The Adulteress

by Noelle Harrison

  She trembles. He is painting her inner thighs now. Up from her knee, he trails the brush across her skin, until the watery paint mixes with her juice, creating oily curls around her pelvis. The soft tip of the brush teases her, sliding up and down her slit so that she groans and opens her legs wider. He paints an oval, round and round, until the brush comes to one spot, and suddenly its tip is softer and it is a brush no more, but his tongue licking her in adoration. She says his name, tells him she loves him. He raises himself up, and then puts his lips to hers, lowering his body onto her, pressing into her.

  I am making a print, he whispers. You are the art, and I am an edition of you.

  She opens her eyes as he sits back on his heels and she sees her colours on his skin. She looks down at herself. He has made her an ocean. Her chest is painted Aegean blue, and jade seaweed swirls up her legs, so that when he finally pushes into her, he is at the bottom of the sea, and so is she, drowning.

  NICHOLAS

  Finally Nicholas sends Charlie a text. Immediately after he presses the send button he regrets it.

  Sorry.

  It is pathetic. He doesn’t even know why he is saying he is sorry, because she is the one who committed adultery, not him. But somehow he feels like it is his fault, although he doesn’t know why.

  He sits at his kitchen table, squeezing his mobile phone in his hand. He hates it. How easy it is for him to communicate with her, when he is so far away physically. It is tortuous waiting for a reply. He stares at the phone. Puts it down on the table, busies himself by clearing up the breakfast things and even washes them. Still no sound from his phone. He picks it up, checks it isn’t on silent, and places it on the dresser now. Half-heartedly he moves tiles from around the bottom of the dresser to the spare room so that he can get into the cupboards. He looks at the stacks of building materials already dumped in the room and feels immediately overwhelmed. He and Kev never did dry-line the house. If he doesn’t have it done before winter, the place will be freezing, but he can’t afford to pay someone to do it, and he can’t face it himself.

  Nicholas puts off going back into the kitchen to check his phone for messages and instead goes into the back room and plays the piano for about an hour. He plays Danse macabre, loudly banging out the notes and vaguely planning Geraldine’s lesson in his head. Eventually he can stand it no longer and goes back into the kitchen. Still no messages. He is shocked. He thought Charlie would respond. Evidently she no longer wants to know him. Nicholas stands white-faced in his bright kitchen, clenching his fists. So this is it, he thinks. This new life is permanent.

  Later that morning Geraldine arrives for her lesson, but something is wrong. She twitches on the seat, and her fingers stumble over each other.

  ‘Shit,’ she hisses under her breath each time she misses a note.

  ‘Let’s take a break,’ Nicholas suggests.

  They sit side by side at the piano, but neither of them moves. Geraldine stares straight ahead, the clock ticks in the corner. Nicholas shifts on his chair, preparing to get up to make coffee when he hears her sniff. He leans forward to look at her face, but her long hair covers it. She sniffs again.

  ‘Geraldine, are you all right?’

  She says nothing.

  ‘What is it? Geraldine, what’s wrong?’

  She sniffs again, and brings her hand up to pull the hair away from her face. ‘It’s my birthday.’

  ‘Well, happy birthday! It can’t be that bad, can it? Come on, how old are you?’

  ‘Thirty-five.’

  ‘Well, you’re younger than me!’

  She shakes her head. ‘He forgot. The bastard forgot again. When it’s his birthday, I always make such a big deal. A meal out with his family, and I bake a cake and get Grainne to make a card. I always buy him something lovely. Last year I got him gold cufflinks. They were real gold, not plated. I saved up for months. And this morning nothing – he forgets . . .’

  She takes out a tissue and blows her nose.

  ‘I’m sorry, Nick. You don’t want to hear about this.’

  She sighs and looks so defeated that Nicholas feels a wave of compassion for her. ‘No, it’s okay, Geraldine. I’m sorry, but your husband sounds like a complete idiot. You’re a beautiful woman who deserves to be cherished.’

