by Lee Moan
“Hi, Sam,” Kelly said as he stepped up to the opposite side of the table. “I didn’t expect you to bring Becky along. She’s growing into a beautiful little girl, I must say. Not surprising really, considering who her father is.”
“She gets her looks from her mother,” Sam replied.
Kelly offered a thin-lipped smile, her eyes communicating that she understood the barbed undercurrent to his retort. She gestured to the seat opposite. Sam glanced down and found a glass of scotch and soda sitting on a coaster. The sight of it, the echo it caused, sent a shudder through his upper body. He took the proffered seat, but pushed the drink away.
“I didn’t come here to socialise,” he said. “And I don’t want this to take a second longer than it has to.”
Kelly leaned across the table towards him. “I understand,” she said. “Down to business, eh, Sam?”
He nodded. “Yeah, down to business.”
She lifted a smart leather briefcase into her lap and unclipped it, removing an embossed maroon folder from within and placing it on the table with great care.
“What’s this?” he said.
“Proofs.”
“Proofs? Proofs for what?”
“Take a look,” she said, a playful smile on her lips.
He exhaled heavily, turning the folder to himself. He untied the ribbon and pulled out the contents. Three sheets of glossy paper, each one bearing an illustration and three titles in garish red block letters: DROWNING IN PIECES, THE ARRANGEMENT, and DEADLINE, the titles of his first three novels. His name was on each cover, bigger than the titles of the books themselves.
He looked up at her, an inquiring expression on his face.
“As agreed, Hayden-Mills are reprinting your first three books in mass market paperbacks,” she informed him. “What do you think?” she asked brightly.
He studied the pictures once more. “Wonderful,” he said. “When are they going to print?”
She sat forward, her open expression darkening just a shade. “They’d like them to coincide with the release of your next book.”
“What?” he said sharply.
“Sam, you should be pleased. You’re a brand now. Look at your name on the cover. It’s huge! When Book Four comes out in hardback they’re going to have a box display of your first three right next to it. In every bookstore. Can you imagine it, Sam? In every bookstore in the country!” She paused. “They’re looking at next November for the release, just in time for the Christmas rush.”
Sam slumped back in his chair, a look of quiet desolation on his face.
“What’s the matter, Sam?” She looked at him with narrowed eyes. “Is there something wrong?”
Wrong? he thought. What was wrong was a complete lack of even a single page of text pertaining to Book Four.
“The delivery date for the first manuscript is December nineteenth. You are going to make the deadline, aren’t you?”
December nineteenth. That was two months away. He’d been trying to block it out, but the deadline hung in the closet of his mind like a ghost that refused to go away. The thought of it caused something to tighten in his gut. And, of course, the person delivering the wake-up call made all this one hundred times worse. In some perverse way she seemed to be enjoying it, as though this was payback for his rejection of her.
A woman scorned, he thought bitterly.
“You’re blocked, aren’t you?” she said.
“No,” he said, sitting up again.
She shook her head. “You’re blocked. I can tell. I’ve worked with lots of writers, and you’re a classic case. It’s written all over your face, Sam–”
“Don’t try and make out that you know me,” he said, glaring at her. “I’m . . . I’m just going through a period of silent renewal, that’s all.”
“Sounds like writer’s block to me,” she replied with a smug shake of her head. “Now I wonder what could be causing that, Sam? Everything all right at home?”
“I’ll deliver the script on time,” he snapped.
There was a long silence. She grinned. “Good,” she said.
Sam glanced around, before leaning in close. “You didn't need to see me in person to do this, Kelly. Why did you drag me all the way here–”
“I offered to come to the island,” she interjected.
“You know what I mean. What’s this really about?”
The mask of playfulness fell then. Her eyes took on a dreamy glaze, her entire body changing to a softer, more alluring posture.
“Oh, come on, Sam. You’re the mystery writer. It’s not hard to work out.”
