This page features snippets and short stories first posted on 20 April 2021, after I undertook the task of cleaning out my writing folder.

Please note that none of these have been edited and they will probably not be expanded or continued.

On this page:

• Antithesis - A snippet inspired by the phrase ‘When Bob-Whites Go Bad…’. (481 words, added 20 April 2021)
• Gossip - A snippet of conversation between the three girls about a rumour. (743 words, added 20 April 2021)
• The Circle - When Mart stands her up, Diana turns to her friends for help. Complete short story. (2,542 words, added 20 April 2021)
• Recollections - A snippet where Matthew Wheeler has a chance encounter with someone from his past. (1,777 words, added 20 April 2021)

Back to Selections from the Vault index page.

Antithesis

Sixteen-year-old Trixie Belden rubbed gently at her greatly distended abdomen and wondered where everything had gone wrong. Her interview with Mr. Stratton, the School Principal, was still clear in her mind.

“Now, Trixie,” he had said. “I can’t allow you to attend school in your condition. What would the other students think? They might want to try it themselves and then where would we be?”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Stratton,” she had muttered. “It won’t happen again.”

“It’s too late for that, Trixie,” she remembered him saying. “Here are your parents to take you home.”

So here she sat, all alone. I guess it all began when Brian started using his fake ID to buy alcohol for Bob-White meetings, she thought. Maybe if we weren’t so drunk we would have remembered the condom.

This, of course, led her mind to the other problem facing her at the moment: the baby’s parentage. The doctor had said that she would have to wait until the baby was born. Somewhere, in the drunken haze, she knew she had the answer.

If only I could remember, she lamented. I know that both Jim and Dan were there, but which of them is the father?

She decided to take a walk to see if she could remember. Now, let’s see, she said to herself. First, Dan was kissing me, then it was Jim… No, I think it was the other way around.

The next thing she knew, she was in the hospital.

“I’m afraid it’s twins,” said the doctor, handing her two babies. Somehow she knew they were both boys. One had hair as red as Jim’s and the other had hair that was dark like Dan’s.

“Oh, no!” she cried. “What will I do now?”

At that moment, both Jim and Dan burst into the room, each holding an enormous bunch of flowers.

“My darling, Trixie,” said Jim.

“Sweetheart,” said Dan.

They glared at each other angrily and turned back to Trixie.

Just then, Mart came in with a box of cigars.

“Diana’s just had the triplets,” he said. “And they all look just like me.”

He frowned slightly at the babies that Trixie held and started handing out cigars.

“Hey, this is Cuban!” said Trixie, examining hers. “Where did you get these?”

“Honey brought them back for me on her last drug-running trip,” he explained.

“Don’t say that aloud,” chastised Jim. “You could get her into a lot of trouble.”

Sixteen-year-old Trixie Belden sat bolt upright in bed. Her hand flew to her stomach and she breathed a sigh of relief to find it as flat as ever.

“What a terrible dream,” she said aloud, silently resolving never to have a threesome with Jim and Dan. “Now, if only I could do something about this hangover.”

Gossip

Notes: A snippet featuring a conversation about rumours between the three Bob-White girls.

“Spill,” Trixie demanded, almost before she had closed Honey’s bedroom door behind herself.

Across the room, Honey and Diana turned to her in confusion.

“Spill what?” asked Di, violet eyes wide.

Trixie grunted in frustration and came to stand over them. “What’s going on? I know that you know and I can’t believe you’d think you could leave me in the dark!”

The other two shared a look.

“Do you mean, to do with the fishing trip the boys are planning?” Honey wondered. “Because I only know what Jim said about it, which isn’t much, but I didn’t think it sounded all that interesting, really, but I can tell you, if that’s what you mean.”

“No, of course not!”

“Well, is it the disagreement between Patty Smith and Jane Van Dusen?” Di suggested. “I know a little bit about that, but I didn’t think you were interested in it, because it’s mostly to do with Jane buying the same dress as Patty and wearing it to–”

“I don’t care about that,” Trixie interrupted. “I meant about the rumour.”

