by Pete Adams
‘I don’t understand, what are you trying to say?’
‘I’ve held onto Kate all this time, it has been painful, but a comfortable pain. I got used to it. I've used that pain as a crutch, and now I have thrown that away and I’m scared. I’m afraid to heap myself upon you. I think I’m fucked-up, don’t want to lose you, and I don’t want to take advantage either. You're too precious to me for that.’
She looked at him intensely, saw something else, ‘Jack, what is...?’
He got up and ran out, ‘I’m going to be sick.’ Brilliant, she thought, it’s like dealing with a fucking kid, and she followed him into the bathroom and knelt down, her arm on his back, whilst he was sick, crying at the same time. She put a flannel under the cold tap, wiped his forehead and dabbed his mouth, stroked his hair.
Alana and Michael were at the door, ‘Dad, you okay?’ Alana asked.
‘He’s okay,’ Mandy replied, ‘the doctors said not to rush things, but you know your dad. Go back down, I have this one.’
‘Okay, but call if you need us,’ Michael this time.
Mandy flushed the toilet and got Jack to stand. She wiped his face and got him a glass of water, he rinsed his mouth, ‘Tad wobbly on the pins, luv.’
‘Let’s get you into bed, a bit of a lie down and you’ll be as right as rain.’
‘Not much of a start is it?’
‘Jack, we started ages ago,’ Mandy said, helping him undress and into bed. She lay down beside him; he slept almost immediately. Propping her head on her hand and elbow she watched him breathe, like she used to do with her kids; knew this was a part of Jack’s growth. She was touched he was concerned about her, and this was what she had been waiting for, not the words, but a physical sign he had moved on. Jackie had said to expect Jack to drop lower, before he would rise again, and she supposed the recent trauma of these past few days had kick-started the process. She reflected on all that had happened and thought, it’s no wonder he’s a shattered man.
After ten minutes she went downstairs and sat at the dining table, exhausted; she’d been through the ringer too, and needed to sleep, needed to look after herself as well. She looked up and there was everyone Jack had invited, Alana and Josh, Michael and Colleen, Liz and Carly, David and Father Mike who’d brought Meesh, who was on the floor cuddling Martin.
She asked everyone to sit around the table, Meesh climbed onto her lap and Liz sat next to her Mother, Carly stood behind Liz, her hands on her shoulders making small and gentle massaging movements. Mandy noticed it was relaxing her daughter, and getting pleasure from this woman’s touch; she tried to put this out of her mind. ‘Today was Jack being Jack,’ she said. ‘I know this is what he wanted, but he should have had a day or two more in hospital, he needs rest and so do I. Jack loves his family and he wanted the ones he loved the most to be here.’
Meesh looked up, sitting on Mandy's lap, ‘Me as well?’
She smiled, ‘You as well darling, Jack calls you Spesh, did you know that? He has a very big heart and loads of room in it.’ She stroked Meesh’s hair and the little girl snuggled up, mouthing the word Spesh and smiling to herself, listening to the resonance of Mandy’s voice through her chest. ‘Jack was likely going to give one of his lengthy and agonisingly poignant speeches, interspersed with mediocre, bordering on diabolical, jokes that we all love to groan at...’ she trailed off and looked at Jack’s children who knew she was right. ‘Alana and Michael, your dad is racked with guilt that he is in love with me, and I love him. He feels he has deserted Kate. Father, he could be Catholic, so much guilt.’ Mike gave a Gallic shrug, quite acceptable in the circumstances. Michael looked like he was going to say something but Father Mike put his hand on his arm. Mandy looked to Alana, she was crying. ‘Your dad will need our help. When he wakes up he will pretend to be his normal self, a bit like today, larking about and joking in the hospital, but, and in the parlance, your dad is at rock bottom and needs our help to start the climb up. Superficially, he will appear no different, and to allow that illusion to be shattered would shatter him.
