A Spring Affair

by Milly Johnson

  He noticed the brandy bottle, but there weren’t enough of the contents gone to have caused any major damage.

  ‘Can I get you anything?’ he said softly.

  ‘No,’ she said, and laughed bitterly. ‘Not unless you can get me a new dad.’

  ‘A new dad?’ he asked. ‘Why a new dad?’

  The story spilled out of her. Lou told him what a wonderful man her dad had been, and then she told him what Renee had said, and Tom used his thumbs to wipe away the tears she didn’t think would ever stop. They were like giant facial windscreen wipers.

  ‘Lou,’ Tom said softly, ‘your dad obviously loved you very much. You have to hang onto that.’

  ‘Every time I’ve tried to visualize his face this afternoon, I can’t. All I see is Phil.’

  ‘Let me make you a cup of tea,’ said Tom.

  ‘I want another brandy. I want to get so drunk I pass out.’ And Lou reached for the full mug on the table, but Tom snatched it away.

  ‘All that’s going to do is give you a blinding headache,’ he said. ‘Besides, I need that mug, so give it here.’

  She let it go. She knew it was an angry, punishing act to throw a drink she didn’t like at all down her throat. She wanted to lash out at Phil, at her mother and most of all at her father, but he wasn’t there and never would be there to explain why he had smashed himself up in her heart. So the only available target to hurt was herself.

  The radio was playing out ballads. The twangy guitar seemed to be directly attached to her tear ducts and wasn’t helping her mood at all. Her dad was always listening to that sort of music. Tammy Wynette, Johnny Cash, June Carter, Dolly Parton. Phil obviously liked Dolly Parton, but for less musical reasons. Dad. Phil. Dad. Phil. Dad. They were the same man, a generation apart.

  Some Country and Western woman with a smoky mountain voice had written a song especially for her and had chosen this moment to air it and torment her. The intro alone suggested it was going to go on about a broken heart and some man-bastard who had caused it. Lou lifted her eyes to the ceiling. Her heart felt physically capable of snapping like a biscuit.

  Dance with me tonight, the woman sang. Make everything all right…

  Lou was not in the mood to listen to a song like this, pulling the tears out of her soul, each one attached to the last.

  ‘Dance with me,’ said Tom instinctively, whilst he was waiting for the kettle to boil. ‘Come on.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Lou, giving vent to a reflex laugh despite everything. Big Alan Flockton was the tallest bloke she had ever danced with at six foot three–in width as well as height. Not only had she felt a total prawn, but when the music stopped she found that every student within a 300-mile radius of the campus ball had been laughing.

  ‘Come on, I mean it.’

  But no one laughed now as Tom pulled her to her resisting feet and took her hand in his. She tugged it back, but he held on. He circled her waist with his arm and placed his cheek at the top of her head. A picture came to her of her dad teaching her to waltz in the front room to Engelbert Humperdinck. A sad song about loneliness.

  You found me when my heart was close to breakin’.

  One dance with you and that was all it took.

  You’re a chance I know that I’ll be takin’.

  Sometimes you’ve got to leap before you look.

  They rocked gently, barely moving, his hand gripping hers–no, she wasn’t going anywhere if he had anything to do with it. He pulled her closer still. She thought she felt his lips move in her hair.

  I’d turned my back on lovin’ and romancing.

  My life was cold and empty for a while.

  Then you took me in your arms and started dancing,

  And once again my heart began to smile.

  She didn’t feel like a prawn now, she felt like china. This was wrong, though. She shouldn’t be letting him hold her like this. But her body needed his warmth, his unthreatening affection, those lips in her hair.

  Dance with me tonight…This had to be the final chorus, and Lou hardly dared move in case she ended the moment.

  …And make everything all right. Dance with me, my darlin’, one more time.

  He pulled slowly away from her when the song ended and took her face in his big hands.

  ‘Lou,’ he said, but the tone of his voice said much more.