  She turns to look at him, and he can see in her eyes that she really doesn’t believe this and there is a look – a familiar look he recognizes. It is the way Charlie sometimes looked at him. Oh God, he feels suddenly sick. He did this to Charlie. He remembers with cold clarity that he forgot Charlie’s last birthday too, and he had thought her so childish in the way she reacted. He had told her they needed to save money, and why did she want a big show when didn’t she know that he loved her anyway?

  ‘No,’ Geraldine is shaking her head. ‘Nick, I’m not attractive at all. I’m an overweight housewife. Rays says I’m a useless lump of a woman.’

  ‘Geraldine, your husband is blind – you’re beautiful.’

  Nick holds her hand in his. Her fingers are long and tapered, perfect hands for a pianist, he thinks. She doesn’t pull them away. They look at each other. He kisses her gently on the lips.

  Geraldine blushes, and Nicholas can’t think what has got into him, but he just wants to kiss her, so he does so again. This time Geraldine begins to kiss back, they curl around each other on the piano stool, and he puts his arms about her. It has been so long since he has kissed someone like this. With Charlie they had stopped taking time over their kisses. In the past year she had turned her back to him and he had made love to her, looking at the back of her head, her neat curls and the mole on her neck. When was the last time they had closed their eyes and pressed their lips together? Just a kiss.

  Geraldine is different from Charlie. Fuller lips, her mouth tasting of cherry drops and her cheeks plump and downy, her soft flesh, full breasts pushing against his body. She is warm and sweet and welcoming. He doesn’t care that he is still married or that she is married too. These facts seem ridiculously irrelevant in the light of the important business they are engaged in – two human beings comforting each other in their loneliness. What could be wrong with that?

  Geraldine stops. She puts her hand to her chest, and breathes fast. ‘Oh God,’ she says, her pupils dilated, her irises glittering, ‘I . . . I haven’t been kissed like that since I got married.’

  And then she cries again, this time heartily, against Nicholas’s shoulder.

  JUNE

  I am going to Phelim Sheriden’s house. I am disobeying my husband. I tell myself it is the books that lure me, and the task I have set myself of documenting Julia Caesar’s life. Or I convince my conscience that before Robert went away, he promised we would call so that I could play the piano. How can he expect me to be without music for so long? If I am honest, it is something altogether different that takes me to the Sheriden house. It is a mixture of curiosity to meet Claudette Sheriden and the need for company. Phelim. I have found within me a strand of wilfulness, something my sister Min had plenty of. I am cross with Robert. He has left me and gone off to war, leaving in his wake a bundle of secrets. I try to hush these thoughts, and push disquiet to the back of my mind. I let Debussy triumph and the plaintive notes of ‘Clair de lune’ twist in a spiral through my memory into my heart. To be able to play it, just once, would bring me such pleasure.

  I dress carefully. I want to look sophisticated, but not too overdressed for the countryside. I ignore the fact that my clothes are already tighter on me, and squeeze into a bottle-green skirt, along with a cream blouse. I have taken to wearing trousers around the place, so it is nice to put a rare pair of stockings on again and feel a little more feminine. My morning sickness has abated, thanks to the apples and, as Oonagh promised, I no longer feel as tired as I did in the first few weeks. In fact I have never felt so hale and hearty – no different from how I felt before I became pregnant. I forget that a few months from now I will be a mother. All my farmer’s wife’s chores are done, and t
herefore I am free to spend several hours reading books if I so wish. I am free to be the old June.

  I put on the gold locket Robert gave me when we became engaged in London, over five years ago now. I know his picture is inside, but I daren’t open it in case his gaze is censoring. There have been no letters from him for at least a week. I say a little prayer to the black bog-wood crucifix on the wall, my hands shaking as I do up the clasp.

  I should be missing you more, I whisper to the primitive figure etched on the cross.

  Since the day we were married I have gone nowhere without Robert. The bluestocking girl from London University, who happily gallivanted off on study expeditions to Italy, quickly transformed into the perfect wife. I exist through him. And in company I became afraid of speaking out – not because Robert didn’t want me to, but because I felt I had nothing interesting to say. All of Robert’s opinions seemed more articulate than mine. My husband has been gone over a month and I am remembering the girl I once was. This is my last chance to be who I truly am, before I become someone’s mother. Is this why I am going to see Phelim Sheriden?

