by Ruth Jones
‘What time?’
‘Evening shift – sixish? You’ll be done by ten, most probs.’
‘I’ll have to check with Belinda.’
Belinda was ahead of him. ‘If he wants you to work, then go for it. I ain’t goin’ nowhere in this state.’
Callum turned back to the phone. ‘Guess that’s a yes then.’
‘She’s a bloody saint, your wife, d’you know that?’
Callum laughed. ‘Yeah, she is.’
He’d been about to hang up when Fergus had added, ‘Oh, and don’t worry, you won’t be completely on your own. I’m getting that girl back in. She wasn’t totally useless.’
And there it was.
The shortest-lived resolution ever made, dissolving into weak-willed air. He knew he’d be with Kate again that night, and probably the next and the next …
Locking up the store-room, Callum pocketed the key and headed out relieved that the day he’d been dreading for so long was now done with and he’d come out of it unscathed, with no complications or repercussions. He’d decided against telling Belinda about the ‘celebrity visit’ to the school. What would be the point? Best to just keep things simple.
And anyway she was gone now.
Panic over.
8
Kids were milling around her, the Headmaster was flapping them away and an ancient reporter was trying to get a few shots for the local press. They were stood in the school foyer and, all the while, Kate’s professional painted-on smile belied the simultaneous agony and thrill she still felt from seeing Callum three hours earlier.
‘Your taxi should be here any minute,’ the Headmaster was saying. ‘Can I reiterate what an honour it’s been to welcome you back to North Park Primary.’
He was talking unnaturally loudly, looking around to make sure the reporter was in earshot. He wanted to be quoted word for word, he’d had it all planned. But Kate was distracted and not really playing ball.
‘Er, yeah, sure,’ she mumbled.
The usual home-time chaos was exacerbated by her being there. Parents collecting their kids wanted a sneak peek of the actress they’d seen so many times on their TVs that they felt she was an old friend. People were calling her name, some had cameras with them, others were clamouring for autographs, and all the while Kate was searching the crowd for Callum, desperate for one last look at the man who’d broken her heart all those years ago.
And then she saw him.
Unnoticed by anyone but her, he was making his way to the oak and glass door, car keys and a pile of books in his hands. She watched him stand aside to allow in another couple of parents keen to see the VIP. As he waited to let them through, he glanced back and Kate caught his eye. He managed the briefest of smiles and her heart lurched so violently she thought it would cease beating.
A schoolchild eager for her attention ran straight at her, knocking her momentarily off balance.
‘Richard Blair! If I’ve told you once I’ve told you a thousand times, we do NOT run on school premises!’ Mrs Crocombe the school secretary was yelling at the running child.
When Kate looked up, Callum had gone.
‘I said your taxi’s here, Miss Andrews!’ The Headmaster was finding her a tad annoying now. That was the third time he’d said it. She was a pretty vacant sort, didn’t answer his questions a lot of the time – probably on drugs. Most of them were, weren’t they? Or so his wife had told him.
‘Oh. Right. OK, thanks.’ Kate felt overwhelmed by the crowd and needed to get out of there pronto. ‘Thanks for … I dunno, thanks for having me,’ she blurted out and made her way to the exit.
Outside, the taxi was waiting. It was the same driver who’d dropped her off earlier.
‘Ha! You’re stuck wi’ me again, hen!’
She got into the back of the cab without speaking. Behind her, kids and parents had followed her out, still calling after her in the hope of an autograph or a smile.
‘So is it Waverley or Haymarket you’ll be wanting?’ said the driver.
Kate didn’t really know. She didn’t really know anything at that moment, just wanted to be away from there, just wanted some air. ‘Er, Haymarket, I think.’ And she opened the window as he pulled away from the school. Her head was thumping. She needed a fag. ‘Can I smoke out of the window?’
The driver laughed. ‘As long as you don’t mind if I join you!’ And he lit up a Benson, glad of the excuse for a sneaky puff.
