“He most certainly does deserve my wrath. Someone as old as your father should know better. Make sure his wife never knows.”
“I think I was just so lonely. I’ve lied about my life for years. It was never the fun that I made it out to be, and I think he took advantage of that. I certainly fell for his bullshit and that egotistical side of me, the side I hate, lapped up all the attention. You know what else? I was punishing myself, and dad, by doing what I did.”
I wasn’t sure how to respond so said nothing at all.
“Can I ask you a question?” she said.
“Of course.”
“Stefan. Are you still seeing him?”
“I haven’t seen nor spoken to him since that day. I pushed him away because at the time, I believed that was the right thing to do. I believed what you said, what your father said, and I blamed myself for not being around when Ben died. I felt I’d failed everyone. I regret that. Every day I sit here, or I walk the beach and do things Stefan and I did and my heart breaks a little more. I loved him, Casey, like I’ve never loved—my children excluded—another human being before.”
She sat staring at me for a while. I watched her wipe the tear from her eye with the back of her hand before staring out the window to sea.
“Did Dini love it here? I saw his grave.”
“He did, and everyone loved him. I miss him.”
“Do you wish so hard that God would turn back time? I pray, Mum, and I’m not even sure I believe, but I pray for forgiveness and to go back in time.”
“I used to, but I learnt that’s not possible, not probable, and not practical either. We go through shit and we learn from it. It’s who we are after that counts. I’m not the same person you knew prior to my breakdown, and when you read my story, you’re going to be hurt. I’ve been brutally honest with my words but know one thing. I love you, I always have and I always will.”
I pushed the laptop towards her after having located the file and opening it. It was over one hundred thousand words long and by that point, at least in chapters and with some structure. She stood and took the laptop with her to the leather chair in the corner of the room. She curled up, wrapped a comforter around her shoulders to protect her from the chill from the panes of glass behind her, and started to read.
Casey read all that day and the following, and the one after. She stopped only to eat, wipe her tears away or sleep. Even then I heard the creak of floorboards as she made her way downstairs in the early hours of the morning and I’d find her, head down on the kitchen table, with the laptop open when I rose.
I sat and anxiously awaited her verdict. On day four she closed the laptop and joined me in the garden. She picked up my packet of cigarettes and opened it.
“May I?” she asked.
“I can hardly say no but I’d rather it wasn’t a big habit.”
I smoked about ten a day, but that would be the first cigarette I’d ever seen her smoke. By the way she expertly inhaled and exhaled a smoke ring, I knew it wasn’t her first.
“I found a photograph when I was clearing out one of the bedrooms at the house. It was of you in Broadstairs, 2012, I think. It’s a beautiful photograph. I have it here.”
Casey didn’t meet my gaze but I heard her sigh.
“I’d forgotten about that.”
“Who was he?”
I saw the tears that had formed in her eyes. “Someone I fell in love with, a forbidden love, a lecturer. Which is why I know I had no right to judge you.”
“Was he married?”
“No, but it was that student teacher thing. He wanted to love me back, but I was angry back then.”
“At what?”
“You know, I don’t actually know. He wanted to quit his job so we could be together, and I didn’t want that. I guessed, and you’ll hate me for this, I liked the forbidden part of our relationship. When he wanted it to be real, when he quit, I left. I’ve done a lot of bad things, I’ve ruined a lot of lives.”
We sat in silence and looked out to sea. The sun was low on the horizon and the surfers were silhouetted as they waited for the last of that day’s waves.
“It needs an edit,” she said quietly, referring to the book.
“I’m sure it does.”
“It needs to be published.”
“I’m sure it does not,” I chuckled.
“Have you read it?”
“I wrote it, of course I’ve read it.”
“No, have you really read it? Taken yourself outside of the author and read it as a reader?”
“No, I guess I haven’t.”
“It’s heart breaking. It’s funny and thought provoking, and with some tweaks to really make it fiction, it should be available for others. Someone might take comfort from that book, might stop just one person from doing what you did.”
“You’re just saying that because you’re my daughter.”
“No, I’m saying it because it’s true. It was hard to read how you felt about me and yet I feel…does cleansed sound right? I can’t explain it. I know how I behaved and I guess I hadn’t thought how you felt at all. I know you now, and never did before. I know you, the woman. Not the mum, not the cleaner or the cook, but the person you hid inside for all those years.”
“Then it’s served its purpose. I just wanted you to know the whys.”
“Please, let’s put it into print, just for us. We must be able to do that.”
“I don’t know. I haven’t looked into it.”
“I know I have no right to ask anything of you but will you do me one thing?”
“Depends what it is,” I said with a smile.
“Contact Stefan.”
My smile slipped. “He doesn’t want to know, Casey. I broke his heart and he’s moved on. I texted him, he never replied.”
“Try again.”
I placed my hand on the side of her face. She leaned into it and covered my hand with hers.
“How about you edit my book and then we’ll find out how to make a cover or whatever we have to do.”
I had no desire to print my book but I did have a desire to give her a project, to take her mind off her situation for a little while, and to distract her from more chat about Stefan.
