by Hilary Boyd
Hilary Boyd
* * *
THE AFFAIR
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Hilary Boyd was a nurse, marriage counsellor and ran a small cancer charity before becoming an author. She has written eight books, including Thursdays in the Park, her debut novel which sold over half a million copies and was an international bestseller.
To my dear friend Suzie, with love
A happy marriage is the union of two good forgivers
Robert Quillen
1
Connie McCabe was an honest woman. At least, she’d always considered herself as such. It wasn’t something she prided herself on: it was just her default position, as another person’s might be to slide away from the truth when it didn’t suit them. But she was never brutal – if asked her opinion of a friend’s new dress, she wouldn’t say, ‘That yellow makes you look as if your liver’s packed up,’ when the friend was stuck in the outfit for the foreseeable. So the events of that summer shocked Connie to the core and made her question everything she thought she knew about herself.
On the 2 p.m. xxx, Connie texted her husband, Devan. They lived in a large village – almost a small town, or ‘tillage’, as the locals referred to it – south of the Mendips, on the Somerset Levels, and her train journey, starting from Paddington, would take close to three hours.
See you at the station x, Devan replied.
She sat back in the crowded carriage, the heating turned up way too high for the mild April day, and closed her eyes, letting out a luxurious sigh of relief. For the past ten days she’d been on call, responsible for thirty-nine people’s welfare – one passenger had cried off sick at the last minute – on a rail journey through the tulip fields of Holland. According to company guidelines, it was frowned upon to read or listen to anything – heaven forbid snooze – while accompanying her passengers across Europe. She should stay alert, poised to deal with any concerns her flock might have. So, despite loving every minute of her job as a tour manager, just sitting here, alone, with no responsibility to anyone but herself, was bliss.
Connie felt herself begin to unwind as the train travelled west, past Reading and Swindon, the countryside awash with bright blossoms and deliciously pale spring green. It had been a good tour. Only one really irritating couple who’d picked holes in everything, from the pillows to the narrow steam-train seats and rain on the day they’d toured Amsterdam. She’d been waiting for them to kick off about the colours of the spectacular tulip displays. There was always one.
Now would be the time, she thought sadly, when I’d ring Mum and fill her in about my trip. Her mother, Sheila, had died in January, in her sleep, at eighty-six, after barely a day’s illness in her life. She’d been quietly independent to the last, living alone in her small South London flat with no fuss, miles from both of her daughters. But Connie would ring most days and they would chat away. Sheila was wise, someone who really listened. But she also loved a good rant, a good gossip, a good laugh. I miss you so much, Mum, Connie whispered silently, her eyes filling with tears, which she quickly blinked away in the crowded carriage. And I really need your advice. I’m worried. I don’t know what to do about Devan.
Her train arrived fifteen minutes late. But there was no sign of her husband or the red Honda in the semicircle of cars waiting on the station forecourt. She got out her mobile.
‘Hi,’ her husband said, sounding disoriented. ‘Where are you?’
‘At the station.’ She tried to keep the irritation out of her voice, but she was dying to get home and take off her ‘cruise wear’, as she called the outfits deemed suitable for her job, and have a long, hot soak in her own bath. She knew Devan had probably fallen asleep in front of some rugby match or other. It was all he seemed to do, these days, since his retirement last summer as the village GP – a post he’d held for the past thirty years.
There was a moment’s silence and she heard scuffling in the background. ‘God! Sorry – didn’t realize the time. On my way,’ Devan said, and clicked off.
‘Good trip?’ her husband asked, smiling briefly at her as she climbed into the car, but not removing his hand from the gear stick or leaning over to kiss her. His handsome face looked crumpled, his grey jumper had a large stain just below the crew neck and his chin sported a day’s growth, the stubble sprouting silvery, although it was only the very edges of his dark hair that showed signs of grey. But Connie wasn’t in the mood to comment or criticize.
‘Yes, great. Weather was a bit rubbish the day we were in Amsterdam, but otherwise it went pretty smoothly, apart from the usual PPs.’ Which stood for Perfect Passengers and was their ironic acronym for any awkward customers on her tours. ‘The wife kicked off because there wasn’t a “pillow menu” at any of the hotels.’
Devan glanced at her, his thoughtful blue eyes, deep set beneath heavy brows – people likened him to the footballer George Best in his prime – coming suddenly to life. He had such a charming smile, which she’d instantly fallen in love with, that long-ago night in the festival medical tent. ‘Is that even a thing?’
Connie nodded. ‘These days, if you’re in four- or five-star luxury, yes.’
He gave a disbelieving snort. ‘Does it include starters and a main?’
‘Well, I’ve seen buckwheat pillows listed – filled with buckwheat hulls, apparently – and one with herbs and essential oils. So you’re not far off the mark.’
‘Preposterous.’ Devan chuckled.
They drove in silence for a while. ‘How have you been?’ Connie asked.
‘Oh, you know …’ Devan’s words were lost in the roar and rattle of a passing tractor.
