Ivy and Abe

by Elizabeth Enfield

  ‘We should.’

  I put a bottle of champagne that someone gave us at Christmas into the fridge. ‘Let’s have a takeaway too. I’m too tired to cook. Would you mind going out and getting one?’

  ‘What do you want? Chinese? Indian? Fish and chips?’ Lottie asks.

  ‘I don’t mind. You decide. I’ll give you some money.’ And this time, when I pick up my bag, I have no trouble finding my purse. I take out two twenty-pound notes and hand them to my daughter. ‘Are you going with her, Max?’ I ask.

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘I should stay here with you.’

  ‘Oh, it’s really not …’ I begin, but actually I want him there. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Can I wear your coat, Mum?’ Lottie’s already halfway into it.

  ‘Go on.’

  She leaves, and when she comes back she piles boxes of chicken curry, pilau rice and vegetable korma on the table, then takes poppadums and naan bread out of carrier bags. Last, she reaches into the pockets of my coat and hands over the change. ‘Do you want the receipt? ‘

  ‘No.’ I sit on the sofa that runs along the side of our kitchen, too tired now to do anything other than watch my two teenage children fussing over me.

  ‘And this?’ Lottie holds up a card.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It says “Abe McFadden, Landscape Architect”. Do you need it?’

  ‘No,’ I say, not even sure how the card got there. ‘It must be one of those cards people put through the letterbox.’

  She throws it into the bin with the receipt and later, when I’ve eaten, she ladles the leftovers into the bin on top of it.

  It’s only a few days later, when Richard is back, when he’s asking me to go through the details that I’ve already been through with him on the phone several times, that I remember the stranger, the good Samaritan, who witnessed my upset and helped me get home.

  The bin liner has been transferred to the bin outside and the refuse collectors have taken it away.

  I would have paid him back. I would have got in touch to say thank you.

  Instead, by the time I remember that the name Lottie had read out to me belonged to him, his card is lying somewhere at the bottom of a landfill site.

  London, March 2000

  ‘Things aren’t like this,’ he kept repeating. ‘It shouldn’t be this way.’ As if he had access to some other plane of existence, some parallel ‘right’ universe, and had sensed that our time had somehow been put out of joint.

  Salman Rushdie, The Ground Beneath Her Feet

  I can’t believe I’m doing this. This isn’t me. I’m not that sort of person. Is that what everyone thinks? That they’re not that sort of person, whatever that sort of person is? And do they suddenly find that they are?

  Is Richard that sort of person? Is Abe? Is everyone, when it comes to meeting someone whom they feel instinctively drawn to, when the choice is walking away or becoming that sort of person? The sort of person who is willing to deceive their partner and risk their children’s happiness because they’ve met some bloke and they can’t let him go?

  Am I just a cliché? A woman in her mid-forties who’s a little bored with life and seeking excitement elsewhere?

  I’m not sure I can go through with it. If Abe was a little less persuasive, a little less sure, then perhaps I wouldn’t be sitting on the train, travelling into central London when I should be at home with the children.

  ‘It’s a totally separate thing,’ he’s said, every time I say, ‘I can’t,’ or ‘I really don’t think I can go any further.’

  ‘I don’t want to do anything that will disrupt your life. This is just extra.’

  ‘But it could,’ I protest. ‘It could destroy everything.’

  ‘Not if we don’t let it,’ he says. ‘We’re both married and we both need to stay married. What we have is aside from that.’

  I almost believe him, but the way he talks about his wife makes me wonder: has he used the unhappiness he implied to elicit my sympathy and push me in the direction he wants me to go?

  It seems unlikely, but he is the one pushing and I am the one who seems to have all the qualms.

  I’m imagining that the other occupants of the train can tell where I’m off to from looking at me but I can still hear their projected thoughts in my head, as if they were saying them out loud.

  ‘Have you thought about the consequences?’ the woman opposite is saying, as she catches my eye while reapplying her makeup.

  ‘Are you thinking about his wife and child?’ a tired-looking woman asks, as our reflections stare at each other in the semi-darkness just outside the window.

