Downstairs in Nathan’s study, my shameful search continued. I scanned the bookshelf, opened drawers, rifled through the filing trays.

Nothing.

Was I going mad with suspicion and supposition? Possibly. I glanced up and caught a blurred reflection of myself in the window. There was a woman in danger of being suffocated by hatred and guilt.

After a while, I had to accept defeat. Nathan had withdrawn from the conversation I had tried to hold. He was covering his tracks, and denying me the tiny glimpse he had given me of himself.

Perhaps, if I had remained silent, in the true, repressed English way, it would have been different. Perhaps if he had known that I knew but had not tried to turn it into words, he would have been satisfied. NB No marks here to Successful Relationships.

A scarlet woman possessed the virtue, at least, of being useful. We need sinners in order to feel superior. To be the other woman, as Poppy had indicated, also had its uses. The role of second wife trailed way behind in interest and excitement. But that was what I was left with. No doubt the moralists would rejoice, and I was prepared to allow it – after I had insisted on having my say. Nathan had been unhappy with Rose.

Downstairs, in Nathan’s study, I picked up the Post-it pad, and scrawled on the top one: ‘Don’t go.’

I stuck it on the filing cabinet.

10

Nathan never mentioned whether or not he found the Post-it.

I did not refer to it either. But I did say, in passing, ‘You’re not letting things slip at Vistemax?’

Nathan had never been a fool. ‘Do you know something?’

A nerve flickered in my cheek. ‘I don’t know anything. But it’s a jungle out there and you have to keep up.’

‘Has Gisela said something?’

‘No, but I don’t trust Roger.’

‘Shall I tell you something? Neither do I.’ He placed a finger on my shoulder and pressed down. ‘Let’s hope nothing happens. Otherwise… Well, a lot of things, but money will be a problem.’

His finger hurt. I thought of Nathan steering a path through the rough jungle. He would need all the help possible. I gave him what I had. ‘Gisela has a lover, Nathan.’

Nathan went very still. ‘Why are you telling me?’

‘I promised I wouldn’t, but I thought you should know. It might help. You’re my husband and we share things and I know whose side I’m on. He, the lover, wants Gisela to leave. But I don’t think she will.’

Nathan removed his finger. ‘Yοu never know what people are capable of doing.’

No. One was never sure. ‘Really?’ I replied, but what I really meant to say was: ‘Will you being seeing Rose again?’

Gisela rang me in the office. ‘How’s the new routine?’

I told her that, two weeks in, it was going fine, and she asked if we could have lunch. ‘I know it’s last minute,’ she said, ‘but I do have something to discuss.’

I scribbled ‘Dance? Series?’ on the article I was reading about ballerinas in Harper’s magazine, and we agreed that she’d pick me up at twelve forty-five.

She was in Roger’s Vistemax company car. The interior had been sprayed with a manufactured flower scent that made me long for the smell of Tarmac – or manure, even, anything normal. The comfort of the leather upholstery provided insulation from the real world – which, presumably, was why a company executive had favoured it.

My head was full of ideas, the ones that ached to take flight. ‘What do you think about a television series on modern dance? Salsa, tango…’ I rattled on until I noticed that Gisela was not paying attention. ‘What do you want to talk to me about?’

‘Several things,’ she replied enigmatically. ‘Vistemax for one. But let’s enjoy ourselves first.’

‘How’s Roger?’

‘A bit gloomy. A lot of boardroom activity… There’s talk of selling off the Digest, and of launching a free newspaper. Apparently the younger generation doesn’t read newspapers and the advertisers have spotted this. But Roger’s capable of dealing…’ Gisela checked herself and pointed out of the car window. ‘Did you see those shoes?’

I pictured the scene. Nathan and Roger in shirtsleeves at the gleaming boardroom table, mineral water, crystal glasses, biscuits and a plate of fruit – exotic stuff like paw-paw or star fruit, the chef’s fantasy, which no red-blooded male would dream of eating.

Gisela said dreamily, ‘Roger gives me a nice life, you know. And he’s promised me a merry widowhood. Don’t look shocked, Minty. Roger and I have discussed it many times.’

The car slid along Piccadilly and turned left, then into one of the small streets off Bond Street and stopped in front of a gallery with a bow window and discreet gold lettering, that read ‘Shipley Fine Art’.

Gisela swung gracefully out of the car, thanked the driver and instructed him to return in a couple of hours. She was wrapped in a leather jacket, so supple it was like silk, so well cut that not one wrinkle marred the line across the shoulders. ‘Come.’

