‘See you at work, Pete,’ she said, and she had already turned her back on him and walked back into the flat before he’d even shut the door.
After that, they started meeting regularly. The meetings were always instigated by him and they never communicated by work email. Instead, he would send her a brief WhatsApp message – nothing romantic, just a few words to make arrangements – and she would respond with one word, yes. She rarely said no. He was very careful but he changed the password on his phone anyway just in case Kate or one of the girls picked it up and started messing around with it, and he tried not to leave it lying around the house either.
He was acutely aware that this was turning into something more than a minor indiscretion, it was now bordering on an actual affair, yet he was powerless to prevent it from happening. He was like a giddy child on a rollercoaster, soaring down the rails after years of uphill climb with such a rush of adrenaline and a deeply thrilling feeling in his stomach that nothing could stop him.
It wasn’t just the sex, although that was fantastic. He fancied her more than he’d ever fancied anyone in his life, even Kate. From the beginning, he’d been in awe of Kate and had thought she was an incredible person. But this sexual chemistry with Claire was something else. She oozed confidence in bed, was totally uninhibited and they were undeniably compatible, as she liked to tell him afterwards when they lay exhausted in post-coital bliss. ‘You’re the best I’ve ever had, Pete.’
But there was more to it than that. She’d made it clear that she enjoyed his company but she didn’t demand anything from him. She had her own life and her own things going on and her lack of reliance on him was liberating. He found himself wanting to confide in her, to talk to her about everything and she listened – actually listened to him. She was genuinely interested in him and what he had to say. It was nice to have someone pay attention to you again, he thought.
Instead of leaving straight after sex, he found himself staying longer and longer, leaving it as late as he could get away with before he had to go home to his other life, as he had started to think of it. He never talked about his family but found that he had plenty of other things to talk about instead. They would open a bottle of wine and get stuck into all sorts of topics, from which bridge in London was their favourite to the intricacies of British politics. She was frighteningly clever, Claire, and wasted on her temp jobs but when he told her that she just laughed and shrugged. She didn’t care what people thought. It felt like they would never run out of things to say to each other, no matter how long they were together.
It was almost too easy to hide the affair from Kate. She was so used to him working late and having business dinners that she didn’t bat an eyelid when he came home at antisocial hours. To be honest, he wasn’t sure she cared whether he was there or not. His presence in the house seemed more of an inconvenience than a pleasure. For years they’d cherished each other’s company and he had always looked forward to seeing her. Now he felt that she looked forward to seeing the builder more than him. He’d even wondered if she was having an affair herself once or twice, but he’d always dismissed it. He didn’t think she could be bothered.
One evening, after they’d been meeting at Claire’s flat pretty much every week for a couple of months, they were lying in bed together and he was stroking her thigh distractedly, when he found himself blurting out, ‘I really bloody hate my job.’
‘Well quit then,’ came her reply, as he had expected it would.
‘It’s not as easy as that though, is it?’
‘Why not? You’re talented, you’re successful. You’d get another job easily. So decide what you want to do, then go and get it. Life’s too short to spend it doing a job you hate – but you’ve got to make the change, it’s not going to happen on its own.’
He left her flat feeling optimistic about his future for the first time in ages. She was absolutely right, the world was his oyster. Why had he been working for the same company for over ten years, dealing with the same old shit over and over again? He’d been too scared to rock the boat, that’s why. It was easier to stay where he was, doing a job he could do with his eyes closed. He’d been playing it safe for years, in his job, in his life. At work he exuded authority but inside he was losing a bit of his soul every day and Claire had finally made him face up to the truth.
Why hadn’t he talked to Kate about it? He had been feeling this way for years, but he hadn’t said a word to her. Yet he’d known Claire for just weeks and he was already confiding in her. Kate would have been instantly dismissive, he thought. She would tell me to suck it up and get on with it, like everyone else has to. All she cared about was the job security, paycheque and annual bonus. Yet she didn’t work. She stayed at
