Arthur didn’t know, but he nodded.
“I met her in a massage parlor. She was the receptionist. I mean, if I was happy, if I was satisfied with Donna, I wouldn’t have been in that type of place, would I? Donna was away at some hairdressing convention and Manda took me back to hers. I’d only known her an hour and...wham.” He clapped his hands together and grinned. “Fireworks. That girl knew things I didn’t know existed. The pair of us could hardly walk afterward.”
“But what about Donna?”
“I don’t ask her to do any of those things, because if I did and she let me, I would lose respect for her. She’s not that kind of girl and Manda is. It’s a complicated situation.”
“Did you not feel guilty about cheating on your girlfriend?”
The man frowned. “Kind of. Afterward. I wish she hadn’t gone to that damn convention and then I wouldn’t have had to go looking for trouble.”
Arthur had lost his appetite. He cut his sandwich into quarters and then added brown sauce, but he didn’t eat.
“So, who should I choose? Once I get married, that’s it. I want to be faithful. I want to at least try. If I have kids, then I’ll be a family man, yeah? It should be Donna. She’s the marrying kind, but I know what else is out there. It’ll be very vanilla with her. I might miss the chocolate chips. But Manda’s changing. She’s started talking about doing other stuff outside the bedroom, y’know, like proper dating. We went to the theater and she was all dressed up and we had a great night. I got even more confused.”
“But if you had the chocolate chips all the time, that would be sickly.” Arthur hated that he was comparing women to flavors of ice cream but it was a language that the pin-striped-suited man understood.
“So what would you do? Stay with the simple flavor or go for something more exciting?”
Arthur considered the man’s predicament. He turned it over in his mind. It was obviously very important if the man went around asking strangers to help make decisions about his private life. “The thing is these days,” he said, “there is too much choice. When I was younger, you were grateful with what you were given. You were lucky if you got socks at Christmas and now young people want everything. A phone is not enough—it has to be the best all-singing, all-dancing phone. They want computers, houses, cars, to go for meals and drinks. And not just any old food—it has to be at fancy restaurants and expensive beer in bottles.
“You say you wouldn’t respect Donna if she let you do things, but you don’t respect her now because you are seeing Manda, too. Would you respect Donna if she married you? If she married you and you know that you’re a cheat and don’t really deserve her. And this other girl who is interested in certain things—how long will that appeal to you? Can you see yourself dusting and vacuuming the house together? Is she going to still want to let you do those things once she’s a mother? Does she do those things with other men besides you? So, instead of thinking which woman is the most suitable to marry, perhaps the answer is that neither of them are. If I was Donna, I would look for someone who deserved me and treated me with respect. If I was Manda, then I wouldn’t want to be with a man who cheated on his girlfriend. Therefore I don’t think you should ask either of them to marry you, just in case one of them says yes.”
The man sat for a while, his eyebrows knitted, his hands clasped on his lap. He shook his head. “It’s not an option I’d thought of. You have just fucked with my mind.”
“Sorry. It’s best to tell the truth.”
“I appreciate it. You’re brutal, though. That’s a third option thrown into the mix. You mean I should dump them both and find someone else?”
“Maybe someone who is vanilla with a few chocolate chips.”
“Brutal. Let me pay for your lunch, yeah?”
“It’s fine. I can manage it.”
“I don’t think I’ll ask anyone else’s opinion.” The man stood and shook his head again. He threw a twenty-pound note on the table. “I need to work this out for myself.”
“Sorry if I’ve confused you.”
“Nah. I asked for your advice and you gave it. Fair and square.”
Arthur hesitated. He saw how the man had changed. His shoulders were rounded, his eyes searching for the truth. He swallowed before he spoke. Perhaps he himself needed the brutal truth, too. “Before you go,” he said. “Can I ask you something? It’s unlikely we’ll meet again and you can give me your thoughts.”
“Sure. What is it?”
“If you met a girl and there’d been other men before you and she’d lived in different parts of the world and had done lots of things but she didn’t tell you about it, would it bother you?”
The man cocked his head on one side as he considered. “Nah. It would make her who she was. I mean, there might be reasons that she didn’t tell me. Some people live for the day and don’t look back. Why look back at the past if you’re happy with the present?”
Arthur took time to think. He took a serviette and wrapped his bacon sandwich in it and put it in his pocket. “And do you ever buy jewelry for Manda and Donna?”
“Sure. Donna likes glittery cheap stuff. She has drawers full of it. Manda likes the expensive shit. Diamonds and platinum, to show how much I like her. Costs me a fortune.”
“Do you give a great deal of thought to what you buy them?” Arthur asked, thinking of the singular engraved page in the book charm and how enamored De Chauffant might have been with Miriam.
“Not really. I leave it to them. They point out stuff they like, or buy it themselves. Or I might pick up a little something off friends I know who get nice stuff cheap. I’d make an effort with a wedding ring, though. That’s forever.”
“Thank you. That is helpful.” Arthur stood up and faced the man. “You asked if I made a good choice with my wife. I absolutely did. But I’m not sure whether I was a good choice for her.”
The man reached out and punched Arthur’s shoulder. “Nah, you seem like a kind man. I think you probably were a good choice.”
“Do you think so?” He suddenly felt like he needed affirmation, even from this cheating, brash stranger.
“You were faithful. You’re kind. You listen. You’re thoughtful. You offer good advice. You’re not a bad-looking fellow. I’m sure she made a good choice with you, yeah.”
“Thank you,” Arthur said quietly. He paid his bill and left a two-pound tip. The waitress saw him and waved.
“She sure is a babe,” the man said as they walked away together. “Do you think that...?”
“No,” Arthur said firmly. “No, I do not.”
The Book
FRAN?OIS DE CHAUFFANT’S house was larger than Arthur had expected. It was extravagant, opulent, like it should be a five-star hotel with a man wearing a gray top hat standing at the door. Its white frontage gleamed in the sunshine. Arthur felt suddenly embarrassed by his own three-bedroom redbrick semidetached. He had never aspired to own anything grander. He and Miriam had once discussed moving to be a little closer to Dan and Lucy’s school, but he had never judged himself or others by the size of their home. Home is where the heart is, his mother used to say. Should he have worked his way up the career ladder so he could have afforded something grander for his family? Should he have strived to be more successful? These were questions that he had never considered until he had started this journey.