The Adulteress Read online

  ‘Well, I thought you could tell me that.’

  Oonagh frowns, and then shivers.

  ‘Do you think she’s in here, with us now?’ Geraldine whispers.

  ‘Don’t be daft, child.’

  ‘She said she had to tell me a story,’ Nicholas says.

  ‘What kind of story?’ Oonagh asks him.

  But Nicholas cannot bring himself to say the word ‘adulteress’. It is too strong a word to say over tea with two women he hardly knows. He shakes his head and looks away. ‘I don’t know. It’s probably all in my head.’

  He hears Oonagh Tuite sniff again and knows she thinks he is lying.

  ‘Where did June Fanning come from, Granny?’ Geraldine asks.

  ‘She was English,’ Oonagh says. ‘She was quite distraught because all of her family were in England, and her sister, whom she adored, was in London during the Blitz.’

  ‘Did you ever meet her family?’ Nicholas asks.

  ‘No. She never told me anything about her childhood. There was something sad about her, so I don’t think it was too happy a one. We may not have had much privilege, but I was always a happy-go-lucky girl, like my sister Teresa, God bless her soul.’

  The door gently blows open, and a light evening breeze fills the kitchen with the scent of outdoors, a mixture of honeysuckle and grass. Nicholas feels as if he is drifting back in time, as if the three of them are not flesh and blood, but shape-shifting shadows. Figures from the past emerge around them – June Fanning standing in her kitchen, churning butter and waiting for her husband to come home; and another woman, the other side of the woods, whose presence floods her with fear. The young Oonagh is there, running into the kitchen light of step, and waking June out of her reverie, making her laugh. Nicholas looks at Oonagh now and sees a tear sliding out of the corner of her eye, and he knows that she sees this memory, too.

  Geraldine stands up suddenly, her red hair like a flame down her back as she looks out the window.

  ‘I wonder what happened?’ she says.

  Nicholas looks at Oonagh and they are thinking the same thing. What has made June Fanning stay here all these years? Why is she still trapped in her husband’s house?

  JUNE

  I drift. By the window in the attic, lying on my back on the bare boards, and slipping through the cracks into the kitchen to bake again. If the door is open, the land calls me. When I first came to Cavan I did not belong to it, but now I do. The smell is in my skin, so that my scent is that of the red roses in the back garden, or the thick earthy mulch at the foot of the apple trees where some windfalls have rotted, or in the Sheriden woods the spicy tang of bark in my blood, so that I am a part of it. When I am very lonely I run through the Sheriden woods and stop to look at the Sheriden house, and wonder and regret. The orchard I avoid, but more often I take my spirit through my husband’s fields searching for him, and praying for time to repeat itself, so that I could return to those weeks before he went to war, so that I could prevent him from going.

  In the autumn of 1941 after my husband left and joined the RAF I felt abandoned. The landscape I had resented when I first arrived in Cavan became my companion, and I spent many hours walking the fields as far as the lake. Can you see me? Walking on and on, in dusk, in dawn, always, I tell you, alone.

  I follow the curve of the lake. The dark woods frame the shore, and in the afternoon the light is evanescent, hazy and uncertain. The sun is so low in the sky that at times I am forced to close my eyes, and when I open them again the air is glittering. Jewels, I think, glancing at my engagement ring. The lake is the colour of a sapphire. It makes the grass all the greener, such a ridiculously bright shade of the colour that I can understand why Robert refers to his home as the Emerald Isle. The woods to the side of the lake are mostly spruce, but some of the other trees have lost their leaves now, and in the distance they look like hairy down, as if they are soft enough for a giant to lie upon.

  I walk and I feel that I am going into a spiral. The leaves rustle in the undergrowth, alive with little birds and animals, but it is sinister to me, as if I am being watched. I pull Robert’s greatcoat about me. I have taken to wearing it, not only because it is so warm, but because it is something of his. There are little twigs in the pockets, and I wonder why. I finger them, imagining his touch before mine, and just this makes me want to cry.

  He has brought me here, to his country, and to his house where I am a stranger and where I know no one. The only person I can talk to is Oonagh Tobin. There is nothing to do: no theatre, no pictures and no concerts. I may as well be on a desert island. I feel a flash of rage, and a flare of rebellion. Maybe I should go home to England. Even in the middle of a war it would be better than this stifling existence.

