The High Flyer Read Online Free PDF Page A

belated confession mean you’ve decided I’m no dreamer?”
    “It means I’ve decided you’re gorgeous enough for me to have a few dreams of my own.”
    I did not take this remark too seriously, since lovers do tend to pay that sort of compliment when dining out in Paris, but I appreciated the hint that he was willing for the affair to become more significant. “Okay, Mr. Smoothie,” I said. “Let’s hear more about this separated wife of yours.”
    To my relief he then proved more than willing to talk of Sophie, and I learned that they had first met when he had been up at Oxford; she had been the sister of one of his friends there. Her family was both wealthy and well-connected, and having worked out that it would be wonderfully providential if he were to fall in love with her, Kim discovered later, once he was qualified, that he was in love. Surprise! It was an old, old story.
    Unlike me Kim was a barrister, not a solicitor, but he had decided from the start that he had no wish to spend a long apprenticeship in chambers, and as the result of his stepfather’s influence he had started work as an in-house lawyer at a German bank based in the City. With his bilingual skills and his natural aptitude for business he was soon flourishing, and by the time the marriage took place at St. Paul’s Knightsbridge in 1966 he was already earning a good salary.
    “So what went wrong?” I demanded, deciding it was time to switch on the pneumatic drill to dig up the truth.
    “Isn’t it obvious that my marriage was a smart career move but an emotional non-starter? We’ve stayed together so long only because she really did turn out to be the ideal wife for an ambitious lawyer—and don’t think I’m not grateful to Sophie for her support over the years. But in the end a marriage—especially a childless marriage—can’t survive on mere gratitude.”
    “When did you stop having sex with her?”
    “About a hundred light-years ago. Naturally I’ve had other arrangements—”
    “Naturally.”
    “—but last February we had a row when she refused to come to a Livery Company dinner with me and suddenly I thought: screw it. So then I suggested it was finally time we faced reality and talked about divorce.”
    “How did she take it?”
    “She wasn’t too keen at first, but in the end she had to concede it would be a relief to end the fiction and live more honestly. I was only showing up at weekends by that time anyway; I always spent Monday through Friday at Clifford’s Inn.”
    “Why was Sophie content to keep the marriage going if she was getting no sex?”
    “Sex was never her favourite pastime.”
    “You’re sure about that?”
    “Of course I’m sure! Hey, why the cross-examination?”
    “Because I want to know exactly where I stand and because I know damn well that even ill-assorted couples can bat around in bed right up to the decree nisi and beyond!”
    He said, amused: “I love it when you act tough!” But then he leaned forward across the table, clasped my hands and added as seriously as I could have wished: “There’s nothing going on between me and Sophie, Carter. And believe me, this is going to be a friendly, routine, unopposed divorce which will flash through the rubber-stamping process just as soon as we complete the two-year separation in February 1990.”
    How sad it is that even the most successful lawyers can make massive errors of judgement.
    X
    The main result of these confidential conversations in Paris was that I decided Kim was capable of being the husband I had long wanted but had almost lost hope of finding. He fitted the ideal profile. He was successful enough to earn more money than I did, so this meant a major psychological hurdle was demolished. (Most men feel emasculated if they fail to be king of the bank accounts.) He had the educational background which enabled him to go everywhere and know everyone who needed to be known, yet at the same time he well understood what it was like