The City Affair

by Helen Crossfield

  “According to Daphne, Dad seemed to be totally caught between his two families,” Tish continued. “But he made no firm commitment to her and, if anything, was making it appear that he never would leave us. At least we now have an explanation for his black mood and the whisky. I think she is devastated that they never spoke again.”

  “No wonder he had a heart attack,” Pamela said quietly. “All the jigsaw pieces are now finally slotting into place.”

  “I agree that most of them are,” Tish replied. “But Daphne also told me she’d said some unforgiveable things to him which she will always regret, but she never told me what they were?”

  “Well, if she doesn’t want to talk about it, what she said went to the grave with your father, and remains between the both of them. We have to now let things be,” Pamela said sadly before saying goodbye to her daughter and putting the phone down.

  The second phone call came through at 10pm, and it was Simon. “Hi babe, just ringing to wish you goodnight and to say thanks for a fab weekend. Once I’ve got this big deal out of the way we’ll be able to start to get back to normal, I hope, and I’ve been thinking maybe you can start to spend more time round at my flat?” Tish’s heart lurched. How on earth was she ever going to get things back to normal with Simon and how could she possibly answer his question honestly?

  She bit her bottom lip hard before replying impulsively that it was over and that’d she betrayed him with Cameron McKenna and that it was best that they just left things.

  For a few moments the line was silent before Simon answered angrily. “Ok, Tish. If that’s what you really want…”

  Chapter 20 - Simon’s Revenge

  The next few weeks passed in a daze. Telling her mother the truth about New York had been unexpectedly cathartic and Pamela had been surprisingly understanding about her going to meet Daphne. Telling Simon the truth about her liaison with Cameron McKenna had been altogether more traumatic.

  Simon had followed up with a number of phone calls, firstly to try and understand what exactly had gone on with Cameron McKenna and secondly to ask her if she fully understood what she was giving up.

  When neither of these approaches had achieved any kind of reconciliation, he had simply stopped phoning and texting. And after a couple of weeks her mobile, normally full of his messages, was now almost completely empty. Whilst it had created a welcome relief in the first few days, the silence had eventually started to panic her.

  During the third week, Tish had rung Simon’s number a few times and got no reply so, after sitting it out for a few days, she had decided to go and try and talk to him in his favourite coffee shop near the Barbican early one Saturday morning.

  As she walked through Smithfield Market her heart started to pound and her stomach lurched as she thought about what she would say when they finally met. She would tell him that the brief encounter with Cameron McKenna had somehow got mixed up with her father’s affair and the film. It had been a weird kind of revenge and not in any way connected to him.

  She would tell him that out of every man she had ever met, she liked him the most and probably loved him if only she could allow herself to, but the thought of actually allowing herself to was totally frightening. As she walked deep in thought, she looked up and caught a glimpse of Simon in the distance.

  Quickly she moved out of view as she watched him heading for his favourite haunt

  at the usual time with a beautiful City blonde on his arm. The girl was of slim build and wore a smart charcoal grey jacket with matching skirt with high Christian Louboutin heels. Her shirt, no doubt done up higher during weekdays, was today largely undone, revealing an ample cleavage. They laughed and joked as they walked.

  Tish had never felt jealous until that particular Saturday morning but, as the London sky darkened and it started to drizzle, she experienced feelings of jealousy for the first time in her life. Never before had she wanted to go up to a man and demand his return. But she did today.

  Her eyes widened in amazement as they flirted their way down the road. She felt utterly betrayed and yet it was her fault he was now with someone else. She had played her hand and lost him to another, and even Tish had to admit that her adversary was absolutely bloody gorgeous.

  Egged on by a strange desire to find out how close they were despite the deep hurt in her heart, Tish waited in the shadows until they disappeared into the edgy French coffee house with the real croissants and café au lait that Simon and her had shared together so many times over the past twelve months and more.

  As she wondered how long she would have to wait to see them again, Simon and his new friend emerged with grey paper coffee cups in hand and a pastry each in a bag. Still arm in arm they walked back in the direction of Simon’s apartment with Tish following them at a safe distance.

  And as they entered the building with the retro entrance Tish watched in horror as they both got into the mirrored lift, and she tried hard to forget the scene in Double Lives where Ginny Braithwaite and Cameron McKenna had made love in such an unlikely enclosure while she had sat at home waiting.

  Chapter 21 - Forgiveness

  Forgiveness is probably the most difficult thing in the world, Tish thought as she sat at home cradling a mug of piping hot coffee at the kitchen table and listened to her mother telling her to forgive Bernard.

  “I mean it is so sad that we lost Bertie and especially in this way,” Pamela said. “But Bernard owned up and apologised to Frances as soon as he’d done it. I mean she absolutely forgives him and so should you.”

  “But I adored Bertie,” Tish howled. “He’d become a true and loyal friend. I just can’t bear thinking about the fact that he died in those circumstances.”

  “Tish,” Pamela interrupted, sounding exasperated by her daughter. “Bertie had escaped again and was in the road. Bernard swerved as much as he could to avoid the dog. The law makes it quite clear that you cannot swerve when animals get into the road, otherwise you can end up causing an even bigger tragedy.”

