A Spring Affair

by Milly Johnson

  The second message was from Michelle. She was pretending to cover up tears and in a very controlled voice told Lou that she was a heartless bitch and she hoped Lou would have a nice life and this was the last message she would ever leave. The third message was Michelle who said that Lou was never to call her again and she hoped that she didn’t have a nice life and this was the last message she would ever leave. Lou deleted all three messages without a second thought, and then she called Deb.

  ‘Hi,’ said Deb. ‘What sort of a day have you had then?’

  ‘Ooh, you know, ordinary. Packed in my job, stalked by crazed ex-friend, Phil’s stormed out somewhere because he thought I was joking about opening the café and now he knows I’m not, Keith Featherstone’s hounding me about the first phase of Casa Nostra Europe Inc…’

  ‘Ho, so nothing to chat about then,’ laughed Deb. ‘You sound echoey, where are you?’

  ‘In my new Keith Featherstone bath,’ said Lou.

  ‘I hope he’s not in there with you,’ said Deb, wondering where Phil had gone. Or rather–who he had gone to.

  ‘Nobody could be that desperate to win my business!’

  ‘Put yourself down again and I’ll come over there and drown you in that new bath of yours,’ said Deb crossly.

  ‘Anyway, how are you?’ enquired Lou.

  ‘I’m fine. Never mind about me, tell me about the job. How come you’re not working your notice?’

  Lou told her.

  ‘Well, you know what you need to do now,’ said Deb. ‘Ring Mrs Serafinska. Get onto it straight away. She was asking me this morning if I’d given you her number. We could do with that money to buy my fancy pink American Smeg fridge.’

  ‘OK, I will,’ said Lou.

  ‘She’s retired, so she’ll be able to fit in to suit you. She only pokes her head into the shop because she’s bored. Oh, by the way, I have a great recipe for some big soft cookies. They’d be fantastic with homemade ice cream.’

  ‘Yum,’ said Lou, who made beautiful homemade ice cream.

  ‘Ring her, please,’ implored Deb, who loved Mrs Serafinska like a favourite aunt.

  ‘I promise,’ said Lou, and as soon as she put down the phone to Deb, she did indeed call Gladys Serafinska and made arrangements to see her the very next day.

  Chapter 48

  Phil wasn’t speaking to her the next morning. She wasn’t surprised by that, but what did shock the living daylights out of her was that when he did come home in the wee small hours, he hadn’t done his usual sulky trick of slamming doors and banging things to announce his arrival. Instead, her ears traced his unusually quiet footfalls up the stairs and into the spare bedroom, where he slept. He had never, ever slept in the spare room before and that buzzed around in her head like a very annoying wasp, threatening to sting her at its leisure.

  Lou arrived at the bakery, gurned at Deb through the window and knocked on the adjacent cottage door with the pretty window-boxes full of June geraniums. She had never seen Gladys Serafinska but always imagined her to be a tiny little wisp with a foreign accent, not the great battleship that came to the door and said in a gravelly South Yorkshire accent, ‘Come in, lass, before the rain starts yet again. Apparently it’s going to belt down. Summer, eh?’

  It was a typical cottage, low ceilings, beams, shiny brasses and wall-to-wall chintz and ornaments–so many ornaments that it must have been a nightmare to dust. Lou sat on a big plump sofa whilst Mrs Serafinska wheeled in a little trolley set with china cups, a teapot, and biscuits made in the bakery.

  ‘Debra said you’d help me,’ said Mrs Serafinska.

  ‘Mrs Serafinska…’

  ‘Call me Gladys, please. For years I’ve told Debra to call me that, but she never does. “Mrs Serafinska” always makes me sound like an old headmistress.’

  She seems nervous, thought Lou, watching her hand pour out the tea none too steadily.

  ‘Gladys,’ Lou smiled. ‘I’ll help you all I can but I do warn you, it might be harder than you think to let stuff go, so rather than me tell you what to do, how about we do it together?’

  ‘Oh, would you?’ said Gladys with a big gasp. ‘You know, it’s the silliest thing, but I think I’m scared.’

  ‘You’ll be fine,’ said Lou, who knew exactly what she meant.