Kate put her head back and inhaled, consoling herself with the acrid burn of tobacco, before daring herself to think about him. She’d kept it together all afternoon, holding in the pain so tight every muscle in her body had ached with longing, but none as deeply as her heart. She wanted to scream, to weep, to cry out in agony.
‘Y’alright in the back there, hen?’ The taxi driver had caught sight of Kate in his rear-view mirror as she looked out of the window, taking in the passing houses and streets, a tear trickling down her cheek. He mistook her melancholy for homesickness. ‘Aye, it’s not a bad place to be brought up. I’ll bet y’sometimes wish y’d never gone away!’
She managed a dry smile, embarrassedly wiping away the stray tear and cursing herself for not being more discreet. They were approaching a set of lights. As the driver blathered on about the evils of the English, Kate continued looking out of her window. A car in the next lane pulled up and stopped at the lights alongside them.
At first it didn’t register. But then, like something out of a cartoon, Kate did a double take and her stomach somersaulted.
It was Callum.
He hadn’t seen her.
She grabbed a twenty-pound note from her bag, hurled it at the driver and said, ‘Sorry, babe, gotta get out – just seen someone I know.’
And she clambered out of the car and slammed the door shut on the driver’s protestations – ‘You’re mad, hen! Yer off yer heed!’ – and his delight at the twenty: ‘Still, thanks very much – very kind.’
She opened the passenger door of Callum’s car and climbed inside.
He was too stunned to react.
‘Any chance of a lift?’ She smiled, doing up her seatbelt. ‘Didn’t like the look of my driver. Shifty eyes.’
The lights turned green and Callum pulled away.
9
‘This really isn’t helping, you know.’
Matt was still laughing as he poured her a glass of tap water. They were in Kate and Matt’s big open-plan kitchen. Tallulah was with them, eating her pasta, Panda sitting loyally next to her, trying to share the joke, although she couldn’t really understand what had been making her daddy laugh quite so much.
‘Oh Het, I’m sorry, it’s just – only you could do something like that.’
‘Thanks a lot.’
Hetty had turned up to babysit, still blushing and wracked with embarrassment as she told him about the email she’d received from Adam Latimer earlier that afternoon. ‘Of course, you can imagine, when I saw his name I nearly had a cardiac arrest!’ It had said, ‘Well, well, well … little Hetty Strong! How’s life? Would love to come to the bash. Call me. Adam xx’. ‘Two kisses, Matt. Two kisses!’
‘Right.’ Matt had wondered where this was leading.
‘So then I thought, OK Het, keep it casual. Keep it light … and I wrote back, “Wey hey!” But that made me sound like …’
‘A children’s TV presenter?’ Matt offered.
‘Exactly.’ Sometimes Matt and Hetty thought uncannily along the same lines, often finishing each other’s sentences. ‘I finally decided on “Hey stranger. Glad you can make the reunion. Will call you tomorrow for poss catch-up?”’
‘So far, so good …’ Matt always enjoyed Hetty’s tales of social disaster.
‘Then, of course, I was in a kerfuffle about the kiss. Should I put one or two or none? Because, to me, ONE kiss looks too intimate …’
‘You overthink things, Het.’
‘… but then, if I didn’t put any, would that look too frosty?’
‘So, in the end, I thought, Sod it, I’ll put two, just like he did, pressed send and shut down the computer before I had time to change my mind.’
‘Great. Job done.’
‘Oh my goodness! But then, Matty, I was just putting my cardigan back on when terror struck!’
Matt adored Hetty’s natural bent towards melodrama and was already starting to chuckle.
‘So I turned the computer back on and went into my sent box and there it was! Mortification clouding the blood in my veins like iodine in water.’ Sometimes Hetty sounded quite Shakespearean.
‘Why? What? Tell me!’
‘Well, when I re-read my email, I realized instead of writing Will call tomorrow for poss catch-up I’d written piss instead of poss.’
Matt was in his element. ‘Oh joy!’
‘So now he’ll think I’m some kind of wee-wee fetishist!’