‘Your back? Are the exercises helping at all?’
Her husband’s mouth clamped in a thin line of warning. He’d been plagued, on and off, by a degenerating disc in his lower back for the past couple of years, for which he’d been given a slew of exercises by the physio. But he never did them, as far as Connie could tell. ‘God, Connie, don’t start.’
His words were spoken softly, but she was taken aback by the veiled antagonism. She sympathized with someone in constant pain, obviously, but it was frustrating, watching him do nothing to alleviate the problem – Devan, a doctor who’d endlessly ranted about patients not being prepared to help themselves.
It was on the tip of her tongue to retort, but she took a deep breath instead. ‘Hope it stays fine for the Hutchisons tomorrow,’ she said, changing the subject as the atmosphere in the car grew thick with the unsaid. ‘I got Carole a kitsch pair of clogs in Amsterdam and they painted her name on the side.’ Tim and Carole Hutchison owned an impressive Victorian villa at the top of the village, with spectacular views over the Somerset Levels. They always threw a spring party for Carole’s birthday, and although Connie wouldn’t call them close friends – in fact she thought Ti
m, a retired fund-manager, pompous in the extreme – an invitation to the yearly bash was much coveted and a matter of pride in the village.
Devan didn’t reply at once. ‘I suppose we have to go,’ he said eventually, as they pulled onto the paved parking space at the side of their house and he turned off the engine. They sat in silence for a moment, a weak evening sun breaking through the clouds and bathing their still faces in light pouring through the windscreen.
Connie frowned as she turned to him. ‘You love their parties. You always say it’s the best champagne in the county.’
He gave a weary nod. ‘Yeah, well …’
Connie was about to remonstrate, but she heard Riley, their beloved Welsh terrier, barking excitedly, and jumped out of the car. Biting her lip with disappointment at her husband, she pushed open the front door, bending to enjoy his enthusiastic welcome, to bury her fingers in his soft black and caramel fur and watch the perfect arc of his tail wagging furiously at seeing her.
Every time she went away these days – even if only for a week – she hoped, in her absence, things might shift for Devan. Hoped he might begin to shake off the pall of lethargy that broke her heart. Hoped to see the light in his eyes again. Her trips were like a bubble. She would escape into another world, swept up in round-the-clock responsibility for the tour and its passengers, the extraordinary scenery, the diverse smells, the delicious local food – even the sun’s rays seeming to fall differently abroad. Her problems with Devan faded into the background for those few short days. But coming home, however much she looked forward to it, forced her to face up to reality again.
The house was as messy as Connie had anticipated – sofa cushions squashed to Devan’s shape, newspapers strewn, a dirty wine glass on the coffee table, some dried-up olive stones in a ramekin. She took a deep breath as she entered the cosy farmhouse kitchen at the back of the house, where they’d spent a lot of family time when Caitlin – named after one of Devan’s Irish grandmothers – was growing up. It wasn’t bad, she conceded, casting an eye over the worktops and range, the oak refectory table. But Devan had never got to grips with surface wiping: the cooker was spattered from the endless fry-ups in which he’d no doubt been indulging, the worktop strewn with toast crumbs and greasy smears, tea and coffee stains ringing the area around the kettle, a pile of used teabags mouldering on a saucer.
She stopped herself seizing a cloth and getting down to it immediately, knowing she was more pernickety than some and not wanting to wade in the second she was through the door in such an obviously censorious fashion. She would unpack first, have the bath she’d been longing for. She didn’t want to pick a fight on her first night back.
‘Think I’ll go up. Been a long day,’ Connie said later, pulling herself off the sofa and yawning as she reached for her reading glasses on the side table. They’d spent the evening with a bowl of ready-meal shepherd’s pie, frozen peas and ketchup in front of the next episode of a Belgian-police box set. Devan had held it over while she was away, although now she couldn’t remember a single thing about who’d been bumped off or why – and was too tired to concentrate anyway.
Devan glanced up from his phone – which, these days, seemed to have become a physical extension of his hand. ‘I’m sure it has,’ he said absentmindedly, but made no move to join her. ‘I might stay up for a bit.’
Connie felt a pang of disappointment. She just wanted to connect with him again, to be close. They had barely spoken all evening, except to catch up with trivial domestic news – such as the flush button coming loose in the downstairs loo and Rees, the gormless plumber’s apprentice, coming to fix it. If she went to bed now, she would be dead to the world by the time he crept in beside her. Then in the morning, he would still be asleep when she got up.
‘Please … come with me,’ she said quietly, and saw his face go still for a moment. Then he sighed and nodded.
‘Sure, OK,’ he said. But his reluctance was evident, and she was upset.
Does he worry I’m after sex or something? she wondered wryly, as she climbed the stairs to their bedroom, placing her glass of water and specs on the bedside table. But she’d stopped having expectations in that arena after a number of humiliatingly unsuccessful seductions on her part during the previous two years.
