Love in a Warm Climate Novel – “When did you start wearing a bra?” My husband and I had a very different conversation today. “What nonsense are you talking about?” “Why do you keep a bra in your bag?” Ten minutes ago, like a dutiful wife, I started to repack his black mulberry bag and I felt a bra. “How long has this relationship been going on?” “I met her about five months ago,” he sighed. I couldn’t believe it. It was so bad that he kept cheating on me. “But it’s more of a intercourse relationship, Sophie, actually, I love you.” “If you love me, then why did you sleep with a flat-chested woman?” I threw the lace B-cup bra in his face. “I hope you and her perfect little chest live happily ever after.
“Since when did you start wearing a bra?” I ask my husband as he walks into our bedroom. This is not typical of our Sunday afternoon conversations, which on any other Sunday might include a discussion about some articles in the Sunday papers, his latest round of golf (possibly worse than the articles), what to have for dinner or whether or not the children should have a puppy. But today is different. Ten minutes ago, dutiful wife that I am, I started to repack his black Mulberry leather bag, a Christmas present from me last year. He is still commuting back to England for work while I stay in our lovely new home in France.
Only Nick has clearly been doing more than just working. Unpacking the bag I found socks, crumpled shirts, boxer shorts; all the usual stuff. I rummaged around to reach the last few bits. Then I touched something that felt somehow unexpected. It felt like lace and silk. I took it out. It was a bra. And it was not for me. Unless he bought it for me eight years and three breastfeeding children ago and just forgot to hand it over. I dropped it as if it had burned me. It lay there on our blue and white patchwork bedspread, as real as everything else in the room but totally out of place. I wanted to scream, but the sound stuck in my throat, as if someone was trying to throttle me. I tried to breathe deeply and calm down. Just because there was a bra in his bag didn’t necessarily mean he had been shagging its owner. There might be another, perfectly reasonable, explanation. He might be a cross-dresser. Would that be better or worse? Or maybe it was a joke.
Nick had just been on a business trip to New York. Perhaps one of the other traders thought it would be a good wheeze to liven up his homecoming. But if that were the case, they would have chosen something slightly more garish. A red lace number with tassels, perhaps? Or maybe black PVC in size quadruple D. But not the cream lace and silk item with a delicate floral pattern lying on our bed, which is the kind of bra you buy for a woman you actually like, as well as want to shag. I picked it up again and turned it over a couple of times. It was a B-cup. It looked new. The label said La Perla. My best friend Sarah has underwear from La Perla; she is the fashion editor of a glossy magazine so gets sent it for free. I picked up some La Perla knickers up once when I strayed into the posh underwear section of Peter Jones.
They were over £ 100, which is more than I would usually spend on a fridge. When the sales assistant asked if she could help me I was worried she might charge me just to hold them. “So why are you carrying a bra in your bag?” “Ah,” says my husband and stops dead in his tracks as he spots the bra in my hand. There follows one of those silences that are more noisy than quiet. “Ah … ‘I’m sorry I forgot to tell you I’m a cross-dresser but I only do it on Sundays and I am getting help’?” I try. Nick laughs uneasily and tries to flash that cheeky Irish grin of his that never fails to charm people. It’s failing now, however. “It’s not mine,” he begins. “You surprise me,” I respond, adding. “And I suppose that’s supposed to make me feel better.” “I can explain. You see; it’s like this.” He walks towards me slowly across the wooden floor.
I can see he is trying to buy time before he comes up with a good enough excuse for the bra in the bag. “Is this one of your famous Irish jokes?” I ask. “The one about the Scottish bloke, the English bloke and the…er, expensive bra?” “No, Soph, I’ll level with you. I’ve been seeing someone, but really it meant nothing. Honest.” “Who is she?” I demand. “Clearly not a French woman or she would have left her knickers in there as well; one is no good without the other as any self-respecting French woman will tell you.” At least if she is French then I can ruin her week by confiscating one half of her matching underwear set. “She’s French, from Paris. She’s called Cécile,” he replies. “She’s one of our most important clients. I can’t explain how it happened, but it started with work meetings and then she insisted we go out one evening and…” He trails off. “And?” I prompt. “And when you told her all about me and your three young children she said ‘what a lovely bunch they sound. Please take this bra home for them?'” He sighs. I see the fight go out of those gorgeous green Irish eyes.