Something snapped inside him then; the bone which kept him calm, reasonable, suddenly splintered. He lunged forward, yelling into her face: “Don’t play games, Kelly! Tell me what you want!”
He realised immediately that his outburst attracted a lot of attention. An elderly couple nearby scowled in their direction. The barman froze momentarily in the act of passing a drink to a customer.
Becky was looking over, her forehead creased with concern. Sam offered her a brief reassuring smile. She returned her gaze to the smoky window, entranced by the blur of movement on the street outside.
“She really is quite beautiful,” Kelly said in a dreamy voice.
Sam sank back into his seat. “Leave my daughter out of this, Kelly. She wasn’t meant to be here. Just tell me so that we can end this right here and now, and I won’t ever have to see you again.”
“Sam, I’m afraid that’s just not possible,” Kelly whispered back. “I’m afraid you and I are . . . irrevocably linked.”
“What?” Sam snapped.
She reached across the table with both hands, but Sam snatched his out of her grasp. She faltered, but after a brief moment, continued: “You must see it, Sam. We’re meant to be together. What we had that night. Remember what you said? You told me Rachel didn’t get you, that she didn’t understand the writer’s way. I do, Sam. I understand it completely.”
Sam closed his eyes in a desperate attempt to shore up the anger. But the memory of that night, of him saying those words, ran through his mind. He had said those things. But that was then . . .
“I can be good for you,” Kelly said. “I can be everything you ever dreamed of.”
He pulled his cheque book from the inside pocket of his coat and began filling it in. He didn’t look up until he had signed the cheque. With a flourish he tore it out, placed it face up on the table and shoved it towards her.
“Is that enough?” he said in a strained whisper. “For that, you leave me and my family alone, and I never see you again. Don’t think of it as a buy-off; think of it as an apology. We both agree that it was a mistake, don’t we? So this is my way of saying sorry.”
Kelly looked down at the hastily scribbled cheque for a long time. Her expression was unreadable. When she raised her eyes to his, there was a strange smile on her face.
“Oh my God,” she said. “Is that what you think I’m worth, Sam?”
She was playing for sympathy, but he was having none of it. “Well, you can probably get more if you go to the newspapers, but not a lot more. I’m no celebrity, no millionaire footballer, so maybe only the gutter rags would buy your story. Even then it wouldn’t make more than page five, I’ll bet. Think of this as a kiss-and-tell payment without the ignominy of having your face plastered all over the tabloids. This’ll save us both a lot of heartache.”
She was staring at him, her mouth hanging open, eyes filled with pantomime indignation. “Sam, Sam, Sam, I am so hurt that you think me so . . .so low.”
Sam leaned back in his chair, shaking his head at her theatrics.
She pushed the cheque back to him. “Sam, I don’t want your money.”
He felt an uncomfortable heat around his heart. Once again, he found himself in uncharted territory. The truth was she frightened the shit out of him.
“Then what do you want?” he said.
A teasing smile, a coy shrug. “I just want you.”
Sam leaned in close. “Listen, Kelly, and listen very carefully: I love my wife, I love my daughter, and I love the life we have together. I made a mistake last year, something that could have derailed all that, but I did what I had to do to keep us together.” He stood up, shoving his chair away.
Kelly kept eye contact as he walked around the table, a smile dancing on her full, red lips. “She must really love you, Sam. I mean, to stick with you after our affair.”
Sam stopped. He glared at her for a moment, then his gaze fell on Becky’s silhouette across the lobby.
“Oh my God, Sam. You did tell her, didn’t you?”
He hesitated. He thought of lying. That would have been the easiest option, the most convenient – but right at that moment, he’d had a bellyful of lying. Before he could change his mind, the delay in answering was too long.
“You never told her, did you?” Kelly said. “She doesn’t know . . .”
Sam refused to look at her. “This meeting is over,” he said bitterly, and left without looking back.