  I take the road rather than the woods, not wishing to snag my stockings. I walk the mile into the village and it feels good to swing my legs, and breathe in deeply, my shoulder feeling the weight of my bag full of books and papers. I remember the satisfaction of strolling into college from my lodgings in Euston, all the way down Gower Street, keeping an eye out for my sister going in or out of the Slade. I never did see her.

  The Sheridens’ house is one of the best in the village. It is tall and austere with, I am counting, at least three floors. I can see that the roof is sagging a little, and the walls are covered in ivy. The place has a look of desertion about it.

  Phelim meets me at the door, and takes me through a dim, draughty hall into a small study. I shiver. The room is cold and cheerless, although there is a fire crackling in the grate. I look about me and see thick dust on the mantelpiece above the fire, cobwebs hanging from all of the lampshades, and dustsheets on the furniture. There is a strong musty odour, and it makes me sneeze.

  ‘I do apologize. This room is awfully cold, for we never use it, but the fire has just been lit, so it should warm up soon.’

  Phelim brings me over to the corner of the room and points to three tall, dusty bookcases stuffed with books.

  ‘I am afraid there is no order to them.’ He scratches his head, and looks apologetic.

  ‘Please, don’t worry. I’ll hunt through them.’ I rub my gloved hands together, trying to warm up.

  ‘Excellent.’ He shoves his hands into his pockets and smiles at me boyishly.

  We look at each other, and I do not know whether I should start searching through the books or say something. His eyes are cobalt-blue, so different from Robert’s. His hair is the colour of a red setter’s, with no grey, again unlike Robert, and his face looks almost brown, there are so many freckles scattered all over it. It strikes me yet again how similar his colouring is to Father’s.

  ‘Well,’ he says eventually, taking his hands out of his pockets and smoothing his hair down. ‘Work away. I am afraid Claudette needs me upstairs.’ He goes towards the door, and then turns hesitantly. ‘You will join us for luncheon?’

  ‘I’d love to,’ I reply immediately, although my stomach contracts with nerves. He looks pleased, making me feel as though the room is warmer already.

  I am alone in Phelim Sheriden’s study and I am shaking so much, as if I am doing something illicit. I take off my gloves and press my palms together. Where to start? My eye is drawn to a blood-red book on the shelf above me. I reach up, take it down and read the gold lettering on the spine.

  ‘Sexual Life in Ancient Rome by Otto Kiefer.’

  I drop it like a hot brick on the carpet. I look furtively behind me to check that Phelim hasn’t slipped back into the room. I pick the book up, and open it randomly.

  We may remind our readers that just at this time Ovid’s frivolous Art of Love was popular among the gay youth of Rome – that is, in the very circles where Julia took pleasure behind her husband’s back. And did it not describe how to seduce the young wife of an ageing husband?

  I feel hot and cold at the same time. Are these words a warning to me? I put the book back on the shelf, finger the spines of a few others and finally pull out a slim edition of Ovid’s Art of Love. I sit in the armchair by the fire and hold the book in my lap. I close my eyes for a moment.

  29th September 1933, the island of Ponza, Italy. That was the day I first discovered Julia the Elder, daughter of Emperor Augustus. I had not wanted to go to the island until Min told me Julia’s story. Ponza was Julia’s place of exile. Found guilty of adultery, she had been banished to the island for life. The word ‘adulteress’ was still ringing in my ears. It was the word I had used when I left mother in Milan with Giovanni Calvesi.

  Harlot! Adulteress! Traitor!

  I had screamed at her as I stormed out of Giovanni Calvesi’s rooms. On Ponza it was just my sister and I. Charles was in Rome with business associates. We were to meet him in Sorrento in two days’ time.

  ‘What shall we do about Mother?’ I asked my sister. Now that she was married, would she have some wisdom on the matter? But she shook her head.

  ‘It’s too late, Juno. It’s too late.’

