This Affair Read online

  Of course, it would have been easier to stay away, but the conservatory was my territory, my bolt-hole as well as my passion. I liked working with plants. I grew some of the more exotic varieties of fruit and vegetables and a few orchids, which impressed my friends and annoyed Greg. I don’t know why he should have found it so irritating. Jealousy, perhaps. He was a very jealous man. Jealous of my success. At anything. He should have been born a hundred years ago when wives were generally content to be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen.

  Except that Greg never wanted me to get pregnant. He hated the idea of children. Not only was he jealous, but selfish too. The subject had, stupidly enough, never come up before we got married. I simply assumed at the time that we would eventually have children, in the normal course of events. At twenty, we were hardly more than children ourselves, simply playing at life, not really knowing what it was all about. Until it was too late. The good sex only lasted two years into the marriage, then it evaporated quickly as Greg got more and more impassioned by his taking-off career and the stresses that came with it.

  And the other women. Hard women, dynamic like he was, who shared his passion for running after stories in and out of the rat race, always in the fast lane. I was only a moderately successful artist and book illustrator, not particularly glamorous, a trifle quiet and a bit on the shy side in those early days. I was never in their league, those women of the Press that my husband seemed to prefer. Not that I ever wanted to be, any more than they would have wanted to step into my shoes.

  Was it also, that day, a coincidence that made me look in the direction of the peach tree just minutes after our discussion about Callum? Or was it, perhaps, that I suddenly had the driving desire to impale my heart on the fruitless testimony of a forbidden love that should never have happened. Whatever it was, something caught my eye as I wandered lethargically from the house to the conservatory, telling myself that I had to find something to occupy my hands, something to ease my pain.

  A blinding prism of light aiming for my eyes like a quivering arrow forced my steps to falter. I blinked into it, squinted at it from beneath the shade of an unsteady hand. The light grew more intense, more quivering. It was like a signal, a lighthouse flare guiding floundering vessels around the treacherous rocks lying in wait, lurking beneath the boiling cauldron of a stormy sea.

  What on earth was it? It seemed to come from the far end of the conservatory. It was not static, but quivered this way and that, taking with it colours of the rainbow, shooting out great sparks of white light. Such a fascinating, hypnotic sight that seemed to beckon to me like an ethereal hand weaving magic threads of light from its finger-tips.

  I entered the conservatory and walked slowly down the long narrow central aisle, my heels clicking on the path of terracotta slabs like the dull ticking of a clock. Seconds of my life passing by, I thought. A life caught in limbo.

  And suddenly there it was before me, the cause of my anxious curiosity. One small window that had worked its way free of its fastenings and was being buffeted by the light summer breeze. The tiny panes of glass, as they moved, reflected the sunlight and mirrored the colours of the flowers and plants around it. I laughed at my ridiculously fanciful ideas of ghosts and magic. This business over Callum had turned my head.

  I reached up, relieved that it was something so easily explained, and secured the bolt once more, noticing that it was broken and would likely come adrift again before too long. I made a mental note to replace it soon with something sturdier. It wouldn’t pay to let the temperature drop too low, which would be lethal to some of the plants I had nurtured for so long with such loving care.

  Deep in thought, happier now to have something positive occupying my mind, I turned and found myself facing the infamous peach tree. My sharp intake of breath took me by surprise as if I had come face to face with Callum Andrews himself. My heart once again took off on a tumultuous ramble in my chest and refused to be calmed, even when I pressed both hands over it.

  “Stop it. Stop it.” I ordered myself in a whisper that sounded loud in my ringing ears. “It’s over. He’s gone…forever! Forever, do you hear?”

  That’s when I saw the peach. A single, solitary fruit, with not a partner on the whole of the tree. It was a huge blood-red orb and it was hanging right before my eyes like an illusion, an object of beauty and temptation, silhouetted in golden sunlight, which gave it the appearance of having an aura. I felt like Eve in the Garden of Eden. Only my Adam was long gone and now belonged to another.

