by Rosa Temple
‘It’s not a good time, Magenta,’ he said as I realised he wasn’t going to open the door for me. The next thing I realised, although only the top half of his body was showing, was that he was naked apart from the sheet he was clutching around his waist.
‘Father, are you…? Do you have a woman in there?’ I asked, my mouth falling open.
He looked over his shoulder and nodded.
‘I’ll pop over to you tomorrow,’ he said, though not looking at me directly. His sheet slipped a little and he adjusted it. In doing so the door opened an inch or so more and I could smell some kind of incense. Was Father sleeping with a hippy? Then I heard something, the sound of a woman clearing her throat. She sounded familiar to me but in that instant I couldn’t quite place her. Before I knew it, Father’s arm was out the door, shoving me backwards with an apologetic look and closing the door in my face.
I took a few paces back and looked at the closed door. Did that just happen? I kept saying to myself as I waited for the lift to go down.
Then it hit me. My champagne-filled, sorry-for-itself mind went into overdrive as I worked it out. Father was acting suspiciously about who he was seeing; so was Anya. Father was in LA, at a party, at the same time as Anya. Father and Anya avoided each other like the plague at the fashion show. She even went so far as to deny having seen him there. Anya claimed she was visiting relatives this weekend, so why didn’t she answer my call to her earlier?
I bashed open the ground floor door to the street. When she said she was visiting relatives, I didn’t think for one moment she meant mine. Oh my God. My best friend was sleeping with my Father. Of course. The clues had been there. She’d said her lover was an older man, divorced, grown-up children. How could she? How could they? And what was I going to tell Mother when she returned from her yoga retreat?
The feeling of loneliness had subsided and been replaced with anger, hate and disappointment. Too many things I’d regretted happening, happened that night.
I got home, went to bed in my make-up and didn’t surface until Saturday afternoon.
Chapter 24
Usually, Christmas was a great time of year for me. Not for any religious reasons and not because of the presents – which were few and far between now that I was no longer a child. But not being a child had its advantages because it was the time of year I could party like crazy with my friend Anya and see a bit more of family. This year was going to be different. Now that my best friend was a traitor and my father a cradle-robbing creep, I was destined to have a lousy holiday.
I didn’t try calling Anya after the missed call I placed the day before and she, obviously having seen my missed call, didn’t call me back either. I spent all weekend saying, ‘How could she?’ to myself. I would be doing something quite ordinary, like buttering toast or changing channels on the television and the words ‘How could she?’ would spring out to no one in particular.
Two things dominated my headspace: how animated Anya had been when she’d told me months ago that she was in love and what a cradle-robbing creep my father was. I’d been right when I’d told Mother that Father must have been two-timing Suma. Mother. Oh, my God. I’d been totally absorbed by how my father’s indiscretions were affecting me when I stopped everything I was doing and said aloud, ‘How will I tell Mother?’
Like Anya, Father avoided me, not getting in touch all of Saturday as he’d promised. He didn’t try to contact me on Sunday either. Did he think he’d fooled me? Did he think I hadn’t caught on to his illicit affair? I’d always thought that Anya was like a daughter to him the way she had been for Mother. How was he going to explain this to his real daughters, not to mention Mother? Everyone would turn against him or beat him to a pulp – or both!
All weekend I kept myself to myself determined to throw my energies into work on Monday morning. I’d cross the telling Mother bridge when I had the strength to do so.
When Monday came I wasn’t in the mood for travelling with other people on the crowded tube and thought it high time I started driving in to work. The company owned a car parking space in a rooftop car park two streets away from the office. Anthony never used it and I’d finally sorted out tax and insurance on my car and had a new alarm fitted. I decided I’d drive everywhere from then and run the car into the ground so I could imagine I was running my and Anya’s friendship into the ground. I wanted to be free of the love I still had for my best friend. I hated her and I loved her.