12
Becky knew the moment she laid eyes on the lady that she was TROUBLE. She didn’t look like a very nice person at all. She had a pretty face, framed by shoulder-length red hair, but she remembered Mum telling her how people can be pretty on the outside but ugly on the inside. That was why Mum had always encouraged her to be A GOOD PERSON, because she didn’t want to spoil her beautiful looks from the inside. Her mum had probably forgotten that conversation, but Becky hadn’t. It had left an indelible mark on her ever since. Being A GOOD PERSON was always uppermost in her mind. But what good did it do, she asked herself, suddenly overcome with that horrible black feeling. What was the point of her being A GOOD PERSON if her mum and dad hated each other?
Maybe hate was too strong a word, but she knew there was something wrong. She sensed it in the house like an invisible mist. Mum and Dad carried on as normal every day, trying to pretend to her that everything was fine, but she knew it wasn’t fine. The BAD FEELING had begun before they moved to the island. The sudden and inexplicable move itself had never been fully explained to her. She knew Mum wasn’t happy about the move, but after so many arguments she stopped talking about it and then it just happened very quickly. Now, though, Becky thought she understood what it was that was causing this BAD FEELING between her parents. Looking at her dad now, sitting at a table with a strange, pretty woman, she realised that there was only one explanation for all this upheaval and heartache.
It’s all my fault, she thought to herself. Mum and Dad are splitting up because of ME.
Megan Bellingham, her best friend at school, had told her that her daddy had left her mummy because of Megan and her sister. Her daddy COULDN’T HANDLE THE KIDS. He’d moved out and was now living with a woman from his work who was nineteen and had NO CHILDREN. Becky had gotten the impression from Megan (who was simply passing on information from her mum) that this sort of thing happened all the time. Daddies always left mummies once they’d had children because daddies couldn’t handle being around children all day.
At the time, Becky hadn’t understood how this scandalous news applied to her and her own family situation. But now, seeing Daddy talking to a woman much younger than Mummy, it all made sense. It was only a matter of time before Daddy told Mummy he was leaving and that he would be going to live with the horrible woman over there. Daddy had said it was GROWN-UP STUFF. He obviously said that to try and keep it a secret. But she saw straight through it. That was why he never wanted to spend time with her, why he always locked himself away in his study. That was why he always shouted at her. Daddy had had enough of her, and in no time at all, he would be leaving for good.
Tears sprang into her eyes just as Daddy got up from the table and started walking over, so she turned to look through the smoky bevelled glass. She didn’t want him to see her crying because then he would ask her what was wrong and she would have to tell him and then it would all be out in the open. And that would only mean one thing: that Daddy would be going even sooner. And the thought of that made her heart ache like never before.
13
Kelly Burnett sat in the lounge of the Station Hotel for a long time after Sam’s departure. Over the course of an hour the bold, bright façade of the professional young woman gradually fell away in strips, until all that was left was the real Kelly Burnett, naked and exposed, and then the tears began to fall. One of the hotel staff came past and asked if she was all right, if he could get her anything, but she told him to leave her alone. She didn’t need sympathy right now.
No one feels sorry for Kelly: that was her motto. She was tough, a woman of the world. And yet . . .
“Oh, Sam,” she whispered to herself.
This was, without a doubt, the hardest thing she’d ever had to face in her life. Seeing Sam talk to her the way he did earlier, with so much anger, revulsion, hatred in his eyes, it hurt her worse than any mortal flesh wound. The only thing that made it bearable for her was that he didn’t understand, that he was trapped inside the protected world of his marriage and he was too afraid to let that go. He couldn’t see the opportunity for limitless happiness that she offered him. That was the tragedy.
She had never felt this way about anyone, especially a man. She’d never truly been in love, if she understood that term at all. But she had always believed in fate. Her mother had been a keen astrologer and had encouraged Kelly to check her stars every day. Everything that happened in her life had been predicted, accurately, in her opinion, by the stars. She still recalled the prediction she’d read on the day she first met Sam Thorne:
‘What you need right now is to be loved. You are about to meet someone very special who you idolise and are immediately attracted to. Be proactive. This opportunity will not come again.’
