A Minor Indiscretion (37 page)

C
hristian walked briskly from the Tube station. It had taken him ages to get home. Covent Garden Underground station was probably the busiest in the world at this time of year. He'd queued for ages amid the throngs of Japanese, American and French tourists to get in one of the lifts, and then had endured his nose being pressed up against a million sweaty armpits as he chunked his way up to Holborn to change to the Central line.

He'd tried to get away earlier, but for once there had been a queue of people waiting to sample his talents. Typical. The one day he'd wanted to leave was the one day in months he'd had a constant stream of business. The tourist rush had finally and mercifully arrived, but Ali would be furious, and what was worse she'd think he didn't care. Christian checked the money in his pocket. Perhaps this would go some way to appeasing her. And some serious appeasing was called for, he'd been such an uncaring bastard that morning. This was all a bit much for him to handle, but he'd been thinking about it all day, and he wanted to let Ali know that it would work out all right in the end. They would find a way to cope.

And he was going to get his act together. Now. Right now. She'd given up too much to be with him. There was no way he could let her down now when she needed him, and he'd let too many good things slip through his hands to risk Ali going the
same way. He needed to get back on track and start trying to be a responsible citizen of planet Earth.

As a start, he'd phoned Sharon and told her it was over, which was a shame because she was sweet. She'd cried a lot, and he'd felt like a complete heel. There were always going to be plenty more fish in the sea, he just had to remind himself that from now on he was going to have to let them swim by unhooked.

And the children thing wasn't the end of the world either. It would probably be years before he wanted them himself, and in the meantime he'd be more than happy to make do with Elliott and Thomas and Tanya, who would certainly keep his hands full. And when the time came, there'd be some way round it, surely. God knows what advances there would be in technology by then. They'd probably be able to nip down the road to Sainsbury's and buy a couple.

Christian walked briskly along Notting Hill Gate, the sun warm on his back after the chill of the Underground. There was a newsagent's at the corner of the road, and Christian darted inside. He was going to buy Ali some magazines and chocs, stuff to keep her mind occupied while she was recuperating. It was a nightmare having to leave her with Becs, but they needed the money and he'd talk to her more fully about it tonight, convince her of his point of view.

He scanned the shelves. She was probably a bit old for
Cosmo,
which Becs always had her nose in, a bit young for
Women's Weekly.
God only knows what he should get. What experience did he have of women's magazines? He tried to avoid anything that had the words “pregnancy” or “menopause” on the front, which was a bit of a tricky one. Best to steer a wide berth round bunions and breast-feeding too. Were women really interested in these things? After hopping up and down the row in agitated indecision, Christian alighted on
Good Housekeeping,
which according to the cover blurb featured nothing more politically sensitive than “Packing the Perfect Summer Picnic,” “Pickled Pink—Ten Ways To Preserve Your Onions with Red Wine” and “Could Your Carpet Be Harboring a Deadly Disease?” Other than being certain that their carpet would be harboring a deadly disease, there was surely nothing contentious there? Hurriedly, he snatched a copy from the shelves.

Chocs were just as much of a minefield. Milk Tray and Dairy Box were pensioners chocolates, Black Magic a dodgy choice if
you didn't know whether the intended recipient liked dark chocolate or not. A Terry's chocolate orange was cheapskate and smacked of Christmas. Anything called Celebrations or Good News was definitely bad news if you'd had a row. Why couldn't they categorize chocolates as minor tiff or major bust-up, then everyone would know where they stood. After much hum-ing and ah-ing, Christian settled on the relative safety and conservatism of a box of Quality Street—mainly because he liked those best himself, and if Ali didn't feel up to eating them he would.

He was itching to get home now, but Mr. Akash wasn't itching to serve him. Christian joined the growing queue of customers, all eager, it seemed, to chew the fat about their day's business, and regretted at this moment that they had the only chatty newsagent in London at the end of their street.

Eventually it was his turn at the counter. “You're looking very pukka, mate,” Mr. Akash said.

“I'm feeing pretty pukka,” Christian said with a smile and he bundled the Quality Street and
Good Housekeeping
magazine into his backpack and with a spring in his step set off to nurture and nurse the life out of Ali.