He has that look he had when Liverpool scored against Chelsea in the 90 th minute of the FA Cup Final. “Oh Soph, she just seemed so determined and to want me so much, in the end I just gave in. Pathetic I know, and there’s no excuse, and I am truly sorry. I suppose I was flattered.” Daisy the cat comes in and starts rubbing up against his legs; bloody feline traitor. Does she know the French aren’t big on cat rescue homes? God, I’m angry. Not with Daisy, she doesn’t know any better, but with him, and with this French woman. “And how long has this liaison been going on?” I ask, rather impressed with myself that I can come up with such a long word in my darkest hour. “I met her about five months ago,” he sighs. “You’ve been seeing her for five MONTHS?” I leap from our bed in shock. I can’t bloody believe it. He’s been betraying us all for all that time. Now I’m not angry, I’m furious, added to which I feel like the most stupid woman alive.
How could I not have noticed? “Well, not really seeing, more, well, sleeping with. It’s more a intercourse thing Soph, really, but it’s you I love.” “If it’s me you love what are you doing shagging some flat-chested floozy?” “Well, you don’t seem to want to sleep with me.” “It’s not that I don’t want to,” I shriek. “It’s just that I’m so bloody tired. In case you hadn’t noticed we have three small children and I’ve just been knackered for years.” I want to punch him but instead, much to my fury, I start to cry, more from rage than anything else. And the more I cry, the angrier I am at myself. Whatever happened to dignity in crisis? The injustice of it all makes me angrier by the minute. We have been together for ten years, we have had three children and now I am no longer the right bra size. I slump back down onto our bed. “Sweetheart,” he says, and starts walking towards me again. Sweetheart? I put my hand up to stop him. “I think you’d better just go,” I say. Nick looks amazed.
“Soph, darling, don’t be silly, we can get through this storm in a B-cup.” I glare at him. There are times when his humour can take my mind off anything. This is definitely not one of those times. “Seriously,” he goes on, sitting next to me on our bed, our beautiful mahogany sleigh bed; a romantic wedding present from his parents and my mother and whichever one of her five husbands she was married to at the time. The bed where all our children have been conceived, where I have breastfed and nurtured them, the bed they crawl into when they need comforting and sleep in as a special treat when they’re not well. I never imagined I would be sitting on it with Nick discussing his lover’s bra. “I thought moving here would be the end of it. I really wanted to make a fresh start. I know you’re knackered, you’ve been brilliant, you’ve looked after everyone so well; you really don’t deserve this. I’m so sorry Soph, I really am. But let’s be honest, you hardly notice I’m around.
The last time you were the one to start intercourse was probably before Edward was born, which is…” “I know how long ago it was,” I snap at him. It was five years ago. Have I really not initiated intercourse for FIVE YEARS? I try to think but I can’t focus. Surely that can’t be the case. What about his birthday? “You didn’t even initiate intercourse on my birthday,” he says. He has an annoying habit of reading my mind. I can’t fight back. The walls seem to be moving backwards and forwards. I feel like I’m watching myself in a film. I wish someone would rewind it and take me back to the bit where I see the bag and I decide to let the faithless man unpack it himself. Even though I don’t know he’s a faithless man. He takes my hand.
“Please Soph, I made a stupid mistake, she doesn’t mean anything to me. Please give me another chance. I promise I’ll stop seeing her.” Yeah, right, I think. “Go out Nick,” I say. “I hate you.” How trite; but somehow nothing else comes to mind. And it pretty much says it all. Looking at him, imagining him with someone else, I feel sick. I remove my hand from his. The thought of him with another woman is wrong, it’s repulsive, it’s…not fair. “Come on Soph, we can work at this, don’t you think? It’s worth it for the sake of the children.” “And what about for our sake?” I ask. “Is it worth it for our sake?” Nick sighs and gets up from the bed. He walks around the room for what seems like an age. He looks out of the French windows across the vineyards. I can’t begin to imagine what he’s thinking. I sit there like a nervous schoolgirl in the headmaster’s office waiting for Nick to determine the future of our marriage. He broke it so either he has to fix it or it’s over.