happened to, but had taken it on John’s recommendation. Ruth was an efficient, helpful PA after all; she knew about this place; she must ring John here in the evenings to deal with problems or prepare him for the next day’s meetings. She could well have suggested this location for her friend or relative and fixed it up for her.
But nothing that suggested itself to Eleanor’s weary mind could convince her. Even as she dismissed every alternative, she was walking slowly towards the closed door, certain that every step was bringing her closer to an explanation; willing now to face anything in the desperate and relentless need to know the truth.
She pressed the small white push button on the side of the door and heard the bell ring out quietly inside the flat. She thought she heard some movement inside, but after a few seconds it stopped, and the landing was as silent as before. She pushed the bell again, and then again, angry at the way this woman, whom she knew to be somewhere inside and listening, was ignoring her. Couldn’t she feel her pain, this person a few feet away from her? Wasn’t the lonely humiliation on this side reaching out to her on the other through the thickness of the wooden door? Surely she must be able to sense it? Eleanor rested her forehead on the surface of the door and closed her eyes. She pressed her finger back onto the bell push and held it there while she focused all her mental effort on the questions that still burnt into her brain, feeling almost as if she could transmit them by the force of her will into the flat beyond. Never having been a particular believer in the sisterhood of women, or in the idea of some sort of communion of the female spirit, she nevertheless now found herself appealing to some primitive common bond between herself and the woman on the other side, whom she knew now could, if she wanted, give her the answers she needed so desperately.
Please, she found herself silently begging, please, please tell me. Open the door and talk to me. I’m in agony here – can’t you feel it? You don’t look like a bad person; you can’t want me to suffer like this, surely?
Her head suddenly jerked forward as the door moved. For a confused second she wasn’t sure if she had somehow pushed it with the weight of her body, but as she lifted her head and recovered her balance she found herself looking straight into the glittering lenses of the woman who stood in front of her, holding the edge of the open door.
‘You’d better come in.’
Her voice was still quiet, but the eyes behind the glasses had lost their anxiety and gazed back into Eleanor’s almost challengingly.
‘Yes. Thank you.’
The layout of the flat followed the same pattern as that of John’s, but in reverse, and, as she followed the rather dumpy figure of the woman in front of her through the hallway and into the sitting room, Eleanor had the uncanny feeling that she was walking into the one upstairs, but in a surreal version that had somehow been changed into a mirror image of itself. She was half aware of the differences in colour and décor, but couldn’t shake off the dreamlike feeling that she was somewhere she had been before, and that it was the woman in front of her that was the visitor, and that it should be Eleanor ushering her into the sitting room and onto the floral sofa, not the other way round.
The woman sat down opposite her in a small armchair, keeping well to the front of it and leaning slightly forward as if ready to jump up again at a second’s notice; wary of relaxing her guard in front of her visitor. They looked at each other for a few moments, and Eleanor was able to examine more clearly the straight, cropped grey hair, the long, unmade-up face behind the glasses, and the thick-waisted body. She was wearing a brightly coloured green blouse with short cape sleeves that revealed plump, mottled arms above reddened hands that were clasped firmly together on her lap, and her patterned skirt was stretched tightly across between her legs just below her knees.
‘I know who you are,’ the woman said at last, the hint of North London accent more obvious now in the stillness of the room. ‘I suppose I always knew this would happen one day.’
‘Yes,’ answered Eleanor. ‘And you’re her mother, aren’t you?’
‘Yes. I’m Barbara.’
Eleanor felt surprisingly calm. In control. She looked around the room, automatically and professionally assessing what she saw, unable to help herself mentally rearranging the furniture, changing the fabric of the curtains and removing the gathered frills on the pelmets and the bottoms of the armchairs.
‘Do they see each other here?’ she went on, the tone of her own voice sounding to her ears as normal as if she were passing the time of day with a social acquaintance, rather than confronting the mother of her husband’s mistress. No, not mistress – the word gave her too much dignity; it trembled with echoes of the beautiful courtesans of the past; of spoilt, Armani-clad, pouting lovers of the present. Whore. That was nearer to it. Whore. Eleanor surprised herself with the succession of degrading labels that sprang now one after another into her mind, screaming to be heard: her husband’s whore; bitch; tart; harlot; trollop.
The woman hesitated for a split second, and Eleanor thought she saw again a flash of anxious uncertainty as she looked down at the floor.
‘Well, yes. Of course. Of course they do.’
Eleanor couldn’t help herself. The recently acquired composure that had held her body and voice in check since entering the room deserted her in a wave of furious revulsion. Of course? Of course they do? How dare this woman sit before her so calmly? How dare she look her in the eye and answer her the way she did? What kind of disgusting morals could allow her to parade her whore-bitch-daughter to John’s caressing, fondling fingers and then discuss it with his wife as if nothing was wrong? Her anger erupted in a sudden, violent rise from the sofa and a tirade of abuse spewed out at the startled face looking up at her.
‘What do you mean, of course? How can you? How can you sit there and talk to me – how can you face me? What kind of woman are you? Don’t you have any—haven’t you any—for Christ’s sake, how dare you? For God’s sake – how dare you? I don’t understand you, I can’t understand you – you’re disgusting, you disgust me, you all disgust me!’
The woman looked white and frightened, and rose slowly from the chair as if semi-paralysed by the ferocious anger of Eleanor’s attack, her eyes like a rabbit’s hypnotised in a car’s headlights, her body backing slowly from the heat of the assault as Eleanor went on.
‘How long? How long? Just tell me that. Do you watch them? Do you watch your daughter while my husband screws her? Do you?’
The woman gasped and held a hand to her face as if Eleanor had hit her. She finally managed to speak, in a voice filled with what appeared to be a genuine sense of shock, confusion and sheer horror.
‘What do you mean?’ she said, ‘What are you saying? Don’t – don’t say such things. You don’t know what you’re saying. They couldn’t—’
‘Don’t cover it up – it’s too late now. I’ve found you. I know. I know what they do. How can you, as her mother – how can you let it happen? How can you?’
Eleanor made a sudden move towards the woman, filled with a terrible urge to hurt her, to make her hurt as much as she did, to tear the agony out of herself and force it onto this terrified creature in front of her. Even as she raised her hand to – what? hit her? pinch her? slap her? – some deeply ingrained moral sense rebelled against the physical violence she had so abhorred all her life, and she felt her own arm blocking the fury of her instinctive revenge and become heavy and slow as it resisted the force of her anger. The momentum that her arm already carried sent it flailing towards the other’s chest, where it landed in a clumsy, painful shove into the flesh of her upper breast, pushing her victim backwards as she gave a yelp of distress.
‘Oh my God!’ the startled woman cried, clutching at her breast with her hand, trembling as she backed away from her attacker. ‘Oh my God! You must go now, please, go, just get out – please.’
Eleanor herself was backing off now, shocked by her own violence, filled with a confusing mix of horror at her own savagery and hatred for the pathetic woman in front of her.
‘Yes,’