Apres le deluge, moi.

If he were here, the thunder and lightning would indicate to Brett that the rapture was going to happen any second. She has told him that she and Bromley (he chose the name and his only excuse is that he’s an unrepentant American) were at a mothers’ and babies’ group.

This is what a stern critic would call a lie.

Three hours ago, she dropped the boy at Lindsey’s house and told her that she had a non-specific emergency to attend to. She promised she would be back before four, Lindsey rolled her eyes but reluctantly agreed. It is now quarter to five and there has been a troubling exchange of WhatsApp messages.

15:57

LINDSEY: Chloe where tf are you?

15:58

LINDSEY: ANSWER YOUR PHONE

15:58

LINDSEY: I can see the blue ticks you idiot.

16:01

CHLOE: Darling, forgive me! I’ll explain all. Can’t tell you how much it means to know you’re with the little one. Mwah.

16:02

LINDSEY: WTAF! I have a job interview in thirty minutes.

16:06

CHLOE: Don’t be melodramatic. It’s on Zoom.

16:07

LINDSEY: I know where you are. I know what you’ve been doing all afternoon.

16:11

CHLOE: Is everything alright, lovely? You seem agitated. Listen, it’s time for a plan. Bromley will probably go down for a nap if you lie him down with some white noise.

16:12

LINDSEY: You have got to be fucking kidding.

16:14

CHLOE: You’re making everything worse for everyone, especially you. I’m starting to get a little bit worried.

16:19

LINDSEY: He’s not fucking sleeping – he’s getting distressed by the thunder.

16:21

CHLOE: We always say he’s like a dog, he doesn’t do thunder or fireworks!

16:22

LINDSEY: If you aren’t here in the next five minutes, I’m taking your odd looking baby back to yours and telling your cuck of a husband exactly what’s going on.

16:24

CHLOE: Have you tried YouTube? He likes those videos with shapes and songs (Bromley not Brett!). That might keep him occupied.

16:25

LINDSEY: Two minutes.

16:28

CHLOE: This is an astonishing reaction to a friend in need. I simply can’t get back, I am stuck on the Stonebridge Road, it’s completely flooded and traffic isn’t moving at all. Have a heart, I really thought better of you. I hope the interview goes well.

Lindsey has not responded. The ticks are not turning blue. She doesn’t know what’s happening, there’s no data to read. It is Schrödinger’s Marital Crisis. It requires careful consideration.

The weather is fucking biblical and it’s not conducive to clear thought. Presuming she wants to stop Lindsey telling all, and that’s a pretty big presumption right now, what can she do? The woman’s not answering her phone and, although she’s close enough to home, only a couple of miles across the fields, the traffic isn’t moving at all. There is the intermittent blue light of emergency vehicles up ahead and that’s not a good sign.

She sits here and waits to find out if her life has been torched. For a mad moment she contemplates calling Brett. “Sweetie, Lindsey’s going to turn up and say some pretty wild things. Don’t be angry with her, she’s not well. Whatever she says isn’t true, I’ll explain everything when I’m back.” Difficult. Brett’s not one of life’s great thinkers but even he would be able to see that this was pretty thin stuff.

She thinks this might not be all bad for him. His podcast has gradually drifted from loving Jesus to loving Jesus and being alt-right adjacent. This has made it a more profitable enterprise. If Brett tries, she’s sure that he’ll be able to turn his wife cheating on him into something he could make money from: the Bible teaches us that the woman who has committed adultery must be brought before the priest and made to drink bitter, cursed water. The libtards won’t allow this. Donate to my Ministry so that we can restore the world to its Biblical order. Your donation will be a blessing that will balance the curse that is a wife who has given herself to sin.

She shares neither his political nor religious beliefs, indeed she thinks that if she were a religious person then she’d at least feel bad about the act of humdrum infidelity she has committed this afternoon. On reflection though, she considers that even if there is a transcendent power then they’re unlikely to take an immediate interest in what enters and leaves the slimier and less hygienic reaches of her body.

She is forced to move the Volvo half on to the waterlogged verge to let a fire engine past. It occurs to her that she could just risk it, leave the car here and tramp across the muddy fields, she’d make it home in forty minutes, but she’s hardly dressed for that. She is wearing the impractical heels of an adulteress not the stout boots of a country lass. Dressing for an affair seems like a very grown up, sophisticated thing to be doing.

The affair itself does not feel grown up and sophisticated. It feels banal. Two or three times a month she meets a man called Hamish for coffee, they have the call and response conversations about culture and politics and life that every educated British person has (“Aren’t books good?” “Gosh, isn’t the government dreadful?” and “In some ways weren’t we happier before we all had mobiles?”) before going back to his slightly musty flat and having functional sex. She thinks she’d prefer it if he at least cleaned up a bit, the place isn’t filthy but the fact that he makes the bed but doesn’t change the sheets indicates that this is not a major occasion for him.

