by June Gadsby
“Happy New Year, Callum,” I responded, then we were frowning at one another, oblivious of anything else happening just feet away through those glass doors.
“There should be mistletoe,” he said, his voice breaking.
I saw his Adam’s apple rise and fall as he swallowed, heard him groan, then he pulled me roughly back into his arms. My head tilted back, and my lips parted as his mouth descended on mine in a kiss that had nothing to do with Auld Lang Syne. In that moment, I was under no illusions. There was nothing left to the imagination. Callum wanted me as much as I wanted him.
Then, just as quickly, it was over. With a small, agonised gasp, he raised his head. His hands came up and held my face. I could feel his breath warm on my lips, still feel the pressure of his mouth on mine. I looked up at him in a blur of threatening tears and realised that his eyes were also moist, his face taut with suppressed emotion.
“Oh, my God, Megan,” he whispered hoarsely. “What must you think of me? I’m such an old fool.”
“No, Callum! No…” I choked on my words
He closed his eyes tightly and shook his head. I heard him swallow hard. Then he was looking at me and gave a forced, wry smile. “I guess we’ve both had too much to drink.”
“Yes,” I agreed in a voice thick with emotion. “Yes, I suppose we have.”
“Shall we go back to the others before they send out a search party?”
“Yes, of course.”
People were hugging and kissing and throwing streamers and confetti, blowing cardboard trumpets and generally getting out of their skins. Even the staid fellow-guests at our own table had become quite animated and were on their feet.
“Well, there you are, you two. Hilary beamed genially at us, her plump face flushed. “Did you enjoy your dance then?”
“Yes, very nice,” Callum went to her and planted his kiss, not on her lips, but on her cheek, which she turned up to him. “Happy New Year, Hilary.”
“Happy New Year, dear.” She patted his face affectionately.
The first bars of Auld Lang Syne started up and everybody rushed to form a circle with hands crossed and clasped. I found myself again being jostled by the Lord Mayor on one side and a perfect stranger on the other. Callum was directly opposite, flanked by Pamela and Mrs. Hassenden-Smythe who couldn’t seem to make her mind up which hand to offer him.
“Should auld acquaintance be forgot…”
I opened my mouth, but nearly choked on the lump in my throat as my eyes met Callum’s across the empty void between us. He wasn’t singing either and he didn’t look any happier than I felt. My eyes prickled, and I felt dangerously near to tears.
The old traditional song over, I returned to the table and picked up my bag. Greg was no longer there.
“Megan, I don’t want to worry you, sweetheart,” Hilary Andrews broke away from Lady Constance and came over to me, “but Greg went to the cloakroom ages ago and he hasn’t come back. He seemed rather unwell, I thought.”
“Oh, dear.” I felt my face go pale.
“Don’t worry, Megan,” Callum touched my shoulder and beckoned to Stuart. “We’ll go and look for him.”
Five minutes later they returned without him.
“Wasn’t he there?” I asked, looking around the room to see if I could see Greg misplaced and possibly asleep at the wrong table, oblivious of the loud hilarity that surrounded him.
“Yes, he was there,” Callum frowned at me, then gave a small encouraging smile. “He’d passed out in the gents and the attendant was busily trying to resuscitate him by pouring a glass of champagne down his throat. We persuaded him that it wasn’t a good idea.”
“Is…Is Greg all right?” I asked hesitantly.
“He’s conscious, but that’s about all,” Stuart said. “Bloody fool.”
“He’s on tablets,” I said by way of excusing Greg’s conduct. “He shouldn’t have been drinking at all really.”
“But it is New Year, after all,” Callum said kindly, then rubbed my back the way Ros always did, but when he did it I wanted to cry bittersweet tears. “Look, you’ll never manage to get him home on your own. Let me drive you.”
“No need for that.” Lady Constance butted in rather abruptly. “It’s miles out of your way, Callum. Freddie and I are ready to leave, and we practically pass their door. Freddie, come along dear. Say goodnight.”
