Happily Ever After_ - Benison Anne O'Reilly [83]
‘Well it does sound beautiful when you say it so I’m happy for you to keep it up. But tell me, was the French Eleanor also a lover of yours?’
‘Maybe, but it was never serious. My French was never good enough for a start. She was just a precursor to better things. But you know, I think there is another reason why I call you Eleanor. It sounds more respectful somehow. And I do respect what you’re doing for me, you know. I know you’re taking risks.’
That’s how it came to pass that my formal name, the name on my passport and driver’s licence, the name that strangers call me by until they’re advised otherwise, also became my intimate name. The name my lover called me. I liked the secret contradiction in that.
If you are planning on having an affair it’s a very good idea to be married to a man who’s away a lot. There are few women who would have had the opportunities that I had to be alone with Alex, especially considering Issy’s regular Wednesday night sleepover at Pamela’s house. If Tony’s work roster meant he was home on Wednesday but away another evening Alex and I would make other arrangements to be together. I’d dream up some reason why Isabel had to sleep over at Mum’s house, or else employ the teenage girl up the street to babysit for a few hours.
One day Mum questioned me about my sudden desire for evening socialising.
‘I don’t know Mum. I just feel the need to get out a bit more and enjoy myself,’ I said, or something along those lines.
I fancied she looked at me a bit sceptically, but she’d known enough about my earlier troubles and I think was just grateful to see me so energised. Mum would have never thought me the type to have an affair. The daughter she knew didn’t do that sort of thing, although her evil twin just might.
Still, it was always those Wednesday nights when Tony was away that I loved the most. We’d make love and we would sleep a little and we would talk. And boy did we talk. I found out all about his early life: how his father was a merchant seaman who had travelled the world as a lone wolf until he met a beautiful young girl, ten years his junior, in Bombay. It had been a happy marriage that had produced two children before their own fairytale went sour and Alex’s dad developed lung cancer, dying when Alex was only twelve. He told me how he’d left his mum to go exploring himself, arriving in the UK in his early twenties with a plan to stay for a couple of years but it had somehow turned into nearly ten; how his sister loved her publishing job in New York but had been, like him, unlucky in love; and how their mother was now making impatient noises about wanting to be a grandmother. I in turn told him all about my family: Mum and Dad, David and Emma, and Isabel, my feisty little daughter, but not Tony, of course.
‘Emma sounds hilarious,’ he said one night after I’d told him about her latest antics. ‘I’d love to meet her.’
‘Ah, but she’s very beautiful. You might fall for her and then where would I be?’
‘No, my heart is already spoken for. Besides I don’t think I’d like to get on the wrong side of that truckie boyfriend of hers.’
Those Wednesdays I would stay with Alex all night, only returning to my house in the pre-dawn to feed the cat, pack Issy’s school gear for the day, and get dressed for another day at work. After retrieving my daughter and dropping her at child care I would arrive at the office still with the remembrance of my lover’s touch upon me. One Thursday we were summoned to an early morning meeting with the entire marketing department. We always maintained a healthy distance from one another at these gatherings so I had the opportunity to sit back and observe as Amanda simpered and fluttered her eyelashes at him, all the while feeling an ache between my thighs that spoke of our long night of lovemaking. He couldn’t resist giving me a sly smile that morning and I think - judging from her puzzled expression - that Amanda might have witnessed it.
***
Mad or bad? If a jury was forced to make a decision I think I might be in trouble. Madness implies a complete loss of reason