Tears were seeping out of Matt’s eyes. ‘But why didn’t you check?’
‘Because I was too excited! It’s been fourteen years, Matty, since I’ve had any contact whatsoever!’
Matt’s laughter subsided when he thought about Adam and the effect he still had on his best friend, even after all this time.
‘Oh mate, what is it about that guy? He treated you like a moron.’
Matt began slicing an apple and put the pieces on a little plate with some jumbo sultanas, shaping them into a smiling face. He handed it to Tallulah and kissed the top of her head.
‘He wasn’t all bad.’ Hetty looked sad now and Matt, as ever, regretted criticizing the love of her life.
‘Sorry. Listen, I’m just gonna jump in the shower. Lules, why don’t you tell Hetty about the octopus song you had to sing in the concert today?’
Upstairs, Matt turned on the taps in their en-suite shower and undressed, waiting for the water to get warmer. He looked at himself in the mirrored wall – still tanned from their holiday in Morocco less than a month ago – and smiled.
That was a good holiday. Matt’s mum Sylvia had come with them to help with Tallulah, which meant they had more time to themselves, which meant more time for sex. As he stepped under the power blast of hot water he indulged in a rock-hard horny image of himself and Kate in their hotel shower – a vast and expensively tiled wet-room with five different water jets and granite ridge shelving at just the right height – water pounding at them relentlessly from all directions as they fucked against the wall. It was fantastic, the power of the shower and the steam drowning out their unstoppable moans. What was it about sex in a hot climate, he thought? Warm-weather sex was always so much more of a turn-on. He was desperate now to see Kate. He looked down at his clean, wet body: yes, every part of him was desperate to see her.
He stepped out of the shower, grabbed a big fluffy towel and wrapped himself in it. Still dripping, he sat on the bed and called Kate’s number. This time it rang. And rang. And then it went to voicemail. He lay back on the bed and waited for the familiar sound of her voice inviting him to leave a message and I’ll call you back. After the beep he dived in: ‘Where are you, Mrs Fenton, because I need to see you. I was just thinking about Morocco. God, it was good, wasn’t it? Mmmm. I think you and I could do with a dirty weekend somewhere, what d’you reckon?’
He laughed at himself then and said, ‘Right. I’m in danger of turning this into a sex-pest call, so ring me back. I’m presuming you must be on the train by now. Probably best if we meet at the restaurant? We can skip starters, go straight to main, then come back here and shag each other senseless. Call me.’
He pressed ‘end call’ and then went to the wardrobe to pick out a soft blue linen shirt which, he remembered, he’d worn a lot in Morocco, and which he also remembered Kate had really liked.
10
In the end he’d driven her to Edinburgh airport – or at least the car park of a Travelodge nearby, where she’d figured it would be more private. It was pointless going to the station – Kate knew she’d missed her train and at the back of her mind she thought she could maybe get a flight instead. But she wasn’t thinking properly; all she really wanted to do was sit with Callum and look at him, talk to him – actually she didn’t really know what she wanted. For a woman so outwardly in total control she’d become a sea of confusion, a weak and helpless mess.
They sat in the car park of the Travelodge, the rumble of jet engines coming in and out of the nearby airport ripping up the silence between them. They hadn’t said much on the way there. Her phone had rung at one point – Matt. She’d let it ring.
‘Aren’t you gonna answer that?’ Callum had asked.
‘No.’
He stayed eyes fixed forward the whole time, watching the goings-on outside, people exiting and entering the hotel. He knew Kate was staring at him, but he daren’t return the look. He didn’t trust himself to.
What was he doing here? This was insane. What if someone saw them together?
Kate gazed at him. He must be fifty-six by now. She longed to reach out and touch the rough features of his coarsely attractive face. They were drawing her in again, still as engaging as they’d always been, even with seventeen years’ worth of living added to the lines around his eyes and on his forehead, and the salt and peppering of his thick-as-ever hair. Age has made him more beautiful, she thought. His skin glowed with a familiar ruddiness, from time spent outdoors – holidays with her, of course, with Belinda, time spent gardening in their garden, hours standing on the sidelines watching their kids playing cricket and rugby and netball. And she felt dizzy with envy imagining his happily married life.
