The Philanderer

Going to go ahead and do the all too obvious response to this challenge.

The waiter places your escargots down in front of you. You say nothing, but keep your head bent, as if demure. We're surrounded by chatter. You chose the first thing you laid your eyes on, flung the menu down impatiently. The table cloth is nice, linen, but not nice enough for you to be staring at it this hard. Between us, there’s a candle nearing the end of its life.

“Excuse me, more of the premier cru, please,” I say.

“Certainly, sir.”

The waiter fills my glass with wine. We chose ig because it was at the top of the list. Because we’re supposed to be celebrating. It tastes like nothing when I'm the only one drinking.

Your gaze leaves the table cloth, focuses on your untouched glass. You look so vacant I could scream. Instead, I smile. I clear my throat.

“A toast. To you, darling. To seventeen years of happiness.”

You raise your glass. Still quiet, impassive. Happiness, my arse. I swivel the wine round in my mouth. I’m going to need every drop tonight.

My entrée arrives, steak with bits of cucumber. Garnish.

Neither of us are particularly pleased with our choices. You raise your knife and fork and start eating. In silence.

My eyes stray toward the couples, the families, the friends. They are tables of chatter and amusement, of comfortable silences and feet touchers. Loud laughter and low voiced conversations. Wonder what anniversary they’re all on. I’ll have to warn them not to go past fifteen.

You slap your knife and fork down. What’s the matter now for goodness’ sake.

Perhaps we knew, even when we first married, that we’d chosen wrong from the menu. We justified it. Wealth, glamour, beauty. Good breeding, as they say, covers a multitude of sins. We could show each other off and expected from life similar things: nothing but the best, if a little reliant on prescribed drugs and alcohol.

I can see you're irritated with me. Which I find surprising. Over the past month, I have been an irreproachable husband. Attentive to your every wish. I booked your therapists and your trip to Barcelona, encouraged you to go to the spa. You, on the other hand. Ungrateful and lazy. We’ve eaten takeaways and ready-meals for not weeks but months. I’ve not complained once. And we haven’t had proper sex since Louis was about twelve, and he’s just got his provisional driving license. Not that I particularly want to, but you could have at least offered me a hand job. Even so, I’ve never held any of it against you.

“I was looking through some paperwork today,” you say.

“Oh yes?” I’m relieved. Conversation. Wonderful to know you’re still capable.

“Hmm. Who did you pay ten thousand pounds to in January?”

“You went through my office?”

“Also. Funny. A lot of trips to jewellers. Didn’t know you bought your mother so many diamonds.”

I can see a maze rising up around me. Every turning’s a wrong one. I clear my throat. I have imagined a scene like this. I’d be calm. Confess everything. I’d be honest. I’ve always wanted to tell you. Oh, darling.

I prefer you silent. We stare at each other. Any fool can see there is no love left. So many evenings, so many days and nights wasted. Avoiding each other, I'd stare at my screen while you hid outside and smoked. There are questions and waves of anger and fears in your face. Perhaps restaurants are too dangerous. We’re left with the miles in between us, the space left by the love that used to be there. I’ve spent so long opposite you.

Do we have anything left in common?

“Why do you always try to humiliate me in public?” I ask. “Why can’t a man keep his affairs private?”

“Can’t a wife know what her husband’s affairs are?” you quip.

My mind begins to spin a lie about some surprise, problems at work, a weight loss retreat I was ashamed of. Anything. The words would come so easily, the charm would pour right through my nostrils. Would you know the difference? Would you notice?

I almost wish you would.

You see, darling, in my heart I’m a hopeless romantic. I want to love you. If I could find a manual or take a pill which made us both head over heels for each other, I would. I don’t like all this messy divorce talk. Lucy this, Alfred that. Seems very common to me. People should stand by their partners no matter what. Stick to a decision, damn it.

Fifty, twenty years ago, everyone would have expected this of me, expected you to stay. It wouldn’t have been a question of pride, of forgiving me. I’m not a dishonest man. I’m just a man, a very ordinary one, who wishes to love and be loved by many women at once. And who happens to know many women who are agreeable to this same opinion. Most men have done what I do and far worse, for centuries.

If I could just be sure you’d be reasonable about this, I wouldn’t be so hesitant to tell you. I always intended the truth to come out. Trouble is, can you say all of this to your wife, in this day and age? What did you think was happening when I went on all those business trips?

“What would you say if I told you that my friend Leo Szymmons has a start-up company which sells diamonds made from fossil fuel waste? That his company lost all of its money, and so I was contacted in order to help him get back on his feet? I’ve been buying and offering the diamonds out at meetings to showcase his ideas.”

“Oh,” you say.

You look as if you’ve bought it.

I’m mildly disappointed, but triumphant.

“So next time you jump to conclusions, remember that I am your husband and that you owe me the benefit of the doubt.”

We eat the rest of our meal in silence.