Requiem

by Clare Francis

  This would take some thinking about.

  As she turned to leave, something made her pause and look at the sponge bag again. At first she wasn’t sure what it was that had caught her eye. Then she identified it. Just beyond the toothpaste, peeping out from a side pocket, was the corner of a small carton. Even as she stared at it, even as she reached to draw it slowly out, she knew exactly what it was, although that did nothing to prevent the rush of shock and anger.

  The brand name was from the let’s-make-condoms-jolly school. The packaging was bright and simple, as brash and innocent as a packet of sweets, designed to go with the bright young things’ Porsches and post-modernist life-plans. Wishful thinking on Tony’s part, perhaps. A middle-aged man’s lustful little daydreams. Slowly she opened the packet. Her hand was shaking slightly. Out of a packet of three, there was only one left. No daydream, then. Christ.

  Was she a bright young thing, this woman Tony was screwing? Had she been in Strasbourg with him as well as the château? Or even Paris? If Paris, she’d have had to be quick; Tony had been there barely twenty-four hours before Susan herself arrived.

  Was it a long-standing affair? Did they meet regularly? Was she young and pretty?

  God – was it a friend of hers? Worst of all, was it someone Tony actually cared for?

  Mrs Smith. She might have been more original. Such a shabby little name.

  As far as Susan knew none of her female friends or acquaintances had been at either the Strasbourg or Paris conferences, nor had any of the female research assistants or secretaries from Tony’s office. Unlikely, then, to be anyone she knew. In which case Tony couldn’t possibly see the woman with any regularity. He was too busy, his movements too well accounted for.

  But someone he cared about all the same? Surely not. There would have been signs: he would have been tense, or particularly attentive or unaccountably excited. She cast her mind back, but for as long as she could remember Tony had been nothing but his normal plodding reasonably affectionate self.

  She relaxed a little. This couldn’t be anything too serious. In which case, did she really need or even want to know more? She was surprised to find that, mixed with her shock and anger, was genuine amazement that bordered on admiration. The cunning devil. Who would have believed it? For years their love-life had been so-so, very so-so in fact. She had put this down to the channelling of Tony’s energies into politics and his impossibly long working hours. But now she realized that she had been rather naive to think this state of affairs could continue unnoticed and unheeded, at least on his part. In the final analysis, no man could resist all the little extras that power brought with it. Weren’t people always saying – and with monotonous regularity – that power was the greatest aphrodisiac of all?

  She replaced the carton carefully in the side pocket, along with the damp flannel she had recently hung out, and carefully zipped the bag up again.

  ‘Mummy, I quite forgot – ’

  Susan gave a great start and clamped a hand to her chest. Camilla was peering in from the bedroom. Susan shook with rage. ‘Never do that again! Never!’

  Camilla put on her sulkiest expression, the sort children keep exclusively for their parents. ‘Sorry. I only wanted to show you the paper. There’s something about Daddy in it.’ She gave a resentful shrug and tossed the newspaper onto the floor. ‘Excuse me for trying to help,’ she added with unnecessary sarcasm, and flounced out.

  Angry with Camilla, angry with herself for having reacted so sharply, still catching her breath from the surprise, Susan reached for the paper. It was The Times. It took her a moment to find the item, tucked away in a political diary column.

  One dark horse is the fast-rising junior minister, Tony Driscoll. Dubbed grey and undistinguished in his first post in Transport, he quickly bloomed at the Environment office, and has been credited with singlehandedly getting the government out of the Lancashire water pollution fiasco almost unscathed. Until recently considered a rank outsider in the Cabinet stakes, Driscoll’s unsuspected talent with the media, his readiness to take on thankless tasks, and his quick wit on the floor of the Commons have the pundits tipping him for a more senior post after the next election.

  Were they serious? Quick wit. Talent with the media. Susan reread it with bemusement. It was hard to believe they were talking about Tony. His jokes were museum-pieces, his wit schoolboyish. As for the media, she had to brace herself to watch him on television. His desire to impress was so transparent, his concern so palpably laid on, that she felt sure everyone must see through him at any moment.

