The Mistress - Jill Childs Page 0,39

talking about? Had Clara made it up, for something to say? Or was that how Anna was coping, missing her father so much that she was pretending with her best friend that everything was okay and he’d come home in the end, safe and well?

I swallowed and shook my head. Something else struck me, winding me as forcefully as a blow to the stomach.

I imagined Anna, not asleep after all, woken by the crash of her father’s flailing body as it bounced heavily down the cellar steps. And creeping down the stairs in her pyjamas, peering out, still half in a dream, and seeing me, standing there by the cellar door, eyes wide, stiff with shock.

What if she knew that the story about her father simply going out one evening and never coming home couldn’t be true, because she’d seen what had really happened? And if that were the case, what if she told?

Twenty-Eight

We never had many arguments, Ralph and I. I wasn’t the sort of person who screamed and shouted if they were angry, not usually. I was a bottler. A sulker, at times, I had to admit, if something had really upset me.

As the New Year rolled round and a new school term started, he never referred to the way I’d begged him to leave his wife that Christmas. I never mentioned it either. I gave myself a good talking to. I had to be smart, if I really cared about him. That’s what I told myself. I was in for the long haul.

I tried to see this as a waiting game. My job was to make him happy. When he thought about me, and I was sure he must, I wanted the thoughts to be positive. He should imagine, first and foremost, a fun, lively woman with a smile on her face, a sexy woman who was excited to see him. I wanted to shine in his life, making a brilliant contrast with his wife and whatever problems they clearly had in their marriage. I had to attract him, not risk pushing him away from me with demands and complaints. Ralph and I had something special. I didn’t want to risk messing it up.

So the few times I let myself down and we did row, I remember clearly. They stood out for me like sores. I’d berate myself and send apologetic messages, full of love hearts and promises to behave if he’d just give me a second chance. I’d barely sleep until he’d finally reply and I knew he was still going to see me again, that I hadn’t gone too far and been cast off, back into darkness.

One of the biggest arguments came in late January. I hated that month. Cold, grey and dark. Christmas was already a distant memory and Spring still felt out of reach. It was a month of colds and flu, of rain and gales, a time at school when the children seemed particularly crazy because they weren’t spending enough hours outside in the fresh air, running off their energy.

Ralph and I were seeing each other once or twice a week, as often as he could manage without making his wife suspicious. I never asked him what lies he told her. I thought it best not to know. He was only doing it, I told myself, because he belonged with me. He’d realise that, in time.

Our dates were often at short notice. In the beginning, that had been part of the excitement. A delicious frisson when he suddenly messaged me without warning.

You free? Can I come over?

A nervous thrill, even on the evenings I climbed into bed without hearing from him. The hope that, even now, he might still text me or the front-door buzzer might ring to say he was unexpectedly here.

But by late January, perhaps it was just me, but something between us seemed stale. The sudden appearances, the abrupt cancellations, were actually annoying, playing havoc with my nerves. I wanted him to myself. And I was also frightened in case, for him too, the initial excitement of our affair had worn off. I feared he was getting tired, even bored.

He was acting too much like a husband with me. Most of the time, he just came round to the flat to see me and I cooked for him, poured him a glass of wine and tried to cheer him up. We might cuddle up together on the settee, rain lashing the windows, and watch my old TV together. At