After the Honeymoon

by Fraser, Janey

  Melissa and her kids were in front as they went through Customs. This time, Winston was walking next to his wife, although they weren’t holding hands. They were talking in low, urgent voices. Emma heard the phrase ‘united front’ but nothing else. Poor Melissa. She looked really miserable.

  ‘Look!’ Tom was leaping up and down, pointing. Instantly, Emma forgot all about her new friend’s troubles. Willow and Gawain! They were here with Mum and Bernie, waiting in Arrivals with a huge home-made banner with childish writing in red and blue felt-tip.

  ‘HOPE YOU HAD A GREAT HONEYMOON!’

  Emma broke into a run, ducking under the barrier and scooping up Gawain, holding him in her arms and smothering him with kisses. ‘No.’ He was pushing her away. ‘Want Gran.’

  Her mother gave her a slightly smug look. ‘Don’t worry, love. You know what kids are like. He’ll be all right in a minute.’

  Something was different about him. ‘He’s lost a tooth! Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘Goodness me,’ clucked her mother, ‘there was enough going on without me having to remember every tiny detail.’

  ‘Did the tooth fairy come?’ Emma whispered to her son, ignoring her mother.

  Gawain shook his head sorrowfully.

  ‘Maybe he’ll come tonight,’ she suggested, ‘if you give me another cuddle.’

  Her son shot her a distrustful look. ‘In a minute. I’m busy.’

  Busy? No guesses where he’d picked that one up from. Mum used to say that when she had been a child too.

  Hurt, Emma knelt down beside Willow, who was in her pushchair. ‘Did you miss Mummy?’ she asked softly. But her daughter just sucked on her dummy and stared at her as though Emma was a stranger.

  ‘Little so-and-sos,’ chirped Bernie brightly, offering her a piece of gum. ‘They’re just giving you the cold shoulder cos you left them. Mine did the same when Phil and I went away last summer. Don’t take any notice of them.’

  She nudged Emma chummily. ‘Didn’t mind me coming along too, did you? Only your mum was a bit worried about driving on her own.’ Then she stopped, her eyes bulging, staring across the Arrivals hall. ‘Bloody hell, isn’t that Winston King over there?’

  ‘Certainly is,’ declared Tom importantly. ‘He was staying at our place, can you believe, with his new bride. And her kids. Our Em here got quite chummy with them.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell us?’ demanded Mum and Bernie at the same time.

  ‘They asked me not to.’ Emma felt herself going red. ‘It was a secret.’

  ‘Doesn’t look like it any more,’ snorted Bernie.

  Heavens! Just look at the gaggle of photographers congregating around Winston! Poor Melissa looked terrified and even her kids, usually so confident, were hanging on to each other for comfort.

  ‘I’ve got to help them,’ said Emma immediately. ‘Wait there, can you?’

  Elbowing her way through the crowd of photographers and journalists, she tugged at Melissa’s sleeve. ‘Can I do anything? Take the children for you?’

  Melissa’s face was stony. ‘I think you’ve done quite enough, thank you.’

  A horrible cold feeling crept through Emma. ‘What do you mean?’

  Melissa waved a newspaper in front of her. ‘Look at this.’

  Honeymoon exclusive. Winston’s stepdaughter in love with Greek waiter.

  Emma gasped. ‘How did they know that?’

  ‘Through you, perhaps?’

  ‘You think I spoke to that journalist on the island? Of course I didn’t!’

  Melissa’s eyes narrowed. ‘I don’t believe you. From the minute you met us, you latched on like a limpet. I felt sorry for you then, but now I can see that you’re one of those people who just want to be near someone famous. Tell me, how much did they pay you?’

  ‘Nothing,’ spluttered Emma. ‘You’ve got it all wrong!’

  At that moment, a tall, skinny man with slit eyes and a camera slung round his neck slid in front of them.

  ‘Mrs King. Do you have any comments about your husband’s love child?’

  ‘No,’ snapped Melissa. ‘I don’t.’

  The skinny man was writing furiously on his pad. ‘Then what about Nick Thomas? Do you have any comments?’

  ‘Nick Thomas?’ repeated Melissa, clearly confused. ‘Who’s he?’

