by Gill Mather
But now this Sunday night many months hence, in the wee small hours within the dark warm folds of the bedclothes, Grace had by small undulating movements and a certain tension in her limbs signalled to his own ever receptive body that she wanted to make love with him again and so they had. Afterwards he silently gave thanks to any God that might be up there.
“GINGE, I’VE BEEN thinking about it and I’d like to try a stint in the kitchen if that’s OK. If there’s an opening,” Emma said the following day. In fact what she’d really been thinking about was getting away from working with Alex, although learning to cook would be a bonus. Of course she could have tried to get a job elsewhere, but Bingleys Restaurant, with its nearby associated hotel, health club and conference centre, was by far the most prestigious restaurant for miles around. The people who ate here were mega-rich and the tips were awesome. She’d never be able to earn anything like as much anywhere else. And the kitchen staff got their fair share of the tips too.
“Yes I think there is. I’ll have a word. OK?”
“Thanks Ginge.”
Emma went about her work feeling better. But the dreaded break came up all too soon and there she was again, outside with Alex and others, moaning about the diners, about the tips today, about it being Monday, about anything.
“Still,” said Alex, “I’ve got next weekend off to go to the fest. Pity you can't come Emma. I noticed you were getting on well with Luke last night.” She smiled cat-like.
“He seemed nice. I don't know why he’s thought of as a slob. He may not have a job but he’s got ambitions.”
“Yeah well when he first came to our school he was dead posh. He’d been chucked out of his expensive private school. Within a couple of weeks he’d started to speak worse than the rest of us. I think he does it to annoy his dad.”
The others had drifted off to go to the loo and to get ready for their next marathon shift. Alex checked there was no-one else there. “Actually I know his dad quite well. Him and my mum were pretty friendly at one time if you know what I mean and he was round our house quite a lot until he moved onto the next one. Unlike most of them, he didn't try it on with me. That’s one of the reasons I try to look not like a girl or a boy, you know because of the unwanted attention from mum’s boyfriends. I hoped it’d put them off. And it foxes the punters here something terrible.” She laughed wickedly. “But Greg wasn't like that. I keep in touch with him actually. He was more of a dad to me than any other bloke’s ever been. `Course, Luke doesn't know any of this in case you do happen to meet him again. I didn't realise at first myself when Luke came to our school that Greg was his dad.” Alex looked at her phone, sighed and stubbed out her fag. “Better go in,” she said getting up.
Emma didn't know what to say as she followed Alex’s receding back. Was this another of her little games? Funny that she’d never seen or imagined this side of Alex before. Previously she’d just been an androgynous member of the waiting staff. She supposed she should feel sorry for Alex for her apparently dysfunctional childhood. But on the other hand it meant that Alex knew far more about the background to Emma’s set up than was at all comfortable or necessarily healthy. She had access to Greg. It looked as though she thought of him as a surrogate father and had looked wistful when she mentioned him. Emma wondered how often and indeed how this contact took place.
She was getting a picture of Grace’s husband that wasn't at all nice. He must clearly be a serial philanderer as well as a dominating personality to the extent that he’d probably caused his younger son to rebel and become the so-called “slob”, who wouldn't accept his son’s preferred career path and tried actively to thwart it.
She also wondered how far the abuse Alex had hinted at had actually gone. Maybe it had put her off relationships with boys, off sex even. Although she was intimidated by Alex, Emma nevertheless couldn't help being drawn to her. She herself hadn't had any particularly successful sexual encounters. In fact, though she found it hard to admit it to herself, it was personally deeply humiliating for her to have to think that her sixty year old father and his similarly aged girlfriend had, if appearances were anything to go by, no issues at all in that department. You didn't talk about it much but perhaps Alex, if she had similar trouble, might want to discuss things.
Still she had to get through this shift and keep her place on the workforce. She knew there were plenty of others who were loitering in the wings on the waiting list for jobs here.
007 The Gift
EMMA LAY ON her bed thinking about things, most specifically about Luke although she had been trying not to. He was undeniably pretty cool; and good-looking. And he’d not exactly come onto her, but he’d been interested in her. Even she with her propensity for receiving mixed messages and sometimes denying to herself the wholly obvious had to admit his clear interest. However now he must know who she was from her address (he had to have known the address where his mother was living) and that she’d kept her identity from him, would he want anything to do with her again? Or if he did, would it be more as a result of curiosity about his mother’s domestic arrangements than any real desire to see Emma again? And did Emma actually want to see him anyway? She wasn't sure.
This whole thing was getting pretty tangled up and muddled. She would in many ways be glad when the summer was over and she could return to uni with her precious accumulated savings, concentrate on her studies and go back to whooping it up regularly with the friends she had made at uni, friends who were far more straightforward and less complicated on the whole than her new and few cohorts in Essex.