Alana, Josh, he loves you, and he’s dug a big hole with you Josh. If he were here now he would say it was to bury you in, but he doesn’t mean it. He can’t get out of the hole, and we need to help him up. He has this Pugwash tribunal coming up, and we all know your dad is as guilty as hell. We have however, a very bright and expensive solicitor representing Jack, one Lionel Thackeray, whom Jack calls Len, and he is giving his services free for your dad, so, who knows. He will laugh off any verdict, but if it’s bad, it will hurt deep, very deep, and we all know that too. So Father Mike, is he going to need help?’
Everyone on the table turned to Mike, ‘He will, and he’ll have it.’
Nodding, she turned to Michael, who still had his master chef apron on, ‘I’m sorry about dinner Michael, but I’m exhausted. You all need to know I love Jack. I will continue to barrack and torment him in public, Christ knows why, he likes the banter, but make no mistake, I love him dearly, and I am going back upstairs now to lie with him and look after him until he’s better.’ She looked down at the little girl on her lap, finger tip tilted her head and looked into the devastating green eyes, ‘Meesh sweet’art, you okay with the kids today?’
Colleen swept her off Mandy’s lap, ‘I think we should all go to the common and the seafront. Michael get your kite. Shall we fly the kite Meesh?’
‘Yes,’ excited, kids are easily distracted.
‘Skittish things kites,’ Colleen said.
Michael hit her over the head with a cushion, ‘Mary Poppins, Colleen, there is no hope for you?’ Colleen grabbed a cushion, Meesh got a cushion, everyone got cushions, even Father Mike.
Liz hugged her mum, ‘I love you, Mum.’
‘I know, I love you too, and I want you and Carly to stay at my flat if you’re not going back to Exeter today, you can have my bed, she looks nice, and you look happy. Does David know?’ Liz nodded, still cuddling her mum. ‘I need a little time, but your happiness is all I care about.’
She got up, dragged her hand across the shoulders of her daughter, looked for David but he was rolling on the floor singing, “Let’s go fly a kite,” with the rest, except Colleen, who was singing Jack’s version “although the weather’s shite,” Martin looking like he was on the mend, barking and licking Meesh.
Mandy trudged the stairs thinking, Jack touches so many people.
Forty-Five
Had the sparrows farted? Bright sunlight jagged through cracks in the thick curtains and burned Jack’s eye. Mandy was asleep, facing away, the warmth of her body consumed him as he wrapped his good arm around and cupped her breast. ‘Mmmm, that’s nice.’
‘I must have dozed off, but I feel a lot better for it.’
Still sleepy, Mandy replied, ‘I’d say, it’s Tuesday, d’you not remember the doctor?’
‘No, what did he say?’
She stretched her neck and shoulders, allowed his other arm and pink hand to slide under her neck, and put her hand on top of his, holding her breast, and softly she spoke, ‘Well, he examined you, and asked me if you’d been blown up recently, or maybe run over by a car, shot at, or knocked off a bike or maybe all of these and I said yes, how perceptive. He said, “Well, that could be it then”,’ she paused so he could laugh, and she felt the juddering through her breast. ‘He’d spoken to the hospital, was worried about your head, but I was able to reassure him this was normal.’ His fondling was affecting her and she allowed her hand to wander. Jack seemed a lot better; they lay together as two nestling spoons, leisurely responding to each other’s caresses, and with her hand she guided him. They stayed together like that for a little time feeling the intensity grow, Jack’s good hand on her breast and nipple had done its work, she abandoned herself, and Jack followed.
Mandy nudged him awake with her knee, a tray of breakfast, lunch, or dinner, he was not sure, held out in front of her. He drank in the vision, she was wearing one of his shirts, it just covered her bum. He had
always considered the sight of a curvaceous woman in a man’s shirt sensual, his mind drifting to the sixties and posters of screen sirens; it stirred him sexually as an impressionable teenager, and still did.
‘Is this breakfast, lunch or dinner?’
‘Whatever you want it to be, courtesy of that amazing son of yours, cold lamb sandwiches, and I presume these disgusting red ones with beetroot are yours?’
‘Lubbly jubbly,’ Jack said, already with a mouthful. He was hungry, and they ate, comfortable together, and Jack wondered at this. Was it Mandy who made things seem right or was it they had grown together for a long time, and this was a natural extension of that growth? It was an indication of Jack’s state of mind he did not begin to think it might be because of any contribution he made.