“Oh, then the thing with Dan and the cheerleader?” asked Honey. “Because there’s no truth in that. She wasn’t even in the room with him at the time and she’s only saying she was because she wishes it was true, only Dan told me that wild horses couldn’t drag him – or, at least, it was something like that, only more Dan-ish, if you see what I mean. I can’t remember the exact expression he used, but he meant that he was completely repulsed by the idea.”

Trixie shook her head. “What cheerleader? I didn’t hear a rumour like that.”

“The new girl,” Di explained. “Ellie Morton. Blonde. Predatory. Wears a lot of pink.”

“Ugh! She sounds awful.” She shook her head. “But you’re not distracting me that easily. So, when were you going to tell me?”

Honey shook her head. “Honestly, Trixie, we don’t know what we’re supposed to know. I haven’t heard any other rumours. Have you, Di?”

Their friend also shook her head. “Not unless you count the one about Jane Morgan kissing that dishy new English teacher. That one’s one hundred percent true – he was horrified and he went straight to the administration and filled out an incident report and had her removed from his class. She was livid.”

Both other girls stared at her, open-mouthed, for a long moment.

“Where do you get this stuff?” Trixie asked. “And when are you going to address the one that actually relates to someone actually in this room at this actual moment?”

Di stared at her. “But I haven’t heard any rumours about us.”

“You didn’t need to hear the rumour,” Trixie argued, “because, the way I hear it, you were actually there.”

“Me? But I haven’t done anything that deserves to be a rumour!”

“Well, except for that trick we played on Trixie’s brothers,” Honey clarified, “only we’re the only ones who know about that and we’re not telling, so I don’t suppose anyone else is, either.”

Trixie stomped a foot. “Will you stop that? Don’t think you can distract me with all these tangents.”

“Well, don’t you think you can make us admit to something when we don’t even know what it is we’re supposed to know,” Di countered, rather confusedly.

“So, what is this rumour, Trix? We can’t tell you why we didn’t tell you unless you tell us what we were supposed to tell.”

“You really don’t know what everyone’s saying?”

“No! Now, please tell us before we – I don’t know; what will we do, Honey?”

“Explode, probably. Please, what are they saying?”

Trixie looked away from both of them. “That Di kissed Ben.”

“No!” Diana objected. “No, I didn’t. Who’s saying I did?”

“Everyone. I’ve heard five different versions so far.”

“Well, that kind of tells you that it’s not real, doesn’t it?” Di argued. “Usually, when something is true, the details stack up. If there are wildly different accounts, it’s usually made up.”

“I didn’t say they were wildly different,” Trixie answered. “All of them have you and Ben playing tonsil hockey in the boys changing room after football practice last week and walked in on by Todd Scott.”

“I’ve never been in the boys changing room in my life! And I wouldn’t choose there for that kind of thing.” A sly smile edged across her face. “I have better ideas on where to go.”

The Circle

Notes: I wrote this short story across two days during JixeWriMo 2018. On day 21, Ruth included in her cheer a prompt: ‘Try three words for each BWG – one noun, one verb, one adjective. Kind of like ad-libs but see where it takes you.’ I chose the words based on the first letter of their names and I allowed myself to use plurals of the nouns and to change tenses of the verbs. I thought of the words first and then wrote a story with them (which is why it is a little disjointed in places). The words were: tiger, touch, tight, hairbrush, hike, hopeless, jack, jump, jerky, bush, bounce, blue, milkshake, melt, mellow, (Diana) diamond, dig, deep, (Dan) dog, dangle, dangerous. Most were the first word I thought of which started with the right letter, though a few I changed because they were too similar to another word.

“Oh, this is hopeless!” Diana declared, flouncing into the clubhouse and banging the door closed behind herself.

Her two best female friends, who had been having a quiet chat at the end of a busy day, looked up in surprise.

“What’s wrong?” Honey asked.

“Everything!”

Trixie and Honey shared a look. Honey patted the sofa next to her. Taking the hint, Di sat down. She held out her phone for Honey to read the text message she had just received.

“Oh. I see. I’m really sorry, Di.”

From the opposite sofa, Trixie frowned and mouthed, “What?”

