A Short Affair

by Simon Oldfield

  Last night his father came into the kitchen whilst Stevie was dancing with his mother. A Motown song was playing, and her face was becoming greasy with perspiration. Stevie could smell chip fat and perfume on her collar. His father stood and watched them for a minute before saying, ‘Smokey. That’s the stuff.’ Then he reached for Stevie’s mother’s arm. ‘Give her to me,’ he told his son. ‘I’ll show you how it’s done.’ And he pulled her into a tight embrace against the plaid of his shirt, which made her close her eyes, and prompted Stevie to leave the room.

  At school Stevie was always alert to her presence. You never knew when Ms Featherstone might enter a room unannounced.

  And so, when she pushed the double doors open and stood, chin held high, scanning the rows during his Learning for Life lecture, Stevie wasn’t that surprised. Mr Roth and the rest of the room watched in silence as, without apology, she caught Stevie’s eye, waved a folder in his direction, and began ploughing towards him.

  She slapped the folder – the proofs for that month’s school newspaper – on the desk and hissed, not quietly enough, ‘The masterpiece!’

  Stevie’s ears burned with shame and pleasure.

  Mr Roth said, ‘Don’t let me interrupt you, Ms Featherstone.’ The class sniggered. Ms Featherstone exited with a jaunty wave in Stevie’s direction.

  Later, she caught Stevie in the dinner hall and said she wouldn’t be able to make their scheduled final editorial meeting. He should check with his parents first, but her suggestion, therefore, was for a meeting on Saturday morning, at her house. She would pick him up at ten o’clock.

  He didn’t ask his parents. He told them, the night before, what was happening.

  His mother said, ‘Isn’t she the feminist one?’

  Stevie said he thought she was.

  ‘That’s all right, then,’ she said.

  ‘Why is that all right?’ asked his father, from behind his newspaper.

  ‘Well, you know. They’re not generally . . . predatory.’

  His father snorted. ‘Not generally pretty, you mean.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. Some of them are quite attractive.’

  ‘Name one.’

  There was a pause. After a while, his mother ventured, ‘Miriam Stoppard?’

  When he’d stopped laughing, his father re-erected his newspaper and muttered, ‘She’ll have him up at Greenham before you know it. Waving banners. Burning bras.’

  ‘I don’t think men are allowed up there, George.’

  ‘My point exactly, June,’ said the newspaper.

  Ms Featherstone drew up outside the house. To Stevie’s relief, she stayed where she was and peeped the Mini’s horn. Hurrying towards the car, he was aware of his mother monitoring his progress down their narrow pathway.

  ‘Is that your mum?’ Ms Featherstone asked.

  Every fibre of his being wanted to deny that the woman in the loud, huge skirt, standing in the path with her arms crossed, was his mother. But as he secured his seatbelt he could smell Ms Featherstone’s hair – deeply soil-like, strangely sweet – and he nodded.

  ‘She looks . . . nurturing,’ said Ms Featherstone, driving away.

  Alone with Ms Featherstone. He was alone with Amber, in a small, enclosed space, the suburbs disappearing behind them. He’d imagined, many times, this kind of journey. He took a breath and tried to remain alert to every detail, so he could replay the scene later on, in the dark.

  She wrenched the gearstick, wound down the window to let out her cigarette smoke.

  He watched the grey plume disappear and wished he had his own cigarette. They were on a busy shopping street now, lined by Mr Minit, Gateway and several shops with Arabic lettering on the windows. Boxes of red peppers and aubergines spilled onto the pavement.

  ‘Your brother’s gone to the Falklands, hasn’t he?’

  ‘Cornwall,’ blurted Stevie. ‘He’s actually gone to Cornwall.’

  She looked puzzled.

  ‘He’s in training. The navy. Helston. He wants to go to war, though.’

  ‘I don’t understand that,’ she said. ‘Do you?’

  He thought of what his father had said, when Mike made the announcement: Going to war, for old iron-knickers? Are you insane? But he’d smiled as he said it, and held his son’s shoulder. Then he’d drawn him in for a bear hug. Stevie had shared a bear hug with his father only once, when, after years of trying, he’d finally learned how to ride a bike.