  It is so very different here. The smell of the earth decaying, the leaves fecund and cloying, and the land rolling in waves around me. It is at times like this I wish so fervently that I had a car and gasoline to waste, so that I could drive to the sea. It would not be the same as Devon, but it would be something. I have heard the Atlantic Ocean can be quite spectacular. Sometimes I imagine I can smell the tang of the sea, and the wind whistling is like a siren’s call or the waves pounding the beach, early in the morning especially, but they are just tricks of my mind and memory.

  Water soothes me. I sit on a large stone at the edge of the lake and look at its iridescent calm. I think how different it is from the sea, which is open, playful, yet omnipotent, able to snatch your life in one instant. The lake can be dangerous too, but it will yield none of its secrets. From my stone I can see the mushy bed, pale in colour, almost the same shade as sand, but then it drops suddenly and the water is a darker shade of blue, and although tempted to wade out and feel the sandy mud tickle my bare soles, I know I could be stepping out into the abyss. The power of the lake is hidden, and not meant for humans to explore, while the sea invites us to sail on her.

  I listen to the moorhens coo, the rustle of the reeds behind me, and watch the two swans. They are fishing, their tails like two large white petals balanced on the water’s surface. One comes up, and then the other. They do not touch, yet they move as if one, gliding in and out of each other, creating immaculate silhouettes against the opalescent sky, shifting water and floating woods. They know I am here, watching, but they choose to ignore me. I envy such containment within the partnership of two. I have always longed for it in my relationship with Robert. I know what it feels like, this unity of two, for I had it when Min and I were children until our paths diverged, until Min became a wife and I became a student. Is it possible to have a marriage, like our sisterhood, when you understand your husband’s mind as perfectly as your own? I cannot help thinking about my conversation with Oonagh, and what she said about Claudette Sheriden being a reason why Robert might want to go to war. What could she possibly mean? Is it possible my husband was once in love with this woman, and now wants to avoid her? But to make him want to leave me, and fight – well, what does that imply? Could he still love her? The idea is just too frightful to contemplate.

  I think back to the time I saw Claudette Sheriden in the woods a couple of weeks ago. She is not a beauty, like Min or Mother, but she is certainly striking, with sharp cheekbones, short hair and big eyes. I suppose there is something boyish about her, like Peter Pan. As I think about Claudette Sheriden, I realize I have been walking in these woods every day in the hope that I might meet her again. This time I will talk to her.

  The wind rustles through the trees and it sounds like the sea. I remember the day Min and I danced on the beach at home like two Greek maidens of Isadora Duncan. All we wore were tunics – hers pearl and mine mule-grey – and no undergarments. The freedom! We danced the shape of clouds beavering across the sky, our dresses ballooning like sails, our bare feet sinking and kicking, sand oozing between our toes. We had no need of music – just the sound of the wind rushing over the tops of the waves, and the exhilaration of the spray making our hearts beat, creating our own internal rhythm. An
d without one leading the other, we managed to dance the same dance. Will we tell the same story too?

  I see my sister and I making this dance, our hips pushing against each other and then breaking away, and letting our bodies lift our hearts. Our movements are pure joy. I remember that my husband has never danced with me like this. It pains me. And yet Min and Charles did. I think back to their wedding day and the first dance. I was still in shock, distraught by the idea of losing my sister, standing against the wall, and looking blankly at the celebrations. At this moment the band struck up and I saw Charles take Min’s hand and spin her in a circle, and her eyes were shining and she was looking at him in the same way she looked at me when we danced together on the beach. She believed she had found an immortal love, like I thought our sisterhood had been. In that moment I wanted to find it, too. I could not believe Min had found love so soon, so young – so fast and eager she was to break away from me.

  Min’s husband first fell in love with her over a game of tennis. She was sixteen years and two months old. I had just turned seventeen. It was 15th July 1933. By the time the leaves turned brown the pair were wed. On that fateful day did Min fall in love with him as well, or was she just trying to save our parents’ marriage? Was she trying to outdo Mother?

