‘Sorrel?’
Without answering him, she raised her hand and swept away the neat orderliness of the dressing table. What she missed, she swiped at yet again, clearing every last inconsequential item.
She stared at the mess now strewn across the cream carpet, wanting to crush everything under foot, to grind the contents of those pots, tubes and bottles into the soft woollen pile, to smear the carpet thoroughly with the ugly greasiness and symbolic artifice of it all.
Destruction. That was the course she was now set on.
In the frozen silence, she looked at Simon and saw the disbelief on his face. ‘I slept with Alastair,’ she said.
He swallowed. ‘Yes,’ he said simply.
She faltered at his response, feeling perversely cheated that he wasn’t angrier. Did he care so little for her? ‘It wasn’t a one-off thing,’ she said. ‘It happened many times.’
Simon’s jaw tightened. ‘How often?’
‘I can’t remember exactly,’ she replied, ‘I didn’t keep a logbook on our affair.’ Which was a lie. She could recall every encounter, every time she had lain in bed with Alastair. Each coming together of their bodies was etched on her memory. Now with painful shame.
‘When?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘Yes.’
She sighed. ‘It was years ago.’
‘How many years ago? I want to know when.’
Annoyed by what she saw as the triviality of his question, she said, ‘Twenty-five years ago, when Orla miscarried for the last time. When Alastair was at his wits’ end coping with her.’
She saw genuine surprise flicker in his expression, as though she had given him the wrong answer. Then: ‘What? You slept with Alastair to comfort him? Is that your justification?’
‘I’m not trying to justify what I did. You wanted to talk, so I’m talking to you. I had an affair with your best friend. What else is there to say?’ Her words slowly crashed down like bricks, one after another, demolishing once and for all the faulty foundations of their marriage.
‘How can you be so indifferent to what you’re admitting to?’ he asked. At his sides his fists were clenched and his pulse was ticking at his right temple.
‘Because it’s not news to me; I’ve lived with the knowledge for a long time.’
‘Are you even going to say sorry?’
‘Would it change anything?’
He blinked. ‘Have I been such a poor husband to you?’
‘Are you trying to make me feel guiltier than I already do?’
He shook his head. ‘I’m trying to understand you.’
‘I wouldn’t bother. I’m beyond understanding. But if it helps, I am sorry.’
He breathed in deeply. ‘The irony is that I wanted to say I could forgive you, that I always knew that Alastair was special to you. After that scene at lunch today, I had no choice but to force myself to accept that maybe once, or even twice, you had slept with him, and that you regretted it.’
‘How very generous of you to say you could forgive me.’
He frowned at her sarcasm. ‘Not generous at all. I saw it as a way to atone for my own guilt, for very nearly doing the same with Orla.’
‘Very nearly?’ she echoed. ‘What does that mean?’
‘There was a night. Here. We’d had too much to drink. We were in her studio and …’ his words trailed away and he went over to lean against the windowsill, carefully stepping over the mess she’d made on the carpet.
