As the Clock Struck Ten

by Gill Mather

  Emma swallowed. She'd just begun to relax. Something you were perhaps entitled to do in your own home? But now this woman was here with her dad. They both wore running shorts and T shirts and were panting and leaning on each other for support. As they got their breath back, her father said:

  "Grace and I try to go for a run several days a week."

  Emma just stared at them. Her dad had never done this. Young people did it yes. But they had bodies worth preserving. What was the point when you were her father's age? And the woman? So far as Emma knew, her father didn't ‘do’ exercise.

  Her dad and the woman unaccountably started laughing! They stood there panting and giggling and bending over and "phewing". They looked at each other and seemed to know exactly the other's next move. Emma watched, mesmerised but also horrified.

  "We'll just head off for a shower before we have breakfast. Glad you found the coffee and bread," said her dad. "Oh," and he stuck his head back round the door as they disappeared, "Grace makes the most exquisite raspberry jam as you've found."

  Emma looked down at her breakfast with sudden distaste. But you had to eat something to bolster you up and provide the energy before a long shift in a hot restaurant with indifferent sometimes unappreciative clientele. She did so wish however that it hadn't been the product of the woman's efforts. This woman was turning into the essential, unassailable, unbeatable domestic goddess. A landscaping, gardening genius, a maker of firm but soft and alluring beds, an effortless producer of enticing breakfast smells and tastes and, of course, a sexual expert in the arts of the bedroom.

  Far too soon, her dad and the woman were down again all fresh and washed and scrubbed, cutting up the bread into manageable pieces, getting out and cracking the eggs into a jug and grinding in salt and pepper, heating the butter in a pan to an exact temperature and whisking the eggs to a perfect consistency and then turning them into the pan to stir on the heat into a light and ebullient foam of breakfast heaven. They did all this with big smiles on their faces just as though even this mundane activity was a huge treat. Emma just sat with her head buried in her Kobo and felt and no doubt looked grumpy and sulky though if they noticed they didn’t say anything. And at least she wasn’t being forced into a formal introduction with the woman today.

  "There you are darling," said her dad cascading some of the gorgeous mass onto her plate. "Eat up. We need to clear away soon. Grace and I are going to church in a minute."

  Emma sighed deeply, but to no obvious acknowledgement so far as she could tell. She wasn’t sure which was worse; being ticked off or having her sour mood go completely unrecognised.

  Going to church? When had such a thing become routine? Her father wasn't religious. Anything but in fact to her knowledge. And his occasional trips to the church earlier in the year and last autumn she'd written off as a temporary reaction to the burden of her mother's worsening condition.

  She wanted to say that she hadn't actually asked for any scrambled egg but instead she scooped it up and ate it as fast as she could so that she could escape from this haven of domestic bliss. Of course the egg was delightful.

  DON SAT ON his pew and thought his thoughts. As his daughter correctly assumed, he wasn’t at all religious, that is apart from the spiritual feeling he had about his relationship with Grace which seemed to him to be infused with something wholly unearthly and metaphysical.

  He liked this time every week to ruminate as the vicar's sermon droned on. He liked to look around this beautiful building and recall how he had first seen Grace here arranging some flowers on a pedestal at the front of the church when he'd turned up early the first Sunday he had attended last year. She had been in shadow and he hadn't seen her clearly at first. The sun had been glowing through the stained glass windows, dust motes floating and dancing in the beams cast by it. As he had taken a seat in a row half way down the aisle, the sunshine was suddenly upon this woman, catching her shoulder length fair hair and turning it into a golden halo, lighting up her slim, curvaceous form, bright enough to cause her to turn away from it so that her profile was towards Don now instead of the back of her head. He saw her delicate features framed by her almost straight hair and just sat and sat, staring at the refulgent form there on her own at the front of the church. Soon more people had started to arrive and the woman had disappeared presumably to sit down somewhere.

  Later as he was leaving the church he had looked for the woman but couldn't see her. As he shook hands with the vicar standing in the porch to see everyone out, he was told how good it was to see a new face among the congregation and that he was welcome to go round the back of the church where tea and biscuits were served in the small hall adjoining the church. In fact sometimes there was even cake too if they were lucky the vicar had said cheerfully in a tone that implied that this, when it happened, was the height of decadence and naughtiness.

  Don had felt a terrible fraud as he had only gone to the church for something to do since he had suddenly had the offer of some help with Carol for a couple of hours on Sunday mornings. He had wondered how to fill this unaccustomed free time when he would actually be able to leave the house. He had intended to go for a walk and was in fact doing so when he had passed the church. Somehow the open gates and open doors and the timeless beauty and elegance of its interior and the look of sanctuary from within had beckoned him inside. He hadn't really even intended to stay for the service at all but just sit down and be calm and soak up the atmosphere of the building for ten minutes or so.

  But he had stayed. And after the vicar's offer of tea and biscuits, he had as though almost under remote control walked out of the porch into the bright sunshine and, following the others, plodded along the path at the front of and round the side of the church and thence into the little hall at the rear.