The last, months ago now, had been the worst – and such a sorry cliché. She had put on a slinky silk camisole in delicate lilac and matching knickers – saved at the back of her drawer from years ago and barely worn – then waited for him to finish in the bathroom, heart knocking as she sat on the bed, hair fluffed and loose. When Devan had seen her, he’d stopped short and stared, eyes wide, as if a woolly mammoth had landed on the duvet. From his twitchy, but resigned expression, he might have been anticipating an unwelcome appointment with the dentist.
He’d recovered sufficiently to force a smile and come over to sit beside her on the bed, picking up her hand and kissing it. But she’d seen the effort it took and she’d snatched it away, leaping up from the bed and shutting herself in the bathroom. She’d felt so utterly mortified – so unsexy, unattractive – that even the thought of it now made her cringe.
Although there had been many wonderful times in the past when they’d made love in this very bed, over the thirty-three years of their marriage. They’d always been good together, their attitude to sex one of relaxed mutual pleasure. No bells and whistles or swinging from the chandelier, neither of them trying to prove anything. Just a light-hearted lust for each other – which she sorely missed.
She realized with a jolt that it was over two years since they’d properly made love – if you didn’t count that night last summer when Neil, Connie’s best friend, and his husband, Brooks, had asked them over, inventing this lethal cocktail of something green and sweet and fizzy, then burned the chicken pie in the Aga. The only thing they’d eaten all evening was a handful of crisps and a piece of toast. Neither she nor Devan had known which way was up and they’d fallen into bed, heads spinning, and fumbled around in some half-hearted rendition of sex. Because although her husband had only just retired, things had been difficult between them for much longer than that: the strain Devan had been under at the surgery had taken a heavy toll.
He lay beside her now, his book – the usual weighty siege-and-massacre tome – propped on his chest. Connie tried to read, but the sentences swam before her eyes and she knew she was wasting her time. She put down the reader and her glasses and switched off the light, turning on her pillow to face her husband. Despite implying earlier that he wasn’t tired, his book was swaying back and forth in his hands, his eyelids fluttering. A small fly was spinning in the beam of the desk lamp he read by, and she watched it for a while, then gently removed his book from his hands, turning down the page corner and closing it.
Devan jerked. ‘Hey, I was reading.’
‘You were almost asleep.’
He sighed and didn’t object, removing his second pillow and slinging it to the floor, then turning off his own light. Their bedroom faced the main street of the village, and a car passed, headlights raking the ceiling in the semi-darkness. Connie placed her palm on his chest and stroked his warm skin. She just wanted some sign of affection, but he made no move to offer any. All he did was clamp her hand to his chest to still her stroking. She could feel the tension flowing off him, like steam from a kettle.
‘A cuddle would be nice,’ she said.
After a moment’s hesitation, Devan lifted his arm so she could lie against him, her head on his shoulder. She felt his hand pull her in, bringing her closer, and she wanted to cry.
‘Love you,’ she said softly.
‘Love you too, Con,’ he replied automatically.
She sensed his heart wasn’t fully behind his words. Despite that, Connie luxuriated in his embrace. He smelt musty, but she didn’t mind. His body was so comforting, so familiar, even in the state he was in, that she didn’t want to let him go. When she woke around three in the morning to pee, she remembered that she’d gon
e to sleep in his arms, something she hadn’t done for a very long time.
2
‘Oh, come on, Devan.’ Tim Hutchison snorted his loud, confident laugh, his jowls wobbling above his pink Ralph Lauren polo shirt, champagne flute waving in Devan’s face. ‘Admit it! You’re a true-blue Conservative at heart. All this whiny-liberal bollocks is just a throwback from your student days.’
Connie watched her husband’s mouth twitch. The discussion about immigration, despite Tim’s joshing, had been bordering on rancorous, like most current debate in the country. But the difference today was that Devan had got stuck in. As the village doctor, he’d made it his business to stay neutral – except in private – when it came to politics. ‘I don’t need to know what my patients think about the world,’ he always told Connie. ‘If I did, I might not want to treat them.’ But today he’d been truculent, almost aggressive, when Tim blamed the current crisis in the NHS – which Devan believed in passionately and knew was wobbling for a whole variety of reasons – on migrants.
Connie nudged him surreptitiously, but all she got in return was a glare. She knew he’d had a lot to drink, the delicious champagne flowing from a seemingly bottomless well. But she didn’t want him falling out with Tim, who nonetheless possessed the precision of a brain surgeon in his ability to stick the needle in where it would have the most effect.
‘Well, if you’re a good example of conservatism, I’ll take whiny liberal any day of the week,’ Devan said.
It was spoken in the same jokey tone, but Tim’s eyebrows rose just a fraction and he turned away.
‘That was rude,’ Connie hissed. ‘He’s our host.’ They were standing by the French windows, from which there was usually a spectacular view across the Somerset Levels, but this afternoon she could barely see past the end of the garden because of low cloud, brought on by a sudden spring squall raging outside.
