face, but meeting only her usual expression of bland indifference.
‘Mr Hamilton says he won’t be long. Anything else I can get you, Mrs Hamilton? Did you want to see Mr Havers?’
‘No, for goodness’ sake, why does everyone think I want to see Martin? And I did ask for coffee, Judith.’
‘Sorry, Mrs Hamilton, I thought Mr Hamilton said tea. And I thought Ruth said you were coming in to see Mr Havers.’
Eleanor knew that Judith was right and that the slight tone of resentment in her voice was completely justified, but that didn’t prevent it from annoying her. How dare she come back at her like that? What gave her the right to—
‘Did you want me to change it for coffee?’
‘No, no, leave it now. Leave it. Tea’s fine.’
She looked at Judith’s large, tightly skirted bottom and hips as she walked away from her and felt a wash of sweaty dread break over her. Could she be another one? Now she no longer knew John, he could be capable of anything. But he hated fat women; he had always said so. But even as she thought it she knew that ‘always’ had no meaning now: the man who had ‘always’ didn’t exist.
She looked around the office at the large modern watercolours, cream sofas and glass coffee table and tried to identify something else that was badgering for her attention at the back of her mind. It took a few seconds to identify it: she was hungry. Her usual routine of toast and marmalade first thing, followed by morning coffee and biscuits an hour or so later to the accompaniment of Woman’s Hour, had been abandoned in the morning’s upheaval, and it was only now that she realised she had eaten nothing since a small supper over fifteen hours before.
Eleanor was solidly built; shaped in a way that had changed little since spreading into a traditionally English pear-shaped middle age in her mid-forties. Her intake of food had varied little over the years: although she sensed that the energy she expended was a little less every month that passed, she did nothing to adjust the amount of fuel that sustained it, secretly a little mocking of those of her friends who had joined in the general drift towards diet and exercise. Gyms and aerobic classes were for those younger than she, and were even to be looked down on for encouraging an unhealthy awareness of one’s own physical condition. Missing a meal was not something to be taken lightly, and even in her present emotional state, the demands of routine were pressing and unavoidable.
She considered calling Judith again and asking her to send out for a sandwich, or to bring her a plate of biscuits from the office kitchen, but suddenly seeing again in her mind’s eye the meeting with John that was inevitable if she stayed, she decided to use her hunger as an excuse to herself to go, and quickly picked up her coat and bag and left.
She turned the car round and drove down one of the side roads towards Marylebone High Street, thoughts of the quiches and rolls she knew would be in the window of her favourite coffee shop juggling for position with an image of Ruth’s slim frame balanced on one hip on a corner of her desk as she nibbled at a crispbread or sipped at some mineral water.
‘Coffee and a Danish pastry, please.’
‘Cappuccino, espresso or filter?’
It had taken an enormous effort on Eleanor’s part to bring her voice into a semblance of normality long enough for her to give the order, and the strain made her dizzy. To have it countered with a question fired back at her so quickly took her by surprise.
As the young waitress gazed down at her, Eleanor opened her mouth to try to answer but suddenly stopped; hit by a terrible uncertainty. The choice of coffee seemed suddenly impossible. How could she make a decision if she didn’t know who she was? She found herself stuttering and panic-stricken: unable to reply or even look the girl in the eye. The waitress’s obvious embarrassment just made it worse, and it was a relief when she muttered something about coming back in a moment and, putting a menu down onto the polished wood surface of the table, moved away towards another customer.
Eleanor took stock. It was so extraordinary for her to be out of control like this. It was new, and it frightened her. Yes she suspected her husband of having an affair, but surely she could deal with this as logically and calmly as she always had with problems? Why did she feel so completely incapable? Even her physical surroundings seemed to be all at once abandoning the rules: the marble floor tilted away from her into the shadows; the walls looked warped and soft; the table sloped and buckled. She rested her forehead on the palm of her hand for a moment and closed her eyes. In the relative calm of the pink world of her inner eyelids she could see more clearly, and suddenly understood. Not only was John not the man she thought she had known: she herself wasn’t the same woman, either. Her position in an ordered, comfortable, middle-class world was turned upside down, and by living with a man who had been lying to her for – how long? – she had unwittingly colluded in a nonsensical pretence. For so long she had read in magazines of women resenting their position as ‘somebody’s wife’ and had always thought their worries childish and irrelevant: now she could see – could feel – what they meant. If she wasn’t the happily married woman she had thought she was for so long she seemed to be nothing.
By the time the waitress returned she was able to order, and after downing the cappuccino and chicken sandwich that arrived within minutes, she felt fortified and more resolved. Sensing suddenly what she must do, she paid the bill and went back to the car, smiling slightly in her newfound sense of purpose and direction.
She swivelled the driver’s mirror down towards her until she could see herself clearly and reached into her bag for a comb, pulling through the dampened but still glossy-looking brown curls until they were arranged to her satisfaction, pleasantly surprised to see that her makeup had survived the ravages of emotional upheaval and that, once a quick swipe of lipstick had been applied to her mouth, she was in reasonable shape to tackle the next stage of this extraordinary day. As she moved the car smoothly out of the meter bay and made her way towards the flat in Nottingham Place she felt almost excited. The sense of terrible anticipation that she had had since the morning’s discovery had taken on an aspect of nervous energy that was almost sexual in its physical attack on her. A sensation that was somewhere between a desperate need to urinate and a thrill of excitement fluttered between her legs, and she squeezed her thighs together as she drove to try and contain it.
The only meter she could find was in Paddington Street, but as the rain had stopped the five-minute walk to the flat didn’t seem too daunting, and the thought of the fresh air was good. She would install herself comfortably in the sitting room and await John’s return in the evening; by the time he arrived she would have planned her assault on him carefully enough to prevent his wriggling out of it; she would be ready to counter any excuse he might have with a crystal-clear, logical comeback. Her step was purposeful and almost confident. A clarity and overwhelming need to know everything had taken over from the blind panic.
Eleanor walked with her upper body thrust forward from the hips as if her head were more eager to reach its destination than her feet, but the look of assurance it gave her on this occasion belied her inner struggles: to the onlooker the tall, middle-aged woman in sturdy shoes and Burberry raincoat striding quickly along the shiny London pavements appeared to have not a care in the world.
But that stride was to be stopped in its tracks by something so startling and yet so obvious that, even as she stood transfixed in horror, she wondered at herself for not having foreseen it. From where she watched, twenty yards or so away on the other side of the road, she was able to see quite clearly the attractive, neatly belted girl with red hair, carrying a bulging supermarket bag in one hand, approach the large dark red brick block of flats and turn into the entrance. How stupid she was! Where else did she think they would have met, for goodness’ sake? What had she imagined – a quick fling on the sofa in the office? A willing body pressed back onto the desktop, skirt pushed up; knickers pulled down? Secret kisses stolen by the photocopier?
Eleanor could feel the calm clarity of the last few minutes evaporating even as her mind scrolled relentlessly through the horrifying images; images that, intolerable as they were, she knew now were less terrible than the reality must have been. As