  ‘You do realize you’re being completely and utterly selfish and thinking only of yourself?’ says the elderly man opposite, smart in a three-piece suit and tie.

  Perhaps he’s been there himself.

  I look at him more closely. He’s probably in his early seventies. His face is still handsome, and there’s an openness in his smile when he catches me looking at him that is attractive.

  I smile back and take a deep breath.

  Abe’s booked the hotel room. I’ve said I’ll meet him in the pub around the corner – the Marquis of Granby. We’ve met in a different Marquis of Granby before.

  ‘There are lots,’ he had told me on another occasion. Thank goodness for the Marquis. I was going to need a drink first. I was going to need a drink anyway.

  ‘There’s no pressure. You can change your mind at any time,’ he’d said to me on the phone earlier.

  I could barely speak and managed only ‘I’ll see you later.’

  Perhaps we’ll just have a drink, change our minds and go home again. But the thought of the room round the corner is tempting, if only to have some privacy from the world. And Abe has booked it.

  What if someone sees us going into the hotel?

  The train is nearing Waterloo now and my phone beeps. A text alert. I look, thinking it will be Abe asking if I’m on my way.

  It’s from Richard: Can’t find Lottie’s monkey …

  Lottie can’t sleep without her monkey. I sat it on the headboard that morning, as I always do when I make her bed. Has she moved it? It’s only a toy but it signifies enough to make me want to turn straight round and go home again. I could tell Richard my client meeting was cancelled and I’m coming home. I could tuck the children up and kiss them goodnight. I could buy a bottle of wine and a takeaway and make the most of Richard being back early.

  I call Richard. I’m all ready to tell him I’ll be home after all. ‘Hello, it’s me.’

  ‘What’s up?’ His tone is brusque, the way it is if I call him at work and he doesn’t wish to be distracted.

  ‘You left a message, saying you can’t find Lottie’s monkey.’

  ‘Oh, I sent that text ten minutes ago. We’ve got it now.’

  ‘Oh. Okay. That’s good.’

  ‘She’s asleep.’

  ‘Great. Is everything else okay?’

  ‘Fine.’ Richard sounds irritated. ‘I can manage, you know.’

  ‘I only called because you texted.’ And because I wanted to talk to you. I wanted you to want to talk to me. I wanted you to say something that would make a difference.

  ‘Okay. Well, have a good evening.’

  It’s as if he can hardly wait to get me off the phone.

  ‘Thanks,’ I say, and pause, hoping he’ll say something other than ‘Bye, then.’

  But that is all he says.

  I stand up to put my coat on as the train pulls into the station.

  ‘Excuse me,’ the old man opposite says. ‘Is that your umbrella up on the rack?’

  ‘No. I think I’ve got everything.’

  ‘Excellent.’ He smiles.

  Do I imagine that he adds, ‘It’s easy to forget what’s important,’ or did he really say it to me?

  I look at him rising, with effort, from his seat, using a stick for support, preoccupied with the task.

  I don’t concern him.
>
  Abe has already checked into the hotel, been to the room and claimed it, before he left again to meet me. That was enough to make him appear familiar with both the hotel and the room when we go there together.

  He nods briefly to the receptionist, while I try to avoid eye contact with anyone. Only when we’re alone in the lift do I look at Abe.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  He says nothing but puts out his hand and touches my cheek.

  It’s enough.

  Enough for me to walk out of the lift and follow him along the hotel corridor, scanning it anxiously for people I know. I imagine the hotel to be full of people I work with, parents from school, colleagues of Richard’s and old friends from college days.

  ‘After you.’ Abe opens the door.

  I walk past him, only a few paces. Any more will take me right up to the bed.

  The room is small and claustrophobic. Abe is standing behind me. He puts his arms around me and holds me. No kisses. Just the warmth of his body and the reassuring feel of him.

  It’s the right thing to do. I relax.

  I turn and put my arms around his neck. We kiss and I know there’s no turning back now.

