Free The Touch of Innocents by Michael Dobbs

didn’t know her name. Better ask the concierge.
    It had been the first time he’d done it in the family home. He had a sense of family ethics that you didn’t cheat on your wife in her bed or on her living-room rug, you kept that for elsewhere, separate from the family. But he felt that she – it was ‘she’, not ‘Izzy’,he’d already embarked upon the mental process of divorce – that she had cheated him far more fundamentally than he had ever cheated on her. He was not even two full generations away from the old country concepts of family and vendetta; somehow it passed through the blood that there were no situations in which no one was to blame. This had to be someone’s fault. Her fault.
    Usually he’d announce some of the more adventurous details of his conquests to his lawyer, Antonini, just before they played an important point so as to consume his opponent with titillation and second-hand lust just when he needed all his powers of concentration. He decided against it this time; it might seem inappropriate and even incriminating on the day they’d agreed to extend the game into lunch in order to discuss his matrimonial problems. In any event, he felt invigorated by the memory and once again set about persuading himself that he looked, felt and played younger than he was. He pummelled the ball and started the new game.
    They were towelling themselves dry when Antonini got down to business.
    ‘You sure, Joe? About this divorce?’
    ‘I’m sure. The marriage is going nowhere, doesn’t really exist. She’s never here, always off with God knows who doing God knows what.’
    ‘Double values, Joe? You’ve been no saint, either.’
    ‘All that counts is it’s over. One big, fat zero.’
    ‘Pity. I thought you two had such a good thing going. I’d hate to think you were – you know, simply going through one of those phases.’ He’d meant to say ‘patches’, but now it was out. ‘A lot of men do, Joe, and regret it like hell after.’
    Michelini’s eyes flared. ‘What? You think I’m going through the male menopause?’ His tone wasaggressive; he was naked, suffering that feeling of inadequacy borne by many men in the locker room, and covered that inadequacy with belligerence. ‘Thanks, Toni, but my hormones are working great – good enough to give you another thrashing on the court any time you want. No, I’m not going through one of those phases, it simply that my marriage is down the pan and I want you to help me clean the mess up.’
    Antonini backed off, waving his hands. ‘Fine, Joe. I hear you loud and clear.’
    But Michelini was in gear, wanted to get it out of his system. ‘It’s never been much of a marriage. All she wanted was kids so she chose me as some form of farmyard stud. Rent-a-dick. “Is it your fertile time of the month, dear, or shall I roll over and reread yesterday’s newspaper?” I’ve felt like I’ve been drowning in her hormones. She goes on about motherhood yet there she is every day trying to prove to the entire fucking world she’s got bigger balls than the next man. I wanted a wife, a real woman, Toni, not some flak-jacketed Amazon who travels the world with a camera lens poking out of her knickers.’
    He threw his damp towel bitterly across the room where it flopped into a large hamper. ‘She wouldn’t even call herself Mrs Joe Michelini. What’s wrong with that, for Chrissake?’
    The lawyer’s tone was smooth, professional, but pressing. And once more inappropriate. ‘Have you thought about the kids?’
    ‘Kid, Toni. Kid. We’ve only got one now. She killed Bella, remember?’
    Michelini, completely naked, squared up to the lawyer with his arms hanging stiffly at his side and his fists clenched. He felt guilty about Bella, wantedto take a swing at someone. He was beginning to attract the attention of others in the locker room.
    ‘Easy, Joe. I’m only doing my job, I have to ask these questions. You’ll thank me for it later.’
    ‘The