Saving Saffron Sweeting

by Pauline Wiles

  CONTENTS

  Author’s Note

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  From the Author

  Acknowledgements

  SAVING SAFFRON SWEETING

  Pauline Wiles

  ISBN (paperback): 978-0-9889731-0-7

  ISBN (e-book): 978-0-9889731-1-4

  Copyright © Pauline Wiles 2013

  Pauline Wiles asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  This novel is a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Author’s Note

  According to the famous quote, Britain and America are ‘two nations divided by a common language’.

  Saving Saffron Sweeting is set mostly in England and uses British English. If you would like a guide to the expressions used, please visit www.SavingSaffronSweeting.com for a free download.

  You’ll find further bonus materials there too.

  CHAPTER 1

  I was balanced on an eight-foot ladder with a mouth full of curtain hooks when I realised that my husband was cheating.

  The individual pieces of the picture suddenly came together, making terrifying sense. I blinked hard, then stared at my knuckles, which were now white from gripping the ladder. But the image wouldn’t subside. The picture I saw was James with another woman.

  I was hanging curtains in my client Rebecca’s bedroom, and the project was almost complete. This was great, as she’d been excited to give the room a whole new look after she’d recently come to the end of a long relationship.

  ‘I’m ready to move on. Grace, I want a totally fresh look,’ she’d told me when we met to discuss how I could help her. ‘Something luxurious, maybe a little sensual. I don’t plan on being single forever.’

  I was still new in the design business and it was a huge deal for me not only to land a new client, but also one who had money to spend and some kind of clue what she wanted. My first few months had been a real struggle and I was starting to question my talents. Other business owners had stressed the importance of tapping my personal network to get things rolling, so James had spread the word around his office. Apparently, he had done a good job of promoting my abilities to Rebecca, his company’s marketing manager. She had been great to work for and seemed appreciative of my suggestions. The only slight issue was that in the last few weeks she had been anxious to speed things up and get the bedroom completed.

  Eager to please, I had been beavering away and attempting to charm my suppliers into hurrying. After getting the curtains up, I planned to hit the shops for accessories, and then the room would be ready for whatever action she had in mind.

  My work had been interrupted by a knock on the front door of Rebecca’s condo. I’d opened it to find a bubbly young woman, who presented me with a pair of pink stilettos.

  ‘Oh!’ she said. ‘I was hoping Becca would be home. Can you let her know Kerry returned these?’

  ‘I think she’s at work,’ I said, taking the shoes. ‘I’m her bedroom designer.’

  ‘Ooh, you mean the love nest? Can I see it?’

  ‘Er, it’s not finished yet,’ I replied. ‘I expect she’d rather show you herself.’

  Kerry shrugged. ‘Okay. I’ll catch up with her.’ She turned and was a few steps down the hall before she added, ‘And tell her I want to hear all about Vegas and this James guy. He sounds delish!’

  My mind was still on the curtains. I’d shut the door and put the cute shoes down, before returning to the bedroom.

  Climbing back up the ladder, I thought, No wonder Rebecca wants to hurry this room. She’s met some man in Las Vegas and needs her bedroom back. I was stretching to try to hook the edge of the curtain to the last ring on the pole when the dark feeling began to slither over me.

  Did the ladder wobble? Had one of San Francisco’s famous earthquakes nudged it? Or was the lurch, the sway, the feeling of my stomach dropping to the new wool rug, due to something else? I checked the new tear-drop chandelier hanging above the bed. As a British transplant to the Bay Area, I had spent the first couple of years diving under our dining table at the slightest tremor. But by now I had learned that if the light fixtures weren’t swaying, the seismic jolt was all in my head. The glass drops of Rebecca’s chandelier stared back at me steadily, not even winking, let alone dancing.

  I had the presence of mind not to swallow my curtain hooks as I took a huge gulp and slid down the ladder. I slumped onto the new and naked mattress as I thought about my husband’s recent conference trip to Las Vegas and how edgy he had been since. I remembered our paths crossing briefly in the kitchen, the first morning after his return.

  ‘How was it?’ I’d asked, digging through the drawer for my favourite cereal spoon.

  ‘Okay, I guess.’ He reached for the tea bags.

  James seemed dispirited and I thought perhaps the industry analysts had given his company, a mobile security start-up, a tough time.

  ‘Are you home this evening?’ he wanted to know.

  ‘Probably,’ I called over my shoulder. I was already heading to my computer to check whether anyone had emailed for decor advice. Even at that hour, my mind was firmly on my fragile business.

  But that day I’d been called by a potential customer to discuss her family room and, as was typical, she could only meet me in the evening. I was hard at work researching inspiration pictures when James came home, and within minutes I headed out to my appointment. After more than an hour of fruitless discussion on the merits of contemporary versus rustic style, I drove the forty minutes home across the Dumbarton Bridge to find my husband was already asleep.

  With an uncomfortable feeling, I also recalled the previous evening, when he’d come home from work early and asked to talk to me, but I’d been flying out of the door to my women’s networking group. This had been the pattern of life recently: we seemed to pass each other fleetingly, our schedules never lining up for longer than it took to brew a pot of tea.

