The Night Book

by Richard Madeley

  ‘So very formal, Mr Richmond.’

  ‘So incredibly desirable, Miss Kidd.’ Seb’s smile was instantly replaced by a look of anguish and he pressed his free hand to his forehead.

  ‘Christ, I’m really sorry, Meriel. That was completely out of order. I should never have said it; I don’t know what I was thinking. I just—’

  She squeezed his arm reassuringly against her side and smiled up at him.

  ‘Don’t be silly. It was a lovely thing to say. In fact, you’re rather lovely yourself.’

  There had been few pauses in their conversation after that, Meriel reflected now as she stared, unseeing, at the rooks foraging in the field in front of her. Seb had brought them a couple of glasses of champagne and they’d spent the next hour telling each other the stories of their lives. They were so obviously engrossed in each other that the other guests instinctively left them alone, and neither Seb nor Meriel noticed that the party was winding down around them, and that they were among the last there.

  The more they talked, the more she liked him. Oh, never mind liked him: she was falling for him, she knew that. It wasn’t just that he was ridiculously attractive, he struck her as being wise ahead of his years. Seb’s days on newspapers had given him an insight into how the world worked, she decided, without making him cynical. He was funny and well informed and interesting and charming.

  He was totally irresistible.

  And, she was about to discover, formidably direct.

  ‘So, now I know all about your doctor father and English teacher mother,’ he said eventually. ‘You know about my journo dad and happy-to-be-at-home mum. We’ve swapped our best school stories, and how you got started on magazines, and me with the local rag.

  ‘I’ve told you about my girlfriends and you’ve told me about your boyfriends. But you know what, Meriel?’

  She suddenly knew what was coming. Damn. Damn.

  ‘You’ve barely said a word about your husband. I know he’s a guy called Cameron, I know he’s a hotshot businessman. You’ve told me that much, although I knew it already from the articles I’ve read about you, which also, by the way, never fail to inform me what a perfect marriage you have.’

  ‘We do.’

  ‘Bullshit.’

  Meriel stood up.

  ‘I think I should go.’

  ‘Really? I think you should stay.’

  ‘You can’t talk about my marriage like that. You don’t know a thing about it.’

  Seb had not taken his eyes from hers.

  ‘Meriel, listen to me. I may be a cack-handed, green-as-grass, bumbling broadcaster, but I’m a bloody good reporter. Bloody good. I have a nose for a story, always have had. I can read people. I can see them.’

  ‘Oh really? That’s quite a gift. What do you see now?’

  ‘I see a lot of pain and confusion. I see a beautiful young woman whose marriage to a much older man is anything but perfect. You can hardly bring yourself to speak his name, for Christ’s sake. And just look at the way you’re behaving right this second, Meriel. If you loved the guy you’d be laughing in my face, quoting me a dozen examples of wedded bliss to prove how wrong I am. Instead, you’ve disconnected, pulled the plug, threatened to leave.’

  She stared blankly down at him. ‘I am leaving.’

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t, Meriel . . . Please sit down again. Please.’

  ‘Why? What’s the point? Even if you’re right, what possible difference could you make to anything?’

  Seb looked around them. There was no one near.

  He reached out and touched her fingertips with his own. She shivered.

  ‘All the difference in the world. Because this is a classic coup de foudre, can’t you see that? A bolt of lightning. We’ve both been struck. When I saw you earlier, and you turned and saw me, it happened. You know it did. Both our lives changed this afternoon.’

  Her eyes widened and, after a long moment, she sank back down into her chair, still staring at him. Finally she dropped her eyes. It was a surrender.

  ‘All right. All right, Seb. So what are we going to do about it? Just what exactly are we going to do?’

  ‘We’re going to start by getting out of here. Come on.’

  Meriel started the engine and reversed back out into the lane. If she turned left, she’d be back at Cathedral Crag in no more than forty-five minutes. If she turned right, she’d be with Seb in less than five.

  She’d already made her decision.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  As things turned out, they didn’t trouble themselves with supper.

