A Minor Indiscretion

by Carole Matthews

  “I thought you might have gone,” he says, and clearly hasn’t even considered that I might not have been here in the first place. He is so sure of himself, whereas I am sure of nothing anymore.

  Christian grabs my hand with a familiarity that momentarily stuns me, and he pulls me toward the grand gates and the waiting kiosk.

  I stop. “Christian.” He turns and stops too. “I can’t do this.”

  His face is the epitome of disappointment. He looks like Elliott did when Barney the perky purple dinosaur parted company with his ear.

  “I came to tell you that I can’t spend the day with you.”

  “Why not?” He is genuine in his disregard for anything else in my life.

  “I have a family.”

  “I know.”

  “I’m deceiving them.”

  “Only a little bit,” he reassures me. And I wonder if there is a scale to grade deception, like the Richter scale for earthquakes. Is there one that can measure how much damage this will do?

  “You wouldn’t believe how difficult it was for me to get away,” I plead.

  “You’re here now,” he says, and his face softens and I can see how pleased he is that we are together.

  “I know.”

  “It seems stupid to come so far and then just leave.”

  I say nothing, because that’s the thought that’s going through my mind.

  “What are you so frightened of?”

  Oh, to be young and fearless again and not realize the dangers that wait ahead for us, round the next corner, just out of sight. “I’m frightened that it will go too far.”

  Christian grins mischievously. “Do you think I’ll try to seduce you behind the palm fronds in the Temperate House?”

  I laugh and say, “Don’t be silly!” But it’s exactly what I’m frightened of, and I’m even more frightened of what I will do.

  “I’ve taken the day off work,” Christian adds, twisting his sugar-coated knife.

  “So have I.” And I remember that I haven’t phoned Kath Brown to tell her that I won’t be there, because it was my intention to be there all along.

  “Come on, Alicia, Ali Kingston. Live dangerously. You can be home hours before you’ve got to give your brood and your husband their supper and do your ironing and all the other wild things you’ve got planned.”

  “You’re mocking me.”

  “No,” he says with a shake of his dark blond hair. “Never.”

  Christian curls his fingers round mine and tugs gently. “Let’s have some fun, Ali. Just for today. No one will ever know. I promise you.”

  CHAPTER 15

  Ed was stopped at the traffic lights. He quickly grabbed his phone, punched the redial button and tried Ali’s mobile again. “The Vodaphone you have called may be switched off,” a charming woman’s voice informed him.

  “No,” Ed said sarcastically.

  “Please try again later,” she continued, robotically unabashed.

  “I’ve been trying solidly for over an hour, you stupid woman,” he shouted at the phone. “Where the fuck is she!” Ed banged the steering wheel in frustration and the lights turned green. He tossed the phone back onto the passenger seat and slammed his foot on the accelerator. His wife wasn’t at work where she should be, that much he knew.

  Kath Brown had been beside herself with concern when he’d phoned up looking for Ali, only to be told that Alicia, for whatever reason, hadn’t shown up at the studio that morning. This was all he needed. Had she said she was going somewhere else today? Was this Parents’ Evening Syndrome all over again? Had they had a perfectly pleasant conversation about some change in Alicia’s plans that had completely bypassed his memory banks?

  Ed zipped past a speed camera and could have sworn it flashed. He should slow down. This was a time when he needed to be calm and in control. He knew he was panicking. Alicia normally dealt with this sort of thing, not him. Ed tried to take deep breaths. He was sure the traffic was going slower in direct proportion to the speed his heart was racing.

  He took the opportunity of a traffic jam to ring Jemma’s shop, but it wasn’t his sister-in-law’s voice that answered.

  “You Must Remember This…vintage clothing.”

  “Is Jemma there?”

  “No, sorry,” a Sloaney voice replied. “Can I take a message?”

  “Do you know when she’s due back?”

  “No, sorry.”

  “Do you know where she’s gone?”

  “No, sorry.”

  “Has she gone with her sister?”

  “I didn’t know she had a sister.”

  “Can you tell her Ed called. If she’s seen Ali, can she get her to call me. It’s urgent.”

