hey fuck you up, your Mum and Dad

They may not mean to but they do

They fill you with the faults they had

And add some extra, just for you...

—Philip Larkin

Joe finishes buttoning his shirt and reaches for his tie, draped neatly over the back of a buttery toile armchair in the corner of the bedroom. He puts his tie around his neck and stands in the soft glow of the bedside lamp for a few seconds, gazing down at the figure in the bed, her back toward him, her head resting on her arm, looking exactly like a model for an Impressionist painting. How lovely she is, the light glancing off the curve of her hip, her hair fanned out on the Frette pillowcases.

He leans down with a regretful smile and plants a gentle kiss on her shoulder, at which she turns over and stretches, giving him a lazy smile.

“You have to leave already?”

“I do.”

She reaches a hand up and strokes his cheek. “When will I see you again?”

“Soon. I’ll call you.” He sighs, knowing that this has to end, that her appearance at the restaurant last night crossed the line of acceptable behavior, that although it might just be a game to her, it could cost him his marriage.

“And what if I call you first?” Valerie smiles, then slowly pushes herself up on to her knees, stretching her arms up around his neck, waiting to see his reaction.

“Valerie,” he warns, nervous now. “You know the score. Alice is my wife and I love her, I don’t want to hurt her and I’m not going to leave her.”

“I know, darling,” she purrs, because this is a game she has played many times before, and as much as she likes to tease her married lovers, she has no intention whatsoever of breaking up their marriages. She just likes to have fun, to push the limits, to see how far she can go. “This has nothing to do with your marriage, I know, I know.”

“No, Valerie,” he says gently, disentangling himself from her arms. He has to end this, nearly had heart failure last night when she turned up at Nobu, only three hours after he had left her bed, when he had told her where he was taking Alice for their anniversary.

In the beginning he would have found it flattering. Would have found the element of danger exhilarating and sexy as hell. But he’s been seeing Valerie for a while now, and although the sex is fantastic, the thrill of the chase has now well and truly gone, and the prospect of getting caught—particularly after last night—is far more worrying than exciting.

There are, after all, certain rules about playing away, certain expectations that each of you must have, and an implicit agreement that you will abide by these rules.

First, and most important, a mistress must conspire to protect your marriage, must understand that your marriage comes first, and that however much you profess to love your mistress, you will never leave your wife.

She must never acknowledge you publicly in anything other than a platonic way, must understand that arrangements are made to be broken and that your family will always come first.

She must wait for your phone call or phone you on your mobile phone, which will be switched off when you are with your family. If you are with your family when the phone rings, you will have a code, and she will understand and immediately say good-bye. She will never phone you at home, not even when the urge to hear your voice becomes unbearable, and she will make herself available whenever you wish to see her.

Joe knows the rules by heart, knew the rules long before he planned to play the game. He has been observing the rules since he was a tiny boy, too young even to understand the meaning of the word, but old enough to know that what his father was doing was somehow wrong, would hurt his mother, that he would have to shoulder the burden of secrecy to please his father and protect his mother.

We are all the product of our parenting, and Joe, although a kind man, a loving man, could not have turned out any other way.

Eric Chambers was twenty-seven when Joe was born in 1964. He had been married for a year to Ava, whose dark good looks always reminded people of Ava Gardner, after whom she was named. Eric had fallen in love with Ava after she repeatedly turned him down, rejected his advances, told him she was not interested.

She knew of his reputation, had seen him around town in his E-type Jag, always with a glamorous blonde in a headscarf and large black sunglasses at his side. Ava had known he would be a heartbreaker, that he had indeed broken the hearts of many of the girls she knew.

But Eric persisted. He was not used to being turned down, and her indifference only fanned the flames of his desire. For a while, just like his son, he thought he could be the perfect husband, thought that one woman would be enough.

For a while he thought he could look and not touch, appreciate the myriad of beautiful women around him, admire the miniskirts brushing their thighs, the sleek bobs brushing against sharp cheekbones, but once Ava’s pregnancy started to show, Eric found himself longing for the unfamiliar touch, the thrill of a new body, a new taste, a new smell.

