A Minor Indiscretion (6 page)

N
eil was puffing. He stopped running around and put his hands on his hips, bending forward to ease the stitch in his side. “Edward. You seem to be hitting that little ball with rather more venom than is absolutely necessary.”

Ed stopped running about too. His face was set with determination. “What?”

“You're thrashing me already. Can't we just ease up into knockabout mode, like normal? I'll let you win
and
buy the beers if that helps.”

Ed wiped the sweat from his forehead with his T-shirt. “I don't know what you mean.”

“You seem to be on a mission to launch that rather inoffensive little squash ball into outer space. You're no fun to play with when you're like this. What's wrong?”

“Nothing.” Ed bounced around on his toes a bit and eased his shoulders in an attempt to loosen them up. Squash courts always stank of sweaty trainers, and it was grating on his nerves. “Let's get on with it, shall we?”

Neil held up his hands. “I give in. No more. I've got a cramp in everything. It all hurts. I can't run another step. If I had a white flag, I'd get down on my knees and wave it.”

Ed was getting agitated. He'd been like it all day. “Just hit the ball, Neil.”

“Did the bird in the bikini saw one of her legs off?”

Ed stopped and stared at his brother. “What?”

“In the Performing Power thing advert?”

“No. She did not.”

Neil snorted. “Well, it must have been something pretty catastrophic.”

“It's nothing, okay? Now, hit the ball.”

Neil shook his head. “I've had enough. You hit it.” He threw the ball to his brother. Ed caught it on the fly and slammed it hard into the back wall, grunting with the effort. The ball, reluctant to take any more abuse, rebounded faster than a speeding bullet and hit Ed squarely in the eye.

 

Much, much later, Neil came ambling into the bar fingering his damp hair. Ed was clutching a bag of Sizzling Steak Ranch Fries to his injured eye. “I don't think Sizzling Steak Ranch Fries will work in the same way,” Neil advised as he sat on the stool next to his brother. “You need raw meat for swelling.”

“You're a bloody photographer,” Ed growled, “what do you know about first aid?”

“More than you, it seems.”

“It was all they had and I've got an ice cube under them, clever dick.”

“Oh.”

“You could hose down three elephants in the time it's taken you to have a shower.”

“Are you ready to talk about what's wrong now, or do you want me to put the other eye out for you first?”

Ed scowled in what would have been a menacing way if his face hadn't been half-obscured by a packet of crisps. Neil sat in silence. Eventually, Ed sighed and said, “Orla's offered me a job. A good job. Back in films.”

Neil shrugged. “Great.”

“In the States.”

“Less great.”

“Ali won't even consider it.”

“Have you talked to her about it?”

Ed glared at Neil again, but it hurt his cheek. “No, I transmit
ted it to her telepathically while she was asleep.” He nursed his beer sullenly.

“And?”

“And I should let it go. But I can't.” Ed adjusted his crisps. “I feel like someone is dangling a big juicy carrot in front of me.”

“I hate carrots.”

Ed ignored him. “It's so close I can smell it, but it's just out of reach and I can't bear the thought that it might always be.”

“Orla?”

“Orla what?”

“Orla's holding the carrot?”

“I suppose so.”

“And is that part of the problem?”

“I don't think so.”

“So Ali doesn't know about Orla?”

“There's nothing to know.” He had waited all day to talk to Orla, but she was busy. Busy analyzing this and reviewing that. He'd tried to bump into her over lunch and in the little kitchen where they all made coffee, but there were too many people around. She had smiled noncommittally at him in the way that people do when they have shared secret knowledge, and it churned his stomach so much that he couldn't drink the coffee he hadn't wanted to make in the first place. Ed was desperate to talk more to her about the job, what it entailed, who were the movers and shakers these days, he wanted to hear it all even though he knew it would torture him, because eventually he would have to tell her that he couldn't take it. All his dreams snuffed out in one little sentence.

Neil frowned vacantly. “I don't know what to say, bro.”

“Now do you see why it was pointless even discussing it?” Ed took his crisps away from his eye and prodded the area gingerly before putting them back. “I've lived my life nursing this regret and I didn't even know it. And now I've got a chance to put it right. What if you had one thing stopping you from achieving your big break, your lifetime's ambition?”

“I have.”

Ed looked at his brother. “What?”

Neil wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “Lack of talent.”

“Lack of motivation more like,” Ed snorted. “You're just an idle bastard.”

