A Minor Indiscretion by Carole Matthews Page A

really his bag. Has he brought me here because he thinks it’s what older people like to do? I don’t know. If he starts to offer me tea and cake on the hour every hour, I’ll be seriously worried about his motives. This is what we do on outings with my parents—ply them with calories and Twinings to keep them happy (i.e., quiet). Christian looks cheerful enough. We are walking along side by side, grinning inanely at each other. My brain cells seem to go all haywire when I’m with him. I’ll swear they do. He makes me think one thing and then do completely the opposite.
    There’s a huge Ginkgo biloba tree at Kew, not far from the main entrance. It’s one of the oldest trees here, or something like that, and the leaves look like a million bright green butterflies. If you touch it, the bark will give you a bolt of energy so strong that you can feel it all the way down to your socks. Honestly. I’d like to show Christian this, but today, I’m going to give it a wide berth. My energy is whizzing round my body, making everything feel tingly and sensitized already. I feel very weird. On the one hand, I’m relaxed and happy to be here—the sun is shining, the birds are singing, I’ve bunked a day off work—on the other hand, I’ve never felt so tense in all my life. I ought to have phoned Kath Brown, but I’ve never lied to her before and can’t face it now. It’s Friday and I’ve got two whole days to think of an excuse before I have to go to work again on Monday. I’ve turned my mobile off and stuffed it in the bottom of my handbag so she can’t contact me, coward that I am.
    We’ve wandered all over the gardens—through the angular, ultra-modern Princess of Wales Conservatory, through the Japanese bit with its reconstructed temple gate, and have made suitably impressed-type noises at the towering pagoda which dominates the skyline at the head of an avenue of soaring trees dwarfed by its splendor. I adore trees and flowers and nature in general. Christian seems to as well. Perhaps he sees things through more artistic eyes than the average twenty-three-year-old; people of that age aren’t usually known for their appreciation of trees, are they? What did my life revolve around when I was the tender age of twenty-three? I seem to recall it was gearing up for potty training. My children’s, not mine.
    We are lying on the grass by the Temperate House and I feel as if I’m dressed all wrong. Despite my attempts at casual, I’ve come in a ballgown to a bring-a-bottle party. I should be wearing trainers, and instead I have on smart imitation snakeskin broguey things that were really trendy when I bought them yonks ago. They would have made my feet sweat like a pig in the office—had I have gone there—and yet they aren’t comfortable enough for clonking round gardens in. My jeans are Calvin Klein and have been pressed so much they’ve formed a white crease down the front, which is very eighties. And, if I admit it, even my sweatshirt’s a bit glittery. I feel overdone and tied up. My daughter throws anything on and looks fabulous. That’s because she has firm, high breasts that do not even entertain drooping toward the floor and slender, unblemished legs that go on for miles. Christian is clearly of the same mold. He has no hips and a flat stomach and probably doesn’t even know what the word “sit-up” means. His clothes hang on him like a catwalk model. He is lying with his arms above his head and his short khaki T-shirt has ridden up, exposing his stomach. He has a great belly button. Neat and round. I’m obsessed with navels after mine went all teardrop-shaped and horrid after my first pregnancy. I try not to stare at it and fail, but fortunately Christian has his eyes shut against the sun. A fine line of blond down disappears beneath his waistband, and then I catch myself wondering whether