Into the Unknown

INTO THE UNKNOWN

I stormed out of the room and out of the house. Yet another futile discussion about our sex life, following yet another dry month. I could hold my own in court, but at home I was outmanoeuvred every time. Somehow, whenever I wanted to discuss the situation, she managed to make it appear that I was making unreasonable demands.

What was I to do? At first all I could do was walk, fast, aimlessly, using up my nervous energy. Then a short tube ride to Picadilly Circus, so that I could dive into Soho. I roamed up and down the narrow winding streets, tantalized by what was on offer: the prostitutes brushing against me and whispering their invitations, the peep shows and the garish neon titillation.

This time I was so angry I decided to act. Before I could change my mind, I turned into a hostess bar.

A young woman got up from her perch on a bar stool on the pavement and followed me, shedding her jacket as we went down the stairs. She guided me into a curtained-off booth with a semi-circular couch.

"What will you have to drink?" she asked. She was a fetching, beautifully proportioned black woman, dressed simply in a dark blue one-piece and tights. "We have very good cocktails."

"Whatever you're having." This was a first time for me. I was prepared to be ripped off and to put it down to experience.

Cocktails were brought. She soon asked for a second. Meanwhile, she got cosy and asked me the usual questions about myself. When I asked questions in return, she was evasive. Still, I liked her. Soon my hands were on her breasts. She tugged her straps down so that I could have my unhindered way with them. I admired the large brown aureoles and the gutsy nipples, and she encouraged my hard-on through my pants.

"I'm sorry there are no rooms available right now," she said, "but if you come back later tonight you can have anything you want."

So that was it. I took pleasure in groping her for a bit longer and then got up to pay the bill. The cocktails were over a hundred pounds each. I threw a fifty pound note on the counter and walked out, steadily and firmly, without making a run for it. Despite the protests, I reckoned they wouldn't try to follow me into the street.

Half an hour with those juicy breasts was better than nothing, and a lot more than I'd had at home for a long time. I glanced into the telephone booths decorated with prostitutes' cards but I couldn't face having to compare a real sex worker with a picture on a card. I also didn't have the stomach to queue for a strip show or a sexy revue.

Instead, I treated myself to a comforting dinner in an Italian restaurant I knew in Southampton Row.

"Ah, Signor Jones," the padrone welcomed me, and motioned to a cosy table inside. I couldn't help comparing it to the booth I had just left. One was risky and enticing, the other familiar and comfortable. With a carafe of red wine and an appetizing meal, I regained my equilibrium.

But I wasn't going to abandon my quest. I'd never picked up a woman before and had little idea how to go about it. Still, emboldened by the wine, I glanced at a neighbouring table. There she sat, mid-thirties, I guessed, and definitely my type: self-possessed, good-looking, grown up.

Being on her own, she was whiling away the time between courses with a book. I was surprised to see that it was a hard-cover, and not new. She must be a serious reader, I thought. If so, she must have an imagination.

The padrone may have divined my interest. In any case, when he brought over the decanter of limoncello at the end of the meal, he offered it to my neighbour as well.

"And for you, signora?"

"You're too kind, signore."

She had an American accent. That made it easier.

I raised my glass; so did she. "What's your book?" I enquired.

"The End of the Affair," she replied, tilting it up so I could read the cover.

"Ah, Graham Greene. A favourite author of yours?"

"Yes. You know it?"

"I've read it. Well, no, I've seen the movie," I acknowledged. The end of the affair? The beginning of an affair?

"Good movie. I thought I would read the book again."

"So the fact that you know what happens in the end doesn't spoil it for you?"

"No." After a pause, she said, pointedly, "A bit like an affair itself."

"Explain?"

"You know it will end badly, but that doesn't have to spoil it."

She was looking straight at me. I didn't want to break the spell, so I spoke slowly and hesitantly, "As I recall, the story isn't about an affair ending badly."

"You're right. It's more to do with the Gospel according to Graham Greene."

"I'm intrigued. Could you tell me more?" I got up and walked across to her table. "May I? By the way, my name is Ivan."

"I'm Lucy." We shook hands and I sat down. "Where are you from, Ivan?"

I thought I should be asking her. After all, she was the visitor. "I'm a Londoner. This is my favourite restaurant."

