Jack of All Trades

by DH Smith

  ‘Are you making tea for him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why can’t he make his own? He has the summerhouse kitchen.’

  ‘I’ve always made tea for builders,’ she said weakly.

  ‘You don’t here. You have plenty to do in the house without making tea for workmen.’

  ‘It pays to keep on good terms with builders, Mrs Ward.’

  ‘He is getting paid. Well paid, Donna. That will keep us on the best of terms.’ She stopped, losing her own thread. ‘Where were we? My husband nearly killed my visitor and the builder… what did he do?’

  ‘Stopped him,’ said Donna. ‘And got a black eye for his pains. And then the sack. Temporarily, as then Mr Ward reinstated him and thanked him for stopping him murdering your visitor.’

  ‘How do you know all this?’

  A little anxiously, she said, ‘The builder told me.’ Expecting an attack for her familiarity, but she could see at once that Mrs Ward was struggling with her own contradiction. For she’d come to the kitchen to find out what was going on. And if Donna had not talked to Jack, made him tea and so forth, then she would have nothing to tell Mrs Ward.

  Joanna was playing with her hands uncomfortably, avoiding looking at her housekeeper, aimlessly walking about the kitchen. A few times in the last couple of years Donna had wondered when she was going to be dismissed. When it hadn’t happened, she’d come to the conclusion that Mrs Ward thought better one person knowing too much about her private life than six.

  Besides, sacked people mouthed off. While you employ them they have a good reason not to gossip.

  Joanna stopped her ambling and turned to Donna as if she knew the track her housekeeper was on.

  ‘I’ve always appreciated your discretion, Donna.’

  ‘I mind my own business,’ said Donna.

  ‘As one should.’ She held her hands to her lips as if in prayer. ‘There was an awful hullabaloo with my husband and my visitor, and I thought it best if I kept out of the way. As my presence would only have complicated matters. My visitor… How is he?’

  ‘We thought he was dead at first. Me and Jack…’ she waited for a reaction on using the forbidden name, then continued when none came, ‘called an ambulance. By the time it arrived, he was able to walk, with a little help. He’s awfully bruised. He might have a broken arm. They’ve taken him to Whipps Cross Hospital.’

  ‘Thank you, Donna,’ said Joanna thoughtfully.

  Donna doubted Joanna would go to visit him. Most likely write him off. One wounded ex lover. Gone, trashed. She had a husband to deal with. There would be words. She had heard them before. Shouting and screaming, things being thrown, before the truce was declared. How many truces are you allowed?

  Joanna turned away from the window. ‘You may make the builder tea,’ she said.

  That surprised her. A softening, but a calculation, surely?

  ‘Yes,’ she went on, ‘if my husband is grateful to him, then so am I.’

  ‘Tea is just a little thing,’ said Donna, she didn’t dare mention the smoked salmon, ‘but it keeps one on speaking terms.’

  ‘You’re quite the diplomat, Donna,’ said Mrs Ward as she left the kitchen.

  Chapter 9

  The pond was half the size it had been in spring. Cracked mud surrounded it like an ancient dog’s collar, with reeds growing through in places and at one end irises, the flowers drooping and fading, a few yellow heads remaining. The water was murky and greenish brown, reflecting the cloudy blue sky.

  Mia opened her lunch box. Inside were two uneaten sandwich halves. She handed Jack the box and began breaking the bread. They had walked in close to the retreating water’s edge.

  Jack had to say something. He couldn’t help himself, being a parent.

  ‘Why didn’t you eat them?’

  She threw a few bits out, and coots and mallards began homing in. And then a couple of stately swans, seeing the eagerness of the ducks, turned and headed for Jack and Mia.

  ‘Why didn’t you eat them?’ he repeated as the first comers snapped up the bread pieces, and she teased the followers by pretending to throw bits.

  She said, ‘Because he made them.’

  ‘Who?’

  The swans had arrived and she tried to throw them a piece of bread each but the coots were too swift.

  ‘Jim,’ she said.

  ‘Ah, Jim,’ he said. Alison had mentioned him but he’d never met the man. ‘Why won’t you eat sandwiches if he makes them?’