If she were doing a hierarchy of looks, she’d say that while Hamish is clearly better looking than Brett, who’s getting redder and flabbier every day, he’s not in her league. If she were doing a hierarchy of intelligence, she’d say that Hamish and Brett are both mid-range, room temperature, unexceptional, and she’s a couple of steps above. It is, she supposes, possible that her keenness to adapt to these men, to present herself to them, to sublimate herself to meet their needs and desires is a function of the patriarchy. I do what I do not because of who I am but because of societal structures, so what can I do? But in truth, she knows that this is not right. She does what she does because she is not real, she is not authentic in the way that Brett and Hamish are. They, unlike her, actually think, feel and believe things, even if those things are utterly mental.

They met through a dating site. When she said she was married, he wanted to know why she wanted to have an affair, implicit in the question was the notion that she was psychologically damaged and was exorcising a demon. If this was correct, she wasn’t the right person to diagnose it. The marriage had come about because life was staid and she reasoned that if she was to be bored, it was as well to be rich and bored. The affair because life was still something she was watching, and she thought she might give participation a go.

Hamish views the affair in the way other men view the cryptic crossword. It’s gratifying that they can do it, but it is not something that defines them. He had seemed refreshingly direct online. He’d asked her what she liked in the bedroom. She’d responded silence and a cool breeze. He’d awarded her a laughing emoji.

Brett doesn’t think she’s funny. He thinks she’s perfect. At least demographically perfect.

In fairness, Brett doesn’t think anything is funny. He often commented that the Word of God in the Bible doesn’t contain a single joke and evidently thought this spoke well of the Almighty since it gave them something in common. Brett’s pleasures are few but intense. He likes meat, well cooked meat in stupidly large quantities. He likes the Old Testament more than the New Testament, the stories are better and there isn’t any suspicion of confusing leftist nuance. He likes people to know that he’s doing well, new (Republican not commie) red Mercedes every year, big house, pretty wife.

This reverie is getting her nowhere. The storm is abating but the rain remains torrential. Whatever is causing the traffic is clearly pretty significant, but two police cars have sped past and presumably they are there to clear the jam? There still exists the possibility that she can get to Lindsey before anything disastrous happens, she just needs to get moving.

She takes Bromley’s sausage dog blanket from the car seat and puts it on as a makeshift headscarf. She checks her appearance in the mirror and thinks that she looks a bit like the old Queen, you know, if the old Queen was having a fucking massive mental health crisis. She opens the door and the reality of the situation imposes itself. The road slopes and there is a literal stream running down it, she cannot so much as step out of the car without soaking herself to the knee. In an act of dignity free contortion, she removes her shoes and tights and places them neatly on the passenger seat in the wildly optimistic hope that once she gets back to the car, she’ll be able to put them back on and it will appear as though nothing has happened.

Brett will be American in any divorce. He has some money and some property in this country, and she’ll probably get a cut of that, but the real wealth is overseas. He will lawyer up and fight tooth and nail to deny her anything. Such is their way. She doesn’t want him to keep Bromley, that would feel like a defeat. It’s not that single parenting would be a breeze but surely better than custody plans and access arrangements and knowing that her son was being brought up to think that all taxes are a form of oppression and that Noah somehow squeezed a pair of Diplodocuses on to his boat.

With that thought she steps out of the car and blasphemes with creativity and passion. She strides purposefully down the hill along the line of traffic. She notices almost nothing apart from the weather and the fact that the blanket is soaked, her dress is soaked, her underwear is soaked. She screams because no one can hear her and she feels like it.

An ambulance approaches slowly from behind and she is forced to press herself against the side of a silver Ford as the emergency vehicle makes it stately way towards the snarl of blue lights. As she resumes her progress the Ford driver winds her window down and shouts something urgently. This creates a dilemma, on the one hand this is not the time or place for making new friends, but, on the other, the woman’s very keen to get her attention.

“Yes, was there something you wanted?”

“You can’t be out in this, love. Do you want to jump in the back until it clears? I can give you a lift somewhere if you need it?”

“No, I’m fine thanks. My car’s back there. It’s electric.”

“Why did you get out? It’s dangerous.”

“It’s just a bit of weather. I wanted to know what was happening.”

“There’s been an accident. There was a policeman came back to tell us. Said that someone had died and that no one was going to move for a while.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake. I need to get home.”

“Me too, I’ve got Ben and Jerry’s in the boot.”

“Isn’t life filled with the most exquisite tragedy?”

She pushes onwards although the original purpose of the expedition has now been satisfied, she reasons that she’s got this far and she’s not going to get any wetter. She reaches the police cars parked across the road and is apprehended by a young officer.

“Excuse me! Excuse me! Sorry, you can’t be here.”

“Why not? What’s going on? Traffic’s been stuck for ages.”

“I’m going to ask you to return to your vehicle.”

She goes on tiptoes, peers over the shoulder of the police officer and is suffused with joy to see a mangled Republican red Mercedes.