Tess Stimson - The Adultery Club by The Adultery Club Read Free Book Online Page A

I scoop up Metheny in the nick of time - my delicious yummy baby, she smells like warm fresh-baked bread and
    retrieve the phone. ‘I really must go, Nicholas—’
    ‘You did remember to arrange a babysitter?’
    ‘Mmm. Yes, Kit very sweetly said he’d do it.’
    Quickly I ring off so I don’t have to listen to the pained
    silence that invariably follows any mention of Kit. I’ve
    spent the past twelve years variously cajoling, begging
    and banging heads together, but it’s no good, the current
    wary standoff between my husband and my dearest
    friend is clearly as good as it’s ever going to get. I have
    the deepest sympathy for everybody at the UN if the
    Palestinians and the Israelis are anywhere near this bad,
    though of course neither Nicholas nor Kit are anything at
    all like that difficult man Arafat - no, he’s dead now,
    there’s a new one, what’s his name, I really must read the
    paper a bit more often. It’s all a question of finding the
     
    time, of course: I get to Saturday evening and I still
    haven’t worked my way through last Sunday’s papers,
    though I must say things aren’t made any easier by the
    number of supplements they have these days. Those poor
    paperboys, I don’t know how they carry them up the
    path: we’re creating a generation of twisted spines. I used
    to think Nicholas didn’t like Kit because he was gay, and
    perhaps in the beginning - though Nicholas isn’t like that,
    he’s not racist or sexist or homophobic or anything, well,
    except in a background wallpaper sort of way, you can’t
    help the way you’re raised. But of course it wasn’t about
    that, really, not at all-‘Mai, what an absolutely delicious smell,’ Liz says,
    pushing open the top half of the kitchen stable door. A
    cold blast of November air carries the scent of bonfires
    and rotting leaves into the fuggy kitchen warmth. She
    reaches in to unbolt the bottom half and steps smartly out
    of the way as Sophie and Evie race past her into the
    kitchen, throwing coats, lobbing satchels and dropping
    lunchboxes. ‘Hi, Kit. Ooooh, yummy, chocolate and
    orange, are you doing something Christmassy?’
    I retrieve the mixing bowl from Kit’s elegant grasp and
    scrape the lovely gooey chocolaty mixture into a greased
    baking tin. ‘It’s supposed to be a birthday cake for Nicholas
    and Metheny tomorrow, although at the current rate
    of progress it’s going to end up something Christmassy.’
    ‘Oooh, save me a slice. No, no, on second thoughts,
    don’t, I’m supposed to be on another bloody diet for
    Christmas.’ She drools over the photograph on the open
    page of my recipe book, looking for all the world like
    a starving Victorian orphan with her nose pressed to a
    pie-shop window. ‘Does look scrumnty, though. It is nearly
     
    Christmas now, and I’m going to do South Beach in January, it’s my New Year’s resolution. So perhaps one slice
    ‘One slice for Nicholas, and one for Metheny,’ Kit
    purrs.
    Liz looks flustered. Kit seems to have this effect on
    women even when they know which way the wind blows
    for him, bedroom-wise. I haven’t yet worked out if it’s
    because they find him so hopelessly attractive - hard not
    to, with those knife-edge cheekbones and Restoration
    curls - or because he’s just so wickedly louche you can’t
    help but think of s-e-x whenever he’s around.
    ‘I don’t know how you stay so slim, Mai,’ Liz complains.
    ‘It’s not fair, you cook such jolly wonderful food
    and you’re as thin as a rake.’
    ‘Family life I say, not entirely joking.
    ‘Never works that way for me,’ Liz sighs.
    Covetously she eyes a platoon of gingerbread men, still
    warm, that I baked earlier for the school’s Christmas Fayre
    and left out on racks to cool. Dearest Liz. She spends her
    life locked in an epic battle with temptation, for she adores
    food, all food, with unbridled passion, but is cruelly fated
    to wear every bite she eats. I love her dearly, but she’s
    built