“Try something new,” he said.
“Your wife…”
“We have an agreement. She doesn’t mind what I do when I’m away. It doesn’t hurt anything between me and her. I won’t tell her anything except that I have found a friend—and I have told her that already. What you and I do before I go home to her can’t hurt her, and she can’t hurt you.”
So they became lovers, and it was a revelation. Trish had thought she would put up with the sex for the sake of his company, which she did enjoy. Instead for the first time in her life her body opened up to pleasure. Nothing could be more different from Mark. For one thing, David expected to stay in bed all night and cuddle, which was in itself very pleasant. They moved the double bed back to her room. For another he liked the light on when they made love. “I want to see you,” he insisted.
“I never was much to look at,” Trish protested, “And now I’m old, past menopause. I’m a grandmother.”
“And I’m a grandfather,” he said. “How old are you?”
“Fifty-five,” Trish admitted.
“I’m only fifty-two, old woman.”
He made love slowly, caressing her body. He taught her new acts and positions, some of them delightful. “Is this how Americans make love?” she asked.
“It’s how I do,” he said. Unlike Mark, he liked conversation in bed, he liked her to tell him what she was feeling and what she liked and what she wanted him to do.
“Even after four children and all those stillbirths I feel as if I might as well have been a virgin until I met you,” she said.
They continued to go out, for meals, to concerts, and as the weather improved driving up to the Lake District for picnics and walks. He was good with the whole family. Everyone liked him. She teased him that he’d have to give Helen good grades, and he said that there was no need, she was getting good grades on her own. Trish continued to do all her work, though more and more often she skipped the peace group and the women’s group, which seemed less relevant than they had. David wasn’t like the men they talked about.
He didn’t move in. He kept his room on campus and spent three or four nights a week with Trish. Time seemed to go very fast. When it was time for him to go back to the States she drove him to Manchester airport. “Will I ever see you again?” she asked.
“It doesn’t seem likely,” he replied. “I’m sorry, Trish. It’s been wonderful. But I don’t expect I’ll come back here, and if you came to San Francisco my wife wouldn’t like it.”
“How about Boston, when George graduates?”
“If you’re going to be in Boston write to me. I’m not there often, but it’s not impossible. I might be able to find an excuse. I can’t promise. We shouldn’t spoil what we’ve had. You always knew it was going to end now.” Trish kissed him for the last time when she dropped him off outside the airport. She drove home, tears running down her face.
Helen tried to cheer her up. “Well now you know there are men who aren’t like Dad, maybe you can find another.”
“How on Earth do women tell?” Trish asked.
Helen laughed and shook her head.
“I wish I’d never met him,” Trish said to Bethany, down in the basement later. “I was happy being busy. I liked my life. I made room for him in it, and now he’s gone and I have this huge hole where he was.”
“I think Kevin has done the same,” Bethany said.
“I did notice that he hasn’t been around very much,” Trish said. “Has he really left you?”
“He’s left town, as best I can tell. He hasn’t told me anything. He’s just kind of oozed away, and now I don’t know where he is. I don’t know how I’m going to afford to pay rent on my own.”
“Never mind paying rent, we can manage,” Trish said, putting her arms around Bethany. “I should pay you for doing so much cooking. But how could he just leave that way?”
“When you’re not married you can just walk away,” Bethany said. “I might be able to make him pay something for Ally, if I could catch him and take him to court. But he doesn’t have anything—he’d consider it bourgeois to have enough money to pay for her—so probably that’s it. I’m sorry to drop this on you when you’re upset about David.”
“Troubles come not in single spies but in battalions,” Trish said.
Bethany blinked. “I’m sure that’s something very erudite?”
“Hamlet. It just felt appropriate. If Helen had just lost a man as well I’d think it was something in the stars over the house.”
“Helen has found a man, I think,” Bethany said. “But I’ll let her tell you about it.”