  ‘I’d better take my coat off!’ I pull away, remove it and hang it over the back of a chair. Then I sit on the chair, away from the bed, still unsure.

  Abe sits on the end of the bed, less than two feet away. ‘Come here.’ He pats the space beside him. I join him. ‘I’ve wanted to be alone with you for so long.’ He puts an arm around me and draws me to him. My body tenses. ‘Are you okay?’ he asks again.

  ‘I think so.’ I’m so nervous.

  Abe pushes a strand of hair away from my face, a solicitous gesture, and runs his fingers down my cheek. ‘God, you’re beautiful,’ he says.

  We kiss again, and when we stop, I bend down and unzip the boots I’m wearing. ‘I’ll just go to the bathroom,’ I say, and head for the tiny en-suite.

  I don’t need the loo and I don’t want him to hear me pee. How ridiculous is that? I’m about to get undressed and get into bed with this man. Why worry about him hearing me pee? But I do.

  In the bathroom, I simply look at myself in the mirror, not out of vanity. I’m trying to take in my face. I wonder if it will look different afterwards, if it will give anything away.

  I hitch up my dress and remove my tights. I do this out of vanity. At some point, Abe will remove my dress or I’ll do it myself. I don’t want to have tights on when that happens. I know that’s a funny thing to worry about, but it deflects the anxiety about getting undressed in front of someone new when you haven’t done it for years.

  When I go back, Abe has taken off his shoes and socks and he’s sitting on the bed, propped against the pillows. I sit next to him and all the worries, all the voices, all the thoughts, the images of Lottie unable to sleep without her monkey, Max clutching his stomach and saying he feels sick again, recede so far into the distance as to be practically forgotten.

  All I can think about is Abe: his touch, the surprising softness of his skin, the sprinkling of hair on his chest, the stubble grazing mine as he kisses my breasts and the strength of his tongue as it works its way down my body. All the anxieties I’d thought I’d have, about being in this position with someone new, have disappeared and long-forgotten sensations are creeping back: the anticipation as we undress, the way my body comes alive to his touch, standing naked next to someone who has never seen me naked before, it all feels natural, as well as new and exciting, the way it only ever is at first, before things settle into something more secure but routine.

  I’d almost forgotten what it’s like to have a man’s head between my legs and the moment of pure pleasure it produces. I abandon all other thoughts. I can think only of the tension between my not wanting it to stop and longing to have him inside me, and the look in his eyes when he eventually comes, so quietly I’m not sure that he has.

  And afterwards, when we lie spooned around each other and some of the thoughts begin to creep back and a part of my mind is asking, What have I done? he kisses the back of my neck as I clasp his hand tight across my breast and hold my breath, so I can hear him, because he says it so quietly.

  ‘I’m so glad I found you.’

  I feel as if I’m floating as we dress afterwards, as if I belong to another world, and later I realize that I do: a world in which people risk their marriages for the thrill of the unfamiliar. The reality begins to sink in as I walk back to the station, checking my phone, in case Richard has called.

  He hasn’t but someone does, as soon as I put my phone back into my bag.

  I forget about Richard as soon as I see the caller display. ‘I wanted to hear your voice again,’ Abe says. ‘Are you on the train?’

  ‘Not yet. I’m just heading towards the station.’

  ‘Thank you for coming,’ he says. ‘I know it’s not easy for you, having to leave your children and come all this way.’

  ‘I wanted to see you.’

  I look around as I approach the station concourse, wondering if any of the people in the throng around me will be remotely interested in my conversation. But why should they? I’ve reached the age when I’m invisible to most people. Teenagers and young men in the street don’t even register my presence, too engrossed in their thoughts or conversations to move aside when I approach. Even people my own age don’t see me. They see a middle-aged woman, rushing between work and her family. They know the type.

  It used to feel depressing to know that I’d become someone whose presence doesn’t register, but now it has, with one man, at least.

  ‘And you don’t … you don’t regret it, Ivy? Do you?’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘I don’t.’

