The Hollow Heart (The Heartfelt Series)

by Adrienne Vaughan

  They were catching up over a pot of coffee in Sophie’s chaotic kitchen, when Jason, her partner, appeared. He kissed Marianne briefly and, taking a Coke from the fridge, turned to look her over properly.

  “You look different Marianne. What is it?”

  “Slimmer? Fatter? Older?” Sophie offered.

  “No, none of those.” He strolled over and, taking Marianne’s hands, pulled her off the stool, walking around her slowly. “You’re all shiny and glowing. There’s a rosiness about you. What is it?”

  Marianne just blinked at him.

  “You’ve had sex, wild, unbridled, passionate sex. I’m right, aren’t I?”

  Sophie gasped.

  “Jason, how rude!” And then turning to Marianne, “God, he’s right, isn’t he? You sly fox, not a mention to me. Who? When? What? How many times? Is he single? No he’s married. Do we know him? God Marianne, tell all. I’m getting the wine out.”

  Marianne shrugged.

  “Nothing to tell. Jason’s never once been right about me and men. He thought George was just my solicitor until I moved in with him.”

  Jason shook his head.

  “Nah. I’m right. I know I am and he’s a bigwig, I’ll be bound. Someone you can’t tell us about but ties you up and screws you senseless every other weekend.”

  He winked, pinching her bottom theatrically as he left to attend to their children screaming in another room. Sophie went to close the door, she scanned the kitchen, the chaos, and stopped to slump against the fridge freezer, sighing dramatically.

  “I’m so tired, I’m worn to a thread. I want my life back.” Sophie was a blatant emotional blackmailer. “You could fill me in a little, just to brighten my day.”

  “This is your life, there’s nothing to have back.” Marianne started picking things up, putting them in the dishwasher, drawers, bin. She could hear Jason calming the storm in the sitting room, she spied him through the door, his arms around the children, a rug pulled around them as he started to read a story.

  “You’re so lucky,” she said, handing her friend a clean glass, “you’ll never know how lucky you are.”

  “If he’s right and there is something you are not telling me, you’re dead.” Sophie said.

  “If he’s right and I tell you, mouth almighty, we’ll both be dead.”

  The fact that Sophie freelanced for some of the more salacious women’s weeklies meant that she really was going to be kept in the dark, whatever she hoped, as she opened the wine. Marianne knew Sophie’s ploy and barely touched a drop, until Sophie eventually waved her friend a slurry goodbye, the bottle empty, and she none the wiser.

  Keeping her clandestine meeting with Ryan from both Oonagh and Sophie did not rest easy with Marianne. She pulled on pyjamas grumpily, having barely said goodnight to Monty, whose only outing that evening had been a turn around the garden. She was annoyed, irritated with Ryan and angry with herself. She was a fully grown, single woman; she had every right to a sex life, a fleeting affair, a romantic encounter and even a passionate coupling in a glamorous location. But not to be able to talk about it, boast about it, revel in it and relive it moment by tantalising moment with another female, who would also have fantasised and longed for such an adventure, well that was the worst of it, that was what really rankled.

  She banged about her bedroom, switching things on and off, fiddling with the duvet, books on the bedside table, her spectacles. She finally crawled beneath the sheets and was immediately wide awake. A bad night beckoned. When she finally dropped off, she tossed and turned fitfully. She dreamt of Ryan, she was laughing, falling backwards and, just as her heart started to flutter in fear that she would fall into nothingness, she felt his arms around her, strong and warm as if she was falling into a soft, safe armchair.

  She woke, shook her head, took a large slurp of water from her glass and settled back, turning on her side, closing her eyes tight shut, pushing the images away. Yet, as she drifted off to sleep, he seeped back into her dreams, this time pervading her subconscious with short, vivid recollections of his touch, his lips, his tongue. She woke again, the more she tried to blank him out, the more his memory persisted, lighting her up from inside. She groaned, racked with a longing that glowed like an ember inside her, growing hot and burning until, feeling the heat build in her chest, she woke suddenly, her heart racing, her mouth dry. She glared at the bedside clock. It was two in the morning.