  The hall was simple with rough white painted walls, dusty looking and possibly distempered. It had dark wooden beams and arched cathedral style windows. The tea urn was boiling fiercely at full throttle and ladies were already pouring out scalding cups of tea from large teapots on the table at the other end of the hall. One of the ladies was the woman he had seen arranging flowers earlier and she had smiled at him as he had collected his own cup and saucer and added milk. Help yourself to a biscuit he was told and then he had had to quickly move on to make way for more thirsty worshippers.

  Shyly he had stood in a corner and had dunked his biscuit to avoid spraying crumbs everywhere and sipped at his hot tea. But he wasn't alone for long. Church-goers were no different it seemed to any group when it came to curiosity about a new-comer. They soon had out of him where lived, how he scratched a living working from home due to his wife's illness, that his daughter was away having just started university and that, sadly, his wife's illness was getting much worse. He had received the appropriate amount of sympathy and enquiries whether he would be coming again next week and he had felt uncomfortable to say probably not, especially as he had had no cash on him for the collection or now to place in the saucer as a donation towards the refreshments. So he had said that probably in fact he would. And in truth he had found the experience calming and refreshing and interesting.

  He had continued to attend thereafter every Sunday without fail telling himself that it had nothing to do with the woman whom he had first seen arranging flowers in a flood of sunlight. He found out that her name was Grace and some Sundays, if he was lucky enough, he got to chat to her once the heavy tea drinkers had thinned out and she had less to do.

  One Sunday after a month, as the vicar had promised, cakes were served baked by the church ladies as well as biscuits. He wondered which one Grace had contributed and asked for a slice of the carrot cake. It had tasted just divine. Grace had come over later to the group he was talking to and some of them had complimented her on the carrot cake saying it was superb as always. She had looked pleased of course but a little shy to be receiving such praise and to be the centre of attention. She had looked in fact at Don and smiled quietly at him as he added his own tr
ibute.

  Don wasn't completely sure but thought that that was probably the instant he had fallen in love with her, as opposed to having simply hugely admired her previously, as the sun once again had shone onto her hair, this time through the graceful hall windows. He had felt at the time that although he was married, that this was a pure and innocent emotion, an entirely theoretical romantic notion, like reading a book or seeing a film. Whatever fantasies were playing out in his middle-aged imagination, they would never come to pass in reality.

  He had noted that her fair hair was sprinkled with some grey and that they too sparkled in the sunlight heightening the halo effect. Indeed she had very fine hairs on her face which reflected the light making her skin shine, the peachy complexion glowing like a teenager's. He wondered how old she was; probably a little younger than him. On the edge of his vision he saw she had on that day a tight knitted dress that hugged her body and was quite short, and high boots that her shapely legs clad in black tights disappeared into. The group of people had started to shuffle their feet collectively and cough and mumble as Don realised that he was staring at Grace and that she was staring back at him.

  He knew quite well why he was unable to drag his gaze away from her but he had to wonder why she hadn't broken eye contact either. If she was even remotely attracted to him, that would have been a big surprise to Don. His own looks were of no great interest to him. He was tall and slim with a mixture of dark and grey hair; about 30:70 these days. He hadn't gone bald therefore he hadn't had to resort to the modern habit of shaving his head which suited some men all right but made others look like desperados on the run in Don’s opinion. He dressed fairly neatly. He was, he supposed, fairly reserved. If Grace found herself attracted by these qualities, then that was just his good luck. Though they were of course both married.

  To say something he commented on the sermon, the subject having been drawn from a topical news story of the day and the conversation started up again. As the talk ebbed and flowed, he ended up talking just to Grace. She had of course heard about his wife and her illness and enquired politely about it. He found it difficult to talk about it because it had become clear that Carol was going to die and it was depressing as a topic of conversation.

  God knew he spent enough of his time worrying about the practical side of things, how he would cope as her condition worsened, whether he should be more insistent that he try to get a bed in the hospice which she had so far resisted. How it would be in the end when her body started to fall apart completely as he knew it would since, on top of her core illness which she had had for many years, she had over the last few years developed various forms of cancer which her body was now powerless to fight off regardless of medication.

  She hated hospital but it was a temporary relief to him the several times she had been hospitalised after operations to have others looking after her. But it was too late for surgery to help now and she was at home deteriorating seemingly daily.

  Therefore, to Grace, he made a vague general comment and asked her whether her own husband never attended the church. He had heard he thought something about a husband though he noticed she wore no ring. Grace had given a short mirthless laugh rather oddly he'd thought at the time, and had said that her husband had other activities to interest him.

  BUT THAT HAD BEEN then and this was now. As the vicar's sermon was clearly drawing to a close, Don's thoughts turned to the present day and the stroppy daughter they'd left at home gaping at them as they'd headed out in their not quite Sunday finest. It was a relief that she wouldn't be there glowering when they got home to deliberately or just incidentally spoil their lunchtime, afternoon and evening and that she wouldn't return until late that night.