“And maybe you're too driven,” Neil said. “Stop and look at what you've got. Count your blessings. You're healthy, wealthy and sometimes, on rare occasions, wise. You could spend your life chasing rainbows and never find a pot of gold. Believe me, the only thing at the end of most rainbows is a crock of shit.”

Ed started to laugh. “You're going to start singing ‘Always Look on the Bright Side' in a minute, aren't you?”

“I might.”

Ed took his bag of Sizzling Steak Ranch Fries from his eye and dropped the sliver of melted ice cube that remained into the ashtray on the bar. Then he tore the bag open and offered it to Neil. “Want a crisp?”

“No thanks.” Neil grimaced. “It'd be like eating a surgical dressing.” He jumped down from his bar stool. “Come on, let's get you home. Do you think you need to pop into Casualty on the way back just to get your eye checked out?”

“No.” Ed shook his head. “It'll be fine. I can see things quite clearly.”

Neil picked up his car keys and stared at Ed. “I hope so, bro. I sincerely hope so.”

“O
oooh.” Ed lies down in the bed with his hand over his eye.

“Let me look at that,” I say, and try to prize his fingers off.

“It's okay, Ali. It's just a bruise. I don't want you messing around with it.”

“I'll get you some arnica.”

“What's that?”

“It's for bruising.”

“I don't want any. I've put ice on it. It's fine. Neil looked at it.”

“What does Neil know about anything?”

“He knows quite a bit about getting hit with squash balls.”

“You'll have a black eye in the morning.”

“Will I?” Ed sits up and looks alarmed.

“Let me look at it.”

Ed leans forward. “Don't poke it around.”

“I won't.” Wearing my serious face, I examine Ed and try not to poke around as instructed. I have inherited a lot of things from my mother, and my inability to be gentle when faced with another's pain is one of them. I use the bully-them-back-to-health method of nursing. It worked perfectly well for me as a child, and I've suffered no lasting harm from not being mollycoddled.

Ed's eye is a bit bloodshot and puffed up, but there's no cut,
and I think he's been quite lucky to escape with a bit of bruising from what Neil said about the force with which Ed hit the ball.

I smooth my finger over Ed's eyebrow. “Oooh,” he says again. “It hurts.”

“Shall I kiss it better?”

“Mmm,” Ed murmurs and tilts his face toward mine.

I stroke his fringe away, which like the lawn needs cutting again, and move my lips lightly against his eyebrow.

“Oooh,” Ed moans, a mixture of pain and pleasure.

I kiss gently along his eyebrow and over his eyelid, barely touching him, caressing his skin with my breath. “Does it hurt anywhere else?”

Ed pouts his lips and points to them with his finger. “Here,” he says. I kiss his lips tenderly. Ed points to his throat. “Here hurts too.” And I obligingly kiss his neck.

“And here?” I ask as I slide down his body. Ed has dark, curled hair on his chest. It is soft and warm and would be fabulous for stuffing a duvet. I love lying against him on cold winter nights with the warmth of his skin and his soft down snuggled against my back.

“Mmm.” Ed relaxes back against the pillow. “Are the bratlets in bed?”

“Yes,” I murmur, continuing my tender assault. “Ages ago.” I press my face against his soft skin. I love the scent of him. Even after all these years. He smells of musk and vanilla and manliness. I could drown in that aroma, which is better than newly mown grass or creosote or freshly baked bread.

Ed strokes my hair and I let my kisses linger over his stomach, which is burning hot, a comforting fire. I lift my head and smile at him. “Does this hurt?”

“Oh yes,” he says, and closes his eyes, the pain clearly forgotten.

 

It is some ungodly hour and I try not to look at the clock and worry about getting up in the morning, because I am contented. We are curled together in post-coital bliss. “God, Ed,” I sigh. “Midweek passion? When did we last do that?”

“When was the last lunar landing?”

I poke him in the ribs. “It wasn't that long ago.”

“It's been a while.”

“Too long,” I agree, and Ed wraps his arms round me and we
lie comfortably in that delicious state between waking and sleeping. “Ed?”

“Mmm.” Ed sounds like he has tipped over the edge into sleep and is dozing.

“Ed. Did Neil say anything about Jemma last week?”

“No.”

“Oh.” I snuggle farther into his arms. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“What—nothing at all?”

“Ali.” His tone is warning.

“Do you think we should invite them both round for dinner sometime?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because you're trying to pair them off and they're not suited.”

“I think they'd make a lovely couple.”

“That's because you're desperate to get your sister married off.”

