The Queen of My Heart

Annie grew. And grew. She got taller and lost her puppy fat. She went up through primary school and Junior school to the local High school. She started to draw and write on her own and developed her own styles, focussing on drawing plants and animals. Annie and I would just walk along the lanes and up the tracks looking for plants. She knew as much as I did. She went through classical violin to become a competent fiddler preferring folk tunes to Paganini, and I loved to listen to her play in the yard of an evening.

I might have been biased but she was growing up to be a beautiful woman, who got on with everyone and who people liked. I was so proud of her.

One day she surprised me.

We were talking over tea -- slow cooked beef stew for me, and a vegetarian pasta bake for her (Annie was trying out the veggie thing, but even as she ate it she kept eyeing up my stew).

"Dada?" She began, "Megan (her best friend) - well you know her dad left her mum?"

I did. Unlike Lara leaving me, Julie and Pete had been the talk of the village for a whole week.

"Well Megan asked me if I thought you'd want to take her mum out to the Hallowe'en party. She sort of wants you to get together with her."

"And what did you say?" I asked.

"I told her that I love her mum a lot." Megan's mum often helps out on the girlie side of bringing up a thirteen-year old. "And I think you should take her, because she isn't going out very much -- a bit like you." She said pointedly.

"So where is this going Annie?" I asked, ignoring the look, I was happy as I was.

"Do you still love mum?" She asked.

"Almost as much as I love you, queen of my heart."

"And you still think about her?"

"Everyday. Where are you going with this?"

"I told Megan. I said you and her mum are good friends but that's it. I said you like her, and have a lot of respect for her, but that's as far as it goes."

"Well_" I was a little non-plussed by this. "How did Megan take that?"

"She was cool dada. She understands it too."

"Understands what?"

"You and me Dada. We're all we'll ever need."

"All we'll ever need, Annie? What about when you get older and some young man wants to take you away?"

Annie paused for a moment and looked out of the window. It was as if she was looking at the valley, taking it all in, the hills, the woods and the village below. Then she looked at me and there was something so serious about her eyes that I almost dreaded what she was going to say next.

"There's no one who can take me away from you, dada?"

It was said with such firm conviction it worried me.

Visions of a future where I would be trapping my daughter at home, a grumpy or frail old man with a talented lovely girl who had wasted her life when she would have been better out in the world.

I have heard other parents complain about their teenagers. Even Meghan's mum, Julie, complained about things that her daughter did -- though whenever she was at our house you'd have to travel a long way to find a sweeter girl than Meghan.

Me? I had to keep checking that my daughter was still there.

Never in trouble at school, her social life was no problem, she never threw a cat fit at home. I never once heard 'You don't understand!' or 'Could you be more embarrassing?' or even 'I hate you!' Probably most worrying her bedroom was always immaculate.

I suppose I should have realised that this was not normal.

To be honest apart from the above, the girl that Annie had become had also become my best friend and companion.

And then one Hallowe'en, on her sixteenth birthday, we were watching television and she asked me if I still missed her mum.

"I do." I said wondering where this had come from.

"Would you have her back dada?"

"If you had asked me that a few years ago I would have answered yes, without any hesitation."

"And what about now?"

"I don't know." I told her honestly. "I reckon if she had been able to come back, she'd have at least visited. So, it's not like I expect her to come back, the honest answer is that I'm not sure there's room for her in our lives anymore."

"But you do still love her?"

"Yes." I said, "The years we were together were great, and at the end of them she left you to be in my life. There will always be room for her in my heart, Annie, but the rest of it- well that is your kingdom."

"Awwww! I love you dada!" She said hugging me tightly as she did so.

"And I love you too, queen of my heart."

A year later I got published.

I had been working with ceramics for years, making a living -- the odd exhibition here -- raku work, and a nice collection based on ancient vase forms, and some little earners like a weekly slot at a nearby college for 'crafty' types, and visiting assessor for local school A level courses. A good source of income was a collection of ceramic goblins for the local art shops, each of the individuals made using different heads and torsos -- that sort of thing, and people bought as many as I could make. We stayed afloat but there was rarely any surplus money.

