‘Oh, right.’
‘I’ll never stop loving you.’
‘I know, darling. Love you, too.’
ANGELA, BACK WITH a hundred quid’s worth of grub and cleaning stuff from Sainsbury’s, hadn’t realised she had left her natty little Japanese tape recorder on. It wasn’t in her to be so witless. But she hadn’t left it on: the cunning little devil started at the sound of a voice.
Operating such technological gimmicks was complicated enough to give a feeling of achievement. The manuals were easier to memorise if you read them aloud and, noting each movement phase by phase, she set the timing mechanisms of the video if a programme on television needed taping while they were out. Tom was baffled by such mysterious gew-gaws, and thought it strange that a woman should be so competent.
As a kid she had wanted to be an engineer and build bridges; he may have praised only to flatter, but it was pleasing to have her skill acknowledged, and flattery harmed no one, as long as you didn’t take it seriously. In any case, she flattered him, being as how he was so juvenile. She laughed at his failures, and said he couldn’t be a genius at his job and understand modern technology as well, a remark that soothed the abrasions of a seven-year marriage.
‘It’s just small enough to get into your handbag.’ He handed it over after his trip to Rome, and thought it useful as a notebook for dictating shopping lists into, or reminding her of something while driving the car.
She sat on the bed, holding the unobtrusive recorder which usually lay in the hairpin basket by the bedroom telephone. The playback mechanism reproduced a door clicking, drifts of music from the kitchen, a police siren, or the roarpast of a souped up van along the normally quiet Holland Park street. When traffic was thick around Shepherds Bush a few rogue vehicles, or reps handy with the map, used it as a slip road.
The black box was something of a miracle, and one day soon an invention would let you talk into a recorder and, at the touch of a switch, after attaching it to a word processor, a printer would bang the text neatly out. Bang also would go the secretary’s job, and if such a thing had been possible ten years ago she might not
