The Mistress's Revenge Read Online Free Page B

proliferate like weeds now that no one looks at them anymore.
    “Sorry I’m late,” she bustled, shaking out her hair and trying not to look at the black shadows around my eyes or the slight Citalopram tremor of my fingers.
    “Clive wanted me to go with him and look at some shoes he wants to buy. He’s such a terrible baby about things like that. So that threw my day out completely.”
    I imagined the two of you peering into the shop window. It would be that old-fashioned men’s shoe shop up near Hampstead—you’ve told me before that’s the only place you’ll ever go. I remember how excited you were when you bought that pair of brown suede brogues there, and how much you fussed about them getting muddy when we went for that walk around the old mental asylum at Shenley in Hertfordshire. All those days out in places expressly chosen because no one else in their right minds would want to go there. All those pub lunchesin nameless villages up the A1 with floral cushions tied to the chair seats and midweek specials, three courses for £9.95.
    I remember all that while Susan tells me all about the business of being her, about how hard she’s been working and how much she’s looking forward to getting away with you next week to the manor house in Scotland owned by your old friend Gareth Powell, the historian.
    “It’s a wonderful place,” she tells me. “The full monty—flagstoned floors, big open fireplaces, a housekeeper who brings you cups of tea and homemade cakes.”
    Well, it was all I could do not to chime in then, adding to the list. “How about the faded Persian carpets or the four-poster beds with the white, extra-fine Egyptian cotton bed linen?”
    Don’t be silleeeee, I didn’t actually say all that. Nor did I tell her how many times you’d begged me to make up an elaborate excuse so I could have a “night off” and come to Scotland with you. How you’d already squared it with Gareth, who was excited by the thought of aiding and abetting a love affair (funny how, right at the end, in that agonizing endless lunch, you told me he’d advised you to give me up. “You’ll always love her, dear boy,” he’d apparently told you, this womanizing, two-faced, hypocritical old dandy. “But you know you have to give Susan another chance. It’s the right thing to do”). Wafting your open invitation at me, you’d built up a picture of how we’d spend our time in Scotland (“Make it two nights,” you’d wheedled. “Please”). We’d get up at six and take the path that threaded down from the gardens through the rocks and onto the little beach. “We’ll throw pebbles into the water,” you’d told me, “and sit on the big rock at the far end and take off our shoes and socks and dangle our feet in the water. And at night we’ll lie on the big old squishy tapestry sofa in front of the log fire and make love and then I’ll carry you up to bed and we’ll make love some more.” (I didn’t like to mention your bad back, not when you were so carried away by the Harlequin romance of your little fantasy.)
    So this is what was going through my head as Susan was describing how very much she was looking forward to the Scottish mini break.Of course I never had been able to engineer a whole night off to go with you, let alone two, but I’d pictured it in my head so many times. The house, the housekeeper, the fire, the sofa. Us, us, us. Except now it’s not to be us, after all. It’s to be you and Susan, walking to the beach in the early morning—you holding her hand to help her over the rocks, the two of you sitting side by side, feet dangling while you talk about where you can make changes in your marriage, how you can make it stronger.
    Oh yes, Susan told me all about how you two have been through a rough patch but are now talking more than you’ve ever done throughout your marriage. I was very touched that she opened up so much, really I was. I hadn’t been expecting such a level of intimacy