  So, after their tea, Lou followed Gladys to a big room upstairs, off the main bedroom, decorated in darker gentleman’s colours. The wardrobes were walnut and the furniture masculine.

  ‘This is Bernie’s dressing room. I made a start…’ She pointed to some suits laid out on the floor. ‘Sorry,’ she went on, and sniffed as her eyes started to gush.

  ‘Come on,’ said Lou, leading her out of the room. ‘Let’s start with a drawer in the kitchen.’

  Two drawers and an understairs cupboard later, it was clear that they would need to order a skip. Gladys Serafinska could never have imagined just how much junk she was hoarding, but she was thoroughly enjoying herself, warming up to the big project by clearing out all the kitchen detritus. Lou rang Tom’s mobile. She could have rung the Tub but this way she was sure of speaking to him and not one of the lads.

  ‘Hello there, Trouble,’ said Tom merrily.

  If he’d called her ‘Cowface’ she thought his voice would have had the same effect on her knees.

  ‘I need a skip at the back of Serafinska’s Bakery in Maltstone,’ said Lou.

  ‘You go ahead then, I’m not stopping you. Have a hop and a jump for me whilst you’re at it,’ said Tom, laughing down the phone.

  ‘Very funny, Mr Broom. Now, if you wouldn’t mind…’

  ‘What size, Mrs Winter?’

  She didn’t like him calling her Mrs Winter.

  ‘I think a mini will do, please.’

  ‘I haven’t got anything until tomorrow morning. Is that OK?’

  ‘Harrison’s have got them,’ said Lou naughtily.

  ‘I shall come around there and spank you in a minute, young lady.’

  Lou gasped, not sure if she was horrified or thrilled and then deciding she was both–in a highwayman-bodice-ripping way. She pictured Tom in a frilly romantic shirt, tricorn hat, his big thighs in breeches…Her cheeks were burning so much she could have barbecued a chicken on them.

  ‘That’s OK then, bye,’ she said extremely quickly and dropped down the phone. Her head was sparking with pictures that wouldn’t have been out of place in a porn film.

  ‘Cup of tea?’ called Gladys, doing a double-take at the sight of her flushed face.

  ‘Lovely,’ said Lou.

  ‘Do you take sugar?’

  ‘No, thanks,’ said Lou, but fourteen teaspoons of bromide, please, she added to herself.

  Lou got stuck in the traffic heading towards a demonstration the next morning and missed the skip arriving.

  ‘What a beautiful dog that man had,’ said Gladys Serafinska. Damn, thought Lou. Tom had delivered it himself. Although maybe it was better that she didn’t see him for a couple of days. Her imagination had nearly blown the top of her head clean off last night. Then again, she had plenty of time to think, what with Phil not coming home from work until ten. At least he had phoned to tell her he’d be late, albeit in a perfunctory way. But he hadn’t wanted anything to eat and had hardly said a word to her when he came in; he slept in the spare room again, which unsettled her.

  ‘What are these?’ Lou asked, pulling a bag out of a cupboard.

  ‘Oh, er, just things I keep,’ said Gladys quietly.

  Lou spilled them out onto the floor to find children’s books, pencils and crayons–all unused.

  ‘Grandchildren?’ said Lou.

  ‘Not yet,’ said Gladys sadly. ‘We thought there would be once but it wasn’t to be. I bought them, just in case, you know.’

  Lou gave her hand a squeeze. ‘You do realize that every time you open this cupboard and see these, it reminds you of what you don’t have?’ she said, then: ‘Let’s put them in the charity pile. Then when you do get grandchildren, you ca
n enjoy going out and buying some more.’

  Gladys was about to put up a protest, but she pulled it back. Lou was remarkable–and she was right, of course. Why on earth hadn’t she given them away before? Had she hoped the presence of those things might force the cosmos to give her what she wanted?

  Gladys disliked ornaments, but she had an excuse why each one couldn’t be given away. This one was a present from a friend, this one was a present from a different friend, this one cost a lot of money…Lou cut her off, holding up a particularly revolting porcelain hound with lips worthy of Angelina Jolie.

  ‘Gladys, do you like this dog?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Then which pile do we put it on, because we are not putting it back on that shelf.’