But then someone read a manuscript I had written of all of the fairy-tales I had made for Annie, based on and in our local area.

That person asked me if she could show it to an agent -- I said sure, not really believing it was going to go anywhere.

But then that agent called me and we had lunch together in Hereford. She thought the stories were very sellable, more so because at the same time she had been sent the manuscript the agent had been sent some of my goblin artwork and one of the ceramic ones. If I did illustrations for the stories as well, she told me, she thought we would be looking at good money. Very good money.

I was a bit surprised, but when I told Annie she was definite. "You need to do this dada. These stories need to be told so that other children can enjoy them like I do."

For a few months I worked in the studio during the day trying to finish a small collection for an exhibition, as well as a new batch of goblins, then of an evening I would change from clay to water-colours as I illustrated the stories.

Annie was my support team, cooking supper and making sure I ate it, while simultaneously being my quality control supervisor, cheer-leader and fiercest critic.

Eventually all of the paintings were done, the revisions and suggested changes had been made where I thought they were worth-while. We settled on twelve stories, each with two or three images. Annie told me that the book would go down a storm and she was so proud of me.

I was completely blown away when she was proved right.

The agent's first words when she rang me were "I hope you have more of those stories!"

Well I did, there were years of them.

Then she told me how much the advance was.

After tax it was a lot of money, more than I would normally earn in a couple of years, and it would be a gift that kept on giving because there would be royalties, people were fighting for rights -- merchandising and the like. There was even talk of an animated film, someone even mentioned a live-action movie (we're not totally isolated out here in the sticks, we have the internet and satellite TV, and the good old BBC).

She told me that they would be the big earners, and she mentioned amounts that seemed a little obscene. She also told me to get started on the next volume.

Annie squealed with delight, "See dada! I told you!" she said as she hugged me and we danced around our living room.

"You have to do 'The Queen of my Heart' next!"

And for a moment I paused.

The Queen of my Heart is a story that I wasn't exactly comfortable with because it was based on Lara and the way she had left us. In the story the boy had gone off after his wife, and after several long adventures, eventually found her only to discover that she was actually a princess in fairy land.

The fey princess was being punished by the Elf-King for hand-fasting the boy and bearing him a child. So, the boy had to go on another adventure to end the princesses' punishment -- an adventure that keeps him away from home until his daughter is almost grown. As a result, the Elf-King allows the princess to visit her husband and -- now grown - daughter once a year on Hallowe'en.

Annie always enjoyed this story, because it was about her and her father and mother. Despite her acceptance of what had happened it was a fantasy that 'explained' it, though we both knew that Lara was never coming back.

For me it was all about what I did and didn't do and was in a way, me rehashing the choice I made to stay with Annie -- in the story the little girl stays with her grandparents while her father goes off on his quests. The fact that the man is away so long in fairy land was my worries that in searching for her mother I would miss Annie's growing up.

The illustrations just seemed to do themselves -- The fey princess was drawn how I remember Lara, but in more 'elfie' looking clothes. The boy was obviously me, but even Gumble the goblin-knight and his retinue, drew themselves, I also made a mental note to make masters for Gumble and his squire and the two archers and goblin hobilars for production in clay, based on those drawings.

The manuscripts and illustrations for Queen and a few other stories -- I showed the roughs to my agent - were snapped up as well. The publishers were ecstatic. They gave me even more money and a contract for Queen and two more books.

The first book would be published on Annie's seventeenth birthday, Hallowe'en.

The idea was to publish 'The Queen of my Heart and other stories' a year later on the same day, Annie's eighteenth.

The Crumpled Lands of the Fey did everything it was thought it might do. Straight into the best-seller lists, merchandisers queuing at the door, studios got involved in a bidding war for the rights, it was all a bit of a shock.