  ‘Unbelievable,’ she said aloud.

  She was still murmuring her disbelief when she dressed for dinner that evening. She wore her favourite black suit with a tailored jacket and a skirt of decorous length that came to just above the knee: shorter skirts, though fashionable, had been forbidden. Tony said they looked tarty. He was a fine one to talk, Susan decided, when he had a tart of his own tucked away somewhere.

  She’d a good mind to embarrass him in the restaurant, to drop a hint over the soup. That would serve him damn well right. At the same time, now that she had got over her shock and was feeling an almost perverse satisfaction in having caught the silly fool out, her more cautious instincts told her to do nothing of the sort. Like something let loose from its bottle, a revelation, once made, might expand and take on all sorts of ugly shapes. Besides, they were going to the Caprice, and she didn’t want to spoil her meal.

  The doorbell rang just before seven thirty. She opened the door to a uniformed chauffeur who tipped his hat to her. Behind him was a Rolls, the large-bodied type of thirty years ago that sat high above the road and was usually packed with Arabs on their way to Harrods. She sank into the dark recesses of the interior, feeling suitably indulged, and thought: Bully for Mr What’s-his-name. Directed to the reading light by the chauffeur she checked her pocket diary for the name of their host for the evening. R.B. Schenker, chief executive, Morton-Kreiger International, Agrochemical Division. Morton-Kreiger was one of those vast corporations that made chemicals and pharmaceuticals, that she knew, but Mr Schenker she had never met, not so far as she could remember anyway.

  Tony had told her the man’s first name on the way back from Paris but she couldn’t remember that either. R.B. – Robert? Richard? But certainly not Bob or Dick. These corporate men didn’t like abbreviations: it invited people to take them less than seriously. Robert or Bob or whatever it was would be a bore, there was no getting away from that, and she would have to survive the evening as best she might.

  His name, as it turned out, was Ronald. He was a slight man in his early forties, with dark hair which he brushed over to one side to cover his sharply receding hairline. He had a narrow high-boned face, a pointed chin and very white skin. His eyes, which were quick and dark, were set close together and stared at you with great intensity, as if he was watching for your every move. He was attentive and courteous, but without charm, as if he had taken a half-day course in etiquette and had forgotten the lesson about looking as though you were enjoying it. His manner first embarrassed then irritated Susan. Mr Schenker had obviously read in some how-to-succeed book that, on the path to influence, no stone was to be left unturned.

  Most of the time Tony and he talked politics, or rather, Tony talked and Ronald Schenker listened. Mr Schenker, it appeared, was not married – at least he hadn’t brought a wife with him – so that Susan often found herself left out of the conversation. She used the time to think about Nick Mackenzie and her husband, though not simultaneously. Her mind flittered schizophrenically between euphoria, biting uncertainties over the concert and wonder at the sight of her cheating husband, butter incapable of melting in any part of his anatomy.

  As usual in company, Tony was animated, very – what was that awful word? – forceful. It was all laid on, of course, all part of his political persona. Away from the limelight he was quite a subdued person. At least, with her he was.

  Susan had always regarded him a
s safe and sturdy, the sort of quietly successful, middle-of-the-road Englishman who never let you down – but didn’t give you too many surprises either. The success of his political career had been a little unexpected, to put it mildly, but then the most unlikely people often make it in politics. She was constantly struck by the number of dull, narrow-minded bores she met in the Commons.

  Until today she’d always believed that Tony’s staunch Thatcherite qualities extended to their relationship. Never, during the nineteen years they had been together, had it ever occurred to her that Tony would rock the boat. Even after what she’d discovered today, she couldn’t imagine that anything would ever seriously undermine their marriage.

  But that, of course, was precisely what all unsuspecting wives thought, right until the moment their husbands walked out of the door. She would have to watch her step.