Whilst Jack had slept, Mandy had spoken several times with Jackie; she did not seem to mind. Jackie thought Jack displayed classic signs of a lack of self-worth, maybe due to illogical guilt about his wife’s death, maybe reaction to trauma? She suggested that after a trauma, and often over a period of time, self-esteem can plummet, but with Jack it’s disguised by humour, sensitivity to others, but not to himself. Mandy thought about his eye, or was it losing Kate?
‘D’you want that last bit?’ Jack asked, pointing. She smiled and shoved the remains of her sandwich into his mouth, and as he chewed she felt the vibrations of his noisy jaw and fumbling fingers on her chest, thinking, why can’t men undo a button with one hand? She allowed Jack to make a fool of himself and get increasingly frustrated, thinking of David as a boy. She was forever sewing buttons back onto his school shirts because he couldn’t undo them, remembered showing him how to turn the button sideways, aligning it with the slot of the button hole, and miraculously, the shirt would be undone; and here’s another one. She dismissed the thought of Liz and Carly, two women who could undo anything; she needed time on that one, slid her hand under Jack’s and undid the buttons, one hand; his hand slipped inside the shirt.
‘How’d you do that?’
‘I’m putting you on a course, how to undo buttons, and you still have to pass the bra strap test,’ his reply lost in a mist as he explored her body.
It had been night, then dawn, and the feckin’ birds whistled; Jack was not a countryman. He could hear the shower, seven thirty, he’d passed sparrow’s fart again without waking; what is this woman doing to me? Mandy padded in naked, her hair wet, black and dangling like sore fingers and he realised he loved Mandy’s face. He was, of course, remarkably stimulated by her body, she was gorgeous, a fulsome woman with curves, not like the stick insects that hang on the arms of famous people, which is why Jack thought celebrities were on the whole, thick; all that money and they get a stick. However, he needed only to look at Mandy’s face and it did everything the rest of her body would do if he gave it a chance, which of course he would; there was no need to be silly. He watched as she rubbed her hair with a small towel.
‘I won’t offer a penny for them, I can see,’ and she came over, kissed him, and her breasts swung pendulously in front of his face; no wonder women dominate men he thought. She sat beside him still rubbing her hair, her underarms showing a blur of shaved hair, her head on the side, she smiled, ‘D’you know what I like about you, Jack?’
‘My physique?’
‘No!’ and she laughed, ‘you look at my face. I see you eye my backside and it makes me feel sexy, but I see you love my face and that’s important to me.’ She stood and put her bra on in a blink of his eye.
‘How do you do that so quickly?’
‘Practice. You just worry about the removal part.’ She slipped on her blouse and a flowing, swirling skirt.
‘Not coming back to bed then?’
‘No, I’m going home to get some clean clothes and into the nick for a meeting with Jamie and Sitting Bull, we have the press at five.’ She was over the top of him and he could not resist slipping his hand along the inside of her leg and letting it smooth its way upwards. ‘You have a meeting here with Len, at ten.’
‘You’re not wearing any Alan Wickers,’ he said, touching her in a way he had learned she liked.
‘Jack you need to focus on Len, he can help you,’ breathily said, as she leaned into him she pulled the bed clothes back and lifted her skirt.
‘Len?’
‘I was wondering if you heard me. He’s offered his services to you, free, so listen to what he says. Despite you rubbing him up the wrong way, and despite his firm’s unfortunate alliances, he’s very good, and for some cockamamie reason, he likes and respects you. ‘I’ll see you later, and shower, you’re rank.’
He had a sniff; she was kidding, that was just a manly smell, and while he had his nose out, he snorted her perfume wafts. He loved this scent on her, but preferred the smell of her when they woke in the morning.
Forty-Six
Ten, on the dot, Len parked his BMW behind Jack’s garage. Jack nodded a wary greeting.
‘Jane,’ Len responded enthusiastically.
‘Jane, I’m impressed.’ Jack said, steering the solicitor through the garage to the house, ‘I appreciate what you’re doing, but I have to pay you something.’
‘You can’t afford me,’ Len chirped, ‘your fee can be you call me Lionel, how’s that?’