  She fell into a restless doze, only to wake again. It was still dark, the skin between her breasts damp, the flesh between her legs wet with desire. She licked her lips, she could taste him, she could feel his hands sliding down her spine to caress her buttocks with butterfly strokes and, with her hand against her ear, she could hear him breathing, soft heat from his whispering breath.

  “Oh God,” she pleaded, “make it stop.” She jumped and sat bolt upright, “Who’s that? Who is it?” The sound of her own voice in the darkness had startled her. She snapped on the light and, glancing quickly round the room, stuffed her feet in her slippers and went to the bathroom, staring wide-eyed in the mirror. She shook her head to clear it, but the memory of their passion draped her like a cloak, it echoed through her, the longing so raw it was painful. She pushed her shoulders back, strode purposefully to bed and, grabbing the closest tome to hand, read a mind-numbing computer textbook till dawn.

  As if to compound her agony, the relentless publicity campaign that is the lifeblood of a global blockbuster, had commenced. Posters of the leading man in various poses were everywhere: bloodied and unshaven toting a rifle; eyes twinkling over a cocktail; hands gripping the steering wheel of the latest super car; or bare chested, the blonde curls of a beautiful girl, supine on his shoulder. Every time Marianne flicked on the TV, tuned in the radio, opened a newspaper or magazine, even watched a bus pass at the bottom of the avenue, Ryan was either on it, in it or being discussed. He pervaded her every waking moment. She was being haunted. Haunted, yet abandoned.

  Marianne allowed her gloomy mood to envelop her. She went back to bed, pulling the duvet over her head, blocking out the daylight. Monty snuffled about the kitchen, then popped himself back in his basket. No walk today then. He eyed his lead hanging on the coat hook in the hall and buried his nose in his paws.

  Developing the habits of a hermit, Marianne spent the next few months holed up in George’s study, working on her project to reunite as many mothers and babies as she could. The files from the so-called charity she had uncovered in her award-winning report had been released, and the notorious Sister Mary May and her associates were serving prison sentences. She had hundreds of names and addresses to put on the website in the hope that those who were robbed of their children would come forward and discover they had not died at all. It was a time-consuming and emotionally draining task. She only left her desk to walk Monty or to act as an unpaid babysitter for Sophie and Sharon, deciding that helping them have a social life was a vague counter to having none of her own.

  Oonagh kept her appraised of her condition, alternating between emails filled with riotous joy and paranoid anxiety. Ryan, it seemed, had abandoned her totally, despite his promise to stay in touch. For her part, she made no attempt to contact him: pride, foolhardiness, a naïve notion it is the female who should be pursued, or just fear of rejection, she did not know which, but what she did know was, she missed him more than she dare admit, especially to herself.

  Apart from quietly acknowledging George’s anniversary in June with a picnic in the park, where she and Monty had scattered his ashes the year before, the uneventful suburban summer was merging into what looked being an equally dull autumn. Marianne was becoming accustomed to a condition she had never encountered in her entire life – boredom. She was arranging knickers in order of wornness, when the land line rang. It was Miss MacReady. Her shrill tone reverberated along the wire.

  “Marianne, is that you?” she hissed. She always sounded conspiratorial. “Look, what are you at? Have you a big job on, or what? Oonagh sa
id you’ve left the newspaper, doing some freelancing. Well, could you consider this, a bit of freelancing for us, here?”

  “Er, well, I have quite a bit on.” She went quiet.

  “Anything that can’t be shelved?”

  Marianne thought for a minute and then it hit her like a slap in the face. She realised what she had been doing, she had spent the best part of three months waiting for the phone to ring or an email to arrive. She had been waiting to hear from Ryan. This was more than disturbing. This was shocking. It was time to make some life-changing decisions, the rut had deepened, it was time to climb out. She slammed the knicker drawer shut.

