Caroline Alone Ch. 01

***

"Are the children ready for school sweetie?"

Caroline breezes through the kitchen in between getting various things ready for the day – starts the washing machine and stuffs Ben's gym kit into his bag, brushes Amy's hair as she eats cereal and quizzes her about her new teacher. Jack finishes his coffee, clears the table and loads the dishwasher, calls his children to order, says goodbye to his wife and is out of the house. It's going to be another long day. He works hard with manic intensity, doesn't stop for lunch and continues until seven. Then he gets into his car and drives home.

There's some dinner waiting for him but he goes to the bathroom and sprays his face with water before finding his children.

Betrayal has come as a bolt from the blue and Jack takes solace in running and in the company of Ben and Amy. What better antidote to the cynical manipulations and betrayals of adults than children absorbed in play? He plays a computer game with Ben and reads a story to Amy. He puts every nerve into these efforts, not least to escape thinking about where Caroline is. When Amy asks if she can stay up until her mother gets home, he says, "Not tonight darling. She may be a little late and you can say hello tomorrow morning. I'll read you one more story."

She's a little teary but soon settles down once the story gets going and before long she's asleep. Now there's nothing for Jack to think about but Caroline and what he must do the next day. He sits in front of the television and still finds it difficult to imagine how she's pulled it off. Where did she find the energy – or for that matter the time – to conduct an affair while working full time and bringing up a family? Tomorrow Jack is going to sort it out one way or the other. He's not clear what difference it will make but he has to know more. He suffers the fear of loss and of loneliness but anger deep down protects him from despair. He won't be destroyed by the folly of others. Nor will he act in anger. He'll carry on as if nothing's happened until he's ready. Only then will he act.

It's about ten o'clock, the news is on the television, and he hears the front door click.

"Hello sweetie? Are the kids in bed?"

That's Caroline, bright and perky even after a long day's work and a lover to propitiate. How does she do it and has she realised she's begun calling him sweetie? He gets to his feet and stands still as she approaches, broad smile in place, and flings an arm round his neck for his kiss. He holds his breath, disturbed by her familiar smell.

"How good to see you Jack. Hope you had a good day. I'm exhausted. Hot chocolate and bed for me. What a day! You ready to join me?"

"You look dreadful sweetie," he says pointedly, stepping back. "As if you've been trampled by a herd of buffalo. Been in combat once more for the Team?"

She gives him an odd look. "I never understand a word you say Jack. Our customers are mostly very civilised and I never get into a fight."

Jack smiles inwardly, amused by Caroline's inability to see beyond the literal sense of his remark. When he first discovered her lie, he decided to act as if nothing had changed. But he soon modified the rule and now has a taste for ambiguous remarks intended to unsettle her without letting on that he knows her secret. It works every time, leaving her to retreat in confusion.

Knowledge had come in a tawdry set of details after a period of growing doubt. In fact, it began with her calling him sweetie. It was her name for her boyfriend when Jack first knew her at University, a boorish lout who hung around her without any conversation or manners. She lost him after a term and about a year later she became Jack's girlfriend. "Sweetie" never passed her lips. First of all, jokingly, she called him "my chum", then "my lover", then "dear" and "dearest". Now she had apparently forgotten that "sweetie" had negative associations, or even that it wasn't what she called him.

That was before the encounter with Amazon. A few weeks before Ben's birthday they had discussed what to buy him as a present. She'd found the computer game they thought he wanted and asked Jack to check it was the right one. He took her place at her computer where she had the Amazon page open and he read through the technical details. He called out that it seemed right to him, but Caroline had wandered off somewhere. It was close to the hour which guaranteed delivery next day so he clicked to put the game in her basket and check it out. That's when he was surprised. The screen prompted him to select between two delivery addresses – their own and one for Damien Curde, a stranger. He looked for a while at the screen, wrote down the address, backed out of the purchase and clicked on her previous orders. There, a month ago, was an order sent to Damien Curde at the strange address, a boxed set of choral music on CD. Then he returned to the game page, rose and found Caroline in the kitchen.

