The City Affair Read online

  “Yeah I guess that would be the obvious thing to do,” Tish murmured unconvincingly. “It’s just difficult to think about enjoying anything right now. It feels so wrong somehow.”

  “But, you know that’s what your father would have wanted,” Simon retorted looking surprised by her attitude. “I’ve listened to you rabbiting on about Double Lives almost non-stop for the past year. Surely you want to go and watch it on a big screen and experience the premiere?”

  “Not necessarily,” Tish said. “I just don’t think I’ll be able to face watching anything about betrayal at the moment. It’s too close to home. Talk about life-imitating art. Just heading back to the City reminds me of all those scenes we shot in Clerkenwell. You know, the ones I told you about where my on-screen husband makes out with a beautiful classical violinist in our bloody apartment. I mean Double Lives is a parallel to my parents’ actual life – it’s like a bad joke.”

  “That’s totally crazy!” Simon exclaimed. “The film is totally different to your story. Ok, so a man goes off with another and cheats on his wife, but that kind of thing happens all the time in real life. It’s not peculiar to your situation and you don’t have exclusive rights to it.”

  “Thanks for the sympathy,” Tish said sarcastically, starting to raise her voice. “There are a number of spooky similarities. I didn’t truly understand betrayal and the consequences when I started shooting it. But after the last few weeks at home and the visit to the solicitor I do, and that’s why I’ve gone off it rapidly.”

  “But it’s only a made-up story Tish,” Simon argued. “And from what you told me before Christmas, it is much more about the ethics of a doctor falling in love with his slightly deranged patient than it is about the rights and wrongs of having an affair.”

  “I so don’t agree,” Tish retorted. “It’s about bad outcomes and what happens when people go behind each other’s back. So I beg to differ. This film is so about my life or, should I say, my parents’ former life. How the hell did he think he could go behind our backs and not even tell us?”

  “Look Tish,” Simon said wearily. “You’re mixing things up. We’ve been through this all already on the phone for hours. With regard to your dad, we don’t even know anything about this other woman yet. She may have seduced him for all you know, not the other way round, and tricked him into an affair because she wanted his child.”

  “Ah, but whether she seduced him or not, they had a child that we bloody well didn’t know about until that idiot of a solicitor told us,” Tish responded angrily. “My father had a double life. The film is called Double Lives, come on…”

  “Stop jumping the gun,” Simon protested. “You don’t know anything about this so-called affair or sibling yet apart from what Heyworth told you. I mean maybe your dad just had a one-night stand with this woman? We don’t know if he was actually in some long-running relationship up with her.”

  “Well Heyworth seemed to imply it was something serious,” Tish huffed. “The only difference is that she probably isn’t a professional violinist!”

  “From what you told me on the phone the solicitor didn’t confirm anything much about the woman or the child,” Simon argued as he swerved to avoid a car trying to overtake. “Until we have more information we don’t know that for sure.”

  “True,” Tish sighed. “The frustration I have now is that I know some pretty devastating facts about my dad’s life but nothing more than what we were told the first time we went to see Heyworth. The facts are that Dad has a son living in New York with the mother of the said child whom my dad had some form of physical relationship with, however casual.”

  “How old is the son? Did you find that out?”

  “I’ve no idea,” Tish snapped, irritated by the barrage of questions. Turning to look at Simon as he drove through a red light, she screamed. “Careful, you’ve just jumped a traffic light and my nerves are totally on edge can you please slow down!”

  “Ok, ok!” Simon shouted back. “Give me a break, I’m trying to help you work all this stuff out and you seem to be taking your anger out on me.”

  “Look, I’m sorry,” Tish apologised. “I’m frustrated because I don’t really know much and I want to know more. I was with Mum and I had no intention of asking Heyworth too many questions in front of her. I let Mum do the asking and she didn’t want to know anything about the child and she certainly didn’t want to know anything about the woman.”

  “I think that is going to be the most difficult thing for your mum to get her head around,” Simon reflected as he slowed down. “You know that your dad actually had a child with this other woman.”

  “Agreed,” Tish replied, looking out of the window. “Mum confided in me that her and Dad’s marriage wasn’t exactly perfect. It seems to have been almost a kind of platonic relationship.”

  “Blimey, I would never have guessed that,” Simon exclaimed, accelerating through an amber traffic light. “They always looked pretty happy and tactile to me. I wonder why your mum didn’t leave. She won’t have been short of other offers. I mean in her day I bet she was stunning.”

  “What a typical thing for a man to say,” Tish hissed. “And just to answer your actual question, she didn’t leave him because she didn’t want to mess up the marriage and she was afraid of the impact it might have on me.”

  “I bet that’s the reason your dad didn’t leave either,” Simon replied much more calmly. “He utterly adored you. Do you think the reason your dad was stressed at Christmas was because he was thinking of asking for a divorce?”

  “How the hell do I know?” Tish replied, confused by Simon’s change of tack. “Let’s face it, I didn’t really know my father at all, according to recent history. What makes you ask that all of a sudden?”

  “Just that maybe it had finally got to that point,” volunteered Simon. “Maybe this other woman had been pressing him to make some kind of decision.”