  ‘No,’ said Stevie. ‘I don’t understand it at all.’

  Mike had later confessed that joining the navy seemed a better option than the dole queue or cutting out medical implements at the local factory.

  Her knee – clothed today in a tight pair of pink cotton trousers – brushed the gearstick. ‘Well. Let’s hope Maggie doesn’t bring in conscription,’ she said, with a half-smile.

  Then she took her hand off the steering wheel and placed it on his arm. He couldn’t be sure if she meant to leave her fingers there for longer than a beat. But he was sure that she sighed. Ms Featherstone sighed, and Stevie sighed, too.

  Her house was a small terraced place in the east of the town. It reminded him of Pigeon Street. All red bricks, multicoloured fanlights and small cars lining the kerb.

  Inside, the smell of damp and fried onions greeted him.

  ‘Hello?’ she shouted, swinging her bag and jacket onto the banister and peering up the stairs.

  Perhaps she had a housemate. There was certainly no ring on her wedding finger. He’d checked, many times.

  Stevie stared as a large man in a fluffy dressing gown descended the stairs.

  ‘Not dressed yet?’ Ms Featherstone asked the man.

  The man yawned in response.

  She tutted. ‘Stevie, this is Barney. Barney, Stevie.’

  Barney? As in Rubble?

  The man raised his chin in greeting. It was as rectangular and definite as a brick. Then he stepped in front of Stevie and ruffled Ms Featherstone’s hair. ‘Making coffee?’ he asked.

  She smoothed her blonde bob back into place but made no other protest. Instead she went through to the kitchen and filled the kettle. Barney slowly climbed back upstairs, the muscles in his calves jostling for space as he walked, leaving Stevie gawping after him in the hallway.

  After handing him a mug of coffee, she said, with a roll of her eyes, ‘Better take one to the beast.’ And she disappeared.

  Stevie took the opportunity to look around the living room. A high shelf ran from one end of the room to the other, lined with orange-spined paperbacks. Through the low window hyacinths splayed their greenness onto the path. On the fireplace were a couple of burnt-down candles and a framed black-and-white photograph of a couple on their wedding day.

  ‘Mum and Dad,’ said Ms Featherstone, returning and standing close behind him. ‘Happiest day of their lives. Or, at least, I hope it was, since they spent the rest of them fighting.’

  He took a swig of burning coffee. ‘That’s usual, though. Isn’t it?’

  ‘Is there a usual?’

  ‘There is in my house,’ said Stevie. He was aware this sounded more dramatic than it actually was. The truth was his mother and father got along fairly well, despite regular rows. What Stevie had really started to hate were their habitual intimacies. The way his father would often stroke his mother’s forearm whilst he spoke, as if, Stevie thought, to silence her. The way his mother would brush his father’s hair before he left the house, and tut admiringly at the density of it.

  But Ms Featherstone didn’t seem to have heard. She was looking towards the doorway, where Barney was now standing, wearing a pair of jogging bottoms and a sweatshirt emblazoned with the words CORPUS CHRISTI.

  ‘I’m off, then.’ He raised a hand in salute.

  ‘Where are you going?’ she asked.

  ‘Tennis,’ he said, bringing his racket out from behind his back, as if displaying the proof.

  ‘With Adam?’

  He nodded.

  ‘I thought
Adam couldn’t play this morning.’

  ‘He changed his mind,’ said Barney, gazing at the ceiling.

  ‘He called, did he?’ asked Ms Featherstone.

  Barney turned on his heel. ‘Yep. See you later, newshounds.’

  Stevie thought Ms Featherstone might follow Barney. He’d never seen her look as beautiful as she did now. Biting her bottom lip, her cheeks flushed, she seemed to him to tremble, like a wronged heroine in a Thomas Hardy novel. She made an almost imperceptible movement towards the door, then stopped herself. After a moment, she said, ‘Tennis,’ with the sort of contempt she usually reserved for the word Tories.

  ‘Shall we look at the proofs?’ he asked, hoping she would see the softness in his eyes.