Honey reached over and squeezed Di’s hand. “It’s from Mart. He says, and I quote, ‘Can’t male it. (That’s M-A-L-E, by the way.) Might are you tomato. Dog wait up.’”

His sister rolled her eyes. “I hardly ever understand his texts. And he never sends corrections, either.”

Di let out a growl. “I don’t care about his lacking of texting skills. What I care about is that I’ve been stood up. Again. And he didn’t even tell me himself.”

The other two hesitated to comment. Di and Mart’s relationship began when they were sixteen and seventeen. Through most of the ensuing four years all had been rosy, but in the last few weeks they encountered a rough patch. And now, in the Bob-Whites’ annual togetherness week, on the designated ‘couples night’, it seemed that Mart had better things to do than spend time with his long-term girlfriend.

“Are you sure that’s what he means?” Honey wondered. “Did you check back with him?”

“I tried to call him, but he didn’t answer.” She sniffed. “He’s going to dump me, isn’t he?”

“Not if you dump him first,” Trixie answered, frowning. “Send him a text and see how he likes it.”

“Trixie!” Honey chastised. “She’ll do nothing of the sort. Taking revenge isn’t going to help. At all.”

“It would make me feel better, if I was in her shoes,” Trixie argued, but Honey held her disapproving expression. “Okay, fine. Don’t tell him to take a hike by text. But it would serve him right.”

“It would,” Di agreed. “But I won’t. I will ask him if he means what I think he means, but I don’t suppose he’ll answer.”

She lapsed into silence as she typed out the message. Meanwhile, Trixie and Honey conducted a silent conversation concerning whether Honey should leave.

“You can both go to your dates,” Di told them, while still frowning over the wording of her text. “I don’t mind at all.”

Honey shook her head. “I don’t need to leave for ages. Dan and I are just going to the Cameo, then to Wimpy’s for milkshakes, so I don’t even need to get changed and I’m not meeting him for half an hour, anyway. And Trixie doesn’t have a date.”

Di’s head shot up. “What?”

“Don’t. Just don’t.” Trixie’s voice held a dangerous edge and one of her knees began to bounce, just a little bit.

“Fine. I won’t ask.” Di watched as Trixie’s movements became less jerky and more natural, then returned her attention to her phone. After making a few more adjustments, she hit send and dropped it onto the seat beside her. “There. That’s done.”

“So, do you want to do something together tonight?” Trixie asked. “If he really isn’t going to meet you, I mean.”

Her friend nodded. “It would be a lot better than sitting at home. Everyone at our place had plans tonight; I’d be all alone and I really don’t want to mope.”

Her phone chimed and she picked it up. Holding it out to Honey, she said, “See?”

Honey read out the message. “‘Rats eight. Set you tamales.’”

Trixie snorted. “That’s got to be a new record for indecipherability.”

Di shook her head. “He means, ‘That’s right. See you tomorrow.’”

“You have too much experience in untangling his texts,” Trixie grumbled. “I just thought he was hungry.”

“We’ve been together for four years,” Di pointed out, on the verge of tears. “Four years! And he pretty much dumps me by text!”

“Don’t think about that now,” Honey urged her. “It’s not necessarily as bad as you’re thinking it is. This might just be one of those hiccups that happen in relationships sometimes.”

One lone tear slid down Di’s face, but she laughed. “You mean, like that hiccup between you and Brian, where you threw your hairbrush at his head?”

“No, that’s not the sort of thing I was thinking of,” Honey answered, giggling. “And you know that I didn’t really mean to throw it at his head, or even at all, really, it’s just that we were camping and I was sitting outside my tent brushing my hair and he startled me and it just flew out of my hand and just happened to hit Brian’s head and you were both there and you saw it for yourselves, so why am I even trying to explain this?”

“Because the story gets better every time I hear it,” Trixie told her, when she could get the words out between the giggles. “And then I remember the look on his face.”

Honey let out a happy sigh. “I love that we can look back and laugh.”

“Even though you and Brian didn’t work out?” Di asked, in a small voice.