  His lips brushed against her salty cheek. He shouldn’t be doing this, he knew, but when she didn’t resist, he kissed her lightly. He felt her lips part in response as his touched the corner of her mouth, and then they fell full on hers, tentatively, before they made firmer contact. His arms came around her, hers were around him. His kiss took everything away, there was only her and him in this freshly white-painted universe–oh, and Kenny Rogers now singing ‘Coward of the County’.

  ‘Lou, I shouldn’t say this, I know, but I can’t help it. I’ve liked you–really liked you–for so long.’

  ‘Tom…’

  Hearing his name said in that way was enough for him to know he wasn’t about to make the world’s biggest plonker of himself.

  She felt so wonderful in his arms, so warm, so right–but she was vulnerable and he didn’t want to take advantage. But Lou was driving this and her need for what was happening between them was as great, if not greater, than his own.

  A small chemical factory had exploded in Lou’s brain and was detonating secondary incendiary devices all over her body where he touched her, and when they began to undress each other, feeling his skin next to hers made her shudder with delight. He was gentle with her, tentative, giving her a chance to back out at every step of the way, but she didn’t–nor did she want to, because for once, Lou Winter was taking everything on offer. He felt so good, his hard, muscular body so different from Phil’s soft belly, and even if common sense had prevailed, her starved heart wasn’t going to stop this happening.

  Waves of pleasure started washing over her as Tom entered her. She had never, never experienced anything as raw and powerful as this before. She couldn’t remember ever feeling that made-love-to, or remember sex ever being such a complete experience, where everything–heart, skin, head–were screaming together on fire. And when it was over, he wrapped his great arms around her and pulled her into the warmth of his chest, his heart beating against her back–and together, in the lumpy, bumpy bed, they went to sleep.

  Chapter 54

  Of course he was gone the next morning, Lou expected nothing else. The indentation of his body was still there beside her, but the sheet was cold. Last night had been a beautiful escape, but it couldn’t take away the smashed dreams and ugly truths that were waiting for her in the daylight. And now she had another problem to add to the pile–how to recover her precious friendship with Tom, who was no doubt too embarrassed to face her.

  Lou curled into a foetal ball and closed her eyes for a moment, drawing on any available strength to get up and face the daunting task of their first meeting after the night. God knows what he must think of her, sleeping with another man when she had only just left her husband! They had crossed a line that was maybe never meant to be crossed. Was it possible to go back to how things were? How did you undo falling in love?

  Just then, she heard the door to the café open and wheeze shut on the floor below. Footsteps thudded quickly up the stairs then the door opened and in walked Tom with two paper bags.

  ‘Oh, it’s you,’ said Lou, sitting up but pulling the sheet as far up to her shoulders as she could get it. Her initial joy at seeing him slumped when she saw how difficult it was for him to make eye-contact with her.

  ‘I bought you a bacon sandwich, although it’s probably a bit cold now because I had to drive miles to get it,’ he said. ‘I thought you might be a bit…hungover.’

  ‘I wasn’t drunk,’ she said, a little defensively.

  ‘Well, I didn’t know if you’d have regrets about waking up with a strange person then,’ said Tom, in a pseudo-jolly voice, unpeeling his own sandwich from
the bag.

  ‘Why, do you?’ asked Lou cautiously.

  ‘I asked first.’

  They both laughed gently.

  ‘OK then, I’ll answer first. No, I don’t,’ said Tom. ‘Not one bit. And you’re not strange, you’re lovely.’ He took her cheek in his hand and stroked it with his thumb and she leaned into it. Then, when he realized she wasn’t going to say that it was all a huge mistake, he felt at liberty to kiss her gently on the mouth and whisper, ‘Morning.’

  ‘Morning,’ she replied, trying to coordinate taking the sandwich out of the bag whilst keeping up the sheet at the same time. She wasn’t hungry, but she wasn’t going to tell him that after he’d gone to so much trouble to get it.

  ‘Bit late for modesty,’ said Tom. ‘I’ve seen all you’ve got and done all sorts to it…them.’