  1933 also marked our last summer holidays at home. Although Daddy had managed to cling on to the house since Christmas, he had been forced to accept a position as a schoolmaster in a boys’ boarding school in Gloucestershire. We assumed Mummy would go with him and they would sell the house. Yet despite his desperate financial circumstances, Father appeared to be in better form than the year before. Indeed, he was very enthusiastic when Mother suggested a tennis tournament with some friends and neighbours. Since we had come home from school he had not taken to bed once. He was excited about my forthcoming entrance to London University, using every spare moment he could helping me to prepare. It was the happiest holidays I had spent with my parents in years, for even Mummy left me alone. She had more work to do, with Mrs Wyatt gone, and therefore she had no time any more to persecute her daughters.

  Our tennis court was in essence a lawn, with a rather grubby net slung across it. But Min spent the week before the tournament tidying up this part of the garden, cleaning the net and making sure the grass was mown by organizing a neighbour’s boy to do it. She even got a tin of white paint from the shed, and painted out the lines of the court again. She pestered me to practise with her, but found a better partner in our mother. Although unable to spend too long in the same room before arguing, my mother and sister happily volleyed for hours on the tennis court. Sometimes I watched with envy. It was a relationship I had never experienced with my mother. But then these days I had Daddy more or less to myself, and my jealousy would swiftly dissipate as I turned away from looking outside, at the pair playing tennis on the lawn, and hunted Father down in his study.

  Min had never been sporty, but there was something about tennis that she loved.

  ‘It’s like a dance,’ she claimed. ‘I feel so graceful when I am playing tennis.’

  ‘It is because you are very good at it, Min,’ I said. ‘I never feel graceful when I try to play tennis. I am such a clut.’

  ‘But you will play tomorrow, won’t you? We do need the numbers.’

  ‘Oh, Min, do I have to?’

  ‘Of course, it will be fun!’ Min squeezed my arm and grinned at me. Although she had been wearing a hat every day she practised, she had still caught the sun a little, and with her dark hair and bright-blue eyes she looked like an exotic princess.

  ‘I shall burn in the sun,’ I said mournfully, looking at the ginger freckles littering my pale arms.

  ‘Of course you shan’t, if you cover up.’

  Min got up off her bed and went to smooth out her tennis dress, which was hanging outside the wardrobe. It was crisp white cotton, sleeveless and short, as was the daring fashion of 1933. She and Mother had gone to Hooper’s to buy their new outfits on credit. It looked like a strange, bodyless phantom, hanging up in the dim bedroom.

  ‘Besides,’ Min said, ‘Mummy has invited lots of dishy gentlemen for us to play mixed doubles with . . .’

  ‘And their handsome wives, Min!’

  ‘Not all of them have wives.’ She smiled mischievously, and when she said this it was the first time that I noticed a difference in my sister. Min was more agitated than usual. She tossed and turned in bed, sighing and eventually exclaiming, ‘Oh goodness, June, I am just too excited to sleep!’

  ‘Well, you had better, otherwise you shall be serving double faults and showing yourself up in front of all those fine gentlemen!’

  Min giggled, then sighed again, and the sound was almost sad.

  The 15th July dawned cloudy, threatening rain. Min could hardly eat her breakfast – every few minutes she kept getting up from the table and checking the skies, shaking her head and then returning to her now-cold kedgeree.

  ‘Goodness, Minerva, you are like a jack-in-the-box!’ Daddy complained.

  ‘Do stop fretting,’ Mummy said. ‘It is going to be a beautiful day.’

  ‘How do you know?’ asked Min.

  ‘I can smell it,’ she said.

  Mother was right. By noon the clouds had cleared and the sun beat down on the lawn, parching the grass. The air was dry, and hot. Playing tennis in this kind of heat was the last thing I felt like doing, but dutifully I donned my tennis clothes. I couldn’t let Min down, even though I knew I compared badly with my sister and mother.

  I dressed in Mother’s old tennis outfit. It hung to below the knee, was waistless and extremely unflattering for my curvaceous figure. I wore white stockings, and on my head I tied a white bandeau, for I considered that I might as well complete the look. In for a penny, in for a pound.

