Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman

an executive on a rival paper. When I said no, but I was happy to research and write a piece on the difficulties of being a political wife, the features editor’s interest disappeared. ‘Yes…’ He sounded vague. ‘We have our regular journalists to do that sort of thing.’

Then, one evening, Nathan turned up on the doorstep carrying a brand-new suitcase. With a stranger’s formality, he asked, ‘Can I come in?’

The mixture of hope and despair in my breast was unbearable. ‘Of course.’

He stepped into the hall and put down the case. It was clear that it was empty. ‘I need my things, so I thought I’d pack them up.’

My hopes took a realistic turn, and I said coldly, ‘Do as you wish.’

‘Fine.’

He went up the stairs to our bedroom and I went into the kitchen, where I could hear him moving around. Drawers were opened and shut, shoes hit the floor, a chair scraped. After a while I could not bear to hear those sounds. I scooped up Parsley, bore her into the sitting room, sat down in the blue chair and held her tight.

I tried to see events through Nathan’s eyes. I really tried to see what had changed, what had recast his philosophy – apart from the obvious excitement of sex.

On our twentieth wedding anniversary he took me out to La Sensa. (‘My God,’ exclaimed Vee. ‘He must have been taken out a second mortgage.’) He fussed over the choice of champagne, which was so dry that my mouth tingled. He picked up his glass. ‘I want to thank you, my darling Rose.’

It seemed to me that the boot was on the other foot. ‘I should be thanking you. You came to the rescue.’

It was not the right thing to say – but it was not so very heinous a slip.

Immediately Nathan frowned, and I rushed on, ‘You came to the rescue and taught me about real, proper love.’

‘Ah,’ he said, with the soft, private expression that belonged to me and the children. ‘I see what you mean.’

My relief that we had got over the misunderstandings that litter any marriage and had reached this point was overwhelming. ‘I love you, Nathan. You know that.’

He reached over, took my hand and kissed it, the seal on our bargain.

Eventually, there was the slither and clump of a suitcase being manhandled down the stairs and Nathan reappeared. ‘Rose, if you let me know when you won’t be here, I’ll arrange for the rest of the stuff I need to be collected.’

Parsley used me as a springboard into the garden. I rubbed at the pinprick of blood on my thigh left by her claws. ‘I take it you’re being let into Minty’s personal space.’

‘As it happens, yes.’

I took the opportunity to study my husband. The gleam that freshened his skin and straightened his shoulders was different. I closed my eyes and asked the question that I needed to ask more than once. ‘Have I become so undesirable, Nathan?’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

I opened my eyes. ‘You do.’

‘No.’ His were kindly, and I was terrified that he was lying. ‘You are still… very lovely’ He gave a strained smile. ‘Your hair is still the same too. Still honey chestnut.’

‘Then why?’

He shoved his hands into his pockets. ‘I’m as astonished as you are. I never imagined that I would leave you.’

‘Then why, Nathan? Your reasons are usually so clear and thought-out.’

‘I know.’

I looked down at my hands, at the whorl of the fingerprint, at the heart-line, the life-line. Perhaps I had never known Nathan properly. Perhaps he had kept hidden from me a part secret to him. Probably. If I was truthful, there were the deep, dark spaces in myself of which he knew nothing. ‘Please think again.’ Nathan did not answer and I tried once more. ‘Was it when I started working?’

Those times when he came home and found me still in my office clothes, thin, exhausted, dervish-like, giving supper to one child, supervising the homework of another. Then he was pulled away from contemplation of his own day and forced to consider mine. Had he been panicked by this dull, dun, harassed creature? More than once he must have wondered if all women, all mothers, lose their sexual luminosity and turn into wild, anguished figures, and why the transformation should be so unfair to both parties.

On one of the worst days, when I was weeping from the battery and assault made on me by my children and by the work that Nathan had been against me doing anyway, he took me in his arms and stroked my hair. ‘Shush,’ he said. ‘We’re in this together.’

Now I said, ‘Ianthe thinks I didn’t help you enough. Is she right?’

Nathan shrugged. ‘God knows, Rose. There were times, yes, when I could have done with you more on side but I am sure it was the same with you.’

We were back on skates, veering round the rink, neither of us reaching the heart of the matter. Automatically, I rubbed my shoulder, which plagued me with stiffness, an on-going condition from too much typing.

‘Is it hurting?’

‘Yes.’

‘Badly?’

‘Actually, yes. I must have slept on it awkwardly.’

Automatically, Nathan moved towards me. If I rub here, is it better? Or here? At the last moment, he turned away.

‘Rose, I don’t know what to say about the job.’

‘Timon took a risk firing a group executive’s wife and replacing her with his mistress.’

‘They took a risk in taking you on in the first place.’

This was true. ‘They will pay me reasonably, if I go quietly and agree not to take on a similar job for six months. The usual thing. I will probably accept.’

He nodded. ‘Timon is anxious to push for extra numbers. There has been a lot of discussion and strategy meetings.’

Circulation, policy, revenues… Nathan and I were used to talking to each other on those subjects, and on those subjects Nathan trusted me. They sounded prosaic, but they were not. Revenue and circulation figures can be just as much of a glue as poetry and passionate sex.

People are rude about habit. It is supposed to suggest sloppiness and laziness, but I don’t think they have thought about it properly. Habit is useful and comforting: it rides over the bumpy bits, it is the track that cuts across hills and valleys and carries passengers safely through.

‘How are the figures?’ I asked, grown cunning and devious.

Quick as a flash, he replied, ‘I haven’t seen Wednesday’s but judging by…’ The sentence remained unfinished for Nathan suspected, rightly, that the old conversations might entangle us.

‘Nathan, Minty knew she would probably take over from me and she didn’t tell you.’

As cool as if he was negotiating, he had his answer ready: ‘Minty was protecting me. Chinese wall…’

‘Nevertheless, it was Timon who told you, not Minty’

The implications were obvious, and Nathan flushed a harsh red. ‘The situation was tricky and Timon had to think carefully how to play it. It was impossible for Minty to say anything.’

I drew an obscure and shameful comfort from this admission. Early on, Nathan and I had made a pact to tell each other everything.

‘Look on the bright side, then,’ I said, and hated what I was saying. ‘At least you didn’t have to worry about split loyalties between Minty and me.’

We stared at each other. In a low voice, Nathan admitted, ‘Minty’s secrecy should make a difference, I know, but it doesn’t.’

It was this extraordinary exchange that finally convinced me Nathan was serious. He loved Minty enough to be honest, so honest about her ambition and duplicity that he could not, would not, grant me the grace of a little verbal deceit.

I gave a shaky laugh. ‘And I had been preparing to forgive and forget.’ I went over to the french windows and