I phone Mr Bastard.

It rolls off my tongue with an unexpected easiness, that sentence. I phone Mr Bastard.

I last saw him just over seven years ago; I had a newborn baby in my arms, four extra stone to shed and the beginning of post-natal depression. We talked about work, pleasantly, as if our forbidden liaison - which had lasted four years and was only killed off by my meeting Mr Future Husband - had never happened.

Now I dial his mobile phone number and wonder how I will feel. His voice is still the same, with those modulated tones only an expensive education in ancient colleges can hope to achieve. Apparently, mine is equally unchanged.

I feel the whack of time punching me hard; the flood of memories rushing, knowing exactly where to hit, laughing at the weakness of my current state of mind.

Within a few seconds, I remember the many evenings spent alone whilst he enjoyed the reassuring, formidable comfort of his home and family. How married men involved with single girls never apologise for having all the trimmings and simply go on collecting more trophies for the mantlepiece of their pampered ego.

Before we have a chance to utter the usual banal sentences enquiring after each other's health, I have already recalled the pain of existing at the fringes of this man's life. Recalling a pain without feeling it is an intensely disturbing experience.

It was not just the parallel life Mr Bastard was so happy to lead for as long as his women would let him; it was all the other, numerous premiums that needed to be paid so that this man's continuous desire to quench his thirst for excitement could be satisfied.

To be wanted is a common wish among the mortals; to be wanted by as many people as possible starts to assume the lurid hues of a dictator's drive; Mr Bastard brought a dread of solitude, and his efforts to avoid it, to heights never imagined before. He collected female interests with the enthusiasm of an enthomologist in an exotic country, armed with the metaphorical pin and a glass-topped showcase. Mr Bastard crawled around public places with his personal fishing net and was suave enough to ensnare various unwinged samples with his well rehearsed repertoire of catch-phrases.

I was chief butterfly. Elsewhere in the showcase, he had lesser samples, and used the combination of their attentions to keep at bay his atavic fear of not mattering.

Mr Bastard of boyish charm, securely shielded by a veneer of respectability, pinned me to the velvet background of his showcase for a few years. I barely escaped alive, leaving a sheen of silky dust from my wings on his fingers.

Some people do not want real intimacy, no matter how much they protest to the contrary. As long as the social status is firmly sketched into a plaque screwed on their front door, and they are discreet in their secret hunting sessions, the boat does not need to be rocked.

My decision to phone him, though, has nothing to do with all this. I did not contact my ex-lover with a view to dissect our past as he had dissected my heart all those years ago.

Despite his inability to belong - to me or indeed anybody else- Mr Bastard had, at the time, an unbreakable faith in my professional skills. I know that the same man who could not hold true to the beautiful and empty words he showered me with, will do his very best to help me find a suitable position.

'Not a day goes by without my thinking of you. You were truly unique, my darling', he coos.

Ah. Well, he always had a way with words. However, I am sure that he will be on my (professional) case, and - oddly but truly - I can trust him to make a real effort to restore me into the industry I once loved. I cannot afford to disregard his potential support in my circumstances.

Besides, remembering those years and my misplaced affection might give me some extra strength and vision.