At least she had made good friends at uni. Some others hadn't seemed able to and lurked in their rooms in the halls of residence, emerging just to get something to eat or to bolt to the loo, with heads down spurning invitations to go out somewhere so that others soon gave up asking. There was talk of some of these not coming back next year especially if they couldn't make arrangements with others to share outside rented accommodation. It hadn't yet occurred to Emma that her ability to make friends and her social skills were the direct result of a father who had always loved her uncritically, who had always done the best that he could for her. Though she was quite shy, nonetheless she was able to get on with people and naturally accepted that people would mostly like her. Even with Alex and the queer slant she put on many things, Emma still interacted with her as a kind of friend. After all, Emma had worked in the same restaurant now during holidays from school and uni for nearly three years. Alex, a little older than her, had been there full-time for about the same period.
With Luke in her thoughts still, she was doubly taken aback to suddenly see Grace at her door looking down at her and then around the room appreciatively. Emma lay there with her mouth open for a second. Her dad only ventured down here with morning tea and Grace never had to her knowledge.
“Hello Emma,” said Grace. “I hope I didn't startle you. I’ve got a few days off. I felt like I needed a bit of a break and I’ve got loads of holiday stacked up. I just came down because I went yesterday to my old home and collected some things. I’ve got a few things you might like. I don't know. You’ll have to say if you don't like them. They’re just old things of mine but your father’s been telling me how attractive you’ve made the room and what it’s like and I just thought these things might fit in. Er, could I show you?”
Emma stammered that she could and sat up. Grace went and got a bag from outside the door and started getting things out. She also had folded up over her arm a large hippie-looking cloth the size of a bedspread printed with paisley patterns on a bright terracotta background and partly spread it out on the floor for Emma to look at. Grace went back out into the corridor and came in with a ladder that got narrower towards the top.
“I used to put all my scarves on this and jewellery and other bits and pieces. You can have it in here if you like.”
“Thank you,” said Emma looking in the bag. It was an Aladdin’s cave of colourful, ethnic bits and pieces, carved boxes, rings, ba
ngles, soaps still in their paper covers, scarves, various garments, dresses even. By rights this woman should by now be coaxing her to partake of something deadly, wicked stepmother style she should be burnishing up an apple to offer her or maybe something more modern, an iced doughnut say laced with poison, strychnine or perhaps something more subtle. But instead she was being so nice. This wasn't what it was supposed to be like.
But despite herself, Emma started to feel emotional, that this woman was showing her nothing but kindness and consideration and was extending the hand of friendship. She felt tears forming at the corners of her eyes and a thickness in her voice as she thanked Grace again. She had had such a range of emotions to deal with lately, her mother’s death, the change in her domestic life, her attempts at uni to keep up with the others in all sorts of ways including becoming sexually active whether she wanted to or not, Alex and her insinuations and apparent hold on Emma’s life, now Luke and her very mixed feelings about him, the beginnings of something she found hard to put into thoughts let alone words.
“Emma,” said Grace, “Er….if anything’s bothering you, and you want to talk to someone….I know we didn't get off on the right footing really….well in fact it could hardly have been worse….but you can talk to me if you wanted to. About anything at all.”
Emma couldn't speak and Grace sat down on the bed beside her. Emma thought she might be going to put her arm around Emma and if she had, Emma’s resistance would have crumbled entirely and she would have melted sobbing into Grace’s arms. But Grace didn't. She just sat looking concerned with her hands in her lap.
Emma felt she must try to resist; this was all wrong. What was that book of Daphne du Maurier’s where something mundane found in many peoples’ gardens had been used by a relative, a descendant of the Medicis, to poison the narrator’s uncle? It came to her. “My Cousin Rachel”. You didn't know if he’d been poisoned or just become ill naturally. There was just the hint of foul play. It was, she suddenly realised, laburnum seeds. They had laburnum aplenty outside in the garden. The lovely drooping yellow flowers had disappeared by now but the pods bearing the deadly seeds were still green. In due course they would turn black and so would the seeds inside them and then they could be gathered in large numbers, ground down and added to food and drink and, if done carefully, who would know what had caused the victim to become ill. Or if it was obvious as no doubt it would be in post mortem these days, it might be very hard to know who had administered the fatal powder.
Emma, buoyed up somewhat and diverted and amused by these truly appalling unthinkable possibilities, collected herself and smiled lightly.
“I’m OK really. The ladder’s a great idea and they,” she pointed to the interior of the bag, “all look lovely. Could I look through them all later? Oh, what’s that?” she asked pointing at what looked like some sort of canvas loosely rolled up that Grace had lent against the wall.
“Oh. That’s Luke’s. He’s a brilliant artist.” Grace opened it up. It was abstract but reminiscent of some sort of landscape painted in black and red and orange hues as though the hills and the sky were on fire. Just off-centre some sort of explosion or conflagration was taking place, perhaps a striking meteorite, the air around it vibrating and shimmering and almost visibly expanding like a blast wave after an atomic explosion.
“Wow,” said Emma, “that’s incredible. It’s almost alive.”
“He’s wonderful,” said Grace proudly looking at it. “I just wish his dad could appreciate it.”
“And you were actually going to give it to me ?”
“Well yes. I hope it would stay here. In this house. But I mentioned that Don had a daughter and Luke wanted me to give it to you. I don't really know why. He’s given to over the top acts of generosity sometimes. It’s one of his most favourite works. You’re honoured!”
