One Perfect Summer

Alice.’
    ‘Hey,’ he says gently. There’s concern in his voice. ‘Have you seen it?’
    He knows exactly why I’m ringing. He tried to call me twice over Christmas – I assume, about this.
    ‘No.’ Pause. ‘Have you?’
    ‘Em and I caught it last weekend.’
    ‘What’s it like? What’s he like?’
    ‘He’s . . . good.’ He sounds impressed. ‘You can understand what all of the fuss is about. If you’re a girl,’ he adds nonchalantly.
    I notice that my hands are shaking.
    ‘What are you going to do?’ he asks.
    ‘Sorry?’
    ‘Are you going to try to contact him?’
    ‘Why would I do that?’
    ‘I just thought—’
    ‘No,’ I interrupt. ‘No, I’m not going to try to contact him. If I was going to do that I would have done it years ago.’
    There’s silence at the other end of the line. The phone beeps to let me know there’s another call coming in. ‘I’d better go,’ I say, informing him of the other caller. We hang up and I answer the phone. This time it’s Lizzy.
    ‘Are you okay?’ she asks, slightly breathless. It doesn’t surprise me that she, also, belatedly found out about Joe in Sky Rocket . She doesn’t make it to the movies much. In fact, she barely makes it out of the front door on some days.
    ‘Yes,’ I reply, taking a deep breath. ‘I’ve been on the phone to Jessie.’
    ‘Did he tell you?’
    ‘No, a little boy in my class did. When did the name Joseph Strike become part of a six-year-old’s vocabulary?’
    ‘Bloody hell,’ she says with disbelief. ‘I couldn’t believe it when I saw him being interviewed on a daytime chat show.’
    ‘Where?’ I ask quickly. ‘In this country?’
    ‘Yes. He’s in London at the moment.’
    ‘He’s here?’
    Suddenly it feels very real.
    ‘You could try to contact him again, you know,’ she says softly.
    Again.
    She’s the only one who knows my darkest secret. Despite Lukas’s threat that our marriage would be over if I ever tried to contact Joe, in my heart of hearts I couldn’t let it lie. I felt sick and nervous and guilty and deceitful, but I managed to speak to someone in the film distribution company that had made Strike , and their press department informed me that Joe had moved to Los Angeles. They gave me his agent’s details – a man called Nicky Braintree – and I rang and asked to speak to him. He couldn’t take my call and I didn’t want to leave a message. I almost gave up, but a few days later I managed to ring him again. This time he was on another call, but I held on and waited, telling the receptionist it was personal. Finally he came on the line . . .
    ‘My name is Alice . . .’ I didn’t want to give him my married name, Heuber, but Simmons felt fraudulent.
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘I’m trying to get hold of Joe . . . Joseph Strike.’
    ‘You and everyone else, sweetheart. What’s it about?’
    His comment threw me. I managed to stammer out a reply about how I used to know him.
    ‘I’ll tell him you called,’ he said shortly. ‘Give me your number and I’ll—’
    ‘Couldn’t you give me his number?’ I asked, already knowing the answer.
    ‘I can’t give out my client’s details, darling,’ he said in a patronising tone. ‘Like I said, give me your number and I’ll pass on the message.’
    ‘No, I, er, I can’t.’
    I couldn’t risk him calling with Lukas around.
    He sighed and muttered something about time wasting, before hanging up on me.
    I’ve never tried to contact him again. I also resisted Googling him. I tried to put him out of my mind once and for all for the sake of my husband.
    ‘No,’ I tell Lizzy. ‘I can’t risk my marriage.’
    And, anyway, now I’m just some girl Joe shagged before he became famous.
    The pain at this thought is crippling.

 
    I plan to tell Lukas about Joe’s new-found fame before he finds out from someone else. I’m worried that he’s going to hit the roof like last time, but that was three and a half years ago; a lot of water has passed under the bridge since then.
    He doesn’t usually get home from work until about six thirty, so I knock off my marking and my preparation for tomorrow’s classes, and then I crack on with making him his favourite dinner: fillet steak with green peppercorn sauce and hand-cut chips. I’m hoping that this meal will soften the blow. He arrives home at quarter to seven and he looks exhausted.
    ‘I hate this perpetual drizzle,’ he says with a sigh as he takes off his coat. ‘I was hoping