  At that moment, Emma felt herself being pushed to one side. It was Winston. His face was livid. Seizing Melissa’s arm, he marched her off. ‘Get away!’ he shouted over his shoulder at the man with the camera. ‘Scum like you shouldn’t be allowed! Kids, follow us.’

  Emma was left, confused, watching the four of them run through the doors and into a waiting black car. It wasn’t fair. How could they think she’d betrayed them? Yet at the same time, she couldn’t help feeling terribly sorry for Melissa. What an awful thing to happen just after your honeymoon.

  ‘Does Nick Thomas have anything to do with Winston’s love child?’ she couldn’t help asking the skinny man with the camera.

  He gave a nasty smile, reminding her of a crocodile in one of Gawain’s picture books. ‘You’ll have to read tomorrow’s newspapers to find that one out. Don’t miss it, love! It’s a great story.’

  AFTER THE HONEYMOON

  TRUE POST-HONEYMOON STORY

  ‘After we got back, we found our new flat had been burgled. Everything had gone apart from a hideous brown tea set which my new husband’s aunt had given us. I’ve tried hard to break it ever since but have never succeeded.’

  Sally, now coming up to her tenth wedding anniversary

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  WINSTON

  ‘We need to talk.’ Winston reached out for Melissa’s hand in the back of the taxi from Heathrow but she snatched it back smartly. It was an action which did not go unnoticed by her sharp-eyed daughter (how much make-up was she wearing, for heaven’s sake?), who shot him a smug see, she doesn’t like you any more look.

  Freddie was in the front. Ever since he’d plucked him out of the water, Winston no longer saw him as ‘the boy’. It had brought them together. When he’d been the only one to talk to him on the journey back home, Winston had been pathetically grateful.

  ‘Let me at least explain,’ he tried again with Melissa.

  His wife had her face set away from him. She really did have the most beautiful profile, he observed. Very classical, with a nose that was aristocratic rather than pretty and cheekbones that could have been sculptured. Right now, her gaze was fixed on the passing suburban shops; so different, he reflected, from the sun-soaked white villas and aquamarine sea from the past week. If only they were back in Greece before the journalist had shown up. If only he could turn the clock back.

  But that was impossible. Hadn’t he tried to do the same after Nick?

  ‘Please, Mellie,’ he persisted.

  This time, her face turned to him. Those black eyes made him feel like a stranger who had bothered her with an inappropriate request. ‘Not now,’ she said icily. ‘Not in front of the children. Anyway, it’s Melissa. Not Mellie.’

  Alice – little so-and-so! – gave him another smug smile. He was cornered. Talk about friendly fire! In a way, Winston thought, he’d rather be out in the field than face these two females, regarding him with undisguised contempt.

  Giving up, he closed his eyes, and the events of last night flooded back.

  They’d got back to the Villa Rosa after the showdown with the journalist. He’d had a shower and changed, wondering where Melissa was. Probably settling the children. Hopefully Freddie would have learned his lesson. You didn’t just jump into water like that. Just as you didn’t climb trees that were too high. Or send people into dangerous situations before checking it was safe.

  At last. He could hear his wife’s steps on the stairs now. Fast. Urgent. He wanted her; could feel himself hardening. The fact that his body was behaving as it should made him almost giddy with relief. However, this wasn’t the time, dammit. Not after what had just happened.
r />   As soon as they got back to the UK, he vowed, he would put his lawyer onto that journalist. That would teach her to make up tales about some love child.

  ‘It’s a pack of lies,’ he had said to Melissa as they’d pushed past the journalist on the beach. ‘You know what these people are like. Ignore her.’

  ‘All right.’ Melissa had nodded uncertainly. ‘See you later in the room. There are a couple of things I need to do first.’

  Suddenly, the door flew open. Melissa stood there, her jeans still wet from the boat trip; her dark hair spilling over her shoulders. Her face was different. It looked hurt, like it did when she spoke to Marvyn.

  A tremor of apprehension passed through Winston like an electric shock, so powerful that he found his knees buckling.

  She knew.

  He could just tell.

  ‘How could you have brought us here?’ she snapped.

  This wasn’t what he’d expected. ‘What do you mean?’ he snapped back. ‘If you remember, it was your idea to come here. Not mine.’