He fought it as long as he could, but one brief dalliance before Joe was born became several during Joe’s first year, eventually becoming one permanent mistress, who was subject to change, plus a couple of one-night stands, should he be lucky enough to find them, the free love of the 1970s taking rather longer to hit Guildford.

It didn’t, however, take Eric long to realize that Joe was the perfect foil. “I’m just taking him out for a walk,” he would tell Ava, who would gratefully retire to her room for a break from the exhausting demands of motherhood. After bundling Joe up, Eric would put him in the carriage and walk him down the road to Betty’s house, where Joe would gurgle happily on the floor of the living room while Eric helped “Auntie Betty” in the other room.

After Auntie Betty there was Auntie Sandra. Then Auntie Sally, followed by Auntie Terry, Auntie Pat, and Auntie Barbara. Auntie Pat was Joe’s favorite. She’d scoop him up into a big hug, saying, “Whaddyaknowjoe?” had a color television set, and let him eat sherbet fizzes and drink pop while he watched Captain Scarlet.

All the aunties made a fuss of Joe, but by the time Auntie Barbara came along, Joe was refusing to cooperate. He didn’t need any more aunties, he had decided, and there was no point being nice to them because they never seemed to stick around for long anyway.

“I don’t want to go and see Auntie Barbara,” he’d said. “Why can’t we go and see Auntie Pat?” But of course he’d never say this in front of his mum, because Eric had already told him that he worked for the aunties on the quiet and that Mum wouldn’t be very happy about it, and he was only doing it to make a bit of extra money to buy nice things for Mum, so Joe mustn’t say anything.

Joe knew, even at five years old, that there was more to it than that. He knew that his father was somehow guilty, and hated the fact that he would buy him a treat on the way home to buy his silence. He hated that moment when they would both walk in the door, and his mother would give him a big kiss and ask whether he’d had a lovely time at the park, or the museum. He’d shrug and stay silent, and would go up to his room as quickly as possible to avoid any more questions.

“Good boy, Joe,” Eric would whisper as he ruffled his hair. “Who’s Daddy’s best boy?”

“I am,” Joe would mumble, unable to look his father in the eye.

The best times were when his father was away. Then it would just be Joe and his mum, and he could look after her and make her laugh, and make sure that she didn’t have to worry about anything. And best of all, he didn’t have to lie, although his father said it wasn’t lying, it just wasn’t telling the whole truth, and that was something entirely different.

His parents were married for thirty-one years, until the unthinkable happened. Ava left Eric for Brian, a man they had played bridge with, a man they had known for years, whose own wife had died of cancer a long time ago.

It came completely out of the blue. Joe was at the office when the phone rang and he heard a series of short, sharp sobs. For a man who had never seen his father cry, it was possibly the most shocking thing Joe had ever heard. “She’s gone,” his father kept repeating. “She’s gone. What am I going to do?”

“Of course I knew,” his mother said when Joe got hold of her later that day. “I’ve known for years about your father but I didn’t want to know, I pretended not to notice. I kept thinking that if I kept quiet he’d eventually give the women up, and I kept hoping that maybe it wasn’t true, but I’ve heard all the rumors, I know there’s no smoke without fire.”

“But he loves you,” Joe pleaded, devastated that his mother had actually left, that the only security he had ever known could be shattered so quickly. “He’s devastated. He doesn’t know what to do with himself.”

“He’ll get over it,” she said sadly. “I love him but I can’t live with the lies anymore. I can’t live with the phone calls saying he’s just going to the pub, when I know he’s with another woman. I don’t want to live with him going into the other room and whispering when his stupid mobile phone rings. He’s nearly sixty, for heaven’s sake, and he’s still at it, and I’ve had enough.”

Ava had married Brian—a very nice, but very dull accountant—and Eric had finally got used to being on his own.

“You’ll be fine,” Joe had said to him in the beginning. “Think of what a wonderful time you’ll have now you’re a free man, think of all those women who are dying to meet a handsome man like you.”

But Eric hadn’t ever really been fine since Ava left. It had shocked him to the core, and it was only once she had gone that he realized not only how much he loved her, but how much he needed her.

