The Hollow Heart (The Heartfelt Series) (26 page)

“He’s in England promoting the film at the moment, you know.
Have you seen him? Has he been in touch?” She waited, “Marie, are you still
there?”

“Sorry Oonagh, I have to go. Other line’s ringing. Business.
Catch you later.”

Marianne put the phone down quickly. She did not want to
have to lie, but if she told Oonagh she had seen Ryan, the barrage of questions
would have been relentless, and to reveal any detail of their recent rendezvous
would be a huge mistake. Marianne did not imagine Oonagh was malicious in anyway,
but she also knew Oonagh would find it impossible to keep any detail of her
encounter with Ryan, romantic or otherwise, confidential. She would be straight
onto Miss MacReady and between them they would be busy broadcasting the
‘Romance blooms for super spy star on Innishmahon’ story to the world, and
although Marianne was bursting to tell somebody, anybody, of her tantalising
yet fleeting love affair with currently the most popular film actor in the
Universe, her lips were sealed. The ramifications of such a revelation were
incalculable.

“It was a glorious fling and everyone should have one, at
least once in their lifetime. And in media terms, yes it’s a great story;
‘Super Spy’ in secret love tryst,” she explained to Monty, shuddering as she
imagined the headlines. “We all know showbiz revelations sell newspapers, but
‘great story’ though it may be, for whom and for what? For the film, the actor,
the movie machine, possibly. For the two individuals involved, definitely not.”

She lifted him from where he had nestled at her feet, his
favourite spot when she was working or talking on the landline. Checking she
had replaced the receiver fully, Marianne noticed she had an answer phone
message. She recognised Sophie’s number; her scatterbrained friend had been leaving
increasingly anxious messages and she had not responded to any of them. She had
heard that Jack had died and Marianne was not to go another day without calling
her back or she was going to turn up on the doorstep and camp there with her
entire family, until Marianne came out of the house to speak to her and at
least tell her she was alright.

Marianne sighed and considered a trip to Sophie’s the easier
option.

They were catching up over a pot of coffee in Sophie’s
chaotic kitchen, when Jason, her partner, appeared. He kissed Marianne briefly
and, taking a Coke from the fridge, turned to look her over properly.

“You look different Marianne. What is it?”

“Slimmer? Fatter? Older?” Sophie offered.

“No, none of those.” He strolled over and, taking Marianne’s
hands, pulled her off the stool, walking around her slowly. “You’re all shiny
and glowing. There’s a rosiness about you. What is it?”

Marianne just blinked at him.

“You’ve had sex, wild, unbridled, passionate sex. I’m right,
aren’t I?”

Sophie gasped.

 “Jason, how rude!” And then turning to Marianne, “God, he’s
right, isn’t he? You sly fox, not a mention to me. Who? When? What? How many
times? Is he single? No he’s married. Do we know him? God Marianne, tell all.
I’m getting the wine out.”

Marianne shrugged.

“Nothing to tell. Jason’s never once been right about me and
men. He thought George was just my solicitor until I moved in with him.”

Jason shook his head.

“Nah. I’m right. I know I am and he’s a bigwig, I’ll be
bound. Someone you can’t tell us about but ties you up and screws you senseless
every other weekend.”

 He winked, pinching her bottom theatrically as he left to
attend to their children screaming in another room. Sophie went to close the
door, she scanned the kitchen, the chaos, and stopped to slump against the
fridge freezer, sighing dramatically.

“I’m so tired, I’m worn to a thread. I want my life back.”
Sophie was a blatant emotional blackmailer. “You could fill me in a little,
just to brighten my day.”

“This is your life, there’s nothing to have back.” Marianne
started picking things up, putting them in the dishwasher, drawers, bin. She
could hear Jason calming the storm in the sitting room, she spied him through
the door, his arms around the children, a rug pulled around them as he started to
read a story.

“You’re so lucky,” she said, handing her friend a clean
glass, “you’ll never know how lucky you are.”

“If he’s right and there is something you are not telling
me, you’re dead.” Sophie said.

“If he’s right and I tell you, mouth almighty, we’ll both be
dead.”