  The swans and ducks had come ashore and were all round Mia, watching her hands with the pieces of bread she was breaking.

  ‘I don’t like him,’ she said, twisting and turning in a sea of birds.

  ‘Is he nasty to you?’

  A swan pulled a large bit of sandwich from her hand. She jumped back.

  ‘You greedy thing!’ she cried.

  Seagulls and pigeons had joined the feast. And Mia rapidly threw out bit after bit, trying to select certain birds, but rarely succeeding. She had stopped throwing bits on the dried mud where they stood, but into the water to get the birds away from her. The birds headed for where the bread was landing in the water, except the pigeons who watched her hands forlornly. And then she held up her empty palms.

  ‘No more,’ she called to the birds.

  For a little while they wouldn’t believe her. But seeing no bread and no motion of her arms and hands, they gave up. The ducks and swans swam away, while the pigeons and gulls flew off, leaving Jack and Mia by themselves.

  He said, ‘Is Jim nasty to you?’

  ‘He doesn’t abuse me if that’s what you think.’

  A little shaken by the response, he said, ‘I’m glad of that.’

  ‘But he kisses Mummy all the time.’

  ‘All the time?’ he queried.

  ‘All the time,’ she confirmed.

  ‘So you won’t eat sandwiches that he makes.’

  Her eyes glared. ‘Why does he keep kissing Mummy? Can you stop him?’

  He shrugged helplessly. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘She says, “Not now, Jim,” and he says, “You know you want it.”

  Jack said uncomfortably, ‘We’ll have to see about these sandwiches.’

  ‘I hate him,’ she said.

  And he sighed, knowing he’d have to tell Alison. And there’d be a row, because she’d see him as interfering, and because, he surmised, she didn’t want to tell Jim her daughter didn’t like him and his sandwiches. But maybe, just maybe, Alison would make Mia’s sandwiches from now on.

  ‘Best get you to Moira’s,’ he said.

  Chapter 10

  ‘How did you get my number, Mrs Jones?’ said a female voice.

  ‘I kept phoning and asking,’ said Donna. ‘And in the end the switchboard gave me your extension.’

  ‘They should not have given you it.’

  ‘Well they have,’ said Donna firmly.

  ‘And I shouldn’t be talking to you.’

  ‘Why not?’ said Donna.

  ‘You are not my client. He’ll see it as a betrayal. Or I’ll have to lie to him. Either way it isn’t good.’

  ‘But you are talking to me now, so the betrayal has been done.’

  ‘And the longer I go on, the more so.’

  ‘I want to see him,’ she said.

  ‘He doesn’t want to see you,’ said the social worker. ‘He’s said so many times.’

  ‘But he’s ill. It’s his condition.’

  ‘Not all the time. There are times, days, even weeks, when you would never know. And not once has he ever intimated that he wants to see you.’

  ‘Might it not be good for him?’ said Donna.

  ‘Might it not be bad for him?’ said the social worker.

  ‘But you don’t know which,’ insisted Donna.

  ‘I can’t take the risk, Mrs Jones,’ she said. ‘My client has rights. If I betray them, I break the trust between us. And that’s paramount between social worker and client.’


  ‘Then just be honest with him,’ said Donna. ‘You didn’t contact me. I contacted you.’

  ‘He says you abused him as a child.’

  ‘Do you believe that?’ said Donna angrily.

  ‘He believes it,’ said the social worker.

  ‘Yes,’ said Donna, thumped by the weariness of going over old ground. ‘But is it not possible that I might be able to persuade him that it’s an illusion? His illness making it up?’

  ‘I very much doubt it, Mrs Jones. I’m sorry to be so negative,’ said the social worker, ‘but my client is attempting to live an independent life in a shared house, and has specifically requested that his mother be not allowed to contact him.’

  ‘Don’t I have any rights?’ she said.

  ‘I’m not your social worker.’

  ‘Try to imagine what it’s like,’ said Donna, ‘living on, year after year, with a son whom you love, accusing you of abuse and refusing to see you. Every day I think about him, think about the days he was growing up, the outings we had, the birthday parties. I’m on antidepressants. And some days, I wonder if I can go on.’