  “Ali?”

  “Her sister.”

  “She should call Ed.”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay.”

  “Thanks.” Ed hung up, more frustrated than he had been before. Was Ali supposed to be going somewhere today with Jemma? He didn’t think so. Damn, damn, damn. How could Alicia do this? Just disappear off the face of the earth. It wasn’t like her at all. Some phenomenal number of people went missing every year. Just like that. There were all sorts of stories in the paper about people who woke up one morning and, for whatever reason, walked out on their lives and loved ones, never to be seen again. The next thing you knew, their faces were adorning milk cartons with HAVE YOU SEEN THIS PERSON? in ominously bold letters above a grainy black-and-white photograph which could be any one of a million people. Ali would never do that. Would she?

  The traffic inched forward, and at the head of the queue was a policeman, waving on the cars which rubbernecked their way past an accident. Two cars had shunted each other in what looked like a fairly terminal way, and Ed was relieved to see that neither of the cars was Ali’s, even though he knew her battered red Renault was safely ensconced on their drive where she had left it this morning. He’d gone back to the house to pick up his own car, and there was no note, no message, nothing untoward to give a clue as to where Alicia might possibly be.

  There was an ambulance parked by the roadside, and one of the drivers was being helped inside. Ed hoped Alicia hadn’t had some other kind of accident. A cold dread dried his mouth. Something wasn’t quite right, he could feel it.

  He wasn’t a man given to great bouts of intuition, but this was giving him a tingly feeling, as if there were thousands of those little black thunder flies in the hairs on the back of his neck. The speed of the traffic picked up, and Ed put the car into gear and followed it. Get a grip, Edward, he told himself. There was bound to be some reasonable explanation. No need to make a drama out of a crisis.

  Finally, with a sigh of relief he swung into the car park, fumbling through his pockets for change for the Pay and Display meter at the same time as pulling on the hand brake. He left the car at an alarming angle, bought a ticket with all the loose change he could muster and, forgetting to put the ticket in the windscreen, raced across the road. Breathless, he rushed through the automatic doors and into Accident and Emergency, where he found a very tearful and unhappy Elliott being tenderly nursed and comforted by Nicola Jones, the sunny, smiling owner of the Sunny Smiles nursery school.

  CHAPTER 16

  You can tell how old I am. I like my trainers laced right up to the top so that I can walk properly and not shuffle around dragging my feet. I do not, and will never have, a bolt pierced through my belly button, my tongue, my bottom lip or either of my eyebrows. I do not possess any clothing from Kookai. On the rare occasions I venture into a pub, I like to sit down. I know who Craig David is. He’s the one with the voice of an angel and the hair of a sheep. But I still can’t understand a single word he’s singing. I have no desire to watch Big Brother, let alone care whether Sada, Andrew, Caroline or Craig, or any other of the seemingly vacuous individuals who inhabit the house, get evicted. I do, however, watch Cast-away 2000, which in comparison could almost be considered the social experiment the BBC would have us believe
it is. I think Liam Gallagher is a loudmouthed lout and am beginning to understand why women of a certain age see Alan Titchmarsh as a sex symbol. Even though he’s a gardener, albeit a celebrity one, you’d never catch him with grubby old compost under his fingernails, would you? Would he ever say an extra-naughty four-letter word if he inadvertently bashed himself with a trowel? I think not.

  I look at Christian and feel that he may not share similar views. (Particularly the Alan Titchmarsh theory.) Christian definitely looks like a potential Big Brother watcher. I have a brief, shuddering vision of him sprawled on the sofa with a beer and a take-away on a Friday night in front of Davinia McCall yelling to have Nasty Nick ousted. Christian probably also thinks that Gail Porter is a babe, whereas I see her as someone who could do with a few good meals inside her. Some people would call it getting old and staid. Some people would call it maturing. Fine wine matures. But then again, so does cheese.