I
can quite honestly say that the next few minutes pass in a blur. One minute I'm lying in bed wishing the duvet would fold over me and eat me in the manner of a 1950s B movie, and the next Ed's standing there like some latter-day knight in shining armor. And it may be a trick of the light, but he's all bathed in this shaft of sunlight like whatshisname in
Highlander.
And now you think I'm going mad because of all the tablets I've taken. Perhaps I am. But I know that I've never made a more sane decision than agreeing to put an end to all this unnecessary madness and go home with Ed.

Within a flash he's lobbing my clothes into a holdall like a thing possessed. Then he helps me to struggle out of bed, and it
is
a struggle. Even the ridiculous sense of excitement that's growing inside me can't give my wobbly feet wings. Instead, my flight consists of me hobbling round the bedroom, wincing feebly. Ed hands me my dressing gown. “Put this round you,” he instructs. “I just want to get out of here.”

He looks all manly and masterful and he's striding about grabbing anything that looks remotely lacy that might belong to me.

I give up trying to find something else to get dressed in and submit to the dressing gown.

“Ready?” Ed says.

I nod and, despite being burdened with a bulging holdall of no
mean weight, he scoops me up into his arms and carries me toward the door. I put my arms round his neck and have not the slightest fear that he will drop me or that he'll let me fall. He's strong and certain and I've never felt safer. As we reach the door, I look back at the room with its beautiful antique furniture and its bleeding commandos on the walls, and there is absolutely no trace of me. None whatsoever. It looks like I have never been here at all.

Ed carries me down the stairs and past an openmouthed Rebecca holding a grubby tea towel. “Goodbye,” I say over Ed's shoulder.

Rebecca moves toward us. I can't read the look on her face—it's a mixture of fear, elation, relief and regret. “Ali…” she starts, but I don't want to listen to what she has to say and my husband is clearly not intending to stop. We burst out of the house and into sunshine so strong that it hurts my eyes.

“Top pocket,” Ed pants.

And I fish about until I find the car keys and flick the lock open. Ed dumps the holdall on the pavement and, one-handed, opens the car door and lowers me into the passenger seat. Tugging at the seat belt, he feeds it across me gently, tenderly, and then sprints round to get in on the other side. As he starts the car, I notice his hands are shaking, and I don't think it's from the effort of carrying me. His cheeks are wet with tears, and I reach up and brush them away with my fingertips. He grips my hand and kisses it fiercely. “Okay?” he says gruffly.

I nod, unable to speak. I feel as if we're fleeing from a prison. Just the two of us. We've dug the tunnel together and we're out. Out on the other side of the big, big wall. We've made it. We're free. We're going home.

Q
uickening his pace and resisting the urge to sing in public without the bolstering effects of beer, Christian swung round the railings, onto their path and in through the front door, which was already open. He dumped his backpack in the hall and it in turn spewed the chocolates and magazine onto the floor.

“Hi, honey, I'm home,” he shouted and, snatching up his peace offerings, started to run up the stairs.

“Christian.” Rebecca came out of the kitchen. She was red-eyed and pale-faced and she twisted the power bracelets on her wrist nervously.

He stopped midstride. “What?”

“She's gone.”

He looked blankly at her.

“Ali's gone,” she repeated.

“She can't have,” he said. “She's not well.”

“Her husband came.” Rebecca hugged herself and avoided his eyes. “He took her home.”

Christian raced up the stairs, burst into the bedroom and it was empty. Just as Rebecca said, Ali was gone. All Ali's toiletries had gone from the top of the chest of drawers. The stuff she had always thrown over the Lloyd Loom chair—gone. He flung open the wardrobe. Gone. Gone. Gone.

The bed was made. No crumpling of sheets, no imprint on the duvet to show where she might have been. Christian lay down and stared at the ceiling. The ceiling with the commando's foot crashing carelessly through. She was gone. His mind was so numb it refused to process anything else. Ali was gone. Gone. The copy of
Good Housekeeping
slipped out of his fingers and fell to the floor with a clatter. She would never know how to pack the perfect picnic or pickle her onions using only the power of red wine. Clutching the Quality Street to his chest, Christian Winter squeezed his eyes shut and cried for the loss of the one good thing in his life.

W
hat can I tell you? I'm lying on a sun lounger in the garden enjoying the longest, hottest summer since 1976. I am covered from head to foot in Factor Overcoat suntan lotion, because cancer is now a very real thing to me, and having got rid of it from one place, I don't want it springing up somewhere else through my own stupidity. And stupidity, like cancer, is something I know a lot more about than I previously did.

