Free The Washington Club by Peter Corris

reactions: I felt that I’d go the distance for her, tell any lies, destroy any evidence, just to get back to where we’d been. Against that was the scepticism of twenty years of handling people with problems, my knowledge of their deviousness, delusions and capacity for self-deception.
    We went into the kitchen without speaking and I perched on a stool while she made coffee in a plug-in machine. She spooned the coffee into the filter paper and poured in thewater. The suspicious, sceptical Hardy waited for her to speak. An old ploy—first remarks after a dramatic statement can be very revealing.
    â€˜Nothing wrong with your prostate.’
    I was totally surprised. I’d had no idea of what she might say and I burst out laughing, totally thrown.
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜You’ve gone about five hours without a piss. A whisky, a couple of glasses of wine, some water. Your prostate’s okay. I’m talking as a woman who knows about older men.’
    Well, what do you deduce from that, Cliff?
I could feel her taking control. I couldn’t mention age difference, but she could. She’d made me laugh and anyone who makes you laugh is on your side, aren’t they? She leaned back against the bench while the coffee maker bubbled and took her cigarettes from a pocket in the kimono. She lit up, took two deep drags and put the cigarette out in the sink. Then she ran a glass of water and rinsed her mouth, turning away from me to spit the water out.
    â€˜I know it stinks,’ she said. ‘I want you to kiss me but I needed it.’
    I went across the smooth quarry tiles in three strides and grabbed her. She seemed to flow towards me and I could feel the need in her, or thought I could. If she was faking this she was a loss to the acting profession. I didn’t care. We kissed fiercely and the coffee maker hissed as the last of the water passed through.
    She pressed her head against my shoulder and gripped my ribs in a strong hold. ‘I’ve told a lot of lies,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t know if I can . . . untell them. Can you do that, Cliff?’
    Her perfume was overlaid with the smell of sex and smoke and coffee. I rubbed the top of her head with my chin and felt the whiskers snag in her hair. ‘You can do anything,’ I said.
    â€˜I was never in love with Julius, whatever that means. I liked and respected him though. You see, I loved my parents very deeply, too deeply. I thought they were both wonderful. They adored each other and me. It was all a bit unhealthy really.’
    We were in the sitting room with our coffee and Claudia was fiddling with a cigarette. She looked at me directly.
    â€˜I don’t mean there was anything wrong,’  she said quickly. ‘No molestation or abuse or anything like that. It was just that we were too exclusive of other people. I measured everyone against them, all relationships against theirs and found them wanting. The couple of boys I went out with and went to bed with in my student days I found pretty pathetic compared with my father. That’s not healthy.’
    â€˜I see.’
    â€˜They didn’t have any family here. The people who’d taken them originally had died or were far away. Like me, they didn’t have many friends either, hardly any. But Julius was one, or at least I thought he was. I had a flatclose to my parents’ house and I saw them a lot, so I saw Julius quite often as well. When they were killed he was the one who gave me the news. Losing them knocked the guts out of me for a long time. Julius was there. He was a sort of replacement figure, I suppose. He was kind and strong and he wanted me, so I married him. It was a terrible mistake. He desperately wanted a son. I’m not interested in children and that caused lots of problems. Have you got any children, Cliff?’
    I shook my head.
    â€˜Why not?’
    I pondered the question while I finished my coffee. The