  ‘But you were keen enough, weren’t you? Probably thought it was a great opportunity to introduce me to your son!’ She was hissing now, like a furious cat. There had been cats in Bosnia, he recalled irrelevantly. Cats that had hidden in the caves. He’d stroked one once, soothing its arched back before giving it back to the child who had lost it. It had been no substitute for the parents who were gone but at least it had been something.

  ‘My son?’ He laughed out loud, dizzy with relief that she had got the wrong end of the stick. For a moment there, he thought she’d discovered the truth about Nick. ‘I don’t have a son, Melissa. What are you talking about?’

  Another flash of the eyes. As she came towards him, Winston felt his muscles tighten just as they had before battle. She had him by his collar now, her face so close to his that he could taste her breath. ‘That’s not what Mrs Harrison has just told me. Her son, Jack, is yours. You got her pregnant. When she was seventeen!’

  The room around him started to drop away. At the same time, the gymkhana rosettes loomed out of the wall at him. Turning round, he stared at the photograph of the two girls he’d seen before. As if by telepathy, two names formed in his head. Rosemary who loved riding. Rosemary and her friend with the blonde hair. What was she called again? Jenny? Gemma?

  No. That was impossible. Or was it?

  ‘Rosemary,’ he said quietly as though talking to himself. ‘Of course. Rosemary.’

  ‘So you admit you know her?’ Melissa’s voice was trembling. Too late, he realised she’d expected him to comfort her; tell her that it wasn’t true.

  ‘Yes. No. I don’t know.’ As he spoke, he knew he wasn’t making sense. He tried again. ‘I thought Mrs Harrison seemed slightly familiar when we met, but I couldn’t place her.’

  Melissa gave a hoarse, slightly hysterical laugh. ‘Well, she can place you all right. I overheard our hostess talking about you to her Greek boyfriend.’ She was spitting out the words like hot coals. ‘Turns out that you went out together, when you were training. Don’t deny it, Winston!’

  Tears were rolling down her face. ‘Then you went back to your training, leaving her pregnant.’

  ‘But I didn’t know …’ he tried to say.

  ‘Don’t come near me.’ She pushed him away. ‘I don’t want to hear any more of your lies.’

  Winston felt his breath coming out in huge gulps. Rosemary from Devon. He couldn’t even recall her surname. He’d slept with her, certainly. She’d meant a great deal to him at the time – not something he should probably share with Melissa – but then he’d been transferred.

  Could she really have got pregnant by him? And then turned up here, Siphalonia, of all places – where he had come for his honeymoon?

  Desperately, he tried to get his head straight, though he was stumbling over the words in his distress. ‘If it was the same girl – woman – I didn’t know she was pregnant. You have my word on that. Yes, we went out for a month or so.’ He paused at the bitter-sweet memory. ‘I wrote to her after I left but she didn’t write back.’ He shrugged. ‘It happens in the services. Girls don’t want to wait for you …’

  There was another snort. ‘Well, this one did. She tried to find you.’ Melissa made a little choking sound. ‘Jack even looks like you.’

  Winston felt his stomach tighten.

  ‘I noticed that, when we arrived,’ Melissa added, her voice cracked with emotion, ‘although I didn’t put two and two together. He has the same eyes. Olive skin. He raises one eyebrow, just like you do. There’s a funny little kink on the side of his ears that you have as well. And he does that thing with his hands that you do when you speak. I’m a make-up artist, Winston. I notice these things.’

  Really? He had to confess he hadn’t been so sharp with his observations. His mouth was bone dry. ‘I need to talk to her,’ he said.

  Melissa nodded, her eyes shadowed with pain. ‘Yes. I think you do.’

  When he went to find her, Rosie was sitting on a big wooden chair in the kitchen, mug of tea in her hands, staring out of the open window towards the sea. It was too dark to see much but there was, he noticed, a small light a long way off. A boat, presumably. Or maybe a flicker of hope in his imagination.

  No one else was in the room, thank goodness. He couldn’t have borne trying to explain himself in front of Greco. Or, even worse, Jack.

  ‘Rosemary?’ he asked quietly, slipping into the chair next to her.

  She raised her head and gave him a rueful smile. ‘Charlie?’