Little did Grace know apparently. Luke knew and she knew, but Grace clearly didn't know. The painting, given to her in this way, seemed to convey a message to Emma. That Luke was aware of her and had made contact with her in a covert way that was secret between them. She felt a stirring once again of the kind briefly felt as she had looked up at him on Sunday night. Instead of ignoring it and trying to make it go away, this time she put it in a drawer in her mind so that she could get it out again later when she was on her own in bed that night and turn it around and relish it. She blushed and crossed her legs.
The undercurrents were building up. Besides having met Luke, she also knew about one of Grace’s husband’s old girlfriends. And that the girlfriend’s daughter still had contact with Greg. Things of which Luke, and probably Grace too, were likely to be unaware. Again she wondered what Alex might do in her position, armed with useful knowledge, to possibly manipulate events and advance her own cause or maybe just to sit back and see how the play acted out and enjoy her front row seat.
“Thanks Grace,” she said.
“Well I’ll leave you to it. I expect you’ve got to get ready for work soon. We might go out for a little walk later.”
There was the we again but Emma this time didn't automatically feel instant hostility. “There’s a large piece of flat wood in the shed,” she said. “I’ll try and cut it to size and use it to back the painting. There’s the perfect space for it just there.” Emma gestured to the wall at the foot of her bed where she could lie looking at the painting. Thinking about Luke.
WHILE ALL THIS was going on, Don sat in his study wondering what Emma’s reaction would be. Lukewarm at best no doubt and he had warned Grace not to expect monumental gratitude for the gifts and that she should possibly be prepared to face an outright rebuff. It had seemed to Don at one time that Carol’s condition had put an old head on Emma’s young shoulders mainly because she was having to witness the fact of grave and chronic illness at first hand which didn't happen to most children and that she was having to grow up more quickly than she should.
She had been quite a solemn little girl and Don thought that was probably why, the effect of the illness in the home. But now he did wonder whether that was just her nature. He had in fact tried to shelter Emma from much of the practical manifestations of her mother’s illness and he’d never asked her to help him with Carol’s care however convenient and useful that would have been. He had felt that it wasn’t right to burden a child with such responsibility. Sometimes she’d made meals or done a bit of housework but as far as possible, he’d striven to give her a “normal” childhood. He hadn't wanted Emma to have to become one of those poor kids you read about who spent their whole free time on tasks like washing an ill parent, taking a parent to the toilet, taking up food, missing school, being unable to study and looking after the family budget even. Kids who had no appreciable childhood at all.
It hadn't been like that for Emma. He’d made sure of it, however difficult it had been for him to be at the same time a carer and a loving parent and somehow scrape a living as well working from home. The long hours had sometime been gruelling, working until three and four in the morning while Carol and Emma were asleep and then having to get up again at six to start the daily round of Carol’s care and Emma’s morning routine.
He did wonder now if he hadn't been too indulgent towards his daughter to compensate for her mother being so disabled and that it had made her rather selfish. He had had a hard time before and he was hurt that now he had a better life, his daughter seemed to resent it and wouldn't try to understand his position. He had so wanted her to enjoy her youth and education as he, say, had been able to and had been glad when she went off to university just as her contemporaries were doing. There hadn't even been the merest suggestion that she might stay around at home for a year or so now that she’d left school and helped with Carol’s care.
In fact Don had thought it would be better for her to be away once Carol began to deteriorate so much more quickly so that his daughter wouldn't have to witness the final decline. He had intended to call Emma when death was fairly imminent but there hadn't been time when it came t
o it, so he had sheltered Emma yet again by telling her that her mother had passed peacefully away one night when the truth had been anything but. If only Carol had been prepared to go into a hospice where they could have looked after her properly and given her the appropriate care and pain relief, he wouldn't have to now carry this burden around with him or have lied to his daughter. Carol might indeed have slipped away quietly in a hospice where Emma could have been at her bedside.
He had been through so much, he wanted now to forget it and make up for it. He had told Grace about his ordeal and she had sat and listened to him with big, sad, dark blue eyes and had understood. They had discussed it together as they had her own past problems and they had decided that they must make the very best of this opportunity they had suddenly been given for a full and happy future together. That nothing should stop them from enjoying what they had. And with their joint income, they could be comfortable. It was still at the back of Don’s mind that now he could work longer hours and now that he and Grace were living together and would be assessed as a couple, that Emma’s loan and grant situation would probably change. It was a subject he was going to have to broach at some point with Emma.
And of course with Grace.
008 The Initiation
THE `PHONE HAD rung several times that morning and Don had answered but there was no-one at the other end. Presumably it was one of these awful cold call companies. He’d noticed in the last year or so that the telephone rang and then however many or few times he let it ring, it always went dead when he picked it up. Using 1471, he’d got the number, always an 0845 number, and had called it back but there was again never anyone at the other end. He wondered if the companies who did this got money for the return calls that perplexed recipients made to that number. If he could be bothered, he would write to or email one of the consumer programmes about this. It was a complete con.