“I'm not.” I prop myself up on my elbow and Ed opens his good eye. “I think they have a lot to offer each other.”

“Like what?” Ed lies there, looking like he's winking at me. “Your sister's got more miles on her than a clapped out Volvo and my brother's got a great collection of take-away cartons. And that's another thing. She's your sister and he's my brother. How could we do that to them? Let them make their own mistakes. I do not want to be responsible for my brother's happiness.”

“They might make each other happy.”

“Jemma is a go-getter. Neil is so laid-back he's horizontal.”

“Perhaps Jemma would encourage him to do a bit more with his life. He's always going on about how he'd like to have more exciting assignments. She might give him the motivation he needs. Get him out of his cozy rut.”

Ed turns toward me. “Do you think a woman should encourage her partner to achieve his dreams?”

“Of course I do.” I smile sleepily at Ed. “Haven't I always supported you?”

“Ali…”

“I think I will invite them round for dinner. It'll be fun.”

“Ali…”

I stretch my neck and stifle a yawn. “I'm so sleepy.” I turn to Ed and kiss his nose. “Are you sleepy?”

“Yes, but…”

“Shall we turn the light off and settle down?”

“Yes.”

I turn off the lamp and the cool white light of the moon streams in through the window, picking out the white cotton cover on the bed. My house hasn't had the Kath Brown treatment and is pale and uncluttered, except when the children are awake. I lie back against the pillow and pull the duvet up to nuzzle my neck; my body is heavy and sinking dreamily into sleep. The last thing I notice is that Ed has both of his eyes open and is staring at the ceiling, but I am too far gone in my surrender to deep, deep slumber to ask why.

I
am trying to clear the breakfast dishes away and finish my own toast at the same time. I think I've drunk my tea or, if not, I can't find it amid the debris. “Have you got your gym things, Thomas?”

“Yes.” Thomas is still sitting at the table playing with two plastic wotsits that came out of the Rice Krispies. His gym things are nowhere in sight. They could still be in the ironing basket for all I know.

“Have you done your homework?”

“Yes.” There is more of a growl in Tanya's answer. This is mainly because I'm monitoring her homework timetable with all the fanaticism of a Gestapo officer, and she is becoming desperate for her
Buffy
fix, which she's not allowed for another week.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Even the German?”

“Yes.” She looks at me as if I am some lowlife clinging to her shoe. I hear about these wonderful mother-daughter relationships all the time. Women who can talk to each other about anything, who are the best of friends and who share their emotions openly to the supreme benefit of both parties. Sometimes they even wear matching clothes. I wouldn't be seen dead in the things Tanya wears and vice versa. I nag my daughter constantly and she scowls
at me. Perhaps this is something else I've inherited from my mother. We were exactly the same. All through my teenage years we fought like cat and dog, as if I was the daughter from hell, when in actual fact I was a little angel who just had a minor bit of wing slippage from time to time. It was only when I was in my twenties that I appreciated what a wonderful woman my mother was. I can only hope that Tanya has a similar revelation. But I would prefer it to happen next week.

“Elliott, have you got your lunch?” I know he has because I saw him eat the Penguin biscuit out of it as soon as he'd finished his Coco Pops, even though he tried to eat it under the table. By the time he is twenty-one, that boy's veins will flow with pure chocolate.

“Yes,” he says.

“You haven't eaten the chocolate biscuit out of it, have you?”

“I only tasted it a little bit,” he confesses. “With my teeth. I thought I might not be hungry enough to eat it at lunchtime,” he adds with a logic that defies further investigation.

“How's the eye?” I ask Ed, who is sitting silently amid the mayhem with his cup of coffee hovering at his lips, staring serenely into middle distance, as he does every morning.

“Fine,” he says, lifting a finger to test it. The skin is only slightly pink, not the shiner I expected. Even though I failed in my quest to pump him full of arnica, he appears to have suffered no ill effects. Still, he seems a bit subdued. It could be shock.

“You're going to be late,” I warn him, glancing for the millionth time at the clock. I've looked at it so often I'm starting to annoy myself. Why does its hands always move faster when you're pushed for time?

He picks up the newspaper and opens it. “I'm not in a rush today.”

“Why?”

Ed shrugs. “No reason. We could travel in together, if you like.”

I stop my tidying up. “We never travel in together.”

Ed reaches for the cafetière and tops up his coffee. “We could today.”

“I've got to walk Elliott to school.”

“I'll wait. There's no hurry.”

“There is. I've got a thousand things to do.”

