I dragged myself out of bed and took a long, hot shower, leaving the plug in the bath so that the water accumulated at my feet. When it was ankle deep, I lay down in the second-hand suds and closed my eyes, letting the stream of water from the still-running shower drip irritatingly on my head and splash down into the bath. It was a form of torture designed to make me pay for my sins but all it did was drive out all other thoughts and bring to my mind, with a remarkable clarity, the events of the past twelve hours: the chatting, the drinking, the laughing and joking, the creeping along the hotel corridor, the falling into bed – the making love. No, not making love – that was too nice, too husband and wifey. Not making love like you make a promise or make a vow or make a baby. This was committing adultery, like committing a crime or committing perjury – or committing matrimonial suicide. I banged my head with increasing ferocity against the tiled wall of the bathroom, trying to dislodge these thoughts, but they were stuck fast in my mind just as I was now stuck with the reality of what I had done: something awful and despicable and completely un-undoable.
I lay there for what seemed like hours until the water had gone completely cold and my body was as ridged and wrinkled as an elderly bull elephant’s scrotum. I dressed and packed and then went down to the restaurant to meet Bennett for breakfast. We sat mostly in silence, our conversation limited to requests for condiments and butter to be passed and, in my case, occasional offers to fetch more coffee. Bennett seemed keen to sample as many as possible of the myriad items displayed in the gargantuan buffet selection, which included everything from traditional cereals through to corned beef hash and doughnuts. This suited me fine – as long as he was eating, he wasn’t talking.
‘Good do last night, I thought, West,’ he said eventually, as he used his final fragment of French toast to mop up the remaining puddle of maple syrup and drained his glass of cranberry juice. ‘Some very interesting birdlife there, if you know what I mean! Where did you get to at the end? I looked all over for you but you were nowhere to be seen. You didn’t cop off, did you?’
He concluded this remark with a noise situated approximately halfway between a laugh and a snort, leaving me in little doubt that he considered this to the most ridiculous proposition he had ever constructed. Either this or tell-tale signs of my infidelity were etched so clearly across my face that even Bennett could spot them. Or perhaps Olivia had left a physical souvenir for me. Perhaps my neck was covered in love bites or she’d carved her initials into my forehead with a sharpened emery board. Keep calm, you idiot, I told myself, that snort was clearly derisory. Just stay composed and say as little as possible.
‘Yeah, it was good,’ I replied, doing my best to sound nonchalant and avoiding eye contact. ‘And I’m sorry about missing you at the end. I looked for you but couldn’t see you anywhere. And I left pretty early anyway. So, I mean, I wasn’t actually still there at the end when you were looking for me because I’d already left some time earlier. On my own. Newspaper?’
I handed him a USA Today and took one for myself and we flicked through them in a fruitless search for anything of interest to read before both noticing at the same time that this was, in fact, yesterday’s paper, telling the day before yesterday’s news. News from the day before the night I turned into a monster.
The New York streets were quiet as we drove to the airport. Just over the Brooklyn Bridge, I saw a huge billboard outside a large, modern church proclaiming: ‘The Ten Commandments are not a Cafeteria Menu!!’ Another day, I’d have smiled at these evangelistic ravings, but now the sign made me shudder. Until the previous night, I’d been doing pretty well against this exacting 5,000-year-old standard. I’d done a little coveting in my time and worshipped the odd false idol – who hadn’t? – but otherwise I’d stuck to the rules. Now I’d blown it – thrown away the no-claims bonus I’d accrued over the years to be redeemed against eternal salvation – and for what? A night of drunken sex which already I could hardly remember and which I couldn’t mention to another soul for as long as I lived.
When we arrived at JFK, we checked in and headed straight for the Business Lounge. I poured myself a coffee while Bennett helped himself to a Virgin Mary and we sat in silence reading papers and nibbling on crisps and nuts. Just as our flight was being called, I heard a sharp ‘beep’ and saw Bennett reach into his jacket pocket. He took out his phone, tapped a couple of buttons and stared at the screen, looking bemused as he read and re-read the message. Then he thrust the phone into my face. ‘Here, West, look at this.’
Hey there, English. That was some night! I really enjoyed our chat – and the rest of course!! Thx for looking after me. You were grrrreat!
xxx
Now it was my turn to look confused. If this message was – as it seemed – from Olivia Finch, how had it found its way onto Bennett’s phone? Had she slept with him as well? Perhaps she had a thing for accountants. In which case, where was my message? I checked my phone. Nothing. Not even a ‘thank you for having me’.
‘What’s that about, then?’ I stammered.
‘I have no idea,’ Bennett said. ‘Must be a wrong number.’ He pressed another couple of buttons, deleting the message and turning off the phone. ‘Come on, West, we’d better get boarding.’
As soon as we were airborne, Bennett settled down to watch an unfunny American comedy and for the next two hours proceeded to laugh like the stand-up’s wife at a talent contest. I reclined my seat and tried to get some sleep, adjusting and readjusting my position for maximum comfort and turning up the music in my headset to smother the cackling of my neighbour. Feeling sick with a potent combination of tiredness, guilt, confusion and coffee, I closed my eyes and tried hard to embrace oblivion, but every time I was on the point of dropping off, those indelible images of my crime would reappear inside my head, screaming at me and dragging me back to the new reality I had so casually created.
Nothing made sense to me. How had I ended up in bed with one of the most beautiful women in the world? How could I have allowed it to happen? And how could she? I imagined the look on my friends’ faces if I turned up for the quiz night at the King’s Head next Thursday evening with Olivia Finch on my arm – specialist subject: ‘The Lives and Loves of the Rich and Famous’. The thought made me smile for a split second but then I remembered: this wasn’t a game. This wasn’t a movie or some crappy television sitcom. This was my life and Natasha’s life and the kids’ lives. And I’d just fucked them all up.
I ordered a beer from the stewardess, hoping that a drink or two might help me sleep. But, of course, it didn’t. All it did was send my mind hurtling off in a load of other directions, trying to make sense of all that had happened. Why was Olivia now texting Bennett of all people? Or had he hooked up with someone else and was just playing dumb? Perhaps it really was a wrong number and had nothing to do with me or what had happened last night. Coincidences do happen.
When his film finished, Bennett turned off the screen and fell instantly into a deep, apparently guilt-free slumber. After several more drinks I was finally able to close my eyes and drift off into a fitful sleep myself.
I am woken up by a rough hand grabbing my shoulder, almost pulling me from my chair – I must have undone my seat belt to go to the toilet whilst still half asleep. Wordlessly, the figure leads me to the back of the Business Class section which opens out into a large, splendidly furnished lounge with a bar and pretty stewardesses serving drinks for thirsty, drunken passengers. To my surprise, I spot myself sitting in one corner chatting to Olivia Finch. We are laughing and she is running one of her hands up and down one of my thighs as if it is a piano keyboard. We finish our drinks and stand up and she leads me by the hand past where I am still standing with my mysterious friend, although now I realise that he is no longer there and my hand has been taken by another spirit, who leads me back to my seat and forces me to sit down. The TV screen flickers into life and I see a woman and two children