  We had a light lunch, because Mother had prepared an enormous tea for later on. Our mother’s culinary skills were still a surprise to Min and I. She was a virtuoso baker, if somewhat erratic when it came to ordinary mealtimes. Thus a lot of bread, cheese and pickles were consumed in the Sinclair household, punctuated by the odd dazzling meal. The tennis tea was something to be looked forward to. Mother had baked a lemon-drizzle cake, a Bakewell tart and a fruit loaf, had griddled a stack of drop scones, had unearthed Mrs Wyatt’s raspberry jam from last year, and for savoury she had made cucumber sandwiches delicately cut into triangles with no crusts, and Chinese eggs – Father’s favourite.

  The guests began to arrive. Firstly Dr Redwidge and his wife Phyllis, followed by Matthew and Dolores Little, Ashley and Sarah Judge, and finally Captain Sanderson along with Charles Junior. All the men, apart from Charles Junior, were obviously besotted with Mother. She flitted between them like an exotic and rare butterfly, looking a mixture of boyish and fragile charm in her short tennis outfit. It was sleeveless, and her perfect skin shimmered on her slender arms, a paler shade of honey. Her legs were bare, and their skin was flawless. She was wearing white ankle-socks and canvas shoes, which emphasized her petite stature and tiny ankles. She had styled her black hair into soft curls, which were arranged off her forehead with a white scarf, making her face more open than usual, its rare definitions even more attractive. She wore little make-up, letting her bright-blue eyes – the same colour as the sky – dazzle and bewitch her admirers. The only woman present able to outshine her was her own daughter, Min.

  Of course I saw my sister day in, day out, and yet it was on this particular day as we were getting ready that I noticed how much Min had changed within the last year. She had always been pretty, but now she had matured into a fully grown beauty, just like Mother. Was this good fortune or a curse?

  Our mother was chatting to Ashley Judge, her obvious favourite in the group of her admirers, while his wife tried to ignore her husband’s flirtations and talked animatedly to Father about a recent visit she had made to Greece.

  ‘There is nothing to parallel the Parthenon, is there not?’ Sarah Judge was saying, as our father nodded seriously in agreement bef
ore launching into his theory on its classical proportions.

  I noted that Mother had hardly spoken to Captain Sanderson, who was sitting opposite her talking to Dr Redwidge, but occasionally glancing over at Mother and then looking sadly away. Charles Junior seemed rather nervous. He caught my eye and smiled anxiously at me. I very nearly felt sorry for him, although I had never liked the way he usually ignored me in favour of my sister.

  Min made an entrance. As she swung her racquet by her side, sauntering across the lawn towards the assembled party, I was thrown by what a fine figure she cut. I remember thinking she looked like a film actress, with her perfect features and slender frame. There was something about Min that was even more attractive than Mother. It was nothing to do with age, but more to do with her expression. It was her smile. Min was grinning from ear to ear. She exuded warmth and charm, and although our mother could be stunning, she was certainly not warm. All the men looked at Min, and the women too. My mother’s eyes narrowed.

  ‘My, how young Miss Minerva Sinclair has grown up!’ Dr Redwidge said.

  Min stood and swung her racquet up into the air, ‘Anyone for tennis!’ she trilled, and burst out laughing. She was like a child of the sun and a woman of the moon, all rolled into one. Of course all the men wanted to partner her, much to Mother’s annoyance, but in the end Min chose Captain Sanderson, who had not taken his eyes off her since she had arrived down on the lawn. I could sense Charles Junior squirming in his chair beside me, and caught his angry glare at his uncle, but he was, of course, too well-mannered to say anything.

  Unfortunately for Charles Junior, he was partnered with me and our first match was against Min and Captain Sanderson. Of course we lost, miserably, mainly thanks to my appalling game, but not helped by Charles Junior’s own hot temper. He disputed every call, claimed the ball was in when it was out, and altogether displayed bad sportsmanship.

  ‘Oh, do calm down, Charles, and behave,’ his uncle admonished him several times. But Charles Junior was no fool, and what he could see being played out on the tennis court, in front of his very eyes, astounded him. He left after the first match, claiming he had to get back to Dartmouth, without saying one word to Min, or thanking Mother for the tea, or even apologizing to me for leaving me in the lurch without a tennis partner.