  Seb was sitting in the bar nursing a half of bitter when he heard the door that led to the pub’s beer garden open behind him. He knew straight away that it was her; the sudden change in the barman’s expression told him that. The guy looked stunned, like he’d just been whacked over the head and was seeing stars.

  Seb turned around and looked at her. She was backlit by the setting sun. The tassels of her lace dress rippled in the evening breeze, casting long, fluttering shadows across the flagstoned floor towards him.

  ‘Hello, Meriel.’

  ‘Hello, Seb.’

  ‘You took your time.’ He said it with a smile, sliding off the bar stool and reaching for the little tray which held the gin and tonic he’d ordered for her half an hour before. He put his beer next to it. ‘Shall we take these outside?’

  ‘If you like.’

  The barman looked crestfallen.

  There were only two other people in the little garden, a couple in their mid-thirties. They were deep in conversation and didn’t even glance in their direction.

  Seb set down the tray onto a wooden picnic table and touched Meriel’s elbow as she was about to sit down.

  ‘No; wait . . . come round here.’

  He led her to the far side of a gnarled apple tree that grew close beside a weather-worn, mellowed old brick wall. Now they were completely hidden from view.

  He slipped both arms around her and pulled her firmly to him. She rested one hand on his shoulder and then, just as she had imagined that afternoon when she was sitting daydreaming in the sun, she slid the other around the back of his neck and pushed her fingers into his hair.

  My God, thought Meriel. It’s happening. It’s actually happening.

  They gazed steadily at each other for several moments. Seb lifted one hand and softly stroked her cheek. At last he spoke.

  ‘I’d started to think you’d changed your mind.’

  ‘I nearly did.’

  ‘What happened?’

  She gave a tiny shrug. ‘I’m not sure. I think . . . I think I’ve decided to put my faith in you.’

  He traced a finger around her mouth. ‘Meriel, I promise you won’t be sorry.’

  She laughed softly.

  ‘I might be, if you don’t hurry up and kiss me.’

  After that there’d really been nothing else to do but go to the room. Seb had secured the inn’s sole four-poster bedroom. Meriel was delighted when she saw the old-style velvet drapes hanging on all four sides of the bed.

  ‘We can pull them closed around us while we . . . when we . . . it’ll be like being in our own enclosed, separate world! Oh, I love this place, Seb. How clever of you to think of it.’

  He turned from locking the door behind them, laughing as he crossed the room to wrap her in his arms again.

  She began laughing too. ‘What’s funny? Tell me!’

  ‘You. When you make up your mind, you make up your mind, don’t you? You look happier and more relaxed than I’ve seen you all day. And even more beautiful, if that’s possible. Now please stop laughing, Miss Kidd. I want to kiss you properly.’

  ‘What, you mean outside just now wasn’t kissing me properly?’

  He pushed her gently backwards onto the bed.

  ‘Ask me that question again an hour from now.’

  Meriel shuddered and arched her back again. They had been making love for longer than she had ever thought was possible.
As she subsided once more, the back of one hand pressed to her mouth and the fingers of the other tightly gripping Seb’s hair as it brushed her belly, she felt him finally relax. After a few moments he moved back up the bed to lie, trembling slightly, full-length beside her. Gradually their breathing slowed and he turned her face towards him.

  ‘You’re absolutely beautiful.’ He kissed her and then fell back again, passing one hand across his eyes before staring up at the ceiling.

  ‘Jesus, Meriel, that was . . . I don’t know . . . like nothing I’ve ever experienced. You’re incredible.’

  She turned her head to look at him. ‘It was a first for me too, Seb.’

  ‘What? Honestly?’ He propped himself up on one elbow and began to lightly stroke her thigh with his fingers. ‘A woman as gorgeous as you? I find that very hard to believe.’ He leaned forward and nuzzled her throat, adding indistinctly: ‘You must have had heaps of paramours, beautiful Meriel.’

  She smiled and slowly rubbed the back of his neck.

