to be careful: and this was already starting to make him impatient. Almost three years into his first term of office, the routine of his parliamentary life (half of every week in central London, and then a long, long weekend at home in his Midlands constituency with his wife and daughter) was beginning to grate. He was getting restless, and hungry for change: rapid, radical change. He could feel himself grow moribund, sink into premature complacence and torpor, and he was looking for something that would shock his whole being into renewed life.
In the event, he found it one Thursday evening in February, 2000, and it came from a most unlikely source: his brother.
Benjamin put up the ironing board while Emily sat watching television. She was watching a team of highly trained celebrity gardeners transform a drab, urban back yard into a verdant oasis, complete with decking, barbecue area and water feature, all in the space of a weekend. Outside, their own garden lay shabby and neglected.
âIâll iron that for you, if you like,â she offered.
âDonât be silly,â said Benjamin. âI know how to iron a shirt.â
His reply was not meant to sound like that: dismissive and ungracious. But that was how it sounded. To be honest, he would have preferred Emily to iron his shirt. He did not like ironing shirts, and he wasnât very good at it. If he had really been going out for dinner
à deux
with his brother Paul, as he had told her, then he would happily have allowed Emily to iron his shirt. But the fact that Malvina was going to be there, and the fact that he hadnât shared this information with his wife, made him feel guilty. Despite his habitually analytical frame of mind, Benjamin did not analyse
why
it made him feel guilty, on this occasion. He was merely aware of feeling guilty, and aware that to have Emily iron his shirt for him before he went out would make him feel guiltier still.
He began to iron the shirt. Every time he ironed one of the sleeves, he would turn it over to find that the other side now boasted two or three obvious creases which hadnât been there before. This always happened; he didnât know why.
The gardening programme finished and was succeeded by a cookery show in which an implausibly glamorous young woman, living in an implausibly elegant house, prepared delicious morsels of food while tossing her hair, pouting seductively at the camera and licking traces of butter and sauce off her fingers in a manner, to Benjamin, so explicitly suggestive of oral sex that he found himself getting an erection while ironing his cuffs for the fifth time. Five minutes into her implausibly effortless concoction of poached pistachio-sprinkled apricots stuffed with crème fraîche he heard the microwave ping: during the commercial break Emily had put on a Marks and Spencerâs macaroni cheese, which she now emptied into a bowl and consumed half-heartedly while watching the televised display of erotic gastronomy with beady, envious eyes.
So, why hadnât he told her, Benjamin started asking himself? He cast his mind back three months, to the day in November 1999 when Malvina had sat down at the table next to his in the Waterstoneâs café on High Street. It had been almost seven oâclock, the end of a long working day. Of course, he should have been at home with Emily by then. But that eveningâas on many other eveningsâhe had told her that he needed to work late. Not so that he could slip away and spend a few hours with his mistress (Benjamin would never have a mistress), but so that he could snatch thirty minutesâ solitude, alone with a book, and his thoughts, before coming home to the deeper, more oppressive solitude of his shared domestic life.
He had not been sitting there long before becoming aware that the young, pale, slender woman at the next table wanted to catch his attention. She kept meeting his eye, and smiling, and looking so
In the event, he found it one Thursday evening in February, 2000, and it came from a most unlikely source: his brother.
Benjamin put up the ironing board while Emily sat watching television. She was watching a team of highly trained celebrity gardeners transform a drab, urban back yard into a verdant oasis, complete with decking, barbecue area and water feature, all in the space of a weekend. Outside, their own garden lay shabby and neglected.
âIâll iron that for you, if you like,â she offered.
âDonât be silly,â said Benjamin. âI know how to iron a shirt.â
His reply was not meant to sound like that: dismissive and ungracious. But that was how it sounded. To be honest, he would have preferred Emily to iron his shirt. He did not like ironing shirts, and he wasnât very good at it. If he had really been going out for dinner
à deux
with his brother Paul, as he had told her, then he would happily have allowed Emily to iron his shirt. But the fact that Malvina was going to be there, and the fact that he hadnât shared this information with his wife, made him feel guilty. Despite his habitually analytical frame of mind, Benjamin did not analyse
why
it made him feel guilty, on this occasion. He was merely aware of feeling guilty, and aware that to have Emily iron his shirt for him before he went out would make him feel guiltier still.
He began to iron the shirt. Every time he ironed one of the sleeves, he would turn it over to find that the other side now boasted two or three obvious creases which hadnât been there before. This always happened; he didnât know why.
The gardening programme finished and was succeeded by a cookery show in which an implausibly glamorous young woman, living in an implausibly elegant house, prepared delicious morsels of food while tossing her hair, pouting seductively at the camera and licking traces of butter and sauce off her fingers in a manner, to Benjamin, so explicitly suggestive of oral sex that he found himself getting an erection while ironing his cuffs for the fifth time. Five minutes into her implausibly effortless concoction of poached pistachio-sprinkled apricots stuffed with crème fraîche he heard the microwave ping: during the commercial break Emily had put on a Marks and Spencerâs macaroni cheese, which she now emptied into a bowl and consumed half-heartedly while watching the televised display of erotic gastronomy with beady, envious eyes.
So, why hadnât he told her, Benjamin started asking himself? He cast his mind back three months, to the day in November 1999 when Malvina had sat down at the table next to his in the Waterstoneâs café on High Street. It had been almost seven oâclock, the end of a long working day. Of course, he should have been at home with Emily by then. But that eveningâas on many other eveningsâhe had told her that he needed to work late. Not so that he could slip away and spend a few hours with his mistress (Benjamin would never have a mistress), but so that he could snatch thirty minutesâ solitude, alone with a book, and his thoughts, before coming home to the deeper, more oppressive solitude of his shared domestic life.
He had not been sitting there long before becoming aware that the young, pale, slender woman at the next table wanted to catch his attention. She kept meeting his eye, and smiling, and looking so
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