‘I think I can. This year, when we were in America, and I had my health thing and decided afterwards . . . wrongly, as you saw it . . . that I had to come back here to defend my job, you had a fling, an affair. It ended badly, and okay, I know we said we wouldn’t speak of it again, but I have to. We started the other night, and we have to finish.’ He looked into her eyes. ‘I need to be honest about this, Sarah: I can’t look at you in the same way I did before. I hoped I would, but I can’t. That doesn’t mean I don’t love you, because I do; it means that my perception of you has changed.’
‘If it has,’ she said grimly, ‘it’s an ego thing. Go on, deny that.’
‘I won’t even try to. The idea that the great Bob Skinner’s wife could ever be truly attracted by another man never entered my head. But you could, and you were, so that’s me put in my place. Sure, I could try to dismiss it by telling myself you were angry with me at the time so it was really my fault, but I’d be kidding myself. You fancied him and he fancied you, and you had each other. So now when I’m feeling black . . . you know, the shade beyond blue, where we all go sometimes . . . I find myself asking myself, how many more times?’
‘So why not ask me?’
‘Okay, since we’ve been married, how many lovers have you had?’
‘You know how many.’
‘Accepted. Now, suppose you met someone who got you as hot as the guy in Buffalo did, and it was mutual . . .’
Dangerous ground. ‘Bob . . . that’s not going to happen,’ she exclaimed. She felt her cheeks flush and feared for a second that he had noticed, but he was looking away from her, up towards the ceiling.
‘You can’t say that,’ he murmured. ‘It’s happened once this year already. Look, I’m not going to ask you whether you would or you wouldn’t, one, because I think I can guess the truth, and two, much more important, because I think what you’re saying is that I don’t affect you like that any more, I don’t get you that hot. Be honest with me, I don’t, do I?’
She sank back into her chair, as if she was trying to make herself smaller. ‘Honestly? No,’ she admitted finally. ‘But whose fault is that?’ she challenged him.
‘Oh, that really is mine, and I admit it. But it’s not because I’m not interested in you physically, or because when we do get it on we’re just going through the motions. It’s because where I’ve stood this year, you’ve stood before. We’ve matched each other in one respect, Sarah, and that’s in the number of affairs we’ve had since we’ve been married. You told me once that you had your first so that you wouldn’t be able to brandish my infidelity like a club to beat me with. I don’t think I believe that any more, but I do recognise this. If I can’t see you in the same way I did before, then you can’t see me as your ideal, faultless, untouchable lover either. And don’t try to tell me I’m wrong.’
Sarah finished her Bloody Mary, and signalled to the cocktail waiter to bring her another. She sat in silence until it arrived, then turned back to look at her husband. ‘No,’ she said gravely. ‘I won’t try to tell you that. So what sort of a marriage does it leave us?’
‘One that’s probably still better than many others,’ he replied, ‘and one that I want to continue. Do you?’
‘Yes. I’ve never been in any real doubt about that. But is it possible?’
‘As long as it’s what we both want, and as long as our family unit is strong and our kids are happy, yes, it is.’
‘Can we maintain that?’
‘I believe we can, if we try. But if we decide that it would be impossible in the long run, should we chuck it now, take the hurt and get it over with?’
She looked at him. ‘I don’t think I could take the hurt,’ she confessed.
‘Then we settle for what we’ve got right now. Agreed?’
She nodded. ‘Agreed.’ She stirred her drink, rattling the ice cubes. ‘Are you still hungry?’ she asked him.
‘Christ, yes!’ Bob replied. ‘We’ve played fourteen holes of golf, remember; I’m bloody starving.’
‘Okay, let’s go through to the dining room.’ He made to rise, but she put a hand on his sleeve. ‘Bob, you may have found out things about me that you didn’t know, but maybe I’ve found them out too. I promise you, as long as we are married, I’ll never again . . .’
He stopped her in mid-pledge. ‘Don’t say it. If you do then I’ll have to make myself believe you.’
‘Would that be so difficult?’ she hissed at him.
‘I’d rather leave it the way it is. I didn’t ask you to promise anything, and I didn’t expect it. In all my career,’ he said, ‘I have never solved a crime that nobody knew had been committed. Likewise in all the recorded history of the western world, I can’t recall a case of a marriage that’s ended purely because one partner slept with someone else on the side. Criminals and adulterers are no different; they’re only ever caught because they let someone else find out what they’ve done.’
30
Colonel Malou was impressed. The sight of the reception that had awaited the Bastogne Drummers in Haddington had taken him by surprise, and had made him think for the first time since Hull of something other than the death of Philippe Hanno. He had not been told of it in advance, and in other circumstances the sight of it would have gladdened his heart.
When their bus had pulled into the centre of the old county town, they had found an official welcoming party, headed by the chairman of East Lothian Council, and by the president of the area council of the Royal British Legion. There was another there too; a young priest, in a dark suit, looking sombre amongst the jovial councillors and their boisterous ex-service hosts. ‘Colonel Malou,’ he said, in French, when it was his turn to greet him, ‘I am Father Angelo Collins, private secretary to His Holiness. He has asked me to give you his personal welcome to Scotland, and to tell you how pleased he is that you have been able to come to play for him.’
The old soldier was deeply moved. ‘It’s an honour beyond the dreams of any of us.’
‘His Holiness has heard of the accident in Hull,’ Father Collins continued, ‘through the priest who attended. He sends his sympathy on your loss, and his prayers for the soul of Corporal Hanno.’
Malou simply nodded his thanks, for he could not speak them.
A civic buffet awaited the Belgians in the Corn Exchange and a marching route had been laid out for the afternoon. After Hanno’s tragic death . . . the police in Hull had called Malou that morning in Newcastle, but only to tell him that they had had no success in tracing the drunken driver who had knocked him down . . . Malou had surprised many of the bandsmen by declaring that for the rest of the tour there would be no drinking before parades and that the Stella would be strictly rationed afterwards.
Some of the senior men had suggested that their fallen colleague would have wanted the opposite form of tribute, but the colonel had rebuffed them. ‘This was always my intention,’ he had told them, ‘and Philippe knew it. We are on our way to play for His Holiness. When we do, every one of us will be at his sharpest.’
And so the crates of beer in the Corn Exchange had been untouched by the visitors . . . although not by the official representatives . . . and an extra supply of soft drinks had been fetched from the nearby supermarket. To the surprise of the Royal British Legionnaires, at least, Malou and his company had remained clear-eyed throughout the lunch.
At three o’clock sharp, they lined up outside the Sheriff Court building. The colonel was at the head of the parade, leading the twenty-three bandsmen in their blue uniforms, with the squad of twelve musketeers bringing up the rear.
Although they were known officially as the Bastogne Drummers, half of the instruments were brass, with six trombones, two tenor horns, two baritone horns and two tubas. Normally there would have been two bass drums flanking the ten side-drummers, but as Malou marched them out into Court Street, there was only one. They had left without reserves, and Hanno’s place remained vacant.
The route was a short one; for traffic had to be held up for the march, and Haddington was always busy on a Saturday afternoon. Malou the bandmaster led them, playing as they went, from Court Street into Market Street; the pavements were not exactly lined, but many shoppers stopped to watch them pass through the wider area of the old marketplace, past Kesley’s bookshop on the right, and the
