Steve stayed where he was in the open door and said simply, “We’ve made other arrangements. We can meet tomorrow and decide
what we’re going to do.”
George had let go of my wrist now. I rubbed it where it still hurt. It would be bruised.
“What were you so keen to show me?” I asked him.
He looked at me. Something was going through his mind, but I couldn’t guess what. It was strange to feel myself so totally
on the outside of him. In the end he shrugged and said, “It doesn’t matter now.”
Suddenly, just like the other night in the apartment, all the anger seemed to have drained out of him as though somebody had
pulled the plug. He turned away and ran a hand over his face.
“I think it’s best if we leave,” Steve said.
George made a vague gesture, still without turning to look at us. “Sure, whatever, I… I guess I’ll have to find somewhere
to live…”
Suddenly he was once again the George I knew—quiet, vulnerable, at a loss. “There’s no hurry,” I said. “Stay here as long
as you like—till you’re ready to look around.”
Finally he looked at me. “Thanks,” he said, with the hint of a sad smile playing over his face. “That’s thoughtful of you,
but I won’t stay long. This place holds nothing but happy memories now—mostly of what might have been.”
He looked around the room as though taking his farewell of it, then said, “That’s an oxymoron, isn’t it? ‘Memories of what
might have been’?”
The mixture of emotions I’d been growing so accustomed to these past few weeks threatened to overwhelm me. Guilt, sorrow,
regret, and pity—including, I’m ashamed to admit, more than a trace of self-pity—made it hard for me to speak. I managed only,
“Goodnight, George. I’ll call you in the morning.”
He didn’t answer me, just nodded, looking down at his hands, fingers pressed together on his chest. Almost, I thought, like
a monk in prayer.
Then I turned and followed Steve out to his waiting car.
B
y the time I called next morning, George had left. Joe said he’d driven him to the station just after eight. He’d left a note
saying he was going to the apartment to clear out his things. When I got back to Manhattan on Sunday evening, it was as though
he’d never lived there.
It wasn’t until forty-eight hours later that he called to let me know that he’d taken a one-bedroom apartment in the East
Forties between Second and Third. He said he’d told his lawyer to get in touch with mine and do whatever had to be done. It
was the same lawyer who’d represented him on the prenuptial agreement, so he didn’t foresee any problems or delays.
I asked him if he needed anything. He said no, he was fine. I told him if there was anything I could do for him, ever, anything
at all, he only had to ask. He thanked me and said he knew that.
Later, much later, when I thought back on everything that had happened, I realized that a less scrupulous man than George,
quite apart from causing trouble for Steve, might well have tried to profit financially from the situation. But it had always
been at George’s own insistence that our prenuptial agreement specify a relatively modest financial settlement for him in
the event of divorce. At the time it was drawn up he’d said with a laugh that he wanted me to know how much he wanted the
marriage to work, and how sure he wanted me to be that he’d never given a damn about my money.
I know he meant it at the time he said it, though I have to say that I’d wondered, in view of his recent behavior, whether
he still meant it. It was reassuring to see that he did, and that he had remained the same man I had married.
In a way it would have been easier for me if those glimpses I’d been having this last week or two of another, very different
George had turned out to be the truth, and he really had become the bitter, angry man I’d seen. That way I could have walked
away from our marriage feeling like the injured party. This way, however, there was no question that he was the one who had
been badly treated. I would have to live with that.
And live with it I would. I loved Steve, and if we hadn’t been too young and stupid last time around, we’d have been husband
and wife for many years by now. We were only putting right our initial mistake.
Poor George. I still hoped he would need my help at some point, whether in terms of money or moral support. I wanted to be
his friend, maybe not his best friend any longer, but the most solid and reliable one he could ever want.
That ambition was largely the product of guilt, of course. But of a real and deep affection too.
* * *
As for Steve and myself, we were already practiced in keeping things hidden even from our closest friends. He now began to
work out a timetable for his divorce from Linda. Assuming that she was going to make things as difficult as possible, he reckoned
that about six months from now would be the optimum time. By then it would be effectively too late to replace him as candidate,
and there would still be time to get over whatever scandal Linda created and win the seat.
Anyway, we began secretly, dreamers that we were, to plan our marriage and even a honeymoon trip to Italy after a quiet ceremony
in Manhattan.
Then the sky fell in on me.
That’s the phrase I’ve always heard people use when they want you to understand how utterly and irreparably their world fell
apart. Either that or the earth opened up beneath them.
In my case I think it was both. The sky fell in, and the earth opened up. It was total and unqualified annihilation.
I had been waiting for a call from Steve. Normally he was pretty good about calling when he said he would, but for once he
was late. I tried his mobile, but it was switched off. We had an agreement that I wouldn’t call him at home or his office
for obvious reasons, so I had no choice but to wait till I heard from him.
As the hours went by, I grew anxious. Eventually, when I glanced at my watch and saw it was already almost seven, I switched
on the evening news to occupy my mind.
The second story was about Steve. He had been arrested on a charge of murder. The victim was someone I’d never heard of.
A woman called Nadia Shelley.
G
eorge called from London. In my state of shock I recalled only vaguely that a few days earlier he’d told me he was going on
a trip. It was midnight over there, and he was watching a satellite channel that carried the U.S. news.
If it hadn’t been for his voice at that moment, obviously shocked but concerned and supportive, I don’t know what I would
have done. Fallen apart, I suppose, but in exactly what way and with what consequences I don’t even want to think about.