  “Don’t make me feel any worse about things than I already do,” Tish pleaded. “It’s difficult enough to find out about all this stuff as it is. But to think that you now suspect he might have been preparing to leave us to boot before he died…”

  “I’m sorry,” Simon said. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m not trying to stir things up. Shall we go out for dinner to cheer ourselves up? But only if we agree not to talk about this stuff.”

  But Tish couldn’t face going out. She knew Simon was trying to help her out but really she needed a bit of space. She’d spent too long in Levenhurst unable to ask anyone the questions she really wanted to ask, because the people who could give her the answers were either dead or didn’t have names or contact details.

  “Can you just take me back to mine,” Tish finally responded. “I just need to be on my own. It’s got nothing to do with you and everything to do with how I feel.”

  Simon looked over at Tish in the passenger seat and turned up the music in an attempt to ignore what she’d just asked him to do.

  “Please turn the music down,” Tish snapped trying to find the volume button on the music display in Simon’s flash new car.

  Simon grappled with Tish’s fingers in an attempt to stop her from messing up the music system and turned the volume down himself before saying quietly but firmly, “I don’t want you to be on your own on your first day back in town, even if you don’t want to go out I think you should come back to mine.”

  “Simon,” Tish whispered quietly. “You’ve been amazing since Dad died. But I just want a bit of time to myself. I’ve been with Mum for the last few weeks and I just need a bit of head space, that’s all.”

  “Ok,” Simon replied. “It’s just that you hardly rang me while I was away and I guess this just feels like another rejection. It would be a shame if all this got in the way of us…”

  “A shame,” Tish said sarcastically. “That’s hardly the right reason to have a bloody relationship. There needs to be passion, and love and friendship and a total spark to even stand a chance. I don�
��t want to live like my mum and dad did.”

  “That’s hurtful Tish. Nothing is ever going to be one hundred per cent all the time,” Simon replied angrily. “But I guess I was looking forward to spending a bit of time with you that’s all. You know, just me and you.”

  “Simon, look, my head’s not in the right place at the moment I can hardly think straight. This is not about me and you, it’s about me. If it’s easier I can get out at Moorgate and take the tube home. It won’t take me long and I could do with some air.”

  “Ok, ok, I get it,” Simon said, irritated by how the conversation was going. “If that’s what you really want then I have to respect your request, but I insist on driving you home.”

  Chapter 13 - Before The Party

  It felt kind of wrong going to a party so soon after the trauma of the past few weeks, but something had finally snapped inside Tish.

  Feeling daunted at the prospect of leaving her flat for the first time in seven days, she’d rung home to check her mother was ok before going out to celebrate the fact that Double Lives had managed to attract some pretty incredible first reviews.

  “What great news that it’s getting such good write-ups,” Pamela said in a tone of voice that was noticeably more positive than at any time since before Christmas. “And you don’t have to ring me for permission to go out and enjoy yourself. Your father would have wanted you to take every opportunity you can. Just make sure you take your phone with you and keep safe. That’s my only request.”

  “Of course I’ll take it Mum,” Tish said. “But I just hate the idea of me dressing up in my party frock and you being stuck at home on your own. You are too young and beautiful to have all these dreadful things happen to you.”

  “Look darling,” Pamela began explaining patiently, “don’t worry about me. I’ve had quite a productive day taking some of your dad’s clothes to the local charity shop and sorting through paperwork. I’m perfectly fine here. I’m trying to look on the bright side of things. I’ve got a comfortable home and I’m starting to enjoy life a little bit more now.”

  “Oh Mum,” Tish complained. “I wanted to help you sort Dad’s things. It’s too sad to think of you having to do that all on your own.”

  “Your father spent a fortune on work and weekend clothes,” Pamela interrupted. “And if someone else can get some use out of them then that is a very good thing. I can’t keep them here forever, and I’d rather do it now than keep getting reminded of him every time I walk into the bedroom closet.”

  “I suppose,” Tish said, frowning as she thought about what her mother had just said. “It just seems bad that you had to do it all on your own that’s all.”

  “Look,” Pamela argued. “A lot of what has happened could be called sad and bad but I can’t continue to look at things like that. When we were at Chartwell, I remembered how Churchill said, ‘If you’re going through hell, keep going,’ and it struck me then that it’s exactly what we have to do now.”

  “Well, that’s certainly worth bearing in mind, given that hell is certainly how this feels,” Tish acknowledged sarcastically. “Is there any other news from anyone?”

  “Only that Frances rang a few times,” reported Pamela. “She sends her love and says Bertie is missing you. He escaped from the garden yesterday. Bernard found him by the dustbin at The Old Boar, having a second lunch.”

  “Oh, sweet old Bertie,” Tish said, rolling her eyes. “I’ve hated not being able to take him for walks. I didn’t realise how much I would miss his company. He gave me a reason to get up and go out when I was at home. Hopefully, Frances won’t mind if I borrow him a bit when I come down next?”

  “I’m sure she’d be delighted if you did. I think she finds it all a bit too much these days, taking him out twice a day,” said Pamela. “It’s probably why he’s escaping all the time. He’s used to going on very long walks with her, and misses going out despite the fact he’s actually getting on himself.”

