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the waiter in gratitude. He is slightly surprised but mutters 'Prego' and leaves
us.
    When Edward did return he was obviously drunk. Marion told him
what she had seen and they had an enormous fight. He did not bother to deny it.
How could he? She respected him for that at least. He said he did not know how it
had started or why. He promised to end it immediately and never see the woman again.
Marion was so desperate to keep him that she took him at his word. After a few weeks
things were almost back to normal. In fact she was beginning to forget the whole
affair when inside the pocket of a suit she found a receipt for a hotel room. That
was enough!
    She confronted him with it but he simply told her to leave him
alone. He took a bottle of whisky from the side board and stayed in the guest room
that night. And so it continued until he hardly bothered to hide his liaisons. Sometimes
when she answered the phone someone at the other end would hang up. Once the caller
even asked if she would have him call Julie but would say no more than that. Some
nights he would come home in the early hours or occasionally not at all. Finally
she could stand it no more and they were divorced two days short of their second
wedding anniversary. At the end of it she just rolls her eyeballs, looks at me and
shrugs her shoulders as if to say, 'What can you do?'
    'I'm very sorry,' is all I can think of to say.
    'My mother was distraught but I had no alternative,' she says,
putting her fork down on her almost untouched veal escalope and wiping the corners
of her mouth with a napkin.
    'And did you marry again?'
    'I did, yes,' she says, slowly. The waiter takes our plates.
'He was much older than me, Andrew. I think I wanted some security, some stability.'
I nod, understandingly. 'He was originally South American but had lived in New York
for many years. He was a kind man and we had a beautiful home in Sutton Place and
another in the Hamptons. Life was very good to us and I can't complain but he soon
developed a terrible insecurity and became obsessively jealous. It was simply dreadful.'
    She squeezes my hand. 'Andrew, I could not look at another man,
be it in a restaurant, at a party, even at the theatre without him flying into a
rage. I think on reflection that a man of his age with a pretty young wife begins
to feel that he has something he cannot control as easily as he controls money and
employees, objects and possessions. I was like a bird in a gilded cage, I couldn't
go out on my own, I wasn't allowed friends or interests. After a few years of this
I felt I was going crazy. He wanted to put me in therapy, but the point was I would
never get better while he was standing over me, trying to control me like, like
a puppet master.' I nod again, realizing what a good listener I must be. Then I
look down very discreetly at my watch. Shit! It's two fortyfive. Debbie will already
have clocked that I'm not there. The Tube! I popped into town to do some shopping
and there was a delay on the Tube. That'll do. Back to Marion.
    She divorced husband number two and became a free woman, which
is what she is today. 'I choose my friends, where I want to live, how I want to
use my time and I am beholden to no one, you see? No one.'
    'Very good idea,' I say, assuming we won't have pudding which,
given the time, is probably a good thing. While we wait for the bill she signs my
credit card slip for Jonathan without any embarrassment and then adds: 'You'd better
give me your numbers. We don't need to trouble Jonathan any more, I don't think,
need we?'
    I think about it for a moment. Freelance. Well, Jonathan introduced
us, which is what the agency is all about but we can't keep going back to him every
time we want to meet, can we? OK, so I won't get paid his £200 or whatever for the
next time we meet but there could be greater rewards here than the occasional cheque.
You've got to look at the bigger picture, I decide.
    'Up to you,' says Marion, obviously slightly