The chemotherapy stripped my gorgeous, gorgeous hair from my head, but it's growing back and I've given up on wigs and Amish headscarves. I think it's going to be curlier than ever and a deeper shade of ginger biscuit, if that's humanly possible. By the time I've got a full head again, I'm going to look like one of those rusty wire-wool pan scrubbers. But guess what? I love it. And it just goes to show that the old chestnut “you don't know what you've got until it's gone” is right every time. I think I'd better buy shares in John Frieda Frizz-Ease, though.

And it's not just my hair that I've developed a new appreciation for: The grass is greener, the sky is bluer, the birds are tweetier—and if you think that's corny, then I really don't care; it's true and I hope you'll just take my word for it and that you never have to find out in the way I did.

I look at my family and feel such a surge of love for them that
I could cry with joy. Elliott is in the sandpit, trying to convince Harry, next door's dog, that sand is a really great diet, and I'm pretending not to notice. Tanya is lying on the grass plugged into her CD player, kicking her bare feet complete with orange-painted toenails in the air. She is growing up fast and has turned into the model teenager. She knows where the kettle is, what a duster is for and has even tidied her room on a weekly basis. I am overjoyed by this turn of events and wonder how long it will be before I'm shouting at her and she's telling me that I'm the worst mother in the world because all of her friends are allowed to do everything that she isn't. Not too long, I suspect. And I'll welcome it, because then I'll know we are finally back to normal once more. Thomas, unscathed it appears by his dalliance as a drug addict, is reading the latest Harry Potter.
Harry Potter and The Ten Million Quid in the Bank
—or something like that. Perhaps I ought to write a book. Or perhaps not.

I had a note from Kath Brown offering me my old job back, and I think I may well take her up on it when I'm fully recovered and have enough hair not to scare away her customers, seeing as she's had the sense to grovel. I knew all along I was indispensable.

A card came from Christian too. It had a cartoon cat vomiting on the front and inside it said SORRY in big, theatrical letters. And I guess that just about sums it up, really. Inside there was a ticket for a pawnbroker in the East End. A pawnbroker who had custody of my engagement, wedding and eternity rings. And I now know how Christian paid for our wonderful romantic trip to the Maldives, by pawning my rings. I showed the tickets to Ed, who, without a word, got in the car, drove to the address on the ticket, retrieved my rings at vast expense and put them back on my finger, where I hope by all that is good, that they will always remain.

I retrieved my drawing from the back of the wardrobe and tore it up in case there was a time when I was ever tempted to think that I really did look like that and remember it with fondness. I wonder one day will I go back past the house in Notting Hill to see if they are all still there peering at each other through the gloom or if Christian has moved on to invade someone else's life. But I don't blame him for any of this, not at all. I lay it all squarely at my own feet. It takes two to tango, but I should have been more aware of the trouble that slow dancing with a stranger could
bring. Especially a stranger who was a beautiful, heartbreakingly irresponsible boy.

I see a bright future for us all—Ed, Elliott, Thomas and Tanya. They are my life, and I can't believe how much I took them for granted. You can be sure I won't ever do it again.

Ed comes out of the house, through the conservatory, bearing a tray of cold drinks. He has taken a month's leave of absence from work to look after me, and it's brought us closer than we've ever been. The other thing I'll never take for granted again is the luxury of time, and we're going to make sure that we have plenty for ourselves.

Wavelength have decided to set up a subsidiary film production unit to find scripts from new, young British writers, and Ed's going to head it up. Although I think he'll really miss the commercial and promotional video side, this will give him a new challenge to look forward to.

Ed sets down the tray and hands me a glass of lemonade. He gets more handsome with age or, like the birds and the grass, perhaps I just see him differently now. I kiss his hair, which is warm from the sun. He smiles up at me. “I thought we'd have a second honeymoon,” he says. “When you're feeling better.”

I stroke his cheek, enjoying the feel of his skin. “I'd like that.”

“Can I come?” Elliott says as he runs down the garden as if this is the only glass of lemonade he's ever seen.

“The idea of a second honeymoon,” I say, “is for mummies and daddies to spend some time alone without pesky children.”

Elliott pulls a disgusted face. “Just remember,” he warns sternly, “if you're going to do that gushy stuff, we don't want to end up with a baby brother just like me.”

“I don't think there's any chance of that, Elliott,” I say. Ed and I look at each other, and we both start to laugh.