  “I don’t care what the law says,” Tish said. “I am just so upset about Bertie. Bernard must have been able to do something other than just plough into him like that.”

  Tish,” Pamela exclaimed as the doorbell went. “That is not a very charitable thing to say, I’m sorry but…”

  “Pamela,” Frances said as she walked into the kitchen. “I hope you don’t mind me popping in but I saw Tish’s car and I had to come and have a word with her.”

  “Hello,” Tish cried as she got up and threw her arms around Frances. “Mum’s just told me the news and I’m absolutely devastated about Bertie. I adored him and he’d been so kind and lovely and—”

  “Well, I knew you’d be horribly upset,” Frances said calmly, despite the trauma. “That’s why I wanted to pop round. Remember what I told you at your father’s funeral about the fact he would not want you to be upset and he would want you to get on and enjoy your life. Well Bertie would want the same.”

  “I know, I know,” Tish wailed strangely, crying for herself as much as she was crying for Bertie. “I just hope that Bernard makes it up to you.”

  “Tish,” Frances exclaimed, sounding quite shocked at the tone of Tish’s voice. “Bernard came straight round and explained what had happened and apologised. I mean he could have easily pretended it wasn’t him and made something up. But he told the truth and I forgive him, of course I do and so should you.”

  “I’m sorry,” Tish said, feeling bad about blaming Bernard for something that had been clearly unavoidable, and confused by why she had taken such a recent dislike to all things Bernard. “I’m the last person who should be taking such an unforgiving stance as I’m badly in need of forgiveness myself.”

  “Why dear, what is there to forgive?” Frances asked, happy to change the subject.

  “Oh, everything Frances,” Tish wailed. “I messed up big time with Simon. Did something pretty unforgiveable and he’s ended up with someone else.”

  “Oh, I am sor
ry. I had very high hopes of you and Simon. He is a very nice man indeed and I always thought he adored you,” Frances said, as she walked over and hugged her. “I’m sure all you need to do is to pick the phone up to Simon and explain how you feel about what you need forgiving for.”

  “Do you really think so?” Tish asked hopefully. “I do hope so and that I haven’t messed up completely.”

  “Forgiveness can be very cathartic, Tish,” Frances added. “I wouldn’t dream of prying into your personal life but, judging by the look in his eyes when he’s around you, I’m sure there’s nothing he wouldn’t forgive you. And you also need to forgive Bernard. If I can forgive him then so can you.”

  Chapter 22 - Film Night

  The premiere held true to some of the early reviews, with most film critics lauding the acting, direction and the cinematography as brilliant and edgy.

  Tish had taken her mother and Simon to the event in Leicester Square, wearing a slinky red dress, vertiginous heels and a pair of diamond earrings and matching necklace which her father had given her mother many years ago.

  Cameron McKenna embraced Tish on the red carpet, kissing her dramatically on the cheeks as the cameras rolled with Simon holding her protectively around the waist as she kissed him back.

  Before their liaison in the limousine, Tish would have trembled at his proximity, but something had been settled between them that night on the leather seats and in the restaurant and Simon had now forgiven her the indiscretion, reassured that it had only been an incident brought about by her father’s death and the confusing similarities between the storyline of Double Lives and that of her own life.

  “Hola, you look stunning,” Cameron had whispered into her right ear while his eyes had hungrily scanned the lithe and overly exposed body of a walking goddess who’d brushed past him knowingly, egging his ego on.

  “Thank you,” Tish had replied as she squeezed his hand for comfort, before pulling at her dress self-consciously as they headed up the red carpet separately.

  Inside the cinema, the air was expectant and as soon as the film started the audience fell silent.

  Seeing the film on a huge screen, finally, from beginning to end was a strangely exhilarating experience and not necessarily a wholly comfortable one.

  All three of them had watched as a piece of real life synchronicity had played out in front of them. She gripped Simon’s hand as the magnificently charismatic McKenna dramatically unzipped his trousers in a gold plated lift before pressing his flesh against Wendi Wang, his beautiful but mentally fragile neighbour and patient played to perfection by Ginny.

  Touching Wendi’s bright red lips with his fingertips, Cameron had made mad passionate love to her in the lift as the camera had moved edgily around the mirrored surrounds showing her violin and bow strewn on the floor.

  After their first dangerous and rather dramatic liaison, grainy black and white shots had taken a mesmerised audience first into Cameron’s marital flat where Tish sat waiting for him to come home in a silk negligee. “Hello darling,” he’d said, irritated by her presence and looking disturbed that she had stayed up for him. “Why did you wait up this late? You knew I was working.”

  Tish had answered by looking at her husband with a potent air of detachment and the scorn of a wronged woman. “Because,” she replied defiantly, “I’ve not had the best of days. I was lonely and wanted some company. But you seem angry that I bothered.”

  The camera had then panned to an expensive looking flat three stories up within the same trendy East London block where Wendi Wang, a brilliant violinist with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, had just arrived home.

  Slightly dishevelled, she’d walked into a taupe and grey bedroom that looked like it might have been designed by Tom Ford, where her husband lay sleeping. She’d watched him silently for a few minutes, resting her head on the doorway, while playing with the beautiful heart-shaped diamond at her neck.

