the baby established. If she could stay two or three months ... Once she gets past the first trimester, there's less chance of anything going wrong."
Three or four months?
"I was thinking of a couple of weeks at most. To be honest, I'm a bit beyond flat-sharing. She can move close by so you can be near her, but I don't want her in the flat all the time. You know what they say, two's company."
"Okay, but let's get past September. Not really anything can go wrong after that."
Three months. Ninety days. More than seven hundred hours. Surely Alice and I could behave as if we hadn’t transgressed for that long. What I’d done, imperilling my marriage like this, had been absolutely insane. But I figured that adultery was like stopping smoking: it was the first cigarette you lit up after quitting that was the decider – every cigarette after that becomes easier and easier. Perhaps it was the same with cheating on your wife. I had already crossed the line, so next time wouldn't be so difficult. God forbid there would be a next time, though. Really staying faithful in a relationship was the hard part: everywhere you looked there was pressure to have what we wanted, right now. Monogamy was the last holdout. Oh stop trying to justify yourself, I thought. You did what you did. Mole gazed up at me, so trusting, and I felt like an absolute speck of dirt for having betrayed her.
"You make me the happiest I have ever been in my entire life," she said suddenly.
I studied her face and leaned forward to kiss her. "You say the sweetest things sometimes," I said.
It had been one hell of a day, and now I wanted it to end. I reached across my wife and snapped off the bedside lamp.
Alice came down from Manchester with her stuff the next afternoon. Mole had asked me to help her move in, so I went to meet her at Euston station. Watching Alice walk along the platform, I compared the two women. Snow White and Rose Red: they could not have been more different. Alice was dressed in a rugby shirt and shapeless tracksuit bottoms; I compared her to Mole in one of her prim-yet-sexy outfits that showed off her delightful figure. Alice raised her hand when she saw me.
I took over pushing her luggage trolley towards the taxi rank. One of the wheels was wonky and kept veering sideways. "How was your journey down?"
"It were fine. Dead easy."
"Emily's made up the bed in the spare room for you. Until you find your feet."
"I've got an interview with an estate agent this week."
"About a job or somewhere to live?"
"They're advertising for a junior lettings agent. I emailed my CV."
By now we had wheeled her trolley across the station concourse. I decided not to tiptoe around the subject any longer. Rip the plaster off, expose the wound and just be done with it. "So listen, once you've found somewhere to live, I want you to move out. I don't care what Emily says about you staying for three months. We both know the reason why," I said, trying to be as gentle as I could.
"I've already said I'm sorry. It was bloody 'er idea, not mine."
Well, that told me. "No, you're right. It's just that this whole thing feels like a pressure cooker. What we did– was wrong. Despite everything, I want us to be friends, yes?"
Alice nodded and got into the back of the waiting taxi. I wrestled her suitcases onto the floor, pointedly taking the fold-down seat opposite. I wanted to be absolutely clear: from now on, we were going to keep our distance from one another.
Mole was cooking risotto when we got back, a dish Alice had never eaten before. She watched Mole closely as she poured a glass of vermouth over the sizzling rice and breathed in the heavenly-sharp evaporation as it boiled away. "That smells bloody lovely," said Alice, who later compared it to "cheesy rice" after we’d sat down to eat.
Despite our conversation in the taxi, Alice did not move out.
Instead, we settled into a domestic routine, with Alice slopping around the flat in her dressing gown and absurd
Three or four months?
"I was thinking of a couple of weeks at most. To be honest, I'm a bit beyond flat-sharing. She can move close by so you can be near her, but I don't want her in the flat all the time. You know what they say, two's company."
"Okay, but let's get past September. Not really anything can go wrong after that."
Three months. Ninety days. More than seven hundred hours. Surely Alice and I could behave as if we hadn’t transgressed for that long. What I’d done, imperilling my marriage like this, had been absolutely insane. But I figured that adultery was like stopping smoking: it was the first cigarette you lit up after quitting that was the decider – every cigarette after that becomes easier and easier. Perhaps it was the same with cheating on your wife. I had already crossed the line, so next time wouldn't be so difficult. God forbid there would be a next time, though. Really staying faithful in a relationship was the hard part: everywhere you looked there was pressure to have what we wanted, right now. Monogamy was the last holdout. Oh stop trying to justify yourself, I thought. You did what you did. Mole gazed up at me, so trusting, and I felt like an absolute speck of dirt for having betrayed her.
"You make me the happiest I have ever been in my entire life," she said suddenly.
I studied her face and leaned forward to kiss her. "You say the sweetest things sometimes," I said.
It had been one hell of a day, and now I wanted it to end. I reached across my wife and snapped off the bedside lamp.
Alice came down from Manchester with her stuff the next afternoon. Mole had asked me to help her move in, so I went to meet her at Euston station. Watching Alice walk along the platform, I compared the two women. Snow White and Rose Red: they could not have been more different. Alice was dressed in a rugby shirt and shapeless tracksuit bottoms; I compared her to Mole in one of her prim-yet-sexy outfits that showed off her delightful figure. Alice raised her hand when she saw me.
I took over pushing her luggage trolley towards the taxi rank. One of the wheels was wonky and kept veering sideways. "How was your journey down?"
"It were fine. Dead easy."
"Emily's made up the bed in the spare room for you. Until you find your feet."
"I've got an interview with an estate agent this week."
"About a job or somewhere to live?"
"They're advertising for a junior lettings agent. I emailed my CV."
By now we had wheeled her trolley across the station concourse. I decided not to tiptoe around the subject any longer. Rip the plaster off, expose the wound and just be done with it. "So listen, once you've found somewhere to live, I want you to move out. I don't care what Emily says about you staying for three months. We both know the reason why," I said, trying to be as gentle as I could.
"I've already said I'm sorry. It was bloody 'er idea, not mine."
Well, that told me. "No, you're right. It's just that this whole thing feels like a pressure cooker. What we did– was wrong. Despite everything, I want us to be friends, yes?"
Alice nodded and got into the back of the waiting taxi. I wrestled her suitcases onto the floor, pointedly taking the fold-down seat opposite. I wanted to be absolutely clear: from now on, we were going to keep our distance from one another.
Mole was cooking risotto when we got back, a dish Alice had never eaten before. She watched Mole closely as she poured a glass of vermouth over the sizzling rice and breathed in the heavenly-sharp evaporation as it boiled away. "That smells bloody lovely," said Alice, who later compared it to "cheesy rice" after we’d sat down to eat.
Despite our conversation in the taxi, Alice did not move out.
Instead, we settled into a domestic routine, with Alice slopping around the flat in her dressing gown and absurd
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