‘Len...’ Jack’s only functioning eyebrow went up.
‘Just testing. I’ve done a lot of background on you, you’re a real person, I like you, but you are in deep doo-doo.’
‘Doo-doo?’ Jack repeated, laughing, ‘what school did you go to?’
‘Winchester.’
‘Thought so.’
‘Can you work with a Tory boy?’
Jack grinned, he was relaxing, ‘Half the police force is Tory or Masons, and I work with them. As Jesus said, “I come amongst you to put you on the straight and narrow”.’
‘Who told you that, Father Mike?’
‘I believe it was, at my last confession.’ How does he know about Mike, Jack thought. ‘Coffee? I warn you, I make it very strong.’
‘I like it strong.’
‘Yeah but I’m not talking pansy arse Tory strong, I’m talking, Labour strong.’
‘I’ll give it a try and maybe sometime I can introduce you to the delights of Earl Grey tea.’
Warming to the banter, ‘As a sophisticated socialist I have girl grey. Len, I think I might get to like you given a couple of lifetimes and another government.’
‘Good enough for me, Jane,’ Len said, putting his briefcase on the dining table, ‘shall we see what we can do to get you out of the S H one T then?’
‘Good man yerself, I’ll bring the coffee.’
Jack returned for the coffee ritual, a tray with demitasse coffee cups and a formerly silver coloured, steaming, mocha pot. ‘Lot of juice in this pot. Amanda says I have juice in things because I don’t like change, but she’s a girl, so wouldn’t understand. No biscuits, my son hides them, says I eat them all, sorry. I thought I knew all the hiding places, but he’s better at it than me.’
Jack poured Len his coffee and had a mixture of disappointment and admiration when Len sipped and said, ‘Lovely.’
‘It is, isn’t it?’ Jack responded, and allowed Len to lead off, may as well go down blaming a Tory for his downfall, Jack thought, and he projected himself into C&A’s, a pint in his hand, cursing the Tory boy out of his depth, and the government of course.
‘Jack, can I have your attention?’
‘Sorry, son.’
‘Pugwash is no fool.’
‘Well he got to Captain in the Navy?’ Jack smiled at his obvious point.
‘Not much respect there?’
Jack extended his arms, palms flat on the table, he was going to make a serious point, already shaking his head, ‘Respect for the front-line guys, but the martinet, pink gin, ward room, Wallah’s, no.’
Len pulled a small sheaf of papers from his case and flopped them on the table, ‘Pugwash’s case; flawed.’
‘Ah-so?’ Jack said in
Japanese.
‘He argues emotionally, his hatred of you patent, claiming you leaked to the press, a cornerstone for dismissal from the Police Service.’
‘Dismissal?’
‘Did Mandy not say?’
Jack became introspective, ‘I’ve been a bit out of it lately. She may have told me, but I have a blind spot on bad news.’
Len smiled warmly and Jack noticed it was compassionate, odd? ‘Pugwash’s blind spot is his prejudice, and this is also his Achilles heel?’
‘Len mate, I’m lost, I’d be alright if I knew where the feckin’ biscuits were.’
‘The point is, and in your own parlance, you're banged to rights you insulted him in meetings, but that can be put down to the difference in your characters and the fact there is a clear dislike between you. The assault, I have written testimony he barged in on a minute silence for your lost colleague. What I am saying, Jack, is I hope to get you a wrap on the knuckles because Pugwash demonstrates his prejudice against you in his case, whereas you do not help yourself because of your foolish pride, which in both cases are human failings indeed, but I think I can turn it so you have the moral high ground.’
‘Len, PP, you have style, if we can only get Mary Poppins in?’
‘Well, there’s still trouble brewing over Cherry Tree Lane.’
‘Ha! Its official, I like you, you have cheered me enormously, and I am determined to get you out of that Tory party and over to Labour, they let Tofs in you know. I despair sometimes, but your company I believe I could tolerate.’
‘Jack.’
‘Yes, Len,’ Jack was at the metaphorical barricades, flag forced into the wind, the noise and smell of conflict around him.
‘Jack, when you have a moment.’
