Unfaithfully yours, p.1
Unfaithfully Yours, page 1
Also by Nigel Williams
Novels
My Life Closed Twice
Jack Be Nimble
Johnny Jarvis
Charlie
Star Turn
Witchcraft
Black Magic
Charlie (based on his teleplay)
The Wimbledon Poisoner
They Came from SW19
East of Wimbledon
Scenes from a Poisoner’s Life
(short stories)
Stalking Fiona
Fortysomething
Hatchett & Lycett
Unfaithfully Yours
Plays
Double Talk
Class Enemy
Line ’em
Sugar and Spice
Trial Run
W.C.P.C.
My Brother’s Keeper
Country Dancing
As it Was
Consequences
Breaking Up
Nativity
Lord of the Flies (adapted from
the novel by William Golding)
The Last Romantics
Harry and Me
MyFace
HR (radio series, currently in
its fourth season on
BBC Radio 4)
Non-fiction
Two and a Half Men
in a Boat
From Wimbledon to Waco
Nigel Williams
Constable & Robinson Ltd.
55–56 Russell Square
London WC1B 4HP
www.constablerobinson.com
First published in the UK by Corsair,
an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd., 2013
Copyright © Nigel Williams, 2013
The right of Nigel Williams to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.
A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in
Publication Data is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-1-47210-674-2 (hardback)
ISBN: 978-1-47210-683-4 (ebook)
Printed and bound in the UK
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Illustration by Tom Gauld: Design by Chris Callard
‘More than kisses, letters mingle souls.’
John Donne
Cast of Principal Characters
In order of appearance
Elizabeth Price, a classics teacher
Orlando (Roland) Gibbons, a private detective
Gerald Price, a successful barrister, married to Elizabeth Price
Mike Larner, a retired BBC producer, late of the Natural History Unit
Mary Dimmock, wife to Sam Dimmock, a dentist
John Goldsmith, a Putney doctor in general practice
Sam Dimmock, a Putney dentist
Barbara Goldsmith, a novelist, married to John Goldsmith
Pamela Larner, career mother, married to Mike Larner, now deceased
The novel is set in SW15. Now.
Dear Mary –
I thought I would put together all the letters that passed between what I still cannot help calling the Puerto Banús Eight. Nine, I suppose, if you included me, but I was never – thank God – conscripted into one of those villa holidays.
I come over as an absolute jerk. I think that is what I was in those days. Maybe that is still a good way of describing me, but at least now I am an absolute jerk who is loved by you.
Don’t ask me how I got hold of them. That’s my job. I am rather proud of being a snooper – and getting better and better at it with every new marital breakdown in Putney. I am no longer ashamed of who I am – and have even been known to own up to the fact that I went to a minor public school.
These aren’t all the letters, of course, and, as well as letters, there were emails and phone calls; but I think the letters say more about us all than any of the more casual traffic. Your prose style tells the world more about you than almost anything else, which is perhaps why now I take more trouble with it.
I have typed them up – so that you don’t get John Goldsmith’s unusually neat doctor’s hand, Barbara G’s wild scrawl, Mike Larner’s prim italic, Sam’s bold cursive or your wonderful way of managing to make the alphabet look as if it was eating itself. The butch, broad strokes of Gerald Price’s Parker pen are also absent – as are the hideous, spider-like marks made by my (now abandoned) Mitsubishi Uniball. The only handwritten letter I have left as it was is the last and, I think, rather touching, message from Elizabeth Price to me.
Her handwriting was not as I had imagined it. It was crazy. There were wildly irregular spaces between words, sentences and even, sometimes, different ingredients of the same character. Significant?
Here they are anyway – Elizabeth and Gerald Price, Sam and Mary Dimmock (that’s you!), Mike and poor Pamela Larner and the Perfect Couple Who Weren’t – John and Barbara Goldsmith. They come over as clear as day, don’t they?
That is the beauty of letters. There is nowhere to hide. So here you are. I thought it might amuse you. I’ve touched them up a little and added a few chapter headings, but – I promise – I have not seriously interfered with what any of us wrote to each other. This is Putney, red in tooth and claw. My version of the Great Putney Novel, the one I often talked about writing back in the day. All You Ever Wanted to Know About Sixtysomethings – a group I have only recently joined.
Enjoy!
XXXX Orlando
PART ONE
Chapter One
Mrs Price Hires a Private Dick
From:
Elizabeth Price
PO Box 132
Putney
12 June
To:
Roland O. Gibbons
Gibbons Detective Agency
12 The Alley
Putney, SW15
Dear Mr Gibbons,
I am writing to you because I think my husband may be having sex. I am not sure with whom he is having it but it is certainly not with me.