  Tony caught her stare, and gave her a perfunctory grin. She tried to decide whether he could possibly appear good-looking to other women. He was very ordinary, so very ordinary that she sometimes wondered if he hadn’t come out of a mould marked standard middle-aged mark-one Englishman. He had always had a tendency to put on weight, a battle that had ebbed and flowed through their marriage, but which, with the frequent lunches and dinners, was finally being lost. He had thinning hair of a nondescript colour, large rimless glasses, rather pudgy cheeks and a neck that was beginning to squeeze out over the edge of his collar.

  Yet he must have something special, something that gave him the edge on the political platform and, so it would appear, with this woman in France.

  Perhaps Susan was missing something, perhaps she had missed it right from the beginning. Perhaps Tony had charisma, that much overused word which always sounded to Susan like an unpleasant socially transmitted disease. But it was a hard idea to swallow. Charisma depended on sex appeal and Tony lacked the edge of danger that is the essential ingredient of sex appeal. Tony had always been unutterably safe.

  She hadn’t married him for sexual chemistry – she’d had quite enough of that and its attendant disasters in her early twenties – no, she’d married Tony for his dependability, his merchant banker’s income, and because she was tired of having to look after herself. The merchant banker’s income had disappeared soon after they married, when Tony had decided to earn his Brownie points by going to work for a big charity, but by then Camilla was on the way and she was rather taken by the idea of motherhood.

  ‘Do you like opera, Mrs Driscoll?’ Schenker asked with his rather stiff smile. ‘We’d be delighted if you’d come to Glyndebourne with us next month.’

  Susan glanced at Tony for affirmation and smiled graciously. ‘That would be lovely,’ she said. She didn’t like opera, but she knew Tony would be keen to go, and everyone said the gardens were lovely.

  ‘Good. I’ll send you a programme then. There are four operas to choose from – Donizetti, Mozart, Tchaikovsky and Strauss.’ There was a hint of hesitation and rehearsal in this speech, and Susan guessed Schenker had memorized the list especially for her benefit.

  ‘We also take seats at Covent Garden. I don’t know if you’d like that?’ He watched her face carefully. ‘Or the theatre?’

  He spotted her flicker of interest and quietly seized on it. ‘The theatre then? Just let me know what you’d like to see.’ He waited, and Susan realized he was expecting her to name a play there and then. Mr Schenker was obviously someone who liked to nail things down.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Susan replied. ‘Any ideas, Tony?’

  ‘Oh, you decide, my dear. You’re more up to date with these things than I am. Besides, I always like the things that you like.’ He raised his eyebrows at Schenker in a quick conspiratorial smile, as if they, as men, had conceived this ploy to keep the little woman happy.

  Susan managed a thin smile, and named a popular musical you had to kill to get tickets for.

  ‘Good. That’ll be arranged then,’ said Schenker, and Susan had no doubt that it would. ‘The minister’s kindly agreed to visit our new plant in Newcastle in September,’ he continued, and for an instant Susan had to remind herself that this grand personage he was referring to was Tony. ‘We would be delighted if you would come too. But of course, we’d quite understand if you’d prefer not to …’ Schenker trailed off politely, awaiting his next cue.

  Susan tried to think of something she’d hate more than a visit to a factory in Newcastle and failed. She put on an interested expression. ‘A new plant?’

  ‘Fertilizers. It’s the largest and most modern fertilizer plant in Europe. We’re very proud of it.’

  ‘Really? How wonderful.’ For a moment she was lost for anything else to say. ‘But fertilizers aren’t exactly environmentally friendly, are they?’ She rolled her eyes in mock disapproval. ‘I’m surprised at Tony having anything to do with it.’

  It was not much of a joke, but she expected a favourable response. Tony did chuckle slightly, but Schenker was silent, the tight-lipped smile fastened to his face with difficulty, his small eyes unamused. Susan realized she had made the classic error of imagining that such a grey little man would have a sense of humour.