Honey nodded. “I wouldn’t trade that time for anything, but I know, deep down, that it just wasn’t right for either of us. And we did worry, both of us, that it would hurt the Bob-Whites, but it hasn’t. Not really. We’re a circle that can’t be broken.”

“A circle,” Di repeated, looking away. She twisted a ring off her right hand and held it out to Honey. “Pass this around the circle we’ll see what he says. I want it to pass through everyone’s hands before it gets back to Mart.”

“Are you sure about this, Di?” she asked, keeping her hand away. “I’m not sure you should be jumping to conclusions.”

“No, that’s my speciality,” Trixie quipped.

Di turned to her and threw the ring. Instinctively, Trixie caught it.

“What do you want me to do with it?” she asked.

Di shrugged. “I want all of the Bob-Whites to pull together. We’ll do what we did when Honey and Brian broke up. This isn’t the same, of course, but I want all my friends to keep the peace.”

Trixie nodded and tossed it to Honey. “You’re next. Go and meet with Dan and fill him in on the plan.”

“Yes, I’d better go.” She jumped to her feet. “Try not to be too upset just yet, okay? It might not be completely bad.”

They hugged, then Honey left. On the doorstep, she cast Trixie a meaningful look.

“That was really subtle,” Trixie grumbled. “You’d think I was completely clueless.”

Di smiled and stooped to pick up something from the floor.

“Is that a card?” Trixie wondered. “Knowing my luck, that’s the exact card I’d want the next time we played and it would be hiding.”

Her friend picked up a couple of packs of cards from the place they kept them and the two began sorting, to see which pack it came from.

“Which card is it?” Trixie asked.

“The Jack of diamonds.”

“This deck has one of those,” she replied. “But I guess I’d better see if it’s got everything else it should. Ugh. It’s got two threes of clubs. And two tens of spades.”

Di laid out the four Jacks and three of the Queens from her deck. “Look: it’s us.”

Trixie touched one of the Jacks. “Not kings?”

Di shook her head. “They look too old. These are better.”

Trixie began to rearrange them: Jack of spades and Queen of diamonds; Jack of clubs; Jack of diamonds and Queen of spades. Then she took the Jack and Queen of hearts and placed one on each end of the row, the Jack on the left and the Queen on the right.

“Jim. Dan and Honey. Brian. Mart and Diana. Trixie.” She nodded at her own reconstruction. “Perfect.”

Di snagged the Jack of diamonds and replaced him with a joker. She let the Jack dangle between her fingers for a minute, then flicked him across the room.

“Hey! I thought we were supposed to be putting that away, not losing it forever!”

With a groan, Di got up and found the card. She took the joker away and put the Jack back in its place, but rearranged the cards so that it and the Queen of spades were at opposite ends. Then she moved the two hearts together.

“This would be better.”

Trixie grunted. “Yeah, well, it’s not happening, is it?”

She picked up the Jack of hearts and flipped him away. The card fluttered down near her feet.

“Who’s losing cards now? And why did you make both you and Jim hearts, anyway?”

Trixie shrugged. “I just didn’t plan ahead. They were the only two left. You should have given me the Queen of clubs. I feel like clubbing him over the head right now.”

“If you want to talk about it …”

Trixie favoured her with a snarl worthy of a tiger.

“Or not,” Di corrected. “That’s fine, too.”

In silence, she sorted the two decks and put them away.

“I’m just tired of being treated like I might break, or melt, or fall to pieces if he comes too close,” Trixie burst out, all of a sudden. “He says it’s not wise to start something now, while we live so far apart, but I’m just so tired of waiting.”

Di considered her response for a moment. “He does kind of have a point. About living far apart, I mean. Because you do. And I don’t think that’s going to change until … well, I don’t know when.”

Trixie dropped her head into her hands, elbows digging into her knees as she did so.

“I know. And I hate that he’s right. I don’t want to be wise. I want what I want right now. And he’s avoiding me, in case I … I don’t know … hide in the bushes and ambush him.”

In spite of the seriousness of the conversation, Di giggled. “I could see you doing that.”

Her friend leaned back in her seat and let a small smile show. “Yeah. That’s probably why he’s worried.”