“Aunty Carla is due today. Don’t let her catch you smoking,” I said as I rose and headed back inside.
Carla spent a long weekend with us and it was great to catch up. She loved my little cottage and the area. She fell in love with Nora and Jim too. It felt great just to chat for hours on end with a glass of wine and laugh again.
Casey had told her about my book and they both nagged me to do something with it. Casey was spending hours a day correcting my poor spelling and grammar, restructuring and if anything, just the change in her was enough to satisfy me. In the few days she’d been at the cottage, like I had, she’d started to heal. I’d wanted her to visit the local doctor but she wasn’t having any of it. I’d kept a close eye on her, watching for any wincing and even checking her clothing when I collected it for washing for signs of bleeding.
“So, how are you?” Carla asked.
We were sat in the garden, wrapped up and enjoying a glass of wine before she headed back the following morning.
“Good. I’m feeling good. I emailed Michael, tore him off a strip. He never replied, of course.”
“Did you expect him to?”
“No, not really. But I’m doing fine, you don’t need to worry about me. I love it here. I’m feeling sad because, well, you know…but I made the right decision in buying this place.”
In a little over a month, it would be the first anniversary of Ben’s death and a subject we’d been skirting around. I’d made a decision not to return to Kent, although Casey wanted to. She wanted to lay some flowers on his grave and I’d told her she could take my car.
“I can see that. I just wish you could have been here with Stefan. That would have been your happy ever after.”
“I texted him, a couple of months ago. He never
replied.”
She looked sharply at me.
“You never said.”
“I wanted to see if he would before I said anything. And I didn’t want you to badger him to reply.” I smiled over at her.
“I can’t believe he didn’t reply. His last email to me was that he would always love you.”
“I hurt him, Carla. I sent him away and basically humiliated him in front of my family.”
“And he never mentioned that once in all the time I was speaking to him. If he felt humiliated, I’m sure he would have said.”
“Well, it’s done now. I have fond memories of him. I’ll always treasure our time together but I need to just let him go.”
“Part of me wants to shake the living daylights out of you, Jayne. What harm can it do to contact him one last time?”
“His rejection, Carla, isn’t something I could take twice. I know I snubbed him, I ignored all his messages, his calls, but then I wasn’t in a place, mentally, to deal with it. When I was, and rightly so, it was too late.”
We fell silent other than our simultaneous sighs.
Casey and I linked arms as we waved Carla off the following morning. She’d be back for New Year’s, heading over from France after spending Christmas with her parents.
Casey wanted to head into Bude for some shopping; I lent her the car and waved her off. With the cottage to myself, I sat at the desk and flicked through the book Casey had printed off and was working on. I noticed all her pencil scribbling; I also noticed the tearstains. I flicked through the pages and came to rest on one that had a small Post-It attached. It was the part where I’d described my feelings for my daughter after that fateful night. How I loved and disliked her in equal portions. I held the page up. In the light I could see words that had been rubbed out.
I’m sorry.
I replaced the page and tidied the desk. We hadn’t spoken about the actual content of the book and I wondered if we ever would.
I pottered around the cottage, changing the bedding and generally tidying up. I had a box of clothing stored at the bottom of the wardrobe I was yet to unpack because of lack of space. I decided to go through it. I sat on the floor with my back to the bed and opened the lid. The clothes had been neatly folded and from memory, were last worn on the trip to the cottage with Stefan. I pulled out the black dress that still had white marks from the hallway wall on the back. I closed my eyes as the image of him holding me against that wall flooded my mind. I placed it to one side. Next I pulled out the red silk scarf and a white shirt. I held the shirt to my face, inhaling the scent of his aftershave. After all that time, there was still a trace of Stefan.
Maybe it was the conversation with Carla, maybe it was the reality of knowing I’d written about him in a book Casey wanted in print, maybe it was the realisation that I’d lost the best thing that had ever happened to me—whatever it was, I broke down.
I’d tried my hardest not to cry over him but at that moment, with those memories around me, I gave in to the sadness.
“Mum?”
I looked up and saw Casey in the doorway. She rushed over and crouched down beside me.
“I’m sorry, I just found these and…”
I wasn’t about to explain their significance but I was holding his shirt in my hands.
“Oh, Mum.”
It was her turn to comfort me. She sat beside me with her arms around my shoulder.
“I was doing okay, for months I’ve been doing okay,” I said.
“It’s okay to have a flip out every now and again. Something reminded you of him and now you’re upset.”
I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand.
“What do you have there?” I asked.
Casey held a plastic bag in her hand.
“Oh, it’s nothing. Something I picked up today.”
I wasn’t convinced by her false smile, but it was her business so I said nothing.
“Oh, fuck it. If we’re going to cry, might as well do it all in one go.”
She handed me the bag. I opened it and pulled out a picture frame. As I turned it over, fresh tears pooled in my eyes.
“I’m sorry. I was going to give it to you for Christmas, but then I thought you’d be crying all day.”
