Forbidden or For Bedding?

He needed to say it. Not just for her, but for himself as well. To make it crystal-clear…

She was standing immobile still, and something in her very stillness made the tension pull at him. Tension he did not want to feel.

Time to make things clear.

Cool and terse, the words fell into the space between them.

‘I shan’t be seeing you again, Alexa.’

For the space of another heartbeat time held still. An eternity of time in the briefest span. Then, like a film starting to play again, her body unfroze. With her customary graceful movements she lowered the coffee pot to its slate mat on the table and started to depress the plunger, letting the dark pungent liquid settle, then pouring it carefully out into one of the creamware cups. Gracefully she lifted the cup and saucer, proffering it to the man standing such a short space away from her.

Such an infinite distance now.

‘Of course,’ she answered. Her voice was serene, untroubled. ‘C’est bien entendue—that’s the correct French, isn’t it?’ Her tone was conversational, unexceptional. ‘Are you having coffee before you go?’

There was no emotion in her face as she spoke.

She would permit none.

In her hand, the coffee cup she was rock-steady. Not a tremor. She caught the scent of coffee coiling into the air, the molecules wafting upwards. Her eyes were resting on his face, limpid, untroubled. As if he had merely uttered a pleasantry of no consequence or significance.

He did not take the cup. His face remained closed, unreadable. But then she did not seek to read it. Sought only to hold the cup as steady as a rock, to hold her gaze as steady. It was as though a section of her brain had dissociated itself from the rest of her and was operating in a space all of its own.

For one last heartbeat she held the cup, then slowly—infinitely slowly—lowered it to the table. Her regard went back to him, still showing nothing in her eyes except politeness.

‘I hope you will permit me to wish you every happiness in your forthcoming marriage,’ she said, her voice as untroubled as her regard.

Smoothly, she moved towards the door, indicating thereby that she recognised he would take his leave now—coffee untouched, affair disposed of. She did not pause to see if he was following her, merely headed unhurriedly, gracefully, the silken length of her peignoir brushing against her bare legs, across the narrow entrance hall of her flat to the front door.

She heard rather than saw him follow her. She slid back the security bolts that were inevitable in London, even on a quiet, tree-lined road such as the one she lived on. She stepped back, holding open the door for him. He came forward, halted one moment, looked at her one moment. His face was still closed, unreadable.

Then…‘Thank you,’ he said.

He might have been thanking her for her felicitations, but Alexa knew that he was not. Knew that he was thanking her for something he appreciated far more. Her acceptance.

His eyes still held hers. ‘It has been good, non?’

Laconic to the last. She, too.

‘Yes, it has.’

Briefly, like swansdown, she leant forward to brush with the lightest touch his cheek.

‘I wish you well.’

Then she stood back.

‘Goodbye, Guy,’ she said.

For one last time her eyes held him. Then, with the merest nod of acknowledgement of her farewell, he walked out.

Out of her life.

She did not watch him go. Instead she shut the door. Slowly—very slowly. As if it weighed more than she could bear. Then slowly—very slowly—she leant back against it, staring expressionlessly across the hallway. There was no sound. Not even his footsteps descending the flight of steps.

Guy was gone. The affair was over.

Slowly—very slowly—her fingers curved into the palms of her hand.

Gouging deep.

Guy’s car was waiting for him at the kerb. He’d phoned for it as he dressed, knowing that he would want it there for as soon as he’d told Alexa what he must. He had put it off for as long as it was possible. Until it was no longer possible to stay silent. As he walked down the stone steps from the front door of the terraced house of which Alexa’s apartment occupied the top floor, his driver got out and came round to open the rear passenger door for him. He got in, barely acknowledging the gesture.

As he sank back into the soft leather seat his face remained expressionless.

Well, it was done. Alexa was out of his life. And she wouldn’t be coming back.

Guy reached for the neatly folded copy of the Financial Times his driver had placed carefully beside him, and started to read.

There was no expression in his face. His eyes.

He would permit none.

Alexa was cleaning the bathroom. She should have been working, but she couldn’t. She’d tried. She’d mixed colours, got herself ready, put up a brand new canvas, dipped her brush in the colours, lifted it to the canvas.

But nothing had happened. She’d hung, frozen, like an aborted computer program, unable to continue.

Jerkily she’d lowered the brush, eased off the surplus paint, and stuck it into turps. Then she’d blinked a few times, stared blankly ahead for a moment, before turning on her heel and walking out of her studio.

She’d walked into the kitchen and put the kettle on. But for some reason she hadn’t been able to make a cup of tea. Or coffee. Or even run the tap for a glass of water. After a little while she’d gone into the bathroom.

She’d seen the bath could do with a clean, so she’d set to. That had seemed to work. Then she’d moved on to the basin, then the toilet pedestal, then the rest of the surfaces and walls. She rubbed hard, using elbow grease and a lot of household cleaner foaming on the sponge. It seemed to take a lot of cleaning, and she rubbed hard.

Harder and harder.

And as she rubbed and scrubbed her brain darted, like dragonflies scything across a pond with sharp, knifing movements. She wondered what the dragonflies in her brain were. Then she knew. Knew by their iridescent wings, their flash as they caught the light.

They were memories.

So many memories.

Stabbing and darting through her head. Memory after memory.

As sharp as knives.

Working backwards through time, taking her back, and back, and back.

Chapter One