by Pam Rhodes
“Anyway, I’m really ringing to arrange a time when I can pick up your estate car. You remember I told you before that it would be better if you had mine because it’s a year newer than yours. Then I can have the estate, which will be so much easier with the kids and the new baby. Can I come round and pick it up this week? And if you’re around, it would be nice to have a chat over a cup of tea and a slice of your chocolate cake. How about Thursday? I might have to bring the kids with me if Mandy isn’t up to looking after them. That will be all right, won’t it?
“So, can you give me a ring to let me know? This is Dave.”
Maggie didn’t hesitate for one second before typing out her reply in a text:
NO to you having my car.
NO to you bringing that woman’s children into my home.
NO, you don’t get one jot of sympathy from me for the difficulties of your new life.
You jumped into that bed. Enjoy it!
If any of this is unclear, please contact my solicitor.
And with one simple press of the Send button, Maggie felt a huge load lift off her shoulders. She was going to be fine without Dave. She was going to be absolutely fine.
Once the schools had broken up, rehearsals for the Easter Fayre stepped up a pace. When accountant Trevor arrived one morning to talk over the finances with Kath, his wife Mary was drawn to the sound of loud music coming from the main hall. Peering through the etched windows, she drew in a sharp breath as she watched Della putting a group of teenagers through their paces.
“They look as if they’re dislocating their hips and shoulders when they dance like that!”
Shirley came up to join her and they both stared at the body positions and jerky movements that the Hip-hoppers, the street dancing team, were deeply engrossed in learning during their extra rehearsal that morning.
Shirley chuckled. “When I was their age, a bit of disco dancing round our handbags was all we girls ever wanted.”
Suddenly, the two women gasped in horror as one of the boys unceremoniously picked up a girl, turned her upside down and flipped her over his shoulder.
“Haven’t they ever heard of a nice waltz or foxtrot?” sighed Mary. “That’s a lot more fun.”
“Ah, well, during the Easter Fayre event we’re trying to represent all sorts of dancing, music-making and entertainment from the past hundred years. But looking at what young people call dancing nowadays, it makes you wonder what they’ll be doing in another hundred years’ time.”
Mary stared at Shirley. “So for this Centenary Fayre, you’re interested in all sorts of entertaining skills from the old days, are you?”
“The more variety the better!”
Mary’s face lit up. “Then I’ve got something to show you. Come into the kitchen.”
It was the Thursday before the Easter weekend and, as Kath drove towards Southampton, she hoped that the blue skies were a good omen for the next few days to come. With the Centenary Fayre just around the corner, everyone at Hope Hall was frantically busy, including her. The list of jobs on her desk that she had to finish or organize was dauntingly long, but she nevertheless made the decision to take time off this Thursday afternoon, as she often did in light of the fact that she frequently ended up working over the weekends. Hers had never been a weekday-only job.
This afternoon, she had special plans. When Jack had rung suggesting that she might like to take a look around the city hospital in which he now seemed to be moving so quickly up the ranks, she agreed immediately. She wasn’t going because she wanted to know how she felt about it. What she longed to find out was what it meant to him, how he fitted in, how comfortable he seemed there. In the past, their ideas for their individual futures had been very different.
There was a frenetic air of bustle as she walked in, typical of the entrance foyer of every major hospital she’d ever visited. Patients were in wheelchairs or walking down the corridor on the arm of a friend. Worried visitors huddled round tables in the small café. Staff in various department uniforms were coming and going. They were all there, along with the smell, sound and slight sense of chaos that seemed so familiar from her hospital management days in London.
She took a seat in the waiting area, and sent Jack a text saying she’d arrived. She wondered if she had time to pop into the Ladies to check that she looked okay, but decided against it. Ten minutes later, when she’d still not heard from him, she wished she had gone when she’d had the chance.
After twenty minutes of waiting, just at the point when she was wondering whether to text him again, she saw Jack walking at a leisurely pace towards her. He was deep in conversation with a female colleague, and for a moment she thought perhaps he’d forgotten completely that she was due to visit him today. The two of them stopped quite close to her, their conversation intense and urgent. Kath tried not to stare at how attractive Jack’s companion was, and how familiar they seemed to be with each other. Then, as a decision was obviously agreed between them, the woman touched Jack’s arm with a smile, and turned away to walk back up the main corridor.
“Kath!” he called, his voice warm with welcome. “I’m so sorry I’ve kept you waiting. You know how it is! Come upstairs to my office. We can have a coffee there.”
If she had hoped for some conversation as they made their way through the maze of corridors, covered walkways and lifts to his office, she was mistaken because, time and again, Jack was greeted or stopped by people they met. He was obviously well known and liked here. In the huge London hospital they’d worked in, it was easy to feel that even life-savers like Jack were largely anonymous and unknown. In this hospital, which served fewer people in a smaller city, he seemed to have become a familiar figure around the place. She watched as he returned greetings here, checked notes there, and chatted with a porter in the lift, as well as sharing a comforting word with the patient who was lying on the trolley the porter was pushing.
