‘Don’t call me darling. And I don’t think it was crass. I think it was Machiavellian.’
We’re in Hyde Park, walking beside the Serpentine – his office is in Lancaster Gate where there’s little chance of bumping into an acquaintance – and I’m paying Magda to look after Josh for the morning. David is wearing a dark wool overcoat but still manages to look shambolic. I’m in jeans, scuffed boots, navy-blue winter jacket, gloves and scarf. Defiantly unmistressy. There are a couple of boats out on the lake and a group of swans stalk us, hoping to be fed.
I find it interesting that I’m married to Tom, who has a couple of ounces of spare flesh at the most and exercises regularly, and yet I was attracted to scruffy, overweight David, who I doubt has seen the inside of a gym in twenty years. To be honest, I still am attracted to him. The difference is that I don’t want him now. That irrational need has gone.
We met at the Italian Gardens. He was there first, which surprised me, holding a takeaway coffee in each hand, breaking into a smile as I waved and hurried towards him. The coffees precluded us hugging, which was probably a good thing in the circumstances, but he did lean in for a kiss. I proffered my cheek awkwardly and we clashed noses.
The thrill of being in his company is unchanged; the expectation and anxiety are still there, but as for the illusion that our actions were justified because it was true love, that has entirely gone. Even so, it is hard. His smile and his voice and his wicked sense of mischief still make me go weak at the knees.
‘Fuck it. I wish I’d gone to bed with you,’ David says out of the blue.
I can’t help laughing. ‘Sorry. It wasn’t to be.’
It’s not as if we even spent that much time together. Up until that awful day, our clandestine meetings only ever consisted of a coffee in town once every three weeks if we were lucky. Sometimes I saw him out and about with his family, and he’d acknowledge me as Hellie did, as their child’s teacher. The consummation of our relationship was doomed from the start. The mere fact that it had been planned down to the smallest detail drained it of romance. Hellie had taken Astrid to Sweden to see her grandparents and I used Mum’s broken heart as an excuse. If Peter hadn’t conveniently walked out, I would have thought of something else.
There was no spontaneity. I’ll never forget the dawning awkwardness of getting undressed in daylight for sex; catching sight of myself in the mirror and seeing my untoned baby belly, scarred with silvery stretch marks. The contrast to the first time Tom and I fell into bed was so marked it almost makes me laugh.
We had come back to his grotty shared house with a bunch of fellow students after a party and carried on drinking. Tom went up to bed earlier than the others because he had a football match in the morning and about an hour later I knocked on his door, thinking I might be pissed enough to seduce him. I’d been after him for weeks but he’d entirely missed the clues. He was having too much fun, I think. I walked in, he opened his eyes and saw me and before I could draw a breath, let alone ask if he was awake, he threw back the covers, sprang out of bed and dragged me back in with him. The memory still gives me the shivers.
David leans forward and tries to kiss me on the lips. I avoid him neatly.
‘You are far too sensible, Victoria. Misbehave for once.’
‘No. Be good or I’m going straight home. Seriously, you wanted to meet and say goodbye properly, so let’s do that. Let’s talk like friends and part like friends. I have enough problems at the moment without you making it difficult.’
He is immediately concerned. ‘What kind of problems?’
I tell him about the breakin and Josh’s injury. I am sorely tempted to be honest, but I mustn’t because if he’s not my lover, then he has no right to my secrets.
‘I heard about that,’ he says.
‘You did?’
‘Yes. Hellie told me. Poor you. You must have been terrified.’
Two roller-bladers race towards us and scoot by, one on either side. I used to roller-skate along the Esplanade with my friends when I was a child, propelled by the wind and then fighting our way back.
‘I miss you,’ David says. ‘I am so sorry about what happened. It was the wrong thing to do. I pushed you before you were ready. I’m not surprised you ran a mile.’
I pinch my lips together, feeling let down by vanity – because I am flattered. But the brutal truth is, if I had slept with David North it would have opened a door that I might not have been able to close. I’d have ended up like Mum, addicted to romance, to that first kiss; those moments that you give up when you get married. It’s not what I want, or what I will ever want. Life will never be perfect but I prefer the imperfections of marriage to a life searching for the Holy Grail. I want Tom, my children and stability. Excitement, I’m prepared to find elsewhere; in the buying and developing of property, for instance. I’ll happily get my kicks that way.
‘Do you love Hellie?’
‘Yes. I’ve never hidden that from you. And you love Tom. This was only ever meant to be fun.’
‘But you seem to think that makes it all right. David, you are wonderful and sexy and you make me laugh, but here’s my problem – you are not Tom. I don’t want to play your games.’ I can’t believe I’m crying. I wipe my eyes angrily. ‘I’m saying goodbye now.’
‘No you aren’t.’ He stops smiling and takes my hand but I wriggle it out of his grip. ‘Don’t do this, Vicky. Walking away won’t achieve anything. You can’t just go.’
‘Watch me.’
I don’t look back; I keep walking, not back up to Lancaster Gate, but in the direction of Hyde Park Corner. I’ve done it. It’s properly over now. Thank God. I can claw back some self-esteem.
Amber hurries across the Common, grasping her phone. She should have looked at it earlier but the morning’s viewings had been going so well. She’d been on a roll, extolling the virtues of a beautifully renovated house on Graves Avenue, and hadn’t thought to check when it vibrated in her bag. She assumed it was Robert but it turned out to be the school wanting her to pick up poor little Polly Seagrave who had thrown up and was running a temperature. By the time she rang back, Tom had already dashed across London to collect her.
She rings the doorbell, brushes back her hair and smooths down her skirt.
Tom pounds downstairs and opens the door. ‘Amber!’ He looks flatteringly pleased to see her. ‘Come in.’
She bustles inside, trying to behave like an efficient and concerned friend, rather than a grown woman who’s recently developed an inappropriate crush on her best friend’s husband.
‘Do you need to go?’ she asks, hoping he won’t rush out immediately. Much as she wants to help, she doesn’t particularly relish hanging around Vicky’s house until she gets back from her tryst. It makes her feel like a second-class citizen.
He glances at his wristwatch. ‘I can stay a few minutes. I’ll make you a cup of tea.’