  He nodded wryly, in acknowledgment. ‘My agent made me change my name. It’s one of the few things in that newspaper series that’s true.’

  Instantly, her face tightened. ‘So you think they lied about your so-called love child?’

  His knuckles clenched under the table. ‘Yes. No. I don’t know. For pity’s sake, Rosemary – Rosie. You tell me.’

  Don’t lay yourself open, he could hear his old commanding officer saying. Don’t invite trouble. Yet somehow he could tell that this woman was genuine.

  ‘I discovered I was expecting after you’d gone.’ Her hands were shaking, he noticed, and her voice quivering. ‘My friend Gemma came with me to buy the pregnancy test.’ She looked up at him and he suddenly saw the young schoolgirl he had fallen for, hook, line and sinker. ‘I was so scared. You can’t imagine it.’

  He couldn’t. But being pregnant and alone at seventeen must have been terrifying. His heart went out to her.

  ‘I wrote to you,’ she added quietly, ‘but you didn’t reply.’

  What? ‘I didn’t get a letter. I promise you. In fact, I wrote to you but didn’t hear back.’

  Her eyes bored right through him. ‘I didn’t get a letter.’

  The two of them stared at each other, neither willing to look away. Both determined to prove they were right.

  ‘OK,’ she said reluctantly. ‘I believe you.’

  ‘Me too,’ gulped Winston. ‘I’m so sorry. It must have been really tough for you.’

  ‘Yes and no. But I had Jack, didn’t I? I could never regret that.’

  He felt a crushing pang of loss at having missed out on so much.

  ‘People were very kind, on the whole,’ she added. ‘When I ended up here, a wonderful Greek woman called Cara – who’s listening from the scullery, by the way – took me in.’

  He glanced around nervously, aware at the same time that something was missing in her story. ‘Your father. How did he react?’

  Her mother, he dimly remembered now, had died during her childhood.

  Rosie looked away. ‘Wouldn’t have anything to do with me after I told him I was pregnant. Still won’t.’

  That was awful. ‘And Jack? What does he know?’

  The boy’s name sounded different now he knew he was his. Rosie’s face softened with what might or might not have been wistfulness.

  ‘He thinks his father was killed in a motorbike accident.’ Then her mouth tightened. ‘And that’
s the way I want it to stay.’

  Was she that naive? ‘But supposing someone finds out?’

  ‘How?’

  ‘These journalists are scavengers.’

  ‘They just referred to a love child, not Jack by name. And if they do, I’ll deny it.’ Her voice hardened. ‘I’ll tell him that we went out as teenagers but that was it. I’ll make him believe that the newspapers are lying. Don’t you see, Winston? I don’t want any more to do with you, than you do with us. I’m certainly not after your money.’ She folded her arms. ‘Jack and I have managed perfectly well without you so far, and we can carry on that way.’

  This wasn’t what he’d expected. A picture of her son – their son – swam into his mind. A nice boy. Well-mannered. Fun. Not boring. Good-looking. ‘You’ve done a great job, Rosie, but a boy needs a father.’

  Her chair scraped against the wooden floor as she stood up. ‘There are plenty of male role models here, thank you very much.’

  Now it was his turn to leap up. ‘Like your Greek boyfriend, you mean?’

  She might be smaller than him – a lot smaller – but she was glaring up at him like someone who had the upper hand. ‘At least Greco can say that he’s known Jack from birth, which is more than you can. Get real, Winston or Charlie or whatever you call yourself now. You can’t just come waltzing into our lives and start to play mummies and daddies after all this time.’

  ‘But,’ he began and then stopped at the sound of clapping. A very small, wrinkled woman in a faded pink-and-blue cotton pinafore was emerging from what he’d previously assumed was a large cupboard by the side of the sink. ‘My English, she is not very clever, but I comprehend enough.’

  The woman slapped him on the back; she was stronger than she looked. ‘Your English gentleman, he is right, Rosie. Your son, he needs to know who hees real father is.’

  Rosie’s eyes, he saw to his chagrin, were filling with tears. ‘Not yet. Give me time. This is all too much.’

  He could see that. ‘Of course it is,’ he said softly. Part of him wanted to give her a quick cuddle to show he understood. ‘When you’re ready, let me know. I’ll come back here and we’ll sit down for a chat.’