I realised for the first time that the handsome, but rather insipid young man who had captured Pamela’s attention for most of the evening was none other than Freddie, Lady Constance’s son.
I had a moment of panic as I said goodnight, thinking that I might never see Callum again, then I was whisked away by Lady Constance, who took my arm and didn’t let go until we got to the vestibule where Greg was sitting staring into space like a zombie, a bevy of staff watching over him carefully.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Why did he have to do it? Kiss me like that. I shouldn’t have let it happen, but how could I have stopped it? Stupid question! I could have stopped it by not being there in the first place. Of course, I wasn’t to know how he felt. I thought all those looks, those tiny, subtle signs were in my own imagination.
Wishful thinking. Yes, I was certainly guilty of that. But I never encouraged him. Even when my heart leapt, and my pulses raced every time I saw him, I did nothing to give him the idea that I was in love with him. Nothing!
Oh, dear God, poor Callum. Now he’s feeling guilty…is guilty. This affair, which is hardly more than an affair in the mind, has made us guilty partners. He has been unfaithful to a wife who loves him. And I have been unfaithful to a husband who doesn’t even love himself any more. Can you call a kiss, even a passionate kiss, an act of being unfaithful? It was passionate. Not only that, I had been aware of his arousal from the minute he took me in his arms. For an all too brief time it was almost as if we became lovers in the full sense. How I wished it had been the real thing…
I stared miserably out of the car window at the dark night, a sickening depression settling in the pit of my stomach. City lights flashed by, New Year’s revellers dotted the streets in small groups. Oncoming traffic blinded me. I closed my eyes with a deep sigh and tried not to dwell on what Callum might be thinking or doing right now. That was a mistake. With my eyes closed I saw all too clearly his face, felt all too realistically his kiss all over again. I gave a gasp of disbelief and opened my eyes again to find Lady Constance looking at me from the front seat of the Rolls.
“Are you all right, my dear?”
“Yes…I’m fine. Just a little tired, that’s all.”
“Won’t be long now. How is your poor husband faring?”
I glanced across at Greg. He was leaning into the opposite corner snoring gently, his head lolling about like one of those silly dogs that people buy for their cars. “He’s asleep.”
“It wasn’t at all wise, you know, my dear,” Lady Constance lowered her voice conspiratorially. “He really shouldn’t be drinking while he’s taking drugs of any kind. It could have quite a drastic effect on his system.”
“I know that, but Greg is a law unto himself,” I informed her, and I knew when she frowned at my response that she felt I should have acted more in his interests. Somehow, I guessed that this friend of Hilary Andrews did not rate me with much intelligence. Perhaps she was right. At least where Greg was concerned.
A few minutes later, Lady Constance’s driver was helping me walk Greg from the car to the house. Lady Constance remained in the car, looking decidedly relieved at having discharged her unwanted passengers.
“Do you want me to help the gentleman upstairs?” the driver asked politely. I shook my head.
“Thank you, but I think that might prove a little difficult. He can sleep on the settee.”
I stuffed pillows around Greg and covered him with a warm duvet after pulling off as many clothes as I could manage as he stood swaying in the middle of the sitting room. His eyes were open and glazed, but he was out on his feet. W
ith his trousers down around his ankles I only had to gently push him to get him to lie down. He sank amongst the pillows and cushions with a thankful groan. I sat watching over him for five minutes, making sure that he was asleep, then I climbed the stairs to my own bed.
As I lay, wide-eyed and awake, staring into the darkness above my head, I pictured Callum and Hilary retiring for the night. They were a long-married couple, no longer newly-weds. Did they, I wondered, still share a bed? Did they still make love? I shuddered at the thought.
Turning on my side, I curled into a tight ball. I prayed and begged for sleep to come, but it was almost five by the time I drifted off into a disturbed slumber filled with dreams of Callum.