  She puffed out her cheeks in embarrassment and he released a huge roar of laughter. She had been so soft, like velvet. Women really didn’t realize just what their soft skin did to a man.

  ‘I was awake for a while this morning just lying next to you,’ said Tom. ‘Watching you.’

  Lou was horrified and it showed. ‘Was I snoring?’ she gasped. Or worse, dribbling?

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ said Tom. ‘But you were dreaming. I thought you’d got two butterflies caught under your eyelids.’

  ‘Well, I’ve a lot going on in my brain,’ said Lou with a little laugh.

  ‘You started me thinking,’ said Tom. ‘Please don’t bite my head off, but from what you were saying about your dad…and your mum…’

  ‘Go on,’ said Lou, feeling a bit as if she were in a dream where she was naked and everyone else in the room was dressed, which funnily enough they were.

  ‘Sorry in advance for this. I’ll just say it, shall I?’

  ‘Yes, just say it.’

  ‘Your mum…She couldn’t be not telling you the truth, could she?’

  ‘Why would she do that?’ said Lou.

  ‘Well, maybe she’s worried you’re making a mistake?’

  ‘She is worried I’m making a mistake.’

  Tom shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t interfere. Strike it from the record. I don’t know either your mum or your dad. I didn’t mean to sound arrogant.’

  But Lou knew them both very well and the seed of Tom’s thought quickly took root in her subconscious.

  ‘I’d get back in there with you, but I…’ Tom wrestled with the order of the words in his head.

  ‘Don’t want to?’ Lou suggested.

  ‘No, I don’t want to actually,’ said Tom decisively. ‘But not in the way you think, before you decide I’m a total bastard.’

  ‘I understand,’ said Lou, as little soldiers started to gather around her heart.

  He grabbed hold of her hands. ‘You don’t see at all, do you? Lou, last night was fantastic. It was wonderful. And I’ve imagined it since the first time I saw you.’

  ‘Rubbish! Have you?’ said Lou, gob-smacked.

  ‘OK, male chauvinist pig that I am, I thought, This woman hires and fills her own skips so she can’t have a bloke around. And then I saw you didn’t have a wedding ring on. I was about that far,’ he held up a minuscule space between his thumb and forefinger, ‘that far one day from asking you out for a meal and then you started talking about your husband being allergic to animals. I thought, That’s that, then. She’s married. End of.’

  Lou was staring at him the way a baby owl looks at its first moon. Tom Broom smiled a big open sloppy smile.

  ‘What I’m trying to say, in a really clumsy way, is that I want to court you, Lou. I want to snog on the sofa in front of a film and walk around the park and go to the pictures and then say goodnight to you on the doorstep and go home counting the minutes till I see you again.’

  Lou looked into his shiny grey eyes. It could be a line. Phil had always been very good at staring you in the face and telling you lies. He had first got her into bed with a bluff line about ‘respecting her enough to not want to go to bed with her too quickly’, but she didn’t think this was applicable in Tom Broom’s case. She liked him so much–and this was exactly what she wanted to hear, because she needed space to do all the tasks that lay ahead of her. Plus, she was still married. Legally, if nothing else.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I appreciate that.’

  He sighed with deep relief. Telling someone that you insist on giving her space after a night like they’d just had sounded like a line. He wasn’t sure if she’d believe his intentions were selfless. If she only knew how much he had to hold himself back from jumping on her there and then and repeating the previous night all over again, albeit without the Country and Western soundtrack.

  ‘Tom?’

  ‘Yes, sweetheart?’

  ‘You’ve totally mashed my sandwich.’

  He looked down. He had squashed it in Lou’s hands by holding them so tight. She didn’t mind because it gave her a legitimate excuse not to eat it without hurting his feelings.

  Tom laughed and kissed her with an apology and a goodbye combined. He asked her if she would be OK. Did she want him to go with her anywhere? Could he do anything for her? Lou smiled and said she was fine and after he left her, his caring stayed with her, like a big, snuggly, invisible coat that she would wear all day. Though the seed that he had planted regarding her parents had grown to beanstalk proportions by the time she arrived at her mother’s house.