“Maybe, then, he’s afraid that he’ll be the one to melt, if you get too close.”

Trixie sighed. “Probably. But I really don’t want to talk about it – or think about it. Let’s go and do something fun instead.”

Di thought for a moment. “Movie? At my parents’ place? I’ll let you choose – just so long as it’s not a romance.”

Trixie screwed up her nose. “As if I’d choose something like that!”

Di answered with a tight smile, but said nothing.

Together, they tidied and locked the clubhouse. Outside, the sky overhead had deepened to midnight blue, but a band near the western horizon still held a pale orange glow. Trixie sniffed the evening air and let out a sigh.

“I love this time of day. All the world’s problems seem to disappear into the darkness, but you still have enough light to see where you’re going.”

Di nodded. “But I don’t want the morning to come, because then everything will be exposed in the light of day.”

The reminder of the day to come brought an abrupt end to Trixie’s more mellow mood.

“Well, let’s go and watch that movie,” she suggested. “We both need the distraction.”

When the Bob-Whites gathered at the clubhouse in the morning, all of them but Mart were early and humming with expectation – though it manifested in different ways according to their personalities. The ring had passed through Dan’s hands to Jim’s and from Jim’s to Brian’s.

Right on time, Mart walked in the door to find everyone staring at him – except Diana, who had her back turned.

“Am I late?” he asked, in minor alarm.

“Hold out your hand,” his brother directed, softly.

Mart cast him a wary look, then did so. “Why?”

Brian dropped the ring onto his palm. “I believe this is yours.”

Mart stared at the ring for a few, speechless moments, then sought his girlfriend. “Diana? What is this about?”

“The rest of us are agreed,” Brian went on, “that we will not take sides, but that we will support both of you, in any way that’s needed, and that we will not allow this incident to interfere with our relationships. And now that we’ve made that clear, I expect that you two will want a few minutes alone.”

“No!” Diana answered. “No. I’ve made my side of the story public. He needs the same chance.”

“But I still don’t understand what the problem is,” Mart complained.

“This! This is the problem!” Di held out her phone for him to see. “If you want to dump me, then at least be man enough to do it in person and not by text.”

Mart stared at her, open-mouthed. “But I didn’t!”

“You might as well have,” she answered.

He threw up his hands. “That’s not what I meant, at all. I told you I couldn’t make it last night. Just last night; not forever. What more did you want?”

She closed her eyes and pursed her lips.

He lowered his voice, confusion written large on his face. “Was it really so important to you? Diana?”

“Yes!”

His shoulders sagged. “I’m really sorry. I admit it: I blew off dress-up night. And I know you like that sort of thing, but you know I hate it. I was going to come along, but in the end I just couldn’t face it. And I thought I’d let you know in time that you could adjust your costume, if you wanted to, but if I didn’t, well, I’m sorry for that, too.”

“My …” She turned and stared at him, open-mouthed.

“See? I told you it was just a hiccup,” Honey whispered to her.

Mart frowned. “What are you whispering about? What have I done?”

“Dress-up night is tonight,” Trixie informed him. “You blew off couples night.”

“No. Couples night is Wednesday night,” he answered.

“Yes, and today is Thursday,” she replied. “Not only can he not text, he can’t tell the days of the week. Are you sure you want him, Di? I think you could do better.”

“Trixie!” Honey chastened, grabbing hold of her arm. “Now that that’s all cleared up, I think it’s time we left them alone.”

“That’s a good thought,” Brian added. “The two of you are excused for this morning. We’ll meet you here after lunch. How does that sound?”

“Fine,” Di answered. “Thank you.”

Mart only nodded, a look of mingled contrition and horror on his face.

“And you know the best part?” Trixie commented, on her way out the door. “Mart has no excuses for tonight. He’ll just have to come in costume.”

“If it will make up for my error, then I will, gladly,” he answered, while handing the ring back to Diana.

She smiled as she placed it back on her hand and reached up to kiss him.

Recollections

Notes: This snippet has been hanging around in my writing folder since JixeWriMo 2015. I have tried to write a sequel to it, but it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.