He may, for all I know, be involved with more than one person. I use the word ‘person’ advisedly. He may be doing the deed of darkness with females, males, or some combination of the two, since, as far as I can gather, at his public school, a boarding establishment, homosexuality was more or less compulsory for the younger boys. I am fairly certain he is not a paedophile, however, which is some comfort. We have two children and, as far as I know, he has never interfered with either of them. Indeed, it has been something of a struggle to get him to even acknowledge their existence.
I have studied various kinds of detective agency but none of them seemed entirely convincing. Indeed, from the general tone of their advertisements, I gained the impression that many of them would have joined, enthusiastically, in whatever it is my husband is doing.
I am not, at this stage of the proceedings anyway, interested in photographic recordings of him committing adultery. Nor am I sure, at the moment, what I will do with the information you obtain or, indeed, what it is I expect you to uncover. It may be that he is not having sex with anyone at all. Though, from my observation of him over more than twenty years, I think that highly unlikely. He once told me that he would ‘shag the Archbishop of Canterbury if that was the only thing on offer’. A joke – of course - but people reveal themselves through their jokes. Don’t you think?
We have – as people do over the years – grown apart and, to be honest with you, he has become, in many respects, a complete mystery to me. I want, in other words, to find out more about him without having to go to the trouble of asking him. It may be simply that he has discovered a new hobby and is not keen to tell me about it. He may have bought a boat. No fewer than three men married to friends of mine have done precisely that – without telling their wives.
I want information about him, Mr Gibbons, and I want it gathered with complete and utter discretion. I suspect you are well placed to supply that commodity. If only because – during the quite extensive period of time in which I have lain in wait outside your offices – it has become clear that you are about the only person who ever visits them.
There may well come a time, Mr Gibbons, when I will require professional surveillance of his activities even when he is on our premises. We have a five-bedroom house and it is not always possible to keep track of him inside the property; but, for the moment, I am only interested in finding out what he does when I am not there. I see no reason why you and I should ever have to meet.
For reasons of security I do not wish you to reply to the address at which – for the moment – I am forced to reside with him.
Perhaps you would write to me care of the Post Office and let me know your rates and the kind of details you might need to help you begin the complex and probably unrewarding task of tracking the man to whom I am, unfortunately, married.
I look forward to hearing from you,
Yours
Elizabeth Price
PS I think he may be co
From:
Roland O. Gibbons
Gibbons Detective Agency
12 The Alley
Putney, SW15
14 June
To:
Elizabeth Price
PO Box 132
Putney
Dear Mrs Price,
Thank you very much for your letter.
I was really glad to get it. I know I should pretend to be ‘cool’ and look as if I can only just manage to fit you in – but – yowzas! A job! This was my reaction. The recession has affected our business very badly and small private firms such as mine are seriously at risk from the major conglomerates.
Well done with the ‘research’ too. I will admit to feeling slightly ‘weird’ that someone has been doing a ‘snoop job’ on me (shouldn’t it be the other way round????) but, in fact, Mrs Price, I completely understand you wanting to make sure that we would be a ‘good fit’. I do not know if you have been following me home or monitoring my telephone calls and emails but, if you have, I hope you didn’t find any real dirt on yours truly!
Your letter does not suggest what it is that has made you feel Mr Price is having an affair, although you seem to imply that, whatever he is up to, it is pretty serious.
Are there stains on his clothing? Has he been making or receiving phone calls that he has attempted to hide from you? Has he been visiting inappropriate websites? I do appreciate your need for privacy but, obviously, in order to make an assessment, a ‘face-to-face’ meeting would be helpful. Perhaps you would call by the office. You seem to have had no difficulty finding it and I am pretty much free most of the time at the moment.
I’m not a hermit! I do occasionally get out for a light snack at the La Mancha Tapas Bar in Putney High Street. I usually bring a selection of sandwiches (cheese, ham or coarse pâté and pickle) to work or – on special occasions – order a delivery from the Royal China in Chelverton Road. Their Steamed Eel in Black Bean Sauce has brought me more moments of real ecstasy than – for example – my first wife. Although that would not have been difficult!
If you would prefer to telephone – and I often feel that, if a physical meeting might cause embarrassment, a chat over the ‘blower’ can be more helpful than words on a page – I enclose a leaflet, which, as well as giving our email and telephone details contains our mission statement and a few selected testimonials from satisfied clients.