  ‘Mrs Jones…’

  ‘I have been saving up my pills, and one day, it wouldn’t be so difficult…’

  ‘You put me in a difficult position, Mrs Jones.’

  ‘Just say I phoned you,’ said Donna. ‘Out of the blue. Can you do that? And say I said I’d like to see him. Can you do that?’

  ‘I’ll pass on your message,’ said the social worker, ‘but please realise, the decision isn’t mine. I can’t force him to see you.’

  ‘I understand,’ said Donna.

  ‘But I will do it,’ said the social worker. ‘I promise you. I am seeing him tomorrow. I’ll phone you after.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Donna weakly, ‘thank you. Just say I want to see him. No strings.’

  ‘I’ll pass on the message,’ said the social worker, ‘and I’ll be in touch. And in future, if you must communicate with me, do it by letter. Goodbye for now, Mrs Jones.’

  ‘Goodbye.’

  Donna sank onto a stool, exhausted. She was in the laundry room, the machine droning away mid cycle, on two sides slatted shelves of bedding and general household cloth. She felt utterly alone, cut off, with only these sheets and pillowcases, pots and pans and onion peelings. A life without love, where no one touched her.

  For the past few hours she’d been phoning, and at last, at long last…

  What?

  She smiled to herself. Not much, most likely, but an attempt.

  The door swung open and she was caught guiltily on the stool. Carol was there, flustered, a notebook in her hand.

  ‘I’ve been looking everywhere for you,’ she said. Then leaned forward adding, ‘Are you alright, Donna? You’re very pale.’

  ‘Overwork,’ she said. ‘What can I do for you, dear?’

  ‘Mrs Ward wants to talk with you about tomorrow night.’ She threw out her hands in imitation. ‘Oh, she does fuss.’

  ‘Didn’t take you long to learn that,’ said Donna with a short laugh. ‘Let’s go and find out what today’s panic is.’

  Chapter 11

  ‘There has to be rules,’ said Mr Ward.

  They were in Joanna’s office. A largish room with two desks. Hers was by the bay window where she sat, her assistant’s desk a little way along the wall, at right angles to hers, and opposite the marble fireplace with William Morris tiles down the inside. Between the two desks was a set of shelves full of her fairy books. Posters of the various characters in sylvan glades were here and there up on the walls. A few months back, she had posed for publicity pictures with this background, the photographer using natural light to catch the reflection of her hair in the sun, giving her a playful, fairy look herself.

  Ward was sitting on her desk. He had loosened his tie and unbuttoned his jacket in spite of the air‑conditioning making the room on the cool side. He was wearing a pale brown summer suit, always a suit. She’d never known him to wear anything else. His idea of casual was to take his tie off.

  ‘You must not make a fool of me, Joanna.’

  ‘There was quite a kerfuffle,’ she said with a wry smile, ‘but it wasn’t me that made it.’

  ‘I don’t mind you having the odd fling,’ said Ward.

  ‘We agreed at the beginning, an open relationship,’ said Joanna. ‘I know you have one or two on the go.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘You have a penchant for certain wine bars,’ she said. ‘Where you take certain women, for purposes that may, or may not, be business related. But if you are holding hands, it suggests…’ She stopped and smiled, to invite conjecture.

  ‘Never mind what I might have done. You made a fool of me here,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, Leon,’ she protested. ‘Who knows but a housekeeper and a builder. Why are you so worried what they think?’

  ‘Worlds collide,’ insisted Ward. ‘People talk.’

  She shrugged. ‘Let them talk.’

  ‘There has to be limits,’ he insisted. ‘Rules.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Not here. Not in my own bed.’

  She glared at him with half closed eyes. ‘I know for a fact you had that little tart Gloria, in that very bed.’

  ‘Alright, alright. That was months ago.’

  ‘Weeks.’

  ‘Never mind how long ago,’ he said. ‘The rule now is, not here.’

  ‘That’s not fair,’ she threw. ‘You’re out and about, and I work mostly from home. Surely I’m allowed a little recreation.’

  ‘How much is a little?’