  After a few minutes, Wendi had moved from the bedroom to an equally neutral and minimalist sitting room where she’d picked up her violin and silently but provocatively stretched her bow over the strings before starting to play.

  “It‘s so cool seeing you on camera,” Simon had whispered in Tish’s ear as she came back into view. “I’m so proud of you.”

  “Thanks,” Tish whispered back, smiling at the surreal storyline playing out in front of them and the fact she was actually in a film as good as this. “I’m not sure I say that much now for the whole duration of the film, but it’s good to see how it’s all come together.”

  The film had then run for the next ninety minutes in the same grainy moody way, following the lives of these two beautiful but highly complex metropolitan couples over the course of a year.

  Tish had taken to the role of a silently frustrated wife like a duck to water. She had wondered more than once whilst watching it, whether she had picked things up off her mother subliminally. How could she be so good at being betrayed she thought, as she watched her character’s refusal to admit that her husband was having an affair whilst slowly going off the rails.

  There were some epic moments. The best was when Wendi Wang played the violin for Cameron on a windswept day in Cornwall in the nude as foamy waves lashed behind them, and a second when Tish had come close to discovering their secret when she’d returned home to their marital flat one morning to pick something up unexpectedly.

  She’d hovered in the kitchen and, after getting distracted by her phone, had not gone into the bedroom where Cameron and Wendi lay on the marital bed listening to Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. The audience had drawn breath at that one.

  But it was the final twist that caused the biggest gasp of the night, when Wendi Wang had arrived home to find her husband dead next to her violin with the bow at his neck and a suicide note written in red lipstick across the sitting room mirror that read. “You broke my heart into a million little pieces, so I have decided to set you free. You no longer need permission to fly.”

  As the credits rolled, most of the equally metropolitan audience stood up and clapped wildly as they wiped away tears and muttered words that sounded like they had thoroughly enjoyed themselves. “Amazing movie,” “McKenna was superb,” “That’s got to be up there.”

  “That was a wonderful film, Tish. Well done,” her mother had said breathlessly, as they walked out into a balmy London evening to the approval of London’s art critics. “I’m so proud of you darling, and look at all these cameras. It feels like the film is going to be big!”

  “Thanks,” Tish replied, relieved that her mother approved of her acting but unsure how the events of the film had affected her. Trying to keep things light, she added “But I didn’t realise how little I had actually said until I watched it all the way through.”

  “Oh stop being so self-effacing Tish. I thought the film was brilliant and so were you,” Simon smiled. “And I think we all deserve a celebratory drink after the stress you’ve put us all through. Wasn’t there an after-dinner party you said we’d all been invited to?”

  “Yes, but I only want to go there for one drink. Afterwards I thought it would be nice for the three of us to go out on our own for a special dinner,” Tish replied, desperate to avoid Cameron McKenna and Simon meeting if she possibly could. “My treat, so don’t look alarmed. I’ve booked us into a really swanky restaurant where we did the filming last year which does the most amazing food. I just want to say a big thank you to you both and to remember Dad. You know just the three of us.”

  Chapter 23 - September 2008

  In September 2008, Richard Thorpe was finally proved right, albeit posthumously. Some nine months after his death the world’s financial markets were crashing through the floor and the sheer scale of the catastrophe in the banking sector was becoming plain for everyone to see.

  Richard was now being mentioned in the trade press almost as often as he used to be when alive, with journalists paying homage to “the brilliant City fund manager who called it right
all along”, and “the only man with big enough balls to stand up to a banking system that would adversely affect every honest banking customer in the Western world.”

  Some articles also insinuated that dealing with the stress of all the hugely unjustified criticism he had received could have cost him his life. Those who penned them were not privy to the other stressors that could have contributed. Indeed, at this stage not even Tish or Pamela were aware of the full extent of them.

  The fact that Richard had taken the same defensive investment stance employed at work towards his own assets had meant that Tish, Pamela, Daphne and Jake were all sitting pretty in government bonds and cash. But the collapse of Lehman Brothers, which had proved the catalyst for the crisis, had cost Daphne her job… and prompted a sympathetic phone call from Tish as soon as she saw the news headlines whilst watching TV in her flat in Shepherds Bush.

  Much to her surprise, soon after hearing Daphne’s voice, Tish learnt that a double catastrophe had happened. The fall-out had not only cost her father’s mistress her job at Lehman’s but somehow in the chaotic aftermath she had also managed to lose Jake.

  “Daphne, you will have to slow down and give me that again,” Tish had said on being told the news. “I am struggling to understand what you are actually trying to tell me.”

  “I’m sorry, I know this sounds bizarre,” Daphne replied. “But it is all true. Learning that I had lost my job was bad enough. Although Richard had pretty much warned me I might as he knew Lehman’s was totally overstretched. But everything then just spiralled totally out of control as Jake went missing in the evening. He just simply left the house when I didn’t manage to make it to the school gates in time.”

  “Ok, ok,” Tish said, “I asked you to slow down, and you really need to give me this in bite sized chunks. What do you mean you lost him? How can you lose a child?”