  ‘Fertilizers have had a bad name in the past, of course,’ Schenker said in a voice that was at once earnest and slightly reproachful. ‘But as I’m sure you’re aware, the agricultural industry in this country couldn’t function without them. In fact food would cost four times as much, maybe more, if farmers were forced to do without them. But that isn’t to say we don’t take our environmental responsibilities very seriously. We do. Very seriously indeed.’ The unblinking eyes stared into hers, as if he could convince her by willpower alone. ‘In the last ten years Morton-Kreiger have spent millions and millions on developing fertilizers which are less likely to leach away through the soil and find their way into water sources – fertilizers which are kinder to the environment. Millions and millions. No one else has done as much as we have. No one.’

  Susan said hastily: ‘I’m sure that’s true – ’

  ‘And it’s the same story with pesticides. We lead the world in pesticide safety. Morton-Kreiger undertake more research than any other major company into producing safer products. Not only in terms of pounds and dollars, but in terms of the quality and thoroughness of the tests we run – ’

  This was getting tiresome. Susan said firmly: ‘Mr Schenker, it was a joke. Really. Just a joke.’

  The idea seemed to take him by surprise. He hesitated, absorbing the information, then nodded slowly. ‘I see.’

  ‘I think Susan was just echoing most people’s misconceptions about my job,’ Tony stepped in smoothly. ‘They seem to think that an environment minister should go around banning everything in sight, rather than persuading manufacturers to adapt and modify existing products. If we banned everything the Greens wanted us to ban, then we’d be back in the Dark Ages, living in hovels and eating porridge three times a day.’

  Schenker swivelled his eyes back to Susan.

  ‘I’m not much of a one for porridge,’ she said.

  Schenker seemed to take her remark as a sign of approval, not only for what Tony had just said, but for himself and all his chemicals.

  ‘Porridge.’ He nodded and smiled, and Susan realized this was probably the closest he ever came to laughing. ‘And what sort of cuisine do you like, Mrs Driscoll?’

  Susan suspected she was meant to say: do call me Susan, but she resisted. ‘Well, I’m not complaining at this,’ she said, indicating the newly arrived dessert, an artistic array of sorbet, fruit, raspberry coulis and sugar wafers.

  ‘I see,’ said Mr Schenker, filing the information away. ‘Then we’ll come here again, shall we? After the theatre.’

  Irritated at being parcelled up so tidily, Susan had the sudden urge to disturb Mr Schenker’s meticulous little world. ‘What about you?’ she enquired politely. ‘Do you like French food?’

  ‘Yes, indeed.’ Anticipating the drift her questions might take, he pulled back a little. ‘But nothing too rich.
’

  ‘What sort of things exactly?’

  His courteous expression slipped into something altogether more guarded, as if he was beginning to realize he was on thin ice. ‘Oh … their soups.’

  ‘Vichyssoise?’

  He gave the faintest of nods, and looked away, trying to close the subject. It was just as she had suspected: he knew nothing about food.

  ‘And what else?’ Susan persisted.

  He did not like being pressed, not when he was being shown up. Moreover, he was beginning to suspect her motives. With good reason, of course. She was rather enjoying herself.

  ‘The fish soups. They’re very good too,’ he said eventually.

  ‘Bouillabaisse?’

  This time he made no attempt to reply, but stared at her, the little eyes gleaming darkly. Mr Schenker did not enjoy being disconcerted.

  ‘But you’re not so good with the shellfish, eh?’ Tony said. ‘Made you sick as a dog, didn’t they, Ronald?’

  ‘Oh dear. What happened?’ Susan asked pleasantly.

  ‘Oysters,’ Tony said. ‘That’s what happened. And it was me who persuaded him to try them. Not my finest recommendation. But you should have told me they were no good, Ronald. I would have called the hotel doctor. It could have been serious. Salmonella or something.’

  ‘Where was this?’ Susan asked.

  There was a small pause. Susan looked up from her plate to see a shimmer of realization slide over Tony’s eyes, a flicker of caution as if he were thinking his way rapidly out of something. But the shift, which was so small that no one else would have noticed it, was gone as quickly as it had come and he said with his usual ease: ‘At this hotel in France.’

  For once Ronald Schenker was not staring at her, but examining his coffee cup.