  The restaurant owner or one of the staff always gave her a lift back. He was realising how little in fact he knew his daughter or at least how little she really knew him. It must of course be difficult for her to have to witness her father with a new and what must seem to her full-on relationship. But the degree of awkwardness she seemed to want to allow to settle on her shoulders as a result and be plain to see was frankly puzzling to him. He would himself have wanted to hide such gaucheness. He thought she might put up some show at least of adult understanding even if she didn’t like it. But instead it was as though she was watching an embarrassingly cringe-making hopeless incomprehensible stage performance which she couldn't switch off or walk away from but at which she was wholly entitled to express her astonishment and dislike.

  He had watched on TV a mind-numbingly meaningless speech by Russell Brand recently about the state of the world and politics and had felt something similar he supposed except that the man's huge self-confidence enabled the audience not to feel they needed to huddle in their seats or try to disappear into a hole in the ground.

  Poor Emma. He and Grace had decided together the night before not to push anything, but that they were damned if they were going to start to moderate their normal routine and the way of life they had built up and their joy in each other's company; or dance or edge round Emma's attitude so as not to hurt her feelings or make her somehow feel better, that is if such were possible. This life they had together was permanent and they revelled in it. Every second was a gift to be relished and enjoyed. Emma would just have to learn to hack it as they say.

  003 The Restaurant

  SOME PEOPLE HAD so much dosh it was obscene. The two men Emma was serving had ordered three bottles of wine costing about a hundred and twenty pounds each and then decided they weren't quite right for the main course and sent them back. There was nothing wrong with them and they still had to pay for them. They ordered instead several more bottles costing nearly two hundred pounds each. Emma was sure it was just to impress the vacant-looking over-made-up designer clad-women with them.

  So she trooped back to the bar and handed in the unwanted wine and gave the new order to the bar manager. He wanted to have chapter and verse however and wouldn't hand out the substitute order, worried apparently that the men would claim later that they had been badly advised about the first order and dispute the bill when it came to paying.

  "I don’t think so," said Emma, her take on it being that playing to the girlfriends was the major factor but the manager wouldn't have it and marched off to remonstrate with the men. Emma sighed seeing her tip dissolve. It was nearly her break time anyway and she turned away to go and check her other clients' tables and check if any needed clearing yet before setting off outside to chill for fifteen minutes.

  As she turned quickly she caught sight of an image in one of the tall wall mirrors and had to look again. For a split second she wondered what the woman was doing here, then she realised it was her own reflection, medium height, slim body, shoulder length straight fair hair just turning under at the ends. She was just saying a surprised "Oh" to herself when Alex hurried past her whispering out of the corner of her mouth:

  "It's our break time now. You coming outside for a breather? I'm dying for a fag."

  "Yeah right." Emma watched for a second Alex's small retreating androgynous form and smiled. Skinny legs, no hips, narrow shoulders, dark brown hair waxed into a spiky frenzy. From the front Emma knew Alex had no discernible bosom and a face that could have been either male or female. She'd watched in amusement on many occasions during her previous weekends and holidays working here customers struggle to decide if Alex was a girl or a boy, searching for terms that didn't include waiter or waitress, such as "server" since they daren't risk a gender-associated label. Diners would strain to hear what other staff called her but hearing the name Alex didn't help at all.

  Alex always wore black rather flappy trousers and low heeled black lace up shoes and really you just couldn't tell. Emma followed her out through the kitchen, chalking up on the board as she went through that she was starting her break and noting the time down. Alex got a pack of cigarettes and a can of something out of her bag and Emma grabbed her own bottled water and they both sank down on the chairs in the outdoor rest area in th
e sun.

  Alex lit up but didn't offer one to Emma. People didn’t do that much now that fags were so expensive and Emma was known not to smoke. Though she'd had a few since being at uni and was starting to appreciate the buzz and the calming effect they seemed to be able to produce at the same time. Her dad would have been horrified to know she smoked sometimes. Well stuff him. With her father in mind she said to Alex:

  "Do you know a woman called Grace Bennett?"

  "Dunno. What's she like?"

  "Fair, slimmish, hair about the same length as mine, aged fiftyish, goes to church, two sons apparently."

  "I used to go to school with a boy called Bennett. He was in my year. I think he had an older brother. Could be his mum I s'pose. Actually it sounds like her. Why?"

  "She's living with my dad. At our house. My mum died earlier this year and, hey presto, suddenly this woman's moved in. I thought for one horrible moment that she'd come to the restaurant just before we came out here but it just turned out to be my own reflection."

  "You mean your dad's shacked up with a woman that looks like you? That's a bit pervy isn't it?"

  "Well I hadn’t thought of it like that. It's just a pain that she's there."

  "You sound jealous!"

  "`Course I'm not jealous. But it's my house where I've lived all my life practically and now she's changing everything."

  "Sounds like jealous to me. You and your dad close?"

  "Not especially. Not really." Emma thought about it but decided to move the conversation on. She didn't much like what Alex was suggesting. "What are the sons like?"

  "The one in my class was a bit of a slob. Or at least that’s what he wanted people to think about him. The other one was older and I think he had a good job."

  "Well at least she's not totally perfect then, I mean to produce a slob of a son," Emma said sourly.