“Hello, Matthew.”

He turned towards her with a jolt. That voice, that familiar voice, which he had not heard in more years than he cared to enumerate, took him back to a place when he was young, carefree and more than a little rebellious.

“Norma. I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”

She shrugged, her shoulders moving with the same fluid grace that he remembered. The years had left their mark on her. Blonde hair was liberally streaked with grey and the once-smooth skin was lined. She had kept her figure, though, and she barely looked older than he did. Considering their age difference, this was quite an achievement.

“I don’t suppose you so much as remembered that I existed.” The smile she flashed him was genuine and there was a teasing glint in her blue eyes.

“Oh, I remembered,” he told her, in a soft voice.

Her smile gained a predatory gleam. “But I don’t suppose that you would like to … reignite our acquaintanceship.”

“I am happily married, these days.” He could not help but allow his eyes to flit across the room to Madeleine. “Very happily.”

The gleam disappeared and once more, she was just another well-presented woman in a crowd that teemed with others like her.

“I did see that for myself. But I couldn’t help but tease.” She snagged a wine glass from a passing waiter. “I mostly wanted to know whether I repulsed you now. I’m glad to see that I do not.”

“I’ll be looking older than you do in a few years. You look very well, and there is nothing to be repulsed by.”

She patted his hand in a gesture that felt at once familiar and strange. “Thank you. That is something of a comfort.”

“Are you in some sort of trouble, Norma?” he wondered.

“Me? No. Not at all.” She smiled. “My late husband left me in an enviable position and, contrary to the expectations of his family, it turns out that I have some business sense of my own. I lack for nothing.”

He cast a shrewd glance in her direction. “Money doesn’t buy happiness – even if every person in this room has tried to make it do so.”

“That is true.” She glanced away. “But I have other things to bring me joy. Grandchildren, for example.”

For a moment he stared at her, before his good manners kicked in. “You surprise me.”

Norma laughed. “I shocked you.”

“Perhaps,” he admitted. “I didn’t expect you to have grandchildren, let alone be pleased about it.”

A bleak look crossed her face and at once she looked years older. “I was an absent mother to poor Jeffrey. I never gave him the things that he needed. It’s no wonder you thought I didn’t care.”

He chose his words carefully. “I certainly never thought that. I considered your conduct to be consistent with that of other mothers I knew – including my own.”

“I regret how I treated him.” She offered a very small smile. “But you are right: I did what I thought was normal at the time.”

“And he must have forgiven you, for you to be close to his children,” Matthew noted.

She shook her head. “Jeffrey died when he was thirteen.”

The world tipped under Matthew. “Thirteen? I’m so terribly sorry. I had no idea.”

His mind spun, trying to figure out how the rest of her words could possibly be true. Jeffrey had been an only child, a delicate boy, riddled with health issues. Norma and her husband had chosen not to have any more children due to the very real fear that the next child would be the same. But, for there to be grandchildren, there must have been another child. Further, Jeffrey had been thirteen at the time of Matt’s affair with Norma and he had known nothing of the child’s death.

“It was for the best,” she answered. “He had … some truly terrible problems. He was never going to be normal and he knew it. He couldn’t do the things that boys do. The whole time that I was seeing you, he was dying. I knew that he had almost run out of time and I squandered his last days on …”

“Me,” Matt whispered.

She grasped his hand briefly. “You comforted me, when no one else could. I don’t regret that. But I could have been kinder to Jeffrey.”

“These grandchildren of yours,” he prompted, returning to the other point which troubled him.

“Yes, they’ve been wonderful.” She smiled more brightly. “After he died, and after I’d written you that letter, I had another child, another son.”

“I didn’t know.”

He inwardly shook himself. Of course he had not known. That had been a ridiculous thing to say. Until now, his only contact with Norma since their last time together had been the letter she had just mentioned. He had been hurt and angry at the time – it is never pleasant to be dumped, but to the young and rather egotistical Matthew it had been riling. That she had offered no reason, other than a fear that her husband might find out, had made matters worse.