"It's the right game. I left it on screen for you to buy," he said curtly and went to his study. A quick web search on his own computer brought up an entry for Damien Curde, a partner in a regional management consultancy, an economist whose speciality was marketing strategies. Could Caroline have bought the CDs as a gift for a wholly plausible work reason? Of course she could and if he'd had no other suspicions he might have left it at that.

When Caroline was upstairs he took her phone from her bag and checked the address book and there was no listing for Damien Curde. The list of recent calls revealed little because he didn't know Damien's number; but there was no frequent unknown caller. If Damien was a work contact it was quite plausible they would communicate only by work telephone.

When he had a chance, he checked her car. At once he found the glove compartment locked and of course the door key opened it. The phone was inside a little toilet bag stuffed with sanitary wear and showed an unanswered text. It was from "Dam" and said. "Usual plan. Can't wait. Love millions."

It had taken less that an hour to discover all he needed to destroy his family. Or so he thought until he spent an hour alone in his room digesting his panic. First, he realised he needed to know a lot more about this love affair. Second, he wasn't going to let Caroline dictate what happened and he didn't want to lose his children or traumatise their young lives by pulling the family apart. It might take a while, but he would work out what he wanted, and then he would make it happen. For Damien he felt nothing other than hatred – for a corrupt and evil presence that had somehow tunnelled its way into the heart of his family. Then he went for a run.

He has Damien's name and address and what he knows from hours – whole nights – of thinking is that he must find out more about his enemy.

He takes a day's leave from work and drives to Damien's house. It's six miles and ten minutes from his front door. He parks a little along the deserted road, goes to the front door and rings the bell. There's no answer. He goes to the gate at the side of the house. It's unlocked and he lets himself into the garden. A row of houses beyond the wall at the end overlooks the rear of the building, but he's ready to take reasonable risks. The back door's locked and the windows are closed, except for the bathroom window on the first floor. There's a rotary washing line in the middle of the garden. He puts on his surgical gloves, collapses the washing line, pulls it from its mounting hole and leans it at an angle against the back of the house. He shins up the steel frame and balances precariously on the top, one hand steadying himself against the drain pipe. From there he gets a foot onto the grill covering an extractor fan and from there onto the bathroom window ledge. He pulls the window wide open, leans through and unlatches the large dormer window, swinging it open and climbing inside. It's taken no more than five minutes. He closes the dormer window and wipes the footmark from the tiled window sill and the toilet seat where he climbs down.

At first he's not sure what to do. He goes downstairs, unlocks the back door so he has an escape route and replaces the rotary washing line. Then he looks into every room in a perfunctory search for evidence of Caroline's presence. It would be too much to expect a photograph or a letter, but he looks through the opened letters on the mantelpiece and the photographs stuck to a pin board in the kitchen. In the centre of the wall is a large framed photograph of a young man in ribbed football gear, a rugby football under one arm and a silver cub in the other. Jack stares at his nemesis, taking in the look of triumph, the youthful vigour and the shine of a man who has everything he wants.

It's creepy, this prying into the life of his wife's lover and he feels disgust. He moves into the kitchen and finds a bunch of keys in a drawer. A quick test shows one to be a spare front door key. He has a sudden inspiration and lets himself out of the house, drives to the centre of town and has a duplicate cut. He's back in the house within half an hour, his enemy's defences permanently breached.

Waiting for the key to be cut, he realised what he must do. The centrepiece of Damien's study is a high end computer with a large screen. He turns it on and Windows boots. There's no password protection – Damien lives alone. He opens the browser and finds a web email in the list of bookmarks. He clicks and it opens – username and password cached on the machine.

Jack has to sit down. He checks the time, looks out of the window and turns back to the screen. The first thing that catches his eye is his wife's email address in the "From" column of Damien's In Box. There are many emails from Caroline. He clicks on the most recent.

"Morning lover. One day until the high point of my week. I'm sexy just thinking of you. I'll bring the Pavarotti recording of Turandot on my iPad and with any luck it will bowl you over like it did me. I'm a slut for your loving – game for anything that will drive you wild for me."