It seemed like only minutes later when the telephone shrilled close to my ear and shocked me into consciousness. It was half-past nine. I lay listening to the impatient summons, trying to bring some sense into my brain, then finally plucked the phone up and made an effort to speak.
“Are you all right?” I was shot through with electricity as I recognised Callum’s voice in my ear.
“Yes…” I had to clear my throat noisily before I could speak. “Yes, of course…I’m fine.” Such bravado. What else could I say – no, I’m not all right, I’m dying for love of you and I can’t have you and it was so cruel of you to kiss me like that and…
“Megan, I want you to know that…well, I apologise for my behaviour last night. It was unforgivable of me. I really don’t know what came over me.”
“Well, as you said last night…we probably both had too much to drink.” Did my voice sound as tight and as cold to him as it did to me? “It was New Year’s Eve after all.”
“Please forgive me, Megan,” Callum’s breathing sounded ragged; there was a small, awkward silence. “Megan?”
“Yes?”
“I would never knowingly do anything to hurt you. I hope you realise that.”
“Don’t be silly, Callum. Of course, I know that.”
“Last night…”
“It’s already forgotten.” I sounded brash, flippant, uncaring. I would never forget last night. Not if I lived to celebrate a million New Years.
“How is Greg this morning?”
“I haven’t seen him yet. I left him sleeping on the settee. No doubt he’ll be there till lunchtime.”
“Yes…well, I just wanted to make sure that you were…you know…all right.”
“I’m fine, Callum.” We were talking in ever-decreasing circles and getting nowhere. I didn’t want him to hang up, didn’t want him to go without knowing what I felt for him. But I can’t tell him. I can’t.
“I won’t be around for a while, Megan.”
“Oh?” My heart sank like a stone.
“No. I’ve decided to do a major American tour. It came up at short notice and at first, I was all for turning it down, but now…I think it’s best, don’t you? A long separation?”
“If you say so, Callum. I hope it’s a great success.”
“I’ll be away for at least three months, then…” His voice trailed off and I couldn’t think of a thing to say to fill the deafening silence, except don’t go, and I couldn’t say that. “Well, I’ll say goodbye, then.”
“Goodbye, Callum.” My voice cracked at last and the emotion forced its way through.
“Take care, Megan.”
“Yes. You too.”
The purring of an empty telephone line is the loneliest sound I know. I put the phone down and stared at it for a long time. When it rang a second time I grabbed it up and spoke breathlessly into it, thinking that Callum had had second thoughts. But it was only my mother.
Chapter Twenty-Four
It was odd having Greg at home all day and every day. Odd in more ways than one. His whole attitude changed while he was immobilised and under strict medical surveillance. I think the blackout he had suffered and the accident because of it frightened him. It was difficult not to be sympathetic with this big, bear of a man I had so naively married. He thrived on the stress and the strain of the journalistic rat race but was suddenly thrown into a world he neither appreciated nor understood.
After a week or two of watching him agonise in depressive silence, I found it necessary to escape the suffocating proximity. Fortunately, I was becoming more and more in demand as an artist. Thanks, no doubt, to the work I had done for Callum’s biography. No sooner had I finished one commission, then my agent was setting up meetings with a variety of publishers and private individuals that thought I could supply them with exactly what they were looking for.
Fate had waved her magic wand and in the blink of an eye I found that our roles were reversed. Greg was the one working at home, lounging on the sofa, leg raised in its heavy support, lap-top or notebook on his knees. I was the one rushing in and out, attending meetings, appointments throughout the day and, sometimes, in the evening, when the prospective clients treated me to rather sumptuous dinners. I lapped up the attention as if it were liquid gold. This sudden success had given me confidence in myself as well as my work. I was a different person. The old, timid me was gone. I liked the new me.
I always made sure that Greg was comfortable and had everything he wanted to hand. Sometimes I was late coming back and had to suffer a dark, gloomy stare that accused me, I was sure, of uncaring neglect. Greg was never good in his own company, except when he was writing. However, it seemed that inspiration had deserted the sinking ship and most of the time he sat facing a blank screen.