Jack ushered her into a small office in which files of papers were stacked around the computer that stood in the centre of the desk. He picked up the phone and asked whoever was at the other end of the line for two coffees. Then he turned to Kath, stepping forward to take her into his arms.
“I’m sorry,” he breathed into her ear. “I’d like to say it isn’t always like this, but I’d be lying. Were you waiting long?”
“No problem. How long have you been here today?”
His brow furrowed as he tried to remember. “There was an emergency op this morning, so they rang last night to ask me to get in at six. What’s the time now?”
“Nearly three. You’ve done more than a normal day’s work already. Can you stop now, for a while at least?”
He reached down to pull open his desk diary. “A meeting at four-thirty and another operation at six.”
“You must be worn out.”
He shrugged with a grin. “It goes with the territory. You know that.”
She nodded, saying nothing as she looked at the deep shadows of exhaustion that lined his face.
“Don’t worry about showing me round. I’d rather you just sat for a while. Can I get you anything? Have you eaten today?”
He looked blank. “I think so. It was this morning, wasn’t it, that I had those scrambled eggs?”
“Do you feel hungry?”
He rubbed his hand wearily across his cheeks and mouth. “Honestly, no.”
“Just sit then. It’s really quite warm outside. Do you fancy finding a seat in the garden? Perhaps there you could stay out of sight from all those people who need your attention now!”
He smiled. “That sounds lovely, but perhaps we’ll just hide up here for a while first. The coffee will come soon.”
At that moment there was a knock on the door and a young nurse walked in carrying a couple of plastic cups full of a liquid that looked far too orange to be coffee. It tasted all right, though, Kath realized with surprise.
“Can you check your emails, Dr Sawyer? Dr Gooderston has sent through the details of the
operation at six, and there’s more in your notes about the other two procedures scheduled for tomorrow morning. Sister Thurman is expecting you to call in to see her two patients this afternoon, if you have time – and don’t forget you have that department meeting upstairs at half four. There are a few other messages on your desk pad too. And Dr Freeman popped in. She needs to speak to you urgently.”
“I’ve seen Monica. We met in the corridor.”
“Anything you need me to do?”
“No, that’s fine, thanks.”
After the door shut, there was silence as Jack looked through the messages on his desk pad, his attention completely taken as he drew a line through some and scribbled notes against others.
“Perhaps we won’t go and sit in the sun then,” said Kath softly. “You’re busy, Jack, and I’m in the way.”
He looked up sharply. “No, Kath, honestly it’s fine. I just need to get on top of a few of these things—”
“Of course you do. And I need to get back to do a million and one jobs in preparation for this weekend.”
As she started to get to her feet, he looked alarmed. “Don’t go, please. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it to be this way. It was supposed to be my quiet afternoon.”
She walked round to stand behind him, and placed her hands on his shoulders, massaging her fingers into the muscles of his neck, which were rock hard with tension.
“Jack, it doesn’t matter. I understand. You know I do. In fact, I understand a great deal more now I’ve seen how busy your time is here.”
“We’re understaffed. It will get better.”
“Perhaps. I hope so, for the sake of your health and sanity.”
His head lowered and relaxed as her fingers continued to work on his aching muscles.
“I was so looking forward to you coming. I really wanted to show you round. You were always so good at having a detached point of view. You’d get straight to the heart of whatever was causing confusion and sort things out. We could do with a bit of that talent of yours here.”
“I’ll come again. And although I’m going to leave you to it right now, just know that I’m thinking of you. Call if you want to, any time.”
“Kath, I—”
The jarring ring of his desk phone filled the small room. She bent down to kiss the top of his head, then picked up her bag and with a wave left the room. She heard him answering the phone before the door shut behind her.
Karen had had no break at all since Christmas. She’d worked at least one day of every weekend. Bank holidays had never made much of a difference to her, but this time she knew she was exhausted. She missed the twins, and found herself resenting the fact that the constant demands of her job not only limited the time she planned to spend with them, but could often mean that she had to rush into work at the drop of a hat.
She’d also become aware of a niggling sense of conscience about how her job impacted her husband Gary, and their marriage. She was beginning to feel like an occasional visitor rather than a wife and mother. It was all a matter of priorities. For Karen, so decisive and managerial at work, it was an unsettling and unfamiliar experience to feel that she was definitely not in control at home.
In the end, she made a last-minute decision not to work at all over the four days of the Easter bank holiday weekend, and also to extend the break by booking off the Thursday before and the Tuesday after. The boys were thrilled. Gary made no comment. She knew he’d only believe she was sincere if they got to the end of her planned break without her having to take calls every hour or rushing back into work at a moment’s notice.
The twins’ school term had finished several days earlier, and they were in high spirits one minute and yelling at each other the next. Even though she had been looking forward to their time together so much, Karen was finding herself getting irritated by their constant demands, the tears, the toys thrown across the room, followed by the two of them acting as one to try and charm their way into getting whatever they wanted right now!