He closes his eyes, unwilling to read, but there's more. "Listen lover, I've an idea to give us even more happiness. Jack has to go with the children to my parents on Friday evening. I could have another late meeting and we could be together. He's got a two hundred mile round trip so we could have the evening together. What do you think?"

Damien's not yet replied and Jacks feels like replying for him. But he knows he must give Damien no reason to suspect he's been burgled. In any case, he has a better answer: he too will have a late meeting on Friday. The children's visit to his parents in law will be postponed.

Jack feels sudden disgust with his meddling and then an urgent need to get out of the house, far from Damien Curde. He turns off the computer, does a quick inspection of all rooms to make sure there's no sign of his visit, and leaves by the front door.

Home on his own he has more thinking to do. He texts his wife: "Out early. I'll get the kids from school. Problem Friday. Late shift. Take kids to parents Sat morning. OK?"

In among the desolation, it gives him a childish satisfaction.

If he needs any more proof of Caroline's wickedness, it comes with her reaction. She can't hide her disappointment and wants to punish Jack. Of course she can't explain the reason for her bad temper and instead finds fault with everything he does. She pushes away the meal he's prepared and says it's uneatable. Then she tells him off for giving the children sticky treacle pudding. The children shout at her in fury and she smacks Ben.

"What's the matter sweetie?" Jack says. "Someone thwarted your indomitable will?"

"Don't call me sweetie," she snaps. "You know I don't like it."

Later, when she's waiting for him to read her story, Amy says, "Why's mummy cross with you? You're the best daddy in the world and I wish she wouldn't."

"She's having a hard time," replies Jack. "She doesn't know she's doing it and doesn't mean to upset you. Now choose your story."

Soon they're lost in a story about heroic and magical cats who join forces with the mice to save the world from disaster.

***

Jack's wakes on the day Caroline meets her lover and hangs around the bedroom, curious to see how his wife prepares. As far as he can tell she does nothing special, apart from watching his unfamiliar delay with a frown. Eventually, when she's dressed and ready to leave, she says, "I'm sorry I was ratty last night. I had a tough day at work. But today I feel fine. Let me cook tonight and I'll do something we all like."

"You do that," he says, looking directly into her eyes, surprised by his calm. "And don't wear yourself out or I'll trade you in for a fancy new model."

"You wouldn't do that," she says hastily, eyes down. "That's not in the least funny."

"It's not. Right."

She waits for him to say more, but he smiles and walks away, not at all confident of his self control.

Driving to work he's gripped by a compulsion to go back to Damien's house. It's irrational because he doesn't need or want more proof of his wife's infidelity and he knows his wife will be there at lunchtime. Jack's no voyeur; he can imagine no worse nightmare than walking in on Caroline with her lover. But he gives in to his compulsion, turns off his usual route and feels he's the one in the wrong as he takes the road out of town against the traffic. When he's parked by the market cross he calls work to say he's unwell and tells his secretary to cancel his meetings.

He's gripped by fatalism, doesn't wear his gloves or ring the bell to check the house is empty. Instead he unlocks Damien's front door and walks straight in. He's taking risks because part of him wants a confrontation – an excuse for action. In the hall he pauses and listens. Somewhere a clock ticks, but otherwise the house is silent. Before long he had a creepy sense of knowing Damien Curde like a friend and, disconcertingly, admiring the effortless way he's annexed what he wants. Heart racing, he takes a quick look round, switches on the computer, overcome by the urgent need to discover from the email how the affair's progressing.

He reads a sequence of messages between the lovers, trying to decipher the awkward expressions of affection, challenge and love. And there's no doubt they love on another. Caroline's endearments are genuine. She's working hard to flatter and tease and not in the least shy of bribery with the promise of a meal or her body. Damien's a little formal or stiff in his replies, working hard to inject some feeling into his expressions of desire. But again there's no doubt he loves her. When he's denied a meeting he's pathetic in his disappointment. He reads Caroline's announcement that Friday's meeting is off.