  It is a glorious spring day with just a slight hint of chilliness adding a sharpness and clarity to the air. I have been persuaded against my better judgment to spend the day with Christian, after all. You might have guessed. And I wonder what he thinks of this. I cannot imagine that Kew is really his bag. Has he brought me here because he thinks it’s what older people like to do? I don’t know. If he starts to offer me tea and cake on the hour every hour, I’ll be seriously worried about his motives. This is what we do on outings with my parents—ply them with calories and Twinings to keep them happy (i.e., quiet). Christian looks cheerful enough. We are walking along side by side, grinning inanely at each other. My brain cells seem to go all haywire when I’m with him. I’ll swear they do. He makes me think one thing and then do completely the opposite.

  There’s a huge Ginkgo biloba tree at Kew, not far from the main entrance. It’s one of the oldest trees here, or something like that, and the leaves look like a million bright green butterflies. If you touch it, the bark will give you a bolt of energy so strong that you can feel it all the way down to your socks. Honestly. I’d like to show Christian this, but today, I’m going to give it a wide berth. My energy is whizzing round my body, making everything feel tingly and sensitized already. I feel very weird. On the one hand, I’m relaxed and happy to be here—the sun is shining, the birds are singing, I’ve bunked a day off work—on the other hand, I’ve never felt so tense in all my life. I ought to have phoned Kath Brown, but I’ve never lied to her before and can’t face it now. It’s Friday and I’ve got two whole days to think of an excuse before I have to go to work again on Monday. I’ve turned my mobile off and stuffed it in the bottom of my handbag so she can’t contact me, coward that I am.

  We’ve wandered all over the gardens—through the angular, ultra-modern Princess of Wales Conservatory, through the Japanese bit with its reconstructed temple gate, and have made suitably impressed-type noises at the towering pagoda which dominates the skyline at the head of an avenue of soaring trees dwarfed by its splendor. I adore trees and flowers and nature in general. Christian seems to as well. Perhaps he sees things through more artistic eyes than the average twenty-three-year-old; people of that age aren’t usually known for their appreciation of trees, are they? What did my life revolve around when I was the tender age of twenty-three? I seem to recall it was gearing up for potty training. My children’s, not mine.

  We are lying on the grass by the Temperate House and I feel as if I’m dressed all wrong. Despite my attempts at casual, I’ve come in a ballgown to a bring-a-bottle party. I should be wearing trainers, and instead I have on smart imitation snakeskin broguey things that were really trendy when I bought them yonks ago. They would have made my feet sweat like a pig in the office—had I have gone there—and yet they aren’t comfortable enough for clonking round gardens in. My jeans are Calvin Klein and have been pressed so much they’ve formed a white crease down the front, which is very eighties. And, if I admit it, even my sweatshirt’s a bit glittery. I feel overdone and tied up. My daughter throws anything on and looks fabulous. That’s because she has firm, high breasts that do not even entertain drooping toward the floor and slender, unblemished legs that go on for miles. Christian is clearly of the same mold. He has no hips and a flat stomach and probably doesn’t even know what the word “sit-up” means. His clothes hang on him like a catwalk model. He is lying with his arms above his head and his short khaki T-shirt has ridden up, exposing his stomach. He has a great belly button. Neat and round. I’m obsessed with navels after mine went all teardrop-shaped and horrid after my first pregnancy. I try not to stare at it and fail, but fortunately Christian has his eyes shut against the sun. A fine line of blond down disappears beneath his waistband, and then I catch myself wondering whether he has any hair on his chest and blush.

  I sit up and hug my knees, turning away from him. It’s impossible to buy clothes once you are over thirty-five. You fall into a big hole somewhere between Top Shop and Debenhams. I never want to look like mutton dressed as lamb and spurn crop-tops and Capri pants, which look good on no one over sixteen anyway. But I’m twenty years away from A-line skirts and flatties. My dress sense is all at sea, and I buy safe middle-of-the-road clothing that will last from Marks & Spencer to anchor myself and, consequently, spend my life feeling beige. Jemma has a wonderful dress sense and combines Karen Millen with drapey bits and pieces from the 1930s that she borrows from her shop and would make me look like a bag lady.

  “Do you watch Big Brother, Christian?”

