Reunion

In a quiet moment during a business trip, Elliot Chatwin reflected that he had been in love three times during his life. Once, while married and in his early forties, with Joan – a colleague. They were having an affair, although neither said that word out loud. Once before that, in his early thirties, with Michiko – who was now his ex-wife. And once when he was just eleven years old, with Lucy Venables, the girl who lived next door. She was also eleven.

Sitting on the bed in his hotel room, Elliot took a moment to consider the three affairs, and the three break-ups.

Easily the most painful was with Joan. He had scheduled one of their semi-regular dinner dates that often led to something back at her apartment. He had been a little bit early, sitting at a table, working up the courage to make some sort of declaration to her, trying to think what he might say, when Joan turned up and started saying, on sitting down, that she had fallen in love with somebody else, and they were moving in together. Elliot nodded his absolute and immediate acceptance of this situation. He even did a lip-biting little smile, taking it well, like a reality TV contestant getting told he’s not going through to the next round. Joan had said that, under the circumstances, it was probably better if they postponed dinner until some other time, having not in fact taken her coat off. She had never looked more beautiful, more strong and free.

With Michiko, it was in fact some time after that, in Tokyo, where they had gone for her mother’s funeral. After the ceremony, back at her family home, the couple had sat silently on a squashy black leather couch with disconcertingly ice-cold aluminium armrests. Michiko had asked quietly where he would be living when they returned to London. She looked stylish and slim: quite ten years younger.

And as for the last case? There had been no break-up as such, but his unrequited adoration for Lucy Venables had been just as real, just as painful, just as all-consuming as any of his other loves. He felt it was entirely correct to count it as one of the big affairs. In fact, he was inclined to think it was the grandest and most intense passion of the three.

Elliot smiled sadly to himself as he undressed in his hotel room, preparing to have a shower before attending that evening’s corporate cocktail party. What on earth had made him think of Lucy Venables after all this time?

Heaven knows, it was a disagreeable subject. Lucy Venables never loved him; she was wayward and capricious, and his last glimpse of Lucy was of her cruel little smile, looking on as her father gave him a slap across the face. In his adult life, Elliot had psychologically suppressed the memory of this, almost in its entirety.

Lucy Venables. Lucy Venables. Why was he thinking about Lucy Venables?

Subliminal images of her f