"I see: that explains why you're here on your own." She had noticed my wedding ring. "I like to do that, too: take myself out to a restaurant of my choice."

"Also married? Visiting England?"

"No and yes. Was married; got tired of him. I'm here to do some research in the British Library."

So she was an academic and I was a barrister. At least I read books.

On an impulse, I ventured: "Like to go for a drink?"

It was as easy as that. I reminded myself that Americans were like this, happy to befriend you for an evening, nothing more. We took a cab across to St Pancras station to drink Manhattans in the high-ceilinged pub next to the Eurostar. On the way, our shoulders touched. It was strange, exciting, new, but somehow it was also familiar, friendly, comfortable. I had no idea how the evening would end, or what I would say to my wife when I got home, but I put those thoughts out of my mind.

The place was quite full but we found space at a counter and continued our conversation.

"The Gospel according to Graham Greene," I prompted her.

"Of course. You must know he was an atheist who converted to Catholicism to get married?" I felt I would convert to any religion, just to spend the night with her. "So his books are full of whisky priests and lapsed Catholics and doubters, and he always prefers the sinners to the saints."

"You'd rather be a sinner, then?"

"It's not as simple as that. There's this idea that to become a saint you need to find out what it's like to sin."

Sin boldly. I was ready to start that journey to sainthood. I leant closer. Her lips briefly on mine made me forget even the breasts I'd fondled in Soho.

We strolled along the pavement in the direction of her hotel. When we got there, she reached up and kissed me goodbye. She wasn't the type who brought someone in off the streets for the night. "You must go home, now," she said. "But let's meet again tomorrow. I'll text you."

When I got home, the intensity of the matrimonial fight had subsided. Belinda had won her battle, and she could see I was calm again.

"Good meal at Paolo's?" She knew me well, how I usually dealt with discomfort.

I took The End of the Affair to bed. Belinda was mildly interested that I had finally got round to reading our copy. She was on her iPad, scrolling through emails and social media. Eventually she switched off her bedside lamp and composed herself to sleep, leaving me alone with my thoughts. I read on for a while, put the book down and lay awake in the darkness, looking up at the ceiling. If the woman sleeping next to me would respond to my advances and give herself to me as in the long forgotten days, perhaps I would not be entertaining such delicious thoughts about Lucy. But you could be sure Belinda would not oblige; there was no point even in trying.

Perversely, I was glad. The memory of Lucy's kiss, the impression of her embrace, erased all other considerations. I continued to lie there, motionless. Tomorrow would come, and with it my first taste of her body. Half asleep, I felt pleasantly aroused, but felt no need to anticipate the coming pleasure. I simply rested a comforting hand on my crotch, breathed contentedly, and lost consciousness.

Lucy's text was waiting for me in the morning. "Foyer of the British Library, six o'clock. Kisses." Fortunately I only had a brief court appearance in the morning, to fix a date for a preliminary hearing, and had the rest of the day to examine my briefs. As I flipped through some law reports and studied one case in more depth, I thought of Lucy, similarly occupied in the manuscripts reading room in the British Library. She seemed to be the kind of person who could handle her work without fuss, close her laptop at the end of the day, put away her moleskine notebook and sally forth with cheerful heart into the evening. I adjusted my tie and donned my overcoat.

My fellow-passengers in the tube to King's Cross had no idea. I was alone with my secret knowledge. The doors opened and we streamed out onto the platform and up the stairs. I was hurried along in the press of people making their way towards the taxi rank and the busy crossing on the Marylebone Road that led to the British Library. Buses and taxis everywhere. There was a light drizzle. I pushed my way into the great, slippery quadrangle, and presented my brief case to be searched at the entrance to the foyer. I looked up towards the central glass tower of rare books.

She was coming down the main escalator, her dark hair glistening. Under her fawn trench coat she was dressed in a red cashmere sweater and grey slacks. A typical American academic, eastern division -- the woman I was falling in love with. She smiled broadly when she saw me.

"Let me collect my satchel from the locker and I'll be with you in just a minute."

To wait even another minute or two was agony. I browsed the books on display at the gift shop. Then I felt her hand on my shoulder.

We dashed through the rain and hailed a cab. Lucy instructed the driver, "Mount Street, Mayfair."