"Jack's cocked it up. No go Friday. Am I disappointed? You bet. But I'll make it up to you tomorrow lover boy – you sixpack of sex, you consummate cocktail of charm. Don't overdo it at the gym or I'll tear you limb from limb."

Damien's reply is long, but the gist of it is that he can't deal with having his hopes raised and then dashed. Caroline must find a way to let them be together more.

"Don't play with my feelings," he tells her off, "Because I've never felt like this about someone before. And I already suffer tortures because I have to share you with your husband. I accept pain in order to be with you, but please, please don't make it any worse than it need be."

He intends to read the emails quickly and get to work, but lingers, curious to discover more about his nemesis. He looks through the books in the sitting room – lots of new literary fiction – and DVDs – classic film noire, new wave European films – and music – classical, opera, some jazz and Broadway musicals. It's a loser's action because it makes him feel inferior and he's cross with himself. He sits in the kitchen feeling creepy and foolish, uncertain what to do. On impulse he switches on the expensive stainless steel bean-to-cup coffee machine he sees on the counter, takes a mug from the cupboard and puts it under the spout. There's a slot for the milk container and he opens the fridge to see if it's there. Stacked on the shelf above the milk are cartons of bean salad, couscous, mozzarella, pepper and tomato salad. On another shelf there's smoked salmon and parma ham and goat's cheese: ready lunch for two lovers.

The milk container's in the door beside a bottle of Chablis. He takes it out, fits it onto the coffee machine and sits still while it grinds and hisses and gives him his cappuccino. It's delicious.

In a daze Jack sits at the kitchen table drinking the coffee. The situation is incomprehensible. How can she love this man and continue life at home as if nothing has happened? But he knows it's the wrong question. The only question that matters is what does this mean for their marriage. And there's no easy answer. It's not even about whether he loves Caroline; they've lived together for so long it's more like a brother's betrayal. He can even see how this stab in the back has come about. Caroline is bold and impetuous, eager not to miss out on any fun going. It's one of the characteristics that first attracted him to her. She's also absorbed in her own concerns and fearful of conflict. She'll do something like break his new hi fi and try to hide the consequences rather than admit what she's done and have to feel bad about it. Betrayal followed by denial must for her be the easy choice. It's rooted in her character and the pressures of family life have exposed her weakness.

Knowing this makes it no easier for Jack, but the situation is too serious to let him respond in anger. He'd like to confront her, make her own up to her criminal, abusive, destructive behaviour, but he must think of his children and take the weight of the disaster on his shoulders. That's what men do. Marriages fail all the time and the way out from under the rubble is not through blame. In any case, whatever he decides to do, Caroline will suffer – they all will. It's just that his suffering has already begun.

Jack hears Caroline's distinctive voice so clearly in her emails, making remarks she's said to him. He can't take any more and gets up, wandering through the house, imagining Caroline living there with "Dam" as wife and lover. She haunts the place and he can see her so clearly, curled up in the corner of the settee, checking her hair in the hall mirror, heating her hot chocolate drink in the microwave last thing at night, head on the pillow, eyes closed, turned onto her side towards her lover in the centre of the big bed. In the cupboard in the kitchen there are "beauty" and "beast" mugs as there are "his" and "her" mugs at home. And in the sitting room there's a loose disk from the latest DVD set of "House" just as there is at home. And in the bathroom is her toothbrush – the very same make and colour as the one at home. It's as if the house is a nasty, theatrical, mocking palimpsest overwriting the original. Their own home of warmth, love and humanity has been replaced with this false, kitsch, worthless copy.

He's had enough and feels a little mad. He goes back to the kitchen and on impulse takes the lovers' lunch from the fridge, bundling the packages into a bag and carrying it back to the car. He's no idea why he's done it, or what Damien will think when he finds his lunch gone and the coffee cup on the table. He stops in a lay-by on his way back into the city and tastes the food, which he sees has been bought from a famously expensive local delicatessen. He's not hungry and the food is disgusting. Suddenly angry with himself he bundles it all up, including the wine, and stuffs it into one of the waste bins among the overflowing fast food wrappers.