“No. I never imagined that you did.” She looked away, seemingly into the past. “You may have heard, however, that my husband died not long after we broke things off.”

He nodded. “I thought, at the time, that you would contact me. I remember being rather annoyed that you didn’t.”

“I had other matters to consider,” she answered, with a ruthless note to her voice. “My position was … tenuous, I suppose you could say. There were certain legalities to fulfil and social norms to conform with. And there were also certain rumours to quash.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Should I know what that meant?”

“If you don’t, then I can’t see how it could hurt to tell you.” Her expression hardened. “People can be so callous. Apparently, I killed Jeffrey; or, I killed my husband; or, I had a lover, who killed him for me; or, my husband had a lover and I killed him because of it; or, I was about to be disinherited and killed my husband before he could do it; or, I killed him because the second child wasn’t his and he knew it. There were plenty more. I can’t remember all of the terrible things I supposedly did. Very few of them held any truth.”

“But some of them did, and you needed to protect yourself.” He nodded approval. “I didn’t understand at the time, but I do now and I don’t blame you for it at all.”

“Thank you.” She smiled. “But many years have passed and hardly anyone remembers those things any more. And I think it’s time for me to lay to rest a few of my regrets.”

Matt nodded. “That sounds like a good idea, in theory.”

“You’re wondering what it has to do with you.” She glanced across the room, to where Madeleine was talking with a group of other people. “You’re hoping that I’m not going to disturb your idyllic life with something that you would rather stayed buried in the past.”

“I will admit to a slight feeling of apprehension.”

“My grandchildren are the light of my life,” she told him, in an apparent change of subject. “They mean the world to me.”

Matthew’s feeling of apprehension deepened. “I’m glad. You deserve to be happy.”

She met his eyes. “You’ve guessed, haven’t you? They’re your grandchildren, too.”

He had guessed, of course. When she had mentioned the rumour about the second child not being her husband’s the possibility had jumped into his mind, but he still felt shocked and confused by the revelation. Honey was seventeen years old – hardly more than a child – and he had not considered the possibility of another generation beyond her, except in the abstract, in the distant future.

“Your son,” he asked, in an effort to get a grip on the subject. “What is his name?”

“He’s called Matthew.” She smiled at him. “My husband was gone. There was no one to object. And no one suspected it was you who fathered him. They all thought I’d been with that dreadful man McIntyre.”

Matthew’s heart jolted in his chest. A son. A completely unknown son, whom he had never laid eyes upon, who had grown up without knowing him, but who bore his name, and who had children of his own. The thought scared him, in ways he found difficult to define.

“Well, now that I have dropped my bombshell, I think I will leave you to think things through.” She smiled, with a hint of sadness. “It’s been a long time, Matthew, and I’m glad to have seen you again. I never thanked you for the very great gift you gave to me, even if you did not mean to give it.”

He shook his head, at a complete loss on how to respond.

“Maybe we’ll see each other again sometime,” she told him, grasping his hand again and giving it a quick squeeze. “Take care.”

“You, too, Norma.” Her hand was still in his and he squeezed back. “I won’t pretend not to be shocked by what you’ve just told me, but I do wish you all the best.”

With one last fleeting smile, she slipped away, leaving him staring after her.

“Who was that?” his wife’s voice asked in his ear. “Or don’t I want to know?”

For an instant, he felt a sharp stab of guilt, but it subsided almost at once.

“A very old acquaintance, whom I hadn’t seen since before I even met you.” He rubbed a hand down her arm. “Are you having a good evening, Madeleine? If you’re not, I’d be happy to leave now. I think I’ve been here quite long enough.”

“She must have said something terrible to get that kind of reaction from you,” she teased gently. “But, now that you mention it, I would like to leave. I would rather spend the rest of my evening with you.”

Matthew smiled and took her arm. “That sounds like the best antidote for unheralded blasts from the past. I would very much like to concentrate on the present. And have I mentioned how delectable you look in that dress?”

“Only three or four times,” she answered, smiling. “But I won’t object to your saying it again.”

He escorted her from the party and fixed his mind firmly on his wife. Other, darker thoughts would have to wait for another day.

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