Callum unscrewed the cap on a bottle of water and took a huge glug before offering it to Kate, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. She took it from him and drank, not because she was thirsty but because she wanted to put her lips where his had been.
‘So how old are your kids now?’ she asked, with fake light-heartedness. She could have been catching up with a distant cousin.
‘Ailsa’s sixteen, just started sixth form. Ben is twenty-one – on a gap year in Borneo.’
‘Blimey!’ This small talk was ludicrous, she thought.
‘And Cory is nearly twenty. Second year at St Andrews.’
‘What’s he reading?’ Not that she cared.
‘History.’ Not that he cared to tell her.
‘Good choice.’ What a pointless thing to say, she thought. And the silence that followed continued in its awkwardness.
A taxi pulled up outside the main doors of the hotel and two businessmen got out, both with overnight cases, one laughing at something the other had said, unaware of the weird and unlikely reunion that was taking place just metres away from them.
Kate was still thinking about Callum’s kids.
‘They were just babies …’ she said.
‘I know.’
And then they both started talking simultaneously, the sham of polite conversation no longer sustainable.
‘I probably shouldn’t have come in today,’ he blurted.
‘You must have known I was – Oh, sorry,’ she backed down.
‘No, go on.’
‘Well, I saw a notice in the staffroom, saying I was visiting the school – so you must have known I was coming.’
‘Of course I did! But what was I supposed to do? Tell the Head it wasn’t a good idea because seventeen years ago I got you pregnant? Christ!’
There was something about the way he said it, his blatant acknowledgement of this primal connection that existed between them. And before she knew it she’d reached out and turned his face towards her, clumsily attempting to kiss him.
He pulled back, shocked. ‘What the hell are you doing?!’
‘Sorry, I don’t know …’
He turned away from her, looking out of the window and focusing on a travel-weary businessman pulling an overnight bag from his travel-wearier car. Matt shut his eyes in the hope of calming down, but unable to avoid the anger surging up inside him as he re
membered what she’d done. He couldn’t look at her when he said it. ‘You should have discussed it with me, Kate. Not just gone ahead and—’
‘Oh, like you’d have stood by me, would you, Callum? I don’t think so!’ Kate was tearful now.
‘I just …’ He faltered, because he knew she was right. He wouldn’t have been there for her but his resentment was still raw. ‘I dunno … Phoning me like that. Announcing it like a done deal.’
‘I need to explain something,’ she sobbed. ‘About what happened – it wasn’t … straightforward …’ But before she could finish, her mobile phone interrupted her train of thought, ringing obliviously in her bag. She didn’t move.
‘Well, answer it then.’ He was on edge. But then felt guilty for snapping. ‘It might be important.’ Callum hadn’t had a mobile himself that long; he still thought they were only really used for emergencies.
She did as she was told and he watched as she searched in her bag. When she eventually found the phone, he noticed that her hands were shaking. He felt a sudden pang of pity and found himself wanting to comfort her. As she talked she looked away, and this time he allowed himself to take in the sheer loveliness of her that, if he was honest, he’d never forgotten. The inviting fullness of those gorgeous lips, the grey-green eyes that could knock you over with a single glance, and the creamy flawlessness of her complexion. When she’d been talking to the kids in the classroom earlier that day, he hadn’t dared look at her, not properly. Because he knew how it would make him feel, and he was right. Oh fuck.
‘Hi.’ Her voice was emotionless and flat.
‘Finally!’ Matt on the other end was buoyant. ‘Did you get my voicemails?’
‘Um, no, not yet.’
‘Well, I thought we should meet at Porto’s – you won’t have time to come home first. Whereabouts are you now? Peterborough?’
‘Babe, I’m so sorry …’
Silence on the other end. Matt knew what was coming. He was well used to the tone that prefixed Kate’s letting him down gently.