  Their front page headline was CALL FOR REAL TRACING PAPER GOES TO COUNCIL. There was a photograph of Sarah Figgs handing a petition to Councillor Jennings. Ms Featherstone had encouraged them to protest about the school’s dwindling tracing-paper supplies (they were often sent from Maths to fetch toilet paper as a substitute), calling it the ‘thin end of the funding wedge’. Other stories included a vox pop on the relevance of PE during this time of political unrest and an investigation into the hypocrisy of the school’s anti-smoking policy. Stevie knew from previous editions of the paper that it was supposed to be a light-hearted and positive publication. But Ms Featherstone had encouraged him to produce something more challenging for his first issue as editor.

  Now, though, she looked at the pages they’d spread on the floor, and seemed unable to recognise any of them.

  ‘Looks great, doesn’t it?’ Stevie ventured, unsure of what, exactly, he should be doing in an editorial meeting.

  She sat back on her heels. ‘You’ve done a good job, Stevie. You should be proud.’

  He smiled. She might utter the word masterpiece again. His ears began to warm at the thought.

  Instead she looked at her watch. ‘Why don’t you have a last read through? I’ve got to make a couple of calls. Then we can sign off.’

  ‘Is there anything I should be looking for, in particular?’ he asked.

  But she was already heading for the door, a hand in her hair.

  Whilst she was gone, he strained to hear her conversation, but all he could make out were the words bloody typical of him.

  The first Stevie knew of the trouble was when Mr Roth approached him in the overheated craft block, a copy of the newspaper held aloft. ‘And I quote,’ he said, rattling the paper, ‘This school’s anti-smoking policy is yet another example of the hypocrisy with which the place is riddled. The teachers stink of nicotine. Why shouldn’t we sneak the occasional fag behind the bike sheds?’

  For a moment, Stevie smirked.

  Then Mr Roth said, ‘Mr Perlman wants to see you. Now.’

  Stevie had never before been summoned to the Deputy Head’s office, and he found himself rather excited by the prospect of a showdown with Norman Perlman. Perlman was famous for spitting. As he talked he left foamy globs on his jumper. The problem seemed to be that his lips were too large for his beard.

  In his office, which was the size of a cupboard and stacked high with copies of Deutsch Heute, they sat at opposite sides of the table, Stevie’s heart thudding as Perlman stroked his knitted tie. Between them, the newspaper lay open.

  Finally Perlman said, in a sad tone, ‘This is your first issue as editor, isn’t it, Stevie?’

  Stevie nodded.

  ‘That’s a shame. Because if there was going to be a next time – which there won’t, of course – you’d know better.’

  Perlman wiped his spittle-spotted jumper. ‘Good journalism means sticking to the facts. No one wants your opinions.’ He sighed. ‘It’s her I blame. Featherstone. I’m presuming it was all her idea?’

  ‘Not really, Sir.’

  ‘But the tone of it, Stevie. That’s her, isn’t it? It’s her all over.’

  ‘We wanted it to be challenging, Sir. And entertaining.’ He remembered her words: more quality supplement than local rag.

  A bell rang.

  ‘Look,’ said Perlman, ‘if you like, just tell me that she put you up to it. Then we’ll forget it, okay? You’ll be off the paper, but there’ll be no other punishment.’ He leant forwards and spat purposefully. ‘We all know what she’s like. Show her a line and she’ll step over it.’

  ‘But she didn’t write any of it, Sir.’

  Perlman laughed softly. ‘These women. They get a bit of power and they go hysterical.’

  ‘Miss Featherstone had nothing to do with it.’ Stevie flushed. He remembered her Thomas Hardy heroine look on Saturday, and felt they had something in common, now. They’d both been wronged. And he was going to make a stand.

  ‘Have it your own way,’ said Perlman, ‘and you can have two weeks’ detention, too. Now get lost.’

  In bed that night, Stevie thought about how he’d tell Ms Featherstone what he’d done. I did it for you, he’d say. And she would put her fingers on his arm, give that sigh of hers, and say, You shouldn’t have. Would they kiss? He wasn’t sure. This was, he knew, the next logical step in his fantasy, and it was a scenario he tried often to imagine, especially under the covers after eleven o’clock at night. But it seemed slightly jarring – disappointing, even. It wasn’t the kiss that he wanted the most – although he did want it – it was something less defined and harder to imagine. On the edge of sleep, a word came to him: admiration. He thought that maybe he wanted Ms Featherstone’s admiration.