The greatest surprise, though, was that Gary seemed to be handling their tantrums much better than she was. Practice, she thought. He had been Max and Toby’s main parent for so long now that whatever he might be lacking in housework skills, he was definitely making up for by being a terrific dad. He was firm when it was needed. He came up with lots of impromptu ideas when it was clear that boredom was beginning to set in because they had “absolutely nothing to do”! That was when Gary would bring out an Airfix kit for a helicopter that they could all build and paint together, or they’d go to the park to play frisbee, or they’d cuddle up to watch a Marvel film, usually with Gary falling asleep within minutes as he sat with one arm around each twin.
Watching how much time Gary invested in their young sons, Karen began to think, not for the first time, that it was unfair on her talented, artistic husband that his work life should be sacrificed in favour of hers. It was true she was the big earner. Without her wages, it would be impossible for them to have this roomy house with all the little luxuries that made it such a comfortable family home. But when she went into the box bedroom that they euphemistically called his office, she realized how cramped it was, and how difficult it must be for him to keep on top of the commissions he was asked to complete. She gently picked up one page after another from his work station. She knew these drawings all related to the huge Denison contract that was worrying him so much. The drawings weren’t just unfinished. They were hardly started. Gary was struggling. He’d been trying to tell her that for months, but she’d been too busy, too exhausted, too absorbed with her own work challenges to listen.
She thought about all the times she’d arrived home after a long day hoping to find that everything was tidy and organized, with dinner in the oven and Toby and Max tucked up in bed waiting for her to read them a story. So often, what she actually walked into was total chaos, with the boys overtired and badly behaved, homework not done and no sign of dinner anywhere. She thought about how often she’d lost patience with Gary. Did she honestly think she could have done any better at juggling all the demands that Gary faced every day? How her patronizing expressions and acid comments must have hurt and belittled him!
On Good Friday evening, after a lovely day that ended with their first barbecue of the year in the back garden, the boys were sound asleep in bed at last. Gary was just walking in from the garden having cleaned the barbecue and put it away, when he looked up with surprise to see Karen was standing at the kitchen door with two glasses of wine.
“We need to talk,” she said.
A moment of panic shot through him. What had he forgotten? Had he done something wrong? Had she somehow found out about his friendship with Claire? Or was it just the usual thing – she needed to go into work right now…
“Don’t look so terrified,” she laughed. “Come on, let’s go and sit down.”
Once they were settled, she took a while before she spoke, as if she was trying to work out exactly what to say.
“I owe you an apology.”
“You do?”
“I’ve been very unfair to you. I’ve been so caught up in the demands of my own life, I’ve lost sight of why I’m working at all.”
Wondering where this was heading, Gary said nothing.
“We made a decision, you and I, once the twins came along, that we needed as much money as we could earn to make sure they had the life we wanted for them. A nice house with everything we need in it, a new car, a family holiday abroad every year – that’s what we wanted, and that’s what we’ve got. But we’ve paid a high price for that. It’s nearly cost you the career you love. It’s cost me the relationship I really want to have with our children. And worst of all, it’s costing us our marriage. We are so distant these days, and it’s much more than just exhaustion. We never used to bicker, but that’s what we do practically every day – when we’re speaking at all. We’ve forgotten why we married, why we fell in love with each other in the first place.”
Speechle
ss, Gary laid down his wine glass and took her hand.
“Gary, you are a wonderful man and the most fantastic artist. That was what drew me to you right from the very start. Your pictures made me laugh. They made me think. They made me fall for you, and I’ve never stopped loving you from that moment on. But I’ve forgotten how to show it. I take you for granted. I moan at you and treat you as though you’re an inefficient servant. I’m ashamed to think how awful I’ve been at times. I honestly can’t imagine how you’ve put up with me.”
“Well, I’ve probably not helped. I know how irritable I can be—”
“Of course you’re irritable! You can’t get on with your design work here, because looking after a house and a family with two lively boys takes every bit of your time and energy. I was looking at the drawings you’re working on for Denison’s…”
He looked embarrassed. “I wish you hadn’t.”
“Because you’ve hardly started them. I can see that. But you and I both know you could come up with exactly what they need in very little time, if you just had the chance.”
He shrugged, moved by what she was saying, but most of all surprised that she had noticed any of this at all.
“You need to finish that work,” she said decisively, “and I don’t think you can do it here. I have some suggestions. The immediate one is that you ring Ken, and ask him if you can have a work station at his studio. He’s been your friend for years. He doesn’t use that studio much now he’s retired, and it’s just around the corner. That should give you the peace and quiet you need to persuade Denison’s that they’ve chosen exactly the right man for this job.”
“But what about the boys?”
“I need to work less. I am going to talk to them about working no more than thirty hours a week, some of which I can probably do at home.”
Gary smiled. “It’s hard working at home, you know.”
“I’m beginning to understand that, but I also know that others at our place split their work between the office and home. Sometimes I have so many disturbances and distractions at work that it’s possible I could actually get a lot more done here.”