  “Well I’m not surprised he escaped, Mum,” Tish continued. “He can be a real devil to catch up with once you’ve let him off the lead. There was one time in January when I took him out, and he belted off into the middle distance after a rabbit. Then when I finally caught up, I found him lying next to this exhausted rabbit, poking at it with his paws begging it to get up to resume the chase. He is just the tiniest bit crazy, which is why I love him so much.”

  “That’s so funny,” Pamela giggled. “I will have to tell Bernard. He tells me that’s what Labradors are like. He and Carrie used to have a couple of them years ago.”

  “Well I’m not sure about telling Bernard anything Mum! He knows too much already in my opinion, just by being nosy. But you can tell Frances I’ll be down soon.” Tish smiled. “And give Bertie a hug from me when you see him. I’d better get going or I’ll be late for the party. Love you loads. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  “Ok darling. Speak tomorrow, I’m so looking forward to seeing you soon,” Pamela said, before asking. “Oh, and by the way, I meant to ask you yesterday but forgot. Just so I can make sure we have enough food in the house, will Simon be coming down with you?”

  “No, he will not be coming with me every time I come to see you,” Tish answered defiantly. “I’ve told him I need a bit of space. Ring me on the mobile if you need me for anything tonight, otherwise I’ll ring you again tomorrow to let you know how I get on.”

  “Alright darling,” Pamela sighed. “I really hope you can let your hair down and enjoy your evening. You deserve a bit of fun after the last few weeks. But do take care of yourself and take an umbrella with you as the forecast is atrocious for tonight. I told Bernard you were going out to a special film party and he told me to tell you it would really pelt it down.”

  As Tish put the phone down, she sighed heavily at the mention of Bernard. But aware that, whatever other faults he had, he always got the weather right, so she picked up an umbrella on her way out of the flat and grimaced at the thought of him.

  Walking out of the front door, for the first time in a week, she thought of Simon. She’d only spoken to him on the phone twice since he’d picked her up at the station, but on both occasions it had felt like they’d had very little to say other than to talk about her father and the details of his other life, which she didn’t like him bringing up all the time.

  It was almost as though he was trying to use the case to endlessly advertise his own credentials as a potential husband. Not all men were the same, he kept reminding her, and he personally had never two-timed any of his girlfriends, unlike most of the other blokes he knew. He was starting to sound like a stuck gramophone record.

  As Tish locked the flat behind her, she looked up and down the road for a cab. It felt strange but refreshing to feel the cold February night air on her cheeks. Despite the rain – and her carefully made up appearance – she held her face up to the sky and closed her eyes as if to gain strength for the night ahead.

  Looking back down the road, she almost immediately spotted a bright yellow lozenge on top of a black cab in the near distance and stuck her arm.

  As she jumped into the back, her thoughts turned away from her mother and Simon towards the night ahead.

  Chapter 14 - The Party

  Apart from the sudden need to get fresh air, it had been Cameron who’d finally persuaded her to go out for the evening. He’d invited her first for cocktails at Claridge’s with other members of the film cast and then onwards to wherever the night took them.

  Prior to Christmas, she would have been unable to contain herself at the prospect of an evening with Cameron McKenna. Today she felt pleased to be going to meet him, but nowhere near as pleased as she would have been had her world not spun on its axis.

  Whoever now tried to seduce her, Tish thought, she no longer felt or thought the way she used to. Part of her had died with her father and another part when she’d found out he’d had a double life.

  Sinking back into the sticky leather seats, Tish rearranged her hair and lon
g black dress which was slit at the centre. She’d bought it just before Christmas, before death had intervened and when dressing up and looking glamorous was something she absolutely loved to do. Wearing it now just felt wrong.

  As the cab pulled away from the pavement, Tish watched as pellets of rain water ran quickly down the windows of the cab. Pressing her nose up against the glass, she stared at the scene outside, watching as anonymous faces hurried along water-sodden streets, heads down as they made their way to tube stations, theatres and restaurants.

  How different her life was now, she thought, and how numb she still felt inside. It was as if she was looking down on an old life - one that she still recognised but felt part of no longer.

  Only one person now kept her awake at night, and it was someone she had never even met before. A half-sibling whose name she didn’t know.

  Since coming back to her pad in Shepherds Bush, Tish had found time to think. Surprisingly, the blind anger she’d felt towards her father had started to recede slightly and, despite trying to suppress thoughts of a half-brother while she’d been staying with her mother, the idea of him existing in New York increasingly played on her mind.

  She’d spent hours on her own in her small but bijou flat – paid for by her father and decorated by her mother – imagining what her half-brother looked like and how they would both feel if they were ever to meet. Peter Heyworth had been scant with any details about him or his mother. All she knew was that they definitely both existed and that they lived together in New York.

  As the cab drove up outside Claridge’s, Tish felt no inclination to get out. All she wanted to do was to go back home, she didn’t trust herself or the evening ahead. Rather than paying for her fare she asked the cab driver if he could take her back to Shepherds Bush, but she couldn’t get him to hear through the glass partition.