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Heathcliff on speaker-phone

21st March 2007 by Helena 8 Comments  

If I’d known he was going to get him on the phone I might have prepared myself better. But just how do you prepare yourself for a conversation with someone you were madly in love with as a teenager and haven’t spoken to for over twenty years? No one has written that survival manual yet.

“Where does your mother live?” Marco asked me the other day.

“In Devon, near Tiverton,” I say.

“Hang on a minute, that name rings a bell. Get Heathcliff on the phone for me,” he shouts to one of his minions.

I am praying Heathcliff will be out stomping on the moors, or at least Dartmoor, but oh no, he’s there, and he’s on speaker-phone.

“It’s me,” says Marco. “Where is it you live again?”

“Devon, near Tiverton,” says that voice. That voice that used to send shivers up my spine; that made me the least rational person I knew and that could command anything from me, but sadly never did.

“Hello? Hello?” Marco is yelling at me. I have no choice but to answer.

“Hello.”

“Helena?” says Heathcliff. At least he didn’t say Rachel.

“Hi Heathcliff,” I say trying to sound as if this is the MOST insignificant thing to happen to me all year. “How are you?”

“Good thanks, but this phone is a bit weird, I’m on speaker-phone I think.” Odd to think speaker-phones probably hadn’t been invented the last time we spoke.

“Yes, you sound like you’re in space,” I say.

Heathcliff laughs that dangerously sexy laugh of his. “No,” he says slowly. “I’ve been to space and I’ve come back down.”

“And landed in Devon?” I say.

“Yeah. How about you?”

“I live in France, I have three children…”

“You’ve got children?” he interrupts me.

“No Heathcliff, I’ve been waiting around for you all these years,” I say, silently congratulating myself on coming up with a joke at a time like this. “Anyway, it would be fun to catch up. Are you ever in London?”

Marco interrupts. “This conversation is going far too well and as I’m paying for both calls I’m terminating it.”

Older now...And suddenly Heathcliff is gone again. Maybe for another twenty years. So how did the conversation make me feel? I’m ashamed to say, totally weak. Of course in my mind I had an image of the Heatchliff I knew when I was 18. I’m sure by now he’s as old and grey looking as most men of his age and would have no effect on me at all.

But the odd thing was that his voice was identical. And even odder, so was my reaction to it. So I guess my profound (!) conclusion is this: some things never change….

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007


Filed Under: Life, blog --> Tagged With: heathcliff, phone, speaker

8 thoughts on Heathcliff on speaker-phone

  • snusmormor says:
    21st March 2007 at 5:19 pm

    As my mother used to say: old love never gets rusty.

  • michaela says:
    22nd March 2007 at 11:09 am

    Are those two photos for real? The same person? Can’t be!

  • helena says:
    22nd March 2007 at 11:14 am

    No! They’re both of Laurence Olivier (who played Heathcliff in the film of Wuthering Heights) one when he was young (and in his role as Heathcliff) and one when he was old and grey.
    Hx

  • michaela says:
    22nd March 2007 at 11:23 am

    Thank God I didn’t study film. How embarrassing not to recognize Olivier! He was rather good looking I must admit.
    Mx

  • ParisBreakfasts says:
    22nd March 2007 at 1:14 pm

    Well, he does live near your mum.
    You just may have to pop by, after checking the phone book.
    Just like teenagers do.
    Drive by his house on the moors for a glimse…

  • helena says:
    22nd March 2007 at 3:39 pm

    I will certainly drive by his house, just like I used to. Except then I had to walk as I had no driving licence. Or I could send my mother to check him out but then she didn’t think that much of him when he was 18, she’s probably not going to be overly impressed now.
    Hx

  • spymum says:
    23rd March 2007 at 7:05 pm

    Wow – what a shock that must have been. Well done you for remaining unflustered – I’d have been a heap on the floor! Your cool is cool!

  • Peggy says:
    26th March 2007 at 6:30 am

    Hmm, while you all were weighing in on this “weighty” matter, I was marrying someone I met at 13, fell in love with instantly but never really “connected” with, and then lost sight of for 30 years…..Turns out he was in love with me too, but too shy to say so.

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Helena Frith Powell was born in Sweden to a Swedish mother and Italian father, but grew up mainly in England. She is the author of eleven books, translated into several languages including Chinese and Russian. She wrote the French Mistress column The Sunday Times about life in France for several years. She is a regular contributor to the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, The Times, Daily Telegraph, Tatler Magazine and Harper’s Bazaar.

Helena has been the editor of four magazines, including M Magazine, a supplement for the Abu Dhabi-based National Newspaper and FIVE, a high-end fashion glossy, also published in Abu Dhabi. Helena was also editor-in-chief of 360 Life, a quarterly glossy magazine published with the Sports 360 Newspaper in Dubai, part of the Chalhoub Group.

Helena contributes regularly to UK-based newspapers and magazines and holds a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge. She is working on a thriller set in Sweden as well as a novel about the relationship between Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield called Sense of an Echo.

In 2022 her short story The Japanese Gardener came second in the Fish Publishing Short Story Prize. One of her stories was also shortlisted for the Bridport Short Story Prize. When she’s not writing, she works as a headhunter for the media and entertainment industry for the Sucherman Group. 

Helena, who was educated at Durham University, lives in the Languedoc region of France with her husband Rupert and their three children.

Bibliography

More France Please, we’re British; Gibson Square 2004

Two Lipsticks and a Lover 2005; Gibson Square (hardback)

All You Need to be Impossibly French; (US version of above) Penguin 2006

Two Lipsticks and a Lover; Arrow Books (paperback) 2007

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (hardback) 2006

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (paperback) 2007

So Chic! (French version of Two Lipsticks) Leduc Editions 2008 (also translated into Chinese, Russian and Thai)

More, More France; Gibson Square 2009

To Hell in High Heels; Arrow Books 2009 (also translated into Polish)

The Viva Mayr Diet; Harper Collins 2009

Love in a Warm Climate; Gibson Square 2011

The Ex-Factor; Gibson Square 2013

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles; Gibson Square 2016

The Arnolfini Marriage; Amazon Kindle December 2016

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles (paperback); Gibson Square spring 2018

The Longest Night; Gibson Square spring 2019

 

 

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