The fact that Sophie freelanced for some of the more
salacious women’s weeklies meant that she really was going to be kept in the
dark, whatever she hoped, as she opened the wine. Marianne knew Sophie’s ploy
and barely touched a drop, until Sophie eventually waved her friend a slurry
goodbye, the bottle empty, and she none the wiser.

Keeping her clandestine
meeting with Ryan from both Oonagh and Sophie did not rest easy with Marianne.
She pulled on pyjamas grumpily, having barely said goodnight to Monty, whose
only outing that evening had been a turn around the garden. She was annoyed,
irritated with Ryan and angry with herself. She was a fully grown, single
woman; she had every right to a sex life, a fleeting affair, a romantic encounter
and even a passionate coupling in a glamorous location. But not to be able to
talk about it, boast about it, revel in it and relive it moment by tantalising
moment with another female, who would also have fantasised and longed for such
an adventure, well that was the worst of it, that was what really rankled.

She banged about her bedroom, switching things on and off,
fiddling with the duvet, books on the bedside table, her spectacles. She
finally crawled beneath the sheets and was immediately wide awake. A bad night
beckoned. When she finally dropped off, she tossed and turned fitfully. She
dreamt of Ryan, she was laughing, falling backwards and, just as her heart
started to flutter in fear that she would fall into nothingness, she felt his
arms around her, strong and warm as if she was falling into a soft, safe
armchair.

She woke, shook her head, took a large slurp of water from
her glass and settled back, turning on her side, closing her eyes tight shut,
pushing the images away. Yet, as she drifted off to sleep, he seeped back into
her dreams, this time pervading her subconscious with short, vivid
recollections of his touch, his lips, his tongue. She woke again, the more she
tried to blank him out, the more his memory persisted, lighting her up from inside.
She groaned, racked with a longing that glowed like an ember inside her,
growing hot and burning until, feeling the heat build in her chest, she woke
suddenly, her heart racing, her mouth dry. She glared at the bedside clock. It
was two in the morning.

She fell into a restless doze, only to wake again. It was
still dark, the skin between her breasts damp, the flesh between her legs wet
with desire. She licked her lips, she could taste him, she could feel his hands
sliding down her spine to caress her buttocks with butterfly strokes and, with
her hand against her ear, she could hear him breathing, soft heat from his
whispering breath.

“Oh God,” she pleaded, “make it stop.” She jumped and sat
bolt upright, “Who’s that? Who is it?” The sound of her own voice in the
darkness had startled her. She snapped on the light and, glancing quickly round
the room, stuffed her feet in her slippers and went to the bathroom, staring
wide-eyed in the mirror. She shook her head to clear it, but the memory of
their passion draped her like a cloak, it echoed through her, the longing so
raw it was painful. She pushed her shoulders back, strode purposefully to bed
and, grabbing the closest tome to hand, read a mind-numbing computer textbook
till dawn.

As if to compound her agony, the relentless publicity
campaign that is the lifeblood of a global blockbuster, had commenced. Posters
of the leading man in various poses were everywhere: bloodied and unshaven
toting a rifle; eyes twinkling over a cocktail; hands gripping the steering
wheel of the latest super car; or bare chested, the blonde curls of a beautiful
girl, supine on his shoulder. Every time Marianne flicked on the TV, tuned in
the radio, opened a newspaper or magazine, even watched a bus pass at the
bottom of the avenue, Ryan was either on it, in it or being discussed. He
pervaded her every waking moment. She was being haunted. Haunted, yet
abandoned.

Marianne allowed her gloomy mood to envelop her. She went
back to bed, pulling the duvet over her head, blocking out the daylight. Monty
snuffled about the kitchen, then popped himself back in his basket. No walk
today then. He eyed his lead hanging on the coat hook in the hall and buried
his nose in his paws.

Developing the habits of a hermit, Marianne spent the next
few months holed up in George’s study, working on her project to reunite as
many mothers and babies as she could. The files from the so-called charity she
had uncovered in her award-winning report had been released, and the notorious
Sister Mary May and her associates were serving prison sentences. She had
hundreds of names and addresses to put on the website in the hope that those
who were robbed of their children would come forward and discover they had not
died at all. It was a time-consuming and emotionally draining task. She only
left her desk to walk Monty or to act as an unpaid babysitter for Sophie and
Sharon, deciding that helping them have a social life was a vague counter to
having none of her own.