Through it all, the trips to London for the launch and the press junkets, the book signings, and the Hay Festival just down the road, Annie kept me grounded. If she said something or did something I took notice, she was rarely wrong, even if it was only picking a tie for me, she would choose it and then later someone would complement me on the choice. I always made sure that she got the credit she deserved.

Annie accompanied me on a lot of the trips, she was my 'beautiful assistant', leggy, slim, with her long dark hair brushed out and hanging loose about her shoulders, she'd be there ready to help or just watching with shining eyes as people celebrated the stories I had made for her. My daughter, like myself, never became comfortable with London, even so we were able to use the trips there as an excuse to visit places we'd never been to, and I will never forget the look on her face the first time she stood under and looked up at the whale's skeleton in the Natural History Museum.

A year after Crumpled Lands came out I tried to get the publishers to shift the launch of The Queen of my Heart to a day earlier because that Hallowe'en was Annie's eighteenth birthday. After a lot of to-ing and fro-ing it was settled that it would be timed for lunchtime, and it would be in Hereford, not The Smoke. While not perfect, it was better for me because I could get home much more easily from Hereford than from London, and we could go out for a meal to celebrate in the evening.

It was a busy day. The venue was thronged with literary press and fans, and as well as the actual launch there was a book signing. Annie had packed me off that morning and decided that because of the unseasonably warm weather I would be better off without a tie. I was scrubbed and polished and let out of the house only when she was happy. She could not come with me because it was a school day and as it was an exam year every day counted.

I'm still a little unsettled by fans. I love that people like my stories, but it's the intensity with which they like them that astonishes me. Thirty-somethings, even forty-somethings dressed as Fey based on my books came as a bit of a shock the first time, still does, but it's kind of cool as well.

After the signing came the pieces for TV, and then the meetings with people who I have only ever corresponded with by email or spoken to on the phone. To be honest I wanted nothing more than to be out of there and on my way home to celebrate Annie's eighteenth, but it had to be done.

And then it was time.

I actually drove home with the windows down, the afternoon was dry and warm(ish), but it was going to be misty later -- not entirely inappropriate for the Eve of All Hallows. I was tired, it had been a busy day but I reckoned I'd have a shower and we could go out.

The drive was actually good for me. The road from Hereford winds and turns and climbs and dives round bends, round big, old trees, between high hedges and through a series of small and incredibly picturesque villages. It's really enjoyable if the weather is good. I was driving through the countryside of my books, and it made me feel good. Even just travelling through it grounds me and recharges my batteries.

I got home an hour later and went into the house -- I shouted Annie to let her know I was home but there was no answer. She should have been there, she had an early finish at school that day and it's not a long walk up the hill.

I checked her room, knocked on the bathroom door, checked the studio, even went out to the chicken run, there was no sign of her anywhere.

I told myself that there was a perfectly normal explanation for her not being home -- she might have been caught up with friends in the village, but then I noticed her school bag on the hall window sill, so she had been home, but for some reason had left again. Also, when I went back to the bathroom I saw that the shower tray was wet and there was a freshly dampened towel on the rack.

Annie had been home, had taken a shower and gone out again.

That was okay, she was technically an adult and quite capable of making her own mind up. I was just surprised that tonight of all nights she had gone out without leaving me a note.

The evening light was dimming and the mist was closing round the hanger woods that line the fields up to the top of our hill. I stood at the sink to put water in the kettle.

In the middle of the field where the crest curves over was a figure, walking down the hill towards the cottage.

Every hair on the back of my neck stood up, all the hairs on both of my fore-arms did the same. The rush of déjà vu was almost dizzying.

I went and stood at the open back door.

The figure got closer, walking towards the gate through the fence onto the field, like she owned it.

It was almost as if eighteen years had not happened.

Her hair was the same - a curly, unruly bob. The dark hair framing her stunning face and that devastating smile. Her eyes shone.

She wore a short black dress, showing off her long and shapely legs right down to the black slippers I was so familiar with. She even walked down the slope the same way, relaxed and with an open stride, directly towards me.

