The Mistress - Jill Childs Page 0,48

just glad that the two of them were so different. I never did understand how someone as bohemian and romantic as he was could ever have been attracted to an uptight woman with the mind of a railway clerk.

Now I wondered about her, all over again. All the times I’d seen her at school, the woman who clipped neatly down corridors with her hair clean and well-styled, always dressed in a way which was slightly old-fashioned but presentable, sitting, back straight, on the school library settee, listening to a procession of children come to her, one at a time, to read. Doling out her little stickers as rewards.

I’d dismissed her as nothing. A small-town librarian who’d become a house-proud stay-at-home mother with a failing marriage. I’d blamed her for Ralph’s affair with me. It was her fault for failing to be enough for him.

I raised the glass to my lips and drank. The wine was rich and heady. My empty stomach gurgled and protested. How had she possibly covered her tracks, if Mike was right? And how, in heaven’s name, had she organised all those texts?

When I stared across the dark room, I saw Mike’s eyes, cold and grey and all-knowing. Could I trust him? No, trust wasn’t the right word. Of course I didn’t trust him. He was a force of darkness. A man who’d do anything for money. He’d said as much himself.

But I did believe him. He was terrifying because he was so direct, so real. He wasn’t a man who wasted energy in deceptions. I don’t know how I was so sure of that, I just knew.

Clearly, he suspected me. He already seemed to know far too much about me and my affair with Ralph. I just wondered how much more he knew. If he had any idea what else Ralph had done.

I’ve thought such a lot about how it ended. What he did before he died was wrong, terribly wrong. I’d never have thought him capable. But I’d have stood by him, if he’d only been honest with me. If he’d been repentant and asked for my forgiveness. I’d have tried to help him find a way out.

My first sense of the end came where it had all begun, at the writing group.

It was supposed to be a group just for members of staff. That was made crystal clear from the start. I remember reading Ralph’s flyer on the Lower School noticeboard when it first went up at the start of the school year. It was eye-catching, with small photographs of famous writers forming a giant question mark after the words, Interested in writing? The pupils had their own clubs and classes and workshops. This was for us, for staff. It just happened to be held on school premises because that made practical sense.

Once I’d started seeing Ralph, I only went along to the group occasionally. It was partly because I felt so hopelessly focussed on Ralph, and he on me, that I thought our colleagues would guess our secret at once, especially when he started reading. He always made me feel as if his love poetry was written just for me. Then there was the awkward fact that I didn’t write. It wasn’t a requirement and I wasn’t the only person who went along just to listen but once or twice, others had been called upon to overcome their anxiety and to share – and someone even suggested an impromptu session of flash fiction. Just the thought of that left me hot with embarrassment.

But by the end of January, I was frightened. Ralph had changed towards me. His text messages were far fewer and when I texted him, he sometimes took hours, even a day, to reply. When he came to see me, I tried to dote on him, buying him the best food and wine I could afford and, when he sat, dull-eyed, on the settee after eating, I’d try to give him scalp or shoulder massages to ease the tension. He seemed less interested in making love to me too. Clearly, something else was on his mind.

I agonised about it and decided in the end to start coming regularly to the writing group again, partly as a chance to spend time with him, and partly to show him how much I loved his poetry, one of his great passions. I didn’t tell him beforehand. I wanted to see his face when he saw me walk in, to enjoy his surprise.

I dressed with