Oonagh kept her appraised of her condition, alternating between
emails filled with riotous joy and paranoid anxiety. Ryan, it seemed, had
abandoned her totally, despite his promise to stay in touch. For her part, she
made no attempt to contact him: pride, foolhardiness, a naïve notion it is the
female who should be pursued, or just fear of rejection, she did not know
which, but what she did know was, she missed him more than she dare admit,
especially to herself.

Apart from quietly acknowledging George’s anniversary in
June with a picnic in the park, where she and Monty had scattered his ashes the
year before, the uneventful suburban summer was merging into what looked being
an equally dull autumn. Marianne was becoming accustomed to a condition she had
never encountered in her entire life – boredom. She was arranging knickers in
order of wornness, when the land line rang. It was Miss MacReady. Her shrill
tone reverberated along the wire.

“Marianne, is that you?” she hissed. She always sounded
conspiratorial. “Look, what are you at? Have you a big job on, or what? Oonagh
said you’ve left the newspaper, doing some freelancing. Well, could you
consider this, a bit of freelancing for us, here?”

“Er, well, I have quite a bit on.” She went quiet.

“Anything that can’t be shelved?”

Marianne thought for a minute and then it hit her like a
slap in the face. She realised what she had been doing, she had spent the best
part of three months waiting for the phone to ring or an email to arrive. She
had been waiting to hear from Ryan. This was more than disturbing. This was
shocking. It was time to make some life-changing decisions, the rut had
deepened, it was time to climb out. She slammed the knicker drawer shut.

The very next day was momentous for two reasons; firstly
Marianne put seventy four Oakwood Avenue on the market, barely registering a
quiver of regret as the For Sale sign was hammered into the lawn and, secondly,
the invitation to the anniversary of the ‘Power 2 The People’ event arrived.
Marianne stared at the white embossed card for some time. Re-named ‘The Phoenix
Fights Back’ the whole event was to be a celebration in defiance of the
terrorist attack, which had brought devastation to the capital and sent shock
waves around the globe only twelve months before. The initiative would
re-launch the worldwide charity the Baroness, who had tragically died in the
attack, had founded, raising funds for impoverished people everywhere.

In keeping with the spirit of the re-launch, the survivors
of the original event had all been invited as guests of honour. And to avoid
sabotage, everything had been planned in secret right up to the invitations
being sent out. Marianne was intrigued. She read and re-read the invitation
with mounting excitement; all the survivors would have been contacted. Oonagh
had told her Ryan was back in England. Would he be there? And if so, would she
see him, talk to him, touch him? Or would she blank him, ignore him, pretend
they had never met, never kissed, never been lovers?

She started humming
Cry Me A River
, the theme to the
spy film, tapping the invitation along the mantelpiece in time with the tune.
Monty, sensing a change of mood, trotted to the door, swishing his tail gently.
She smiled at him, grabbing his lead, as she pulled on an ageing gilet. He
yapped at her, spinning round like a puppy. She checked her lacklustre locks in
the mirror, pale face, neglected nails.

“Right, let’s get to the salon and book myself in. Time for
a bit of a makeover,” she told the excited terrier. “A new phase beckons. Who
knows, a new me? A new life? A new everything? Let’s go, Toto,” she said, in
her dreadful
Wizard of Oz
impersonation.

Professionally preened and
polished, Marianne donned the dark green velvet gown she had worn that first
evening at Meredith Lodge. In a mist of perfume, she rushed out of the house
before realising she had left her mobile on the dresser. The taxi driver revved
his engine. She jumped in. The abandoned mobile vibrated. The driver was
playing a soccer match commentary loudly on the radio. Marianne chewed her
manicure all the way there.

Hundreds of people were gathered around the red carpet
entrance. The cabbie dropped her as close as he could, having only second-level
security clearance.

 “You’ll be alright, love.” He nodded towards the police
cordon as she paid him. “I mean, you ain’t no celebrity, so you’ll get in dead
easy, no paparazzi, I mean.”