  Not believing my eyes, I reached out and touched the furry cheek of the peach with the tip of my forefinger. It moved, it swung gently, spun slightly. I blinked at it, still not believing what I was seeing. This fruit, this glorious miracle of nature, might have been born out of the love I had shared with Callum.

  The piece of stolen fruit we had consumed together had been reduced to a stone, hard and wrinkled and holed like the craters on the moon.

  “I’m going to take this back to England and plant it,” I had said, ignoring Callum’s amused chuckle, the kind of response a father might give his favourite, but silly child. “I’ll look after it, love it, watch it grow. It’ll be a part of you always there beside me. And when it bears fruit, I’ll eat it and it’ll be like making love to you all over again.”

  “Better to take a young sapling,” he said, bending to pull one out of the ground growing so close to the old tree that it might be a part of it. “Look after it well.”

  Then he had become silent and serious. He had taken me in his arms, held me so close that we were like two bodies in one skin. He had kissed me tenderly, more tenderly than I ever remembered before. And I felt his own tears warm on my cheek. It was time to say goodbye.

  I almost choked on the huge sob that rushed up from the bottom of my soul into my tightened throat as I re-played that last scene of ours. My stomach contracted as I fought against crying like a distraught child.

  “Oh, Callum!” I whispered hoarsely and let the palm of my hand hover beneath the peach, the two of us barely touching.

  Of course, it must have been ready to fall. It was well ripe. Still, I was astonished to have the thing release itself from the branch and land squarely in my hand. It was heavy, warm, soft like baby skin to the touch and heavenly perfumed. I stared at it, sitting there in my palm, closed my eyes for one painful moment, then took it resolutely back with me to the house. I placed it on my worktable and rushed around erratically arranging my artist’s materials, so I could paint it before it became too ripe and its beauty faded forever.

  Growing things was my passion, but I earned my living as an artist. That was how Callum and I met… My thoughts started to drift off, but I stamped on them and concentrated on getting the shape of the peach right before applying pastels to the velvety paper on my work table.

  I was so immersed in the painting that the shrill ringing of the telephone took a long time to reach my consciousness. At first, I thought I might ignore it. Greg was unlikely to phone and the only other person I could think of was my mother. She was the last one I needed to speak to right then with her ferrety little nose winkling out some sort of explanation as to why her precious daughter was so on edge. Then she would draw her own mis-conclusions and assume that Greg was badly treating me again and I should never have married him and why did I stay with him, but on the other hand divorce was so ugly and would look so bad. People might think it was all my fault if we split up.

  The telephone went on ringing insistently. With a sigh, I laid aside my pastel chalk and tore myself away from the glowing image of the peach that I was feverishly trying to capture. I went through to the bedroom, sat on the edge of the bed and picked up the receiver.

  “Hello?” I snapped into the mouthpiece.

  “Megan? You took your time! What you doing in there all on your own? I hope you’re not enjoying yourself, lass!”

  “Oh, Hello, Ros,” I sighed, relieved that I didn’t have to pretend the impossible. Ros Robson was m
y next-door neighbour. She was, to the secret shame of the rather smart neighbourhood we lived in, an ex-prostitute, as coarse as rock salt, and totally common. She was also the best friend anybody could ever wish to have because her heart was right where it was supposed to be, and it was twice as large and generous as most self-appointed do-gooders. Without her I would have been lost many times over, but she was always on hand, my own personal rescue party.

  “What’s up, pet?” It was no good hiding anything from Ros. “He going back to his old tricks, is he?”

  She meant Greg, of course. It was funny how she always seemed to know things without my telling her. It was as if she had a crystal ball and could see our lives played out before her eyes in distorted glass images. The first time Greg hit me there was nothing to show for it that couldn’t be hidden beneath a loose-fitting sweater. But Ros took one look at me and knew instinctively what had happened. We hardly knew one another then. It was only a month or two after Greg and I moved in. She told me later that she had had a lifetime of either being beaten up or dealing with others in the same boat. Perils of the profession, she used to call it, and laugh heartily. A little too heartily.