I’m pretty sure that one thing I would have done was call the police, and maybe Steve’s lawyer, thereby unthinkingly blowing
the cover we had so painstakingly established for ourselves. I would not have stopped to think how the exposure of our relationship
could hurt Steve in the struggle he would now face to prove his innocence of this crazy charge. It would not have occurred
to me that a married man accused of murdering one woman would look all the guiltier to a jury if it was known that he was
having an affair with yet another. I shall always be grateful to George for his steadying influence in that moment, as well
as in its aftermath.
He insisted he would cut short his trip and take the next plane back. I protested, but I wasn’t fooling anybody, least of
all myself. I knew I couldn’t handle what was happening on my own. And I knew George was still the one person above any other
who I could totally depend on and trust. He made me promise I would do nothing till he got there next day.
It was late morning when he rang from a cab on his way into Manhattan. He’d taken Concorde—an expense for which I later offered
to reimburse him, but he wouldn’t hear of it.
The first thing he did when he got to the apartment was sit down with me and go over everything I knew about what had happened
so far. All I could tell him was what we’d both heard on television, plus the few additional details there had been in the
New York Times
that morning—including the fact that the victim had lived in the East Village and had worked, apparently, for a detective
agency.
George suddenly became very still and the color drained from his face. “What is it?” I said. “Is something wrong?”
“Did you say a detective agency?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Nothing,” he said, unconvincingly.
“Come on, George, I know you better than that. Why did you react when I said ‘detective agency’?”
He continued to look worried for a moment, then said, “Don’t you see? Maybe they’d been hired by Steve’s wife. Maybe they
know all about you and Steve.”
I did see. And I was disturbed by what I saw.
“You mean they’re taking that as a motive, saying that’s why he killed this woman?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what anybody’s saying. I suppose it’s possible.” I thought for a moment, then shook my head. “I
don’t believe it. There has to be more to it than that.”
“Yes,” he said, rubbing his chin and looking out over the park, thoughtful, “I’m sure you’re right. There has to be more to
it than that.”
M
y Darling,
I hope this reaches you. I’ve arranged to have it mailed outside the prison so that it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.
It’s important, for reasons I’m sure you will understand, that nobody knows about us. That would only make things look worse
for me, and it would complicate your life in ways you would be a whole lot better off without.
Much of what you hear about me in the coming weeks is going to cause you pain and disappointment. It’s true, I lied to you.
I was involved with this woman when we met—more seriously than I wanted you to know. Looking back now, I can see I was a fool
not to have told you the truth from the start, but I was trying to protect you. I wanted you and only you. Breaking up with
Nadia was difficult, but it was done and it was over.
I didn’t kill her. Please believe that. I would have done anything in my power to spare you what you’re going through now—except
murder. I beg you to believe that I am innocent
All the same, even if I’m acquitted, which I pray I will be, I accept that things can never be the same between us. That is
what I most regret.
Please remember that I love you, and always have. But don’t write to me, or make any attempt to contact me. It won’t help
either of us.
Steve.
The letter arrived by regular mail six days after Steve was charged. It confirmed what George had said about Steve’s position
only being worsened if our affair came out into the open. I accepted the logic of that now, but it took all the self-discipline
I possessed to do so. I wanted to move heaven and earth to help him, but I knew it was useless. I could only wait and let
things take their course.
Once again, I have to say, it was a time I could never have gotten through without George. He continued living in the apartment
he’d found, and as far as all our friends were concerned we were separated. Nobody knew the reasons why, and nobody asked—at
least not in any detail. The breakdown of a marriage nowadays is such a commonplace event that it’s worse than ill-mannered
to pry into the reasons: It’s naive.
All the same, we put the question of divorce on the back burner for the time being. I don’t think either of us had any doubt
that we’d go through with it, but it was no longer a matter of urgency. There were other things on my mind as the case against
Steve got under way.
Gossip was rife, which was hardly surprising given Steve’s relative prominence in the community. Talk was widespread that
his marriage had been a sham for many years. Nadia Shelley, I heard repeatedly, was only one of many affairs he’d had—with,
most people assumed, his wife’s approval, or at least in the shadow of her indifference.
There was also, I was shocked to find, a widespread assumption that Steve was guilty of the murder with which he was charged.
This was on the “no smoke without fire” theory, I supposed. I had to admit, when I looked at things from an outsider’s point
of view, that all the elements fell into place with an awful persuasiveness: Spitfire mistress threatens trouble, leaving
compromised married lover with political ambitions with only one solution—murder.
What was unnerving, and what I had not been prepared for, was the sheer weight of the evidence against Steve when the case
eventually came to court. Not only were there photographs and letters proving his relationship with the Shelley woman—which
Steve admitted to anyway—but the evidence for his actually having killed her was going to take a lot of contradicting.
His story was that he’d received a phone call from Nadia Shelley just after six in the evening. She was hysterical, he said,
and insisted that he come over to her apartment right away. When he refused, reminding her that everything was over between
them, he said she threatened to ruin him. At first he laughed, not believing she had any way of doing that. But then she began
talking in a confused and excited way about campaign finance, how he’d broken the law and she could prove it. He didn’t know
what she meant, but in the end, to calm her down, he gave in and agreed to go over.
She told him to let himself in using the key she’d given him when they were lovers, and which I was frankly a little surprised
to learn that he’d kept, though he said in court that he had forgotten he still had it till she mentioned it. He entered her
apartment, he said, shortly after seven-thirty. All the lights were on and there was music playing loudly on the radio. The
place had been ransacked, as though there had been a burglary. Nadia Shelley, he said, lay in the middle of her living room
floor. It looked like there had been a struggle. She had a cut over one eye and her clothing was torn, but not in a way that
suggested sexual assault. There was bruising around her neck as though she’d been strangled, though there was no sign of what
she had been strangled with.