  And now I had learned that Rebecca had hooked up with someone called James in Las Vegas. My James had been acting oddly since he had returned from there. Keep calm, I told myself, it’s probably fine.

  But it wasn’t fine. The third and ugly part of the truth was literally staring me in the face. Rebecca’s favourite colour was purple and despite some reservations on my part, she had been adamant about using a strong shade of aubergine. We’d finally agreed on a sophisticated tan for three walls, painting the dramatic colour as an accent behind her bed. And although James usually showed precious little interest in any of my decorating ideas, we had been talking about Rebecca’s project just before his trip, when we’d been in the kitchen long enough to empty the dishwasher together.

  ‘How is your client list coming along?’ he’d asked, shaking leftover water from
a wine glass.

  ‘Slowly,’ I’d replied. ‘Rebecca’s bedroom is nearly finished but I don’t have anyone lined up after her.’

  He didn’t say anything but had stretched over my head to put some plates away.

  Happy to talk about my work, I’d let my brain run on. ‘I hope it all comes together okay. That accent colour was such a bold choice.’

  He’d pulled a slight face. ‘Yeah, purple always reminds me of something my grandad would have had.’

  I had dropped the topic, as I’d learned during our years together that James based most of his interior design dislikes on the vivid avocado and orange combinations in his grandfather’s house. He thought any room featuring retro patterns or an accent wall was hideous.

  Now, I leaped off the mattress as though it had bitten me on the behind. I was convinced I hadn’t mentioned purple, aubergine or any other arty description for the colour behind the bed.

  He knows what colour this room is. He’s been here.

  I was out of the house and into the car before I knew it. Days later, it occurred to me I should have stuffed Rebecca’s hollow curtain poles with frozen shrimp. Of course, the clever moves always elude me at the time.

  ~~~

  By the time I arrived at the Palo Alto office where James and his team were trying to create the next Silicon Valley success story, all dignity had abandoned me. I think my tears were already beginning as I lurched through the front desk area, empty because the company was too small to have a receptionist. In my haste, I then collided with the foosball table, which appears to be a required toy at every start-up with venture capital funding.

  I spotted my husband – cropped, dark brown hair, shirt half untucked as usual – hunched over his keyboard, at the end of an untidy row of T-shirt clad computer coders. This gaggle looked barely old enough to have gained admission to Stanford University, let alone already graduated.

  James looked up and noticed me. Surprise crossed his face, but was replaced with something I assumed was guilt. I could see how deep the lines in the middle of his forehead were getting these days, and how weary he looked.

  ‘Purple,’ was all I managed to utter at first. Terrific. Millions of wives over the centuries have faced this situation and all I could say was purple.

  ‘Grace –’ He stood and took my arm, trying to get me to sit.

  I wrenched myself free. ‘How did you know her bedroom is purple? How did you know?’

  ‘Listen.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s not what you think’.

  Okay, so purple may not have been eloquent, but at least it was original. I saw red – as well as crimson, magenta and every shade in between.

  ‘How could you?’ I hissed. ‘I know what’s going on. And all the time, I’ve been decorating that sodding room!’

  ‘Please,’ he glanced sideways at the line of coders. ‘Calm down!’

  Fingers had frozen over keyboards. Curious youthful faces were turned towards us: James was a popular boss.

  ‘You knew her bedroom is purple because you’ve been sleeping with her, haven’t you? You’ve been sleeping with my client!’

  ‘No, look, it wasn’t like that.’

  ‘No, you look. Look at this purple and tell me you’ve never seen it before.’ I pulled the paint sample from my purse and unscrewed the lid. Dark and liquidly sinister, I waved it dangerously close to his computer.

  ‘Okay, okay, I’m sorry. Please – calm down and let me tell you.’ By now his dark brown eyes were wide with panic.

  The whole office had fallen silent, but I saw that not everyone was watching us. Instead, some of them had turned to the far side of the room, as Rebecca stood and began heading our way. I realised most of them knew she had a part in this drama. And what about Rebecca? Was she half expecting this to happen? There I was, a total mess inside and out, and she appeared to be perfectly composed.

  She came closer and I caught the eye contact between her and James. He had now turned paler than I’d ever seen, including the time he got food poisoning in Turkey and couldn’t stand for three days. As she walked behind the desks of her co-workers, most of them didn’t seem to know whether to freeze or flee.

  ‘Look,’ she said, ‘let’s not do this here.’ Not a blonde hair was out of place.

  ‘Where would you rather do it?’ I snapped back, but my voice was quivering. ‘Your bedroom? With my husband?’

  James reached for me again, but seemed to change his mind and let his hand drop. ‘I know you’re furious right now, but it was just one stupid mistake in Vegas,’ he said quietly.

  ‘I don’t believe you! You’ve been in her bedroom!’ I was looking wildly from one to the other, sick with the thought of them wrapped around each other.

  ‘Well, actually,’ Rebecca had the nerve to put her hand on his arm, ‘it’s probably best that you know, Grace. It wasn’t a mistake.’ She glanced at me and I noticed for the first time an intense determination in her face. ‘I’m so sorry, we didn’t plan it this way. It happened after I hired you. But we can’t help how we feel.’ In her strappy beige sandals she was nearly as tall as James, and she barely needed to lift her pointy little chin upwards to gaze at my husband adoringly. ‘The thing is, I care about you and I want to be with you.’

  A collective gasp flew round the office, almost loud enough to drown my yelp of pain. I could sense the techie crowd reaching for their phones to post Wild and crazy work love triangle on their Facebook pages. I felt like I’d been whacked in the ribs with a cricket bat, but I registered through my tears that James was shaking his head in defeat. The little pot slipped from my fingers before I could think of throwing paint in their faces. Instead, it added a permanent souvenir of the demise of my marriage to the carpet and his Hush Puppies. Rebecca sidestepped smartly and her sexy sandals escaped the shower. Too bad.

  Failing entirely to live up to my name, I turned and fled with as much poise as a double-decker London bus.