In the days before the internet, Mayfair was a favourite girlie magazine, the kind of thing the teachers confiscated at my school. The streets of the real Mayfair were crowded with Bentleys and Rolls Royces. I had a sensation of being elevated out of sleaze into opulence when we alighted at the Connaught Hotel. The commissionaire ushered us in to the lounge, Lucy summoned a waiter and almost before I knew it we were raising our glasses to --

"Us," she said, decidedly.

I readily joined in the toast. But what exactly was "us"? Two lonely people, approaching middle age, from opposite sides of the Atlantic, having a brief fling before she had to return to her college in North Carolina? Or something more?

In those first hours of our love, these questions didn't arise. She was a Byzantine historian with two scholarly books to her credit. I was a barrister aspiring to silk. We were hungry to know more, to hear each other's stories. I wanted to probe into her past quite as much as I wanted to explore her body. The light in her eyes as she listened to everything I told her was entrancing.

One thing I knew I had to steer clear of. This was not the time for "My wife doesn't understand me." That would cheapen what was happening between us. It would make tawdry what was crisp and gleaming new.

And so, by some unspoken agreement, we did not rush the moment when we would go upstairs. It came when we had temporarily talked ourselves out. There was a brief silence. We had reached a point of rest and reflection. She looked at me and nodded.

"Room 403."

I gave her a few minutes while I downed the last of my cognac, then laid my napkin down on the table and headed for the men's room.

Only, I heard a familiar voice behind me.

"Hello, Ivan."

I had no choice but to turn around. "Hello, Belinda. What brings you here, darling?"

"Oh, you know. Stuff. Just had a drink with a client. Nice place."

Was she cheating on me? Or checking up on me?

"Heading home, now?" I asked, stalling for time.

"Yes, I thought so. Coming?" She hadn't yet asked what I was doing at the Connaught. I had to think fast.

I lied. "I've got a taxi picking me up in half an hour." Please, God, let her be in too much of a hurry to wait. Please.

"That's OK, Ivan; finish your business. See you at home." She gave me a peck on the cheek and went out to hail a cab.

That gave me a few minutes, not nearly enough. I took the stairs three at a time.

Lucy was already in her nightgown, shimmering ivory with a leafy pattern. The thought of having to wait to touch her, not to be able to savour her body, was unbearable. It didn't help that she looked so good and held me so close.

"Lucy," I said. "I bumped into Belinda downstairs, I don't know how. I must go. I'm so sorry."

She continued to hold me. "Don't be. This thing between us is more important than just one night together at the Connaught," she said. "I'll be waiting for you."

Once again, just a goodbye kiss. Her body was warm and inviting -- and unavailable.

"You must go," she said. She pressed herself against me. "Don't worry. We'll make this happen."

It meant that I got home only minutes after Belinda. She was pottering around in her study, idly turning over some papers, when I hung up my coat and deposited my briefcase in the hallway.

"You know, Ivan, I think I may have been a bit harsh when we argued yesterday." This was nothing new; she was usually sorry about the argument, without ever going back on her unwillingness to consider having sex. "We just have different needs, that's all."

"That's true. It's a pity, though."

"Yes, it is, in a way. When I saw you at the hotel, so smart in your suit and tie and coat, I couldn't help thinking: there must be plenty of women who would fall for you. Just then I saw the sexiest woman passing me on her way to the lifts. Nice tits poking through a red cashmere sweater." She tweaked my chin playfully. "I bet you would have liked to get into her pants!" Was she setting a trap?

"And you know," she continued. "I fell for you once. I still like you. It's just that other thing I can't raise much enthusiasm for."

"That's all right, my love. I understand. We're good."

It was a close-run thing. For the second night in a row, my hopes could have been cut short, if Belinda had only reverted to the way we were during our courtship and the early days of our marriage. But though she could express regret, she spoke of love-making as a thing to be put aside, over and done with.

In any case, it was not just sex I wanted. For that, I had only to return to Soho. Even my resentment over Belinda's reticence was mainly indignation and wounded ego. With Lucy, it would be the real thing. She was within my reach but temporarily beyond my grasp.

I turned to my phone. Sure enough, there was a message from Lucy.