  ‘OK, the car-boot one.’

  Gladys had always fancied doing a car-boot sale. Every month they held one in the pensioners’ club. She would never have dreamed she could part with enough items to fill up a whole stall herself.

  The room looked so much lighter by the end of the third day and Gladys felt the same way. Lou was the best tonic she’d had in years. She’d told everyone she knew about her and hoped the young woman wouldn’t mind that she’d passed her telephone number around her friends.

  Chapter 49

  Phil did something he rarely did that Sunday morning, namely check the messages on the home answering machine. It seemed it was the only way to find out what his so-called wife was up to these days. He stared in abject disbelief at the phone as a shaky old voice said, ‘Hello, this is Mrs Alice Wilkinson. Would you please give me a ring back on this number as I am interested in a consultation?’

  What the hell else was Lou doing now? Plastic pissing surgery? Not only had he to make his own Sunday breakfast but the papers hadn’t arrived either. Lazy swine of a paper boy. And there wasn’t anything resembling a joint or a fowl in the fridge. Where had Lou said she was going? ‘Out’ was all she said on her way–out! Then again, she was probably annoyed that he was getting in later and later at night and sleeping in the spare room, but it hadn’t had the effect on her that he had hoped for. She should have been wringing her hands with worry, falling over herself to seduce his attentions back to her, but–bold as brass–she appeared to be playing him at his own game. There wasn’t even any evidence that she’d made him a meal last night to come in to. There were no pans on the hob, nothing in the microwave, the oven was cold and the bin was empty.

  He didn’t want to sleep with Sue Shoesmith, but it was looking like he might have to go that far to prove his point. And Lou would have only herself to blame if he did.

  Lou savoured the last of her buttery toast.

  ‘Your bakery makes some cracking bread, Gladys,’ she said.

  ‘Thank you,’ beamed Gladys. ‘We haven’t gone down the cheap route but we survive very well. Not everyone thinks of price before quality, thank goodness.’

  ‘And long may those people reign,’ smiled Lou. ‘So, are you ready for the next round of clutter-clearing?’

  ‘As I’ll ever be!’

  ‘Come on then, flower.’

  They went upstairs into Gladys’s dressing room–the penultimate step before the big one. Even at her age, Gladys had clothes hanging there she would never fit into again. The dress she wore to her Ruby Wedding celebration that she hadn’t put on since and the gown she wore as a bridesmaid for her best friend’s wedding over fifty years ago were the first to go on the charity shop pile and were quickly joined by more outdated separates and a Norma Desmond turban. Gladys started to panic.

  ‘But look how much more room there is in your wardrobe now,’ said Lou, accentuating the positive. ‘Every single item in here now is something you use.’ And Gladys had to concede that she was right.

  Gladys had two drawers full of loose photographs that she had been meaning to put in an album for years, but never had.

  ‘I think I can get rid of a lot of these,’ she said. She lifted one up and beamed at it. ‘Not this one though. Look, this is my Bernie. Wasn’t he lovely?’

  Bernie was tall and straight with a big nose and a big smile. He wasn’t classically handsome but the appeal was obvious in his cheery face.

  ‘This is him and me at Blackpool, on our honeymoon. We had barely two pennies to rub together then.’ She handed it over to give Lou a closer look. Bernie had his arm circled around a young, rounded, big-busted Gladys and they were both grinning blissfully at the camera. Gladys lifted another.

  ‘And this is him and me just before our Golden Wedding on a cruise. That’s the Rock of Gibraltar behind us.’ The couple in the photo were standing just as closely together as on the previous picture, his arm was still circling her much-enlarged waist, and they were wearing those same smiles.

  ‘You look happy,’ said Lou quietly.

  ‘Happy doesn’t even touch it, sweetheart,’ said Gladys. ‘I loved him from the first moment I saw him, you know. Even though these scientists say that’s not possible, let me tell you it is! We had such fun. We were always laughing together. Of course, like any married couple, we had our moments. But the making up was always very nice.’

  She slid back into a particular memory that gave her joy, but it was a private moment and, from the look on her face, probably a saucy one too.

  ‘He called me Parrot,’ she confided with a chortle. ‘On our first date I wore a hat with feathers on and the name just stuck.’