I went as far as kicking the car door before I got in, imagining it was Anya’s long, thin designer face and pointy chin. The kick triggered the car alarm, which kept going off every ten minutes as I drove to work because I didn’t know how to shut the thing off. In the end I was stopped by a policeman who had been following my alarm-ringing vehicle as it crept along in busy traffic up Holland Park Road, finally signalling for me to pull over at the top of Bayswater Road.
‘Is this your car?’ It was on the tip of my tongue to start reprimanding this officer for not going out and catching real criminals of which I was not one.
‘Yes,’ I sighed, rolling my eyes to the ceiling, my mood becoming increasingly worse. He clearly wasn’t happy with my attitude.
‘Would you mind stepping out of the vehicle please, miss?’
I shrugged like a grumpy teenager and got out of the car.
‘Please step onto the pavement,’ he said. ‘Would you mind giving me your name and address. I parted with the information and crossed my arms as he radioed them through to wherever to confirm my details.
‘Well it appears to be your car,’ the officer said.
‘I know it’s my car. You didn’t need a police computer to tell you that. I gave you that for nothing.’ Straight away the car alarm went off. The police officer looked at me with a, “Well, aren’t you going to turn that off?” look on his face and I returned it with a, “If I knew how to do that I bloody well would!” look.
‘Can’t you see I’m having a bad day?’ I asked him. ‘This alarm has been driving me mental. If I’d known it would do that every two seconds, don’t you think I would have done something about it if I knew how? This car has a life and mind of its own. I can’t control it. But then Anya probably knew it was like this in the first place.’
‘Anya?’
‘Yes, Anya. The beautiful Anya who everyone loves. My family took her into its bosom. Its bosom! And this is how she repays us. My own father. Old enough to be her father. Can you believe that? How could she and how could he? Who’s going to have to tell Mother if not me? Oh yes, that’s right. Have your sordid affair and then leave me to sort it all out for you. Well it’s not up to me. You should have come clean of your own accord. You’ve had months to confess. And of course, while you’re both having a cosy little weekend I’m dying inside. And to top it all I’ve got the period pain of all period pains – in just one ovary! What’s that about? Huh? I’ve probably got ovarian cancer and you, officer, might be the last person to see me alive. My ovary might explode right here and now. Then what?’
I stopped with my hands on my hips, staring right into the policeman’s eyes, my chest heaving up and down as I panted snorts of breath into his face. He didn’t say anything but put his hand on the radio on his shoulder from which a crackly voice was asking if he needed assistance.
‘I think you should just get yourself off to work, miss. If that’s where you were going?’ he said, not taking his eyes off me.
‘That’s exactly where I was going and I’ll probably be late now.’
‘Look, I apologise. Get going and get that alarm sorted.’
‘Yes! I will!’
I got in and slammed the door. I could see the policeman looking at me and scratching his head as I drove off to the sound of the car alarm starting up again. I screamed in the car at the top of my voice and was thankful to get away from the damned thing when I got to the car park at last. The first thing I needed to do was to call a garage to sort out the alarm before it dro
ve the whole of Mayfair loopy. I heard it start again as I got to the office door.
‘Flipping thing,’ I said as I entered only to see Cassandra crossing the hall with a cup of coffee, about to enter reception.
‘Cassandra,’ I said nodding my head and passing her by.
‘Magenta,’ she said and continued on her way.
Apart from the tree, there was no evidence that a party had taken place on Friday. The cleaners had left it immaculate. As I climbed the stairs I remembered the expression on Anthony’s face on Friday when we’d stood together under the mistletoe.
Anthony was already in and called me into his office when he heard me on the stairs.
‘Magenta, how are you?’ he asked from his chair.
I looked at him quizzically.
‘You weren’t well when you left.’
‘Oh yes, that. Yes, I’m fine now. Thank you.’ I began to back away to the door.
‘It’s just, I wondered if your sudden headache was anything to do with the email on your screen on Friday. I – I wasn’t snooping. I went up to the bathroom and saw the light on in your office. I went to turn it off and spotted the computer was still on.’