Eventually he met Carol, a divorced woman in her mid-fifties, and they settled down together. Joe doesn’t spend enough time with either of them to know whether the aunties are still around, but he rather suspects they are. What leopard, after all, ever manages to change its spots?

Joe had sworn he wouldn’t do the same thing as his father. Even as a young boy he had vowed he wouldn’t have a series of aunties, wouldn’t hurt his wife like his father had hurt his mother, wouldn’t spend his entire married life lying to his partner.

But really. Did he ever have a choice?

Joe does love Alice. Truly and absolutely. He loves her as much as a man like Joe can ever possibly love a woman. He loves her and wouldn’t ever want to hurt her. But he also loves women, and he has come to justify his love of women by thinking, as his father did before him, that it is merely satisfying a physical urge, that as long as he does not hurt his wife, as long as his wife never finds out, what harm can it possibly do?

There was only ever one woman who didn’t understand the rules. Sasha was Joe’s first transgression after his marriage, and had she not made it so obvious she was interested, had she not blatantly pursued him, perhaps he would have managed to stay off the slippery slope. Not forever, you understand, just for a while longer.

Sasha was supposed to be a one-night stand. He had two hours of frantic, animal sex, then slunk home feeling sick and guilty, creeping into bed next to Alice, resolving not to let it happen again.

He left early the next morning, unable to look Alice in the eye, and returned home that night with a large bunch of white lilies to hide his relief at not being found out. He’d gotten away with it, and although he hadn’t planned to see Sasha again, if he had gotten away with it once, surely he could get away with it again, and Alice would never need to know.

But after four months of secret trysts with Joe, Sasha was fed up. She had been single long enough, had wasted too much time looking for a man like Joe, without the attachments. It had taken thirty-three years, and finally she had figured out that men like Joe—attractive, intelligent, good sense of humor, bucketloads of money—were never unattached. She would simply have to steal her man away from somebody else. What else could she do?

She took Jerry Hall’s words to heart, becoming a cook in the kitchen, a maid in the living room, and a whore in the bedroom. Joe had never had sex like it: She would do anything, anywhere, at any time. At first it was as addictive as a drug—the sex, then the food, and all completely under his control, she was entirely at his beck and call.

And when Sasha knew he was hooked, she started exerting pressure, not much, just enough to show Joe she meant business. A few dangerous text messages. The odd phone call at home to hear his voice, blocking her number first for the couple of occasions when Alice would pick up and Sasha would have to put the phone down. Love notes hidden in his coat pockets in the hope that Alice would find them.

Alice didn’t find them. Joe did. He was furious. This wasn’t part of the deal, he told her in a rage, trying hard to disguise it for fear of causing further damage. She knew he wasn’t going to leave his wife, how could they possibly continue when Sasha had breached his trust like this?

Sasha realized immediately that she had overstepped the mark by leaving the love notes in his pocket, and she tried to apologize, to persuade him to carry on, promised she wouldn’t do it again, but Joe couldn’t take the chance.

Some men might have been put off by such a close shave, and Joe was, temporarily, shocked into being the faithful husband. For a while. He was home every night by eight o’clock, and when he phoned to say he would be late because he was in a meeting, he was in a meeting.

He went away on business and stayed in the best hotels, and met clients in the bar for a drink, wined and dined them, then went back to his room, on his own, and phoned Alice just before climbing into bed to tell her how much he loved her.

Then during a trip to Denmark he met Inge, a waitress at the coffee shop next to the hotel. He met her on the first day and was in bed with her by the third. A business trip doesn’t count, he told himself, pushing away the guilt, as long as I don’t do anything in London, on my home turf.

That lasted precisely four more months.

And now his latest is Valerie. Valerie who is sophisticated enough not to be taken in by his charm, who is dangerous enough to have her own agenda, to want to play games just to see what kind of reaction she can incur.

He knows that on one level Valerie is a safe choice. Far too experienced a woman, a lover, a mistress, to believe that sex is anything other than sex, she would not actually do anything to seriously jeopardize his marriage, he knows, but Alice is not stupid, and until last night, when Valerie turned up at the restaurant to play a little mind fuck, Joe had not realized quite how close to the wind she was prepared to sail.

