Free Summertime by J. M. Coetzee Page B

continues to puzzle me to the present day is the following. Even if some force within me – let us call it the unconscious, to make things easier, though I have my reservations about the classical unconscious – had held me back from checking under the bed – had held me back precisely in order to precipitate this marital crisis – why on earth did Maria leave the incriminating item lying there – Maria who was definitely not part of my unconscious, Maria whose job it was to clean, to clean up, to clean things away? Did Maria deliberately overlook the condom? Did she draw herself up, when she saw it, and say to herself, This is going too far! Either I defend the sanctity of the marriage bed or I become complicit in an outrageous affair!
     
Sometimes I imagine flying back to South Africa, the new, longed-for, democratic South Africa, with the sole purpose of seeking out Maria, if she is still alive, and having it out with her, getting an answer to that vexing question.
     
Well, I was certainly not running off to join the him of Mark's jealous rage, but where exactly was I heading? For I had no friends in Cape Town, none who were not Mark's in the first place and mine only in the second.
     
There was an establishment I had spotted while driving through Wynberg, a rambling old mansion with a sign outside: Canterbury Hotel / Residential / Full or part board / Weekly and monthly rates . I decided to try the Canterbury.
     
Yes, said the woman at the desk, there happened to be a room available, would I want it for a week or for a longer term? A week, I said, in the first place.
     
The room in question – be patient, this is not irrelevant – was on the ground floor. It was spacious, with a neat little bathroom en suite and a compact refrigerator and French doors giving onto a shady, vine-covered veranda. 'Very nice,' I said. 'I'll take it.'
     
'And your baggage?' said the woman.
     
'My baggage will be coming,' I said, and she understood. I am sure I was not the first runaway wife to pitch up on the doorstep of the Canterbury. I am sure they enjoyed quite a traffic in pissed-off spouses. And a nice little bonus to be made from the ones who paid for a week, spent a night, then, repentant or exhausted or homesick, checked out the next morning.
     
Well, I was not repentant and I was certainly not homesick. I was quite ready to make the Canterbury my home until the burden of childcare led Mark to sue for peace.
     
There was a rigmarole about security that I barely followed – keys for doors, keys for gates – plus rules for parking, rules for visitors, rules for this, rules for that. I would not be having visitors, I informed the woman.
     
That evening I dined in the lugubrious salle à manger of the Canterbury and had a first glimpse of my fellow residents, who came straight out of William Trevor or Muriel Spark. But no doubt I appeared much the same to them: another flushed escapee from a sour marriage. I went to bed early and slept well.
     
I had thought I would enjoy the solitude. I drove in to the city, did some shopping, saw an exhibition at the National Gallery, had lunch in the Gardens. But the second evening, alone in my room after a wretched meal of wilted salad and poached sole with béchamel sauce, I was suddenly overcome with loneliness and, worse than loneliness, self-pity. From the public telephone in the lobby I called John and, in murmurs (the receptionist was eavesdropping), told him of my situation.
     
'Would you like me to come by?' he said. 'We could go to a late movie.'
     
'Yes,' I said; 'yes, yes, yes.'
     
I repeat as emphatically as I can, I did not run away from my husband and child in order to be with John. It was not that kind of affair. In fact, it was hardly an affair at all, more of a friendship, an extramarital friendship with a sexual component whose importance, at least on my side, was symbolic rather than substantial. Sleeping with John was my way of retaining my self-respect. I