  ‘No. Honestly. I was so young when I married, remember. Yes, I’d had plenty of boyfriends before then but both I and they were pretty inexperienced. As for Cameron . . . oh God, I don’t even want to think about it.’

  ‘Don’t, then . . . just a minute.’

  He slid out of bed and padded over to the mini-fridge that hummed quietly in the corner.

  ‘Let’s see what we have in here . . . aha!’

  He pulled out two miniatures of gin and a bottle of tonic water, and waved them triumphantly over his shoulder at her. ‘Success!’

  Meriel sat up, laughing. ‘Well done, lovely man.’

  ‘And for my next trick . . .’ Seb lifted the lid of the little plastic ice bucket that sat on top of the fridge.

  ‘Voila! We have ice, too . . . not much of it, though. Now, where’s the bottle opener?’

  A few moments later he’d mixed their drinks and was sliding back on his knees onto the bed beside her, a crystal tumbler in either hand.

  ‘Here’s yours. Bet you never thought you’d be finishing the day drinking G&T stark naked in bed with someone you’d only kissed for the first time that afternoon. I certainly didn’t. Sorry, there’s no lemon. Raise your glass, please, my darling.’

  She did so. ‘That’s the first time you’ve called me that. I like it. Very much. What are we drinking to?’

  ‘Us, of course. You and me.’

  She clinked her tumbler against his.

  ‘To us.’

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Cameron looked despondently out at the lake through the picture window of the lounge. It was getting dark and he suspected his wife would not be returning home until late tonight, and possibly not until tomorrow.

  He had already attempted, three times, to write a conciliatory note to her, to be left on her pillow for when she eventually came back. They all lay crumpled at the bottom of his waste basket.

  He left the sofa and walked over to his desk, flicking on the green reading lamp as he sat in the big wheeled leather chair. One more try. One more attempt to get it right before he gave up and went to bed.

  His solitary bed.

  Cameron had enough intelligence and insight to know he’d behaved badly – very badly – earlier. Meriel hadn’t looked remotely ill-dressed when she came downstairs. She’d looked fabulous, as always. But the mere thought of other men at that blasted party thinking the same had pushed him over the edge into a jealous rage.

  Why? What was wrong with him? Was it because he was acutely aware that he was losing – no, had lost – his own looks? Perhaps he should never have pursued and married a woman so much younger than himself. It had always been likely to end in tears, he could see that now. Inevitable that one day a stunning woman like Meriel would want . . .

  Vivid images of her with another man – a younger man – suddenly swamped his imagination again and he trembled. Obviously he shouldn’t have accused her of fooling around, not without evidence, but he found it impossible to dismiss the idea that she was seeing someone else. Sometimes she got back quite late from the radio station, and he himself had been spending more and more time away recently, closing the Edinburgh deal. Meriel was so extraordinarily desirable, any man in his right mind would covet her. Evidence. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t looked for it. By God, he’d gone through her bedroom with a fine-tooth comb, many times, when she was safely out of the house. But he’d found nothing; not so much as a phone number scrawled on the back of an envelope or an ambiguous note from one of her colleagues.

  There had to be something. He felt the old familiar flames of suspicion and certainty flicker and rise within him. He couldn’t help himself. He simply had to search again.

  He peered out through the window at the drive. There was no sign of her. Not even a flare of headlights from the main road below.

  Cameron pushed the writing pad away from him and carefully returned his engraved fountain pen to its holder. Then he crossed the rectory’s hall, and stood at the foot of the stairs.

  This time – this time – he was sure he’d find what he was looking for. And then it would be Meriel who would be the one on her knees, begging for forgiveness.

  He caught his breath.

  Begging him.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Meriel looked at her watch. It was quarter past eleven. She’d have to be going soon. She had no idea what she was going to tell Cameron – he would almost certainly be waiting up for her. But she realised she didn’t much care what he thought any more, not after this morning. Ghastly though it had been, she was beginning to realise that it had actually liberated her.