  Lou didn’t knock. She marched in to find her mother getting ready to go out.

  Timidly Renee asked, ‘Hello, love. Are you feeling better this morning?’ She was fiddling with the clasp of her watch, which gave her an excuse not to look directly at Lou.

  Lou had decided on a strong opening gambit. It had worked with Victorianna so there was no reason to think it wouldn’t be just as effective with her mother, who was of a similar mould. ‘It was all lies, wasn’t it? About Dad?’ she bluffed. ‘I know.’

  Even Lou wasn’t prepared for her mother to cave in so quickly. Renee slumped heavily down on the sofa, as if someone had just whipped out her backbone. She covered her face with her hands.

  ‘Elouise, I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me.’

  Which meant what?

  ‘Mum?’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re throwing away.’

  ‘What are you saying, Mum?’

  Renee grabbed Lou’s hands. ‘I thought if I said it, you might not leave him. It will turn out all right, you’ll see. Don’t be silly and throw away everything you have on a whim. You’re so well set-up with Phil.’

  Lou struggled to take in what Renee was saying. Surely she hadn’t been so sick as to lie like that and insult her dad’s memory? She wasn’t sure now what were lies and what was the truth. But, deep down, Lou Winter did know her dad.

  ‘He didn’t do it, did he? Dad didn’t play around. You just said that to make me change my mind about Phil, didn’t you?’

  ‘Elouise, I’m sorry. I knew your dad wouldn’t mind me saying it if it meant you would be happy in the end.’

  A horrible thought popped into Lou’s head.

  ‘You weren’t going to tell me, were you? If I hadn’t come round now and confronted you, you were just going to let me keep on believing he was a bastard, like Phil.’

  ‘I was going to tell you. Really I was. I was going to ring you when I came back from the hairdresser’s.’

  ‘The hairdresser’s!’ repeated Lou, incensed. She pulled her hands away from Renee and pushed her fingers deep into the redness of her hair. ‘I could have crashed my car driving away from here yesterday! I’ve been going out of my mind all night, and you were planning to let me know after you came back from the hairdresser’s!’

  Hot tears of rage came unwanted and she flicked them away. ‘How could you, Mum? How could you desecrate Dad’s name like that?’

  ‘You don’t understand!’

  ‘Too right I don’t.’

  ‘I was doing it for the best.’
r />   Lou laughed hard and spat out bitterly, ‘Whose best, Mum? Because it certainly wasn’t for mine.’

  ‘Yes, for your best!’ cried Renee. ‘I don’t want you to be alone and poor. I want you to have nice things and holidays abroad and to make something of yourself.’

  ‘You never loved Dad, did you? You couldn’t have, if his memory is that cheap to you.’

  ‘Of course I did,’ said Renee, sobbing now, but to Lou these were ‘found-out’ tears, not ones of regret.

  In one clear, crystallized moment she saw how much her parents’ matrimonial template was echoed in her own. Had she copied this, thinking it was how marriages were? One partner taking all the other had to give, one partner jumping through hoops of fire to make the other one happy? One partner always destined to be on the begging end?

  ‘Dad did everything for you that was important, Mum. He loved us with all his heart, he supported us, he even agreed to those silly bloody names you gave us. He did everything, except buy you a big fancy house so you could show off to your friends. You’d have loved him then, wouldn’t you–if he’d been grafting twenty-four hours a day to get you your four-bedroomed detached house with a snooker room?’

  ‘You’re wrong,’ said Renee, with so weak a protest that Lou knew she was right. Each revelation brought up another, for Lou, like a box of tissues.

  ‘And I was just like him, wasn’t I? Such a great disappointment because my priority was being happy and not making other people envious. I could never do anything right for you, could I, however much I tried? I was “wasting my time” on the cookery course that I loved but, wow, it was OK when I got a nice, well-paid job in something respectable like accounts, even though I hated it.’