  The following day, she wasn’t at school. She wasn’t there the next day, either. Instead, Norman Perlman appeared in Stevie’s English lesson and told them that, owing to personal circumstances, Ms Featherstone would not be back that term.

  After school, Stevie took the bus to where she lived and loitered outside her house, gathering the courage to walk to her door. He was careful not to lean against her car, even though he wanted to touch the door handle, the petrol cap, the bonnet – any place her fingers had been. A cool wind blew up the street, making the hyacinths that grew up her front path shiver.

  As he rang the bell he had some phrase in his head, something like Now or Never or Do or Die. Some phrase with or in the middle that his father or Mike might use. That afternoon, during double physics, he’d written out what he was going to say – I know what they’ve done to you, what they do to all powerful women, and we have to fight back – but now the only thing in his head was this idea of a phrase with or in the middle.

  She opened the door a crack, leaving the safety chain on, and peered at him. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘It’s you.’

  ‘Can I talk to you?’

  ‘I can’t really talk right now, Stevie, I’m sorry.’

  ‘But there’s something I need to tell you.’

  ‘Yes?’

  He could see only an eye and a slither of her pale neck.

  Instead of reciting what he’d written, he blurted: ‘I didn’t say anything. About the newspaper.’

  ‘What?’ She sounded very tired.

  ‘In case you think it was me who got you sacked.’ He took a breath, remembered some of his script. ‘It’s the system, isn’t it, the system that can’t deal with powerful women. But I stood up for you, Miss.’

  She shut the door. He heard the click and slide of the chain coming off, and when she opened it again he gasped. Her right eye was half hidden by purple, swollen flesh, through which ran a deep cut, held together by black slashes of stitch. He shuddered and sucked the air audibly through his teeth. Then he looked away, uncomfortably aware that he was grimacing at the sight of her.

  She sighed, and it was a very different sound to the one she’d made when she’d placed a hand on his arm. ‘You’d better come in.’

  She led him through to the sitting room and sat facing away from the window. With the light behind her, her black eye was no longer so pronounced. Stevie breathed out, relieved to be spared a little of its glaring drama.

  ‘Well,’ she said. ‘Now you know.’

&
nbsp; He wanted to ask her: What the hell happened? Was it Barney? But he found himself unable to speak. He hoped she would fill the silence, but she just sat there, staring at him, as if, he thought, in accusation. In his panic, he thought he might cry, and had to put a hand to his mouth to steady himself.

  ‘Oh for Christ’s sake . . .’ she said. Beneath the bruise, the rest of her face was grey, and her voice sounded grey, too. ‘Don’t get upset. I can’t handle you getting upset. This has nothing to do with you.’

  It was as if she, Ms Amber Featherstone, had disappeared and been replaced by this hideous bruise.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, gulping back the tears. To avoid looking at her face, he glanced around the room, and saw Barney’s tennis racket balanced against the windowsill. Was he actually here, still in the house? If he wasn’t, then he could be back at any moment. Stevie’s heart flapped in his chest.

  She must have seen him looking at the racket, because she said, ‘I keep meaning to burn that bloody thing.’

  ‘So it was . . . I mean, is he . . . I mean, where . . . ?’

  ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘don’t worry. He’s gone.’ She reached for a cigarette and lit up with a shaking hand.

  ‘Right. Good. I mean . . .’

  She exhaled a long stream of smoke. ‘Stevie, why did you come?’

  He wondered if the beating had given her amnesia. What about his masterpiece? Was that all forgotten now, too?

  ‘Well,’ he began, wiping his sweaty palms on his jeans, ‘Like I said, I wanted to check, you know, about them sacking you, and I wanted to help—’

  ‘They haven’t sacked me, Stevie. I’ve taken leave. Due to—’ she flicked ash on the carpet, ‘a domestic situation. I think that’s what this is.’ She jabbed her cigarette towards her mangled eye. ‘It’s nothing to do with you.’