The gallery was a rectangular room, painted cream with antique-stained floorboards. At one end there was a desk with a flower arrangement in pink and white and a couple of spindly chairs. There was no evidence to suggest that money changed hands, no paperwork, only a stack of catalogues.

Two men stood by a large painting at the far end of the room. It depicted three boxes of differing sizes suspended in a night sky dotted with stars and planets. The boxes looked as though they should fit into each other, but on each an attachment made it impossible. The first, painted red, had a chain looping over the sides from which hung a ball inscribed ‘Poverty’. Dozens of naked babies clung to the sides of the second, so numerous that – shockingly – a couple had let go and were falling through space. A tree grew out of the third, a pretty arching shape with withered leaves. The painting was entitled Slow Apocalypse.

‘So good,’ Gisela breathed in my ear.

‘Is it?’

She smiled. ‘We shall have to educate your eye.’

No doubt this was an oblique – and unflattering – reference to Nathan’s taste in Cornish pictures. Gisela’s eyes widened a little, but even if I had been in complete sympathy with her I could not have dropped Nathan into the black hole of flawed taste.

She smoothed the sleeve of her jacket, and my uneducated eye immediately noted that her hands were trembling. ‘That’s Marcus.’ She indicated the taller of the two men.

Everything fell into place. My main reaction was surprise. This was the man with whom Gisela had a special friendship, whom she probably loved, and there was nothing out of the ordinary to single him out. Marcus wore a linen suit, rather rumpled, with a gold watch-chain. He had thick, unruly hair, smallish but nice eyes and a pleasant expression. He gestured a lot and talked fluently. ‘Simple to ship… a couple of weeks. Insurance…’ He acknowledged our presence by raising a hand.

‘OK.’ The client was American, expensively dressed. ‘I’ll phone you the details.’

Politely, Marcus ushered him out of the gallery and whipped round. ‘Hello.’ He touched Gisela’s shoulder. ‘This must be Minty’ We shook hands. ‘Forgive me, I was finalizing a sale that had been a long time cooking.’ The pleasure of the sale shone in his eyes, and his voice was surprisingly deep. ‘Good, eh? I’ve only just opened here, and the rent has to be paid.’ He lifted his shoulders in a gesture designed to include me in his despair at the iniquity of landlords. ‘Shiftaka is an extraordinary painter. I hope you’ll take a look at the rest of the exhibition.’

There was sufficient suggestion that I was extraneous, and I took the hint and moved away. But not before I saw Marcus draw Gisela close.

For a second or two, Gisela relaxed against him. ‘How are you, Marcus?’

‘You know exactly how I am.’

‘I wouldn’t have come if I’d known you were going to be difficult.’

‘Don’t bother with games, Gisela.’

And Gisela – cool, determined Gisela – still trembled. ‘Sorry’

In the back room, I studied an oblong painting, Submission. It featured a series of broad horizontal stripes running through the red palette, from brick to palest pink. The eye longed to remain anchored to the red at the top of the canvas, and it took a conscious effort to pull it down through the spectrum, which, I suppose, was the point. It was only after I had examined the bottom section of the picture that I realized the pale pink contained a misty outline of Africa. The link between the pretty pink and the implication that Africa had been bled dry was intended to shock, and it did.

In the other room, the murmur of voices was punctuated by Marcus raising his. ‘Haven’t we muddled around for too long?’

Gisela said something unintelligible, and Marcus added, ‘End of the road, Gisela.’

I edged back into the main gallery. Marcus was leaning against the desk, inspecting his shoes. Gisela was flushed and upset, fingering the necklace of Persian coral round her neck.

‘I think I should go,’ I told them.

‘I’m coming, too.’ Gisela grabbed her bag.

Marcus rolled his eyes, and levered himself upright. ‘OK.’

Gisela snapped open her bag, got out a mirror and, in a now familiar gesture, dabbed at the area below her eyes. ‘Give me a minute.’

I turned to Marcus. ‘The artist? Tell me about him.’

Without a blink, Marcus shifted into another gear. ‘Abandoned on the streets of Kyoto, he was fostered by a retired geisha. He’s a political painter…’

His gaze slid past my shoulder, and rested angrily on Gisela.

As we left, Marcus placed his hand under Gisela’s chin and forced her to look at him. ‘Dinner tomorrow. You owe me that.’

Yearning was printed all over her porcelain perfection. She seemed docile, obedient, even. ‘Tomorrow, then.’