  ~~~

  We spent the next two days in an ugly blur of sobbing, shouting, and silence. Not all the tears were mine: James followed me straight home and begged me to hear his side of the story. I heard but I didn’t listen and I certainly didn’t believe his lame attempts to blame his cheating on a drunken night of clubbing at the conference in Las Vegas. Did he really think I was that gullible?

  He tiptoed around me for the first evening, then slept in our guest room and left early the next day. That was worse than the awkwardness of him being in the apartment: I knew he was going to see Rebecca and I was tormented by the thought. I wasn’t even sure he’d come home again. But he did, to find me curled up on the sofa with a blanket, in pointed denial of the California sunshine outside.

  ‘Will you please talk to me?’ He approached hesitantly. ‘I know this was really, really stupid but I need to tell you my side of things.’

  ‘You mean you’ve got something original to say? Because up to this point, it’s all looking like one big cliché to me. You cheated, you got caught, you’re a lying bastard.’

  He sat down at the other end of our Ikea sofa and I immediately tucked my legs under me, as if it would burn me to touch him. ‘Grace, I didn’t lie to you, I was trying to tell you!’

  ‘Well, you didn’t try very hard.’ I could feel my eyes welling up yet again.

  ‘Look, ever since I got back, I’ve been trying to get you to sit down.’ He did at least have the decency to look distraught. ‘But you’ve been so caught up in your business recently – there wasn’t a good moment.’

  He was staring at me intently and I could see the beginning of tears in his own eyes. He clearly hadn’t shaved that morning and his shirt was even more of a crumpled disaster than usual.

  ‘Well, excuse me for turning my back for five minutes to try and make some money.’ I was firmly on the defensive, one hundred per cent the injured party. ‘And in case you hadn’t noticed, I was slaving away to finish a project for the woman you’re sleeping with!’

  ‘I’m not sleepin
g with her. It was just one time. One stupid bloody time. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘I don’t believe you. You knew about that goddamn purple wall.’ I was looking around wildly, seeking my escape route. I didn’t want to be in the same room with him.

  ‘All right, so I happened to see her bedroom! That doesn’t mean anything.’

  ‘No, it means everything.’ I was sobbing now. ‘It means I’ll never trust you again.’

  I wish I’d had the panache to storm out of our apartment in an expensive cloud of Chanel perfume. I wish I’d owned a Louis Vuitton bag to grab on my way to check into a luxury hotel, where I’d instigate a passionate revenge fling with a nineteen-year-old bellboy. Unfortunately, I clambered off the sofa with pins and needles in my legs and tripped over my blankie instead. Then I trailed soggy tissues across the floor and locked myself in the bathroom, where my only company was a dog-eared copy of National Geographic.

  I had followed my British husband – and his job – from London to California, but my own attempt at the American dream had flopped. I’d been working crazily, had failed to see my marriage falling apart, and felt like a total fool.

  I certainly couldn’t afford to kick James out and stay in our apartment on my own. My so-called business was barely breathing. I had no idea how many months or years of scraping by might be ahead of me, if I attempted to build a list of design clients who weren’t going to thank me by stealing my husband. Did I have the energy to move out, find a job, and rebuild my life in the fast-moving world of Silicon Valley? What the heck was I doing in this country, anyway? All I wanted was to crawl under the bed covers and hide, preferably with a packet of imported Cadbury’s biscuits.

  In the small, mocking hours of the next morning, I found myself unearthing a suitcase from the closet. With safety, seclusion and comfort food as my primary motives, I booked a flight home to England.

  CHAPTER 2

  ‘Quick! Hop in before they shoot us!’ Jem released me from a bear hug and started trying to stuff my suitcase into the boot of her Mini.

  Despite my fatigue, I smiled. My best friend since university, now my brother’s wife, she’d come to a halt at a jaunty and probably illegal angle by the arrivals building of Heathrow Terminal Three. We were already drawing beady looks from the police officers patrolling the area. I told her that she and six-month-old baby Sebastian presented minimal threat to Queen and country.