Page 6 of The Affair
Once they’d calmed down and their mouths were smarting but no longer on fire, Devan suggested, ‘Beans on toast?’ which set them off again.
Despite the chilli assault and her sore ankle, they’d ended up making love that night. She remembered it because, without their daughter in the next room, she had relaxed and allowed herself to cry out, uninhibited, as he eventually, after a delicious hour or so, brought her to orgasm. He was a good lover.Was.
She felt a tingling wave of longing pass through her body now, at the memory. But Devan was asking her something about bay leaves and she forced herself back to the present.
Bash was a beautiful child, and not just because his doting grandmother said so. Ash, his Indian father, had given him huge dark eyes, luscious lashes straight as a die, and a head of shiny dark hair. His mother had given him her wide, full mouth and cheeky grin, his grandfather the dimple in his chin. He was sturdy and even-tempered, liking to potter around getting on with things on his own. But if you turned your back, his telescopic arms would grab anything you assumed was out of reach, and it would be gone, hoarded in some secret place, perhaps never to see the light of day again.This had been the fate of Caitlin’s passport on a recent trip to France, resulting in a tedious and very expensive visit to the British Embassy, and Ash’s mobile, lost for two days inside a Playmobile recycling truck they’d given Bash for his second birthday.
They had just finished a roast chicken lunch – with Connie’s famously crunchy roast potatoes – on Easter Sunday and were lounging around the sitting room. Bash was playing with a pile of ivory mahjong tiles from Connie’s parents’ time in Singapore after the war, as the adults discussed the timing of Caitlin and Ash’s journey back to Shoreditch.
‘I’ll give him supper and get him into his jammies before we go,’ Caitlin said, ‘so we can just transfer him when we get home.’ She gave a wry laugh. ‘It sometimes works.’ She was sitting next to her father, and now she nudged him in the ribs. ‘Stroll before we go, Dad?’
Connie saw Devan hesitate. He’d looked tired today and a bit twitchy, she thought, at being dragged from his solitary routines by the unaccustomed activity in the house. But the weekend had been a success. She was pleased that he’d made an effort for them all.
‘You go,’ he said to Caitlin. ‘My back …’
‘Poor Dad.’ She stroked his arm. ‘What are you doing about that?’
‘Oh, you know, stretches and stuff … I’ve got a sheet of exercises as long as your arm from the physio.’
Caitlin cast Connie a glance, with a questioning arched eyebrow. ‘And are you doing them?’
Devan gave a short laugh. ‘Don’t you start. Your mother’s on at me day and night.’ His tone was unfairly resentful, Connie thought, given she hadn’t mentioned the exercises in weeks.
‘Well, it’s important, Dad.’
He nodded. ‘Yeah, yeah, I do know.’ He got to his feet, perhaps to prove that he could, without too much trouble. ‘You lot had better get off for that walk, if you’re going.’
For a moment he stood there, looking lost. Then he frowned. ‘By the way, has anyone seen my pen?’ He was talking about his Mont Blanc biro, sleek and black, which Connie had given him for his sixtieth as a designated crossword pen. ‘It’s always on the table, there.’ He pointed to the one at the end of the sofa where he usually sat.
Everyone looked around vaguely, and shook their heads.
‘It probably rolled off,’ Ash said, obligingly kneeling down and laying his head on the wood floor to peer under the sofa, pulling out a square of yellow Lego and – embarrassingly – an old crisp, plus a used tissue from the dusty space. But no pen.
Connie considered Ash Mistry the perfect son-in-law. Her daughter, who was a script editor, had met him at a BBC script conference. Ash, despite his high-octane job, was the calm one of the two, the most practical, Caitlin more volatile and given to bouts of anxiety that meant she spent too much time catastrophizing – mostly about ill health and accidentshappening to those she loved. Ash grounded her, and Connie loved him for it.
‘Maybe you took it upstairs,’ she suggested to her husband.
But Devan was eyeing Bash, who looked up from his mahjong tiles, obviously sensing the atmosphere. ‘Bash, sweetheart, did you see Grandpa’s pen?’ Devan went over to the little boy and sat on the nearest armchair, leaning forward to bring his face close to his grandson’s. ‘Did you move my black pen somewhere?’
Bash shook his head solemnly.
‘I won’t be cross if you did,’ Devan went on, although he already sounded stern to Connie. When his grandson didn’t respond, just stared, wide-eyed, he added, ‘Maybe you were drawing with it.’
‘I wasn’t,’ Bash said, blinking his long lashes anxiously and glancing at his mother.
‘Did you hide it in one of your trucks then … just for fun?Did you?’
His tone was sharp now and Bash’s chin began to wobble, his eyes filling with tears as he backed away from his grandfather.
‘Stop it, Dad,’ Caitlin butted in. ‘You’re upsetting him. He doesn’t know where your pen is.’
Devan frowned at his daughter. ‘I was just asking. He’s got form, Caitlin. Remember the passport?’
‘I know, and I’ll check around. But don’t badger him.’
There was an uncomfortable tension as Caitlin swiftly bent to pick up her son and carry him out of the room. Ash hurried after them with an apologetic grin.
‘I wasn’t badgering him,’ Devan said grumpily. ‘Was I?’ He looked at Connie, suddenly bewildered.