  The very next day was momentous for two reasons; firstly Marianne put seventy four Oakwood Avenue on the market, barely registering a quiver of regret as the For Sale sign was hammered into the lawn and, secondly, the invitation to the anniversary of the ‘Power 2 The People’ event arrived. Marianne stared at the white embossed card for some time. Re-named ‘The Phoenix Fights Back’ the whole event was to be a celebration in defiance of the terrorist attack, which had brought devastation to the capital and sent shock waves around the globe only twelve months before. The initiative would re-launch the worldwide charity the Baroness, who had tragically died in the attack, had founded, raising funds for impoverished people everywhere.

  In keeping with the spirit of the re-launch, the survivors of the original event had all been invited as guests of honour. And to avoid sabotage, everything had been planned in secret right up to the invitations being sent out. Marianne was intrigued. She read and re-read the invitation with mounting excitement; all the survivors would have been contacted. Oonagh had told her Ryan was back in England. Would he be there? And if so, would she see him, talk to him, touch him? Or would she blank him, ignore him, pretend they had never met, never kissed, never been lovers?

  She started humming Cry Me A River, the theme to the spy film, tapping the invitation along the mantelpiece in time with the tune. Monty, sensing a change of mood, trotted to the door, swishing his tail gently. She smiled at him, grabbing his lead, as she pulled on an ageing gilet. He yapped at her, spinning round like a puppy. She checked her lacklustre locks in the mirror, pale face, neglected nails.

  “Right, let’s get to the salon and book myself in. Time for a bit of a makeover,” she told the excited terrier. “A new phase beckons. Who knows, a new me? A new life? A new everything? Let’s go, Toto,” she said, in her dreadful Wizard of Oz impersonation.

  Professionally preened and polished, Marianne donned the dark green velvet gown she had worn that first evening at Meredith Lodge. In a mist of perfume, she rushed out of the house before realising she had left her mobile on the dresser. The taxi driver revved his engine. She jumped in. The abandoned mobile vibrated. The driver was playing a soccer match commentary loudly on the radio. Marianne chewed her manicure all the way there.

  Hundreds of people were gathered around the red carpet entrance. The cabbie dropped her as close as he could, having only second-level security clearance.

  “You’ll be alright, love.” He nodded towards the police cordon as she paid him. “I mean, you ain’t no celebrity, so you’ll get in dead easy, no paparazzi, I mean.”

  She looked up as a battery of flash bulbs heralded the entrance of yet another A-lister.

  She smiled. He was tense, eager to be gone.

  “It will be alright tonight.”

  He shrugged. “It will or it won’t. Those bastards never give up in my opinion.” A goal scored, he tuned the radio, and turned the wheel. “Have a good night, love.”

  He sped quickly away.

  Marianne pulled her hood around her, more against the flash bulbs than the weather. She passed through security easily, the invitation had an indelible watermark according her special status as a survivor of the bombing. A tall man in a black tuxedo directed her into the VIP area. She walked straight into Paul Osborne with his latest squeeze; a singer from an all-girl rock band.

  “Marianne,” he boomed. She immediately noticed his teeth had been fixed. He flashed her a smile, “Stunning as ever.”

  “Paul,” she said coolly, offering her hand.

  He introduced the singer, a mere teenager beneath the false eyelashes and spray tan.

  “What are you doing now?” he gushed, “working, writing, travelling, what?”

  “Resting.” She eyed him icily. “Though your career seems to be going from strength to strength.”

  “Thank you.”

  “It wasn’t a compliment.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Another time.” Marianne took a glass of champagne from a tray.

  “Ah, you mean Jack.”

  “I mean everything. You were good Paul, looks to me like you sold out.”

  “Principles are expensive, Marianne, I was broke.” He pulled his puppy-dog face.

  “Principles are priceless, Paul. We were a good team you, Jack and I.”

  He shrugged and turned to gaze across the room. He nodded as a flurry of activity signalled the arrival of the world’s most popular film star. Marianne’s heart leapt, she longed yet dreaded seeing him. She turned away, praying this would prevent her from melting into a pool of desire, right there on the carpet in front of them all.

  “Well, he’s here at last,” Paul’s tone was disparaging, “shame we’re not good enough to sit with him this time.”