The words had burned into her brain as though written in fire. That same day she'd been assigned the PA job at the workshop, but never imagined that he was the ‘idol’ she was looking for. She’d heard of Sam Thorne, he was one of Hayden-Mills’ brightest lights, but she had never read any of his books. She didn’t even like mysteries. But when she finally met him in the lobby of the Gleneagles Hotel, so ruggedly handsome and endearingly humble, her heart had skipped a beat and she’d fallen for him like she’d never fallen for any man before. Right then, she didn’t care that he was married with a child. He could have been a Catholic priest and it wouldn’t have mattered to her. She felt a strange sense of destiny come over her, a destiny that had led to their one night of passion which she simply could not forget and move on from. It was not supposed to end that night. But then, that decision had been taken out of her hands. It had been Sam’s choice to end it so abruptly, so cruelly. Because, he said, he loved his wife.
“Well, I just wonder if she loves you enough to survive this?” she said to herself. She pulled her iPhone out of her pocket and began scrolling through the client numbers. Sam’s home phone number appeared in the display. Would Rachel Thorne be home now? What would she be doing? Her thumb hovered over the dial icon.
What was worse, she asked herself: waiting for destiny to unfold, or taking steps to form her destiny, but in the process, risk losing him completely?
14
At that precise moment, Sam and Becky were sitting in the cab of the Land Rover at Oban port, waiting to board the ferry which would take them back to the island.
Sam winced at the memory of the meeting, the entire conversation rolling through his mind like a spiked ball, jabbing and slashing at the inner walls of his conscience. What stung most was that, right at the end, she had pinpointed his true failing in all of this. The affair itself was a grave error, people separated and divorced over such things all the time, but he had compounded it by not telling his wife.
He had tried. More than once. The morning after, as he made his way to Victoria Station, he had been so stricken with guilt that he’d actually made the call from the back of the taxi. He remembered the sensation he’d felt as Rachel answered the
ir home phone, that feeling of dream-like stasis, as though he was outside his own body, watching this wreck of a man about to own up to his mortal sin. But the sound of her voice had killed the intention right there. That sweet voice that he knew so well, telling him she’d missed him and that she’d hoped the workshop went well and that she was baking him his favourite lemon meringue pie. Come home soon, honey. Becky misses you, too.
Later, after a week of seeing him walking round the house in a morose, almost catatonic state, Rachel had handed him another opportunity like a gift.
“Sam?” she’d said, and he’d picked up that horrible tremor in her voice straight away, the kind of tremor that comes from asking a question you really don’t want to know the answer to. “Is there something you want to tell me about? Did something happen to you in London?”
Happen to me? he remembered thinking. Yeah, honey, Kelly Burnett happened to me. But he had simply shaken his head, and retired to the darkness of his study.
And it was there in that study that he’d begun receiving the calls. He only ever answered the first one, that sultry voice leaking out of the phone like some poisonous gas—
Saaaammm
—before slamming the handset back in its cradle. He’d screened all the calls after that, and lost count of how many times Kelly Burnett’s mobile number flashed in that LED display. A dozen? Two dozen? Each time he’d been there to divert the call but, sooner or later, he’d be out and the call would come through to Rachel, or even worse, Becky, and he wouldn’t put it past this woman to lay down the terrible truth about who she was and why she was calling to either one of them. There was a spiteful streak in Kelly Burnett; he’d seen it after their fateful night together when he’d asked her to leave. He’d seen the look of scorn in her mascara-smudged eyes, saw the seed of revenge planted in her heart as she stormed out of the hotel room. Oh, he knew that she would not stop calling. Kelly Burnett was revenge personified, and she had made it her mission in life to make him pay. And, he kept reminding himself, she worked for his publishers. This meant that she could, if she wanted to, find out his personal details. If that happened, it would only be a matter of time before she paid a visit to the house in person.