  He sits up and shuffles forward so that he is right behind me at my shoulder. “Big Brother?”

  “Mmmm.”

  “Sometimes. Why?”

  “I just wondered.” We’ve had tea and cake just the once, and I’m taking this as a good sign. In fact, the day has been brilliant. Christian is very attentive and good company. And if it wasn’t for the fact that I’m married and do in the odd moment feel like his mother, then I’d probably be in seventh heaven.

  We haven’t touched. Not really. Just the occasional lingering of fingers on fabric. The hint of a hand in the small of my back. We are self-conscious in our needs. But it’s there between us all the time. The desire to is palpable. I want him to touch me and am scared that he might. I want to touch him and daren’t. I want to caress his cheek, his skin which looks soft and strong and has no wrinkles. Not one. I want to trace the outline of his pouting lips. I want to know what he feels like and dread what that knowledge will mean.

  “I’ll say it before you do.” Christian smiles sadly at me. “You should be going home.”

  I look at my watch. “Oh, my good God,” I say. “I should. I have to collect Elliott.” He knows all about my children now, and their trials and tribulations. I tried not to go on and on about them and Christian tried to look interested. But it’s clear that we’re about a million miles apart in our respective lifestyles.

  He stands up and holds out his hands. I take them and he pulls me to my feet. “Let’s walk through the Temperate House,” he says. “It’ll warm us up.”

  As if I need it! Christian takes my hand and leads the way and this time he doesn’t let go.

  The Temperate House is a huge building, a light, airy framework of white filigree ironwork banding a spider’s web of delicate glass panes. Inside it is dense, crowded, a jungle of rampant greenery all crowding, living, thrusting and vying for space. The overwhelming smell in the Temperate House is damp, musky and earthy. It’s too heavy to inhale, its weight envelops you and seeps into you, hot teasing fingers of humid air easing inside your clothes. D. H. Lawrence would call it “fecund,” if I remember any of my A-level coursework correctly. How can foliage feel so sexual? Perhaps it’s all that sap rising. Perhaps it’s just me. Perhaps it’s that Alan Titchmarsh thing again.

  “There’s a platform at the top,” Christian informs me. “We can walk all the way round.” And he leads me up a narrow winding wrought-iron staircase until we are high above the plants, in among the tops of the trees on a vertiginous ledge. If you look down, you can see patte
rns and whorls in the fronds of the ferns and you can reach out and touch the bark of trees that really would be more at home in a rain forest. There is no one else here as intrepid as us and, as a consequence, we are totally alone suspended high above the greenery.

  We are leaning over the rail, and Christian has his arm around my shoulders, pointing out flowers and fruits lurking between the leaves.

  “Christian.” My voice sounds heavy even to my ears. “I’ve really enjoyed today.”

  “That doesn’t sound like, ‘I’ve really enjoyed today and let’s do it again as soon as possible, Christian.’”

  I turn toward him and his eyes lock on to mine, searching.

  “You do want to do it again?” He strokes my wild hair, which is spiraling madly in the humid air, brushing my cheek as he does so.

  “I don’t know.”

  “‘I don’t know, but yes I want to’?” He is so lovely and young and hunky and I still don’t know what he sees in me.

  I shake my head. “It makes life terribly complicated.” And at this moment I wish I were a different person, in a different life, who could just say yes without thinking.

  Christian leans forward and kisses me on the lips, and it is so light and soft and forbidden, I could faint with the rush of emotion that floods through me.

  He holds me and I try not to hold him back, but I can feel the heat of his skin through the thin fabric of his shirt and my hands are trembling.

  “Is this so wrong?” Christian asks as he breaks away from me.

  “Yes,” I say. And it is. I know that. We both do.

  We wind our way down the rickety staircase in silence, still holding hands, and wander out of the Temperate House, slowly following the trickle of tourists who are also heading for home. When we reach the main gate, we stand and look at each other in a forlorn and pathetic way; our hands dangle between us limply, barely touching. I am terrified that Christian will kiss me again, here in the street for everyone to see. But he doesn’t.