  “Well?” She was still waiting. I hadn’t realised that I had given no response to her question.

  “No, it’s not Greg…not really. It…it’s something else. Sorry, but I can’t talk about it…not yet.”

  “No doubt you’ll get round to it in your own sweet time. What are you doing right now? Painting?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, get yourself in front of the tele in five minutes. Tyne Tees.”

  “The tele? Whatever for?” She knew I rarely watched television and never in the daytime, unless I was ill.

  “You’ll see. Are you going to do what I say?”

  “Is it so important?”

  “It’s bloody important, lass. Take my word for it. You watch!”

  Then she put the phone down and I was left listening to the gentle snoring of the sleeping line. I felt a frown of curiosity crease my forehead. Letting out a long, weary sigh, I replaced the telephone receiver and sat up, my legs dangling limply over the edge of the bed. Ros wasn’t one for dishing out dumb advice, even if she looked as if she might. I glanced at my watch. Five to three! I hadn’t even thought any more about lunch. Perhaps I would make myself a cup of coffee and open a packet of biscuits. I might as well take a break in comfort in front of the television.

  By the time I made fresh coffee and decided on a quick cheese sandwich rather than a biscuit it was already about ten past three as I flipped on the television and settled myself on the settee in the lounge. The programme Ros was so fired up over was already started. I recognised it as a new chat show, having caught its first broadcast over New Year, which I had spent virtually alone, being down with flu. Greg had been ‘obliged’ to attend the many office parties organised around the region. I didn’t mind too much. I would have ended up just as alone had I gone with him. I was not exactly an unsociable animal, but I wasn’t a party freak who could thrive on loud music drowning out anything but yuppie small-talk and the forced laughter of people pretending to enjoy themselves. Even Greg criticised them bitterly, but he joined them nonetheless, copying their behaviour as if it were second nature to him.

  The sparkling, simpering blonde presenter of ‘Millennium Men’ leaned forward in the direction of her guest, proudly displaying her silicone breasts and flashing her plastic, Hollywood teeth. She reminded me vaguely of a Barbie Doll and also of a girl I once met at one of Greg’s office do’s. When she found out that I was with Greg she rolled her eyes and went into ecstasies extolling the virtues of my husband’s sexual prowess. On being told that I was actually his wife, she did a sort of double take and offered me her commiseration before she walked away, hips swinging defiantly.

  The ‘Barbie Doll’ on the screen right now, having arranged herself to her best advantage, was launching into her exclusive interview with burbling enthusiasm.

  “I have to tell you that this is great day for me, as our audience already knows. I’ve been your number one fan for as long as I can remember.” She was oozing sex appeal and charm, her fingers playing with a dazzling array of beads at her throat. “Composer, musician extraordinaire, all round Mr. Nice Guy…and now successful writer! Tell us something about ‘This Affair’. Come on now, admit it! There isn’t really a young girl who’s suddenly captured your heart…. Come on! How could you break the hearts of all those poor women out there…millions of them… me included…by being unfaithful to them?”

  My cup of coffee never got to my mouth. It floated there before me in mid-air. My mouth stayed open, my eyes peered over the rim of the cup and grew wider. The camera panned to the guest star on the right of the presenter and there he was. Callum, in living, glorious colour. So real, so alive, there in my lounge, that I felt I could reach out and touch him and he would feel my touch.

  The presenter melted towards him. That was nothing new. I had seen women of all ages do that without having the minutest effect on Callum. That is, apart from producing the so-called famous enigmatic smile that had enough zapping power to unlock hearts and reduce bones into a hot quicksilver.

  “So, Callum!” the blonde reluctantly dragged her regard back to the camera and her viewers. “Tell us all about your book – this best-seller that’s setting the world on fire. Is ‘This Affair’ really an exposé on your own life? An autobiography perhaps, as people are suggesting?”