  ‘Is this an interrogation, darling?’

  ‘Fuck you, Joanna!’

  ‘Fuck you, Leon.’

  He got up from her desk and strode across the carpet. Then stopped. ‘Is that someone at the door?’

  Joanna got up and went to it, opened it a few inches, said curtly to Donna and Carol, ‘We’re busy,’ and slammed it shut, her back pressed to it.

  ‘Who was Big Cock?’ he threw at her.

  She sighed heavily. ‘I swear it’s only twice the size of yours, Leon.’

  ‘With bags of room, I dare say, in that well-used passage.’

  ‘Oh shut up.’

  ‘How long have you and he been messing up the sheets?’

  ‘I’m not going to be pumped like one of your secretaries, Leon.’

  ‘I bet you’ve got your eye on the builder.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘You fucking tart!’

  He strode across and slapped her round the face. She jumped away and grabbed a candlestick from the mantelpiece. Ward was immediately after her and clasped her round the wrist. She spat in his face. He grimaced and grasped her hair.

  ‘You syphilitic cow!’

  She cried out as he pulled her hair. And stamped on his toe with her stiletto.

  He screeched, letting go. And she stumbled back on a broken heel.

  Her head was shuddering, she was rocking like a drunk. The space between was electric with venom. If she could, she would have smashed in his head, cracked through the skull and split his brain, killing her hatred and his accusation. In those instants, every atom of feeling was transformed. Distilled and crystallised in the stab of pain in her skull and her stinging cheek.

  ‘I want a divorce,’ she said, struggling to quell her breathing.

  ‘The sooner you are out of my life the better,’ he said, wincing as he rubbed his foot through his shoe. His hands clenched and unclenched as if he would mince her with his fingers, and throw her clean out of his ken.

  ‘I want this house,’ she said.

  ‘Like fuck you’ll get it.’

  ‘Like fuck I’ll get it,’ she said coldly, putting the candlestick back on the mantelpiece. ‘You’re a violent man, Leon. The court won’t look favourably on that.’

  ‘And with you fucking your lovers in my shower,’ he said. ‘What will the court make of that?’

  ‘It will be entertainin
g,’ she said. ‘Plenty of tabloid fodder.’

  He sank onto the arm of a chair, and took off his shoe. Blood was seeping into his sock. He eased the wool from his heel and toes. Easily worth a three hundred pound pair of high heels, she thought. She’d nail them on the wall like a stag’s head, his torn photo on the tines.

  ‘We have tomorrow night to get through,’ she said.

  ‘Fuck,’ he muttered without looking up from his ministering.

  ‘My sentiments entirely,’ she said.

  ‘I’ve business colleagues coming,’ he said resentfully, like a schoolboy having his games console removed. ‘I was hoping to make…’ and stopped, wishing to reveal no more.

  ‘So have I.’

  They were silent. What was there to say? She kicked off her shoes, and leaned against the mantelpiece, her throbbing head against the wall. He’d rolled off the arm into the cushion of the chair, eyes closed, his bleeding foot crossed over his knee, his butcher’s fingers massaging.

  ‘It’s too late to cancel,’ she said wearily to the wall.

  ‘Too late,’ he uttered to his sock.

  ‘We will be a loving couple for one more night,’ she said.

  ‘The numbers are sufficient for us to mingle without encountering.’

  ‘I promise faithfully,’ she added, ‘not to shag anyone in the shower.’

  Chapter 12

  Jack was seated in the wide circle of chairs, occupied mostly by men, a few women scattered amongst them. The majority middle-aged and old, though perhaps the old were middle-aged and ravaged, and a scattering of some surprisingly young. A man next to him, with a lived-in face and startled grey hair, was telling those present about his many years of alcohol abuse, his drink fuelled battering of his wife, his jailings, his addiction to crack, sleeping rough and almost dying in the snow, when God came to him. He was enjoying telling of his alcohol days, tales of bingeing, terrorising his family, days in the gutter until he saw the light and lay till morning before the altar in a church. He told it like a film, a classical narrative of redemption. He had been at rock bottom when God came to him, and through Jesus he had stayed clean.