  She glanced down at the sleeping man beside her. They’d made love again. It had been wonderful, and different from the first time, quieter, slower. They had paused frequently to kiss and whisper to each other. Seb had said the sweetest things. After his climax he had rested his head on her shoulder and taken her hand, and the next thing she knew he’d fallen asleep.

  As Meriel reached down and stroked his hair, prior to waking him, she suddenly understood the profound sensation of relief that had been spreading through her for the last hour. At first she thought it was simply the sheer physical release that lovemaking with Seb had triggered. A great lake of sexual tension and frustration, deepening and spreading for years, had been comprehensively drained, as if the dam holding it back had been suddenly and decisively breached.

  But there was something else, too. Something that went much deeper than this quiet, purring, sexual satisfaction.

  She felt rescued. Delivered. Redeemed, even. The future was suddenly alive with hope again.

  Which made no sense, really. All the repercussions of leaving Cameron, the publicity that would result from divorcing him, still hovered malignly in the wings. She would almost certainly lose her career; her agent was probably right about that. But at this moment, lying in bed with her man, her saviour, she couldn’t summon up the will to care much any more. And anyway, maybe something would miraculously happen to prove David Weir’s prophecy (and her own) false.

  ‘Penny for them.’

  Meriel jumped slightly; he was awake, looking curiously up at her through lazy, half-closed eyes.

  ‘Oh, hello. You were sleeping.’ She hesitated. ‘Actually I was thinking about . . . don’t take this the wrong way . . . I was thinking about Cameron. And what’s going to happen.’

  Seb sat up beside her, stretching.

  ‘Yeah, I thought so. You looked miles away. Are you OK?’

  ‘Mmm . . . I think so. Look, Seb, can I ask you something?’

  ‘Anything.’

  ‘Well . . . how exactly did you know . . . that is, why were you so certain, that I’ve been so unhappy for all this time? With Cameron, I mean.’

  ‘I told you. The way you virtually excised him from your life story this afternoon. And you actually winced at the mere mention of his name when I asked if he’d come with you. I think you thought you’d hidden it, but it was obvious. You looke
d as if I’d pressed on a bruise.’

  She sighed. ‘I’m normally rather better at pretending. I was very off balance today.’

  Seb took her hand. ‘Why? What happened? Wouldn’t you like to tell me about it?’

  And suddenly, she decided that she would. About all of it – the entire, doomed voyage of a marriage to Cameron.

  ‘It might take me a while.’

  ‘We’ve got all night.’

  Meriel realised that they had. What possible difference did it make what time she got home now? There was going to be a dreadful row in any event. Why hurry back to it?

  She made up her mind. ‘In that case, I think I’ll have another drink first. You might find you could do with one too, by the time I’m finished.’

  ‘Wow. That does sound heavy. Hold on, I’ll see what’s left.’ Seb rolled out of bed and went to the little fridge. ‘There’s a couple of Scotch miniatures,’ he called. ‘The ice is all gone but the meltwater’s still pretty cold. Will that do us?’

  ‘I think whisky would be just the thing, actually.’

  When he was back in bed with her, she turned to face him. ‘Sure you really want to hear this?’

  He kissed her. ‘Meriel, you were always going to tell me about it. Now’s as good a time as any. In fact, I’d say it’s the perfect time. Whatever it is you’ve been bottling up all these years, the sooner you let it out the better. Just as long as you’re sure, my darling.’

  ‘I am. I’ve put my faith in you.’

  ‘And I’ve put mine in you. It’s a nice feeling, isn’t it?’

  She smiled at him. ‘Actually, it is. Trusting someone, I mean.’

  ‘So where do you want to begin?’

  She sipped her drink and considered a moment before answering him.

  ‘At a charity auction.’

  ‘He spat in your face?’

  Meriel nodded, miserably.

  She was exhausted. She’d told him everything. Everything, that is, except for the part about her secret diary. Lying cradled in Seb’s arms, she could scarcely believe she’d written it. It seemed absurd now – a weird, bizarre lapse in sanity. Good God, recently she’d even given it a title: The Night Book.