“It would give us a chance to talk.”

“About what?”

Ed frowns. “I don't know.”

I carry on tidying up. “Neither do I.”

I'm all flustered and feel like throwing the cereal bowls into the air just to see how much noise they'll make when they land. “You could walk Elliott to school for me, if you're not in a rush.”

“Fine.” Ed downs his coffee and folds his newspaper. “Come on, Elliott,” he says, and our son for once obeys without turning it into a three-act drama. “I'll see you later,” he says and gazes across the kitchen. He doesn't come to kiss me and it could be his eye or my paranoia, but it seems to me that Ed gives me a very strange look.

 

I am meeting Christian. But you know that already, don't you? It's only my family who are blissfully unaware of my duplicity. Now that Ed and Elliott are out of the way, I rush Tanya and Thomas out the door with hurried kisses and threats and then fly upstairs two steps at a time. I am wearing the same black trouser suit I had on yesterday, and I change into something a bit more casual that will do for Kew and for work. But you see, I'm not going to spend the day with Christian—I'm merely going to meet him, tell him I can't spend the day with him, at the very, very most have a quick coffee and then skedaddle back to work.

I have tried phoning the mobile number he gave me to tell him that I wouldn't be going anywhere near Kew Gardens today, but the wretched thing is always turned off and I haven't been brave enough to leave word on his answering service. And I don't trust those things anyway. They're like teenagers. You can never be quite sure that they're going to pass the message on.

I was just not going to go at all. Just not turn up. But then, he is a lovely boy, and I couldn't stand him up without an explanation. Have you ever been stood up? It's dreadful. I had a crush on the school heartthrob, Gary Eccleston, when I was sixteen, and I worshiped him from afar for months and months and months. He was going out with Caroline Gregory, the first sex kitten I ever came across. She was petite and girly and the most outrageous flirt, and she dumped him in spectacular style for a down-market boy from the local comprehensive. A week later he asked me out. I was gobsmacked. So was everyone else. The school heartthrob and Ginger Nut. Ha!

He arranged to take me to the school disco, and I waited for him at the end of my road, so that my mother, who was in nagging harridan mode, wouldn't see him. I looked gorgeous. Really, I did. I'd spent hours doing my makeup. I'd tamed my hair with Jemma's help, using every potion under the sun we could find in Superdrug. I'd borrowed a groovy outfit from my best friend, Andrea Thornton. And I stood there feeling on top of the world, bursting with pride. And he didn't come.

I waited for hours. Hours and hours. I couldn't believe that anyone could be cruel enough just to leave me standing there on my own. Apparently, the school disco was great. Andrea told me all about it. She got off with Joseph Simpson, to whom she is now happily married and has two children with. Gary Eccleston went on his own and got back with Caroline Gregory, who dumped him again the very next day. I cried in my bedroom all night, letting my mascara run on the pillow and wondering just where I'd gone wrong. So, you see, I could never ever do that to anyone else. Especially not Christian.

I take the Tube to Kew and, far from being late, I am ridiculously early. I walk up and down outside the curly iron gates feeling conspicuous. Ten o'clock comes and goes. I have a very weird feeling about this. This is Gary Eccleston all over again. I've only come to tell Christian I'm not coming, for goodness' sake, and now
he
hasn't come. I'm standing here with my self-confidence ebbing and one nibble away from chewing my fingernails. The thing about being stood up is that in the back of your mind you know you've been stood up but there's always that nagging doubt that your stander-upper might have had an accident and that they are not there with you through no fault of their own. I couldn't bear for anything to have happened to Christian. I hope he has bumped into some twenty-year-old Caroline Gregory look-alike last night in some trendy bar and has decided not to come. Perhaps he's sitting in a café somewhere laughing about it to her. Perhaps it's for the best.

I walk up and down again and kick the pavement meaningfully. He could have let me know he wasn't going to come. But then again, how could he? He doesn't know my phone number. He doesn't know where I live. He only knows where I work by default. It's nearly twenty past ten. Well, ten-sixteen. I'm never sure whether this watch is fast or slow. I can feel tears prickling be
hind my eyes and feel utterly, utterly ridiculous. This is madness. How can I have let this man, this boy, into my life like this? How dare he sketch me and turn my life and my internal organs upside down and then leave me like this, wandering up and down on my own, being watched by visiting tourists who know, they just
know
that I've been stood up. I'll give him two more minutes then I'm off. Back to the safety of Kath Brown and her frilly curtains.