The Men in her Life

plates of peeled broad beans, roasted potatoes with sharp chilli sauce, and prawns, their shells burnt and glistening with olive oil and salt. And she drank sufficient red wine to anaesthetize the pain and allow her to sleep.
    The bartender nodded his recognition of her, but that was as far as familiarity extended. If anyone else noticed her she did not see it, until, one evening, after she had been in the city several weeks, a couple sat down at the opposite end of the bar. A middle-aged but handsome man, and a much younger woman. At first she thought they were lovers, and that the rise and fall of their rapid conversation was the cadence of a lovers’ tiff, but when an older woman joined them, Philippa realized that the younger woman was their daughter. She was rather beautiful, and spoilt, and although she was wearing jeans and simple T-shirt, Philippa could imagine her in full Sevillana flounces of satin and black lace, with a fancy tortoiseshell comb in her lustrous dark hair and a fluttering fan. The lovers’ row she thought she was witnessing, she now heard as a dispute about the daughter’s being allowed to stay out, and the coquettish look she had mistaken for flirting was not flirting, she realized, it was just the daughter’s way of reassuring her father that he would still have a place in her heart, even though she would love other men. The three of them suddenly stopped bantering and stared at Philippa, and only then was she aware of the tears streaming down her face. Fumbling in her handbag, she flung some notes onto the bar, slipped off her stool, and fled from their questioning gaze down the darkened alleys, through the courtyard, to the safety of her room. There she stood with her chest heaving huge breathless sobs and the memory of her last conversation with Jack, which she had kept dammed up, flooding over her in a tidal wave of lamentation.

    She had been waiting downstairs in his study when he returned from the election party that night. She had showered, dressed and reapplied her make-up, wanting to look her absolute best for the confrontation. A quick search through his address and diary files had established nothing. It made her feel tawdry tapping into his PC, like a woman going through her husband’s pockets in an increasingly frantic search for the credit-card slip that betrays a dirty weekend or an unreceived bouquet.
    ‘Who is she?’ she demanded as soon as he walked in, trying to keep her voice as level as possible.
    ‘Who?’
    ‘I saw you on the television, along with half of London , I expect... if you have to have an affair, you could at least be discreet. No wonder you were so keen to go to the party. No wonder you weren’t in the least bothered that I was too tired to come...’
    ‘I don’t understand,’ he had offered weakly.
    ‘You were on television, Jack. Kissing a redhead. Advertising your affair to the world.’
    She could see that Jack was frightened, and then she knew it was true. It was so rare for him to be frightened, he did not know how to disguise it.
    ‘It’s not what you think,’ he finally said.
    ‘Oh, spare me your corny dialogue!’
    ‘Sit down...’
    ‘We’re not in a movie now, Jack,’ she said wither-ingly, ‘anyway, why does the woman always have to sit down to hear the bad news? Do you think I’m going to faint? I’ve never fainted in my life...’
    ‘I have a daughter,’ he looked at her face, ‘not Clare, another daughter... I’ve meant to tell you. I was going to tell you... You have to believe...’
    ‘A daughter...? You’ve meant to tell me?’
    ‘Yes,’ he smiled at her. It was the silly look of relief that angered her most.
    ‘And you think that makes it OK? It wasn’t my mistress, it was my daughter.’ Her mind began to work with the information. ‘So you don’t just have another woman, you have a whole other life....?’
    ‘Let me get us both a drink.’
    ‘I don’t want a bloody drink...’
    He had walked out of the room and she had stood stiffly waiting for him to return. To follow him would weaken her moral superiority, she decided coolly. It was up to him to come back to her. She heard the cellophane-crackle of ice-cubes being pushed from their trays and then she heard a loud thump like someone jumping off a chair, but at first she was still too angry to wonder what it was. She had waited, beginning to wonder whether she should after all follow him into the kitchen. This way she was only giving him time to