Staring back at me was the most wonderful photograph of Stefan and me. One of the many selfies he’d taken as we’d walked the beach.
“Where did you get it?”
“It was on the laptop. I’m sorry, I was snooping. I wanted to see what he looked like, I couldn’t remember.”
I looked at him, my fingers traced over his face. His piercing blue eyes stared back at me and that lopsided wicked grin had me smiling.
“Look at you though, Mum. Look at that smile. I haven’t seen you smile like that for years.”
“He made me happy.”
I stood before we could continue the conversation. I folded the dress and scarf and placed them back in the box. The shirt I laid on the bed.
“Come on, help me get dinner on,” I said.
I took the photograph downstairs and placed it on the mantel over the fire. It stood next to one of Ben and Kerry, another of Kerry and Benjamin and one of Casey at her graduation.
We ate together and chatted about her plans. She couldn’t return to Japan and doubted she would get a reference bearing in mind she’d been on an internship and had walked out. I had enough to support us both but it wouldn’t last forever.
After dinner Casey settled herself at the desk to continue with her editing. She chatted about punctuation, or lack of, and offered alternatives for some of the strange wording that had found its way in my writing. She was animated when she worked.
Two weeks later, we had a manuscript. We just needed a title and then half an idea of what to do after. Casey spent all her time on Facebook, Google and other Internet sites until she eventually announced we could publish it ourselves on Amazon.
“Whoa, no. I can’t have that up for everyone to read. What if he sees it? He might not agree. What if Grandma sees it?”
“It’s written as if it’s fiction, Mum. Just deny it’s real if anyone asks.”
“Those that know me know it’s real.”
“And they’re unlikely to read it. We’ll come up with a pen name.”
We sat for an hour drinking wine and laughing at some of the most ridiculous pen names she’d thought up. Eventually we settled on one. Charley Williams. My dad’s first and middle names.
“We need a cover,” Casey announced.
I had no idea how to go about that. But, like the diligent daughter she was, she already had it in hand. She’d found a designer in Canada, Margareet, who had agreed to help. A few emails later, we had an idea.
Within that week, A Virtual Affair was born.
It was an exciting time and a project that brought Casey and me closer together. We’d sat side by side, hour after hour looking at marketing, setting up a Facebook account and making teasers. I was stunned at how quickly she’d grasped the concept of self-publishing. Now all we had to do was actually publish it.
The night we pushed that publish button, we celebrated with a glass of champagne. I had no idea what was to happen, and I was under no illusion that the book would actually sell. It wasn’t meant to. It was just a project that healed both of us.
The following morning I woke to a squeal.
“Mum, we sold three books!” Casey said with excitement.
“Really? Let me see.”
There was a little red line on a graph that showed three sales. We danced around the living room at the thought three people would read our story. I classed it as our story because she’d done all the hard work. Little was I to know the hard work was actually about to begin.
Margareet was amazing. She guided us through the world of indie publishing, arranged for some bloggers to talk about our book, and by the end of week one, we’d sold ten.
We’d ordered some paperbacks, just enough for our family and a few friends. Nora want
ed one, as did mum, Carla, and to my amazement, Francis. Francis was the one I was most concerned about. Those people knew what I’d written wasn’t fiction. But in one way, they’d get to see the real me, the person I’d hidden from them for years.
November seemed to have snuck up on us and with it the rain and winds. I was thankful for the new windows, which kept most of it at bay. The new heating system didn’t appear to work and we spent many an hour on the phone to plumbers and engineers arguing for a return visit. Again, Casey came into her forte. She was the ultimate professional, until it got to the point of threatening to splash their poor service and thievery all over the local press! Needless to say, two engineers arrived and the heating was up and running.
Our books arrived, and the day we opened the cardboard box and held one in our hands was one of the proudest of my life. Other than producing two wonderful children, I’d done nothing else. My dreams of building homes for the poor so I could leave a legacy paled into insignificance when Casey pointed out that no matter what I did with the book, whether I pulled it from publication or not, it was out there—forever.
We spent some time wrapping and sending the ones out to family. It was with reluctance that I personalised a message inside the front cover. That was for two reasons; first, I didn’t want to spoil it, and second, it just felt a little vain. Each week we saw an increase in sales. It wasn’t enough to live on, of course, but enough to cover our costs. Casey became a social media addict and would regularly post about the book, tweet or whatever it was called. She would report to me with excitement in her voice when a review came in or when someone talked about it. And, of course, we sobbed and plotted the death of the lady who left a scathing one star review. Nothing was realistic for her and it was on the tip of my fingertips to give her my phone number, and I’d tell her how realistic the book was.
Three things happened that month. Nora informed me that she had customers who wanted to buy the book and the local press picked up the story. But the most surprising was that Francis had called. The Women’s Institute wanted to have it as book of the month. I was pretty sure they were terrified of her, so no doubt hadn’t done that because they felt the book was worthy, but I didn’t care. More books were ordered and Casey set up a web page for me. I decided to share the profits with her. She was the one doing all the work, after all.
A Virtual Affair Page 28