  It hadn’t occurred to me until now that the encounter may have been a one-off. Now that it has, I worry about the implications. Was that all he wanted? To get me into bed? Will he stop talking to me now, stop making time and disappear back to his wife?

  ‘Good,’ he says. ‘Me neither.’

  That doesn’t tell me anything, doesn’t assuage the fear that what I’ve just done was meaningless, that what I’ve been telling myself about the connection between us was simply justification for doing what I did to satisfy my own lust.

  ‘I’m just going through the ticket barrier now,’ I say. ‘I don’t like talking on trains.’

  ‘Okay,’ he says, and I think that will be that, but then he gives me the reassurance I need. ‘I will see you again, won’t I?’

  ‘Of course.’ Relief floods through me.

  ‘When?’

  ‘I don’t know. Next week?’

  ‘That seems ages away.’

  ‘I know, but …’ What else can I say?

  ‘I’ll speak to you before then. Can I call you tomorrow?’ he asks, and I tell him I’ll be at home, working on my own, for most of the morning. ‘Goodnight, Ivy,’ he says. ‘And thank you.’

  Monday mornings are always a little tense and the following one was unusually so.

  ‘I want peanut butter in my sandwich,’ Lottie was insistent.

  ‘But you can’t take nuts into school any more. There’s a new boy and they make him very sick.’

  She had brought the note back in her bag last Friday, announcing the arrival of a child with a severe nut and avocado allergy. ‘Who’d have thought anyone was allergic to avocado?’ I’d commented.

  ‘Who’d have thought children would take avocados to school?’ Richard had said. ‘What’s wrong with an apple or a tangerine?’

  ‘You don’t know the half of it. Parents compete over lunchboxes. Lottie asked me the other day if she could have some of the “new carob” chocolate bars. Apparently one of her friends brought some in for lunch and impressed the rest of them.’

  ‘Jesus, we haven’t gone down the old carob route yet, have we?’ Richard looked at me as if he suspected I might have become a secret food faddist without his knowing.

  ‘You know me,’ I
replied.

  I was intolerant of food intolerances and fads. Everyone these days seemed so concerned with their health when, for most of them, it was something they could take for granted, not something they needed to worry about.

  ‘I do.’ Richard had grinned and kissed me.

  His confident assertion that he knew me made me feel instantly guilty.

  But this morning the atmosphere was different.

  ‘The new boy isn’t going to eat my sandwiches,’ Lottie complained. ‘He can have his own.’

  ‘Well, I’m making you cheese.’

  ‘I don’t want that cheese,’ Lottie said, picking up the packet of Cheddar. ‘It’s mouldy. Why do we always have to have mouldy food?’

  ‘I’ll cut the mould off. It’s perfectly fine,’ I reassured her. ‘It’s what penicillin is made from and that makes you better when you’re sick.’

  ‘That’s stretching a point,’ Richard said, opening the bread bin. ‘And the bread’s mouldy too. Is there any more anywhere?’

  ‘Why? And where would there be?’ I resented the implication that the lack of fresh bread was my fault.

  ‘Seriously, Ivy, this loaf is completely past it.’ He was tetchy now.

  ‘There are some rolls. I’ll do one for Lottie.’

  ‘I wanted some toast for breakfast,’ he said, and begun muttering, more to himself than to me. ‘I’ve got an important meeting this morning. Is having something to eat before I go to work too much to ask?’

  ‘Look, I’ll run to the corner shop and buy some bread, if it’s such an issue.’

  ‘Don’t bother. I haven’t got time,’ Richard said.

  ‘Can I have a peanut-butter roll then?’ Lottie asked. ‘That’s not a sandwich.’

  ‘It’s not the sandwich that’s the problem, love,’ I said, as my phone, which was on the kitchen table, beeped with a message alert.

  ‘You’ve got a text,’ Richard said, picking it up and handing it to me.

  I looked at the display. It was from Abe. ‘Just work,’ I said, panicky. ‘It can wait.’

  I slipped the phone into my pocket and did not reply until an hour or so later, after I’d taken the children to school and was back at my desk, ready to write some promotional material for one of my clients.