  Min held my hand and we looked over the side of the old fishing boat at the disappearing shore. I saw a Roman villa on the hillside. Later I learned it was the last place Julia stayed on mainland Italy before she was put to sea in a boat and made the same journey that we were making from Terracina to the island of Ponza. I looked at the choppy blue sea and wondered how she must have felt. Did she believe she deserved her punishment? Was she ashamed? Or was she still defiant? Did she regret her affairs? It made me think of Mother again and whether my own flesh and blood possessed a conscience.

  We went to the hotel first. I could hardly wait to unpack, but Min insisted that she needed a nap. I couldn’t stand it. I just couldn’t wait a moment longer. So I went on my own. I walked briskly down the road to Chiaia di Luna, the crescent-moon beach. I entered a Roman tunnel, named Julia’s Tunnel after my princess, and began to run down it. After a few moments I spilled out into the sunshine onto the glittering beach, breathless and exhilarated. I had never felt so alive in my life. Here I was present in the past. With my own eyes I saw what my ancient princess saw, all those hundreds of years before. Only those who love history can understand my emotions at that moment. I stood in the cup of that half-moon beach, the cliff vertical and golden behind me, cut off from everything but the abandon of the blue Mediterranean Sea. All of my time with Mother slid from my shoulders and felt like a bad dream. I laughed out loud, for suddenly I did not care at all about Mother and Giovanni Calvesi. Instead I felt a sense of how it was to be a Roman. I took my shoes and stockings off. My bare feet were pressed firmly into the sand, and I stood tall, looking at a crystal-clear horizon, the hot sun beating on my head, and the presence of gods and goddesses all about me – the sea, the sky, the sun, the wind, the heart.

  That night was the last one before we left to meet Charles, and Min wore her Jezebel dress. It was pure silk, long, bias-cut and simmering crimson. Her hair was covered by a black chiffon scarf, emphasizing her pale and exposed neck. She had long black gloves, though they were hardly needed in the warm evening. I remember thinking what a shame it was that Min was a married woman and I the unmarried one, for she put me completely in the shade. But I wasn’t jealous.

  We walked back down to the harbour before dinner. The day was still bright, and my sister became quite childish, sitting up on the dock, and swinging on an old rope. She began singing. It wasn’t anything classical like her adored Strauss. No, it was something naughty, an old sea shanty. Even when singing a dirty song, my sister’s charm was so infectious that I felt some of her beauty rubbing off on me, so that I glowed as well.

  We drank far too much Prosecco at dinner, as if we were celebrating. Maybe we were. It
was the last time we were free together on our own, we two sisters, although we weren’t to know it at the time. For one night only we were nobody’s wives, nobody’s daughters, nobody’s lovers.

  We danced after dinner with foreign gentlemen, dark and mysterious, probably Fascists, but with impeccable manners. We let them ply us with drink and cigarettes, but it wasn’t hard to shed them later, pleading that it was time for our beauty sleep as we nipped outside for one last nightcap before bed. It was deliciously warm still, jet-black, not even a sliver of the moon in the sky. We sat on the terrace fascinated by the fireflies, overwhelmed by these tiny illogical miracles of light, which blinked around us.

  ‘What happens to fireflies in the morning?’ I wondered.

  ‘They go out.’

  My sister’s voice sounded suddenly serious in contrast to our earlier frivolity. It made me think of Charles and how things would be different when we went to Sorrento, because he would come first, not me.

  ‘Are you happy, Min?’ I whispered into the soft night.

  ‘Of course,’ she said, taking my hand.

  ‘I wish I could fall in love.’

  ‘Don’t worry, big sister – some men find bookish dons most attractive!’

  ‘You beast!’

  I leaned over and pulled a strand of Min’s hair, which had come loose from her scarf. She laughed, and squirmed lower in her chair.

  ‘Stop now. Stop, Juno, you’re hurting me.’ Min pulled away, and stood up. ‘It’s so warm for September. Why don’t we go swimming?’

  She walked down the stone steps to the edge of the pool. I watched incredulously as Min slipped off her red sheath. Her skin looked like alabaster in the dark.