It couldn't be! I did a classic double take, shaking my head in disbelief.

It couldn't be Lara, rationally it just couldn't be! It looked like her, so much like her that it hurt. But it couldn't be her. My eyes told me that it was my long-lost wife, while at the same time my brain was screaming that it couldn't be.

But then my heart chipped in with the fact that this was Hallowe'en after all, one of the most magical nights of the year, when those lost to us can make their way back. All of that back of the mind superstition, the accepted beliefs from childhood over-rode rational thought, accepting that this sort of thing might happen, that it could happen.

That was perhaps one explanation of why I was ready to see what I thought I was seeing. Perhaps mentally I was still in the lands of the stories I had created. Perhaps that was why I was seeing what I was seeing as the figure opened the gate and walked across our back lawn to the door where I stood.

Whatever it was I was lost in that moment as she extended her hands. Automatically I reached out for her, despite everything I had thought, everything I had said -- I had missed Lara, her smile, her eyes, her company, everything. I wasn't sure what it be like to touch this apparition, only to feel her cool hands grasp mine and pull them to her.

I knew it wasn't real, but couldn't understand why, when I could touch her and feel her, and feel the touch of her lips, like her hands, cool from the evening air, when they came to touch mine.

It didn't matter -- we melted into each other and I wrapped my arms around her, and she brought her arms up and around me. We kissed for a few minutes, the moments uncounted, until I lifted my head to draw breath, and I realised that the sun was setting quickly and the air getting colder.

I hurried her inside, into the living room were the wood-burner sat. We kissed again, and again, and again. Eleven years of loss, of missed passion and remembered love poured through me into those kisses. There was desire too, desire for this lithe, dark woman who had walked back into my life. Eleven years of a self-imposed celibacy, all pouring through breathless, tongue-twisting hungry kisses.

After kissing for a while, she walked to the door of the stairway,

I followed her pert bum up the stairs - Annie forgotten for a moment as we passed her room - until we stood in mine. She had put the dim bedside light on, and looked at me, then leaned in to kiss me while at the same time she unbuttoned my shirt. I reached around her and undid the zip of her dress. Like the last time the dress was all she wore, and soon it was on the carpet and she was stepping out of it. I couldn't believe how fresh and new she looked, I leaned in and took a deep breath, she still smelled of flowers a rich fresh scent.

This time, rather than just fall onto the bed covers I drew back the duvet and brought her into our bed. She lay down eagerly and pulled me on top of her, opening her legs for me, inviting me in.

"Take me!" She commanded, "Fuck me hard!" I was more than happy to oblige.

I'm eleven years older now, but all that didn't matter, I slid into her welcoming pussy and wrapping her in my arms fucked away like I was a young man in his prime again.

I kissed her nipples, licked them, sucked them, enjoying watching the nub grow until it stood out proud. Her nipples were dark pink -- the colour of coral - but the nubs were even darker and solid looking.

It was rough and tumbling, rocking and rolling sex.

I ground my hips at the bottom of the stroke and worked and worked trying to show this gorgeous creature how much I had missed her. Yes, I was fucking her hard, and yes, there was a little anger at her leaving us in there, but I was also trying to show her that I had never stopped loving her.

Her orgasm made her buck, convulse almost, her hips jerking up off the bed. "Ohh! Ohhh!" she reached up and pulled me in close. I came soon afterwards shooting up inside her, feeling like I emptied myself into her.

"I love you dada!"

Those four words froze me rigid. I looked at her face, scanned it closely and saw what I had missed.

Annie had fallen from a swing at school when she was a little girl and given herself a deep cut on her left eyebrow. It healed quickly but the scar remained just a tiny gap in the hairs of her brow.

The enormity of what I had done crowded in on me like being pressed against the floor by a huge weight. I had sworn to myself that I would put her first in everything I did, love her and protect her and yet I had committed the worst sort of crime.

I lay there for a long time wondering whether she would ever forgive me, I wasn't sure whether I deserved to be forgiven. I mean how could I have been so fucking blind?