"I'm so sorry! I was all ready for you. After you left I took off my nightgown, snuggled down into the bed, nothing between my body and those smooth ironed sheets. I imagined touching you, really touching you, for the first time. How much I want you, Ivan, how much I want to open my legs for you. Please come and do things to me -- I want to be all yours."

I texted back: "I'll be at Mount Street Gardens, 5.30."

That was only a stone's throw from the Connaught. It would not be a good idea to go the hotel again, especially if Belinda was really on my trail, but I wanted to reconnect with Lucy close to where I had last seen her.

I also liked the idea of her coming to meet me, this time.

I was there well before half-past five. Mount Street Gardens is a small park, not much more than a short cut from Mount Street to Audley Street South, past the Farm Street Catholic church. The trees were in autumn splendour. A few foot-passengers strolled through, lulled by the tranquil setting into slowing their pace. After all, the journey is more important, sometimes, than the destination.

Lucy kept me waiting for about five minutes, and I saw her first. That gave me a moment to watch her unobserved. She walked with a light, confident step, satchel slung over her shoulder, skirt swirling, hair ruffled in the breeze.

Then she caught sight of me and turned in my direction. I hoped the heightened glow on her cheek was not my imagination.

"What a clever idea for a place to meet!" she said. "That is the exact same church where Graham Greene was received into the Catholic faith. Let's sit here for a while."

We spent a companionable fifteen minutes on a park bench, talking about the books and places we loved.

"What will be the next chapter of our story?" she asked, after we had been quiet for a minute or two. Despite the disappointment of the night before and her lustful text message, neither of us wanted a hotel room to be the place where we consummated our love.

"There's nothing like sex to fuck up a good friendship," she laughed.

"So they say. And there's nothing like celibacy to ruin a promising affair."

"Agreed. None of that Platonic stuff for me. But for now, let's go see a play."

Shaftesbury Avenue is only a block away from Soho. I hoped no-one from the hostess bar would hail me as we mingled with the theatre crowds walking up from Picadilly.

"What takes your fancy?" I asked. So many to choose from.

"Hey, here's The Mirror and the Light."

"More Hilary Mantel? Okay."

We walked into the lobby, bought tickets for the first circle and stopped in the bar for a drink. We stood close together, like a couple in love, even though there was always the chance that someone I knew would see us.

Sure enough, one of my former clients made his way over.

"Hello, Fred," I said, pre-empting him. "May I introduce my friend Professor Lucy Robson, from North Carolina?"

"Pleased to meet you, professor," he replied. Was there a hint of irony? "How do you like our country? Staying long?"

She was up for this. "I love London; I'm here every summer into autumn."

"And you even speak our language! How did you meet Ivan? You're not in trouble with the law, I hope."

"O no; I'm squeaky clean," protested the potential sinner. "We happened both to be dining at Paolo's the other night; you know, in Southampton Row -- and we got talking."

"Of course. I've met him there once or twice, too. But I don't eat veal."

"One shouldn't. Anyway, it turns out he's an avid reader of the Wolf Hall novels so here we are."

"Good choice. Don't lose your heads, now. Toodle-oo, Ivan. Cheerio, Lucy, how good to meet you. Enjoy the show." He winked at me. "Belinda couldn't come?"

His question required no answer. He knew what was what, but he would keep it to himself.

"We'll have to get used to this kind of thing, both here and back at home," she said, "unless we're going to hide away."

"This is not just a fling, then?"

"No. I have a feeling it's my grand passion."

"And it only happens once in a lifetime."

It was reassuring to say these things before we ever got into bed together. Seducers make promises. Lovers make plans.

I remember little of the production. The darkened theatre enhanced our intimacy, silently sharing the pleasure of watching flawless acting. My hand rested in her lap.

At interval, she said. "It's terrific, but I've had enough now. Being so close to you is like drinking strong wine. I feel light-headed."

"Where shall we go, then?"

"A walk will clear my head. Come, let's walk to the top of Shaftesbury Avenue and down Charing Cross Road. We can look at the second-hand bookshops."

"Maybe we'll see something you like, and I'll come down and buy it for you in the morning."

"I'd like that. Isn't this grand?" She took my hand and we went out into the street. There were fewer pedestrians now that the shows had all started. I felt very close to her. There was no urgency, no desperation. I wondered, should the start of an affair feel so comfortable, so right?