‘And you took it upon yourself to read my personal mail?’
‘I didn’t realise it was personal – at first. I sat down to click Close and sort of got drawn in. I only skimmed through.’
I said nothing. Anthony’s cheeks looked hot enough to toast bread on.
‘If you wanted to talk about it, I’m here,’ he said at last.
‘It’s fine. I should have deleted that email weeks ago. It’s just my past, rearing its ugly head.’
‘It didn’t seem so ugly. I mean I know the guy was an idiot to have left someone like you but he’s looking for a second chance.’
‘Anthony, it’s none of your business. This,’ I said pointing around the room, ‘is your business. But wait, you’re all set to sell up, aren’t you?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I haven’t forgotten about Niles bloody Benson. Have you? And before you go throwing in the towel don’t forget you promised me my year.’
‘Look, Magenta, I haven’t spoken to him since the last time his name came up. I promise you.’
‘Well,’ I said, continuing to back out of the office, trying to control my breathing. ‘It’s your business.’
‘Don’t do this to me, Magenta. Don’t act as if I don’t care what happens to the company – to you. Because I do and I mean it when I say that if you ever want to talk you can come to me.’
I nodded and left. I was on the verge of another verbal outpouring in the same vein as earlier but I was sure I could hear that damned car alarm. I had to deal with it and an interfering boss who now knew one of my biggest secrets. I wasn’t happy.
I did manage to call a mechanic out to shut my car up but things didn’t get any better when I drove home that evening and saw Anya on my front step. She didn’t notice me at first but when she was aware of someone approaching she looked over at me and smiled. It was dark, as dark as any winter evening but Anya managed to stand out, illuminated by just the street light, her long Dolce & Gabbana coat was fitted and elegant and she wore black leather gloves. She put her phone inside her handbag and began to descend the stairs as if she was in a photo shoot. I gritted my teeth. She had to be that beautiful when all I wanted to do was scream at her.
‘Darling,’ she said in a flat voice. I allowed her to kiss my cheeks. ‘You okay?’ she asked but didn’t wait for an answer. ‘I’ve got some explaining to do.’
Too right, I thought to myself and held my tongue as Anya followed me up to my flat.
Chapter 25
I went straight to the kitchen with Anya and felt awful. I hadn’t been able to look her in the eye. Now that she was inches away and not hidden away in my father’s apartment, I had no idea what to say to her even though there was a tangle of words going round and round my head.
‘Tea?’ was all I managed to say.
‘Not for me,’ she said and eased her elegant frame onto one of my dining chairs. I watched her over my shoulder, wondering if I should sit opposite her as if it were a business meeting or to the side as we always did whenever we were at my dining table. In that moment I knew we’d never do the things we always used to do because between the two of them they’d ruined all that.
After what seemed like an hour of cold silence as I made myself a herbal tea, eventually sitting down opposite Anya. I clasped the cup and looked at a spot on the table about two inches away from where her slender hands rested on my table.
‘Vell?’ she said with a sigh. ‘I thought you might have something to say.’
‘You want me to go first?’
‘You’re going to have a strong opinion so you might as vell get it out in the open so there’s at least a starting point.’
‘You make it sound as though it’s nothing, Anya. But you know it isn’t nothing.’
‘You think I don’t know that?’ She sounded too cool for me.
‘You don’t look in the least remorseful.’
‘No one died, Madge. Let’s not blow this out of proportion.’
‘It’s already way out of proportion. I mean what were you thinking? Were you thinking? You know these kinds of things have consequences, especially when you consider the other people involved. And before you go saying I’m some sort of drama queen I want you to know that I’m finding it hard to trust you.’
‘Trust me?’
‘Yes. Trust is an important thing between friends.’
‘I don’t see how trust comes into it but fair enough if you feel that vay. But for the record, the only reason I didn’t tell you vos because I love you and I didn’t vont to drag you into this mess.’
‘Well how was I supposed to stay out of it?’
