The stench of a wrong

Whether stealing garlic or husbands, in this age of irresponsibility please listen to your conscience
A couple of years ago, I was unloading my shopping from a supermarket trolley into my car. I had two small children strapped into their car seats, desperate for their lunch. As I put the last bag in the car, I noticed a bulb of garlic sitting at the bottom of the trolley. It must have fallen out of one of the bags, I thought.

But something was bothering me. I had the distinct feeling that that bulb of garlic had never been on the conveyor belt; that I had, in effect, stolen it. All the way home, the garlic haunted me; the smell that pervaded my car was the whiff of guilt.

The following week, I returned to the supermarket. I put two bulbs of garlic in the trolley along with my shopping, and went to the checkout. After I had paid, I asked the assistant if she would take one of the bulbs back and put it on the shelf. "You've paid for that," she said. "I know," I replied, "but last week I took some garlic without paying for it, so this week, I'm paying for some without taking it. That way, my conscience is clear."

"I'll call the manager," said the assistant. The manager was amused, but indulgent. He agreed to put the garlic back, but clearly couldn't quite see the significance of it all. We live in a world of moral relativity. We all make decisions about what aspects of our behaviour we can justify, and what feels wrong. The danger in that, of course, is that when it suits us, we can justify almost anything.

I kept thinking of garlic when I had my lunch with Talia last week. Talia - not her real name - is someone I knew a long time ago. When she got in touch, I thought it might be fun to meet up, so we had lunch and talked about old times.

Pretty soon, we ran into problems. I asked Talia if she was seeing anyone, and she gave a sheepish shrug. "I got myself into a tricky corner recently," she said, and mouthed: "Married man." She had met a man who was, by his own admission, very happily married, and who adored his children. Talia and he knew there was an attraction between them, but nevertheless she befriended his wife, went to their house for lunch, became part of their world. And then she secretly agreed to join the husband on a business trip and they had an affair.

She told me all this as if it was a personal tragedy; as if the pain she was feeling now that he was back with his wife, trying to rebuild the shattered security of his previously happy children, was retribution enough. And perhaps it was.

But the garlic, the stench of wrongdoing, overpowered me. Before I could stop myself, I was haranguing Talia like an Old Testament prophet. Would she have broken into this family's home and walked off with the DVD player? And if not, what justification could she have for stealing their father. After all, DVD players are replaceable, and fathers - even weak-willed priapic ones - are unique.

Talia tried to defend herself, in the cliched language of a soap opera script. "It just happened," she wailed. "How could it just happen?" I inquired. "Did you fall backwards on a bed, and this woman's husband landed on top of you? You went to New York with him. You could have stopped yourself. You could - and here's a radical suggestion in this age of irresponsibility - have said 'no'. You could have listened to your conscience and taken the garlic back!" "What garlic?" asked Talia. "The garlic," I replied, like a self-righteous Lady Bracknell, "is metaphorical."

I don't suppose Talia will be back in touch any time soon. But here's my own ethical dilemma: how can I justify retelling her story in a paid article for a newspaper? Am I taking revenge on behalf of a wife I've never met? Or does my action speak more of the profit than the prophet. It's all about that relative morality. Surely, slagging someone off in print can't be as bad as breaking up a marriage ... or stealing a bulb of garlic. Can it?