The Potter’s House

It was a strange mistake, for a clever and perceptive man who is usually so accurate in his judgements.

When it became obvious that we were not going to have children, I lodged myself in Dunollie Mansions like a hermit crab in its shell. I loved the screen of summer leaves and filigree winter twigs across the windows. I loved the thick walls and floors, and the almost dreamlike sense of seclusion, and the way Derek soft-footedly took care of the building. I liked the other quiet, discreet couples and the safety of the solid doors. There was no shock or violence or mayhem here, nor could I ever imagine anything of the sort disturbing our calm routines. I became a recluse.

We still gave dinner parties, of course, and went out to dinners in return, and to the opera and weekends in the country and on holidays, but I became an emotional solitary. Peter and I continued to look after each other and no doubt loved each other, but the woman he had taken home from the photographer’s party ceased to exist.

Obliterated by history.

Then came Lisa Kirk, with her red TARDIS and trendy furniture and the full heat of youth, smarting from Baz’s rejection and wishing for the baby she thought should have been hers. She saw in Peter Stafford exactly what I had seen myself, all those years before.

As I say, it was therefore only a matter of time.

Until Christmas, I reckon, give or take a week or two. I never quite got to the bottom of how it began. When I put the question to Peter he answered, shamefacedly, ‘We met for a drink, that’s all. She wanted some business advice.’

‘Where did you meet for a drink? How did it happen? Did she call you at the office and suggest this assignation?’

‘Cary, does it matter? Why do you need to know?’

‘Because I do,’ I snapped. But he wouldn’t tell me and in fact I didn’t need to know. This is how things unravel, that’s all. It’s nothing unusual. I had even watched my mother go through it, when my father ran off with Lesley.

It was quite early in the new year, this year that has now turned to October, and Peter and I were driving over to Fulham to have Sunday lunch with our friends Clive and Sally. It was one of those colourless London winter days when the sky and the river and even the buildings lack definition, and everything seems looming, as at the onset of seasickness. My handbag was at my feet, in the carpeted footwell of the current old car: an Alvis, silver-grey. Although Peter has now replaced it with a new BMW 5-series, no doubt at Lisa’s instigation.

I looked down for the handbag, intending to blow my nose or swallow a headache pill or something, and I saw a fragment under the seat mounting. Peter’s cars are always so impeccably looked after, it surprised me to see a piece of litter that might have been a sweet wrapper. I picked it up and looked down at it lying in the palm of my hand. Peter was occupied with the traffic at South Kensington.

What I had found was a little golden label, reading ‘Bag Shot by Lisa Kirk’.

Like a business card, but more eloquent. I put it in my pocket and said nothing.

The signs had been there for some time and now I was able to read them.

I began a horrible regime of espionage. Whenever Peter was working late, or when he telephoned to say he had an unexpected meeting or a new client to see, I would slip up the well-swept shallow stairs to Lisa’s door. I would ring the bell and then tap on the thick swimmy glass but – funnily enough – she was never at home either.

On the evenings when Peter did come home I would listen. I had never been able to hear Mrs Bobinski moving around, but then I had never tried to. Now I could suddenly hear the faint creak of floorboards, the vibrating bass of her music, the click of a door closing. Lisa at home.

‘What’s wrong?’ Peter asked.

I know, but I’m not ready to let you know that I know. That’s what’s wrong.

I’m on the beach again, another day. The sea is very flat, aluminium-coloured under a high, hazy sky. There is no breath of wind. A sailing boat crosses the mouth of the bay, the masts bare and the engines drumming. A shadow falls across my book.

A tall man with a white shirt and loose trousers, and creased Moroccan slippers with squashed pointed toes. I can see a narrow crescent of suntanned foot, between the leather slipper and where the cuff of his trousers dips over the heel.

‘Hello,’ he says. ‘I’ve got a copy of TheTimes here. Finished with it. Would you like it?’

Inglis man.

He holds out the folded paper and I am so surprised that I take it.

‘Thank you.’

‘Nice to know what’s going on in the world,’ he says. And then he moves on, diagonally across the sand to the margin of the silver water, where wet sand makes a khaki ribbon. I watch him walk along the water’s edge, into the distance. The paper had bled a smudge of newsprint on to my palm and fingertips.

In the end it wasn’t Peter I confronted. One evening when he was sitting in his armchair reading a report I left the flat and went upstairs to knock on Lisa’s door.

She had the grace to look startled and apprehension dawned in her wide eyes.

‘May I come in?’

She held the door wider and I marched inside. In the kitchen, with a yoghurt pot with a spoon stuck in it on the table – I felt that I was interrupting a child’s tea – I turned on her.

‘What are you doing with my husband?’

There are a dozen possible responses to a question like that. Innocence, affront, evasion, denial.

To her credit, Lisa only nodded quietly. After a moment’s thought she said, ‘Just what you imagine, I suppose.’

‘What does this mean?’

She pursed her lips and mournfully widened her eyes even further, a risible expression that was her attempt at high seriousness.

‘That we are in love with each other.’

I gaped at her for an instant, silenced by this mouthful of garbage. I remembered what she had said at the dinner weeks ago – ohyes,onceIknewyou – and how the airy assumption had infuriated me. But that was nothing compared with the ballooning rage I felt now.

What did this airhead know about love and what right did she have to claim Peter’s?

With one arm I swept the yoghurt pot and its spoon and assorted bits of crockery off the table. With one foot I kicked the red door of the TARDIS so that it shuddered. If Peter had been in our kitchen below he would surely have heard it. When I could speak I yelled at her, ‘Don’t talk such fucking crap. Don’t say another word.’

There was a mess of spilled yoghurt and broken crockery on the floor. But Lisa kept her eyes on me, and there was at last real shock and proper concern in her face.

I’ll teach you about feelings, you china doll.

‘You don’t know anything. You’ll never know anything about me or Peter. You are to leave him alone. To leave us alone. Do you understand?’

For extra emphasis I kicked the refrigerator again. There was a tiny dent in the lower corner of the door and my toes hurt.

‘Cary …’

Even in this absurd and undignified situation I could see how lovely she was with the light shining through her thin skin and the smooth flesh of her arms. Her thin fingers curled round the back of one of her uncomfortable chairs. Maybe she was contemplating how to lift it and bring it down on my head. Only she couldn’t have reached high enough.

‘Leave us alone,’ I repeated, with the anger starting to ooze out of me. I felt like a crumpled paper bag.

‘It’s too late for that.’

There was the confidence again, bred out of youth and arrogance. I wasn’t going to win. History decreed it.

What to do now?

‘I don’t care. It isn’t too late,’ I lied.