The Good Wife aka The Good Wife Strikes Back

He frowned. ‘She has no idea that I am seeing you. It is not a good position, but there it is. I did not mean to come here, in fact, but… well, as you can see, I am here.’

He gave the impression of having crossed some kind of mental Rubicon. I looked down at my glass. ‘You mustn’t lie for me.’

‘That sounds very English.’

‘And what does being English mean?’

‘Never forgetting your manners.’

I started to laugh. ‘I’ve always been perfectly behaved.’

‘Not admitting that there is more to say. And we’ve had a long time to consider.’

The blood stormed into my cheeks and seeing this, Raoul took my hand. ‘I am not going to take advantage, Fanny. We know each other too well for that.’

Now I was trembling-with surprise at being so propositioned, and delight as well.

I let my hand continue to rest in his. ‘I have been faithful to Will.’

‘I suspected that would be so. And I to Therese.’ He poured the final glass of the Brunello. ‘Some of my friends consider their… episodes… to be a little like wine tasting. You sample, you savour, but you don’t take the bottle home.’ He pushed the glass towards me. ‘It was not my way.’

The waiter removed our plates and replaced them with fresh ricotta, a bowl of cherries, and a dish of tiny almond cakes designed to breach the sternest of defences.

‘I have always been ashamed of how badly I… how badly I handled things when…’

I chose a cake and bit into it. ‘I wasn’t very kind to you.’

The dish had a border of faded blue and white – exactly what I would have chosen for the kitchen in Casa Rosa.

‘I was only a girl,’ I said, trying to put this part of the past into its proper place. ‘I didn’t understand. I was curious and, when it came to it, I was offended, because I did not understand. I hope you have forgiven me.’

‘I know. Of course, I know.’

I traced the blue and white pattern with my finger. ‘Raoul, what do you consider to be most vital when judging…’ I raised my eyes and smiled, ‘a wine?’

‘You tell me.’

I mulled it over. ‘You need independence. You need the courage, of course, to assess the bottle rather than the provenance or the pedigree. Maybe that’s it; you just need courage.’

‘Experience helps, I promise you.’

I swallowed the last piece of almond cake and raised my eyes again to his.

We explored the town and drove back to Fiertino as it was growing dark, a sumptuous, cicada-serenaded dusk. Raoul was staying in a hotel in Pienza and he dropped me at Casa Rosa, promising to return the following day.

I lit the candle in the Chianti bottle, made a cup of tea and took them out on to the loggia.

That night, the mosquitoes were deadly. I slapped frantically at my exposed flesh but, in the end, I was forced to draw up my knees and wrap my skirt around my legs.

Will was a long way away. It was unfair that he did not know quite how far away.

*

I saw Liz only once, at a children’s party held at the House. I looked up from dabbing Chloe’s chocolate- engraved face with a useless paper napkin and there she was. I knew it was her because, at that moment, someone called her name and she responded.

She was unaware of my presence, which gave me the advantage and allowed me to recover my equilibrium – and from my surprise. For Liz had nothing special in the way of beauty. She was dressed in a green corduroy skirt and black jumper, with her hair pulled back into a ponytail. Her figure was excellent, though, with a round curving haunch that must have been attractive to men. She was talking to a couple of the other wives and hugged a sheaf of notes to her chest.

‘You’re hurting me, Mummy.’ Chloe wriggled out of my grasp and promptly fell over.

I bent down to soothe her smarting knees. ‘It’s all right, darling,’ I said. ‘Nothing terrible.’

Chloe snuggled into me and I lifted her up. As I did so, Liz turned and caught sight of me. She went white and, within a few seconds, left the room.

Chloe raised her face for a kiss and I gave one, passionately and with more love than I could possibly describe.

I have no idea what Liz made of that encounter, but I could imagine a little of her feelings. She would never guess my reaction. I did not hate her, nor did I despise her for taking Will (after all, I had taken him, just like that). Those emotions were redundant. No, what intrigued me was the realization that Liz had been instrumental in pushing Will and me further on. She had shown me that, for good or ill, I had left the fellowship of the single girls to which she belonged. My curved haunch was no longer an invitation to other men, for now a child sat snugly on it. A new set of templates had replaced the old ones. Unlike Liz, if I left a room, it was no longer an isolated gesture. Anything, anything, I did was connected to Will and Chloe.

Years and years of jumble sales, Rotarian dinners, evergreen outings. Four elections… and now I had arrived here.

I checked my notebook and, in the light thrown by the inadequate candle, reread my assessment of the Brunello. ‘A clone of the Sangiovese grape, capable of great richness. Concentrated and brilliantly tannic.’

If I had not pushed Raoul away all those years ago. If I had not been confused, embarrassed, aghast at the business of sex, and at the desperate way in which he had helped himself to me, and my anguished, ignorant response, my life might have been different.

Something rustled in the clump of marjoram at the edge of the loggia. A mouse with dampened fur from the heat? A mosquito bit in the crease of my elbow where sweat gathered. I knew exactly what Will would say if he could see me writing up my notes: ‘Wine is only wine. People’s lives are much more important.’ He truly believed it. Of course; and he had no reason to admire alcohol.

The phone rang.

Are we not talking to each other?’ asked Will. ‘Why haven’t you been in contact? What’s happening?’

I scratched the mosquito bite. ‘Plenty of winged biting things.’ My voice sounded overbright. Are you OK?’

‘OK-ish.’

‘Will?’ This was the moment to say: ‘Guess who turned up? Raoul. He happened to be in the area.’

‘You know politics, Fanny.’ Yes, I did know politics. ‘I can’t persuade you to come home?’

I squeezed my eyes shut. ‘No.’

His voice quickened with the anger that he had, no doubt, been nurturing. ‘I don’t know what’s happening and it’s probably my fault, but should the Stanwinton Glee Club’s salmon supper, or whatever, suffer because you feel like playing truant?’

‘You’re the one they want, not me.’

‘It seems so sudden,’ he countered. ‘You gave no warning. It was as if I had woken up and found I’d been living with someone I didn’t know.’

This confession pleased me. It suggested that our lives were not quite so predictable and tame as I had thought. I slapped at yet another mosquito. ‘Should keep you on your toes, then.’

‘Stop it.’

‘Will, the other day I worked out that I have spent approximately five thousand seven hundred and forty-five days of my life working for you. This was predicated on the assumption of one commitment per day of our marriage, minus two hundred and sixty-six days for childbirth and holidays.’

‘As much as that?’ he shot back. ‘Doesn’t time fly when you’re enjoying yourself?’

Before I could help myself, I snorted with laughter.

‘That’s better,’ he said.

*