“I thought maybe you were going to stay out all night,” he growled on one occasion when I was particularly late in coming home.
“I was with a client who thought I might just do that.” I said lightly.
“I hope you disappointed him.”
“In the end, yes. But he put up a very persuasive argument. I was almost tempted.” Greg just stared back with blank eyes.
I smiled down at him, feeling pleased that I could finally rise above my own depressed state. Time was indeed a great healer and I was finally able to place Callum, for the most part, in the back of my mind and fill my head with other things. Keeping busy was the best tonic for a broken heart.
The meeting with Ed Raynor had started out with promise. My agent had introduced us first in her office. He was nice-looking, pleasant, around my own age and produced educational books for children. He was about to embark on a new series entitled Nature and Your World. It was an exciting project and I loved the idea of being a part of it. He wanted me to handle all the illustrations and then planned to put the original paintings into a permanent exhibition. The job represented a lot of work and he was prepared to pay well over the maximum, but, as I found out, there was a catch.
What I hadn’t realised at the outset was that he was not only notoriously rich and successful; he was also a notorious ladies’ man and took delight in seducing the female artists he hired.
He didn’t seem to like it when I told him what to do with his job as well as his overnight invitation. I don’t think he was used to being turned down. The loss of the job and the money it would have earned me was regrettable, but I had no regrets over Ed Raynor.
“How was your day? Can I get you anything?” I was bustling about tidying the room as I spoke. Greg watched me with impatience, his eyes following my every move. We both knew that the room would return to its untidy state again tomorrow and would stay like that as long as Greg was forced to rest at home.
“My day was interminable, but thanks for asking,” he grumbled and struggled to get upright. He was doing better and better every day now and only had a small support and a walking cane to help him get around in the house.
“Shall I make a pot of tea?” It was after midnight, but I thought I’d make the offer and, to be honest, after the rich food and the wine and Mister Edward Raynor’s sleazy advances, I thought I could enjoy sitting over one of my favourite cuppas.
“No, thanks. I think I’ll just go to bed. Goodnight.”
He limped out of the room and I heard him s
tomp and tap his way across the hall to the dining room, which we had turned temporarily into a downstairs bedroom for him. There was a small bathroom next door. It saved him the trouble of going up and down the stairs.
I went to the kitchen and put the kettle on. As I waited for it to boil I heard him call out, telling me that there had been a phone call for me earlier.
“Oh? Who was it?” I asked as I scalded the tea in the pot.
“Hilary Andrews.”
The name made me jump so much that I poured hot water over my hand and had to rush to hold it under the cold-water tap. “What did she want?” I yelled over my shoulder, wincing as the water flowed over a patch of reddened skin.
“She wanted to invite you to one of her coffee mornings.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow. Eleven o’clock. I told her you’d go.”
“But, Greg, I…” I hurriedly dried my hand, wincing afresh and went out into the hall. Greg was standing propped up in the doorway to the dining room. I noticed for the first time that he looked much taller and slimmer these days, seeing him in silhouette. The diet the hospital had placed him on was working a treat, despite all his grousing about missing the things he most enjoyed.
“You haven’t anything else on, have you?”
“Well, no, but…”
“So?”
“I don’t really want to go.” How could I tell him that I would be sorely embarrassed to be face to face with Callum’s wife after that New Year’s kiss? Before, it had been bad enough, loving him the way I did, but that kiss was something physical that came between us. Tangible evidence, you might say.
“It’s too late to back out now, Meg.” It was odd hearing him revert to the affectionate derivative he used when I was a teenager with my hair in a long pigtail. “Actually, she apologised for the short notice, but it seems her guest of honour cancelled out at the last minute and she thought you might be willing to take her place.”
“Me?”
“Well, you are still basking in some fame after doing that portrait of her bloody husband, aren’t you?”