I remain, yours respectfully,
Roland O. Gibbons (MA [Reading], PIAA registered)
From:
Elizabeth Price
PO Box 132
Putney
17 June
To:
Roland O. Gibbons
Gibbons Detective Agency
12 The Alley
Putney, SW15
Dear Mr Gibbons,
I fear it will not be possible for us to meet face to face. I am not horribly disfigured and am not more noticeably hideous than other late-middle-aged women of my acquaintance. I am, however, trying to keep our relationship as secret as I suspect my husband has been keeping his extra-marital activities. Although you may think you are adept at snooping, Mr Gibbons, you have no idea of the talents of the women of Putney in this area. Very little escapes their notice, and, were you and I to meet, even at a prearranged location many miles from this area, it would not take them long to rumble us.
I do not anticipate you and I ever having to go through a face-to-face encounter. I would prefer to restrict our contact to the form in which it is presently enshrined. I have used email, but it is, on the whole, a barrier to successful communication. People begin sentences in the middle, abandon paragraphs before they have got to the point and are – with some reason – usually so frightened their words will reach people for whom they are not intended that they do not bother to make the smallest attempt at honesty.
I am afraid I did not find the leaflet you enclosed very informative. The quotations from clients were positively off-putting. Who is ‘Mrs L.B.’ of Raynes Park and why did she think you were ‘utterly smooth and professional’? Why on earth does ‘Mr C. Lewis’ of Southfields believe that ‘your enquiries saved his marriage and restored his faith in humanity’? Are these people real? And, even if they are, is their opinion of any value?
You say your rates are ‘between £125 and £150 a day depending on the type of surveillance required’. I am not quite sure what this means. Do you concentrate harder if you are being paid more? I am sure I do. I am sure that keeping my husband under observation is worth at least £150 per diem. Although large, he is physically agile and naturally suspicious. He is a lawyer. Need I say more?
Perhaps – if you are willing to undertake this job – you could write back to me and give me some details about yourself and your working methods. I always think it is possible to deduce all one needs to know about a possible employee from studying their prose style and, indeed, their handwriting – should you feel moved to scribble your reply.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Yours,
Elizabeth Price
PS Inverted commas should only really be put at the beginning and end of directly reported speech.
From:
Roland O. Gibbons
Gibbons Detective Agency
12 The Alley
Putney, SW15
30 June
To:
Elizabeth Price
PO Box 132
Putney
Dear Mrs Price,
I am sorry to be late replying to your letter. I was called away to Norwich on a difficult case involving a missing animal.
If you do not wish to meet – let’s not meet! I want what you want, Mrs Price! I am not one of those private investigators who argues with the chap (or lady!) who is paying his bills! I am happy to accept your terms. Indeed, in the interests of ‘transparency’ you will have noticed that I am writing this reply with a black Uniball ‘Eye’ pen, made by the Mitsubishi Pencil Company. You are welcome to make what deductions you may from my handwriting!
A graphologist, who did some work for yours truly, once told me that my signature was ‘a cry for help’. My wife said she started to lose faith in me when she received my first love letter to her in what she called my ‘pathetic, spidery writing’.
Well, Mrs Price, you are in charge, and if the style and formation of my letters lay me open to you, I am happy for it to be that way! You is de Boss Lady!
Your typed letter tells me diddly-squat about you, ma’am! It was written, I would guess, using the Microsoft Word Program and printed with an HP LaserJet 2015 that is nearing the end of its cartridge life, which might suggest that you are a person who writes for a living. Your quite stern attitude to the old ‘references’ and my habit of being a bit too free with the ‘inverted commas’ tells me you may be a teacher of some kind (English possibly?) but otherwise, Mrs Price, I am quite happy for you to remain a mystery.
I would warn you, however, that the more I find out about your husband the more I am likely to find out about you. What is it the Spanish say? ‘The husband wears the wife on his linen; the wife wears the husband on her face.’
What can I say about myself?
I am fifty-four years old and have a degree in English from Reading University. I was married for twenty years and am now divorced. I was brought up in a working-class household in Putney and was the first person from my family ever to go to university. Hence my ‘penchant’ perhaps for ‘inverted commas’. I have been a private investigator for over thirty years and I take my calling very seriously indeed. I may not seem an appetizing person, Mrs Price – though I hope your sighting of me did not make you feel I was the shabby ‘man in a mac’ of detective stories – but in my quiet way I am a moralist.
I am very happy to start at the rate of £150 per day, which I usually reckon at eight hours. If I have to observe him after the hour of eleven p.m. there is a surcharge. I will obviously need a current photograph of your husband and some idea of where and when he is to be found. You mentioned that he is a lawyer so I presume he visits an office on a daily basis. Adultery is, in my experience, often committed with work colleagues – sometimes, I am sorry to say, even in the workplace itself. Perhaps he goes on ‘away days’ – a modern management notion that has done wonders for marital infidelity.