  Checking the table plan, Marianne saw the organisers had re-seated guests in their original groups, although Ryan had been seated with the hostess and other lumini. Angelique de Marcos was not on the list. Heart beating uncontrollably, Marianne was relieved to see Ryan’s son Mike and wife Zara heading towards her. They greeted each other warmly as they were called to their seats.

  “I believe you’d a wild old time over in Ireland, with the storm and everything. Pa said you were a great help through the worst of it and that you helped him with his script. Which was the more testing I wonder?” Mike smiled then asked quietly, “Is it a dreadful load of old dross?” He gave her an exact replica of his father’s unmistakable twinkle.

  “Not now Marianne’s had a go at it,” Zara interjected, and they laughed.

  “The merest tweak,” Marianne offered.

  “God he could do with someone like you giving lots of things in his life the merest tweak,” Mike whispered.

  “It’ll be alright,” Zara patted Mike’s hand, “it won’t last forever.”

  As Paul Osborne took his seat beside Marianne, the conversation stopped. Mike and Zara nodded at his companion but both chose to ignore Paul.

  The stage burst into light and the atmosphere which had been surprisingly relaxed was instantly electric. The show began. The auditorium held its breath, in unison with the worldwide audience of millions. They were not to be disappointed.

  As the crescendo of the first act came to a close, Marianne, desperate for the loo through nerves and too much wine on an empty stomach, left the table, making for the lift and a not-too-crowded restroom on an upper floor.

  Heading along a quiet corridor to return to her seat, a hand flew out of a doorway, grabbed her by the elbow and pulled her inside. The door slammed behind her. She gasped as she was spun round. It was pitch black. She could smell mechanical oil mixed with expensive aftershave; she could hear the whir of the lift, a soft chime at each floor. She felt breath on her cheek. She inhaled to scream. A hand covered her mouth. As a cigarette lighter streaked a flash across a face, he took his hand from her mouth.

  “Shit, you scared me half to death!” She thumped him in the chest.

  “I was scared I wouldn’t see you. Didn’t you get my message?”

  “Oh, please.”

  “Seriously? Asking you to join me tonight.”

  “It’s been months.”

  “Well, whose fault is that?”

  “What?”

  “I called you. No reply. I left umpteen messages. I texted. No response.”

  “Oh, stop it, Ryan.”

/>   “No, listen, Lisa rang the newspaper and you got them to tell her you’d left.”

  “I have left.”

  “And the phone?”

  “Went with the job. I changed it.”

  “Didn’t think to let me know then? How do you think I felt, a romantic weekend in a beautiful hotel and then dumped?”

  “Oh.”

  “I kept thinking, maybe she doesn’t like me at all, maybe she is going to write a story about my bedroom prowess or lack of it. After what we shared? I said to myself, no, there’s no way you could fake that.”

  “Ryan I am not that kind of journalist, and not that kind of person!”

  “I know, I’m sorry, Marie…” He held her tightly.

  “Maybe it was just a romantic weekend, maybe we should leave it at that,” she heard herself saying.

  “I can’t. I can’t get you out of my mind.”

  He pulled her to him and kissed her, missing her lips in the dark, his mouth somewhere between her cheekbone and ear. She freed herself.

  “You could have found me if you really wanted to.”

  “I tried, I tell you, and I did find you, finally got your new number from Miss MacReady. I left you a message about tonight. Still no response, how do you think I felt? You could have contacted me, through Lisa. When you didn’t, I guessed I’d been had, literally. I kept waiting for the story to be published.”

  “I’ve told you, I’m not interested in the story.”

  “Interested in me, the person?”

  “I have missed you,” she said, softening.

  “And I you, so much.”

  “I kept thinking, if it’s a fling, I can deal with that, you go back to your life and I’ll go back to mine.” She forced steel into her tone. “If it’s to be more than that, he’ll be in touch and we’ll work something out, if that’s what we both want.” She was quiet for a moment. “I did feel abandoned.”

  He stepped back.

  “I can see that, I’m sorry,” he said, softly into the dark, “so did I.”

  The bell rang for them to return to their seats. He opened the door. They were caught in a sliver of light from the corridor. They looked at each other, two pairs of eyes, bright with tears and fear.