Page 74 of A Spell of Midlife Mayhem

‘Give me a minute to speak to the manager inside. We can get a taxi home.’

‘I’d like to get my car. It’s at Chirtlewood.’

‘That works too.’

He went inside. I stood in the light from the doorway, waiting for him, staring out at the reflections on the River Thames. It was wide and mysterious and surely held a lot of buried secrets.

Raven came out. ‘I’ve prepaid enough to cover another meal here, in case I take flight again.’

I chuckled. ‘Is that likely?’

He shrugged.

On the spur of the moment, I leaned forward and kissed him on the lips. He wasn’t expecting it. Then I felt his arms around me, pulling me closer, as he kissed me back.

And then nothing.

I’d closed my eyes. I opened them to find a hovering bird squawking at me.

‘Oh, Raven, I’m so sorry. We have to find a way around this.’

He squawked again and flew off, disappearing into the night. When I could no longer see him, I turned and strolled into central Kingston to catch a taxi back to Chirtlewood House.

***

TERRY PHONED ME LATER that night, or rather, in the early hours of the next morning.

‘Do you know what time it is here?’ I snapped. ‘You deliberately called me at this unreasonable hour.’

‘It’s your fault that you’re in the UK rather than at home, so don’t blame me,’ he said. ‘Anyway, it’s important. The lawyer emailed to say the buyers are going to go ahead with the house purchase. They only need to sort out their finance.’

‘You didn’t need to phone me about that in the middle of the night, Terry. I’ll read the email in the morning.’

A muffled sniggering came over the phone line. ‘I wanted to be the one to tell you. This is your last chance to come back home, Heather. I forgive you for leaving me. Come home, we’ll cancel the house sale, and get back to our lives.’

‘You forgive me?’ I was flabbergasted. No longer half asleep now, I got out of bed and walked up and down the bedroom to dissipate some energy. ‘How dare you say you forgive me? You were the one having the affair. It was you who did nothing around the house while I worked my guts out. Good riddance to you, I say.’

‘Now hang on, love, we can talk this out—’

‘You’ve got to be fucking joking, Terry.’ I said ‘fuck’ again. Wow.

‘I’m serious. I want to talk to you face to face, save our marriage—’

‘There’s nothing to talk about unless it’s about our daughter. I’m in a much better place now without you. I only want to sell the house, divide the assets, take my half and go my own way.’

‘I understand you’re angry, but try to see it from my point of view. You’d had a hysterectomy, and you were off sex for a bit. I merely filled the void with a colleague.’

‘You filled her void, yes. And I wasn’t “off sex”, as you put it. I was recovering from major surgery. The surgeon explained that to you.’

‘Yeah, I wasn’t really listening at the time,’ he admitted.

‘You what?’

‘You heard. Sorry. Don’t hang up. I’ve something to tell you. I’m coming over.’

‘No, you’re not. You’re too lazy and too stingy to get a plane ticket.’

‘No, really. I’ll show my undying love for you by coming to the UK, and I’ll bring you home with me.’

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