  ‘Did you have a name for him?’ asked Lou with a smile.

  ‘Well I did, but I couldn’t possibly tell you without you thinking I was a mucky old lady.’

  Lou threw back her head and laughed.

  ‘Look at him there,’ said Gladys, handing Lou a picture of a much thinner and older man, drawn and pale in a dark blue suit. ‘That was at our son’s wedding–the last do he went to. Do you know, he made my heart beat just as fast on that day as it did when we were first courting. Oh, he did look good in a suit, even when the illness took hold and he got that thin. As we were posing for that picture he said to me, “Gladys, my love, I’ve never met a woman that was as bonny as you in my whole life”. He said that to me, looking like this! He was such a gentleman; never treated me like anything less than a queen,’ and she laughed and swept her hands over her large frame. A big wet tear landed on the photo, but it didn’t come from Gladys’s eye.

  ‘Sorry,’ mumbled Lou.

  ‘Whatever’s the matter, love?’ said Gladys, coming to put her arm around the younger woman.

  ‘Nothing,’ swallowed Lou, quickly recovering. ‘Come on, let’s crack on with this room and finish it before I go.’

  Sometimes other people’s rubbish held more answers for you than your own, thought Lou.

  Phil had bravely made himself a cheese sandwich and was eating it in the lounge. He was pleased to see that Lou was very quiet when she came in. Obviously she wasn’t as unaffected by his antics as she pretended to be then. Good–his cold-shoulder treatment was working. He might not have to sleep with Sue Shoesmith, after all. He still didn’t really want to. He just wanted to herd things back into line again, but it was taking a lot longer to do that this time.

  ‘I’ll make some pasta,’ said Lou, going straight into the kitchen after she had taken off her jacket.

  ‘That would be lovely, Lou,’ he said, warmly delivering the words, just to add a bit of variety to the mix.

  He had staged his phone quite specifically on the worktop after erasing all of Sue’s saucy messages, but left a couple of tame ones there to set Lou thinking–if, as he imagined, he had driven her to take a sneaky peek at his in-box.

  Just as she was supposed to, Lou spotted the phone immediately. She checked Phil’s position and, assured he was settled in his armchair, reached for it. Then again, she knew he had left it there deliberately so there could only be something there that was meant to hurt her–some stupid faked message to make her believe there was another woman sniffing around him. So she put it back again. She poured some pasta in a pa
n and chopped vegetables for the sauce, her eyes drawn to that phone, however much she tried to resist its lure. What if he hadn’t left his phone there deliberately? she started to think. What if it was just a happy accident? Maybe this was a golden opportunity to stop the annoying questions in her head. Just one quick peek…go on! Find out once and for all if there really was another woman on the scene. Her hand reached tentatively out.

  With a heartbeat pounding in her head, Lou picked up his phone and pressed the message in-box button. There were four messages from Sue BRGE. A pet name. Another Sue. She knew instinctively it must be the woman who came into the showroom looking like a younger Lou with her green eyes. Is that what the last two letters stood for–Green Eyes? Lou felt her stomach muscles clench as the smoke of her imagination started to solidify into fact. She checked behind her again; Phil was still reading the paper. Actually he wasn’t, he was just holding it up in front of his face, shaking it periodically to make ‘don’t mind me, I’m still sitting here reading the newspaper’ noises, his ear picking out the pronounced silence in the kitchen as a clear indication that Lou was looking at his messages.

  HELLO THERE YOU said the first message.

  THX 4 EVERYTHING said the second.

  HAVE A G8 DAY said the third.

  SENDING YOU A SMILE X said the fourth.

  But Phil had not considered that Sue might send him a new message. The phone rumbled in Lou’s hand, causing her almost to drop it in shock. She opened the new mail quickly before the tinkly alert went off and when she read it, it told her everything she needed to know.

  Lou waited for the anaesthetic of shock to clear and then for her to be plunged into that dark hellish place. She waited for her hand to come to her mouth to stifle cries of panic, she waited for her eyes to be flooded with a damburst of tears, she waited for her legs to carry her at a pace into the lounge, she waited for her voice to demand answers as to why some woman was writing porn to her husband. But surprisingly, none of those things happened.