Joe is much more careful now about the women he chooses, but clearly not quite careful enough. And then, at times like this, when he is nearly caught, when he is shocked into realizing quite how much he stands to lose should Alice ever discover his affairs, he vows to stop, to settle down and become a proper husband again.

“Valerie.” He gazes down at her, knowing that this is the last time he will sleep with her. “I can’t do this anymore.”

“I thought you might say that.” Valerie reaches over and grabs her robe, for as hard and ruthless as she may be, the prospect of being dumped while naked makes her instantly vulnerable, and she needs to cover herself for protection. “And was it because I turned up last night? Or were you growing bored with me?” She isn’t upset, merely curious, and they both know full well that there will be another Joe in a matter of days, that there may in fact be a number of Joes already waiting in the wings.

“Ah, well. Tant pis. I had a lovely time.” She cups his cheek in her hand and kisses him on the lips, stroking his cheek tenderly. “You are going to try to be a faithful husband now?”

Joe nods.

Valerie smiles. “Until the next Valerie comes along.” She turns and climbs back into bed. “Take care, my dear.”

“And you too.” Joe is relieved, grateful that she has taken this so calmly, like such a professional, and now wondering whether he is doing the right thing.

Valerie sees the light go on in his eyes and shakes her head. “No, Joe. No last good-bye fuck. I prefer my endings clear and clean cut.” She blows him a kiss. “Go home to your wife and treat her well. Tell Alice I said hello.”

Joe sighs with relief as he walks down the stairs from Valerie’s apartment. No second thoughts now. With that last statement from Valerie, Joe knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that he’s doing the right thing.

“I hate these bloody things.” Alice is on her hands and knees, phone cradled snugly between her chin and shoulder as she brushes paint stripper thickly onto the legs of a cherry demilune table she’s picked up in a junk shop.

“I know, darling,” Joe says beseechingly on the other end of the phone, “but it’s only an art gallery opening, and I promise we won’t have to stay long.”

Once upon a time Alice would have loved going to the opening of an art gallery. She would have felt blessed to have been able to go to such a glamorous occasion, would have been awestruck at being allowed to see paintings before anyone else, would have stood in front of each painting for minutes at a time, drinking them in, forming an opinion.

But she has learned not to do that anymore. She has learned that an art gallery opening is just another place to see and be seen. That you take a glass of champagne from a waiter bearing a silver tray when you arrive, then walk around the room air-kissing all the familiar faces, commenting on how marvelous the art is when in fact you can’t possibly see anything due to the hundreds of people crammed into one small gallery.

“You promise we can come straight home afterward? No other parties?” She drops the paintbrush into a can and picks up a small wad of steel wool.

“I promise. What are you doing now, Alice? What was that noise?”

“Stripping a table I found.”

Joe laughs. “I don’t know why you always insist on doing it yourself. You can buy these pieces of furniture anywhere you want.”

“Because I enjoy it,” Alice says. For the hundredth time. “You know I get pleasure from it.”

“That’s because you’re strange. You’re the only woman I know who actually enjoys getting filth under your nails and getting covered in paint.”

That’s because, Alice thinks, I’m the only woman you know who thinks there’s more to life than manicures and appearing in Tatler.

“I promise I’ll clean up by tonight.”

“I promise I’ll have you dirty again by the time we get to bed.”

“Will you ever lose that schoolboy sense of humor?”

“Would you want me to?”

Alice smiles, feeling loved and wanted, loving this feeling of closeness to her husband. It happens so rarely these days, but there are times when the pressure lifts and the cloud that seems constantly to overshadow her seems to disappear for a while, when Joe is not distracted and distant, when he reverts to the Joe she fell in love with.

Times like now, when work doesn’t seem to be as demanding and he is not required to be in the office all hours, when the business trips are few and far between.

And when the pressure of work has been relaxed, Joe is more relaxed. He is back to being the loving, playful husband he was when they met, and she has learned to enjoy those times, for she knows they will not last.

She has heard the occasional rumors about her husband, but she chooses to ignore them. Infidelity is something she is simply not prepared even to think about.