‘I knew once it all came out you’d have something to say but you didn’t have to get involved and you still don’t have to be involved – not really.’
I looked at Anya and for the first time in my life I felt as if I didn’t really know her – not the way I thought I did. The only thing I could assume was that in her almost icy way of dealing with life she was able to separate the affair and our friendship. But the two were intertwined and it infuriated me that she couldn’t see that.
I shook my head and looked away from Anya, realising that I had been staring at her open-mouthed for several minutes and not blinking.
‘I’m confused,’ she added to the leaden silence.
‘Confused? What’s there to be confused about? You saw an opportunity and you went for it. You’re in love and to hell with everyone else.’
‘He said he vill be speaking to all the members of his family about it, giving the details of how ve met, the vere, ven and vye.’
‘I’m not sure I want to know,’ I said.
‘You von’t be able to stop asking questions, Madge. I know you and I’ll tell you everything myself. Better you hear it from me than reading the version the papers have put out there. This is exactly vot ve vonted to avoid.’
‘The papers have got hold of it? Does Mother know?’ I demanded.
‘She reads the papers doesn’t she?’
‘But Father should have the decency to fill her in before the press gets hold of it,’ I blurted out.
‘How vould your father know anything about it?’ She looked bemused.
I squeezed my eyebrows into a tight knot and rubbed my forehead.
‘Well, duh, Anya. He’s part of this isn’t he?’
‘No!’ Now Anya was screwing her brow – but not for too long because she didn’t want to start having Botox in her twenties, if at all. ‘How could your father have anything to do vith my affair?’
‘Anya,’ I gasped. ‘You’re sleeping with Father.’
She shot up on her Manolo heels. ‘No I’m bloody vell not! Vot the hell are you on about, Madge?’
‘Wait a minute,�
� I said after playing our conversation back in my mind. ‘Weren’t you just confessing to me that you’ve been sleeping with my father?’
‘Magenta, are you on drugs?’ She flopped back onto the chair. ‘Your father is like a father to me. Vye vould I be sleeping vith him?’
‘Because this weekend you said were with relatives, you didn’t answer when I rang and when I went around to Father’s on Friday night he had a woman there and he wouldn’t let me in.’
‘And you thought it vos me? You’re crazy, Madge.’
‘No, but … but what about LA? You were there; he was there. You were both at a party. I put two and two together and …’
‘And came up vith lemons. Yes I vos in LA and I saw your father there, okay, I admit it. At the airport, not the party. But he svore me to secrecy. I vos to tell you at my peril,’ she said sounding like a Russian spy from a Bond movie.
‘You really didn’t have an affair with Father?’
‘How many vays can I tell you? No, silly girl. I’ve been in a relationship with Henry Bowser. The politician? Surely you’ve seen all the bad press about him lately?’
I nodded up and down. I had forgotten how many times I’d seen his name in the news. I only knew that the press were calling him the ‘disgraced politician’, but hadn’t followed the complete story. The one thing I did remember was that he had been linked to a woman, a woman the press had intimated had ruined his marriage.
‘I couldn’t tell you because if the press approached you then you vouldn’t be able to tell them anything,’ Anya went on. ‘I know how easily you can break down, Magenta. I couldn’t take the chance. But he vos followed, constantly. As discreet as ve vere, ve have been spotted together. The story got leaked to the press and vill hit the stands tomorrow. It’ll probably be all over the evening news. Put on the television and see for yourself.’
We went to the living room and found a station streaming the news and waited. Eventually, there he was, the politician who had been in the papers for months, first for the accusation of misappropriation of funds in his department and then for the story that broke two months ago about bribes. And there in a very hazy picture, taken from CCTV in a hotel lobby, was the disgraced politician and his secret lover, Anya Stankovic. Up until then, no one had guessed the identity of the woman he had been seeing but the papers had claimed that he had been seeing her well before he divorced his wife and that his affair had caused the breakdown of his family and was the start of his clandestine dealings in government.
