Alice Ross - An Autumn Affair

Ask anyone who knew her, and they would all agree that Julia Blakelaw was generally an easy-going soul, phlegmatic and resigned to her existence. Since her run-in with Max in the supermarket a few days ago, however, Julia had demonstrated none of those traits. A deluge of discontentment and despair had swept away all other emotions. While never placing herself in the ‘Ecstatically Happy’ category, Julia had, however unwittingly, accepted her lot and got on with it. Since bumping into Max, though, it all seemed completely futile – a feeling exacerbated by a surreptitious rummage through her old photo albums. The albums she kept hidden in a battered old suitcase in the bottom of her wardrobe. The albums crammed with photos of her and Max.

‘Has my blue striped shirt been ironed?’

Propped up against the pillows still abed on Monday morning, Julia observed her husband, Paul, as he flicked through the rainbow of shirts in his wardrobe. Fresh from the shower, he had a towel wrapped around his waist. He wasn’t in bad shape for a man just the wrong side of forty, Julia concluded. Courtesy of his twice-weekly squash games, there wasn’t so much as a hint of a paunch. And the grey bits in his dark curly hair served only to make it more interesting. Totally unfair.

‘Julia. My shirt?’ he repeated. ‘Has it been ironed yet?’

Dragged out of her reverie, Julia shrugged. ‘If it isn’t there, then probably not.’

The look on Paul’s face told her this was not the answer he’d been hoping for. ‘But I need it.’

Julia heaved an almighty sigh and folded her arms over her chest. ‘Why? You’ve got thirty others to choose from.’

‘But I need that one. I’m presenting to the Board today and it’s the only one I feel really comfortable in.’

Julia rolled her eyes. She didn’t have the energy for an argument. ‘All right. All right. I’ll iron it.’

‘Thanks.’ He flashed her a smile as she clambered out of bed.

Well, at least that was something, mused Julia, tying the belt of her robe around her waist. ‘Thanks’ was not a word uttered with much regularity in the Blakelaw household. Her positivity, though, was short-lived.

‘And can you do it quickly?’ he added. ‘I need to be in the office half an hour earlier today.’

‘Right,’ she muttered through gritted teeth.

On the landing, she bumped into Faye.

‘Oh. If you’re ironing, could you do my denim skirt?’

‘Of course,’ said Julia, plastering a saccharine smile onto her face. ‘Anything else?’

Faye narrowed her eyes and screwed up her nose. ‘No. Just the skirt.’

Reaching the spare bedroom which doubled as an ironing room, Julia flung the door shut and plopped down on the bed, causing the mountain of creased clothes on it to topple to the floor. She’d spent the entire weekend running around after them all – as usual. But this weekend, it had felt so different. So … wrong. She rested her forearms on her thighs and dropped her head into her hands, anger and resentment spinning through her veins. Since when had she become such a doormat? Since when had she allowed people – and her own family at that – to treat her as nothing but a domestic slave? Once upon a time she’d harboured dreams, ambitions. She’d wanted to travel, have a successful career, achieve something – all the things that made life worth living. But that seemed a million years ago. What had happened to that lively, feisty girl? The girl who had been so full of energy, with a natural zest for life? The girl that had captivated Max Burrell …

Julia had scarcely believed it when Max had shown an interest in her. They’d both been seventeen, in the first year of sixth form. Julia – pretty and popular – had been academically capable, but nothing special. Unlike Max. He’d joined the school the year before, and in no time at all assumed his place as captain of the rugby team and star of the debating society, in addition to smashing all of the school’s athletic records. Undeniably brilliant, he was destined for great things – a dead cert for Oxbridge. Add devastating good looks to the package, and Max could have had any girl he wanted. But the only one he did want was Julia.

It had all started at a house party where Julia, losing her balance on ridiculously high stilettoes, had sent a huge glass of cider over Max’s trendy shirt. She’d been mortified, he amused. She’d thought he’d run a mile. He stuck to her like glue. Then, at the end of the night, he’d kissed her on the cheek and asked her out. Julia thought it must be a joke; an adolescent bet, with his mates sniggering around the corner. But it wasn’t and they weren’t.

Much to the apparent bemusement of the rest of the school, they soon became a couple, ‘Are you really going out with Max Burrell?’ being asked on more than one occasion; and ‘I can’t believe Max Burrell is going out with her ,’ being overheard on several others.

Not that Julia was surprised. There were heaps of prettier girls in the school. Quite why Max had singled out her, she couldn’t fathom.

‘Because you’re gorgeous, genuine and funny,’ he insisted.

But, try as she might, Julia couldn’t get her head around it. Every time they went out she almost had to pinch herself to prove that it was real. Not only because she was actually with Max, but because of the way he treated her – gazing at her with a glint of tenderness in those grey-green eyes. Placing his hand on the small of her back each time he opened a door for her. And, best of all in Julia’s opinion, casually draping his arm over her shoulders whenever they walked down the street.

‘God, do you know how lucky you are, going out with him?’ her friend, Marie, begrudgingly muttered, when they’d glanced out of the window between classes one day to see Max striding across the school car park, all long legs and floppy dark-blond hair.

And Julia did know how lucky she was.

The day Max told her he loved her had been one of the happiest of her entire life. Three days before Christmas they’d been ice-skating at a park on the outskirts of the city. Julia, with unabashed bravado, launched herself into the centre of the rink and attempted to do a twirl. Things – perhaps understandably – not going quite as planned, she landed in an ungainly heap on the ice.

A split second later Max was at her side. ‘God, Julia! Are you all right?’

From her supine position, Julia gazed up at him. ‘My arm hurts but I don’t think I’ve broken anything.’

The look of concern on his face caused her heart to constrict. ‘I can’t stand the thought of anything happening to you, Ju. I really can’t.’ He tenderly swiped a lock of hair from her forehead. ‘I love you.’

Those three words caused every other thought to rocket from Julia’s head. She forgot all about the pain in her arm, the other skaters, the loud music, and the fact that she was lying on a sheet of ice. For a few seconds, she and Max were the only two people in the entire universe.

‘And I love you,’ she eventually replied.

And she really did. Had for months but hadn’t dared tell him.

After that, the intensity of their relationship increased tenfold. It was like they were soulmates, destined to be together forever.

That same evening, with Julia’s parents out sipping mulled wine at a neighbour’s party, they’d lain on the sofa in her living room for hours, kissing and gazing into one another’s eyes.

‘I’d like to marry you one day,’ Max whispered.

And Julia thought, for the second time in only a few hours, that she might die of happiness.

Then, in what seemed to be the blink of an eye, university beckoned. York for Julia. Cambridge for Max. General consensus was that they didn’t have a hope in hell of keeping the relationship going. But they had. For a while, anyway. Until … until Julia made what she now realised was possibly the biggest mistake of her life.