  The camera again panned to Callum, zooming into a close-up of his face as he shifted his position in his chair. He was vaguely uncomfortable. I recognised the signs. He was never at ease in the one to one public image situations. Yet, he could perform to perfection before a live audience of thousands.

  “Well…” he started to speak, then hesitated, seeking out the right camera and suddenly I found him looking right at me. It was uncanny the way I felt he could actually see me sitting there watching him. “I suppose the book is anything its reader wants to make of it.”

  “But it is a love story, is it not?”

  “Yes. It’s a love story.”

  The girl was now reclaiming the camera, flashing jewellery, teeth and shiny plum coloured nails as long as eagles’ claws. “I have to tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that I sat up reading the book in question last night and couldn’t put it down. I also must admit that I went through a whole box of Kleenex in the process. Callum, that’s one sad, beautiful story you’ve written.”

  “Er, yes, I suppose it is, in a way.”

  Callum cleared his throat as the camera sought him out again and I could sense his growing unease beneath the laid-back veneer. Again, I found myself drowning in those dark, sparkling eyes. I imagined I felt the warmth coming from his body so close to me, smell that special scent that belonged to him and nobody else, fresh and clean like newly washed clothes that have dried in the sun. I drew in a gulp of electrified air and let it out on a long, sobbing sigh.

  “Oh, God, I still love him!” I said the words out loud, then looked about me guiltily in case I was no longer alone. I didn’t have to worry. Only the four walls of the empty house heard me.

  “Now, then…” the presenter was pouring on more syrupy charm and wriggling with schoolgirl glee in her seat. “Are you going to come clean and tell us whether or not this book of yours is a true story? Come on. Admit it. We’re all waiting with baited breath. Your heroine…what’s her name again…Magda? Does she really exist?”

  It seemed to me at that moment in time the air in the room became suddenly refrigerated. The blood froze in my veins. Did he have to choose the name Magda for his heroine? It was too close to my own name. I wondered fleetingly and with a stab of guilt whether Hilary Andrews was watching the show.

  Callum took his time to give his reply, a maddeningly long time. “Well…perhaps,” he gave one of his rare tantalising smiles. “Then again, perhaps not.”

  “Then you’re not prepared to say one way or the other?”


  “No. No, I’m not.”

  The blonde was getting agitated. She heaved a theatrical sigh and touched the personal microphone behind her ear that connected her to the production team behind scenes. Then she placed the same hand flat on her largely exposed chest and jutted her chin challengingly in Callum’s direction.

  “Assuming that your heroin, Magda, does exist and she’s out there watching the programme this very minute…what would be your message to her?”

  Another slow, lazy smile. “Oh, if there was a Magda…” Callum seemed to delve deeply into his innermost thoughts; his forehead creased, and his eyes narrowed: “I’d say to her…read the book. The answer is in there somewhere.”

  The interviewer gave a little laugh of disbelief and shook her head: “That sounds like pure sales pitch to me, Callum. I’d say it’s guaranteed to make every woman who’s ever met you…and a few who’ve only dreamed about it…rush out and buy your book.”

  Callum stroked his chin reflectively. There was the hint of a mischievous twinkle in his eye. He gave a short, characteristic chuckle. Oh, how I remembered that infectious sound. “If that’s the case, I’m afraid the sales will be extremely low.”

  “I very much doubt that,” the blonde inclined her head, reached over and laid her hand on his forearm in an overly intimate gesture. “Thank you for being with us today. Callum Andrews, ladies and gentlemen.”

  The camera stayed on Callum’s face as the audience gave him a tumultuous applause. Then it panned the rows of grinning faces and nodding heads, most of which belonged to women. They, like me, would have given anything to be the heroine of Callum's book. Some of them were already clutching copies, waving them at the camera. No doubt he would be asked to sign them at the end of the programme.